He could see that his answer pleased the prefect. Dukat nodded firmly. “Yes, Damar, exactly! Someday we’ll be providing work for all idle Bajorans, here and on the surface. We will eliminate the food ration centers, and help them to become self-sufficient instead of relying on Cardassian charity. I commend the efforts of those who have conspired to provide welfare to our hosts, but I fear that the newer generations are learning only helplessness and a sense of entitlement from our repeated handouts. They have no gratitude, as they have come to expect us to feed them.”
An aide who had come up behind them quickly fell in step with the prefect.
“Gul Dukat,” the garresh said. “Your Bajoran intermediary is here and is waiting to meet you.”
Dukat turned to the aide, looking puzzled and a little annoyed. “My intermediary? Do you mean Kubus Oak? I’ve already spoken with that pest at least a dozen times today.”
Damar barely succeeded in concealing his surprise at hearing Dukat’s belittling of Secretary Kubus. The gil had met him earlier in the day, and Kubus had struck him as the sort of Bajoran who genuinely appreciated how his world could benefit from its association with Cardassia. That enthusiasm, coupled with his lifelong political acumen, made Kubus the ideal liaison between the prefect and the Bajoran government. Damar wondered what the man had done to earn Dukat’s apparent disdain.
“Not Secretary Kubus, sir. It’s Basso Tromac. He has been appointed to take care of any…personal errands you may need fulfilled here on the station or on the surface of Bajor…? You requested—”
Dukat nodded. “Ah, yes. Thank you. Have him wait outside my office. I’ll be there shortly.”
The aide left them, and Dukat continued to walk, his hands locked behind his back. “I want to trust the Bajorans,” he confided to Damar, “but they make it so difficult. It won’t be easy for me to invest any confidence in a Bajoran assistant.”
Damar nodded, thinking he understood. “But it is best to have someone of this world as a go-between, to help prevent cultural misunderstandings,” he suggested.
“Exactly! You’re quite perceptive, Damar. And yet, I think it would be wise to put this Basso Tromac up to a little test of loyalty, wouldn’t you say?”
Damar supposed that sounded reasonable, and he nodded. They walked a few minutes more, Dukat pointing out salient features of the station, explaining the concepts that had birthed his vision—a central core encircled by two rings, connected by several well-spaced crossover bridges; as many as 7000 people would be able to live comfortably in the habitat ring. The outer docking ring supported the massive pylons that housed ore-processing. The station was comfortable as well as functional, with a design aesthetic that spoke to the unique sensibilities of the modern Union. Terok Nor was truly a feat of Cardassian engineering.
The two officers finally headed back for ops, Damar noting that Dukat was purposefully taking his time, making himself late for his meeting. The young gil lingered behind at his station when they reached the station’s uppermost level. Standing outside the closed door of the prefect’s office was a Bajoran man with a characteristically crinkled nose, the skin of his forehead so strangely pink and smooth, like the belly of a margafish. A glinting adornment dangled from one of his ears. Damar attempted to keep his eyes on his work, but he could not help but regard the man with curiosity. He had seen only a very few Bajorans up close. He watched the exchange in the periphery of his vision.
“You must be Basso Tromac, my new personal aide,” he heard Dukat say. The man answered only with an inclination of his head. Dukat conspicuously did not invite him into the office, which Damar thought odd, but imagined it was part of the test Dukat had been talking about. “There’s something I would like you to take care of right away.”
“How may I be of service, Prefect?” The Bajoran sounded compliant enough.
“Many of my officers here are far away from the comforts of home. They are lonely—for the companionship of women. I would like for you to go to the surface and return with some attractive Bajoran females, to ease their loneliness.”
Damar was stunned, but he noted that the Bajoran man had not even blinked.
“I will see to it immediately, Prefect.” Basso bowed as he made to leave.
Damar stole a glance at Dukat, and found that the gul was looking right at him. Embarrassed, he trained his gaze back to his workstation where it belonged.
“Report to my office, Gil Damar.”
Damar reluctantly ascended the steps, hoping that his expression did not reveal his discomfort.
Dukat ushered him into his office and gestured for Damar to sit. “You appear…unsettled, Damar. Was it the request I made of the Bajoran that upset you?”
“I apologize for eavesdropping, Gul, I did not mean to—”
“Think nothing of it, Gil. Only tell me what is troubling you.”
Damar cleared his throat. “Well—sir, I know that it isn’t unheard of for officers to sometimes…seek comfort when they are away from home. It isn’t that, sir. It’s just that…the Bajoran women…they are so different from us. It seems…unusual… unnatural,to think of…”
Dukat’s smile slipped away. “Gil. If you are going to serve on Terok Nor, you must come to terms with your own xenophobia. The Bajorans are different from us in many ways, of course. But those differences are primarily cultural. Biologically, we are actually more alike than we are different. As for what distinctions there are, we Cardassians must learn to bridge those differences if our two peoples are ever going to come together.”
“Yes, of course, Gul Dukat.” Damar was embarrassed. He knew that the gul had much to teach him, and he desperately hoped that he was wise enough to recognize the lessons as they came. He hoped he would never do anything foolish enough to cause him to fall from Dukat’s favor.
After a single night spent in the settlement outside of Relliketh, Lac had persuaded Lenaris to accompany him several kellipates away, into the tangle of forest outside the town, not far from where Lenaris’s old resistance cell had once hidden. First, they had scouted the area where Lenaris thought Tiven Cohr might still be living, but the area was long abandoned. Lenaris doubtfully suggested that Tiven might have gone farther into Relliketh, though he wasn’t sure if Tiven even had family there. Still, Lac seemed undeterred, happy to pursue Lenaris’s scanty leads.
Since meeting Lac, Lenaris had felt a stir he hadn’t felt in some time. Something in the other man’s demeanor reminded him of Lafe Darin, the man who had inspired him to join the resistance in the first place. Lenaris had been much younger, then—not much more than a kid—but he still clearly recalled that sense that he hadto fight back against the Cardassians, no matter the cost. That he would rather die than settle into hungry and despondent defeat. It was a mindset he thought he’d lost after Darin had died.
It was getting dark as they approached the area where Lac said his flyer would be. Nightfall was the best time to travel beyond the Cardassian-imposed boundaries; the alien soldiers did not take well to the chill brought on after sundown, and Bajorans could expect few encounters with them during the night.
After much inconsequential small talk on their careful journey, Lenaris decided to satisfy some of the more compelling questions he had for the farmer. “So, Lac,” he said finally, taking a deep breath. “You never told me how you knew Tiven Cohr in the first place.”
It was already too dark for Lenaris to see the other man’s expression, but Lac paused before answering, as if deciding what to say.
“I didn’t know him personally. A friend of mine met him a few times.”
“In what capacity?” Lenaris pressed.
“The resistance.”
Lenaris was a little surprised by the man’s candor, but not his answer; he had assumed as much. He thought again of Lafe Darin. When Darin had died, Lenaris had sworn off further involvement with the resistance, but he was still far from having been beaten into a submissive subject of the Union…and he had often wondered what it would take to make him care again. Darin’s death shouldn’t have been a surprise. Anyone involved in the underground had to understand that the only guarantee in the movement was that people were going to die. Friends, brothers and sisters, husbands, wives, even children. Still, Holem had been unprepared for just how much his childhood friend’s death had affected him.