“They had everything to lose,” she said, shaking her head at my assessment.

“In that situation, my dear, they had everything to gain and nothing to lose,” I wearily explained. “The trick is to give up as little as possible and make them believe that they’ve won a great victory, but that was beyond Toran’s ability. I volunteered to negotiate. The people inside seemed reasonable. The fact that they hadn’t tried to escape immediately or begun executing prisoners told me they were looking for a way out. An exchange. . . .” I stopped. What’s the point, I thought. All the stories were beginning to run together and they all had the same ending.

“What happened?” she asked softly. The sneer was gone; she, too, was probably weary of the burden of these stories.

“You know what happened, Remara. Gul Toran wasn’t going to let me negotiate. And he certainly wasn’t going to do it himself. ‘Never with terrorists,’ he announced; but the truth was that he didn’t know how. They had no choice but to try to escape.”

“And they were all killed,” she said even more softly.

“End of story, Remara.” I considered telling her how I had exacted my own revenge upon Toran, and that my only regret was that his death hadn’t come sooner . . . but what was the point? Another treacherous opportunist dies after tearing another hole in the fabric. What’s gained except the potential for more damage? I rose. The station’s gravity felt like it had increased threefold.

“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with. One way or the other I’d like to go to sleep.”

“Who gave the order?” she asked.

“What difference does it make? I did, if you like.”

Remara just looked at me. She lowered the phaser. Part of me was deeply disappointed. “I was at the terminal,” she said in that soft voice. “I was in line to get on the Taklan,but I was delayed and got separated from Karna and Berin. We had been assigned as a family to Terok Nor. I was just a few people from the door when the guards were overwhelmed and dragged inside. The door closed, and I was left behind. I panicked. I screamed and banged on the door along with the others. Cardassian soldiers started beating us away, and I was thrown to the side, where I hid behind a barricade, hoping that the door would open and I could rush inside. It was from there that I watched you and Toran argue. I couldn’t hear you, but it was clear what was happening. You knew each other from before, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“I could tell you hated each other. When you walked away I knew that they were all going to die.” Remara walked to the window and looked out. How much of my life, I thought, had been spent at that window, longing for release from this sad and deadening place.

“Tahna Los told us you were here. He’s still in a Bajoran prison, and believes that you were somehow involved in his capture. It certainly wasn’t a secret, but nobody knew who you were or why you stayed after the Cardassian Withdrawal. You were very low on the list for termination.” She turned and smiled apologetically. “It wasn’t until I came here and saw you . . . and recognized you. When I went back and told the others, they put you at the top of the list, and I was assigned.” She shook her head sadly and slipped the phaser inside her tunic. She moved away from the window to where I still stood.

“You’re going to have to leave this station. They’ll keep coming after you until someone succeeds. Good‑bye, Elim.” She put her hand against the side of my face, and I felt the heat coming through. Perhaps her passion was a curse as a terrorist, but she was a whole person . . . and she had found redemption.

“Why does Kira think you were a traitor and a thief?” I asked as she moved to the door.

“Because I was.”

“Did you collaborate at the refugee center?”

“Nerys told you about Singha.” Remara sighed and looked past me as if seeing something that only deepened her sadness. “Her father, Taban, let me live with them in their part of the cave. In return I betrayed him.” She looked at me with that distant smile I found so attractive when we first met. “No, I didn’t collaborate, Elim. I thought Taban was the collaborator. I discovered that the reason he was able to take me in was because he received extra food and medicine from the Cardassian authorities. At the time I had a friend in the Resistance. When I told him about the supplies, I was instructed to keep an eye on Taban’s activities . . . and to steal whatever I could to pass on to people who were in need. One day, Taban caught me in the act. I think if I’d just admitted what I was doing and why, he would have forgiven me. He was that kind of man. Instead, I accused him of betraying our people and ran away.” Her voice trailed off, and we stood in the vibrating silence of the station.

“You were very young,” I observed.

“It was later when I found out why Taban received extra supplies. His wife, Nerys’s mother, was a comfort woman for the Cardassians. Did Nerys tell you that?”

“No.”

“In fact, she was the mistress of your old friend, Dukat, before she died.”

“Dukat,” I repeated softly.

“So they gave up their extra rations. Either that, or be hounded as collaborators. I don’t blame Nerys, Elim. In her position, I’d be just as unforgiving.”

She turned and went through the opening door. A part of me wanted her to stay, but in my weariness I could only watch her leave.

16

Entry:

Gray, humid, and lush. Sometimes I’d stand up from my gardening work and feel my head bump against the low Romulan sky. Tain told me this was an ideal assignment for me, and when I disembarked on Romulus I partly understood why. Vegetation thrives in this climate. Everywhere you look, shrubs, trees, flowers all grow in a profusion I’d never seen before. And it’s that very sight that produces the most amazing reversal of expectation. At first I was convinced there was something wrong with my eyesight: instead of being predominantly green, Romulus is gray.

My cover at the Cardassian Embassy was master groundskeeper. The regular groundskeeper was sent back to Cardassia for an extended leave, during which time I would introduce Cardassian plantings. Tolan had prepared me very well for this cover. My name was Elim Vronok, and my deep mission was very clearly stated: eliminate Proconsul Merrok, Tain’s nemesis in the Romulan Empire. No one knew–or would say exactly–why this antipathy between Merrok and Tain existed, but it was fierce and abiding. I knew that part of the reason was that Merrok had previously urged a Romulan alliance with the Klingon Empire to contain the Cardassians, and he had even gone so far as to share cloaking technology with the Klingons. It was this technology–arguably Romulus’s most important scientific achievement–that we still coveted; specifically, the improved interphase generator that rendered the interphase scanner (the device developed by Federation scientists to detect cloaked phenomena) virtually impotent. Romulans and Cardassians were tentatively exploring an exchange–cloaking technology for advanced Cardassian weaponry–but any progress in those negotiations was constantly thwarted by Merrok, the prime defense minister.

But there was something else: the rivalry between the Obsidian Order and its Romulan counterpart, the Tal Shiar, an intelligence organization led by the implacable Koval and sponsored by Merrok. The rivalry had become so intense that a virtual state of war existed between the two organizations.

“Vronok!” And my biggest surprise on Romulus was the identity of the embassy’s first secretary: Nine Lubak, the instrument of my Bamarren betrayal in the hands of his cousin Barkan Lokar. Krim Lokar had obviously been left in the dust of Barkan’s rapid rise, and had found another liaison position, this time dispensing appropriate and carefully prepared “information” to the Romulan Bureau of Alien Affairs. He was a puppet: his mouth moved whichever way it was pulled. When I first saw him, I thought the mission was compromised. Only the ambassador and my contact knew who I was. But thanks to Lokar’s arrogance and self‑involvement (which had deepened over the years) he didn’t recognize me.