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Cardassia was not as enjoyable as Deep Space Nine had been. Strange, Weyoun thought, that he should be happy on a cramped, closed-off space station, or at any rate hold the memory of happiness, but this place, where at least in theory he had an entire planet at his disposal, activated that ancestral hindbrain claustrophobia that still lingered despite the engineering of the Founders. It was the buildings, he decided; they had too many Cardassians in them.
He couldn't go outside, not with rebels murdering left and right. So he strolled along the narrow corridors and wondered if Cardassian architecture was ugly. He thought it must be.
“Not long now,” said Weyoun.
“Shut up,” Weyoun muttered. But he couldn't stop himself from slowing, turning.
This one was number five. The great hero. The golden Weyoun, that Weyoun could never truly live up to.
“Not long until what?” he snapped, eventually.
“Until you die,” Five said. “Until you join us.”
“I wonder how it will happen,” said Four, from behind him. This time Weyoun didn't turn. He knew what he'd see: the way the head would flop, neck bent at an unnatural angle.
“I've told you not to speak to me,” Weyoun hissed. A Cardassian was staring at him. He smiled at them, and they ducked their head and fled in terror.
“Not long at all,” Five said.
Damar was drinking. He threw a bottle at Weyoun’s head when Weyoun tried to enter his office. Weyoun smiled tightly, and left. He went to a small garden in the center of the complex. It was depressingly empty, just concrete and sand and a few trees- minimalist, someone had told him once- but the sun reached the uncomfortable bench and warmed Weyoun’s ears.
Weyoun Two had died in an exploding spaceship. Weyoun was glad he didn’t appear in a million pieces. He looked like himself, in a plain unpatterned shirt.
“What a disappointment,” he said, and shook his head. “One of my own line, cracked under pressure. What a disgrace to the Dominion.”
This wasn’t Weyoun’s fault, it couldn’t be.
“It has to be your fault,” Weyoun One said, sorrowfully. “Believing otherwise would mean believing that the Founders’ design was imperfect.” Weyoun One had been shot in the torso by a T-Rogoron. The hole was ragged, and Weyoun could see the other side of the garden through it.
“Never,” Weyoun said, with what he told himself was fervor. “Never. The Founders are wise in all things.”
Kanar was not the only alcohol on Cardassia, just the one Damar was so infatuated by. Weyoun had acquired a collection of bottles, lined up on a table in his quarters, along with various cleaning solutions, medicinal drugs, and vermin poisons. He went through them methodically but slowly, lingering over each mouthful, the dull taste of detected toxicity. He was aware that this was simply an attempt to relive the younger, more innocent days he'd had on Deep Space Nine, back when he'd delighted in exploration of the new things around him. It was a sad thing to do, but he did it.
Halfway through he said, bitterly, “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Weyoun protested behind him. Weyoun spun his chair around. There was only one of them there, and he knew it was Six, because of the purple blood running out of the corner of his mouth.
“You were thinking something,” Weyoun said. He wasn’t going to be tricked. “Loudly.”
“I’m always thinking about how pathetic you are,” Six said.
Weyoun strode forward, grasping the other Weyoun by the shirt collar and lifting him into the air. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he hissed. He threw the other Weyoun down on the floor. “Deviant.”
“You could have had so much,” Six murmured, relentlessly. “You could have served a young and vital god, as his first and closest acolyte. You could have shaped an empire. Instead you cling to the familiar like a treerat hiding in his nest as the forest burns.”
“I remained pure,” Weyoun said. “I passed the test you failed.”
“You will die with her,” the ghost of himself said. “Everything will die with her.”
Weyoun walked to the bed. He laid himself down on it, closed his eyes, and covered his ears.
He still heard the final whisper: “We’re here, Weyoun, because you’re lonely. Tell us to go away and we will…”
Weyoun rolled over, and gritted his teeth, and was silent.