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In the Presence of Mine Enemies

By Cardie-ologist

Garak sat motionless in his chair in the main room of his quarters. It was the third day of his house arrest. He had spent the time re reading, in their order of publication, Preloc's sixteen Enigma Tales. Their themes of universal guilt and retribution suited his mood well. He had just placed the PADD containing the final novel, "Death of an Interrogator," on top of the fourth of the four stacks of PADDs. Even in his despair, he couldn't resist a small smile at the ironic appropriateness of the title. He reflected bitterly on his own weakness. Twice he had set out to end his life; twice he had lacked the will to do so.

His thoughts were not now specifically suicidal. He no longer felt an overwhelming yearning for self annihilation. Nor, however, did he feel any enthusiasm for living. Yet, as a man who had always craved intellectual stimulation, he was sensing the first naggings of boredom. He did not look forward to three more days, not even three more hours, alone in this room. The arrest for malicious destruction of property his own property! was of course a ruse, a way for Odo to put him under a suicide watch without his suffering the indignity of lying restrained on a biobed in the Infirmary, as he'd heard Dukat was, babbling away at the ceiling. Here he wasn't subject to Julian's troubled concern, alternating with his enthusiastic recommendations of the latest advances in Federation psychotherapy. Garak was profoundly grateful to the Constable. And he knew that Odo would dismiss the charges and let him out the minute Garak could formulate a convincing plan for living through the days to come. But as yet there was no plan. So now he was sitting motionless in his chair, still wearing the black robe, caught in a limbo of muffled emotions.

The main entry door slid open, and the young male Bajoran deputy who guarded him during the afternoons entered deferentially. "Mr. Garak," he said. "You have a visitor." And he stepped aside to reveal Dukat, who was carrying a long, round tube in one hand. "I come bearing gifts," Dukat announced in his usual arrogantly patronizing tone.

"Get him out of here!" Garak shouted, somewhat surprised at his sudden surge of anger, but not nearly as surprised as he was at the sight of a Dukat apparently restored to sanity. "Has Security Chief Odo decided to spare me the shame of suicide by allowing this. . . this scum to come in here to throttle me?" he asked the deputy.

"Security Chief Odo authorized the visit," answered the Bajoran with considerable confusion, "but I'm sure such an outcome was not his intention."

"Garak," Dukat interposed smoothly, "I'm unarmed and bear you no hostile intent. Besides I'm sure this excellent fellow can be summoned to your defense immediately should I make any threatening moves." He strode into the room and planted himself in the chair opposite Garak.

"All right, deputy, you may go," Garak replied at length. "However, be sure to stay close." He turned to face Dukat. How could the man be behaving this way, when all reports said that he had been utterly devastated by Ziyal's death? Then Garak noticed the eyes. They were totally dead, small ash gray stones like the ones that were so plentiful on Cardassia Prime's extensive volcanic plains.

"I thought you'd lost your mind." Garak delivered the comment with icy disdain.

"Well, yes, so they tell me. I seem to have regained it. The Federation has put an extravagant amount of effort into psychotropic medications of the healing variety." He waited for Garak to respond but received only silence. "They also tell me that your mental health isn't robust, either. I must say, we're presenting a dismal representation of manly Cardassian stoicism to the Federation."

"My mental health is no concern of yours. Nor of the Federation. And I know too much about the dangers of psychotropic drugs to let Dr. Bashir administer any of them to me."

"Well, you brought the subject up," Dukat bristled. Then his tone softened, "Garak, don't shut me out like this. She loved us both. We're connected in a special way now."

"Hah!" Garak shot back. "She loved us both when she was still alive, and I didn't notice our having any special connection then. Spare me your sentimental delusions. Ziyal deserves better than being made a tool of your rehabilitation."

Dukat sighed. "These are five drawings Ziyal inscribed to you." He indicated the tube. "She kept them hidden in the bottom drawer of her clothes chest. She didn't know I knew about them. I suppose she thought I would destroy them." His posture had changed subtly; his shoulders had slumped forward and he had averted his eyes. "She would have been a brilliant artist, all the experts said so." He proffered the tube to Garak.

Garak took it from him reluctantly. As much as he hated her father, he could hardly refuse this legacy from Ziyal. Even though Dukat's mediation sickened him, her memory made him accept the gift with an attempt at graciousness. "I'm sure I'll treasure the drawings. Please go now and let me view them in private."

Dukat didn't move. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you blame me for her death. They all do; you can see it in their faces."

"Yes, of course they do. Why couldn't you have left her on Bajor? She was safe there."

"She was unhappy there."

Garak felt the dead weight of his mammoth indifference lift as his anger rushed to the surface. "She was unhappy, Dukat, because the Bajorans were naturally suspicious of the daughter of a man who had twice come to enslave them. But people survive unhappiness, believe me. She'd already survived much worse. She's dead now because you had to have her living here, in a war zone, to feed your precious ego."

"Guilty as charged, interrogator. And I'm to expect no forgiveness from you, ever?"

"Forgiveness?" Garak asked incredulously. "I don't think your faculties have been completely restored after all. Have you forgotten that you are a Cardassian? We don't forgive crimes."

"No, we punish them, usually with death," said Dukat evenly, "as your quaint attire should have reminded me. What do you call it, 'Condemned Man Chic?'"

Garak shifted his weight uneasily. He had not expected to be in the company of the one person on the station who knew the full significance of what he was wearing. "I'm a tailor; I express my emotions through my clothing." He'd never consciously formulated such a thought before, but the minute the words left his mouth, he knew that they were true. Dukat didn't answer him, and he didn't give any sign that Garak was going to succeed in making him leave, save through the use of physical force. "If you're waiting for me to offer you a drink," Garak said with all the sarcasm he could muster, "I'm sorry that I can't oblige. They've disabled my replicator afraid I'd replicate some sharp object and finish what I started."

"That's all right. Kanar doesn't mix with the drugs I'm taking." Dukat sounded perfectly serious, as if the biting edge of Garak's words hadn't penetrated. "You know, Garak," he added, "I couldn't believe it when Odo told me you were talking about suicide. Devastating as the past week has been for me, I've never once had thoughts of killing myself. It's not the Cardassian way to run from what fate gives us."

"Nor is it the habit of men who are in love with themselves to seek self annihilation," Garak said pointedly. "However, excessive self love has never been one of my vices."

Dukat leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "All right, Garak, this isn't getting us anywhere. But before I go there's something important I need to discuss with you. Bringing the drawings was just a pretext."

"You, with an ulterior motive? I'm shocked, simply shocked."

Dukat smiled slightly at hearing for the first time in their colloquy the voice of the Garak he was familiar with. "Yes, once again guilty as charged. It concerns this surveillance recording." He produced an optilithic data rod from his pocket. "Thirty years ago, the day after my father had been executed for treason, a man named Koret came to our house and presented me with this. He said it wasn't the official Obsidian Order recording that my father's Nestor had urged us to destroy, but that it was a message my father intended for his family. He provided a datapadd with a written transcription of the message, in case we might find it too painful to watch and listen to. Of course, I presumed the recording to be a fake, a trick the Order was using to try to entrap me into acknowledging some complicity in Palmor Dukat's treason although I've watched it countless times, without being able to discern exactly what it contained that could have harmed me."

"Perhaps it was exactly what the man told you it was," Garak offered. Beneath the calm and reasonable reply, however, his emotions were churning. He had never been in a worse frame of mind to have this painful piece of the past dredged up.

"I doubt it. Once I had any power at all on Cardassia, I had Mr. Koret investigated. At the time of my father's arrest, he was an apprentice surveillance technician. Today he is a chief surveillance technician. Not a man of much initiative or daring. Someone sent him." Dukat looked at him with hard eyes. "You sent him."

"That's preposterous!"

"The records show that you were Koret's first supervisor. And I've long known that you were the chief interrogator on my father's case."

"Well, if you've suspected for so long that I sent him, why bring it up now?" Garak hedged, hoping to deflect further inquiry.

"Because when Odo also said that you'd put on what Dr. Bashir told him was a Cardassian Robe of Iniquity all my assumptions about the recording were cast into some confusion."

Garak cringed. So Bashir had recognized the garment's significance and informed Odo. Wearing it had been an embarrassingly melodramatic gesture, and now it was no doubt the talk of the station.

"Why have you dressed yourself precisely as my father is on this recording?" Dukat continued.

"That's not your concern, and it's not something I can bear to discuss at present. Can you not just go and leave me alone?" Garak pleaded.

Dukat rose and pulled the tailor rudely to his feet by his lapels. "Do you know what's on this recording?" he growled, his nose a centimeter away from Garak's.

"Yes."

"Is it genuine?"

"It is a genuine recording of Palmor Dukat's last message to his family, delivered to the surveillance cameras he knew to be in the ceiling of the condemned cell, in the period of reflection granted him before they came to take him to the Hall of Punishment. I give you my word." Garak saw the skepticism on Dukat's face. "I swear it on Ziyal's memory," he added.

Dukat released his grasp on Garak and began pacing the room. "Why would you send this to me?"

"He wanted you to have it," Garak replied simply.

"What sort of explanation is that? You found the evidence that convicted him of treason. You interrogated and tortured him. Why would you ever comply with his wishes? And what's more, his wishes concerning me, whom you'd hated for years?"

Dukat's voice had grown loud enough to inspire a look in from the security guard. Garak waved him off. "I didn't hate him," he said.

A sudden expression of incredulous realization came over Dukat's features. He half collapsed into one of the chairs. "It was you! The clever young man with the compassionate nature was you!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." It sounded like one of his typical evasions, but Garak was genuinely perplexed.

"I thought you said you knew what was on that recording," Dukat stated accusingly.

"I knew its subject matter and its intention. I never viewed it in its entirety."

"Then you took quite a risk letting it out of your hands."

"I suppose I did," Garak mused. There was no way to explain to Dukat that he absolutely trusted his father not to misuse his interrogator's generosity, and that he would have felt it an utter violation to listen to comments Palmor Dukat intended for his family alone.

Dukat shook his head, still trying to come to terms with what he suspected. "Most of the recording is a personal farewell to my mother, my brother, my sisters, and me. But at the very end, just before the guards come in to take him to be executed, he makes this remarkable plea." Dukat's eyes were fixed on the far corner of the ceiling as he recited the words from memory: " Elmor, as my heir, please learn from what has happened to me. I loved Cardassia so dearly, I wanted to turn her away from disaster so strongly, that I killed 1500 of her finest young men. It's no good for our empire to thrive if we sacrifice our souls in the process. You know the motto of the Dukats: Protect the family, serve the state, crush her enemies, subdue the alien. If serving the state demands what follows, then the family can't be protected. All our sons will be lost. In this terrible place I've met a clever young man of a compassionate nature, yet the state has required him to become an instrument of unspeakable suffering and brutality. How long before all his decency is gone? I know you must go to Bajor to save our house, Elmor. I fear what the Occupation will do to you. Please resist with all your power. And if you ever gain any kind of influence, use it to make Cardassia realize that if it destroys the sons of others to protect its own there will soon be no sons of Cardassia worthy of the name.'"

Dukat refocused his gaze on Garak, whose wide blue eyes were filling with tears. "So, I'm right." Dukat continued. "I'd always thought he was talking about one of the orderlies or the technicians. How could I imagine he was referring to the chief interrogator? And all these years I've hated you as the monster who left him a broken shell of a man."

Dukat's recitation had stirred up long buried emotions in Garak: guilt, self-loathing, an unhappiness so profound it had turned to undifferentiated rage. He grabbed Dukat by the shoulders and shook him violently. "Don't you see? I AM the monster who left him a broken shell of a man," he screamed. Dukat tried to get up to defend himself. As they struggled, the chair overturned, and they both ended up on the floor. Garak abruptly loosened his grip. With the anger ebbing into grief, he scrambled awkwardly to his feet, leaning on his desk with his back to Dukat, who was still tangled up in the furniture.

The guard rushed in and surveyed the situation with a mixture of alarm and disapproval. "Constable Odo said I was to take you back to your quarters at the first sign of violence," he said pointedly to Dukat as he helped the fallen Cardassian to his feet.

"I didn't start it," Dukat protested.

Garak, struggling to compose himself, turned to face the deputy. "You can let him stay. I'm in no danger," he said.

"If you wish, Mr. Garak," the young man said reluctantly, "But I'm not going to take my eyes off either one of you for a minute." He stationed himself on the interior side of the door, arms crossed and scowling, in an unconscious imitation of his superior, the security chief.

Garak righted the overturned chair and sat down. Dukat pulled up another one opposite him, staring into his face but saying nothing. Finally Garak spoke, his voice lowered beyond the guard's hearing. "I gave your father five glasses of water and eight hours of rest he might not otherwise have had and my respect. It wasn't much under the circumstances."

"He seems to have thought that it was."

"Men who've been tortured as severely as your father tend to magnify even the most negligible of kindnesses."

Dukat raised his hands in a gesture of frustration. "By my ancestors, Garak. What a hypocrite you are."

"A hypocrite?" Garak was indignant. "I've never pretended to be better than I am, or to make excuses for the sins I've committed. Not like you."

"No, you're the opposite kind of hypocrite. It would kill you to admit that you ever did anything out of a noble motivation."

A half smile graced Garak's lips at the accuracy of the remark, but he made no verbal answer. Instead he said, very quietly, "You should be proud that a man like Palmor Dukat was your father."

"I am, no matter how many times I've heard him called traitor," Dukat responded. "But you don't think I deserved him, do you? I imagine you think that someone like Enabran Tain would have been a more suitable candidate for the honor of siring me."

"No one deserves to have had Enabran Tain for a father, not even me," Garak sighed. "But I think you'll have to admit that Palmor Dukat's fears for both of us were quite well founded."

Dukat got up and began pacing again. "I've been so blind!" Garak couldn't tell if he were talking to his companion or to himself. Clearly his mental collapse had left him prone to abrupt mood swings. "My father and my daughter both saw something . . . admirable in you, Garak. I'm the only member of the family who never gave you a chance. In fact I seem to have misjudged everything. And now, as a result of my doing what I thought best for our people, Cardassia is in the hands of the Dominion, and Ziyal is dead."

"If you're waiting for me to disagree with you, you'll have a long wait." Garak felt only a slight twinge of remorse at the cruelty of the remark.

"Please, Garak?" the voice was anguished. "I've got nothing left. You, of all people, should know how I feel. I don't think I can bear your enmity along with the loss of my dear girl." For a man of Dukat's pride and boundless self regard, it was an astonishing admission.

Garak was shaken by the plea. As cruelly torturous as it had been for him in his own exile (and he at least was used to loneliness and the necessity of never trusting others), what a hell it must be for this man who had always been coddled, praised and admired, surrounded by devoted subordinates and loving family. They were all gone now, replaced by aliens who despised him. He had brought it all on himself, to be sure, but like so many of Garak's subjects in years past, that fact didn't make it any easier to watch them suffer. For, despite the flashes of his old personality, it was clear that Elmor Dukat was suffering.

Garak got up and approached him. "All right, let's declare a truce, for her sake." Dukat grasped his hand warmly. "Thank you, Garak. I know this isn't easy for you," he said.

The touch repelled Garak, but he forced himself to endure it, even put his other hand on Dukat's arm. The thought of how much joy Ziyal would have displayed at such a sight helped him master his instinctive repugnance. They both felt the awkwardness of the moment, however, and soon broke off the handshake and lapsed once more into silence.

Dukat responded first to the pressing need to change the subject. "If Cardassia ever recovers her independence, I swear that I'll work to reshape her in the way my father wanted. You could come back with me and work for that too."

"Considering our past track records, don't you think it might be wise to leave the redemption of Cardassia in someone else's hands?" Garak replied with his characteristic mockery.

"Not at all. If we feel responsible for what's gone wrong, then we're duty bound to set it right. We could keep an eye on each other, to make sure we weren't about to repeat our old mistakes. It's a worthy goal to live for."

Garak's eyes narrowed. "Did Odo send you here to tell me that?"

"Of course not. Odo knows nothing about the recording."

"He did, however, send you here, didn't he?"

"Ah, I'm not the skillful liar you are, Garak," Dukat replied, grinning.. "Yes, he sent me. He said that he thought it would do you good to see someone you hated more than yourself. He doubted that very many other men would fit that description."

Garak laughed. "They'll have to make our good constable into an honorary counselor soon."

"Has it done you good, seeing me?" Dukat queried.

"Not enough, I'm afraid. Talk all you want to about our long term hopes for Cardassia. I simply can't come up with anything that seems worth doing for the next hour or the next day."

"Well, that's a problem I can help you solve. I'm not likely to be reinstated into the Cardassian military any time soon, so I should get out of this uniform. Why don't you make me up a civilian wardrobe?"

"You're joking," Garak responded incredulously.

"You are a tailor, aren't you?"

"Not any more. My interest in that profession died with Ziyal. I'm sure the Federation people can replicate you something suitable."

"But Garak," said Dukat, with a small twinkle now visible in the dead eyes, "You've said how egotistical I am. How could I put up with clothing so ordinary? Ziyal always proclaimed that you were the greatest tailor in the galaxy. And she should know, with her eye for design. Someone of my infinite pretensions could hardly settle for less than suits custom designed by Elim Garak."

Those must be some drugs, Garak thought, to enable Dukat finally to joke about his own arrogance. And the man did have the bearing to show off a well tailored outfit strikingly . . . No, stop it Garak, don't start being charmed by him after resisting all these years. "I'm afraid the shop is in a total shambles," Garak hedged aloud.

"Can I help you put it in order? It's not as if I had much to occupy my time either."

"All right, if we can get Odo to parole us there," Garak replied grudgingly. He was, truth to tell, sorely in need of a change of scene, and cleaning the place up didn't really commit him to reinventing Elim, did it?

***

They worked without talking for the most part. It took both of them together to put all the furniture to rights. Most of it was dented or scratched but usable. With the tailoring instruments and fabrics, Garak had been much more efficiently destructive. Dukat took charge of identifying anything that was ruined past repair and putting it through the recycler, thus giving himself the more arduous task. Garak meanwhile busied himself rewinding the still whole bolts of cloth, replacing the samples in their proper places, trying out the various implements that he had strewn everywhere. Two of his newer sizing scanners had been rendered inoperable, but one of the older models sparked brightly to life when he pressed the "on" button. He pocketed it and carried the two defective scanners over to Dukat, only to find his companion staring motionless out onto the Promenade, where two Starfleet security officers, armed with phaser rifles, had replaced the Bajoran deputies who had escorted them from the habitat ring. Well aware that Dukat's mind had been shattered and his power stripped away, Garak had not until this moment fully grasped how deep the humiliation must be for the former head of Cardassia and commander of Terok Nor to find himself now merely a defeated enemy and captive of the Federation. He lightly laid his hand on Dukat's shoulder, and the state of the man's nerves was indicated by how far he jumped at the touch.

"I didn't mean to startle you, but I've found a working sizing scanner. I could take your measurements for the suits."

"Of course," Dukat said, recovering nicely. "I'm honored you've decided to make them."

"It will take me several days to design and execute a whole civilian wardrobe. I assume you'll need at least three or four changes?"

"That's how many different uniforms I've always had, so I suppose the number is appropriate."

"And you will be able to wait while they're being prepared?" Garak inquired delicately.

Dukat smiled ruefully. "Dr. Bashir hasn't released me from his care yet, even though he's treating me as an outpatient now. He says I have a week of the drug regimen left, at a minimum."

Garak began taking the measurements. "Raise your hands parallel to the floor, won't you." As Dukat complied, he went on, "And after the treatment is completed?"

"A trip to Starbase 375 for an 'extensive debriefing'." Dukat grimaced.

"Just remember that it's being conducted by the Federation," said Garak reassuringly. "It's not as if you were being delivered up to the Klingons, or the Dominion."

"Do you think I would fear that?" Dukat replied, but with more resignation than the expected indignation.

"Of course not, I didn't mean to imply anything of the kind." Garak knew that he should retreat from this line of inquiry, but his curiosity impelled him further. "Will you tell them anything? It will be your choice, you know. The Federation has far too many scruples to use any of the means required to force men to reveal information against their wills. Although their persistence can bore a man to distraction."

Dukat smiled. "When we build the new Cardassia, do you think we'll be required to go quite that far in changing our behavior?"

Garak laughed. "Oh, I think we'll be doing very well if we can just get our reputation to compare favorably with those of the Romulans or the Klingons." Noticing that Dukat had deflected his question, he decided he should simply concentrate on the task at hand. "Turn around now, and I'll measure the back," he said.

Turning, Dukat caught sight of the graffiti Garak had painted on his walls. "Is that how you feel about yourself for fighting against your own people," he asked.

"No. It's meant to reflect how someone like you would feel about me," Garak said. "I regret much in my life, but the Cardassia that is being used as a tool of the Dominion is not the Cardassia to whom I owe allegiance; I had no qualms in doing all I could to defeat her. You can do much more if you're willing."

"And provide a second generation of traitorous Dukats in the process! I know that I sold her into the hands of the enemy, but it's very, very hard to rectify that by becoming the Federation's tame Cardassian." As Dukat spoke, his conflicting impulses were nearly palpable.

"That's a decision for you to make, and you'll have a little more time to think it over before you're put to the test."

"And quite a lot of time to second guess the decision afterwards in the internment camp."

"Is that certain?" Garak asked, "that you'll be interned?"

"It seems the very least even those bleeding hearts at Starfleet could do to the former head of state of an empire that declared war on them, and a former ally who betrayed them"

"I don't know," Garak pondered. "They are exasperatingly generous in victory."

"Gods, I wish they ran some proper labor camps," Dukat continued. "Give me something to occupy my time. You know, I've never considered what I would do if I weren't a soldier. If my father had lived, he would have retired to our place in the country and tended his fruit trees. But I've never had anything like a hobby, only duty and family."

"Really? I thought that seducing beautiful women was your hobby," Garak said with a wicked grin.

"Ah, yes, there was that," Dukat answered wistfully. "But when you lose your power, the women tend to vanish as well. I've never favored the ones who take you out of pity."

"I agree absolutely. Pity is simply unacceptable in humanoid relations!" Garak made the statement with a vehemence that brought a quizzical look to Dukat's features. Garak realized simultaneously that, for the first time since they had met so long ago, Dukat was in no position to pity him. Perhaps that was why the possibility of working with him to rebuild Cardassia no longer seemed unimaginably outlandish. "You know," Garak continued with mock solemnity, "they might intern you here on Deep Space Nine. And for your work detail, I'd be willing to have you as my assistant in the shop. You do have a certain charm that would be highly effective with the customers."

"Thanks for the offer," Dukat responded with congenial sarcasm, "It certainly makes the prospect of the internment camp sound much more inviting."

"Well, I certainly hope that camp is tidy. I wouldn't want my fine work getting all stained and torn in some dreary place where the prisoners lie around in caves. But then I suppose the Federation can't run suitable prisons any more than they can conduct suitable interrogations. The environs will doubtless be spotless."

"Doubtless."

"So," Garak asked, returning to his role as tailor, "do you have any preferences as to the style and color of the garments?'

"Just make sure that they are . . . dignified."

Garak held up two brightly colored bolts of cloth. "How about these fabrics? I've always thought that royal blue and kelly green would be most flattering on you."

"Garak, really," Dukat protested. "I meant something much more subdued."

"All right," Garak agreed reluctantly. "We'll go for navy blue and olive; but I insist on at least some brightness in the pattern. There's far too much black in Cardassia's military."

"Speaking of black, when are you going to take off that ridiculous outfit?" Dukat countered.

"As soon as I return to my quarters. I seem to have granted myself clemency. I'm afraid these Federation people have hopelessly corrupted me." He looked into Dukat's eyes. "If you're fortunate, they may corrupt you, too."

Before Dukat could protest, the doors to the shop opened without benefit of a warning chime, and one of the Starfleet guards entered. He was Bolian, and, as he came close to Dukat, Garak regretted again that his companion could not be persuaded to go with a bright blue fabric. The color really was perfect.

The guard pointed his rifle at Dukat but addressed his gaze and his words solely to Garak. "Mr. Garak, I'm afraid that I'll have to take the prisoner to the Infirmary for his scheduled treatment now." The tailor saw anger and shame struggling for dominance in the "prisoner's" features.

"Just give me a minute more, and I'll send him out to you," Garak replied.

The guard nodded and resumed his post on the Promenade. "How the mighty have fallen," Dukat said, struggling to make light of this dismissive conduct.

"These young people simply have no respect," Garak clucked. "Ziyal was such a refreshing exception." His tone changed as he went on, "Listen, Dukat, if it can be arranged, why don't you join me in my quarters for supper. I'm quite a good cook. She was, too. I'd like you to tell me what her life was like all these last months, if it won't be too painful."

"No, when I talk about her, it's as if she isn't really dead. I appreciate the opportunity you're offering me, Elim." The expression on the other man's face brought him up short. "I'm sorry it was presumptuous of me to use the given name," Dukat apologized.

"That's all right, it was just a shock, like the first time Ziyal embraced me. However, I think I need to start living the kind of life where such things aren't so shocking." Garak executed the formal bow of greeting with which Cardassian householders traditionally invited family and friends to enter for ritual gatherings. It was a gesture he had previously encountered only in books. "Elim is happy to welcome you to his home, Elmor," he said.