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By Cardie-ologist

Ten years had passed since Garak and Ziyal had come "home." Changes had swept the galaxy, affecting Cardassia no less than a thousand other worlds. The aftermath of the War had gradually spelled an end to space as a site for various empires, kingdoms, federations, and alliances to compete for new colonies, territories, and spheres of influence. The Founders' lessening of their grip on the former Dominion worlds, combined with the common experience of the non aligned systems in negotiating with the ubiquitous Vorta diplomats, had led to increased trade and exchange of expertise among cultures formerly estranged and suspicious of each other. Alpha and Gamma quadrant worlds discovered unanticipated commonalities of interest.

And then, when five years ago the long lost Federation ship Voyager had rejoined the Alpha quadrant by virtue of unheard of space time shrinking technology, bearing the secrets of the Delta quadrant, the galaxy became at once too small and too vastly encompassing for petty claims to a few odd planets to seem worth all the loss of soldiers and ships it cost to conquer and retain them. Oh, there were still small wars within and between solar systems, and political coups, uprisings and suppressions of disenfranchised minorities, but the efforts of powerful empires or mutual defense alliances to carve up the galaxy among them became virtually extinct. On the other hand, only the most provincial or xenophobic cultures could resist the allure of participation in the exploding economy of galactic interchange.

Cardassia was ill equipped for this change, its proud, brutal, conqueror's ethos completely at sea in transactions best suited for Ferengi greed and Vorta obsequiousness. It might have shrunk to a mere archaic relic, without wider galactic influence, if not for Dukat's need to create a meaningless sinecure for his despised son in law in order to lure his daughter and grandchildren back to the homeworld. For, as it turned out, Cardassia was in desperate need of a Commerce Minister, and there was no Cardassian better suited to the new galactic economy than Elim Garak.

He had a clear headed vision of what would and would not be possible to change. There was little hope of channeling the planet's efforts to the manufacture of products widely desired by the galaxy at large. Cardassia's tastes were rather provincial, her native natural resources in short supply, and she was, moreover, accustomed to taking, rather than making, what she needed. Hope lay in attracting offworlders to the system by offering access to what had previously been an understandably secret asset: information.

For generations Cardassians had gathered and painstakingly filed in their central archives minutely detailed dossiers not only on every one of their own species but on literally millions of beings from the Romulan and Klingon empires to the far flung worlds of the Federation to Gamma Quadrant planets controlled by the Dominion. Garak began by persuading the government to open any records at least a century old. A published catalogue brought first the historians and genealogists, who returned home full of wonder at the advanced state of Cardassian information technology. Soon Cardassia Prime had evolved into the galactic center for the study of archival methodology and biographical research.

After the scholars came the buyers. Open societies looking for experts on "security" and surveillance. Avowed tyrannies seeking the best hardware for monitoring every citizen's eye blinks. Small planetoids and artificial space environments in pursuit of the most efficient ways to maximize data storage potential. Every survivor of the Obsidian Order had twice as many offers of "consulting" work than he or she could manage. There was even a black market of sorts in pain technology, although Garak had stubbornly drawn the line at giving the manufacturers of instruments of torture any of the government subsidies he had offered to other fledgling export concerns. Nevertheless, acquaintances from his dark past were always offering to cut him in on lucratively unspeakable deals. "I'm in the clothing business, now," was his standard reply. The most troublesome offer had come from a team of interrogation consultants that wanted Garak, whose reputation for producing results was still the stuff of legend, to write their textbook. He experienced both frustration that his deeds would always return to haunt him, and a little wistfulness at passing up the opportunity. Interrogation, by Elim Garak, *would* have been a guaranteed galactic best seller.

A lowly clerk at Central Archives, in charge of filing the non secure updates of mundane happenings on 50,000 worlds that came in within 30 seconds of their occurrence, had the bright idea that, before storing this "chaff" (as the intelligence operatives called it), he would distribute it via subspace links to any planet willing to pay a modest subscriber's fee. From this humble beginning had arisen the Cardassian News Network, the place the galaxy turned to for instantaneous access to everything from the high tides on Risa to the latest casualty lists from the ongoing internecine Kazon blood letting. "For breaking news, punch up CNN," was now a familiar tagline in three quadrants.

The next phase of the transformation was trickier. The influx of aliens into Cardassia, both the Dominwealth citizens there with residency permits, the scholars at the archives, and the info tech entrepreneurs looking to franchise Cardassian hardware, had created a potentially lucrative service industry bonanza. All these people had to be housed, fed, and entertained. Few of them enjoyed beginning the day with hot fish juice, having every meal soaked in yamok sauce, living in converted army barracks or taking in the pleasures of the Halls of Endurance (or the "pain parlors" as one visiting Vulcan anthropologist had dubbed them.) Moreover, despite the increased demographic diversity in the Cardassia system, a corresponding expansiveness of attitude had not developed. Graffiti about "mongrels," "offworlders," "Gamma trash," and "primitives" abounded.

The Detepa Council met Commerce Ministry development projects for alien dining centers, shopping complexes or habitat compounds with laughter and routinely turned them down. "If the offworlders value what we can offer, as you have proven, Minister Garak," Legate Dukat had said through clenched teeth, "then they can take Cardassia on its own terms, as a proud and venerable civilization."

***

"It's so maddening!" Garak confided to Ziyal, as they both sat up one night with a fretful Terel, who had a nasty neckbone infection. "We're losing millions because Cardassia wants to live in the past."

"Shh." Ziyal put her finger to his lips. "I think he's finally asleep." She continued in a whisper, "Besides, Elim, you've always been inordinately fond of the past yourself."

"Ah, my dear, that was when I lived in a dubious present with little promise of a future," Garak replied, his usual light tone contrasting with the harsh truth of the words.

"It is too bad that people here can't be more flexible, and interested in each other's cultures. That was one of the wonderful things about living on Deep Space 9," she said.

"Yes, but Deep Space 9 was a very special place the only place I ever really felt at home."

"I know, dear." Ziyal kissed him tenderly. "But we've decided for our children's sake," she patted her rounded belly, where their second son had been implanted three months before, "to make a home here. That means putting up with Cardassian ways, whether we like them or not."

"If you knew as much as I do about 'Cardassian ways,' you wouldn't say that, " he replied, returning her kiss, and planting one on her stomach as well. Then he gently lifted up the restlessly feverish Terel and laid him on their bed; they climbed in on either side of their son, hand in hand, and went back to sleep.

It wasn't until two days later, while Garak's mind was drifting off during a briefing by one of his far too obsequious deputies, (a Vorta, of course), that the conversation of that night set off a red alert: What Cardassia needed was Deep Space 9! Thus was born the great Nor Project.

As Cardassia's colonial holdings had withered in the aftermath of the War, its number of abandoned space stations grew. Empok Nor, Belok Nor, Setok Nor, and Lanok Nor all revolved uselessly in space, vital systems one by one going inoperative. Garak's plan was conceptually simple, although a logistical and financial nightmare to implement. Why not tow the stations back to the Cardassia system and lease them out to retailers, restauranteurs, and hoteliers throughout the galaxy? There offworlders looking for cosmopolitan surroundings could lodge and entertain themselves while shuttling back and forth to Cardassia Prime, Secunda, and Tertia to conduct whatever business had brought them to the Cardassia system.

Garak did not even bother to seek Cardassian financing for the undertaking; not only would the Council have found it laughably incomprehensible, but the entire treasury simply didn't contain the funds. The only thing he requested was permission to auction off the decaying Nors to any buyers that were willing to purchase them and move them into Cardassian orbit in exchange for a healthy share of any profits later generated. Even this modest request struck many in the government as foolhardy, and potentially dangerous, but Legate Dukat pushed it through. At last his annoying son in law, whom so many on Cardassia now spoke of with admiration for his economic savvy, looked to be making a colossal mistake. Dukat would happily give him all the energy cells he needed to build up an overload.

Next Garak called in his many contacts in the Ferengi Commerce Authority. What inducements could possibly lure such an extensive capital investment in such a risky project? Eventually they developed a plan. A "Nor Consortium," principally bankrolled by Ferengi, but with public shares offered to any galactic investors who didn't mind a little risk for the promise of some very big rewards, would undertake the relocation and renovation of the stations. (Garak pledged his support by buying 1000 shares out of the excess Elegance profits.) Once the Nors were in place, retailers from all over the galaxy would be offered, for one strip of latinum, a 99 year lease on a business location. The Consortium would cover utilities and maintenance, with the entrepreneur responsible only for the overhead involved in purchasing supplies or merchandise and paying staff. If there were a net profit, the merchant would keep 50%, the Consortium 40%, and a 10% tax would go directly into the Cardassian Central Treasury. The Ferengi accountants assured Garak that the terms were neither ridiculously indulgent to the businesspeople nor unfairly grasping by the Consortium. If he had any worries, it should be the relatively small cut of the pie going to Cardassia. "Don't worry. If this works, Cardassia will profit in so many ways that can't be calculated in latinum," he had replied.

The first station, Belok Nor, opened with barely over 50% retail occupancy. Business was so immediately massive, that within the next lunar cycle eager merchants had leased every space on all six stations. Not only did the offworlders already on Cardassia for other purposes flock there, but people with no other interests in the system began to come for holidays. Most surprisingly of all, it seemed that the entire native population of Cardassia, in particular the younger Cardassians, could not have enough of "hanging out at the Nor." To be sure, certain traditionalists were outraged, and proposed a ban on access to the "depraved alien pleasure palaces" that were seducing and corrupting Cardassia's youth, but this hysteria soon abated. The Quark's franchises on each station were full of veterans of the First and Second Occupations, nostalgic for a game of dabo.

The traditionalists' ire, however, inspired Garak with another plan, to offer in a very dignified manner, and at a very high price, tasteful tours of the "real," planetside Cardassia. "See the venerable glories of a proud and ancient civilization," read the gold leafed brochures, printed on replicated paper. Elderly Cardassians, living in multi bedroom dwellings long since vacated by the departure of their many grown children, were delighted, for a fee, to allow guests to sample traditional Cardassian home life and cuisine. A small, prestige export market for kanar and yamok sauce even developed, although hot fish juice remained a stubbornly local comestible. Most surprising to Garak were the number of offworlders who found the dubious pleasures of the pain parlors to be just their cup of raktajino.

Within three years of the opening of Belok Nor, the Galactic Business Journal had named Cardassia an investment "quasar," one of its ten top picks for Alpha Quadrant entrepreneurship. The Central Treasury, as well as Garak's private bank account on Ferenginar, was bulging. CNN ran a special on the "economic miracle." Its title logo featured Minister Garak and Prefect Dukat standing at center pylon on Belok Nor. After much persuasion the holorecorder technician had coaxed a semblance of natural looking smiles out of them. No amount of coaxing, however, could get them to pose shaking hands.

***

Garak and Ziyal's private lives had evolved along with their planet's. Terel Dukat, now ten, was, much to Garak's dismay, a combination of his Cardassian grandfathers, his physique marked by Dukat's tall athleticism and leonine grace, his features an unmistakable reflection of Enabran Tain's. Forthright and fearless, he promised to adopt with delight the military profession with which the house of Dukat had for so long been synonymous. "At least he'd make a hopeless spy," Ziyal teased her husband every time Terel returned triumphantly bloodied from a schoolyard scuffle.

His two brothers were cut from different cloth. Julian Garak, seven, looked astonishingly like Tora Naprem. His father had seen Ziyal's eyes actually fill with tears when she watched him sleeping. His all but smooth brow, pronounced nose ridges, fair hair and far too narrow neck attracted stares when the family went out together, initially causing Garak to rethink his adamant opposition to the "corrective" surgery some hybrids opted for. But the boy took his difference completely in stride. When his mother tried to console him upon hearing a group of his playfellows shouting "See you later, Ridgie`" he simply laughed. "Oh, Mummy, it's only my nickname. Being called Julian is just so peculiar." He had been concocting tales about the adventures of his toys since he was three and reading since he was four. Jake Sisko's gift of a boxed set of the five "Naughty Nog" books on his last birthday had delighted him, and he had proudly recited a new adventure of the mischievous Ferengi, "as told to Julian Garak" at the dinner table last week. "He must be just like you were as a boy, Elim," Ziyal cooed. "Don't say such things my dear," Garak replied with unusual seriousness. "None of our children should ever have a boyhood like mine."

Enabran, two, strongly resembled his mother. A quiet, obedient child, he had yet to show any of the marked self possession of his brothers. There was something anxious about him, and from time to time, the anxiety produced hour long bouts of desperate, hysterical crying. He displayed a persistent desire always to be close to his mother or father, clinging to the parental hands or constantly climbing upon their laps. Given the circumstances of his birth, however, such behavior was not surprising. Having spent several months in the sterility of an artificial womb, he had grabbed onto the first human flesh he could find and held on with all his might.

***

Two and a half years after Julian had been born, Ziyal spontaneously conceived a child, but lost it in the early stages of her pregnancy. Bashir had informed the startled parents that after several genetically engineered births, some hybrids gained the ability to procreate naturally. However, few of the pregnancies came successfully to term, and some posed a danger to the mother as well. The local Cardassian doctor ran some tests without finding anything sinister but cautioned the couple that repeated hybrid pregnancies had been known to turn the fetus toxic to its mother's body. Without letting Ziyal know, Garak forwarded the medical records to his friend Bashir. The doctor sent back a two word message to Garak's secured channel address: "Be careful."

"Ziyal, darling," he had said to her in bed that night, "We have two wonderful boys, a thorough Dukat and a thorough Garak." She laughed softly and snuggled tighter in his embrace. "I don't think we should try for more. It's too risky."

She pulled away from him. "But Elim, you always said that we should have ten children upon whose shoulders the House of Garak would rise."

"My dear, you are the only person in the galaxy who takes everything I say literally." He picked up a hypospray from the bedside table. "I've asked your gynecologist to prescribe contraceptives. Shall I administer this or will you?"

She had acquiesced only after their first serious quarrel, although the icy shrinking from his touch that marked their relations for the following week rendered birth control superfluous. They never discussed the matter again. Two years later, however, Ziyal simply replaced the contents of the hypospray with vitamin supplements and within six weeks had conceived their third son. She kept the news from Garak until the time within which Cardassian law permitted the termination of legitimate pregnancies had passed. ("And you assured me that no one had ever succeeded in hiding anything from you," she responded smugly to his exasperated protestations.)

Three months before the baby was due, Garak returned home from a meeting with the Council to find his wife unconscious on the floor of Julian's room with the sobbing youngster lying beside her. At the hospital they told him that the baby was poisoning her, had already caused her kidneys to fail. They removed it surgically; it would have to come to term in the artificial womb. Even so, Ziyal's condition remained grave. Consumed completely by panic for the first time in his life, Garak begged Julian Bashir to consult. Alarmed by his friend's haggard, tear stained visage, the doctor was on the next shuttle to Cardassia.

***

Elmor Dukat and his youngest, unmarried sister Prelenda, the only member of his legitimate family who had fully taken Ziyal and her children to heart, sat stony faced and silent in a private waiting room in the Central Critical Care Infirmary. They had been there for 18 hours as Ziyal's life hung in the balance. Julian, exhausted at last, was asleep on Auntie P's lap. Terel, fighting back tears, nevertheless held his head high; only his unrelenting grip of his grandfather's hand revealed his fears. Beyond the waiting room door, down a maze of corridors, Bashir was trying a highly experimental detoxification treatment that represented Ziyal's only hope for survival. All his remonstrations that Garak leave her bedside had been in vain.

The door opened and Bashir, tired but smiling, emerged. Dukat rose expectantly. "Good news," said the doctor. "The last of the toxins are out of her bloodstream. There haven't been any side effects of the drugs that we can't manage. Unfortunately, we couldn't save her kidneys, but the success rate with synthetic organ transplants these days is over 98%. I'm confident your daughter will survive."

"Thank you, doctor, thank you," Dukat shook Bashir's hand warmly, then embraced Terel. "Can we see her now?"

"She's still unconscious, and very weak. I've finally persuaded Garak to get some rest in the guest quarters. You might look in briefly. I'll be happy to stay with my namesake."

The rest of the family had only been gone a few minutes when Julian stirred awake. His eyes, heavy with sleep, widened in panic when they failed to locate the others. Bashir quickly moved to soothe him. "Don't be frightened, Julian. Your mummy's better, and grandpapa, Auntie, and Terel have gone to see her. They'll be back very soon."

"I want to see Mummy, too!"

"Right now there are lots of scary machines around Mummy. She'll look more like you remember her in a day or so."

The boy seemed to accept this explanation. He regarded Bashir solemnly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mummy's doctor and a very old friend of your Papa."

A look of recognition crossed his face. "You're my Uncle Julian, that I'm named for?"

"Indeed I am."

"I wasn't sure you were real," Julian confided. "Not everything Papa tells me to make me feel better is true."

Bashir coughed to cover his chuckle. "And what did he tell you about me that made you feel better?"

"Just that you had the same name as me. I don't know any Cardassian boys called Julian. My friends call me 'Ridgie' instead. Do you have a nickname too?"

"Kukalaka," Bashir responded with unblinking earnestness.

"Yes, that's much better - Uncle Kukalaka!" The boy instinctively embraced him. "Did you know that my Papa tells the best stories? Did he ever tell you any?"

"Oh, one or two," said Julian Bashir with a smile.

***

Garak was back, seated by Ziyal's bed and holding her hand, when she regained consciousness.

"Elim?" she murmured. "What about the baby?"

"Oh, my dear," Garak kissed her hand. "He's going to be fine. It's you we almost lost." His voice broke. "I don't know what the boys and I would have done without you. I was so foolish to let you continue with this pregnancy."

"No, it was my fault. I shouldn't have deceived you. It was just that I so wanted to provide you with those ten pillars."

"Ziyal, dear girl, you've given me so much already. Before you came into my life I had long abandoned any hope of ever having any children at all, of being loved by someone like you. Never, never think you owe me anything. Dr. Bashir wants you to wear a contraceptive implant, to guard against any accidents in the future. Even carrying an embryo for a few weeks could trigger the toxic reaction again."

"All right, Elim, I'll behave." She squeezed his hand weakly.

"See that you do," Garak said in his old bantering tone, "Or I'll just have to have you sterilized..."

A memory of searing intensity suddenly engulfed him. How many times (dozens? hundreds?) had he said that very thing to young women, bound and trembling before him, whose fugitive husbands or lovers the Obsidian Order needed to locate. But worse were the memories of the five from whom his threat could not pry loose the information he sought. Garak still recalled with vivid precision their names, their ages, and the looks on their faces when he gave the surgeons the order to perform, without anesthetic, the procedure that would assure that no Cardassian man, including the ones for whom they were making this terrible sacrifice, would ever touch them lovingly again.

Fortunately, Ziyal's heavy lidded eyes prevented her from taking in the look of frozen horror on her husband's face, but she felt through the hand he was gripping so tightly the shudder that shook his body. "Elim? What's wrong; are you cold?"

"No, it's nothing. I guess the strain of the last few days is finally catching up with me. I should go and let both of us rest."

Ziyal caught at his hand. "Before you go, there's something I want to ask you. I hope it won't make you angry."

"Don't be preposterous, my dear. How could I be angry with you at a time like this?"

"You haven't heard what I'm asking yet," she smiled. "Since it's clear that this baby will be our last, I want us to name him Enabran."

"That is out of the question!" Garak tried to soften his reaction, "Your illness has made you delusional."

"But darling, he was your father."

"My father! No, my dear, he was merely my sire. He denied me always, he used me to revenge all his conspiratorial quarrels, he trained me to perform the most unspeakable acts, and when there came at last a line even I would not cross for him, he withdrew his protection from me and banished me to a galaxy filled with enemies I had made in his service."

"He never had you killed, even though it was his right, and frequently would have been to his benefit."

"Ah, yes, a fine recommendation for filial devotion. One does not build a father son relationship on gratitude that your oh so merciful parent never killed you."

"It can be a start." Ziyal turned her head away to hide her tears.

"Oh, my dear, I didn't mean..."

She turned back to him and took his hand again. "I know, I know, Elim. I think I'm the only person who has ever understood just what you do mean."

"Whatever the relationship you've been able to build with your father, I had no such bond to Enabran Tain. I hated him."

"Was that why you risked your life trying to free him from that Dominion prison?" asked Ziyal. "That was an act of love, not hatred ."

"Merely a settling of accounts on my part. We won't argue about this anymore. You rest now."

He stood and bent over, kissing her tenderly on the mouth. He knew that their third son would indeed be named Enabran. Why, he loved her so much at this moment that he would have let her call him Elmor without protest.

***

On Enabran's second birthday an excited Julian Bashir appeared on Garak's home comm viewer. He conveyed birthday greetings to the boy, and told of a package coming in by cargo ship, but it was clear that he had something more on his mind.

"Garak, Ziyal, we've had a marvelous breakthrough. With a new in vitro process, and some powerful new anti-toxins, we've been able to ensure safe full term pregnancies from previous sufferers of hybrid toxicity." As he began to explain the science, Ziyal broke in: "Does that mean we could have more children?"

"Yes, of course, that's why I wanted you to know as soon as possible."

"My dear Julian, does the Dominwealth realize how much of their resources you devote to solving your friends' reproductive problems?"

Bashir laughed, "Well, I admit that Kira and Odo's situation was unique. But everything I've done for you and Ziyal has had equal applicability to hybrids all over the galaxy. This procedure has been thoroughly tested on 1000 hybrid couples: Jem'Hadar Klingon, Breen Romulan, as well as Cardassian Bajoran."

"Still, the process is not without risks?" Garak inquired skeptically.

"Four of every one hundred of the successfully implanted embryos spontaneously aborts before the third month. But we've seen absolutely no negative health consequences with the mothers."

"Oh, Garak, another child!" Ziyal took his hand in hers. Garak sighed and squeezed it gently.

***

Bashir came to Cardassia Prime to perform the procedure himself. The first step was to gather sperm samples from Garak and extract a number of Ziyal's eggs. They sat in one of the consulting rooms at the Central Infirmary as the doctor explained the rest of the procedure. "Ziyal will have to start taking the anti-toxins. After about two weeks we can test to be sure they're offering the requisite protection. Then we'll implant the embryo and hope for the best. Oh, and one thing more, while we're preparing the embryo for implantation, it's possible to do a good deal of customizing, if you wish."

"My dear boy, no insult intended, but our first three children have turned out just fine without any genetic enhancement," Garak said.

"I didn't mean that so much," Dr. Bashir replied in his most conciliatory manner. "You do have three sons, and I thought you might want to assure that this child is a girl."

Ziyal looked imploringly at Garak. "Elim, we've so often said how nice it would have been to have a daughter." Indeed we have, thought Garak, uneasy at the tampering but finding no compelling reason to veto it.

"It's agreed then?" asked Bashir, trying to clarify the meaning of Garak's curt nod. "If you change your mind and want to let nature take its course, call me tomorrow."

As Garak and Ziyal rose to leave, she said to her husband. "Dear, I'd like to talk a little more with Julian about the specific protocols I'll have to follow during the pregnancy. Why don't you go pick up Enabran from the nursery and meet me here in a few minutes."

"Ziyal, shouldn't I be part of this discussion too?"

"I suppose, but you know how fretful Enabran gets when he's away from us for too long."

"I'll give you a full written description of the protocols," Bashir told Garak, adding tactfully, "Sometimes expectant mothers feel more comfortable talking to their physicians when the father's not present."

Looking slightly embarrassed, Garak hurried off to fetch Enabran.

"So, Ziyal," Bashir asked after Garak was safely out of earshot, "What did you need to ask me that Garak shouldn't hear?"

"This customizing . . . could you do anything to make the child resemble Elim?"

"Why, yes, that can be done." Bashir was somewhat surprised by what she had asked.

"I know it's an odd request, but sometimes I think Elim's pride is wounded that none of the boys looks like him. Not that he's ever said anything to that effect."

"No, he'd say just the reverse, praise our ancestors that none of them has been cursed with this homely face."

Ziyal laughed. "Precisely. I don't mean, though, that she should look like a clone or anything."

"Trust me, I'll be subtle."

Ziyal kissed the doctor on the cheek. "Julian, you've done so much to help us create our beautiful children that I almost think we should have named every one of them for you."

"I think the one you did name for me is more than recompense enough."

"I almost forgot. Julian insisted that I say hello to Uncle Kukalaka for him."

"He can tell me in person," Bashir replied. "I plan to drop in this evening to see all the boys, if it's all right."

"Of course. Come for supper. I won't take no for an answer."

"Ziyal, there is one favor you can do for me."

"Anything."

"Would you see that Garak does not once again start the conversation with 'Dear boy, when are you planning to settle down and start a family of your own?'"