“The Brotherhood has to move now! The families must take their rightful place. Support the Directorate or die. And no exile! Exile is just deferred treachery. Those who were meant to rule must rule. End these negotiations with the Federation. Use the Romulans to drive the wedge! What did they say?” he suddenly asked me. “Will they move with us against the Klingons?”

“They said . . . yes. Yes, they will.” I didn’t know if this was the right answer, but I had to keep moving. Dawn was breaking.

“Good. Cripple the Klingons and then we can move against the disease itself.”

“The Federation,” I said.

“Yes, boy. The Federation. But first we have to root it out here . . . we have to purify Cardassia before. . . .” His breathing was becoming increasingly tortured, and his voice was reduced to a painful rasp. I was afraid that the sustained exertion would seriously injure him to a point that aroused suspicions. I shut the enhancer down. His eyes closed and his ashen face relaxed. I left the containment field in place and stepped outside to clear my head. No matter how objective I tried to remain, I could never remain totally unaffected by another man’s horror. Fear was a contagious disease. It was nearly full light now, and I knew that I had little time to bring him back before the others arrived.

When I stepped back inside he appeared to be sleeping. I turned off the containment field and hid the enhancer and the recording devices which would document Dukat’s “confession.” I prepared a lighter dose of the plaktartoxin and reattached the sling to my body. When I turned back I was shocked to see him standing and looking at me with a clear and level expression.

Suddenly he attacked me, and as I stumbled back to avoid his furious rush I nearly spilled the toxin on myself. I slammed him into the wall and he sagged. He had no reserves with which to maintain his advantage. I twisted his right arm around to his back and administered the toxin. As I was attaching him to the sling he turned his head and faced me.

“Who are you?” he asked for the second time, fighting against the toxin’s effect. This was one tough old warrior.

“Your worst nightmare,” I replied.

“Ah,” he croaked. “Then Tain sent you.” He gave me one last murderous look before he lost consciousness. In a flash I realized that I hadn’t got him to name any members of the Brotherhood. But I was more concerned about his associating me with Enabran Tain.

19

Entry:

Hands yanked and ripped the clothes off my body. I was unable to make any effort to stop them and couldn’t make out their faces.

“Strip him completely. He’s dead.” It was Doctor Bashir’s voice. But I’m not dead, I wanted to say. I couldn’t form the words to voice them. I was absolutely helpless as they lifted my naked body and threw me into the deep pit on top of the other bodies.

“Ah, Elim,” the body next to mine said. “You, too.” It was Tain.

“Sooner or later we all end up here,” the body beneath me observed. It was Tolan. All the bodies in the pit were murmuring.

“But we’re alive,” I protested above the babbling drone. “What are we doing in here?”

“This is the final strategem, Ten Lubak.” It was Calyx. “If you can master this one, you’ve found your place.”

“But this is horrible. This can’t be my place. How can I master this?” I pleaded.

“This isyour place,” Lokar’s voice informed me. “And you must never forget it.”

“Just tread lightly, Elim. Use the silences,” Pythas’s voice advised me. I tried to move so I could see him, but I couldn’t.

“Accept, Elim,” Mila told me. “Stop fighting who you are and then you can move ahead.”

“But why? Why are we here? And where’s Palandine?” Before anyone could answer I felt a load of soil and rocks fall on my body.

“That’s the last one,” Doctor Bashir called above me. “Cover them up and seal off the pit. For the good of the quadrant they must never be allowed to return.”

“But why?” I cried. “Calyx, how do I master this?” My questions were answered by the falling soil and the murmuring babble. “How? Tell me! How?”

I pushed myself away from the desk, bathed in sweat and gasping for breath. I stood up and looked around the room. Slowly, I came back to the station and the night silence. I had fallen asleep working at the desk. I rubbed my head where it had rested fitfully against the hard surface. This was probably my last night on the station. Perhaps forever. I had so much work I wanted to complete. It was late, but I punched a code on the station comm.

The voice cleared a passage in the throat to be able to speak. It was exactly what I couldn’t do in the dream. “Yes?” the Doctor asked.

“Doctor, forgive me, but I need to see you,” I said as calmly as I could.

“Garak?”

“I do apologize, but it’s important.”

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked, trying to gauge the level of importance.

“It’s not a medical emergency. Please, I realize this is an imposition.” There was a silence and I heard another voice in the background. Ezri Dax. A muffled conversation. The Doctor cleared his throat again.

“I’ll be right over,” he said.

“Thank you, Doctor.” I turned to the window, and the eternal night of space. My beloved stars. Only a nightmare as terrible as this could make me so grateful to be alive on this station. How ironic that I would be leaving it in a few hours.

“It’s the anxiety of going back to Cardassia,” the Doctor assured me. “And it’s a very dangerous mission. Does one ever become inured to the possibility of death?” the Doctor asked.

“Not really,” I answered as I served the Tarkalian tea. “If we lose our fear of death, we lose an important ally.”

“I don’t know, Garak.” The Doctor sipped his tea. “Perhaps you should talk to Ezri about this. I don’t know how much help I can be.”

“Ezri, with all due respect, wasn’t in the dream.”

“Neither was I,” the Doctor replied.

“On the contrary, my friend, you were.” He gave me his puzzled look, which wrinkled his brow. I was always amazed at how deep the furrows were for one so young.

“I trust you don’t mean that literally.”

“You were in my dream,” I maintained.

“Garak, you can’t believe. . . . Look here.” The Doctor took a deep breath. “My . . . persona . . . my symbolic representation was in your dream to . . . serve a purpose devised by your subconscious mind to satisfy some . . . need. It had nothing to do with me other than how your psyche used me . . . the way a . . . play‑wright uses a character.” The Doctor paused and shook his head. The idea of his participation in my dream had ruffled his science. “This area has always been a great mystery. If I had a dream about . . . Hippocrates, you can’t believe that this ancient Greek healer actually showed up,” he challenged.

“We exist on many levels at the same time, Doctor. This level. . . .” I gestured to the room and its objects. “. . . the space/time continuum, I believe you call it, is perhaps the narrowest and least dimensional of all. But it’s the one in which we choose to relate to each other as corporeal beings in a defined material space measured by units of time. It serves a purpose, yes, but it’s a purpose that’s been determined by our interaction on otherlevels, deeper and more complex than this one.”

“What’s the purpose of this one then?” he asked impatiently.

“To consummate the agenda created by our more dimensional selves!” A passion had crept into my voice, and the Doctor just looked at me.

“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ” he quoted.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Shakespeare,” the Doctor replied.

“Hmmh.” I nodded in agreement, surprised that for once the author of the politically misguided Julius Caesarmade sense.

“I’ve never heard you talk like this before,” he said. “ I had no idea Cardassians held such ideas.”