That night, when she passed in front of Garak's shop, Ziyal saw a light there. There was never light in Garak's shop at night. She knew because she had passed his shop every night since the day she arrived on the station.

Since she was a little girl, Ziyal couldn't remember sleeping more than two or three hours in a row. Nights like the last one (had it only been last night?) after the dinner with the Commander, didn't really happen. Judging by the results, she decided that this whole idea of going to bed, sleeping, having pleasant dreams and waking up refreshed, in a good mood and ready to tackle life was vastly overrated. Or maybe, more simply, it just wasn't for people like her.

He's waiting for you, Tora said. He knows you were lying.

I wasn't lying, Ziyal said. I said I wasn't going to kill him, and I won't. And I'm not going in there. He's not waiting for me. He has nothing to do with me. He's already forgotten about me.

Just as well, Tora said. That will only make it easier.

They stood and watched. Inside, a stocky man with pale blue eyes that looked darker than they were was bent over a piece of delicate embroidery, a fine steel needle in his hand.

Her mother used to sew as well. There wasn't much else to do: books made her impatient, cooking bored her, and going out was always a risk: Gul Dukat's bajoran lover and her bastard daughter would be a prime target for the resistance. They were always moving from one shelter to the other, one strange house to the next, sometimes luxurious, other times no more than huts, always in fear of being discovered. If Dukat could only stay with them, her mother used to plead with him, no one would dare come near them, and they could all be together, be happy, be a family. Dukat would smile, and stroke Naprem's beautiful auburn hair, and before he left again, he would give her a new necklace or some earrings. Sometimes she insisted, cried, accused him of being cruel, of never having loved her or their daughter. Then is smile got fixed on his lips, and he wasn't stroking Naprem's hair anymore, but grabbing it with his fist, and calling her "Tora". He always called her mother Tora when he needed to hurt her, so she would understand how difficult his position was, what he was sacrificing for her, for them.

He always apologised. It was the stress, he said, the responsibilities of his position. He kissed them and left and didn't say when he'd be back. "Soon", he'd say, "very soon, my darlings. You'll see." And then at night there would be the sound of her mother's footsteps in the next room, up and down, up and down, every night. From the minute he left she was waiting for him to come back, and from the minute he came, she was fearing the moment he would leave. So Ziyal would go and make her a hot drink and sit with her until she fell asleep. Every night. "Your father will come soon", she would say, "he said so." Ziyal would answer "yes, of course he will. He said so. Go to sleep now, mother." Ziyal slept in the afternoons, while her mother was sitting by the window, when they had one, sewing pretty dresses that she thought might please Dukat and that would go with the jewellery he had given her.

Naprem believed him when he said they were all going to live together on Lissepia. He was tired of fighting, he said. If her fellow Bajorans didn't want to accept the influence of Cardassian civilisation, they could stay in the Middle Ages, for all he cared. They would lead a quiet life, he promised, maybe on a little farm, near a river, he knew just the place. Ziyal couldn't imagine her father or her mother doing any kind of farm work. When he said goodbye, before her mother and her boarded the ship, her mother chatting happily about their little farm, Ziyal cried, because she loved her father, and she knew she wouldn't see him again. In her sleeve she had hidden a couple of small scissors from her mother's sewing kit.

She lost the scissors in the crash, but she soon found other small sharp objects to replace them. The knives in her sleeves became a part of her. At night, Ziyal felt the hot desert sand beneath her feet, took what she needed from drooling, snoring men and sometimes, when she needed to, Tora made sure, with one swift, silent movement, that those men never drooled on anything, or anyone, again. Tora didn't like it when bad things happened to Ziyal.

Curiously enough, she couldn't remember ever sleeping at the camp, although she must have done it, of course. Probably during the days. She didn't remember the days very well either. The was work, hitting stones, carrying them on her back, again and again. There was hunger and thirst, unbearable heat. Other things happened, sometimes, during the days, when all the men were awake and they could surround her, five, six, more, laughing and roaring. Ziyal didn't remember that. In her memory, the years at the camp were one long night, and her eyes were always very open and as long as Tora was there no one, no one, could come near her. And Tora would never leave her. Ever.

It was Tora who told her that Dukat would not kill her. Ziyal was afraid of him when she first saw him, after so many years, his eyes wild, his mouth fixed into that smile he'd had when she was a child. The Bajoran woman talked to him, and he lowered his weapon, but Tora had seen it before: he won't hurt you, she said. How do you know?, Ziyal asked. Because he loves you, Tora said, and Ziyal could taste the contempt, bitter and slimy in her mouth.

Tora wanted to stay on Dukat's ship. The violence, the death, even the filth - that was how life should be. But Dukat saw only his little Ziyal, and sent her off. Go, learn, he said. Make a life of your own. And Ziyal went, because she always went where people told her to go. Again, she made nights her own: she stayed awake, poured through book after book, dutifully marvelling at everything that was being offered to her, enjoying even the parts she didn't understand at all. Maybe she even enjoyed those parts most of all.

That's when she forgot everything about the camp, all the little details that had been so important: who had a new weapon, who was angry at whom, who had stolen whose food, who had fresh food and whose food was rotten, which guards were drunk and which ones were aiming for a promotion. It was a rare luxury to be able to allow herself not to know, and Ziyal embraced it wholeheartedly.

Pity only that this vast, bright, deep, exciting and joyful Universe that she was so willing to learn about and explore, if only through books, was not only full of planets and stars and flowers and rocks, but also full of people. She wanted to forget about people, but they wouldn't go away. Survival, it turned out, was no longer a matter of keeping alert, reacting in time, and carrying her sharp little knives concealed (although she still did, she always did that). It was all slippery now, not depending on actions, but on words, spoken and unspoken, and looks, and subtle connections. All these people, were they friends, were they enemies? What did they want, who were they, who did they think she was? And then there was Lamar Toral, rolling down the steps, one two three, coming to rest on his living room rug. There was Elim Garak, following her with his darkened eyes, sitting over his needles, waiting - for what? William Riker, telling her stories about frost giants - why? Kira, Bashir. People. Too many people.

Good people, normal people, who slept at night. Ziyal didn't sleep at night. Ziyal - walked. She loved the empty station, she felt like she belonged there like she hadn't felt it anywhere else. She crossed the promenade again and again, peered into dark shop windows (and Garak's was always dark), did occasional double somersaults from the balcony, climbed to the upper pylons and looked out across the stars to the wormhole, wandered the corridors, strolled through cargo and docking bays. Sometimes she followed the cleaning and maintenance crews around, learning many useful things about access panels and shortcuts and how this huge station worked on tiny details and constant repairs and, most of all, the blind faith that it wouldn't just fall apart at the seams. Other times she looked into ops for an hour or two from a nook she had found, and watched gamma shift go about their business, which was mostly running complicated analysis and systems checks that would block the computers for too long during other shifts, standing around holding their cups of raktajino, complaining about superiors, and waiting for their shift to end.

They never saw her, never knew she was there. She did this for four, five hours. Then she went back to her quarters, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, put on a nightgown, climbed into bed, put out the lights, and waited for the alarm. Ziyal liked this little routine. It suited her. She liked knowing that she could find her way around the station in a crisis - if she should need to escape, or to hide. This way, she reasoned, she could be more relaxed and alert during the day, while she was engaging in all those personal relationships that seemed to be inevitable.

The only problem being that it wasn't really working. For the first couple of weeks she thought she would be all right (except for the broken mirror, but that had been her first day and she was still nervous, she told herself), but then the nausea had started, and the dizziness, so no more somersaults, and no more looking down from Upper Pylon 1. Then there came the shaking, first the hands, then the rest of the body, uncontrollable, for minutes on end, without a warning. Her feet going numb, then her face, then the rest of her, not being able to hold herself straight from one second to the next.

At first it happened only at night, when she was alone. She could deal with that. But then there had been that incident with Dr. Bashir at the replimat. She doubled and tripled her sessions with the combat program, but that wasn't the problem: as long as she was fighting someone, she was focused, efficient, flawless. It was when she was idle that the trouble started, and now the worst had happened: not only had she had a complete breakdown in front of a total stranger, but after that she had fallen asleep against her will. Ziyal had never felt so helpless in her whole life, it was simply not acceptable.

Tora, yes, Tora knew just what to do. Have I ever lied to you, she whispered, have I ever let you down? Think of it: who were you speaking of when you broke that mirror? And when you were talking to Bashir at the replicate? And whose shop were you walking out of when you fell in the corridor?

Think how proud your father will be.

"Why, Miss… Ziyal, this is certainly a surprise. I didn't think I would see you so soon after… Ziyal? Ziyal, are you all right? Garak to sickbay, I need someone in my shop as soon as possible. No, it's not me. It's Tora Ziyal. She seems to have trouble breathing…"