He tried to listen at the door once more, until he caught himself and remembered the security feed in the hall. It reset itself after a few moments, and it wouldn’t look right if he was still standing here when the sweep came back. He headed off to ops, trying to think of who would be most interested in hearing about Dukat and Meru’s latest fight. Of course, it wasn’t anyone’s business, but having intimate information about the prefect had turned out to be a useful means of getting a captive audience from the Cardassians on the station, if only for a little while.
Chapter 12
Natima had been sleeping, dreaming of a child in the orphanage on Cardassia II. He had been clawing at her arm, trying to get at a bit of bread she had been given, a piece she had intended to save for later, though she was as hungry as she had ever been. He was raking his fingernails down her arm, and she pushed him. He took a step back from her, and she was suddenly overcome with horror, for his breathing had become odd and shallow, squeaking grotesquely as he tried to take in heavy breaths.
“Here!” she cried out, throwing the bread at him. “Take it!” But he did not respond, his eyes bulging horribly in their sockets-and then she was awake, and she saw the flickering orange of the palm beacon, the Bajoran with his mud-matted hair, crouched in the corner over the broken communicator. And Veja. She was writhing, her fingers hooked into claws, and Natima realized that the horrible, thin squealing of her dream was coming from Veja.
“Seefa!” Natima cried, and the Bajoran’s head snapped up-he had fallen asleep over his work. “Help me! I don’t know what to do!”
Seefa moved quickly to Veja’s side. He listened to her chest, and then he put his hand under her back. He lifted her up, slightly, and then moved her head from side to side. Veja didn’t seem conscious, but she continued to make that terrible hitching, gasping sound.
“From what I’ve seen, Cardassians have different physiology than Bajorans,” he said. “Your bone structure, your internal organs-I’m not sure-“
“Is she going to be all right?” Natima knew he was no doctor, but the Bajoran had proven resourceful, and there was no one else.
Seefa listened for a second more, putting a finger to her lips. “Her breathing is very shallow. If one of her lungs was damaged…”
“What can we do?”
Seefa shook his head, started to answer-and then the high, whistling gasps ceased.
Natima was desperate with fear and horror. “Veja! Veja!”
Seefa leaned over her, pinched her nostrils closed and began blowing air directly into her mouth. Natima watched him helplessly, her panic building to levels she could not tolerate. She finally gave in, sobbing, too exhausted to resist anymore. She watched Seefa for a few minutes that seemed like an eternity, knowing that he was doing all that he could do, but that it probably wouldn’t be enough.
They were so focused on Veja, neither of them turned at the rumble of falling rock, back by their dig. It wasn’t until white light, strong, unwavering daylight, shafted into the tunnel that Natima realized what was happening.
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Oh, thank you, thank you!
Seefa spared her a nod, went back to what he was doing, pushing air into Veja’s struggling lungs. Natima stumbled to her feet, ran for the new opening, hearing a voice now, hearing a man-Damar?-shouting something-
-and then another section of the tunnel was falling, dirt and dust and rock raining down, and Natima realized she was too close. She stumbled back, tripped, fell badly-and felt a sharp pain at the base of her skull as it connected with a rock.
She felt as though she were spinning, spinning away from herself. More of the ceiling had come away, but her vision was blurred and she could see only a ragged patch of whiteness that hurt her eyes. She tried to sit up, but a jarring, nauseating purple-tinged darkness washed over her. She felt sticky warmth seeping from where she’d hit her head.
Stay awake, stay awake-Veja-
Voices were coming from somewhere, men’s voices. Shouting, Cardassian voices. More rubble falling down? Another shout. She flickered back to that boy, that boy who wanted her piece of bread. You can’t have it! She clutched it as tightly as she could and a wash of brilliant red flared behind her closed eyes-a weapon’s fire-and she remembered where she was, what had happened.
“Leave his body here,” said the voice. “I’ll carry Veja out, you take the other one.”
Damar.
“He was trying to help us,” she said, but only a struggling whimper emerged and it was too late, and the blackness that lurked around the edges finally closed in, bleeding her reality into dark. Natima slept.
After a silent and mostly uneventful journey back to Bajor, Halpas took the carrier back to the base of the protective kelbonite foothills. Taryl had rigged up a surface signal mask before they’d left to cover their takeoff and return, but they also got lucky; their flight was unchallenged, their set-down as quiet as the remnants of their crew. Nobody was speaking, least of all Taryl, who seemed to have been stricken into a state of crippling grief at the acceptance that her brother was beyond her reach.
They headed back for the village, and had just reached the first dwelling when they were approached by Ornathia Harta. “Lenaris! Taryl!” she shouted. “We have to leave! I’m the only one left, and-“
“Calm down, Harta,” Lenaris said. He looked around, saw no one else about. The ramshackle buildings seemed deserted. “What’s going on?”
“We hacked into Cardassian comms this morning,” she explained, her voice edged with anxiety. “We were able to confirm it-the spoonheads know about the balon! They’re going to come looking for us. Our ships won’t be safe for much longer.”
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“What about Lac?” Taryl said urgently. “Did you learn anything about him?”
“Taryl-” Lenaris began, but she ignored him.
Harta looked at her with haunted eyes. “There was a report we found… the prisoners on Pullock V were all executed yesterday. I’m so sorry, Taryl… but we can’t think about it now, we all have to get out of here.”
Taryl did not reply, she only buried her face in her hands and wept. Lenaris felt helpless as he placed a hand on her shoulder, knowing that it had no effect.
“Well, that’s that,” said Legan Duravit. “We’ll take a ship and go, I suppose.”
“The ships are all gone,” Harta said, suddenly sounding defensive. “All but one, and that’s mine. I only stayed behind to let you know what was going on.”
Duravit looked incensed. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Harta. We all worked on those ships, and they’re as much ours as they are yours.”
“It’s everyone for themselves,” Harta said stubbornly. “You have the raiders on the carrier, you can use those-unless you want to come with me. And I’ve told you what you needed to know, so I’m leaving-now.” She looked genuinely sorry for a moment, and then she turned to go.
“How do you like that?” Legan Fin exclaimed, looking as though he wasn’t sure whether he should stay or follow her.
“Let her go,” Duravit told his brother.
“Well,” Sten said, “I guess we’d better do as she says. I’m going to get a few things together, and then we’d better figure out where we’re going, and how we’re going to get there.”
“There are still three raiders in the bay of the carrier,” Lenaris said.
“My ship is still hidden in the rocks, if your cell hasn’t taken it, too,” Halpas added. “Though it doesn’t run on balon, so I can’t just park it anywhere.”
“The balon ships might put us in more danger than your ship would at this point,” Fin said.
“We’ll have to find another fuel source,” Taryl said, her voice dull.
“If anyone can do it, Taryl…” Lenaris said, trying to be helpful, but her expression suggested that she wasn’t ready to accept anyone’s optimism.
“We can go to Relliketh,” Halpas said.
Lenaris looked at Taryl, hoping that she would agree to it, but she made no indication either way.
“Relliketh’s as good as anywhere,” Duravit said.
“I’d rather go home to my family’s farm,” Sten said. “I should tell Crea’s mother that… what happened.”
No one was making eye contact. It suddenly hit Lenaris, though it should have been obvious after what Harta had said, that the Ornathia cell was truly dissolving-just as the Halpas cell had done.
“Well,” Lenaris said, his voice tight and disappointed, “maybe for now… before we all decide what to do… we could just make camp back by the carrier, away from the balon. The kelbonite should keep the spoonheads away from us, and from the shuttles, with or without balon.”
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“Fine,” Fin said, and the others seemed to agree with him as well, though Taryl was still quiet.
Sten and the Legans went back to their cottages to retrieve a few things, but Taryl didn’t move, her posture slumped and defeated. “Taryl,” Lenaris tried, but she would not look at him. He finally gave up trying to reach her, and headed back to his own cottage to fetch a bedroll and a few other effects he might need to make camp for the night.
Natima rubbed the back of her head where the wound had healed. The dermal regenerator had made short work of the gash, but the hair on the back of her head was still stubble where the medic had shaved it to better access the wound. She had applied a special cellular treatment to stimulate the follicles and fill in the short patch, not sure why she cared at all, after what had happened… But she wanted to grasp on to some semblance of normality, even if it was only to look like her old self.
Veja had not been quite so fortunate. The medic felt reasonably certain she would make an almost-full recovery with no permanent neural damage, probably thanks to the breathing Seefa had done for her. But her internal injuries had been extensive, and the doctor had confirmed what every Cardassian woman feared more than death-Veja would never carry a child to term. She didn’t even know yet; she had been heavily medicated since their return to Tozhat.
Damar had taken the news very hard, which Natima would have expected. According to Cardassian tradition, their enjoinment would be canceled. While it wasn’t unheard of for a barren woman to take a lover, it was very unlikely that she could ever be an acceptable wife. Damar was not the kind of man to overlook such an old and widespread tradition. Natima supposed she had never known a man who would have overlooked it. She dreaded the time that Veja was lucid enough to be informed of her condition. Many women chose to take their own lives after sustaining such injuries. Natima didn’t think that Veja would do anything so drastic, but she feared for her friend nonetheless. It was a terrible blow.
Still, Damar had not left Veja’s side since she had been taken to the infirmary. Gul Dukat had demanded that he come back to Terok Nor to resume his duties and the gil had flatly refused, a response that Natima could not help but admire. It took someone of remarkable character to refuse an order from the prefect. As she headed down the hallway of the infirmary to pay her friend another visit, she wondered if she might have misjudged Damar.
Ask Seefa, see what he thinks.
Natima shook off the thought before it took hold. Seefa, their conversation, his death-it troubled her on so many levels, she didn’t know where to begin. As she had done since waking up at Tozhat, she pushed the issue aside.
She stepped into the sterile, warm blankness of Veja’s room. Damar was, as Natima expected, asleep in a chair next to Veja’s bed. There were no attendants present. Veja was still unconscious, or at least sleeping, and Natima decided she’d do better to come back later. But as she was backing out of the room, Damar opened his eyes.
“Miss Lang,” he said formally. He had been noticeably more polite to her since the incident, though Natima didn’t know if it was because his contempt of her had ebbed or if he was simply too sad to be bothered with his former opinion of her.
“Gil Damar. I apologize for disturbing you. I only came to check on her status.”
“It is kind of you,” he said, his voice distant. “She is the same.”
“Has… has her family been notified?” Natima asked. “Because I was thinking that I could…”
“I spoke to her father. He has been… supportive, although he is understandably very… disappointed.”
Natima remembered what Seefa had said about the Cardassian propensity toward euphemism, and she laughed, entirely unexpectedly. Damar gave her an odd look, one that contained a bit of the old contempt that she remembered so well from her encounters with him on Terok Nor.
“Forgive me,” she begged.
“I see nothing funny here,” Damar said icily.
“Of course not, Gil Damar. Except-“
She hesitated. She knew it wasn’t her place to suggest such things, but he obviously loved her so. Perhaps there was a way, after all.
“Don’t you find it somewhat queer that on our world, where children are valued so highly, we would cast away those children who have no parents? Children who could have found a home with women like Veja, who cannot now carry her own child, but longs to be a mother above all else? Hasn’t it occurred to you, after all this, that-“
Damar looked positively horrified, and Natima knew she had crossed the line. “Gil Damar, I fear my female gift for curiosity and observation has gotten the better of me. It is only that I am so grieved for my friend that I forget myself. Please… I will leave you.”
She turned and quickly left the room, practically running to get away. Her own apartment was quite close to the settlement hospital, and she broke into the cool outside air between the buildings feeling as though she’d forgotten how to breathe.
She felt embarrassed for herself, an unusual sensation, as she walked the short distance home. It had never been in her nature to avoid awkward topics just to preserve an air of comfortable formality. Still, she should have known better than to try and be philosophical with a man who was experiencing such suffering. And yet-
And yet, their lives together need not be destroyed.
It was not for her to say. She came to the gray building that housed her quarters and let herself inside, suddenly desperate for a long, dreamless nap. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired.
Before she’d even closed her door behind her, her console lit up with an incoming transmission from Information Service headquarters on Cardassia Prime. Undoubtedly Dalak, and she’d have to speak with him eventually. She reluctantly took the call.
“Miss Lang, I have been trying to reach you for some time. On behalf of all your colleagues here-and myself, of course-may I express sincerest regards for your health, after your unfortunate incident. I understand you’re to make a full recovery?”
His enthusiasm for her answer was markedly lacking, but she did her best to support the effort. He was her superior.
“Yes, Mister Dalak, although Miss Ketan was not so lucky. She has survived, but some of her injuries are permanent.”
“Indeed, Miss Lang. We’ve received the medical report. It is most regrettable. Still, I hear the two of you acted with outstanding bravery. It would make a good story, don’t you think?”
Natima was taken aback; this possibility had not occurred to her. “Oh! I suppose…”
“This is just the sort of thing that the people love to hear. Military heroes, clever reporters, a depraved rebel killed. I would like you to deliver the story by tomorrow evening, Cardassia City time.”
“Uh… certainly. I will get on it right away.”
“Thank you, Miss Lang. Send Miss Ketan my goodwill.”
“Yes, sir. I will do that-as soon as she wakes up.”
“She isn’t awake? Ah. Well then… anyway. Also, I understand Gul Dukat put several Bajorans to death the other day, going on a tip that you gave him-about balon? I think you should run a follow-up story to that. The weekend crew ran it, and the censor made a mess of it. I need you to handle it, if you’re feeling up to it, of course.”
Natima knew the story, and she knew that the censors had indeed made a mess of it-sometimes they were so overzealous that the stories barely made sense when they ran through. But she was feeling a bit harried right now, having just recovered from a very stressful ordeal. It wouldn’t have troubled her a bit to have taken it easy for a few days. “I… uh, actually…” she murmured.
Dalak interrupted smoothly. “Good. I will expect that story to run tomorrow morning, at the latest. I must go. Deadlines don’t rest for anyone, do they?”
“No, they don’t,” Natima said. She had never particularly liked her boss, but she couldn’t think of a time when she had liked him less than right now. She rubbed the short patch on her head again, tired, sick with worry, trying not to think about Seefa or her new, conflicting thoughts about the annexation, about Dukat, about her role in the Information Service.
That was when an idea occurred to her. The kind of idea that demands a decision, that one cannot easily turn away from once it enters the realm of possibility. It meant risking her job, her all-important work… But not so all-important in the way she’d always believed.
She felt her heart pounding as she began to type up her report for the homeworld comnet, the image of Seefa’s face finally coming clear into her mind as she crafted her words, polished her turns of phrase. The image of his face the moment that it had dawned on her that he was nothing like what she expected him to be.
The comnet would get its story about the Pullock V prisoners tomorrow, but maybe it wouldn’t be exactly the one that her boss had in mind.
Astraea kept her head down as she left the city. Her hair was loose, and she tried to use the long black tresses to shield her face. She’d debated using her shawl to cover her head, to guard her profile, but had finally decided that it might look suspicious. Even after she’d passed the last homes and buildings of the city’s outskirts, she’d felt herself almost trembling with fear that someone she knew would see her, or worse, that her image had been uploaded to the military’s facial-recognition system, and her brief ride on the city’s shuttle had doomed her. Were her crimes serious enough that people would be actively looking for her? It seemed unlikely, although she’d surely been entered into the system by now, marked as a criminal. She had checked into a boardinghouse under her new assumed name, and nobody had come rushing to put her under arrest. Yet.
I can always turn myself in, if I have to. The thought was strangely reassuring; it allowed her to continue with her madness, knowing that there was sanity and reality, no matter how unpleasant, that she could return to.
She wandered beyond the edge of the city, where she finally found herself alone. She walked past the old manufacturing facilities, dating to hundreds of years before the annexation, sitting empty and ominous in the hot, dry, evening winds-a grim reminder to those who passed that Cardassia had once very nearly fallen into ruin. The thought of it gave Astraea a warped flash of the horror she had experienced when she saw those images of Cardassia destroyed, blackened, smoking, crushed perhaps beyond repair. A shudder ran through her entire body, and she pulled her shawl tightly around her.
Past the wide band of shadow-haunted industrial zone, she reached the open desert, only a few thin vehicle ruts marking the expanse of cracked soil. Although she was looking at nothing, a field of blowing dust ringed with distant mountains so far away that she could easily block them with her hands, she thought she detected something here, something she had seen before. Was it wishful thinking that made it seem so? Or was this really the place where, centuries before, a small house had once stood? Meadows, a tiny stream, trees with birds in them? Was it simply the fantasy of a scientist who daydreamed about agriculture from things past?
She had walked a great distance, and her feet were sore. Though she had worn her walking shoes, she was not used to traveling as much as she had been doing in these past weeks; her movements were usually limited to the daily commute from her tiny apartment to her office in the science ministry. She had taken a public shuttle for part of her journey here, but, fearful of being seen, she had walked much farther than was probably wise. It pained her to think of the distance she was going to have to travel to return to the boardinghouse.
Examining the soles of her shoes, she thought she heard someone behind her and she stiffened, until she saw that a couple of stray hounds were fighting over something not far behind her, back near where the buildings began again. Her tension took on a different timbre, for she had always had a childish fear of the animals. Before the annexation, when Miras was a small child, her older brother used to scare her with tales of the giant wild dogs that fed solely on corpses, the remains of those who died of starvation, or during one of several poverty-borne disease epidemics. She had a vague idea that there were those who blamed the Oralians for many of the deaths from that time period; there had been great dissent, rioting, the overtures of civil war. She backed quietly away from where the animals were tussling, hoping they had not spotted or scented her.
A moment passed. The brief fight had reestablished whatever dominance existed between the two scruffy animals. One of the hounds turned its ugly, squarish head in her general direction, but did not seem interested in her. It padded away, followed by the other.
Astraea relaxed, turned to start walking again.
“Halt!” It was a man’s voice, behind her, and Astraea froze. A Cardassian soldier stepped into view, a man with a broad forehead and a deeply scrutinizing expression. He had his weapon trained on her, though he lowered it upon reaching her. She imagined she looked quite harmless.
“I… I’m doing nothing wrong,” she said faintly. “Only looking.” She was not breaking any laws, but it was generally understood that people did not travel on foot outside the city. She knew that her very presence here was suspicious.
“Looking? For what? Trouble?” The soldier laughed haughtily at his own joke.
“No,” Astraea said quietly. “I’m looking for… something that I lost.” She instantly regretted saying it, for now she would have to follow it up with a legitimate story. “I mean to say… I’m just… looking at the view.”
The soldier continued to regard her coldly. “What is your name, Miss?”
She thought fast. Now would be the time to turn herself in, and she supposed it would be wisest to just do so.
“My name is Astraea,” she said, in spite of her best intentions. It seemed she wasn’t ready to give up quite yet.
The soldier appeared taken aback. His mouth hung open for a moment before he spoke. “Astraea?” he repeated. It was his turn to sound faint.
She nodded, feeling certain that she had just guaranteed her own death sentence. She had now made a deliberate attempt to conceal her true identity to a soldier of Central Command. She might as well sign a confession.
“Astraea,” the soldier said, blinking. “This name… is known to me.”
What did he mean? She began to feel frantic. Was her alias already being associated with her true persona? In a panic, she corrected herself. “I mean to say, my name is Miras. Miras Vara. And… and I am from the Ministry of Science, and-“
“Where did you hear that name?” he said, his voice brittle and harsh again. “Astraea. Where did you hear it?”
“I… I…” Miras did not know how to answer, so she answered truthfully. “I heard it in a dream.”
The soldier’s expression changed, the hardness in his beady eyes quickly and fluidly transforming into earnest curiosity. There was a long pause before he spoke again, appearing to choose his words carefully. “I have another question for you,” he said. “You said that you are looking for something. Are you looking for something… that is in plain sight, but… hidden?”
Miras felt her panic turn into something else. Was this a trick? How could this man-how could anyone-have known the very words spoken by the woman in her dream? She stared at the soldier for a moment before finally collecting her thoughts enough to speak. “Who are you?” she said.
His eyes seemed to bore straight into hers, scrutinizing, prying. “I am Glinn Sa’kat.”
“Glinn Sa’kat-but I mean to say-“
Without breaking his gaze, he interrupted her. “You are… looking for the book,” he said. It seemed to be a statement rather than a question. His voice was somewhat steadier now.
Miras answered without quite thinking about her answer, much in the same way as she had told him her assumed name. “Where everything is written.”
The soldier stared at her for a long moment, his breathing seeming especially labored. “You had better come with me,” he said, his voice possessing again a trace of the earlier gruffness with which he had ordered her to halt. But there was something else in it now. Something like disbelief, or possibly even fear.
Gar Osen woke at just past dawn and could not seem to get back to sleep. Beams of mild light, clouded through with a haze of ashy dust kicked up from the cold fireplace, were penetrating through the high window in the back of the cottage. One persistent finger of sunshine had landed directly on Gar’s left eyelid. He pushed his face underneath the straw-filled bag that served as a pillow, but it was no use. He rose from his bed. He put his head down to stretch out his spine-the surgical alterations to his body had always made him feel so much more vulnerable, though in some ways, he could scarcely remember what it felt like to be in a Cardassian body. The stiffness in his current form might very well be a simple manifestation of his age.
As he lifted his head, he started and then gasped audibly. He was not alone in the room, though the other person was so utterly silent and still that he could have been there all night, as much as Gar would have noticed. “Who are you?”
The Cardassian rose noiselessly, an odd smile playing about his mouth. “Hello, Pasir,” he said. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
Gar was so taken aback at hearing his old name-it had been so many years since anyone had uttered it-that he could not immediately speak. He felt a combination of things, but mostly relief. Was he finally going to get some answers?
The man looked around the cottage. “How can you live like this, Pasir? It’s so… primitive! Not to mention the cold.” The man shivered to illustrate, and then laughed.
Gar was incensed. The other man acted very inappropriately for an agent of the Obsidian Order. “Why are you here?” He didn’t really need to ask, for the use of his real name was enough to make it quite plain. “Where is Rhan Ico? She is supposed to be my contact-I’ve not heard from her in twenty years, at least!”
“I don’t know where she is, I’ve never heard of her,” the man answered, his voice reflecting disinterest. “Most likely, she is dead. Enabran Tain saw fit to clean house when he took over the Order.”
Enabran Tain? The name was only vaguely familiar, and Pasir realized that things must have changed drastically since he’d lost contact with the Order. It was finally becoming plain to him now, why he’d been left to dangle alone in the dark all this time. “What do you want?”
“Well,” the man said. “You probably haven’t heard that the military sometimes tries to make use of the Order, since they’ve had so little luck with their own clumsy interrogations. They requested my assistance for what turned out to be a fool’s errand, an absolute mockery of an interview in Dahkur.” The man rolled his eyes for emphasis. “The military is frightened of its own shadow these days. But so long as I was here anyway, Enabran Tain had an idea of a means by which I might take care of a problem for him.”
“A… problem?”
“Indeed, for it would appear that your purpose here has-shall we say-expired?”
“What do you mean? I still have a great deal of influence here! I-have a plan, you see. It was I who disposed of the old kai. And I have swung the general opinion of Bajor around to the abandonment of the castes. I will soon be the kai, and then-“
The other man sighed as he interrupted. “I must tell you that Tain was never entirely sure how he meant to use you, Pasir. You were simply a holdover from the days of his predecessor. And yet, he felt that having an operative in the field might prove useful to him in some small way. But if it’s true what they are saying about Dukat’s new edicts-and it is true-then what good could you possibly be to the Order when you are sent to a work camp with the rest of these Bajoran wretches? No, it is my understanding that although Tain had initially hoped for you to become the next religious leader here, this outcome is rather unlikely to occur, considering the current circumstances. And then there is the matter of the girl at the Ministry of Science…”
“What girl? What do you mean?”
“Your cover, Pasir. It has been blown, I’m afraid.”
“Impossible!”