The Green Hills of Home
SURRENDER
Part 1 – Captivity
This story is rated R due to graphic violence and non-consensual sex. This is not in every chapter or even found frequently, but it is there. Be forewarned.
Book Bibliography:
The following books are described/quoted in this chapter:
The Underground Man, by Ross MacDonald
The Emerald City of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
Chapter 4
The first few days of the new Infirmary were slow, half the time leaving me little at all to do. But that was before the push started and the people they are forcing to work for them started to get hurt.
We are Group 1, the first group they established. But in the days after we were first moved there have been others. The only difference is far fewer of them are in "important" positions.
They want the station repaired as soon as they can, and they are pulling those with the skills they want from new prisoners, keeping them here in locked cages like ours. All of them have families of some sort, hostages to their behavior. But we are the best and brightest, the most important of their captives. Our families get the easier jobs.
The others are tearing apart the cargo holds below where we were held, little attention paid to safety. I get plenty of cuts and gashes and bruises, even a few broken bones. Most of them are sent home with days off. I give them as much recovery time as I dare, aware the guards judgement always outranks mine.
Such is the value I hold in their world. My patients purpose is the serve the Dominion by doing manual labor. My service is to keep them going, at least some of them. Those badly injured are simply shot. Those with very minor damage are sent home for an early rest.
I'm sure they could do the work simpler with the technology they have. But why bother when there are so many prisoners with nothing to do instead? Miles tells me about the rumors of their victories and our losses. He's the single most important of their "special" prisoners. He gets to go places nobody else can, has contact with others that would be impossible in our absolutely controlled new lives. He pays for it, though he won't talk about it. At "home" the guilt is shared. But outside some of the others regard him as a little too willing to cooperate. He isn't like the man who married us, but hovers a little too close for comfort.
They understand a little. Every single one of the "special" has a family, even if it wasn't all that common in Starfleet. Nobody talks about the ones without hostages that didn't get to stay. They are all aware that their work will benefit the Dominion, and yet the children waiting at the gate make it easy to lie to themselves. So Miles is only given a little distance.
He's lucky. They are a little more direct with me.
It's late and there have been too many patients today. My stomach is grumbling as the guards open the door. I'm hoping it is to take me back. But, instead, a girl limps inside, the door sliding shut behind her.
I recognize her, though I don't remember her name. I doubt she's even twelve. Cautiously climbing up on my table, she holds out her foot.
She doesn't look at me. None of them do, and I've taken to concentrating on their wounds or injuries rather than faces. I don't ask how it happened either. I just treat them and let them go.
She pulls off her boots, and her ankle is swollen and bruised. "Move your foot up and down," I tell her in my most neutral voice.
Observing the results, feeling the ankle as it moves, I'm relieved. "It's probably a sprain. I'll give you something for the swelling and bind it. Take off the binding and re-wrap it in the morning and evening until it stops hurting."
She nods, but makes no eye contact. I'm not sure where I stand in her world, her youth stolen so early. After I give her a hypo of an anti-inflammatory drug, I ask her to lie down. After the swelling disappears I can wrap her ankle and go eat.
There were too many patients today, work running very late. It was good that the last few have been minor injuries since I'm having trouble concentrating. It has been a long time since breakfast.
For them, too, I suppose. I wonder if the hazards of working under Jem'Hadar guards help you forget how hungry you are by the afternoon. Their short tempers and the dangerous conditions insure I have plenty to do.
I don't think about the ones hurt so bad that I'll never see them. I hardly think of the ones brought to me as people anymore. They keep their eyes to themselves, and I keep as much distance as possible.
It's easier for everybody. After all, I'm just making it possible for the guards to make them work. No wonder they don't want to look at me.
She's fallen asleep by the time her foot can be bandaged, and I wake her gently, tapping her hand. She pulls it away anyway and I almost feel guilty for fixing her ankle. But if I couldn't she'd be shot or deported, so I'm probably saving her life.
"Watch the way I do this," I instruct her.
She concentrates on my hands and the wrap, this time without as much pain showing in her eyes.
I just remembered her name, Lania. I won't use it, won't invade her privacy. But I wrap her ankle with more care than I might have a few minutes before.
Having finished the procedure, she suffers me helping her down. She carries her boots, still limping but with less trouble, as she disappears out the door.
Very relieved, I don't hesitate when they gruffly order me out, as if it was some sort of punishment to be able to eat and see my family. The walk back home seems very quick and I relax a little when the gate closes behind me.
I'm locked in a cage, but it's our cage. The guards stay on the other side of the gate.
Ezri is sitting at one of the tables, Molly and Yoshi playing some game with another little girl. My wife grasps my hand as I sit next to her, mostly seeing the bowl she's been saving for me.
It's cold and lumpy, the greasy part separated from the rest, but I don't care what it tastes like tonight.
"Miles and Keiko are busy," she says, flashing a small grin. I nod, but don't interrupt my dinner to reply. She pushes the book towards me. "We did the reading already. A lot of people were tired. The page is marked for you to catch-up."
I finish the last spoonful a little too soon, still wishing for more. "I'll watch the children and read if you need to rest," I offer. I need to hear them play right now. I need to get the grim life Lania has been relegated to out of my mind.
She nods, yawning. A young woman approaches, the other child's mother. "Tessie, time for bed." Tessie pouts, but stops the game. "Thanks for watching her."
"No problem," says Ezri, softly. "It was a pleasure, Cath," she adds. But I can't take my eyes off of her. She's reaching back, adjusting something that isn't there. Then she stops and looks up at me, "We've got to do something about these long evenings. I wasn't sure they were going to let me keep the bowl. You almost had to go to bed hungry."
It's an private little joke between us, and I know Ezri is there again.
She stands, patting the little girl on the head. I pick up the book, opening it to the page they'd started on, still watching Ezri as she and Catherine are talking. She reminds me of when she first arrived at the station and every so often a word or gesture would be a painful reminder. I keep thinking of why Jadzia died, how she'd been asking the Prophets for a child when Dukat killed her. She pats the girl again, her hand lingering.
Not that I want children in this place, but she knows we'll not likely have any of our own. We don't discuss it, but I can't miss the way her glances linger on the little ones. She smiles, a little wistful smile, and then sighs.
It worries me, this interest in the children. Ezri didn't want children. Jadzia wanted one so badly she died for it.
Molly distracts me. "Yoshi's sleepy," she says.
He's sitting on his blanket, eyes half-closed. Catherine is leaving and Ezri leans over to pick him up. "I'll put him to bed in our room for now."
Ezri heads towards our rooms, Molly tagging along at first but coming back after a minute. She sits next to me, taking my bowl and quietly cleaning the traces of mush and broth with her fingers.
I pretend not to notice, reading tonight's pages to myself. I'm a little disappointed, missing the way the images form in the mind when you can close your eyes and the shared suspense of hearing it together.
I read the words over, aloud to myself when Archer is interviewing the blonde girl's mother, so far out of contact with her daughter's reality
"She didn't move. She was one of those dreaming blondes who couldn't bear to face a change in her life. One of those waiting mothers who would sit forever beside the phone but didn't know what to say when it finally rang."
Archer insists on disturbing the father.
"As she passed me in the doorway I could feel the small chill in her fine body. The same cold presence reflected itself in the room. The chandelier for all its blaze was like a cluster of frozen tears. The white marble mantle was tomblike. The flowers in the vase were plastic, unsmellable, giving off a dull sense of artificial life."
The words stop me. I look around the grey walls, the gaunt furniture, the dull lighting. How can this tomb be home? Are we living in as much an unreality as the blonde girl's mother?
I need to read this with someone else. There are too many echos of lost hopes and dreams. Maybe I'll be back in time to join the others tomorrow. Maybe it will be a better day for everyone.
Last night, when we were reading, the guards paused in their patrol and just watched. We were standing with Archer as the fire descended down the hill, the trees suddenly bursting into flame. We retreated from the inferno, the heat licking at our clothes, as the house is left to the flames. We were with the woman as she sped away from all she owned, wishing we didn't understand so well.
I looked up, the Jem'Hadar carefully listening, but obviously unmoved by the words. I was actually a little sorry for them. They are slaves, too, but their enslavement runs too deep for any liberation. We can be locked up in cages and forced to do their bidding-but we can go to the hot, dry California summer and smell the drifting smoke of the fire, hurt with Archer as the boy is found, then lost again. Even if our liberation is long delayed, we own our own minds. When we are with Archer, we do not belong to them. But the Jem'Hadar will never escape their captivity, wired too deeply into their being.
Aside from repairing selected of their slaves our masters have left me alone, and it still makes no sense. I'm different from the others. They probably knew long before my parents unguarded remarks gave me away. Before I woke at Internment Camp 371, I had been examined. The memories of it are only brief, unpleasant flashes, but I'm sure of them. I left that out when I was debriefed after our escape.
Have I been spared to be an experimental animal? Is a Vorta scientist somewhere devising a way to make a smarter, stronger, but involuntarily loyal version of the human species? Am I here in the relative luxury of this cage so I'll be healthy when they are ready? Or have they already begun? Is there a half-twin out there now, waiting to be part of the new order of the universe? Will I be allowed to live once they have taken what they want?
Ezri has wandered back, Molly still working on the bowl, when there is a commotion of sorts and the gate is opened. Two Jem'Hadar and their prisoner enter. It is a woman, I think, her hands chained behind her back, stumbling along with them.
I vaguely notice the red hair, trimmed short in a rather haphazard fashion. The Jem'Hadar tower over her. She doesn't fight them. She slumps forward a little while they unchain her, facing the gate. Abruptly, her hands freed, she faints.
I know I should try to help her. But I don't have a medkit and the Jem'Hadar are with her. And Molly is here, too close, looking up from the bowl. I can't do anything for the woman yet, but put down the book and stand. From here I can see her face.
Stunned, I start carefully towards her.
She was on Cardassia when it fell. By all rights, she should be dead. Maybe-just maybe-she would know something of the others.
I stop, impatient for the guards to go. She is unconscious. I can't stand the thought of her being brought here just to die. If Kira is alive maybe . . . possibly some of the others might be too.
Finally, the guards retreat through the gate and it slams shut and is locked.
I rush the last few paces, kneeling down to check her for injuries. Not that I can do much here, but perhaps I could stabilize her until tomorrow.
Molly nearly runs into me, but stops herself. "Is Aunt Nerys Ok?" she asks in her scared childish voice.
Kira looks thin and dirty, but is dressed as we are. I can find no obvious injuries. I guess that malnutrition and exhaustion are her chief problems.
"I think so. Come hold her hand, talk to her."
Molly slides forward and gives her a kiss.
The Jem'Hadar are still standing on their side of the gate.
"Make room for her. She is assigned to Group 1." The guards stomp away.
Molly freezes, ducking down between me and Kira until the Jem'Hadar go. Then she takes Kira's hand and sits next to her, shaking her gently.
Kira wakes, a little, slowly opening her eyes, trying to focus. With visible effort, she lifts her head and faints again.
I carefully pick her up, Molly trailing close behind, and sit at one of the benches.
Kira stirs again. "Julian?" she asks, confused, her voice weak. "Where am I?"
I understand too well. I remember waking in the camp. "Deep Space Nine. They still call it that."
She tries to sit up but can't, collapsing back in my arms. Looking around the little compound that belongs to us as much as anything does anymore, her eyes are haunted. "How long?" she asked quietly, her voice faint.
She takes a deep breath, dragging her legs over the bench and sitting on her own, still using my arm for support. Molly holds her hand, her head in Kira's lap.
Ezri sits next to her, adding her arm to mine. "Maybe a month or so. We aren't sure. We spent a lot of time in the cargo bays below."
She looks at the gates. There is no feeling in her voice at all. "You'd almost think the Cardassians were back," she murmurs. "But that's impossible. They're all dead."
I must know. "What happened to Garak?" I say, almost wishing I hadn't asked.
She sounds exhausted now, her eyes drooping much as Yoshi's had before. "He was executed. I was supposed to be, but they didn't shoot me. Instead, they tossed me in with the prisoners cleaning up the bodies." There is still a dullness to her tone that is more stunning than the news itself.
How many of us did they keep on the station? Miles has said there are other groups, but nobody knows how many. The rest went to Cardassia, to the hell Kira has seen. I never saw Jake once he was pushed ahead of Ezri that first day, was he there? And Kassidy, she was pregnant. They wouldn't know right away, but later?
Kira doesn't have to describe it. We can see it all from the look in her eyes, the complete lack of emotion. I can't think of my friends now. I can't think of what happened to them.
And Garak . . . it isn't a surprise. I expected him to be dead. It's just hard to be so certain. I've lost most of my friends, either here or at the end of that last ditch battle over Cardassia.
"The ones captured over Cardassia?" someone asks-Scalman, I think.
"And others. They intend to leave it stripped bare and incapable of supporting life. It would be kind of ironic if that wasn't there," she adds, looking at the gate. "They should call it Terok Nor. It looks like it." She looks around, searching out familiar faces.
Ezri asks the question I can't bring myself to. "Did you see anyone else from here?"
She just shakes her head, "They have thousands of people there right now. Don't expect many of them to come back."
A silence descends over the nearby crowd, slowly gathering as the news spreads. Too many friends are there. Too many of them will die there. Nobody really wants to hear details, not right away.
We have to live with these monsters. But it's very hard when you know that most of your friends will die like that.
She looks down at Molly, hugging whatever of Kira the little girl can reach. She doesn't ask, but Ezri answers, "Miles and Keiko are having some private time. They'll be so glad to see you."
Ezri is smiling, just a little, a faint, wistful smile more like . . . Then her free hand reaches behind to adjust that pony tail she doesn't have again. "You need to eat," she says to Kira, her show of strength fading fast.
Kira smiles, just a ghost of a smile but it's a change. "Sisko?" she asks.
"He left," says a voice behind us, hard and bitter.
"Left?" she asks, puzzled.
"He had some kind of vision, from the way Worf described it. Just before the Dominion fleet arrived, he took a runabout and when to Bajor," I inform her. "Nobody knows why or what happened to him."
She stares at me. "The Captain wouldn't do that," her voice trails off. "Unless, unless it was so important he had to go."
"Maybe," I speculate. "But I'll warn you, that wouldn't be a popular interpretation."
"What about Worf?" she asks.
Ezri answers, her tone gentle. "He went to Stovakor fighting."
For a moment, Kira and Ezri exchange a look. Ezri fades back into herself a little and Kira sighs.
She looks at me, sad and resigned. But she knows it's realistic. She's been through this kind of life before and Worf's choice was one she's familiar with. And she knows what people would think of a commander who ran, even if he was called by some mysterious vision. "Odo?" she asks.
"I don't know," I reply, which is the truth.
"He was very sick," she says. "He hadn't died?" she asks in a guarded tone, the first hint of any emotion at all.
"No," I say. But I've heard about the sudden stoppages in the work teams, and the intense scanning that follows. I shake my head a little, a hint not to ask, hoping she's aware enough to notice. The last time she saw him he had perhaps two weeks to live, if that. If I don't know what happened to him she must know he survived. She looks up at me and there is a brief moment of understanding. She takes a deep breath and nods. "Most of the people here were shipped to Cardassia."
"I know," she says, her voice flat. Listening to her tone we decide to drop the subject. We don't want to know.
I think of Ezri and others being sent away when they ask me to save their gods and I can't do it. I look away, tell myself that Kira is my first concern right now.
"You can have this," says Catherine. It is an almost full bowl of food. "Tessie was feeling a little sick and didn't want it." We sit the bowl in front of her, help her turn towards the table. I hand her the spoon. She looks at it, pausing only a second before she devourers it. "Thank you," she says before she collapses.
Catherine takes Molly's hand. "I'll take her home," she offers, Molly tugging at her hand, trying to get loose.
We pull Kira to her feet. Ezri helps steady her. Between us, we take her to the one extra bed, abandoned after the former tenant tried stealing from them a few days after our arrival here. We never saw her or her husband again. Kira collapses on the bed, falling asleep immediately.
Ezri is in an odd mood, overly quiet and distant. She hasn't said much at all today. I know the guards are pushing them, but I don't think she's hurt. But I remember she and Kira emerging from the holosuites in a series of costumes, laughing and talking, how close friends they were. With Miles here I still hold a piece of my life, a friendship even this place can't destroy. Perhaps finding Kira alive has given the same connection to Ezri, or at least a part of her.
And then there was Tessie, the way Ezri looked at her, so longingly . . .
"Let's get you to bed," I suggest, putting my arm around her. "Kira will be fine. She needs food and rest now."
As if she'll get enough of either . . . I half expect Ezri to make a comment but she just nods.
I push open our door and she sits on the bed, Yoshi nestled in a pile of blankets, stroking him tenderly. "I missed Kira," she says. She leans over him, picking up the child and cradling him in her arms.
With a free hand she starts to push non-existent strands of hair out of her face. Her eyes-half closed, I can almost see Jadzia.
I love Ezri. I don't want her to fade away.
"I'll take him home," I offer. Reluctantly, she gives him to me. She's looking at me with a wistful half-smile so much like Jadzia wore when I told her she would soon be able to conceive.
I tap gently on the O'Brien's door. Miles opens it, taking his son. He looks at me, pausing.
"How is she?" he asks.
I know he means Kira, but I can't get my mind off Ezri. "Thin and weak, but I think she'll get better."
He closes his eyes. "I wanted to come out but I couldn't. I didn't want to hear about Cardassia, knowing where . . ."
I ask myself if I could cure the beings that sent so many of us to die.
I need to say something. "Look, you talk to Ezri. Is she, do you notice anything different about her?"
Miles disappears into the second room, returning a few minutes later without Yoshi. "She's been real quiet," he says. "Off, somehow. A lot of the rest of them have been that way." He sits down, looking away. "It's not like it is for us. They push them all the time." He looks towards the other room where Keiko is telling Molly a story. "I worry about her, all of them. We're the most skilled group. They get it relatively easy. But even so," he says, shifting his weight, taking a deep breath. "Even so sooner or later something is going to happen."
I nod, thinking of the girl, all the others I'd treated today. "They don't look at me when I treat them," I say.
"I get some funny looks too, especially when I have to set up work teams. But I can't stand the thought of Keiko . . . " he stops, looking forlornly towards his wife.
I leave him to his own private hell while I go back to mine.
Ezri is asleep, holding my pillow. I am tired, exhausted by the emotional evening. But I couldn't sleep. I retrieve the book and sit on the chair, watching Ezri as she sleeps.
There is just enough light to finish reading the nights selection. For a few minutes, my own dilemma is forgotten. Archer discovers an old magazine ad, a search Stanley Broadhurst had begun for a mysterious couple who disappeared about the time of his father. But I run out of book too soon. The mind drifts in the quiet. Even if they have other reasons, they'll discover Odo's recovery soon enough. When they ask me I must say no. I can not save murders. I could not live with myself if I did. But if I refuse, I'll be condemning these people to death. I don't know if I can live with that either, any more than Stanley Broadhurst could with his nightmares.
There is another option, not living at all. As long as I cooperate, there are drugs to make sleep into death.
The long night drags on. Crawling into bed, Ezri puts her arms around me and cuddles. She's too tired to go to the beach, but I wish she was up to it. I need to get away from here. I listen to the little sounds of the sleepers. I can't leave her behind to be deported to that hell once I am gone. I hold her, wishing the night would last forever, and fearing the time that it does.
o0o
There is already a certain normalcy to our days, as if we were not living inside a cage. Each morning, the alarm wakes us and the lights get brighter. Those that need to dress, necessities are taken care of, and we wait in line for breakfast. Then the mush arrives and we eat. Then all but a few go off to work for the day. Everyone in each of these little groups works the same shift, so the place is deserted except for the smaller children and Cindy, her work to watch them during the day.
We all leave together. Ezri and the others, now numbering Kira among them, have a shorter shift. But the work is a lot harder. She usually takes a nap before I am released back to our place. I don't feel different in the morning, but I'm escorted back alone, and walk through the door by myself.
Those of us with "special" assignments are set apart in the evening. I spend my day treating those injured by their work. The others come back dirty and with the occasional bruise they will not explain. I return hungry and tired, impatient to be away from the guards, but otherwise unharmed.
My job isn't easy. My patients have to settle for the very basic medicine I'm allowed to practice. I've had to turn to methods abandoned centuries ago, since I'm not allowed the more advanced tools with technology that could be modified for sabotage, or used to contact others. They have to put up with the pain of some procedures because I don't have enough pain killer to use on everyone. But everybody has recovered, though I suspect anyone likely not to is just taken care of by the Jem'Hadar. I still believe there is much more to this than what I'm doing. But for now, I take refuge in being allowed to be a healer.
Each day, when I walk past the gate, I breathe a sigh of relief that I was left alone once again.
Ezri meets me at the gate. We don't look back as they lock us in anymore. We know how lucky we are to be here.
We sit and eat our meal. We're fed enough to stay healthy. But not enough that it matters we have the same tasteless muck each time.
Then comes the good time, the part that makes all the rest tolerable, when we read.
Last night we finished the detective novel that doubled as classic tragedy. I keep looking at the children and thinking of Stanley Broadhurst who never forgot his father. And I think of his son, and how Archer wonders if the son will inherit his father's demons and share his nightmares. Our own children have already been marred, and will pass that on to their own.
If only we dared refuse to play our part in this play, but the dead look in Kira's eyes when Cardassia is mentioned is enough to remind us that we must not.
Tonight, it is my turn to read. Miles has gotten two new books, an adventure we haven't yet read, and a trip to the land of Oz. He won't say how or where and we don't ask. I'm sure, for Miles, it helps a little to make up for the guilt.
We will begin our journey to Oz tonight.
Everyone has gathered and I open the book. One of the guards has paused, watching, and I wait until he leaves.
"The Emerald City of Oz, Chapter 1, The Nome King Became Angry," I read. I look up and everyone is watching, anticipating the story. I begin.
"The Nome King was in an angry mood, and at such times he was very disagreeable. Every one kept away from him, even his Chief Steward Kaliko."
"Therefore the King stormed and raved all by himself, walking up and down in his jewel-studded cavern and getting angrier all the time. Then he remembered that it was no fun being angry unless he had some one to frighten and make miserable, and he rushed to his big gong and made it clatter as loud as he could."
"In came the Chief Steward, trying not to show the Nome King how frightened he was."
" 'Send the Chief Counselor here!' shouted the angry monarch."
I pause, wondering if Weyoun ever shouts. He certainly pushed Damar far enough to turn against him.
Actually, it was amusing thinking of Weyoun storming and raving round the room.
I read on, as the Chief Counselor tries to placate the angry king. I enjoy the image of Weyoun scurrying to please the Founder.
He doesn't succeed. " 'Take this Chief Counselor and throw him away,'" orders the frustrated king. The guards drag him away in chains.
I wonder if I'm the only one who likes that image, with the Founder and Weyoun standing in for the Nomes.
The new Chief Counselor tries even harder to please. I envision the newly activated Weyoun, hoping for a longer run than his predecessor.
I read on. The General is called, and the King demands that Oz be taken and his stolen Magic Belt be recovered. But Oz is a fairy country. It won't be easy to do.
I wish we were in a fairy country, where magic belts existed and magic was real.
But even in Oz, the General finds a plan. I tell myself it's a fantasy meant for children. It can't have too much reality intertwined inside it.
"But they, for their part, did not know they had such a dangerous enemy. Indeed, Ozma and Dorothy had both almost forgotten that such a person as the Nome King yet lived under the mountains of the Land of Ev - which lay just across the deadly desert to the south of the Land of Oz."
"An unsuspected enemy is doubly dangerous."
I close the book, first studying the illustration of the shaggy, maddened king. Are his eyes violet or amber-toned, I wonder?
We only read one chapter a night. The last book was finished too soon.
The evening ends on a very quiet note.
Sometimes even fantasy isn't enough. Surely, the plan will fail. Oz will be saved. The Nome king will pay for his evil war.
The changelings will pay for their deeds too. But it won't bring back the dead.
Ezri and I retire to bed. This is the time we talk quietly about the day. I don't go into any detail, and she keeps it very general, but we touch each other's lives a little.
She is limping slightly. "Ezri, can I check your leg?" I ask.
She pulls away. "It's nothing," she says, resigned. "It will go away on its own."
I should quit now. But I'm worried about the way she's holding herself. "Can't I at least look?"
"Really, it will be alright." There is panic in her voice, fear that I'll insist and force her into showing how bad the injuries are.
I tell myself there is nothing I can do. It will only make it harder on her if I push it. "If you insist," I say.
She eyes me, still uncertain. But something's wrong. I don't recognize her. Her face is different in subtle ways. Her voice carries a different cadence. Her whole body is held in an unfamiliar way. I don't know who she is.
She gets this way when pressured. I assume it's one of her previous hosts, now risen to deal with the stress Ezri is incapable of alone. But I don't know this one.
She was just starting to integrate all her selves into one when we were captured. I'm afraid she's starting to split apart under the stress.
I don't want to lose her. I need her too much. She needs me just as much.
"We heard some things from the new people," she says, still a stranger. They have expanded their captive workforce, and are converting the lower level, where we were held in the cargo bay, to smaller holding pens. Some of the new people were captured only recently, and have more current information.
It is never good. The Romulans had more left after the failed invasion, and the Dominion targeted them first.
"The Romulans are on the verge of surrender," she says.
The Klingons, already badly hurt by the war and the previous one with the Federation, have turned to suicide missions to hold back the inevitable. The Federation has drawn themselves back into the core of their territory, abandoning everything on the boarders, hoping to save a little of it. But the Dominion and Breen are well supplied, ships slipping through the wormhole daily and there is an endless line of new Jem'Hadar to replace the ones that are killed.
Time is running out. The Dominion will win the war. Maybe we will be sent back to an occupied Earth, where this place will be repeated over and again. Perhaps we'll just stay here.
Or maybe they'll ship us through the wormhole as they have already begun to do with others.
Sharing the silence, I wonder what sort of hell Internment Camp 371 has become. There were things I never told them when I was debriefed because I didn't want to remember them. Now they have more of us to play with. I shut it out of my mind.
It didn't help the nightmares before. I'll probably dream of it tonight. Ezri is hurting too much for the beach. Or maybe the self she's become doesn't like the ocean. We have to stay here tonight.
We don't try to guess what awaits us. We just hang onto now, as the only certainty we have, and hope things don't change too much before it's all over.
o0o
My stomach is grumbling and I'd like to go home. If nobody else is brought in, I can leave early tonight. It's been so busy today that I haven't had time to think about why I'm really here.
But I'm starting to believe they have enough reasons for this clinic to justify my presence. There are almost no concerns about safety. I keep the less-injured ready to work. I don't like the job. I didn't like that most of the patients released during the war were sent back to the front. But I manage the same way, by shutting it out of my mind.
I tell myself if I wasn't here, they'd die of infections and complications. Or the Jem'Hadar would simply shoot them. But sometimes, privately, I wonder if I'm really helping them all that much. Am I saving them from this accident or that guard so they can die the next time? I wish I could ask them, know what they wanted, but they cooperate when I'm working and they are relaxed when I'm done. Perhaps it's because I finished and will leave them alone. But I'd like to think they are grateful too, even if they won't say it. Now they get to have another chance to survive.
Then the door opens, several people holding up someone else, her arm and head all bloody. I haven't had this bad an injury yet. I wish I had a nurse. "Can one of them stay?" I ask the guard. "I'll need help with the bleeding."
He points at the woman supporting my patient. "She may stay," he says.
My patient is laid down carefully on one of the beds. I cut back the soaked clothes, totally absorbed in the work. I don't notice at first that I know her.
Then I turn my attention to the head wound and realize it is Kira. She has a gash in her upper arm, and a bad cut on her head. I instruct my helper, who is unfamiliar to me, to press against the cut on her head while I work on the arm.
Kira has fainted, I assume from the bleeding. I force all the feeling away while I get the arm wound cleaned and closed. It's a jagged cut, the skin ripped unevenly. It's closed up well enough but it won't heal quickly.
The head wound has stopped bleeding. I gently clean it off, grateful that she's still out. It's not as bad a cut as on the arm, but she has lost a lot of blood.
Before she wakes I finish stitching the head wound, and check her overall condition. She's weak, and should stay in bed the next day. I decide to list my diagnosis in the records, though I know it won't mean anything.
Cleaned up you can see the large bruise on her cheek, and it wasn't from the fall. Finally, I ask, "How did this happen?"
"She slipped," says the woman nervously. "Lost her balance."
"This have anything to do with it?" I asked, pointing at the bruise.
She nods. "She fell on some metal rods being installed. That's where the cuts came from," she says carefully. But not the bruise, I think. She doesn't have to say it.
Sometimes Kira is too stubborn for her own good. I remember how I'd learned how to deal with the Jem'Hadar-and how not to.
Weyoun lets me excuse patients from work. This time, I have little doubt that he'll agree. I know they won't let her die of an infection or start bleeding again. She is too important to them. I've heard about the searches. It's satisfying that they can't find a changeling who doesn't want to be found either.
The woman is sent back to her group. I wait for Kira to wake up. I'll take her with me when I know she is ready.
I hope she wakes soon. My stomach is grumbling louder.
She stirs. She should rest a little longer, but if we're too late we'll miss dinner. There should still be time if we leave soon. She touches her bruised cheek first.
"Jem'Hadar," she whispers. "I wouldn't move out of his way. He knocked me down." She winces. "How bad?"
"You lost a lot of blood, but you should heal. A dermal regenerator would be nice." I gaze at my basic instruments and wonder how many like Kira are left to bleed to death instead.
"Louder. You might get one." She winces, but then grins. "They wouldn't want the bait to die on them."
I enter my log. "Patient log, Dr. Julian Bashir," I begin. I always use the word doctor. "Patient Kira Nerys has several severe lacerations, which I was able to close. However, due to weakness from loss of blood and the danger of infection she must rest until the cuts have substantially healed."
We'll find out how well they are listening tomorrow.
"I'm very tired," she says. "I'd like to sleep," exhaustion and shock taking over.
"Eat first. I'm going to steady you on the way back." I wrap a blanket around her ruined clothes. She tries to sit and fails.
All bravado gone, she says, "Just get me back."
Nearly carrying her, I bring her home. Ezri helps her into bed and gets her to eat before she falls asleep.
Sitting, eating my own cold food, a guard stops by the gate and calls my name. I hesitantly come forward, worried I'm to be taken somewhere. But he simply stands in front of me.
"Kira Neres has been excused from work until you allow her return," he gruffly informs me and leaves.
Standing by the gate, I allow myself to feel a little important, though it's not much of a surprise. If only the same standard applied to less important hostages then I might really be allowed to be a doctor.
o0o
Yesterday, a Jem'Hadar was killed. Someone ripped him open, tearing as if with the large claws of an animal, and left him to slowly bleed to death. He died in a corridor of the highest security section of the station where only the most trusted of our masters are allowed, during the middle of the night when none of us were out of our cages. Nonetheless, our morning meal was reduced by half for the day.
Kira is standing by the gate, watching the people as they walk past along with their guards. The light reflects off of her red hair and adds a splash of color in what is otherwise almost completely drab. She is still off work, her arm with the jagged gash taking a long time to heal.
The reduced diet won't help her, but she already knows about that. She hasn't said a word, but I can see the worry in her tense body and grim face. She's been in places like this, and knows how they react even if we aren't to blame.
She knows Odo is alive and well, and has heard all the same rumors about an elusive saboteur on the station that they can't find. She must know that Odo has taken special revenge for her alone.
But we will pay. It will be a very long day with breakfast so meager. No one knows if dinner will be the same, if rations have been reduced for a few meals or indefinitely. I am not very optimistic about the former. At Internment Camp 371, Deyos cut rations every time there was trouble. I have been there too.
It must have been the same Jem'Hadar that hurt Kira. They know Odo is out there. He has just informed them that he won't allow her to be hurt.
She's a pawn in the game. It would be so easy for them to make her a special target and set a trap.
And when they find him, what then? The Jem'Hadar will not harm him. Weyoun will probably listen to what he says. He can't help it. It's in his genes.
But the other shapeshifters would not be so kind to a traitor. They'll confirm, if they have any doubts, that he's been cured. They'll go looking for his doctor.
Several of our people in the group are ill. Cassie Realand has a very bad cough, and while I can offer suggestions on what might ease it, there is little else I can do. I could smuggle something out of the infirmary, risking being searched, but I don't really have much that would help. They bring people to me who are injured, and I can treat that kind of emergency. But I don't see the ones who just get sick, like Tain. I haven't been provided with anything to treat them anyway.
Some things haven't changed all that much.
One of my patients died last night. He wasn't badly hurt, and if he'd been left to rest he would have lived. But he wasn't Kira. He went back to work in the morning. He stumbled while working and the guard killed him. Not right away, of course. He died in a holding cell all alone.
I will not cure them. No matter what they ask, I would rather see them dead. What difference does it make to us if the Jem'Hadar kill us out of grief or as part of the job?
o0o
"Chapter six, Guph Visited the Whimsies," says the reader, Carl Jackson, his voice a little hesitant as he adjusts himself on the chair.
Kevin Realand has come to listen with his wife this time. Cassie is lucky for she sounds a lot better. Her daughter Marta follows as well, but avoids her parents, sitting with a fifteen year old boy she has been keeping close company with. By the way they acting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been to the beach a few times.
Our dinner was as meager as our breakfast. Nobody was in the mood for reading, but we look forward to it anyway. Yesterday Dorothy became a princess. Her aunt and uncle were getting acquainted with Oz, and we were allowed to dwell in a fairy tale world of pleasantly for a night.
It was a reminder of home, before death and war and ruin had made its image a lie. But it was very nice to go back there for a little while.
Tonight, the Nome king and his dark plot to conquer Oz take the stage again. I don't know what is harder, to be reminded of what was or how it is being destroyed.
My image of the Nome king has become a being of amber eyes and flowing form, flaking a bit on the edges. Several people applauded when he ordered his last general sliced to ribbons.
Why bother? There will always be a new general.
But then, Weyoun would know better than to tell the king it can't be done.
"The new General of the Nome King's army knew perfectly well that to fail in his plans meant death for him."
I wonder to myself if the Vorta fear death, or if the greater fear is to fail the gods.
"Yet Guph determined to be careful, and to lay his plans well, so as not to fail. He argued that only careless people fail in what they attempt to do."
Kira is sitting nearby, holding Molly on her lap. Her arm is healing well. I wonder what Odo plans next, if he is simply reacting or if there is any plan at all.
Guph begins his mission to gain allies in the conquest of Oz, first visiting the Whimsies, who wear painted heads to cover their own.
"They foolishly imagined that no one would suspect the little heads that were inside the imitation ones, not knowing that it is folly to try to appear otherwise than as nature has made us."
I look around the room, with the drab walls and simple furniture. Was Odo among us? Was he a space of flooring, or a plank on the wall? Did he stay near her, risking entrapment, or watch from afar as if he had a Magic Picture? Is his true nature to be anything he dreams or to be a glob of goo?
Guph promises the Whimsies fierce battle and much plunder, which pleases the brightly painted Chief, and upon victory and capture of Ozma's Magic Belt real heads as impressive as the ones they painted on cardboard.
One lone Whimsie is not entirely convinced.
"Suppose we fail to capture the Magic Belt? What will happen then, and what good will all our fighting do?"
Long ago, there must have been a few Cardassians who could see beyond the promises of glory fed them by the Dominion. But nobody listens to doomsayers, not even in Oz. They throw him in the river for his foolish question and ruin his painted head.
The alliance is sealed. Guph makes plans for his next conquest, and the promises they will hear.
Readings are supposed to be an escape, not remind us of the journey that led to this room.
It was a short chapter, and we have time for more. Carl flips through the pages of the next one. "It's about Aunt Em and her uncle, and they meet Dorothy's old friends. Shall I read it too?"
We nod enthusiastically. It is much better to end the night with visions of Cowardly Lions and talking hens with broods all named Dorothy.
Tomorrow, we vote to double up on the chapters again, ending the night with Dorothy rather than the General. Who would have guessed there could be such painful reminders in a book written for children? What sort of world would expect them to understand?
Stomachs rumbling, we go to bed. We try to hold onto the vision of a world where the magic was real, and nobody ever went hungry, but it was becoming as much a dream as Oz.
End, Part 1, Chapter 4 of Surrender