“I couldn’t sleep. I came looking for something to read.” Rugal looked round at them all. “Who’s defected?”
Four dissidents jumped, as if they’d been electrocuted. Meya looked sick; Alon livid. “Rugal,” Kotan said faintly, “you shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations—”
“That’s what my mother taught me. But everyone around here does it.”
Tekeny Ghemor laughed out loud. His nephew, however, was squaring off. “Natima Lang. Heard of her?”
Rugal raised his chin defiantly. “Yes, of course. She’s professor of ethics at the Institute of State Policy.”
“Alon,” Kotan said unhappily, “don’t say any more to him, please. I don’t want him put in danger...”
Tekeny said, gently, “Kotan, dear boy, if Rugal is going to go around listening at doors, he has to take responsibility for what he hears.” He winked at Rugal. “Besides, I think he’s well able to handle the consequences. Go on Alon, tell him what’s happened.”
Alon gave his uncle a fond smile that did more to impress Rugal than anything else he had done so far. “Two of her students have been producing a radical broadsheet and handing it out around the campus. The Order’s overlooked it so far, but the last one the students printed they handed out in the shuttle and down in Torr market. Preaching to the student body is one thing, but trying to stir up the service grades is something else. The Order put out warrants for their arrest yesterday afternoon, capital time. And Lang’s run. She’s taken the pair of them and fled Prime. They’ve sent a warship after her, and they’re serious about getting her back.” He stopped, and put his hand to his forehead. “Meya, for pity’s sake, do you have any kanar in this house? I’ve spent the day persuading my superiors not to send armed units onto the campus to drag off anything that speaks. My mouth’s drier than a Lorikal homestead.”
Meya went over to the comm and woke the staff. At her direction, the five of them trooped into the library, gathering in armchairs around a low table. With the dim lights and the basement walls, it had a faintly bunkerish feel. After a few metrics, a disheveled-looking servant brought kanar and cold feyt with flatbread, which Alon attacked like a famine victim. When the servant had gone, Tekeny said in a troubled voice, “Do you think this could trigger another round of crackdowns, Alon?”
“No idea. They won’t march into the campus, not now, but there’ll certainly be a purge of the teaching staff. I don’t expect most departments to reopen till after the shortest day. As for Lang herself, it depends on whether they catch up with her. If they do, she’s dead. If they don’t...” He shrugged.
“They’ll want to punish somebody for this,” Kotan said. They all looked at each other anxiously. Alon patted his friend’s shoulder.
“Don’t despair yet! I’ve been spinning it that she was a maverick and out of control. If we keep our heads down and don’t do anything stupid, this one too should pass.”
Rugal didn’t think that Kotan looked much comforted. But Tekeny had the final word. “I know we all feel angry with Natima tonight, for endangering us this way. But I cannot find it in my heart to blame her. These two young people, her students—she could have sacrificed them to secure her position, to secure our position. But what would our movement be then? If we killed our young to keep ourselves safe?” Kotan reached out to take Rugal’s hand; Tekeny smiled. “We would be no better than that which we seek to replace.”
The party broke up early the following morning. Rugal said good-bye to Leirt, and he and Kotan began the long journey back to the city. After Kotan had finished his usual ritual sweep for listening devices, he said, “What did you think of Alon Ghemor?”
Rugal gave him a curious look. “Why are you interested in my opinion?”
“Why? Because I think you’re a good judge of character. Because you don’t have any reason to lie to me—other than cruelty, and every day I watch you monitor yourself for that. But chiefly because I haven’t yet noticed you holding back when you had something to say that was both unpalatable and true.”
Rugal felt faintly embarrassed. But there was definitely a smile on Kotan’s lips. “I don’t know... I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I mean, I know that was a bunch of politicians”—he returned the half smile, which Kotan graciously acknowledged with a tip of the head—“but he did seem unusually... um, smooth.”
“Did you pick up what his official role is?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure. He seemed to be talking as if he knew what was going on in...” Rugal lowered his voice to a whisper. “Well, in the Order.”
“Well done. Broadly speaking, he’s the point of liaison between the Detapa Council and the Obsidian Order. Crueler people than I call him the Order’s messenger boy. They also seriously doubt his loyalty to us.”
“So who is he loyal to, Kotan—the Council or the Order?”
“Sometimes I worry that Alon himself is no longer sure. It can’t be easy, shifting between two such distinct groups, one powerful but paranoid, the other open but toothless. He seems to keep the relevant egos well stroked, and he does manage to run a duplicate set of expenses, for which one can only feel admiration. But if it came to the crunch... ?” Kotan frowned. “Alon has the heart of a reformer and the head of a pragmatist. He longs to see his uncle leading a truly powerful Detapa Council, and he gets impatient at the delay. But if the Council fell tomorrow, I have no doubt that Alon Ghemor would be transformed into the Order’s most loyal operative. And I’m terrified of what that would do to him. He is my very good friend, and I worry how he struggles to balance his beliefs and the demands of his job. I hope one day he strikes that balance, and becomes the better man that I know he is.” He gave Rugal a dry smile. “I hope for that in much the same way that I hope for a new Cardassia.”
“You never know,” Rugal said. “The Obsidian Order might fall first.”
“Cardassia without the Order?” Kotan looked positively alarmed by the idea, never mind the risks inherent in saying it out loud. “One hardly dares imagine. Unlikely, I’d say, but either way, I guarantee you—Alon Ghemor is one of Cardassia’s great survivors. He’ll rise to the top one day. Wait and see.”
As the skimmer drew into Coranum, Rugal realized that in his pocket he still had Natima Lang’s little green book. He must have put it there after finishing it, and then forgotten about it in the aftermath of the news of her defection. In his bedroom, he looked around for somewhere to hide it, eventually settling on the picture of Arys that stood upon his bedside table. As he forced off the frame, he thought about how he had wanted to study with Lang. Perhaps it was better that he couldn’t. He had been glad to discover more that was good about Cardassia—Leirt, the hunt, Tekeny Ghemor, Natima Lang—but he didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to go home. Carefully, he replaced the frame and examined his handiwork. Not a bad job. He put the picture back on the table and then, on an impulse, kissed his tip of his finger and touched it against his mother’s face.
It was fortunate he had brought the book back with him. Back at the house in Perok, Meya and Gerat Rejal had already purged their library of Lang’s collected works. Rugal would never see another book by her on Cardassia Prime.
• • •
Natima Lang escaped via Deep Space 9. Since neither the Central Command nor the Obsidian Order could quite pin the blame on the other, the civilian administration was the natural target for their ire. Department budgets were cut, policy papers were sent back repeatedly for review, surveillance and identity checks on members of the Assembly were more and more obtrusive. Kotan became despondent. “Trying times,” he said repeatedly. “These are trying times.” He spent many hours locked away in his study and did not invite Rugal to join him.
Rugal understood that Kotan had his safety in mind, but he was sorry about this new distance when they had only recently found some common ground. At least it meant he had more time available to spend with Penelya, although both were very conscious of being monitored. Their conversa
tions became almost superficial as a result, and she would not let him hold her hand. A strange way to live, Rugal thought, assuming that a single unwise word might lead to arrest, always editing your thoughts before vocalizing them, trying to guess if your friend was daring to communicate something and what it might be. It was lonely and artificial, and yet most Cardassians lived their whole lives like this.
It was not a happy period. He fell further behind at the academy, and his tutors gave up. He read and reread Lang’s little book. Looking for more of her writing, he went to the Central Archives, but there was nothing on the open shelves, and he doubted it was a good idea to request anything by her. So he kept rereading all that he had. Soon he knew it intimately, and Corac’s book through Lang.
Some months after Lang’s defection, Proka Migdal got in touch. It was almost a year since they had last spoken. Rugal was amazed that Kotan allowed the communication to take place, but he didn’t offer to pass up the opportunity. “You can’t talk for long,” Kotan said as he led Rugal into his study. “And please be careful what you say.”
Rugal nodded his understanding. The picture was bad, but he smiled at the sight of his father on the view-screen. “Dad! How are you? How’s Mother?” The sound was bad too; he could hear his own voice echoing at the other end. “Dad?”
Was it static, or did Migdal look old? “Make sure you thank Minister Pa’Dar for putting this message through, won’t you?”
“Of course I will! Are you all right? Where’s Mother?”
Migdal had already started speaking over him, so it took Rugal a moment or two to catch up and work out that he was being told that Etra was dead. “It wasn’t painful,” Migdal was saying. “She just... went.” He looked dazed.
Rugal had known in an abstract way that parents did not live forever. He knew too that Etra and Migdal were elderly and had lived a large part of their lives in poverty. None of this could stop him feeling as if his heart had been torn from him. More than ever, he longed to be back home. What was Migdal going to do without Etra? He would be lost without her.
“I’m still trying to get you back,” Migdal said. “Got a meeting with someone after the election—they’re all busy picking a new kai.”
“When was it, Dad?”
“Four and a half weeks now. I couldn’t find you!”
The tears nearly came at that, but Rugal didn’t want Migdal to see him that way, not if the channel was going to disappear at any moment and leave him with that image for Prophets only knew how long. “Once the election’s out of the way,” Migdal said, “I’ll go and see this woman—she’s an aide to one of the Ministers; Etra got her name and fixed it all up—maybe she can help... Are you all right? Are they treating you all right?”
I’m scared and I’m lonely and they want us dead. “They’re treating me really well. I went hunting a few months ago, you would have loved it!”
“That sounds great! It’s like you’re on one long holiday! You keep on enjoying yourself, now, don’t worry about me—”
Gently, Kotan touched him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to end this now.”
“Dad, I’ve got to go! Go and see that aide soon as you can!”
“I will, I promise, I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad!”
The screen went black. Rugal stayed in the chair, wrapping his arms around himself.
“Rugal,” Kotan said, “I’m so sorry—”
“I should be there. He looks so old. He can’t possibly manage by himself, and I’m stuck here.” Rugal slammed his hand down hard on the desk. He turned to face Kotan. “I’ve got to go back—you could arrange for that if you wanted to. I know you could, you’re a powerful man—”
“Rugal.” Kotan stretched out his arms, hands open. “What do you think I could do? I can’t leave the city right now, never mind Prime, and certainly not to go to Bajor!”
“We could go to Deep Space 9. You came to Deep Space 9 last time!”
“Before Natima Lang decided to make us all so conspicuous.” Kotan shook his head. “It’s out of the question. We’d be arrested before we got out of the city—before we even got out of Coranum, most likely.”
“I have to speak to him again—”
“I’m doing my best to make sure that you can. But you saw how difficult that was—it took weeks to arrange even those few minutes.”
“But he’ll be lost without her!”
Kotan put his hand upon his son’s shoulder. “I understand. Truly.”
And Rugal knew that he did understand—he had lost his wife too. Rugal’s other mother. A young laughing woman in a painting who was only the ghost of a memory to him; nothing like Etra, who had loved him and cared for him, and who had been there.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” Kotan said. “I’ll do my best to make sure you can speak to him soon. I give you my word.”
It had to be enough, Rugal knew that. But his mother was dead. He went and found Penelya, who understood. And he trusted to Kotan to make good.
Nine days later, Legate Tekeny Ghemor fled the Cardassian Union.
Kotan was brought back from the science ministry early that day, flanked by two gils who remained stationed outside the front door. Alon Ghemor—speaking entirely in the voice of the Order at the moment—had advised him that a short absence from the political heart of Prime would stand him in good stead.
The first thing Kotan did once he was home was dismiss the two maids and the gardener—for their own safety. Then he explained the state of affairs to his mother and son. It was not house arrest as such, Kotan told them, but a voluntary self-exception from political life. No, he did not know how for how long. Yes, Tekeny’s departure was a blow, but one had to remain positive. Absolutely, he was sure that soon he would be able to return to political life. No, he didn’t know when exactly.
Kotan told Rugal he would have to keep him away from the academy. It was a courtesy to the other families whose sons were studying there. They would now be anxious to put distance between their children and his, and they would remember his tact and reward it, should his political star ever rise again. Kotan wasn’t surprised that his son didn’t seem to care. Rugal’s attainment scores had plunged in the past few months. It was understandable; there was no purpose in the academy for him now. The Obsidian Order had carried out a thorough review of the political institute, and the ethics department, which Lang had headed, had been subject to a thorough regularization of ideas. Whatever Rugal might once have learned there, it had all been rooted out.
A few days after Ghemor’s flight, Rugal came to see Kotan in his study. Kotan had been standing, staring out the window; he wasn’t used to having so much time on his hands. “I’m sorry about all this compulsory holiday, Rugal. It must be tedious.” Kotan was worried, too, that his son had nothing to distract him from thinking about the death of his Bajoran mother.
Rugal shrugged. “I’ve found things to do.”
“You don’t have to stay inside. Go and see Penelya.”
“I’m worried it might put her in bad standing with her uncle.”
“Yes, of course, she can hardly afford that in her position, can she? That’s very considerate of you. Well, what can I do for you?”
Rugal took an urgent step toward him. “It’s my father. You said you’d make sure I could speak to him—”
Kotan shook his head. “It’s out of the question.”
“I know things have changed since we talked about it, but I’m worried about him—”
“Rugal—”
“They were married for nearly fifty years! He’s never been without her before—”
“Rugal.” Kotan spoke so severely that it stopped the boy in full flight. Perhaps he should have tried this sooner. Perhaps he should have forced him to settle down. Would it have worked? “It isn’t going to happen. All my communications are being monitored. Any attempt to speak to Bajor would lead to my arrest and, in all likelihood, my execution. Your
own record would be indelibly marked. I doubt you’d be able to enter any higher institute as a result.”
“I don’t care about that! I’m not staying! How often do I have to say it?”
Kotan arched one eye ridge. “I note with some disappointment that the possibility of my death does not move you to reconsider. Since nobody else will look out for me, I’ll do it myself. I will not risk arrest in order to let you contact Bajor. Consider me selfish if you want.”
“But you promised!”
“And I’m going to have to break that promise. With deep regret.”
All the grief of the last few weeks burst through, like a storm after drought. It was dreadful to watch, Kotan thought, and even worse to be the cause. “You should never have brought me back here!” Rugal cried. “You say you did it because you love me, and yet this is what you’ve brought me back to? If they want you dead, they’ll want me dead—I’m your son! Why did you bring me back? I was safe on Bajor. I was happy. I was loved there too.”
There was a silence. “Did you know,” Kotan said in a wholly different voice, “that that’s the first time you’ve called yourself my son?”
“I wish I wasn’t,” Rugal said bitterly. “It’s brought me nothing but misery. If I could rip everything Cardassian out of me, I’d do it. I’d do what Tekeny Ghemor’s daughter did. I’d change my face and wipe my mind and go back to Bajor and never come back.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Kotan said. He could still hear himself speaking in that strange tone of voice, distant and wondering. “Your being my son has brought me nothing but joy. Even now, when you’re standing there hating me, all I can think is: I’m glad he’s here to hate me, because it means he’s still alive. It means he didn’t die.” He smiled. “Oh, I’m sure that if I tried I could find a way to communicate with Bajor for you. But I won’t do it, because I want you to stay alive. I’m sorry if that makes you hate me even more. But I’m glad you’re here to love and hate as you choose.”
Star Trek: DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice Page 8