I can always turn myself in, if I have to. The thought was strangely reassuring; it allowed her to continue with her madness, knowing that there was sanity and reality, no matter how unpleasant, that she could return to.

She wandered beyond the edge of the city, where she finally found herself alone. She walked past the old manufacturing facilities, dating to hundreds of years before the annexation, sitting empty and ominous in the hot, dry, evening winds—a grim reminder to those who passed that Cardassia had once very nearly fallen into ruin. The thought of it gave Astraea a warped flash of the horror she had experienced when she saw those images of Cardassia destroyed, blackened, smoking, crushed perhaps beyond repair. A shudder ran through her entire body, and she pulled her shawl tightly around her.

Past the wide band of shadow-haunted industrial zone, she reached the open desert, only a few thin vehicle ruts marking the expanse of cracked soil. Although she was looking at nothing, a field of blowing dust ringed with distant mountains so far away that she could easily block them with her hands, she thought she detected something here, something she had seen before. Was it wishful thinking that made it seem so? Or was this really the place where, centuries before, a small house had once stood? Meadows, a tiny stream, trees with birds in them? Was it simply the fantasy of a scientist who daydreamed about agriculture from things past?

She had walked a great distance, and her feet were sore. Though she had worn her walking shoes, she was not used to traveling as much as she had been doing in these past weeks; her movements were usually limited to the daily commute from her tiny apartment to her office in the science ministry. She had taken a public shuttle for part of her journey here, but, fearful of being seen, she had walked much farther than was probably wise. It pained her to think of the distance she was going to have to travel to return to the boardinghouse.

Examining the soles of her shoes, she thought she heard someone behind her and she stiffened, until she saw that a couple of stray hounds were fighting over something not far behind her, back near where the buildings began again. Her tension took on a different timbre, for she had always had a childish fear of the animals. Before the annexation, when Miras was a small child, her older brother used to scare her with tales of the giant wild dogs that fed solely on corpses, the remains of those who died of starvation, or during one of several poverty-borne disease epidemics. She had a vague idea that there were those who blamed the Oralians for many of the deaths from that time period; there had been great dissent, rioting, the overtures of civil war. She backed quietly away from where the animals were tussling, hoping they had not spotted or scented her.

A moment passed. The brief fight had reestablished whatever dominance existed between the two scruffy animals. One of the hounds turned its ugly, squarish head in her general direction, but did not seem interested in her. It padded away, followed by the other.

Astraea relaxed, turned to start walking again.

“Halt!” It was a man’s voice, behind her, and Astraea froze. A Cardassian soldier stepped into view, a man with a broad forehead and a deeply scrutinizing expression. He had his weapon trained on her, though he lowered it upon reaching her. She imagined she looked quite harmless.

“I…I’m doing nothing wrong,” she said faintly. “Only looking.” She was not breaking any laws, but it was generally understood that people did not travel on foot outside the city. She knew that her very presence here was suspicious.

“Looking? For what? Trouble?” The soldier laughed haughtily at his own joke.

“No,” Astraea said quietly. “I’m looking for…something that I lost.” She instantly regretted saying it, for now she would have to follow it up with a legitimate story. “I mean to say…I’m just…looking at the view.”

The soldier continued to regard her coldly. “What is your name, Miss?”

She thought fast. Now would be the time to turn herself in, and she supposed it would be wisest to just do so.

“My name is Astraea,” she said, in spite of her best intentions. It seemed she wasn’t ready to give up quite yet.

The soldier appeared taken aback. His mouth hung open for a moment before he spoke. “Astraea?” he repeated. It was his turn to sound faint.

She nodded, feeling certain that she had just guaranteed her own death sentence. She had now made a deliberate attempt to conceal her true identity to a soldier of Central Command. She might as well sign a confession.

“Astraea,” the soldier said, blinking. “This name…is known to me.”

What did he mean? She began to feel frantic. Was her alias already being associated with her true persona? In a panic, she corrected herself. “I mean to say, my name is Miras. Miras Vara. And…and I am from the Ministry of Science, and—”

“Where did you hear that name?” he said, his voice brittle and harsh again. “Astraea. Where did you hear it?”

“I…I…” Miras did not know how to answer, so she answered truthfully. “I heard it in a dream.”

The soldier’s expression changed, the hardness in his beady eyes quickly and fluidly transforming into earnest curiosity. There was a long pause before he spoke again, appearing to choose his words carefully. “I have another question for you,” he said. “You said that you are looking for something. Are you looking for something…that is in plain sight, but… hidden?”

Miras felt her panic turn into something else. Was this a trick? How could this man—how could anyone—have known the very words spoken by the woman in her dream? She stared at the soldier for a moment before finally collecting her thoughts enough to speak. “Who are you?” she said.

His eyes seemed to bore straight into hers, scrutinizing, prying. “I am Glinn Sa’kat.”

“Glinn Sa’kat—but I mean to say—”

Without breaking his gaze, he interrupted her. “You are…looking for the book,” he said. It seemed to be a statement rather than a question. His voice was somewhat steadier now.

Miras answered without quite thinking about her answer, much in the same way as she had told him her assumed name. “Where everything is written.”

The soldier stared at her for a long moment, his breathing seeming especially labored. “You had better come with me,” he said, his voice possessing again a trace of the earlier gruffness with which he had ordered her to halt. But there was something else in it now. Something like disbelief, or possibly even fear.

Gar Osen woke at just past dawn and could not seem to get back to sleep. Beams of mild light, clouded through with a haze of ashy dust kicked up from the cold fireplace, were penetrating through the high window in the back of the cottage. One persistent finger of sunshine had landed directly on Gar’s left eyelid. He pushed his face underneath the straw-filled bag that served as a pillow, but it was no use. He rose from his bed. He put his head down to stretch out his spine—the surgical alterations to his body had always made him feel so much more vulnerable, though in some ways, he could scarcely remember what it felt like to be in a Cardassian body. The stiffness in his current form might very well be a simple manifestation of his age.

As he lifted his head, he started and then gasped audibly. He was not alone in the room, though the other person was so utterly silent and still that he could have been there all night, as much as Gar would have noticed. “Who are you?”

The Cardassian rose noiselessly, an odd smile playing about his mouth. “Hello, Pasir,” he said. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

Gar was so taken aback at hearing his old name—it had been so many years since anyone had uttered it—that he could not immediately speak. He felt a combination of things, but mostly relief. Was he finally going to get some answers?