As they drew closer, Ellen noticed that Rugal wasn’t sleeping much. He sat up late in the kitchen, reading medical texts or scouring the survivor lists that were sent out on a weekly basis from Cardassia Prime. Insomnia was hardly a good sign, but Ellen took heart from the fact that he spent the time sitting in one of the communal areas. He could have stayed in his cabin and stared at the walls or sat in the medical cupboard and counted pills. The night she came to talk to him about Ithic, he moved along the couch and let her sit next to him. That was practically physical contact. If only he could have spent a little more time on the Lotos. She might have saved him yet.
She handed him a padd. “A couple of ships have been past Ithic already and sent a few reports out for the rest of us. I put them together for you.”
“Thanks, Ellen. I appreciate that.”
“It’s not been the happiest of places, but nothing like Hewe. The last we heard there were Cardassians there, still.”
He glanced up. “Not as bad as Hewe, but not as good as Slokat?”
“They were something else on Slokat, weren’t they? I’m surprised it wasn’t the same on Ithic. From what I can make out they were all a bit utopian, the settlers. Idealists. They wanted to be self-sufficient, live the good life in peace alongside fellow travelers in a pastoral idyll... some sort of commune, I think. You know the sort of thing.”
He smiled down at the padd. “I get the general idea.”
“The Maquis weren’t popular—didn’t fit with the pacifist ideals, I suppose. But they still kept an eye out for Ithic anyway. Enough to keep it independent, not quite enough to earn serious reprisals when the Cardassians came back. But of course they didn’t want the Cardassians there, and it was made worse by what the Cardassians were doing with the land. Most of the Federation settlers had small farms—”
“Cardassians don’t farm that way,” Rugal said offhandedly, still flipping through the information on the padd. “Their agriculture is aggressively industrial. As much food as possible, as quickly as possible.”
“Oh, so you’re an expert on farming too?”
“I knew someone who knew about farming. She talked a lot.”
“You seem to have known a lot of people. Anyway, the Cardassians came back, the Jem’Hadar wiped out the Maquis, the land seizures started—”
“What did the human population do?”
“No armed resistance to speak of—pacifists, remember—so no massacres either. Some people took work on the new big farms, a few decided the game was up and set out for Federation space. The rest were interned. A lot of Cardassians turned up after it became part of the Dominion—it was one of their most stable agricultural worlds in the DMZ. I’m assuming your friend was one of these.”
“Any idea what happened to them? When the Jem’Hadar turned on us?”
“‘Us,’ Rugal?” Ellen quirked up her eyebrows. “I thought you were Bajoran.”
“Ellen, let me tell you that when eight Jem’Hadar are chasing you down a basement corridor with death in their eyes, you are more aware than you have ever been of what your face looks like. I’ve never been so Cardassian in my life, and I’ve never been so terrified either. What happened when the Jem’Hadar started killing us?”
“The same as everywhere. Lots of corpses. The last ship to pass by Ithic, about three months after the war, reported that there were Cardassians in the town near the spaceport. Not many, but some. If your friend was out in the sticks, I think she had as good a chance as anyone at making it through.”
They fell into silence. “You know,” Ellen said, “you’ve never explained how you made it through.”
“Did I really never say? It was easy. I passed myself off as Romulan.”
Ellen laughed out loud. “Cardassian, Bajoran, Romulan... is there anything you haven’t been?”
“Federation,” Rugal said. “I’ve never been Federation.” He stood up, and tapped the padd against the palm of his hand. “Thanks for all this, Ellen. Good night.”
They reached Ithic a week later. Ellen went to see Rugal in his cabin while he was packing. “I’ve been talking to some of the locals. It sounds tense. I don’t think leaving you here is a good idea.”
“Ellen, I have to go—”
“It could be nearly a year before we come back. I’m not convinced you’ll make it through that year alive. Nobody’s going to stop and ask where you were born, Rugal. They’ll look at you, they’ll see you’re Cardassian, and they’ll shoot.”
“Not even the Jem’Hadar managed that.”
“You’re not invincible! No matter how it seems. You’ve been lucky, that’s all.”
He paused briefly in his packing. “I’ve been resourceful. And lucky, yes. But chiefly resourceful.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Rugal,” Ellen said quietly. “Cardassians are rarer than they used to be.”
He stopped what he was doing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, folded over twice. The paper was very dirty, and it had clearly been folded and unfolded many times. On it was a sketch of two young Cardassians. One was obviously Rugal, the other was a young woman. “That’s Penelya,” he said. “We should have stayed together, but we didn’t. And I have to know either way, Ellen. Because not knowing will kill me, more surely than the Romulans or the Jem’Hadar.”
Manea, the town that served the main spaceport on Ithic, had a grim aspect about it, neglected and unkempt. Ellen took Rugal to meet Marcus Gerrard, her contact on the transitional council. He met Rugal with frank dismay. “You didn’t say he was Cardassian,” he said to Ellen. “And he’s planning to stay?”
It was always odd to hear yourself talked about as if you were not there. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” Rugal said.
“What’s he planning to do here?”
“I’m looking for a friend. She was working on a farm near Littleport.” The frown on Gerrard’s face deepened. “Are you sure this isn’t going to be a problem?”
Gerrard addressed a point between him and Ellen. “Most of the Cardassians are planning to leave, that’s all.”
“I don’t think my friend would have left her farm, not unless she was made to by the Jem’Hadar.” Or anyone else, Rugal thought.
“Are you sure it was her farm in the first place?”
Rugal sighed. “Mr. Gerrard, I don’t want to argue over territory. My friend wouldn’t have gone willingly. If the Jem’Hadar didn’t murder her, I think she’ll be where she was before this appalling war happened. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m certainly not here to colonize. I want to find out if she’s alive or if I have to add another name to the list of the dead. Then I’ll go. If she’s here, we’ll both go. In the long run,” he added dryly, “you might end up with even one less of us.”
Gerrard glanced at Ellen. “I wish you’d said he was Cardassian.”
Ellen folded her arms. “Whatever you’re thinking when you say that, Rugal is the opposite. Did I mention he’s a medic?”
“When are you coming back?” Gerrard said.
“Eight months, perhaps ten.”
Gerrard looked at Rugal with open dislike. “Marcus,” Ellen said quietly, “you’re not going to refuse someone entry because of how they look, are you?” To Rugal’s eyes, it seemed as if Gerrard intended to do just that. “I know you’re keen for Starfleet to get here as soon as possible,” Ellen said. “But this isn’t the best way of getting their attention.”
Gerrard muttered something under his breath. Then, very quickly, he thumped some data into the padd he was carrying, giving Rugal permission to stay. “Ten months, and then we’ll review his status. But I’m not happy about this, Ellen. The Cardassians and their Dominion allies did enough damage in two short years to keep us busy for a generation. It would be better all around if they could go away and leave us in peace.”
His aversion was understandable. But it seemed excessive, even for the postwar DMZ. Particularly given the fact that Rugal didn’t see a
single Cardassian in Manea the whole time he was there.
Before the Lotos departed, Ellen took Rugal aside for one last word, and to give him a portable subspace comm. “Let us know if you need us to come sooner rather than later. Keep your head down. I don’t like the vibe I’m getting from this place. And I hope she’s there, Rugal. I really hope you find her.”
They embraced—fondly, carefully—and Rugal wondered briefly whether this was a good decision. They were not exactly friends, the people on the Lotos, but—Roche apart—they had come to accept him on his own terms. He was committing himself to months on a world where Cardassians were not welcome, with the strong possibility of even more heartache. He was terribly afraid that, very soon, he would discover that Penelya was dead. How much easier to accept that now, to leave with the Lotos and carry on traveling in that small bubble in space, only ever touching other worlds and other people infrequently and for short periods of time.
But he had to know, so the Lotos left without him. He stayed in Manea only long enough to fill his pack with supplies for the cross-country journey. He had about a week of walking out to Penelya’s farm, which itself lay a day or two’s walk past the township of Littleport. Beyond Manea, it had to be said, Ithic didn’t seem so bad. It was the beginning of the autumn, in a temperate country, and the tired and wilted greens of late summer were being replaced by the various colors of the fall—reddening and yellowing leaves, crisp blue skies. It was nothing like Ogyas and it was nothing like Cardassia Prime. No wonder Penelya had always spoken so fondly of this place.
He saw no people, human, Cardassian or otherwise. Everyone had gone underground, or was dead. In Littleport, the shops on the high street were closed and the rows of houses were empty. It was as if everyone had been spirited away, leaving their homes and possessions behind. He was surprised that people hadn’t started drifting back, eight or nine months after the end of the war, but if there was anyone living in Littleport, they were going to great lengths to avoid him. In the general store, he found food and water, and he left money for when the owners returned. Perhaps they had all gone into hiding to wait out the end of the war. Perhaps they hadn’t heard that it was all over. He found paper and a pen, and wrote: IT’S ENDED. THERE’S PEACE. He put the date at the bottom of the sheet, and stuck it in the door of the shop. Someone might see it there and discover that they didn’t have to worry anymore.
A day beyond Littleport, the landscape began to change. The small farms and the gentle countryside gave way to something bigger, emptier, and browner. Rugal recognized Cardassian country: industrial, efficient, intolerant of variety. Even the road he was walking along changed its nature. It no longer bypassed woodland or curved around hills. It cut through everything. He found the environment depressing; featureless and without charm. He didn’t much like to think of Penelya living there.
His pace quickened. During the course of his second day out of Littleport, the road became lined with wire and metal fences. Beyond these, the plain brown fields were hunkering down for winter, and every so often he saw industrial buildings, warehouses, and silos. There were signs posted at regular intervals to indicate that this was private property, and each of these carried the Khevet family name. Tenantless land, and ownerless. Mikor was dead now, presumably, and Elinas, and the three girls, and the rest of Coranum. There was nobody to go and tell about Tret. Only Rugal was left to remember them all, and to hope that there was still one person left to inherit.
Midafternoon, he came to the side road that led onto Penelya’s lands. There was a large metal gate; there would have been security fields too at some point, but the power had failed and they were no longer activated. Rugal entered the estate by the simple method of climbing over the gate. He walked on, inward, for at least an hour, at the end of which he came to a long brick wall stretching off in either direction. He climbed it and, at the top, pulled himself up into a sitting position. Looking out, he nearly laughed. Everything as far as the eye could see was green.
After the long brown walk, this sudden verdancy was almost overwhelming. There was a patch of woodland to his left; a stream, meadow. At first he didn’t understand. When he saw the long, low house in the distance, he grasped what was going on. Somebody—Penelya? her parents?—had kept this tract of land like this intentionally. They couldn’t live looking at those dull fields either. Rugal slid down the wall and walked slowly in the direction of the house. It was as if a small piece of another world had been set down here, or he had passed through a portal onto a different planet. Here the trees were shedding their leaves—gently, peacefully—untroubled by the horrors wracking the wider world; there the stream was bubbling past. As Rugal walked toward the house, he thought, Yes, this is how it’s meant to end. She’ll be here, this is where I have to find her, this is where she has to be... His hands were shaking as he went through the gate into the garden and up the path to the front door.
The door was standing ajar. Gently, he pushed it open. “Penelya?” His voice came out thick, as if it had rusted in all the time that he had been alone. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Pen. I’m here. I changed my mind.”
It was dark inside. Reaching along the wall, his hand found a light control, but the power was down and nothing happened. “Pen? Pen, are you here?” His eyes adjusted to the dark. He looked around.
There had been a struggle, clearly. The chairs were knocked over; one of them was broken. So was one of the windows. The air was damp and musty. Rugal wandered through the small house, checking the three downstairs rooms and the four upstairs, but there was nobody here, and it had been that way for some time. The house was empty. She was gone.
Moving slowly now, Rugal went back out into the garden. He looked around for some disturbance in the earth, but there was nothing. No graves. Back inside, he bent down to lift one of the chairs back into a standing position, but the thought of the effort it would take to clear the place properly suddenly overwhelmed him, so he stopped and left it where it was. He went back out, closing the door of the house behind him.
The sun had set. The sky was darkening and the stars were coming out. It was chilly, hardly unbearably so, but enough to enervate. Rugal sat down on the step and put his head in his hands. This was the end. He had bet everything on finding Penelya here. But the war had come to Ithic too, and there was nothing for him here either. He lay down under the stars, let the darkness cover him, and slept.
Ten
Morning brought a stiff neck and only the vaguest feeling of having rested. Rugal made a makeshift breakfast and sat down on the step outside the house, looking out across Penelya’s garden. It was pretty but disheveled. There must have been nobody here to maintain it for months now, but he could see that she had made the garden practical, useful—the way she felt she ought to be herself. Nearest to him there was a patch of sweet-smelling plants that he guessed were herbs. A little farther away were fruit trees. Nobody had been here to pick the fruit, and most of it lay rotting on the ground. He didn’t have names for the fruits. Were they native to Earth? To Ithic? They could have been Cardassian for all Rugal knew. He was a confirmed city dweller, and there hadn’t been much fresh fruit around Torr.
Looking through the neglect at how this had once been, how it might be again, he could understand why Penelya had wanted to come back here. It was not only because of duty. It was because this had been her home, where she had been born and had grown up. This was where she had been happy, with her mother and her father. Rugal sighed. If he had understood that fully, and sooner, he would have come back here with her. But he had been so wedded to the idea of going back to Bajor. He had wanted to return there in triumph with her on his arm, proving wrong everyone who said he could not go back.
He got up and walked down to wander among the trees. There was still some fruit left on the branches; not everything had gone to waste. He picked one of the better ones; a little round fruit, greenish-yellow, speckled with brown patches. It looked edible, so he bit into it. Th
e flesh turned out to be white and tasted very sharp. It was not expected, but it was not unpleasant by any means.
The more Rugal thought about his desire to return to Bajor, the more it seemed to him like madness. How had he ever believed he would get to go back? Why had Kotan humored him for so long? He had never been welcome on Bajor, not really; he had known that as a small child. He was a visible symbol of the Occupation, of oppression, a constant reminder of the dark time that most Bajorans now wanted to forget. Yet still he had insisted it was home. He had been like Migdal, longing to return to Korto, when in fact there was no going back. All that time and energy he had wasted. He could have come here with Penelya. They could have lived and worked here in happiness. It might only have been for a very short time, before the Jem’Hadar had come for them, but it would have been a period of peace, of grace. Instead he had ended up on Ogyas, and as for Penelya...
Rugal could only assume that she was dead. The simple fact that he loved her and wanted to be with her would not have saved her. The universe did not rearrange itself simply according to one’s desires. That was how a child thought. If there had been Jem’Hadar anywhere near this place, they would have obeyed their mad gods and stopped at nothing to find her and kill her. And if the Jem’Hadar hadn’t killed her, someone else probably would. This was no time to be Cardassian. They were the pariahs of the quadrant.
Star Trek: DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice Page 24