A Stitch in Time

by Andrew J. Robinson

  “Hello, Elim.” The stranger turned and it was Enabran Tain!

  “Ten Lubak.” The Prefect motioned me to the chair, but I couldn’t move. The two men just looked at me. All my preparation for the evaluation flew out of my head, and I felt as exposed as I had my first time in the Wilderness.

  “Ten Lubak,” the Prefect repeated.

  “Yes, Prefect,” was all I could manage. What was Tain doing here?

  “Sit down,” he instructed. I obeyed. Tain passed an information chip to the Prefect, who consulted it. During the ensuing silence I stole a glance to Tain, who was wearing his avuncular smile. What do I call him, I wondered. Certainly not Uncle Enabran.

  “What do you think you’ve learned here?” the Prefect finally asked. It wasn’t so much his question as his attitude that threw me off balance. The question I had expected; his air of boredom, as if the day was one student too long, I hadn’t.

  “I…” He wasn’t even looking at me. Tain, however, continued to smile and wait patiently for my answer. Somehow his presence, disorienting as it was, encouraged me, and I found myself directing my answers to him.

  “I’ve learned that appearances deceive and that the purity of my thinking creates a sure path to the truth,” I replied.

  “So,” Tain began, “you believe all this to be a lie?” He gestured to the room.

  “It’s deceptive.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because our thinking is impure….” I still didn’t know how to address him.

  “Is that all? The purity of one’s thinking?” he pursued.

  “There are the hidden intentions of others.”

  “How are they hidden?”

  “By what they say they are. How they present themselves. But pure thinking is trained to penetrate these guiles and come into direct contact with the true intention.” My confidence was returning, and I was able to maintain a strong contact with Tain. Ordinarily it would be considered extremely disrespectful to look at an elder like this, but behind his genial demeanor was a serious challenge. It was like the game we had played when he’d tested the keenness of my observation on the street.

  “How is pure thinking able to penetrate the appearance?” Tain’s smile was now gone. I hesitated.

  “How, Elim?” The questions became sharper.

  “Initially by watching the direction of the eye movement when the interrogee answers, the frequency or absence of blinking; the intonation of the voice, the inflection—was it flat? Overstated? Were the answers glib, prepared? The breathing….”

  “Yes yes,” Tain pushed me beyond the basics. “What else?”

  “If the person can’t hold his space.”

  “Space? Explain.”

  “If the energy field around him loses its shape and dissipates, then he has no defense against my probe and I can penetrate to his essential core.” As I held Tain’s look, I realized that I was locked into his energy field. We were two Pit warriors engaged in a strategem.

  “Who am I, Elim?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Someone I must never let out of my awareness.” This was the first time I was not terrified by his steady and unblinking eyes, which revealed nothing but my own reflection. After a moment he nodded and broke eye contact.

  “And what do you think has been your most serious lapse of discipline, Ten Lubak?” the Prefect asked in his disinterested tone. Or was it rather an uninflected way of asking questions that would reveal nothing. I began to answer that there were certain classes where I had given in to the boredom and did nothing to motivate my interest.

  “And what about your regnar, Elim?”

  The breath flew out of me. I looked at Tain with naked amazement.

  “Mila. Is that his name?”

  In an instant, my carefully constructed mask for this meeting was ripped away, and I experienced a fear I had never felt before. I realized then that Tain knew more about me than I had ever imagined. The Prefect now looked at me for the first time.

  “Ah, I see,” Tain continued when I couldn’t. “You think that you’re the only one who can ‘disappear.’ A big mistake, Elim.” He watched as I started to breathe again.

  “Is there a lesson here, do you think?” he asked gently.

  “If you’ve mastered a tool or technique….” I began, but I needed more air, and my tongue was thick and dry. They both waited patiently while I swallowed and breathed. “… Then there are others who have done the same before you,” I managed to get out. Calyx first taught me this lesson.

  “That’s right, Elim,” he said as if he were addressing a child. “Whatever your mind conceives or imagines already exists in the world. It doesn’t make the thought or conception any less valuable; it just means that this technique you’ve discovered must be used carefully, and with the understanding that if you use it against other people, it can also be used against you.”

  With a clarity I’d never had, I heard what he was really saying to me. Charaban had deceived me by masking his true intentions, hiding them behind a friendship he’d never meant to extend beyond the Competition. I had taken it for granted that because he befriended me he had no hidden intentions. I felt a rush of shame. What a fool he had made of me. And then a disturbing thought attacked me: was Palandine doing the same? I knew what Charaban had wanted from me—but what did she want?

  “Then you know about One Charaban and One Ketay.” I looked at them both.

  “So you have learned this lesson. I’m impressed, Elim.” Tain turned to the Prefect. “I think this will suffice.” The Prefect nodded and turned the chip off.

  “You will be leaving Bamarren,” the Prefect said to me.

  I just stared at him. It was clear that this was the end of the review—and I had expected to receive my new designation.

  “Leaving?”

  “Today. The shuttle will meet you in front of the Central Gate before the Assembly,” the Prefect explained.

  “But… this is …” It was a stunning blow, but I refused to submit. “This is unfair, Prefect. Yes, I admit… I broke rules. But I have done good work… in the Pit … ask Calyx! In the Wilderness! Charaban’s victory was….”

  “He probably would have won, but nowhere near as impressively as he did with your contribution. We know all this, Elim, even with his negative recommendation,” Tain added with his half-smile. I wasn’t surprised by this last piece of information, but it sharpened the bitter taste in my mouth.

  “You’re being assigned to another school,” the Prefect informed me.

  “What kind of school?” I asked as my heart sank into the floor.

  “You’ll discover that when you get there,” the Prefect answered. “Today you will return home. You will tell your parents only that you are awaiting reassignment. In the meantime, you will work with your father until the orders come. I advise you to make your preparations.”

  I automatically stood up, but I couldn’t leave. There was so much that was unsaid, unresolved.

  “What is it, Garak?” the Prefect asked, using my name. Just like that… I was no longer a student.

  “If I had stayed….” I began.

  “But you didn’t, Elim,” Tain interrupted. “Pure thinking doesn’t include ‘what might have been if.’”

  I snapped to, inclined my head and started for the door.

  “Mila,” Tain’s voice stopped me. “A woman’s name for a male regnar?”

  I just stood there, looking at them both. Did the Prefect know my connection to Tain? Did he know that my parents lived in his house, and that my mother was his servant?

  “No matter.” He gave me a last smile, and I left the office. The waiting room was filled again with other nervous students who were studying me intently, trying to discern my fate. I drew myself up and made the choice to expand my presence. I looked them each in the eye. I am number One, no matter what might have been, and from now on I’m going to make my presence count.

  22

  My shed has become somewhat m
ore bearable, but the clutter and confinement of the interior space requires that I leave the door open. To keep myself busy when I’m not working with the med unit, Doctor, I am engaged in a project I must tell you about. It baffles me. Perhaps you can tell me if I’m losing my mind altogether.

  Tain’s house, as I mentioned, is rubble. One day I began moving some of the debris and arranging it into a pile. Since there was too much debris for just one pile I arranged another. And then another. Until after hours of work I had carefully assembled several piles of debris in varying shapes and forms. I continued to create these piles and arrange them for two, maybe three weeks, not knowing what I was trying to accomplish. But the work was satisfying, Doctor—it felt good. And each day, when it became too dark to work, I would survey my creations, and I never felt prouder of anything I had ever done in my life. I don’t know where the shapes came from, and I certainly couldn’t explain their significance; but somehow they held me in their power.

  After several weeks I asked Parmak what he thought this was all about. He’d stop by intermittently and check on my progress at various stages, but he always kept his own counsel. On this day, he moved through the piles (there were dozens by now) and studied them from all vantage points. A very careful man. Finally, after what seemed like an age, he stopped in front of the pile that was the largest and held the central, dominant position. He turned to me with the strangest expression on his face—and looked me directly in the eyes for the first time.

  “I think this is your own archeological dig, Elim. You are unearthing the artifacts of a previous civilization—a civilization that will never return—and arranging them into a memorial for that civilization and its dead. This is your own personal Tarlak Sector. You’re clearing the way for us to move on. Thank you, Elim. This is an honor for me.”

  Parmak then chanted a section of the Cardassian burial ritual. He mentioned the names of several friends and relatives, and as he chanted, the cumulative emotional power of his voice was almost unbearable. I, too, had a list of the dead that long, and whispered their names as he chanted. Parmak then took his right hand, ripped open a finger on a sharp piece of metal, and allowed the blood to drip on this central “monument.”

  “Thank you,” he repeated, and walked away, his finger still dripping blood.

  But what baffles me, Doctor, is that I attach no meaning to what I’m doing here. I’m just doing it because I need to. And to be truthful, I don’t see this as a memorial at all. On the contrary—if I could, I’d singlehandedly rebuild this city myself, piece by piece. I stood here watching Parmak’s blood dry on this pile of rubble, engulfed by a feeling of loss and utter mystification as to what these piles mean.

  Just assure me that I’m not going mad, Doctor.

  23

  Entry:

  I knew where Palandine was in the training area, and I waited behind a barrier for her class to come to an end. She was speaking with a classmate when I made my presence known. Her mate was somewhat shocked that a male student would behave in such a brazen manner, but Palandine gestured that she would deal with me and sent the mate on her way.

  “So what did you use me for?” I asked.

  “What do we ever use each other for?” she replied without hesitation.

  “Answering a question with a question is an old trick, Palandine.”

  “No trick. I needed a friend.”

  “And you don’t need a friend now” I hated the tone that was creeping into my voice.

  “It’s complicated, Elim.”

  I was afraid to ask why.

  “What did you use me for?” she asked.

  The question truly baffled me. I only wanted her love. Was that using her? I would gladly have given mine in return. I would give anything… and I still would.

  “I’m leaving Bamarren,” I said. “Today.”

  “Why?” It was her turn to be baffled.

  “They didn’t say. I was just told that I was being sent to another school.” As I said it, my heart began to sink again.

  “Then you’re not being sent home?” she asked, genuinely not understanding.

  “Only until I am reassigned.”

  “Reassigned?” She thought for a moment. “Elim, are you sure it’s a school where you’re going?”

  “That’s what the First Prefect told me.”

  “The First Prefect?” I began to sense her concern.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard of a student being asked to leave—it happens often. But never ‘reassigned.’ Who else was at your hearing?”

  Simultaneously, I realized that I should not be telling her any of this—and Charaban appeared. He stood behind Palandine. She saw my change of focus and turned. She shook her head.

  “Not now, Barkan,” she told him.

  “What better time? This is the opportunity, so we take it,” he explained to her. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I strongly felt the need to be prepared for anything. Especially when Charaban spoke of taking an opportunity.

  “Hello, Lubak. Is it still Ten or are you number One?” he inquired.

  “My name is Elim Garak,” I replied.

  “Yes, I know that,” he laughed. “But is it you or is it Eight Lubak that I have to keep my eye on now?” It was the appearance of warmth that made his charm so attractive. A part of me wanted to tell him everything, to challenge the duplicity of his negative evaluation, but the clarity I found in the Lower Prefect’s office was still with me. Looking at him, I was reminded how Palandine had taught me to smile when I asked questions.

  “You have to watch both of us, Barkan.”

  “Yes, One and Two. Of course. But who makes the final decisions? Whose thinking do I pit mine against?” he challenged. He assumed that he had some kind of advantage and he pressed it. I saw three openings for attack. He saw my stance and prudently covered the openings.

  “I think it’s you, Elim.” He countered with another stance.

  “He’s leaving Bamarren today,” Palandine told him. She was also telling him something else. Charaban maintained his stance and never took his eyes off me, but his expression changed.

  “Why?” If anything, he was even more surprised than Palandine. Even with his treachery, he hadn’t believed that my dismissal from Bamarren was a possibility. This told me that he had had little or nothing to do with my change of fortune. His entire attitude toward me changed. I was no longer an opponent to be engaged and probed for weakness, but a baffling specimen of some lower order. Assuming I had been rejected and sent home, he stepped out of the strategem.

  That’s his weakness, I thought, and said nothing to counter his assumption. After a long moment, when he understood that I was not going to be forthcoming with any details, he moved on.

  “So it’s Eight,” he said, dismissing me from his world.

  “I don’t think you understand, Barkan….” Palandine began to say.

  “It’s not necessary that he understand,” I dismissed him from my world. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a few moments alone with Palandine before I go.” This seemed to amuse him, and he looked at Palandine, who nodded back.

  “Certainly,” he said, with a smile that showed how gracious he could be. “Good-bye… Elim Garak. Perhaps we’ll meet someday in the Tarlak Sector.” I understood the kind of circumstances under which he imagined such a meeting would take place—Elim the maintenance worker setting up the dais for a triumphant hero of the Empire. But it was my fault; I had told him everything he wanted to know about my life. All you have to do is smile when you ask. I answered him with a smile of my own.

  “Perhaps you should tell him,” he said to Palandine. They held a look before he turned and left. I wanted to ask what, but I waited for her.

  “We’re to be enjoined after the Third Level Culmination,” she finally said.

  And it all became clear. Of course. Palandine and Barkan had been connected all along. How else could
his sudden appearances be explained? She was a vital part of the recruiting process.

  “I wanted to tell you. Especially as I got to know you and … like you. I’m sorry, Elim.”

  I was surprisingly calm. I felt nothing.

  “It was important that we win the Competition,” she said.

  “We,” I smiled.

  “Yes. We. Our lifelines are going to be enjoined, Elim; we’re partners, and our success can only be ensured by our working together.”

  “So he told you to recruit me for the Competition,” I said.

  “No. That was my idea. When I first met you I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That you were …” She hesitated, carefully maintaining a distance. “… Different.”

  “Well… I suppose I should be honored.” I was working very hard to maintain my own distance.

  “I wanted to tell you. But when I realized … I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said with a gentleness that rankled me.

  “I’m not hurt. Neither one of you can hurt me. I wish you a successful… partnership.” I didn’t want to stay any longer; my numbness was beginning to dissolve, and I couldn’t trust myself to control whatever was emerging. I made an awkward bow—a pathetic attempt to be proper—and started to leave.

  “Please, Elim.” She stopped me. “I meant it when I said I needed a friend. I could talk to you. I’ll always consider you my friend.”

  “And Barkan? Is he also my friend? Should I accept the way he treated me—used me—as friendship?” The numbness was gone, which only made the pain of losing her much worse.

  “Barkan is ambitious. I wanted you on the council, but he felt that it would only give you an advantage when you—inevitably—challenged him for the leadership. He could be your friend someday, Elim.” I laughed, too loudly, and she flared in response. “You’re so naive. You still don’t know what this is all about, do you?”