by John Peel
“I’ll speak with Garak in the morning about this matter,” he said. “I don’t know if he’ll insist on pressing charges or not. Meanwhile, one of my men is repairing the broken lock.” He glared down at Jake. “I don’t know whether I owe you my thanks or a good paddling.”
“I know,” his father said in his frostiest voice. “A little of both, probably.”
“Hey, we saved the shop,” Nog said, wringing his hands. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Yes,” Commander Sisko agreed. “That’s the only thing in your favor at the moment.” He looked at Odo.
“I’ll take these two now,” he said. “I’ll leave Nog with his father. And then Jake and I are going to have a little chat….”
Jake swallowed hard. He knew he wasn’t going to enjoy this conversation….
CHAPTER 7
The following morning when Jake had finished his shower and was getting dressed, he walked warily into the small kitchen of the quarters he and his father shared. Commander Sisko was taking a last sip of coffee before heading off to begin his workday. Jake winced; he’d been delaying, hoping to avoid seeing his father. He was afraid that he’d get another talking to, as he had the previous evening.
His father put down his cup as he headed for the door. “I’m not going to lecture you again, Jake,” he said. “I know you did what you felt was best. But please try to think in future, and if you have any problems—any problems at all—you should know you can come to me to ask for advice. End of subject—okay?”
“Yeah,” agreed Jake, relieved. “I guess I shouldn’t have been so secretive and all.”
“I said end of subject,” his father replied, smiling slightly. “And that includes blaming yourself. Enjoy your day at school.” He winked then left the apartment.
Glad that things were back to normal with his father, Jake replicated himself some juice and cereal. He really liked and admired his father, and it had been rough being told off. “Why didn’t you just call me or Odo when you saw Riv go into Garak’s shop?” his father had demanded. Jake had been forced to admit that he simply hadn’t thought of it. He’d been completely intent on watching the Bajoran boy—and had almost been blown up because of it.
As he was swallowing some juice, the flashing Message light on the wall computer caught his eye. Since his father had left, it couldn’t be for him. “Computer,” he called out, “what’s the message?”
“It is from Ashley Fontana,” the computer replied. “She asks that you meet her an hour early at school this morning.”
An hour early? That was in just a few minutes! He gulped down the rest of his cereal and then washed it down with the last of the juice. After placing the used dishware in the recycler, he grabbed his computer pad and hurried out.
As he approached the classroom, Jake saw that Ashley, T’Ara, and Nog were waiting for him.
“You’re late,” she told him. “We haven’t got much time. Here, hold this.” She thrust out a small flashlight, which Jake took automatically.
“Time for what?” he asked, puzzled.
“We have discovered the identity of the person who sabotaged the replicator,” T’Ara announced.
“So?” asked Nog. “Who is it?”
Ashley gave a grin as she tapped in the code to open the classroom door. “Nobody we know.” As the door opened, she picked up an expandable ladder. “And you’ll never guess where this person is hiding.”
Jake frowned slightly. Ashley had a ladder and had given him a flashlight. Up, then, and dark… “Inside the ceiling?” he guessed.
Ashley wrinkled her nose. “You did guess. Yeah, in the ceiling. Neat, eh?”
“So,” Nog repeated impatiently, “who is it?”
“You’ll see.” Ashley grinned secretively at T’Ara. The Vulcan girl almost smiled back but caught herself just in time. Setting the ladder up close to one wall, Ashley tapped the button that activated it. Automatically it expanded upward until it was just under the level of the roof. Gripping the closest rung, Ashley turned to Jake. “I’ll go up first, then you. Nog next, and T’Ara last.” To Jake, she added: “Turn on the light now, but keep it at a low setting, okay?”
“I guess,” he agreed. “You’re in charge.”
“I know.” She grinned. “Okay, be very quiet.” She climbed up the ladder and stopped just below the ceiling. Reaching up, she pushed at the tile. It moved up an inch or so, then she slid it to the side. There was a gap in the ceiling of about a foot and a half square. She looked down, pressing her finger to her lips, then clambered silently into the space. Jake followed her up the ladder. Poking his head into the gap, he saw Ashley waiting for him. She wiggled her fingers, and he handed over the flashlight. Then Nog tapped his ankles impatiently, so he climbed up beside Ashley.
There was a second ceiling about five feet above the first. Pipes and tubing ran all through the dark space here. There was light from the opening, and the light that Ashley held, but no more. Jake couldn’t stand upright, and he felt uncomfortable crouched over. The piping that ran across the metal ceiling wasn’t smooth, so he had to duck down to avoid hitting his head.
Nog slipped through the gap to join them, and a moment later Jake saw T’Ara arrive. Ashley nodded, and then gestured ahead with the dull beam of the flashlight she held. Then she started out, the rest of them falling in close behind her.
It was a weird walk. The pipes and tubes were all around, glimmering slightly in the faint light Ashley held. The floor beneath Jake’s feet was metal but dull and unpolished. This was obviously some sort of old access passage to the inner workings of the station. Since it was cramped and unlit, it couldn’t be one anyone used much.
They had walked twenty or thirty feet in silence when Ashley held up a hand and shone the light on it, so that they could all see she was stopping. Jake stood still and peered over her shoulder. Nog and T’Ara crowded in behind them.
They had reached a short side passage. Ashley nodded toward it, and Jake saw that there was a bundle on the floor here, nestled between the piping. Set on top of tubes and pipes were several dishes and spoons, a computer pad, and several other small items. There were pieces of what looked like girl’s clothing, in a very long, thin style. Jake realized suddenly that they had to be the items Garak had reported stolen.
Ashley shone the beam of her flashlight on the bundle on the floor. Jake saw that it wasn’t simply discarded clothing—it was a sleeping pad, and curled up on it was a dark figure. As the light flickered across the sleeping person, the eyes opened, and one arm went up to cover them.
“It’s okay,” Ashley said quickly. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”
Jake whistled with surprise as the figure in the bed suddenly jumped up and seemed to unwind. It was a girl—tall, slender, with long dark hair that hung down her back. But the most obvious thing of all was the gray reptilian skin. “She’s a Cardassian,” he said, amazed.
Ashley gave him a grin. “I told you it wasn’t anyone we knew.” To the Cardassian she said: “Can you understand us?”
The girl lowered her hand as her eyes adjusted to the light. “Yes,” she said. Jake could hear the fear in her voice. “What do you want? What are you going to do to me?” She was trying to be brave, but he realized she was hardly any older than Ashley.
“We won’t hurt you,” Jake told her. “I promise.”
“We just want to talk,” Ashley explained. She shook her head in amazement. “How long have you been here?”
The Cardassian girl shrugged, and then scratched sleepily at her neck. “Nine days.”
“You hid out when that Cardassian freighter was here!” Nog exclaimed.
The girl nodded. “Yes.”
“But why?” asked T’Ara, puzzled.
Before the girl could reply, Jake broke in. “Look, I don’t know about you lot, but I’m getting a crick in my neck standing here like this. Can we either sit down or go down into the classroom?”
The Cardassian girl was even tall
er than he was, and she was almost bent double. “It’s okay with me,” she agreed. She grabbed the tunic next to her bed and slipped it on over the T-shirt she wore. “It would be nice to straighten up.”
“Back we go,” said Nog with a sigh. “I hate all this walking.”
“Stop grumbling,” T’Ara told him. “It’s good for you.” She led the way this time, back down the passageway to the ladder. She scuttled down it quickly, and the others followed her.
In the well-lit classroom Jake could see the Cardassian girl properly for the first time. Like that of the others of her race, her skin was grayish, and there was a bony ridge on her forehead. Her eyes were a pale yellow color. There was another bony ridge down either side of her long neck. Her hands were long and her fingers thin. She was clenching and unclenching them nervously. It was obvious that though she was trying to act brave, she was quite scared.
“My name’s Jake,” he told her. “This is Ashley and T’Ara. That’s Nog. What’s your name?”
“Kam,” she replied. “Kam Gavron. I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here, right?”
“Actually,” Ashley admitted, “there’s one question I’ve got to know the answer to. Why did you keep reprogramming the food replicator to make stew and cheesecake?”
Kam looked down at the floor. “Well, it’s not what I really wanted,” she said. “I was trying to get it to make my favorite food—we call it k’aatch—but the replicators won’t make Cardassian food anymore.”
Ashley nodded. “I know. My mom helped Chief O’Brien to reprogram them all. Nobody here likes Cardassian food. It’s kind of disgusting sometimes.”
“Well,” Kam continued, “stew and cheesecake is sort of like k’aatch, if you don’t look at it. It’s the only thing I could eat here. I’ve been living on it.”
“For nine days?” asked Nog, astonished. “You must be sick of it. I’m sick just looking at it.”
“It is getting kind of monotonous,” admitted Kam. “But it’s that or nothing.”
“I think I’d prefer to starve,” muttered Nog.
“Okay,” said Jake, “now we’ve got that sorted out, maybe you’ll tell us just what you’re doing here, Kam. Why did you stay behind, and what were you doing in the ceiling?”
“It’s kind of complicated,” Kam answered. “But if you were Cardassian—or even Bajoran—you’d have recognized my name.”
“We would?” asked T’Ara, puzzled. “Why?”
Kam sighed. “My father is Gul Gavron.” She looked at them and frowned. “Don’t you know who he is?”
“Not really,” admitted Ashley. “We don’t know that much about your people.”
“I guess not.” Kam shook her head. “I’m so used to everyone knowing who he is. He’s the hero of Mintos Alpha—Gul of the Third Fleet.”
“Gul?” echoed Jake. “You mean he’s one of the top people in the Cardassian space fleet?”
“Yes,” Kam said with a little pride in her voice. “And if he ever finds out what I’ve done, he’ll probably kill me.”
CHAPTER 8
Jake stared at the skinny Cardassian girl. “Tell us all about it,” he suggested.
Nodding, Kam sat down at one of the desks. The others took up seats about her. After biting her lower lip for a few seconds while she got her thoughts in order, Kam finally started. “You probably don’t know what it’s like on Cardassia,” she said. Jake could hear the pain in her voice. “The military run our world, and almost all of the people have to work for them. Cardassia isn’t a very rich world, so we rely on our colony planets for almost everything, including food. If the military is winning their battles, we have plenty of everything. If they aren’t, we have shortages of all kinds—especially food.” She sighed. “There have been lots of days when I’ve had next to nothing to eat. After that, even stew and cheesecake every day tastes great.”
“It must be horrible there,” Ashley said. “Why do you stand it? Why doesn’t anyone stop the military?”
“Are you kidding?” asked Kam. “They have all the weapons, all the ships—everything. If you even say a word against them, you can get beaten up or even killed. Even if you’re one of the family members of the leaders. We have to do what we’re told. And the military controls the schools, too. Every lesson we get is approved by the War Council. We’re told that the Federation is a war-loving group of planets out to kill all Cardassians and steal our worlds.”
“That’s not true!” T’Ara said, forgetting she wasn’t supposed to get angry. “The Federation wants peace and every race to help each other.”
“Yes, but Cardassians aren’t told that,” Kam explained. “If they were, then maybe they wouldn’t want to keep the army in power. So we’re all told what monsters everybody here is, and how you kill and torture Cardassians for fun. Most people believe it and are terrified of you. They think that the space navy is the only thing that is saving them from being killed. That’s another reason why everyone puts up with the military.
“Well, like I said, my father is one of the highest people in the space navy. He’s Gul of the Third Fleet and really important. So we did get a bit better treatment at home than most people would. And we were always told what a hero he was and everything. But I wasn’t always sure about that, because he had a real bad temper sometimes. If anybody annoyed him, he’d just hit them and keep on hitting them until he was too tired to do it anymore. He used to hit my mother and my older brother. Sometimes he hit me, too, but mostly he wasn’t so bad with me. I don’t really know why, but he seemed to think I was more like him than my brother was.
“He was always telling me how wonderful all the battles he fought were, and how we were beating the Federation and everything. But he never really sounded like he meant it, you know? Like he was trying to believe it but knew better. I couldn’t help thinking that if he was wrong about hitting us all, then maybe he was wrong about fighting the Federation. I always wondered if everybody here was as bad as he claimed.
“Anyway, on my last birthday, he brought me to the spacedocks and showed me some of the ships there. He was very proud of them and how fast they were. He told me how many other ships each of them had blown up and how powerful they were. I think he thought I’d be really impressed, but it just made me very sad that all they were meant to do was to kill other people.
“There were a couple of dirty-looking ships there. When I asked him about them, he told me that they were. freighters, mostly for the various colony worlds. Then he got called away because of some sort of problem, and he left me with one of his young officers, called Tak.” She gave a sad smile. “He’s a nice kind of person, and I always got along well with him. I hope he didn’t get in trouble because of me.”
Jake was startled: Kam sounded for once just like Riv, who hadn’t wanted to get anyone else in trouble because of what he’d done. Weird!
“Well,” Kam continued, “Tak showed me one of the freighters they were loading up. He let me watch them and told me it was going to be coming here to Deep Space Nine. That was really interesting for me. Back on Cardassia, everyone was told that the Bajorans were a bunch of cowards and traitors who had worked with the Federation to sell us out. And we were told that Deep Space Nine was stolen from us. But I never really believed those stories, because I’d heard my father talking with other soldiers. I overheard them say that they’d actually handed over Deep Space Nine themselves because they thought it was useless. And that the Bajorans had been innocent, and that we had invaded them.
“That made me kind of ashamed, because I’d always hated the Federation as a kid. I’d been terribly angry that you were all trying to invade and kill us. Then I heard my father saying that we had done that to Bajor. I began to wonder how many other lies I’d been told. The more I looked at the freighter, the more I wanted to be on it. I wanted to come here and see for myself what things were really like. I wanted to know if the people in the Federation were really monsters. I wanted to know the truth, just for once.”
Kam sounded very angry.
“So,” asked Ashley, “how did you get aboard?”
“Well,” Kam continued, “my father returned, and he was really mad about something. He called Tak to one side. Poor Tak had to stand there and get yelled at—and I’ll bet it was for something he hadn’t even done. I wasn’t being watched, so I screwed up all of my courage and I slipped away. I managed to get to one of the containers of supplies that were being loaded.” She gave a slight smile. “I’m kind of good at working computers. That’s how I could figure out how to fix the replicators. I snuck inside the container and then waited.
“I was horribly afraid that my father or Tak would realize I’d gone and figure out where I was. But somehow they didn’t. Instead, a little while later, the container was loaded on the freighter. Some time after that the ship took off. I waited till the ship was under way, and then I slipped out of the container and hid inside the ship. The freighter took about a day to get here. When it arrived, I got back into the container and just waited to be unloaded. I’ve been hiding ever since.”
After a moment’s silence Nog shook his head. “Wow! You must be really brave to do something like that!”
“Not really,” Kam told him, smiling a little. “I was terribly scared most of the time.”
“But you came here,” T’Ara said. “Where you’d always been told we were monsters and terrible people. That was very brave, even if you didn’t really believe we were all that dreadful.”
“But why did you hide inside the schoolroom ceiling?” asked Jake.
Kam looked a little sad. “Well, I didn’t dare let myself be seen at first. But I know how these kinds of space stations are made. My father had to oversee some of them being built, so I’d found some plans. I knew there were lots of places I could hide, but I also wanted to be able to find out what everybody here was really like. The first day or so I hid out near the docking ring. Then I spotted you and Nog, and I realized that there were people on the station who were my age. So I followed you back. I thought that the best way I could find out what you were like was to listen in on your classes. And I took one of the computers to study at night.”
