When the first course arrived, Rugal eyed it nervously, remembering the appalling dish of zabu stew that Chief O’Brien’s wife had concocted for him.

Fortunately, this was recognizably food, some kind of thick broth that smelled of fish. Out of habit, he bent his head to thank the Prophets—then he remembered where he was and stopped. He glanced at Kotan to see if he’d noticed, but the big man had already started eating. Geleth, however, had seen. She smiled at him with cool malice. That—and residual anger about the earring—did it. Rugal bowed his head, clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and cleared his throat.

For Migdal’s sake Rugal had attended temple and studied the prophecies. He had thought the effort was only right—some kind of reparation for the damage his kind had done to Bajor’s heritage. As a result, Rugal was able to dredge up a thanksgiving chant of considerable length and splendor. It began with a soft deep murmur, went up at a steady crescendo, to climax with one final, bell-like call of gratitude to the Prophets for their gifts and goodness. When the sound of that died down, the quiet around the table was thicker than the soup. Rugal opened his eyes, reached for his cutlery, and blithely began to eat.

Kotan was sitting in shocked silence, while the maid had her mouth hanging open. Then Geleth began to laugh, a half-demented cackle like a rusty nail being scraped across barbed wire. Rugal didn’t know whether to be pleased or furious. It was the start of a long war of attrition between grandmother and grandson.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE®

The Lives of Dax by various authors

A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson

Avatar, Book One Book Two by S. D. Perry

Section 31: Abyss by David Weddle Jeffrey Lang

Gateways: Demons of Air and Darkness by Keith R.A. DeCandido

“Horn and Ivory” by Keith R.A. DeCandido

(from Gateways: What Lay Beyond)

Mission: Gamma, Book One—Twilight by David R. George III

Mission: Gamma, Book Two—This Gray Spirit by Heather Jarman

Mission: Gamma, Book Three—Cathedral
by Michael A. Martin Andy Mangels

Mission: Gamma, Book Four—Lesser Evil by Robert Simpson

Rising Son by S. D. Perry

The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One Book Two
by J. G. Hertzler Jeffrey Lang

Unity by S. D. Perry

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume One
by various authors

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Two
by various authors

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Three
by various authors

Warpath by David Mack

Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods

The Soul Key by Olivia Woods

COLLECTIONS

Twist of Faith by S. D. Perry;
David Weddle Jeffrey Lang; Keith R.A. DeCandido

These Haunted Seas
by David R. George III; Heather Jarman

STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE®

THE NEVER - ENDING
SACRIFICE

UNA McCORMACK

Based upon Star Trek®
created by Gene Roddenberry

and

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
created by Rick Berman Michael Piller

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ISBN 978-1-4391-0961-8
eISBN-13:978-1-4391-2346-1

For Marco,

with gratitude

HISTORIAN’S NOTE

The events in this book take place from 2370 to 2378 (ACE). From the second year, 2370, that Starfleet ran the space station Deep Space 9 for the Bajoran government (“Cardassians” DS9), to the end of the Dominion War (“What You Leave Behind” DS9), and just after the admission of Bajor to the United Federation of Planets (Star Trek: Unity).

PART ONE

END OF A JOURNEY (2370–2371)

“Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass his own home and his parents?
In far lands he shall not, though he find a house of gold.”

—Homer, The Odyssey

One

While he was still a young man, Rugal Pa’Dar experienced loss, separation, a brutal frontier war, and the attempted destruction of his species. Yet, if asked, he would say without hesitation that the worst moment of his life was when he realized he would not be returning to Bajor with his father. All the rest of it, that was simply the Cardassian experience. The Cardassian lot. Practically everyone else he knew had gone through it too, and at least Rugal was one of the survivors. But being taken away—not wanting it, but being unable to do anything to prevent it—that was the defining moment of his life. He was sixteen when it happened. The shock of it propelled him forward for the best part of a decade, before he came to rest.

Rugal and Proka Migdal had come to Deep Space 9 for the same reason that many people go on a journey: they were hoping to make a fresh start. Migdal—Rugal would always think of him first as Father—had, as a young man, been a policeman in a city that the Cardassians had chosen to obliterate. In the years that followed, oppression, poverty, and a regrettable tendency to end up in the middle of whatever fistfight was going on around him had left their mark on Migdal. He had lost his only child when Korto City had been destroyed, and he had lost his most recent job when a fellow construction worker had made a sly comment about his adopted son. Migdal had thumped him. The other man thumped him back, very hard, and Migdal, who was not a young man, fell unceremoniously to the floor. After he had been patched up, he was shown the door.

Neither his wife, Etra, nor his son was greatly surprised to see him back home so early. In all the burgeoning city of Ashalla, which seemed daily to be expanding as the Bajoran people woke up to their freedom and the opportunities it was bringing them, it seemed that only Proka Migdal regularly found himself out of work. His problem, Etra said, was that there was no going home for him. Some people were like that about a place. They could never settle down anywhere else. But Korto was gone for good. So they’d have to make the best of all that Ashalla had to offer.

“I’ve finished with this city,” Migdal said.

Etra and Rugal exchanged long-suffering looks.

“It’s turning into a bad place. Everybody’s on the make. Nobody has time for anyone else. It’s nothing like it used to be on Bajor. I blame the Circle, setting us all against each other like that.”

Proka Etra was a sensible woman who had humored her husband’s diffuse and not always well-informed monologues for many years. She was a seamstress—properly talented, Migdal liked to say; her grandparents had all been Ih’valla caste, although that was something else that had changed on Bajor now, and not necessarily for the better—and she made good money from piece work. All these new arrivals in the city needed something to wear. Right now, Etra was barely on schedule and her mouth was full of pins. She made a soothing noise and carried on with her work.

“I was talking to Reco outside the temple last night,” Migdal went on, “and he was saying that the place to be these days is that big space station the spoonheads put up... Prophets, what are they calling it these days?” He snapped his fingers, trying to recall the new name. “Why do they have to keep on changing everything?”

“Deep Space 9,” Rugal offered, without looking up from his lessonpadd. He rubbed the ridge above his right eye and tried to concentrate again. He was studying for a school test on the causes of the Occupation and he did not find the subject easy reading.

“That’s it! Deep Space 9! That’s the place to be! More and more people passing through there every day, Reco said. I bet they could do with a good seamstress up there, Etra. What do you think? We’ve never lived on a space station.”

Etra made what Migdal took to be an encouraging sound.

“I could go up, take a look round, see whether we’d like it. Rugal could come too, it’d get us both out of your way while you get all that finished.” He was as excited as a boy with a jumja stick the size of his head. “What do you think, Rugal? A fresh start? Isn’t that what we need?”

Rugal had reached a section in the text that was supposed to detail the role played by the Obsidian Order in the conquest of Bajor, but was in fact a series of lurid vignettes. “What we really need, Father,” he replied, “is for you not to lose your temper once we’ve made it.”

Migdal frowned. Etra stopped her work and gave her husband a fierce look. And since nothing was ever done in that small household that would make Etra truly unhappy, Migdal relaxed and laughed. Rugal put aside his books—truth be told, he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about school work—and he and Migdal cooked supper while Etra worked.

Father and son were in high spirits when they went over to the spaceport the next day. Migdal was upbeat and optimistic, as he always was at the start of a new chapter. Rugal was glad to be getting out of school and grateful his father was so cheerful. Whenever they ended up moving on, Migdal always made it seem like an adventure rather than Rugal’s fault. They enjoyed the journey out to Deep Space 9, and if anyone remarked upon a Bajoran man traveling with a Cardassian boy, they managed not to hear it.

Both Migdal and Rugal took to the station immediately. True, Bajorans were in the majority here, and Cardassians a very marked minority, but with all the other strange people passing through, it did seem that this was the kind of place where their odd little family could live in peace and without the constant comment about Migdal’s Cardassian son that tended to result in his losing first his temper and then his job. Within a couple of hours, father and son were sure they would come to Deep Space 9. They went into the Ferengi’s bar to celebrate their decision. It was a measure of Migdal’s cosmically appalling luck, Rugal would later reflect, that almost the first person they ran into was Elim Garak.

Rugal did not find it difficult to explain why he bit Elim Garak’s hand. Because it was on his shoulder. A Cardassian’s hand, on his shoulder. From childhood observation, Rugal knew how this was usually the prelude to a beating, if you were lucky, or an arrest if you weren’t (arrest generally being an invitation to disappear). Rugal would be the first to admit that biting the Cardassian’s hand wasn’t the smartest thing he had ever done, but it certainly wasn’t inexplicable.

There was another reason for biting him too, but Rugal didn’t mention that to anybody else because it wasn’t anybody else’s business. When the stranger’s gray hand had taken hold of him, Rugal looked down at it and, suddenly, he had a flash of memory—of another gray hand there, pushing him forward, making him walk away from... from where? As a little boy, Rugal had sometimes had nightmares that ended at this point. The image came to him very rarely these days, and he preferred it that way because, in his heart, he had a feeling that it wasn’t simply a dream, but a memory. He was afraid that this memory might be older than all the other, more important ones—of Migdal and Etra and of being their child—and he didn’t want to know any more about it.

Rugal was prepared to apologize to the man he’d bitten at once, if it would stop the whole business going any further, but things moved very quickly after that. Someone going by the name of Zolan claimed to know the family, and he said that Proka was cruel to his son. (Migdal did know Zolan, in fact, from way back in Korto; Zolan had been selling medical supplies on the black market, not all of which had been properly labeled as unsafe for Bajoran physiology. Not that anybody asked Migdal.) Once the accusation had been made, a group of terrifyingly earnest Starfleet personnel appeared out of nowhere and took Rugal away from his father. They seemed to be under the ludicrous impression that Migdal—his elderly, occasionally grumpy, perennially optimistic, and always very dear father—had terrorized Rugal so much that he now hated Cardassians enough to bite the first one he saw. That was nonsense, but Migdal didn’t seem to be able to make the Starfleet people hear him. Like many ordinary folk, he was frightened by these serious-looking people with their weapons and their uniforms, and he had no reason to trust them. The Cardassians had also said they were only trying to do what was best for Bajor.

Rugal did despise Cardassians, but it hadn’t taken Proka Migdal or even his history lessons to make him do so. Rugal only had to look round Bajor to find a reason to loathe Cardassians. They had destroyed cities that people loved, so that they could never go home again. They had murdered people’s children. And they had abandoned their own children, who then had to grow up knowing they embodied everything that the people around them most despised. Life had not always been easy for Migdal and Etra, because Rugal was Cardassian, and there were plenty of Bajoran orphans they could have adopted instead. Migdal and Etra had done a good thing, taking in Rugal and calling him their son. He tried to explain some of this, but nobody was listening.

By now, more people, with their own agendas, had crawled out of the bulkheads. Chief among these was a Cardassian gul who seemed very concerned about the plight of the Cardassian orphans who had been abandoned on Bajor. Rugal didn’t believe a word of this. If this gul cared so much, where had he been all these years? There was a friendly Starfleet engineer called O’Brien who was the only person who took Rugal seriously when he said—again and again—that he just wanted to go back to his father. But O’Brien didn’t have the authority to do much about it. Most alarmingly, there was the big Cardassian man, tall and stooping and anxious, who came clutching a handful of holopics and claiming that Rugal was his son.

It took Rugal a while to work out exactly what was going on, partly because most people were talking over him and not to him. He was not sure Migdal ever entirely understood what had happened on Deep Space 9 other than that, between them, the Cardassians and the Federation had taken away his boy. In the end, O’Brien and his wife, Keiko, explained to Rugal what was going on. The big nervous Cardassian—Pa’Dar—was a prominent politician and, according to the tests they’d done, was certainly Rugal’s biological father. Pa’Dar had thought Rugal had died years ago in a bombing on Bajor, and that’s why he had never come looking for him. In fact, what had actually happened was that the oily, sentimental gul—Dukat—had kidnapped Rugal so that, in some possible future political battle, he could use the fact of Rugal’s existence against Pa’Dar. Just in case. By the time the Starfleet commander—Sisko—decided that the best thing all round was for the boy to go with Pa’Dar, Rugal had discovered yet another reason to hate Cardassians. They used each other’s children casually, as pieces in political games.

He didn’t think much of Starfleet either. Except its engineers.

When Kotan Pa’Dar received the message that his lost boy had been found, he had been working through depositions related to his investigation into the Central Command’s involvement in a recent attempted coup on Bajor. He was Cardassian enough that his first thought was that this was a trap. His second thought was to close all his files, walk slowly around his office at the Ministry of Science, and turn off all six of the surveillance devices that he knew about. Only then did he sit back behind his desk, put his head in his hands, and weep. He knew that the Obsidian Order would still be watching somehow, but he didn’t care. His tears were not for their benefit.

As soon as he was calm again, Kotan switched on the viewscreen and put a call through to his mother. His hands shook as he operated the controls. Partly this was due to shock; partly it was because he knew what his mother would say when he told her his boy was not dead after all. He put his hand on the frame of the picture of his dead wife, for courage, and waited for his mother to take his call.

Geleth Pa’Dar was very old, and had always been either too poor or too rich to bother with pity. She received her son’s news with the distaste that usually met anything he brought before her. His talent for science, for example, or the young woman he intended to make his wife. “Of course,” Geleth sighed, when Kotan finished his explanation, “it would be better if the child had never turned up. The scandal will almost certainly finish you. You’ve not endeared yourself to the Central Command in recent months.” She glanced down at the control panel next to the screen, and began to tap at it. “We could always arrange for an accident on the way home.”

“Mother!”

“Don’t be childish, Kotan. That sort of thing is to be admired—or it was in my day. Cardassia isn’t what it used to be.”

“Mother—”

“Your father had two of his bastards killed for our wedding—or was it three? I forget now, it was a long time ago. Frankly, I would rather he’d dealt with the mistress herself, but then bastards are one thing, aren’t they, and citizens are another, and I suppose one can hardly go about murdering those without expecting some kind of reprisal—”

“Mother!”

Geleth barely moved, but disapproval radiated out from the screen. Kotan pressed the corner of the picture frame into his palm. He reminded himself of Geleth’s age and the fact that—until moments ago—she had been his sole surviving relative. “There will be no unfortunate accidents,” he said, clearly and steadily, “no sudden disappearances, and certainly no murders. If this boy is—” Rugal, he thought, but he had not said the name in years, and he did not trust himself to say it out loud, not yet, “—my child, then he will be coming back with me, and he will be living with me. In my house.”

Geleth’s eye ridges twitched. The house was Kotan’s winning move. It was his, through his father, not hers: Geleth had married money, bringing none with her. He watched her make her eyes go sad—a very fine imitation of frailty. “Of course, you’ll do whatever you want. It’s not as if anything I say ever makes any difference.” She sharpened her tone again. “But you’ll regret this. I give your seat in the Assembly three months at the outside.”

Kotan was no longer paying attention. Variations on this theme had accompanied him throughout his life, and despite every attempt he had made to please her. For Geleth’s sake, he had abandoned his beloved laboratories for what had been an unfulfilling political career—a career that had taken him to Bajor and cost him his wife and his child. Geleth would not have her own way on this. Family might be all, and Geleth was all he had left (until now...), but if you only listened to family, you would surely end up strangling somebody. Kotan left Cardassia Prime in haste, to take possession of a bewildered and angry young man of sixteen.

When the time came to say good-bye to Migdal, Rugal made one last attempt to explain what had happened. “This man Pa’Dar is my father—my biological father, I mean. And now he’s found me, he wants to take me back with him to Cardassia. Commander Sisko has decided that he should be allowed to do that.” Rugal looked at his father anxiously. Migdal seemed to have aged in the past few days.

“But he left you behind,” Migdal said in a plaintive voice. “He didn’t want you—”

Rugal glanced back over his shoulder bitterly. The big Cardassian was waiting by the door, staring down at his boots. At least he had the decency not to watch. “He didn’t know I was still alive. It’s complicated, but... someone took me away so that when they found me again, it would embarrass him.”

The intricacies of Cardassian politics were well beyond Migdal’s comprehension. “But what am I going to tell Etra when I turn up without you?” he asked, plucking at his son’s sleeve. “She’s expecting us back, we were going to go down to the temple and light candles to bless the journey and then go and have alva ices to celebrate...” He was close to tears.

Rugal swallowed. By tomorrow, he would be on his way to Cardassia Prime. No temples, no candles, no mother or father, no fresh start... Only the enemy. He put his arms around his father so that Migdal couldn’t see his face. “It doesn’t have to be forever. It won’t be forever. I’ll come back. We’ll find a way for me to get back.”

“Yes,” said Migdal, comforted. “We’ll find a way. Etra will know what to do.”

Rugal was now of an age where he no longer believed his mother was likely to be a match for Starfleet and the Cardassians combined, but he said nothing, only hugged Migdal hard, and then stood up. The big Cardassian—Kotan—took a step forward. He looked eager and pleased, as if he was glad to have devastated their family. Of course, that was what Cardassians did. He reached out to put his hand on Rugal’s arm, and Rugal pulled back as if the man were carrying a deadly weapon, or a plague. “Don’t touch me,” he whispered savagely. “Don’t ever touch me.”

Kotan, shocked, withdrew. They walked down to the docking bay in silence, Rugal lagging a marked distance behind. Commander Sisko and Chief O’Brien were waiting to see them on their way. “Well, good luck,” O’Brien said, putting his hand on Rugal’s shoulder. He didn’t look entirely happy either. For a moment Rugal had a wild hope that O’Brien might speak up and stop all this from happening, but he didn’t. He gave Kotan and his commanding officer a quick look, and Rugal a worried one, and he leaned in to whisper, “If you need any help, need anything at all, let me know. Yes? Let me know.”

It was hardly the last-minute reprieve Rugal had been hoping for, but it did make him feel as if somebody was on his side, and for that he remained forever grateful. He nodded his thanks to O’Brien, and then followed the man who was calling himself his father onto the shuttle and away from home.

It was a long journey home, and during it Kotan suffered the fullest range of emotions possible. Sadly, he soon discovered that the happiest emotions were associated with memories.

Kotan remembered everything about Rugal’s life that the boy himself could not. He could picture as if it was happening now the quiet Bajoran evening with his wife when Arys had told him that at last they were going to have a child together. He could recall being told that he had a son, and weeping from delight and exhaustion so mingled together that he could not tell where one ended and the other began. He remembered first steps, and first words, and—because he had had so little time to know his son before he had been taken away—each memory had been pored over and preserved, as precious as gemstones and as sharp as black glass.

Kotan had brought some of his treasures with him: pictures of his dead wife Arys, and of Rugal himself as a baby, and of the family group as they had been in the settlement at Tozhat. A snapshot of their happiness together before the Bajoran Resistance had blown their lives apart. Kotan offered his son these gifts, this inheritance, but Rugal refused it all. He sat glowering at space, a young man boiling with rage. But as the distance between him and Bajor became greater, he seemed to dampen down. He looked younger, and more and more forlorn. Kotan kept close by, wanting to be near his child, stealing occasional hungry looks at him. He was sure that he could see Arys there, in the shape of the boy’s face, in the sudden upsurges of emotion that in her had been so fascinating, so exhilarating. He fancied he saw a little of himself, but suspected this was wishful thinking. He was mortally afraid he had caught a glimpse of Geleth.

As the journey progressed, and no overture came from Rugal, Kotan began to contemplate the possibility that the boy was lost to him for good. Bitterly, more than ever before, he regretted that Cardassia had ever become entangled with Bajor. Bajor had taken his wife and child, and seemed to be stealing the boy from him all over again. But Bajor was rapidly eclipsed as a focus for his anger. Like all of his generation, Kotan deplored their savagery, but when he thought about his own ravaged family, he almost understood the fury of that fierce, alien people. But Dukat? Dukat was Cardassian. He knew about family. He should have known better. Dukat had stolen his son; he was the one who had created this unnatural distance between them, cold as space but unbridgeable. Dukat was the one who should pay for it.

Their ship docked. Kotan picked up his bag of unwelcome treasures, and father and son made their way to the elite passengers’ transporters. Rugal walked a few paces ahead, as if to say: Let’s get this over and done with quickly. Kotan cleared his throat and took the plunge. “Rugal.”

No reply.

“Rugal, I need to talk to you before we arrive.”

The boy looked back over his shoulder at him, and Kotan trembled slightly at the sight. Geleth. No doubt. Something tenacious, not easily turned away from its purpose. “I need to talk to you about your grandmother.” Then the transporter captured them both, and they were delivered to Cardassia Prime. End of the line.

• • •

They walked out of the public transporter station into the heart of the capital city, the heart of the Union. Rugal stopped dead in his tracks. Everything was gray. The sky, the buildings, the faces... And it was hot. Not unpleasantly so, but hot nonetheless. Rugal felt a hand upon his shoulder. He shook it off, blinked, and saw Cardassia come into focus. He began to make out detail, see nuance. The evening sky, darkening from slate gray to obsidian, had a purplish hue, like the petals of indika flowers, or a bruise. The buildings, at first sight ramrod straight and steely, in fact curved with unexpected elegance, and the setting sun burnished them bronze, silver, and gold. There was nothing green, as far as Rugal could see; none of the lush unconquerable life that blessed Ashalla, but lining the wide street ahead there were tall trees with black branches and long copper leaves, and, jarringly, he could hear birdsong.

And then there were the people. Hundreds upon hundreds, streaming past him in quick but orderly fashion, all of them Cardassian, more than Rugal had ever imagined possible. He stared at them in disbelief—these strange, alien people—and then he realized that many of them were staring back. When they saw him, they turned their heads to carry on looking as they walked past. Rugal put his hand up to his face, partly to comfort himself, partly in defense. How could they tell? He didn’t look Bajoran! Kotan tapped his shoulder. “You might want to take off that earring.”

Quickly, awkwardly, Rugal reached up and unclasped it. He regretted doing so at once, and he felt angry, as if Kotan had tricked him into a betrayal. He wrapped his hand around it, until the links of the chain dug into his palm, and shoved his hand deep into his pocket. Would it ever be safe to put it back on? Those looks had been curious, judging, but not outright hostile. Did any of these people know what it meant? Did they even think of Bajor at all?

“There’s our ride. About time, too.” Kotan pointed across the road at a sleek black skimmer. It seemed there would be no waiting around, space-lagged and weary, for a tram into the city, as there would have been in Ashalla with Migdal. Kotan Pa’Dar—Deputy Commissioner for Public Health and a three-term member of the Civilian Assembly—had long since earned the perk of private transport from the Ministry of Science.

The skimmer was a beautiful machine, a contemporary reworking of a classic design, and the uniformed driver held open the doors for them. Inside, it was finished in leather and polished wood—lunatic extravagance on this resource-poor world—and crisply, cleanly scented. Under other circumstances, Rugal would have been in awe. But he had decided to hate Cardassia, so he had to dislike the skimmer, and he fumbled around for reasons why. Eventually, he settled on its ostentation and the unfairness of their comfortable journey while ordinary Cardassians were crowding onto the shuttles. The sharp edges of his earring had started hurting his hand.

Kotan switched on the viewer in the arm of his seat. “Won’t be a moment,” he said apologetically. “Have to catch up.” Ministry business, Rugal guessed. Whatever it was, Kotan was quickly absorbed. Rugal stared out the window at the foreign city. Meaningless buildings went by. Rugal pressed a few of the controls on his own viewer, but nothing worked. He sighed and fell back into his seat. A few moments later, the viewer came on of its own accord, displaying a map of the city. Rugal looked up in surprise. He caught the eye of the driver, looking back at him in the rearview mirror, smiling at him. Thanks, Rugal mouthed. He found the little black dot that showed their skimmer, moving along the map, and began to pick out roads and buildings. Offices, monuments, parade grounds. Few parks or gardens; no temples. He didn’t have long to get the lie of the land. After ten metrics, the skimmer entered the Coranum tunnel, the fastest route out to the north of the city for those wealthy or important enough to hold the permits required to use it.

Everything went dark, then the skimmer was suffused with pale blue light. Kotan switched off his viewer. “So,” he said. “Your grandmother.”

Rugal shifted uneasily. He had not given thought to the possibility of grandparents before. Migdal and Etra had been middle-aged when they had adopted him; their own parents had long since been lost to the various hardships of Occupation. He wondered how many other new relatives were lurking around. Weren’t Cardassians supposed to be obsessed with family? There would be aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, fourth cousins twice removed; every wall would be covered with holopics and extravagantly detailed family trees going back generations.... Rugal was so caught up imagining the horror of even more unwanted relations that he almost missed hearing how Kotan was afraid of his own mother.

“She has a way,” Kotan said, “and it’s not always kindly put or kindly meant.... But she does love family. Well. Family is all, as the saying goes.”

“I’ve heard that.” Rugal ignored Kotan’s eager, involuntary movement at his voice. “But I don’t understand how it can be true. If family really is all to you Cardassians, then why would you have forced me to leave my mother and father? Don’t Bajoran families count in the same way as Cardassian ones?”

Kotan recoiled. It was almost too easy, Rugal thought. He was pleased for a few seconds, and then he found there was a strange taste in his mouth, sour and metallic. Sometimes he had been sharp with Migdal, a habit picked up from Etra, but he had never been vicious. He made a rough apology. “So you want me to impress this person?”

“Your grandmother, Rugal. My mother. It would be a minor miracle if you impressed her, but she is our only other living relative.”

So there weren’t hordes of cousins to be met—that was a relief, and another Cardassian lie had been unmasked: that they all lived together in huge happy families. It explained some of Kotan’s desperation too. The man might be materially wealthy, but if he lacked blood relatives, then by Cardassian standards he was poor. “What’s her name?”

Kotan leaned forward, pleased that Rugal was taking an interest. “Geleth. She can be hard work, but she’s everything we have.”

Rugal shrugged. He wouldn’t be here long and, in the meantime, it wouldn’t do any harm to be polite to one old woman. Kotan was still talking, not wasting the opening that had been given. “I know it won’t be easy, coming to Cardassia after all this time, but I’ll do whatever I can. Whatever you need—ask, and I’ll do it. I promise.”

You could send me home, Rugal thought. Instead he said, “Really?”

“Really.”

“There is one thing...”

“What is it? What can I do?”

“I want to speak to my mother and father and let them know that I’m safe.”

There was a pause. Kotan frowned. Rugal, following a gut instinct, came up with the most petulant tone he could manage. “You said whatever I needed.” He had tried that voice with Etra once and once only.

Kotan bit his lip, clearly troubled by the request but unwilling to refuse outright.

“Didn’t you mean it?” Rugal persisted. “That you’d do anything?”

Kotan’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Rugal’s instinct had been right. Kotan had a guilty streak that stretched all the way back to Bajor, and he had never learned how to say no to children. He had never had the chance.

“All right,” Kotan said. “I’ll do my best. But you must understand—communicating with Bajor has been a sensitive matter since the Occupation ended, and it’s become even more delicate since that fiasco over the Circle and the gunrunning...” Rugal looked at him innocently, and Kotan’s mouth twisted into a smile, as if he realized he had been played. “I suspect you don’t quite understand what you’re asking me to do, but, since I promised, I’ll try to keep my word. It might take some time to arrange. Will that do?”

Rugal considered this. So far as he knew, Kotan had not told him any lies, not yet. The only reason not to trust him was that he was Cardassian. “Yes. But I want to speak to them as soon as I can.”

“I’ll do my best.” Kotan turned to stare out of his window, a frown etched around the ridges of his face. What did this all mean? Kotan was a powerful man on Cardassia Prime, a member of the Civilian Assembly, a scientific adviser to their civilian ruling body, the Detapa Council. What could make someone like that afraid? Apart from his mother.

Suddenly, they shot out of the tunnel. Night had fallen, and the sky was black as glass. There were strange stars above that Rugal could not decipher and, behind them, an orange haze had gathered above the hollow containing the city. Suddenly Rugal understood what made Kotan afraid. Everyone on Bajor knew about the Obsidian Order, but they knew it mainly as a force brought down upon Bajorans. Could it be possible that Cardassians treated each other as badly as they had once treated their slaves? He thought about this for a while and then, because Etra’s training was deeply ingrained, he remembered his manners and said, “Thank you.”

Kotan sighed. “You are most welcome, Rugal.”

The Pa’Dar house lay, long and low, in extensive grounds on the side of a hill in the north of the city. It was bigger than any building that Rugal had ever been inside, including the temple that he and Migdal had recently been attending, and it was surrounded by greenery. They went into a large hallway, two stories high and tinted yellow and gold by the colored lamps set into the walls. Standing waiting to meet them were three Cardassian women—two young, the other an older woman whom Rugal realized just in time was the housekeeper and not his grandmother. She was delighted to meet him, however, grasping his hand and holding it tightly to her chest. The other two—they constituted the rest of the household staff—looked faintly bored. Rugal suspected they had been pulled away from something more pressing than welcoming back their employer’s long-lost son.

When this uncomfortable greeting was over, Kotan took Rugal upstairs. “Your rooms are on the east side of the house. They have a good view down into the city.”

Rooms? How many were there? How many did you need? On the landing, they went past four small, exquisite paintings of a young woman laughing, each entitled Arys. They had turned the corner into another corridor before Rugal remembered that this was the name of his mother. His other mother.

“Freshen up,” Kotan said, when they reached his bedroom door. “Get changed—there should be clothes out for you. Then we’ll go and see Geleth.”

Rugal nodded and went inside. He sighed with relief when the door closed between them. Kotan’s constant attention, his anxiety to please, had been exhausting. Rugal leaned back against the door, looked round, and then gave a gasp.

Kotan had misrepresented the view. It was outstanding. The far wall of the room, floor to ceiling, was made of glass and given over to it. The whole city was set out before him like an offering, richly lit and stretching out farther than he could see. Rugal took a few steps forward, captivated. He cast his mind back to the map he had looked at in the skimmer, and he picked out a few areas—there was Torr to the southeast, densely populated and intensely lit. Some of the buildings were recognizable too: the dome of the Assembly, the curves of the Akleen Memorial. A string of lamps marked the line of the river, itself covered in darkness. There was a striking silver pyramid that he could not identify. He would have to ask. No, not ask. He would look it up.

The lights on the pyramid suddenly changed its color from silver to blue. With a start, Rugal remembered that he was supposed to be meeting his grandmother. He dragged himself away to investigate the room further. Two doors in the wall opposite the bed opened to reveal a bathroom and a walk-in cupboard. In this he found several sets of clothes, in unfamiliar Cardassian styles—tunics rather than shirts, slip-on boots instead of lace-up shoes. They would have to do. He had brought hardly anything from Bajor. He had not planned on being away from home for long.

Quickly, Rugal washed and changed out of his traveling clothes. There was a long mirror on the back of the door of the cupboard, and he was dismayed to see how Cardassian he looked. Shutting away the sight, Rugal smoothed his tunic straight, then he grabbed his earring, shoved it in his pocket, and left the room.

Kotan was waiting for him on the landing. He took Rugal back downstairs and round the far side of the house to Geleth’s sitting room. Outside, Kotan hesitated, his hand resting near the door panel. He had an odd, furtive expression, like a child anticipating a scolding. In such a big man, it was almost comical. “Remember, she’s very old, and very old-fashioned. She may say things that seem... well, odd. Try to understand. Cardassia was a hard place in Geleth’s youth. It wasn’t easy to live, to survive.”

“Like under the Occupation.”

Kotan closed his eyes, tensed. “Please—try to understand.” He opened the door. “Mother?” He had lifted his voice in the clear way people did when speaking to someone whose hearing was not always reliable. “I’ve brought the boy to see you. I’ve brought Rugal.”

The room was dark. The only source of light was a dim orange lamp set in the far left corner. Beside this stood a long low couch, its back to the room. A gray hand, ring-encrusted, lifted and waved them forward. “By all means, bring him round so I can take a look at him.”

Kotan, an odd smile on his face, gestured to Rugal to go round. Rugal walked across the room and came face-to-face with his grandmother.

She was old and very thin, the bones and ridges on her face standing out prominently against her papery flesh. She had on a dark red dress with a high collar and subtle patterns that waved and changed as she moved. Her hair was long, white, and elaborately constructed. Her blue eyes were bright and sharp. She stared at Rugal and ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. “He doesn’t look much like you. Are you certain he’s yours?”

Rugal, horrified, looked at Kotan, but the man was unperturbed. He had brought round a couple of chairs, and had sat down comfortably, slinging one arm casually across the back. “Quite certain. We had tests done. Rugal’s my son, no doubt of that.”

“Still, he’s not much like you.” Geleth leaned in for a closer look, as if Rugal were a specimen. Her perfume was sharp and not unpleasant. She sniffed and leaned back. “I can see something of that wisp you married. So we know he’s hers, at least.”

Kotan drummed his fingers against the back of his chair. “Rugal. Why don’t you sit down?”

Conscious of the old woman’s eyes upon him, Rugal straightened his back, raised his chin, and sat down. Geleth watched his performance with unholy glee. “You may not know this, Rugal, but this is the first time that we have met. You were born on Bajor, and nothing was ever going to induce me to visit that place.” She paused, as if waiting for a reaction. None came, so she carried on. “I suppose we should be glad that no more Cardassian lives are being wasted trying to educate those backward ingrates.”

Rugal stiffened. Kotan cut in. “Yes, well, that’s all over now. Bajor is no longer Cardassia’s problem, thankfully.”

“No? Have you explained to the boy what ramifications his reappearance might have for the family name? An abandoned child? Better men than you have been ruined for less.”

Rugal looked uncertainly at Kotan. His posture had altered subtly; he was still sitting as if at ease, but his hands were clenched into fists. “Under normal circumstances, perhaps. But Dukat has overstretched himself. He personally arranged for Rugal’s kidnapping. If he tries to make political capital from this affair, he risks opening himself up to censure. Not to mention the fact that I am well placed to implicate him in this guns-to-Bajor business. I have plenty to hold over Dukat. He won’t risk starting a war with me. Not this time.”

“Dukat!” Geleth all but spat out the name. So the three remaining members of the Pa’Dar family were united in one thing, at least—a profound loathing for the former prefect of Bajor. Still, Rugal thought, watching his grandmother’s coiled fury and his father’s taut anger, it was sobering to think that only an uneasy standoff with this gul was keeping him safe on Cardassia. What if Dukat decided to make a move? How long would it be before the abandoned son became a liability for Kotan? And what advice would Geleth offer then? He shivered slightly, despite the heavy heat of the old woman’s room.

Kotan relaxed his hands. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. Even if it meant the end for me, I would not have Rugal any place other than where he is now. Back home, with me.”

Rugal swallowed. He felt he ought to say “thank you,” but that was wrong. He didn’t want to be here. If it meant trouble for Kotan, why ever had he brought him back, against Rugal’s wishes? It was perverse. It was typically Cardassian. Geleth gave her son an odd look, a mixture of contempt and affection. “Sentimental. This is why you’ve never been much of a politician.”

“Mother, the reason I’ve never been much of a politician is that I am a scientist. If you’d wanted me to excel, you’d have left me in my laboratory.”

“Duty is its own reward, Kotan,” the old woman said piously.

Kotan snorted. Contempt and affection again, this time from him. Rugal felt as if his head was spinning. Was this how Cardassian families behaved? Bickering and scheming, lurching from mutual recrimination to deadly loyalty at any mention of their enemies? Migdal’s idea of scheming had been to punch first and talk later.

Geleth yawned and stretched, each joint in her body seeming to crack. Then, with a swish of her long full skirt, she stood up. “Surely it’s time for dinner? Let me go and put on my reta beads, and then the two of you can escort me down.” She went through a little door into the next room. Kotan leaned over to whisper to Rugal. “When I was your age, I used to wonder what she did in here all day. Plotted against my enemies, I hoped, although there’ve been occasions when I’ve suspected her of plotting against me.”

“So which is it?” Rugal whispered back.

Kotan smiled broadly. He almost winked. He reached over to his mother’s couch, slipped his hand down the side of the cushion, and brought out a data padd. He thumbed it on, and then handed it over to Rugal, who looked down at a page of text infested by exclamation marks.

“Enigma tales,” Kotan explained. “Really bad ones. She’s addicted to them.”

They just had time to shove the padd back down into its hiding place before Geleth came back in. Both smiled brightly at her. She gave them a suspicious look but said nothing, taking her son’s arm and allowing him to lead her down the stairs. Rugal followed behind.

In the dining room—a study in crimson and gold—Kotan pulled out a chair for his mother at one end of the table, and then took the seat at the other end. He gestured for Rugal to take the seat at his right hand. Rugal stopped himself staring around—it was amusing Geleth for one thing, and he wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction—and did what he was told.

When the first course arrived, Rugal eyed it nervously, remembering the appalling dish of zabu stew that Chief O’Brien’s wife had concocted for him. Fortunately, this was recognizably food, some kind of thick broth that smelled of fish. Out of habit, he bent his head to thank the Prophets—then he remembered where he was and stopped. He glanced at Kotan to see if he’d noticed, but the big man had already started eating. Geleth, however, had seen. She smiled at him with cool malice. That—and residual anger about the earring—did it. Rugal bowed his head, clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and cleared his throat.

Etra wasn’t really one for the Prophets, and Rugal wasn’t either, but Migdal was, so for the old man’s sake Rugal had attended temple and studied the prophecies hard. He had thought the effort was only right—some kind of reparation for the damage his kind had done to Bajor’s heritage. As a result, Rugal was able to dredge up a thanksgiving chant of considerable length and splendor. It began with a soft deep murmur, went up at a steady crescendo, to climax with one final, bell-like call of gratitude to the Prophets for their gifts and goodness. When the sound of that died down, the quiet around the table was thicker than the soup. Rugal opened his eyes, reached for his cutlery, and blithely began to eat.

Kotan was sitting in shocked silence, while the maid had her mouth hanging open. Then Geleth began to laugh, a half-demented cackle like a rusty nail being scraped across barbed wire. “Marvelous!” she cried. “Magnificent!” She fell upon her dinner with renewed appetite. Rugal didn’t know whether to be pleased or furious. It was the start of a long war of attrition between grandmother and grandson. Rugal was never sure which of them was ultimately the winner, even taking into account the fact that he outlived her.

It took slightly over a week, but Kotan made good on his promise. Early one evening, when Rugal was sitting outside in the stone garden and a warm wind was lifting the coppery leaves of the ithian trees, Kotan came and took the chair next to him. “I think,” he said, in a low voice, “that I’ve found a way for you to speak to your friends on Bajor. But, please, exercise some discretion.” He looked around anxiously. “I’ve gone through back channels, but still, the communication will certainly be monitored.”

Rugal shifted impatiently in his seat. This was paranoia. “Who in the name of the Prophets—” Kotan winced, so he lowered his voice. “—who would want to listen to me talk to my mother and father?”

“It’s the simple fact that the conversation is taking place. Bajor is hardly a friendly foreign power!” Kotan gave that long sigh that punctuated much of what he said. “It would be so much easier if you had grown up here! But we’ve no time to teach you more than the basics. The best rule is—if you think what you’re about to say is subversive, it almost certainly is. So don’t say it. Rephrase it, or drop it. And please, try not to get us all shot. Or worse.”

Kotan led him into his study, an earnestly overfurnished room at the back of the house with a fine view out across the meticulous flower beds of the west garden. This time, Kotan had the courtesy not to hang around in the background. Once he was sure that the transmission was going through, he quietly absented himself. “You might not have long,” he said, from the doorway. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about that.”

It was not the easiest of conversations. When their lined, familiar faces appeared on the screen, Rugal was overcome with homesickness. More than anything he wanted to be away from this strange place and back with them, at home, on Bajor. Etra, brisk and sensible as ever, behaved as if this was nothing more than a temporary interruption, and that soon everything would be back to normal. Migdal, however, was not so able to hide his distress.

“Well, Rugal,” Etra said brightly. “I didn’t think when I saw you off at the spaceport that you’d be gone for so long! I let you out of my sight for a few days, and you run away from home!”

It almost broke his heart. “Mother! Don’t say that! I don’t want to be here!”

She waved her hands to calm him. “Shh... Of course I know that, of course I do. Poor boy! Don’t get upset. I want you to listen, because your father has some news and we’re hoping that you’ll think it’s good news.”

Rugal leaned forward eagerly in his seat. Had they found a way to bring him home? His father cleared his throat and glanced past him; he looked uneasy, as if he too thought that there might be unfriendly ears listening to their conversation. “We think that Starfleet commander didn’t have the right to take you away from us. We’re trying to find out if there’s any way that we can get his decision overruled.” He gave Etra a quick look. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

She nodded. Migdal carried on. “So I spoke to an old friend of mine, back from Korto, when I was in the watch there. Darrah Mace. You never met him, Rugal, he spent most of the Occupation in exile, out on Valo II, but he was my boss and my friend. Anyway, he was on Valo with someone who was on the Council of Ministers before the spoonheads took over, and he’s going to have a word with him about what’s happened, and what we’re hoping is that we can go and speak to this man, Keeve Falor, about all this and perhaps he’ll be able to pull some strings...”

His voice faded. Rugal’s heart sank. So this was their good news. Migdal had spoken to a man who thought he might be able to speak to a man who might—perhaps—be willing to meet his parents and let them tell him about what had happened to them. Was this Keeve Falor even important any longer?

“I know it doesn’t sound like much,” Migdal said, tentatively, “but Keeve is very well respected, the kind of man that important people listen to.”

“It’s hard, you see, Rugal,” Etra said. “I’m not going to lie to you. People won’t want to reverse the Emissary’s decision, it looks bad. And, well, many people think that there are more important things to be worried about than—”

“Than a spoonhead who’s been sent home,” Rugal said, bitterly. “Good riddance, I bet most people would say. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps you’re better off without me. Dad won’t get in as many fights now, I bet.”

“Don’t say that,” Migdal said. “Don’t say things that aren’t true.”

“We chose you, Rugal,” Etra said. “We wanted you to be our son. And nobody—not the Cardassians, not the Council of Ministers, not the Emissary to the Prophets himself, will stop us from getting you back home to us. We’re going to find a way. We won’t give up, and you’re not to give up either. Promise me.”

She had put her hand up to the screen. “Do you promise me?”

Rugal raised his hand so that their fingertips seemed to be touching. “I promise.”

“Good boy! Now, what’s Cardassia like?”

Rugal glanced around the room. “Dark. Depressing.”

“How about on a bad day?” Migdal said, and the three of them laughed.

“And it turns out that I have a grandmother,” Rugal said. He caught the quick look that his parents exchanged, and he felt wretched, as if he had been a traitor by saying it.

Etra gave a small smile. “I’m sure she was very pleased to meet you at last.”

“Mm. She didn’t much like me praying before dinner.”

Etra suppressed a smile. Migdal didn’t bother and laughed out loud. “For the sake of your pagh,” Etra said, in pious tones, “you should make sure you keep on doing that.”

“Oh, don’t worry—I will!”

“Good boy!” The image of them began to break up. “We’re doing everything we can, Rugal—we promise,” Etra said. “Don’t give up. We love you. You’ll come home again, we promise.”

And then they were gone. Everything seemed very quiet all of a sudden. Very empty. He could see nothing familiar around him, only heavy furniture, in the somber colors Cardassians seemed to favor, and, beyond the window, a dull sky and a fussy garden made for show and not for pleasure. Rugal felt a weight on his shoulders, in his stomach, at the back of his throat. He sat for a while with his chin on his hand, staring at the blank screen and the afterimage, and then there was a quiet knock on the door. He sat up straight and frowned, trying not to look upset.

Kotan was wearing that small, rather anxious smile that irritated so much. “Did you speak to them?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good! Good! Were they well?”

Exactly how well did he expect them to be, given that one child had been murdered and the other stolen? Rugal kicked back the chair and stalked over to the door.

Kotan’s stoop became more pronounced, as if he was also carrying a weight around with him. Rugal stopped with his hand on the door panel and tried to rein himself back. “Yes, they were. Thank you. And thank you for arranging for me to speak to them. I know it was difficult, and I appreciate that you went to so much trouble.”

Kotan opened his hands, as if to say that he was willing to give anything. “I only want you to be happy.”

But I can’t ever be. I won’t ever be, Rugal thought as he made his way upstairs and past the pictures of his other mother. In his room, he lay on the bed on his stomach, staring out the big window, watching the stark sky fade into darkness. Cardassia, he decided, was a world of contradictions. There were grandmothers who claimed to care for nothing but family, but who would rather you were dead. There were conversations you had to pretend were held in secret, when everyone knew they were spied upon. And then there were fathers who said they loved you, but had taken you away from all that you loved.

With a sigh, Rugal rolled over onto his back. Next to the bed there was a bookshelf, lined with real books, not padds or datarods. He pulled one at random off the shelf, picking it chiefly because he liked the dark cover. “For Cardassia!” it began, unpromisingly. He ploughed on grimly, but after a couple of pages, the combination of the evening’s exhausting events and the book’s leaden prose sent him to sleep. Rugal tried on several occasions over the next few years to get to the end of Ulan Corac’s The Never-Ending Sacrifice, but he failed to make it past the first chapter.

Two

The Pa’Dar family home was situated in the Coranum sector of Cardassia City, a fact that seemed of some significance, since Kotan had mentioned it several times with studied carelessness. Rugal did not want to ask questions that would expose his ignorance or incur any debt to Kotan, so he found himself relying on whatever information he could glean from the comnet, and from working out the subtext of the conversations between Geleth and Kotan. Geleth frequently remarked how the house was too close to the Paldar sector for her taste, and from further exchanges, Rugal was able to work out that while they might live in the most exclusive neighborhood in the entire Union, it was by no means the most prestigious part of it, and that this in turn was—by some undefined but well-recognized process—certainly Kotan’s fault.

As far as Rugal was concerned, the house was good enough for the kai. It stood alone in its own grounds, and there were so many rooms and so few of them living there you could not see anyone else for hours at a time, if you wanted. There was nobody upstairs stomping around or whistling while you were trying to get to sleep, and you didn’t have to spend time and energy pretending you couldn’t hear the minute details of other people’s lives. Still, Rugal missed it—the conversations, the fights, the simple reassurance of knowing that there were others only a wall away. He missed everything about Bajor, and Etra and Migdal most of all.

Kotan had enrolled him in an academy, but Rugal had arrived during a long holiday, and it was several weeks before that would start. With Kotan busy most of the day at the ministry and Geleth hidden away with her enigma tales (he hoped), Rugal had a lot of free time on his hands. Kotan suggested he study in advance of starting schooling, but since Rugal didn’t plan to stay on Cardassia for long, he didn’t see the point. The house couldn’t keep him occupied forever, so eventually he ventured out into Coranum. If he had been only a little younger, he could have treated it as a game—the sole brave Bajoran operative undercover on the Cardassian homeworld—but Rugal was too old now for that kind of play and, besides, the reality was more intimidating than anything imagination could conjure up.

For one thing, although he was lonely, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he wasn’t entirely alone. As he went about Coranum, he could always hear the soft whir of security devices tracking his progress, or he would hear faint voices and turn a corner to come face-to-face with an oval public screen, burbling out news and opinion that he mistrusted simply because a Cardassian was relaying it. It was all very disconcerting, as if someone always knew where he was going and what he was doing, and suggesting to him what he should be thinking.

Then there were the houses. Geleth had been right—the Pa’Dar residence might as well have been a doll’s house compared to the homes farther up the hill. Vast and spacious, they lay within elegantly manicured grounds, presenting grand fronts to the long sweeping avenues that curved through the sector. Rugal hardly ever saw any people: the residents of Coranum moved seamlessly from their palaces to their private skimmers to their businesses and offices in Barvonok and Tarlak, largely untroubled by the wider world. Now and then, he spotted a gardener or laborer at work, but they did not respond to his greetings, and always hurried away. He wondered if Cardassia still had something like the old D’jarra system. It would not have surprised him if it did, and that was another point in Bajor’s favor. The Bajorans had rid themselves of an unjust caste system when it proved to be nothing more than convention, an excuse for the powerful to stay powerful. Etra would not have married Migdal if the old system had been in place.

Yet there were some things that, grudgingly, Rugal had to admit he liked. The different sunlight meant he was getting fewer headaches, and he appreciated the warmth. He kept a close eye on all this, and whenever he caught himself enjoying his surroundings too much, he would press his earring against his palm and let its sharp edges remind him of what and who he really was. But sometimes it felt as if his body was trying to betray him, make him believe it was natural for him to be here. Was it natural? That was what the commander on Deep Space 9 had thought—and so did Kotan, obviously—that it was right for him to be back among his own kind. But Rugal knew these weren’t his kind—he only had to talk to Geleth for a moment to know that. Cardassians were vicious and heartless, and lacked whatever gene carried compassion. They were the complete opposite of Bajorans. Bajorans were the kind of people who would adopt children abandoned by those who had almost ruined their beautiful, benevolent world.

That was what Rugal thought about most as he wandered around Coranum. All this wealth, all this magnificence—it hadn’t come out of thin air. It had come from somewhere else; it had been taken from somewhere else. Rugal had studied hard in his history classes because he felt he owed it to Bajor. All this grandeur, he guessed, had been built on the back of Bajoran sweat and tears, Bajoran labor and loss. It was not right to look at it for too long; you could become accustomed to it, you could forget what you knew. The heart of an empire is often beautiful to behold—and cruel to contemplate.

Three weeks after Rugal arrived on Cardassia Prime, he met Penelya. He had spent the morning walking along one of the great arcs of road that looped around the sector, stopping now and then to study a particularly beautiful mansion, peering through green and scarlet foliage to glimpse cool rich buildings beyond. After an hour or so, he came to a point where another road struck off at a tangent. At the point where the two avenues met, there was a garden tucked away behind a wall of dark green, leafy shrubs which he was fairly certain were called mekla bushes. He would know for sure in the spring, if they flowered scarlet, if he was still here. He had often stopped here on his walks. There was a bench carved in an interesting swirling pattern with bright blue and red stones embedded in it that played tricks with his eyes if he stared too long but that also helped him think. There was also a small oval newsscreen in the wall too, but the sound was set low and he could easily pretend he couldn’t hear it, or he could listen if he had been alone too long.

Rugal slipped through the gate, walked along the short path—and then saw someone sitting on his bench. A Cardassian girl, about his own age, he guessed, although he had not met nearly enough to judge for sure. She was slightly built, all angles, and her dark brown hair was somewhat shorter and arranged in a plainer fashion than Geleth’s. She was hunched over a padd, frowning, and she obviously hadn’t heard him arrive. He didn’t want to startle her, but he did want to sit down. Very politely, he coughed.

She looked up in alarm. Her eyes—they were brown too—went wide, and she jumped off the bench, holding the padd in front of her like a piece of armor. Rugal held up both hands to show he was no threat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Her lips pursed; her eyes narrowed beneath their ridges. He gave her what he hoped was an unthreatening smile. “I’m not frightened,” she said. “I didn’t hear you, is all.”

“Do you mind if I sit down? I’ve been walking around all morning.”

Obviously she wanted to refuse, but couldn’t think of a way of doing it that wouldn’t be outright rude. Instead she sighed, tutted, and sat down again at the farthest end of the bench. “If you must.”

Rugal was used to Geleth by now and decided not to take it personally. On this upside-down planet, insults almost counted as gestures of affection. If any Cardassian ever took the trouble to be nice to him, then he would worry. The girl made a show of returning to her reading, but every so often she shot him sharp, angry glares over her padd. Was this some kind of custom he knew nothing about? Did he have to speak first? What did people make small talk about on Cardassia? On Bajor, everyone talked about politics or religion or the grace-hound racing. Since she was unlikely to know anything about the latter, and both the former seemed provocative and possibly seditious, Rugal fell back on something safe.

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

The girl abandoned any pretence of reading. She threw her padd on the bench and looked at him as if he were foaming at the mouth. “Are you some kind of idiot?”

So much for playing it safe.

“I mean,” she said furiously, “who in all the Union talks about the weather?”

“I talk about the weather!”

“You could have asked me my name, you could have asked me what I was reading, you could have told me you owned this garden and that I should get out—”

“But I don’t own it! Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you to get out—”

“But, oh no! Instead you sit there and ask me what I think about the weather. There’s not much I can do with that, is there? I have to have something to work with.”

Rugal leaned back into the bench. “We can quarrel if you like,” he said peaceably, “but it’s still a nice day.”

Suddenly, she relaxed. She put the padd down, tucked one leg beneath her, and smiled. “Yes, it is, it’s absolutely glorious. I love being out in late summer, and I love this garden—although it’s prettier in the spring when the mekla is in flower.”

“Oh! So it is called mekla!”

“Of course it’s called mekla, what did you think it was called?”

“I wasn’t sure. I’ve only seen pictures. They didn’t have it where I grew up.”

That grabbed her attention. She leaned in eagerly. “Didn’t you grow up on Prime?”

“No.”

“I didn’t either. I grew up on Ithic—my name’s Penelya, by the way—where did you grow up?”

“On Bajor.” He was pleased when she looked interested and not horrified. “And my name’s Rugal.”

Quickly, they gave each other their stories. Penelya was almost as new to Cardassia Prime as Rugal. Until early the previous year, she had been living on Ithic II, a colony in the DMZ. Her parents had been farmers; Ithic was an agricultural world of the kind that Cardassia Prime depended on for food. Penelya had come to Prime to study agronomy, a well-respected and necessary science. She was extremely anxious that Rugal was clear about that, so he nodded vigorously that he understood. She was now living with her father’s brother and his large family in Coranum. Her uncle, Mikor, had inherited the family home and was something significant at the Ministry of Justice. Her studies had been progressing well, and then, disaster—or, more accurately, the Maquis—had struck Ithic II. Penelya’s parents had been among the dead.

“It was lucky I was here, I suppose.” She ran her fingertip around one of the blue stones in the bench. “Although sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if I’d been killed as well. It’s difficult, sometimes, being... well, you know.”

Being an orphan. “It’s always better to be alive,” Rugal said gently.

“Mm.” Penelya picked up her padd and played with the controls. “What’s your story?”

He gave her a quick sketch: how he had been born on Bajor, adopted by Bajorans, and brought up to think of himself as Bajoran. Then his Cardassian father discovered he was alive and came to collect him. Penelya’s eyes shone at this resolution to his narrative. “It’s like a children’s story!” she said in delight. “He came and found you! Oh, but wasn’t it a scandal? That you’d been left behind?”

Rugal thought better of explaining Dukat’s part in his disappearance and the uneasy standoff between him and Kotan. It might be dangerous for Penelya to be in possession of that kind of information. “Kotan—my biological father—is pretty important too,” he said as a general explanation. “At the Ministry of Science. And he’s a member of the Civilian Assembly too. I think that’s what it’s called. Something in politics, anyway.”

“Everyone around here is something in politics,” Penelya said, with the deep wisdom of fifteen years. “Unless they’re military. Not that there’s much difference sometimes. Is that what you’re going to do? Something in politics?”

Rugal blinked. He hadn’t given the matter any thought. He was going back to Bajor as soon as it could be arranged.

“You don’t look too sure,” Penelya said. “Have you got other plans?”

“Yes...” He chewed at his lip. She was encouraging and warm, and by far the friendliest person he had met on Cardassia Prime. Could he trust her? “I want to go back home.” Seeing her confusion, he explained. “Back to Bajor. That’s my home, where my mother and father are—my real mother and father.”

He watched her struggle with these new ideas. “I suppose...” she said, at last, “that’s how I feel about Ithic. It’s my home, rather than Prime. I mean, it’s where I’d most like to be. I suppose there’s no reason not to feel the same about Bajor. It’s just that it’s, well... it’s Bajor.” She thought a while longer. “Perhaps that shouldn’t make any difference either. What was it like, being a Cardassian there?”

Rugal would defend his adopted planet to all questioners, but because Penelya had gone to the trouble of trying to understand, he gave her question a real answer. “Sometimes it was hard,” he admitted. “People got angry at Mother and Father for adopting me.” They’d been spat at in the street on numerous occasions, particularly in smaller provincial towns, and he had been an easy target at school, until he became able and willing to hit back. “It must have a lot in common with being an orphan here. You don’t fit in with people’s expectations. You’re not quite the same as they are, and because of that you make them feel uncomfortable. But instead of trying to understand what you are, for yourself, they dislike you for making them feel uncomfortable. That’s what it was like, sometimes. But it’s still my home.”

He glanced at her nervously. Her smile had turned wry and knowing. She did understand, he thought, with a rush of relief. They may have had different journeys, but they were both in exile here.

Later, he walked her back to the gates of her uncle’s house. “Let’s meet again,” Penelya said. “You’re much nicer than my cousins. They shout a lot, and as for their friends...” She shuddered. “But I like you. You’re nothing like a Cardassian male.”

“That’s because I’m Bajoran.”

She laughed at that and he didn’t mind. “Of course! I won’t forget, Rugal. I promise.”

As a matter of courtesy, and because he didn’t want to cause Kotan trouble while he was there, Rugal mentioned his meeting with Penelya that evening over dinner. As expected, Kotan knew the family. “Mikor Khevet’s niece—yes, I heard about her. Sad business about the parents.”

“We agreed to meet again. That’s not a problem, is it?”

“No, no, they’re a good family. Thank you for asking. You’re not thinking of marrying her, are you?”

Rugal put down his spoon and gaped. “I’ve only met her once!”

“Nevertheless, it’s something to bear in mind. An orphan for a wife would almost certainly bar you from some of the higher positions of state.”

“Based on our single conversation, my impression was that she wouldn’t be interested in coming back to Bajor with me, so—no, I’m not thinking of marrying her.”

Kotan ignored the gibe. “A friendship, however, could be interpreted favorably. It might even get you an invitation from Khevet. You ought to meet his sons, they’re your cohort after all, and that’s likely to be useful, given you’ve missed out on schooling with them for all this time.... No, I can’t see any problems in cultivating a friendship—just save yourself a world of trouble and don’t fall in love with the girl. I imagine Khevet will be shipping her back out to the farm as soon as it’s safe. Generous of him to take her in—not to mention pay for her education—but I suppose he gets a farm manager out of it, and a grateful relative is better than hiring a complete stranger.... Do you know how much money those colony farms bring in? An absolute fortune. It’s true what they say—nobody ever went poor selling food on Cardassia.” His analysis complete, Kotan went back to removing a wing from his petha fowl.

Rugal was speechless. Luckily, Geleth always had something to bring to the conversation. “Thank goodness he did take her in. These stray children, hanging around the streets at all hours, day and night—they’re a disgrace. You should do something about it, Kotan.”

“Strange as it may seem, Mother, the regulation of orphans does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science. It is, thankfully, somebody else’s problem.”

“Then whoever that somebody is ought to get on with the business of dealing with them. Lock them up, or make them join the military—I don’t know! But they should be contributing somehow. They can’t expect to be fed and housed for nothing. Cardassia doesn’t have enough to spare.” She eyed Rugal. “It’s a pity more of them weren’t born on Bajor. Too late to ship them all over there now, I suppose.”

“They’d like it better there,” Rugal shot back. “Bajorans would do a better job of looking after them.”

“More fool them,” Geleth said. “Overemotional, sentimental—no wonder we conquered them so easily.”

“You didn’t conquer us,” Rugal said. “We threw you off. Remember? It was only three years ago. You can’t have forgotten it yet—”

“I suggest,” Kotan’s voice rose above the quarrel, “that we keep our thoughts about the annexation of Bajor—successful or otherwise—to ourselves. Airing them in public is unlikely to do any of us a great service.”

Geleth peered down the length of her nose at her grandson. “It might be difficult to bar all discussion of Bajor from this particular table.”

“Then we must exert ourselves,” Kotan said dryly, “out of the great sense of love and duty we all feel toward the Cardassian state. As the writer says, a harmonious family is the bedrock of a harmonious state.”

Geleth sniffed. “Never liked Corac. Too clever for his own good. And nothing ever happens.”

Rugal saw Penelya whenever he could. They could not meet every day; Penelya had her studies and also often found herself called on to look after her three young cousins. Rugal, too, was supposed to be studying in preparation for entering his academy, but since he didn’t intend to be there for long, he didn’t exactly apply himself. He did rummage through Kotan’s library, quickly swapping Corac’s long didactic sentences for lighter reading. Enigma tales bewildered him at first; then he saw the joke and got hooked. His favorites were the ones set in massive decaying country houses during the dying days of the Second Republic.

But it was Penelya’s friendship that really made life on Prime bearable. Rugal might not be an orphan, but he had grown up Cardassian on Bajor, and he knew what it was like to live on the margins. They understood each other very well. The only thing he couldn’t grasp was the way she spoke about her relatives. She said constantly how much they were doing for her, how grateful she was to them. This puzzled him. Etra and Migdal never talked about gratitude, or how much they sacrificed for him, even though Rugal knew that it was because of him that their little family faced so many difficulties. Now that he thought about it, Kotan didn’t talk that way either—although Rugal didn’t like to think about that too much.

Penelya was surprised when he mentioned it to her. “But of course I should be grateful to them,” she said. “They didn’t have to let me carry on living with them after my parents died. They could have asked me to leave their house. What would I have done then?”

“You’d have got by.”

“Do you think so?”

“Lot of Bajorans lost parents, whole families, under the Occupation. People looked after each other, took care of each other.”

She gave him a dry look. “You really don’t know Cardassia very well, do you? Have you even gone outside Coranum yet? You should take your father’s beautiful skimmer down to the river one evening when people are trying to find somewhere to sleep for the night. Better still, do what most people do, and take the shuttle. Then come and tell me whether or not I should be grateful to my uncle.”

It wasn’t long before Rugal got the opportunity to observe Penelya’s relatives up close. To Kotan’s evident pleasure, and Geleth’s frankly stated disbelief, the desired invitation was received, and Rugal spent an afternoon in the company of the Khevet family.

Rugal knew from Penelya that there were five children: two sons, Colat and Tret, young men of roughly Rugal’s age, and three much younger girls. The size of Cardassian families bewildered Rugal: if the world was so poor that famine had been commonplace in living memory, why did they have so many children? He had a couple of theories, neither particularly appealing. It could be a display of wealth, like being able to pay for the water for the trees and gardens that made Coranum so lovely. Or else it was more calculating—Cardassians assumed that not all of their children would reach adulthood, and had a lot of them just in case. Either way, it was close to criminal.

Rugal arrived at the Khevet house nervous and frowning, carrying gifts for Mikor and Elinas that Kotan had fussed over for days. He was welcomed by Colat and Tret with charm and courtesy, and dragged straight off to the family rikot courts. Penelya was brought along to do the scoring.

It was a good game—you had to chase a tiny hard ball around the court and sometimes it got insanely fast—but the rules were impenetrable. Colat, who captained the academy’s team, insisted that Rugal take a guide back home with him. After that, sweating and muscle-sore, they went to the sauna, a household innovation of which Rugal heartily approved. Then they went and sat out in the stone garden drinking iced leya juice and watching the youngest girl’s tiny pet keye stalk lace-flies. Their mother, Elinas, elegantly dressed and sweetly perfumed, came out to join them; their father, Mikor, stocky and hospitable, took a moment away from his work ostensibly to welcome Rugal, presumably to check that he was in fact suitable company. Mikor engineered the conversation so as to be able to make an offhand compliment about Kotan’s handling of the Circle inquiry. Rugal assumed he was meant to pass this on, so he did, later, and in earshot of Geleth.

Altogether, it was a very pleasant afternoon. It would have been so much easier if he could have hated them all outright. But they were friendly and welcoming, and Colat and Tret went out of their way to pass on useful information about the academy where Rugal would soon be joining them. Both young men did have a tendency to talk over other people, as if conversation was a competition rather than an exchange, but Rugal knew they didn’t have to bother to talk to him at all, and he appreciated their advice. One thing he disliked was how the whole family used the word “Bajoran” as a synonym for “stupid,” but when Penelya timidly reminded her cousins where Rugal had grown up, they didn’t do it again. They didn’t apologize, though, and it seemed not to cross their minds that they should.

Penelya was different in their company. When they were alone, she talked constantly, changing direction midsentence, as if her head was overflowing with ideas. Around her family, she said next to nothing, and only when she was addressed directly. There was more that Rugal had not liked, and he brought it up the next time they met in their garden. “Elinas had you running up and down stairs all afternoon. If it wasn’t her bag, it was her embroidery; if it wasn’t her embroidery, it was her book. It was like you were one of the servants.”

“I don’t mind.”

“And the way the three girls sometimes speak to you! Elinas and Mikor should stop that. But then I suppose if Elinas can’t be bothered to say “please” and “thank you,” it’s no wonder her daughters have picked up the habit. And couldn’t Tret and Colat have asked you to play a couple of rounds at least? You were sitting on the side all that time except when they wanted the water bottles—”

“All right,” Penelya said in a small savage voice, “you’ve made your point. You can stop going on about it now.”

She had her arms wrapped around her. She often held something in front of her—a padd or a book or a cushion—as if she preferred to go about shielded. Rugal realized he was not telling her anything that she did not already know.“Sorry,” he said awkwardly.

“The thing is,” she said, looking at him with suspiciously bright eyes, “it isn’t for long. Once I’m trained, they won’t want me in the city anymore. I’ll be more use to my uncle somewhere else. So I won’t be here forever, and it’s better than my other options. Do you understand, Rugal? I don’t have all the opportunities you have.”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. He did try to understand, because she had listened and not judged when he told her about Bajor. But he hated what it did to her, how it bent her out of shape with fear and guilt and self-doubt. She was funny and clever and kind; she should be racing ahead, like a grace-hound, not held back and on a leash. He did not mention it again. But he puzzled over it often, sitting in his room staring out at the light show of the city, as he puzzled over many things on this complex and perplexing world. Why would Cardassians do this to their children? Why not let them become everything they could be? What were they afraid would happen, if they simply let them go?

The long summer ended and classes began. Rugal’s academy, which was surely costing Kotan a lot of leks, prepared students for entrance into the Institute of State Policy. The lessons chiefly focused on political theory, official history, rhetorical strategy, protocols for debate, and a fairly punishing regime of physical education that acted as a proxy for formal military training. The Cardassian political elite maintained a careful and necessary distance from the military, but duty demanded that their sons be prepared to serve as soldiers, should Cardassia be in need.

Apart from the physical education, Rugal did not shine. Educating Bajoran children had not been a priority to their Cardassian masters, who became interested only when they were old enough to work. The school system had all but collapsed. Bajoran teachers did their best, but it was hard to teach a roomful of hungry children, and when the sensors had been installed that prevented Bajoran adults from moving freely about their own planet, many of the children had been too busy running errands or scrounging up food to bother with school. It was rare, by the end of the Occupation, to see anyone above the age of eight or nine in a classroom. In the short time since, there had been a drive from both the Council of Ministers and the Vedek Assembly to encourage older children to resume their education, but classes were remedial, aimed at helping them catch up on lost time. However dedicated the teachers, however committed the policymakers, the poor Bajoran schools Rugal had attended could not hope to compete with one of the most elite establishments the Cardassian plutocracy had at its disposal. He felt like an idiot around these slick and knowledgeable young men.

There was also the small matter of emphasis. The official history that the academy taught was not one that Rugal recognized. He knew Cardassians as all Bajorans knew them: ruthless aggressors who had inveigled themselves into Bajoran territory, and then proceeded to rob, murder, and all but destroy an ancient, complex culture. From his new tutors, however, Rugal heard a very different story. In this version of events, Cardassia had been benign in its dealings with Bajor. It had come with its hand outstretched in friendship, to help Bajor take its first tentative steps out into the quadrant. It had tried to show Bajor that it did not need its childish superstitions anymore. But that friendship, that desire to help, had been rejected in the most vicious way. Cardassian settlers had been murdered. Cardassian children had been orphaned. Reprisals, sadly, had been taken. It was heartbreaking, it was tragic—yet what else could Cardassia do? Acts of terror could not go unpunished. It was inevitable that Rugal would lose his temper.

Every morning, after the Oath, the students took a short test. There was a series of standard questions with a set of memorized answers they were supposed to put down word for word. The subject matter could be anything from the past or present curriculum. The other students had been doing this for years, of course, but Rugal was way behind and often regretted his summer spent reading enigma tales. This particular morning, they were being tested on the reasons for the advancement of Bajor. That was what the books called it—Bajor’s Advancement. Ten dark heads bent studiously over their lessonpadds, most of them anxious to get this routine task finished as quickly as possible. It was hot and dull and Rugal knew he had no chance of ever catching up. He reached List the five ways in which the advancement benefited Bajor and couldn’t stand it any longer. He inputted: It didn’t. The padd underlined his answer in red and responded: You have given one answer. This answer is incorrect. A point has been deducted from your attainment score. There are five ways in which the advancement benefited Bajor. List the five ways in which the advancement benefited Bajor.

Angrily, he shoved the lessonpadd aside. “This is ridiculous!”

Nine students and one tutor looked at him with varying degrees of interest. Metrek, the tutor, at first didn’t know what to do about this unexpected interruption. He had chosen to teach an age cohort that was meant to have outgrown this kind of behavior. In time-honored fashion, he fell back on sarcasm. “Could it be possible that you haven’t entirely understood the question, Pa’Dar?”

“I understood every word. It’s still rubbish. Friendship? Help? None of that’s true! The Occupation was about resources—everyone knows that. Cardassia is short on natural resources, Bajor is rich. The Cardassians invaded in order to strip the place bare. You would have done it too, if it hadn’t been for the Resistance.”

Metrek grayed markedly and didn’t reply. One of the other students, Ferek, yawned. “We heard that version of events in elementary classes and we were tested on its flaws last week. We all know you’re struggling, Pa’Dar, but if you have to say something to make yourself important, try coming up with something that isn’t out of the infant classes.” A couple of the other students, scenting blood, laughed. “Only Bajorans would tell a children’s story.”

Rugal was ready to fire off a fusillade of street slang, but before he had a chance to speak, Tret Khevet intervened. “I imagine Rugal knows more about Bajor than you do, Ferek,” he said lazily. “He was living there until earlier this year. Still, Rugal—you of all people must know that’s an exaggeration.”

“It isn’t an exaggeration!”

“But what you’re saying, basically, is that Cardassians are cold-blooded murderers.” Tret gestured around him. “That’s us, Rugal. Not just the people in this room, but my family, your father, my cousin, you. We’re all Cardassian. Have we been cruel? Since you came back here, has anyone been anything other than welcoming?”

Leaving aside Geleth, Tret had a point. “That doesn’t change Cardassian behavior during the Occupation,” Rugal said doggedly. “They killed millions of people—”

“The Resistance killed people too. You should know that, with your family history.”

“But the Cardassians killed many more.”

They went on in this vein for some time, but Rugal quickly realized it was almost impossible to argue with him. Tret, like everyone else in the room, was unshakeable in his belief that if the Bajorans had only been grateful for the opportunities they had been offered, none of the trouble would have happened. And there was something else beneath it, Rugal realized, something deeply troubling. Tret truly believed that Bajoran society was inferior to his own; he truly believed that the Cardassian way of life, its system of government, all its institutions, were the best that existed. And why should he not? Life was good for Tret Khevet. His family was rich, his home comfortable, and he never went near those of his own kind who lived more precariously. Tret wasn’t saying these things to provoke, Rugal realized, not the way that Geleth did. He said them because he knew nothing outside of Cardassia, and he had no reason to learn. It would take alien invasion or apocalypse to change his mind.

“If we’re generalizing,” Tret said, “everyone knows what Bajorans are like.”

“Oh yes? And what are they like?”

“They’re lazy, they cheat... My mother’s youngest brother worked for a mining consortium out there, and he said he couldn’t get a full day’s work out of most of them. There’s something wrong with people who won’t work.”

“Perhaps they hadn’t had enough to eat to be able to work,” Rugal said.

Tret looked at him as if he were mad. “But you said it yourself! Bajor is agriculturally rich! If food distribution was being run on Cardassian lines—run properly, I mean, not sabotaged—then there would have been enough food to go around. If they didn’t have enough to eat, they were probably stealing it off each other.”

It was hard to know where to start with that. “You don’t know the first thing about it, Tret. You haven’t been there, you haven’t lived there.”

Tret smiled as if he couldn’t believe how easily his victory was being delivered. He tapped his padd. “I don’t need to. It’s all in the lessons.”

There was a round of applause from the others. Rugal almost banged his head against the desk in frustration. The argument had circled back upon itself, like the whirls in the stone on the bench in the garden where he and Penelya sat. At least Khevet’s money wasn’t going to waste. Tret was going to make a first-rate politician. “The lessons,” Rugal said through gritted teeth, “are a pack of lies.” He was about to start explaining how, yet again, when he caught sight of their tutor.

Metrek was trembling. A grown man, clever and well-informed, and he was shaking with fear. It was dreadful to watch. Rugal held up his hands in defeat. “All right, Tret—have it your own way. Bajor was begging for Cardassia to come in. And when it did, the Bajorans couldn’t see how lucky they were.”

“Now that this little performance is finished,” Metrek said, his voice getting steadier as he spoke, “perhaps we can return to the business at hand? We’re now running ten metrics behind, so I’ll add that to the end of the day and you can all thank Pa’Dar for that.”

There was plenty of muttering and complaints as everyone settled back down to completing the test. Rugal stuck to his wrong answers, and when the time was up, he had lost a total of sixteen points from his attainment score. After the class ended, Tret leaned back in his seat to speak to Rugal. “Everything all right between us, Pa’Dar?” He looked genuinely concerned, as if he had belatedly realized that for his sparring partner, this might not simply have been a demonstration of rhetorical technique.

“Yes. Fine.”

“Good!” Tret gave him a sunny smile. “Don’t worry about the extra ten metrics, you’re bound to claw it back during the afternoon run. Are you free this evening? Colat has a new training program he thought you might like.”

Rugal politely passed. Instead, he went for a long, angry walk around Coranum, trying to simmer down before returning to the house. It was much later than usual when he returned home. Maleta, the housekeeper, met him in the hallway and, as she took his jacket, whispered, “Your father has been waiting for you in his study for almost an hour! He has a visitor, someone from the Office of Public Order.”

Rugal did not yet know this euphemism, but the moment he walked into Kotan’s study and set eyes on the visitor, it was as if someone had started sounding a klaxon. First of all, the man gave him a vastly charming smile. Then he stood up, pressed his palm against Rugal’s, and told him it was a pleasure to meet him at last. He could not have given more warning about how serious—how dangerous—he was if he had been carrying a nightstick. Besides, Kotan looked scared stiff.

The visitor gestured toward an empty chair. “Do join us. If that’s acceptable to you, Pa’Dar?”

Kotan cleared his throat. “Of course. Rugal, sit down.”

They sat like three points on a triangle. “By way of introduction, Rugal,” their visitor said, “I am from the Office of Public Order.” He did not offer any other kind of introduction—a name, for example. “My department looks after the interests of high-profile politicians such as your father.”

Kotan had by now schooled his features to impassivity.

“I was delighted when you were found and I was delighted that your return has meant nothing but joy for your father. Thus far.”

Was that a threat? Kotan was no help. He was staring past Rugal, out the window.

“I’ve been making a study of your first few months on Cardassia Prime—Penelya is a charming young acquaintance, if slightly outré for someone of your status—and I’ve been fascinated to watch you come to terms with living here, after so long among our natural enemies. It must not be easy, at your age, having to learn rules that should have been your birthright. Perhaps this explains your lapse of judgment earlier today.”

“My lapse of judgment?”

“You certainly have a unique perspective on our state’s involvement in Bajor. But does it not strike you as arrogant to assume that your perspective is the most accurate? To assume that what your teachers present to you is not a better informed account?”

There was a pattern to this exchange, Rugal realized, a protocol being followed—a mode of appropriate interaction that they had been taught in a class on legal procedure. He was being informed of the error of his ways, and now he was expected to show remorse. Kotan, he saw, was still offering no assistance. He was leaving this entirely to Rugal’s own judgment. Trust? Or self-defense?

Rugal thought briefly of telling the visitor where he could stick remorse, but he didn’t. It was a pleasant fantasy, but it would, presumably, be the end of Kotan. And while Rugal would always be angry that Kotan had forced him to come here, he didn’t want to see the man harmed. Not in the way he would like to see Gul Dukat harmed.

“I think,” Rugal said carefully, “that I spoke out of turn today. I was not born at the time the state began to express an interest in Bajor’s Advancement, and for the sake of accuracy and fairness, I should listen more to those who have studied the events in depth. I’m sure that they know more about it than I do.”

Kotan relaxed visibly. The visitor glanced between them, and then gave a pleasant smile. “Excellently put. It’s particularly gratifying that you are at last exhibiting some deference toward authorities. You are certainly on the path to wisdom. Stay on it.” His smile faded and he glanced at Kotan. “You must be very proud.”

Kotan gave a stiff bow. “I do my best for the good of Cardassia.”

“As do we all, Deputy Minister, as do we all.” The visitor stood up, and Kotan quickly followed suit. “Well, duty calls. I needn’t trouble you any longer. Enjoy what remains of your evening.”

Kotan escorted him from the room. Rugal leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. His suspicions about their visitor were confirmed when Kotan returned and started systematically checking the chair in which the man had been sitting, the table next to it, the glass from which he had been drinking.

“Was that—” Rugal started, but Kotan lifted a finger. His search went on for a while and then he breathed out and sat down heavily.

“Do you understand who that was?” Kotan asked.

“I think... I think he was someone from the Obsidian Order.”

“I’m glad not everything I’ve said has fallen on stony ground. Do you understand why he was here?”

Rugal frowned down at the carpet. It had a complex, spiraling pattern that made his vision blur.

“You seem to have been expressing dissident opinions in class.”

Rugal’s head snapped up. “We were being told lies! I only told the truth!”

“Forget truth. I heard the recording. It was dangerously close to sedition.”

“They monitor our classes that much?” Rugal felt sorry for the poor junior official stuck with that task.

“Rugal, they monitor everything. Not just one-off communications to Bajor, everything. You are studying with a set of young people training to become the next generation of political leaders. Do you think they would not be watched for the slightest sign of unorthodoxy? What about all the conversations in that garden with your little orphan friend? Do you think they go unexamined too?”

Rugal went cold. “What about the house?”

“Here? I do my best. It takes a great deal of time, effort, and money.”

“But it was all lies! If Tret and Colat and the rest are going to be the next generation of political leaders, why tell them lies? If they don’t hear the truth, they’ll think that nothing wrong happened! Tret thinks that nothing about Cardassia is wrong! He, his friends—they’ll make the same mistakes over and over again. The Occupation will happen over and over again!”

“I know. I know what the Occupation cost Cardassia, more than most. But you must understand. When you say these things, it’s not only yourself you are putting in danger—”

“So I should put up with lies to save your skin?”

Kotan gripped the arms of his chair. Calmly, he said, “I am sure that it matters a great deal to you that the story you are being told does not match the one your Bajoran carers told you. Unfortunately, you must learn to live with the contradiction.” Rugal opened his mouth to reply, but Kotan lifted one hand to stop him. “What I care about most is the potential fallout from your folly. You don’t know it, but you are playing fast and loose with the lives of many other people.”

“How?” Rugal was bewildered. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at! Just tell me straight—I know it isn’t the Cardassian way, Kotan, but please try!”

Kotan sat for a while deep in thought. “Very well. I’ll try. Have you heard me—or any of your tutors—talk about the Detapa Council?”

“That’s the civilian governing body, isn’t it? Not the Central Command, not the Obsidian Order, but something else.”

“You really have been listening! Good. Do you know how much power the Detapa Council has?”

“It’s like the Bajoran Council of Ministers, isn’t it? Plenty, I suppose.”

“So you might think. In fact, it has practically none. According to the terms of our constitution, the Detapa Council operates chiefly in an advisory capacity. The Detapa Council and the Civilian Assembly formulate policy and write legislation, but all of it has to be passed before the Central Command in order to become law. Mostly, this is a formality. On certain key issues—military appropriations, say, or constitutional reform—it’s not. How happy do you think that makes the current members of the Council? Having virtually no executive power?”

“Not very, I should think.”

“And you’d be right.” Kotan leaned forward in his chair, his hands resting now on his knees. He had an eager look in his eyes. So he did enjoy something about his political career. Perhaps it was the skullduggery. It seemed to be the national pastime, like religion was on Bajor. “So how happy do you think the current Council is to keep things the way they are?”

“I’d guess not at all,” Rugal said, and frowned.

“Go on,” Kotan said encouragingly.

“But that’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it? If it’s part of the Cardassian constitution. But you said the current Council was unhappy. So what’s changed?”

Kotan beamed. “Excellent question!” Despite himself, Rugal almost felt pleased. “The difference is that the Central Command has badly overstretched itself. Wars with the Federation, a disastrous end to its Bajoran policy, all those skirmishes in the Demilitarized Zone that have caused your poor friend so much distress... It’s not been a happy few years for the Cardassian military, and the Cardassian military, Rugal, derives its power from success. It thrives—the Obsidian Order allows it to thrive—as long as it keeps Cardassia safe and fed. It’s managed the second of those well in recent years, I’ll admit that. But on the first, it’s running out of credit, and it’s running out of time. And when the constitutional space that the Central Command currently occupies becomes free, the Detapa Council will be waiting.”

Rugal stared at the carpet for a while, rearranging the shapes into a pattern. “All this that you’re telling me—it’s sedition, isn’t it? Treason?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Kotan, aren’t you afraid?”

“Afraid?” Kotan gave a sad smile. “My beloved child, I’m absolutely terrified. Every day, looking at the people around me, I think: Are they like me? Are they someone I could trust? Or are they simply showing me the right kind of face, so that I will tell them about myself and my friends, and then they will pick us off, one by one, and put us on trial, and shame us and our families in front of the whole Union. Do you see now why your performance in the classroom is so dangerous? When you speak out of turn, the eyes of the Obsidian Order fall upon me, your father. And when their eyes fall upon me, they are close to seeing the movement for change in Cardassia—that quiet set of patriots who are slowly, carefully, cautiously trying to shift our country to a place of greater safety. Rugal, when you speak out of turn in public, you are endangering the lives of many good and brave people, who have worked hard for longer than you have been alive.”

“I don’t know why you brought me back,” Rugal burst out bitterly. “This place is poisonous! Even when Bajor was at its worst, people looked after each other, they tried to help each other! My mother and father—they took in a Cardassian child! But you’re all at each other’s throats! I’ve no place here. Why did you bring me back?”

“Because I love you.”

“But you don’t know me! How can you love me? When I do the things that I think are right—tell the truth, care for Penelya—you don’t like it. How can you say that you love me?”

Kotan held up his hands—a helpless sort of gesture. “Because you are my son. Because I remember you as a child, even if you can’t remember me. Because I loved your mother.”

Rugal had no answer to that. It was too late, he thought; they had been too long apart. He was not, and never could be, what he thought Kotan wanted—Cardassian.

“I am aware,” Kotan said hesitantly, “that you are struggling to settle here. Please believe me when I say that I am anxious for you to do well, for you to be happy. You sounded, as we were talking, as if you might like to know more about Cardassian politics, about how our great state works. You certainly asked some good questions. Perhaps you should spend some more time with me? As I go about my work, I mean. You could see what my responsibilities are, how our institutions work...”

It was a tempting offer. Kotan presumably had access to much of what went on behind the scenes at the highest levels of Cardassian politics. More than that, however, Rugal wanted to learn more about Kotan’s dissident friends: what they believed, what they did. He was about to say yes when Kotan said, “It is the career you are expected to follow...”

His voice faded away, as if he had realized at once that he had made a mistake. Rugal shook his head. Learning from Kotan might be interesting, but it would only give the man false hope. “I know you’re trying to help. And I appreciate that—truly. But I don’t intend to stay here. I’m going home.”

Kotan sighed. “Very well. Off you go. But please try not to get us all killed.”

Later, lying on his bed, Rugal watched again all the display of the capital city, that complex shimmering pattern of lights and lives. How many more times would he have to sit through it? When would it all end?

Three

The next time Penelya dared Rugal to step outside Coranum, he took her up on the challenge. “Show me everything,” he said. “Show me why I should care.”

She did her best. She took him through galleries of brash conformist art, to outdoor concerts of strident music, past gigantic memorials of guls and legates whose names he did not bother to memorize, and up to the top of the city’s tallest building, a monument to Collective Endeavor that represented the unity of the people and gave an imperious view out as far as the black mountains in the west. They walked down the river to admire the Veterans’ Bridge, and he did not need her to point out the undercity half-hidden below. They toured the main buildings of state, saw the Assembly debate third-tier healthcare provisions, and he could not discern any difference between the speakers. They did it all at Kotan’s expense, as Geleth was at pains to point out. Rugal told her to think of it as reparations.

For everything Penelya showed him, Rugal told her in return something about Bajor: the fountains and gardens, the pale stone, the silver sound of temple bells on a fresh spring morning. He described the spirited guttering made by trams that miraculously still worked after years of neglect, and the heated political arguments that took place in every street-corner tavern. Everyone was poor, but it was out in the open, not tucked out of sight below bridges.

For her own safety, Rugal had not told Penelya about the visitor from the Order. True friendship on Cardassia, he was learning, depended less on openness than on knowing when to keep secrets. He did tell her about Kotan’s offer, though. They were on the shuttle at the time, heading home. That morning they had taken a boat down the river to Ostek on the coast, where they had watched the gray sea and eaten salty litik fresh from their shells and walked along the esplanade holding hands. He was the happiest he had been since going to Deep Space 9. “Kotan said I could go and see him at work. Find out what he does and how.”

It was near fourth bell and the shuttle was packed. Penelya had to twist around to look at him. “How fascinating! When are you going?”

One of the passengers stood up, and they shuffled around to let her near the door. “I’m not,” Rugal admitted. “I said no.” Penelya didn’t reply, but he could feel disapproval radiating from her like the hot stones of a sauna. “Go on! Say it!”

“Nothing...”

Rugal sighed. She did this all the time: hid what she was feeling rather than risk confrontation. He knew why, but he wished he could make her understand that she could be honest with him. “I know it’s something, Pen.”

“Honestly, it’s nothing. It’s none of my business.”

They stood in silence for a while, chest to chest, forced together by necessity rather than familiarity. On the screen on the wall above the seats, a bored district archon was sentencing vagrants to work centers and expressing her strong hope that they would seize this opportunity, granted by a generous state, to become productive citizens. The shuttle lurched into a stop. Six or seven other passengers got off, and Rugal and Penelya slipped into some free seats. At the far end of the carriage, two young men in the gray and silver uniform of the city constabulary got on and started checking identities. Rugal glanced sideways at Penelya. She was glowering alarmingly by now. He waited for the eruption.

“I used to dream that my parents would turn out to be alive!” she told him in a hot whisper. “Every night I would go to bed, and I would close my eyes and think, Perhaps when I open them in the morning, they’ll be there... Perhaps it would turn out to be a mistake, perhaps they’d got lost or their memories had been affected, or they’d been unconscious for ages and then woke up again and remembered me and came to get me. That’s exactly what’s happened to you! And all you can do is wish that your father had never turned up! It’s as if you hate him—”

“I don’t hate Kotan!” Rugal whispered back angrily. “But I already have a father, one I love and want to be with. I didn’t ask to come back here, you know, they made me! I didn’t want to leave Ba—” He glanced around. “—to leave home.”

“But didn’t you wish for it too? Your mother and father coming to get you?”

“Migdal and Etra are my mother and father, the only ones I remember!” Rugal thought briefly of that Cardassian hand on his shoulder, pushing him away from a safe place that he didn’t want to leave, then shoved the memory firmly aside in turn. “It’s not like I ever knew Kotan and Arys. How you feel about your mother and father is exactly how I feel about Etra and Migdal. Why is that so difficult for everyone to understand?”

“I can’t help thinking how lucky you are. Not just one father, but two. I wish I had even one.” She looked very sad; very young and very sad. He put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Pen,” he said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I wish we could swap. I wish Kotan had been your father and had come for you.”

“We wouldn’t have met then,” she said. That was true. He squeezed her arm, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. That was how they were sitting when the two officers reached them. Rugal held out his wrist for them to check his identity, and they passed on quickly to Penelya. The senior of the two frowned at her. “You’re under the age of emergence.”

She dropped her eyes and shrank down into her seat. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And your parents are listed as dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does your guardian know that you’re out?”

“Yes, sir, I have permission.”

“It doesn’t say so on your file.” There was a short, accusatory silence. The rest of the carriage had gone silent. Glancing around, Rugal saw that nobody was looking their way. People were staring at the floor, at their padds, out the window. “You know that it’s an offense for an unparented minor to travel without the permission of its guardian or sponsor, don’t you?”

Penelya nodded. She had gone very white. “What’s going on?” Rugal said. “We’re taking a shuttle home, what’s wrong with that—”

“Unfortunately, your companion shouldn’t be on this shuttle if her guardian hasn’t given her permission.”

“My uncle has to confirm every month that I’m allowed to travel unaccompanied,” Penelya whispered. “Sometimes he forgets, he’s so busy—”

“You’ll have to come with us,” the senior officer said. Rugal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Check my file again,” he said angrily. “Take a proper look at my father’s name.” There was a pause while the officers did so. And then, smoothly, as if the whole prior exchange hadn’t happened, the senior of the two said, “Apologies for disturbing you, sir. Enjoy the rest of your journey.” Then they both moved on.

The rest of the carriage relaxed. Penelya turned away from him to the window, and she shook him off when he tried to put his arm back around her. They didn’t speak when they reached their stop, nor as they walked along the curved avenue that led up toward the Khevet house. They stood outside awkwardly for a while and then Penelya said, politely, “Thank you for your help on the shuttle.”

Rugal took her hand, but it was limp and unresponsive. He almost screamed. It was as if acid had been poured on their friendship. “I’m sorry,” he said, stroking his thumb along her finger. “I didn’t understand. I promise I’ll never do that again.”

She nodded. Cautiously, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “It was a lovely day,” he said. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m such an idiot.” He felt her fingers curl round his hand and he sighed in relief.

“You’re not so bad,” she said softly. “You mean well.” She let go of his hand and walked over to the gates. Before going inside, she said, “Go and make friends with Kotan.”

“All right! I will! For you. But I’m still going home!”

She gave him a smile that sparkled with life and laughter. His heart soared. That was the real Penelya. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. Good night, Rugal. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

So when Kotan told him he was going away for a few days to visit friends at their house in Perok district, and invited Rugal to join them, Rugal kept his promise to Penelya and said he that would.

Kotan was delighted, which gave Rugal a pang of guilt. “I think you’ll find these people interesting,” he said, nodding when Rugal tilted his head in a silent question. These friends were, presumably, more dissidents.

The journey out to Perok took most of a day. Kotan worked steadily for the first leg while Rugal sat and looked out across flat arid country. This was Lorikal district, once farmland, now dusty from drought and overuse. In the late afternoon, the red sun boiling in a slate sky, the road began to rise, and they entered moorland, treeless and gray. Kotan put aside his work and, as if a switch had been flicked, he opened up, more than he had ever done before. It all poured out—his hopes, his ambitions, his belief that the Cardassian military had become too powerful and how it was the duty of the civilian political bodies urgently to address this imbalance. The people they were going to meet shared this belief, he said. They had worked tirelessly for years to reach positions of power—across all parts of government, within the judiciary, even in the military itself—in order to be able to bring about reform.

“But they are not only colleagues and fellow travelers,” Kotan said. “They are my friends. I’ve known Meya and Gerat Rejal”—it was their house that they were visiting—“since I was a young man. Gerat introduced me to your mother. I’m very glad that you were willing to come and meet them. Thank you.”

Rugal gave a curt nod and looked away. Of course, it was Penelya he should be grateful to, since it was only through her efforts that Rugal was here. Would Kotan still be glad if he knew it was the orphan girl he had to thank for his son’s being here?

The Rejals’ country house, spacious and comfortable, lay in a bowl formed by two gray hills. As the skimmer drew to a halt in front, a man and woman came out to greet them. They were accompanied by four huge jetblack hounds. The couple waited by the big front doors; the hounds, however, did not stand on ceremony. They leapt around the skimmer and yelped as if this was the most exciting thing ever to have happened in Perok. When Rugal got out, one of the hounds bounded up to him. He bent to stroke its dark wiry hair, and it shoved its head within his hands and looked up at him with unqualified love. It was beautiful.

Gerat Rejal watched on with amusement. “You didn’t say he liked hounds, Kotan.” Kotan, pained, replied, “I didn’t know.”

A short silence followed. Rugal briskly rubbed the fur behind the animal’s ears, thereby winning its neverending devotion and saving him from having to look at Kotan. Then Meya Rejal came over to him. “This beast’s called Leirt,” she said, patting its side, “after the hound in the Hebitian legend. Don’t give your heart to him, Rugal, he falls in love easily. But he loves the hunt, and he loves to be ridden. You’ll see tomorrow. In the meantime—please, come inside!”

Rugal was grateful for both the welcome and the tact. So was Kotan, by the look of him. He followed his hosts up into the house, Leirt padding alongside him, to meet, one by one, Kotan’s friends and fellow dissidents, all eager for a sight of the son who had come back from the dead. As well as the Rejals, there were three others present: a cheerful man called Erek Rhemet, who thumped his palm hard against Rugal’s; a more reserved individual named Ithas Bamarek; and an elderly man whom Kotan hurried to introduce to Rugal. As Kotan and the old man pressed palms, Kotan said, “Is Alon not here yet?”

“He’ll be with us in the morning. Natima Lang’s due to join us then too.”

Kotan turned to his son. “Rugal, I’m very honored to introduce you to my dear friend, and my mentor, Legate Tekeny Ghemor.”

Rugal held up his palm. Tekeny pressed his own palm against it and then, unusually, he curled his fingers round so that he was clasping Rugal’s hand within his own. The legate smiled, but his eyes were unspeakably sad. “So this is the lost child that came back from Bajor,” he said. “Welcome home, Rugal. Welcome home.”

After dinner, the party settled down in the sunroom to conversation and kanar, but Rugal went outside in search of quiet. He found it in a particularly elegant stone garden, where he sat down in the night’s dry heat to consider his impressions of the company. Leirt lay panting at his feet.

The company had gone out of their way to make him feel at home, and their delight on Kotan’s behalf had been genuine and unforced. There had been plenty of palm pressing and back slapping, and over dinner they had cheerfully slandered mutual and absent acquaintances from across the whole of Cardassia’s political and intellectual elite. Only Tekeny Ghemor had spoken as little as Rugal. Altogether, they reminded Rugal of Tret and Colat Khevet: personable and intelligent, well-meaning, taking evident pleasure in their wealth and status. On the whole, Rugal liked them, but he did not believe for a moment that they would do anything seriously to alter the nature of Cardassia. They were too invested in the status quo. Perhaps tomorrow, when the missing members of the party arrived, it would be different.

Rugal leaned down to rub the rough hair behind the hound’s ears. It gave him that heart-stopping look of pure love. “Beautiful beast,” he told it, and then he heard a quiet laugh behind him. He turned to see Tekeny Ghemor leaning on the garden gate, watching him and smiling. “You like hounds?” he said.

“Yes, although I’ve never owned one.”

“Perhaps your father could be persuaded,” Ghemor said. Rugal was certain that Kotan could, but he wouldn’t ask. “May I join you?”

Rugal shifted along the bench. “Please do.”

Ghemor sat down beside him and studied Rugal openly and curiously. “So. What do you think of our little group?”

“Do you want my honest answer?”

“By all means.”

“They’re hardly the Bajoran Resistance, are they?”

Ghemor laughed out loud. “Kotan said you were distressingly frank. Not a quality much valued on Cardassia, I’m afraid. Obfuscation is more the order of the day.”

“Perhaps that’s part of the problem.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” He gave Rugal a look that was sharp but not hostile. “Wait till Natima arrives. I suspect you’ll like her more.” He stretched out his legs. “Myself, I think all this scheming is a game for the young. The older I get, the more I crave the truth. Tell me, Rugal, are you glad to be back among your people?”

“My people are on Bajor, sir.” The honorific slipped out before he knew he was going to say it. Ghemor seemed to deserve it. “I intend to go back there one day.”

Ghemor showed no horror or dismay. “I understand. You were gone for a long time. My daughter has been gone for a long time. She has been on Bajor, like you. Stolen too, I’d say—although others claim she went of her own free will. I think they stole her mind before they stole her body. She went to Bajor, and she was lost.” His face darkened. “I wonder if she’s been there too long...” He collected himself and leaned forward, gently placing his hand against Rugal’s face. It was a grandfatherly gesture, kind. “I was sorry for Kotan when I heard you were gone. I’m glad you’ve returned, and not just for Kotan’s sake, although he deserves some happiness. But I’m glad for my own sake too. Because if you can return from the dead, Rugal, it’s not so hard to convince myself the same could happen one day with my dear Iliana. She might yet come back from Bajor. Come back from the dead.”

Rugal did not know what to say. Leirt, watching him, whined. Then Kotan arrived, having come to look for them. He was carrying a bottle of kanar and was keen to join them. Rugal sat and listened to the two men talk. He was not sure he had fully understood Ghemor’s story, but the old man’s tender grief had touched him.

“What happened to his daughter?” he asked Kotan later, after Tekeny had retired for the night. “Was she killed like—” He stopped himself. He had nearly said: like my mother.

Kotan sighed. “It’s a sad story. She was going to be married, but then the boy was killed on Bajor. The Obsidian Order stepped into the gap—they do that, find the hole in someone’s life and fill it. She went undercover on Bajor—they altered her memories and her appearance—and she hasn’t come back. Tekeny’s convinced she’s still there living under her false identity.” Kotan shook his head. “It’s difficult to believe that’s true. The conditioning would surely have broken down by now. But he keeps on hoping that one day she’ll come home.” He gave his son a wry look. “Stranger things have happened.”

Rugal lay awake for a long time that night, thinking about the girl, Iliana, and her father, Tekeny. He did not know what to wish for. Tekeny had been kind, and he was an old man wanting peace and resolution at the end of his life. But surely Iliana ought to stay where she thought she belonged? Perhaps she was married; perhaps she loved Bajor deeply and even now was working to bring about its regeneration. Who could win, in such a situation? There could only be victims.

Rugal turned and sighed. Leirt, lying at the foot of the bed, cracked open an eye to check that all was well. The more he saw of Cardassia, the more it seemed to Rugal that the Bajorans were not the only ones damaged by that foolish, futile policy. True, the Bajoran people had suffered more—that should never be forgotten. But Cardassians too had been harmed, and many of those had played no part in the decision to invade Bajor. Iliana Ghemor had been driven offworld by the death of her mate and the loss of the children they might have had. Tret Khevet too was a victim in a way, told lies that kept him narrow-minded and unthinking. And then there was himself, caught between two worlds, neither one thing nor the other, never at home.

The next day they went hunting and, for the first time, Rugal discovered something about Cardassia that surpassed Bajor. At home, he had loved watching the grace-hounds, admiring their lithe speed and beauty. But to ride with the hounds on the hunt, to be part of the pursuit rather than simply a spectator—it was better in every way. Leirt was magnificent: dark and powerful, tolerant of his rider’s inexperience, pleased with his readiness to take risks. Rugal fell off once and barely noticed the thump. His hound glanced back at him as if to say, Hurry up or you’ll miss the good bit, and he scrambled straight back on. Even the kill at the end thrilled him. He was still talking about it when the party gathered for drinks before dinner, and he could even forgive Kotan for being so pleased that the day had been such a success.

That night, too energized to be able to sleep, Rugal got up and explored the house. He found the library, a large basement room where the temperature was kept at a moderate level for the sake of the books. The collection was a lot more heavy-going than Kotan’s; the volumes had titles like: Between Liberty and Security; Retooling Political Discourse; Common Failures in Rhetorical Performance. Rugal was thinking of going back to bed when his eye fell on a series of books written by Natima Lang. Tekeny had said he would like her. Rugal ran his finger along the line of books, choosing the narrowest. Its title was: The Ending of “The Never-Ending Sacrifice.”

That would do. With any luck, it would tell him what happened and he would never have to wrestle with Corac’s deadly prose ever again. He took the book with him to one of the armchairs, palmed on the reading lamp, and read: “‘For Cardassia!’ So begins what many would call our greatest novel. In truth, it is our greatest lie.”

It was very late when Rugal finished reading, by which time his whole world had changed. Natima Lang saw what he saw when he looked at Cardassia. She too had diagnosed its sickness, but more than that, she had described a cure. Lang argued that for generations, Cardassians had taught themselves that they had to take from others in order to live. Cardassia devoured everything, but not only was it blind to these tendencies, it even glamorized them. This was the lie Lang saw at the heart of The Never-Ending Sacrifice: Cardassians told themselves that their history was one of glory, when in fact it was an uninterrupted pattern of murder and destruction, passed down the generations, and masquerading as a romantic ideal of duty to secure the survival of the state.

In the second half of the book, Lang set out her political program. The drive for expansion had taken on its own momentum, and that had to be stopped. She argued for military retrenchment, for power sharing across the whole of Cardassian society, for greater cooperation and openness with Cardassia’s neighbors. Cardassians had to learn to curb themselves if they wanted to survive. The book ended on a warning. Bajor was the symbol of the old order, the old way, and Cardassia had been utterly defeated there. If Cardassia could not control its appetites, but could now no longer so casually take from others, then it would eventually start to consume itself. That was the inevitable end of the never-ending sacrifice. Was that the future that Cardassians wanted? Was it the best they could imagine?

Lang’s was the first truthful voice Rugal had heard since coming here. She had reflected his thoughts back to him, almost as if she had access to them, and then she had taken them further than he had thought possible. He had never had such an experience with a book before; he had not known such a thing could happen. Rugal got up from the chair and wandered around the room, his body processing all that his mind had just encountered. What amazed him most was that Lang was—undeniably, absolutely—Cardassian. In no way could she be called Bajoran. For the first time since his arrival, Rugal felt that it really was possible for him to have sprung from the soil of this barren unpromising world. Were there others like Lang on Cardassia? Others who spoke this kind of language? Where could he find them? He checked the back of the book. She was professor of ethics at the Institute of State Policy. If he worked hard and got accepted into the institute, could he study with her?

Rugal halted by the doors of the library. Beyond, the hallway was dimly lit, and, with his head buzzing from all these new ideas, it took him a moment or two to realize that there were people standing out there, conferring in low tones. He frowned and listened. Kotan was there, and Tekeny Ghemor and Meya Rejal and a fourth—another man—whose voice he didn’t recognize. When somebody said the word “defection,” Rugal decided that eavesdropping on this conversation was definitely a bad idea. He took a step or two back from the door, started whistling, then pushed the doors open and went out into the hall.

It had given them all the warning they required. All four turned to look at him, guiltily, like conspirators caught plotting. Exactly like conspirators caught plotting, in fact. “Rugal!” Kotan said, in falsely jovial tones, glancing back at the newcomer. This was a tall man in a smart suit who looked like he had been having a truly terrible day. “Allow me to introduce my friend Alon Ghemor,” Kotan said. “The legate’s nephew. Alon—my son, Rugal.”

Alon Ghemor looked at Rugal with sudden interest. He was about Kotan’s age, Rugal thought, although he didn’t have Kotan’s permanent air of endurance, and that made him seem younger. He took a step forward, pressed his palm firmly against Rugal’s, all the while looking directly into his eyes. “Welcome home. I’m sure your father must be...” Rugal watched him struggle to find a socially acceptable way of saying, sorry that you didn’t do the decent thing and stay dead.

Kotan came to his aid. “His grandmother and I are delighted to have him home. Gul Dukat”—he gave Alon a meaningful look—“went to a great deal of trouble on Rugal’s account. I was most grateful.”

“Ah. Yes.” Alon gave a dry smile. “I see.”

“What are you doing up so late, Rugal?” Kotan said.

“I couldn’t sleep. I came looking for something to read.” Rugal looked round at them all. “Who’s defected?”

Four dissidents jumped, as if they’d been electrocuted. Meya looked sick; Alon livid. “Rugal,” Kotan said faintly, “you shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations—”

“That’s what my mother taught me. But everyone around here does it.”

Tekeny Ghemor laughed out loud. His nephew, however, was squaring off. “Natima Lang. Heard of her?”

Rugal raised his chin defiantly. “Yes, of course. She’s professor of ethics at the Institute of State Policy.”

“Alon,” Kotan said unhappily, “don’t say any more to him, please. I don’t want him put in danger...”

Tekeny said, gently, “Kotan, dear boy, if Rugal is going to go around listening at doors, he has to take responsibility for what he hears.” He winked at Rugal. “Besides, I think he’s well able to handle the consequences. Go on Alon, tell him what’s happened.”

Alon gave his uncle a fond smile that did more to impress Rugal than anything else he had done so far. “Two of her students have been producing a radical broadsheet and handing it out around the campus. The Order’s overlooked it so far, but the last one the students printed they handed out in the shuttle and down in Torr market. Preaching to the student body is one thing, but trying to stir up the service grades is something else. The Order put out warrants for their arrest yesterday afternoon, capital time. And Lang’s run. She’s taken the pair of them and fled Prime. They’ve sent a warship after her, and they’re serious about getting her back.” He stopped, and put his hand to his forehead. “Meya, for pity’s sake, do you have any kanar in this house? I’ve spent the day persuading my superiors not to send armed units onto the campus to drag off anything that speaks. My mouth’s drier than a Lorikal homestead.”

Meya went over to the comm and woke the staff. At her direction, the five of them trooped into the library, gathering in armchairs around a low table. With the dim lights and the basement walls, it had a faintly bunkerish feel. After a few metrics, a disheveled-looking servant brought kanar and cold feyt with flatbread, which Alon attacked like a famine victim. When the servant had gone, Tekeny said in a troubled voice, “Do you think this could trigger another round of crackdowns, Alon?”

“No idea. They won’t march into the campus, not now, but there’ll certainly be a purge of the teaching staff. I don’t expect most departments to reopen till after the shortest day. As for Lang herself, it depends on whether they catch up with her. If they do, she’s dead. If they don’t...” He shrugged.

“They’ll want to punish somebody for this,” Kotan said. They all looked at each other anxiously. Alon patted his friend’s shoulder.

“Don’t despair yet! I’ve been spinning it that she was a maverick and out of control. If we keep our heads down and don’t do anything stupid, this one too should pass.”

Rugal didn’t think that Kotan looked much comforted. But Tekeny had the final word. “I know we all feel angry with Natima tonight, for endangering us this way. But I cannot find it in my heart to blame her. These two young people, her students—she could have sacrificed them to secure her position, to secure our position. But what would our movement be then? If we killed our young to keep ourselves safe?” Kotan reached out to take Rugal’s hand; Tekeny smiled. “We would be no better than that which we seek to replace.”

The party broke up early the following morning. Rugal said good-bye to Leirt, and he and Kotan began the long journey back to the city. After Kotan had finished his usual ritual sweep for listening devices, he said, “What did you think of Alon Ghemor?”

Rugal gave him a curious look. “Why are you interested in my opinion?”

“Why? Because I think you’re a good judge of character. Because you don’t have any reason to lie to me—other than cruelty, and every day I watch you monitor yourself for that. But chiefly because I haven’t yet noticed you holding back when you had something to say that was both unpalatable and true.”

Rugal felt faintly embarrassed. But there was definitely a smile on Kotan’s lips. “I don’t know... I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I mean, I know that was a bunch of politicians”—he returned the half smile, which Kotan graciously acknowledged with a tip of the head—“but he did seem unusually... um, smooth.”

“Did you pick up what his official role is?”

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure. He seemed to be talking as if he knew what was going on in...” Rugal lowered his voice to a whisper. “Well, in the Order.”

“Well done. Broadly speaking, he’s the point of liaison between the Detapa Council and the Obsidian Order. Crueler people than I call him the Order’s messenger boy. They also seriously doubt his loyalty to us.”

“So who is he loyal to, Kotan—the Council or the Order?”

“Sometimes I worry that Alon himself is no longer sure. It can’t be easy, shifting between two such distinct groups, one powerful but paranoid, the other open but toothless. He seems to keep the relevant egos well stroked, and he does manage to run a duplicate set of expenses, for which one can only feel admiration. But if it came to the crunch... ?” Kotan frowned. “Alon has the heart of a reformer and the head of a pragmatist. He longs to see his uncle leading a truly powerful Detapa Council, and he gets impatient at the delay. But if the Council fell tomorrow, I have no doubt that Alon Ghemor would be transformed into the Order’s most loyal operative. And I’m terrified of what that would do to him. He is my very good friend, and I worry how he struggles to balance his beliefs and the demands of his job. I hope one day he strikes that balance, and becomes the better man that I know he is.” He gave Rugal a dry smile. “I hope for that in much the same way that I hope for a new Cardassia.”

“You never know,” Rugal said. “The Obsidian Order might fall first.”

“Cardassia without the Order?” Kotan looked positively alarmed by the idea, never mind the risks inherent in saying it out loud. “One hardly dares imagine. Unlikely, I’d say, but either way, I guarantee you—Alon Ghemor is one of Cardassia’s great survivors. He’ll rise to the top one day. Wait and see.”

As the skimmer drew into Coranum, Rugal realized that in his pocket he still had Natima Lang’s little green book. He must have put it there after finishing it, and then forgotten about it in the aftermath of the news of her defection. In his bedroom, he looked around for somewhere to hide it, eventually settling on the picture of Arys that stood upon his bedside table. As he forced off the frame, he thought about how he had wanted to study with Lang. Perhaps it was better that he couldn’t. He had been glad to discover more that was good about Cardassia—Leirt, the hunt, Tekeny Ghemor, Natima Lang—but he didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to go home. Carefully, he replaced the frame and examined his handiwork. Not a bad job. He put the picture back on the table and then, on an impulse, kissed his tip of his finger and touched it against his mother’s face.

It was fortunate he had brought the book back with him. Back at the house in Perok, Meya and Gerat Rejal had already purged their library of Lang’s collected works. Rugal would never see another book by her on Cardassia Prime.

• • •

Natima Lang escaped via Deep Space 9. Since neither the Central Command nor the Obsidian Order could quite pin the blame on the other, the civilian administration was the natural target for their ire. Department budgets were cut, policy papers were sent back repeatedly for review, surveillance and identity checks on members of the Assembly were more and more obtrusive. Kotan became despondent. “Trying times,” he said repeatedly. “These are trying times.” He spent many hours locked away in his study and did not invite Rugal to join him.

Rugal understood that Kotan had his safety in mind, but he was sorry about this new distance when they had only recently found some common ground. At least it meant he had more time available to spend with Penelya, although both were very conscious of being monitored. Their conversations became almost superficial as a result, and she would not let him hold her hand. A strange way to live, Rugal thought, assuming that a single unwise word might lead to arrest, always editing your thoughts before vocalizing them, trying to guess if your friend was daring to communicate something and what it might be. It was lonely and artificial, and yet most Cardassians lived their whole lives like this.

It was not a happy period. He fell further behind at the academy, and his tutors gave up. He read and reread Lang’s little book. Looking for more of her writing, he went to the Central Archives, but there was nothing on the open shelves, and he doubted it was a good idea to request anything by her. So he kept rereading all that he had. Soon he knew it intimately, and Corac’s book through Lang.

Some months after Lang’s defection, Proka Migdal got in touch. It was almost a year since they had last spoken. Rugal was amazed that Kotan allowed the communication to take place, but he didn’t offer to pass up the opportunity. “You can’t talk for long,” Kotan said as he led Rugal into his study. “And please be careful what you say.”

Rugal nodded his understanding. The picture was bad, but he smiled at the sight of his father on the view-screen. “Dad! How are you? How’s Mother?” The sound was bad too; he could hear his own voice echoing at the other end. “Dad?”

Was it static, or did Migdal look old? “Make sure you thank Minister Pa’Dar for putting this message through, won’t you?”

“Of course I will! Are you all right? Where’s Mother?”

Migdal had already started speaking over him, so it took Rugal a moment or two to catch up and work out that he was being told that Etra was dead. “It wasn’t painful,” Migdal was saying. “She just... went.” He looked dazed.

Rugal had known in an abstract way that parents did not live forever. He knew too that Etra and Migdal were elderly and had lived a large part of their lives in poverty. None of this could stop him feeling as if his heart had been torn from him. More than ever, he longed to be back home. What was Migdal going to do without Etra? He would be lost without her.

“I’m still trying to get you back,” Migdal said. “Got a meeting with someone after the election—they’re all busy picking a new kai.”

“When was it, Dad?”

“Four and a half weeks now. I couldn’t find you!”

The tears nearly came at that, but Rugal didn’t want Migdal to see him that way, not if the channel was going to disappear at any moment and leave him with that image for Prophets only knew how long. “Once the election’s out of the way,” Migdal said, “I’ll go and see this woman—she’s an aide to one of the Ministers; Etra got her name and fixed it all up—maybe she can help... Are you all right? Are they treating you all right?”

I’m scared and I’m lonely and they want us dead. “They’re treating me really well. I went hunting a few months ago, you would have loved it!”

“That sounds great! It’s like you’re on one long holiday! You keep on enjoying yourself, now, don’t worry about me—”

Gently, Kotan touched him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to end this now.”

“Dad, I’ve got to go! Go and see that aide soon as you can!”

“I will, I promise, I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad!”

The screen went black. Rugal stayed in the chair, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Rugal,” Kotan said, “I’m so sorry—”

“I should be there. He looks so old. He can’t possibly manage by himself, and I’m stuck here.” Rugal slammed his hand down hard on the desk. He turned to face Kotan. “I’ve got to go back—you could arrange for that if you wanted to. I know you could, you’re a powerful man—”

“Rugal.” Kotan stretched out his arms, hands open. “What do you think I could do? I can’t leave the city right now, never mind Prime, and certainly not to go to Bajor!”

“We could go to Deep Space 9. You came to Deep Space 9 last time!”

“Before Natima Lang decided to make us all so conspicuous.” Kotan shook his head. “It’s out of the question. We’d be arrested before we got out of the city—before we even got out of Coranum, most likely.”

“I have to speak to him again—”

“I’m doing my best to make sure that you can. But you saw how difficult that was—it took weeks to arrange even those few minutes.”

“But he’ll be lost without her!”

Kotan put his hand upon his son’s shoulder. “I understand. Truly.”

And Rugal knew that he did understand—he had lost his wife too. Rugal’s other mother. A young laughing woman in a painting who was only the ghost of a memory to him; nothing like Etra, who had loved him and cared for him, and who had been there.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” Kotan said. “I’ll do my best to make sure you can speak to him soon. I give you my word.”

It had to be enough, Rugal knew that. But his mother was dead. He went and found Penelya, who understood. And he trusted to Kotan to make good.

Nine days later, Legate Tekeny Ghemor fled the Cardassian Union.

Kotan was brought back from the science ministry early that day, flanked by two gils who remained stationed outside the front door. Alon Ghemor—speaking entirely in the voice of the Order at the moment—had advised him that a short absence from the political heart of Prime would stand him in good stead.

The first thing Kotan did once he was home was dismiss the two maids and the gardener—for their own safety. Then he explained the state of affairs to his mother and son. It was not house arrest as such, Kotan told them, but a voluntary self-exception from political life. No, he did not know how for how long. Yes, Tekeny’s departure was a blow, but one had to remain positive. Absolutely, he was sure that soon he would be able to return to political life. No, he didn’t know when exactly.

Kotan told Rugal he would have to keep him away from the academy. It was a courtesy to the other families whose sons were studying there. They would now be anxious to put distance between their children and his, and they would remember his tact and reward it, should his political star ever rise again. Kotan wasn’t surprised that his son didn’t seem to care. Rugal’s attainment scores had plunged in the past few months. It was understandable; there was no purpose in the academy for him now. The Obsidian Order had carried out a thorough review of the political institute, and the ethics department, which Lang had headed, had been subject to a thorough regularization of ideas. Whatever Rugal might once have learned there, it had all been rooted out.

A few days after Ghemor’s flight, Rugal came to see Kotan in his study. Kotan had been standing, staring out the window; he wasn’t used to having so much time on his hands. “I’m sorry about all this compulsory holiday, Rugal. It must be tedious.” Kotan was worried, too, that his son had nothing to distract him from thinking about the death of his Bajoran mother.

Rugal shrugged. “I’ve found things to do.”

“You don’t have to stay inside. Go and see Penelya.”

“I’m worried it might put her in bad standing with her uncle.”

“Yes, of course, she can hardly afford that in her position, can she? That’s very considerate of you. Well, what can I do for you?”

Rugal took an urgent step toward him. “It’s my father. You said you’d make sure I could speak to him—”

Kotan shook his head. “It’s out of the question.”

“I know things have changed since we talked about it, but I’m worried about him—”

“Rugal—”

“They were married for nearly fifty years! He’s never been without her before—”

“Rugal.” Kotan spoke so severely that it stopped the boy in full flight. Perhaps he should have tried this sooner. Perhaps he should have forced him to settle down. Would it have worked? “It isn’t going to happen. All my communications are being monitored. Any attempt to speak to Bajor would lead to my arrest and, in all likelihood, my execution. Your own record would be indelibly marked. I doubt you’d be able to enter any higher institute as a result.”

“I don’t care about that! I’m not staying! How often do I have to say it?”

Kotan arched one eye ridge. “I note with some disappointment that the possibility of my death does not move you to reconsider. Since nobody else will look out for me, I’ll do it myself. I will not risk arrest in order to let you contact Bajor. Consider me selfish if you want.”

“But you promised!”

“And I’m going to have to break that promise. With deep regret.”

All the grief of the last few weeks burst through, like a storm after drought. It was dreadful to watch, Kotan thought, and even worse to be the cause. “You should never have brought me back here!” Rugal cried. “You say you did it because you love me, and yet this is what you’ve brought me back to? If they want you dead, they’ll want me dead—I’m your son! Why did you bring me back? I was safe on Bajor. I was happy. I was loved there too.”

There was a silence. “Did you know,” Kotan said in a wholly different voice, “that that’s the first time you’ve called yourself my son?”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Rugal said bitterly. “It’s brought me nothing but misery. If I could rip everything Cardassian out of me, I’d do it. I’d do what Tekeny Ghemor’s daughter did. I’d change my face and wipe my mind and go back to Bajor and never come back.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Kotan said. He could still hear himself speaking in that strange tone of voice, distant and wondering. “Your being my son has brought me nothing but joy. Even now, when you’re standing there hating me, all I can think is: I’m glad he’s here to hate me, because it means he’s still alive. It means he didn’t die.” He smiled. “Oh, I’m sure that if I tried I could find a way to communicate with Bajor for you. But I won’t do it, because I want you to stay alive. I’m sorry if that makes you hate me even more. But I’m glad you’re here to love and hate as you choose.”

If this was victory, Rugal thought as he tore furiously from the room, it had a distinctly ashen flavor. He stormed down the hallway and up the stairs. He got as far as the four little portraits of Arys and then had to stop. His escape was blocked by Geleth. “Quarreled again?”

He glared at her.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She bared her teeth. “You don’t like us very much, do you?”

“Has it crossed your mind I might have some very good reasons not to like you?”

“Oh yes, that Occupation you’re always shouting about. It does bother you a great deal. It bothers me not one jot, except insofar as it has made my child unhappy. I have invested a great deal in my child. Kotan has done the same with you, although there’s something oddly altruistic in the way he talks about you.” She sniffed in displeasure. “Some people never learn, no matter how hard you try to teach them.”

“Did you have something particular to say?”

“In fact, I did. I know you think I’m monstrous, but I don’t like seeing Kotan distressed. He has a great deal on his mind at the moment, but so long as he doesn’t do anything preposterous”—she glared at him—“then he’ll weather this storm like all the rest. He’s bright and he’s worked very hard to get where he is. He’s sacrificed a great deal. That scientific business, he enjoyed that.”

She reached out to touch the picture nearest to her. Rugal felt oddly revolted at seeing her hand so close to a picture of Arys. “But that had to go. One can’t serve two masters, and family prospects count for more than personal ambition. And that girl, that mother of yours who for some reason hardly ever crosses your mind—one does wonder what’s being repressed there—he was fond of her too. Another mistake—one shouldn’t get so attached to individuals. Lost her too, doing his duty. Yes, Kotan’s been a good son, all told. He’s done a great deal for the family. He’s done a great deal for Cardassia too—that inoculation program, and the science academies, and he’s helped keep the guls in check. Real service. Not that you’ve bothered to find out anything about it. What have you ever done, Rugal, to allow you to judge him so harshly? What have you achieved?”

She took a step forward. She was only slightly stooped with age, and nearly as tall as he was. “Drifting about. Trouble at school. Friends with the most unsuitable people. You’ve made a poor impression. Your father has done some fine things, and with luck, he’ll do many more. What have you done? Wandered about, complained, argued, caused my son even more grief. Is this what those Bajorans taught you? To think only of yourself?” She smiled at him. “I always had a very low opinion of Bajorans. You confirm my prejudices almost every day.”

In that moment, Rugal hated Geleth more than he had ever known it was possible to hate another living being. “Get out of my way,” he whispered.

She smiled and didn’t move. He thought, madly, about pushing past her, but he was not so far gone that he would assault an old woman. As soon as she was ready, she sidestepped neatly out of his way. He thundered past her down the corridor to his room.

“You’re not a credit to them, you know,” she called after him. “And I’m not in the least surprised.”

He fell on his bed in a hot haze of anger and tears. He knew it would hurt considerably less if it hadn’t in part been true.

Later that day, he slipped out of the house to find Penelya. He still worried that it was not entirely safe for her to be seen with him, but he needed to speak to someone who was not part of this particular madness.

She was there on their usual bench with her legs tucked up under her. Unusually for her, she was not dutifully absorbed in her padd. That was hanging from one hand, unread; instead, she sat chewing a knuckle and frowning into the distance. Quietly, he called her name. She looked up, startled; then, seeing him, she jumped up from the bench and ran across to him. As they hugged each other, he realized how much he had missed her.

“I’ve been so worried about you. Is your father all right? Kotan, I mean.”

“He’s not dead, which I suppose counts for something.” When she frowned at him, he said, “Sorry, Pen. He’s all right. We quarreled.”

“I’d never have guessed. He wouldn’t let you speak to Migdal, would he? You know he can’t, don’t you?”

Rugal gave a deep, unhappy sigh. “I know. I fought with Geleth too.”

“I take that as read. You and Geleth are in a state of permanent hostilities. With Kotan, it’s more like... sporadic outbreaks of guerrilla war.”

“Cardassia, where only the military metaphors work. Sometimes I think you’re as mad as they are.”

“Oh, I’m sure I am! What was Geleth’s complaint this time?”

“She thinks I’ve done nothing with my life.”

“You haven’t been here all that long. But maybe she has a point—no, don’t look like that, I only say these things because I know you’re not happy and because we are friends. But don’t you want to find a place? Find out what it is you’re meant to do?”

“I already have a place—”

“I know, back on Bajor. I’m not trying to say that you don’t. But what if takes you fifteen, twenty, even thirty years to get back there?”

“Kosst, Pen, I’m not staying here that long!”

“But what if you do? What if they seal the borders and you can’t get out?”

“I’ll find a way somehow.”

“There’s a lot of empty space between here and Bajor. You could be trying to find a way back for a long time. Are you going to spend all that time doing nothing better than wishing you were somewhere else? Is that good enough for you? Is there nothing worthwhile that you could do on Cardassia? Nothing you want to do?”

He gave her a sharp look. “Are you doing what you want to do?”

She patted the padd. “I don’t mind what I do. Once I’m good at it, it will help feed people. It’ll make people’s lives better.”

“It’ll make your uncle richer.”

“There are worse compromises in life, Proka Rugal, and I hope you never find yourself having to make them.”

“Why make them at all?”

“You know why,” she said patiently. “Because I owe them.”

“What do you owe them? Why should you feel obligated to them? It isn’t your fault you were orphaned. I was an orphan too, as far as Etra and Migdal knew, and they never made me feel I owed them anything. I gave them my love because they gave me theirs. That’s all there was to it.”

“I don’t want to quarrel with you. But being like this doesn’t make you happy—”

“And all your obedience and gratitude makes you happy?”

“It’s enough. I know how much worse life could be.”

“So do I! I grew up under the Occupation. And people there weren’t content to be obedient and grateful. They said that it wasn’t good enough, that they wouldn’t put up with it. That’s the problem with Cardassia. Too many people think that this”—he swept his hand around, taking in Coranum and the city and the whole union beyond—“is good enough. But it isn’t. You aren’t allowed to speak, you aren’t allowed to think, and your reformers are part of the problem! They’re just one more elite trying to grab power. That’s not making things better! That wasn’t good enough for the Resistance. People said they could never win, but they did. They threw the Cardassians off Bajor and they brought down the caste system while they were at it. But that won’t happen on Cardassia, because nobody will speak up and say that the whole thing is rotten, right through to its heart. Everybody just keeps on playing the game. It’s gutless. Everyone props it up. Everyone is part of the problem. Well, I won’t be. I won’t roll over and say that it’s good enough. Because I’m Bajoran, and a thousand years on Cardassia couldn’t change that.”

He stopped, breathless and angry, but glad that he had said it all out loud. That was another thing wrong about this place. If you could not say what you were thinking, how could you ever work out whether it was right or wrong? How could you ever work out how to make your ideas better? But Cardassia did not seem to want better ideas. It only wanted the same ideas, over and over again, even if they were useless or stupid or wrong.

Penelya was trembling. He took her hand. “Pen? Are you all right?”

She squeezed his hand so hard that he couldn’t tell whether or not she had meant to hurt him. “No,” she burst out, “I’m frightened! I don’t know how you can say all these things out loud. I don’t even dare think them!”

“More people should say these things out loud. If more people said them, all at once, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

“They would know!”

“Let’s see then, shall we? Let’s see what they do to me—”

“It won’t be you, though, will it? It will be Kotan they come for, or me. Perhaps they’ll tell my uncle he should think again about looking after me—”

“Then you’d come to me and we’d look after each other. We don’t need them, Pen! Not really! They want us to think we do, but in fact we can do without them. We can do and be whatever we want.”

She was still shaking. Carefully, he wrapped his arm around her and then, very gently, he kissed her on the top of her head. Don’t fall in love with her, Kotan had said. As if there was anything he could do about that. If they could not tell him to whom he should direct his loyalty, they certainly could not tell him on whom he should lavish his love.

Four

Rugal made several decisions as a result of this conversation. The first, perhaps the most significant, he did not discuss with anyone, but it was the cornerstone of everything he did afterwards. He decided not to be afraid anymore. The Cardassian madness—the falsehoods, the paranoia—had started to eat into him like acid. That had to stop. His second decision was not to return to his academy, whether Kotan’s exception ended or not. He was no longer willing to waste his time listening to Cardassian orthodoxy. There had to be something better, even here. All he had to do was go and find it.

Winter came, cutting deeper than Rugal had anticipated. Geleth told him that this one was comparatively mild. He spent his days in the sunroom, a small glass-roofed, solar-paneled chamber on the side of the house, built to trap heat. Kotan often came to sit with him. This particular afternoon, the new maid—an Obsidian Order plant if ever there was—was setting out tea. The teacups were an heirloom, coming to Arys from her great-grandmother. They were carved from the bones of a leyik, a huge furred land animal long since hunted to extinction so that the people of Coranum could enjoy their redleaf tea in style.

Kotan dismissed the maid, waiting until she had gone back up the steps into the main part of the house before speaking. “You do understand,” he said, passing Rugal his cup, “that leaving the academy means you’ll never get into the institute? And that without the institute, there’ll be no political career?”

“I know,” Rugal replied. The teapot drooped in Kotan’s hands, and he looked so sad that Rugal could not help but regret that he was dealing a death blow to the man’s hopes. But they had been foolish hopes; they had had no basis in reality. “I’m sorry. But it was never going to happen. They got to me far too late. I’ve seen too much of how things are, beyond Cardassia. I can’t believe them because I know what they say simply isn’t true.”

“I thought, perhaps, that when you saw some of the work we were doing, my friends and I...” Kotan held up his hands in defeat. “Well, that’s the end of it.”

“It’s not as if I don’t care.” Rugal clutched the handle of the cup and tried to put into words what he had been thinking. “It’s not as if I think the kind of change you want for Cardassia is wrong. But it’s not enough—”

“We have to start somewhere. Already the Council has substantially checked the power of Central Command—we forced a treaty with the Federation, another with Bajor. If you had been here twenty years ago, you’d understand. These are tremendous shifts in policy—in power. We’ll look back one day and see that this was the moment Cardassia began its transformation. But change takes time—unless you want to see people die for it.”

“Power? But what you’re doing is taking power for yourself, for your friends. Yes, you seem like good people, but swapping one elite for another isn’t change! That won’t last! It will all fall into the old pattern: you’ll disagree, turn on each other, fight, and someone will try to get ahead of everyone else. It won’t make a difference to Cardassia as a whole—”

“So what do you suggest we do instead?”

Rugal took a gulp of the smoky tea for courage. “You could start by holding some elections.”

Kotan pressed the fingers of one hand against his forehead, as if in pain. He glanced back the way the maid had just gone. “I do wish you wouldn’t say such things so loudly,” he muttered. “Rugal, what do you think would happen if we did? What do you think people would vote for? More power to the military, most likely. You have to educate people first—you can’t let them go out and vote for whatever they want! You don’t know what you’d end up with!”

“I think that’s the general idea.”

“And here is where you critically fail to understand Cardassia.” Kotan eyes were alight. Truly, he loved to debate these matters, whatever he said about his lost scientific career. “Perhaps that kind of profligacy would work on Bajor, but it cannot work on Cardassia. Don’t you understand how fine a line we walk here? How we barely scrape by with what we have? If Cardassia did not have its small elite deciding quickly what goes here, what goes there, it would collapse. There would be chaos. People would die—”

“People already die. Have you taken a walk along the river recently?”

Kotan gestured around his comfortable prison. “My horizons are sadly limited at the moment.”

Rugal bit his lip. “Sorry. But do you understand what I mean? You say that the only reason not to change the way things are done is because that’s the best way to look after the Cardassian people. But it doesn’t even do that. Although,” he held up his teacup to admire it, “I suppose the residents of Coranum don’t do badly out of the whole setup.”

“By all means try the alternative. I think you’d like it less.”

“I didn’t like the Occupation either, and I survived that. You can’t frighten me that way, Kotan.” The way Penelya was frightened, and thousands—millions—like her.

Kotan put down his cup and stared at his son anxiously. “You’re up to something, aren’t you? What is it?”

Rugal shook his head. “If I’ve learned anything here, it’s that your family and friends don’t need to know the detail.”

Kotan studied him for a while, one hand still at his forehead. Rugal drained his cup and put it back down on the table. “Any more in the pot?”

Kotan, still watching him, refilled both their cups. “As the head of the house, I could order you to tell me what you’re doing. Or forbid it outright.” Rugal snorted. “No, I didn’t think that would work.” Kotan breathed in the steam from his tea, and then sipped. “You know that it’s my duty to inform the Order that they should be watching you. I could probably have my exception lifted if I did.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course I wouldn’t do that. But it might be nice,” Kotan said plaintively, “to at least maintain the fiction that I have authority in my own home.”

Rugal saluted him with his cup. “Think of us as a model for a new Cardassia.”

“Hm. Try not to get us all killed.”

Rugal ran his finger along the fine bone handle of the cup. “Someone else will probably get there first.”

Rugal was indeed up to something. He didn’t believe Kotan would mind, but secrets were safer given the man’s current position. Rugal had listened whenever Penelya had talked about the other side of Cardassian life, and he had kept his eyes open during all their trips, whenever they had gone down the river, or taken the shuttle through Torr. Rugal and his family had lived hand-to-mouth on Bajor; he knew what poverty was like, and he had hardly been brought up to filter it out. During the day, Rugal clung to the sunroom. At night, he was down at the river.

The first time, he had gone down there by himself. He had slipped into the kitchen when Maleta’s back was turned and filled a bag with as much as he thought would go unmissed. He took a knife too, in case of emergencies. Then he went down to the shantytown beneath the Veterans’ Bridge and handed out all the food he had. It disappeared in no time. He had not used the knife. Not yet.

He spotted Erani and her friends roughly the same time that they spotted him. They had a much slicker operation: a big table with two large pots on it, from which they were ladling out soup or stew into cups. Rugal opened his hands to show the last few children tugging at his sleeves that he really didn’t have anything left and walked over to the table. This was what he had been counting on: that he would find like-minded people here already.

There were three of them—two females, one male. Rugal lifted his palm in greeting. “Anything I can do to help?”

They stared at him mistrustfully. Then one of the females—this was Erani, as he found out shortly afterwards—told him, “Help Arric collect the used cups. We can’t afford to give them away.”

Arric Maret was the male. He was about Rugal’s age, perhaps slightly older. As they went around collecting the cups, he explained more about what they did.

The three of them were here almost every night during the winter, he told Rugal. As the food stalls in the central market packed up for the day, they went around and scrounged any leftovers. They took these back to the kitchen of Erani’s apartment near the technical school in west Torr, and cooked up whatever they had in the two large pots. Then they hit the road. They had a large and ancient skimmer that Erani’s mate, Tekis, had liberated from a scrapheap and lovingly coaxed back to life. It rewarded her with intermittent reliability. Paying for the permit to keep this wreck on the road was their biggest expenditure, but Tekis loved her skimmer. Erani called it the deathtrap.

“I wonder what our masters think would happen if we were allowed to travel around by ourselves,” Arric said, as they piled the cups into the back of the skimmer. “What I think is that everyone would go to Ostek for the day, come home, and never bother going there again.” He laughed. He was sensible and good-humored. Rugal liked him.

Erani had started the whole thing, Arric said. She had been homeless for a short while as a girl after her father had thrown her out. She was now a student of social policy at the technical school. Arric had met her and Tekis at a study group; Erani had been arguing with the tutor about the causes of poverty, and Arric had been impressed. She spoke from experience rather than prejudice. He caught up with her after the session and asked if she knew if he could help in some way. His father had been an orphan. Erani had looked him up and down and then said, “We’ll pick you up under the campus clock at twelfth bell. Wear something warm.”

“That was last winter,” Arric told Rugal. “I haven’t been back to the study group since. I’m too busy in the evenings.”

Tekis, who had been listening to this, added, “Sometimes, Rugal, people come along and it turns out that what they really want to hand out is lectures. You know—tell people they should work harder or else do their civic duty and go into a work center.” She looked Rugal up and down appraisingly. “We don’t bother picking them up again.”

Rugal took the hint. Not that it was necessary: he wasn’t here to preach, although he wasn’t surprised to find out that some people were. He knew from listening to Geleth that many Cardassians had strange ideas about the poor. They thought it was a fault of the character, rather than bad luck or circumstance, and they wouldn’t give as a result. On Bajor, the Occupation had made everyone poor. It wasn’t possible to hold anything back. If somebody didn’t liberate it, as Tekis put it, then you’d be shamed into sharing. But no one on Bajor was ashamed to be poor. The Cardassians had made everyone poor. So you spread around what you had.

Not on Cardassia. Here, you relied on the charity of your family, like Penelya, or you could voluntarily enter a work center or, if you appeared in front of an archon for vagrancy too often, you would be assigned to a work center. If you had run away from violence or abuse, relying on family was not an appealing option. If you had been orphaned, it was not always an option at all. As for the work centers, Rugal had been on Cardassia long enough to spot a euphemism when he saw one. But received wisdom was that if you were idle enough to hang around the streets, you could stay there until you were willing to work, or until somebody made you work. In the meantime, you were free to rely on the foolishness of people like Erani, Tekis, and Arric to get a hot meal during the winter.

By the time of his conversation with Kotan, Rugal had been coming down to the river with Erani and the others most nights for nearly two months. What he saw there, in the heart of the Union’s capital city, hadn’t stopped shocking him, even though he had seen the effects of the Occupation. The children distressed him most—how young some of them were, how sick. Respiratory diseases, malnourishment, exposure—all of it a short skimmer ride but light-years away from Coranum and the five lucky children of Mikor Khevet.

The others had been friendly in a low-key way, nodding “hello” when they picked him up and “see you tomorrow” when they dropped him off. They asked no questions; he was free to offer information if he wanted, but he wasn’t pressed. He didn’t discuss his childhood or try to explain what he was doing here, and neither did anyone else. The desire to help was taken for granted: how could you not want to help, confronted with all of this? After about a month and a half, however, Rugal made a bad mistake.

They had been discussing, in general terms, the news that the Detapa Council had signed a treaty with Bajor. It had happened three weeks ago, apparently; although the state information services were only now releasing details. Rugal was cursing his bad luck: relations with Bajor were thawing at exactly the time he could not, on Kotan’s account, risk contacting his father. The three others discussed it in a lackluster fashion—Bajor was a long way from their problems—and then Arric asked Rugal what he thought. Bitterly, Rugal said, “I hope they’ve checked the small print. Legate Turrel will want the thing signed in blood.”

Nobody replied. In fact, they all went quiet, and they stayed that way on the journey back into the city. Rugal had to ask if they would collect him the following day. Erani gave a curt nod, and Tekis drove off at speed. They did pick him up, but all three had been markedly cooler ever since that conversation, even Arric.

Penelya laughed at him when he asked her what she thought the problem might be. “What do you think?” she replied. “You turn up out of the blue, you go out of your way to make yourself useful, and then you say something seditious. They think you’re from the Order, you idiot. Nobody in the whole Union is mad enough to say the kind of things you say. They think you’re trying to get them to incriminate themselves.”

He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. No wonder they were holding him at arm’s length. “But why haven’t they stopped taking me along?”

“Why bother? The Order would only send someone else along. It might as well be you as anyone else. At least they know you.”

Twisted Cardassian logic again—the open secrets that nobody voiced. Life would be so much easier if they all simply talked to one another. It was almost as if Cardassians preferred life to be complicated. The best option, Rugal decided, was to be honest, and to hope his actions spoke as loudly for him as his words.

This particular evening, the pickings at the market had been poor. They ran out of food early, leaving a queue of thirty or so disappointed and fractious people to drift off hungry into the night. Arric, who was an orderly at Torr’s free hospital, had liberated some drugs that a girl had asked them to get for her baby. He and Tekis went off in search of her while Rugal and Erani packed up. A handful of people were hanging around, no doubt hoping that something else would materialize from the back of the skimmer. There was some unhappy murmuring as it became clear that nothing was forthcoming. When Erani went to speak to them, palms out to show there was nothing left, one of the group, a too-skinny and frantic-looking adolescent male, elbowed his way to the front. In the lamplight coming down from the bridge, Rugal saw the glitter of a knife.

Erani saw it too. She dived back to cover, but slipped, caught her ankle, and swore. Rugal shot forward. He grabbed the boy’s wrist and twisted it sharply. The boy dropped the knife, and Rugal kicked it in the direction of the river. There was a soft splash as it went in. Then Rugal twisted harder, until their would-be assailant was down on his knees. “Ow! All right! Let go!”

Rugal released his grip, and the boy fell onto his back. “Whatever we have, we give. Don’t try that again.” He looked at the rest of the group. “That goes for all of you.”

They were smaller than him, and hungrier, and they hadn’t expected him to move so quickly. They backed off and dispersed. Rugal went to check on Erani, leaning against the skimmer and rubbing her ankle. “Are you all right?”

Her eyes flashed at him in anger. “Who do you think you are? How dare you!”

“Erani—”

“If I need your help, I’ll ask for it,” she spat. “But I don’t. Next time, back off!”

When she had rubbed her ankle back into shape, they finished packing the skimmer, then got in and waited in hostile silence for Tekis and Arric to get back. After a moment or two, Erani said, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

What could he say? That eight years as the only Cardassian in a Bajoran school taught you something about self-defense? That the expensive preparatory academy he had recently left insisted on basic military training? He answered honestly but without elaboration. If she wanted to know more, she could ask. “Bajor.”

“Bajor?” Erani frowned. “You’re not everything you seem, are you, Rugal?”

“I’m not what you think I am.”

“No?” They got no further since at that point, Tekis and Arric returned. Arric joined Rugal in the back and Tekis got into the driver’s seat. Erani leaned over to give Tekis a kiss. “Guess what?” she said. “Rugal learned how to street fight on Bajor.”

“Bajor?” Tekis glanced back at him. “Bet you were busy out there.”

Wonderful. Now they seemed to think he had been some kind of operative during the Occupation. Rugal shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets and grasped the earring he always carried around with him. “You’d be amazed.”

The deathtrap lurched forward. Arric and Tekis fell into conversation, but Erani was quiet, and Rugal was conscious of her watching him all the way back into the city. Would she ever trust him? What could he do to persuade her that he had nothing to do with the Order?

Within a few short weeks, it was no longer a problem. Within a few short weeks, everything had changed. The unspeakable, the unthinkable happened. The Obsidian Order fell. And for one brief, terrifying, exhilarating moment, it looked as if it had taken the old Cardassia with it.

The Pa’Dar household received the news in memorable fashion. Very early one morning, there was a hammering at the front door. Rugal, woken by the noise, got his knife from his jacket pocket and hurried downstairs. Kotan was already down in the entrance hall, bundled up in a luxurious red robe and trying not to look afraid. He nodded to Rugal, who had taken up a position on the stairs, and opened the door.

In fell Alon Ghemor. When he saw Kotan he gave a cheerful salute and then pulled his friend into an embrace. “Get dressed! It’s starting!”

Kotan smoothly disentangled himself. “Alon, I believe you’re drunk.”

“Kotan, I believe you’re right.”

“Is it a good idea for you to be seen here?”

“Doesn’t matter! All over! Where are your shoes, man? Come on, it’s starting!”

“Alon,” Kotan said with commendable forbearance, “assume I have missed the briefing. What, exactly, is starting?”

Since nobody was going to be dragged off by thugs with warrants tonight, Rugal tucked his knife away and went down to join the two men in the hall. Ghemor explained with occasional lapses into outright glee what had been happening. Four days earlier, the former head of the Obsidian Order, Enabran Tain, had launched an attack on Dominion space. His target was the homeworld of its leaders, the Founders. He had missed. His fleet had been annihilated and Tain himself was missing, presumed dead.

Naturally, not a whisper of this had made its way onto the state news broadcasts. The Cardassian people had been blithely going about their daily business while, a quadrant away, one-third of their government had been spectacularly imploding. “I don’t believe it,” Kotan said. “Not until I see that old bastard swinging by the neck from the top of the Office of Public Order will I believe he’s dead—”

“If he’s not dead, the Dominion has him and that’s dead enough for our purposes. Kotan,” Ghemor lurched forward unsteadily, “the Order’s ruined! They’ve broken the terms of the founding settlement by building this fleet.” Of course, Rugal thought, the Order isn’t supposed to have military capability. “This is what the Council’s been waiting for!”

“Alon, have you gone mad? The military’s going to move into the space, most likely they’ll factionalize. Are you actually excited at the prospect of civil war?”

“Central Command doesn’t have the resources! They’re overstretched in the DMZ and it’s the police keeping order on Prime. The police—they’re the key. The city constabularies, whatever’s left of the Order’s lower ranks—if we can get them to take their orders from the Detapa Council, we’ll be running the show by the end of the week. But we’ve got to move tonight. The news about the Order’s already starting to leak out.” Ghemor tugged Kotan’s arm. “Put your clothes on, man! You’re coming with me!”

“I can’t leave the house, and you’re much too drunk to pull off a coup d’état. Get yourself into hiding, Alon, and don’t stick your head out over the parapet again until this has played itself out.”

“Kotan!” Ghemor grabbed him by the shoulders. “This is what we’ve been waiting for! This is what my uncle has been working toward his whole life! The moment when the Cardassian people take control of their own destiny!”

Or the moment when a small group of politicians took control of it on their behalf. Kotan, Rugal saw, was wavering. “I’d go if I were you,” Rugal said. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. Besides, if the guls do get organized before the Council does, they’re sure to send a squad over to eliminate you. Probably better not to be at home.”

Ghemor was glad of this unexpected ally. “Exactly that. Absolutely right. Very clever, that son of yours.”

Kotan hesitated for another moment or two. Then: “Stay indoors,” he told Rugal. “Seal the doors and the windows, put the security fields up. Don’t speak to anyone, including that girl of Khevet’s—I mean it, Rugal, for her own safety. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow night, I’m not coming back.” He held out his palm, and Rugal pressed his own against it. “If that happens,” Kotan said, “there’s money in the safe in my study. Try to get into the country...” He hesitated again. “Look after Geleth, please?”

“Kotan! Of course I will!”

“Tell her when she wakes up—” A rare smile curled across Kotan’s face. “Tell her I’ve gone to form a government.”

“She won’t be impressed.”

“She doesn’t have to be impressed. I’m keeping her informed purely out of courtesy.” Kotan curled his fingers around Rugal’s hand. “Good luck,” Rugal said, gripping back. “Try not to get us all killed.”

Kotan laughed and gave him a confident salute. Soon the two men were gone, heading down into the city in a great armored skimmer. Geleth received the news with surface indifference, but Rugal caught the steely glitter of satisfaction in her eyes.

It took four days, the removal of one legate and three guls, and profligate use of both blackmail and bribery to secure the Detapa Council’s transition to power. On the fifth day, after the news of Tain’s disastrous expedition began to leak out, the Detapa Council made their Declaration of the Transference and Assumption of Powers to the whole Union.

This was a carefully worded agreement between the Council, the commissioners of the various city constabularies across Prime, and the still-smoldering ruins of the Obsidian Order, brought to the table by Alon Ghemor. In it, the Detapa Council assumed all legislative and executive power, the constabularies were tasked with keeping the peace in urban centers, and the rump of the Order—hastily renamed the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau—took charge of security. The military was entirely stripped of executive power, although all members of the Central Command were invited, in polite language not entirely devoid of threat, to put their names to the Declaration. One by one, the guls fell into line.

The deal had been struck in time-honored fashion. Even now, several senior police commissioners were relocating their families to some lovely houses in Coranum and Paldar, which had lately become vacant. But the outcome was more than satisfactory. Nobody (except that one legate and his three attendant guls) was dead. Both the Central Command and the remnants of the Order had been brought into line. On the personal level, it had been a good few days for Kotan and his associates. Kotan had been appointed to the Detapa Council, and took back his post at the Ministry of Science. Erek Rhemet had been appointed to work with the chief archon at the Ministry of Justice, reviewing all cases brought by the previous regime (and bringing a few of his own). Ithas Bamarek became chief commissioner of the constabularies. Alon Ghemor was running the new Intelligence Bureau. The last member of the Five—the name given to Meya Rejal’s closest political allies—was Meya Rejal herself. She became the chief executor of the Detapa Council, and Cardassia’s new head of state.

Like many around him, Kotan assumed it was only a matter of time before Tekeny Ghemor was invited back to take over that job. Throughout his exile, Tekeny had sent regular transmissions to the Cardassian people, encouraging them to pursue their dream of freedom. The Obsidian Order had gone to great lengths in their attempts to suppress those messages. They had still gotten out (Kotan feared that his son, if asked, might have been able to lay his hands on them), and now they were becoming freely and widely available. Ghemor’s messages to the people now took on an expectant tone. He too clearly thought he would soon be home to attend his own coronation.

It quickly became apparent that Meya was in no hurry to summon him back. Tekeny, Kotan knew, was too cautious—never mind courteous—to force the issue by arriving in Cardassian space uninvited. Meya should simply get it done, Kotan though; be the first to shake hands with Tekeny when he set foot again on Cardassian soil, proving herself his loyal friend and most trusted ally. Surely that way everyone would win? As the days and then the weeks passed, Kotan became uneasy. He took a few soundings from colleagues, in that uniquely Cardassian way that allowed anyone who didn’t want to discuss the matter to ignore the subtext of his questions. Several other members of the Assembly shared his bafflement, but they were prepared to wait and see. Most of all, they did not want to risk the new positions to which Meya had appointed them. Kotan decided he too would wait and see, but when the graffiti started appearing, he knew this was turning into a serious problem.

Graffiti! In Cardassia City! There it was, in capital letters scarlet as mekla, plastered the length of the walkway in front of the Assembly Hall: BRING TEKENY HOME. It was touchingly blunt—Cardassians didn’t have much experience with freedom of expression—and it was a disaster waiting to happen. More and more graffiti began to accumulate along the walls and walkways of the city. And then there was an explosion of opinions, as if the Cardassian people had suddenly found their voice. Everyone was talking about what should happen. New broadsheets appeared almost every day, full of argument and opinion. Messages came from Natima Lang, calling for elections, and this was picked up at once. The message from the ground was clear: We want elections. We want Ghemor.

Meya Rejal’s response was to broadcast to the Union every night, capital time, making soothing noises about the need to maintain law and order and the integrity of Cardassia’s borders at this difficult time of transition. No mention of elections or Ghemor, as if she hoped that by talking in vague terms about threats to the Union, people would panic and forget about both. It didn’t work. The old propagandists had been able to lie as much as they liked and not worry about the consequences. Meya Rejal was discovering something her predecessors had never had to bother about: that public opinion was something to be reckoned with. The talking in the streets went on, the broadsheets multiplied in number, and every so often, a group of people made some banners and stood outside the Council Chamber or the Assembly Hall and chanted: “We want elections. We want Ghemor.” Occasionally, Kotan wondered whether Rugal was mixed up in any of this. He would have been appalled if he’d known to what extent.

The night of the Declaration, Rugal went to the usual collection point outside Torr Central Station and waited for the deathtrap. It didn’t turn up. As he made his way slowly back to Coranum, he thought that perhaps the events of the day had kept the others at home. When he wasn’t collected the following night either, he knew something was up. He couldn’t find an address for Erani or Tekis, but he tracked Arric down to a loft in west Torr. When Arric saw Rugal on his step, he tried to close the door in his face. Rugal shoved his shoulder in the way. “You don’t have to let me in! I just want to know what’s going on!”

“I’m not going to tell you anything. Not now!”

“Arric, I am not and I never was a member of the Order. I wanted to help, that was all. I still want to help. Can’t we talk?”

“Talk? You never talked! That was the problem! You turned up from nowhere and you never said a thing about yourself—”

“If it matters so much, I’ll talk now! My name’s Rugal Pa’Dar. I got left behind on Bajor and I was brought up by Bajorans. My father is Kotan Pa’Dar. He’s a member of the Detapa Council. I didn’t tell you that before because until last week he was under house arrest and I didn’t want to put you in danger. I don’t understand this place and I keep on making mistakes. But I only want to help! Everything’s changing and I want to help!”

From behind Arric, a female voice, tired and slightly irritated, said, “Oh, let him in, will you? He sounds almost as sincere as Erani and he’s going to wake the baby.”

Arric opened the door slowly and stepped back. Rugal went past him into a long, open-plan room with a kitchen at one end and some partitions at the other. Sitting on a couch by a small viewscreen in a bashed-up case was a young female. “I’m Serna,” she said. “Keep the noise down, will you? I’ve only just got Tela down.”

Arric gestured Rugal toward a chair, then sat down next to Serna. “All right,” he said. “Let’s hear the story again.”

Starting with the ill-fated journey to Deep Space 9, Rugal told them everything. No more secrets. He finished with what he had said on the doorstep. “I know you have something to do with the broadsheets and the transmissions from Lang and everything else that’s going on around here. I want to help.”

Arric glanced at Serna, who shrugged. He cleared his throat. “You said your father is on the Detapa Council. So why are you here? Why aren’t you up in Coranum learning the family trade?”

“I don’t want all that! Look, I have this friend—Penelya—and she gets stopped on the shuttle by police officers, all because her parents were killed by the Maquis. That’s not right! And all those people we’ve helped, Arric, all those people down by the river—it shouldn’t be like that. Cardassia has enough to go around, so long as everyone is willing to work hard and to share—and isn’t happy to hide away in Coranum pretending nothing is wrong. This is Cardassia’s chance—like Bajor had a chance with the Resistance—to become something better.” He opened out his palms; this was everything he had to give. “I just think it should be better.”

Arric and Serna exchanged a look. “All right,” Arric said. “If you really mean what you said, then come and do some leafleting round Torr tomorrow night. We’ll be meeting at the tenth bell in the small study hall at the technical school.” He sighed and shook his head. “Erani’s going to kill me.”

She didn’t, but she was furious to see Rugal again. Arric, however, stood his ground. “He wants to help. I don’t think we should stop him if he wants to help.”

“So he can take all our names back to his father’s friends?”

“They’ll have your names already,” Rugal said. “But they’ve probably got more important things to worry about right now than you.”

Erani glared at him. “You’re not winning me over.”

“I’m not trying to win you over. I’m trying to help with what you’re doing.”

She let him stay. Throughout the rest of the spring, he went down into Torr, helping put together their broadsheets, distributing them tirelessly around the blocks and tenements of Torr, quarreling over their contents in street-corner geleta houses and taverns. They got regular messages from Natima Lang—Rugal never quite worked out how these were getting through, and Erani wasn’t telling—and once there was even one from Tekeny Ghemor, wishing them well. They distributed these too, and they kept the message simple and clear. We want elections. We want Tekeny Ghemor.

Spring turned to summer. The temperature rose. People became angrier about the delay. Then someone put a flamethrower to a former Obsidian Order facility on the north edge of Torr, right where it adjoined the finance district. The next day, there were two constabulary officers for every ten people on the streets of Torr, and whenever they came across someone distributing broadsheets, they took the material away. That night, another former Order building went up in flames. The next day, the officers took away both the broadsheets and the people distributing them. On the third day, there was a sit-down in Torr Central Market to protest the arrests. The constables broke it up with hounds. After that, it was chaos. Within a week, there were parts of the western Torr sector where the constables didn’t dare go during the day. Other parts of the sector were more contested; there were running battles most nights.

Erani was so ecstatic she even spoke to Rugal unprompted. “This is what I wanted. Like your Resistance. This is what Cardassia needs. Not Declarations. Revolution.”

It was the end of Arric’s involvement. He had a mate and a small child, and he was getting afraid for them. Rugal went by the loft one day. “Get out of it,” Arric advised. “It’s going to explode soon. And when it does, and if you’re in the middle of it—don’t count on your father’s name to save you, Rugal.”

“The servants are getting restless,” Alon Ghemor remarked to Kotan one evening as they settled down in the private sauna of the Ghemor house. “And can we blame them?”

“I think there’s still time. If she’ll just back down a little...”

“Did you hear the news from Masad?” Alon said. “Students have been blocking the walkways in front of the office of the city’s archon. They’ve not administered any justice in three days. There’s a strike of transport workers in Lakarian City tomorrow, and I’m hearing rumors of a general strike...”

“She could ask Tekeny to return as a private citizen first. It will take the heat off her, buy her a little time...”

Alon sighed. “Someone has to speak to her.”

Kotan wiped at the sweat on his forehead. “I’ll go if you go.”

They made their appointment with Rejal for early the following morning. When they got to the sunroom by her private office, however, Kotan was surprised to see that she had convened a full meeting of the Five. Rhemet was there, Bamarek too—and also, standing at the head of the table behind Rejal’s chair, resplendent in full uniform, was Skrain Dukat. “Meya?” Alon said, puzzled. “I thought this was going to be a private meeting?”

“Unfortunately, events are running away with us.” She gestured to the two men to sit down. “I have information”—she glanced back briefly at Dukat—“that the city is facing a very real and serious threat. I’m only sorry I didn’t hear this from your people, Alon,” she added. “I know you’re loyal to your uncle, but I didn’t think you would put personal animosity above the security of the Cardassian state and the safety of its people.”

“What?” Alon gaped at her. “Meya, what are you talking about?”

She looked down at the padds on her desk rather than at him. “There is going to be a rally in the Torr sector this evening. Upward of twenty thousand people. It’s expected to be the signal for riots across twelve urban centers.”

“What are their demands?” Kotan said, although he thought he already knew.

“Elections. The immediate return of Tekeny Ghemor.” Meya looked at Alon as if he had wounded her physically. “Alon, I didn’t think you’d let me walk blindly into something like this.”

“I swear,” Alon said, “that this is the first that either I or the Bureau has heard of it.”

“Then you’re incompetent,” Dukat cut in. Meya raised her hand to stop him.

“Meya,” Kotan said. “You know what the way out of this is. Address the whole Union this morning, all channels, no exclusions. Say that you’re extending an invitation to Tekeny Ghemor to come home.” Dukat took a step forward. Kotan hurried on. “What purpose does their demonstration have then? You’ll have forestalled them—”

“They’re still calling for elections,” Dukat pointed out.

“So Meya will have responded to one of their demands, but not the substantive one. Meya,” Kotan spoke with soft urgency, “this could be your last chance. This morning—that’s all you’ve got. Get in touch with Tekeny’s people right now. Come up with a statement that saves face for both of you. Get him on the next transporter home. And when he arrives, be the first in line to shake his hand.”

Dukat intervened. “If you do that, you’re backing down to terrorists. They won’t stop here. Tomorrow there’ll be new demands. First, these elections, I should think. And then what? The right to assemble? The right to combine? I’d give Cardassia”—he snapped his fingers—“that long before she’s on her knees.”

Meya was sitting upright in her seat. She had not looked back at Dukat as he was speaking, and she had not jumped at the snap of his fingers. “My difficulty,” she said in a neutral voice, “is that I have no real means of preventing this action. Despite all the good work of Ithas and his people, the city constabulary is not in control of most of the western end of Torr. There is very little I can do to stop these people.”

Alon and Kotan looked at each other in disbelief. It was as if Kotan had not even spoken. “Meya,” Alon said, and she stopped him with one upraised palm.

“No!” she said. “I will not give in to the threat of violence. That is not the Cardassia that we want, Alon.”

Dukat put his hands flat on the table and leaned down to speak to her directly. “You don’t need the constabularies,” he said. “Not when you can rely on my support.”

There was a long pause. “Meya...” Bamarek said, uneasily.

“I can’t do that under the terms of the Declaration,” Meya said. “No return to martial law. Policing is entirely within the remit of the constabularies—”

“So appoint a special police force. Six units from the Third Battalion, Second Order will secure the Torr sector for you. What are you waiting for?”

“Meya,” Kotan said in horror. “Please!”

She got up from her seat. “We’re done here. Thank you for coming, gentlemen, and thank you for your advice. Dukat, stay.” She nodded to the rest of the Five. “For Cardassia,” she said, in dismissal. Kotan left reeling. The choice had been between Skrain Dukat and Tekeny Ghemor. How in the name of Tret Akleen had it turned out this way? Beside him, Alon Ghemor was shaking with anger. “I have done everything that woman has asked of me! I have gutted the Obsidian Order. I have purged the Bureau so thoroughly that there is scarcely an intelligence agency left. And then she has the nerve to accuse me of treachery?”

But Kotan was barely listening. He had to get a message to his son. Don’t go near Torr tonight.

Rugal found Erani and Tekis in the geleta house nearest the technical school. He told them what Kotan had said, but Erani wouldn’t listen. “I swear,” Rugal said, “something bad is going to happen tonight.”

Erani replied with scorn. “You only know this because your father told you. And you want me to listen to the advice of a member of a Detapa Council? They’re using you to spread panic among the movement! I don’t know whether you’re doing it on purpose and to be honest I don’t care. But I do know what the intention is, and I’m not going to fall for it.”

“It’s not like that! Kotan wouldn’t do that!” Rugal looked helplessly at Tekis. “Tell her, will you?”

Tekis shrugged. “What makes you think I don’t agree with her?” She finished her small cup of gelat, and they both got up and began to head outside. Rugal went after them. “I’m trying to help you! I’m trying to protect you!”

Erani turned on him. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled herself up close so that they were face-to-face. “I told you once already,” she hissed. “I don’t need your help. Now back off!”

“Sweetheart,” Tekis said, pulling her away. “It’s not worth it. Leave it. Rugal,” she said to him, “I’m sure you mean well. But you should go now. You’re not part of this. Go back to Coranum and leave us alone.”

Rugal watched helplessly as they went off down the walkway. It was late afternoon. Hardly any time left. But he couldn’t go back and leave them to their fate.

He went to see Arric and Serna. They were frightened too; they did not believe a rally this size was going to pass unchecked. The three of them sat with the lights dimmed in front of the loft’s main window, keeping watch over the west side of Torr. A little before eighth bell, crowds of people began to assemble outside the technical school. They were going to walk the length of Torr’s main street and assemble in the Central Market to listen to speakers call for elections. That would go on until eleventh bell, when they would disperse, back to their homes or to the geleta houses to carry on the conversation.

As the eighth bell sounded, Dukat’s special police units entered Torr. Like all urban centers on Cardassia, the sector built to house the service grades had only two exits. The special units rolled their armored vehicles into place, and then sealed off the exits behind them. Shortly before a third after eight, they stopped the rally and ordered those assembled to disperse. The order was rejected. The people of Torr asked to be allowed to pass and hold their meeting. The special units gave the warning twice more, and each time it was rejected. At a third after eight exactly, the units opened fire.

By the ninth bell, Rugal couldn’t bear it any longer. Leaving Arric and Serna to lock their door behind him, he went down into the fray. It was only two walkways from their tenement building to the geleta house where he had been that morning, but it took him nearly until the next bell, ducking between door fronts and keeping to the shadows.

As he had hoped, Erani and Tekis had taken cover there, but Tekis had been shot in the arm. Erani had bound it, but Tekis was sitting with her head in her hands. Rugal knelt down in front of her. “Can you walk? You can’t stay here. We’ve got to go.”

“Go where?” Erani said bitterly. “They’ve sealed off Torr.”

“I think I can get you out,” Rugal said.

“I keep telling you I don’t want your help!” Erani shot back. Tekis looked up. She was white-faced and scared. “Sweetheart, they’ll be looking for us. They won’t stop until they find us.”

“I’m sure I can get you out of Torr,” Rugal said. “It’s not about help, Erani. It’s about your options. I don’t think you want to go to a labor camp, and I don’t think you want to see Tekis in one. I’ll get you out of Torr, and then you’re on your own. Whatever network Lang’s operating, however you’ve been getting people offworld to her, now’s the time to take advantage of it yourselves.”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you—”

“Erani, please!” Tekis said.

Outside, sirens were wailing; there was screaming and disruptor fire, and the sky was ablaze. Inside, it was very quiet. Only the three of them, in the dark. Erani and Tekis sat hand in hand, with their foreheads leaning against each other. “All right,” Erani said at last, and grudgingly. “We’ll go with you. But no farther than the outskirts of Torr.”

They went by back streets and walkways, trying to keep to the dark and out of sight. By the eleventh bell, they got to the eastern checkpoint. “What’s your plan?” Erani whispered.

Rugal swallowed. “Follow me. Don’t say anything. Try to look rich and dazed.”

He made them dump their identity rods, but he kept his own. He led them right up to the checkpoint. Six armed officers trained their disruptors on them. Rugal waved his hands in the air. “Help!” he shouted. “Help! My name’s Pa’Dar! I’m the councilor’s son!”

The officers got them facedown on the ground. When ordered, Rugal offered his rod. Once his identity was confirmed, he tried to explain away his two companions. “These are my friends Lyset and Maris Khevet. We were down in the sector from Coranum meeting friends from the university for dinner. Then all this shooting started. Lyset got hit. They’ve both lost their identity rods. We just want to go home!”

There was some discussion among the officers and then, to Rugal’s frank astonishment, the barrier was lifted and they were let through. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to take the chance of locking up a councilor’s son. As they walked past the barrier and out onto the perimeter road, Erani hissed in his ear, “That was your plan?”

“I’m sorry it worked!”

“So you should be!”

They walked on for some time along the perimeter road, the red glare of Torr to the left, the empty expanse beyond the city limits to the right. Eventually, they left even Torr behind and began to walk around the edge of the Munda’ar sector. Its warehouses were hardly lit at this time of day, and they were plunged into almost total darkness. Night sounds were heightened: animal cries, the whir of aerial patrols passing overhead. It was strange, Rugal thought; they were still so close to the city, and yet the wilderness was only a step away.

Not long after the twelfth bell sounded across the city, they came to a fork in the road. Erani looked down the right-hand turn, which led away from the city and into open country. “This is where you should leave us,” she said. She jerked her thumb in the other direction. “That’s the quickest route back to Coranum.”

The three of them stared at one another for a few moments. “Good-bye,” Rugal said. He didn’t offer to press palms. “Good luck. I wish we could have been friends.”

“With your father?” Erani laughed. “We could never be friends.” She put her arm around Tekis and led her off into the night. Rugal walked back to Coranum, where nobody would be looking for radicals. He never saw either of them again. Whether they made it through alive, when so many didn’t, he never discovered.

The battle went on through the next day and into the next evening. By sixth bell of the second day, the whole of Torr was back under government control. After that, there was a curfew and spot checks on all shuttles heading in and out of the sector. Rugal went a few times to see Arric and Serna, but on the whole, it was simpler to stay up in Coranum. With no work to do, and too much time on his hands, Rugal quickly became homesick. One night, while he was sitting out in the stone garden desultorily watching a violently hued sunset, Kotan came out to join him. He looked excited, nervous too. “I think,” Kotan said, “that it’s probably safe enough to get a message through to Bajor.”

Rugal’s spirits lifted at once. “If you’re sure it’s safe, then I’d like to try.”

“I also thought that now that I’m able to travel again, we might consider applying to leave Cardassia to meet your adopted father. Bajor would be out of the question,” Kotan said very quickly, “but I can see no reason why neutral territory would not be acceptable. Deep Space 9, perhaps.”

“I thought the borders were closed,” Rugal said cautiously.

“A temporary measure. As soon as law and order’s fully restored, travel in and out of Cardassian space will become as easy as it’s ever been. Easier, I should think. The Council’s committed to showing our neighbors that we are a new nation, that we can participate in the affairs of the quadrant—and not solely as aggressors. A less hostile and more responsive Cardassia.”

Unless you’re a Cardassian citizen who wants to express disagreement. Rugal wondered how Kotan could say these things, whether he really believed them. A position on the Council covered a multitude of sins, it seemed, but if it meant that he could finally speak to Migdal and find out how he had been coping since Etra’s death, Rugal would have gladly spouted any number of platitudes himself.

He thought it would be easier than ever to get through to Migdal. It wasn’t. The problem was not technical, nor did it have anything to do with the fear of surveillance that had constrained them in the past. They simply couldn’t find him. There was no information about him at the most recent address that Rugal had, but that had been months ago. He tried older addresses: the first place they had rented after moving to Ashalla, and eventually even older ones, in the various towns where they had been before trying the capital. But he could not find Proka Migdal, retired policeman and widower.

How could someone disappear? Bajor was not Cardassia. The sparse and heavily edited news that Rugal had gathered from home hinted at a place in growth, prospering, full of new confidence and energy. Could one old man simply disappear?

Rugal gave up trying to find an address for someone called Proka Migdal, and began racking his brains to think of family friends who might still be in contact. They had moved so often while he had lived with them—because he had lived with them—that it was difficult to know whom he should approach. He tried various people in various places, but none had any news of the old man. At last, he found someone with news—not a friend of Migdal’s, but the son of a friend, Darrah Bajin.

Bajin was a middle-aged man with a kindly expression currently tempered with concern. “I’m so glad to hear from you, Rugal. We had no idea how to get in touch, no idea whether it was even possible.”

“Is he there? Is he all right?”

Rugal realized later that he had been assuming that Migdal was ill, in the hospital, or in care somewhere. He understood later that he had been assuming his story was heading toward its happy ending. He had been taken away to a bad place where he had suffered, and now he should be allowed to go home. Surely he had earned it? But Rugal had a long way to go yet, before coming home.

“I’m afraid he died six weeks ago, Rugal,” Bajin said. “It wasn’t painful, not at all, he was just very old. And he missed Etra. We all took turns sitting by him in the hospital, and we’ve all been praying for him ever since. He talked about you all the time, you know.”

Rugal got through the rest of the conversation on automatic, thanking Bajin for looking after his father, for all his kindness. He should have been there, he kept on thinking; and instead he had been here, playing at being a radical. Cardassia had tricked him into caring about its troubles, when he should have been keeping his mind set on Bajor. When he finished talking to Bajin, he sat for a while by the blank screen. There was a quiet tap at the door. Kotan entered. His hopeful expression rapidly disappeared.

“It’s not good news, is it?”

Kotan: the chain that had dragged him unwillingly to Cardassia, the chain that had kept him here. Now there was no escape. “That depends. My father’s dead, which means there’s nobody on Bajor working to get me back. Which I suppose you think is good news.”

“My dearest child, don’t say such things!”

“And don’t you dare say anything about love. It was never about love. It was about possession. I was your child, your son. You wanted me back because you thought I belonged to you. I don’t belong to anyone. I shouldn’t be here, and I should never have been here. He was an old man, and he didn’t have his son with him when he died.”

“Rugal, I am so sorry—”

Every time they had had this quarrel in the past, Rugal thought, he had been too emotional: angry, tearful, upset. He had been a child. Now he felt clearer in his mind than he had ever done. Kotan—Cardassia—had fooled him, promising change, promising a new way of life. It had all been lies. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” he told Kotan. “Never.”

He left the room, went upstairs, and packed. Not much: a few clothes, his earring, Lang’s book, and the picture of Arys that concealed it. He contacted Arric and was offered the couch. Then he went to see Penelya.

“Never is a long time, Rugal,” she said, after he told her what had happened.

He held her to him as if she was the most precious thing in the world. “It isn’t long enough.” He would get back somehow, he swore. He would find his own way back to Bajor, without Kotan’s aid, or his blood money. But he could not help thinking he might have left it too late.

PART TWO

A LONG WAY FROM HOME (2372–2375)

“How many sacrifices will my people be asked to make?”

—Legate Damar

Five

Throughout that first summer of civilian rule, dust and rumors shifted uneasily around Cardassia. Broadcasts remained restricted, and in the absence of anything official, people made their own news. Stories coalesced, gathered pace, spread out—and then shifted again, changed shape. First you heard it whispered that the leaders of the Torr march had been making speeches on the steps of the new Information Bureau. Next everyone knew this was a lie—their families had identified their bodies in Maklar Prison. The next tale to go around was about a gathering of the Oralian Way in a warehouse on the southwest edge of the Munda’ar sector. Three thousand city dwellers—and a further thousand or so from the suburbs—turned up at what everyone knew was the right hour on the right day. Some had come to pray, some to heckle, most to gawp. Officers from the city constabulary—fifty-two twitchy and underpaid conscripts from provincial towns and colony worlds—somehow managed to disperse the crowd without a shot being fired. The whole Union, from cosmopolitan capital to desert township to border outpost, let out a sigh of relief. A student strike in Culat ended less well, with thirty-four arrests and three fatalities, but the news was successfully suppressed, and nobody but the most cynical believed that story. Many of the tales were downright outrageous: a man standing at the foot of the Tozhat Memorial had suddenly turned into a great white bird and then flown up to the top of the monument, screeching Meya Rejal’s name three times and finishing with a curse. Some people declared it was Changelings, here, at the heart of Cardassia Prime; others said that was rubbish. The problem was that nobody knew for sure, and if the government knew, it wasn’t telling.

In all this confusion, there was one thing that everyone understood: something had changed in Cardassia when the civilian government opened fire upon the assembled people of the city. Even to people who were used to surveillance and disappearances and the quiet persistent knock on the door in the middle of the night, this was something new. In the noisy taverns and geleta houses of Torr, around the staid, well-polished dining tables of Paldar, sometimes even in the chill grand salons of Coranum itself, it could be heard—shouted or mooted or implied—that this time the government had gone too far. If the military had once rounded up dissidents whom Order agents interrogated, that had been expected, almost accepted. But this was meant to be the people’s government. Everything was meant to be different, now.

It was a hot dusty summer, even by the standards of Cardassia Prime. The water ration in urban areas was cut. The capital crackled with suppressed energy and anger, and the provincial cities followed suit. In their temperature-modulated offices in Tarlak, Meya Rejal and the Detapa Council watched anxiously, hoping nothing else would happen before winter came to cool Cardassia City and the rest of the Union with it.

Kotan knew he should be as troubled as his colleagues, but his sympathy for their plight had ebbed considerably since Meya had picked Skrain Dukat over Tekeny Ghemor. Besides, he had other things on his mind. Geleth had embraced the new water ration like a youth movement’s newest and keenest recruit. Now she was sick.

Kotan tried again and again to make her change her mind. “I’m a Council member, Mother. My family and I are entitled to half as much water again—” But Geleth, regal and feverish on the couch in her somber sitting room, would not bend. “If what the government—your government—needs is restraint, than that is what it shall get. We all have to make sacrifices, Kotan. I sincerely hope you are not taking extra.”

Matters came to a head one evening, when he found her crumpled on the floor of her sitting room. She had slipped and fallen, and had been too weak to get back to her feet. As he helped her to the bed, she whispered, “The boy. I want to see the boy.”

Kotan knew from Alon that Rugal was working in one of the free hospitals near the river, and living with friends in the southwest of Torr. He sent a few messages, explaining that Geleth was ill and had been asking for him. For almost a week he heard nothing, and then there was a grudging reply: I’ll come. He had Penelya to thank for this again, if he’d known.

Face-to-face again, father and son eyed each other warily. Rugal looked older, Kotan thought, certainly a man now, and he looked thinner... No, that was not quite it. He looked sparser.

Rugal could still see nothing but the enemy. He was shocked, however, at the change in Geleth. She had become frail; the bones and ridges of her face stood out like accusations. Kotan told him, “I’m afraid she’s going to kill herself over this.”

“Perhaps this is way she wants to go,” Rugal said. “Doing her patriotic duty.” He had been taking half of his ration down to the wharves. People had started drinking the river water and he was afraid there was going to be an outbreak of something soon. Wasn’t public health Kotan’s responsibility?

Rugal returned to visit Geleth as often as his work in the hospital and along the river allowed. Sometimes he would come straight from his shift, falling asleep on the long shuttle journey out to Coranum. Geleth sneered at his work overalls, telling him he might as well be lowborn. He replied that it was more useful than sitting on a couch in the dark. They kept this game up for several visits, but when Geleth abandoned insults and began to talk about her childhood in Anaret province, Rugal knew she had made the decision to die.

When Geleth had been young, before reaching the age of emergence, Anaret had been stricken by drought. The crops failed, the twin lakes shrank, and great billowing dust storms swept across the plains. Times were hard in the cities too, and nobody could get permission to relocate. In her district, Geleth said, all the youth swore to take less of the water and do more of the work. After four years of scraping a living out of nothing, the central government stopped wrangling over the details of the relief package, and built a pipe from the coast.

“It was far too late for the sick and the old,” Geleth said. “We’d stopped their water during the second summer.”

So cruel, and yet there was a crazed kind of bravery about it that was uniquely Cardassian: something to do with extreme conditions, an unquenchable desire to survive, and a callous disregard for individual life. That last had allowed great sacrifices on behalf of the collective, but had also permitted atrocities toward anyone perceived as surplus. Hunger, thirst, privation—Rugal understood better now how this had been the norm for many on Cardassia, and still was for some. It was no surprise that when they had laid eyes on the paradise of Bajor, they had grabbed hold and gorged themselves sick. What would happen, he wondered, if the whole planet went the way of Anaret, or the whole Union? Its structures were already strained, its foundations rotting. How many would be left to die? Would there be any pity to spare?

Late one unforgiving evening near the end of summer, Kotan was summoned to a special meeting of the Five. He was surprised by the invitation; Meya had barely called on him for advice since he had pressed for the return of Tekeny Ghemor. He hoped it was a sign; perhaps Meya was trying to move beyond the partisan politics that had led to the massacre in Torr, and show that she did not hold grudges. Perhaps, with hard work and goodwill, Cardassia could still embark upon a new era.

The usual suspects had gathered in Meya’s private office. Rhemet, Bamarek, Alon Ghemor—all familiar from years of country house gatherings during which they had, on reflection, entirely failed to prepare to govern the Union. Kotan knew that Meya often drafted in others to help the Five—military advisers, for example, or scientific experts. Cases of Sethik’s disease were on the rise along the southern coast of the main continent, and he assumed that it was in this capacity that he had been asked to come along this evening. This assumption changed as soon as Skrain Dukat strode into the room. Unusually, Dukat was not swaggering. In fact, he looked as fraught as a student radical up before the district archon.

“Skrain,” Kotan said amiably as they took adjacent seats. “You’re looking tense. Are the guls giving you a hard time? Or have you simply gone a few days without killing anyone?”

Dukat’s lip curled, but he managed no reply before Meya Rejal called the meeting to order. “Thank you all for coming out this evening. We have a problem.” She pressed one finger against the ridge above her left eye and kept it there, as if to relieve some inner pressure. “Dukat, tell them what you’ve learned.”

Dukat rose splendidly to his feet. Give the posturing monster his due, Kotan thought, he certainly knows how to play to the gallery. “It is my unfortunate responsibility,” Dukat said, “to inform you of the intelligence that has come my way this evening. A Klingon fleet is heading toward Cardassian space. It will pass our borders within thirty metrics and, if unopposed, is due to attack Prime within three days.”

There was a brief stunned silence. Alon Ghemor was the first at the table to gather his wits. “That’s impossible. We haven’t heard a whisper of this at the Bureau.”

Dukat smiled nastily. “The Bureau is not what the Order was.”

Ghemor ignored the bait. “What’s your source?”

“You won’t like it if I tell you.”

“No, but I might be able to shed some light on its reliability—”

“It’s Garak.” Dukat pushed the two syllables out, as if they sat unpleasantly in his mouth. Catching Ghemor’s startled reaction, Dukat eked out a thin smile. “I said you wouldn’t like it. But what is more significant here”—he turned to address the wider group—“is Garak’s own source. Starfleet.”

The ramifications of this news suddenly impacted upon the room. Everybody started talking at once: Is this true? How do we know it’s true? If it’s true, how long till they get here? And, perhaps asked most: Why? Kotan, familiar with Rejal’s working methods, knew that she was giving them a chance to let off steam, but that soon she would want someone to ask a more serious question to bring order to the discussion. He caught her eye and she nodded. “All of you!” Rejal raised her voice above the melee. “Stop panicking and start thinking. Kotan, you have a question?”

“Yes, I do. Could somebody tell me exactly who this Garak is? And why exactly we should trust him?”

Ghemor and Dukat exchanged looks. Ghemor took on the unhappy task of explaining. “He’s a former Order operative. He was a close associate of Tain. As to trusting him... speaking generally, I’d say no, but if it comes to defense of the homeworld, and if Starfleet really is his source...” Alon sighed. “Then I’d have to say, absolutely.”

“I agree that we can rely on Garak’s information,” Dukat said. “And you cannot begin to imagine how much I dislike saying that.”

A more considered but still deeply troubled silence descended upon the room. “But this is incredible!” Rhemet said. “What possible reason could the Empire have to attack us?”

Dukat took a pace or two around the room until he was standing behind Rejal’s chair. Kotan watched as Meya put her hands flat on the table and gritted her teeth. Dukat sneered down at them all. “That’s very simple,” he said. “They think you’re all Changelings. How else could half a dozen untried civilians have toppled the mighty Central Command? I have to say it’s a persuasive analysis.”

All around the room, shoulder ridges quivered in rage. Rhemet said, with new venom, “If this Garak was one of Tain’s men, how do we know this isn’t a rearguard action by the Order? Some scheme by whatever’s left of it to claw back a degree of power?”

“The Order’s dead,” Alon replied flatly. He had gone very still. Kotan’s heart went out to his friend. Only the most fanatical Order agent could have enjoyed purging their former colleagues, and Alon was a deal maker, not a zealot.

“Alon, forgive me,” Rhemet said, “but we all know you were one of them—”

“Believe me, that particular cancer has been cut from the body politic. That’s the task Meya gave me when she appointed me to the Bureau. That’s what I’ve done.”

“It could still be a feint—”

Dukat finally lost patience. “Believe whatever you want. Believe it right up to the moment that fifty Klingon birds-of-prey scream down on the Council chamber and blast you to pieces. They’re coming. That’s a fact. Do you want to talk about it further, or do you want to do something about it?” He leaned down over Meya’s shoulder, his face close to hers. “What’s it to be, Chief Executor? Will you restore the military to full powers?”

“Gul Dukat, when I took office, I promised the Cardassian people I would limit the power of the military. I put a resolution to that effect before the Detapa Council, and the Council agreed on it. Therefore, the Council would need to debate any restoration of powers.”

Dukat reacted with scorn. This plainly made no sense to him. “You’ve already let us take up arms against our own citizens, and you won’t give us free rein against Klingons?”

“No!” Meya said quickly, holding up her hand. “That was not a military operation. I drafted those units as special police—”

“This is sophistry!” Dukat slammed his hand against the table. As if jerked into life by this, red lights on the console next to Meya’s right hand began to flash. Kotan saw that her hands were trembling as she reached out to view the communications. She read for a moment, and then turned to her colleagues. “Information from our listening posts along the border. They at least are in no doubt about the fleet’s existence. More conservative estimates now put their arrival on Prime around sunrise, capital time, the day after tomorrow.”

Dukat strode toward the door. “We’re done here. It’s time to end this nonsense. We need to be able to act without constraint—”

“Meya,” Bamarek said, “if you do that, you may as well resign. Whatever political capital you have left comes from your commitment to rolling back Central Command. If you’re going to hand back the power you’ve taken, you’ll be left with no credibility—”

“Unfortunately,” Alon said, “Meya’s credibility as leader of the Cardassian Union does depend upon there still being a Union left for her to lead. Meya, it was a good policy, it’s still a good policy. But we have a war on our hands. We didn’t ask for it, but it’s happening. We need to be able to respond.”

“Meya,” Rhemet said urgently, “this is exactly what I was talking about before. The old regime, the Central Command, this is what they’ve been waiting for, the chance to take over again—”

“A moment ago it was the Order you were complaining about,” Dukat said. “Now it’s the military. You’re a fool.”

That stung Bamarek. “The Order, the Central Command? What’s the difference? Meya, don’t fall for this! You’re the head of the government. They have to obey you!”

“By law, yes.” Meya glanced back at Dukat. “But would they in fact?”

Kotan looked at her with deep sympathy. It was an impossible situation. Would Central Command refuse to take orders from her? Could she take that risk? Did she have enough political support left? He doubted it. “Executor,” Dukat said, “let us do what we’re good at. Let us act.”

“I second that,” Ghemor said. He got up from his chair, waiting to be able to get on with handling the crisis.

“Kotan?” Meya said, and he understood now why he had been asked to attend this meeting. She trusted him. By opposing her and risking the loss of his position, he had somehow earned her confidence. He was sorry for her. Tekeny Ghemor, a former legate, could have pulled the military in his wake, but Tekeny would not have needed to set himself up in opposition to the Central Command in the first place. “What else can you do, Meya?” Kotan said. “Nobody could possibly have predicted this. No one will blame you for changing your mind. But they’ll certainly blame you if you hesitate and lives are lost as a result.”

She nodded. Again, Kotan felt pity for her. Did it always have to end in defeat? Perhaps it was inevitable. If life was a battleground, all you could ever be was a victim or a victor.

“Very well,” Rejal said. “Using my authority under the Declaration, I hereby impose a state of emergency and empower the Central Command to pull whatever miracle it can out of its collective ass.” She waved one finger down, like a conjuror performing a trick. “There. Cardassia returns, in part, to military rule. Don’t get too excited, Dukat,” she called after him, as he swung out the door. “This will be reviewed by the Council at the end of the week.”

Dukat halted in the doorway. “Ah yes. The Council. I’m afraid I cannot guarantee its safety on Cardassia Prime. I propose therefore to evacuate its members to a place of greater safety. Perhaps Deep Space 9? I believe I can prevail upon the commander there to offer you sanctuary.”

Meya put her head in her hands. Rhemet said, “Abandon Prime? We couldn’t possibly do that! We might as well not bother coming back.”

“By all means remain,” Dukat said. “I, however, shall be taking a ship away from Prime at oh two hundred. Any member of the Detapa Council that wants to be on board is welcome. The rest can take their chances with the Klingons.”

The group split up in focused and somber mood. Kotan, falling into step beside Alon Ghemor, reflected on something Rhemet had said. Dukat, Ghemor, himself—it had taken the three of them to persuade Meya to make this decision. The military, the Order, the Council: old Cardassia, once again. They had fallen back into their parts as if they had never stopped playing them, as countless generations had done before.

“A miracle,” Ghemor muttered. “I think it’s going to take one. You should get that boy of yours praying to his Prophets.”

“I don’t think he believes in them. Besides, do you think Bajoran gods are likely to come to the aid of Cardassia?”

“Any god will do right now. True, false, friendly, hostile—I’m open for business.”

It was not a bad philosophy. For himself, however, Kotan preferred to put his faith in phasers.

“One day you might be glad this happened,” Geleth said. She was now too weak to sit up, and was confined to bed. “Nothing like a war to bring the great unwashed out behind their government. One great Union, bound together in a single purpose by threat and loss. And nobody wants to seem a traitor, do they? Except your son...” She sighed, and it seemed to Rugal that she expelled a little more life as she did so. “When do you leave Prime?”

“I don’t,” Kotan said bluntly.

Geleth’s fingers twitched on the coverlet. “Not the best time to discover your sacrificial side.”

“Mother, I can’t leave you behind.”

“You’re an idiot,” she replied.

“All right, if you prefer it this way—I don’t want to be indebted to Dukat.”

“You’re an outmaneuvered idiot.”

Kotan picked up her hand. Geleth closed her eyes. Rugal, standing behind Kotan’s chair, leaned down to whisper, “Go. I’ll stay with her.”

Kotan rubbed his eyes. “I could certainly do with some sleep.”

“I mean, you should leave with the rest of the Council. There’s still time. I’ll stay.”

Carefully, Kotan rested his mother’s hand upon the bed. He nodded to Rugal to follow him out into the corridor. “I can’t go.”

“You certainly can’t stay.”

“I can’t leave her! She has to have family with her when she goes.”

“I’m family,” Rugal said. “Or so you keep on insisting.”

Kotan shook his head. “It’s out of the question. You’re not old enough—”

“I’m nearly nineteen.”

“It wouldn’t be safe.”

“Kotan,” Rugal said gently. “I’ve been Cardassian on Bajor and Bajoran on Cardassia. Do you honestly think I can’t look after myself?”

“Whether you like it or not, you’re the son of a prominent politician. If the Klingons take Prime, and you’re here, you’ll be an obvious target—”

“I’ve been a target one way or another for most of my life!”

“This is entirely different. They’ll take you hostage. Capture is dishonorable. You won’t be treated well.”

“I doubt I will. But if you’re still here...” Rugal fumbled around for inspiration. “If you’re here, they’ll probably kill you instead of imprisoning you, and if I’m standing next to you at the time—which I would be—then they’d probably kill me too. So, altogether, it’s much better for me if you go because that way you actually increase my chances of survival.” He paused for breath. “If the Klingons take Prime.” The “if” was ironic. Even the state news broadcasters were currently employing the ironic “if.”

“There are rituals to perform,” Kotan said faintly. “You don’t know anything about them. She has to have it all done properly.”

“Penelya will know what to do. I’ll ask her to come. She’ll come. We’ll do it all perfectly. You can trust us, Kotan.” Rugal gave him a wide-eyed look that, unbeknownst to him, irresistibly increased his resemblance to Arys.

Kotan muttered something inaudible and probably profane. “All right! I’ll abandon my elderly mother to the care of two adolescents and flee Cardassia Prime. Happy?”

Hardly, but at least Kotan was soon on his way to safety. Penelya arrived not long afterward, shortly before the curfew came into force. She hurried inside; they locked the big front doors behind her and put up all the force shields. “It’s strange outside,” she said. “The whole city has gone silent. Except for the patrols.”

The army back on the streets? That was the end for Rejal’s government, surely? What would take its place?

“I’m sure everyone feels safer now.”

“Apart from the invading fleet hurtling toward us, you mean? Yes, I’m sure everyone’s quite relaxed. How’s your grandmother?”

Rugal sighed. “Difficult to say. She isn’t awake very much, although when she is, she’s completely lucid. She stopped eating yesterday, and she’s only taking a little water. I’m glad Kotan isn’t here any longer. It was tearing him in half.” Catching her expression, he said crossly, “I’m not completely heartless! I can’t sit and watch someone watch his mother die and not feel some sympathy!”

She took his hand. “Shall we go and see how she is? We probably shouldn’t leave her alone for too long.”

“All right. Hold your breath. It’s like a flower show in there.”

They went into the bedroom, dimly lit, and heavily scented from the huge floral displays that had been arriving over the previous weeks. Even in these uncertain times, the Cardassian aristocracy had observed all the proper forms: hardly a day had gone past without the delivery of yet another lavish and richly perfumed bouquet from a neighbor or colleague or junior official eager to commend himself to the councillor. Penelya coughed slightly. Rugal shifted a chair round to the bed for her, then sat down opposite. Disturbed by the sound of them, the old woman flicked open her eyes. “Has he gone?”

“Kotan?”

“Who else, idiot boy?” she rasped. “The gardener?”

“You needn’t worry—they’ve both gone.”

“Good. Kotan mustn’t die.” She eyed Rugal. “You’re dispensable.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.”

“He can still find someone else, marry her, have more children. It would do him good to stop fretting over that girl. It would put you in perspective too. A man should have more than one child. Children die so easily, it makes no sense to pin all your hopes on one.” She aimed one malevolent finger at him. “Look what happens if you do.”

“You only have one child.”

Geleth laughed like rusting metal. “So I do! There’s a reason for that.” To Rugal’s alarm, she began trying to pull herself up. Penelya moved quickly to help, steadying her, propping pillows behind her. “Are you the Khevet girl?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m his niece.”

Geleth sank back into the pillows and rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. “What has our great race come to when the best that can attend your death bed is a skrit and a boy who believes he’s Bajoran? Never mind, it will have to do. Rugal, get rid of the girl. I want to talk to you.”

Penelya stood up immediately and headed for the door. Rugal hurried after her. “What’s going on?”

“It’s called shri-tal,” Penelya explained quietly. “The last thing any of us do. She’s going to tell you all her secrets.”

“Kosst, Pen, I don’t want her secrets! Who knows what she’s done in her time?”

Penelya squeezed his hand. “I can’t stay for this, I’m sorry. It would only distress her. But I’ll be right outside. Shout if you need me.” She glanced back at the bed. “I don’t think she’s got long.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek and then left, shutting them in behind her. Rugal stood for a moment with his hands clenched and then went back to the bedside. Geleth opened her eyes. “Has the skrit gone?”

It was street slang for someone without parents—about as vile a word as Rugal had heard in two cultures with half of century of grudge between them. “If you call her that again you can die by yourself.”

Geleth made a dry sound, probably laughter. “Very well. Has your girl gone?”

“Penelya is waiting outside, yes.”

“Check the room.”

“What?”

“How long have you lived here now? You’re still no cleverer than a Bajoran. Surveillance, you little fool. I’m not spilling a single secret if there’s the slightest chance anyone’s listening.”

Stubborn and skeletal, she directed his sweep of the room, sending him to corners he had only ever half glimpsed. “I thought Kotan would never go,” she complained as he went around. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last. There he sat, holding my hand, waiting for me to start, and all I could think was, ‘When will you leave so I can talk to Rugal?’ Well, he’s gone now, so we’d better get this done and I can finish with this filthy business of dying. They didn’t say it would hurt so much—no, they don’t mention that when they talk about glory! But most things have hurt, over the years. You’ll discover that yourself one day. Don’t pull that face! For all your talk of Bajor, I bet you’ve never been thirsty before this year, Rugal, not really thirsty. You have no idea what that’s like.” She gestured at his chair with a bleached hand. “Sit down. Don’t speak. Listen. I think even you can manage that without causing trouble.”

Silently, Rugal took the place she had appointed for him. Geleth licked cracked lips. “You seemed to be paying attention when I told you about my childhood in Anaret.”

Rugal nodded.

“Good. Now, you also need to know that I wasn’t born there. That’s very important. It’s not simply a matter of pride—although who in their right mind would want to come from such a hellhole? No, I was born here, in Coranum. My parents had a house farther up the hill, not far from where your parasite of a girlfriend lives now—don’t glare, it’s only the truth! But our house, now... Oh, it was even more beautiful than her uncle’s! Plenty of room, plenty of money, plenty of everything, as it should be. My parents, myself, my younger brother, and eighteen staff. My father was an important man, he owned several transportation companies, and food replication plants throughout the southern hemisphere. So how did we end up starving in Anaret? That was thanks to a man called Ghret Pa’Dar.”

She watched dryly as comprehension dawned on Rugal’s face. “But that’s—!”

“Kotan’s grandfather, yes. So you have learnt some family history. Good. Never did anyone any harm on Cardassia Prime. All the best feuds are handed down. Ghret Pa’Dar was Kotan’s grandfather—your great-grandfather. He and my father were in business together. He was the cause of my father’s ruin.”

Something cold started snaking up through Rugal’s stomach. It must have shown on his face; Geleth began to smile. “Now, let me see if I can get this straight...”

“I’m sure you won’t miss a thing, Geleth.”

“Well, it was all a very long time ago, and I was very young, and these things are usually complicated...” She hesitated, frowned, as if a new thought had crossed her mind. “I say that, but it all comes down in the end to need. Needing to have more than anyone else. Perhaps now you’ve seen one of our droughts, you understand why. Gather all you can to you, because as sure as the hot sun rises in the morning, the rain will stop and the food will run out. Gather up everything you can, from wherever you can. How else can you be certain to survive?”

You could share, Rugal thought, but he chose not to argue. She was too frail, and besides, he wanted to hear what had happened.

“So. My father and Ghret Pa’Dar met as young men at the Institute of Commercial Endeavor. Pa’Dar was not very highborn, you know.” She sniffed. “Father used to say all the time how lucky Pa’Dar was to have made friends with us. And Father was really very generous—our families spent holidays together, summers by Lake Masad, winters in the Retlak Mountains... It was all very friendly, right up to the moment Ghret Pa’Dar informed the Ministry of Agriculture that my father had been running his replicators below capacity and claiming it was power shortages. It pushed the prices up, you see. Everyone did it, only one didn’t want to get caught. Father was forced to resign, and Pa’Dar took over his directorships. Our poor family lost our lovely home, and Father was assigned a service position at a food distribution depot in Anaret. I was thirteen. I spent the next ten years there, through the whole drought...” She frowned, as if working on a puzzle. “I’ve often wondered if Ghret somehow found out the drought was coming. The Order controlled the release of weather forecasts to stop panic buying, but if he did know, it would have made sense to remove my father and take full control of the business before demand soared. I imagine Father would have done the same. But who knows, at this late date?” She waved a brittle hand. “Get me some water. I’m going to need it after all.”

Rugal filled a glass and held it to her lips. She drank eagerly, as if the talking had drained her reserves. In the quiet, Rugal heard, from beyond the confines of the house, the wail of a siren. A prickle went along his spine. Were they conquered yet?

“I’ve told you about the drought,” Geleth said. “No need to dredge it up again. Mother died, and my brothers, and eventually Father gave up too, the coward. But I survived, and when it was over, I left Anaret. I walked all the way back to Coranum, and I came here, to this house. But it was closed; the family was gone. A servant next door told me that their fortunes had also declined, and Ghret had taken an administrative post in Culat. So I walked there. I found their house and I hammered on the door and shouted through the window until they let me in. I told them everything that happened to us—it’s not as if I didn’t give them fair warning!—and I said they should make amends. They were ashamed and took me in. By the end of the following year I had married their oldest son, Irvek. Give me the rest of that water.”

She drank some more and closed her eyes. Rugal waited patiently, unsure that he wanted to hear more, unable to suppress the need to know how her story would turn out. Would she die before finishing? Would the Union fall first? An alarm went off, closer this time. Geleth’s eyes shot open.

“Not long now,” she said. “Not long. So. Irvek Pa’Dar. Your grandfather—as far as the law is concerned. I must say, he was not a bad man, nor a bad husband. He did exactly what I told him. Which is how, after twelve years of marriage, our fortunes had improved sufficiently that we were able to return to Coranum and reopen this house. The following year, I gave birth to Kotan.”

She went quiet again. “Who was his father?” Rugal whispered. “It wasn’t Irvek, was it?”

“No, no, that was Tirim, Irvek’s secretary,” she said carelessly. “Nice young man, hard-working, rather shy. Liked flowers. And devoted to me, of course. Couldn’t believe his luck. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I had the Order arrest him for possessing dissident literature. He did hold dissident opinions—must be where Kotan got it—although he was never stupid enough to own that kind of material. I had to bribe the Order man to lay a data trail. Don’t worry,” she added, seeing his expression, “I didn’t spend the family fortune on it. The salaries were terrible, and there was always someone in need of a bribe. Yes, he was Kotan’s father, not Irvek.” Her eyes fell. “Nice young man, excellent manners. Kotan sounds like him, when he’s trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear.”

She closed her eyes, and she smiled, fondly, lost in memory. Rugal swallowed. These hideous flowers, making him feel queasy...

“Rugal?” Geleth quavered. “Rugal, are you still here?”

“Yes, yes, of course I’m here.”

She snaked out her hand and grasped his. “It won’t be long now.”

“Geleth, does Kotan know any of this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! This is shri-tal. Nobody else knows.”

His mouth was dry and sour. This piece of information could ruin Kotan once and for all. Cardassians were so particular about blood relationships, as if they were the only connections that mattered in life.

“Why have you told me this?” Rugal said bitterly. “Why not wait—?”

“And take it with me? Because somebody else might know. You must always assume somebody has found out everything about you. One day they may use this information against your father. In which case, you are forewarned, and so you are forearmed. Not to mention,” she added slyly, “that perhaps one day you might need this information yourself...”

Rugal’s flesh crawled. She meant, as a weapon against Kotan. He wiped his free hand across his mouth.

“Family is everything, Rugal. The survival of the family, above all. Any one of us, at any moment, might be called upon to become a sacrifice on its account.” Her thumb caressed the edge of his hand. “Family,” she repeated. Her voice was slipping down to a whisper. “The Pa’Dars shouldn’t have forgotten whose daughter I was. My child, here, in this house; his child, here, after we’re both gone. No son of Pa’Dar. You say it all the time, Rugal—and it’s true, it’s true! Sometimes it frightened me, the way you said it. You were so sure! Sometimes I thought you had found me out!”

She kept on in this vein for some time, mumbling, muttering, her sentences slowly unraveling into fragments. Her hold on him did not weaken, and he let her hang on to him, the slender thread attaching her to this world. After a while, she fell silent, except for her thin slow breathing. If she had anything left to tell him, she would have to say it soon.

“Rugal!” she cried.

“I’m here.”

“I’m afraid!”

Rugal placed his palm against her face. “Don’t be,” he said. She opened her eyes, but was unable to focus, all her reservoir of strength and purpose spent. He loved and loathed her, all at once; there was no middle ground. He loved her courage and her indestructibility; he loathed all she had done and all she stood for. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, but she no longer seemed able to hear him. They remained like that for a short while—she in fear, he trying to comfort her—until, at last, she died. He leaned in to kiss her, the only time he ever had, more a breath than a touch, on the ridge between her eyes. “Good-bye, Geleth. Wherever you are now, I hope it’s peaceful.”

Gently, he released her hand and set it to rest upon the coverlet. He stood up, stretched, sighed. Kotan would be devastated. Leaving her, he went to the window and altered the shading slightly so that he could look outside.

Dawn was spreading out over the city, pink and tranquil. The colors startled him with their softness, but Rugal knew it would not last. Soon the sky would turn bright blue and the sunlight harsh, and the day would grow old and then fade into darkness. He wondered if the planet had been taken yet. Would he have heard if it had? Would Penelya have come in to tell him, or was this ritual too special to be disturbed by something as trivial as the end of the Union? Rugal peered through the window, past the summer-jaded garden, up at the sky. There was nothing hostile out there that he could see, nothing beyond the ordinary.

He turned away from the window and crossed the room, eyes averted from his grandmother’s corpse. Outside, in the corridor, he found Penelya. She had laid some cushions on the floor and was stretched out on them, fast asleep. The morning light, catching her hair, turned it from plain brown to rich gold. He knelt down beside her, brushed his thumb along her cheek, and then kissed her gently. Her lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes: amber, liquid, and vital. She sat up. “Has she gone?”

“Yes, she’s gone. Pen, she said—”

Quickly, she put her finger against her lips. “Don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone, not even Kotan. If she’d wanted anyone else to know what she had to say, she would have had them in there.”

“All right.” A shiver went through him at the thought of telling Kotan everything that Geleth had said. No, he would never breathe a word of it. What purpose would it serve, beyond hurting him? Once, not long ago, he would have been delighted with this knowledge, and used it as further evidence that he did not belong here. Now he understood that he did not have to prove that anymore. He knew that he was not, and never would be, Cardassian. That was sufficient. Now there was nothing left to do but keep on living. “Pen,” he said. “Come to Torr. Come and live with me. We’ll find the room. We could be together—”

Again, she touched her finger against his lips. “Ssh. I can’t. You know why.”

“I understand. But I’ll wait,” he promised. “I know I can change your mind. I know we should be together.”

She smiled and stood up, and they put their arms around each other. She kissed the ridge on his forehead. “Really,” she said, “we ought to find out whether or not we’re now vassals of the Klingon Empire.”

They held hands and went downstairs. “In many ways,” Rugal said, “it could be a vast improvement.”

They did not become the Empire’s servants that day, nor the following day, nor any day after. Still some way short of Cardassia Prime, the Klingon fleet was halted. They got no farther into the heart of the Union, although the outlying systems were to suffer from their presence for some time yet. Nonetheless, less than a week after they had made their less than dignified escape, Kotan and the rest of the Detapa Council returned to Cardassia Prime from Deep Space 9.

When his official skimmer drew up outside his house, Kotan knew at once that his mother was gone. All the windows were darkened, and the steps and the front terrace were lined with rows of big crimson perek flowers, the offerings that had been coming to the house before he left, now suffering badly in the heat. Someone had clearly tutored his son on how the house should appear—probably the Khevet girl, Penelya. He must remember to thank her. Perhaps he could even extend a formal invitation to the house. It might bring Rugal back, for a little while at least.

His son was waiting for him inside, lurking in the hallway, hands shoved deep into his pockets, a habit presumably picked up to avoid having to press palms with parents and other undesirables. When Rugal saw him, he frowned and bit his lip. “You look dreadful.”

“Thank you, Rugal. You look as if you have everything under control.” He busied himself putting down his bag. “From the display outside, I assume she’s gone.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. It... it was quiet, in the end.”

“Good.”

“She talked a little, not much.”

“Thank you, but don’t say any more. If there was anything she wanted me to know, she would have found a way to tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rugal said again. He had taken a couple of steps toward the door, as if waiting for the first opportunity to make a quick getaway.

“You did an excellent job on the front of the house. Geleth would have approved.”

“That was all Penelya’s doing. I wouldn’t have known where to start.”

“Please convey my thanks.”

“I will. She’ll be pleased with that. Thanks.”

Kotan began to walk slowly along the hall. “I really am very sorry,” Rugal said once again.

“So am I, Rugal. And I’m sorry too that you were also unable to be with your parents when they died. I understand better now.”

“I think,” Rugal said roughly, “that she was glad to go when she did. While you were still part of the government. It mattered to her, didn’t it? That you were successful in that way. I think in the end she was satisfied.”

“Thank you. You may well be right.” And perhaps she had been satisfied. She had died back in Coranum while her son was in power; she had avoided seeing either the ignominy of defeat at the hands of the Klingons, or else the inevitable downfall that was the ultimate reward of all political ambition. Geleth had played her pieces and, unlike her son and her grandson, unlike all Cardassia’s surviving generations, she would not have to live through the endgame.

Kotan had her cremated. He thought about placing her in the big mausoleum on the hill in Coranum alongside his father and grandfather, but somehow it did not seem right. Coranum had been her home as a child, and again after her marriage, but it was the years in Anaret that seemed to define her life. When autumn came, he arranged to travel out there. He asked his son to come with him out of habit rather than expectation, and to bring the girl. He was surprised when Rugal agreed. He suspected Penelya’s influence, and was grateful.

The journey was long and wearisome. Rugal was aloof as ever; the girl overpolite and anxious to please. An uneasy silence settled between them that looked set to last until they arrived. Kotan was weary from grief, and his arm ached from the inoculations they had all been given before coming out into this part of the world. There had been twenty-two cases of water fever in Anaret province since the summer. Nobody, particularly not the Councillor for Scientific Progression, believed it was under control. Nothing was under control. It was only a matter of time before one of these outbreaks became a serious epidemic. Meya Rejal was hanging on to power, but only with the acquiescence of the Central Command. The war with the Klingons was draining resources like the steady drip of blood from an open vein. They had squandered their opportunity, Kotan reflected dully; all that time they had waited for their chance, and this was how it turned out. A war they could not win; a population they could barely keep alive. How soon would it end? You would put down a hound in this much pain.

After nearly a day of travel, they passed beyond the brown irrigated fields of Tamsket and out into the red rock plains of Anaret. At first, the land appeared entirely uniform, and the sheer expanse of its single violent color threatened to overwhelm Kotan as much as his grief at Geleth’s death. But as his eyes adjusted to the world unfolding around him, he saw how the land was in fact more varied. He became able to distinguish between hues: the darker, browner rocks that hinted at a rare source of water, the bright red of total desert. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he detected motion: a regnar, perhaps, flitting from cover to cover, or a honge, plunging down from the sky where it had been circling to make its kill. His was not the only species adapted to eke out a living in the midst of these unpromising rocks.

Beyond Odek, the district capital, the road became rougher and ill-maintained. The township of Metella, where Geleth had spent her youth, was about thirty metrics to the south. They reached it in the early evening: a haphazard but dogged collection of shacks gathered around the distribution depot, home to some fifteen hundred sullen souls hardened by want and neglect. Kotan watched his son look around with the frank terror of the city dweller confronted with the wilderness. “Prophets! Is this it?”

For a split second, all Kotan’s desire to placate Rugal dissipated, and he became his mother’s son. “Yes,” he said harshly. “This is where you come from, Rugal.”

“Geleth thought of herself as coming from Coranum.”

“She was wrong,” Kotan said. “This place made her, whether she liked it or not.” And this was where she would remain, Kotan thought, until the sun went supernova and Prime boiled away, or until his people blasted themselves into oblivion, whichever came first.

They spent a restless night in a tiny hotel without running water. Early the next morning, before sunrise, they went out to bury her ashes. Penelya had asked Kotan quietly whether she should attend; Kotan had said yes. It was an indication that Kotan considered Penelya family—not that his son would understand. And Kotan wanted somebody else there who could join in the chant for the dead. He didn’t want to have to say it by himself.

They walked south out of town, along a dusty track, for about ten metrics. Eventually they reached the place where, during the drought, the bodies of the dead had been burned, including, presumably, Geleth’s immediate family. Kotan put down upon the ground the blacksilver urn that contained Geleth’s ashes. Removing the lid, he began to chant the names of his fathers and mothers who had died before he had been born, back three times three generations. When he had finished this, he said the refrain. Penelya joined in, and her voice—high and female, different from his own baritone—comforted him. Rugal, of course, remained silent. He did not know the words.

“We are the sum of all that has gone before,

We are the source of all to come.”

Then, from a leather pouch slung over his shoulder, Kotan brought out the dried petals of the perek flowers, the symbol of the respect in which his family was held. These he dropped into the urn, and this time, he chanted the names of his beloved dead: Arys, his father, his grandfather. Once, he would have said Rugal’s name at this point. Again, Penelya joined in the refrain.

This time Kotan Pa’Dar chanted his mother’s name, nine times; as he said it, he held his hand over her ashes and the petals and, with a thin knife, an heirloom, he cut quickly across his palm. As the blood dripped down, he and the girl said the refrain for the last time. Rugal did not speak. When it was over, Kotan bent down and, with his bare hands, began to dig at the soil. He thought: Did Rugal not listen to us say the refrain? It’s so short. Was he not able to pick it up? Could he not bring himself to join in, even now? Tears ran silently down Kotan’s face; he dug at the ground more viciously, less effectually. He heard the girl murmuring softly in distress. Then Rugal spoke. Rugal, his son, irretrievably lost. “Kotan. Stop.”

“We have to put her here,” Kotan explained. “We have to put her to rest.”

“I know. Wait. I’ll do it.”

Kotan did as he was told. Rugal walked away across the field, returning soon with a metal pole, a piece of abandoned fence. This he used to hammer at the ground. Kotan let him finish the task, burying the urn and covering it. He had no strength left in him. It was day, and the temperature was rising. Soon the land would burn and become all but uninhabitable.

Six

The war stuttered on, corrosive and unwinnable, and during the winter of that year, the Maquis attacked more than a dozen colony worlds in the DMZ. Yet Meya Rejal remained defiant. She had waited a long time for power, and she did not intend to relinquish it without a fight. She knew that her weak point was her reliance on the military; she needed them to fight the war and to keep food, water, and other essential supplies moving around the Union. But her dependence on them infuriated her allies in the civilian political bodies. Where was the new Cardassia she had promised? Why were the guls still so powerful? Rejal needed to break with them somehow. Changing the constitution had failed to control them as a body. She would have to break them one by one.

As winter took hold of the capital city, a series of public scandals—some genuine, some entirely contrived—kept the population gripped. The ’casts were full of the latest legate caught bringing the family name into disrepute. The Cardassian people fell on the stories like honge upon fresh meat. It was a welcome distraction from the rationing, the queues, the stream of young soldiers returning broken from the front. It felt good to see somebody punished. Why not the rich and the mighty? A moralistic mood gripped the Union; family values were back in fashion. Privately, Rejal congratulated herself on her success, on finally making public opinion work in her favor. And then, by chance rather than her own connivance, Rejal found herself placed to destroy the most powerful gul of all: her own senior military adviser, Skrain Dukat.

Rugal first heard the name Tora Ziyal during a long day shift spent at the beck and call of his immediate superior, Nelita. Rugal had begun training as a nurse at the start of the autumn, and Nelita believed that there were only two important things that Rugal needed to learn. First of all, he should obey everything she said. Immediately. Second, he should under no circumstance even think of sitting down. Medical knowledge came a long way below all this. Halfway through his shift, Rugal took his twenty-metric break and, as usual, slipped up onto the roof for some fresh air. Even in the winter months he went outside, preferring the cold to the dank interior of west Torr’s only free hospital.

Two of the nursing staff were up there already, sharing a bag of hot canka nuts and swapping gossip. They acknowledged Rugal’s arrival with a nod, but they didn’t speak to him. He kept a deferential distance. These two were qualified, he was not, and when you were this far down the Cardassian hierarchy, the slightest degree of superiority mattered vastly. Rugal leaned back against the wall, took out a packet of dried leya fruit, and started eating as quickly as he could. Nelita had not yet let him take more than twelve and a half metrics of his break.

“So what’s her name?” one of the pair said to the other.

“Tora Ziyal. Can you believe it?”

It was the Bajoran-sounding family name that made Rugal pay attention. Tora Ziyal (it turned out) was the daughter of a senior military adviser to the government (they didn’t say his name), but not his real daughter.

“It’s wrong,” said one, furiously breathing out steam from her mouthful of hot nuts. “Nobody else gets to parade their bastards around. I don’t see why he should get away with it just because he’s in with the government. Aren’t things supposed to be different now?”

“So you’d think.” Her friend’s face screwed up in distaste. “Is it true she’s a half-breed?”

Rugal didn’t hear the answer to this because at that moment his wrist comm lit up red. He was wanted back inside. “Better get down there,” one of the pair said, not unkindly. “Nelita will throw you in the river if you keep her hanging around.”

Rugal carefully tucked away what remained of his leya slices and rushed back down to work. Throughout the rest of the day, however, he pondered this Tora Ziyal. A half-breed? It didn’t take much to guess what the other half was; not only was there the family name to go by, there was also his colleagues’ disgust. Which other vassal planet stirred up such revulsion in ordinary Cardassians? He went home that evening intent on learning more about Tora Ziyal.

He was fortunate to be sharing rooms with one of the best sources of information on Cardassia Prime. Arric was addicted to the ’casts. He would watch anything: holo-documentaries with titles like “Great Guls and Legates” and “Heroes Against the Federation”; state news of highly doubtful content; and every single gossip channel he could get without having to pay.

When Rugal brought up the topic, Arric was busy assembling his daughter’s supper. There were five of them living in this space at the moment: Arric and Serna and their little girl, Tela; Rugal; and another female called Elat who worked with Serna cleaning a big office building in Barvonok. Rugal still hoped that Penelya would eventually be able to come and join them here. Perhaps once she had passed her first set of exams, Mikor might decide she had earned some freedom and give her formal permission to change her address. Rugal hated to think of her stuck all the way out in Coranum by herself. There wasn’t much room here, but it was friendly and the rations for four adults combined stretched further than you would expect. With a fifth adult’s rations, they could live like legates.

“Of course I’ve heard of Tora Ziyal,” Arric said. “She turned up on Prime weeks ago. She’s Gul Dukat’s daughter.” He stopped stirring and frowned at his friend. “Are you all right?”

Gul Dukat. The man was inescapable. “I’m fine,” Rugal said. “Go on.”

“It’s been everywhere. I keep telling you to spend less time reading broadsheets and more watching the ’casts—you find out more about what’s going on in politics that way. She’s half Bajoran...” Arric paused for a moment, spoon in hand, contemplating what that might mean. “I suppose you have to feel sorry for her. I can’t imagine she’s having much fun with the bigots up in Paldar. But it’s hard to feel sorry for Dukat—he’s the worst product of our narrow-minded militarism.” Arric laughed. “That’s more like how I used to talk, isn’t it? Look, I’ve got to give this to Tela. Put channel six on—they run an item about Tora Ziyal and Gul Dukat and how it means the end of civilization as we know it at least once an hour. That’ll tell you more than you need to know. They’ve even been following her around the capital city the last week or so.”

Rugal cleared the couch of assorted shoes, laundry, and lessonpadds, stretched out, and put on channel six. Within fifteen metrics, as Arric promised, there was something about Tora Ziyal. Ten metrics after that, Rugal had become so angry that he had to turn it off. He went back to the news, which was reporting triumphs against the Klingons in the Hagal system and projecting higher than average year-end figures for the manufacturing sector. The newsreader had her eyes down, which everyone knew was intended to signal that what she was saying was a pack of lies. Rugal abandoned any attempt to work out what was really going on and went to make a pot of redleaf tea. He was thinking about Tora Ziyal. She was the daughter of the man who had ruined his family—both his families—but she was Bajoran, like him. He was sure Arric was right and that she was not being made welcome on Cardassia. He sympathized with this young woman, stuck among strangers, far away from her own kind.

The tap gave out a stutter and nothing else. Rugal sighed. He grabbed the big bottle by the sink, shouted to Arric that he was going out, and ran out into the cold evening down the street to the public pump. There was a queue of five ahead of him, stamping feet, rubbing hands, and grumbling. As he stood waiting, Rugal wondered how much of all this business was Rejal’s doing. It would certainly suit her to see Dukat’s influence reduced. Did Kotan know anything about it? Had he given his approval? Kotan would also like to see Dukat’s reputation in ruins. But would he do that at this poor girl’s expense? By the time he got to the front of the queue, Rugal had convinced himself that Kotan was to blame. And he had determined to find out more about Tora Ziyal.

Rugal balanced the bottle under the pump and keyed in his ration code to activate the flow of water. The key-panel lit up, briefly, and then went dead. A collective groan went up in the queue behind him. Rugal gave it a thump—sometimes that worked, but not this time. “They said they’d come and fix it,” the next person along said mournfully. “They were supposed to be here last month.”

Rugal tapped the barrel. It gave a dull sound. There was plenty of water in there, if they could only get at it. He looked at the faces around him—cold, tired, dispirited—and he found himself thinking of Geleth, going mad with thirst in the desert, while the Assembly tried to summon up enough interest to build a new pipeline to Anaret. “We’re not waiting any longer,” Rugal said. “We can do this ourselves. This casing isn’t thick. Does anyone have anything sharp?”

Kotan Pa’Dar was very well informed about Tora Ziyal. He had heard all about her the evening of her arrival on Cardassia Prime. But his opinion on the subject was much more complicated than his son assumed.

Once a week, Kotan and Alon Ghemor met for dinner at the Civilian Assembly Hall. The hall was a huge burnished dome in the heart of the Tarlak sector; the restaurant that served the Assembly members took up the top floor of the building, and it revolved gently, so that the view out was always in the process of changing. It was best at night: to the north one could see the golden palaces crowning the hill of Coranum; to the southeast, the silver-blue light show pulsing across the surface of the Natural History Museum; to the south and west, the sheer steel towers of Barvonok, the Union’s counting houses. Kotan had always longed to bring Rugal here and show him the jeweled city, but the boy had Geleth’s contempt for ostentation, not to mention that unfortunate tendency to blurt out whatever he was thinking. A trip here would have to wait, but Kotan was ready for the long haul. Kotan’s whole life had been a test of his staying power.

Even in these slender days, it was no hardship coming here. The food was a marvel. Yet Alon had been sighing over his plate of elta leaves stuffed with tuli fish ever since it had been brought out to him.

“I’ve had enough,” Alon said at last. Kotan guessed he wasn’t talking about his dinner, since Alon immediately shoved a forkful of leaves into his mouth. Through them, he said, “This has been the worst week of my life.”

Kotan nodded his understanding. At the start of the week, the last three trials of those former high-ranking Obsidian Order agents arrested for crimes against the new Cardassia had drawn to a conclusion. Their executions had been conducted at sunrise.

“Twenty-seven,” Alon said bitterly. “Twenty-seven of my former colleagues. Do you know what they call me at the Bureau these days? The Great Leveler.”

“It was all necessary,” Kotan said, but without the enthusiasm to carry it off.

“I wish I could believe that.” Alon took a huge gulp of kanar. “If this was all really delivering a new Cardassia, I might be able to stomach it. But it hasn’t, and it won’t. The Bureau’s nothing but a rumor mill these days. When we’re not spying on legates and their whores, we’re faking up holo-images of the same. What does that possibly do for Cardassia? Who’s served by that?” He drained his glass. “She won’t let me do anything more substantial. She doesn’t trust me—can’t trust me, not with my name. Whenever I speak, she hears the whisper of Tekeny.”

“I know it’s been difficult, but we have to stay hopeful. What else can we do? There’s still a faint chance that Meya can make something of all this.”

“Well, she can do it without me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m finished. I’m resigning. Tomorrow morning. I’m done.”

“Leave the Bureau?” Kotan sat back in dismay. “You can’t do that! What would the Bureau do without you? When it comes to that, what in the name of Tret Akleen himself would you do with yourself?”

Alon finished his plate with relish. “I’m going offworld. I’ve bought an estate in the Peyit system. I’m going to drink kanar all day and write a set of scurrilous memoirs that no one will dare publish. If I’m going to waste my life, I might as well enjoy myself doing it.”

“But, Alon! All your talent! And what about your duty? We have a duty to see this through—”

“We have to face facts, Kotan. We lost. I’m still not sure how it happened, but we lost. This was going to be the golden age—do you remember? A new Cardassia. Do you remember how we’d talk about what we’d do when we got into power? Reform, and change, a peaceful, prosperous nation with Tekeny at its head, father to us all... And what do we have instead? Outbreaks of yatik fever, a war with the Klingon Empire that we cannot and will not win, and Skrain Dukat. What happened? How did it all fall apart? Why does the scum always rise to the top? Why aren’t good intentions enough? For the life of me, Kotan, I’ll never understand it.” He pushed his plate away with a clatter.

Kotan glanced around the dining room. Before the war, in any given week, all Cardassia’s political elite passed through the doors of this place. You had to be seen here. It was where one picked up gossip and news: who was falling, who was flying. Now the place had a subdued air, as if the party had ended and only the most dogged were hanging around to see what the dawn would bring. At least it meant that there was nobody around to see the director of the Intelligence Bureau crying into his kanar.

“We shouldn’t lose heart, Alon. There’s still a chance that we can create something better. What we need is to end this war as quickly as possible, even it means all but defeat—”

Alon shook his head. “Dukat would never allow it.”

“He’s not invincible. And the war can’t last forever. We can’t sustain it—there’s no public will for it and there certainly aren’t the resources. One small victory, that’s all Meya needs, and then she’ll have saved face enough to sue for peace and shed Dukat like she’s sloughing off scales. I bet you our next dinner that’s what happens.”

“I’d like to think you’re right. But I don’t believe we’ll see even one small victory. And if it does by some miracle happen, it will be the guls that take the credit, not Meya.” Alon lowered his voice. “She’s already putting out peace feelers. I don’t think she cares about saving face any longer.” He sighed. “I lie awake at night wondering where this is going to end. If this government falls, what will happen? Who will take its place? I’m afraid it might be something worse.”

“Who knows—it might even be you and me. We’re what passes for the opposition. Imagine it—Alon Ghemor, leader of the Cardassian Union.”

Alon snorted. “The Cardassian Union would have to be desperate. Anyway, the first thing I’d do is get my uncle back. Tekeny Ghemor, leader of the Cardassian Union. It has a much better ring to it.”

Kotan tipped his glass forward to tap it against Alon’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

A more cheerful mood descended upon them. Alon ate with more pleasure. Kotan watched him carefully, trying to decide his next step. His aim was to get to the end of this dinner with Alon’s mind changed, and this whole madness of resignation forgotten. The idea of losing his friend from the capital was appalling; he felt lonely just at the thought. Surely he could think of a way to persuade Alon to stay? Even if he could no longer remain at the Bureau, he ought not to quit the political scene completely. Duty, at least, should keep them going, even if there was little promise of reward.

Their next course arrived, a meticulously constructed dish of breast of petha resting on a bed of temet roots. They had barely finished admiring the artistry when the doors swung open and Erek Rhemet strode in, a crowd of junior officials from the Justice Ministry following in his wake. Alon peered at the party balefully. “Erek’s in remarkably good form tonight. You’d never guess the government was on its knees. Makes you wonder what’s going on. Oh well, not my problem any longer.”

Rhemet didn’t keep them in suspense. The moment he saw them he waved and came over to their table. “Gentlemen,” he cried, calling to the servitor to open a fresh bottle of kanar, “at last we have something to celebrate!”

Kotan glanced across the table at Alon. He looked about ready to take his knife to something other than the poultry. Rhemet’s bonhomie had been bearable while they had all been dissidents. In power, it had transformed disagreeably into self-satisfaction, particularly once Kotan and Alon had been sidelined from the Five. “Go on,” Kotan sighed. “Tell us what’s happened.”

Rhemet leaned forward, putting one elbow on the table, as if to draw them into his confidence. Then he boomed, “Dukat! We’ve got him, the slithering psychopath! He won’t get out of this one!”

Heads turned. Whispering began. Alon tapped impatiently on the table with his knife. “I’m still none the wiser, Erek.”

“A daughter! He’s turned up with a long-lost daughter in tow!”

Alon winced and averted his eyes. “I must be missing something,” Kotan said frostily. “Isn’t the return of a missing child good news?”

The people around Rhemet nodded frantically. “Very good!”

“Best news since Enabran Tain got himself killed!”

“I can’t believe he’s had the nerve to bring her back to Prime, never mind the capital. Athra must be furious with him—he’s even got the girl in the house!”

“Did you hear what he was calling her?” another added. “Tora Ziyal.”

There was a collective grimace. “I gather from her name she’s not entirely Cardassian?” Alon said.

“A half-breed and a bastard,” one of them confirmed cheerfully.

Erek Rhemet seemed to have realized his misstep. With one eye on Kotan, he said carefully, “The girl’s mother was Bajoran, you see, one of Dukat’s whores, I should think. Nothing at all like your own particular circumstances, Kotan. Besides, you must be pleased to see Dukat in this position, surely?”

“One would think so,” Kotan replied pleasantly. Alon grimaced, but Erek decided it was better to be agreed with than to be found at fault. “Exactly! A most satisfactory revenge, I’d say if I were you. And exactly what poor Meya needs at the moment—it’ll be all over the screens tomorrow, and I bet the guls won’t be so self-satisfied for a while! Well, I’ll leave the two of you to your dinner. Have this bottle on me.”

He and his party moved on to the table that was waiting for them. Slowly, Kotan began to shift food about his plate. He was sufficiently a product of his culture to be pleased at the news of an enemy’s ruin—but to bring a lost child back to Cardassia? That, Kotan knew, was an act of real courage. It did not seem right for Dukat to be punished for it, not when there were plenty of crimes to choose from. What about the girl herself? Was her life to be ruined, as Rugal’s had been? Was she going to be another victim of Cardassia’s entrenched and senseless rivalries? He could imagine the treatment she was receiving at the hands of her newfound family: the veiled barbs, the outright hostility. It must be unspeakable.

Strange, Kotan thought, as he put food mechanically into his mouth. He had been intending to rally Alon’s spirits, and now he was beginning to think that his friend had it right. They had lost. All the hope and good intentions with which they had embarked upon this experiment in civilian rule were worn out. He himself was tired of it—the compromises, the missed opportunities, the never-ending feuds. It had all lost its flavor. Even his position on the Detapa Council didn’t count. He had never wanted it. It had been Geleth’s ambition, not his. She had lived to see him accomplish it, and now she was dead and it did not matter anymore.

“Nobody would blame you, Kotan,” Alon said in a neutral voice, “if you were delighted by this news. Dukat deserves nothing better from you.”

Kotan put his knife and fork down by his plate in orderly fashion. He drained his glass. “Maybe not. But, do you know, Alon—I think I may have had enough too.”

Tora Ziyal tried not to mind when people stared. She was a young woman of courage and determination, and she trusted her father absolutely when he swore that they could be happy together on Cardassia Prime. For this reason, she had resolved not to hide herself away in the big town house in the Paldar sector. She would go about her business on Cardassia as if she had as much right to be here as anyone else. Besides, her stepmother, Athra, detested her, and her half-brothers and sisters followed their mother’s lead. If she was going to have friends on Cardassia other than her father, Ziyal knew she would need to look beyond the Dukat family home.

She had taken solace in drawing and painting. She had begun tentatively at first, but very quickly she realized that if this was to be serious work rather than a pastime, she had to study. Each morning, therefore, Ziyal took the shuttle down into the Tarlak sector to visit the state galleries. She was slowly working through each room, taking the paintings and the sculptures one by one, learning the progression of Cardassian art and the techniques of the masters. Each day, at least one stranger remarked upon her appearance, as if she too were one of the exhibits. Sometimes it was harmless: a child who could not help pointing at her face and exclaiming. Sometimes it was less pleasant, but until recently Ziyal had been held in a prisoner-of-war camp, and far worse had happened there.

This particular day, Ziyal had gone to the Betik Gallery’s collection of approved contemporary art. The previous evening, to make up for a dreadful scene with Athra, her father had presented her with a book about the holo-mosaics of Lim Prekeny. Ziyal had come to the Betik Gallery to see the most famous of them, The Collectivity. It was generally accepted to be Prekeny’s masterpiece, the piece with which she reestablished her reputation after her artistic license had been revoked for profligacy. The form she had chosen proved her patriotism: nine-tenths of the mosaic was holographic rather than material better used for military purposes.

At least, that was the conventional reading. As with all Cardassian art, Ziyal found herself looking for hidden meanings. For example, Prekeny could have made her mosaic entirely virtual. She had not. Dotted around the whole were small triangular pieces of stone. The holographic tiles altered their color and shape, but these physical pieces remained solid and unchanging. If you sat and watched the mosaic for some time, your eyes drifted to them. Most people didn’t sit and look for a while. They looked for long enough to say that they had seen it, and then they walked on.

Ziyal had been sitting here all morning, becoming more and more absorbed in the minutiae of this extraordinary piece of work. As she studied the small purple triangle in the top left-hand corner, two young Cardassians, a male and a female, came and stood before it. The young man was wearing overalls and had his hair cut aggressively short. Her father would be shocked by that, Ziyal thought with a smile; he was constantly nagging his sons to grow their hair longer. The young woman was neat and small; she wore a gray dress, and her mid-length hair was tied back in a simple style. They were holding hands. The young man said, “I’m not trying to make a big deal, I just don’t like it.”

“You don’t understand the first thing about it!”

“I shouldn’t need to understand anything about it. What’s wrong with me saying that I don’t like it?” He looked and sounded like someone from the service grades. Ziyal was surprised to see him here—surprised and pleased. She had thought Cardassian society was strictly regimented and segregated. Perhaps, once again, the surface was misleading. That was heartening. Perhaps there was somewhere she could slot in too.

The young woman said to him, “You can’t appreciate it properly if you don’t know what Prekeny was trying to do when she sat down and made the thing. She didn’t throw bits of rock around randomly, you know!”

“Are you sure?”

She slapped him on the arm. “Sometimes I could throttle you—” Ziyal smiled. She liked this kind of enthusiasm, and, from the plainness of the girl’s clothes and hair, she suspected this was someone else dependent on a family’s goodwill.

“Before murdering me, how’s this for an opinion? I don’t like the colors—that one there is horrible, like someone’s mixed mud with blood—and I don’t like how the shapes change all the time either, it makes my eyes go weird. And when you stare at it for too long, you feel like you’re about to fall over.”

The young woman almost jumped up and down on the spot with rage. “That’s the point, you idiot! It’s meant to make you feel like that! Prekeny spent eight years in forced resettlement—this is all about her exile, her dispossession, her terror. She did the sketches for it in between digging ditches in a field on Cardassia IV. It’s a brilliant combination of neo-Hebitian archetypes with Third Republic abstractionism, and it’s a downright miracle it even exists, never mind that she got permission to display it here!”

Ziyal reached for her sketch pad. These two were too good to miss. Quickly, she got down the broad strokes of them: the girl’s passion, which was spiky but appealing; the boy’s frown, which could have been unlikable if he hadn’t been so obviously smitten with his companion. Right now he was scowling and trying to come up with a way to counter the barrage of information that she was throwing at him. They looked as if they had arguments like this all the time. Eventually, Ziyal guessed, they would realize that this was what they did with each other, and then they could simply get on with enjoying being together.

“How exactly am I supposed to know all that?” the young man said. “And why should I have to know it before I can stand and look at a picture and say whether or not I like it?”

“Rugal, you’re impossible! I don’t know why I bother with you!”

“I just think it looks horrible!”

Ziyal laughed out loud. The two young people turned to look at her. The young man’s frown deepened. “What? What have I said now?” The young woman hit him on the arm again, and then smiled brightly at Ziyal. “Hello!”

Ziyal tilted her head, part friendly, part shy. “Hello,” she replied.

“Did we disturb you? I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

“You didn’t disturb me at all. I was enjoying your discussion.” She hesitated. She was never quite sure whether she was saying the right thing on Cardassia. She suspected this was in part a blessing, making her miss many of the insults that were directed toward her, but it also made her feel as if she was not able to participate fully in any conversation. “I’m sorry I eavesdropped.”

The girl sat down next to her—thumped would perhaps be a better description—kicked off one of her shoes, and started rubbing her foot. “Oh, don’t worry about that! I bet I was talking at the top of my voice. You probably couldn’t have helped listening if you’d tried. Aren’t you Tora Ziyal?”

The question came out so quickly that Ziyal had almost answered it before suspicion stopped her. “Why?”

“Well, we came all this way to meet you, and Rugal spent a fortune on getting into a gallery containing art that he can’t stand, so it would be a shame if we’d found the wrong person—”

“Pen!” the boy hissed. She blinked back at him, unperturbed, and went on.

“Not that I’d mind if you were the wrong person, since you’re perfectly pleasant and I’m enjoying talking to you.” Ziyal was lost for words, but the girl had plenty left to say. “The thing is,” she went on, “we were worried that you were having a bad time—we’re both fairly new to Prime and we’ve not always had a wonderful time—and when we saw on the ’casts that you spent most of your time out here in the galleries, we thought we’d drop by and say hello and see how things were going for you. Rugal, don’t kick my ankle! It hurts!”

The boy turned to Ziyal, a horrified expression on his face. “Look, I’m really sorry. Sometimes she starts talking and doesn’t stop and it’s a disaster, but most of the time it’s fine and once you’re used to it it’s even interesting...”

Ziyal, who had started packing away her sketching materials, stopped. She looked up at them. The boy was distraught, the girl still friendly. She brought out her drawing pad. “This is what you look like,” she said, opening to the page where she had sketched them, and holding it out for them to see.

At first, they were both suitably chagrined. Then the girl started laughing. “Oh, I bet we do! That’s wonderful. He’s Rugal, by the way, and I’m Penelya—Pen. That’s very funny. I like you, Ziyal. I think we should be friends.”

Friends had been in lamentably short supply on Cardassia Prime. Ziyal smiled. “I think so too.”

They wandered around the gallery together, as if they were three ordinary people and not an orphan, a half-breed, and a disappointment. Every so often Ziyal attracted attention and occasionally comments; somehow it did not seem so bad now that she was with the others. In the gallery’s cafe, between cups of hot bitter gelat and sugary white cakes, she shyly let them look through her sketches. Penelya quickly grasped her main themes: hybridity, coexistence, outliers. Rugal became deeply absorbed in a series she had done trying to merge Cardassian and Bajoran architectural features.

“It doesn’t work yet,” Ziyal said, fretfully.

“No,” he replied, “but you can see how it might be done.”

After that, the most pressing matter was to resolve the quarrel over Prekeny’s mosaic. “It’s ugly,” Rugal stated flatly.

“It’s important,” Penelya shot back.

They turned to Ziyal for adjudication. She thought about the remarkable work for a little longer, and then said, “I think it’s both.” It took her a moment to understand why they started laughing at her; when she did, she started to laugh herself. She was in danger of becoming a walking advertisement for reconciliation.

They left the gallery and walked across Meritok Square toward Victory Boulevard. Ziyal asked her companions about themselves. Penelya, it transpired, had too few parents; Rugal too many. Ziyal spoke with love and gratitude of her father. He was her blind spot—she knew that—but now that her mother was dead, he was all that she had. The faint hope of being welcomed by a large family of half-brothers and half-sisters had been extinguished within moments of arriving on Cardassia. Her father was everything. Penelya understood, Ziyal could see, Rugal less so.

“‘Family is all,’” he said, his frown deepening. “That’s the old expression. But it isn’t true. It can’t be all. It can only ever be a piece. People need more resources than that.”

At the far end of the boulevard was the massive monument to Gul Darhe’el, hero of the Occupation. Ziyal had not yet visited it, and Penelya and Rugal insisted dryly that she must—every Cardassian child was dragged through it at least once in their school career. Rugal’s cohort at his academy had gone there on three separate occasions even during his brief time there. They joined the long queue, stretching back down the boulevard, and slowly shuffled toward the entrance.

The monument was a massive block of huge white stone with an arch cut right through it. At the center, sunk deep into the ground, was a big black stone on which Darhe’el’s name was set in golden letters. Visitors to the tomb streamed past on either side, coming through in opposite directions, passing the carvings on the wall that showed scenes from the gul’s life. When they reached the black stone, they had to bow their heads to look down at it. They had to show respect. “I hate this kind of thing,” Rugal muttered. “It’s offensive. There are sick and hungry people a short shuttle ride away from here, and still they spend all this money on huge monuments and infantile parades.”

Ziyal understood. Places like this did not move her, although she could see their purpose. “It’s for consolation, isn’t it? Cardassians seem to need to be reminded that they matter. And if there are Klingons hammering at the gates and Maquis blowing up colonists, and if—as you say—there are people getting sick and going hungry, then perhaps a little consolation is no bad thing?”

Penelya pressed her fingertip against the sheer mass of white stone that loomed above them. “I think I take more consolation from Prekeny’s mosaic,” she said, very softly, as if afraid she might be heard. “To think that someone could live through what she lived through, and then produce something beautiful and wise.”

“You’re right, of course,” Ziyal said frankly. Rugal kissed Penelya gently on the ridge on her forehead. Then a man in the queue behind them made his opinion known. He had a long white scar down one cheek and a medal on his chest—a veteran of the current campaign. “You three should be ashamed of yourselves. Darhe’el was one of our greatest heroes. He gave everything for Cardassia!” He was shaking with anger. “I bet you’ve all sacrificed nothing. How dare you come in here and say things like that! As for you,” he spat in Ziyal’s face. “Filthy murdering Bajoran scum.”

Rugal, hand raised, took a step forward, but before it went any further, Penelya pushed her way out of the queue and ran back outside. Ziyal and Rugal chased after her. “I’m so sorry!” Penelya cried, close to tears. “That was my fault! I shouldn’t have said anything!”

Rugal put his arm around her. “You can say whatever you like. Anyway, I think it was all three of us in combination.” He looked around, bitterly. “There are times when I hate this place so much I could rip all the ridges from my face.”

Ziyal was shocked. “Don’t say that! You don’t mean that!”

They stood for a while in silence, in varying degrees of distress. Ziyal thought about what Rugal had just said. She herself had never felt that way, had never wanted to change the way she looked. She knew people assumed she was the product of rape, of hatred—but she knew she was not. She had seen how it had been between her mother and her father. She was living proof of the possibility of love between Bajor and Cardassia.

She said, slowly, “People here have all these reasons to hate each other, and they feed them rather than try to lose their appetite for them. And they brought that way of doing things with them to Bajor, and now Bajor has to struggle with exactly the same problem. And that’s not to say that people don’t have good reasons to hate each—Bajor has every reason to hate Cardassia!—and I do understand why people want revenge, and reparations, but... when will it end? Would Bajor be happy if everything Cardassian was wiped out? I don’t think so. And I don’t want half of me to be wiped out. All told, I quite like myself!”

She stopped speaking. She didn’t often say these things, not in speech, at any rate. Most of it was in her pictures, if people took the time to look at them properly. Most people didn’t. Her friends, however, were looking at her approvingly. They glanced at each other, and Penelya smiled, and Rugal nodded, as if to say: Yes, she’s one of us. It made Ziyal feel better than she had done at any time on Cardassia, except for the times when she was with her father.

They parted ways in the early evening, in friendship, and with promises to meet, all three of them, as soon as possible. They never did. Before they could get together again, Tora Ziyal and her father had been driven from Cardassia Prime.

The young master nearly kicked down the front door. Maleta had to jump out of his way as he came past her. “Where is he? In the back?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but strode down the hall toward the master’s study. Maleta hurried after him. She had seen many things in her years of service to the Pa’Dar family, but the young man who refused his father’s money and preferred to live like he was lowborn was something shockingly new. Maleta thought the master should have taken a firmer stand over the whole business, but for some reason he seemed content to let his only child spend his days wiping up after beggars. Nothing good would come of it. There had to be standards. One day the young master would inherit the house and the money. Maleta doubted he would keep on scratching out a living in Torr when that happened. But would he be fit to be the master of the house?

The young master had kindly left the door of his father’s study open behind him, so Maleta lowered herself down to sit on the stairs and listen.

“How could you!” the young master shouted.

“Rugal! Always a pleasure to see you. What have I done now?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“These days, I never know what anyone is talking about—don’t kick that, please, it belonged to your mother—perhaps you could take a moment to tell me?”

“Ziyal! Tora Ziyal! Kotan, how could you?”

The Dukat half-breed. Maleta sniffed. It had been all over the news yesterday that she had left Cardassia Prime. Quite right too.

“Ah. Yes. I heard that she’d left.” Maleta heard the creak of the master’s chair as he sat down again. “I doubt you’ll believe me, but I had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“After all that happened to me. She was lonely! Pen and I had made friends with her. She could have settled down here, given time. It wouldn’t have been easy, but she was brave and clever and she could have done it.”

“Rugal, did you hear that I had resigned from all my government appointments?”

There was a pause. Maleta leaned forward. “What?” the young master said.

“About six weeks ago. I resigned from the Council, the Science Ministry, and the Assembly. Alon Ghemor resigned from the Bureau at the same time. In protest over Meya’s use of this affair as a means to discredit Dukat.”

Maleta heard the young master take a few steps around the room. “You mean that you and Alon Ghemor felt sidelined, and decided to position yourselves as a credible opposition?”

“You can think that if you prefer,” the master said in even tones. “I found myself thinking that Dukat did not deserve to be punished for what must be the single selfless act in his entire life. Ghemor’s left Prime, by the way. Not what you’d do if you were thinking of yourself as heir apparent.”

There was another long pause. “I’d like to believe you.”

“You can,” the master replied simply.

“So... what are you doing with yourself now?” The young master sounded less sure of himself. Maleta pursed her lips. Good.

“A little reading. A lot of thinking. I’ve been following your work in Torr. You and your friends have been doing some good things out there. I wonder—do you see yourselves as a kind of commune? Your broadsheets suggest that you do.”

Another creak of a chair. “That’s one way of describing it.”

“You’re lucky that the central administration is so badly overstretched. Interfering with water supplies? Distributing food and medicine without the proper permits? Running a barter economy? A few years ago you would have been infiltrated by the Obsidian Order and shot.”

“And what good would that do anyone? It’s because there’s barely any administration anymore that we have to do what we’re doing. There’s food in the depots, but it doesn’t get distributed quickly enough, and people get missed out or passed over and they go hungry.”

“I’m not quarreling with you, Rugal. I’m simply pointing out how different things are now. Would you like to see the whole of Cardassia run this way?”

The young master hesitated before replying. “I don’t know... I have to think about that. It might be better for everyone.... But it’s not meant to be revolution, Kotan. We just want to be left to get on with things, left in peace. What’s the problem with that?”

“Speaking as a former Council member? Because you show up the cracks in the system. Simply by doing what you’re doing, you demonstrate how far things have broken down, how useless the administration is.” The master laughed. “Speaking as a private citizen—more power to you.”

“Well. Thanks.”

Another creak as someone stood up. Maleta heard the chink of kanar glasses and a bottle being opened. “I’d like to help,” the master said.

“Oh yes? How? Actually—why?”

“Money would help, I imagine—”

“I don’t want your money.”

“But perhaps you don’t want my money. Very well... what about influence? Experience? Access? Come to dinner next week. I’ll gather up some friendly faces, potential donors. Industrialists, directors of charities, owners of hospitals that I worked with when I was at the ministry. They might want to supply you with funds—or material, if you don’t want their money either. I’ll feed them and you can tell them what you’re doing and why it’s important.” He paused. “I’d be obliged if you avoided using the word ‘revolution,’ however. Or ‘commune,’ if it comes to that. The people I’m thinking of have sensitive stomachs.”

The young master didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “If you’re still trying to position yourself as a credible opposition to Rejal, I won’t have it. I won’t let you use us in that way.”

“My dearest boy, my days as a politician are over. I buried those ambitions with Geleth. But my days of duty to the people of Cardassia? They are not over, and will not be until I myself am buried. I want to help because it is my duty to help. No other reason.”

Maleta didn’t hear anymore because at that point somebody closed the study door. She heaved herself to her feet, brushing out the creases on her apron. So he wasn’t interested in the master’s money, was he? She gave a snort of laughter. Give it time.

In the year after his resignation, Kotan Pa’Dar was the happiest he had been since the death of his wife. The work that he was doing was the most satisfying since his earliest days as a scientist. He brought all his experience and good reputation to the task. He greased palms and stroked egos to make sure necessary projects were pushed through. He made important links between administrators in other urban centers, and he did not forget the famine-threatened provinces or the desperate refugees from the Maquis. Nor did he remain secluded in his part of the city; he was prepared to go and get his hands dirty in the harder-hit sectors. His efforts barely scratched at Cardassia’s structural woes. But for Kotan, it was deeply satisfying work. Best of all, it brought him into regular contact with his son.

This was Rugal’s fourth year on Cardassia Prime. At nineteen, he was a spare young man who never laughed and rarely smiled. His resemblance to his paternal grandmother was striking. He was frequently angry, but he had learned to control the emotion, and he was most at his ease in the company of the Khevet girl. The girl herself was also quiet, but in a calmer way, as if she inhabited some private fortress that she had constructed for herself, where the exigencies of her life were not able to touch her. Together, they looked exactly like the lowborn couple in the painting by Agrat: dutiful and accepting of their station. Kotan might have worried it was a joyless sort of life they led, except that his son, with Penelya, was somberly tender, and the girl, with his son, was radiant. Kotan wondered when she would agree to join with him. He hoped it would be soon. He wished them all the happiness that he and Arys had shared, but for their whole lives.

One evening, Kotan invited them both to his home, for a triple celebration. Rugal had recently qualified as a paramedic. Penelya had scored at the top in the first-year examinations at the School of Agronomy. And Kotan, for his public service and work in the Torr sector, had been awarded a Civilian Commendation. Geleth would have been livid, Kotan thought, with mild pleasure.

After supper, which was sparse but companionable, the three of them sat in the sunroom and talked through some of the difficulties they had been having distributing medical supplies around the east side of the Torr sector. They were interrupted when Kotan received an urgent incoming message. He read it, frowning. “This is odd,” he said. “From Ithas Bamarek, of all people. He says I should see what’s happening on the viewscreen.”

The three of them went into his study and pulled up chairs. On the screen, Skrain Dukat was announcing to the Cardassian people that, on their behalf, he had brought them under the authority of the Dominion.

“Kosst...” Rugal whispered. He put his arm round Penelya’s shoulder.

Kotan stood up. He started pacing around the room. “I don’t believe this.” On the communication console on his desk, red lights began to flash.

“You might ask,” declared Dukat, “should we fear the Dominion? And I answer you, not in the least...”

“Prophets,” said Rugal. “Sometimes I think he believes everything he says.”

“Dukat always believes what he says,” Kotan replied. “At least for the moment that he’s saying it.”

“Cardassia will be made whole... for my son, for all our sons.”

The screen went black. “No daughters, I notice,” Penelya remarked. “Poor Ziyal.”

“Kotan,” Rugal said in a low, scared voice. “What’s going to happen?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Kotan said. The screen began to blink. “Wait, what’s this?”

The picture resolved into an image of two women standing side-by-side in front of the symbol of the Cardassian state. One of the women was Teretis Geyl, the Chief Archon, the senior judicial figure in the Union. The other was Meya Rejal. Geyl spoke first, fluently and with assurance. “People of Cardassia, we reject the extraordinary statement made by the traitor Dukat. It has no basis in law; it is a direct infringement of the new constitutional arrangements made under the Declaration of the Transference and Assumption of Powers. We reject his authority to speak for the Union; we reject his claim to power. We recognize the authority of the Detapa Council.” She turned to her companion.

“People of Cardassia,” said Meya Rejal shakily. She had a hunted look. “I call on us all to stand united at this time. Let us not bow down to tyranny; let us not give way to threat. We are a proud people and we will survive.” She put her hand against her heart. “I swear,” she said, and now her voice was steady, “that I will fight for you. I will fight for Cardassia.”

The screen went dead again, and they could find no other transmissions, not even on the unofficial channels that Rugal knew. “Kotan,” said Penelya urgently. “Are you safe?”

Touched, he reached out to pat her hand. “Dear girl. I’m sure Dukat has more on his mind at the moment than settling some ancient score with me.”

“We’ll look after you,” Rugal said robustly. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

On Kotan’s insistence, Rugal and Penelya left shortly afterward. Rugal took Penelya back up the hill to her uncle’s house, and then took the shuttle out to Torr. At the security checkpoint, four Jem’Hadar boarded the shuttle behind the regular police unit and followed them down through the carriages as they checked identities. The Cardassian officers looked uncertain. The Jem’Hadar looked implacable. Back at home, he and Arric and Serna watched fearfully as a fireworks display took place somewhere in the Paldar sector. At least someone in Cardassia City was pleased at this turn of events.

Seven

But bravely spoken and defiant words were not enough to save Teretis Geyl and Meya Rejal. Not in the face of overwhelming force. Taking refuge in the bunker beneath the Council chambers, they attempted to organize the city constabularies and the few troops still loyal to the administration as a defense against the Dominion invasion.

A third before the first bell, when it was still dark, the building was stormed by the Jem’Hadar. They marched in, seized the Chief Executor and the Chief Archon, dragged them out and executed them on the spot. The images played on every channel for weeks afterward, in between repeat showings of Gul Dukat’s accession speech.

The purge that followed the end of civilian rule was unparalleled even in Cardassia’s recent bloody history. Ithas Bamarek was shot following the dissolution of the Cardassian city constabularies. A civilian militia was created—a fifth of the strength of the previous police force and directly answerable to Dukat—but the Jem’Hadar took over maintenance of law and order in all urban centers. The rest of the Detapa Council was tried and executed for “weakening the Cardassian state.” Some high-ranking Assembly members shared this fate; others were interned in labor camps or placed under house arrest. As for the rest of the Five: Erek Rhemet, who had been offworld at the time, was rumored to have sought asylum in Mathenite space, joining Tekeny Ghemor to form a government-in-exile. The Cardassian Intelligence Bureau was made a subsidiary agency within Dominion Intelligence. There was no news from the Peyit system of Alon Ghemor. He had disappeared into the cold and dark space. Kotan assumed this was good news. If Dukat had captured Tekeny Ghemor’s nephew, he would surely have broadcast both the news and the subsequent execution widely.

As for Kotan himself, his recent charitable work—and the fact that he had quit his government posts to carry it out—saved his life. He was one of the few members of the civilian administration held in genuine public affection. He was not even placed under formal house arrest. He did wake up one morning, however, to find two Jem’Hadar stationed outside the front doors and another two on the avenue beyond. He had told Penelya that Dukat would have better things to do than bother with him, but in his heart Kotan knew that he had not been forgotten. The presence of those four Jem’Hadar confirmed it. As soon as Dukat was sure his position was secure, as soon as the Cardassian people proved their unconditional love for him, he would start settling old scores. In the meantime, Kotan kept to his house and hoped that Rugal would have the sense not to do anything foolish enough to get them all killed.

Dukat’s coup had overwhelming popular support. Food and goods from Dominion territories began to flood Cardassian shops and depots, and the new masters of Cardassia proved able to distribute them, particularly in the provinces, where the Jem’Hadar were quickly embedded. Within weeks, news was released of military successes against the Klingons. Dukat’s popularity soared. Tora Ziyal was forgotten. People began to talk, in sentimental terms, of the great Cardassian family, with Dukat at its head. They took their children out to the Akleen sector to see the Jem’Hadar drill, and they cheered as they watched. In the streets and on the walkways, people congratulated each other on surviving the past few years, and said how glad they were to have been delivered.

One afternoon, Rugal joined Arric on the roof of the free hospital for his break. Now an auxiliary medic, Rugal and his ilk reigned supreme up here. (The doctors went somewhere else.) They talked about Dukat’s accession and, because they were in private, Arric asked, “Do you know what’s going to happen to you?” Rugal had long since trusted him with the story of Dukat’s part in his kidnap. “Will Dukat be coming after you and your father?”

“I don’t know.” Rugal replied honestly. He gave his friend a wry smile. “Don’t worry. The first sign of trouble, I’ll be gone. I don’t want any of you hurt either. Particularly Tela.”

“Rugal, I didn’t mean that—”

“I know you didn’t, but I do. It’s possible he’s forgotten about us. He has a war on his hands, after all.” In truth, Rugal was deeply fearful on Kotan’s account. He had gone past the Pa’Dar family house and seen the Jem’Hadar there, but he hadn’t dared to contact Kotan directly. In the meantime, he and his friends were watching with despair the collapse of their work in Torr. For over a year they had labored to get the people of the sector working together to deliver supplies and services to each other, and now their fellow citizens were abandoning the effort in favor of Dominion handouts. “So much for the project,” Arric said, one evening at home.

Elat, Serna’s friend, took a more practical view of the matter. “What’s the problem? There’s food in the shops, there’s a reliable supply of drinking water. Isn’t that the kind of thing you were trying to get done around here?”

“That’s not freedom,” Rugal objected. “Simply being fed isn’t freedom.”

“It’s better than working all night and then having to queue for hours just to be able to eat enough to go back to work,” Elat replied.

“Some people will always rather be fed and enslaved than hungry and free,” Arric said despondently. “Or so it transpires.”

Serna picked up their small daughter and kissed her on the top of her head. “People have been hungry for so long,” she said. “There are limits to what anyone can be expected to bear.”

In the summer, Dukat proclaimed a three-day holiday across the Union to coincide with the longest day in the capital. Festivals were held across major urban centers throughout the Union. The centerpiece of the occasion was a massive military parade through the capital city to mark the defeat of the Klingon Empire. The parade would culminate in the unveiling of a new statue of Dukat in the Plaza of the Union.

Rugal and Penelya went along to watch. Attendance wasn’t compulsory, but word was likely to get around if you hadn’t seen it, and he was loath to draw attention to himself and Kotan. As the afternoon wore on and the spectacle showed no sign of abating, Penelya said in a quiet voice, “This might even be good for Cardassia.”

Rugal gave her a puzzled look.

“What I mean is... if we’re part of the Dominion, then we can rely on them to bring food and medicine, and build houses. So we won’t go and do what we’ve always done in the past. I mean, invade other worlds and take what we lack. Perhaps this really will mean peace and prosperity, for all the people of Cardassia.”

“I’m not convinced this has anything to do with the welfare of the Cardassian people,” Rugal said. “As long as we do what we’re told, as long as we’re grateful for what we’re being given, then there’ll be peace and prosperity. But if that ever changes...” He looked down at the ranks of Jem’Hadar beginning to take their places around the still-covered monument. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to them, the omnipresent soldiers of an occupying power. “We might turn out to be surplus to requirements.”

Brass instruments blasted out a fanfare of ear-popping stridency. When it ended, there was silence in the plaza, a silence that—if the screens were anything to go by—was stretching out across the whole Union. Three metrics passed this way, in honor of the fallen in the recent war. And then, slowly, to the beat of drums, the statue of Dukat was unveiled. “Rugal,” Penelya whispered. “I have to tell you something.”

Someone sitting behind them made a shushing sound. One of a pair of Jem’Hadar positioned nearby looked their way. “Does it have to be right now, Pen?” he whispered back. She subsided, but then, as the last covering was removed, and the black and silver figure of Dukat was revealed, and the crowd rose to their feet to applaud and cheer madly, she said softly, “I’m leaving Cardassia Prime. I’m going back to Ithic.”

He had been distracted by the proceedings and hadn’t been listening properly. He turned to her. Ridiculously, he laughed. “What did you just say?”

“Ithic. I’m going back.”

He took her by the hand and they started to weave their way through the crush. One of the pair of Jem’Hadar, seeing them, raised his weapon slightly. “She’s sick,” he muttered. “Too much excitement.” The Jem’Hadar nodded, let them past, and they hurried out of the plaza.

The walkways were quiet. Everyone was watching the parade. They walked along for a while in silence. She had on that awful expression she wore when she was trying to look pleased about something bad that was being done to her. When they got to the small park by the statue of Legate Artoc, he dragged her over to one of the stone benches. “It’s good news really,” she said, in a sharp, bright brittle way that made his heart crack.

“Penelya...”

“I’ve wanted to go back there for ages. You know that. It’s my home.” She glanced back in the direction of the plaza. “It’s thanks to the Dominion, I suppose. If we had never joined the Dominion, we would never have beaten the Klingons, and as long as we were fighting the Klingons, we couldn’t fight the Maquis... But the Maquis are gone now. Ithic is back under Cardassian control. Dominion control. Whichever. It makes no difference. So I’m going back.”

“Don’t. It’s a terrible idea—”

“All my parents’ holdings are back in my uncle’s possession. And he’s decided that the best thing for me to do is go out there and find out how the operation is run. Learning on the job, he says. Which is good, isn’t it? It pays my uncle back for all the money he’s spent on my upkeep, and it means I get to do something that contributes directly to Cardassia’s food problems, and you know how I’ve wanted to be useful, to earn my place—”

“Kosst, Pen, stop it!” Rugal said angrily. “What about your studies? He promised to put you through the institute. Now he’s sending you out to the middle of nowhere while you’re still unqualified so that you’ll always be dependent on him. He’s cheating you!”

“Don’t!” Penelya shot back. “Don’t say anything like that to me ever again!” She stopped to collect herself, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want anything like that to be the last thing that we say to each other, Rugal. I want us to stay friends—”

“That’s not good enough. Penelya, don’t go. Stay here. Marry me. Kotan likes you. He won’t mind, not now he knows you. We can make a life here. You can come and live with us in Torr. You can carry on studying. You don’t need your uncle’s money. We’ll get by. Kotan will help.” Yes, he thought, if it would keep her here, he would take Kotan’s money. He would do anything to keep her here. He would even call himself Kotan’s son, call Kotan Father. “You don’t have to go where your uncle sends you.” Hope rose in his heart as he said these things to her, as he sketched out this possible future to her. It all made perfect sense. She couldn’t possibly refuse.

Penelya let go of his hand. She stood up and walked to stand in the shade of a huge mekla bush whose scarlet flowers were brilliant in the sunshine. It was a glorious day. Of course she would say yes... “It’s not that I don’t want to say yes,” she said, and his heart split in two. “I do, I swear I do. But I can’t. My uncle could have left me to live on the streets, and he didn’t. He took me into his house, and he took care of me—No, it’s true!” she said, when he shook his head. “I owe him a great deal for that. And I need to repay that, before I can be... well... free.”

“If you stayed with me,” Rugal said quietly, “then you would be free.”

“I wouldn’t, Rugal. There would still be the debt.”

“There isn’t any debt!”

“Yes, there is. But, listen! There is another option. You could come with me. Why not?” she said eagerly, going back over to him. “It’s a colony world. It’s only just getting back on its feet. Someone like you, a medic, would be very welcome there. Why not come to Ithic with me?”

He took her hands within both his own. Could he do that? Ithic was so far away... If Cardassia Prime had been the end of the line, Ithic might as well be the end of the world. “I can’t,” he said with difficulty, weaving his fingers through hers. “I have to go back to Bajor. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I can’t stay here forever. I know it makes no sense, I know it must seem like madness, I know that nobody has ever believed me when I’ve said it—”

Gently, she leaned down and kissed him, stopping the flow of estranging words. “I have always believed you, every time you’ve said it. I have never doubted that one day you would go back to Bajor. I shouldn’t have asked you to stay, that was wrong. But you have to understand—that need to go back, that sense of having to be somewhere, that’s how I feel about Ithic. That’s how I feel about my duty.”

There was no answer to that. He kissed her in return, on the ridge between her eyes. “Perhaps one day you’ll change your mind,” he said. “I’ll wait, in case you do. I promise.”

“I won’t hold you to that,” she said, and already she seemed to be speaking from a great distance.

“Too late,” he said fiercely. “I promised.”

He missed her beyond words. She had been his first friend on Cardassia, the only thing that had made his earliest years here bearable. Since the deaths of Etra and Migdal, she had been his chief reason for carrying on. Now that she was gone, he was purposeless. He worked, he slept, he ate. He sat and watched the triumphalist newscasts and military recruitment drives that filled up the channels until it was the early hours of the morning, when Serna and Elat would get back from work and make him go to bed. He was lying on the couch staring at a ’cast when he heard the announcement of the death of Tekeny Ghemor.

His first thought was of Kotan. Tekeny had been a father figure to him. He would be devastated. Over the next few days, while he helped with the new inoculation program that was being implemented at the free hospital, Rugal pondered whether he ought to risk contacting his father. One evening he took the shuttle out to Coranum, but there were still Jem’Hadar outside the house, and he didn’t dare go past them. He didn’t want to use the comm at home or one of the ones at work, and eventually he went out to eastern Torr and used the public comm unit in a geleta house he had never been to before.

Kotan, seeing him, was alarmed. “My dear boy, what are you thinking of—?”

“I heard about Tekeny,” Rugal blurted out. “I wanted to say I was sorry.”

Kotan’s expression softened. “Thank you. Thank you. That means a great deal to me, Rugal. Tell me, how are you?”

“Fine... How are you?”

“Much the same as ever, although Maleta is feeding me too much and I’m not able to get any exercise. How is your lovely girl?”

Rugal clenched his fists. “She’s gone, Kotan.”

“Gone?”

“Mikor sent her back to Ithic.”

“Ah.” Rugal watched as Kotan worked out all the ramifications of that. “I see. I’m very sorry to hear that. I was hoping to see you joined. Well, perhaps it can still happen one day. When I can move freely again, I’ll speak to Mikor. I gather he’s doing very well at the moment...” He collected himself. “Rugal, don’t stay on this line any longer. I’m very grateful that you’ve been in touch. Look after yourself. I’m sure we’ll be able to see each other soon.”

“Good-bye,” Rugal said. “Take care.” He cut the transmission and gave a deep, shuddering sigh. It had been good to see Kotan, after all these months, and he was glad to know that the man was still safe. He was glad, too, to have spoken to someone about Penelya. Arric and Serna were good friends, but Kotan was the closest thing that he had to a history. It had been the right decision to get in touch, he thought, as he went back home. His sadness seemed to have lessened as a result.

Perhaps it was this communication. Perhaps it was only a matter of time. Whatever it was, a few weeks later, Rugal was called to his supervisor’s office. When he went in, he was met by two officers from the civilian militia, who promptly arrested him on a charge to be specified at a later date. So this is it, he thought as they bundled him into the back of their armored skimmer; by the end of the week he would be dead, or en route to some barren and forsaken moon for corrective labor. Even despite the shock tactics—cuffing him hand and foot in front of his supervisor, shuffling him out of the hospital in full view of his workmates—Rugal felt oddly tranquil. He realized he had always assumed that, if he hadn’t escaped to Bajor, this would be how it would end.

They drove for about twenty or thirty metrics, during which time Rugal sat, as instructed, with his head between his knees. When at last the skimmer stopped, he was ordered to get out; he obeyed, dizzy and stumbling slightly. He blinked at the bright sunlight streaming down on the grand building in front of him. This was not Maklar Prison, he thought—unless Maklar Prison had recently been refurbished as a country house in the style of the Second Republic.

The two officers led him inside through a plant-filled atrium and down along several elegant corridors to a small sunroom. They ordered him to sit down, releasing his ankles but not his wrists. Then they took up guard positions, one by the door to the room, the other by the largest of its three windows. Nobody spoke. Rugal stared down at the chain between his hands. After another ten or fifteen metrics, he heard footsteps in the corridor. He looked up as Dukat walked in. Behind him was Kotan.

Even with the sun streaming down on his back, Rugal shivered. Dukat beamed at him and clapped his hands together. “How glad I am to be here at this family reunion! Even better, to be the agent of it! Kotan,” he barely glanced behind him, “do take a seat—how about there, next to your boy. Rugal, has anyone offered you a drink?”

Rugal held up his wrists. “I think I’d have trouble with it.”

Dukat nodded at one of the guards, who came and released his wrists. Rugal rubbed them, looking sideways at Kotan. The man gave him a warm, anxious smile and reached out to place his hand, briefly, on top of Rugal’s. Dukat watched the whole exchange like a voyeur. “Here,” he said, holding out two glasses of kanar. He took a chair opposite them and held up his own glass. “To families! Long may they remain together!” He drank deeply; Kotan sipped gingerly. Rugal held his own glass out in front of him as if it were a grenade.

“Not drinking?” said Dukat.

“No thanks,” Rugal replied. “I’m on duty at the hospital. Was there something particular you needed from me? I’d like to get back.”

Dukat blinked at him, wrong-footed and baffled. Rugal heard Kotan smother a laugh. “I’d like to get back too,” Kotan said carelessly. “I had a busy afternoon in the garden planned. For a man with a military dictatorship to run, Dukat, you have a lot of time available for face-to-face gloating.”

Dukat stared at them both in disbelief. He gestured behind him to the armed guards standing by. “You do understand that I can order these two men to kill you and still be well within the law?”

Kotan’s good humor subsided. “If you had intended to kill either of us,” he said quietly, “I don’t think you would have bothered with this whole charade.”

“No,” Dukat agreed. “No, I wouldn’t.” He stood up and began to pace the room, coming to a halt by one of the windows, where he began slowly to play with the dimmer control. The room began to darken slightly. Rugal glanced at Kotan; when he caught the man’s eye, he gave him an encouraging smile, receiving one in return.

“You’re a difficult man to track down, Rugal,” Dukat said.

“It’s a big Union. And I’m sure you’ve been busy.”

“Your father,” Dukat nodded at Kotan, “was considerably easier to find. While I was busy fending off Klingons, he seems to have been making himself popular with the people.”

“That’s because he was doing good work,” Rugal said, quietly and truthfully. “And they appreciated his efforts.”

“And yet my efforts on their behalf have been considerably more popular, wouldn’t you say? Nobody’s starving on Cardassia Prime now, are they? Not like in the good old days, when the Five were in power.” The room went a little dimmer. “Speaking of the Five, have you heard from your old friend Alon Ghemor recently, Kotan? I wonder if he has heard of his uncle’s deathbed recantation. I’m glad Tekeny saw reason, just in time.”

“Wherever Alon is,” Kotan said, in measured tones, “I’m sure he was as devastated as I was to hear about Tekeny’s death. And I’m sure he knows exactly what to believe about it.”

Dukat shrugged. “Alon Ghemor doesn’t matter. I’ll find him eventually. But you, now, Kotan, let’s talk about you. The only other member of the Five. The last surviving member of the old Detapa Council...”

“Dukat,” Kotan replied in a clear voice. He sounded more in command than Rugal had ever heard him. “Must we continue in this way? You did terrible harm to me when you stole Rugal. I hated you for a very long time. But I will not be consumed by it any longer.” He put down his glass and stood up. “We can end this. I mean you no harm—I cannot mean you any harm! And I would never have harmed your daughter.”

Dukat swung away from the window. He strode across the room, stopping only when he and Kotan were standing face to face. Kotan swallowed, but he did not flinch. “It was the Detapa Council that drove us into exile, the Council that drove my daughter away—a Council of which you were a member!”

“Kotan had nothing to do with that,” Rugal said quickly. “He resigned over it.”

Dukat stared at him, and then back at Kotan. Rugal held his breath. Then Dukat shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference.” He strode away, back to the window. “Most likely you’re lying anyway.”

“Then what do you want from me, Dukat?” Kotan held his palms out. “A declaration of my loyalty, like you wanted from Tekeny? My life? You can have both, if you want. If you really believe that they will satisfy you.”

Dukat looked at him in contempt. “Begging, Kotan? I knew you were a coward. I don’t want your loyalty, and I don’t want your life.” He looked out the window. Casually, as if he was asking for the time, he said, “I want your son.”

Before Rugal’s eyes, Kotan seemed to crumble. What was it Geleth had said? All the best feuds are passed down. Once upon a time, Kotan Pa’Dar had threatened Skrain Dukat’s position. So Dukat had stolen his son. In return, Pa’Dar had used Dukat’s daughter to ruin him—or so Dukat believed. And now Dukat was powerful again, and the debt had to be repaid, in kind. Except that there wasn’t any debt. Kotan had not harmed Tora Ziyal. And it didn’t make any difference whatsoever. “Dukat,” Kotan said. “Please...”

In the end, Rugal couldn’t bear to listen to his father beg. Not on his account. “Dukat,” he said quickly, ignoring Kotan’s frantic gesture telling him to stop. “What do you want? Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

Dukat turned and smiled at him. When Dukat smiles at you, Rugal thought, it’s like being served up on a plate in front of something large and hungry and in possession of a very sharp knife. He could not understand why Ziyal loved this man. He was the closest thing to a monster Rugal had ever met—and Rugal had met Geleth.

“Well,” Dukat said, “and speaking confidentially, you understand, it’s entirely possible that we may soon find ourselves at war.” His eyes flicked between father and son. Kotan, suddenly understanding, said, “Oh no! No! I absolutely forbid it!”

“It’s not your decision,” Rugal pointed out. He still had his eyes on Dukat, who was still smiling. I’ll let him live, he seemed to be saying, if you do what I want.

“Rugal, I did not bring you home and risk public disgrace just to have you killed fighting whatever war this maniac has planned—”

“Kotan, please, shut up!”

“The young man is right,” Dukat said. “It’s not your decision, Pa’Dar.”

Rugal got up from his chair and began to pace the room. He came to rest by the window. He altered the dimmer so that the sunlight could stream back in, and he stared out across a lavish green garden. This strange planet, he thought. Wholly alien and wholly familiar, all at the same time. Once he had hated it, without qualification. Now, after four years, he was not sure. He knew he did not love Cardassia—or at least, he did not love what people said Cardassia was meant to represent. What he had come to love were specific people, certain qualities. He loved Penelya’s fortitude, how she always kept her dignity even when she was treated with contempt. He was proud of his friends, and the people of Torr, who had been cold and hungry and afraid and had not turned on each other, but had worked together. He had been in awe of Ziyal’s courage, her vision, how she had tried to communicate it and make it tangible. He had, in the end, come to admire Geleth, who had survived unspeakable losses with her spirit unbroken.

And what about Kotan, who had dragged him away from his family and from Bajor, and had brought him to this strange cruel place? In the end, he had to say that he did love Kotan, and for one simple reason. Kotan had loved him without condition. Whenever Rugal had been angry or bitter or accusatory, Kotan had not responded in kind. He had loved Rugal because he was his son, and he had asked for nothing in return. And that, in its turn, was unanswerable. “I’ll do what you ask,” Rugal said to Dukat. He felt light as he said it, almost happy, as if he was releasing himself of an obligation that he had not until now known existed. “I’ll join your ridiculous army.”

That last took some of the edge off Dukat’s triumph, Rugal was pleased to see. As for Kotan—he didn’t look at Kotan, because he didn’t think he could quite bear to see what this particular sacrifice was costing his father.

• • •

Between the start of Rugal’s basic training and being commissioned into the Second Order, the war that Dukat had promised began. The Federation mined the wormhole, preventing Dominion ships from coming through from the Gamma quadrant. In response, the Dominion took Deep Space 9. Who knew where it would end?

Before leaving Cardassia Prime, Rugal went back for the last time to the Pa’Dar house in Coranum. That afternoon he had to report to the Second Order’s garrison in the Akleen sector. The next day his company was leaving for Ogyas III, to guard a scientific research facility of unspecified purpose. Kotan, seeing him in uniform, said tiredly, “The never-ending sacrifice.”

“Someone had better be willing to end it,” Rugal replied, “and soon. Or there won’t be anyone left to sacrifice.”

Arric, Serna, and Tela came to see him off. Kotan was confined to the house and could not come. They wished him luck—Arric was dazed by this turn of events—and then Rugal was on his way. The company was transported out onto the Ramaklan. Sitting crushed in a line of other indistinguishable troops, Rugal thought how he had longed for this moment, when at last he escaped Cardassia Prime. Be careful what you wish for.

They stopped en route for four crowded days at Deep Space 9—Terok Nor, as the other men called it, and Rugal tried his best to use that name. The company took up residence in the Ferengi’s bar, drinking overpriced kanar and harassing the dabo girls. Rugal, unwilling to attract attention by going off by himself, sat near the door drinking redleaf tea and looking out across the Promenade. He was remembering the first time he had been here, with Migdal. It seemed a lifetime ago.

He recognized Tora Ziyal the moment he saw her, less because of her distinctive looks—she had her back to him—but because she had impressed herself so strongly upon his memory. She was talking in forceful fashion to a young human male (and what was a human still doing on Deep Space 9?) and they soon parted ways. The human male came past the entrance to the bar; Ziyal went off in the opposite direction. Rugal finished what remained of his drink, and hurried out of the bar. “Ziyal,” he called after her. “Tora Ziyal!”

She stopped and turned. She frowned to see that it was only yet another Cardassian gil—and then she recognized him. Her face lit up. “Rugal Pa’Dar!” she said. They met and pressed palms. “What are you doing here?”

“I came in on the Ramaklan.”

She looked down and noticed his uniform for the first time. “You joined the army?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She laughed. “How long are you here?”

“We’re leaving in the morning. How are you, Ziyal? How have you been?” He was painfully glad to see her; she was a drop of sanity in the ocean of madness that had been overwhelming him. “What have you been doing?”

“Oh, all kinds of things.”

“Painting, I hope?”

“Of course!” She glanced around quickly. “Look, I have to be somewhere now, but perhaps you could come to my quarters later? We could catch up, have something to eat. Say twenty-two hundred?”

“Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Till twenty-two hundred then.” She gave him a lovely smile, and then went on her way down the Promenade.

• • •

She served him Bajoran food. It was one of the greatest kindnesses anyone had ever done him. He could have cried. They ate hasperat with warm flat bread, and ratamba stew, and finished up with moba-flavored ices. Memories of Migdal and Etra, of his lost childhood and stolen happiness, were stronger than ever before. Ziyal watched with amusement as he ate everything she put in front of him and then took second helpings. She told him about her time on the Groumall, then on Deep Space 9, and then her brief stay on Bajor. It was clear that Deep Space 9 was the place that she considered home. “It’s the mix of people,” she said. “A half-Bajoran, half-Cardassian female doesn’t look too much out of place.”

“That was why Migdal, my Bajoran father, wanted to come here. He thought we’d get less trouble here. Etra, my mother, was going to open a dress shop. She was a seamstress, and there wasn’t anyone else here doing that kind of work—”

Ziyal gave him a strange look. “Oh yes, there is—well, there was. There was a tailor’s shop on the Promenade.” Rugal put his hand to his forehead and groaned. At this late stage, it was only funny to learn that the move to Deep Space 9 might well have turned out to be yet another of Proka Migdal’s epically bad decisions. How he had loved that old man.

“Of all the people I have ever known,” she said, as she served up the raktajino, “you are the one I would have said was least likely to join the Cardassian military. Whatever happened, Rugal? I thought you were going to go back to Bajor.”

Since it was hardly possible to tell her of her father’s part in it, he sidestepped the issue. “After I finished training as a medic I wanted to do something useful. I couldn’t get back to Bajor, and the army seemed the obvious move.”

“For you? Couldn’t you have found a civilian placement?”

“Remember that man at the Darhe’el monument?”

She shuddered. “I’m not likely to forget.”

“I thought he had a point. That it was all very well for me to judge the military, but if I couldn’t speak from experience, then I shouldn’t speak at all.”

She shrugged, but seemed persuaded. Rugal was amazed, not to mention dismayed, at how fluently he had been able to lie. Cardassia had made him good at hiding the truth. He tried to change the subject. “Was that really a human male you were talking to earlier on the Promenade?”

Ziyal’s hand hesitated as she lifted her cup. “He’s just a friend.”

So they were both keeping secrets. Was he more than a friend? Did her father disapprove? “I’m sure he’s nice...”

She shook her head and laughed. “Prophets, no, nothing like that! He’s a journalist. But he’s also the son of the Starfleet captain who was in command here. His name’s Jake, Jake Sisko. It’s an awkward situation, obviously.”

Sisko. The man who had, all that time ago, sent him back to Cardassia. Rugal frowned. If this was the son of the former commander of Deep Space 9, then he was also the son of her father’s sworn enemy. Should Ziyal be talking to him? He caught himself in time. That would also, of course, preclude her from talking to him, never mind giving him dinner. Besides, she was free to talk to whomever she chose, without her father’s permission, or his. He smiled inwardly at his reaction. He seemed to be turning Cardassian in his old age.

“How is Penelya?” she asked, changing the subject herself.

“Her uncle sent her back to Ithic after the Maquis were defeated.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Rugal. I know how fond you were of each other.” She gave him a shrewd look. “Is that why you joined the military?”

“No, of course not! Of course not! Why does it matter to you so much to know why I decided to join the military? I did, and now I’m here. That’s the end of it.”

There was an awkward silence. Ziyal put down her mug and bit her lip. “I’m sure my father appreciates your willingness to fight for Cardassia—”

“Your father! Ziyal, Dukat is the reason I’m here now, in this uniform, on my way to the middle of nowhere to guard a research facility for our Dominion masters!”

She went very stiff. Color leached from her face. “I know you must be worried about what you’re going to find when you get there, but it’s hardly fair to blame my father for that. The whole of Cardassia supported joining the Dominion and entering this war—”

“Ziyal, if it wasn’t for your father, I’d have packed up and left Cardassia and gone to join Penelya on Ithic. If it wasn’t for your father, I’d never have been taken away from Kotan and Arys in the first place! But I was, and now I’m stuck in the middle of this insane war and I have no idea if I’ll ever see Penelya or Kotan again!”

Ziyal stood up. “I think you had better leave,” she said coolly. She led him toward the door, but before he could go, she turned to him. Her eyes were wet. “I invited you here because I wanted us to be friends. I didn’t have to, after all your father did to us.”

“What Kotan did?”

“My father told me that it was Kotan who was to blame for my being forced from Cardassia Prime.”

“That isn’t true—”

“That your father was the one behind the whole scandal, that he used it to secure his position, and that’s why he’s the only one of the Detapa Council still alive.”

“Ziyal, Kotan resigned from the Council because they were using you to get to your father. The only reason your father hasn’t been able to kill him is that he spent the time after that trying to stop the Cardassian people from starving. Whatever Dukat’s been telling you, it’s a pack of lies.”

They were standing facing each other like enemies. Ziyal’s eyes were flashing; Rugal’s fists were clenched. Then, all at once, at the same time, they understood what they were doing. Ziyal took a step back; Rugal relaxed his hands.

“My grandmother used to say that all the best feuds are passed on,” he said. “I won’t let this one be passed on. I’m sorry I said what I did about your father, Ziyal. I didn’t come here this evening to upset you.” And he hadn’t. Whatever Dukat had done, it was not the fault of this lost and lovely young woman. She was mistaken, badly mistaken, about her father—but Rugal did not want to be the one who shattered her illusions. The universe was cruel enough without his help. He could only hope that when she learned the truth, it would not be the death of her.

Ziyal smiled at him sadly. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “It’s their battle, isn’t it? Not ours.”

Peace was restored, of a kind. Regretfully he said, “I should go. I have an early start.”

She made a quick gesture, stopping him in his tracks. “What did you mean,” she said, “when you said it was my father’s fault that you were taken away from Kotan and Arys?”

His mouth; he always spoke before thinking. Kotan and Penelya had both complained about it. “Forget it,” he said. “I spoke in the heat of the moment. It was good to see you again, Ziyal. I’ll come back this way when the war is over, if I make it. We’ll go to Bajor. I’ll bring Penelya. You bring that human friend of yours, Sisko’s son. We’ll sit in the sun and be at peace and we’ll never fight our parents’ wars again.”

As he went toward the door, Ziyal said, “Wait a moment.” She went and got her art case, opening it up and rifling the contents. “I have something for you.” She held out a piece of paper. “It was a very happy day for me,” she said, “one of the few I ever had on Cardassia Prime. I think it was a happy day for both of you too.”

It was the sketch she had made of him and Penelya. She had caught them both so well, summed them up in a few quick clever lines, but with wit rather than cruelty. Looking at her, Rugal missed Penelya acutely, all over again. He cleared his throat. “Yes, it was.”

“Keep it. Take it with you. And when this is all over, we’ll all meet again, like you said, and we’ll look back at all this and shake our heads and wonder how we ever found ourselves where we are now.”

But they did not, nor could either of them have imagined where this war would take them. They pressed palms, like Cardassians, and then, because they were both Bajoran too, they embraced and said good-bye.

Eight

“For Cardassia,” said Dalin Tret Khevet, as he strapped on his chest armor, “I am strapping on chest armor that is prone to cracking in the subzero temperatures in which I am required to perform my duty.”

“For Cardassia,” replied Glinn Rugal Pa’Dar, as he checked the power supply on his disruptor, “I have not had a decent cup of tea in over a year and a half.”

“True words, Rugal,” Tret said sorrowfully, “true words. Mm, let’s see. For Cardassia... What have I ever done for Cardassia? Oh yes, for Cardassia, I skip every third meal.”

“For Cardassia, I have not yet strangled my commanding officer in his sleep. Do you think the night vision on this visor is likely to work at any point?”

“Never been less sure of anything in my life. For Cardassia, I have forsworn the tender charms of my beloved for what seems like an eternity if I’m being frank.”

“For Cardassia, I shall not throw up at any point during the next two days.”

They both snapped down their visors. “Hey, Tret!” Rugal said. “In this light, we could be mistaken for soldiers! How did that ever happen?”

But Tret was no longer playing the game. He was staring down at his disruptor as though he had just worked out what it was for. Softly, he said, “My brother died, for Cardassia.”

And for one brief mad moment, Rugal envied Tret—envied him his home, his history, his certainty. Most of all he envied his desire for revenge. Because revenge was better than nothing—and nothing was the whole of what Rugal felt for Cardassia. Then he remembered Kotan, and what Kotan would undoubtedly say right now if he were here.

Rugal Pa’Dar began to laugh. “All right, Kotan!” he whispered to his distant father. “For once, I’ll do what I’m told. For your sake, I shall try not to get us all killed.”

On Ogyas III, the snow fell gentle and thick upon Keralek Base. The snow generally fell just this gently, and just this thick, but most days the garrison did not have to stand outside enjoying the experience. This afternoon, however, Gul Rantok was giving out medals. A typically Cardassian reward, Rugal thought as he shivered within the protective shielding of his armor. Keeping them out here while the names of those to be honored were called out so that their comrades could loathe them twice over: first for their success, and then for this afternoon in the snow. A few Jem’Hadar were standing by dispassionately, like watchdogs, overlooking the proceedings. They did not feel the cold, or did not care. The Vorta, Verisel, was conspicuous by her absence. She would not trouble herself to freeze, handing the Cardassians their baubles.

Rugal was among those receiving a medal today. He had earned it during the first wave of the Romulan assault on Ogyas, for “conspicuous valor shown during the evacuation of the civilian population.” Tret thought the idea of Rugal receiving a medal was the funniest thing he had heard since the war broke out. But then Tret had been stationed on Ogyas III for nearly two years, and hilarity was in even shorter supply than heaters.

Rantok barked, “Glinn Pa’Dar!” Smartly, Rugal stepped forward. They exchanged salutes, and, in fractious fashion (the gul disliked this particular glinn), Rantok pinned the Triple Medal of Valor on his chest. More salutes, then Rugal stepped back into line, his moment of glory over. Beside him, he heard Tret struggle to contain his laughter. Rantok’s litany ground on, and yet another glinn stepped forward to receive his due. Soon Rugal’s own mouth began to twitch. All any of them wanted to do was sit inside as close to a heat source as possible. Yet here they were, standing in the cold, while the snow fell gently upon them and Gul Rantok shouted out the name of another freezing young soldier who wanted to be indoors. Honors that were punishments. Was it possible, Rugal wondered as the whole business dragged on, that this was all a little crazy?

Afterwards, and back indoors, Tret said, “Sometimes I think everyone around me has gone mad and I’m the only sane one left.” He and Rugal were making something like redleaf tea, only without the redleaf, which had run out earlier in the month. “Then I think, perhaps I’m the one who’s gone mad, and everyone else around me is sane. Then I come to the conclusion that we’re all of us mad together. What do you think, Rugal?”

Rugal warmed his hands around his mug and took a sip of hot brown water. His purpose was to listen. Tret outranked him.

“Of course,” Tret said, “you’re the only sane one around here, aren’t you?”

“If I were sane,” Rugal said equably, “I wouldn’t have come out here.”

“There are worse places to be.”

“There are warmer places to be.”

“Yes, but some of those are even closer to the front line.”

Rugal grunted. Tret had a point. Was it better to freeze under Romulan bombardment or burn up from Romulan disruptor fire? Death was still the outcome, either way. He sipped his tea. Dying preyed upon his mind these days. It was a large part of what they talked about: when they would die, how they would die, whether or not it would hurt. Conversation was sadly limited on Ogyas III. Sometimes they talked about how bad the food was. Sometimes they talked about how cold it was. Death, food, and the weather. That pretty much covered everything.

“You know,” Tret said, as he poured himself more of the appalling tea, “this isn’t bad.”

Tret Khevet had come a long way from his sun-kissed life in Coranum. He and his brother Colat had both joined up in that first rush of patriotic fervor following the taking of Terok Nor. He had joined the Second Order because it was Dukat’s old command; many young men like him had been inspired by their charismatic new leader, a great hero who was going to revitalize the Union. Clever, personable, physically strong, Tret had quickly risen to the rank of dalin. He was second in command here, below Rantok. By the time Rugal had got to Ogyas, however, the war had lost its glamour for Tret. He was now firmly among the cynics. Colat’s death at Chin’toka had undoubtedly been the final blow. But it also seemed to have something to do with how long the civilians had been kept on Ogyas.

Keralek had originally been a Cardassian weapons research base, but the Dominion had quickly retooled it as a Jem’Hadar cloning facility. There was no further need for the research staff, but they had remained on Ogyas for months afterwards. Tret had pressed for them to be sent away; Verisel—and therefore Rantok—would not allow it. It was plain that they were intended as shields, to ward off aerial attack or sabotage. The first Romulan assault on Keralek Base had made it blindingly clear they weren’t bothered in the slightest about the status of their Cardassian targets. They were more than happy to slaughter indiscriminately. That battle—Tret’s first, Rugal’s too—had been vastly overcomplicated by the presence of these terrified, untrained civilians. It was only after the assault that the civilians had finally been evacuated. When the base was secured, Rugal had been the audience for Tret’s subsequent frenzied outburst. Rugal had listened without interruption. It was a shame, he thought, that Tret’s idealism was another casualty of this war, but if he was only now grasping the brutality, the depravity, of the Cardassian military, it was not soon enough. Rugal himself was not cynical about this war. He had never cared in the first place. But he was glad that Tret was here. He liked the young man, and besides, he was a link to Penelya.

Rugal held out his mug for more tea. “I’m not sure about the aftertaste.”

“Oh, try it between bites of a ration bar. They offset each other.”

They were experimenting with this when Glinn Kelat put his head around the door. Kelat typified the third class of soldier that Rugal had identified: not yet cynical, not past caring, Kelat was one of the surprisingly large number still enthusiastic about the war. He also liked to be first with news. “Have you heard?” he said.

“How could we?” Tret said acidly. “You haven’t told us yet.”

The young glinn was so excited he didn’t notice. “The Breen have entered the war!”

Tret and Rugal exchanged glances. If Kelat was hoping for a rapturous response, he had come to the wrong room. “On whose side?” Rugal asked, chiefly for politeness’ sake.

“Ours!”

“Who cares?” Tret muttered.

Rugal replied, “Good! Great! Thanks for telling us!”

Kelat, satisfied, hurried to carry the news off elsewhere. “I think,” Tret said, after a pause, “that you and I are probably the only sane ones left around here, Rugal. And I’m not entirely sure about me.”

Rugal wasn’t sure about him either. He didn’t think Tret was mad, not yet. But he was probably cracking. Zeal fired you on; lack of investment kept you ticking over. But cynicism? It was a short step from that to despair. It was about as much protection as their armor.

As Rugal had suspected, the Breen’s participation in the war made no material difference to the garrison stationed on Ogyas. “Couldn’t they have sent some of them here?” Tret complained. “They’re used to the cold. Aren’t we meant to be allies?”

Rugal nodded his support, but Tret had it badly wrong. The Cardassians weren’t Dominion allies and never had been. From the start, they had been no better than its servants, and they had fallen out of favor with their new masters at least since the Federation had retaken Deep Space 9. By force of personality alone, Skrain Dukat could have kept up the fiction that he was an equal partner. Corat Damar, demonstrably, could not. Here on Ogyas, the situation was clear to anyone who cared to think about it. The Jem’Hadar were slave drivers. Verisel was the overseer. And Rantok was the idiot who mistook enslavement for service freely given. There would be no relief sent the embattled troops on Ogyas. They would stay here until the Dominion won the war or the Romulans smashed them to smithereens. Or until they froze.

Rugal had to admit that it had not been a bad posting at first. Out of the way, routine, and with the unexpected bonus of Tret’s company. Rugal had been surprised that Dukat had not had something more unpleasant lined up for him. Rantok had obviously been told to keep his eye on him; he was a veteran of the Occupation and devoted to his former commander. From the outset, he had watched Gil Pa’Dar for signs of sedition or attempts to affect morale. Rugal had kept his mouth shut and executed his duties to his best of his ability. Mostly, this was out of fear that Kotan would face reprisals if he caused trouble, although this became much less of a worry after Dukat’s capture. By then, Rugal had discovered that immersing himself in the minutiae of military life meant he didn’t have to think about anything else. Like Penelya, or the fact that wearing this uniform was an offense to the memory of Etra and Migdal. It was cold comfort that Rantok had had to promote him and then decorate him.

The successful Romulan landing on Ogyas, and the ensuing bombardment and blockade, had done more to damage morale on the base than anything Rugal could have managed. Supplies were cut dramatically. Rugal coped with the subsequent privations better than most—certainly better than Tret. The scanty resources and constant noise of the Torr sector had inured Rugal slightly. The blow to his own morale had come at the start of this year, when he had heard from Kotan of the death of Tora Ziyal. That meeting under the sun on Bajor could never happen now. A critical element had gone.

Every so often, Arric sent messages, obviously done hastily between shifts at the hospital, mostly news of Tela, now entering formal schooling. From Kotan, faithful as a hound, Rugal received regular messages. Censorship prevented Kotan from writing much about life on Cardassia Prime, so he wrote what he had been thinking. His messages became more philosophical, more somber—more beautiful—as the war dragged on. He talked about meeting and courting Arys, breaking the story up into installments that made Rugal long for his next message. When he sent the news about Tora Ziyal, he wrote how he would not wish upon Dukat the grief he had felt at the death of his own child. He talked about Bajor, where he had been exarch of Tozhat, and how his hopes for friendship with the locals had soured so badly. He wanted to go back there one day, to visit the graves of Etra and Migdal and thank them. Rugal had all the messages stored on a data rod that he always carried around with him, as he always carried the picture of Arys, and Ziyal’s sketch, and his earring.

From Penelya he heard nothing. Rugal did not even know if she knew where he was. Others sighed over messages from their beloved, Tret included, but perhaps it was better not to have this constant reminder of a different way of life. It was easier to keep his world closed to the narrow sphere of Keralek Base; keep his interests limited to the people around him—the cynics, the zealots, the ones who were past caring—and, everywhere, ruthless and dispassionate, the Jem’Hadar.

The destruction of the Eleventh Order on Septimus III was when things began to fall apart. By the time the Klingon invasion there started, the expected Jem’Hadar reinforcements had simply not materialized. Half a million Cardassian soldiers, mostly reserves and veterans, were massacred. Suddenly, everyone else on Ogyas could see what Rugal had known for ages: that the Dominion rated Cardassian life very low on the food chain.

When the junior-ranking officers at Keralek heard the news, they were gathered in the mess hall on the first basement level of the base. They hunched around the tiny comm, cold and underfed and close to the edge, listening as the scale of the disaster emerged. Reactions ranged from disbelief to fury to outright distress. Even Kelat had a hard time finding anything positive to say, although he struggled for longer than most. “There must have been some sort of misunderstanding. That’s the only explanation. Doesn’t that make the most sense? That there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line?”

“Kelat,” Rugal said coldly, shocked out of his year-long stupor, “the message is perfectly clear. If you’re Cardassian, you’re expendable.” He felt Tret’s hand upon his arm, but continued nonetheless. “You might as well be dirt.”

There was a stunned silence from the other five. Then Envek, the other relatively keen officer, said, “It’s all Damar’s fault.” He lowered his voice. “Yes, the Dominion have overstepped themselves, but Dukat would never have allowed anything like this to happen—”

“Envek!” This was from Alaren, another of the cynics. “I don’t think you’re able to say anything if Rantok hasn’t said it first! Pa’Dar’s right. We’re expendable. We’re surplus to requirements—”

A full-blown argument was soon under way. Eventually, Tret had to order them to stop. He switched off the comm and, in the ensuing silence, he stood up and addressed them all, white-lipped and ashen-faced. “I don’t want a word of this getting out to the ranks. Morale’s low enough as it is. I know what some of you think,” he glanced at Rugal and at Alaren, “but this stays in here. If I find out any of you have passed this news down to the ranks, I’ll have you out shoveling snow till the end of the war. And I’ll have any foot soldier I find discussing it court-martialed. Is that clear?” There was some mumbling, a few sullen nods. “Then go and do something useful.”

They all dispersed. Rugal hung back. “Sorry,” he said, when he and Tret were alone. He knew how much Tret loathed enforcing discipline; it sat uneasily with the young man’s self-image as a likable and approachable officer. “It’s just...” Rugal held up his hands, unable to express the scale of it in words.

“I know.” Tret sighed. “Do you think we can possibly keep this quiet?”

Cardassians were good at keeping secrets, but they were also good at passing them around without getting caught. And they excelled at turning tiny pieces of information into full-blown rumors. “Honestly, Tret? Not a chance.”

Rugal was right. The news sped around the base during the course of the day, but the source of the information could not be identified. Tret made a few more threats in the direction of the junior officers, and left it to Tevrek, the senior-ranking and vastly experienced garresh, to discipline the rank and file as he saw fit. Whatever he did, it worked; any incipient hysteria was firmly quelled to the level of whispers in corners. When the news of Damar’s rebellion broke, however, something had to give.

Rugal was on duty in the ops room, coordinating perimeter security sweeps. The past few days there had been practically nothing from the Romulan side, and historically, this had been the prelude to another assault. On top of that, two out of the last three supply ships had not made it through. Everyone was tired, hungry, and extremely jumpy. About twenty metrics from the end of the shift, Tevrek came into ops, looking for Tret. Rugal sent him over to the far side of the room, and was quickly absorbed again in the security sweeps, only to be shaken out of it when he heard Verisel addressing Rantok in a high, clear voice. “Is it customary within the Cardassian military for the junior ranks to talk treason within earshot of their commander?”

Rugal turned to stare, as did everyone else. Tret was standing with his hand over his mouth. Tevrek looked completely bewildered. Rugal inched noiselessly across the room to one of the soldiers nearest the scene. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

“Damar’s rebelled,” the man whispered back. “Half the military’s gone over to him. Tevrek had come to warn Khevet that there might be trouble—”

“Tevrek threatened him?”

“No, no—he was just informing him!”

Rugal glanced back across the room. Rantok’s eyes had not left the Vorta. “No, ma’am, it is not.” He turned to Tret. “Khevet. Have this man arrested.”

Tret whitened. He slowly removed his hand from his mouth. “Sir—” he started.

Rantok exploded. “Do it, Khevet!”

So Tret did and, two metrics later, Tevrek was being escorted out of ops under guard. The rest of the soldiers present continued their work in as much silence as possible. When Verisel, aloof and inscrutable, finally went out, Rantok addressed them. “I am not unsympathetic to your concerns,” he said. “This is a difficult time, and difficult decisions must be made. But we must demonstrate to the Vorta that we are loyal beyond doubt. I will not have this place turned into another Septimus III.”

Nobody answered. They kept their heads down and did their work. Later, off duty, Rugal lay wide awake in his bunk staring into darkness. A military revolt, led by Corat Damar. He could scarcely believe it. The military didn’t have a revolutionary bone in its whole rotten body. And Corat Damar, everyone knew, was a drunk, a womanizer, not half the man Dukat had been. Could it really be true? It would explain the relative quiet of the past week. The Romulans were waiting to discover whether they had new friends or old enemies to contend with over on the Cardassian side.

Enemies, if you took only Rantok into account. Quickly, Rugal rolled out of bed and slipped down the corridor to Alaren’s quarters. He tapped on the door. When Alaren opened up, Rugal said, “I want to hear what he said.”

Alaren glanced past him, up and down the corridor, and then let him in. As Rugal had suspected, Alaren had indeed got hold of Damar’s transmission. Envek, with whom Alaren shared quarters, was on duty, so the two of them could safely sit and watch it through. Alaren chewed at his thumbnail, Rugal sat with his head in his hands. Damar was not a politician. He did not have Dukat’s charisma, and his words were rough and blunt, but when the transmission got to the end, Rugal realized he was trembling. Not from patriotism, not that—but because the call with which Damar had ended rang in his heart with the clear sweet sound of a temple bell. It was the same call that had driven the Resistance on to victory: “I call upon Cardassians everywhere. Resist. Resist today! Resist tomorrow! Resist till the last Dominion soldier has been driven from our soil!”

Not since reading Natima Lang had a Cardassian voice stirred Rugal in this way, and this was the first Cardassian leader to do so. Not even Tekeny Ghemor, kindly and sad, had moved him so profoundly. Was Corat Damar—improbable as it seemed—the one that could bring Cardassia out of the wilderness and into a new age? And when, Rugal wondered, had he started to yearn so deeply, so fervently, for such a future for Cardassia?

Rugal did not try to recruit anyone. Tret approached him first. In typically perverse Cardassian fashion, he was pushed into action by the discovery that Damar’s Liberation Front was attacking bases manned by Cardassian troops. Verisel had come up to ops from her den down on the fourth level to make sure that the news was passed around the restive garrison. “You must be glad now,” she said to Tret, in front of several rank and file soldiers who thought of Tevrek as a surrogate father, “that you placed the garresh under arrest. This kind of disloyalty inevitably turns on itself. It must be rooted out before serious damage is done.”

In their quarters that evening, Rugal listened to Tret rave about this for a good twenty-five metrics. Eventually, he burnt himself out and flung himself down on his bunk. As Rugal tried to concentrate again on the duty rosters, Tret said, “We need to take soundings from the other officers. Find out who would be with us, who against. Who do you think we can trust?”

Rugal put down his padd. He rolled over to lean down and stare at the young man lying on the bunk below. “Are you trying to get us both shot?”

“I’m not saying anything you haven’t thought—”

“Well, perhaps, but... a little self-restraint, please!”

Tret pushed himself up. “You’ve got a nerve, saying that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Pa’Dar, your antics down in Torr were the talk of the academy! We had bets on whether or not you were going to be arrested. I had fifty leks on you staying free at one point.”

“Oh,” said Rugal faintly. He almost felt flattered. Quickly he collected himself. “Tret, whatever we did down there, we were able to do it because we were in a big city and we could always find somewhere to hide. Where do you hide here? Everyone knows what everyone else is doing. You can’t keep secrets in a place this small.”

“We can try,” Tret said, through gritted teeth. “Rugal, I can’t stand much more of this. It’s never going to end unless we do something about it. Damar’s speech—yes, I heard it too—it made more sense to me than anything else I’ve ever heard in my whole life. Sooner or later, the Dominion will be finished with us. Then what? Nobody’s going to come and save us, Rugal. We have to save ourselves.” His eyes had gone wet. “I couldn’t bear it if this war has been nothing but waste. Not after everything we’ve lived through here—the cold, the food, the damn noise. But most of all, not when it was this war that killed Colat.”

“All right,” Rugal said quickly, and mostly to stave off Tret’s tears. If they started, Rugal doubted they would stop. “Alaren is definitely with us. Metelek possibly. The other two, not at all. As for the lower ranks, nobody knows them as well as Tevrek. Any chance of one of us getting down to the fourth level to speak to him?”

Tret twisted out a smile. “Consider it done.”

Rugal did not doubt Tret’s newfound commitment, but before they got any further, Verisel released the news of the compromise and destruction of Damar’s Liberation Front. That same evening, Gul Rantok summoned his senior staff to his office down on the third level. They trudged in silently and each stood in varying degrees of sweaty guilt while Rantok studied them in turn.

“There are no secrets on a base as small as this one,” he said, “and both the Vorta and I are well aware of the seditious tendencies of some of you.” His eye fell first on Rugal, then on Alaren. “Verisel, when we discussed the matter earlier, was of the opinion that I should shoot the lot of you, regardless of your political proclivities. You can thank me for my intervention on your behalf, the only reason that the six of you are still alive.” There was a pause. “I said, you can thank me.”

In unison, they mumbled out something approximating gratitude.

“You will reward me with your obedience. You will reward Cardassia with your unquestioning loyalty. And you will serve the Dominion without another word being said. Next time,” he glanced over at Rugal, “I’ll let the Jem’Hadar loose on you. Now get out.”

Subdued, the six officers filed out. They headed down the passage to the lift in silence. Rugal was about to say to Tret, I told you so, but, as the doors of the lift opened, Alaren hissed, furiously, “Remember, she was prepared to kill us all. Loyal or not, you weren’t safe. Think about that.”

A few days later, Damar turned up alive, and the civilian population of Cardassia brought the planet to a standstill. Rugal could not believe it. A revolution on Cardassia Prime—and he was missing it. Tret was beside himself. “Funniest thing since you got that medal,” he told Rugal. It was good to see his spirits lift, however briefly. It was for the last time. The next news from Cardassia Prime was of the Dominion’s reprisal: the destruction of Lakarian City and the death of two million people.

They were all in the mess hall again when they heard. Rugal knew it was the end of whatever allegiance any of them had remaining toward the Dominion. Kelat had to leave the room to throw up. Envek wept openly. Metelek turned to Tret and Alaren and said, “We’ll have to get Tevrek out. He’ll carry the rank and file without question.”

Conceptually at least, then, Rugal was not surprised when the Jem’Hadar began exterminating the Ogyas garrison. He was off duty when it started but, mercifully, was not yet out of uniform. He was certainly nowhere near sleep. The allied invasion of Cardassia had begun shortly before he had gone off duty. Someone started thumping on the door of his quarters. It was Kelat. “It’s started,” he said. “They’re killing them up there.”

Rugal heard distant disruptor fire and knew at once what Kelat meant. Grabbing his own weapon, he said, “Where’s Tret?”

“Down in the mess. He and Envek and about fifteen or so from the ranks are barricaded in there. They were following transmissions about the invasion. We should get down there. Come on, we’ve got to move!”

As they ran down the corridor, Kelat told Rugal as much he knew. Partway through the battle, the Cardassian fleet had switched sides. Then the order came through from Prime: Kill the Cardassians. All of them. In ops, the Jem’Hadar started firing indiscriminately. One of the men up there had survived long enough to throw open a communication channel and inform the rest of the base what was going on. They could hear it anyway—the shots and the screaming. Then it went quiet. Presumably everyone up in ops was now dead, including Rantok. “He kept on shouting that he was loyal,” Kelat said. “I think they shot him through the head. Surplus to requirements. Isn’t that what Alaren said?” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Alaren was on duty up there too.”

“Don’t think about it,” Rugal advised. “If you plan on getting through this, don’t think about it.”

A klaxon wailed, briefly, making them run more quickly. Then Verisel’s voice came over the comm. “All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately. All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately.”

“Prophets,” murmured Rugal. “I hope they have the sense not to go.” He heard disruptor fire again, slightly closer. He and Kelat reached the stairwell and began to run down. The officers’ quarters were on the second level; the mess hall on the third. All the while, Verisel was issuing her measured, deadly order: “All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately. All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately.”

Rugal heard footsteps above their heads—booted, running, chasing. They put a spurt on and soon came out on the third level. They sprinted down the corridor toward the mess, where they hammered on the door, shouting out their names and demanding to be let inside.

“All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately,” Verisel told them calmly.“All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately.”

The door opened a crack. A shot rang out behind them. Rugal fell inside and Kelat fell on top of him. Someone yanked them in and then the door sealed behind them.

Kelat had been shot in the left leg. Someone threw Rugal a medical kit. “All Cardassian personnel, report to the surface immediately. All Cardassian personnel—”

“Kosst!” shouted Rugal, as he got to work on Kelat’s leg. “Won’t someone shut her up?” He realized Tret was standing over him, one hand holding his disruptor, the other held against his chest. “Is he going to be all right?”

“It’s not so bad,” Rugal said, mostly for Kelat’s benefit. If they weren’t in here for too long, he meant, or if they weren’t forced out. He patched up the damage, and then gave the glinn something to dull the pain. He looked up at Tret. “Rantok’s dead.”

“I heard,” Tret said grimly. He took a deep breath and turned his back to the room. He let his face crumple up in pain.

“Tret,” Rugal whispered, putting out his hand.

“I’m trying not to let them see,” Tret whispered back, clutching Rugal’s wrist like a lifeline. “They’re all terrified. I don’t want them to know I’m hurt.”

“I have to take a look at it,” Rugal said. “I can’t leave it—”

“It’s been fine for the past fifteen metrics. I can wait a little longer.”

They were there for a long time. Verisel kept issuing her order, in tranquil and terrifying tones. “Can’t we stop her,” someone said. “Isn’t there some way to stop her?”

“We need to keep the comm open,” Tret said. He was sitting hunched over at one of the tables. Rugal had given him some pain relief, but Tret wouldn’t take off his armor to let him see how bad it was. Verisel spoke again. “All Cardassian personnel, rep—”

It cut off, mid-sentence. “Is it over?” someone whispered. “Are we safe?” Tret held up his hand, trying to listen. After a moment or two, a quiet but distinct hiss starting coming from the ventilators.

“Gas!” yelled Envek. He dived toward one of the ventilators, shutting it off. Rugal ran across the room to stop the flow of air from the other. Everything went very quiet. They all sat and stood straining to hear anything beyond the confines of the room. There was a brief burst of disruptor fire that made everyone flinch, and then there was nothing. Rugal inched over to Tret. “What shall we do?” he whispered.

“We wait,” Tret replied. “What else can we do?”

So they waited. After forty metrics, the lights cut out, and they had to fumble around for flashlights. Tret would let them keep only one lit at a time. They sat without speaking, Rugal next to Tret, listening to his breathing become steadily more labored. The room was hot and shadowy; gray faces stood out here and there like phantoms, beaded with sweat. One or two people took advantage of dark corners to weep. Twice Tret ordered them to eat, whereupon the silence was broken by a quiet rustling of ration packs, the noise of chewing and swallowing, the odd lackluster remark—then, again, silence. One flashlight died, then a second. Envek started lining them up neatly, like soldiers on parade. There was one more left after the current one petered out. Then it would be dark as a tomb.

Rugal dosed, and he dreamed, distinctly, that the Vorta had come into the room. She walked about, flanked by two Jem’Hadar, and one by one she counted off the pale sweaty faces peering up at her from the darkness. She came to a halt in from of him and said, “Seventeen. Report to the surface immediately.”

“Never,” Rugal replied thickly. Beside him, Tret said, in a sleepy voice, “Did you say something?”

Rugal jerked awake. A voice was issuing from the comm, someone young and tearful. “Is there anyone there?” it said. “I’m Lok, Martis Lok, foot soldier, second class. The war’s over. The Jem’Hadar have stood down. The Vorta says that you can come out now. Is there anyone there?” His voice started to shake. Tret and Rugal glanced at each other and nodded in agreement. Trap.

“Sorry,” said Lok. “I’m sorry. It’s over, the war’s over. But Cardassia’s burning. Is there anyone else left? I don’t want to be the only one left.”

The lights came back on. People shuddered and tried to gather their wits, looking around fearfully, disbelievingly. Kelat limped over to the comm. He found an outside channel and a faint, jumbled transmission. “It’s true,” he said, eventually. “It’s over.”

Tret slumped heavily against Rugal’s arm. Slowly, Rugal lowered him onto the floor and began easing off the other man’s armor. As he worked on the wound, he whispered in Tret’s ear, “I’m going. Do you want to come with me?”

Tret licked his lips. “Where to, Rugal?”

“Somewhere else. Not here.”

The pain relief kicked in and Tret closed his eyes. “I think I’d like to go home.”

“Then we’ll go home.”

Rugal told Kelat that he was taking Tret down to the med center and left him in charge. If the war really was over, Kelat was as good an officer as any to surrender the base to the Romulans. Rugal had no intention of falling into Romulan hands. In a place this remote, after a campaign this relentless, he was not convinced they would bother with niceties like the rights of prisoners. He would rather try his luck on the surface. He was finished with this war. He had never wanted any part of it.

The med center was on the fourth level. Rugal and Tret walked there slowly. Every so often they stepped over a corpse. Tret’s eyes were wide and bright from exhaustion and drugs. In the med center, Rugal cleaned and treated Tret’s wound more thoroughly. He found surface gear in one of the storage lockers, and coaxed Tret into it. Then he put his hand on Tret’s arm and navigated him out of the room.

At the far end of the corridor, behind a heavily shielded door, were the holding cells. Tevrek was still there. Rugal hesitated briefly, caught between wanting to get away as quickly as possible and knowing that the garresh was by far the best person to hold the remnants of the garrison together. Rugal sighed. He was deserting. He should get away as soon as he could. But there was still some residual sense of duty left—not patriotism, but responsibility to those poor bewildered survivors he had left up in the mess hall. He propped Tret up against the wall and went off toward the holding cells.

Behind the shielded door, the air was thick and sweet. Rugal coughed and covered his mouth. It didn’t take long to find Tevrek’s cell, and it didn’t take long either to establish that the garresh was dead, a victim of Verisel’s final attempt to kill all the Cardassians. Looking into the other cells, he found another dead foot soldier, who had been under charge for sleeping on duty. In the last cell, there was a Romulan.

She was lying on the bunk, and he assumed she was dead too—in the wrong place at the wrong time. He checked the information on the panel on the wall by the door of her cell. Her name was Selik, she was a colonel, and she had been captured during a skirmish on the surface eight months ago. An unlucky one, then, Colonel Selik. Rugal closed her file and was about to leave when he saw her move her head slightly. She looked toward the door and then pulled her legs up in front of her in defense.

Rugal pressed his hand against the control on the panel. The door opened slowly. Selik scrambled up into a sitting position, her arms still in front of her. They and her face were purpled by bruising. She saw his face and his uniform and she cursed him, violently.

“Are you hurt?” Rugal said, in a neutral voice. He took a step forward, holding up his hands to show that he meant her no harm.

“No. Yes. No. Why do you care?”

“I’m a medic. If you’re hurt, I can help. The war’s over, Colonel. We’re not enemies any longer.”

She spat at him. From behind, Tret said, “I think we should take her with us.” Rugal turned. Tret was standing in the doorway. He looked calm, and steady on his feet, and infinitely better than he had only a few moments before. It was amazing what the pain relief could do, keeping you going beyond what seemed reasonable, keeping you able to do your duty. “Why not?”

“For one thing, I don’t think she’s particularly well disposed toward us.”

“She wants to leave, we want to leave. It’s cold out there, and we’ll need backup.” Tret coughed into his hand. “Strength in numbers. All look out for each other. I thought you liked that kind of thing.” He glanced over at Selik. “Coming, Colonel?”

She wouldn’t let Rugal near her. She took his medical kit from him, and he and Tret went to find her some outside gear. Tret took his time over the task, and soon Rugal was shaking from anxiety. Surely someone was going to come looking for them? Eventually Tret was content that he had found the right outfit for Selik, and they took it back to her cell.

She had washed, and it was an improvement. She put on the uniform and the boots that Tret had selected for her, and then all three of them went out into the corridor, where the sickly smell of the gas still hung heavy. “I closed the filter,” Selik said. “Soaked the blanket with water and covered my face. What was going on?”

“Our fleet switched sides at the end,” Rugal said. “The Vorta was ordered to kill the Cardassians. Those the Jem’Hadar didn’t shoot she gassed.”

Selik laughed—a slight sound that danced on the edge of lunacy. Rugal said to Tret, “I want you to remember that you were the one who asked her along.”

They entered the stairwell and went up four levels. At the top level, they climbed up the metal ladder and released the bolts on the hatch. Then they clambered out onto the surface of Ogyas III.

It was as if they had crawled out of the fire caves. The dead air of the base was swept away by a bitter wind. All around was entirely white. Rugal could not determine where the land ended and the sky began. Selik took a few steps forward, then fell to her knees. She gulped in lungfuls of the freezing air and clawed at the snow until her hands were full of it. Tret stood with one hand on his disruptor, one arm wrapped around his body, entirely still. Gently, Rugal touched him on the shoulder. “Last chance,” he said.

Tret stirred into life. He glanced back down the hatch into the base, and then he shrugged. “Let’s go.”

On the second night out, Rugal awoke with a start, thinking he had heard a voice. Selik was standing at his feet. Snow was falling between them, nothing else. The fading glow of their fire lit her up starkly, harshening the sharp contours of her face to skeletal. She was holding a Cardassian disruptor, and she was aiming it at Tret’s head. “Wake up,” she was whispering, softer than the flurry around them. “Wake up.”

Tret’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked. When he saw Selik, he sat up slowly. “Are you going to kill me, Colonel? I don’t suppose I’d blame you if you did.”

Rugal licked cracked lips. Could he get up and across to her before she fired? Would trying only kill Tret? He took in the distance between her and his friend, guessed that he would not be able to do it, and cursed again that they had brought this woman with them. What had Tret been thinking? She was the enemy, cease-fire or not; they had kept her prisoner for eight months during which she had been subjected to repeated beatings. It was written all over her body. No wonder she wanted to kill them.

“I don’t want to die, Colonel,” Tret said. He sighed, as if unutterably weary, as if unable to summon the strength to care that she had a disruptor within inches of his head. “Not even now. Not even after everything...”

He gave up on words and gestured around him at the void. She didn’t look at it. She kept her eyes fixed on Tret. “I want it to stop,” she whispered to him, as if trusting him with state secrets. “I want it all to stop.”

Tret stretched his arms out further. “I know,” he said. “I know.” For a fraction of a second longer she wavered, and then she let the disruptor slip through her fingers. She fell down on her knees and wept. Tret, leaning forward, pulled her into an embrace, and Selik clung to him. “I’ll say again,” Rugal muttered, grabbing the disruptor, “that it was your idea to bring her along.”

Tret didn’t answer. He kept murmuring to Selik—soothing sounds—until her sobs subsided. She took a few deep shuddering breaths, and then she went quiet. Not long after, she fell asleep. Carefully, Tret laid her down on the ground and put a blanket over her. “I’m tired of people dying,” he said to nobody in particular, and almost in irritation, as if complaining that his feet were wet or that he was cold. “I’ll drag her through this wilderness on my back, if it means she stays alive.”

Six, maybe seven days later, they came to one of the outlying Cardassian guard posts. Beyond this was Romulan-controlled territory, a fact they were all brooding over but did not discuss. The guard building, which was squat and black and had appeared out of nowhere from the whiteness, was empty, apart from the bodies of the four foot soldiers who had been manning it. There had been two Jem’Hadar stationed here as well, which would have been enough, but they were gone. Such a remote place, and still there had been Jem’Hadar to carry out the Founder’s order. What could have happened on Cardassia Prime?

They dumped the bodies outside for the snow to cover them, and got the heat and the light working inside. They ate some food, and Tret found a bottle of very rough kanar that they didn’t bother to pour out, simply passing it around between the three of them until it was gone. Tret went to sleep on one of the bunks. Selik, looking out the window, said, “Look.”

Rugal went across to join her. She pointed to the sky and, peering up, he saw the Jem’Hadar ships leaving Ogyas. Of anything Cardassian, alive or dead, there was no sign.

They didn’t leave the guard post for another three days. There was heat and light, and food for a while yet. Rugal found a kotra board, and he and Tret filled the day with game after silent game. Selik slept. On the third day, she was more alert and she began pacing the small room from end to end. “We must be getting close now,” she said.

Tret was contemplating his next move and didn’t answer. Rugal, without interest, said, “Another week, perhaps.”

She wandered aimlessly around the room. “I’ve been a prisoner for eight months,” she said.

“I know,” Rugal replied, watching Tret’s hand as it hovered over one small purple piece and then moved it to the side.

“That’s a long time.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I didn’t give anything away. Did you know that? I never gave anything away. You got nothing out of me.”

Rugal, now considering his response to Tret, did not reply.

“Not that they’ll believe me, of course.”

She stopped talking. Then, all of a sudden, Tret realized what was about to happen. He jumped up from the table, sending the board flying, and dived across the room. “Don’t!” he yelled, but Selik already had hold of one of the disruptors. She put the muzzle in her mouth, fired, and that was the end of the matter.

They packed and left and walked on. There was nothing but the empty land, the white sky, the cold, snow. Tret struggled; it was chiefly pain medication keeping him on his feet. Sometime during the third day out from the guard post, he collapsed. Rugal got him upright and they went on, but at a drastically slower pace. After falling down a second time, and being forced on a second time, he began to drift in and out of awareness. Rugal, pulling him onward and listening to him murmur, heard him talking to Selik, then to Rantok, then to Verisel, whom he berated in fierce fragmented sentences. At one point he seemed fully alert; Rugal was about to start hoping, until Tret asked him when Selik would be back.

On the seventh day, when they stopped to rest, Rugal scrabbled around in their packs for some ration bars. He held one out to Tret. Tret didn’t take it. He remained lying on the ground, very still. Rugal knelt down beside him and touched his cheek.

He was dead, of course, like everyone else. Very gently, Rugal closed his eyes for him. He rearranged the young man’s limbs so that he was lying peacefully, with his left hand resting on his chest. He looked appallingly young, and damaged, wrecked by cold and pain. Already the snow was coating his body, as if trying to make it seem that Tret’s death—and his life—had never happened. Rugal tried brushing it away, but the snow was falling more quickly than he could clear it. Abandoning the attempt, he took off his service medal and carefully put it into Tret’s hand, like a charm to ward off oblivion. For Cardassia, he thought, looking down at his friend. Cardassia’s son. Cardassia’s sacrifice. Would anyone remember? Would anyone care? Everyone had gone mad. Everyone was dead.

Rugal stood up, dusting away the flakes of snow that had been accumulating on him as he said good-bye. Around him, everything had fallen silent, beyond comfort or reproach. He picked up his pack, Tret’s too, and he walked on into the void.

PART THREE

RETURN TO GRACE (2376–2378)

“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.”

—Herbert Hoover

Nine

One bright day twelve weeks after the war had ended, Ellen Smith and her three-person crew docked their ship, the Lotos, at the main spaceport on Weibak IV. Ellen left the others to get on with the routine business of gathering news and supplies, and went to her meeting with the colony’s provisional governor. An antiquated skimmer was waiting to collect her—that level of organization spoke volumes about the relative ease with which Weibak had come through the war—and Ellen was taken in modest style out to March, the small town that served the spaceport. A rural world, a sunny day—you could almost convince yourself the war had never happened.

This part of the quadrant had been Cardassian space, although in recent years the Cardassians hadn’t been able to run a blockade, never mind the Union. The Maquis had done well out here, until the Jem’Hadar arrived, whereupon colony worlds that had effectively become independent once again found themselves under centralized rule: the Dominion’s. The Maquis was obliterated. But now the Dominion had surrendered, and the Cardassians were ruined, and all the quadrant’s great powers were staggering. And on a small green world in what was now a Federation-protected system, Ellen Smith was going to see the governor and she was authorized to speak on the Federation’s behalf. It all seemed a little crazy to Ellen, but these were difficult times. The quadrant’s strained governments had to make use of whatever resources there were at hand.

The Lotos had been doing supply runs in these systems for nearly twenty years. When they went Cardassian, the crew kept their heads down and tried not to look like Maquis. Which they weren’t—Ellen wouldn’t carry weapons—but for the settlers out here, abandoned by the Federation, it was good enough to be a friendly, non-Cardassian face. They had always been made welcome out in these colonies, and that hadn’t changed after the war, when people were desperate for some news of their fate. So they were now part of a Federation protectorate. But what did that mean? Had they escaped Cardassian rule for good? Or was this only a temporary respite? On some worlds, all people wanted was news, an idea of how they were still connected to the wider quadrant. On other worlds, the situation was considerably more complicated, and considerably less stable, than it was here on Weibak.

Hundreds of ships like the Lotos had been making a living out here before the war. Twelve weeks after, they were what passed for infrastructure. Headquarters Allied Reconstruction Forces were far away on Cardassia Prime, so Ellen had contacted the people at HARF to ask: What can we do? The reply had been: Get out there. Find out where we need to be and what we need to do. She had been happy to help. Nobody in their right mind wanted to see these worlds collapse. Besides, it was a nice salary coming from HARF, and they weren’t paying in leks.

March bore few marks of the war. It was summer, the grass was green, kids were running about the small streets, looking safe and happy. Everyone seemed pretty cheerful—as you might if you had suddenly ceased to be a Cardassian citizen and were once again living under Federation jurisdiction. Ordinary people were going about their everyday business, talking and laughing in the sunshine. Ellen saw no Cardassians. There had been hardly any Cardassians on Weibak; they had not had the chance to return before the war had diverted resources—and bodies—away from their resettlement program. A quirk of fate, a small decision taken in a backroom office somewhere on Cardassia Prime, and the Jem’Hadar had never come to trouble the good people of Weibak.

Ellen wondered if they knew how lucky they were. Three weeks ago, the Lotos had been on Sea Fall. The Cardassians had gone back there after joining the Dominion, and they had brought the Jem’Hadar with them. There were no Cardassians on Sea Fall these days, and the surviving humans had a haunted look, as if they had seen things nobody should ever see. Ellen never wanted to visit a place like it again, though she almost certainly would over the coming months.

The skimmer decelerated with aplomb outside a small one-story building unassumingly proclaiming itself the governor’s office. Ellen was scooped up at once into the care of a brisk and nice young man who introduced himself as the governor’s assistant. “Welcome to Weibak, Captain. How was your journey?”

“Fine. A few problems in Calphan space—they’ve been flooded with refugees.”

He looked surprised. It’s bad out there, kiddo, Ellen thought. The sun isn’t shining everywhere, you know. “Oh yes?” he said. “Where from?”

“The next system along has been put under Romulan jurisdiction. People aren’t so keen on being under Romulan protection, so they’re taking the quickest route into Federation-administered space. I’d probably do the same myself, but the ships they’re coming in are held together by string and rust. They’re easy prey, and they’re attracting predators.” Ellen had sent a full report back to HARF, but who knew when resources would be available to patrol out that far. “They’ve got next to nothing. But someone still wants it.”

They had reached the door of the governor’s office. The young man held it open for her. He was obviously troubled. “I think we don’t know how lucky we’ve been here.”

Ellen felt a brief pang of guilt. Why shouldn’t Weibak have come through just fine? Why shouldn’t this perfectly pleasant young man get up on a summer’s morning, stroll to work, and chat with a passing visitor? It was better than the alternative. “Places like Weibak are all that’s holding this together,” she said. “Seriously. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re doing a great job.”

Maria Alvarez, the newly appointed transitional governor, had until recently been running the customs and excise office. She and Ellen went back at least fifteen years. As they sat down to a good lunch with a pleasingly home-cooked flavor, Ellen mocked Maria’s new office. Alvarez took it in good humor, and in return, and in cheerfully lurid fashion, she painted a picture of Weibak as being in the direst of straits, only salvageable by a huge injection of Federation resources. Ellen explained exactly how and why this wasn’t going to happen. When Alvarez, still amiable, abandoned the attempt, Ellen promptly went on the offensive, and by the time they had started on the fresh fruit, she was telling Alvarez that the civic-minded thing to do right now was send some of Weibak’s surplus out to Calphan space.

“What the people of these systems need to do,” Ellen said sententiously, “is help each other and look after each other.”

God, she was starting to sound like Starfleet now. Alvarez snorted. “Give me a break, Ellen. I’ll do it, but I want one thing made clear.” Here came the price tag. “When the lines are finally drawn around the quadrant, I hope the Federation will remember exactly how civic-minded the people of Weibak have been.”

Fair enough. Ten years ago, the people here had been traded off in a treaty. They had turned to the Maquis for protection, and then faced the threat of Cardassian and Dominion invasion. It was a small world with no leverage in galactic politics, and this would surely be the only moment in its history when it had something the Federation wanted. Who could blame Alvarez for wanting to deal? Ellen couldn’t promise that when the postwar shakedown was finished, these people would finally and unequivocally be recognized as Federation citizens. But she would do all she could. “Maria,” Ellen said, as they shook hands across the table, “you’ll get your reward in heaven.”

Alvarez became more serious. “Where next, Ellen?”

“Mesquad, first. Then on to Hewe, and after that Slokat. I’m aiming to be on Ithic by the end of the year.”

“You know that the Maquis were massacred on Hewe?”

“We’d heard.”

“I’ve no idea what happened to the general population.”

“Based on what I’ve heard from other ships”—and what Ellen had seen with her own eyes—“the Dominion seems to have preferred to intern the non-Cardassian populations. Unless the locals deluded themselves into thinking they could resist the Jem’Hadar.”

Then you got what had happened on Sea Fall. Alvarez shuddered. “I’ll say this to you now, but I can’t believe how lucky we’ve been here.”

“And I’ll say it again, and from my heart, that if these systems don’t pull together right now, we’re all going under by the end of next year. Don’t forget your neighbors, Maria. If only because they’ll be looking at you and wondering if it’s fair Weibak got off so lightly, and why they shouldn’t simply come and get some of what you have.”

After the meeting broke up, Ellen went back to the spaceport in the ancient skimmer that had brought her over. She sat in the back, clutching a bag of peaches Alvarez had given her, and fretting about whether she had done enough and if she had been right to leave on that note of warning. She wasn’t a politician, not even a local politician. She moved cargo and news around. But she meant what she had said, and she knew that reconstruction depended on what people like Alvarez chose to do now. Sheer good luck had left Weibak in good shape. But if a handful of the weaker colonies collapsed, if the influx from the Romulan protectorates increased, it wouldn’t be long before refugees started arriving here. Weibak might be safe right now, but it was a long way out. It wouldn’t take much pressure to push it toward collapse.

Back at the ship, Ellen saw Roche and Joseph by the cargo bay door. She put Weibak and her worries behind her, and shouted, triumphantly, “Peaches!” holding up the bag like she was Perseus and it was the Gorgon’s head. And then the Cardassian walked up to her and asked if he could join her crew.

“No,” said Roche fiercely. “Absolutely not. Under any circumstances.” Roche was what passed for the engineer on the Lotos, and he was more Bajoran than the kai. His parents had fled the Occupation before he had been born, and he felt in some obscure way that he had been cheated out of his birthright. Sometimes it was a pain in the neck. Like now.

Ellen glanced over to where the Cardassian was waiting for her to come back with her answer. He was a young man with a big pack, and he looked tired. It had been a tiring war. What had he done during it? Was he soldier, settler, refugee? “He says he has to get to Ithic. We’re the first ship he’s come across that’s going that way.”

“It’s a long way to Ithic,” Jen said. “What’s he going to do there?”

“Probably planning to invade it,” Roche muttered.

“He says he’s trying to find someone he knew.”

“His problem. Ellen, please—not a Cardassian.”

“For once, I’m with Roche,” Joseph said. “Probably more trouble than it’s worth.” Jen nodded her agreement. Sweetly, Ellen added, “He also says that he’s a medic.”

There was a pause. Even Roche could see how that might be useful. Then the Cardassian spoke. He must have got fed up watching them argue and decided to make his own case. “I was working at a free hospital in Cardassia City when the war broke out.”

Roche looked at him coldly. “And after the war broke out? What did you do then?”

“For a while, I killed Romulans. Then I stopped. Why, what did you do?”

A soldier, then. Whereas Roche, like Ellen and Jen and Joseph, had wisely spent the whole time safely within allied-controlled space. It was best to leave that kind of thing to professionals. Roche turned back to Ellen. “I don’t care if the Prophets have given him healing hands. I don’t want a Cardassian around. Ellen, most of the worlds we’re going to are full of people than have suffered at the hands of his kind, really suffered. They’re not going to trust us with one of them on board. You know what they’re like—”

“Stop before you say something we’ll all regret,” Joseph murmured, but too late. That had clinched it for Ellen. She had nothing against this Cardassian, but she could see how his presence might be more trouble than it was worth, and she would have been content with whatever decision the others made. But Roche had overstepped the mark. What did he know about Cardassians, really? He had probably never even talked to one.

“There are Cardassians on most of those worlds too, Roche,” she said hotly. “And part of what we’re supposed to be doing is making sure the two populations aren’t warming up to killing each other. Do you think a Cardassian might be useful in those cases? Medically trained or not?”

“I only want to get to Ithic,” the Cardassian said quietly. “I’ll keep out of your way. I don’t want to fight, and I don’t want any trouble. Lock me in my quarters if you don’t want anyone knowing I’m on board.”

Joseph laughed. “The Cardassian in the attic, eh? All right, let’s give it a go. A medic should come in handy.”

Roche wouldn’t be budged. Jen wasn’t keen either. “I say he comes,” Ellen said. “And I’m the captain. Casting vote.” She glanced at the Cardassian. “I’m Ellen. Welcome aboard.”

“I’m Rugal,” he replied. “You have an interesting take on the democratic process.”

The Lotos was en route to Mesquad within thirty hours. Rugal was glad to leave Weibak, where Cardassians had been thin on the ground and attracted all the wrong kind of attention. The ship’s captain, Ellen, went out of her way to make up for the lukewarm welcome from the rest of the crew. As she took him around the ship, she told him about the work they were doing for HARF. “The places we’re going to have been under Federation jurisdiction since the end of the war, but it’ll be months before they can get to some of the more distant worlds. They don’t have the people. So what happens in the meantime?” She opened a door, and they both peered into a small dark room. “Medical room. Bit small. Sorry about that. And about the boxes. We’ve still not unpacked some of them. Maybe you could take a look and see what’s there?”

“I will,” Rugal said.

“Great! Thanks! Anyway, all these people can’t be left to run out of food and power and so on. So that’s where ships like ours come in. We’re moving supplies around, making sure these places stay on their feet. Engine room that way. Roche is there a lot of the time.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

They went down a narrow passageway with doors on either side leading to more storerooms, crew cabins. “We check in, find out what they’re doing, we find out what we need, and we pass that information on to other ships in the area. If there’s a small problem, we try to sort it out. If there’s a big problem, we send for Starfleet.” She came to a halt outside the farthest door and spread her hand out dramatically across her chest. “We are the masters here.”

Rugal smiled. He gestured toward the door. “Is this my cabin?”

“What? Oh yes!” She opened up and let him in with ceremony, as if she were showing him to the best suite in the hotel. She went right in herself and looked around. “Ta da! All yours. Settle in, come and get something to eat when you’re ready. Anything you need in the meantime, shout.”

“Thanks,” Rugal said. She went on to talk for a while about Mesquad, their next planetfall, and he started maneuvering her gently but firmly in the direction of the door. Finally, she left him in peace. He sat down with a sigh of relief. It had all been slightly exhausting and entirely unnecessary. He didn’t want to make friends. He wanted to get to Ithic as quickly as possible. Slowly, he took off his boots, and he lay down on the bunk and stared up at the wire mesh above. In recent weeks, Rugal had found himself paying close attention to the detail of his surroundings. He had counted a lot of tiles on walls and ceilings. Rivets were good too; anything would do as long as it stopped his mind wandering. Gaps in wire mesh would certainly do the trick...

After Tret Khevet died, it had taken Rugal another couple of weeks to escape Ogyas. He had walked on for several more days, pressing on beyond what had so recently been the front line. The first chance he got, he swapped his uniform for a Romulan one. It was only ever going to be effective at range, so he needed to avoid attention. But the movement of the Romulan infantry was in the opposite direction from the one he was taking. They were heading into the Cardassian territory from which he was trying to escape. Their advance was disorganized, the haphazard progress of a badly bruised army, but it was purposeful, and at some point someone was going to notice that this particular infantryman was not going the same way as everyone else. As soon as someone stopped him, they’d know he was Cardassian. Either they’d shoot him on the spot, or they’d realize he was a deserter, hand him back, and then he’d be shot. Neither fate particularly appealed. He had to get offworld.

If this had been a scene in Corac, or from one of the hundreds of action-based holodramas that he and Arric had consumed while waiting for Tela to fall asleep, Rugal would have single-handedly stormed the nearest Romulan base, seized their flagship, and made a knife-edge escape. Everyone he shot would have died slightly beyond his line of sight, and nobody’s shots would ever have reached him. Then the story would cut to the Hall of Honor in Cardassia City, where he would be receiving a medal from a sleek and portly legate. Penelya would be there, a tear glittering in the corner of her eye. Kotan too, preening with pride.

In the end, Rugal’s escape from Ogyas took little in the way of heroics. Instead, it needed patience, the nerve to remain close to the Romulans, and the skill not to attract their attention. Most of all it required a constant act of will to keep desperation at bay. He was tired, terrified, and hungry, and nobody was going to come and help. If he gave in, he was dead, and he didn’t want to die on Ogyas, not alone, with the white snow gathering on his body and no one to stand witness and say good-bye.

Scouting out the nearby base, he spied a ship with a threadbare look to it, which he thought stood a good chance of being abandoned rather than dragged further up the line. Getting to it meant entering the compound, but security was lax, and Rugal found that if he walked with purpose—and kept his visor down—people didn’t bother him. They were exhausted too, and busy with the mop-up. He slipped inside the ship, sealing the hatch behind him and hurrying fore to the flight controls. Hands shaking, hardly able to believe that he was at last going to escape the tomb this planet had become, Rugal lifted the ship off the ground and coaxed it slowly, carefully, up through the atmosphere.

A voice came up through the comm—a bored voice, someone else who wanted to get away from Ogyas, asking for authorization codes. Close to panic, Rugal fumbled around for Selik’s identity rod. They had taken it with the intention of informing the Romulan authorities of her death at some point. He punched in the numbers, and then sat and waited in a cold sweat. By some miracle, or administrative bungle—the two were not easily distinguished—Selik’s clearances still worked. The ship was given permission to leave. When finally it broke away from the pull of Ogyas’s gravity, Rugal heard himself sob. He kept himself under control for a while longer, enough to stab in a course out of the system, and then he let himself fall back into his chair. He had made it. He had got away. He had survived. He sat like this for a while. As soon as he had calmed down enough, he began to listen in to some of the subspace chatter. And he began to grasp for the first time the vastness of the revenge carried out upon the Cardassians by their former allies.

At this point, lying on his bunk on the Lotos, Rugal realized he had lost count of the gaps in the mesh. He couldn’t be bothered to start counting again, which meant there was no point lying here any longer. He certainly wasn’t going to fall asleep. He got up and went to make a start on cataloguing the ship’s medical supplies. Joseph found him there about four hours later, when he came looking for something to kill a headache. Rugal handed him a couple of small white pills and said, automatically, what he had said to patients a thousand times before, “Don’t rely on them. They only cover over the cracks.”

The situation on Mesquad was stable, but that was because the Jem’Hadar had wiped out the entire Cardassian population. At least, that was what the transitional governor told Ellen when they met, and he didn’t seem overly displeased by the outcome. Ellen liked people to get along, and this depressed her. Was this the way it would have to be from now on? Was it only possible for there to be peace if an entire population had been eradicated? She didn’t tell her newest crew member what had happened, but she was fairly sure he knew anyway. The few Cardassians on Mesquad weren’t local: four refugee ships had arrived during the past month. Their occupants were being held in a couple of warehouses at the edge of the spaceport. Rugal ran a clinic there, spotted two cases of yatik fever, and to top that he knew how to go about synthesizing a vaccine. As far as Ellen was concerned, that had earned him passage all the way to Earth if he wanted it. Even Roche had to admit he was impressed.

A day out from Hewe, very late ship time, Ellen found Rugal sitting on the couch in the kitchen poring over news reports. It was the first sign of excitement—no, scratch that, the first sign of emotion—that she had seen since he had come on board. She pulled up a chair, twisted it round, and sat with her arms resting on the back of it. “You’re up late. What’s going on?”

“Alon Ghemor has been elected leader of the Cardassian Union. I can’t believe it! Castellan Ghemor!”

Ellen had never heard the name in her life. “Is that good? Bad? Both?”

“It’s good to hear elections have happened at all. But, yes, it’s absolutely the right result. His uncle should have been chief executor, but he died in exile. And then of course Corat Damar died...” His eyes went sad. Ellen had noticed that happened when Cardassians talked about Damar, like a golden opportunity had been lost. “But Alon’s a good man, a decent man. It’s probably the best piece of news about Cardassian politics I’ve ever had.” He frowned. “And it gives you hope, doesn’t it? If one person you knew made it, perhaps others have made it too...”

His voice drifted off. He stared down at his padd. Ellen collected up the bits of information she had just been given and tried to draw some conclusions. She was fairly certain that Rugal had just said that he had, at some point in the past, known the current Cardassian head of state. “You’re not everything you seem, are you, Rugal?”

He smiled up at her. It was good to see him smile, although it brought home how infrequently he did it, and it wasn’t unmixed with regret. “Somebody else said that to me once.”

“The same person that you’re looking for on Ithic?”

He looked away. “No, not her. Somebody who hated my guts, actually. I wonder if she made it. She was probably offworld too when the fire happened.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“Just a friend.” He wasn’t going to say any more, obviously. He had opened up briefly, but now he had disappeared back into himself again. Ellen stood up and got herself a glass of water. “Don’t stay up too late,” she said. “I’m going to need you in the morning.”

The first images that Rugal saw from Cardassia Prime he simply didn’t believe. He thought they had to be Dominion propaganda, intended to whip their unruly Cardassian underlings back into line. A threat, not a fact. It took him a few days to accept that everything he was seeing was true. And why should he doubt it? They had killed everyone in Lakarian City; they had killed everyone at Keralek. They had shot everyone in sight and the rest they had tried to gas. What made him think that they would hold back from murdering every single Cardassian on Prime?

At first, it was easier to think about buildings rather than people. The scale of that destruction alone shocked him. It was as if it hadn’t been enough for the Dominion simply to wipe out his species. All their works had to be obliterated too. An attic in Torr where he had lived for two years. The whole tenement below. A hospital where he had spent most of his waking hours. The burnished dome of the Assembly Hall. Fifty ramshackle houses in the township of Metella in Anaret. A gallery containing a holo-mosaic by Lim Prekeny of disputed beauty but undoubted courage. Only after he had grieved for these places and things that he had known could he begin to contemplate the people. Arric, Serna, Tela. Nelita, who had made his life a misery and had turned out to know exactly what she was doing. Maleta, who had never entirely approved of him. Kotan...

All that he could not bear. People were good at surviving, he told himself; they were good at finding places to hide and at coming through. What about that boy on Ogyas—what was his name?—Lok, that was it. Martis Lok. He had found a hole to hide in while the slaughter had been happening, and he had stayed alive. Perhaps people would help a young couple and their little girl. Perhaps Kotan had hidden in the cellar and been missed... Sixty years had not eradicated the people of Bajor. A few days could not possibly have destroyed the people of Cardassia. Above all, they were survivors... But Rugal knew he was deluding himself. If the people he loved in the capital had not died in the fire on that final day, they would be dying in the aftermath, from hunger, thirst, disease. It made no difference that he wanted them to be alive. He had wanted Tret to stay alive too.

He held out no hope for the capital, nor for any of Prime’s urban centers. But what about on the edges? What about the distant worlds, where supply lines had been overstretched and Jem’Hadar less plentiful? What about Ithic? It was true that the Jem’Hadar had been sent there to take it back from the Maquis. But it was a rural world. Most people didn’t live in urban centers; they weren’t so easy to kill all at once. Could they possibly have murdered all the Cardassians living there? Would they have had time, before the order had come to stop? Could they have missed Penelya? There was only one way to find out. He had to get to Ithic.

• • •

Hewe was a disaster. Strongly Maquis, the Dominion invasion had been met with open resistance. The human population had been butchered; the Cardassian population too, when their time came. Then the Jem’Hadar had left, as suddenly as they had arrived. When the Lotos landed, the crew was met by twenty armed partisans who were not happy to see a Cardassian again on their world. Ellen had to send Rugal back on board. Only then would the welcoming committee put down their weapons and talk. They told Ellen to leave. The people of Hewe—a few thousand traumatized survivors, about a seventh of the original population—were sealing themselves off. They wanted no contact with the wider quadrant ever again.

On the Lotos, they were all badly shaken. Ellen felt she had failed, although as Jen pointed out, the people of Hewe hadn’t really seemed ready to talk through their issues yet. They all brooded for days after. So it was no surprise that when they heard that Bajor’s negotiations to join the Federation were getting ever closer to completion, they all fell on the news with delight. It was by far the best way of getting a rise out of Roche, and getting a rise out of Roche was one their favorite bonding activities. At first he took it all in good part, aware it was more to do with shaking off the bad taste left from Hewe than anything else. But on reflection, Ellen thought, perhaps Joseph should have known better than to ask Rugal his opinion. The thing was, none of them really thought of Rugal as Cardassian by now.

“I think,” Rugal said carefully, “that I can see both sides.”

Joseph booed.

“That’s not an answer!” Jen cried.

“It’s the only one I have. Of course it’s obvious how it will be good for Bajor. But I think Roche is onto something when he says that it’s still too soon after the Occupation. Bajoran society hasn’t had a good enough chance to regenerate itself yet.”

“You don’t agree with that though, do you?” Roche said. His voice was a touch cooler now. With hindsight, this was probably where Ellen should have stopped it. But she was interested in what Rugal had to say. “You think Bajor should join?”

“Go on, Rugal,” Jen said. “You can say what you think. It’s a free ship.”

Rugal rubbed a fingertip along his eye ridge. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Bajor should join the Federation. Because, maybe, it will make Bajorans think more deeply about exactly what it is they are bringing to the Federation. What being Bajoran means, now there are no Cardassians there any longer. Bajorans have defined themselves as not-Cardassian for far too long. It’s not good for them.”

There was a brief silence, which was thoughtful rather than hostile, until Roche said, “And what in the name of the Prophets makes you think you’re entitled to an opinion?”

Ellen watched Rugal take a deep breath. “I was born on Bajor,” he said, with the patient air of one who has said these words many times. “I was adopted by a Bajoran couple and brought up by them. I used to pray to the Prophets, although I haven’t for a long time. I have this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an earring. They all leaned in for a closer look. It was somewhat beaten up and tarnished, but its origin was unmistakable.

“Where did you get that?” Roche said bitterly. “Off a corpse?”

Now things certainly weren’t funny anymore. “You should probably apologize for that, Roche,” Joseph began, but Rugal pushed back his chair and stood up.

“It’s all right, Joseph. I don’t want an apology. I don’t need it. I know what the truth of the matter is. Besides—a Bajoran apologizing to a spoonhead? The universe is mad enough already.”

He slipped off back to his cabin and he kept to himself for days afterwards. If five people on one small ship had to segregate themselves, Ellen thought, what hope was there for a whole quadrant?

The Romulan ship got Rugal as far as Destiny before giving out. It had given good service, particularly for an enemy ship, and it served him well right up to the last. He would never have got permission to land on Destiny if people on the ground had known he was Cardassian. The local provisional administration had been rounding up its remaining Cardassians and was deporting them as quickly as could be managed. It wasn’t that difficult a task—there weren’t many Cardassians left—although Rugal doubted they had the authority. It seemed unlikely that Starfleet would condone it, even though he knew from experience they were certainly prepared to repatriate people. Cardassian people.

He spent a couple of weeks on Destiny, held with the other remaining Cardassians in the camp where the Dominion had interned the human population. Conditions were basic and deteriorating. It was a great relief when a ship finally came past that was willing to take some of them. The Cardassians that had been selected were herded on board at gunpoint. Since Rugal didn’t want to stay on Destiny, and had no other means of leaving, he accepted what was happening without argument. But the others around him were being forced from their homes. “Where are we supposed to go?” someone asked one of the guards, but he shrugged, said, “Who cares?” and gestured with his weapon that they should carry on toward the ship.

There were more than fifty of them in a space meant for thirty. People were frightened, shell-shocked: only a few weeks ago they had been living comfortably in their compounds, defended by Jem’Hadar from attacks or reprisals from the remaining partisans. Then, without warning, the Jem’Hadar had gone berserk. Rugal found himself stuck next to an agitated young man who couldn’t get the horrors he’d seen out of his head, and had to tell them to every new person he met. “They didn’t even stop to round people up,” he said. “They walked into buildings and started firing. People couldn’t get away. They’d run off, but the Jem’Hadar would disappear and then appear again in front of them.” One of the young man’s eyes was bright blue, the other bright green. Rugal was transfixed by them. “It all came from nowhere. It all happened so suddenly, and then it stopped, as quickly as it started. I don’t understand what happened. Do you know what happened? What made them do it?”

Wasn’t that obvious? They had hated Cardassians, like everyone else. As soon as they had no further use for them, as soon as they became more trouble than they were worth, it was easier to wipe them out than to let them live. Rugal looked at his cabinmate, who was trembling as he spoke, and decided not to tell him the whole truth. “We were lied to,” Rugal said. “Dukat lied to us.”

The young man nodded, clearly comforted. But could the Cardassian people really absolve themselves so easily? Should they? Distinctly, Rugal remembered sitting with his friends—his dead friends, who had not wanted this war—watching fireworks over in the Paldar sector to celebrate Cardassia’s joining the Dominion. Dukat’s words had fallen on receptive ground. They had welcomed him back with excitement and delight. They had wanted not to starve and not to be sick. There had to be a reckoning—but this? The woman sitting opposite Rugal rocked to and fro and muttered to herself all the time. This retribution was not just.

The lack of food and space, the fact that nobody was clearly in charge, all of this meant that tempers ran high. Rugal closed his eyes and left them to their arguments, but when they started to threaten the safety of the ship, he had to intervene. He could have told them that he was military—that would have snapped them into line—but he didn’t want to have to answer questions about what he was doing so far away from his Order. Instead he told them he was a medic. Suddenly the whole ship was at his command—and he was at their disposal. He became public property. Those who didn’t need treatment came to him because they needed a shoulder to cry on. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” he said to one, as he gently disentangled himself. The next thing he knew, the word had been passed around that the young doctor had said there were homes waiting for them all on Prime. How did these stories get around? Why did Cardassians do this? Why did they tell themselves lies, delude themselves in this way? Prime was a basket case. Nobody would have a real home there for years.

He tried to keep his distance, but it was hard in a space this small. Eventually, they limped into Weibak local space, where they were given permission to land, but not to disembark. A doctor—a fully qualified doctor, not a medic like him—came on board to look them over. It was chaos for a few hours as everyone jockeyed for her attention, and Rugal took the opportunity to jump ship. He slipped through the spaceport and hid in a storeroom until the freighter had gone. He told himself he should not feel guilty for abandoning them. They were not his responsibility. They would cope. All that mattered was to get to Ithic as quickly as possible, find Penelya, make sure she was alive. If Rugal thought to himself that perhaps he was filling his head with delusions of his own, he didn’t let it trouble him too much.

Relations on the Lotos were slightly improved by the time it got to Slokat. Not harmonious—hardly that—but less fraught. The situation on Slokat helped. The human population there had kept its head down under Dominion occupation. Remarkably, too, many people had hidden Cardassians away while the massacre was happening. The two populations were living side-by-side, although there was a distinctly Cardassian half of town, and a distinctly human one. They stayed about a week. Rugal spent every waking hour with the doctors there, getting a crash course in human physiology and first aid. Ellen wasn’t sure when he’d get the chance to use it on this voyage. Their next stop was Ithic.

As they drew closer, Ellen noticed that Rugal wasn’t sleeping much. He sat up late in the kitchen, reading medical texts or scouring the survivor lists that were sent out on a weekly basis from Cardassia Prime. Insomnia was hardly a good sign, but Ellen took heart from the fact that he spent the time sitting in one of the communal areas. He could have stayed in his cabin and stared at the walls or sat in the medical cupboard and counted pills. The night she came to talk to him about Ithic, he moved along the couch and let her sit next to him. That was practically physical contact. If only he could have spent a little more time on the Lotos. She might have saved him yet.

She handed him a padd. “A couple of ships have been past Ithic already and sent a few reports out for the rest of us. I put them together for you.”

“Thanks, Ellen. I appreciate that.”

“It’s not been the happiest of places, but nothing like Hewe. The last we heard there were Cardassians there, still.”

He glanced up. “Not as bad as Hewe, but not as good as Slokat?”

“They were something else on Slokat, weren’t they? I’m surprised it wasn’t the same on Ithic. From what I can make out they were all a bit utopian, the settlers. Idealists. They wanted to be self-sufficient, live the good life in peace alongside fellow travelers in a pastoral idyll... some sort of commune, I think. You know the sort of thing.”

He smiled down at the padd. “I get the general idea.”

“The Maquis weren’t popular—didn’t fit with the pacifist ideals, I suppose. But they still kept an eye out for Ithic anyway. Enough to keep it independent, not quite enough to earn serious reprisals when the Cardassians came back. But of course they didn’t want the Cardassians there, and it was made worse by what the Cardassians were doing with the land. Most of the Federation settlers had small farms—”

“Cardassians don’t farm that way,” Rugal said offhandedly, still flipping through the information on the padd. “Their agriculture is aggressively industrial. As much food as possible, as quickly as possible.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert on farming too?”

“I knew someone who knew about farming. She talked a lot.”

“You seem to have known a lot of people. Anyway, the Cardassians came back, the Jem’Hadar wiped out the Maquis, the land seizures started—”

“What did the human population do?”

“No armed resistance to speak of—pacifists, remember—so no massacres either. Some people took work on the new big farms, a few decided the game was up and set out for Federation space. The rest were interned. A lot of Cardassians turned up after it became part of the Dominion—it was one of their most stable agricultural worlds in the DMZ. I’m assuming your friend was one of these.”

“Any idea what happened to them? When the Jem’Hadar turned on us?”

“‘Us,’ Rugal?” Ellen quirked up her eyebrows. “I thought you were Bajoran.”

“Ellen, let me tell you that when eight Jem’Hadar are chasing you down a basement corridor with death in their eyes, you are more aware than you have ever been of what your face looks like. I’ve never been so Cardassian in my life, and I’ve never been so terrified either. What happened when the Jem’Hadar started killing us?”

“The same as everywhere. Lots of corpses. The last ship to pass by Ithic, about three months after the war, reported that there were Cardassians in the town near the spaceport. Not many, but some. If your friend was out in the sticks, I think she had as good a chance as anyone at making it through.”

They fell into silence. “You know,” Ellen said, “you’ve never explained how you made it through.”

“Did I really never say? It was easy. I passed myself off as Romulan.”

Ellen laughed out loud. “Cardassian, Bajoran, Romulan... is there anything you haven’t been?”

“Federation,” Rugal said. “I’ve never been Federation.” He stood up, and tapped the padd against the palm of his hand. “Thanks for all this, Ellen. Good night.”

They reached Ithic a week later. Ellen went to see Rugal in his cabin while he was packing. “I’ve been talking to some of the locals. It sounds tense. I don’t think leaving you here is a good idea.”

“Ellen, I have to go—”

“It could be nearly a year before we come back. I’m not convinced you’ll make it through that year alive. Nobody’s going to stop and ask where you were born, Rugal. They’ll look at you, they’ll see you’re Cardassian, and they’ll shoot.”

“Not even the Jem’Hadar managed that.”

“You’re not invincible! No matter how it seems. You’ve been lucky, that’s all.”

He paused briefly in his packing. “I’ve been resourceful. And lucky, yes. But chiefly resourceful.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt, Rugal,” Ellen said quietly. “Cardassians are rarer than they used to be.”

He stopped what he was doing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, folded over twice. The paper was very dirty, and it had clearly been folded and unfolded many times. On it was a sketch of two young Cardassians. One was obviously Rugal, the other was a young woman. “That’s Penelya,” he said. “We should have stayed together, but we didn’t. And I have to know either way, Ellen. Because not knowing will kill me, more surely than the Romulans or the Jem’Hadar.”

Manea, the town that served the main spaceport on Ithic, had a grim aspect about it, neglected and unkempt. Ellen took Rugal to meet Marcus Gerrard, her contact on the transitional council. He met Rugal with frank dismay. “You didn’t say he was Cardassian,” he said to Ellen. “And he’s planning to stay?”

It was always odd to hear yourself talked about as if you were not there. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” Rugal said.

“What’s he planning to do here?”

“I’m looking for a friend. She was working on a farm near Littleport.” The frown on Gerrard’s face deepened. “Are you sure this isn’t going to be a problem?”

Gerrard addressed a point between him and Ellen. “Most of the Cardassians are planning to leave, that’s all.”

“I don’t think my friend would have left her farm, not unless she was made to by the Jem’Hadar.” Or anyone else, Rugal thought.

“Are you sure it was her farm in the first place?”

Rugal sighed. “Mr. Gerrard, I don’t want to argue over territory. My friend wouldn’t have gone willingly. If the Jem’Hadar didn’t murder her, I think she’ll be where she was before this appalling war happened. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m certainly not here to colonize. I want to find out if she’s alive or if I have to add another name to the list of the dead. Then I’ll go. If she’s here, we’ll both go. In the long run,” he added dryly, “you might end up with even one less of us.”

Gerrard glanced at Ellen. “I wish you’d said he was Cardassian.”

Ellen folded her arms. “Whatever you’re thinking when you say that, Rugal is the opposite. Did I mention he’s a medic?”

“When are you coming back?” Gerrard said.

“Eight months, perhaps ten.”

Gerrard looked at Rugal with open dislike. “Marcus,” Ellen said quietly, “you’re not going to refuse someone entry because of how they look, are you?” To Rugal’s eyes, it seemed as if Gerrard intended to do just that. “I know you’re keen for Starfleet to get here as soon as possible,” Ellen said. “But this isn’t the best way of getting their attention.”

Gerrard muttered something under his breath. Then, very quickly, he thumped some data into the padd he was carrying, giving Rugal permission to stay. “Ten months, and then we’ll review his status. But I’m not happy about this, Ellen. The Cardassians and their Dominion allies did enough damage in two short years to keep us busy for a generation. It would be better all around if they could go away and leave us in peace.”

His aversion was understandable. But it seemed excessive, even for the postwar DMZ. Particularly given the fact that Rugal didn’t see a single Cardassian in Manea the whole time he was there.

Before the Lotos departed, Ellen took Rugal aside for one last word, and to give him a portable subspace comm. “Let us know if you need us to come sooner rather than later. Keep your head down. I don’t like the vibe I’m getting from this place. And I hope she’s there, Rugal. I really hope you find her.”

They embraced—fondly, carefully—and Rugal wondered briefly whether this was a good decision. They were not exactly friends, the people on the Lotos, but—Roche apart—they had come to accept him on his own terms. He was committing himself to months on a world where Cardassians were not welcome, with the strong possibility of even more heartache. He was terribly afraid that, very soon, he would discover that Penelya was dead. How much easier to accept that now, to leave with the Lotos and carry on traveling in that small bubble in space, only ever touching other worlds and other people infrequently and for short periods of time.

But he had to know, so the Lotos left without him. He stayed in Manea only long enough to fill his pack with supplies for the cross-country journey. He had about a week of walking out to Penelya’s farm, which itself lay a day or two’s walk past the township of Littleport. Beyond Manea, it had to be said, Ithic didn’t seem so bad. It was the beginning of the autumn, in a temperate country, and the tired and wilted greens of late summer were being replaced by the various colors of the fall—reddening and yellowing leaves, crisp blue skies. It was nothing like Ogyas and it was nothing like Cardassia Prime. No wonder Penelya had always spoken so fondly of this place.

He saw no people, human, Cardassian or otherwise. Everyone had gone underground, or was dead. In Littleport, the shops on the high street were closed and the rows of houses were empty. It was as if everyone had been spirited away, leaving their homes and possessions behind. He was surprised that people hadn’t started drifting back, eight or nine months after the end of the war, but if there was anyone living in Littleport, they were going to great lengths to avoid him. In the general store, he found food and water, and he left money for when the owners returned. Perhaps they had all gone into hiding to wait out the end of the war. Perhaps they hadn’t heard that it was all over. He found paper and a pen, and wrote: IT’S ENDED. THERE’S PEACE. He put the date at the bottom of the sheet, and stuck it in the door of the shop. Someone might see it there and discover that they didn’t have to worry anymore.

A day beyond Littleport, the landscape began to change. The small farms and the gentle countryside gave way to something bigger, emptier, and browner. Rugal recognized Cardassian country: industrial, efficient, intolerant of variety. Even the road he was walking along changed its nature. It no longer bypassed woodland or curved around hills. It cut through everything. He found the environment depressing; featureless and without charm. He didn’t much like to think of Penelya living there.

His pace quickened. During the course of his second day out of Littleport, the road became lined with wire and metal fences. Beyond these, the plain brown fields were hunkering down for winter, and every so often he saw industrial buildings, warehouses, and silos. There were signs posted at regular intervals to indicate that this was private property, and each of these carried the Khevet family name. Tenantless land, and ownerless. Mikor was dead now, presumably, and Elinas, and the three girls, and the rest of Coranum. There was nobody to go and tell about Tret. Only Rugal was left to remember them all, and to hope that there was still one person left to inherit.

Midafternoon, he came to the side road that led onto Penelya’s lands. There was a large metal gate; there would have been security fields too at some point, but the power had failed and they were no longer activated. Rugal entered the estate by the simple method of climbing over the gate. He walked on, inward, for at least an hour, at the end of which he came to a long brick wall stretching off in either direction. He climbed it and, at the top, pulled himself up into a sitting position. Looking out, he nearly laughed. Everything as far as the eye could see was green.

After the long brown walk, this sudden verdancy was almost overwhelming. There was a patch of woodland to his left; a stream, meadow. At first he didn’t understand. When he saw the long, low house in the distance, he grasped what was going on. Somebody—Penelya? her parents?—had kept this tract of land like this intentionally. They couldn’t live looking at those dull fields either. Rugal slid down the wall and walked slowly in the direction of the house. It was as if a small piece of another world had been set down here, or he had passed through a portal onto a different planet. Here the trees were shedding their leaves—gently, peacefully—untroubled by the horrors wracking the wider world; there the stream was bubbling past. As Rugal walked toward the house, he thought, Yes, this is how it’s meant to end. She’ll be here, this is where I have to find her, this is where she has to be... His hands were shaking as he went through the gate into the garden and up the path to the front door.

The door was standing ajar. Gently, he pushed it open. “Penelya?” His voice came out thick, as if it had rusted in all the time that he had been alone. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Pen. I’m here. I changed my mind.”

It was dark inside. Reaching along the wall, his hand found a light control, but the power was down and nothing happened. “Pen? Pen, are you here?” His eyes adjusted to the dark. He looked around.

There had been a struggle, clearly. The chairs were knocked over; one of them was broken. So was one of the windows. The air was damp and musty. Rugal wandered through the small house, checking the three downstairs rooms and the four upstairs, but there was nobody here, and it had been that way for some time. The house was empty. She was gone.

Moving slowly now, Rugal went back out into the garden. He looked around for some disturbance in the earth, but there was nothing. No graves. Back inside, he bent down to lift one of the chairs back into a standing position, but the thought of the effort it would take to clear the place properly suddenly overwhelmed him, so he stopped and left it where it was. He went back out, closing the door of the house behind him.

The sun had set. The sky was darkening and the stars were coming out. It was chilly, hardly unbearably so, but enough to enervate. Rugal sat down on the step and put his head in his hands. This was the end. He had bet everything on finding Penelya here. But the war had come to Ithic too, and there was nothing for him here either. He lay down under the stars, let the darkness cover him, and slept.

Ten

Morning brought a stiff neck and only the vaguest feeling of having rested. Rugal made a makeshift breakfast and sat down on the step outside the house, looking out across Penelya’s garden. It was pretty but disheveled. There must have been nobody here to maintain it for months now, but he could see that she had made the garden practical, useful—the way she felt she ought to be herself. Nearest to him there was a patch of sweet-smelling plants that he guessed were herbs. A little farther away were fruit trees. Nobody had been here to pick the fruit, and most of it lay rotting on the ground. He didn’t have names for the fruits. Were they native to Earth? To Ithic? They could have been Cardassian for all Rugal knew. He was a confirmed city dweller, and there hadn’t been much fresh fruit around Torr.

Looking through the neglect at how this had once been, how it might be again, he could understand why Penelya had wanted to come back here. It was not only because of duty. It was because this had been her home, where she had been born and had grown up. This was where she had been happy, with her mother and her father. Rugal sighed. If he had understood that fully, and sooner, he would have come back here with her. But he had been so wedded to the idea of going back to Bajor. He had wanted to return there in triumph with her on his arm, proving wrong everyone who said he could not go back.

He got up and walked down to wander among the trees. There was still some fruit left on the branches; not everything had gone to waste. He picked one of the better ones; a little round fruit, greenish-yellow, speckled with brown patches. It looked edible, so he bit into it. The flesh turned out to be white and tasted very sharp. It was not expected, but it was not unpleasant by any means.

The more Rugal thought about his desire to return to Bajor, the more it seemed to him like madness. How had he ever believed he would get to go back? Why had Kotan humored him for so long? He had never been welcome on Bajor, not really; he had known that as a small child. He was a visible symbol of the Occupation, of oppression, a constant reminder of the dark time that most Bajorans now wanted to forget. Yet still he had insisted it was home. He had been like Migdal, longing to return to Korto, when in fact there was no going back. All that time and energy he had wasted. He could have come here with Penelya. They could have lived and worked here in happiness. It might only have been for a very short time, before the Jem’Hadar had come for them, but it would have been a period of peace, of grace. Instead he had ended up on Ogyas, and as for Penelya...

Rugal could only assume that she was dead. The simple fact that he loved her and wanted to be with her would not have saved her. The universe did not rearrange itself simply according to one’s desires. That was how a child thought. If there had been Jem’Hadar anywhere near this place, they would have obeyed their mad gods and stopped at nothing to find her and kill her. And if the Jem’Hadar hadn’t killed her, someone else probably would. This was no time to be Cardassian. They were the pariahs of the quadrant.

None of which, Rugal thought, biting deeply into the bittersweet fruit, answered the immediate question: What was he going to do now? Bajor was not an option; it had only been home with Etra and Migdal, and they were long since at peace. There was little point in hurrying back to Manea; the Lotos was gone, and it could be weeks or months before another ship came past Ithic that would be willing to take a Cardassian on board. Most likely it would be another refugee ship, and that was not a way of life he would choose willingly again. Manea itself was not an option: like Ellen, he had been uneasy there, unsure why there were no Cardassians to be seen, when the last ship to come to Ithic had reported that there were. Littleport had been deserted, and he didn’t like the idea of haunting it. Besides, at some point, the humans would return, trying to rebuild their homes and livelihoods. Once the humans were back, a single Cardassian would certainly be unwelcome, and probably a target.

A great loneliness washed over him then; a sense of isolation and disconnection that ripped the breath away from him. He slid down to sit with his back supported by the trunk of the tree. There was nowhere to go; there was nobody left to be with. The house behind him was empty, the land around him deserted. All the time on the Lotos, Ellen had kept on saying that he shouldn’t hide away, that it wasn’t good for him—and as he sat there, winded, he understood why. There was nothing else to think about but the losses—Penelya, Tret, Arric, Serna, Tela, Kotan. His whole world. There was nothing to distract him from these absences, nothing to help him forget. He should have stayed on the Lotos, and let himself take comfort in the company of strangers. Or he should have done his duty and stayed with those bewildered refugees from Destiny. Not his duty as an officer of the Second Order, not even his duty as a medic, but something more fundamental—a duty to life, to care for it and not to squander it. He could have done some good there. Now it was too late. He had been set on this futile quest, this belief that he would find his girl and go home in triumph, and it had been a great delusion.

He sat for a while counting the pips at the core of the fruit until his mind was empty once again. Some sense of proportion, of practicality, returned to him. He had expended a great deal of energy to get here, and probably the best thing for him to do now was to stay. There were fences, the wall—he would be safe. This had been a farm. He could work out how to sustain himself over the coming months and then, when the Lotos returned, he would go with it. Perhaps by then he might have worked out what he was supposed to do with himself. That was the great dilemma. What was he supposed to do, now that the world had ended? What were any of them supposed to do?

At first, what he chiefly did was sleep. The upstairs room at the back had been Penelya’s—her clothes were hanging in the closet, and there was a pair of her work boots still crusted in mud. He claimed that room for his own. He found some of his own messages sent after she had come back, and was ashamed to discover the stiff note of reproach that rang through them. No wonder she had stopped replying.

He made a slow, not entirely effective effort to tidy up the house. He picked up the chair that had been kicked over—that was a start, at least. He opened windows so that the cool air of autumn could clear away the mustiness that lingered like gas around the small rooms, and he covered over the cracks of the broken one rather than fix it. Some days it was difficult to do anything, even to get out of bed. He would lie and think about the time he had lived in Torr, busy with work and surrounded by people. It had, on reflection, been the happiest time of his life. One day, when the wind had picked up, he sat on the step watching yellow leaves drift slowly down from the trees to cover the grass. He sat there for hours, until he realized how cold he had become. But he went and sat there most evenings, because there was more to look at outside. For a while, he listened to transmissions picked up on the comm that Ellen had given him. One day he realized he had stopped. He wasn’t listening for survivors anymore.

One evening, about a fortnight after he had arrived at the farm, he was sitting as usual on the step, when he thought he saw movement among the fruit trees. “You’re imagining things,” he said out loud (he had long since started talking to himself). “Still, better take a closer look.”

The light was dimming. He had to strain his eyes to make out anything in the shadows. It was probably an animal, but Rugal didn’t know whether the wildlife on Ithic was large, small, herbivorous, or predatory. He picked up a branch lying by him on the ground and took a few steps closer to the trees.

“Is there somebody there?”

There was a rustle of leaves, and then everything went suspiciously still.

“I’m friendly. I know I don’t look it, but I am. You don’t have to be afraid.”

There was no reply and nothing moved.

“If you were going to kill me, I think you would have done it by now. I don’t mean you any harm. Why not come out and talk to me? If you have news, I’d like to hear it.” He took a step or two forward closer to the trees, and then stopped again. He stretched out his arm to hold the branch away from him, so that he no longer seemed armed. “I’ll put this down if that will make you feel better. I don’t want to fight. Not any longer. I’m guessing you don’t either.”

He inched forward, silently, still holding the branch away from him. In truth, he felt slightly foolish. It would probably turn out to be some small creature foraging in the undergrowth. Catching another slight movement, he took a quick step toward it, reached out, and grabbed whatever it was out of its cover.

It was a human child, female, thin and dirty, with big brown eyes. Rugal stared at her. She stared back. His right hand was full of her shirt; his left hand was clutching the branch like it was his best chance at survival. He felt faintly ridiculous—she was hardly the wild beast of his imagination. He gave a small laugh, more a release of tension than anything else. She gave him a furious look. Then she bit him on the hand.

“Ah!” Rugal let go of her, pulling his hand back to his chest. She seized the opportunity and ran. Rugal didn’t chase her. “It’s all right!” he called after the fleeing shadow. “I don’t like Cardassians much either. But you’re safe with me.”

It didn’t make her come back, but then he hadn’t been expecting it would. Back in the house, he cleaned up the bite—she hadn’t done any damage to speak of—and then made himself some supper. On a whim, he got out a second plate, and piled some food on it. Then he went down to the trees and left it there, in case she came his way again.

The next morning the food had gone, but the plate was there. It had even been washed. Rugal thought that showed scruples, not to mention manners. He left something out the next night, and the next, and so it went on for more than a week. Each morning he got up to find a clean plate left on the step. It wasn’t a bad arrangement, he supposed, perhaps a little too much like leaving out food for a hound. But the nights were getting markedly colder, and he was concerned for this child, out by herself in the wild. He wondered if there was a way of tempting her inside. He certainly meant her no harm, but he was not sure how he could convince her that she was safe around this particular Cardassian.

He was never quite sure when she was nearby, but he decided to work on the assumption that she was there most of the time. He started clearing up the garden so that he had an excuse to be outside talking to her. He told her his name—he had got into the habit of calling himself Pa’Dar now, so he used that—and said that he had come here to find a friend. “Her name’s Penelya. She’s Cardassian, like me. Did you know her? She lived here. She’s clever and funny and her eyes are brown. I wish I could find her. More than anything, I wish I could find her.”

But the girl never answered. Sometimes he thought he heard her moving among the trees, but it could have been the breeze. He kept on talking anyway. “I walked here all the way from Manea. Do you know Manea? Have you been there? I didn’t stay there long. They didn’t like Cardassians much. I don’t know what the Cardassians did to them. I don’t think I want to know—Cardassians can do terrible things. I bet Penelya didn’t do anything. I hope they haven’t hurt her. Do you know anything about what happened to her?”

Eventually he gave up asking questions and began describing how he had got here. Now that he had started talking, it was proving difficult to stop. He kept the gorier details of his journeys to a minimum. He didn’t know what she had seen in the last days of the war, but he didn’t want to add to it. “I didn’t come to Ithic until a few weeks ago. Before that I was traveling around on a cargo ship. I don’t know if you’ve ever been off Ithic. It’s hard out there right now, since the war. Our ship traveled around delivering supplies. None of the governments can do it right now, but people still get hungry even if there isn’t a government around to do anything about it. Ithic is one of the prettiest places I’ve seen. At least, it is around here. I didn’t like Manea, and I don’t like the rest of this farm. And some of the other worlds were grim.”

Once again, his mind had wandered back to the horrors.

“Aren’t you cold? I know humans are better with the cold than we are, but I’m freezing out here these days. You can come and sit by the heater whenever you want. I won’t stop you and I won’t hurt you. Of course, you could have an even better heater yourself, as far as I know. You could have a palace on the other side of that hill. I haven’t been that way yet. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Walk across and take a look at the other side of the hill.”

He didn’t. The next day he was exhausted, not from the work he had been doing in the garden, but because he had dreamt of Tret, lying in the snow. He was worried he had done something wrong when he had left him; worried that he missed some important ritual that he had never had the chance to learn. It seemed to matter very much all of a sudden, in a way it hadn’t when they had gone out to Anaret and buried Geleth’s ashes. The way it had mattered when Darrah Bajin had told him that they had said all the right prayers over Migdal’s body. Rugal didn’t believe in gods or prophets, but he wanted to show respect. There wasn’t much else you could do in this life.

That afternoon, he sat on the step with a blanket around him. “I’m sad today,” he told the girl who might not even be there. “I keep thinking about a friend of mine. He died right at the end of the war. I know, here,” he thumped his fingers too hard against his head, “that it wasn’t my fault, but I can’t help thinking that if I’d only tried harder, I might have got him farther. We might have both made it. He got lied to, he got told he was doing a great thing, an important thing—and then the people who told him that lie left him to die in the cold. That’s why I’m sad today.” Rugal looked over at the spot among the trees where the girl sometimes hid. He couldn’t tell whether or not she was there. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, not really. Not after the end of the world. “If there’s anyone left that you love, make sure you tell them that. And if you don’t have anyone left”—he held out his empty hands—“you’re not the only one.”

Rugal stopped talking. He put his arms across his knees and rested his forehead on them. He wanted to be asleep. No, not asleep—he might dream if he were asleep. He wanted to be unconscious. He wanted not to be anywhere any longer. He wanted oblivion. If he could go back to Ogyas now, he would lie down next to Tret and let the snow cover him. It would be better than being alive, because it would not hurt.

“The house was empty when I got here.” A small voice, a girl’s, not much more than a child’s, high and clear in the evening air. “Everyone had already gone.”

Rugal lifted his head. The girl was standing in front of him—out of arm’s reach, and half turned away, ready to make a run for it. “I don’t know what happened to your girlfriend. Everyone had gone by the time I got here.”

Slowly, trying not to startle her, Rugal straightened up. The girl was watching every move he made. He put his hands out flat on his knees so that she could see that they were empty and that he wasn’t a threat. “Thanks for telling me.”

She shifted onto one foot. “Sorry I don’t know what happened.”

“It helps to know you didn’t see her killed. She might still be somewhere.”

The girl pulled a face. Not likely. How old was she? If she had been Bajoran, Rugal would have said twelve or thirteen. She was thin and grimy, and her eyes were huge in a small brown face. Around her head she had a scarf that she was clutching tightly closed at her throat. One or two strands of hair had got loose from their cover and were hanging dark and lank around her cheeks. She was badly in need of a wash.

“My name’s Rugal.”

“I know. Rugal Pa’Dar, although when you lived on Bajor you were called Proka Rugal. My name’s Hulya. Are you going to be staying here?”

“I thought I would, for a while. Is that all right with you?”

She shrugged. “How long is a while?”

“A few months—six, maybe eight. Some friends of mine—the people who brought me here—are meant to be coming back to Ithic then. So I’ll be around at least that long. My friend who lived here wouldn’t mind if I stayed here. Is it all right with you?”

“I suppose so. It isn’t my house.”

“All right then. Thank you.” They stared at each other. “Are you going to stand there all evening or are you going to come inside? I was going to make something to eat.”

She hesitated for a moment longer, and then made her decision and came to join him. Rugal shifted along the step so that there was room for her to sit beside him. “Hello, Hulya,” he said, when she arrived. “It’s good to meet you at last.” He held up his palm. She looked at it, and then grasped hold of it and shook it. So that was how humans greeted each other, he thought, as she pumped his hand up and down. It wasn’t so different after all.

“Hello, Rugal,” she said. Letting go of his hand, she leaned back on the step, propping herself up on her elbows, feet dangling. “So... what’s for supper tonight?”

The first thing he did was insist she take a bath. She didn’t complain and in fact welcomed it; living rough had lost whatever charm it might once have had for her. While she was splashing around, he found clothes for her in Penelya’s closet. They were far too big for her and in a style that had been popular in Cardassia City three or four years ago. They would have looked just fine on Penelya, but on Hulya they were odd, as if she was wearing someone else’s skin on top of her own. But they were clean and dry, and a considerable improvement on her own gear, currently being cleaned to within an inch of its life.

Later, she sat at the kitchen table with a towel wrapped around her wet hair and watched him warm up soup from packets that had he had brought from Littleport. She was less than impressed. “How long are you planning to live off this stuff?” she said. “It’s junk.”

“I know. But the replicator doesn’t work.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s broken.”

“Why haven’t you fixed it? You fixed the generator.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

She looked even less impressed. “You’d better do that first thing in the morning,” she told him. “We’re going to need it over the winter. You don’t look like the kind of person who can get a farm up and running again. You’ve not even picked the fruit. Not properly, anyway. It’s horrible watching it all go to waste.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I don’t want to go hungry, that’s all. Not when it starts getting cold.”

“Oh, it won’t get that cold.”

“Yes, it will!”

“Not as cold as where I was a year ago.”

“Yeah?” That piqued her interest. “Where was that?”

Rugal hesitated with his spoon halfway to his mouth. He hadn’t meant to talk about Ogyas to this child. But it was always at the forefront of his mind. “A place called Ogyas. It’s a very long way from here.”

“Was that where your friend died?”

He stared across the table at her in dismay. “What?”

“Your friend. The one you were talking about earlier. You said he died at the end of the war and that’s why you were sad.”

Rugal put down his spoon. “Yes, that’s where he died.”

“What was his name?”

“Tret Khevet. He was a dalin in the Fourth Division, Second Order. We went to school together and we ended up in the military together. He was good at rikot and he had a girlfriend on Cardassia Prime. They were going to be joined as soon as he got leave.”

Tret’s girlfriend. He had forgotten about her. Eretis. Tret had carried a holopicture of her around with him, and the last time he received a message from her, she had been talking about the house she had found for them in Coranum. A house big enough for a real Cardassian family with a hero father and a devoted mother and lots of servants so that everything could be done properly and look right. Would Tret have liked that, after Ogyas? Would it have come as a relief? Or would it have seemed facile after all he had seen? Rugal had forgotten about Eretis. Was there anyone else to remember her, that pretty, bubbly, unmemorable young woman, or was he the only one left who had known her? That would be bad luck for Eretis. Rugal had shed more tears over the Rejals’ dog.

“I suppose she’s dead too,” Rugal said. “Everyone’s dead. Tret got shot on the last day of the war.” He picked up his spoon again and ate mechanically for a while. When he looked up at Hulya, he saw that she had stopped eating and was staring at him with wide, scared eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’ll try not to do it again.”

“Okay.” She relaxed, a little, and carried on eating.

“What happened to your friends and family, Hulya? Why are you by yourself?”

She didn’t answer right away. Perhaps he shouldn’t press her while they had only just made friends. He started to tell her that they didn’t have to talk about it, but she had already started. “Everything was all right for a while. There were people looking after us.” She shot him a quick look. “Maquis, you know?”

He nodded to show it was all right and that he didn’t mind. That was all over now.

“So that was fine, for a while. They didn’t spend much time here, but it was enough to mean that the Cardassians left us alone. Left us to mind our own business, Mum used to say. Then they stopped coming altogether. Dad went down to Manea, and when he came back he said that everyone was saying that the Maquis were finished. I think he meant that they had all been killed. A couple of weeks later, we saw the ships in the sky. They were full of Jem’Hadar, bringing Cardassians with them. Some soldiers, mostly settlers. The Jem’Hadar came to all the farms and rounded us all up—all the humans, I mean. Then they made us walk out to a big camp they’d built to the west of Littleport.” She took another mouthful of soup. “It wasn’t so bad. But they took Dad and all the other men off to a different one and we didn’t see him again.”

An internment camp, like the one he been in briefly on Destiny. “Was it bad?”

“Not really. Boring, mostly. Some of the Cardassian guards were mean, but some of them were nice to us kids. We were there for about a year, me and Mum. Perhaps it was more. At the end it went weird for a few weeks. All the Cardassian guards went away, and there were only Jem’Hadar left. Then the Jem’Hadar went away too. That was really scary, like something bad was about to happen and they were all getting away before it did. But they left us there. All the security fields were still in place and we couldn’t get past them. We started to run out of food and we were hungry and some people got sick. We kept on thinking that eventually the Jem’Hadar would come back, or the Cardassians, but nobody did. There was a big quarrel about what we should do, whether we should wait or try to escape, and eventually some of the women wouldn’t wait any longer. They got the security fields down and we all walked out. Nobody came and stopped us. Two days later we saw Jem’Hadar ships in the sky—they were leaving. That was horrible. Because, you know... if we’d waited for them to come back, and hadn’t got ourselves out, we might all have starved...”

She took a deep breath before carrying on. “They could have taken the shields down, couldn’t they? If they knew they were going. Shouldn’t they have taken the shields down?”

“Yes, they should have.”

“And the Cardassian guards. Some of them had been nice.” She shot him an accusatory look. “Why didn’t they do it?”

Choosing his words carefully, Rugal said, “Right at the very end of the war, the Cardassians and the Dominion fell out. The Cardassians became enemies of the Jem’Hadar, like you and your people. I don’t think they would have been given the chance to take the shields down.”

“You mean they killed them?”

Rugal sighed. “Yes.”

“That’s better. I mean,” she said, quickly, “I don’t want them to be dead. But I didn’t like to think that they had left us there.” She frowned and chewed at her bottom lip.

Rugal understood. How much easier it would have been if she could simply have hated them outright. But some of them had been nice. “What happened next?”

“A big group of us walked down to Littleport to see if there was anyone there. It was empty. A big warehouse on the edge of town had been burned down. Mum pretended that she didn’t know what had happened, but my friend Jane overheard someone saying there were Cardassian bodies inside.”

Rugal felt sick. Was it only soldiers there, or settlers too? Was that were Penelya was? He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Sorry,” Hulya said awkwardly. “She might not have been there. Some of the Cardassians got away. I’ve seen some.”

“It’s all right,” Rugal said. “Go on. What happened next?”

“It took a while to get everyone down from the camp to Littleport. So we did that. Other people were passing through the town, and they had heard that the war was over, and the Dominion had surrendered. We had a party that night; we lit a big fire and there was dancing and singing...” Her eyes went distant for a moment. “Then people started heading off home. Me and Mum went back to our place. We thought Dad would come and meet us. Our farm had been farther down the valley, before the Cardassians came. It was a mess. They had churned up most of the fields and turned our house into a stockroom! Mum was furious. But the Cardassians like these really big farms, with hardly anyone living on them. It’s not good for the soil. That’s what Dad used to say. We waited for him for ages, but he didn’t turn up. Then Mr. Kavanagh—he taught chemistry at the school in Littleport and he had been taken away with all the other men—Mr. Kavanagh came past and he told us that Dad had been killed ages ago, not long after we’d all been split up. He got into a fight with one of the Cardassians after they took us away, and one of the Jem’Hadar shot him. All that time we’d been talking about him as if he was still alive, and all that time he had been dead. That was horrible. Mum was really angry. She said he always had to be the hero and really he was a farmer and why couldn’t a farmer be good enough for him?” Her voice had started to rise. “Why was she so angry with him?”

Rugal thought about that for a while. “I think that we get angry when people die because we feel like they’ve left us behind. They’ve left us having to carry on and cope with the whole mess of being alive.”

“I suppose so. I suppose that makes sense.” She sighed. “I wish she’d stopped being angry with him before... Before.”

They were getting close to the heart of her story now. Rugal said nothing, letting the girl go entirely at her own pace.

“The next farm down the valley belonged to Mr. Rowse. I walked down there one morning. We needed a part for one of the water pumps and he’d said he’d get one for us the next time he went into Manea and then I could come and get it. When I got there, the door was open but I couldn’t see anyone about—”

“Like when I arrived here.”

She blinked at him. “Yes, like that, I suppose. I couldn’t find him anywhere. It was creepy. I thought maybe we’d got the day wrong, or perhaps he’d had to go into town the day after he’d said, so I turned round and went home. When I came over the hill, I saw smoke coming out of the front window. There was a skimmer there too, one of those big ones that can go over rough ground really easily. Dad always wanted one. So I knew that there were people there. Eventually they came out from around the back of the house. There were four of them. They filled the skimmer up with loads of our stuff and then they went. I went down to the house to look for Mum. I went inside...”

She stopped, and Rugal didn’t make her go any further. “Is that when you decided to come over here?”

“I thought that maybe they were the reason why Mr. Rowse’s house had been empty too, and that meant they were heading northwest, along the road. I was too scared to go into Littleport in case they were going there and they saw me. So I came this way instead. I knew there’d been a Cardassian farm here, but I didn’t know whether there were any Cardassians still living here or whether the Jem’Hadar had been here and taken them all away like they’d taken us away. There weren’t Cardassians anywhere around, and I liked how green it was behind the walls, so I used what there was here, and when you turned up, I hid in the wood. I’m sorry that I took things from your friend’s farm, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Penelya wouldn’t mind. If she’d been here she would have asked you to come inside. She would have looked after you. She was like that. I’m glad you came here and I’m glad you’re here now.”

“I’m glad too,” she said. Then she seemed to run entirely out of words. They stared at each other across the empty plates and devastation. This madness that gripped his species, Rugal thought, it had reached everywhere. This child, her life ripped to shreds, like millions of Bajorans before her, like all those outliers that Cardassian society had refused to admit—Penelya, Tekis and Erani, Ziyal. Himself. They had been in the grip of a great delusion—and this was the price. With a sigh, Rugal began gathering up their plates. Hulya got up and helped him. “Thank you for supper,” she said, very politely.

“Sorry it was so bad.”

“That’s all right. But we will fix the replicator tomorrow, won’t we?”

“Yes, we will.”

“And then we’ll save what’s left of the fruit?”

“We’ll do that too. But you’ll have to tell me what to do. I haven’t got a clue.”

He smiled at her and got a smile in return. As they made up the bed for her in the room next to his, she said, “And you should fix that window in the kitchen too. It looks horrible. It looks like nobody cares.”

Eleven

At Hulya’s instruction, Rugal fixed the window and the replicator. He also picked what was left of the fruit, cleaned the house from top to bottom, and brought back to life an elderly skimmer that had been left in an outbuilding to rust in peace. That satisfied her for a day or two. Under his own steam, he boxed up Penelya’s possessions—her clothes, the padds she had been reading with the markers still set keeping her place—and stored them away where he could not come across them unexpectedly. Hulya found him while he was doing this, sitting on the bed holding an amber pendant that Pen would sometimes wear, which he had found dropped behind a storage unit. It had been her mother’s. That convinced him, if he still needed to be convinced, that she was dead. She would not have abandoned it, not willingly, any more than he would have abandoned his earring. When Hulya asked what it was, Rugal closed his hand around it, dropped it in the box, and said, “Finished.” She understood. It was something else from before that had once mattered, but now needed to be put away in case it shattered everything that was new and fragile.

He discovered that he was glad of the company of this child, who made him eat and work, and didn’t seem to notice that there were times when he could barely move from bed, but would sit by his feet talking about what they were going to do that day until he got up and did it. He was glad, too, to be there when the nightmares gripped her, or when something they had been doing didn’t work right, and her rage and hysteria broke through. He remembered being that way himself, when he was a child on Bajor.

One morning, she announced, “We need to sow the wheat.” Doubtfully, he agreed to give it a try. He had no idea how to start, but he supposed that people—hers and his—had been throwing seeds at the ground on a hundred thousand worlds for millennia now, so how hard could it be? Besides, there was always the replicator. They sat at the kitchen table one night with some padds and she listed everything they needed. “Most of it we can get from Littleport,” she said. “But I don’t want to go there. I suppose we could get it from our farm...”

Rugal didn’t like the idea of her going back there, but she refused point-blank to go to the town, where she seemed to think she would come face-to-face with the people who had murdered her mother. He could have told her that she wouldn’t find any Cardassians there, but he did not want to press the issue. “What if I go there by myself?” he said. “It’ll only take a few hours—”

“No!” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to go there by yourself! If there are people there, they won’t like Cardassians. They might hurt you—”

He was always surprised—grateful, too—at how the fact of his species seemed not to bother her, when his people had brought her nothing but grief. “I’m good at looking after myself, Hulya,” he said gently, but the idea of him going and never returning had by now thoroughly gripped her imagination. When he saw that she was beginning to tremble, he put a halt to the conversation before she became irrevocably distressed. He was getting very good at spotting the warning signs. His love, his respect, for Etra and Migdal deepened every day. How had they coped with this? Somehow they had.

Lying awake that night, pondering their options, Rugal had another idea. He didn’t like it much, but he thought it might alleviate some of Hulya’s fears. The next morning he dug out the pack he had lugged all the way from Ogyas and unearthed his disruptor. He hadn’t handled it in months, and it was not pleasant to be looking at it again. He put it on the kitchen table, and when Hulya came down for breakfast, she sat for a while staring at it, wide-eyed and wary. He said, “How about if I took that with me?”

“Is that real?”

“As real as I am.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was issued to me. You know I was a soldier once.” He gave a wry smile. “Not one of the mean ones.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“If I took that with me to Littleport, would that be all right?”

It was deemed acceptable, so the next day he left her at the house and took the skimmer out beyond the wire fences.

First he went over to what had been her parents’ farm. There was a freshly dug grave in the garden and a green branch had been set in the ground as a marker. Someone else had been here before him and buried her mother. Rugal was deeply thankful that he did not have to face the task, that there was not someone else over whom he would not know the right ceremonies to perform, the right words to say. Did they think the little girl had died here too? They would not have found a body. Was there someone he should find to tell about her? She had not mentioned anyone. She did not seem to want to see anyone else.

Inside, even through the dust and neglect, and the evidence of the murder that had happened here months ago, it was obvious that this had been a happy home, well-run and comfortable. Upstairs, he found Hulya’s small room; quickly, he packed clothes and the nearest toys, some pictures of a smiling family of three. In one of the outbuildings he found tools, power cells for those and for the replicator, and seed. He was not entirely sure what he was looking for, but Hulya’s descriptions had been detailed to the point of flamboyant. He threw it all in the back of the skimmer and left quickly. Soon he was on the road to Littleport.

It was five or six weeks since he had been through the township, and it was now without doubt inhabited again, almost busy. Everybody he saw was human. Conspicuous and nervous, but trying to be friendly, Rugal tried to buy what he needed at several different places. Some people looked through him, some were outright hostile, while others would sell but wouldn’t talk. One man asked where he had come from. “Oh, out that way,” Rugal said, gesturing in roughly the opposite direction, and moving on. He took care to head out of town the way he’d pointed, and he took a back road home. He was glad to get away. He was even more relieved that he had not needed to reveal the existence of the disruptor.

It was late afternoon when he got back. There was a light on in one of the downstairs rooms. Hulya, at the sound of the skimmer, sped out of the house and down the steps. When he got out of the skimmer, she flung herself into his arms and howled. A sick horror swept over him. “What’s happened? Are you all right? What’s happened?”

It took a while for her to communicate—and for him to work out—that nothing had happened other than that she had been alone all day and worked herself up into a frenzy. “Don’t go again,” she pleaded with him. “Don’t leave me again.”

He picked her up and carried her inside. She was weeping against his chest. “I won’t, I promise I won’t. If I have to go to town again, you can come with me.”

“Promise you won’t leave me!”

“Hulya, I promise.”

“Don’t go there again. I don’t want you to go there again.”

It took a long while to calm her down that evening. He sat by her bed, stroking her cheek and whispering to her until she fell asleep. As he watched her breathing, he thought of Etra, doing the same on many nights for him, and he thanked the Prophets that he did not worship for Etra, thanked them on behalf of Arys, and he swore to this child’s mother that he would do the same for her.

The next day Hulya looked through what he had brought back for her from her home. She kept some of it around her for a day or two, and then he found her packing the lot away in the storage unit where he had hidden Penelya’s possessions. “Finished,” she told him firmly, and he entirely understood.

• • •

By the time the two fields were ploughed and the seed they had was sown, Rugal was exhausted. True, it had been his default state in recent years, but this was nothing like the exhaustion they had all suffered on Ogyas, the corollary of fear and privation. Nor was it like the way he had felt when he had first arrived here at the house, when he had been so thoroughly depleted he could sleep through whole days. This felt better. It felt almost like being alive.

Soon the weather took a turn for the worse. There was rain most days; some days the sun seemed barely to have risen by the time it was dark again. They kept indoors and relied on the replicator. One morning, after heavy rain had bashed the house, he saw that the roof had sprung a leak. Quick investigation of their stores revealed that they did not have the materials to fix it. He would have to go back to Littleport. After some silence and some thought, Hulya agreed to go with him. But she was not happy about it.

The township was even busier than it had been during his previous visit, but still Rugal saw no Cardassians. He was convinced more than ever that the Jem’Hadar had been successful in their purge of this area, and that Penelya was in that burnt-out building on the edge of the town. Surely some Cardassians should have passed his way by now? Perhaps it was like Slokat, and whoever was left was keeping to their side of the country. Perhaps he really was the only Cardassian on Ithic.

During their whole time in Littleport, Hulya kept her hand firmly in his, or held onto his sleeve. They could not find what they needed; in every place they tried, the proprietors said how short of material they were. Rugal believed a few of them. “Let’s go,” he said to Hulya eventually. “We’ll think of something else. Perhaps try another town. Or think about going up to Manea for a couple of days—”

In a low fierce voice, she said, “I just want to go home.”

They had almost got back to the skimmer when someone called out to them from across the street. “Hulya? Hulya Kiliç?”

Rugal felt her hand grip his. The nails dug into his palm. A human woman was running across the street toward them. Hulya’s eyes had gone huge in the oval of her face. “Who is it?” he whispered, but before she could answer the woman had reached them.

“Hulya!” she said, bending down and seizing her into an embrace. “Where on earth have you been? You disappeared into thin air!”

“Rugal, this is Doctor Anders,” Hulya said stiffly. “She was my elementary school teacher.”

Rugal would have lifted his palm in greeting, but since Hulya was still clinging onto his hand, he could not. He murmured a polite “Hello” instead, but since Anders completely ignored him, he might as well have remained silent. “We sent someone past the farm,” she said. “Hulya, we thought you must have been killed too—”

“She’s fine,” Rugal said. “She’s been with me.”

Anders straightened up and looked at him with the usual kind of aversion. Hulya said, “This is Rugal. He looks after me now. You don’t have to worry.” She pulled at his hand, trying to get him to leave. “We should go now. It was nice to see you again.”

Anders touched her arm to stop her. To Rugal, she said, “Who are you, exactly?”

“I already said,” Hulya replied. “He’s Rugal. He’s looking after me. We’re living out on the big Cardassian farm and we’re fine.”

By choice, Rugal would not have revealed exactly where they were, but since it was out now, they would have to handle it as best they could. “Hulya’s been with me since the fall,” he began to explain, but Anders interrupted. “Did you come with the Jem’Hadar?”

“No, I came later. I was looking for a friend of mine. Hulya was living rough and when she came past the house I started looking after her.”

“I see.”

“We’re fine,” Hulya said again. She shook her teacher’s hand from her shoulder and pulled him away. “Come on, Rugal, let’s go.”

By now, he was clinging onto her hand as much as she was to his. When he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw that Anders was still standing in the street, watching them leave. He recalled the Starfleet commander from all those years ago, the one who had taken him away from Migdal. These humans, he thought, they will walk in and do what they think is best for you, whether you want it or not. In the skimmer, Hulya said, “I liked her at school. And then she was in the camp with us. She was one of the ones that got the security fields taken down. But I don’t want to go back there again.”

“Me neither.”

They traveled in silence for a while. Once they were safely beyond the big metal fences of the Khevet estate, he said, “We’ll try to get what we need from the warehouses around the estate. It’s better to trade than to scavenge, but I didn’t like it down there either. Let’s see if we can get by.”

It was a good idea. They found what they needed for the roof and fixed it. Winter settled in. It didn’t snow—thankfully, because he had had enough of snow—but it got colder and wetter, so they stayed in the house. He taught her kotra and she taught him chess. He was worried for weeks that someone from the town was going to come out and trouble them, but they were left in peace. Perhaps they didn’t know about this place behind the walls, and the farm was too big for them to know where to look. So he hoped. Then, a week or so after the shortest day, they had a visitor.

Hulya saw her first. She ran out from the house down into the backyard where Rugal was taking advantage of a cold but sunny day to fix a fence. Hulya had been saying that they should get a goat. Rugal had only the vaguest idea what a goat was, and he suspected it would be trouble, but it was probably less trouble than having Hulya talk relentlessly about their pressing and urgent need for it. What were you supposed to do when children asked for things? Was it better to give in over the goat now, or would that only lead to an escalation of demands that would end with a vast array of livestock, none of which he was qualified to look after? Perhaps he could suggest a hound instead. He had always wanted a hound.

He was pondering the deal he would offer when Hulya, breathless, came to a halt next to him. “Somebody’s coming up the path,” she said. “Cardassian. A woman, I think. Could it be her? Penelya?”

His heart somersaulted in his chest. He took her hand. “I don’t know,” he said, and marveled at how calm his voice sounded. “Let’s go and look.”

They walked around to the front. The Cardassian woman was standing on the step. She was tall, thin, ragged, and when she saw Rugal she fell into his arms as if he had come to save her. Hulya, standing to one side, mouthed: Is it her? Rugal shook his head. “You’re cold,” he said to the stranger. “You’d better come inside.”

Her name was Arani. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you,” she said, as she made short work of a bowl of hot aytlik broth. “They said in Littleport that there were Cardassians here, but I didn’t believe them.” She started to cry, and grabbed hold of Rugal’s hand. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “here we are.”

“Yes.” She smiled at him through her tears. “Here you are.”

He told her to carry on and, as she spoke, he fretted about that word, “Cardassians.” He didn’t like the sound of that. Had he multiplied in number in the minds of the people of Littleport? He put that worry aside and tried to concentrate on the rest of her story.

Arani had been a technician employed by Khevet Agricultural Holdings. She had only been on Ithic for a few weeks when the massacre had happened. “I was based up the road at the central complex,” she said. “We were working on a project to make more arable land available. We were going to extend the holdings down toward Littleport.”

Hulya frowned. “But there were already farms there. People were living on them.”

Arani gave her a bright smile. “Oh, there would have been lots of jobs once the new big farm was in place. There would have been plenty for everyone to do.”

The same way that there had been plenty for the Bajorans to do, presumably. “How did you get away from the main complex?” Rugal said. “Wasn’t it an easy target for the Jem’Hadar?”

Arani gave him a besotted smile. Just beyond her line of sight, Hulya put a finger in her mouth and mimed being sick. Rugal kicked her shin under the table.

“I was away from the complex when it happened. Two of us had gone up to the northern weather station to carry out some data analysis. There was another project,” she lowered her voice and leaned toward him, beckoning him in with one finger, “very hush-hush. We were trying to alter the temperature in some of the colder areas, raise it a degree or two, so that there would be new land available when this area had ceased being productive.”

Rugal drew back. Hulya openly recoiled. Take the world, then ruin it. When would they ever learn? “Did you know Penelya Khevet?”

She frowned, puzzled, and then laughed. “Oh, you mean Penni! Yes, of course, everyone knew Penni. She was adorable. A little clever for her own good. She was an orphan, you know, only got the post because of her uncle.”

Rugal got up from his chair. “Would you like some more tea?” he said politely. When Arani nodded, he went over to the replicator, keeping his back to her so she couldn’t see his face. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“Sorry, no. I wasn’t here, of course.” She didn’t sound very interested in this line of conversation. “Does it matter particularly?”

Did it ever matter particularly whether someone lived or died? Reproachfully, Hulya said, “She was his girlfriend.”

“Oh. I see. I’m sorry, I wasn’t here. I don’t know what happened down here.”

Rugal brought two cups back to the table and wondered whether he should tell her about the building on the edge of Littleport. She hadn’t yet asked him whether he had news about any of her former colleagues. As he sat down, she said, “I was telling you what happened to me.”

So she was. Rugal leaned back in his chair and let her get on with it.

There had been no Jem’Hadar stationed where she was; in fact, the weather station was unmanned apart from occasional visits like hers. She had been working when her colleague, Leterik, came in and told her that he was hearing strange transmissions from the main complex and from other Cardassian areas around Ithic. Leterik seemed to think that the Jem’Hadar had started killing people, but Arani couldn’t believe it. “I thought he meant the humans,” she said, “but he was sure it was the Jem’Hadar. But weren’t they meant to be protecting us?”

“That was the idea,” Rugal said wearily.

“Anyway, Leterik was absolutely certain, so rather than fight with him, I agreed to wait at the weather station for a few days until he thought it was safe. We took the flyer down to Kovalet—that’s the big complex up the coast from here—but there was nobody there and part of the building was on fire. I still didn’t think Leterik was right about the Jem’Hadar, but he found some security recordings at Kovalet...” She shuddered. “It was horrible. All those people. They locked the doors, locked them in... Anyway, there was nobody left there. And there were no Jem’Hadar either. I couldn’t understand that. Have they all gone? Where did they go?”

“They left,” said Hulya. “They got in their ships and left.”

“The war ended,” Rugal explained. “The Dominion surrendered, the Jem’Hadar stood down, and then they were recalled.”

Arani seemed to take it as a personal affront. “But they were supposed to be protecting us! Leterik and I went into one town, and the people there started shooting at us! Surely they wouldn’t have done that if the Jem’Hadar had been there? The closer we got to Manea the worse it got. Our flyer got shot down. We started walking, but there were people about and when they saw us they attacked us. Leterik was killed, and then they started hunting me down. I had to run for my life!”

It sounded to Rugal like an exaggeration, but whatever had happened, she had clearly been terrified, so he let it pass. “What happened in Littleport?”

“They weren’t friendly either. They said I should come here, that I’d find Cardassians here. I thought it was a lie, perhaps a trap, but then you walked around from the back and...” She stopped talking and started to cry instead. Rugal and Hulya glanced at each other. “It’s been a bad time,” Rugal said. “But you’re safe here. Why don’t we make a bed for you? You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

She fell on his offer gratefully. When he had seen her to her room, he came back downstairs. Hulya looked at him sternly. “She’s not staying, is she?”

Rugal held up his hands in defeat. He didn’t like the idea either—but where else could she go?

Arani did stay, and she continued to exasperate. But Rugal was right—there was nowhere else for her to go. She was woefully unprepared for the catastrophe that had struck her people, and he was frankly amazed she had lasted this long. But then you could never overestimate how resourceful people could be.

Arani had been bored on Ithic. She had only come here because of her job, and she had intended to be back on Prime long ago. She and some friends had planned to live in the capital city, renting a place near the university in the more gentrified eastern section of Torr. She seemed to think this was still an option, if she could only find a way back. The first time she and Rugal quarreled, it was because she was talking about going back to Prime. “Don’t you understand?” Rugal said. “There’s nothing there! The whole place was flattened. The Jem’Hadar killed a few thousand people here. They killed eight hundred million on Prime.”

It was not so much that she refused to believe him. It was more that she seemed not to grasp what he meant when he said these things. She kept talking about her three friends (he assumed they were all dead) and the part of Torr where they were planning to live (which would be a smoking ruin) and she had a list of things that she intended to do once she got back to civilization that she added to daily (none of which he imagined were easily achievable on a world without functioning infrastructure). It was one way of coping, he supposed, but it didn’t strike him as healthy. Eventually he simply tuned her conversation out. But then she started to interfere with what he and Hulya were doing on the farm.

Admittedly he was a novice, Hulya was a child, and Arani had worked for a big agricultural company. But Arani’s attitude set his teeth on edge. “If you’re serious,” she said—as if he wasn’t serious now!—“we can go and get the equipment to do it properly. We can sell to the people in Littleport, Manea too. But all this,” she gestured around his hard-worked fields and laughed. “This is primitive! You might as well not bother.”

For Rugal, their efforts to cultivate this piece of land had nothing to do with efficiency or success—they had the replicator to live off, after all. It was about finding something meaningful to do, something that demanded that he looked ahead, to a future where his efforts paid off. Even if something went wrong, even if it didn’t work out this time around, that was itself a reason to look ahead to next year, when they would do it better, get it right.

Arani didn’t understand, and finally he lost his temper. “If you don’t like what we’re doing here, go. Get out of here. Go back to Prime and try your luck there.”

There were tears, and a door was slammed in his face. He ended up standing outside it apologizing. Eventually she came out, threw his arms around him, and begged him not to send her away. He stood awkwardly, while Hulya glowered nearby, saying he hadn’t meant it and of course she should stay. What else could he say to her? Where could she go? They could hardly send her off to fend for herself. They were stuck with her. But Rugal could see that this was going to happen again and again: she would become frustrated at being trapped here and she would take it out on him. They were at the lowest point of this cycle when Gheta arrived.

It was toward the end of winter, one of those crisp clear days that are very close to declaring themselves spring. This time Rugal saw the visitor first, and he didn’t think for a second that it might be Penelya. Gheta came striding up toward the house, her hand already raised in greeting. “They said there were Cardassians here,” she said. “I’m glad to see you.” She looked around and smiled. “This place is great!”

• • •

They made her redleaf tea and sat at the kitchen table to hear her story. This was something Cardassians did now, Rugal thought, a new ritual: greeting each other in amazement, asking each other how they had got here. Gheta was younger than both Arani and Rugal, not quite at the age of emergence. Her parents had worked for Khevet’s company, and had been based in Kovalet. They were dead now, of course, but Gheta had been hiking in the country when the massacre at the complex happened. “I’ve been traveling around since then,” she said. “I was trying to find other Cardassians. The humans don’t want us around, but there’s no point in going back to Prime, and anyway, I like it here.”

“Wait till you find out how they’re running this place,” Arani said darkly. “It’s all mucking about in the mud and digging ditches. Back to basics.”

Gheta glanced at her, then at Rugal, sulking at his end of the table. She shrugged. “Sounds good to me. That sealed-in complex in Kovalet didn’t save anyone in the end, did it?”

Later, long after Hulya had gone to bed, and when Arani had followed her upstairs, Gheta told Rugal more about her experiences since the war. He was surprised that she had seen so few Cardassians. “They said when I landed that most of them were leaving. I didn’t think they’d have got rid of so many so quickly.”

“It wasn’t deportation, Rugal. It was the second round of massacres.” She caught his expression. “Did you not know about that?”

“No, not at all.” He glanced at the stairs. “Arani said something, but it’s hard to tell what’s exaggerated and what isn’t.”

“She seems like she might be difficult to get on with.”

“I should try harder. It’s not like there are all that many of us left. What happened?”

Gheta curled her legs under her and warmed her hands around her mug of tea. “After the Jem’Hadar left, those of us who had made it started coming back to the complexes and the townships. The humans had started coming back too. Some of them were interned, you knew that?”

“Yes, Hulya was, with her mother.”

“Tensions were running pretty high. If it had been only the locals, maybe they could all have ignored each other. Maybe it would have been the same. Anyway, a few ships had landed on Ithic by that time—mostly people getting out of what’s now Romulan space. Can’t say I blame them. The ships carrying Cardassians weren’t allowed to land, but the ships carrying human refugees were. Mostly frightened people looking for somewhere safe to hide. They weren’t the problem. Some of them, however—not so nice. It only takes a handful. They found out about the Cardassian survivors at Kovalet, and they went up there one night and finished what the Jem’Hadar had started. The other humans turned a blind eye. Kovalet was only the start. The same thing happened again and again throughout the summer, all the way up the coast, anywhere Cardassians had started to gather, and out this way nearly as far as Littleport. That’s why you hardly see any Cardassians around here. The ones the Jem’Hadar didn’t kill, the humans got later.”

“Prophets...” Rugal murmured. He had seen so much in the past few years, but he still hadn’t predicted this.

“What frightens me, Rugal—really frightens me—is that when I came through Littleport, there were people talking about the Cardassian enclave out here. They were saying that there was a human child up here, being kept by the Cardassians, and they didn’t like it. To be honest, I didn’t believe it until I saw Hulya with my own eyes. But it’s going to be summer again soon, and I’m afraid that the humans might decide to pick up where they left off last year. Get rid of us once and for all.” She was shaking. She put down her mug, and he leaned over and put his hand on top of hers.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to cause a scene. But it’s been a bad year. And I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I’m not sure the humans are done with us yet.”

He walked around the house later, when everyone was asleep, making sure that all the doors and windows were secure. The next morning, he took the skimmer out to the gate and checked the metal fences for some distance in either direction. Perhaps he should think about the security fields again. But they couldn’t stay locked in here forever. That was no way to live and, besides, if it was Hulya they wanted, they would find a way inside somehow.

Gheta’s presence restored some balance. She had a way of handling Arani that made the older woman feel her grievances had been heard and turned out to be not so bad after all. As spring advanced, and the weather improved, they had other problems to contend with. One day they found that sections of the fence had been torn down. Not long after, graffiti began to appear on some of the estate buildings. Equipment was damaged too—a big blow ever since Rugal had decided not to rely on going into Littleport for parts. They fixed the broken sections of the fence and cleared off the other damage, and they talked about putting the security fields back up. Arani was all for it; Gheta thought it would use too much power. Hulya was in a stage of agreeing enthusiastically with whatever Gheta said. As for Rugal, he resented the idea of being imprisoned in that way. Since the day he had been separated from Migdal, he had been told where and how he had to live—first by Starfleet, then by the Obsidian Order, then by the military, and now some bigots on a backwater planet wanted to do the same. They could forget it.

Not long after they had mended the fences, a skimmer drove all the way through the estate up to the wall built around their enclave. It remained there a few hours, and then went away again. When Rugal told Gheta, she was shaken—and she was not easily shaken. “I’m afraid they’re going to attack. Maybe I was wrong about the security fields. It might be safer that way—”

Rugal shook his head. “I’m not giving them the satisfaction. I’ll go down to Littleport first, talk to whoever’s calling themselves the authorities, ask what they intend to do about protecting us. It’ll make my point, at the least—”

“Don’t!” Gheta said quickly. “It would be all the excuse they need.”

They came to him in the end. He got back to the house one afternoon to see a skimmer standing outside. When he went into the kitchen, there were three humans sitting there with Arani. Gheta and Hulya were nowhere to be seen. He recognized one of the humans as the teacher that he and Hulya had met the time they had gone into Littleport. The other two he did not know, but one of them was in uniform.

“I’m pleased the neighbors have finally decided to drop by,” Rugal said to Arani as he got himself some tea, in as measured a tone as he could manage. “But something tells me this isn’t a courtesy call. Doctor Anders,” he said, “it’s nice to see you again. How can I help you?”

“There’s no easy way to put this,” she said, “but we’ve come to collect Hulya.”

Rugal heard a faint ringing sound in his ears. “Oh yes?”

“My colleagues and I—this is Mr. Greene from Littleport’s organizing committee, and Mr. Townley, from our police—we don’t think that it’s in Hulya’s best interests to remain here.”

Rugal leaned back in his chair and drank some tea. “Have you asked Hulya what she thinks about that?”

Anders looked unhappy. “She was here when we arrived, but she became hysterical and ran upstairs. Your other friend—”

“Her name is Gheta.”

“Yes—she went after her.”

Greene spoke. “Does she often have tantrums like that?”

“Not as many as she used to,” Rugal replied.

“She shouldn’t be having them at all.” Greene was clear to whom he was attributing blame. “It’s a sign of considerable distress.”

“Hulya spent a year in an internment camp, and then found her mother’s body after she was murdered,” Rugal replied quietly. “If she wasn’t distressed by that, we should be worried. She’s been much better in recent months.” He got up from his chair. “Until today.” He walked over to the kitchen door and called upstairs. “Hulya, I’m home. There are some people here who’d like to talk to you. Do you want to talk to them?”

There was a pause and then she shouted back. “No!”

Rugal turned to his visitors. “You heard her. She doesn’t want to see you. And I won’t force her.”

Anders said, “We’re only here because we’re concerned about Hulya. I taught her; I knew her mother and father. They wouldn’t be happy that she’s here by herself—”

“Is she by herself? There’s me, there’s Gheta, there’s Arani—”

“What I meant was—”

“I know what you meant,” Rugal replied coldly. He went on in a more conciliatory tone of voice. “We’re not holding her hostage. Hulya stays here because she feels safe here.”

“With all respect, she’s a very troubled little girl who doesn’t know her own mind.”

“And with all respect to you, she’s much less disturbed than when I found her.”

Townley pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’m done listening to this,” he said. “We’re well within our rights to remove this child. So we’re going to remove her.”

Rugal placed himself in the middle of the doorway and folded his arms. “You’ll have to get past me first.”

Townley shrugged. “Fine.”

He was a big man, purposeful, and sure he was doing the right thing. They scuffled for a while, and then Townley pushed hard. Rugal overbalanced, and Townley was past him in an instant, and taking the stairs two at a time. Rugal sprinted after him; Greene and Anders followed behind. Townley checked the bedrooms one by one until he found the one where Hulya was sitting on the bed with Gheta. He held out his hand to Hulya and said, “Come on now. It’s all right. We’re going now.”

Hulya, panicked, looked at Rugal. “You’re not going anywhere if you don’t want to,” he said to her.

“I don’t want to go with him.” she said. She jumped up from her bed, slipped past Townley, and threw her arms around Rugal. “I want to stay here. Rugal, I want to stay here.” He could feel tremors of distress passing through her small body. He put his arms around her, circling her entirely. “I’m not going!” she said.

Townley moved forward and firmly took hold of their entwined arms, trying to force them apart. Rugal held on grimly. “I’m not going anywhere!” Hulya shouted. She started kicking at Townley’s legs. “You’re not taking me anywhere!”

“Hulya, darling!” Anders called from the landing. “We’re here to look after you!”

“You can’t want to stay here!” said Greene. “Not with this lot! Hulya, they killed your mum!”

Hearing that, Rugal was racked suddenly with guilt. He thought, What if he’s right, what if she’s better with her own kind? That’s what we do, isn’t it? That’s what my people do...

His arms went limp. Hulya, feeling his resolve weaken, gripped on even more tightly. She started shrieking—at Townley, at Anders, at Greene. “It wasn’t them! It wasn’t them! It was people like you! It was men like you! Just like you!” Then, to Rugal, she cried, “You promised! You promised you wouldn’t leave me! You promised!”

Shocked into action, Rugal renewed his hold. “Get off,” he said through gritted teeth to Townley. “Get away from her.”

“Richard,” Anders called through the door. She was shaken and upset. “Leave it!”

Townley still had one hand around Rugal’s upper arm, another around Hulya’s wrist. Anders called out again. “Richard! We should leave it!”

Hulya, sensing victory, hissed, “Let go or I’ll bite.”

“I’d take her at her word on that one if I were you,” Rugal said. “Richard.”

Townley, unwillingly, backed down. He released his hold on them both and went out to join Anders and Greene on the landing. Gheta followed him out and closed the door. Rugal heard them talking and heard Gheta ask them firmly to leave. Brave girl. He heard them all go back downstairs and, not long after, caught the sound of the skimmer leaving. Soon the house was quiet again, except for the weeping child in his arms, whom he was holding and would not let go, exactly as he wished Migdal had done all those long years ago.

When at last Hulya was asleep, Rugal went downstairs, where Gheta made him some tea and Arani pushed a chair under him. He drank the tea and then put his arms down on the table and rested his head on them. His words came out thick and jumbled. “I thought it was Cardassians—us, I mean—at her mother’s farm. I just assumed... But of course it was humans, wasn’t it? That’s why she felt safe with me. That’s why she came onto Cardassian land in the first place. Away from humans. Will I ever learn that we’re not all bad?”

Gheta said, “They turned a blind eye while we were being killed. If Hulya had been Cardassian, they wouldn’t have cared. But then they ran out of enemies and turned on themselves.” She knelt down next to Rugal and put her arm around his shoulders. “That’s why you’ll get to keep her, Rugal. Because they didn’t protect her at all.”

• • •

A few days later he and Gheta went down to Littleport, where they had agreed to meet Anders and Greene. Not Townley. Rugal never wanted to see Townley again. He let Gheta do most of the talking. “None of us mean you any harm,” Gheta said. “We’ve all suffered, and we’re all angry. I understand that. But you can’t want to carry on this way, killing each other, letting people kill us. You’ve seen what happens now—you can’t control it. It’s not only us who get killed. You do too.”

Listening to her, Rugal felt proud of her: how well she spoke, how calm she sounded. Being around humans frightened her as much as it frightened Hulya. Yet she had agreed to come here with him the moment he had asked.

Both Anders and Greene had the decency to look ashamed. Anders said, “All I want—all I ever wanted—is for Hulya to be where she feels safe, to be with people that she trusts.”

“She is,” Rugal said. “There’s something you need to understand,” he went on, wearily. “I was brought up on Bajor, by Bajorans.” How often had he said this in his life? Never before had it seemed to matter so much. “They were my parents, the only ones I ever knew. Then my biological father turned up alive, and a Starfleet officer decided it was better for me to go back to Cardassia with him. But it wasn’t. It was a great wrong, and it did me great harm. I don’t want Hulya to forget she’s human, and I’m the last person on this world to want to make her think she’s Cardassian. But she’s safe and happy, and she wants to be with us. That’s where she should stay.”

Greene agreed that he would talk to the organizing committee. Anders wasn’t quite finished, however; she was worried about schooling, about how they were taking care of Hulya’s education. Rugal told her to come out to the house to discuss it. “And tell that policeman of yours,” Rugal said on the way out, “that if he’s serious about keeping the peace, he’ll have to protect us as well as you.”

Greene gave a wry smile and offered Rugal his hand. “Why not come and say that to the committee?”

Rugal shook his hand. “Perhaps I will,” he said. But in the skimmer on the way back to the house, he told Gheta that he thought she should do it instead. “We’ll see,” she said. “That was enough humanity for me for one day.” They sat in companionable silence for a while. Then Gheta said, “Was that true, what you said? About growing up on Bajor?”

“Yes, it was true.”

She stretched her legs out before her and whistled. “That was a stroke of luck.”

It was not the happy ending, but it was a start. The people of Littleport still sent an occasional Cardassian their way, rather than have them in their town, and there was a spate of damage to their fences at the start of summer, but the vandalism had died down well before the longest day. Gheta went to meetings of the organizing committee every so often; one time she came back and reported that she’d overheard someone describe them as “our Cardassians.”

“Like pets,” Arani said with a sigh. But at least we aren’t in cages, Rugal thought.

By the time the longest day had passed, five more Cardassians—three adults, two children—had drifted their way and they had had to turn a storeroom into another house. Incredibly, too, the fields were full of tall wavering wheat. Not long after they harvested it, Rugal received a communication from Ellen Smith. The Lotos was on its way back to Ithic.

“You’re not dead then,” Ellen said.

“Impossible to kill.”

“We’ll be with you soon.”

“Typical. You’ve missed all the hard work.”

She laughed. She laughed easily, Rugal remembered, one of the things he had liked about her. “Did you find your friend, Rugal?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not so bad. I found someone else.”

“Tell me all about it when you see me. Are you coming with us?”

“I’m not sure that I need to...”

“Come to Manea to see us at least. For old time’s sake.”

“I’ll do that. How is everyone?”

“Much the same. Bringing peace and justice and the Federation way. Oh, Roche is a changed man ever since Bajor joined the Federation. Won’t hear anything said against Starfleet.”

“We’ll have to have words about that... Did you say Bajor has joined the Federation?”

“Rugal! Half a year ago! Old news. What have you been doing there? You used to obsess over newscasts.”

“I’ve been busy.” Rugal thought for a moment. Something had occurred to him, and an idea was taking shape in his mind. “Ellen, I might come with you after all, but I’ll be bringing someone with me, and it all depends on whether she wants to come. Is that all right?”

“Fine, we’ll find room, always do. Come to Manea anyway. Six days’ time.”

“We’ll be there.”

He explained to Hulya what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go, why it mattered. He said he wouldn’t do it if she didn’t want to come along. She thought about it for a while, staring out the window across the fields at their improbable achievement, their home. “Will we come back here?”

“Of course we will.”

“Then I think we should give it a try.” She smiled at him. “We’re good at getting things to work, aren’t we?”

He kissed the tip of his finger and pressed it gently against her cheek. “We most certainly are.”

Twelve

Sitting at his kitchen table, Miles Edward O’Brien was, in quietly heroic fashion, watching his daughter make a mess of her math homework. It hurt like hell to see quadratic equations mangled so cruelly, but their sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. It would be worth it when Molly finally figured out the whole business.

Beautiful girl, he thought, watching his daughter. This was their second year on Cardassia Prime, and in the past few weeks, if you’d asked, Miles would finally have said that it had been a good decision. The kids were settled, Keiko’s work was getting serious professional recognition, and the land around the base at Andak was miraculously starting to turn green. Best of all, nobody had tried to blow them up in well over a year. Life had settled into a routine; things were as peaceful as you could possibly expect on Cardassia Prime. So long as the government stood. The Federation was putting a lot of effort into making sure of that, but in recent years Cardassian governments had been about as stable as a one-legged Talorian...

“Da,” said Molly plaintively, “when can I give up?”

“Give it a little longer, sweetheart.”

“But it’s agony.” She had picked up the word from somewhere and was using it all the time. He gave her most recent effort a quick look.

“Trust me,” he said, marking where she had gone wrong, “this hurts me as much as it hurts you.”

She looked mutinous, but she carried on. How long till adolescence? They grew up so quickly these days. Perhaps childhood—the peaceful life—was drawing to an end.

The communicator buzzed quietly. Miles called out, “O’Brien.”

“Jack at security. There’s someone at the gate asking to see you.”

“Me? Not Keiko?”

“He’s asking for you specifically.”

Miles and Molly exchanged puzzled looks. “I wasn’t expecting anyone. What’s his name?”

“He says it’s Proka Rugal.”

“Don’t think I know anyone by that name. Bajoran, is he?”

“Cardassian.” There was a pause during which a muffled exchange took place. “He says you might remember him as Rugal Pa’Dar. And that he still can’t stand zabu stew.”

Everything fell into place. The Cardassian boy who had stayed with them that time on the station, the one who had been brought up by Bajorans and had liked the Cardassian food that Keiko had made about as much as Miles had. “My God,” said Miles. “Yes, send him over, Jack, send him over right away.”

He stood up from the table. Molly looked at him hopefully. “Can I stop now?”

“No.”

Miles went to the doorway to watch for his visitor. He’d thought of him from time to time, when news came out of Cardassian space—invariably bad news—of sickness, and the fall of governments, and the outbreak of war. He had never been sure the captain had made the right decision sending the boy back to live among strangers, but he’d worried it was his own prejudice against Cardassians that made him think that way.

Heading across the compound was a young Cardassian man that Miles recognized as the same very serious boy he had met—what was it? Eight years ago. The young man—Rugal—was holding hands with a human girl of about thirteen who had an apprehensive look on her face. Rugal leaned down to say something to her so tenderly that Miles’s father’s heart melted. When the pair reached the house, Rugal offered Miles his hand and Miles pulled him into a hug. “So glad to see you again. Glad you made it.” He glanced down at the girl. “Who’s this one, Rugal?”

Rugal put his arm around his companion. “This is Hulya. She looks after me.”

“Da,” Molly said urgently from behind him. “Why don’t I show Hulya around while you talk to your friend?”

Miles’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “All right, sweetheart, off you go.”

Molly bounced over to Hulya. “I’m glad you turned up when you did,” she said fervently as she dragged her off outside. “He was making me do math.”

Miles and Rugal watched them go. “Today I’m a tyrant,” Miles said cheerfully. “Tomorrow I’ll be the best person on the planet. You’ll discover all this in time.”

“I have already.”

They smiled at each other in mutual satisfaction at this particular aspect of their lives. “Well, sit down, sit down!” Miles said. “Tell me about yourself. What happened after you got back?”

Rugal took a seat at the kitchen table while Miles busied himself at the replicator. “A lot happened. The war, of course... Everything after. I ended up on a world called Ithic in the former DMZ. That’s where I found Hulya.” Rugal took the cup of raktajino gratefully. “Before that...” He gave a deep sigh that came from the heart of him. “Cardassia is a strange place. I tried my best. I think.”

Miles sat down opposite him, stopping only briefly to clear away Molly’s padds. “Were you in the war?”

“Yes.”

“Bad?”

“Isn’t it always?”

In Miles’s experience, people only said things like that when it was truly terrible. People who had sat behind a desk the whole time said things like: Oh, you know, it could have been worse...“It was a terrible decision to send you back to Cardassia.”

“Yes, it was,” Rugal said softly. “What happened to him, that officer?”

“Oh, he did all right for himself.”

“Did he get promoted?”

“You could say that.”

“I got promoted. I even got a medal.” Rugal looked away, out the window. How much damage had been done, Miles wondered, by sending this young man back with his biological father? What life could he have led instead on Bajor? “You know,” Rugal said, “you were a hard man to find, Mr. O’Brien.”

“Miles, please.”

“Miles. I never would have expected to find you on Cardassia Prime.”

“First Bajor, then here. I think we got into the habit of living in places under reconstruction. Keiko’s job brought us here this time, though, not mine.”

Rugal’s eyes lit up. “I read about what you were doing here. I didn’t believe it was possible until I arrived. I never imagined anywhere on Prime could be so...” He held up his hands. “So green!”

Miles laughed. “She’s done a great job, that wife of mine. I wish she was here to see you—she’s up in the capital, about to go back to Earth for a review of the project. They’d better decorate her when she gets there.”

“I wish she’d come out to Ithic. There are whole areas that the Cardassians wrecked while they were there. At least they didn’t have enough time to do serious damage.” He leaned in eagerly. “We’ve been farming, of all things. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. Hulya’s got the most experience. There are eight of us now. I never believed it would work—you throw some seeds in the ground and the next thing you know you’ve got a field of food. I’m still not convinced it really works.”

“You sound like you were making a life for yourself out there. What on earth’s brought you back to Cardassia Prime? Are you looking for someone?”

Rugal shook his head. “No, no, everyone I knew was in the capital. I’ve given up on that—you have to. You could lose yourself to the search forever. I came here because...” He frowned. “You said, once, that if I needed help, I could come to you. I know it’s been a long time, and what I’m going to ask probably isn’t what you expected, but if the offer still stands, I’d like to ask, at least.”

“Rugal, I’ve spent eight years wishing I’d intervened somehow to stop you going back. If there’s anything I can do to make up for that, I’ll do it in a flash.”

“All right then... I’d like your help to become a Federation citizen.”

Miles blinked. “You’d like my which to do what?”

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. I was born on Bajor, you see. I didn’t know that until I went back to Cardassia. I’d always assumed that we’d gone out there when I was a baby. But Kotan and Arys—my parents, my Cardassian parents—were already out there when I was born. I have my grandmother, of all people, to thank for telling me that. I’d never been to Cardassia before I went back there with Kotan. I was adopted on Bajor—legally adopted. It was all done according to Bajoran law. Migdal and Etra were Bajoran. If they were still alive, they would have become Federation citizens. So I should be too.”

Miles went and got them both another raktajino. “Are you sure,” he said carefully, “that this is a good idea?”

“I think it is—”

“I ask because when you stayed with me and Keiko on DS9, you hated Cardassians, Rugal, really hated them. And it wasn’t right. It wasn’t good for you, more than anything. I know that you must have had a difficult time—what with the war in particular—but if that’s what this is about, well, I can’t help you—”

Rugal shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that, I swear. I did hate Cardassians then. Not now. Not after everything I did there, not after everyone I knew...” He put his hands down flat on the table, as if trying to bring order to his thoughts. “It’s not that I don’t want to be Cardassian—I’d go and change how I looked if I didn’t—it’s more that I never was entirely Cardassian in the first place. Everything that happened to me there, that’s a part of me now. But it’s not the whole of me, and it never was. Starfleet shouldn’t have sent me back. This is a way for the Federation to make amends. It would be...” He hunted around for the right word. “It would be reparations.”

Miles sat with both hands around his mug, staring down into the liquid, thinking hard. Rugal sat across from him, shifting around uneasily in his chair. “I’m not sure what it is I could do exactly,” Miles said slowly, after a while.

“Anything. I don’t know. How do I do it? Do I need to have a sponsor? Would you do that for me if I did?”

“But there is somebody who I think might be able to help.”

Rugal looked at him hopefully. “Yes? Who?”

“Somebody who owes me a favor or two.”

“Someone in the Federation?”

“Not exactly.” Miles smiled. “In fact, I’d say he’s about as Cardassian as they come.”

“Not to sound ungrateful, Miles, but if he’s Cardassian, how can he help persuade the Federation of anything?”

The girls ran back inside then, giggling over some private secret. When they saw the two men at the table they burst into fresh laughter and ran off in the direction of Molly’s room. Miles stood up and went over to the comm. “For one thing, he’s about the slickest talker I’ve ever met. For another—it’s his job.”

“As I’m sure you realized when you first thought of contacting me, Miles,” Elim Garak said later over the comm, “this is exactly the kind of thing a newly appointed ambassador needs to be doing in order to ingratiate himself with his hosts.”

Miles didn’t bother untangling that one. “So you’ll help?”

“This being perhaps the most delicate moment in the whole relationship, when trust is as yet barely established between guest and host, and knowledge of each party—working style, emphasis, personality—is as yet to be fully explored and determined—”

“Garak...”

Garak beamed. “Naturally, if I can help, I shall. However, it might be useful if you could first tell me some more about this young man and his case.”

“He was born on Bajor and he was abandoned there when the Occupation ended. He was brought up by a Bajoran couple, but then his father turned up alive... Don’t you remember the whole business? You and Julian jaunted off to Bajor and found out there was a whole political scandal brewing around it. Something to do with Dukat.”

Miles watched as Garak’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Yes, I remember the young man concerned. Councillor Pa’Dar’s son. I remember him distinctly.”

“Good! That’s great! So you’ll help?”

“It’s hard to forget someone who bit you on the hand.”

Miles didn’t miss a beat. “So you’ll definitely help.”

Garak’s eyes lit up and his lips curled into a smile. Is it right, Miles wondered, to be this fond of an assassin? “Miles,” Garak said, “I am as ever entirely at your disposal. Send the young man to me. I’m sure we’ll get along famously.”

Rugal and Hulya traveled back to Earth with Keiko O’Brien. She was cheerful, friendly company, and Hulya came to trust her entirely. Rugal was pleased. The girl was still cautious with humans, particularly at first, but she no longer insisted on avoiding them entirely.

Keiko also knew the man that Rugal was going to meet. “The ambassador is... well, he’s one of a kind, really,” she said, with an odd smile that Rugal couldn’t quite interpret. “He’s smart, he’s charming, and if there are any holes at all in your argument, he’ll pick at them until your whole case unravels and he’ll smile while he’s doing it. If you do win him over, though, you’ll have made a powerful ally.”

The newly appointed ambassador to the Federation from the Cardassian Reconstruction Administration had taken up residence in a beautiful city of light in Earth’s northern hemisphere, which Keiko said was called Paris. His residence lay south of the river that ran through the city: “The Left Bank,” Keiko said helpfully. They transported to the gates, suffered the security search, and then were taken into a grand pillared entrance hall, where the ambassador himself was waiting to welcome them.

The ambassador was a genial and elegant man of uncertain age and impeccable manners. Keiko introduced him to Rugal as Elim Garak. Rugal had not been able to recall the name from any conversations he had with Kotan, and he wondered in which part of the government Garak had served before the war. Rugal was sure that he had seen his face before, but he couldn’t place it. The ambassador welcomed Keiko warmly, and when he learned that she was planning to take Hulya sightseeing, immediately put a car and a driver at their disposal. After they had gone, Rugal studied the ambassador nervously. Whatever this man had done before and during the war, it took intelligence and guile to have survived the last few years of Cardassian political life and ended up in a position this powerful.

The ambassador smiled at him pleasantly. “Let’s go up to my private office.” He led Rugal across the hall and up a grand staircase. “Do you like the building?”

Rugal nodded his approval. “It’s very impressive.”

“When I took up residence here, I took the trouble to investigate the history of the place. It turned out to have once been the embassy of a military dictatorship whose name is synonymous with cruelty, aggression, and sheer brutality of the most unspeakable kind. Someone at the Federation Diplomatic Corps went out of their way to calculate that insult so finely. I was quite flattered; I’m sure not everyone earns such particular attention. Besides, it’s a remarkable building and a magnificent city.” He glanced back at his companion. “Of course, you’ll have seen the inside of many places like this, given your father’s profession.”

“Kotan and I didn’t spend as much time together as we should.”

“No?” They came to the top of the stairs and fell into step together. The ambassador eyed Rugal with sharp interest.

“He was busy with his work a lot of the time. We didn’t really get to know each other until almost the end of my time on Cardassia Prime.”

“Fathers can be difficult in that way, or so I understand. But everyone who knew Kotan speaks very highly of him. I was talking to the castellan about him only yesterday. Alon sends his warmest regards, by the way—he was overjoyed to discover that you were alive, and he extends an invitation for you to visit should you ever pass through Prime again. He also asked me to say—now, what was it?—that as your father’s old and very good friend, he feels obliged to warn you that I am a treacherous liar and that you would be well advised to watch your back when I’m around.” Garak beamed as if delighted at this commendation. “Yes, I think those were his words, more or less.”

“I’m grateful for that,” Rugal said faintly. A short conversation with the ambassador was turning out to have roughly the same effect as a month of Romulan bombardment. They reached some double doors, and Garak pushed them open.

“Step into my office,” he said, leading Rugal inside. “Do take a seat, there, over by the fireplace. Kanar?”

“Please,” Rugal said, taking a seat. He glanced around. The room was furnished in a hugely ornate style that Rugal did not recognize, but which was presumably in keeping with the history of the building. There was a big and fanatically neat desk over by the window. The only recognizably Cardassian object in the room was the painting hanging over the fireplace, but he didn’t get a chance to study it in detail before the ambassador returned. He handed Rugal his glass, and then took his own seat opposite and studied Rugal with a mild air of amusement. “We have met before, you know. Do you remember? I still have the scar.”

Garak leaned forward in his seat and held out his hand for Rugal to see. There was a tiny white mark between thumb and forefinger. With a shock, Rugal realized where he had seen the man before. He was the Cardassian in the Ferengi’s bar on Deep Space 9. The one who had put his hand on Rugal’s shoulder. Which Rugal had promptly bitten.

Rugal put his hand to his forehead. “I don’t believe this.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally,” the ambassador replied, with only slight glee. “One of my best friends shot me once, and that was a gesture of affection.”

“I’m so sorry...”

“It is entirely forgotten. Let us speak of more pressing matters. Tell me, Rugal, why did you desert?”

Rugal was still regrouping from the ambassador’s opening move. His mouth fell open at this new salvo. “What?”

“You were stationed on Ogyas throughout the war, yes? Fourth Division, Second Order. Under the command of Gul Rantok. You weren’t reposted, you weren’t listed as dead, and yet you weren’t there when the garrison surrendered. What other explanation is there for your absence?”

Rugal realized his hands were trembling. “Technically, the war was over when I left.”

“There’s no ‘technically’ about it,” the ambassador replied. He wasn’t smiling now. “You hadn’t been demobilized.”

The man certainly knew how to wrong-foot. He also knew how to ask questions. Rugal drank deeply from his glass of kanar. “I was pressed into service,” he replied. “My enlistment wasn’t legal—”

“Fortunately for you, whatever records there once were relating to your enlistment went up in smoke in the somewhat spectacular bonfire that recently consumed so much of our home planet. Unfortunately for you, that also means that there is absolutely no evidence to support your statement that you were pressed into service illegally.”

“It’s the truth—”

The ambassador leaned forward in his chair. He had bright blue eyes, and they didn’t leave Rugal’s face. “Understand this. If your attempt to acquire Federation citizenship is primarily a scheme to escape the consequences of your actions on Ogyas III, I shall not be pleased. Not simply because I dislike having my time wasted, but because you will have taken advantage of two very excellent people, Miles and Keiko O’Brien. I don’t like seeing my friends used. I find that I am...” The ambassador ran the tip of his tongue across his front teeth. “Offended.”

Rugal opened his mouth to protest, but the ambassador cut across him.

“I do wonder whether you have any idea what happened to the rest of the garrison that was stationed at Keralek. No? Let me enlighten you. They are still being held by the Romulan military, as we speak. I imagine we’ll get them back eventually, once we’ve got the water running again on Prime and done the million other things necessary to ensure Cardassia doesn’t collapse into civil war. The problem—from their perspective—is that they’re mostly rank and file. No friends in high places to pressure for their return. It’s a very great shame that the officer being held with them isn’t—for example—the son of a well-respected public figure who was once good friends with the castellan. I admit that I’m speaking only technically”—he fairly spat the word out—“but you too should be under Romulan jurisdiction right now. Perhaps I should hand you over and let justice run its course. It might help your former comrades raise their profile. You could think of it as doing your duty by them.”

Shaken, Rugal insisted guiltily, “It wasn’t my war. I wasn’t conscripted legally. Dukat threatened to kill my father!”

The ambassador stared at him. Then he began to laugh, unpleasantly. “Oh, it was Dukat, was it? I should have known.” He fell silent and stared at the picture hanging over the fireplace. When he spoke again his tone had altered greatly, becoming meditative rather than brutal. It was an unbelievable relief. If their earlier conversation had been like Romulan bombardment, this must be how the firing squad felt.

“It seems to have become my life’s work,” Garak said pensively, “to mend the damage done by Dukat. If it is indeed possible to do that in a lifetime.” All of a sudden, he relaxed. He became entirely amiable again. “All right, I’ll help, however I can. Besides,” he said, with a smile that simultaneously reassured and struck fear into the heart of his guest, “I spent years trying to get back to Cardassia. I’m sure I’ll enjoy helping someone get away.” He glanced at Rugal’s glass. “Drink up,” he said in a kindly fashion. “I gather alcohol can be a help after an interview with me.”

Rugal did what he was told. He thought he had a fairly good idea now which branch of the Cardassian government had once had the ambassador at its disposal. Draining his glass, Rugal looked up at the painting again, rather than at the bright blue eyes of the man sitting opposite. Now that he looked at it, he could see it wasn’t Cardassian after all—or, not entirely. An interlocking design of stylized floral patterns, it was both Cardassian and Bajoran. He gestured toward it. “That’s by Tora Ziyal, isn’t it?”

The ambassador, who had been watching him with undisguised merriment, blinked. “Yes, it is,” he said softly. His face was transformed, revealed, as though a mask had slipped. “However did you know that?”

“I met her, twice. First when she was on Cardassia Prime and then when I passed through Deep Space 9 on my way to Ogyas.” Rugal reached into his pocket, where he kept his treasures, and drew out the piece of paper that had traveled with him for so long now. “She gave me this.”

The ambassador held out his hand. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Tenderly, Garak unfolded the page along its well-worn creases. “Well, this is certainly you, I can tell from the frown. May I ask who the young woman is? It’s not Ziyal.”

“No. Her name was Penelya Khevet.”

“Was? Do you know that for certain?”

“She was on Ithic when the Jem’Hadar turned on us. Then there was a second round of massacres on Ithic—”

“Yes, I get the reports from HARF. I’ve been pushing for a criminal inquiry. There’s some debate as to whether it will only cause further ill-feeling and destabilization, but I would prefer justice to be served in this case. You went looking for your friend there, I imagine?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t there. That’s where I found Hulya, though.”

“Not a bad outcome. But, from all you’ve said, you have no idea either way whether or not your friend died?”

“I don’t think she would have left her farm.”

“People are on occasion forced to leave their homes. You know that.”

“I can’t think where she would go—”

“Anywhere, I should imagine, if it would keep her alive. Bolt-holes can be the strangest of places.”

Rugal smiled. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, sir, but I have to accept that she’s dead. There’s nothing to be gained from pretending otherwise.” He realized how deftly the subject had been changed. “Did you try to pretend Tora Ziyal was still alive?”

In the blink of an eye, all of the ambassador’s sparkle vanished. Suddenly, he seemed old and careworn. He studied the drawing for a moment longer, and then, carefully, he folded it up and handed it back. “My dear boy,” he said, “sometimes I can scarcely believe she ever existed.”

It was several weeks before Rugal’s case could be heard, during which time he and Hulya remained guests of the ambassador. When Rugal was not preparing for the hearing with his advocate, Dravid, he and Hulya saw more of Earth. Rugal thought he ought to get to know the world that he hoped would soon, in a legal sense, be his—and was, in a historical sense, already Hulya’s. They explored further the exquisite city that the ambassador had elected to make his home. They went to another city, on an island north of Paris, that was huge and grand and had unmistakably once been at the heart of an empire. And they went east, to an ancient city with many names that stood on two continents, and which Hulya’s grandparents had left years ago for Ithic.

She was thoughtful on the way back. “It isn’t home,” she said. “But in a way it felt like home. Even though I’d never been there before, it felt like it was a piece of me or I was a piece of it. Does that make sense?” It made complete sense to Rugal. He would have been hard pressed to think of a better description of his relationship to Cardassia Prime.

The more Rugal saw of Earth, the more he envied Ziyal’s friend Jake Sisko. This beautiful, benevolent world was his birthright. Rugal wondered how his own life would have been different if he had come from a world like this. How about Penelya’s or Ziyal’s? Seeing this place, Rugal thought he could understand why Commander Sisko might have chosen to send him back to Cardassia. People who had been happy in their homes often lacked imagination; they lacked the understanding that what had been a source of joy for them might be a prison for others. This was the only reason he could find to explain Sisko’s actions—other than cruelty, which did not seem likely in a man that Miles O’Brien respected. Earth explained a great deal—although perhaps it did not excuse it.

They saw more of the ambassador than Rugal had expected; he seemed to enjoy their company. Hulya was entirely at her ease around him. “Do you have any children, sir?” Rugal asked, late one evening after Hulya had said good night.

“Not advisable in my line of work,” the ambassador replied briskly, thereby confirming Rugal’s suspicions of his previous career. “Tell me, have you given any thought as to what might happen should you be unsuccessful in your application?”

“There’s a right to appeal. But in the meantime I guess the Cardassian government would request my extradition.”

“Regrettably, that would have to be the case.” Garak tapped his thumbnail against his bottom lip. “You’ve been the subject of several lengthy late-night conversations between me and Ghemor, you know.”

“I am sorry—”

Garak waved a hand. “What else are we here for? Alon’s concern is that he can’t be seen to be treating you any differently on account of his friendship with your father. Nepotism has no place in the new democratic Cardassia. Very commendable on the part of the castellan. I, however, am considerably less scrupulous. You only have to say the word, and you and that young lady will be spirited away to wherever in the quadrant you choose. Ithic, if you want—although that’s the first place people will go looking for you.”

Rugal pondered this offer for a while. “I’m grateful,” he said, “but no. I’d spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I can’t think that would be good for Hulya.”

“Neither would your being shot for desertion.”

Rugal sighed and rested his head on his hand.

“What do you have planned for her?” Garak asked gently.

“We’ve talked about this. Hulya wants to go back to Ithic. Keiko O’Brien has said she’ll make sure she gets back safely. We’ve got friends who will look after her.”

“It seems to me that she would prefer to be looked after by you.”

“I think... I need this to be resolved one way or the other. Besides, it’s come too far now. Too many people are involved. It would be wrong to betray their trust.”

“Very honorable. You’ll make a model Federation citizen. But the offer stands, should you change your mind.”

Rugal did not change his mind. He continued to work with his advocate, and when the day of the hearing arrived, he dutifully took himself over to the bland bureaucratic building where his fate was to be decided.

Three officials from the Federation’s immigration department were hearing his case. The process was not adversarial, but a supporting and an opposing counsel each presented evidence, with witnesses to support them if necessary, whom they were able to question and cross-examine in turn, and whom the panel of three could also question. Most of the first day of the hearing was a detailed examination of Rugal’s time on Cardassia Prime: he answered questions about his education, his political activities and organizing, his medical training—all of which was being presented as evidence that he had been committed to his life on Prime.

It was an exhausting process, and Rugal found it hard to disagree with the general thrust of the argument. Of course he had been committed to it. He had done it all to the best of his ability. But he had still wanted to leave. “It was difficult to make any contact with Bajor,” he tried to explain, when Dravid cross-examined. “And it was impossible to return. You have to understand what it was like living under the eye of the Obsidian Order. Any wrong move and the people I lived with might have been killed. I had to make what I could of the life I had there.” Under Dravid’s careful questioning, they painted a picture of his old life on Bajor. Rugal spoke about his parents, about his adoption, and brought out his earring. “I carried it everywhere with me,” he said. “Even to the front. Would I have bothered, if it hadn’t mattered?”

That afternoon, they came to the matter of his desertion. The substance of the opposing claim, as Garak had suggested in their interview, was that Rugal’s application for citizenship was being made so that he could avoid the consequences of his actions on Ogyas. “If this case fails,” the opposing counsel said, “it is likely that the Cardassian government would make an application for Glinn Pa’Dar to be extradited to face a court-martial.” She addressed Rugal directly. “I’m assuming you know the penalty for desertion?”

“I do,” he replied. “But that’s not why I’m here—”

The chair of the committee stopped him from speaking further. When Dravid cross-examined, however, Rugal was able to make some defense of what he had done. He tried not to think of the people he had left behind, and instead, he carefully reported what had happened that day when Dukat had had him dragged from the hospital and brought him and Kotan to his house in the country. He was only partway through his narrative when the chair of the committee intervened. “It’s a remarkable story that your client is telling, Mr. Dravid,” she said, “but do you have any evidence to support it?”

“We have evidence of a long-standing feud between his father and Dukat, the reason that my client was taken away from his biological family in the first place.”

“But to support his claim that he was forced to enlist?”

“Regrettably, neither of the other two people present survived the war.”

“Then we should move on.”

The following morning, Keiko O’Brien gave evidence. She recalled her meeting with Rugal on DS9 and, at Dravid’s request, described how unhappy he had been to return to Cardassia. Under cross-examination, she was asked whether she had intervened on his behalf to prevent that return happening.

Keiko looked unhappily over at Rugal. “I did not.”

“So you must have thought that even if it was a difficult situation, the right decision had been made?”

“At the time I didn’t know which was right. With hindsight—”

“We all wish for hindsight, Professor O’Brien.”

“But in this case, I think that matters. If Ben Sisko had known he was sending Rugal back to a collapsing planet, and civil war, and Dominion occupation, I doubt he would have done it—”

The chair of the committee held up her hand. “I think this is now hearsay.”

“But we ought to put it right,” Keiko said urgently. “An injustice was done—”

Politely, but firmly, she was asked to stop speaking. When she stepped down and came to sit next to Rugal, he saw that she was deeply distressed. “I wish we’d done something,” she whispered to him, squeezing his arm with her hand. “I’ll never forgive myself for doing nothing.”

He was whispering back to her that she shouldn’t worry, when he became aware that the small room had quietly but suddenly filled with security. Glancing to look behind him, Rugal saw that Garak had arrived. He sat down behind Rugal and gave him a sunny smile. “Is this your usual security detail?” Rugal whispered. “Or are they here to arrest me?”

Garak shushed him. “Let me listen to the closing statements. I love courtroom drama. Even when I’m the one in the dock.”

The opposing counsel summed up their case, that the application for citizenship was chiefly to avoid prosecution for desertion. Dravid responded that the legal case was clear: Rugal Pa’Dar had been adopted on Bajor, and the citizenship of his adopted parents was his by right. As the committee began to gather up their documents, Garak stood up and addressed the chair. “Would you mind if I said a few words? Before you begin your deliberations?”

She looked at him dryly. “It’s not usual. And the case will be decided according to law, rather than appeals to our better natures. But, as a matter of courtesy—” She gestured to Garak to continue.

“What I chiefly wanted to say was that these are tragic times for my people. And it seems to me that the chief tragedy of our history is the demands we have made and the obligations we have placed upon generation after generation. I have come to believe that if Cardassia is ever to escape this prison of our history, it must begin to reciprocate these obligations and no longer require these sacrifices. Most of all, it must learn to let go.” He gave a wry smile. “You say this case will be decided by law rather than by any appeal to your better natures. Perhaps what Cardassia needs to know at the moment is that she can still appeal to the better natures of her neighbors.” He rested his hand lightly on Rugal’s shoulder, and then drew it back. “I hope you’ll let us let him go.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Rugal said to him after the committee left.

“Do you think so?” the ambassador replied. “I rather thought I did.”

The committee returned after about an hour. The chair addressed the people that were gathered there. “This is an emotive case,” she said, “but—with all respect to the ambassador—one should try to judge dispassionately. We agree with opposing counsel that for someone who claims he wanted to leave Cardassia, Mr. Pa’Dar showed a very high degree of commitment to and involvement in Cardassian society during the time that he was living there.”

Garak leaned forward to whisper in Rugal’s ear. “That’ll teach you to get mixed up with radicals.”

“Sadly, there are no surviving witnesses to substantiate the claim that the enlistment was made under duress—I say sadly, given the presumed circumstances of the death of Kotan Pa’Dar. But we do have several other pieces of evidence to consider. Let me go through them.” She lifted up the padd that had been resting on the table in front of her. “Firstly, the place of birth: Tozhat, on Bajor. Secondly, we have evidence of formal adoption under Bajoran law by Proka Etra and Migdal. Thirdly, we have evidence of repeated attempts over the course of two years by Proka Etra and Migdal and later Proka Migdal alone to appeal the decision taken by Commander Sisko on DS9. In their eyes, at least, Rugal Pa’Dar remained their son, right up to their deaths.”

Rugal felt his eyes begin to water. They had never given up, never abandoned him. He reached for his earring, but Hulya, feeling him move, took hold of his hand before he could find it.

“In the end, however, it is a matter of law. Entry into the Federation has not obliterated or superseded Bajoran law. The decision taken to return Rugal Pa’Dar to Cardassia was, I believe, not in accordance with Bajoran law. So I’m overruling it. Rugal Pa’Dar was the adopted child of Proka Etra and Proka Migdal and so, by extension, this makes him a Federation citizen.” She smiled over at him. “Welcome aboard, Rugal. I believe you may be the first person of Cardassian descent to join us. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong. Ambassador,” she said, glancing past Rugal’s shoulder at Garak, “can I assume from your earlier intervention that your government is not planning to request an extradition hearing?”

“Madam, you assume correctly.”

“Then this session is adjourned.”

Rugal’s arms were full of Hulya. He bent down and kissed her on the top of her head. “Congratulations, Rugal,” Keiko said, embracing him in turn as soon as she had the chance. “Where now? Now that you can choose?”

“Bajor, first, I think. Then Cardassia Prime. I have to go back to Cardassia Prime.”

The ambassador gave a dry smile. “It does tend to draw one back,” he said.

Bajor was as beautiful as he had remembered. It was home but not home. Following the instructions that Darrah Bajin had given him, Rugal found the grave of Proka Etra and Proka Migdal in the grounds of a small temple on a hill near where Korto City had once stood. He had decided to bury his earring here with them. Hulya was their true bequest.

She stood and watched him while he carried out the task: cutting a small piece of turf, laying the earring down flat, covering it over once again. When he was done, some words came into his mind. They seemed right, so he said them. “We are the sum of all that has gone before. We are the source of all to come.”

“What’s that?” she said.

“Something I learned from my father.”

She asked, “Are you finished now?”

“Nearly,” he replied.

They entered Cardassia as Federation citizens. The official at the border looked at their details, then at him, then shrugged and let them through. “Look at that,” Rugal whispered to Hulya. “It’s easy when you know how.”

Their first stop was HARF in Cardassia City, to deliver the documentation needed to begin the process of formally adopting Hulya. He wasn’t going to let anybody take her away from him. “I’m not your daughter though,” she told him firmly. He touched her gently on the cheek. “Of course you’re not. You’re something else. Perhaps we’ll think of a word for it one day.”

At the site of what had been the Pa’Dar house, now rubble, Rugal knelt down and sifted ash through his fingers. He had nothing to bury here, and enough had been buried already. Instead, he simply said thank you—for the gift of life, for unconditional love that had not in the end gone unappreciated. Then he left the ruin of the house behind and he walked on up the hill.

The city was gone; only the afterimage remained. He thought as he walked of another walk he had made years ago, with Erani and Tekis, the three of them stumbling in the dark through barely understandable terrain. They might have made it, he thought; and the idea cheered him, made his heart lift. There were not as many of them as there had once been, and anything that had come through the fire was rare and precious.

She was waiting for him in the wreckage of the stone garden. She was older, like him, and marked in the way they all had been. When at last he was standing before her, she said, “I changed my mind.”

“I thought you might,” he said. “So did I.”

“You went to Ithic?”

“I did.”

“What did you do there?”

“I farmed.”

She laughed. “By far the most sensible thing to do.”

“Will you come, then?”

“Of course I will.”

She slipped her arm through his, and they walked back down the hill, down through the ruins that were and were not his inheritance, down to where the child was waiting. Improbably, he found that he was able to laugh. “Tell me,” he said. “However did you get here?”

GLOSSARY

A guide to characters, places, organizations, and other miscellaneous items mentioned in The Never-Ending Sacrifice. The first appearance in an episode or other work of Star Trek fiction is given.

CHARACTERS

Akleen, Tret: Cardassian, founder of the Cardassian Union (“Tears of the Prophets” [DS9])

Alaren: Cardassian military officer stationed at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Alvarez, Maria: human, transitional governor of Weibak IV after the Dominion War

Arani: Cardassian, employed by Khevet Agricultural Holdings on Ithic II

Artoc: Cardassian legate whose derring-do is commemorated by a small statue in a park in Cardassia City

Bamarek, Ithas: Cardassian politician and dissident

Corac, Ulan: Cardassian author of The Never-Ending Sacrifice, an epic novel that follows seven generations of one Cardassian family, which was held in high esteem by Elim Garak

Damar, Corat: Cardassian military officer, loyal to Dukat, who followed Dukat as Cardassian head of state under the Dominion and later led military and civilian uprisings against the Dominion (“Return to Grace” [DS9])

Darhe’el: Cardassian military officer who commanded the notorious Gallitep camp on Bajor, commemorated in Cardassia City with one of the Union’s largest monuments (“Duet” [DS9])

Darrah Bajin: Bajoran, son of Darrah Mace (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

Darrah Mace: Bajoran, formerly superior of Proka Migdal in the Korto City Watch (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

Dukat, Athra: Cardassian, wife of Skrain Dukat (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

Dukat, Skrain: Cardassian military officer, prefect of Bajor and commander of Terok Nor, later Cardassian head of state under the Dominion (“Emissary” [DS9])

Elat: Cardassian, resident of the Torr Sector in Cardassia City

Envek: Cardassian military officer stationed at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Erani: Cardassian radical, resident of the Torr Sector in Cardassia City, student of social policy at the technical school, girlfriend of Tekis

Eretis: Cardassian, resident of Cardassia City, affianced of Tret Khevet

Garak, Elim: Cardassian, formerly an operative of the Obsidian Order, exiled on Deep Space 9, later close adviser to Castellan Alon Ghemor (“Past Prologue” [DS9])

Geyl, Teretis: Cardassian chief archon at the time of Dukat’s coup d’état

Ghemor, Alon: Cardassian, nephew of Tekeny Ghemor, formerly liaison between the Obsidian Order and the Detapa Council, then head of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau, later castellan of the Cardassian Union after the Dominion War (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Ghemor, Iliana: Cardassian, daughter of Tekeny Ghemor, operative of the Obsidian Order, missing in action on Bajor (“Second Skin” [DS9])

Ghemor, Tekeny: Cardassian military officer, member of the Central Command and dissident (“Second Skin” [DS9])

Gheta: Cardassian, resident of Ithic II

Keeve Falor: Bajoran, formerly of the Chamber of Ministers (“Ensign Ro” [TNG])

Kelat: Cardassian military officer stationed at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Khevet, Colat: Cardassian, older son of Mikor Khevet

Khevet, Elinas: Cardassian, wife of Mikor Khevet

Khevet, Penelya: Cardassian, niece of Mikor Khevet

Khevet, Mikor: Cardassian politician and businessman, special adviser to the Ministry of Justice and proprietor of Khevet Agricultural Holdings

Khevet, Tret: Cardassian, younger son of Mikor Khevet

Kiliç, Hulya: human, resident of Ithic II

Lang, Natima: Cardassian, formerly a correspondent for the Cardassian Information Service, later professor of ethics at the Institute of State Policy (“Profit and Loss” [DS9])

Leterik: Cardassian, employed by Khevet Agricultural Holdings on Ithic II

Lok, Martis: Cardassian foot soldier stationed at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Maleta: Cardassian, housekeeper to the Pa’Dar family

Maret, Arric: Cardassian radical, resident of the Torr Sector in Cardassia City, husband of Serna

Maret, Serna: Cardassian radical, resident of the Torr Sector in Cardassia City, wife of Arric

Maret, Tela: Cardassian, daughter of Arric and Serna

Metelek: Cardassian military officer stationed at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Metrek: Cardassian, tutor at an elite preparatory academy in Cardassia City

Nelita: Cardassian, head nurse at the free hospital in the Torr Sector, Cardassia City

O’Brien, Keiko: human, botanist, director of the Andak Project on Cardassia Prime

O’Brien, Miles: human, husband of Keiko O’Brien

O’Brien, Molly: human, daughter of Keiko and Miles O’Brien

Pa’Dar, Arys: Cardassian, wife of Kotan Pa’Dar, biological mother of Rugal

Pa’Dar, Geleth: Cardassian, mother of Kotan Pa’Dar

Pa’Dar, Ghret: Cardassian businessman and politician, father of Irvek Pa’Dar

Pa’Dar, Irvek: Cardassian politician, husband of Geleth Pa’Dar

Pa’Dar, Kotan: Cardassian, former exarch of the Tozhat settlement on Bajor, member of the Civilian Assembly with a public health portfolio at the Ministry of Science, later member of the Detapa Council; biological father of Rugal (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Pa’Dar, Rugal: biological son of Kotan and Arys Pa’Dar, believed killed during a Resistance attack on the Tozhat settlement on Bajor in 2362; adopted by Proka Migdal and Etra (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Prekeny, Lim: Cardassian artist, creator of holo-mosaics, most notably The Collectivity

Proka Etra: Bajoran, seamstress, wife of Proka Migdal, adopted mother of Rugal

Proka Migdal: Bajoran, formerly an officer of the Korto City Watch, husband of Proka Etra, adopted father of Rugal (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Rantok: Cardassian military officer, Fourth Division, Second Order; commander of Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Reco: Bajoran, resident of Ashalla, friend of Proka Migdal

Rejal, Gerat: Cardassian politician and dissident, husband of Meya Rejal

Rejal, Meya: Cardassian politician and dissident, chief executor of the Cardassian Union after the destruction of the Obsidian Order

Rhemet, Erek: Cardassian conservator, politician and dissident (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Hollow Men)

Selik: Romulan colonel stationed on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Sisko, Benjamin: human, Starfleet officer, commander of Deep Space 9 at the time of Rugal and Migdal’s visit; ruled that Rugal should return to Cardassia with Kotan Pa’Dar (“Emissary” [DS9])

Sisko, Jake: human, journalist, son of Benjamin Sisko (“Emissary” [DS9])

Smith, Ellen: human, captain of the Lotos, a supply ship operating in the DMZ

Tain, Enabran: former head of the Obsidian Order (“The Wire” [DS9])

Tekis: Cardassian radical, resident of the Torr Sector in Cardassia City, girlfriend of Erani

Tevrek: Cardassian, senior-ranking garresh at Keralek Base on Ogyas III during the Dominion War

Tirim: Cardassian, secretary to Irvek Pa’Dar

Tora Ziyal: artist, daughter of Skrain Dukat and his Bajoran mistress, Tora Naprem (“Indiscretion” [DS9])

Turrel: Cardassian military officer who negotiated the peace treaty with Bajor with Vedek Bareil Antos and Kai Winn Adami (“Life Support” [DS9])

Verisel: Vorta, Dominion commander on Ogyas III

Zolan: visitor to Deep Space 9 who accused Proka Migdal of abuse toward his adopted son Rugal (“Cardassians” [DS9])

PLACES

Akleen Sector: sector in Cardassia City given over to military use (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Anaret: remote and impoverished province on Cardassia Prime, badly affected by drought within recent memory

Andak: site of a post-Dominion War agricultural project on Cardassia Prime, headed by Keiko O’Brien, aiming to make the planet agriculturally self-sufficient (Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Cardassia)

Ashalla: capital city of Bajor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Mission: Gamma, Book One—Twilight)

Barvonok Sector: financial district of Cardassia City (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Betik Gallery: art gallery in Cardassia City that houses a collection of state-approved contemporary art

Cardassia IV: fourth planet in the Cardassian system, location of at least one labor camp (“The Homecoming” [DS9])

Cardassia City: capital city of the Cardassian Union (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Cardassia Prime: primary planet in the Cardassian system and center of the Cardassian Union

Chin’toka: a Cardassian system bordering Federation space of great strategic significance during the Dominion War; fought over twice during the course of the war (“Tears of the Prophets” [DS9])

Civilian Assembly Hall: debating chamber of the Cardassian Civilian Assembly; a huge landmark in the Tarlak Sector, with a large burnished dome

Coranum Sector: oldest and most prestigious residential sector in Cardassia City (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Culat: population center on Cardassia Prime, location of a famous university (“Nothing Human” [VOY])

Deep Space 9: Bajoran-owned and Starfleet-run space station at the mouth of the wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant; of crucial strategic significance before and throughout the Dominion War; Rugal and Migdal visited the station in 2370

Destiny: planet in the DMZ where the human population was interned by the Dominion during the war and the Cardassian population was subsequently interned after the war

Hagal system: Cardassian system that was overrun during the Klingon-Cardassian war

Hewe: strongly Maquis world in the DMZ where the Jem’Hadar carried out fierce reprisals against the human population

Ithic II: planet in the DMZ that became Cardassian territory in the treaty with the Federation; an important Cardassian agricultural world, also home to a sizeable human population

Keralek Base: Cardassian weapons research base on Ogyas III, later site of a Jem’Hadar cloning facility

Korto City: destroyed city in Kendra Valley, Bajor (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

Kovalet: Cardassian settlement on Ithic II

Lakarian City: major city on Cardassia Prime (“Defiant” [DS9])

Littleport: human settlement on Ithic II

Lorikal: rural district on Cardassia Prime badly affected by overfarming and drought

Maklar Prison: notorious prison on the outskirts of Cardassia City

Manea: main human settlement on Ithic II

Masad: provincial population center and resort town on Cardassia Prime, close to Lake Masad, the largest lake on Cardassia Prime and a popular summertime destination for the adventurous (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Hollow Men)

Meritok Square: large square in the Tarlak Sector of Cardassia City, location of the Betik Gallery and several other state art galleries

Mesquad: Maquis world in the DMZ

Metella: township in Anaret province, Cardassia Prime

Munda’ar Sector: district in Cardassia City given over to warehouses and storage (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Natural History Museum: state museum housed in a massive cobalt pyramid that is a distinctive feature of Cardassia City’s skyline (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Fearful Symmetry)

Odek: district capital of Anaret province, Cardassia Prime

Ogyas III: Cardassian outpost that became of strategic significance during the Dominion War following the Romulan entry into the war

Ostek: coastal town and port serving Cardassia City

Paldar Sector: residential district in Cardassia City (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Perok: rural district on Cardassia Prime renowned for its wild beauty and good hunting; many wealthy Cardassians have country houses and estates in this area

Peyit system: location of several Cardassian settlements and estates; Alon Ghemor had property in this system

Retlak Mountains: a popular winter holiday destination on Cardassia Prime

Sea Fall: planet in the DMZ ceded to the Cardassians under the terms of the treaty with the Federation

Septimus III: headquarters of the Cardassian Eleventh Order during the Dominion War; scene of a massacre in 2375 following a Klingon invasion and the failure of Weyoun to make good on a promise to send reinforcements: this was a pivotal moment in the deteriorating relationship between the Dominion and their Cardassian allies

Slokat: planet in the DMZ with evenly matched human and Cardassian populations

Tamsket: farming district on Cardassia Prime, passed through on the way out to Anaret

Tarlak Sector: administrative center of Cardassia City (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Terok Nor: Cardassian space station and ore processing facility orbiting Bajor; Cardassian command post during the Occupation; later renamed Deep Space 9 after it passed into Bajoran and Federation hands (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Torr Sector: densely populated and lively residential sector in Cardassia City (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Tozhat: Cardassian settlement on Bajor, governed by Kotan Pa’Dar (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Valo II: planet in the Valo system, sanctuary for many Bajoran refugees during the Occupation (“Ensign Ro” [TNG])

Victory Boulevard: main thoroughfare in the Tarlak Sector of Cardassia City linking Meritok Square to the Darhe’el Monument

Weibak IV: planet in the DMZ whose population remained predominantly human, even after the eradication of the Maquis

ORGANIZATIONS

Cardassian Intelligence Bureau: Cardassian intelligence agency; replaced the Obsidian Order after its destruction in 2371 (“Rocks and Shoals” [DS9])

Central Command: Cardassian military authority which, with the Obsidian Order, controlled the Cardassian Union until the early 2370s (“Profit and Loss” [DS9])

Circle, The: Bajoran political faction with extreme xenophobic stance, opposed to all alien presence on Bajor; in 2370 Circle members attempted to overthrow the Bajoran Provisional Government, this coup failed in part through the revelation that the Cardassian Central Command was supplying the Circle with weapons (“The Homecoming” [DS9])

Civilian Assembly: Cardassian civilian policy-making body

Council of Ministers: Bajoran governing body (“The Homecoming” [DS9])

Detapa Council: Cardassian civilian governing body, effectively powerless until the early 2370s, when it came to prominence following the collapse of the Obsidian Order and repeated failures on the part of the Central Command (“Cardassians” [DS9])

Headquarters Allied Reconstruction Forces (HARF): headquarters, on Cardassia Prime, of the Starfleet task force established to oversee reconstruction of those Cardassian territories placed under Federation protection after the Dominion War

Institute of Commercial Endeavor: business school in Cardassia City

Institute of State Policy: school of political theory and doctrine in Cardassia City; Natima Lang was professor of ethics here until 2370 (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Liberation Front: Cardassian resistance movement against the Dominion that emerged toward the end of the Dominion War, led by Corat Damar (“The Dogs of War” [DS9])

Maquis: armed resistance group of ex-Federation citizens on colony worlds in the DMZ; formed after the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370 ceded numerous Federation colonies to Cardassian control (“The Maquis” [DS9])

Ministry of Science: Cardassian government department responsible for promoting scientific research (“Destiny” [DS9])

Obsidian Order: Cardassian intelligence agency, feared for its ruthless efficiency and fanatical devotion to the Cardassian state (“The Wire” [DS9])

Oralian Way: Cardassian religion dating back to the Hebitian era, suppressed during the period of the Bajoran Occupation, resurgent after the Dominion War (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Vedek Assembly: Bajoran religious council presided over by the kai; wields great political influence on Bajor (“In the Hands of the Prophets” [DS9])

MISCELLANEOUS

aytlik broth: thick and nourishing Cardassian soup made from vegetables

canka nut: when roasted, a popular Cardassian street snack (Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—Cardassia)

Chief Archon: senior judicial figure in the Cardassian Union (“Tribunal” [DS9])

D’jarra system: the Bajoran caste system, effectively destroyed by the experience of Occupation (“Accession” [DS9])

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ): the demilitarized area between Cardassian and Federation space, established in the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370; the treaty also involved the exchange of a number of colony worlds, which triggered the creation of the Maquis; the DMZ remained strife-ridden until the destruction of the Maquis in 2373 by combined Cardassian and Dominion forces (“The Maquis” [DS9])

elta: climbing plant, native to Cardassia Prime; its leaves are a delicacy

enigma tales: Cardassian mystery stories in which the purpose is not to establish the guilty party but rather the nature of each character’s guilt (“Destiny” [DS9])

feyt: Cardassian dish made from mashed legumes; originally a staple rural food, it later became fashionable among wealthy urbanites

gelat: hot bitter Cardassian drink, served in small cups

geleta house: establishment selling gelat; popular gathering places in densely populated urban areas like the Torr Sector in Cardassia City

hasperat: spicy Bajoran food (“Preemptive Strike” [DS9])

honge: large carnivorous raptor, native to Cardassia Prime (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

Ih’valla caste: Bajoran caste of artists (“Accession” [DS9])

indika: Bajoran flower with purplish petals

ithian: tall, long-living deciduous tree native to Cardassia Prime; its leaves have a distinctive copper color

jumja stick: Bajoran confectionary made from sweet, sticky tree sap (“A Man Alone” [DS9])

kanar: Cardassian alcoholic drink (“The Wounded” [TNG])

keye: small furry domesticated animal, native to Cardassia Prime, a popular pet

kosst: Bajoran expletive (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

kotra: Cardassian board game (“Empok Nor” [DS9])

lek: Cardassian unit of currency, went into free fall after the Dominion War (“Caretaker” [DS9])

leya: Cardassian fruit with white flesh, often squeezed for its juice

leyik: large, furred, Cardassian land mammal hunted to extinction for its bones, which were used to make highly prized decorative objects

litik: a Cardassian shellfish, popular street snack in coastal towns

mekla: large Cardassian shrub with scarlet flowers

metric: unit of time, roughly equivalent to a minute (Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers)

moba: sweet Bajoran fruit (“Rejoined” [DS9])

perek: Cardassian flower with scarlet petals, given as a symbol of respect on the death of an individual; the flowers are displayed outside the house and their petals later used during the Cardassian burial rite

petha fowl: small game bird, native to Cardassia Prime

raktajino: Klingon coffee (“The Passenger” [DS9])

ratamba stew: Bajoran stew (“For the Cause” [DS9])

regnar: reptile, native to Cardassia Prime (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—A Stitch in Time)

reta: semiprecious, dark red stone mined on Cardassia IV

riding hound: large domesticated canine, native to Cardassia Prime (“In Purgatory’s Shadow” [DS9])

rikot: fast-paced Cardassian racket-and-ball game with impenetrable rules, played on a court with three players; something between squash and cricket

shri-tal: a Cardassian deathbed ritual during which the dying person’s secrets are passed on to a close family member (“Ties of Blood and Water” [DS9])

skrit: offensive word on Cardassia for someone without parents; an orphan or bastard

spoonhead: pejorative Bajoran word for Cardassians (“Things Past” [DS9])

temet roots: edible part of the temet plant

tuli fish: tiny Cardassian fish, eaten as delicacy

water fever: acute infectious disease affecting Cardassians, contracted from contaminated water

yatik fever: infectious disease affecting Cardassians which can spread rapidly in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, e.g., dilapidated urban areas or refugee camps

zabu stew: Cardassian stew, which Keiko served to Rugal and Miles, to the unifying horror of both (“Cardassians” [DS9])

CARDASSIAN MILITARY RANKS

This list of Cardassian ranks and their Starfleet equivalents borrows from the work of Steven Kenson’s unpublished Iron and Ash supplement for the Star Trek Roleplaying Game from Last Unicorn Games.

garresh: noncommissioned officer

gil: ensign

glinn: lieutenant

dalin: lieutenant commander

gul: captain

legate: admiral

Acknowledgements

My thanks and love, as ever, to Matthew.

I would like to thank: Andrew J. Robinson, James Swallow, S. D. Perry, Britta Dennison, and Olivia Woods—all of whom have so brilliantly illuminated aspects of Cardassia’s dark heart. Also, my appreciation to all those who have contributed to the Star Trek wiki sites. You deserve medals.

Grateful thanks to: my partner-in-crime Brenda Evans for continued transatlantic friendship; Dwimordene for the Chicago Summit and so much pleasurable communication over the years about the ups and downs of writing; Kathryn Andersen for the stone garden; Ina Rae Hark, who first set me thinking about Cardassian ties of blood and nation; Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, who knew that 78 rue de Lille, Paris, was the only possible address for the Residence of the Cardassian Ambassador to the Federation; and Kat Woods for Dawn Wind, one of countless gifts of friendship.

Big thanks to Margaret Clark, for enthusiasm and support during the latter stages of this project.

Above all, thank you to Marco Palmieri, who has made me believe I really could do this writing thing.

Una McCormack is the author of two previous Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels: Hollow Men and Cardassia—The Lotus Flower, which appeared in Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume 1. Her short fiction has appeared in The Year’s Best Science Fiction 2007 (ed. Gardner Dozois), Subterfuge (ed. Ian Whates), Glorifying Terrorism (ed. Farah Mendlesohn), and Doctor Who Magazine. She lives with her partner, Matthew, in Cambridge, England, where she reads, writes, and teaches.