STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change

by Marco Palmieri, Editor

  “Excuse me. Elim Garak?” It was the old man, Ereket’s patient from earlier in the day. Something about his look alerted me.

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Cronal Gys. I want to thank you for the good work you’ve been doing here and elsewhere.”

  “Thank you. And I apologize for the behavior of—”

  “No, not at all. He’s young, he has to learn how to work. Unfortunately, our schools these days are real life, and the lessons tend to be harsh ones.”

  “You’re very kind,” I replied. Cronal Gys held my attention with those gray eyes that never stopped studying me.

  “Your work, Elim Garak, has particular significance for some of us here in Lakarian City.” Bells began to toll, an old Lakarian tradition that marked the end of the day. I was gratified to notice that the line of people had dwindled since my reprimand. This was our third day in the city and it was vital that we maintain the scheduled quotas.

  “My work?” I knew he wasn’t just referring to what we were doing in the field.

  “I think I can help you find the person you’re looking for.”

  “Kel. Is she safe?”

  “When it’s convenient for you, you can meet me in the grounds adjacent to the Citadel. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how delicate the situation is.” Cronal began to walk away.

  “It won’t take me long to finish up here,” I said after him.

  “I’ll be there.”

  Only when he was gone did I wonder how he knew I was looking for Kel. I hadn’t had the opportunity to inquire about her in Lakarian City. When I returned from the Vinculum, I took what time I could to look for her, as I had promised Palandine I would. The Oralian temple in Cardassia City where she had performed her duties had disappeared without a trace, however, and there was no one else I could really ask. I was certain their disappearance had something to do with the danger that faced Kel. Palandine had warned me in the Vinculum that my enemies were planning to discredit me and the Reunion Project by arranging Kel’s death to appear like my act of revenge against her family. Pythas and the Obsidian Order couldn’t help me; their resources were already exhausted. Because it was a stronghold of what was left of the Oralian Way, I purposely volunteered for the mission to Lakarian City so that I could make some inquiries when I had the time to spare from my work. Somehow this Cronal Gys anticipated my intention.

  Before Cardassia City was created to be a more appropriate seat of power for the empire, Lakarian served the purpose of centralizing planetary government in a more subtle and aesthetic manner. Many of the buildings dated back to the early days of the Republic, and there were even Hebitian ruins that had somehow survived the almost total eradication of that culture. One of these ruined structures was in the neglected grounds next to the old Republican Citadel that was itself partly constructed from the ancient volcanic rock the Hebitians used to build with.

  As I warily approached what was once, perhaps, a watchtower, the soft evening air of the Lakarian climate assuaged the stress and intensity of the day’s work. My thoughts went back to other evenings, other meetings in grounds more cultivated and maintained. I put my hand on the rock; it had a spiky, but pliable solidity.

  “The first people also touched that,” Grands voice came out of the dark. Despite my vigilance, I was barely able to make out his shadowy presence standing beneath a wild ocran bush that only grows in the Lower Hemisphere. How long had he been standing there?

  “There’s almost a plasmic quality about it,” I said as I moved my hand over a surface that perceptibly responded.

  “We’ll never find a better building material,” he said.

  “Why wasn’t it used for everything?” I asked.

  Cronal laughed. “It’s not as imperial-looking as the obsidian stone from the Toran mountains.”

  “But that’s on the other side of the planet,” I said.

  “Yes, but they had plenty of ... expendable labor.” Cronal shrugged. He referred to the sad truth, expunged from official histories, of how the invaders had subjugated and enslaved the Hebitians to create a Cardassian Empire that would last forever. “Please, Elim Garak, come with me.”

  As we walked through the grounds, the gardener in me wanted to stop and study what was left of the old plantings. It would take some time to restore the soil and bring back the original integrity, but well worth the effort. We crossed a wide and empty promenade and came to an older, more congested section where the dwellings were jammed together in a bizarre hivelike organization. From the outside, the entrances appeared to be placed in a chaotic and random manner, but this placement assured the most efficient use of the inside living space. This was an area created to house a dense population ... but no one was in the streets.

  “The plague was especially cruel here,” Cronal explained. “Almost no one remains, except, of course, those who have no choice.” He treated me with an easy familiarity I found unsettling.

  “What do you know about me, Cronal?”

  “That you travel, but you always come back to the same place,” he answered.

  “Isn’t that true of almost anyone who travels?”

  “Some of us stay where we’ve gone.”

  “The dead.”

  “Not just the dead, Elim Garak.” We had stopped in front of what first looked like any of the other dwellings with multiple entrances. “And some of us don’t come back to the same place in this life. Even if we come back to the same neighborhood.” I was feeling some irritation with his oblique manner.

  As we passed through a simple gate there was a palpable charge of energy flowing up from the ground and into my body. We’d entered some kind of energy field that seemed to “contain” this particular dwelling. Cronal didn’t react to the change as he led me to the only true entrance—the others, as I looked carefully, were false, designed to confuse unwelcome visitors. I heard a faint electronic, almost choral sound coming from inside. I suddenly became afraid that this was all an elaborate trap that I had willingly walked into.

  The door opened and the blood drained down to my feet. It wasn’t Palandine—Kel definitely had her own look, a strong face and jaw, as much her father as her mother—but it was the energy that I recognized ... and loved. Expansive, embracing ... that amused and inquisitive expression asking, “Who are you, really?”

  “Hello, Kel.”

  “Elim Garak.” She took me in with a frankness and total lack of judgment. “Please come in. We’ve been waiting.” Other than four padded, backless seats, the room was empty. The walls were covered with some kind of plain material. I wondered if the frieze celebrating the Hebitian cycles of life I had once seen when Palandine and I had visited an Oralian temple was on the other side of the material. The floor seemed to have the texture and give of the volcanic rock. I became aware of a barely discernible pattern that would form on the ceiling and then fade. Each emerging shape was similar but different, and the rhythm of the sequence was connected to the pulsing energy that continued to flow through me.

  “So you’ve become an Oralian Guide,” I said to Kel after a long silence.

  “When it’s not a danger to others. It’s difficult for people to gather and celebrate the Mysteries,” she replied.

  “That’s my fault, isn’t it? You’re being caught up in a strategem that’s directed against me. I regret—”

  “What a funny man you are, Elim Garak,” Kel interrupted. “I assure you, you don’t have to take responsibility for our problems—you have plenty of your own.”

  “But I was under the impression ...”

  “I know. But if you never existed, those people who hunt us now would still be threatened by the Oralian Way,” she gently explained. “But certainly Cardassian efficiency would dearly love to destroy both of us at the same time.” The idea made her laugh.

  “You have so much of both your mother and your father. I feel so ...” I trailed off, suddenly unable to breathe.

  “You loved my father, didn’t you?�
�

  “Yes.” With this admission I began to breathe again. For the first time, I allowed myself to feel the deep shame and sickness I have lived with ever since I murdered her father.

  “Did it ever occur to you, Cronal, that sometimes we seek out that person ... how do I say this ... who gives us our death?”

  “There are precedents in nature. The balteen, at the end of its cycle, offers itself at the lair of its most dangerous antagonist. Even Garak’s regnar tries to choose its death.” Cronal looked at me.

  “Mila!” Kel cried out with pleasure at remembering the name. Those intelligent gray eyes, surrounded by a boundless, childlike enthusiasm, triggered another memory of Mila, the regnar that guided me and alleviated my loneliness during my first days at the Bamarren School. Until I met Kel’s mother, Mila was my sole companion.

  “What don’t you know about me?” I asked with open admiration.

  “It’s only information,” Cronal said.

  “My father would have disagreed with you,” I replied.

  “But he waited for you before he died,” Kel said.

  The breath went out of me again. I had secretly harbored that thought, but never shared it with anyone.

  “My father had been looking for the person who would give him his death,” Kel said with an intensity that obliterated the young girl of moments before. “He also chose you for that moment.”

  We lapsed into another long silence. Until that moment, I had never made the connection between Kel’s father, Barkan, and my father.

  “Men who want to lead are often conflicted,” Cronal broke the silence. “Does one have a calling? Or is it merely an appetite for power? Is it to nurture life? Or to devastate a planet? And if it 15 a calling, how does one answer?” His look challenged me with the last question.

  “Perhaps it’s simply about helping people to die,” I muttered. I was not only thinking of my last moments with both men (men who had elevated me and then betrayed me), but of my “calling” since returning from the Vinculum, where it often felt as if I were presiding over a dying planet.

  “That, too. Certainly.” Cronal nodded. “But I repeat my question, Elim Garak: How does one answer the call?” In his gentle manner, the old man was issuing a direct challenge.

  “You know about the Vinculum,” I said.

  “Of course we do,” Kel replied. “Before an ancient Hebitian could be anointed as a leader, he or she had to make a pilgrimage. The Vinculum is a place where the living and the dead find common ground. Unless you’ve made your peace with the dead, how can you guide the living?”

  “If that’s the case, then why would a human, Julian Bashir, be the one to encourage me to return to Cardassia and lead the Reunion Project? Shouldn’t that message, that ‘call,’ have come from one of our own?”

  “Are you sure it was him?” Cronal asked.

  The question stopped me. “But why—?”

  “Elim, you’re an extraordinary person,” Kel interrupted gently. “You’re also a stubborn one. Perhaps you received the information from someone who appeared to be Julian Bashir because you wouldn’t have taken it from anyone else.”

  “Then who was it?”

  “Only you can answer that,” Kel replied. “All I can tell you is that you went to the Vinculum because you desperately needed to find a cure for the plague. Dr. Parmak, in his exhaustive search to find this cure, discovered an ancient Hebitian medical text that describes a metadimensional nexus that contains all wisdom, knowledge and resources, a nexus that slices through creation and connects with everything that ever was, is, or will be. The text calls this place the Vinculum. When Parmak took this information to Mindur Timot ...”

  “... Timot determined that this Vinculum could be accessed through the same technology that enables us to reconfigure our subatomic structures from matter to pure energy in order to be transported from one place to another at near-warp,” I finished.

  “At warp, and beyond. But the real trick, dear Elim, as you well know, is to be able to locate that place where imagination, intuition, and creativity intersect. Much harder—and more dangerous—than being transported into the next room.” Kel placed her soft hand on my head. “The coordinates of an inner journey,” she almost whispered.

  I became aware that her touch was alleviating a terrible headache. “When I was in the Vinculum, your mother ... or someone who ‘appeared’ to be Palandine, told me that I had to save you.”

  “Am I in danger?”

  “I think we all are,” I replied.

  “Then you have to save all of us,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m afraid there are many who don’t want to be saved,” I said.

  “Then they must seek their death.” The smile disappeared. “It’s delicate, isn’t it?” Kel said to both of us. “Just because you’ve been called, doesn’t mean you don’t have choice.”

  “The Hebitians taught that first we learn how to rule ourselves,” Cronal said. “Coexistence depends on each of us maintaining our own boundaries.”

  “If we can’t do that, Cronal, how can we possibly guide others?” Kel asked, relishing the absurdity.

  “I’m afraid that’s a lesson that didn’t survive the Hebitians,” I observed.

  “No, Elim Garak! It’s surviving right now. In this room!” she said with an energy that made the pattern on the ceiling blaze. “Why do you think we’re here?” As she gestured, she referred to far more than the three of us. “Why do you think you are here? You must know by now why you were sent to the Vinculum.”

  A part of me didn’t want to know. I continued to hang on to the answers, the certitude I had felt when I returned from my first visit to that mysterious place. I had come back with the charge of political leadership, and I was determined not to waver. But Kel’s words were beginning to open up another, more frightening dimension.

  “You’ve been called, Elim. We need you. However you choose to share the wisdom of the Vinculum, just remember, your choice comes from your need, your integrity ... and whatever vision you return with. If you lead no one else but yourself, and live according to whatever vision you’ve received, that will be enough.”

  “So I will return to the Vinculum,” I said.

  “It appears so,” Kel replied. “It’s a great gift, Elim. A source of wisdom few are allowed to experience ... and then be able to return ... and share.”

  “The traveler who returns to the same place,” I repeated.

  “And finds it terribly changed because he has changed,” Cronal added.

  I nodded my acceptance. To what, I wasn’t altogether sure. When Dr. Bashir informed me that the Federation had “anointed” me as the Cardassian leader of their choice, of course my lingering suspicion was that they needed a suitable puppet. But Kel and Cronal were making me understand that for whatever reason, I was being “called,” and I was facing another “choiceless” choice.

  The room suddenly began to pulse with a dark red urgency that obviously served as a warning. Immediately, the three of us stood up and I looked to the others for instruction.

  “Just leave the way you entered and make your way back to the Citadel without drawing attention,” Cronal instructed.

  “He knows how to do that very well,” Kel said with that familiar playfulness. She seemed untouched by the imminent danger.

  “What about you?” I asked, remembering Palandine’s warning.

  “We’ll be fine. No one has more protection than I do,” she said, looking at Cronal.

  “Will I see you again?” The question surprised, even embarrassed, me.

  “Don’t you know?” Kel laughed. “You’re one of us, Elim Garak. Now go.”

  Before they disappeared, Cronal gently, but firmly guided me to the door. Like a dream, I found myself outside, moving through the grounds toward the main thoroughfare. The neighborhood seemed as quiet and uninhabited as before, but the energy darkened with a threat I began to perceive on the periphery. I wondered how wise it was for me
to have left like this. Certainly, the forces threatening Kel and Cronal were also a danger to me, and I felt the need to withdraw my presence. Even though I knew this action was taken for self-protection, it brought back all those feelings of shame that had originally motivated my desire to perfect this facility for passing through much of my early life unnoticed. A facility that Enabran Tain had cultivated and encouraged.

  “My fellow Cardassians,” I began my prepared speech to reconcile the scattered tribes of our planet. I so desperately wanted to put all these thoughts, these memories behind me, to move forward. But as I began to deliver my speech, thanking the assembled groups for coming and urging them to lay aside their differences, the faces and images of the past intruded even more. In the Obsidian Order we were taught to operate on two or more levels of conscious intent at the same time. It’s a basic technique; as you’re putting someone at ease, you’re manipulating, even dismantling him, and at the same time, you’re devising a way to reassemble him in a way that suits your purpose. The mind has a master plan and complete control over each level. I had no control over the imagery now flooding my mind. The speech I had wanted to give, the words of reconciliation, of healing and hope, wouldn’t come.

  “We’ve all gone mad,” I found myself saying. “Or we’ve reached that final evolutionary stage where we’ve outlived our reason for being here. Perhaps now all that’s left is the final implosion from within.”

  I was shocked at what was coming out of my mouth. Judging from the faces in front of me, this was not the speech they had expected either. Some voices started to protest.

  “No no no no no no!” I shouted over them. “Not your fault! No, you were only reacting to the circumstances that he ...” I pointed to a random spectator “... created, and the insults and injuries that she ...” pointing to another “... committed. And every one of us is so wronged and dishonored and inflicted with the deaths of those nearest and dearest to us that we righteously believe that we have the right to strike the last blow!”