Dr. Ptacek woke up, startled. Something had disturbed her sleep. Sitting motionless in the darkness, she listened intently, her antennae shifting inquisitively at every sound.

There was something outside her door, something trying to move stealthily in the clinic hall.

It couldn’t have been one of the night shift — she was one of the doctors on call this evening; if there had been an emergency or any of the staff had needed her, they would have knocked on the door or called on her combadge to wake her.

Sliding out of the chair in which she’d fallen asleep, she padded gracefully to the door, still listening.

The movement stopped.

After several long silent minutes, Ptacek decided to simply open the door.

Curled up in front of the door, wrapped in an oversized jacket, was the Cardassian boy, Kehin. He had been Ibis’s almost constant companion until a week or so before.

“Kehin.”

He sat up quickly, looking ready to bolt.

“Why are you here?” she asked gently.

“Vak said you were here.” Kehin hunched his thin shoulders together as though he expected her to be angry with her. He looked exhausted. “And that Ibis was here too.”

“She came here again tonight. Did something happen?” She expected she already knew, from things the girl had said — the children had been fighting, and without family, friend or really anyone else to mediate or to turn to for support, except what those at the clinic gave them, they were lost.

“She wasn’t home. I was worried about her.”

The doctor smiled almost maternally. “I understand. Perhaps you should see her, to see that she’s all right.”

He nodded.

“And since she’s asleep, maybe you should stay here too. You wouldn’t want to wake her. I’ll probably be called for an emergency tonight, and someone should be with her.”

“I should do that. We do that for each other.”

Kehin stood up, nearly stumbling as his boot caught in the long coat. The boy looked exhausted; Ptacek wondered if he’d slept much over the past few days. She steadied his shoulder, then led him into the small side room she used for napping during her night shifts.

Ibis was curled up under a blanket on the cot.

“You can take your coat off; we have plenty of blankets,” the doctor whispered.

“I can share hers,” he came back valiantly. “The sick people need them more.”

“That’s very considerate.”

Ptacek took the too-big coat as he slid it off, hanging it over the chair. After he climbed onto the cot, she rearranged the blanket over both children. Only a moment later, she suspected the boy was already asleep. Smiling fondly, she settled back on the chair, watching the children.

After working on his report for couple of hours, and then laying awake for a couple more, Jake finally fell asleep in the darkened room that had been the Gemelen grandparents’ sleeping chamber. Herem had apologized that their guest chambers had been damaged in the Jem’Hadar attack, and he hadn’t been able to fix that part of the house.

Morning on a Cardassian farm was a new experience for Jake. He woke to the sound of water running somewhere, and the uneven hum of some kind of pump. The only light in the room came through the dusty windows. Sitting up, he nearly threw himself back into his pillow at encountering the shadowed images carved on what had to be an antique wooden bedstead.

“Whoah!” These carvings made the ones on his first Cardassian bed back at the station look like gentle fairy creatures. His father had gotten rid of that bed after a couple of nightmares.

Quickly dressing, Jake headed out into the main house.

He found Togga in the kitchen. The boy was lighter-haired and more slender than Herem, but with a promise of physically filling out in a few years to look more like his brother. Togga was manfully operating a water pump that squeaked with every half-gallon of water that poured out of its faucet into the tank. It was old equipment, pulled out of storage and hooked up to the water system because the more modern Cardassian well pump had stopped working. It was repetitive, wearying work, harder than a nine-year-old should have to do, in Jake’s opinion.

“Good morning, Togga.” He didn’t expect a response — Herem had told him, the night before, that Togga hadn’t spoken since the attack.

The boy nodded distantly, but kept his attention on his regular push-and-release of the operating bar.

“Are your brother and sister around?”

Togga glanced briefly at the door to the entryway.

“Well, I’ll be right back, I have to let Dr. Bashir know I’m still here, okay?”

There was no response to this information.

Keeping a somewhat fixed smile, Jake headed outside to his landtram.

Surprisingly, he got right through to Bashir. The doctor’s face appeared on the small screen.

“Jake, good to hear from you. How’s your journalistic walkabout going?”

“Hi, Julian. I’m just outside Pa’rem’tir City. I’m staying with a farm family that I met.”

“A farm family?” Bashir looked nonplused.

“Orphans,” Jake replied briefly. “And not everybody on Cardassia lived in the cities, ya know. I’ll be spending some time with them, getting to know them, see how they’re surviving, maybe find out about other people in this area. I’m downloading my first report now. Will you make sure it gets forwarded to my editors?”

“Sure, Jake, no problem.” Pause. “I suppose this means it’ll be a few more days before we see you back here?”

“At least.”

“All right. We’ll see you when we see you. Keep us updated, Jake. And be careful.”

“I will, Julian — and you be careful too. Stay out of any riots!” he finished flippantly.

With a grin, Jake signed off, then headed back into the house.

Cardassian Profile: A Cardassian Family

Jake Sisko
Federation News Service

PA’REM’TIR CITY, CARDASSIA PRIME — Cardassia before the final attack of the Jem’Hadar was not all soldiers, civil servants, and industrial workers. It was also farmers, children, and those who for whatever reason or accident lived a simpler, somewhat less controlled life away from the cities and the tight grip of the Dominion puppet government.

Among those were the Gemelen family outside Pa’rem’tir City in Bartenok Province. Before the Dominion turned on its erstwhile allies, an extended family of eleven resided on the farm — an elderly couple who had lived here all their lives, two sons and their wives, and five grandchildren. Their primary commercial crops were strillagrass and tammeron grain, with a little azakana, the fruit used to flavor kanar. They also maintained an extensive family garden and raised a few zabo beasts. They were self-sufficient and hardy.

When the Jem’Hadar were finished here, there were three survivors huddling together in a burned-out farmstead. Twelve-year-old Herem, nine-year-old Togga, and five-year-old Jeila....

The story safely on its way, Jake decided to get started checking out the farm, and seeing what the Gemelen children would be doing that day.

He found Herem, Jeila, and Togga together in the kitchen, sitting on the floor around a low bench. There were four place settings on the bench, a bowl, cup, and utensil at each, with a pitcher of water and a larger bowl of something that smelled benign, if not particularly appetizing. Jake realized there was no other table in the room.

“Ah, you’re here, Jake. Sit down. We can eat now,” Herem pronounced.

Jake had to contort himself a little to fit under the bench with the others, crossing his long legs and apologizing when he first kicked Togga.

Herem, as current head of the household, ceremoniously divided the food between the four of them, and they began to eat.

Jake took a gingerly bite of the smooth, orange mass in his bowl.

“Boiled and mashed yeltorin root,” Jeila explained. “We eat it every day.”

That stopped him. “Every day?”

“It’s a staple food,” Herem explained, a little defensively. “We always ate a lot of yeltorin. We have other food when we can, but there isn’t always something else to eat, now.”

Jake silently cursed the face he must have made at his first taste, and vowed to show a little more respect for the fact that Herem managed to keep anything on the table. Between taking care of his siblings without help from anyone else, working around the farm, and more recently, traveling to Pa’rem’tir City almost daily to try to get medical aid for Jeila, it was a miracle he managed to keep them fed.

He stretched the truth. “It’s good.” He took another bite. “Do you grow it here yourself?”

Herem smiled proudly. “Yes. Yeltorin grows quickly — we have two harvests a year, in this province. This is from the first harvest.” The expression shadowed a little. “Most of the first harvest was brought in, just before.... The second harvest was already sprouted. The first of that crop is almost ready to be brought in. I don’t know how I’m going to....”

The gazes of the younger children fixed on him anxiously, and for a few seconds they stopped eating..

“It’ll work out,” Jake assured him, for their sake. “You’ve made it this far, something will work out.”

The teenager nodded, staring into his bowl. “I have to make it work.”

“So what’s on the schedule for today?” Jake asked, to change the subject as much as anything.

“We’re going back to Pa’rem’tir City. Maybe they’ll help Jeila today.”

“That’s a couple of miles to walk,” the human observed.

“We have walked it many times. It’s not too far for us,” Herem replied.

“I was just wondering if you had a vehicle on the farm, something to ride into town.”

“Destroyed by the Jem’Hadar, along with most of our equipment. But it wouldn’t matter anyway. There’s no new fuel cells to be had. The wind and solar energy cells that power the house can’t be used in our other machinery.”

“Well, the landtram could cover the distance to town in less then ten minutes. I’d be glad to take you—“

“No.”

Jake quickly looked at the other children. “But it’s a long walk, especially for a sick girl—“

“We did not ask you to stay to give us ... charity!” Herem replied, drawing himself up proudly. “We are Cardassians. We are strong enough to take care of ourselves. The farm has always provided for our family, for generations. We just ... need a doctor for Jeila. Just a doctor. That’s all we need.”

Looking into the very young man’s determined face, Jake knew he wouldn’t convince Herem otherwise.

He capitulated. “May I walk with you?”

The hospital hadn’t changed from the day before. The hot wind still blew dust through the cracks in the walls and the bit of carpet that struggled to be a door. Most of the illumination in the room continued to be hazy sunlight sneaking through those cracks. There were still too many people needing help, and too few staff with too few resources to help them all.

“My sister needs help! Can’t you hear her coughing? Can’t you spare even a minute to help a little girl?” Herem tried to argue with the orderly, as yesterday.

“You have to register,” the woman continued to insist. “Then I can put you on the list and you’ll get help as soon as your number comes up.”

“No,” Herem replied equally obstinately.

“All I can do is let the doctors know you’re here, but you’ll have to wait until one of our medics has time and there’s no one else in line ahead of you.”

His jaw jutting, Herem replied, “We’ll wait.”

As the Gemelens settled back in their corner, determined to outwait bureaucracy, Jake tried to observe the events and people passing him by as unobtrusively as possible.

The orderly came through several times over the hours. Seeing her work with other patients, and her occasional glances their way, Jake realized the woman wasn’t unsympathetic to the children. But she was overworked, short on supplies, and probably hanging on by a thread herself. She was falling back on rules and regulations to deal with a situation out of her control and beyond her experience. And, he suspected, she was probably hoping that, at any pass through the “waiting room,” Herem would accept the reality of registration, and she would be able at least to begin to help them.

She obviously didn’t understand how deeply determined Herem was, equally to honor his promise to his father, to be worthy of the sacrifice of their mother, and to hold on to what was left of his family and his life. He wouldn’t risk losing what he had left.

Jake tried to catch her attention for a moment, to ask for some comments on the situation and to maybe put in a word for helping the family in spite of their failure to register, but beyond her name — Zillani Umpek — and a few remarks about how busy they were and how people needed to follow the rules or there would be chaos, she had little to say. After he tried to urge her to help the children anyway, she walked away, and after that steered clear of him.

At least she didn’t slap me, he thought, and went back to alternately observing and scribbling on his PADD.

Jeila fell asleep within minutes; the long walk had been taxing, and she’d had several coughing fits on the way. Togga dozed a little too as the warm day passed. Herem stayed awake, his gaze fixing on every person who walked through the room, tense and ready to jump at any moment. At midday he produced several small wrappers of more of the yeltorin root they’d eaten for breakfast, including one for Jake.

Jake felt guilty taking the food. He could use the replicator a relief team had supplied the town — he knew there was one, somewhere — but after balancing the thought of sharing their meager meal and their reaction if he brought Federation rations to eat in front of them, he decided he’d keep their trust better by continuing to live as they were.

The afternoon wore away, but the stream of patients didn’t let up.

The day ended as the previous day had, with a long, weary walk home along the darkening road, as frustrating for those at the clinic as for the Gemelen siblings.

When Jeila started coughing again, half of the way back, and could barely walk anymore, Jake volunteered to carry her for a while. At least Herem didn’t reject that offer. The little girl fell asleep on his shoulder, and Jake took her the rest of the way home.

Cardassian Profile: Something Worth Preserving

Jake Sisko
Federation News Service

PA’REM’TIR CITY, CARDASSIA PRIME — When disaster strikes, we realize what’s important to us, and we cling to it.

To these three children — twelve-year-old Herem, nine-year-old Togga, and five-year-old Jeila — that’s each other and their family home and honor, as Cardassians and as the youngest generation of Gemelens. This farm has been the family home for over three centuries. It’s their roots and their identity. When Herem promised their dying father that he would hold the family together, and keep them in their home, he was not just making a pledge for one family, for one day. He was swearing an oath to the future of his world.

But for these children, what matters most now, is today. They’ll worry about the future tomorrow. Today, the goal is to stay together even though their world is destroyed and the simple things we often take for granted — food, water, medical care, energy — are a daily struggle to obtain.

And sometimes, they cannot be obtained, except at a cost too high to pay....