Part 19 (1/2)
She stepped into the sterile, warm blankness of Veja's room. Damar was, as Natima expected, asleep in a chair next to Veja's bed. There were no attendants present. Veja was still unconscious, or at least sleeping, and Natima decided she'd do better to come back later. But as she was backing out of the room, Damar opened his eyes.
”Miss Lang,” he said formally. He had been noticeably more polite to her since the incident, though Natima didn't know if it was because his contempt of her had ebbed or if he was simply too sad to be bothered with his former opinion of her.
”Gil Damar. I apologize for disturbing you. I only came to check on her status.”
”It is kind of you,” he said, his voice distant. ”She is the same.”
”Has...has her family been notified?” Natima asked. ”Because I was thinking that I could...”
”I spoke to her father. He has been...supportive, although he is understandably very...disappointed.”
Natima remembered what Seefa had said about the Carda.s.sian propensity toward euphemism, and she laughed, entirely unexpectedly. Damar gave her an odd look, one that contained a bit of the old contempt that she remembered so well from her encounters with him on Terok Nor.
”Forgive me,” she begged.
”I see nothing funny here,” Damar said icily.
”Of course not, Gil Damar. Except-”
She hesitated. She knew it wasn't her place to suggest such things, but he obviously loved her so. Perhaps there was a way, after all.
”Don't you find it somewhat queer that on our world, where children are valued so highly, we would cast away those children who have no parents? Children who could have found a home with women like Veja, who cannot now carry her own child, but longs to be a mother above all else? Hasn't it occurred to you, after all this, that-”
Damar looked positively horrified, and Natima knew she had crossed the line. ”Gil Damar, I fear my female gift for curiosity and observation has gotten the better of me. It is only that I am so grieved for my friend that I forget myself. Please...I will leave you.”
She turned and quickly left the room, practically running to get away. Her own apartment was quite close to the settlement hospital, and she broke into the cool outside air between the buildings feeling as though she'd forgotten how to breathe.
She felt embarra.s.sed for herself, an unusual sensation, as she walked the short distance home. It had never been in her nature to avoid awkward topics just to preserve an air of comfortable formality. Still, she should have known better than to try and be philosophical with a man who was experiencing such suffering. And yet- And yet, their lives together need not be destroyed.
It was not for her to say. She came to the gray building that housed her quarters and let herself inside, suddenly desperate for a long, dreamless nap. She couldn't remember ever feeling so tired.
Before she'd even closed her door behind her, her console lit up with an incoming transmission from Information Service headquarters on Carda.s.sia Prime. Undoubtedly Dalak, and she'd have to speak with him eventually. She reluctantly took the call.
”Miss Lang, I have been trying to reach you for some time. On behalf of all your colleagues here-and myself, of course-may I express sincerest regards for your health, after your unfortunate incident. I understand you're to make a full recovery?”
His enthusiasm for her answer was markedly lacking, but she did her best to support the effort. He was her superior.
”Yes, Mister Dalak, although Miss Ketan was not so lucky. She has survived, but some of her injuries are permanent.”
”Indeed, Miss Lang. We've received the medical report. It is most regrettable. Still, I hear the two of you acted with outstanding bravery. It would make a good story, don't you think?”
Natima was taken aback; this possibility had not occurred to her. ”Oh! I suppose...”
”This is just the sort of thing that the people love to hear. Military heroes, clever reporters, a depraved rebel killed. I would like you to deliver the story by tomorrow evening, Carda.s.sia City time.”
”Uh...certainly. I will get on it right away.”
”Thank you, Miss Lang. Send Miss Ketan my goodwill.”
”Yes, sir. I will do that-as soon as she wakes up.”
”She isn't awake? Ah. Well then...anyway. Also, I understand Gul Dukat put several Bajorans to death the other day, going on a tip that you gave him-about balon? I think you should run a follow-up story to that. The weekend crew ran it, and the censor made a mess of it. I need you to handle it, if you're feeling up to it, of course.”
Natima knew the story, and she knew that the censors had indeed made a mess of it-sometimes they were so overzealous that the stories barely made sense when they ran through. But she was feeling a bit harried right now, having just recovered from a very stressful ordeal. It wouldn't have troubled her a bit to have taken it easy for a few days. ”I...uh, actually...” she murmured.
Dalak interrupted smoothly. ”Good. I will expect that story to run tomorrow morning, at the latest. I must go. Deadlines don't rest for anyone, do they?” ”Good. I will expect that story to run tomorrow morning, at the latest. I must go. Deadlines don't rest for anyone, do they?”
”No, they don't,” Natima said. She had never particularly liked her boss, but she couldn't think of a time when she had liked him less than right now. She rubbed the short patch on her head again, tired, sick with worry, trying not to think about Seefa or her new, conflicting thoughts about the annexation, about Dukat, about her role in the Information Service.
That was when an idea occurred to her. The kind of idea that demands a decision, that one cannot easily turn away from once it enters the realm of possibility. It meant risking her job, her all-important work...But not so all-important in the way she'd always believed.
She felt her heart pounding as she began to type up her report for the homeworld comnet, the image of Seefa's face finally coming clear into her mind as she crafted her words, polished her turns of phrase. The image of his face the moment that it had dawned on her that he was nothing like what she expected him to be.
The comnet would get its story about the Pullock V prisoners tomorrow, but maybe it wouldn't be exactly the one that her boss had in mind.
Astraea kept her head down as she left the city. Her hair was loose, and she tried to use the long black tresses to s.h.i.+eld her face. She'd debated using her shawl to cover her head, to guard her profile, but had finally decided that it might look suspicious. Even after she'd pa.s.sed the last homes and buildings of the city's outskirts, she'd felt herself almost trembling with fear that someone she knew would see her, or worse, that her image had been uploaded to the military's facial-recognition system, and her brief ride on the city's shuttle had doomed her. Were her crimes serious enough that people would be actively looking for her? It seemed unlikely, although she'd surely been entered into the system by now, marked as a criminal. She had checked into a boardinghouse under her new a.s.sumed name, and n.o.body had come rus.h.i.+ng to put her under arrest. Yet.
I can always turn myself in, if I have to. The thought was strangely rea.s.suring; it allowed her to continue with her madness, knowing that there was sanity and reality, no matter how unpleasant, that she could return to.
She wandered beyond the edge of the city, where she finally found herself alone. She walked past the old manufacturing facilities, dating to hundreds of years before the annexation, sitting empty and ominous in the hot, dry, evening winds-a grim reminder to those who pa.s.sed that Carda.s.sia had once very nearly fallen into ruin. The thought of it gave Astraea a warped flash of the horror she had experienced when she saw those images of Carda.s.sia destroyed, blackened, smoking, crushed perhaps beyond repair. A shudder ran through her entire body, and she pulled her shawl tightly around her.
Past the wide band of shadow-haunted industrial zone, she reached the open desert, only a few thin vehicle ruts marking the expanse of cracked soil. Although she was looking at nothing, a field of blowing dust ringed with distant mountains so far away that she could easily block them with her hands, she thought she detected something here, something she had seen before. Was it wishful thinking that made it seem so? Or was this really the place where, centuries before, a small house had once stood? Meadows, a tiny stream, trees with birds in them? Was it simply the fantasy of a scientist who daydreamed about agriculture from things past?
She had walked a great distance, and her feet were sore. Though she had worn her walking shoes, she was not used to traveling as much as she had been doing in these past weeks; her movements were usually limited to the daily commute from her tiny apartment to her office in the science ministry. She had taken a public shuttle for part of her journey here, but, fearful of being seen, she had walked much farther than was probably wise. It pained her to think of the distance she was going to have to travel to return to the boardinghouse.
Examining the soles of her shoes, she thought she heard someone behind her and she stiffened, until she saw that a couple of stray hounds were fighting over something not far behind her, back near where the buildings began again. Her tension took on a different timbre, for she had always had a childish fear of the animals. Before the annexation, when Miras was a small child, her older brother used to scare her with tales of the giant wild dogs that fed solely on corpses, the remains of those who died of starvation, or during one of several poverty-borne disease epidemics. She had a vague idea that there were those who blamed the Oralians for many of the deaths from that time period; there had been great dissent, rioting, the overtures of civil war. She backed quietly away from where the animals were tussling, hoping they had not spotted or scented her.
A moment pa.s.sed. The brief fight had reestablished whatever dominance existed between the two scruffy animals. One of the hounds turned its ugly, squarish head in her general direction, but did not seem interested in her. It padded away, followed by the other.
Astraea relaxed, turned to start walking again.
”Halt!” It was a man's voice, behind her, and Astraea froze. A Carda.s.sian soldier stepped into view, a man with a broad forehead and a deeply scrutinizing expression. He had his weapon trained on her, though he lowered it upon reaching her. She imagined she looked quite harmless.
”I...I'm doing nothing wrong,” she said faintly. ”Only looking.” She was not breaking any laws, but it was generally understood that people did not travel on foot outside the city. She knew that her very presence here was suspicious.
”Looking? For what? Trouble?” The soldier laughed haughtily at his own joke.
”No,” Astraea said quietly. ”I'm looking for...something that I lost.” She instantly regretted saying it, for now she would have to follow it up with a legitimate story. ”I mean to say...I'm just...looking at the view.”
The soldier continued to regard her coldly. ”What is your name, Miss?”
She thought fast. Now would be the time to turn herself in, and she supposed it would be wisest to just do so.
”My name is Astraea,” she said, in spite of her best intentions. It seemed she wasn't ready to give up quite yet.
The soldier appeared taken aback. His mouth hung open for a moment before he spoke. ”Astraea?” he repeated. It was his turn to sound faint.