Enigma Tales Read online

  Lang lifted her hand to quiet the applause and glanced up at the chrono on the wall. Nearly midday. She had kept these young people here long enough. They must be tired, and they must be hungry. She knew she certainly was. But a few hands were hovering, ready to go up. “Just a couple of questions.”

  Eight or nine hands shot up, and she took each one in turn, running on slightly over her time. Nobody left. The thoughtfulness behind the questions, the genuine engagement with her words and ideas, humbled Lang. She thought back to her own time at the U of U, struggling to find ideas within the allowed orthodoxies, and she was proud to be part of this new flowering of ideas and freedom. This new generation, she thought. We are hardly worthy of them.

  At last they were done, and Lang wrapped up the session to more rapturous applause. A few of the shyer students lingered to ask questions, and she answered these fully and with courtesy while gently guiding them toward the door. Soon she was done, running down the steps of her department building, and out into the main square of the campus. It was a fine spring day, one of the last days that people would be able to bask outside before the summer dust storms rolled in from the mountains. The midday sun was high, and the students were out enjoying their lunch and each other’s company. On one side of the square, a big screen was showing the rolling news. More than anything—more than the weather report, more even than the hound-racing—Cardassians loved rolling news. The novelty of a free press hadn’t worn off yet.

  The campus was of course completely different from when Lang had studied here. It occupied a slightly different part of the city, for one thing. In the last days of the Dominion War, the student body had mounted a courageous if foolhardy defense of their university against the advancing Jem’Hadar. The Jem’Hadar had been instructed to carry out a particularly vicious reprisal. The result had been a terrible massacre, made all the worse by the fact that so many of those who died were so young. More than that, most of the university buildings had been flattened, and the use of chemical agents had left a large part of what had once been the campus unusable. Lang, who sat on the relevant committee, knew that the detoxification process had been going unexpectedly well, and the land should be available again for the university within the next couple of years. It would be a welcome site for expansion and would be soon needed. Cardassia’s birth rate had been shooting up in the past few years, further evidence that people felt optimistic again. The future looked bright for the U of U. It was a future Lang sincerely hoped to shape.

  She took her usual route to the skimmer park. This took her to a high hedge. She followed this around until she reached a gate in the hedge, which led in turn into a small quiet garden. She went through the gate, softly closing it behind her. The garden was full of spring flowers: isca with its tiny star-shaped flowers; pale blue caroci, bunched in clusters; and a few remaining nhemeni, whose bright yellow flowers were the first sign that winter was ending. At the heart of the garden was a pool, the water still and covered, right now, in a blanket of meya lilies. On a stone stand in the center of the pool was a memorial to the students who had been murdered by the Jem’Hadar.

  Lang stopped to look. It was an unusual piece, two solid blocks of black stone, taller than head height, each one covered in symbols representing ­knowledge: equations, formulae, fragments of old scripts, Hebitian figures, well-known quotations. Resting on top of the blocks, connecting them, was a piece of gray metal fashioned into an infinity symbol. Etched around this were the words from the dissident student poet Lim Pa’Mar, who had died in a labor camp on Cardassia IV:

  They will not grow old, but the memory will never fade

  Of their never-ending sacrifice.

  Lang had known Pa’Mar. She had taught her. She had nearly saved her, but had come too late. She thought of her daily, and she had lobbied for her words to be put on this monument. Cardassia had sacrificed its youngest and brightest for many years. It would never, she hoped, do such a thing again. Lang placed her hand upon her breast and bowed her head. Lang was not religious—few Cardassians were—but she was steeped in her own history, and this quiet grave garden moved her like few other places. Most days she spent a few moments here, remembering the past, hoping for the future.

  A tiny londub bird, black and bright-eyed, hopped past, glancing up at her. She smiled at it and then left the garden, carrying on down the path that ran alongside the memorial garden to the skimmer park. As she walked, she heard footsteps behind her. She looked back over her shoulder to see a figure hurrying toward her. “Professor Lang!”

  Lang sighed. She really wanted her lunch. But it was a matter of principle always to take the time to speak to a student. It was her work. She stopped walking and waited until the young man had caught up with her.

  “Thanks!” he said. “Phew! I thought I’d missed you.”

  She waited patiently while he sorted himself out, and next thing she knew she had a holo-recorder shoved into her face.

  “Student news,” he said. “We heard this morning that Chief Academician Enek Therok intends to resign his post at the end of this term. Is there any truth to the rumor that you’re intending to put your name forward for the position?”

  Lang looked down at the recorder. “That’s a very nice piece of equipment,” she said, “for the student news.”

  He looked at her shiftily. “Well, I’ll do an item for them too. Probably.”

  She smiled, nodded, and turned to go. This young man was on assignment from one of the mainstream news channels. Probably hoping for a job after graduation. But he would have to do it without turning her into an exclusive. “No comment.”

  “But Professor Lang!”

  “Young man,” she said, “I admire your initiative, your commitment to the fourth estate, and your desire to build an impressive curriculum vitae. But do you really think that university politics are of the slightest interest beyond this campus?”

  “With great respect, Professor Lang,” said the young man, and his serious tone stopped her in her tracks, “do you really think they’re not?”

  She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  He gestured back over his shoulder. “That memorial. People don’t come past it much, but they think about it all the time. People who never come onto this campus—that’s the single thing they know about U of U. The massacre. And it breaks their hearts. One hundred and forty-nine young people, at the very start of their adult lives, murdered by the Jem’Hadar. People love the U of U, Professor Lang. They love seeing its students on the streets of this city. They love our freedom and our enthusiasm—they even love our stupidities! We’re proof that things really have ­gotten better. Oh yes,” he said with a smile. “People will want to know who’s going to be in charge.”

  Lang looked back to the hedge surrounding the memorial park. She could just see the top of the statue, the great swirl of infinity. She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes. She was glad, she thought, that she had stopped for this young man. She had loved this university her whole life, but had always feared it was self-indulgence on her part. Now she knew that more people than she had ever imagined felt the same way.

  All the more reason not to show this young man her hand at kotra. “Thank you,” she said. “That was lovely to hear. Truly. But I still have no comment.”

  She walked on. He kept pace alongside her. “How about if I gave the exclusive to the student news?”

  Now that, she thought, was almost tempting. But not quite tempting enough. She walked on to her skimmer. “Thank you for your interest! Good luck with the story!”

  He wasn’t following her, but he did call out one last time. “You’re a public figure, you know, Professor Lang. Whether you like it or not! People are interested!”

  Horrific thought, but Lang didn’t let it spoil her lunch, nor her afternoon nap, nor her early evening writing session.

  * * *

  Doctor Elim
a Antok had spent the day in the blissful isolation of the university archives. The place had a somewhat sacrosanct air: the destruction of the capital city that had happened in the very last days of the Dominion War meant that the great cavernous libraries and sealed archives of old had been leveled to the ground, and the new small archives that were being built—while beautifully appointed and spotlessly kept—sometimes had an empty, regretful feel about them. Records from before the war were scant, and whatever had survived was precious. Still, Antok easily became lost in her work here, and the fragmentary nature of the material with which she was working only made her task more absorbing. She treated it like a puzzle, a great riddle, piecing together what was left, trying to weave a story from the fragments salvaged from the ruins.

  Antok checked the time. The afternoon was wearing on and she was particularly keen to get home this evening. She made a few sketchy notes for what she would do during her next visit, then saved and closed her files. She stood and stretched, thinking about the evening celebration that lay ahead and smiling in anticipation of her boys’ excitement. Then she realized, with some annoyance, that she had left her bag back in her office. It contained most of what they needed for the evening (well, apart from the food, which had been organized some days ago and was already prepared at home for the family to break their day’s fast), but there were the candles, the lights, the last decorations. She hurried out of the archive building and across the northern edge of the campus to her department building.

  Elima Antok was a historian, an expert on the Occupation of Bajor, and specializing in how the Occupation had affected life back in the Cardassian Union. Her doctoral thesis had documented the lives of the small but significant number of Bajoran comfort women and their children who had been brought to Prime, and the book arising from that research had won an important award within her field. Altogether a most auspicious start to her academic career, and the success had brought an appointment at U of U. She was lucky that her subject matter not only attracted attention, but was considered vital work in postwar Cardassia, where examination of the past was considered as important as reconstruction of the buildings. Nobody quite wanted to close the book yet on recent history: there was a definite sense that there was more to be revealed. So Antok, who did good work, was in the enviable position of doing work that had mainstream interest and, more importantly, funding. She had provided evidence to a recent Assembly report looking into Bajoran Occupation war crimes. She had received a substantial grant to investigate the university archives and discover what role the institution had played during the Occupation. On top of all this, one of the big three news ’casters had been sniffing around. There was talk of a documentary series. Antok had a pleasant, informative, and non-confrontational lecturing style that also managed to be authoritative. Altogether, she thought, life in the new Cardassia was good.

  She dashed into her office, hoping not to bump into anyone who would keep her talking, and grabbed her bag from the chair by her desk. As she turned to go, she heard the comm on her desktop chime. Antok groaned. Wasn’t it always the way? Just as you were walking out of the door, another message would arrive and demand attention. She considered pretending she had already left, but the chime, while soft, was insistent, so, with a sigh, she put down her bag and went across to check, promising herself that she would not get absorbed in any other messages she had missed during her day’s isolation.

  The message turned out to be from Chief Academician Enek Therok. It had been marked URGENT and ALL STAFF MUST READ, so Antok dutifully read. There was a lot of sentiment and braggadocio, which was par for the course for Therok, but the upshot of the message was that he was retiring. Antok marked the message as read, closed her comm, and smiled. This was undoubtedly big news for Therok, but Antok could have gone uninformed until the morning. She grabbed her bag and dashed out. Already she was thinking about how she could make this work for her. There would be lots of people wanting to speak to experts on the U of U staff to give Therok’s career context. He’d been here forever.

  She found her skimmer and began to ease her way off campus. With luck, she would be on the main city circular before the rush hour began in earnest. She drove, like all Cardassians, with one of the newscasts muttering away in the background. The national addiction. There was a short piece about Therok, of all things, and some conjecture about who would be his successor. Natima Lang seemed to be the frontrunner, thank goodness, and Antok nodded. If anyone deserved the honor, it would be Lang, who had been steadfast in her defense of freedom for years before the Dominion War. The story moved on to discuss the arrival of some Federation VIPs, and her attention drifted. Tonight, she and her family were celebrating Ha’mara.

  Ha’mara: the Bajoran festival of light that celebrated the arrival of the Emissary. A festival of gratitude, of thanks to the Prophets for their special love for the Bajoran people, and their gifts and aid during a long, dark history. Antok stopped to allow pedestrians to stream past, and she stared, as she often did, at their faces, wondering who else shared a background like hers, who else on Cardassia Prime would be celebrating tonight?

  She pulled up outside the school and waved to the two small figures standing at the gate. They waved back and hurried to meet her. Her boys. One-eighth Bajoran, as she was one-quarter. Antok’s paternal grandmother had been brought to Cardassia as the mistress of a gul toward the end of the Occupation. She was hidden away, but important, because she was the mother of a son—a son who looked unquestionably Cardassian. They all looked Cardassian: Antok, her two sons; her brother, his three daughters. Nobody would ever guess. The question was, these days—would anyone even care?

  The boys scrambled into the back of the skimmer. “I did it, Ma!” said Evrek, eight years old and senior. “I fasted all day.” He looked scornfully at his little brother, who was strapping himself carefully and methodically into his harness. “Velek had lunch,” Evrek said darkly, as if at some great betrayal. Velek, now securely fastened in, looked calmly ahead. “I was hungry,” he said.

  Elima Antok nudged the skimmer back onto the road. “Well, you know,” she said, “children don’t have to fast.”

  “Bajoran children didn’t have the choice,” said Evrek, glowering at his brother. “Bajoran children didn’t have enough food.”

  Velek was unperturbed. “I’m only a bit Bajoran,” he said. “And I was hungry.”

  “I’m proud of you, Evrek,” she said. “And of you too, Velek, for knowing you should eat.” She saw Evrek roll his eyes at this maternal even-handedness, and quailed a little at this brief presentiment of adolescence. “Dinner for everyone when we get back,” she added, and a big cheer erupted from behind her. “And cakes.”

  She eased the skimmer onto the circular. As soon as she and the boys were back, she and her partner, Mikor, would close the shutters, chill the room and darken the lights, and make the whole house cozy. Then they would light candles and give thanks and eat their strange home-cooked food until they were sated and happy and suffused in love. Mikor was Cardassian, wholly, but he had embraced these celebrations. In fact, he was grateful to be admitted to them.

  Elima Antok glanced behind her and her heart swelled. These two creatures, she thought, how un­­likely, how impossible they were. How astonishing that her grandmother had survived. How astonishing too that her son—Antok’s father—had produced a ­daughter before war took his life. And how grateful she was that she, Elima Antok, had been spared the last days of the Dominion War to produce these two boys, and live to see a Cardassia where they could explore their Bajoran roots without fear of reprisal. Truly, Antok thought, she had much to be thankful for. And as she drove along, she gave thanks to the Prophets for all their gifts.

  * * *

  The day was nearly over, and Elim Garak had not yet started work. To be sure, his day had been busy. There had been a ceremony in a remote northern province celebrating the opening of the first technical college
in the region in its entire history. He had transported back to the capital in time for a pleasant working lunch with the leader of the largest party in the Assembly. There had been a private meeting with a deputation of vedeks about the Bajoran temple they were opening in the city. And then, late in the afternoon, there had been a satisfying conclusion to a small trade dispute that had been simmering for several months with the Ferengi (everyone had saved face and nobody had been out-of-pocket). But he had still not even started the main task that needed to be done that day. The report—which had arrived at his secure padd sealed and thoroughly encrypted—had not yet been opened. He dreaded to see what was inside, and the thought of its contents had loomed large even over the day’s successes.

  After three years, Garak wore the castellanship lightly and with considerable style. He had taken to the job like a riding-hound released onto the wide Veletur plains, savoring the theatricality, the busyness, and what he called the “varied and variable reading.” He had thought when he embarked upon this ­project that he might like aspects of the job—certainly he believed he was duty-bound to take it on—but he had never expected to enjoy it quite so thoroughly. Moreover, people seemed to like what he was doing. His advisors—an achingly young and committed set of individuals—were constantly saying things like “Great job!” and “Stunning!” and “Castellan, you are unique!” and had a vexing habit of using slang that made him feel old. Commentators on the ’casts sometimes muttered phrases like “new Golden Age imminent,” and his popularity was high. And sometimes, sometimes Kelas Parmak said, “That was well done, Elim,” and Garak would smile and be content.