A Stitch in Time Read online

  4

  Entry:

  The Bamarren Institute is located in the highlands adjacent to the Mekar Wilderness, a hot and arid area with sublimely beautiful rock formations and an endless network of subterranean caverns. At first the landscape was foreign, even threatening to my city mind and body. The seemingly endless skies and empty vistas—empty, that is, of man-made incursions—made me anxious.

  The Institute itself also made me anxious. Every waking moment was planned and accounted for. The Cardassian educational system is dedicated to the ideal that each generation needs a coterie of leadership, an elite in every segment of society. Artists, soldiers, politicians, scholars, and business and tradespeople all have appropriate Institutes where they are sent at the age of emergence. At that point, he or she is “identified” and assigned to live and study apart from family and home for nine years.

  The course of study is divided into three progressive levels; every three years, one either advances from one level to the next or returns to serve society in a necessary but relatively humble position. If a person makes it through and completes the Third Level, he or she is then placed in the ruling vanguard of that segment.

  My first day set the tone for my new life. After the orientation for the incoming students at which the First Prefect, the head of the Institute, likened us to the “missing pieces of the mosaic of Cardassian civilization,” the adults handed us over to upper-level students who promptly separated us according to gender, stripped us of all personal possessions, gave us our scratchy, drab uniforms (Swamp green and black; is it any wonder I ended up a tailor?), and assigned us to living quarters consisting of ten narrow beds each connected to a private compartment for our few belongings, and an adjoining tiled room for hygiene. For the next three years, with the exception of our instructional docents, we rarely came into contact with adults. My childhood was indeed over.

  I was assigned to the Lubak Group, Level One, and my numerical designation was Ten. From that moment I was no longer Elim Garak but Ten Lubak, and we were sternly warned never to refer to ourselves or to each other by anything other than this number/group designation. We were the “missing pieces”—and in order to find our place in the mosaic of civilized society, we had to be broken down and reconstructed from the bottom up.

  “Ten Lubak!”

  And the person who began this restructuring process was our section leader, One Tarnal, a physically powerful Third Level individual with a thick neck and closeset eyes.

  “Y-yes?”

  “Yes, section leader!”

  I was instructed to go to the stockroom and bring back implements for cleaning the hygiene chamber. After he gave me directions, he told me that I could take as many of my section mates as I wished to accompany me. I was somewhat confused by the offer, but I thought it was a test of my self-reliance and replied that I could handle the errand by myself.

  “Then go!”

  After wandering through what seemed like a labyrinthine maze, in which I saw other new students on similar errands, I finally found the stockroom. The door opened, and a student my age came stumbling out with cleaning equipment, looking very untidy. He gave me a quick and fearful glance before he disappeared down the corridor. He should be punished for his appearance, I thought.

  “Next!” A distinctive and gruff voice shouted from within. I entered and was surprised by the enveloping darkness.

  “Hello…?” I hesitated, afraid of stumbling into something.

  “Did you come alone?” The Gruff Voice asked.

  “Yes, I came for the …” Before I could finish, a hand grabbed me by the hair and the lights went on. Facing me were three older students, perhaps Level Two.

  “Why did you come alone?” The Gruff Voice was behind me, along with the owner of the hand that held my head facing front. When I tried to turn, the hand painfully tightened its grip.

  “I thought that …”

  “You thought only of yourself. You didn’t think of the group. From now on you are going to learn never to think of yourself apart from the group.”

  At which point I was punched and kicked several times. I tried to resist, to fight back, but there were too many of them. I went down on my knees, trying to catch the breath that was knocked out of me. Clearly overpowered, I refused to cry and I refused to concede defeat. I would die before I did either.

  “Enough!” the Gruff Voice called out. One of my attackers pulled me up and another handed me two buckets filled with cleaning solutions and implements.

  “Take them and go back to your section. And remember, Ten Lubak, this is what happens when you separate from your group. All individuals are hunted and punished. By yourself you’re pudding. We’re going to be watching you.”

  I was pushed toward the door and the lights went out. The door opened, and as I stumbled through with the buckets I nearly bumped into another student who was waiting to go in. We looked at each other and I recognized the disapproval on his face. I thought of warning him, but something told me to return to my section. I hurried past him and heard the Gruff Voice call out, “Next!”

  5

  Entry:

  “Tell me, Mr. Garak,” Captain Sisko said, as he intently studied a viewscreen diagramming the Cardassian Union. “Where do you think the Cardassian defense perimeter is most vulnerable?”

  I laughed. How do you explain to an alien that’s the one place where Cardassians are not vulnerable? The good captain gave me one of his bemused stares.

  “The likelihood of any exploitable weakness,” I replied, “would be in the chain of command between the Founders’ orders and the execution of these orders by the Vorta and their drug-addicted Jem’Hadar soldiers. If it’s a perimeter put in place by the Cardassians, it won’t be vulnerable.”

  The Captain gave me a skeptical look. “That’s a very confident assessment.”

  “Captain, Cardassians come into this life with an awareness of their protected perimeters—what the doctor calls our ‘reptilian brain dominance’—and die defending them.”

  The Captain nodded and turned back to the diagram. I almost added that, in between, we perfect this awareness at places like the Bamarren Institute.

  6

  Entry:

  Males and females of the First and Second Levels were kept separate at Bamarren. While we shared certain docents and outside training areas, each group had its own living quarters and facilities. It was explained to us that until we became disciplined in our relations with the “complementary gender” we would make better progress this way. When I asked One Tarnal how we would learn this discipline without interaction between the sexes, he blinked and mumbled something about “distractions.” When I asked what that meant I was told that I had a loose mouth and given five days of hygiene-chamber maintenance as punishment.

  “You don’t know enough to ask so many questions.”

  I started to ask him how could I learn without asking questions when he pulled out his murking stick (so named because they are used to beat “murks”—that’s what First Level students are called) and gave me a whack on the leg and told me to get to the storeroom for cleaning implements. When the pain passed through me, I looked around for group “support.” You can be sure that this time I wanted to be accompanied by as many of my mates as possible. There were five students in the room, but when I made my request four of them gave excuses ranging from barely plausible to outright suspicious. Three Lubak, the biggest in our section and the one I most wanted to go with me said, “The section leader’s right. You talk too much.”

  Unfortunately, the only student left was quiet Eight Lubak, who kept completely to himself. He agreed to accompany me and quickly moved to the door. He was short and slender, and his dark eyes and long lashes made him look younger than the rest of us. He was almost too delicate for a Cardassian. I was not encouraged … but I had no choice. I went through the door, unconsciously imitating the Gruff Voice from my previous experience.

  “All I need is an
extra pair of eyes. Just keep them open, and let’s get the job done!” Eight said nothing and followed me out.

  The trip to the storeroom was uneventful, and we received our supplies without incident. On the way back, however, we noticed that an intersection of two corridors was much darker than before. Eight, who was walking behind, touched my shoulder.

  “I think we forgot something,” he said with uncharacteristic loudness. He motioned for me to follow him. We backtracked to the previous intersection, made a right turn and continued down another corridor until we came to a third intersection. He stopped and took the cleaning implements from me and carefully put them down. He chose one that was attached to a pole and handed it to me. He took a shorter implement, looked around the corner down the darkened corridor and quickly moved to the other side. I started to follow him, but he made it clear that I should stay where I was and wait. All during this, Eight was quiet and controlled—and as sure of himself as if he’d done this many times. How did he know where he was going? How did he …?

  We heard footsteps coming down the corridor from the direction Eight had anticipated. He held up two fingers indicating how many people. We kept out of sight on either side of the corridor as they approached. His face was dark, intense with concentration; his brow ridges, which were unusually pronounced, cast shadows over his eyes. My heart began to pound when I realized what Eight was planning. These were certain to be older students, but he expressed no hesitation, no doubt.

  Just as the two unsuspecting students passed, the one closest to me caught sight of me, but it was too late. We were on them, and we both knew exactly what to do. First we disarmed them of their murking sticks with blows to their hands and arms. Then we laid into them with such ferocity that they fled down the corridor.

  “I’ll show you who’s pudding!” I started to follow.

  “No!” Again the strength of his voice shocked me. I stopped, and before I could ask why, we heard a high-pitched whistle screech out the emergency signal for immediate assistance we had just learned in a field-training class. We grabbed our implements and ran as fast as we could all the way back to our section.

  We burst through the door, flushed and out of breath. Most of the group was present and wanted to know what had happened. In my excitement I started to tell the story when Eight dropped a pail with implements and grabbed my attention. He looked sharply at me.

  “W-what?” I stammered.

  I followed his nod to the door where One Tarnal was giving me a hard look. Eight moved to his sleeping area and quietly busied himself in his private compartment. I immediately shut up, gathered the implements and took them into the hygiene chamber.

  Shortly after, when we were alone, I asked Eight how he knew about the corridors. He didn’t answer. He turned away and picked up his orientation chip and punched a code. I was about to comment on his rudeness when he turned back and handed it to me. It was a diagram of the rooms and corridors on the storeroom floor. We had all been given the schematics of the Bamarren spaces. I assumed that no one paid any attention to them.

  I didn’t know then if I could ever call Eight a friend. Something about him was strange and impenetrable. But it didn’t matter. At least I knew there was one person in my section I could trust. How I had misjudged him. It was obvious that Eight had what Cardassians call a ferocious spirit—and that I could learn a great deal from him.

  * * *

  Much of the focus of Cardassian education, especially during the early years, consists of exhausting and merciless physical training. The training area on Deep Space 9 always amused me. People struggling by themselves with weights and machines in front of a mirror. The results seem more about strengthening the appearance of the body rather than the fiber of the character.

  Our training centers on trials of one person’s skill matched against the skill of another. But where Klingons regard physical combat as the primary test of mastery, we begin at that level and then progress to the subtler methods of confrontation. There are enough levels of expertise for two lifetimes, but a student has to master each one before moving on to the next. It was during these trials that we came to know each other.

  We assembled in the burning sands of the “Pit,” where each day we had long “eye, hand, and foot” sessions. The Pit was the most feared training area at Bamarren; it truly took the measure of each student. These initial sessions were the fundamental underpinnings of all subsequent training. Basically, the concept was to teach the eyes, the hands, and the feet to operate independently, in order to function in countless combinations called “strategems” controlled by the brain. The strategems ranged from simple fight combinations of kicks and punches to complicated dances that resembled religious trance.

  Calyx, our martial docent, was a gnarled old man with one glass eye. It was rumored that he was an infantry gul who’d been demoted because he’d refused the privilege of executive status and had put himself in danger along with his men. It was after his demotion that he dedicated himself to mastering the strategems. Of course we called him Calyx behind his back, since that was the name of the whirling muscular beast-of-many-appendages in our childhood stories. Like the fabled Calyx, our docent was capable of blinding displays of fighting prowess, yet at rest he was about as remarkable as a rock.

  On the first day in the Pit, we stood in formation for what seemed like hours while he simply stared at us. I was drenched in my fluids, nauseated by the baking sun. Six Lubak fainted, and when Five made a move to tend to him Calyx spit in his face. As with humans, this is a humiliating, demeaning gesture. We were stunned.

  “Step forward, Five.” His voice was jarringly gentle and a half-smile replaced the blank mask. Five just stared at him, the spittle dripping from his face with the sweat. He behaved as if the docent had spoken an alien tongue. The mixed signals had confused us all. “Stand in front of me,” Calyx motioned. Five was compact, and his trained, athletic body moved carefully in anticipation of a trick. He stopped in front of Calyx, whose half-smile revealed broken and missing teeth.

  “I want you to get me off of my place without losing yours,” Calyx explained. Five seemed transfixed by the half-smile; I wasn’t sure he’d understood the request. I wasn’t sure I’d understood. We remained in formation while they stood facing each other. This standoff lasted forever. Five wavered, but he held his position, never taking his eyes off Calyx. My entire body was by now screaming in pain.

  The Pit was in the far corner, away from the other training areas. Each was cut off by a barrier, so you couldn’t really see what was going on in adjoining areas. Voices and sounds would drift in and out of awareness. My mind wandered. I was sure that I heard sounds of the women students gusting with the winds. Suddenly mother materialized … she looked like she was apologizing. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, but her image dissolved and … Father took her place. I knew he was telling me something very important, but I was growing dizzy and afraid that I’d join Six on the ground … his words were carried away by the winds. Father faded, and gradually I became aware of a figure entering from the right side of my peripheral vision. He was dressed in the student black and green, moving slowly across … No! She was dressed … in the classic long skirts. This was against the rules. What was she doing here? She glided into full view and stood between Calyx and Five. The dry Mekar winds billowed her skirts and whipped her purple-black hair, obscuring her face. Did anyone else see her? I wanted to look around, to have my vision corroborated, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She stopped and returned my look. Her hair whipped behind her, exposing her unguarded eyes. She said something … but again I couldn’t hear the words. I moved to her. She was radiant… I was drawn to her…. Everything else fell into shadow, as if I were moving through a tunnel….

  “Where are you going, Ten? You’re losing your place.” It was the Gruff Voice from the storeroom. My female vision reacted to the voice and looked in the direction from where it came. I followed her look, and just as I began
to discern the outline of another person—tall, graceful, an emerging negative image of a picture—I experienced an icy, painful spasm that pulled me back to the Pit. It was as if my heart had been crushed in a strong grip. I staggered and nearly fell.

  “You look lost, Ten.” I turned to the voice, which now was familiar and no longer gruff. It was Calyx, and I was standing in front of him. What happened to Five? I wanted to look. I wanted to look for the young woman. For the Gruff Voice. But I didn’t dare take my eyes away from Calyx.

  “Did you see them or hear them?” he asked. I hesitated, wondering how he knew.

  “Both,” I replied.

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “My … parents. Not the other two.” Someone behind me started to laugh, but Calyx stopped him with a look. “The other two. Is that when you lost your place?” I nodded. His questions were softly asked, almost kindly. I don’t know why I wasn’t surprised that he knew. Instead, I was grateful; it told me I wasn’t going mad.

  “You have your work cut out, Ten.” I nodded again as if some part of me understood what he meant.

  “Are you up to this? Can you learn to hold your place?”

  I just stared back at him not knowing how to respond. Softly he blew two acrid breaths into my eyes and, blinded, I stumbled back.

  “Can you even find a space to hold?” he asked.

  I came back to my sweating body and felt totally exhausted and beaten. We were dismissed, and I watched everyone move away. I had no idea of what had just happened to me. My work was cut out, Calyx had told me: I had to find my space and hold it. How do I even begin?

  7

  And how do we even begin to rebuild a world that doesn’t exist anymore? A world that exists in my mind with the same arid bitterness as the dust in my mouth. I have never lived with despair, Doctor, the way I live with it now. It’s almost like a phantom companion that shadows me and casts doubt on whatever I do.