Star Trek: DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice Read online

  When this uncomfortable greeting was over, Kotan took Rugal upstairs. “Your rooms are on the east side of the house. They have a good view down into the city.”

  Rooms? How many were there? How many did you need? On the landing, they went past four small, exquisite paintings of a young woman laughing, each entitled Arys. They had turned the corner into another corridor before Rugal remembered that this was the name of his mother. His other mother.

  “Freshen up,” Kotan said, when they reached his bedroom door. “Get changed—there should be clothes out for you. Then we’ll go and see Geleth.”

  Rugal nodded and went inside. He sighed with relief when the door closed between them. Kotan’s constant attention, his anxiety to please, had been exhausting. Rugal leaned back against the door, looked round, and then gave a gasp.

  Kotan had misrepresented the view. It was outstanding. The far wall of the room, floor to ceiling, was made of glass and given over to it. The whole city was set out before him like an offering, richly lit and stretching out farther than he could see. Rugal took a few steps forward, captivated. He cast his mind back to the map he had looked at in the skimmer, and he picked out a few areas—there was Torr to the southeast, densely populated and intensely lit. Some of the buildings were recognizable too: the dome of the Assembly, the curves of the Akleen Memorial. A string of lamps marked the line of the river, itself covered in darkness. There was a striking silver pyramid that he could not identify. He would have to ask. No, not ask. He would look it up.

  The lights on the pyramid suddenly changed its color from silver to blue. With a start, Rugal remembered that he was supposed to be meeting his grandmother. He dragged himself away to investigate the room further. Two doors in the wall opposite the bed opened to reveal a bathroom and a walk-in cupboard. In this he found several sets of clothes, in unfamiliar Cardassian styles—tunics rather than shirts, slip-on boots instead of lace-up shoes. They would have to do. He had brought hardly anything from Bajor. He had not planned on being away from home for long.

  Quickly, Rugal washed and changed out of his traveling clothes. There was a long mirror on the back of the door of the cupboard, and he was dismayed to see how Cardassian he looked. Shutting away the sight, Rugal smoothed his tunic straight, then he grabbed his earring, shoved it in his pocket, and left the room.

  Kotan was waiting for him on the landing. He took Rugal back downstairs and round the far side of the house to Geleth’s sitting room. Outside, Kotan hesitated, his hand resting near the door panel. He had an odd, furtive expression, like a child anticipating a scolding. In such a big man, it was almost comical. “Remember, she’s very old, and very old-fashioned. She may say things that seem... well, odd. Try to understand. Cardassia was a hard place in Geleth’s youth. It wasn’t easy to live, to survive.”

  “Like under the Occupation.”

  Kotan closed his eyes, tensed. “Please—try to understand.” He opened the door. “Mother?” He had lifted his voice in the clear way people did when speaking to someone whose hearing was not always reliable. “I’ve brought the boy to see you. I’ve brought Rugal.”

  The room was dark. The only source of light was a dim orange lamp set in the far left corner. Beside this stood a long low couch, its back to the room. A gray hand, ring-encrusted, lifted and waved them forward. “By all means, bring him round so I can take a look at him.”

  Kotan, an odd smile on his face, gestured to Rugal to go round. Rugal walked across the room and came face-to-face with his grandmother.

  She was old and very thin, the bones and ridges on her face standing out prominently against her papery flesh. She had on a dark red dress with a high collar and subtle patterns that waved and changed as she moved. Her hair was long, white, and elaborately constructed. Her blue eyes were bright and sharp. She stared at Rugal and ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. “He doesn’t look much like you. Are you certain he’s yours?”

  Rugal, horrified, looked at Kotan, but the man was unperturbed. He had brought round a couple of chairs, and had sat down comfortably, slinging one arm casually across the back. “Quite certain. We had tests done. Rugal’s my son, no doubt of that.”

  “Still, he’s not much like you.” Geleth leaned in for a closer look, as if Rugal were a specimen. Her perfume was sharp and not unpleasant. She sniffed and leaned back. “I can see something of that wisp you married. So we know he’s hers, at least.”

  Kotan drummed his fingers against the back of his chair. “Rugal. Why don’t you sit down?”

  Conscious of the old woman’s eyes upon him, Rugal straightened his back, raised his chin, and sat down. Geleth watched his performance with unholy glee. “You may not know this, Rugal, but this is the first time that we have met. You were born on Bajor, and nothing was ever going to induce me to visit that place.” She paused, as if waiting for a reaction. None came, so she carried on. “I suppose we should be glad that no more Cardassian lives are being wasted trying to educate those backward ingrates.”

  Rugal stiffened. Kotan cut in. “Yes, well, that’s all over now. Bajor is no longer Cardassia’s problem, thankfully.”

  “No? Have you explained to the boy what ramifications his reappearance might have for the family name? An abandoned child? Better men than you have been ruined for less.”

  Rugal looked uncertainly at Kotan. His posture had altered subtly; he was still sitting as if at ease, but his hands were clenched into fists. “Under normal circumstances, perhaps. But Dukat has overstretched himself. He personally arranged for Rugal’s kidnapping. If he tries to make political capital from this affair, he risks opening himself up to censure. Not to mention the fact that I am well placed to implicate him in this guns-to-Bajor business. I have plenty to hold over Dukat. He won’t risk starting a war with me. Not this time.”

  “Dukat!” Geleth all but spat out the name. So the three remaining members of the Pa’Dar family were united in one thing, at least—a profound loathing for the former prefect of Bajor. Still, Rugal thought, watching his grandmother’s coiled fury and his father’s taut anger, it was sobering to think that only an uneasy standoff with this gul was keeping him safe on Cardassia. What if Dukat decided to make a move? How long would it be before the abandoned son became a liability for Kotan? And what advice would Geleth offer then? He shivered slightly, despite the heavy heat of the old woman’s room.

  Kotan relaxed his hands. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. Even if it meant the end for me, I would not have Rugal any place other than where he is now. Back home, with me.”

  Rugal swallowed. He felt he ought to say “thank you,” but that was wrong. He didn’t want to be here. If it meant trouble for Kotan, why ever had he brought him back, against Rugal’s wishes? It was perverse. It was typically Cardassian. Geleth gave her son an odd look, a mixture of contempt and affection. “Sentimental. This is why you’ve never been much of a politician.”

  “Mother, the reason I’ve never been much of a politician is that I am a scientist. If you’d wanted me to excel, you’d have left me in my laboratory.”

  “Duty is its own reward, Kotan,” the old woman said piously.

  Kotan snorted. Contempt and affection again, this time from him. Rugal felt as if his head was spinning. Was this how Cardassian families behaved? Bickering and scheming, lurching from mutual recrimination to deadly loyalty at any mention of their enemies? Migdal’s idea of scheming had been to punch first and talk later.

  Geleth yawned and stretched, each joint in her body seeming to crack. Then, with a swish of her long full skirt, she stood up. “Surely it’s time for dinner? Let me go and put on my reta beads, and then the two of you can escort me down.” She went through a little door into the next room. Kotan leaned over to whisper to Rugal. “When I was your age, I used to wonder what she did in here all day. Plotted against my enemies, I hoped, although there’ve been occasions when I’ve suspected her of plotting against me.”

  “So which is it?” Rugal whispered back.
r />   Kotan smiled broadly. He almost winked. He reached over to his mother’s couch, slipped his hand down the side of the cushion, and brought out a data padd. He thumbed it on, and then handed it over to Rugal, who looked down at a page of text infested by exclamation marks.

  “Enigma tales,” Kotan explained. “Really bad ones. She’s addicted to them.”

  They just had time to shove the padd back down into its hiding place before Geleth came back in. Both smiled brightly at her. She gave them a suspicious look but said nothing, taking her son’s arm and allowing him to lead her down the stairs. Rugal followed behind.

  In the dining room—a study in crimson and gold—Kotan pulled out a chair for his mother at one end of the table, and then took the seat at the other end. He gestured for Rugal to take the seat at his right hand. Rugal stopped himself staring around—it was amusing Geleth for one thing, and he wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction—and did what he was told.

  When the first course arrived, Rugal eyed it nervously, remembering the appalling dish of zabu stew that Chief O’Brien’s wife had concocted for him. Fortunately, this was recognizably food, some kind of thick broth that smelled of fish. Out of habit, he bent his head to thank the Prophets—then he remembered where he was and stopped. He glanced at Kotan to see if he’d noticed, but the big man had already started eating. Geleth, however, had seen. She smiled at him with cool malice. That—and residual anger about the earring—did it. Rugal bowed his head, clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and cleared his throat.

  Etra wasn’t really one for the Prophets, and Rugal wasn’t either, but Migdal was, so for the old man’s sake Rugal had attended temple and studied the prophecies hard. He had thought the effort was only right—some kind of reparation for the damage his kind had done to Bajor’s heritage. As a result, Rugal was able to dredge up a thanksgiving chant of considerable length and splendor. It began with a soft deep murmur, went up at a steady crescendo, to climax with one final, bell-like call of gratitude to the Prophets for their gifts and goodness. When the sound of that died down, the quiet around the table was thicker than the soup. Rugal opened his eyes, reached for his cutlery, and blithely began to eat.

  Kotan was sitting in shocked silence, while the maid had her mouth hanging open. Then Geleth began to laugh, a half-demented cackle like a rusty nail being scraped across barbed wire. “Marvelous!” she cried. “Magnificent!” She fell upon her dinner with renewed appetite. Rugal didn’t know whether to be pleased or furious. It was the start of a long war of attrition between grandmother and grandson. Rugal was never sure which of them was ultimately the winner, even taking into account the fact that he outlived her.

  It took slightly over a week, but Kotan made good on his promise. Early one evening, when Rugal was sitting outside in the stone garden and a warm wind was lifting the coppery leaves of the ithian trees, Kotan came and took the chair next to him. “I think,” he said, in a low voice, “that I’ve found a way for you to speak to your friends on Bajor. But, please, exercise some discretion.” He looked around anxiously. “I’ve gone through back channels, but still, the communication will certainly be monitored.”

  Rugal shifted impatiently in his seat. This was paranoia. “Who in the name of the Prophets—” Kotan winced, so he lowered his voice. “—who would want to listen to me talk to my mother and father?”

  “It’s the simple fact that the conversation is taking place. Bajor is hardly a friendly foreign power!” Kotan gave that long sigh that punctuated much of what he said. “It would be so much easier if you had grown up here! But we’ve no time to teach you more than the basics. The best rule is—if you think what you’re about to say is subversive, it almost certainly is. So don’t say it. Rephrase it, or drop it. And please, try not to get us all shot. Or worse.”

  Kotan led him into his study, an earnestly overfurnished room at the back of the house with a fine view out across the meticulous flower beds of the west garden. This time, Kotan had the courtesy not to hang around in the background. Once he was sure that the transmission was going through, he quietly absented himself. “You might not have long,” he said, from the doorway. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about that.”

  It was not the easiest of conversations. When their lined, familiar faces appeared on the screen, Rugal was overcome with homesickness. More than anything he wanted to be away from this strange place and back with them, at home, on Bajor. Etra, brisk and sensible as ever, behaved as if this was nothing more than a temporary interruption, and that soon everything would be back to normal. Migdal, however, was not so able to hide his distress.

  “Well, Rugal,” Etra said brightly. “I didn’t think when I saw you off at the spaceport that you’d be gone for so long! I let you out of my sight for a few days, and you run away from home!”

  It almost broke his heart. “Mother! Don’t say that! I don’t want to be here!”

  She waved her hands to calm him. “Shh... Of course I know that, of course I do. Poor boy! Don’t get upset. I want you to listen, because your father has some news and we’re hoping that you’ll think it’s good news.”

  Rugal leaned forward eagerly in his seat. Had they found a way to bring him home? His father cleared his throat and glanced past him; he looked uneasy, as if he too thought that there might be unfriendly ears listening to their conversation. “We think that Starfleet commander didn’t have the right to take you away from us. We’re trying to find out if there’s any way that we can get his decision overruled.” He gave Etra a quick look. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. Migdal carried on. “So I spoke to an old friend of mine, back from Korto, when I was in the watch there. Darrah Mace. You never met him, Rugal, he spent most of the Occupation in exile, out on Valo II, but he was my boss and my friend. Anyway, he was on Valo with someone who was on the Council of Ministers before the spoonheads took over, and he’s going to have a word with him about what’s happened, and what we’re hoping is that we can go and speak to this man, Keeve Falor, about all this and perhaps he’ll be able to pull some strings...”

  His voice faded. Rugal’s heart sank. So this was their good news. Migdal had spoken to a man who thought he might be able to speak to a man who might—perhaps—be willing to meet his parents and let them tell him about what had happened to them. Was this Keeve Falor even important any longer?

  “I know it doesn’t sound like much,” Migdal said, tentatively, “but Keeve is very well respected, the kind of man that important people listen to.”

  “It’s hard, you see, Rugal,” Etra said. “I’m not going to lie to you. People won’t want to reverse the Emissary’s decision, it looks bad. And, well, many people think that there are more important things to be worried about than—”

  “Than a spoonhead who’s been sent home,” Rugal said, bitterly. “Good riddance, I bet most people would say. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps you’re better off without me. Dad won’t get in as many fights now, I bet.”

  “Don’t say that,” Migdal said. “Don’t say things that aren’t true.”

  “We chose you, Rugal,” Etra said. “We wanted you to be our son. And nobody—not the Cardassians, not the Council of Ministers, not the Emissary to the Prophets himself, will stop us from getting you back home to us. We’re going to find a way. We won’t give up, and you’re not to give up either. Promise me.”

  She had put her hand up to the screen. “Do you promise me?”

  Rugal raised his hand so that their fingertips seemed to be touching. “I promise.”

  “Good boy! Now, what’s Cardassia like?”

  Rugal glanced around the room. “Dark. Depressing.”

  “How about on a bad day?” Migdal said, and the three of them laughed.

  “And it turns out that I have a grandmother,” Rugal said. He caught the quick look that his parents exchanged, and he felt wretched, as if he had been a traitor by saying it.

  Etra gave a small smile. “I’m sure she was very
pleased to meet you at last.”

  “Mm. She didn’t much like me praying before dinner.”

  Etra suppressed a smile. Migdal didn’t bother and laughed out loud. “For the sake of your pagh,” Etra said, in pious tones, “you should make sure you keep on doing that.”

  “Oh, don’t worry—I will!”

  “Good boy!” The image of them began to break up. “We’re doing everything we can, Rugal—we promise,” Etra said. “Don’t give up. We love you. You’ll come home again, we promise.”

  And then they were gone. Everything seemed very quiet all of a sudden. Very empty. He could see nothing familiar around him, only heavy furniture, in the somber colors Cardassians seemed to favor, and, beyond the window, a dull sky and a fussy garden made for show and not for pleasure. Rugal felt a weight on his shoulders, in his stomach, at the back of his throat. He sat for a while with his chin on his hand, staring at the blank screen and the afterimage, and then there was a quiet knock on the door. He sat up straight and frowned, trying not to look upset.

  Kotan was wearing that small, rather anxious smile that irritated so much. “Did you speak to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, good! Good! Were they well?”

  Exactly how well did he expect them to be, given that one child had been murdered and the other stolen? Rugal kicked back the chair and stalked over to the door.