Rom left the bar, and Quark, wiping the spot he’d wiped twice already, let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
8
The numbers of people who came out to these meetings at Vekobet were dwindling. Kalem Apren headed up the meeting, as he always did, which was held in the basement of his own house, as it always was. This house had belonged to his wife’s father, who was from the influential Lees clan, members of whom had held powerful positions in Kendra government for generations. These days, there were only a few people of Kendra who still believed in trying to maintain leadership, only a few who harbored the most fragmentary sense that hope could still be alive, though it had grown increasingly dim these past three years, the years since the detection grid had gone up. The resistance had very nearly ceased to be, further lowering spirits.
The grid had put great constraints on the lives of ordinary people. It didn’t always deliver immediate results, and in the first few months of their implementation, some people chose to take the risk of traveling through unauthorized territory to see family, friends, or lovers from whom they had been separated. Some of these had been fortunate enough to discover flaws in the system—gaps in the detection grid that opened up at measurable intervals as the sweeps cycled. But more often than not, Cardassian skimmers and flyers appeared immediately, and the offending wanderer was caught and taken away before he could entirely register that he had been discovered. Nowadays, nearly everyone treated the system with healthy respect; some people were afraid to travel even within its boundaries. At first, nobody was entirely sure which areas were considered “safe” zones, and the Cardassians had no mercy or forgiveness for anyone who accidentally found themselves in a region that had been deemed off-limits. Now the boundaries were often marked with improvised indicators, to remind people to stay within the demarcated zones—or expect to wind up in the ore processors at Terok Nor. Children were kept close at hand, for there were many stories regarding little ones who had wandered off, their frightened and desperate parents going after them, despite the danger, never to be seen or heard from again.
Kalem was among the few who could afford a Cardassian travel permit. Many people with access to permits preferred not to use them, for the Cardassians often still came when the grid was tripped; the soldiers took great pleasure in harassing citizens, even those bearing permit receipts and proper documentation. But Kalem still traveled often, used his freedom on behalf of as many people as he could. He delivered food, messages, gifts, payments, and vicarious love for anyone who asked him. It was exhausting, but he felt it was his civic responsibility, and he acted without complaint. He had earned the respect and gratitude of many, but his efforts to organize a more effective body of self-government had gone more unrealized than ever before, with many honest people frightened into complete submission.
The basement of his house currently held twelve people, including Jaro Essa and himself. All that was left of what had once been a much larger society of self-proclaimed leaders who represented various aspects of Kendra society. Kalem tried to draw strength from the twelve tired, weathered faces he saw in the low light; none of them were ready to give up, despite growing evidence that the Cardassians’ grip was only tightening. They stood together in the candlelight, relying on the long-held assumption that the windowless basement would keep them safe from Cardassian scrutiny. It was illegal for unauthorized Bajorans to assemble publicly, which was why the meeting had to be conducted at a residence, but Kalem had no doubt that the Cardassians would cheerfully ignore the details of their own rules in order to prosecute Bajorans suspected of trying to govern themselves.
“Minister,” an elderly woman addressed him. She had long been trying to organize a more communal method of distributing rations, with very limited success. The collaborators in the town were opposed to her efforts, all of them accusing her of trying to put them out of work, and she lived in fear of being turned in. She began to inquire after his own support of her proposed methodology, and Kalem felt a sudden stab of despair. He looked to Jaro Essa, who stood next to him in front of the small throng of people. Jaro’s face was downturned, his somber dark eyes deeply pensive. Kalem knew that the other man’s attitude had always been more pessimistic than his own, that he couldn’t rely on Jaro to assuage his own creeping despondence regarding the seeming futility of what they were trying to do. He felt disconnected from the words he spoke, as if he were hearing someone else’s voice.
“My thoughts on the matter are that if anyone is willing to participate in a genuine effort to conserve rations, then those people are all entitled to a portion of the inventory, no matter how many family members or how much space they devote to food storage. We have to rank food consumption on an individual basis, rather than household…”
She nodded along, took up speaking again, but he couldn’t focus on her words. Just a few years ago, this basement would have been packed with people, bursting with ideas that could have genuinely contributed to the cause. Now it was all about basic survival, any thoughts of driving off the Cardassians kept to themselves.
Kalem had not heard from anyone in the Valo system in a very long time. It was rumored that the communications tower on Derna had malfunctioned, and because no unauthorized Bajoran ships were allowed to leave the atmosphere, there was no way for the resistance to get to the towers and repair them. Kalem’s hopes of somehow persuading Jas Holza to help bring in the Federation were growing dimmer by the day. His plan to reach Keeve Falor was even more distant now. For all Kalem knew, neither man was still alive.
The meeting limped to adjournment, and Kalem escorted his guests to the door as they hesitantly left for their own homes. Jaro Essa lingered behind, as he sometimes did, and as Kalem turned to him, he saw that the old major was sporting a slight smile. News about the resistance, perhaps? Jaro had never actually fought in the resistance himself—by the time a genuine resistance movement began to take shape, he felt that he was too aged to be of any use to the fighters—but he made it his business to keep up with what they were doing, and to pass word back and forth between cells when he could.
“I wanted to let you know,” Jaro told Kalem confidentially, “that I heard from a very reputable source that the resistance cell outside of where Korto used to be is still operational.”
Kalem nodded, his dark mood improving slightly. “The kai’s son is still alive?”
“Yes,” Jaro confirmed. His voice lowered even more. “I wanted to tell you before I announced it to the others. I wasn’t sure if we should spread word among the people, or if it was better to keep this news confidential.”
“Thank you,” Kalem said, and he heard himself sigh with some relief. “Let’s keep the spread of this information restricted to a few key individuals…”
Jaro nodded. A little bit of good news went a very long way, and the health of Kai Opaka’s son was better news that Kalem might have hoped for tonight. If Kai Opaka’s son were to be killed, it would be devastating for the morale of Bajor. It was bad enough that the legendary fighter Li Nalas was dead, along with scores of resistance cells scattered across the planet. If Opaka Fasil were to be killed, something inside of Kalem—and more than a few others, he suspected—would wither and die. Bajor desperately needed heroes right now, even if their deeds were symbolic rather than actual. In times as dark as these, any hero would do.
It was late, and Keral was exhausted, but he didn’t want to go to bed until he’d made some headway on Mora’s code. He’d spent the entire day in the fields, and now that the sun was down, he was crouched at the family’s dining table with a sputtering candle, struggling to work out some kind of plausible key for the cipher brought to him by the alien visitor.
The numbers were easy; it was the words that had him confounded. Did each letter stand in for a numeral? Were the words themselves relevant? They had to be, otherwise Keral wasn’t sure if the numbers made any sense. If he was right about the number parts, he had bits and pieces of what mightbe a message…or it might be gibberish. He clutched at the thinning hair on his head, wishing he could just somehow force himself to understand. Couldn’t you have made it any simpler, Pol?