Rugal filled a glass and held it to her lips. She drank eagerly, as if the talking had drained her reserves. In the quiet, Rugal heard, from beyond the confines of the house, the wail of a siren. A prickle went along his spine. Were they conquered yet?
“I’ve told you about the drought,” Geleth said. “No need to dredge it up again. Mother died, and my brothers, and eventually Father gave up too, the coward. But I survived, and when it was over, I left Anaret. I walked all the way back to Coranum, and I came here, to this house. But it was closed; the family was gone. A servant next door told me that their fortunes had also declined, and Ghret had taken an administrative post in Culat. So I walked there. I found their house and I hammered on the door and shouted through the window until they let me in. I told them everything that happened to us—it’s not as if I didn’t give them fair warning!—and I said they should make amends. They were ashamed and took me in. By the end of the following year I had married their oldest son, Irvek. Give me the rest of that water.”
She drank some more and closed her eyes. Rugal waited patiently, unsure that he wanted to hear more, unable to suppress the need to know how her story would turn out. Would she die before finishing? Would the Union fall first? An alarm went off, closer this time. Geleth’s eyes shot open.
“Not long now,” she said. “Not long. So. Irvek Pa’Dar. Your grandfather—as far as the law is concerned. I must say, he was not a bad man, nor a bad husband. He did exactly what I told him. Which is how, after twelve years of marriage, our fortunes had improved sufficiently that we were able to return to Coranum and reopen this house. The following year, I gave birth to Kotan.”
She went quiet again. “Who was his father?” Rugal whispered. “It wasn’t Irvek, was it?”
“No, no, that was Tirim, Irvek’s secretary,” she said carelessly. “Nice young man, hard-working, rather shy. Liked flowers. And devoted to me, of course. Couldn’t believe his luck. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I had the Order arrest him for possessing dissident literature. He did hold dissident opinions—must be where Kotan got it—although he was never stupid enough to own that kind of material. I had to bribe the Order man to lay a data trail. Don’t worry,” she added, seeing his expression, “I didn’t spend the family fortune on it. The salaries were terrible, and there was always someone in need of a bribe. Yes, he was Kotan’s father, not Irvek.” Her eyes fell. “Nice young man, excellent manners. Kotan sounds like him, when he’s trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear.”
She closed her eyes, and she smiled, fondly, lost in memory. Rugal swallowed. These hideous flowers, making him feel queasy...
“Rugal?” Geleth quavered. “Rugal, are you still here?”
“Yes, yes, of course I’m here.”
She snaked out her hand and grasped his. “It won’t be long now.”
“Geleth, does Kotan know any of this?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! This is shri-tal. Nobody else knows.”
His mouth was dry and sour. This piece of information could ruin Kotan once and for all. Cardassians were so particular about blood relationships, as if they were the only connections that mattered in life.
“Why have you told me this?” Rugal said bitterly. “Why not wait—?”
“And take it with me? Because somebody else might know. You must always assume somebody has found out everything about you. One day they may use this information against your father. In which case, you are forewarned, and so you are forearmed. Not to mention,” she added slyly, “that perhaps one day you might need this information yourself...”
Rugal’s flesh crawled. She meant, as a weapon against Kotan. He wiped his free hand across his mouth.
“Family is everything, Rugal. The survival of the family, above all. Any one of us, at any moment, might be called upon to become a sacrifice on its account.” Her thumb caressed the edge of his hand. “Family,” she repeated. Her voice was slipping down to a whisper. “The Pa’Dars shouldn’t have forgotten whose daughter I was. My child, here, in this house; his child, here, after we’re both gone. No son of Pa’Dar. You say it all the time, Rugal—and it’s true, it’s true! Sometimes it frightened me, the way you said it. You were so sure! Sometimes I thought you had found me out!”
She kept on in this vein for some time, mumbling, muttering, her sentences slowly unraveling into fragments. Her hold on him did not weaken, and he let her hang on to him, the slender thread attaching her to this world. After a while, she fell silent, except for her thin slow breathing. If she had anything left to tell him, she would have to say it soon.
“Rugal!” she cried.
“I’m here.”
“I’m afraid!”
Rugal placed his palm against her face. “Don’t be,” he said. She opened her eyes, but was unable to focus, all her reservoir of strength and purpose spent. He loved and loathed her, all at once; there was no middle ground. He loved her courage and her indestructibility; he loathed all she had done and all she stood for. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, but she no longer seemed able to hear him. They remained like that for a short while—she in fear, he trying to comfort her—until, at last, she died. He leaned in to kiss her, the only time he ever had, more a breath than a touch, on the ridge between her eyes. “Good-bye, Geleth. Wherever you are now, I hope it’s peaceful.”
Gently, he released her hand and set it to rest upon the coverlet. He stood up, stretched, sighed. Kotan would be devastated. Leaving her, he went to the window and altered the shading slightly so that he could look outside.
Dawn was spreading out over the city, pink and tranquil. The colors startled him with their softness, but Rugal knew it would not last. Soon the sky would turn bright blue and the sunlight harsh, and the day would grow old and then fade into darkness. He wondered if the planet had been taken yet. Would he have heard if it had? Would Penelya have come in to tell him, or was this ritual too special to be disturbed by something as trivial as the end of the Union? Rugal peered through the window, past the summer-jaded garden, up at the sky. There was nothing hostile out there that he could see, nothing beyond the ordinary.
He turned away from the window and crossed the room, eyes averted from his grandmother’s corpse. Outside, in the corridor, he found Penelya. She had laid some cushions on the floor and was stretched out on them, fast asleep. The morning light, catching her hair, turned it from plain brown to rich gold. He knelt down beside her, brushed his thumb along her cheek, and then kissed her gently. Her lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes: amber, liquid, and vital. She sat up. “Has she gone?”
“Yes, she’s gone. Pen, she said—”
Quickly, she put her finger against her lips. “Don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone, not even Kotan. If she’d wanted anyone else to know what she had to say, she would have had them in there.”
“All right.” A shiver went through him at the thought of telling Kotan everything that Geleth had said. No, he would never breathe a word of it. What purpose would it serve, beyond hurting him? Once, not long ago, he would have been delighted with this knowledge, and used it as further evidence that he did not belong here. Now he understood that he did not have to prove that anymore. He knew that he was not, and never would be, Cardassian. That was sufficient. Now there was nothing left to do but keep on living. “Pen,” he said. “Come to Torr. Come and live with me. We’ll find the room. We could be together—”
Again, she touched her finger against his lips. “Ssh. I can’t. You know why.”
“I understand. But I’ll wait,” he promised. “I know I can change your mind. I know we should be together.”
She smiled and stood up, and they put their arms around each other. She kissed the ridge on his forehead. “Really,” she said, “we ought to find out whether or not we’re now vassals of the Klingon Empire.”
They held hands and went downstairs. “In many ways,” Rugal said, “it could be a vast improvement.”
They did not become the Empire’s servants
that day, nor the following day, nor any day after. Still some way short of Cardassia Prime, the Klingon fleet was halted. They got no farther into the heart of the Union, although the outlying systems were to suffer from their presence for some time yet. Nonetheless, less than a week after they had made their less than dignified escape, Kotan and the rest of the Detapa Council returned to Cardassia Prime from Deep Space 9.
When his official skimmer drew up outside his house, Kotan knew at once that his mother was gone. All the windows were darkened, and the steps and the front terrace were lined with rows of big crimson perek flowers, the offerings that had been coming to the house before he left, now suffering badly in the heat. Someone had clearly tutored his son on how the house should appear—probably the Khevet girl, Penelya. He must remember to thank her. Perhaps he could even extend a formal invitation to the house. It might bring Rugal back, for a little while at least.
His son was waiting for him inside, lurking in the hallway, hands shoved deep into his pockets, a habit presumably picked up to avoid having to press palms with parents and other undesirables. When Rugal saw him, he frowned and bit his lip. “You look dreadful.”
“Thank you, Rugal. You look as if you have everything under control.” He busied himself putting down his bag. “From the display outside, I assume she’s gone.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It... it was quiet, in the end.”
“Good.”
“She talked a little, not much.”
“Thank you, but don’t say any more. If there was anything she wanted me to know, she would have found a way to tell me.”
“I’m sorry,” Rugal said again. He had taken a couple of steps toward the door, as if waiting for the first opportunity to make a quick getaway.
“You did an excellent job on the front of the house. Geleth would have approved.”
“That was all Penelya’s doing. I wouldn’t have known where to start.”
“Please convey my thanks.”
“I will. She’ll be pleased with that. Thanks.”
Kotan began to walk slowly along the hall. “I really am very sorry,” Rugal said once again.
“So am I, Rugal. And I’m sorry too that you were also unable to be with your parents when they died. I understand better now.”
“I think,” Rugal said roughly, “that she was glad to go when she did. While you were still part of the government. It mattered to her, didn’t it? That you were successful in that way. I think in the end she was satisfied.”
“Thank you. You may well be right.” And perhaps she had been satisfied. She had died back in Coranum while her son was in power; she had avoided seeing either the ignominy of defeat at the hands of the Klingons, or else the inevitable downfall that was the ultimate reward of all political ambition. Geleth had played her pieces and, unlike her son and her grandson, unlike all Cardassia’s surviving generations, she would not have to live through the endgame.
Kotan had her cremated. He thought about placing her in the big mausoleum on the hill in Coranum alongside his father and grandfather, but somehow it did not seem right. Coranum had been her home as a child, and again after her marriage, but it was the years in Anaret that seemed to define her life. When autumn came, he arranged to travel out there. He asked his son to come with him out of habit rather than expectation, and to bring the girl. He was surprised when Rugal agreed. He suspected Penelya’s influence, and was grateful.
The journey was long and wearisome. Rugal was aloof as ever; the girl overpolite and anxious to please. An uneasy silence settled between them that looked set to last until they arrived. Kotan was weary from grief, and his arm ached from the inoculations they had all been given before coming out into this part of the world. There had been twenty-two cases of water fever in Anaret province since the summer. Nobody, particularly not the Councillor for Scientific Progression, believed it was under control. Nothing was under control. It was only a matter of time before one of these outbreaks became a serious epidemic. Meya Rejal was hanging on to power, but only with the acquiescence of the Central Command. The war with the Klingons was draining resources like the steady drip of blood from an open vein. They had squandered their opportunity, Kotan reflected dully; all that time they had waited for their chance, and this was how it turned out. A war they could not win; a population they could barely keep alive. How soon would it end? You would put down a hound in this much pain.
After nearly a day of travel, they passed beyond the brown irrigated fields of Tamsket and out into the red rock plains of Anaret. At first, the land appeared entirely uniform, and the sheer expanse of its single violent color threatened to overwhelm Kotan as much as his grief at Geleth’s death. But as his eyes adjusted to the world unfolding around him, he saw how the land was in fact more varied. He became able to distinguish between hues: the darker, browner rocks that hinted at a rare source of water, the bright red of total desert. Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he detected motion: a regnar, perhaps, flitting from cover to cover, or a honge, plunging down from the sky where it had been circling to make its kill. His was not the only species adapted to eke out a living in the midst of these unpromising rocks.
Beyond Odek, the district capital, the road became rougher and ill-maintained. The township of Metella, where Geleth had spent her youth, was about thirty metrics to the south. They reached it in the early evening: a haphazard but dogged collection of shacks gathered around the distribution depot, home to some fifteen hundred sullen souls hardened by want and neglect. Kotan watched his son look around with the frank terror of the city dweller confronted with the wilderness. “Prophets! Is this it?”
For a split second, all Kotan’s desire to placate Rugal dissipated, and he became his mother’s son. “Yes,” he said harshly. “This is where you come from, Rugal.”
“Geleth thought of herself as coming from Coranum.”
“She was wrong,” Kotan said. “This place made her, whether she liked it or not.” And this was where she would remain, Kotan thought, until the sun went supernova and Prime boiled away, or until his people blasted themselves into oblivion, whichever came first.
They spent a restless night in a tiny hotel without running water. Early the next morning, before sunrise, they went out to bury her ashes. Penelya had asked Kotan quietly whether she should attend; Kotan had said yes. It was an indication that Kotan considered Penelya family—not that his son would understand. And Kotan wanted somebody else there who could join in the chant for the dead. He didn’t want to have to say it by himself.
They walked south out of town, along a dusty track, for about ten metrics. Eventually they reached the place where, during the drought, the bodies of the dead had been burned, including, presumably, Geleth’s immediate family. Kotan put down upon the ground the blacksilver urn that contained Geleth’s ashes. Removing the lid, he began to chant the names of his fathers and mothers who had died before he had been born, back three times three generations. When he had finished this, he said the refrain. Penelya joined in, and her voice—high and female, different from his own baritone—comforted him. Rugal, of course, remained silent. He did not know the words.
“We are the sum of all that has gone before,
We are the source of all to come.”
Then, from a leather pouch slung over his shoulder, Kotan brought out the dried petals of the perek flowers, the symbol of the respect in which his family was held. These he dropped into the urn, and this time, he chanted the names of his beloved dead: Arys, his father, his grandfather. Once, he would have said Rugal’s name at this point. Again, Penelya joined in the refrain.
This time Kotan Pa’Dar chanted his mother’s name, nine times; as he said it, he held his hand over her ashes and the petals and, with a thin knife, an heirloom, he cut quickly across his palm. As the blood dripped down, he and the girl said the refrain for the last time. Rugal did not speak. When it was over, Kotan bent down and, with his bare hands, began to dig at the soil. He thought: Did Rugal not list
en to us say the refrain? It’s so short. Was he not able to pick it up? Could he not bring himself to join in, even now? Tears ran silently down Kotan’s face; he dug at the ground more viciously, less effectually. He heard the girl murmuring softly in distress. Then Rugal spoke. Rugal, his son, irretrievably lost. “Kotan. Stop.”
“We have to put her here,” Kotan explained. “We have to put her to rest.”
“I know. Wait. I’ll do it.”
Kotan did as he was told. Rugal walked away across the field, returning soon with a metal pole, a piece of abandoned fence. This he used to hammer at the ground. Kotan let him finish the task, burying the urn and covering it. He had no strength left in him. It was day, and the temperature was rising. Soon the land would burn and become all but uninhabitable.
Star Trek: DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice Page 14