Andrew J. Robinson A Stitch in Time

PROLOGUE

“Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t?”

“My dear Doctor, they’re all true. . . .”

“Even the lies?”

“Especially the lies.”

My dear Doctor:

Forgive my delay in responding to your kind communications. I wanted to give this modest chronicle I’ve enclosed a modicum of organization and update it before I sent it on to you. Thank you for your concern. I have thought of you often since our last meeting, and I am pleased to hear that your life on Deep Space 9 remains challenging and productive. Considering all the changes that have taken place I would have expected nothing less. And I’m certainly not surprised that your research proposals have been accepted. You’re a brilliant young scientist–even if you are genetically enhanced. As for my life here . . .

It’s the dust.

I can live with the rubble. I can live with the survivors who move like holographic phantoms and spend every waking hour scavenging for whatever will keep them alive. I can even live with the stench of the corpses that litter the broken streets, waiting in grotesque poses to be transported to mass graves.

But it’s the dust that suffocates me and challenges my sanity. It clogs my nose, blurs my sight; my mouth is filled with a chalky paste that food and drink (scarce commodities) only thicken. We exist in a penumbral world where every shape and sound is blurred and muffled by this restless cloud of dust that refuses to settle and chokes my every breath.

Yes, Doctor, I have returned home. The only house I have ever known has been reduced to rubble. Fortunately, the little outbuilding in the back where Tolan stored his landscaping implements is still standing, and I’ve been able to clear a path to it and make a small place for myself inside. Indeed, as I write this, I am sitting here, the door open to make the space feel larger. It’s an ironic view I command: the dust and rubble of the home of Enabran Tain, the man who attempted to destroy the Founders’ homeworld.

The Founders have indeed exacted a Cardassian justice.

And then there’s the added irony of my own homecoming, Doctor, and finding nothing but Tolan’s tools and shed; an irony I think you will fully appreciate when you finish reading this recollection. Yes–I’m afraid you weren’t expecting this response to your kind inquiry; it goes a bit further than “Greetings from Cardassia–Wish you were here.” It seems I’m arrogant enough to believe this collection of reminiscences is something that may actually interest you.

I began writing it when I was first exiled to Terok Nor/Deep Space 9. It was an episodic and desultory effort chronicling my life on the station. Then last year, Captain Sisko invited me to join the initial invasion of Cardassian space–“the Battle for the Chin’toka System” as our Klingon friends trumpeted–an event I wasn’t sure I’d survive. My fondest wish at that time, as you well know, was to free my homeland from Dominion tyranny. Because of this uncertainty over whether or not I’d survive, I found myself devoting more time and energy to this journal with the following result. And now, here I am, a survivor in a “liberated” Cardassia, a Cardassia haunted by the souls of the countless billions slaughtered, who have taken the collective form of this dust cloud that constantly swirls and shrieks across this wasteland, vainly searching for a peaceful place to rest. It’s almost as if my homecoming was accomplished at their expense.

PART I

“You’ve come a long way from the naive young man I met five years ago. You’ve become distrustful and suspicious. It suits you.”

“I had a good teacher.”

1

To: Dr. Julian Bashir

Chief Medical Officer

Deep Space 9

Entry:

How odd you humans are. Or is it just the Starfleet people? Captain Sisko has just invited me to join the invasion–for which I am eternally grateful. The opportunity to liberate my homeland renews and animates my sluggish spirit. But the good captain makes no mention of the fact that this invasion is now possible because of the incident with the Romulans. I am simply to report to his office at “oh‑nine hundred hours” with ideas as to where the Dominion defense perimeter might be vulnerable. Oh, our dealings with each other are nothing less than proper (“Mr. Garak,” “Captain Sisko”), but what’s so odd is that he pretends the incident never happened. And you and I both know how deeply affected he was by the whole business. Only when we exchange direct looks do I perceive a flicker of . . . what? Anger? Betrayal? Violation?

Odd people.

Humans seem to walk through life’s infinite variety of relationships and situations taking them all at face value. They rarely look behind the faзade or the mask, where real intentions–the truth of our motives–live. And the fact is, more often than not they deny that they have any mask at all. These humans (and I do exclude you, Doctor–I will come to that shortly) believe that what they present to the world and, conversely, what the world presents to them, is the truth. It’s this belief that makes them dangerous.

In Cardassian society, we are taught from an early age to mask all feelings and thoughts, to deflect all outside perception and observation. The objective of this education is to create a citizen who can work within the group to accomplish a group goal established by the leader, and at the same time work in such a way that none of the other members of the group knows what he or she is doing. As long as the goal is accomplished, it’s nobody’s business how you went about your work.

So why Captain Sisko is so upset with me because I accomplished the goal (which he established!) of getting Romulus into the war against the Dominion baffles me. And it’s not because of the few lives that were sacrificed. Federation expansion has taken a toll in countless life‑forms–about most of which they are blissfully unaware. The moment you step into a garden and begin to cultivate and prune, you become a killer. Perhaps the captain was upset because he had hesitated to do what was necessary to insure the integrity of hisgarden. Sentimentality is another trait that makes humans dangerous.

But why am I writing this to you, instead of waxing philosophical over one of our lunches? I see that overly polite smile, your “Get to the point, Garak” mask. Patience, dear Doctor. First, let me explain why I can exempt you from this human bondage to appearance and sentiment. Long before it was revealed that you were genetically “enhanced,” I recognized in you an intelligence, a capacity for understanding that I found lacking in other humans. As much as the subject irritates you, you have not been so much genetically enhanced as “arranged.” The people who did this to you had specific reasons, which you have long since outgrown. And having assimilated these changes you’ve accommodated yourself to this “arrangement” according to the demands of your life. For me, this means that in a sense you are more Cardassian than human. Which is why I am able to share this document with you . . . and why I sat down to lunch with you in the first place.

Before you cringe with horror at the thought of being a Cardassian, let me give you an example. Human memory is selective and linear. Simply put, a human remembers the best of times in progressive order, beginning with earliest childhood. The rosy memories are only challenged by nightmares. A Cardassian remembers everything on every level all the time. For us, past and present are not neatly separated. We live with everything in the moment–including the nightmares. And so do you. To a human this would be chaotic, unbearable. For us it’s just the way it is.