by Olivia Woods
Afternoon light warmed her eyelids as her head fell upon her pillow. She felt Ataan settle against her, their hearts and lungs slowly resuming their natural, separate rhythms.
When the breeze from her dormitory window caressed her skin, dissipating its heat and stimulating the nerves toward wakefulness, her eyes opened to night. The darkness was broken only by the glow of Letau, Cardassia’s innermost moon, throwing soft blue rays into her room. She no longer felt Ataan against her.
Shifting, Iliana saw him sitting up in her bed, his handsome face tinged orange from the glow of a padd in his hand. He looked at her. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” he whispered.
She shook her head slightly, not yet ready to raise it from the pillow. “What time is it?”
“Almost midnight. Are you hungry?”
In fact, she was famished, but her sudden distress pushed out any thought of food. “Midnight? Why’d you let me sleep? You have to leave in the morning!”
He shrugged. “Once I board the transport, my time is my own. I can sleep during the voyage. Now you’re rested, and we can both be awake for our remaining hours together.”
Remaining hours. It sounded like waiting to die. This past month with Ataan had seemed surreal, dreamlike. They’d spent every possible moment together, including her enrollment and relocation to Pra Menkar University. Ataan’s duties had been thankfully light during that time; he’d even been around to help her get settled into the dormitory…and subsequently shared a number of nights in her bed. Now on this, the eve of his departure for Bajor, it felt as if an essential part of her life was ending.
She pushed the unpleasant thought away, tried to focus on something else. Her eyes found the device in Ataan’s hand and she tried to lose herself in its pinpoint lights.
Ataan followed her gaze and, mistaking her interest in the padd for curiosity, explained, “Cultural briefing on Bajor. Gul Pirak insisted we brush up on the customs and recent history of the planet in preparation for our mission. He’s convinced we need to bond with the locals if we’re going to make any progress against the terrorists.”
Iliana nodded but said nothing in reply, hoping Ataan would take the hint and change the subject.
Instead, he continued, “He has high hopes about the assignment. He wants to show the Bajorans that we’d be much stronger working together than we are by remaining at odds.”
She remembered Pirak’s enthusiasm for the “more subtle approach” toward Bajor that Gul Dukat had espoused. Their apparent interest in, as he put it, “altering the message” Cardassia was sending Bajor had struck her as an encouraging sign. And while she remained skeptical, she hoped it would work, if only for Ataan’s sake.
“I was even thinking about learning to speak Bajoran,” he went on. “Translators are well and good, of course, but I think the Bajorans would respond well to Cardassians who took the time to learn their language. What do you think?”
A direct question. So much for her hope in a change of subject. “I think it’s a good idea,” Iliana said. “You should mention it to Pirak. Maybe he’ll make it a requirement for everyone under his command.”
Ataan laughed. “And have me end up a victim of friendly fire? No, thank you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see. Pirak wants to reach out to the Bajorans, but you don’t think his men share that goal.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t you?”
“All I meant was that having to learn a new language isn’t likely to be a popular directive, especially if it became common knowledge that I suggested it.”
“Even if it helps you to accomplish your commanding officer’s objective?”
“Look, it isn’t that simple. The troops-“
“The troops, ah yes,” Iliana interrupted. “You know, maybe that’s the problem. Sending soldiers to do the work of diplomats.”
Ataan frowned. “The job of diplomats is to negotiate,” he said emphatically. “You don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“I didn’t realize all Bajorans were terrorists.”
“Stop twisting what I say! Even if diplomacy was the answer, it isn’t an option until the planet is made secure by the military.”
Iliana bit back the flood of angry responses on her tongue and closed her eyes. “Can we just talk about something else? Please?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!”
“Iliana-“
“I just get so sick of hearing about the turmoil on Bajor!” She abruptly got up from the bed and recovered her discarded undergarments, muttering as she clothed herself. “Bad enough that the comnet is full of it; or that the military can’t even agree on what should be done about it, do we really need to be discussing it too? In my own bed?”
Ataan stared at her. “Iliana…Cardassians are dying there every day. You can’t expect-“
“Expect? What I’ve come to expect is everything I hear day after day after day: violence and threats of violence, skirmishes and terrorist attacks, political rhetoric and fear mongering…all over a world that obviously doesn’t want us there. And this is the world you’re going to.”
“Not a staunch supporter of our foreign policy, I take it.”
She glared at him. “Don’t mock me.”
A hurt look enveloped his face. “I would never do that,” he said. “I really am interested in what you think.”
She could tell that he meant it. He was searching her eyes-for what, she didn’t know, until she realized that when it came to his career, she seldom offered anything of substance in exchange for the trust and openness that always seemed to come so easily from him. For Iliana, it went against a lifetime of conditioning; a culture that prized conformity wasn’t one that encouraged the open expression of a dissenting view.
Now as she stared back at him, she considered all the self-doubt and private heartache she carried with her: the indoctrination she had struggled with privately for years; the first tentative attempts to defy her mother and father and to assert her own identity; the eventual realization that she truly rejected her upbringing and her parents’ blind devotion to the State; and most of all…the certainty she felt, in spite of the intense pride and profound love she had for her homeworld, that there was something terribly wrong with Cardassia.
“I think we’re making a lot of mistakes,” she said.
Ataan frowned. “With Bajor?”
“With many things. But yes, with Bajor in particular. Whatever our original motives were in going there, or the way we justify our continued presence, I think this annexation has confronted our people with issues we were unprepared to deal with, questions we haven’t found answers to, and it’s challenging the way we see ourselves.”
“What do you mean?” Ataan asked.
Iliana lowered her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself. She had never expressed her thoughts this way before, and it made her feel exposed, vulnerable. “I think the Bajorans frighten us,” she said. “Bajor’s refusal to accept Cardassia’s attempts to change it isn’t just a defiance of our power. It’s a repudiation of the changes we willingly made in ourselves when we let the military be responsible for our survival…when we gave up anything that reminded us of just how weak we’d become. Even after thirty years of conflict, the Bajorans hold steadfast to their spirituality, their rich ancient past, and their quaint way of life. They’re proof that the qualities we abandoned can be stronger than the ones we kept-that maybe we made the wrong choices for ourselves. And I think that idea is simply too intolerable for us to face.”
She looked up at him. “I love Cardassia, Ataan. I really do. I’m proud of our civilization. But when I think about everything we’ve given up to get where we are right now, I have to wonder, is Bajor really the more troubled world?”
“Was that a rhetorical question?” Ataan asked, keeping his tone light.
Iliana frowned. “No, it wasn’t.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, watching his face, waiting for
his response. Silence settled between them. She knew she was probably ruining everything they’d built together this past month, but maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing; it would make their separation easier. If nothing else, he can make up a polite excuse and call for an early beam-out. A clean break.
Ataan took a deep breath. Then he surprised her.
“I think you’re right,” he said at last, and gave her a moment to let the admission sink in. “I think maybe Bajor has driven us all a little mad. We’ve become obsessed with it for exactly the reasons you give, and that fixation is slowly killing us. Like a fatal addiction.” Attan’s eyes fell on the padd that was still in his hand. “I don’t think there’s any question that the annexation has catalyzed a deepening schism here at home. It’s as if those on all sides of the argument believe that how the Bajoran question is ultimately answered will define Cardassia, for better or worse, now and in the future. We’re up to our necks in a quagmire.” He looked up at her once more. “But what’s the alternative? To let Bajoran extremism win? That would hurt them as well as us. We can’t simply sit back and not take a stand against terrorism. However some of us may feel about Cardassia’s present direction, imagine how much worse we would be not to oppose evil when confronted by it, Iliana. We can’t hide from that responsibility…no matter how much we may wish we could.”
The room fell silent. Iliana had never likened Ataan to the doctrine-minded automatons that in her estimation made up most of the military-not really-so his sentiments shouldn’t have surprised her. Yet somehow she was completely unprepared for the surge of emotion she felt as Ataan expressed himself; the strength of his character and his personal ethics made her wonder for the first time about the good the military could do, if only there were more men like him in it. He made her hopeful about the future, something she couldn’t remember feeling since she was a child.
But he’s going to Bajor.
She harbored no ill will toward the Bajorans, a troubled people who obviously needed Cardassia’s help as much as Cardassia needed theirs. She simply wished the conflict there could be resolved soon and without further bloodshed.
And without Ataan.
“Iliana, what’s wrong?”
She gazed out the window at the small blue orb of Letau. “It’s been too short a month. I wish we had more time.”
He touched her bare shoulder, stroking it with the back of his fingers. “So do I. But you know I’ll send you a recording as often as I’m able, and I hope you’ll do likewise.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I will. But it’s not the same.”
“I know. But it may make our separation a little easier. And when my rotation is over, we’ll be together again.”
“Not if your tour is extended, or if you’re reassigned to a ship or some other forsaken rock far from Cardassia.”
“Wherever I am, I’ll always come home to you, Iliana. This I vow.”
Iliana turned and met his steady gaze again. “What are we really talking about? Marriage?”
“Too soon?” he asked sincerely.
She considered the question. “Before that night at the museum, I’d have dismissed such an idea as absurd. But the way we’ve reconnected so quickly and completely…I can no longer imagine a life in which you aren’t a part.”
Ataan’s mouth spread into a smile. “Nor I you.”
They touched palms, then drew closer, falling together against the bed, the beating of their hearts once again becoming one.
The day after Ataan departed Cardassia was the day Entek made his opening move.
Resolved to begin the process of getting used to Ataan’s absence, Iliana ventured out with her artpadd to the gardens on the outskirts of town, seeking inspiration. Pra Menkar was that rarest of Cardassian communities: a hill town, sprawling across a sunlit slope far above the cracked desert to the north. With the higher elevation came cooler temperatures and breezier air, conditions most Cardassians found unpleasant, but the inhabitants of Pra Menkar had no such sensitivities. They simply dressed warmer as necessary, and soaked up heat on indoor basking slabs when relaxing at home. Even the university students could take advantage of such luxuries: each dormitory had communal basking rooms in which to take refuge from the evening chill. For Iliana, getting acclimated to the cooler conditions was just part of the fun of life away from home.
But though the Cardassians of Pra Menkar tolerated its atypical clime only with effort, it was ideally suited for other forms of life: a variety of flora and even a few species of small fauna that wouldn’t last a day on the hot, dry plains actually flourished here. The Peripheral Gardens that ringed the community exploded during the growing season with the kind of life that existed in less than one tenth of a percent of the planet’s land area. Iliana had fallen in love with the gardens on her first visit, utterly taken with their strangeness, the orgy of smells, sights, and textures that had once been outside her experience. It validated her belief that a much wider world existed on Cardassia than the one she’d been raised in; one needed only the courage and the strength of will to look for it.
As she navigated the paths that wound through the colorful beds of exotic plants, she gradually became aware of the sound of children playing. She followed the noises around a bend until she saw two small girls and a boy chasing one another in the midst of a grassy field. The oldest couldn’t have been more than four, and their laughter as they played stirred something inside her that felt paradoxically sad and hopeful at the same time. Iliana recalled herself at that age, with Ataan, and she imagined someday seeing her own children-their children-in a place like this.
She found a sitting-stone under a shade tree that afforded her a good view of the toddlers, roughly equidistant between the elderly couple who were watching over them…and a serpentine stone bench on which sat a man she recognized.
Resting the artpadd on her folded legs, Iliana began her usual exercises of allowing her fingers to roam freely over the illustration surface, letting them find their way tracing abstract designs until she felt sufficiently in tune with her environment to translate what she saw into representations on the padd. The elders took notice of her early on, eyeing her with suspicion. But they came no nearer, and after a few moments their attention returned to their young charges. She suspected that on some level, the couple had initially perceived her interest in the children as some kind of threat, but that they quickly got over their natural protectiveness. Iliana was pleased with herself; sitting under the large tree with her legs folded beneath her had allowed her to appear as small and harmless as possible, and that preemptive strategy had put the couple sufficiently at their ease that they didn’t feel compelled to gather up the children and leave.
In the periphery of her vision, she took stock of the lone man on the bench. He was facing away from the children, his right profile turned toward Iliana. Wearing a neat gray casual suit, he fidgeted in a way that suggested he was easily distracted by his surroundings, sometimes drawn to the scurrying of a small lizard among the flower beds, or the rustling of leaves in the infrequent breeze. The performance was so convincing, she almost doubted what she knew to be true: that just as she was studying him out of the corner of her eye, so too was he studying her in precisely the same way.
Four unsatisfying sketches later, she decided she’d had enough. Tucking her artpadd under her arm, Iliana slowly and deliberately walked to the bench, sat down in the vacant nook of its S-curve, and started sketching again. At no time did she or the man look directly at each other.
“Is there something you want of me, Mister Entek?” she asked, her fingers re-creating the tree line in the distance before her.
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Entek answered without hesitation. “But let me first say how flattered I am that you recognized me.”
“Don’t be,” Iliana told him. “I simply have a good memory. But if you’re going to spy on someone, you should try harder to avoid being seen while doing so.”
Ent
ek smiled. “Thank you for the suggestion. But I feel I should tell you that today, here in these gardens, and that evening at the museum have not been the only times you’ve been under surveillance. In fact, it would be fair to say that I have been watching you nonstop since the reception.”
Iliana froze, just for a second, unsure whether or not she should believe him. “Why?”
“For a number of reasons, but primarily because I’ve been intrigued by your exceptional powers of observation.”
Iliana shrugged. “I notice things. It’s a useful skill for an artist.”
“And for an agent,” Entek said.
“Is that what all this is about? Recruiting me for the Obsidian Order?”
“You couldn’t guess that?”
In fact, she had. When at the reception her father had mentioned Enabran Tain, who was the Order’s head, he had made it abundantly clear that Entek was an operative for the Union’s intelligence arm. “I’m just a little disappointed it wasn’t something less obvious,” she told him.
“Ah,” said Entek. “You expect me to speak in riddles, project an air of mystery, say things that have multiple layers of meaning so that my listeners can trip over themselves attempting to untangle the truth from the lies. We have agents like that. They’re rather annoying.”
“So are you, Mister Entek,” Iliana said, already growing weary of the conversation. “And unfortunately for you, you’ve come a long way for nothing. So allow me to save you any further trouble on my account. The answer is no. Good day.” Iliana packed up her artpadd and started to walk away.
“You should reconsider,” Entek called to her. Against her better judgment, Iliana stopped and turned around, looking into his face for the first time, and he into hers. “I’ve gotten to know you quite intimately during the last month,” he claimed, “and I’m convinced you would be an extraordinary operative.”
“You don’t know me at all,” Iliana said.
Entek held her gaze. “Iliana Ghemor: only child of Legate Tekeny Ghemor of the Central Command and First Tier Inquisitor Kaleen Ghemor (nee Dakal) of the Central University. A child of privilege, exceedingly spoiled, and raised in the comfort and security that comes from being a daughter of the ruling class. Despite the love and respect you have for your father-not to mention a more recent premarital relationship-you have a distaste for the military, but no real understanding of its workings or its offworld campaigns, to say nothing of Cardassian foreign policy. You consider yourself an idealist, concerned primarily with art and music and abstract learning, but these pursuits are primarily to fill the void of real purpose in your life. They have, however, allowed you to get away with a certain youthful rebelliousness; making empty calls for social change over the dinner table and in the sleepchamber, where it is tolerated. But you seldom voice such opinions outside those contexts, where your ignorance of the issues would be too easily revealed, and where your pretense of being a radical would likely attract the wrong sort of attention. Essentially, you give the appearance of dissent without actually practicing it in your everyday life, lest doing so cost you the comfortable existence you’ve grown accustomed to.