"Welcome to the Occupation"
DS9, Dukat/Tora Naprem,
by Elisabeth Pinto

Comments much appreciated! Talk to Zee@goplay.com .

PART 2

THE CHOSEN PATH OR THE GIVEN ROAD

The summer was almost over and the storms came violently. She watched the soldier squint and lean forward on the console, seeing things with his narrow eyes that she couldn't, and glide the shuttle through the rain. The clouds hovered low over the city, so that thunder roared and rumbled over the rooftops, into the bones. She shivered without knowing why. She wished she was walking through the empty streets right now. Sometimes loneliness was company.

The soldier was taking her to Dukat's personal residence because the Glinn was going to be late, was tired, and wished to listen to her in more comfortable surroundings -- those were the soldier's exact words. The shuttle stopped with a jerk, the soldier got out and opened the door for her, then strode up the few steps to the door where another soldier was standing guard, his face barely visible. Rain dribbled down the tip of his hood and shimmered briefly in the porch light. They exchanged a few words as they watched her come towards them and snickered softly. The guard rang the chime, pressed his thumb to a scanning device, and the doors opened. Her driver told her to get in. The doors closed behind her.

The house must have belonged to a high dh'jantara because the hall was richly decorated with paintings and drapes, its ceiling making a small alcove. She looked up automatically, but the house blessing was not there; there was a smooth cool glass plate engraved with Cardassian graphics, and the stamp of Central Command. At the corners she could see a difference in colour, where they had not managed to completely scrub off the mantra.

Hollow clicks and clacks of footsteps echoed on the stone floor, a shadow appeared and then an old woman. Her long white hair was simply tied back and her neat, slightly faded dress tightened around her waist with a simple belt and one knot. The ridges on her nose were withered and withdrawn into five more wrinkles.

"Are you hungry, or thirsty?" she asked. She wore no earring. She stared indifferently at Naprem.

"A bit of both," she finally answered. She thought about asking her if she knew what her fate was going to be. Surely, she would tell her, she would help her if --

"I will take you to his study and bring you soup. The Glinn said he might be quite late."

She followed the old maid, past the living room and its great fireplace, up the stairs, and down another hall. The maid indicated a large chair in front of the desk and promised to return soon with the soup. Naprem put her instrument down and took her shawl off her shoulders. The study was a small room with high windows and high walls covered with shelves. All the books were leather-bound and worn. Most of the titles were fairly obscure and had to do with politics, philosophy and the Prophets. A few were not Bajoran and, on the lowest shelf, there was a faint trail in a little corner where they had not kept up with the dust.

She had been playing for him for just over five weeks now, and he had rarely said anything, simply watched her, a finger on his lip, obviously pensive. Sometimes he would sit up and the movement broke the stillness of the room, and she had to gaze up or she would have gone mad. He always smiled when their eyes met as if they shared something already, as if he heard everything that she kept in her silence, but thought of it as nothing more than something they had agreed to; she felt then a brief confusion, a feeling that somewhere she had spoken without knowing it. There was grace in his movements that she had not seen before in a Cardassian, and no pity or hatred in his eyes when he looked at her. He was the only Cardassian she knew who had blue eyes. Did it amount to a soul?

"I hope your like the soup," the old maid said, startling her. "Call if you need anything."

"Thank you."

Naprem sat down in front of the desk. The soup was thick and oily, and smelled of earth. She picked up the piece of bread and it was incredibly soft, and yielding, and fresh. She dipped it in the bowl and started eating. She'd had no lunch, no one in her neighbourhood had for a week. The rations had been shortened and the Cardassians had told them it was because the Resistance had attacked a food convoy and destroyed it. She cleaned the bowl with the rest of the bread. She got up instinctively when she heard the strong and hollow thuds of feet on the stairs. They slowed as they neared her. The door had been left ajar and a tall shadow paused for a brief second before walking away again, and climbing more stairs. A few minutes later, softer steps came down again, did not slow, and Glinn Dukat walked in. He was not wearing his armour, only a simple and dark woollen shirt that covered more of his scales than his uniform, trousers that matched, and supple shoes.

"I hope that you do not mind this informality," he said with a smile, "but I have been in this uniform for two days now, and it is more dignified than comfortable. I apologise for bringing you here -- I will make sure that you are taken home safely." He switched the desk lamp on. "I wish Mana would turn more lights on. She seems to think that Cardassians live in complete obscurity. But it's dark enough out tonight. I feel like a little light." He glanced at the tray and the empty bowl. He gestured to her to sit down and then started speaking in Bajoran. "I apologise about the rationing. There's not much else I can do. Bureaucrats are petty and dry creatures, they wave figures at us and expect us to make them a reality. All they say is that it's all we get. Are you a soldier or not? Then endure. The nerve -- to tell us our duty!" He paused to search her eyes but she refused to look up, even when she sometimes thought that he was truly interested in her opinion. "But I tell them it's for civilians, and then they care even less. Such is the way."

She put her instrument between her hands. After a long silence, he asked, as he always did, "what will you play today?"

Naprem began to play her piece, eyes closed. Through her eyelids she sensed the light moving with him. She was irked to find that she wondered why he was not sitting today, and not paying attention. She suddenly realised that he had been the only one to truly listen to her music those past few weeks. She opened her eyes and looked for him. He was standing by the window, very much as he had been in his office such a long time ago, but this time he was not looking at anything. He was simply very still. He frowned. She flattened her fingers on the strings and the music died with a little hum.

"You haven't been playing very well those past few days," he finally said. "You don't seem to play as you did in Pavla. It's probably my fault." His body shifted and leaned against the window, and he turned to look at her. "The rain is so different on Cardassia. It's always heavy -- this is heavy, too but not the rain itself. Small, light drops that wash over you. Cleansing rain. If you listen to the sound it makes on the leaves--" He touched the window with one finger. "It's almost apologising. On Cardassia, rain is hard. The trees always look so tired after a storm. Everything's hard on Prime -- our land is poor and there were great famines a few generations ago. Millions died. We learned the hard way, too. I've just been on what they call an administrative inspection, in the provinces. It was so very beautiful, just as my father described it to me. So many different colours, and it's so warm. I don't understand why people are not fighting us for this land, because we are. Cardassia is hungry, and just as you finished that soup to the last drop, she will seize the fruit when she sees it." Naprem stared at him, blinking. There was a deeper grey to the Cardassian's face. For once he averted his eyes before she did. He straightened his shoulders and looked like a soldier again.

"Do you like poetry?" he asked. He waved at the rows of books behind her. "Most of our poetry has been destroyed in the revolution. Over a hundred years ago, Cardassia had great poets, and architects. There are some of their constructions left. They're all very high towers. They believed art to be the most important thing. They believed they had a real place in this universe. But the famines came and showed them that universe has a place only for those who make one. It was a difficult time but it has made us stronger. Now we will show the universe!" He moved to sit against the desk. He was very close to Naprem. "Perhaps things would have been different if the Prophets had smiled upon us."

She understood that for someone as talkative as Dukat, silence was an awkward thing, an unknown quantity, a mind closed to his own. He rarely remained silent very long. She jumped when she felt fingertips on her cheek, moving a strand of hair behind her ear then lightly tracing the pattern of her dh'jantara earring.

"You're a natural artist. You're only a musician and yet every move of your fingers paints wonderful landscapes in my mind and shapes in the air. In my heart." What did he know about art, she wondered. What did he know about beauty when he brought with him such ugliness? All the music that she played was either memories to her parents' generation, or a flag to hers, little understood but waved with rage. Why did it have to be a Cardassian that listened? "We used to believe that art was redemption," he said. "Everything we did, every sin, pardoned through acts of sheer beauty, for their own sake, for the betterment of the race. I like this thought. Cardassia has lost much spirit but a soul needs a body, and if the body is starving... the soul listens to it first." His fingers slid to her chin and turned her face towards his. "I think you and I have much in common," he said softly. She flushed with both revolt at his words and the gentleness of his touch that somehow terrified her. His blue eyes were clear and demanding, tender and open, undressing her shamelessly but with adoration. "I think we both wish for something special for Bajor. Something great. We could do that together." And why didn't you, she wanted to scream, all those years ago when your delegations claimed peace and friendship, when you signed trade agreements. Where was the need for murder and slavery? For the hatred, the darkness and the end of tomorrows? She cried out to the Prophets to come to Their children and to explain, to take away his too-warm hand that she wanted to fall asleep into.

"I hoped for a good friendship between us. I value your opinion. Are you afraid I will harm you if you tell me how much you hate me and that you want me dead?" This time he moved her seat; she had failed to see it was a swivel chair. "I know all that already. It makes for a refreshing change. All our cards on the table, no hypocrisy. I assumed I could count on you for honesty."

She said nothing.

Dukat returned to his chair. He was suddenly all business, but she noticed that he was not looking at her anymore. His body language had changed, too. He was tense, his gestures quick, impatient. She had hit the mark and almost smiled. It was strange that a man so careful with his words and so guarded with his thoughts was asking for honesty.

"There's going to be a gathering of officials in our district next week. I will want you to play there, with other musicians. You may play what you choose." He spoke in Cardassian to his computer. "A shuttle will take you home now. I will not see you until the party. Thank you for coming."

Naprem had known Parem all her life. They had gone to the same school, slept in the same beds, feared the same monsters. His parents were musicians as well but he had become a technical assistant. We are all slave or soldiers, he had told Naprem who had been surprised by his choice, there is no order or peace for the castes to keep. She would have agreed with him but she could not see enough of a war to see the soldiers. She had not seen him in a few weeks and he looked thinner than he used to. He had always been lean and sinewy but never bitter as he was now. His fingers used to tease and fly but had become still and closed over one thing or another; right now they held and squeezed a lump of mo'la paste. He was already chewing on some, taking the time to dart his grey eyes from Naprem to somewhere in the sky, where his other thoughts were. Everything about him was wild and closed to her, apart from a smile here and there to reassure her that he was still her friend. His blonde hair, clinging to the back of his neck with sweat, needed to be cut. The struggle that it was for them to talk to each other was one thing; what really troubled her was that it did not seem to bother him in the least. He had greeted her as if he'd last seen her the night before when it had been weeks. But it was good to know the good times hadn't been dreams.

"This stuff's bad for you," she told him.

"It relaxes me and it cuts my appetite. Unless you're prepared to cook me some cono pie, let me be." He stuck his tongue out at her with a wink.

"We've got some potatoes. I could cook a couple."

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine." He leaned over the balcony and she followed his gaze. He was looking at the courtyard, once green and polished. The vine had dried up and the stones were now covered in thin yellow leaves and dead buds. A crack ran along the battered floor, lifting moss and allowing a passage for small, shiny, busy ants. Half a banner remained from the summer festival, the part that had remained attached to the wall when the Cardassians had ripped it. It was a little dirty now, from the rain and the dust, but it had been left there to sweep the floor with the breeze. Parem seemed transfixed by the ants. Naprem wasn't quite sure what it was he was staring at and was considering asking him when he spoke. "This place has changed since I left, uh? The fountain's a damn tree now."

"The spoonheads cut the water supply to the courtyard but there's enough water below it for a fruit tree. It's kind of pretty, isn't it?"

"I liked the fountain better. Do you remember that summer when we managed to dunk six other kids in there?"

"Oh yes. I thought Mother was going to kill me."

He laughed and it was a good sound. She smiled. She waited for something else but it didn't come, and they lapsed into another silence. She swallowed a new bitterness, certain somehow that it wasn't worth it, unsure of Parem's thoughts on the matter, unwilling to let go of something else. He was glancing across the courtyard, something indifferent in his eyes.

"Good times," he said suddenly. "Shame we had to grow up." He bit off another chunk of the paste. "Mmm. They say mo'la paste is addictive and I think they're right."

That kind of talk was easy, and she was as good at it as he was. She said half-seriously, "You're an idiot, Parem. Good thing you're cute."

"What's the use for brains, Naprem? At least I get laid, which is the one damn good thing left around here." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Try it sometime, dear."

"Are you proposing?" she joked.

He shrugged. "It makes *me* feel better. Sex must be the one thing we never did together. Sure, why not." She stared at him, wondering how far he was taking this joke this time. There was something strange on his lips when they kissed. They had kissed before, when they had been children, adolescents or drunk, but this kiss was heavy with meaning, gaps and feelings that had nothing to do with reasons to kiss. She was tempted to take him up on his offer, to lose herself in something else than anger, to feel good. It would be so easy. But she didn't want to lose this bit of childhood that he was, to discover that he was a man, that they were both adults with not many dreams left, or places to go. Afterwards, she was glad she had pushed him away because he took no offence. He didn't care one way or another, and she wanted something that mattered somehow.

"You're not *that* cute," she said.

"I disagree!" He chuckled.

"What?"

"I just remembered the way your teeth used to go in all crazy directions. Prophets, you were ugly."

"Thanks a lot, you bastard."

He hugged her. "I said 'were', Naprem. You're beautiful and you know it." She grimaced at him. "Has he done anything to you?"

"Who?"

"You know who. That Dukat, the district son of a bitch."

She frowned. "And how do you know about that?"

"Words get around. Well?"

"Nothing. He hasn't touched me."

"You should be careful, Naprem. A girl like you -- you'll get picked up someday."

"Not without a fight, I swear. I'd rather die."

"They'll kill you anyway," he said. "Why don't you come with me?"

"Where?"

He stepped back into her room and she followed, closing the window. "I've made contacts with a resistance cell. We've talked about this before. Come with me. We can fight for Bajor and exterminate those bastards."

"You know I want to."

"What's holding you back?"

"You know very well. I can't leave my parents," she said. "They'd die with worry if they knew what I was doing."

"That's just an excuse, Naprem." The laughter was gone, as simply as that. She felt the attack in his tone before it came in his words. "There are other things to worry about! I can't believe you're saying this. Don't you hate what the Cardassians are doing? It's only a question of time before they take you and give you the same treatment as Lapa. Do you think you're safe 'cause one of them has taken a fancy to you? How long is he gonna wait until he tires of waiting? Or have you said yes already?"

She slapped him so hard that the palm of her hand burnt. "I get enough of that crap from the neighbours. I don't need your insults."

"Do you want me to talk to them," he mumbled.

"It's not what they say, it's the way they look at me. I know exactly what they're thinking. Is this why you came to see me? To make sure I wasn't sleeping with Dukat?"

"I'm sorry." He turned his back on her.

"Prophets, Parem! Do you think you're the only one who's having a hard time?"

"I said I was sorry."

That was it. She felt suddenly out of breath. Everything in her room, her old books, her bed, Parem, had become strangely foreign to her. She tried to understand when their friendship had died and what had happened to that sweet boy she knew who listened so well and was so foolish. This was something else she had lost to the Cardassians. He didn't want to talk about the occupation, he wanted to make it go away. She could already see his dead body, lonely and ugly, wearing marks of rage, either his or the Cardassians'. He'd be lost in a million deaths. Who would notice? She would try and remember the boy because the occupation was all that was left of the man.

Parem disappeared into the bathroom to wash his face and she sat on her bed while she waited. She knew a lot of people like him. How was he supposed to feel and what was he supposed to do after he had found his sister Lapa's raped and mutilated body on his parents' doorstep? Of course he had never been the same. She did not understand anymore than he did. When he came back, she hugged him, very tight.

"Still friends?" he asked.

"Couldn't hate you if I tried." Naprem ran a finger along the red patch on his face where she had hit him. "But you deserved that one."

He didn't reply to that. Instead, he said, "Let's go for a walk. I've got to get home."

They talked about people they remembered from school, and their voices sometimes echoed across the thinning crowd. The sun was setting already; with the night came the curfew and at dusk sounds of hurried preoccupations. Children were running home with great shouts of laughter, flying over the cobbled stones with the lightness of fairies, past the indifferent soldiers. Parem wanted to stop at the temple and avoid the Cardassians, so they took a side street. They came upon an empty alley that used to be their Sunday playground. They could hear more children, shouting encouragement to a friend. And then with another step they could hear sobbing and cries of pain. Naprem was the first to burst around the corner.

The children, all young, all between seven and eleven from what she could tell, seemed to hesitate before scuttling away and down the street, Parem barking threats behind them. They had left another child behind, the one they had been beating; he was pressing the ground with his face and crying savagely. Naprem kneeled beside him but he turned away from her. She caressed his back.

"It's okay," she murmured. "They're gone. They're gone." She saw his small hands reach for his face to wipe the tears. He had blood on his sleeve. Where Parem stood, he could see the boy's face, and he was staring at him with disbelief. She gently moved him, as if to take him in her arms. The boy finally looked at her -- she recoiled from him in surprise. His nose was bleeding, his left cheek blue and throbbing. And through the dirt, it was two Cardassian eyes that were crying, wide and dark.

"I'm Bajoran!" he cried. "Bajoran!" He pushed himself away from her and she saw then the ridges between the eyes, and how soft the scales on his neck were.

"Naprem, come on." Parem had gripped her arm, and he lifted her up.

"He's hurt."

"He's a Cardassian bastard."

She wanted to protest, she wanted to take the boy in her arms and take care of him, to say the soothing words; she only stared. It was easy to miss the ridges if you wanted to, and if you closed your heart you could say he was a Cardassian. And she had seen the Cardassians as nothing but beasts or demons, never as broken angels. A child, she repeated to herself as if in shock, once conceived, once a sweet promise. Children were beautiful and pure, life in body, all worthy of love. How could Cardassians do that? She knew about half-castes of course, but somehow had never seen any, and there it was, one Cardassian, one Bajoran, in pain and therefore alive, needing some love. Still she couldn't move and did not understand why.

"Naprem? What's going on here?" She turned to find that Parem was gone and that Vedek Mano had replaced him. He didn't wait for an answer and tore a piece of his robe. "Oh my poor child..." He began to clean the boy's face, with one arm around his shoulders. "What happened?"

The boy said nothing, numbed with the crying, so she said, "He was being beaten by some boys."

"I was on my way back to the temple, and I thought I could hear crying."

"Where's Parem?"

"I just bumped into him around the corner. He was here as well?" She nodded. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long --"

"He needs to see a doctor, I think he may have a concussion." He took the boy in his arms and left without another word. On her way home, Naprem realised that she would never see Parem again and it left her strangely indifferent.

ANOTHER TURN

Rain washed everything of all pretence and of fake perfumes, and the smell of this earth was unmistakably Bajoran. Dukat missed Cardassia, where he knew what things were and what to do with them. That was also what childhood was like, and he missed it, too, sometimes. He let himself become sentimental in private, especially late at night, in the silence of other people's sleep, when he didn't have to play the grand game of living that excited and exhausted him in equal measures.

He stared at the book in his hands and a little beyond. It had been a difficult and dirty day of interrogations. He disliked interrogations and their cries and contortions. It was all very necessary, he knew and believed it, but it was grating on the nerves. He couldn't quite erased his father's face from that of the prisoner sometimes; with a twitch he pushed it away, far away, because in his bed the memory clawed into his heart and choked him. It happened once in a while, after a bad day, but it was only a matter of closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, and waiting. Still he hated the weakness in his guts that made his father linger.

He remembered how angry he had been with his father when he had sent him to boarding school. Dukat had been seven and torn from his home where he had been free to run and conquer the trees that were entire planets, where he had stormed through the tall rooms of their homestead, friends, pets and angry tutors behind him. He had seen and climbed and claimed for himself all of their estate. When he found boarding school to be another territory to grasp, it had been easy, and exciting. He had breezed through adolescence and the academy, other boys behind him and girls watching at the side, heard all the whispers behind him that promised him everything and had believed them. He'd had everything and had been unbelievably happy.

He remembered a dead cousin, too, killed a few years ago in the war with the Federation, who had tormented him the whole of his eleventh summer with his adolescent strength when they wrestled and his insults when they played. He had probably meant little by it but Dukat never knew enough swear words to make him stop, and was never quick enough to punch him. It had never happened to him and he had hated it.

"Elmo, you little prick. Is 'at all you can do?" And he laughed.

"You're only so heavy 'cause you're full of shit." And he pushed him.

One day his cousin tossed him his pocket knife and told him to kill his pet, an old and furry animal who now spent more time sleeping than anything else. He had refused. The cousin teased, slapped the back of his head, jeered. He had called him a coward, a worthless piece of rotten meat that would shame his father one day. He had carried on like that for hours. He had insinuated great things would come out of it. So Elmo had taken his pet near the pond at the back of the grove, grabbed the knife and slit the animal's throat so quickly that his hand hadn't even trembled. The cousin burst out laughing when Elmo vomited next to the carcass, tears in the eyes of pain and rage, and laughed all the way back to the house. He had left the following week.

Something else came back to him then, memories of a trek in the mountains with his father, watching the sun rise and a whole day unfold, a whole future, an entire life, and he had been on top of it all, had held it in the cusp of his hand. He had very much fulfilled his destiny so far, which his teachers and history had long ago drawn out for him. He couldn't fail. There was no reason anyone could see for a failure.

But he would have to find another solution for Bajor because this one was wasteful. He would have to make someone in Central Command listen to him. It would be difficult because he knew the accusations that would be levelled against him -- too soft, half a Cardassian, lacking a soldier's strength. He had thought about it a lot. He would have to make them see that it simply made sense, that he wasn't being soft. Even if all those things that were 'necessary' he had never seen in his childhood dreams or on that mountain; after all he had learnt to give those orders that were necessary. All the beauty he had ever been taught about was here. There was something here that was very important, very precious, but he couldn't quite see what. With every Bajoran that died, every temple that fell, it slipped further away, dragging him into a darkness.

It became obvious by the end of the week that summer was gone. The wind was still warm but carried many leaves, leaving a golden trail in the air, and dawn had never truly shown itself. The clouds were lazy and a dull grey, not quite ready. Naprem trailed them across the garden with a guilty single-mindedness as the young monk took her to the prayer chamber. Vedek Mano was sitting there, face to the altar and a bare silhouette against soft, warm candle light. She removed her shoes and, after a moment's consideration, she slipped to the floor next to him. She began to stare at the hands folded in her lap and the old floor where strange shadows played together.

"Up is where the Prophets are, Naprem," Mano said. "Isn't it beautiful?" She looked up to the altar and the intricate carvings of legends, the pattern of light across the backs of ancient furies. They moved into themselves and out again, twisting and twirling, fiercely entwined with the Prophets, forever, all the way to the curves of the ceiling. A stone carved to the likeness of an orb waited for secret wishes and hearts to open. "Pray," he said.

"I can't."

"It's the Prophets you need to ask for forgiveness, not me." He got up to light a new candle and remained standing as he sung a quiet prayer. She followed him when he was done, back to the garden she had crossed earlier and they sat under a low arch where the grass had just been cut and tickled their feet. They could smell how fresh the wound was in the morning dew. She reached out for a dying flower whose petals had withered and now seemed not to care. Perhaps a bee had already made sure that it would be born again, somewhere else, that it would be a glorious, overflowing red once more, that it would look more like a butterfly than a flower.

"You've disappointed me. Very much so."

She found that she had written sorrow in his eyes where the occupation had failed to and she felt ashamed. "I'm sorry."

"I've always admired your passion in your music. It's a rare thing to find these days -- I thought, 'here's one who will love. She will be fortunate.' I must have forgotten that you can also hate as much as you can love."

"All I could see was -- Cardassian." There, she could see the boy again and she could see herself unmoved, but now she felt her heart quiver sickly. "I don't know what to do, Vedek."

"Are you still thinking about joining the Resistance?"

"I can't do what you do, Vedek. I can't turn the other cheek. I don't want to live like a prisoner for the rest of my life, hoping they won't notice me, that perhaps they'll notice someone else instead. That's not a pretty thought to have. I don't think it'll make a difference but at least I'll have a say in the matter."

Mano took a deep breath, and his bones made sharp shoulders, visible through his robe. She saw people like him every day, old and not eating properly, who glowed of creeping, clawing death, not the right kind of death. Mano glowed of life demanding, expecting, wanting still, only thwarted. "I will miss you."

"I -- " She paused, then smiled.

"What is it?"

"I haven't much to say if you're not going to argue." He smiled back and she was glad. She understood now that she had always look to him for advice, even when she wouldn't listen, and now he would not give her any.

"I can't tell you what to do because I don't know. But there's one thing this old man has learnt and he's going to tell you. Don't ever forget what you're doing it for."

"How could I?"

"Bajor needs protecting, needs liberating, or we will all die." He squeezed Naprem's hand in his own. "But Cardassians are agents, not the cause."

"I don't understand."

"We have confused the Cardassians with the problem. The problem is evil, and the Cardassians are not."

Naprem felt as if she was back to school and the old lessons, and she remembered the day their teacher was arrested in the middle of a class and never seen again. She felt the old feeling of drowning again, from all those years ago, of the knowledge of the finite and the ignorance of the infinite. It was the ignorance that was enraging. "How can you say that -- when they kill and torture us every single day -- "

"Perhaps it's easier for me because I remember a free Bajor, and the first Cardassians, liars that they were. I have watched them all these years and I have listened. They are dying, Naprem, everyday a little more." He stopped, searching for words, desperation in his eyes, the kind that comes from knowing the truth. "They are *us*! Once brought down by fate, unable to understand when they should have, turning anger at their own helplessness into hatred for the universe, because they had no enemy to strike. We have the Cardassians but it makes little difference."

"That's why they hate us so much?"

"They don't understand, and they are jealous. They see the things we have and know they cannot have them. So they have to destroy them. Do you think they could treat us like this if they did not treat their own people that way? When you kill, you can start expecting others to kill you." She watched him catch a small feather in his lap and set it free again, without a thought. "Parem is gone already. I've lost too many children that way. I don't want to lose you."

"Parem is a *good* person," she protested. "If you talked to him --"

"It's not up to me to stand in his way. He's made his decision and I respect it."

Naprem couldn't help it. "I suppose you respect our ministers' decisions, too."

He smiled. "You mean collaborators. Of course I do. I don't agree but that will do little. The Prophets will judge them, as they will judge you and me, when all is done and has passed."

"You make it sound like it doesn't matter," she said.

"No. But sometimes we can't tell what does. If we could, we would be the Prophets. If Bajor can abandon its faith so easily, then I say we needed the Cardassians."

She didn't have one clear thought left but it wasn't quite confusion. It was more like fumbling and grasping at too many shadows. She let them settle with memories of a spring morning, when they'd had school on the same lawn, had learnt nothing but bird songs and had been happy.

He waited for a cloud to leave the garden and another to follow. "Please tell me. How is he treating you?"

"Dukat?" A shrug. "Fine. So far."

"He came to the temple a few weeks ago, to tell me it would be closed down. I protested --- I expected some broken bones but we ended up arguing about the Prophets."

"And?"

"What do you expect? We could not agree. But he did seem to enjoy the debate."

She snorted. "But he hardly changed his mind, did he?"

"I may be wrong but..." Mano searched his memory but couldn't find what it was. "For one minute, I really thought he wanted to. Perhaps I simply wished he would."

So there was another who had thought about Dukat. If Mano could talk about it, then she could as well. She could not have told anyone else that she did, that she had to, because the Cardassian always made sure she would. "I don't understand what he wants from me. If he really likes our music and my playing, why does he always talk about Cardassia?"

"Perhaps he doesn't know himself."

"He keeps trying to make me 'understand.' Cardassians don't have reasons for us to 'understand.' They don't need them."

Mano thought about it for a moment. "Perhaps he feels guilty." She laughed. "You shouldn't assume that all Cardassians are the same."

"Come on, Vedek! What -- he feels guilty? So he wants forgiveness from me? I can't give him that. If he feels guilty, he can stop doing what he does."

"It's not always that simple."

"Yes, it is."

"So why didn't you help that boy?"

She was too stunned to reply.

POSSIBILITIES

The day of the reception came to the city gardens, where already the trees were half-naked with the approach of winter. It was a dry and cool evening, with two full moons heavy in the sky above them. Naprem and the other musicians were let in through the conservatory, empty of anything alive and smelling of moulding earth, and made to wait as the caterers ran back and forth between the hungry mouths and the awaiting trays. No one said anything as they waited, either between each other or to the waiters. There wasn't much to be said, perhaps, except that they had all come because they hadn't had much of a choice. It was embarrassing somehow, this admission. When it was her turn, Naprem took her place with another musician and let him play first. That was it, she thought. They were going to have to play while the soldiers, the bureaucrats and the collaborators happily ate through twenty rations worth of food. She recognised some of the Bajorans present; one was a minister, no less.

And Dukat stood near one of the fountains, a glass in one hand, the other behind his back, listening too politely to be sincere to another Cardassian. He smiled at her, above the man's head. It was difficult not to return his gaze, insistent, testing and warm as it was. But when he returned his attention to the officer, his smile changed, broadened and lost all meaning, and she realised that he had gone back inside himself and that this was probably what he was best at -- talking and listening, thinking and giving nothing away, the art of small talk, of wading through people, and keeping them on the outside, in case he had got them wrong. It wasn't something she could understand, and she thought it was a little absurd.

Naprem was an excellent musician; somewhere else, where there was money and public concerts were still allowed, she could have been a great one, and she refused to let them take that away from her and say that it didn't matter. She was going to reclaim her life from them. She played lightly at first, one of those pleasant and simple dances that beginners learn. She began to pinch the strings harder, until she couldn't hear their voices or had brought them down to murmurs. Then she played another piece, from the second century, one that flowed and ran like sorrow, strained, ferocious one moment with the despair from the lover's death, falling deeply, slowly asleep with eternity. Now she didn't hear the notes but felt them slip through her fingertips to the rest of her body, making her hair tingle at the roots and her heart pound in her ears. She had needed to play this and to feel the pain in her fingers, the muscles in her arms, to shed the stupor of the occupation, to embrace the cold and let it make her blood run faster. It was exquisite, this pain of life. She felt powerful from its knowledge. She welcomed all the tremors and shivers in her soul that told her she was still alive. A soul needs a body, Dukat had said. But the body was nothing without the soul, and Bajor had the soul, the faith, and the Cardassians had only body and had nothing. If Naprem could remember that, they would never win.

The piece came to an end. They were all staring at her; some Bajorans with emotion, some Cardassians with surprise, most of either very uncomfortable without knowing why. Something had to be done to end the silence and the thoughts and it was done very quickly. Dukat could not have moved his eyes off her if they had not started clapping; his companion said something but he didn't care. He had to remember everything, the sound of breath through her mouth, the red of her cheeks, because he thought it was a dream and she was going to disappear from his life forever. He wanted to reach for her, say her name, and kiss her, and make love to her. His mind was suddenly filled with strange and foolish thoughts and hatred for all the strangers around him that kept them apart. He watched her rise and leave and didn't move. It was only when she was gone that he finally returned to the conversation he had begun earlier, before he had fallen in love with Tora Naprem.

The music died and hours passed. Beyond the gardens there were shuttles leaving with guests, and behind her plates were piled up and waiters complained to each other about their feet and the rate of pay. Naprem had been drifting around the reception grabbing some food when no one was looking, eating some of it and keeping the rest for her parents. Now she was sitting at the back of the conservatory, against the warm doors, and looking for Terok Nor in the sky. When she didn't find it, she decided to pick up some flowers for her mother. Gravel crunched noisily under feet, bright as polished steel in the moonlight, and the leaves of the dark shrubs were sticky to the touch, forming a high and wild hedge on either side of the path. She was happy and the night was clear and quiet; she wasn't hungry or thirsty and she wanted nothing, and she found it quite remarkable. It would quite certainly be gone tomorrow, this happiness, so she thought about staying up all night, until dawn and light, or until she fell asleep. She looked up to the sky and wondered about the distant worlds that glimmered above her, about other people far away who went to bed without fear, whom she didn't know and who didn't know her, even about all the Cardassians they were dying for. They all loved and hated and knew the pain of childbirth and death. It should have been enough in common to understand each other and it wasn't. She wondered what it was like to be free to eat properly, to do anything you wanted, to never be cold or even doubt that it would be all right. It could have made her feel lonely, all those people out there who did not know, or it could have made her despair that it was her that suffered and not them, but it wasn't what she was thinking. She was thinking about all the ways to be happy, all the possibilities playing themselves out, while life waited for no one and that for all the struggle strangers were no different to each other, alive now, gone eventually. It didn't frighten her; it was reassuring. She had something that mattered, her music, and she had forgotten until tonight; she wouldn't let that happen again.

She heard footsteps behind her, light and furtive, and turned around. Dukat walked up to her without a pause, so close that she stumbled one step back, almost laughing. He was half a man and half a face, the rest of him was darkness. What she could see was clear and sharp, eyes, scales, mouth, white and warm like in a dream. They didn't move at all, just stared at each other. He was asking and she refused to answer. So he guessed and she saw he was going to kiss her, and she let him slide to her, slowly, without knowing why, probably curious and intoxicated with beauty and wishes.

"Dukat?"

Three Cardassians, in uniform, one much older then the others, stood where Dukat had come from only a moment ago. Naprem shivered for no reason. She became aware of the silence, just below the quick and fluttering sounds of the night, of the fact that she was one Bajoran woman and there were here four Cardassian men, and she suddenly wanted to run. It was so easy to end something (anything) and this evening had been ended with one word, as quick as death could be. Whoever had called his name had done so in Cardassian and spoke again.

"Glinn Dukat?"

"Yes."

The older officer approached him, the two soldiers behind him. "I am Gul Terom. We've been introduced."

"Of course." He turned quickly to Naprem and asked her to leave.

In Bajoran Terom asked her to stay. "I think she will find the matter interesting."

"Are you certain --"

"Oh yes," Terom interrupted him. "And let's keep it in Bajoran, too, so she can understand. My name isn't familiar to you, is it?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I am the father of Soldier First Class Terom, who died when Palmor Dukat sabotaged his transport ship. He was my only son."

Naprem saw Dukat's back stiffen briefly. "I'm very sorry."

"So you should be."

"The pain he has caused to so many families only increased ours," he said. "If there is anything I can do --"

"I asked you to keep it in Bajoran," Terom said. "After all, she should know of your father's sacrifice for her and her kind. What's your name?"

She glanced at Dukat. His face was blank. "Tora Naprem."

"Naprem, Glinn Dukat's father -- "

"Please," asked Dukat. He bowed slightly, as if to apologise for the interruption. He sounded formal, nothing else. "I don't believe it's right to speak of such personal matters to a servant."

"Is that all she is?" Terom asked in return. "As I was saying, your master's father sabotaged a ship transporting soldiers to Bajor because he didn't believe in the Cardassian cause here. Over a thousand soldiers died, including my son. He was executed for his crimes, of course, but it does little to lessen the sorrow." She looked away in disgust, hoping they would understand it as docility. "I have my eye on you, Dukat," Terom said in Cardassian. "I'm one among many who will not forget or forgive your father's actions. I've heard you distributed old military rations to Bajorans last week. Slip only once and I'll be there. Palmor Dukat should lose his first son, too."

Naprem yelped in surprise when one soldier punched Dukat in the stomach, who doubled over with shock. He hit him again, with his knee, and Dukat gasped. The other soldier came forward and drove his fist to his face. Dukat lost his balance and fell.

"I didn't think you would fight back," Terom said. "And I don't think you will tell anyone about this, either." He saluted Naprem. "Good night."

They left. Dukat staggered quickly to his feet and wiped some blood from his lip. Naprem saw the tears in his eyes, and he saw that she had seen them and turned away from her with a dizzy step. She couldn't quite believe what she had heard but it must have been real because he was bleeding for it. This blood, so much darker than a Bajoran's, was crude life and death also. So he could live and he could die, just like her. He couldn't hide anything from her now that she had seen him cry and that he had revealed himself to be like any other, proud so he wouldn't be afraid, ashamed of sins, angry and blind. It was the lowly Bajoran who had seen everything, who had seen his naked soul; Terom had done this on purpose because Dukat could have perhaps forgotten about it, or put it out of his mind, but now someone else knew and it was no secret any longer. She thought about Vedek Mano's words and he had been right. She had felt the sickness in the three Cardassians and it was plain in Dukat. At least there was a reason for Bajoran suffering but what was it that Cardassians inflicted on themselves? She felt pity for this arrogant fool.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she really was.

"You should go home."

"Are you --"

"Go home," he said.

NEXT