The house was owned by a retired chief archon, Rokan Du’Lam, a man I later discovered was notorious for the sternness of his courts and sentences. He had a back apartment that opened out onto a modest plot of ground. I explained that I had limited means, but that I traveled a great deal and would gladly improve the fallow ground with plantings.

“What kind of plantings?” he hoarsely demanded. I was grateful that I’d never been dragged into his court.

“I am fond of Edosian orchids, sir.” He laughed in my face.

“Can’t grow those here!” he barked.

“I beg to differ with you, sir. I’m sure that under my care they would thrive.” He laughed again.

“I’ll tell you what, boy. If you can grow orchids here, I’ll let you have the apartment for the cost of the energy and resources. If you can’t, then you pay what I tell you.” It was clear that this was a man who did not suffer fools or braggarts.

I took a deep breath and agreed. I happily moved out of my basement, and every spare moment was spent preparing the soil for planting. On the day that I put in the sprouted tubers, the archon had invited a friend who lived nearby to witness the event. She was an older woman I had seen with him before, and she tended a small plot in the back of her home with simple, well‑integrated plantings. They both carefully watched me plant with pitiless expressions that expected failure. Neither of them said a word to me, but occasionally they would whisper to each other. At one point I heard the woman distinctly say, “I think he knows what he’s doing, Rokan.” After the last tuber was planted, they just looked at me and went into the house without a word. There was nothing to do now but wait; but I was certain that my new home was now well within my means.

During the waiting period, I often visited the Tarlak Grounds and Tolan’s orchids for inspiration. It was still one of my favorite places. I would sit in the same shaded spot where he’d told me about the first Hebitians, contemplating the elegant beauty of the orchids and listening to the children’s voices floating to me across the greensward. The magic of these flowers has fascinated me from the moment I first saw them. The mysterious way they reveal themselves, layer by layer. . . . Just when you think they can’t get any more beautiful, that you can’t learn anything more, another layer of bloom surpasses the previous one and the orchid changes personality. Recently I have developed a new indulgence–clothing–and I know it’s because of the influence of the Edosian orchid. Each time I put on another well‑designed and well‑tailored suit in a fabric with depth and an aesthetic pattern, I feel like another person. One of my favorite duties is to choose what I will wear for each assignment. As I smell the soft pungency emanating from somewhere deep in the soil, and observe the shaded pastels blend and reblend in a continuous flow, I realize that the Edosian orchid defies description and aspires to the condition of high art.

“Kel. Kel! Don’t wander off too far. We have to start home.”

The voice cut through me like an icy wind. I didn’t want to look. The same sweetness, piping and strong. If an Edosian orchid could speak. . . . I looked across the greensward, and there she was, the blue‑black hair and the long, dark gray skirt flowing behind her as she chased a little girl who was giggling, trying to escape from her mother but knowing that the beauty of the game was that she wouldn’t. Half of me wanted to run after them, the other half wanted to be buried deep in the ground. Why her? Why now? With sudden clarity I saw my entire life as a defense against this very moment. I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling; I didn’t want this immense burden of desire. I had learned to be satisfied with the occasional brusque sexual contact that quenched desire the way food or water did, and to live without any expectation of that touch that transforms routine into adventure. Watching Palandine and her daughter defy gravity with their dance of love destroyed all my definitions, and my carefully maintained boundaries began to give way, for the first time since Bamarren, to the magic of limitless possibility. I knew at that moment that I’d never be satisfied again. Even my beloved orchids looked like weeds.

I watched like someone unable to avert his eyes from impending horror, as the mother ran down the daughter and gathered her up in her strong arms. They were both giggling, absolutely fulfilled in each other’s company, lighting up the grounds with their radiance.

Palandine and Kel. And the other. Not present at this moment, but of course always there. Oh yes, I had kept track. How could I not? Especially when we have the resources to keep track of any Cardassian. Barkan Lokar was now an important administrator with the Bajoran Occupational Government. As much as my own work remained covertly placed in institutional shadows (and Tain made sure that I was publicly identified as a bureaucrat at the Hall of Records), Lokar’s was very much in the full light of the sun. Oh, I knew a great deal about him. Bajor, a planet rich in resources, was being skillfully stripped by his efficient programs. With the help of forced labor, the moribund Terok Nor outpost was being revitalized into a fabulously productive mining enterprise.

Lokar was the favorite of such powerful Cardassians as his father, Draban Lokar, and Procal Dukat, key members of the Civilian Assembly and Central Command respectively. In fact, his prefect on Terok Nor, the ore processing station, was Procal’s son, Skrain Dukat. Lokar’s ambition and his prospects had no limit. Nor, it seems, did his appetite for using and disposing of people . . . especially women. His tyrannical excesses, visited upon friend and foe alike, were well documented; but as long as his stewardship produced such successful results no one cared. Lokar has quickly become an integral part of the easy corruption I see and smell more and more at the highest levels of our system, and which gives the lie to our stern and moralistic faзade. Perhaps, I thought, when I leave for Tzenketh tomorrow I’ll erase all memory of the way back.

Palandine’s husband and Kel’s father.

I watched them leave the Grounds, but I stayed rooted to my spot waiting for a great hole to open up and swallow me. It didn’t. Darkness came, and the chill finally drove me to my feet. I started to walk.

Cardassia City is designed as a round wheel with the Tarlak Sector functioning as the administrative hub. This is where the public areas–the Grounds and the monuments, the government buildings–are located. Radiating out from the hub, like unequal slices of pie, are six sectors. I wandered first into the Paldar Sector, the residential area where Tain’s house was located, as well as the archon’s where I was lodging. It was one of the earliest settlements, and most families had lived there for generations. Government bureaucrats and civil servants who worked in the Tarlak Sector usually lived in Paldar. I walked past Tain’s house, stopping momentarily to wonder if other people felt so completely estranged from the home of their youth. There were few pedestrians, since this was the time of the evening when families gathered after a long day of work and school: The good Cardassians. The sector reeked of rectitude and self‑importance.

I decided not to return to the archon’s, and turned right at the Periphery, which marked the outermost limits of the city; beyond were the dry scrublands that contained shuttle terminals, military training areas, food‑producing centers, and isolated factories and settlements. I began to traverse the huge Akleen Sector (named after the putative founder of modern Cardassia, Tret Akleen), where the military was garrisoned. Troops were marching and drilling on parade grounds scattered throughout the sector, and civilian pedestrians were often challenged.