Rugal put his arm around his companion. “This is Hulya. She looks after me.”
“Da,” Molly said urgently from behind him. “Why don’t I show Hulya around while you talk to your friend?”
Miles’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “All right, sweetheart, off you go.”
Molly bounced over to Hulya. “I’m glad you turned up when you did,” she said fervently as she dragged her off outside. “He was making me do math.”
Miles and Rugal watched them go. “Today I’m a tyrant,” Miles said cheerfully. “Tomorrow I’ll be the best person on the planet. You’ll discover all this in time.”
“I have already.”
They smiled at each other in mutual satisfaction at this particular aspect of their lives. “Well, sit down, sit down!” Miles said. “Tell me about yourself. What happened after you got back?”
Rugal took a seat at the kitchen table while Miles busied himself at the replicator. “A lot happened. The war, of course... Everything after. I ended up on a world called Ithic in the former DMZ. That’s where I found Hulya.” Rugal took the cup of raktajino gratefully. “Before that...” He gave a deep sigh that came from the heart of him. “Cardassia is a strange place. I tried my best. I think.”
Miles sat down opposite him, stopping only briefly to clear away Molly’s padds. “Were you in the war?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“Isn’t it always?”
In Miles’s experience, people only said things like that when it was truly terrible. People who had sat behind a desk the whole time said things like: Oh, you know, it could have been worse...“It was a terrible decision to send you back to Cardassia.”
“Yes, it was,” Rugal said softly. “What happened to him, that officer?”
“Oh, he did all right for himself.”
“Did he get promoted?”
“You could say that.”
“I got promoted. I even got a medal.” Rugal looked away, out the window. How much damage had been done, Miles wondered, by sending this young man back with his biological father? What life could he have led instead on Bajor? “You know,” Rugal said, “you were a hard man to find, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Miles, please.”
“Miles. I never would have expected to find you on Cardassia Prime.”
“First Bajor, then here. I think we got into the habit of living in places under reconstruction. Keiko’s job brought us here this time, though, not mine.”
Rugal’s eyes lit up. “I read about what you were doing here. I didn’t believe it was possible until I arrived. I never imagined anywhere on Prime could be so...” He held up his hands. “So green!”
Miles laughed. “She’s done a great job, that wife of mine. I wish she was here to see you—she’s up in the capital, about to go back to Earth for a review of the project. They’d better decorate her when she gets there.”
“I wish she’d come out to Ithic. There are whole areas that the Cardassians wrecked while they were there. At least they didn’t have enough time to do serious damage.” He leaned in eagerly. “We’ve been farming, of all things. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. Hulya’s got the most experience. There are eight of us now. I never believed it would work—you throw some seeds in the ground and the next thing you know you’ve got a field of food. I’m still not convinced it really works.”
“You sound like you were making a life for yourself out there. What on earth’s brought you back to Cardassia Prime? Are you looking for someone?”
Rugal shook his head. “No, no, everyone I knew was in the capital. I’ve given up on that—you have to. You could lose yourself to the search forever. I came here because...” He frowned. “You said, once, that if I needed help, I could come to you. I know it’s been a long time, and what I’m going to ask probably isn’t what you expected, but if the offer still stands, I’d like to ask, at least.”
“Rugal, I’ve spent eight years wishing I’d intervened somehow to stop you going back. If there’s anything I can do to make up for that, I’ll do it in a flash.”
“All right then... I’d like your help to become a Federation citizen.”
Miles blinked. “You’d like my which to do what?”
“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. I was born on Bajor, you see. I didn’t know that until I went back to Cardassia. I’d always assumed that we’d gone out there when I was a baby. But Kotan and Arys—my parents, my Cardassian parents—were already out there when I was born. I have my grandmother, of all people, to thank for telling me that. I’d never been to Cardassia before I went back there with Kotan. I was adopted on Bajor—legally adopted. It was all done according to Bajoran law. Migdal and Etra were Bajoran. If they were still alive, they would have become Federation citizens. So I should be too.”
Miles went and got them both another raktajino. “Are you sure,” he said carefully, “that this is a good idea?”
“I think it is—”
“I ask because when you stayed with me and Keiko on DS9, you hated Cardassians, Rugal, really hated them. And it wasn’t right. It wasn’t good for you, more than anything. I know that you must have had a difficult time—what with the war in particular—but if that’s what this is about, well, I can’t help you—”
Rugal shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that, I swear. I did hate Cardassians then. Not now. Not after everything I did there, not after everyone I knew...” He put his hands down flat on the table, as if trying to bring order to his thoughts. “It’s not that I don’t want to be Cardassian—I’d go and change how I looked if I didn’t—it’s more that I never was entirely Cardassian in the first place. Everything that happened to me there, that’s a part of me now. But it’s not the whole of me, and it never was. Starfleet shouldn’t have sent me back. This is a way for the Federation to make amends. It would be...” He hunted around for the right word. “It would be reparations.”
Miles sat with both hands around his mug, staring down into the liquid, thinking hard. Rugal sat across from him, shifting around uneasily in his chair. “I’m not sure what it is I could do exactly,” Miles said slowly, after a while.
“Anything. I don’t know. How do I do it? Do I need to have a sponsor? Would you do that for me if I did?”
“But there is somebody who I think might be able to help.”
Rugal looked at him hopefully. “Yes? Who?”
“Somebody who owes me a favor or two.”
“Someone in the Federation?”
“Not exactly.” Miles smiled. “In fact, I’d say he’s about as Cardassian as they come.”
“Not to sound ungrateful, Miles, but if he’s Cardassian, how can he help persuade the Federation of anything?”
The girls ran back inside then, giggling over some private secret. When they saw the two men at the table they burst into fresh laughter and ran off in the direction of Molly’s room. Miles stood up and went over to the comm. “For one thing, he’s about the slickest talker I’ve ever met. For another—it’s his job.”
“As I’m sure you realized when you first thought of contacting me, Miles,” Elim Garak said later over the comm, “this is exactly the kind of thing a newly appointed ambassador needs to be doing in order to ingratiate himself with his hosts.”
Miles didn’t bother untangling that one. “So you’ll help?”
“This being perhaps the most delicate moment in the whole relationship, when trust is as yet barely established between guest and host, and knowledge of each party—working style, emphasis, personality—is as yet to be fully explored and determined—”
“Garak...”
Garak beamed. “Naturally, if I can help, I shall. However, it might be useful if you could first tell me some more about this young man and his case.”
“He was born on Bajor and he was abandoned there when the Occupation ended. He was brought up by a Bajoran couple, but then his father turned up alive... Don’t you rememb
er the whole business? You and Julian jaunted off to Bajor and found out there was a whole political scandal brewing around it. Something to do with Dukat.”
Miles watched as Garak’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Yes, I remember the young man concerned. Councillor Pa’Dar’s son. I remember him distinctly.”
“Good! That’s great! So you’ll help?”
“It’s hard to forget someone who bit you on the hand.”
Miles didn’t miss a beat. “So you’ll definitely help.”
Garak’s eyes lit up and his lips curled into a smile. Is it right, Miles wondered, to be this fond of an assassin? “Miles,” Garak said, “I am as ever entirely at your disposal. Send the young man to me. I’m sure we’ll get along famously.”
Rugal and Hulya traveled back to Earth with Keiko O’Brien. She was cheerful, friendly company, and Hulya came to trust her entirely. Rugal was pleased. The girl was still cautious with humans, particularly at first, but she no longer insisted on avoiding them entirely.
Keiko also knew the man that Rugal was going to meet. “The ambassador is... well, he’s one of a kind, really,” she said, with an odd smile that Rugal couldn’t quite interpret. “He’s smart, he’s charming, and if there are any holes at all in your argument, he’ll pick at them until your whole case unravels and he’ll smile while he’s doing it. If you do win him over, though, you’ll have made a powerful ally.”
The newly appointed ambassador to the Federation from the Cardassian Reconstruction Administration had taken up residence in a beautiful city of light in Earth’s northern hemisphere, which Keiko said was called Paris. His residence lay south of the river that ran through the city: “The Left Bank,” Keiko said helpfully. They transported to the gates, suffered the security search, and then were taken into a grand pillared entrance hall, where the ambassador himself was waiting to welcome them.
The ambassador was a genial and elegant man of uncertain age and impeccable manners. Keiko introduced him to Rugal as Elim Garak. Rugal had not been able to recall the name from any conversations he had with Kotan, and he wondered in which part of the government Garak had served before the war. Rugal was sure that he had seen his face before, but he couldn’t place it. The ambassador welcomed Keiko warmly, and when he learned that she was planning to take Hulya sightseeing, immediately put a car and a driver at their disposal. After they had gone, Rugal studied the ambassador nervously. Whatever this man had done before and during the war, it took intelligence and guile to have survived the last few years of Cardassian political life and ended up in a position this powerful.
The ambassador smiled at him pleasantly. “Let’s go up to my private office.” He led Rugal across the hall and up a grand staircase. “Do you like the building?”
Rugal nodded his approval. “It’s very impressive.”
“When I took up residence here, I took the trouble to investigate the history of the place. It turned out to have once been the embassy of a military dictatorship whose name is synonymous with cruelty, aggression, and sheer brutality of the most unspeakable kind. Someone at the Federation Diplomatic Corps went out of their way to calculate that insult so finely. I was quite flattered; I’m sure not everyone earns such particular attention. Besides, it’s a remarkable building and a magnificent city.” He glanced back at his companion. “Of course, you’ll have seen the inside of many places like this, given your father’s profession.”
“Kotan and I didn’t spend as much time together as we should.”
“No?” They came to the top of the stairs and fell into step together. The ambassador eyed Rugal with sharp interest.
“He was busy with his work a lot of the time. We didn’t really get to know each other until almost the end of my time on Cardassia Prime.”
“Fathers can be difficult in that way, or so I understand. But everyone who knew Kotan speaks very highly of him. I was talking to the castellan about him only yesterday. Alon sends his warmest regards, by the way—he was overjoyed to discover that you were alive, and he extends an invitation for you to visit should you ever pass through Prime again. He also asked me to say—now, what was it?—that as your father’s old and very good friend, he feels obliged to warn you that I am a treacherous liar and that you would be well advised to watch your back when I’m around.” Garak beamed as if delighted at this commendation. “Yes, I think those were his words, more or less.”
“I’m grateful for that,” Rugal said faintly. A short conversation with the ambassador was turning out to have roughly the same effect as a month of Romulan bombardment. They reached some double doors, and Garak pushed them open.
“Step into my office,” he said, leading Rugal inside. “Do take a seat, there, over by the fireplace. Kanar?”
“Please,” Rugal said, taking a seat. He glanced around. The room was furnished in a hugely ornate style that Rugal did not recognize, but which was presumably in keeping with the history of the building. There was a big and fanatically neat desk over by the window. The only recognizably Cardassian object in the room was the painting hanging over the fireplace, but he didn’t get a chance to study it in detail before the ambassador returned. He handed Rugal his glass, and then took his own seat opposite and studied Rugal with a mild air of amusement. “We have met before, you know. Do you remember? I still have the scar.”
Garak leaned forward in his seat and held out his hand for Rugal to see. There was a tiny white mark between thumb and forefinger. With a shock, Rugal realized where he had seen the man before. He was the Cardassian in the Ferengi’s bar on Deep Space 9. The one who had put his hand on Rugal’s shoulder. Which Rugal had promptly bitten.
Rugal put his hand to his forehead. “I don’t believe this.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally,” the ambassador replied, with only slight glee. “One of my best friends shot me once, and that was a gesture of affection.”
“I’m so sorry...”
“It is entirely forgotten. Let us speak of more pressing matters. Tell me, Rugal, why did you desert?”
Rugal was still regrouping from the ambassador’s opening move. His mouth fell open at this new salvo. “What?”
“You were stationed on Ogyas throughout the war, yes? Fourth Division, Second Order. Under the command of Gul Rantok. You weren’t reposted, you weren’t listed as dead, and yet you weren’t there when the garrison surrendered. What other explanation is there for your absence?”
Rugal realized his hands were trembling. “Technically, the war was over when I left.”
“There’s no ‘technically’ about it,” the ambassador replied. He wasn’t smiling now. “You hadn’t been demobilized.”
The man certainly knew how to wrong-foot. He also knew how to ask questions. Rugal drank deeply from his glass of kanar. “I was pressed into service,” he replied. “My enlistment wasn’t legal—”
“Fortunately for you, whatever records there once were relating to your enlistment went up in smoke in the somewhat spectacular bonfire that recently consumed so much of our home planet. Unfortunately for you, that also means that there is absolutely no evidence to support your statement that you were pressed into service illegally.”
“It’s the truth—”
The ambassador leaned forward in his chair. He had bright blue eyes, and they didn’t leave Rugal’s face. “Understand this. If your attempt to acquire Federation citizenship is primarily a scheme to escape the consequences of your actions on Ogyas III, I shall not be pleased. Not simply because I dislike having my time wasted, but because you will have taken advantage of two very excellent people, Miles and Keiko O’Brien. I don’t like seeing my friends used. I find that I am...” The ambassador ran the tip of his tongue across his front teeth. “Offended.”
Rugal opened his mouth to protest, but the ambassador cut across him.
“I do wonder whether you have any idea what happened to the rest of the garrison that was stationed at Keralek. No? Let me enlighten you. They are still
being held by the Romulan military, as we speak. I imagine we’ll get them back eventually, once we’ve got the water running again on Prime and done the million other things necessary to ensure Cardassia doesn’t collapse into civil war. The problem—from their perspective—is that they’re mostly rank and file. No friends in high places to pressure for their return. It’s a very great shame that the officer being held with them isn’t—for example—the son of a well-respected public figure who was once good friends with the castellan. I admit that I’m speaking only technically”—he fairly spat the word out—“but you too should be under Romulan jurisdiction right now. Perhaps I should hand you over and let justice run its course. It might help your former comrades raise their profile. You could think of it as doing your duty by them.”
Shaken, Rugal insisted guiltily, “It wasn’t my war. I wasn’t conscripted legally. Dukat threatened to kill my father!”
The ambassador stared at him. Then he began to laugh, unpleasantly. “Oh, it was Dukat, was it? I should have known.” He fell silent and stared at the picture hanging over the fireplace. When he spoke again his tone had altered greatly, becoming meditative rather than brutal. It was an unbelievable relief. If their earlier conversation had been like Romulan bombardment, this must be how the firing squad felt.
“It seems to have become my life’s work,” Garak said pensively, “to mend the damage done by Dukat. If it is indeed possible to do that in a lifetime.” All of a sudden, he relaxed. He became entirely amiable again. “All right, I’ll help, however I can. Besides,” he said, with a smile that simultaneously reassured and struck fear into the heart of his guest, “I spent years trying to get back to Cardassia. I’m sure I’ll enjoy helping someone get away.” He glanced at Rugal’s glass. “Drink up,” he said in a kindly fashion. “I gather alcohol can be a help after an interview with me.”
Rugal did what he was told. He thought he had a fairly good idea now which branch of the Cardassian government had once had the ambassador at its disposal. Draining his glass, Rugal looked up at the painting again, rather than at the bright blue eyes of the man sitting opposite. Now that he looked at it, he could see it wasn’t Cardassian after all—or, not entirely. An interlocking design of stylized floral patterns, it was both Cardassian and Bajoran. He gestured toward it. “That’s by Tora Ziyal, isn’t it?”
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