I knew what it was: Odo’s question. What will I do if Cardassia remained in Dominion control? Where would I go? The Doctor’s interruption prevented me from answering, but truly I have no answer. I don’t know where I’d go. Much more troubling to me, however, is another question. Will I have a home if Cardassia is liberated?

12

Entry:

As I progressed through my First Level at Bamarren, I acquired a reputation as a resourceful and serious student. Not only had I broken all previous records for evasion of capture in the wilderness, but I had also excelled in my studies. The only member of my group who performed as well in all areas was the taciturn Eight.

I had no real friends to speak of, and told myself that loneliness was the price I had to pay for success. I considered the games and behavior of my mates to be childish, and that any unnecessary interaction would only distract me from my work. The truth, of course, was that I didn’t know how to forge those kinds of bonds. I wanted to be closer to Eight, and to a lesser degree Five, who besides being one of the great Pit strategists Bamarren ever had was fair in all his dealings. The rest, to one degree or another, I found to be jealous and manipulative. As I began to progress rapidly after my success in the Wilderness, One and his allies obviously felt threatened and maneuvered as a unit to cut me out of the unity we were supposed to be creating as a group. They did the same to Eight. Because this was directly counter to our training goals, they had to be clever and subtle about their methods. They had a harder time with Five, because he wasn’t as aloof as Eight and I. We made their job easier for them, Eight with his silence and me with Mila.

Inspired by my guide Mila, I would experiment at withdrawing my presence when I had to remain in the same room with people I didn’t like. Of course I couldn’t change my coloring like a regnar,but with constant practice I was learning to change the nexus of thought, feeling, and perception that defines my presence in space. If I am sitting on a rock, I surrender to the vibratory rate of that rock, using the techniques I began learning in the Wilderness. The more successful I became, the more I was able to keep the other students at a comfortable distance–especially the ones so involved with their own agendas, they were not paying the attention they should have.

When I smuggled Mila into my section, I made a home for him behind the shelving of my personal wall compartment. This compartment was the one place where a student’s privacy was inviolable. No one was permitted to inspect these compartments, not even the upper‑Level leaders. Without this piece of privacy I would never have been able to keep Mila. I created a space for him consisting of elements from the Wilderness, and I enjoyed opening the compartment and just watching him, especially when I was missing my home and family.

One day I was stretched out on my bed after a grueling training exercise. A few of the other section mates were in the room and I didn’t want to be included in their idiotic conversation, so I employed my “disappearing” technique. I was working on some calibrating equations from engineering class when I heard Three exclaim, “Ten has something in his compartment.” Three had that winning combination of arrogance and stupidity, and he spoke as if I were not in the room.

“Why else does he spend so much time staring inside?” Three demanded. The others in the room, Six and Nine, were also unaware of me and conversation turned into an argument over whether or not Three should inspect my compartment for illegal contraband. Six, to his credit, pulled his head out of his studies long enough to remind Three that such a search was forbidden on any pretext. Three sneered at Six’s objection and reasoned, with the logic of a bully, that his search was in the service of the group and that our section leader would support the action. Nine, another mental giant, agreed.

“Ten thinks he’s smarter than anyone else. We’ll see how smart he is.” Three never liked me, it’s true, but his attitude stemmed more from the old belief that since his ridges were more developed than anyone else in the Group he was entitled to lord it over us. His ideas of racial superiority, backed by his size and strength, made him quite dangerous. As Three moved to my compartment I slipped deeper into my trance‑like breathing, and my energy liquified and became part of the pallet cover I lay upon. Just as he was about to open my compartment, I “returned” to the room and sat up. His magnificent ridges nearly fell off.

“I can certainly understand if you want to borrow my mouth freshener, Three, but you need my permission.” I jumped up, fully expecting the inevitable physical confrontation that was an integral part of our communal life. We were all constantly defining and redefining our boundaries. But Three just looked at me–stared, really, as if he had seen the Mogrund itself, a phantasmal creature from Cardassian myth that occasionally returns from the spirit world to correct the moral balance of our world. As children, we were warned that our bad behavior would guarantee a visit from the Mogrund.

I looked from the pale, frozen face of Three to the others. They all looked like statues commemorating fear. And I was pleased. I realized at that moment that they were in my control, and that I would no longer have any trouble with them. Especially Three. I felt the power like a drug surging through my system. I also felt the increased distance between us that their fear created. I accepted this shift in our boundaries. The increased isolation was a fair price to pay for Mila’s and my inviolability. We had gained greater freedom to enjoy each other’s company.

13

Entry:

After my success in the Wilderness, I briefly encountered Palandine a few times after our initial meeting. The one time we could have spoken together (again in the training area near the Pit) I made an excuse and hurried off. That such meetings were against the rules was how I justified my abrupt behavior. As a Level Two student she should be more responsible. I didn’t know what she wanted from me, but I found her presence threatening and disorienting.

Docent Rilon gave me permission to do some research at the Archival Center on wormhole phenomena. First Level students were not allowed in the Center without special dispensation, but I had proven myself a serious student, and became one of Rilon’s favorites. When I entered my permission chip at the entrance, I was instructed by a disembodied voice:

“Attend to your business in section three, row eight, monitor five. You have two units of time.”

The door opened and I entered. I proceeded to my designated area and punched in my request for specific information as to the spatial conditions that alert us to wormhole activity. I prepared my recording chip for notes and settled in for a quiet and pleasurable investigation of one of my favorite subjects, the wormhole funnel that connects the here‑and‑now to seeming infinity. The mystery always fascinated me, and those people who dedicated their lives to its exploration were among my heroes.

There was Joran Kine, who had camped outside the Prime Moon Wormhole in an old Galor‑class shuttle and waited for the next turbulent opening. He believed that he had decoded a cyclical regularity and that the next opening would give him time to enter the wormhole, move through to the other side, do some exploration, perhaps collect some samples, and return before it closed. It was like saying that you could come back from death. Everyone thought he was on an insane suicide mission. They didn’t believe he could succeed. And when he did and he reported his findings, the scientific community didn’t want to believe him. His description of the journey thrills me even today. But when others tried to use his cyclical calculations and were lost, Kine was discredited; he eventually died in disgrace.