Cardassia and Andor

by Una McCormack

  “Now, what was the very last thing I said to you when we spoke the other day?” Charlie Drury’s words and his tone belied the relief that was transparent in his eyes. “Ah yes, that was it—‘No more controversy if you please, Keiko!’”

  “I know, I know….” She smiled back at him. “But look at all the press coverage I got for us, Charlie! Surely it was worth it all just for that?”

  He snorted. “Hardly. Anyway, I’m assuming you don’t plan on making a habit of this?”

  “Oh, I think we can safely say that you can rest easy on that score.” She sighed deeply and pushed her hair away behind her ears. “Tell me, Charlie—how is this going to hurt the project? Do you think we’re finished?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Keiko—don’t worry about that now! Let me worry about it. Take a couple of days off, play with your kids, and we’ll talk about all that later in the week.” He smiled at her fondly. “I’m glad you’re all safe, Keiko,” he said quietly, and then cut the com.

  The room was quiet at last. Keiko slumped back into her chair. A couple of unread messages were still waiting for her, but she decided she wasn’t even going to look at them until tomorrow morning. She sat and listened for a little while to the faint and comforting hum of all the equipment in the house—the com on standby, the temperature modulators, some gadget or other belonging to Miles. She had dimmed the lights before contacting Charlie and, when she looked round, everything seemed to have taken on soft shapes and shadows: the desk, the table, the couch, Miles’s toolkit, her papers, the children’s toys. At the other side of the room, on top of the shelves, was the pot of meya lilies she had put there to keep them safely out of Miles’s way. Had that really only been yesterday?

  The flowers were drooping a little now, and in the half-light they looked sad and forsaken. With a sigh, Keiko pulled herself wearily up from her chair and went to fetch them. Sure enough, the soil was dry—meya lilies sucked up moisture. She watered the plant generously, liberally, and then took the pot back with her over to her desk. She sat down again in her chair, set the lilies in place before her, and leaned in close to them. She breathed in the sweet and subtle scent and admired once more the beautiful colors and clever fractals of the flower.

  Each meya lily had three thin petals. From a distance these seemed to be pure white, but when you examined them more closely and, particularly, when you looked at the center, you could see, hidden away inside, a fine pink line that deepened to a dark and bloody crimson as it descended toward the stem. Then, if you traced the long, fragile petals back upward, you saw that at the top they each had three points. The leaves of the lily, clustering dark green and glossy beneath the petals as if to cradle them, also opened out in this way. The meya was indigenous to Cardassia, however unlikely that seemed. It was so needy for water, so thirsty, that you could only find it near the coast, and these days only in a few very remote places. It was impossibly fragile, Keiko thought, and desperately unsuited to the heat and aridity of its native land. Stupid, stubborn thing, she thought. And each year it just keeps on flowering. She gently touched the thin stem of the nearest lily. It quivered beneath her fingertip, and then was still. One day, she resolved, they’ll grow here at Andak. I’ll grow them here at Andak.

  She heard a soft footfall behind her, and then felt Miles rest his hands upon her shoulders. After a moment or two just standing still, he began to knead at the muscles at the bottom of her neck. She dropped her head forward, gratefully.

  “They’re both asleep now,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her softly on her hair. “You’re not working, are you?” he added, his voice rising a little in surprise.

  “Just thinking about flowers,” she murmured, shifting her shoulders around so that they followed the motion of his fingers.

  “Oh—so you are working!”

  “Can’t help myself,” she said dryly. “It’s a vocation.”

  He carried on with his task for a little while, and she closed her eyes, and began to feel the strain of the day depart, piece by piece. Then Miles began to speak again.

  “I’m still so angry with him, you know.”

  “Mm? Angry with who?”

  “Yevir…” He stretched the name out as he said it, making it sound like an accusation.

  She opened her eyes. “You’re angry with him? But he saved our lives—”

  “He took a bloody stupid risk talking to Nyra like that. He was lucky he didn’t get you all killed—”

  “Is that what it looked like to you?” she said in surprise. “Because from where I was sitting it seemed like Yevir knew exactly what he was doing.”

  His hands halted at their work. “Do you really think so?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Keiko, softly. “I think the vedek judged the effects of his intervention very carefully. Almost scientifically, you might say,” she murmured, and then raised her shoulders up to demand his attention back. Miles began massaging them once again, and the knots and the tension dissolved a little further.

  “The people I despise,” she said eventually, “are those from the—what did Macet call them?”

  “The True Way,” Miles muttered. Another accusation.

  “That’s it. The True Way—what a terrible, terrible name that is! What’s true about their way? What’s so true about using children like pawns to…well, to die, and just because of their hate? It’s despicable. Poor Nyra…”

  Miles grunted, noncommittally.

  “What does that noise mean, Miles?”

  “Just that…well, I have to wonder whether Nyra actually thinks she’s done anything wrong.”

  “Miles, she’s only a kid!”

  “I know that, sweetheart! I’m not saying I don’t feel sorry her—and God knows I feel sorry for that mother of hers all right—”

  Keiko nodded her agreement vigorously.

  “—but I think that if Nyra was given half the chance, she would just do the same thing all over again.”

  “But Miles, what she did is…well, it’s incomprehensible!” She twisted her neck to look up at him. “Can you imagine Molly, when she gets just a few years older, doing something like that?”

  “No, sweetheart, I can’t—but then Molly’s not Cardassian, is she?”

  Keiko opened her mouth wide in disbelief. “Miles! That’s an ugly thing to say!”

  “Now, hang on a minute!” he came back. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Cardassians are all mad, or evil, or anything like that. Macet’s someone to respect, that’s for sure; so’s Ghemor—I can even put up with Garak, when he’s not trying to give me the creeps. What I mean is…Of course I don’t think Molly’s going to hit her teens and start planting bombs under people. But that’s because Molly’s not from a culture that’s spent the last ten years in decline, fought and lost a brutal war, and then been burnt to the ground. And I have to wonder too,” he finished up, his hands working faster on her back as if to emphasize his point, “just how much trouble’s being stored up as a result for Cardassia in the future.”

  “It’s in enough trouble as it is,” Keiko murmured, wriggling beneath his touch.

  “Well, what I mean is—if there’s a whole generation of Nyras growing up. A whole lot of kids who see violence as natural, and reasonable, or the only answer. Fifteen, twenty years’ time—these will be the people running the place. I just…” He hesitated again. “I just can’t see how kids can live through all of that and not be affected by it. Not grow up thinking that killing is a good or a normal response to a threat. And I wonder—what kind of society can you make out of children who’ve been traumatized like that?” The rubbing at her shoulders became gentle again.

  She thought hard about what he had said, and what he had left unsaid.

  “Do you wish we hadn’t come here, Miles?” she asked him at last. “That we hadn’t brought our children here?”

  He didn’t answer her, just kept on working at her muscles.

  “Miles?”

  “Well, Deep Space 9 w
asn’t exactly safe, was it?”

  “That’s evading the question, Miles—”

  “Oh, I don’t know, love! What do you want me to say? If it meant that you and Molly wouldn’t have to go through what you’ve gone through today, then of course I’d say I wish we hadn’t come here!”

  “Do you want us to leave?”

  “No…” he said eventually, his voice quavering a little. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound very sure about that.”

  “Well, that’s because I’m not sure—how can I be sure? But you don’t want to leave, and so…so we’ll stay. For a while, at any rate.” He stopped what he was doing, and leaned over her shoulder, to get a better look at her. His expression was a little worried. “You don’t want to leave, do you, Keiko?”

  She gazed at the lilies in front of her upon the desk. “I did, at one point this afternoon,” she admitted. “It was when I was looking at Molly, and she was just sitting there with her arms around her…And I thought—what do we think we’re doing? I thought—we must have been mad to come here. To Cardassia, of all places!” She reached out to touch the green velvet of the leaves.

  “And?” Miles prompted her. He had straightened up, and his hands were at work again, this time rubbing gently at her temples.

  “And as I listened to Yevir,” Keiko said, sighing as she leaned back against Miles’s chest, “I realized that it would be wrong to go. That there were things that you and I could do here that would really make a difference. That I could change things here, for the better. And that it would be…” She hunted around for the right word, “Well, it would be irresponsible to leave. Do you understand what I mean? That it wouldn’t be right for us to sit back and do nothing, when there’s so much that needs to be done. I guess…because we’d be storing up trouble for our own future then.”

  “So we keep on going with our work here—whether Cardassia wants it or not?”

  “Well, even Tela knew things had to change…. We spoke about it…was it really only this morning? And she said then that she knew that change had to happen. Even though there’s so little left, and even though she regretted it, she knew that there’s just no going back for Cardassia.”

  He stroked the hair upon her brow, and sighed.

  “You, don’t believe me?” She smiled to herself. “You know, Miles, you should listen more to Garak!”

  “Now, there’s something I never thought anyone would say to me!”

  “I mean it! The wiser people on Cardassia—”

  “Well, I suppose he counts,” Miles muttered.

  “The wiser ones,” she carried on, ignoring him, “the ones who really love it—they know that if Cardassia is going to survive, it has to change. And so they’re committed to that change, completely committed.”

  “And the unwise ones? The ones who—I suppose—only think they love it?”

  “Well,” Keiko said, “I’ve heard it said that actions speak louder than words.” She pushed the plant pot to the center of her desk, straightened herself up in the chair, and turned to look at him. “Which I guess means we’d better make sure we get results, hadn’t we?”

  23

  As a grubby dawn scours the morning sky and leaves it grimed, three gentlemen set out to take counsel with each other once again. They approach their meeting place like stars aligning in some maleficent conjunction or—to the more scientific mind—like lines converging at a point upon a graph. But whatever their nature, here they all are now, gathered together at the top of a hill, watching as Cardassia wakes to a new day.

  In the past—before recent events altered the landscape irrevocably—this was a favorite vantage point for those who wished to gain a sense of the lay of the city. The hill itself is not especially high, but it stands on the edge of the town and, by a fortunate confluence of geographical contours and architectural planning, it offers a particularly comprehensive view. A path leads up to the very top, where the hill is paved, and there has been placed a plaque, mounted upon two iron posts, showing in metal a representation of the skyline ahead. Each monument and building is clearly indicated, and a few notes about their history and purpose are offered for the edification of those who take the time to pass this way. The plaque is still there, even though the places it describes are not, and the eldest of the three men gathered stands with one hand resting upon it, looking out.

  The youngest man is eating from a carton of hot canka nuts he bought from an enterprising old woman selling them out of a box she had turned into a stall and set up on a street corner. At regular intervals, he draws out a nut, crunches it open on his back teeth, retrieves the kernel, and then drops it on the ground, where a small pile of debris is accumulating next to his right foot. Then he chews and swallows the nut, and sighs out his warmed breath, watching as it curls through the dank morning air. His colleague, the middle man, observes this ritual for a while with a curiosity that threatens to become exasperation. And then he shakes his head impatiently, and turns to their elder, standing motionless, and surveying the ghost of the view.

  “We ought to come to a decision about Korven,” he says to him, briskly.

  The senior turns his head almost imperceptibly. “A ‘decision’…?” He rolls the word around in his mouth, as if he does not much care for its taste.

  “What I mean is—can we depend upon him now? Is he still reliable—?”

  “We shall see.”

  “Is he—forgive me, I have to ask this question—is he now to be considered…surplus to requirements?”

  “We shall see.”

  A little chastened, the first speaker falls quiet, and turns his attention back to the progress being made with the nuts. The older man continues to watch the gray morning light spread out further across the soiled sky. The youngest of the three takes out his final canka nut, and pops it into his mouth. Then he carefully folds up the empty carton, and places it into a pocket. His colleague’s eye ridges shoot up, almost as far as his slick hairline.

  “Why,” he asks, inexplicably vexed by this action, and tapping the toe of his boot at the husks on the ground, “did you throw all those away, and not the carton?”

  The young man chews meditatively at his nut. “Well, it’s not quite the same, is it?” He pats his pocket. “This is plastic.” He nods down at the ground. “Those are organic.”

  The other sighs, and decides it is hardly worth his while pointing out that the shells have fallen onto stony ground. His colleague swallows his mouthful of nut, licks the salt from his lips, and then sniffs at the morning. There is a sharp smell that catches at the back of the throat, as if something had been burning, and was then put out.

  “What about Garak?” he says bluntly.

  His words steam up in the cold, and then they seem to hang there. They seem to acquire substance. And so does the doubt—and the fear that always arises from doubt. It becomes an almost tangible thing. The hand resting upon the edge of the plaque grasps it more tightly, the knuckles whiten, the sinews stiffen. Cardassia gasps for air within that clutch.

  “Who can say?” the older man murmurs, at last. “Who can say?” He releases his hand, and runs his finger—lovingly, reverently—along the lost metal skyline. Then he turns slowly to face his colleagues. “But you may leave that…decision…to me.”

  His voice is like nails being drawn slowly down stone. The youngest of the three stares back coldly for a moment or two, and then nods as if to accept the rebuke or, at least, the authority of his senior. The other merely shifts the nutshells about with his toe again, shivers, and sighs. The old man rubs his hands together a little to warm them. Then he places both hands in his pockets.

  “Gentlemen,” he says, and inclines his head. His friends are both blessed with enough experience to recognize a dismissal when they see one. And thus, with no further farewell, all three depart, heading off down the hill in different directions, each back upon his own trajectory, each the hero—and so the villain—of his own enigma tale.


  24

  It was late afternoon, and by some miracle it wasn’t yet raining. Garak stared down at the padd in his hand, and thumbed his way diligently through a report from the Cultural Restoration and Reconstruction Commission. Next week’s business.

  Something flickered, and Garak glanced up and out of the window. Outside, the streetlights were coming on—now, there was a rare sight. Garak blinked, feeling somehow oddly heartened by this approximation of normality, and then he went back to his industrious assessment of the contents of the padd. As he read on, he listened closely as Entor, sitting in his place at the far left-hand side of the panel, finished his statement to his colleagues on the Technological Appropriations Committee.

  “—and as a consequence of the events of the past twenty-four hours, and because of my desire to see a safe and a stable Cardassia, it is my conclusion that the project at Andak requires the committee’s unequivocal support—”

  Too many words to say something very simple, Entor. You lost. We won. Garak reached the end of the report, came to his own conclusions on cultural conservation, and then allowed himself to stretch out lazily in his chair. But I’m content to let you talk on awhile if it makes you feel better.

  “Thank you, Councillor,” Ghemor said—really rather graciously, Garak thought, all things considered—when Entor at last drew to a close. Then he called for a vote. Two members of the panel from the Directorate voted against Andak, but it was a formality. The project’s funding and so its future had been secured.

  With evident satisfaction at the outcome, the castellan brought the meeting to a close. As he stood up, he glanced over at Garak and inclined his head almost imperceptibly. Garak knew the signal.

  I’d like to talk to you.

  Give Ghemor his due, Garak reflected, as he made his way across the meeting room, he never tried to make it an order. He weaved past all the people offering each other their opinions, and through the door that led to Ghemor’s office. Ghemor was standing with one hand pressed against the window frame, the other holding a glass, watching the light withdraw from the city. He shifted his head slightly on hearing Garak’s approach, and then twisted the blinds shut. The room became closed, suffused with the false yellow of the strip lights. Ghemor turned, leaned back against the wall, and regarded Garak thoughtfully.