Chapter Text
Zarpek Fishery, Yynys, Bajor – Winter, 2329
“I disagree. No, excuse me – I disagree, sir. I’m saying I disagree. No—Sir, pardon me, but you’ve asked me to speak, and I would like to speak. [sic] I disagree with the assertion that the only thing to fear during the time of the Occupation was the Cardassians. Unpopular though it may be to say, factually speaking, there were many other things that threatened the lives of Bajorans at that time, not the least among which were other Bajorans. [sic] I disagree with the practice of using horrors perpetrated by others to erase horrors we simultaneously perpetrated upon one another; horrors we continue to perpetrate to this day. We’ve been hurting one another for a very long time. I know we’d prefer to forget about that, being that, for a few short decades, the Cardassians proved so much better at it, but the practice is dishonest, and I don’t intend to act as though it isn’t dishonest for the sake of your comfort, Councilor, or for the sake of your defendant. [sic] To do so would be an insult to me and every other member of my profession. It would do a disservice to every Bajoran who was made to suffer at the hands of another – and I assure you, there are many.”
- From the testimony of Mara Ilra, Professor of History at the University of Bajor, at the war crimes tribunal of the Kohn-Ma terrorist Tahna Los, 2372
It’s three days travel to Zarpek. The guards let them out only twice to relieve themselves, provide them water and military rations, but they’re travelling along the Coastal Speedway, which is as familiar to Naprem as home. When they’re outside, ever so briefly, she can see the ocean through the trees, can hear its steady roar. People pass them occasionally, eyeing their transport and their restraints. Naprem smiles at them, brightly, though it makes her fresh scar ache. They avert their eyes as though she’s some sort of criminal, and the Cardassians force her back into the transport ship.
The air on the Yetit Coast tastes sweet – Naprem remembers that from her youth. Her mother had a friend on the Yetit Coast – a man, Naprem recalls, who she realizes now, as an adult, must have been her mother’s lover – with whom they spent a summer when Naprem was young. They used to go on drives together, travelling for hours along the Speedway, and she’s reminded of it now, of lying in the back of a personal shuttlecraft, watching the jungle whip past at breakneck speed, closing her eyes and breathing in the ocean air when she got too dizzy. This time, she gets dizzy for other reasons – hunger and fear and exhaustion chief among them – but when she closes her eyes, it feels the same. She feels small and safe again, just by breathing in that same, salty-sweet smell.
Naprem and her aunts arrive at Zarpek by shevathegun
The Cardassians open the doors to unload them once they’re inside the gates. Naprem steps out of the shuttle and looks around, eyes aching as they adjust. They’re in a sunshower, misty rain glistening gold and pink as it falls.
The camp is surrounded on three sides by gray carbonite walls, some thirty or forty feet high. Naprem can see the leaves of the trees over the tops of them; hear the hooting of tropical birds. On the fourth side, the dark, hard earth drops off in a sheer cliff, providing a dazzling view of the Bozn Sea, which lashes the coast.
Their transport is one in a row of shuttles, all offloading other Bajorans, many of whom bear facial scars like hers. Uru and Onea descend from the shuttle behind her, testing the moist dirt beneath their feet. Once they’ve all been unloaded, the Cardassians herd them towards a long, low building standing between them and the courtyard, moving with no notable urgency.
The doors open automatically, and Naprem finds herself in a surprisingly modernized security checkpoint. Uru and Onea are pushed in behind her, and they’re brought before a bored-looking Cardassian to be processed.
“Name,” he drawls, not looking up from his PADD.
“Tora Naprem,” she says.
The Cardassian glances up, chin in his hand, looking utterly blasé. “Accompaniment?”
“My great-aunts,” Naprem says. “Tora Uru, and Tora Onea.”
The Cardassian sighs and turns his head down, scrolling through the database. “Says here Dal Tirek put in for your transfer. You folks from Rize?”
“Yes, sir,” Naprem says.
The Cardassian nods a little. “Alright. You’ll head down the second hall to left—” he points, “—to the security checkpoint.”
They walk on to be scanned for weapons and patted down in a way that’s embarrassingly thorough. Once they’re through the security checkpoint, they move further down the hall to another, labeled “Requisitions”. The Cardassian standing at the kiosk is so tall his head almost brushes the ceiling. As they approach, he turns to the row of cubbies behind him, and pulls out a tightly-coiled, dark blue mat, a single pair of laceless shoes, and a small disposable box, which he slides across the counter to Naprem.
“That’s your bedding and toiletries,” he says. “No extras until season’s end. No replacements. Keep track of your things.”
Naprem looks at the single bedroll, the single box of toiletries, and the single pair of shoes.
“There are three of us,” she says.
“I can see that,” he says.
Naprem looks at Uru, who shakes her head sharply.
“We’ll make do,” Onea tells her, scooping the bedroll of the counter.
“Thank you,” Naprem says, taking the box of toiletries, not feeling particularly grateful.
The requisitions officer grunts and waves her on.
By the time they emerge from the security checkpoint, the rain has stopped, and the sun is setting. A brisk, ocean wind sweeps through the camp as they’re lead with the rest of the group to their barracks.
The barracks are real barracks – several large stone buildings with doors and windows and long open hallways. On each floor, men and women are separated by waist-high stone walls that are interspersed along the center path. Naprem sees rows of bunkbeds, and even more rows of bedrolls carpeting the stone floor. Every step they take echoes through the place, and people’s conversations ricochet loudly off the walls in an endless, rolling chorus.
“Tora,” the guard says when they reach the third floor. “You’re in Sector 3K.” He gestures to their right, a square of space that’s crowded with young women talking and laughing, heedless of their arrival. Naprem can’t see a single inch of unclaimed floorspace. “Roll call’s at 400 hours,” says the guard. “Workday starts at 500 hours. You’ll all be in Factory 4. Don’t be late.”
And then, he walks on without so much as pausing to check that they heard him. The rest of the group follows along behind him, leaving Naprem, Uru, and Onea standing awkwardly off to the side.
Naprem is saved the embarrassment of having to stand there any longer by a young woman with short, dark hair, and a face as round as a marble, who catches her eye from where she’s sitting a few feet away, and stands up. She jogs over to them, light-footed.
“Hello,” she says, in a stiff, prim voice that doesn’t suit her.
“Hello,” Naprem says, feeling a little unnerved. The woman has dark, unblinking eyes, and she stares directly at her, which makes Naprem feel more thoroughly examined than the security check did. “I beg your pardon, we just arrived.”
“Yes,” the woman says. “Name?”
“Tora. I’m Naprem.”
“Onea,” her aunt says, coming forward. “This is my sister, Uru.”
“Tora,” the woman echoes, nodding slowly. She stares at each one of them in turn, seeming to commit their faces to memory. Then, she turns abruptly and cups her mouth, shouting across the corridor:
“Tora Naprem! Tora Naprem!”
There’s a low rumbling through the floor as everyone turns to look at them, talking amongst themselves. Some stand up and peer out at them, moving closer to get a good look. Naprem’s trying to mitigate her shock when a man crosses the room towards them, distinguished face twisted with surprise.
“Professor Tora!” he calls to her, and she recognizes him just as soon as he’s near enough to touch.
“Professor Suga!” she gasps, reaching out to grab his arms as he grabs hers. A smile breaks over his face and she can’t believe she’s seeing him. It feels like it’s been so long since she’s seen a familiar face that isn’t Uru’s or Onea’s. “You grew a beard!”
He has – it’s thin, black, well-kept – and he’s even more handsome for it, brown eyes still as piercing as they’ve always been. Even in a dirty, casual tunic, he looks like a gentleman. He grins and it makes him look forty years younger, a young boy with a man’s face. “Not entirely by choice,” he tells her. “What have they done to you, darling? They’ve sheered you like a sheep!”
Naprem flushes with embarrassment, hands darting, self-consciously, to her fuzzy, nearly-bald head. “I’m afraid my stylist got a little overzealous.”
“I’d say so,” Suga agrees. “Prophets, I never thought I’d see you in here.”
“Me ?” Naprem asks. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at the observatory in Ilvia.”
“I came back to Tazo to spend first summer with an old student of mine,” Suga sighs, shaking his head a little, gold dja pagh jangling as he does. “The Cardassians arrested us both at a rally. I haven’t seen her since.”
“I’m so sorry. You’ve been here all that time?”
“More or less,” he says. “I heard they dragged you out of your house in the middle of the night. I’d hoped it wasn’t true – nobody had any idea where they’d sent you.”
“Rize,” she says. “Three days southwest of here, near Jo’kala.”
“A sheep farm, perhaps?” Suga asks, with a pointed look at her head.
“Close,” Naprem says. “Iridium mine.”
“Mining? Prophets be good,” he swears, shaking his head. He gestures to her scar with a strange reluctance. “I don’t suppose you received that in a mining accident.”
“Oh, no,” Naprem says with a maudlin grin. “This, I received very much on purpose.”
“Luckily for us, the Cardassians weren’t feeling too generous that day,” Uru says from behind her, and Naprem starts – she almost forgot her aunts were there for a moment, and now that she turns to look, guiltily, back at them, she’s mortified to find Onea grinning lecherously at her, as though she’s done something to deserve it.
Suga seems to have only just remembered them too, because he takes Uru by the arm. “Where are my manners,” he says. “Miss Uru, Miss Onea, it’s lovely to see you again.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Onea coos up at him.
“Ignore her,” Uru says.
“We only wish it were under better circumstances,” Naprem adds, since it doesn’t sound like they’re going to.
Suga looks back at her, and this time he’s the one ready with a smile that’s painful to look at.
“Oh, Professor,” he says, “Isn’t that always the way?”
It soon becomes apparent that space – like so many other things – is a rare and precious commodity at Zarpek, even moreso than it was at Rize. It takes almost two hours for Naprem and her aunts to find a place to put their bedroll, and they spend half the night trying to determine how to share it. Eventually, Naprem ends up half between them, half beneath them, each of them lying almost as much on her as the bedroll.
Roll call comes several hours too soon – the fatigue of travel still hasn’t left any of them, and now Naprem has a bruise from Onea’s bony knee butting up against her hip all through the night. They line up outside in the courtyard in the morning mist, when the world is still dark and gray, bitingly cold. The Cardassians walk slowly through the rows of them, data PADDs in hand. A few people they grab, examining their sleeves and their waists. One stops near Naprem, grabbing her chin and twisting her head this way and that, scrutinizing her scar. It’s a moment before Naprem realizes that this guard is the first female Cardassian soldier she’s ever seen. She’s square-jawed and broad shouldered, but her spoon is flushed an unmistakable cerulean that Naprem can make out even in the dark of early morning. She has cool, strong fingers.
“Good morning,” Naprem says, as she releases her. “Something I can help you with?”
The female soldier blinks, looking surprised that Naprem’s spoken. She frowns, thick, scaly brows drawn down.
“No. No talking out of turn,” she says. “Do it again and I’ll have to take disciplinary action.”
Naprem purses her lips and folds her hands behind her back.
“Tora, is it?” the female soldier asks, glancing at her PADD.
“Naprem. Yes.”
“You’re all on line. Report to Factory 4.”
“On line doing…what, if you don’t mind me asking?”
The female soldier sighs long-sufferingly, then tucks her PADD under one arm, and uses the other to backhand Naprem so hard it leaves her feeling like her head’s on backwards. She only keeps her feet because Uru grabs her from behind with a stifled gasp.
“Warned you,” the female soldier says, blandly, and Naprem can’t really argue with that. Then, without another word, the soldier moves to the head of their line and waves them onward.
They’re led down to the edge of the cliff face to Factory 4, and herded in like cattle. The factory lights come on as they enter, slabs of white light slamming through the space, illuminating row after row of conveyor belts that lead from one end of the factory to the other. As they walk in, the wall of shutters at one end open, humming as they ascend, letting in the biting chill of early morning and the salty smell of the ocean. On the other end of the factory, several more columns of light illuminate huge, glossy vats that wait at the end of the conveyor belts. There’s a sharp, electronic noise – the vats illuminate from within, rotating slowly, then shuddering back into place with a loud thunk.
Naprem feels Uru’s hand still knotted in the back of her uniform as their group – some two hundred Bajorans – disperses, people walking through turnstiles to enter the factory, holding out their hands underneath a small dispensary for cleansing and spray-on gloves. Naprem follows suit, trying to see how they do it; she mimics the women in front of her and her aunts do the same. The cleansing stings a little – the gloves snap to her skin, far too tight for comfort. Then, they step out onto the factory floor and everyone is moving with purpose, and Naprem is utterly lost. She looks around for instruction, but no one provides her with any.
“This way,” she tells Uru, as if she knows what she’s doing – Uru waves to Onea and they hurry over to the nearest conveyor belt, trying to find space to stand. Naprem finds a place near the open shutters that stare out over the cliff, but a woman jabs her on the shoulder with a bony finger.
“You’re in my spot,” she says, her tone accusing.
“Oh,” Naprem says, moving out of her way. “Pardon me, I didn’t know.”
They move further down the line, and the same thing happens twice more. The third time, a woman grabs Onea and shoves her aside, and Naprem feels something seize inside her.
“Excuse me!” she says, catching Onea even before Uru does, flabberghasted.
“Find somewhere else!” the woman snaps. She has a long, thick braid trailing down her back and Naprem has such a strong desire to yank it that she very nearly does – it’s Onea who slaps her hand down, smiling at the woman again when she spins around to look at them, clearly wondering what the sound was. Onea puts on a beatific smile, beaming at her.
“Our apologies, child,” she coos, in her best ‘kind vedek’ voice. “We didn’t realize they’d stopped using manners where you come from.”
She grabs Naprem’s hand, then, and they march off to the delightful sound of the woman’s gasp of offense. Naprem seethes, quietly, trying to keep herself calm.
“It’s too early for this,” she gripes.
“And I’m forty years too old to be breaking up your fights,” Onea scolds her, squeezing her hand all the same.
“Children these days,” Uru chides, peering around. “No respect.”
“The next time you want to start a brawl,” Onea tells Naprem, “schedule it for after lunch. I’ve got a bit more energy then.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Naprem says, just as the regret begins to set in. She can’t believe she was so ready to fight that woman over so small a provocation. She squeezes Onea’s hand and blushes, feeling childish.
Onea seems to sense her train of thought and pats her forearm reassuringly. “Patience,” she tells her. “We’ll find somewhere.”
It’s the female soldier who interrupts their search, coming up behind them as they approach the front of the line.
“What’s the problem?” she asks, gruffly. Her tail swings behind her slowly. Uru noticeably shrinks away from her and Naprem, still feeling both testy, puts herself between them.
“Just trying to find space,” she says, wondering if the next beating she’ll get will be for fighting one of the other workers or for insubordination.
The female soldier looks at her, and then at the line. Then, she shoulders past, reaches between two other workers, and forcibly shoves the line open.
“Found it,” she grunts.
“I—” Naprem tries, blinking with shock. “Thank you.”
“Much obliged,” Uru says, quickly.
“And what is your name?” Onea says, stepping into place.
But the female soldier just walks off without giving them a backwards glance. The workers around them glare as they cram in, but eventually shoulder over, giving them room. A siren sounds across the floor and everyone shuffles in, gloved hands moving in to hover over the conveyor belts. Naprem moves her hands to mimic them, feeling apprehensive.
A second siren sounds, and the conveyor belt starts with a hum, beginning to move beneath their hands like a road. At the far end of the factory where the shutters stand open, two thick cables begin to wind into wheels behind the corners of the doors with a click and a shudder. For a moment, nothing happens – then, like the mist itself, a white curtain of net begins to rise from the space below the shutter, and in a few moments, the sharp, salt smell of the ocean rolls across the factory floor. The damp nets begin to wind into the wheels overhead, and then there’s a flash of movement and another, and the nets begin to move with the errant flip of a thousand tiny, silver bullets – schools of selil fish, fresh from the harbor below.
The workers closest to the shutters hurry forwards, grabbing the fish from the nets with nimble hands and tossing them back. The first one lands on the conveyor belt with a wet slap, and then two more join it. Behind the workers that tend the nets, the second and third workers grab the fish and snap their spines like twigs. The sound makes Naprem jump, even muffled by distance. They toss them back on the conveyor belt and another workers snatches them up and begins shearing their scales off with their bare hands. They pass them down the line, silver scales scattering across the floor like confetti.
When the first fish lands in front of Naprem, she freezes. She looks at it, all pink, still-living flesh, stripped of its natural armor, gills still fluttering feverishly, large, unblinking eyes dewy with blood. She feels her whole body lock up with a mixture of horror and revulsion.
It’s Onea who reaches past her, scooping up the fish and checking it for remaining scales in a clinical, business-like manner. In a matter of seconds, she’s assured it’s clean, and passes it to Uru, who puts it down on the conveyor belt so quickly it nearly shoots off into the hands of another worker.
Naprem’s still struggling to breathe when her neighbor hands her the next fish. Without even asking, Onea reaches over and takes it, checking for lingering scales just as quickly as she did the first time. She finds a few behind the gills and around the eyes, and flicks them off in short, fluid movements. She nudges Naprem gently with her hip.
“Go on. You just hand them to me,” Onea says. “Here. Talk a little. You know the history of fishing in this region, don’t you?”
“I…” Naprem struggles to find her words again as her neighbor hands her another fish. Onea leans into her a little and Naprem passes it to her, still gagging a little on her words. “A little,” she says, trying to figure out if that’s true.
“We’re near Fynt, aren’t we?” Uru asks, putting the clean fish down on the belt.
“Probably closer to Yynys,” Naprem says. “Fynt’s further inland.”
A fish lands in Naprem’s hands and this time she passes it to Onea automatically. There’s a short row of spines left on its back; Onea sweeps them off with her thumb.
“Yynys has fisheries, doesn’t it?”
“Well,” Naprem says, “most settlements along the Bozn do. They’re a staple of the coastlands.” The next fish comes, and to Onea it goes. Its slippery body makes Naprem feel a little sick, but she keeps going, trying to keep her mind on her knowledge of the area. “Six hundred years ago, the natives would spend most of the year out at sea and only come inland for second summer. It was the only season where the tides were high enough to ascend the cliffs, at least with the technology they had then. Nowadays, fishing still accounts for a large amount of the local economy. Having these factories confiscated must be devastating, at least from a socioeconomic standpoint.”
“What are you,” her neighbor grumbles, “some kind of expert?”
“She’s a professor,” Onea says, smugly, as Naprem takes the fish from their hands.
Naprem’s neighbor scoffs a little, shaking their head. Naprem feels her insides rock again, tighten and slosh around, and she feels even more ill than she did before. At the end of the conveyor belt, fish are dropping into a chute that runs into the vat, tails flopping feebly, and being liquefied in an instant, bones and all.
Onea reaches over and pats her wrist sharply.
“Go on,” she says, pride in her voice.
Naprem takes the next fish and hands it off, and begins to speak, haltingly, about the effect of foreign invasion forces on domestic economies.
They keep working for hours, bare skin as cold as fish flesh as the sun slowly rises outside, streaming in through the open shutters. Around mid-day, the siren sounds again and the conveyor belts stop, and they’re released from their stations for their mid-day meal. Naprem’s almost loathe to step away and lose her place, hard-won as it is, but the guards come through and herd them away from the machines, back through the turnstiles, where the dispensaries suck up their gloves and spray down their hands. The cleansing stings more the second time around. Naprem’s hands are pink and raw, and feel a little swollen.
They’re led to the courtyard, where they’re forced to stand in line and wait to be served lunch at a small cart manned by only three Cardassians, who seem content to move at their own pace. When she reaches the front, Naprem’s rewarded with a bowl of the same slop they served at Rize, smelling even more strongly like algae than it did there. She wrinkles her nose in disgust.
“Bowls back here when you’re done,” the server says, patting a flat counter at the side of the cart.
Naprem waits for Uru and Onea to be served, and then they’re forced to look around in vain for space for the third time in two days. Every inch of the courtyard seems occupied, with Bajorans crowded together on every available surface, sitting on the ground in what seem to be organized enclaves. Naprem can’t tell if there are any rules she’s obliged to follow, but she can tell there’s an order to the chaos – little cliques assembled to carefully exclude any interlopers, just like the barracks, and just like the factory lines.
She’s saved a shameful walk around the courtyard scrounging for space by Suga, who appears as though summoned by her distress.
“Professor Tora!” he calls from across the courtyard.
“Professor Suga,” she says, sighing a little with relief. “Good afternoon.”
“All the better for seeing you,” Suga says with a grin. “Come, sit with us. I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
‘Everyone’ is a group of about fifteen, mostly young women, sitting on a cluster of rocks overlooking the sea. Suga approaches and they all look up, silently scrutinizing Naprem, all wearing expressions of vague suspicion.
“Friends,” Suga says. “This is Professor Tora Naprem, and her esteemed aunts, Dr. Tora Onea, and Miss Tora Uru.”
Onea grins smugly at Uru. “Esteemed, he called me.”
“Sit down,” Uru says.
One of the young women leans forward – Naprem recognizes her as the woman who greeted her yesterday, with her dark hair and dark eyes that look like they each hold a separate galaxy.
“Where did you teach?” the woman asks.
“Professor Suga and I taught together at Dutan University in Musilla. Before Dutan, I taught at Naghowa, and at the University of Bajor before that.”
“Mm!” another young woman says through a mouthful of slop. She swallows, then continues. “I think my brother took your course at Naghowa. Do you remember teaching a Pama Niman?”
“Pama Niman!” Naprem exclaims, surprised. “As if I could forget – he wrote one of the best student assessments of the longterm effects of civil disobedience I ever read.”
The woman laughs and grins – she’s beautiful, curly headed and cute with short, rounded ridges on her nose. “That sounds like Niman. I’m Pama Wysa. It’s a pleasure, Professor.”
“And you’ve met Taya,” Suga says, gesturing to the young woman with dark eyes.
“We’re all old students of Suga’s,” Taya says, in that strange, prim voice of hers.
“All of you?” Naprem asks, and she’s too crestfallen to hide it properly. Pama looks perplexed, but Suga’s brow immediately softens with understanding.
“After they came for us, they came for our students,” he tells her. “Most of the universities have shut down now, from what I hear.”
Naprem puts a hand to her aching chest, feeling unmoored. Onea shakes her head, sharing a look with Uru.
“What’s this world coming to?” Uru wonders aloud.
“I’m not certain myself,” Suga admits, looking at Naprem. “But better that we find out together. I feel blessed to be surrounded by so many familiar faces.”
Naprem feels quite the opposite of blessed – loss is festering her chest, drawing its claws slowly over her mind, leaving open sores in her stomach. She feels to blame for the suffering of every student she’s ever had. Where are they all, now? Are they safe? Is anyone fighting to protect them the way she would?
“I’m not sure I share in your optimism, Professor,” she murmurs.
Suga frowns, but nods sympathetically, and Naprem is both profoundly relieved and a little distraught to have him there, knowing her as well as he ever has.
They eat with Suga and his students every day after that, and life – as it is keen to do – establishes a rhythm. Every day they wake before the sun, march downstairs to roll call. From roll call, they march to the factory, where they tear the scales from the skins of fish for hours, until their fingertips are raw and pink and their hands are sore. From the factory, they march to lunch, and then, from lunch, they march back to the factory. Soon, Naprem hears the fearful whirr of the liquidizing chute in her sleep, sees fish eyes in every glossy surface. She spends most of every evening trying to forget the dying gasps and slippery skin of every fish she held in her hands that day.
Life at Zarpek is both better and worse than Rize, in that way. The guards are notably more lenient – not so caught up in petty conflicts and power struggles – and the workers are given considerably more time to themselves. They have an hour to eat their midday meal, and an hour after their shifts end to wander the grounds, or to talk in the barracks before lights out. Lights out is only loosely enforced, with many groups clustering together to talk long after dark, and the workers are allowed to visit the lavatories in the middle of the night if one of the guards agrees to accompany them. The facilities were built by Bajorans, and easily cater to Bajoran needs. They’re kept relatively clean, and as orderly as spatial needs allow. Sometimes, it reminds Naprem of life in prison, and not in a particularly bad way.
But the work is much harder at Zarpek; much more repugnant, and much more dangerous. Naprem quickly learns that working on the line is one of the safest jobs in the camp. Below the factory, at the foot of the cliffs, Bajoran workers are responsible for driving fish into the nets for the factory workers to sort, laboring in the hungry, perilous surf, and several of them each week are swept out to sea in the strong undertow, never to be seen alive again. Once in a while, the bloated bodies wash up on the rocks below, or, worse, are caught in the nets trawling up to the factories. It only takes it happening once for Naprem to recognize, with horror, the smell of waterlogged, rotten skin on the ocean wind.
A few workers are assigned to the cliffs themselves, lowered on tethers to gather shellfish and the eggs of seabirds from the crags in the rocks. Suga is one of them – every day he scales the walls, earning thick callouses for his trouble, searching for anything living to add to the nets that trawl up the cliff face. These too are collected and sorted by factory workers, who feed them into vats where they’re liquefied wholesale to pink protein paste. Other workers operate the lines on the other side of the vats, where the paste is freezedried and separated into perfectly sized cubes to be shipped to Cardassia Prime.
“I don’t understand it,” Naprem finally tells Suga one day. “Strip mining made sense to me. But food production? Surely they have seas of their own - what can you possibly make from a cube of fish paste that's so valuable?”
Suga shakes his head a little. “I study celestial bodies, my darling. Not people.”
Taya overhears them and fixes Naprem with a dark-eyed stare. “Why should there be any rhyme or reason to what they do? They’re Cardassian. They take. It’s in their nature.”
“Because there’s always a reason,” Naprem says, trying not to be too overbearing about it. “Behavior – no matter how automatic – is never without reason.”
“I think her point is,” Pama says, always with her mouth full, “why should we care? The Cardassians are our enemies.”
“That’s precisely why we should care,” Naprem insists. “How are we supposed to oppose them if we don’t even know why they’re taking what they’re taking? How can you ever hope to subvert an enemy you know nothing about?”
Taya and Pama look unconvinced, but Suga smiles at her, slow and fond. “An interesting question,” he says to his students.
“I suppose,” says Pama. And that’s the end of it.
The work isn’t the only thing Naprem comes to dislike at Zarpek – the people are, too. Most of them are from the surrounding area; seamen, fishermen and algae farmers, the odd geologist or climatologist, a few local business owners. Most worked at this very factory before the annexation. Most even lived on the grounds, in the barracks with their families. Now, they do the same thing as they did before, except that now they work for the Cardassians without pay. They’re cliquey and unfriendly to outsiders, and Naprem doesn’t particularly blame them. She feels as displaced as a child at a new school, as unfamiliar with the people as she is with the landscape and the weather. Everything is new and different in the most unpleasant of ways; at least in Rize, she knew what to expect from winter. In Zarpek, the cold is everlasting, so that she doesn’t even know when the seasons change.
She does her best to adjust. By mid-winter, everyone knows her as “Professor,” something that she finds bittersweet – out of obligation, people are more cordial towards her, more permissive of her clumsy novelty. Onea, too, is soon known as “Doctor”; Uru as a dancer. But in many ways being called “Professor” by strangers – or even by students she’s never had – feels like a slap; a callback to a now purely hypothetical position she held far from here, an invocation of a profession which she no longer has, which, if Suga’s tales about the outside are to be believed, may no longer even exist. “Professor” is an excuse not to know her, to hold her at a distance; it is a title that designates her the eternal outsider, the unwelcome guest. She feels her alienation distinctly each time someone calls her “Professor” because they clearly do not know her name, and – even more clearly – have no desire to ask it.
Suga, in many ways, is her single respite. She takes to joining him after work on his evening strolls around the courtyard, talking about whatever comes to mind, both because she likes to, and because it reminds her of simpler, happier times in kinder climates. Sometimes, they reminisce together – about old students and old colleagues and old curriculums, about failed joint ventures and small, private successes. But this often proves a deeply painful exercise – a practice in opening and salting wounds on their hearts that have only barely closed – and so, more often, they avoid it, speaking mostly on more immediate, or more abstract topics.
Occasionally they’re joined by Taya or Pama, though Naprem prefers to be alone with him. Pama often speaks over her in her eagerness, and Taya almost never speaks at all, and stares at Naprem for the entire hour, which Naprem finds deeply unnerving.
When she asks about it, Suga simply smiles his disarming, boyish smile and says, “I don’t think they know what to make of you.”
“I think I’m fairly easy to make out,” Naprem says, uneasy at the thought.
“Oh, my dear Professor, you mustn’t take offense,” Suga says. “I don’t mean they dislike you. Why, to know you is to fall in love with you – your energy, your poise.” He looks at her in a way Naprem can’t decipher, eyes deep with something. “Your beautiful, brilliant mind.” He smiles again, smaller this time. “I think they struggle to believe you’re real…as I so often do.”
“Sometimes this all feels like some strange dream,” Naprem agrees, looking out at the ocean. The pink, pock-marked face of Derna is rising slowly over the horizon, its corona like a blooming rose over the misty Bozn Sea.
“Not a nightmare?” Suga asks, tone surprisingly cool. Naprem looks over at him to find his face strangely blank, and feels she’s said the wrong thing.
“I don’t meet you often in my nightmares,” Naprem says. “At least, not living.”
Suga smiles slowly, but this time, it seems unwilling. “You have a kind heart, Professor.”
“A kind imagination, perhaps.”
“Perhaps both,” Suga says.
Later on, at lights out, her aunts tease her, as they often do.
“That boy likes you,” Onea whispers in her ear, once they’ve arranged themselves into their painful nightly tangle.
“Professor Suga is a man,” Naprem whispers back. “Not a boy. And of course he likes me – I like him. We’re friends.”
“I mean he likes you,” Onea whispers. “Not in the purely friendly way.”
Naprem tries to stifle her automatic revulsion at the thought. It’s not personal – she’s never felt comfortable with this sort of talk. There’s a fear in it; something strange and sinister that threads through her blood at the mere mention.
“Auntie,” she chides. “Professor Suga is my friend. Don’t diminish that.”
“I’m not!” Onea frowns, sitting up to give her a stern look. “You’re just oblivious to these things, that’s all. I’m trying to help you.”
“Oh, leave her be,” Uru whispers, leaning her head into Naprem’s shoulder.
“I’m helping ,” Onea insists. “You should listen to me,” she tells Naprem. “I know these things. They used to call me ‘the matchmaker of Musilla.’”
“They used to call you ‘the meddler of Musilla,’” Uru whispers. “If she wants to see it, she’ll see it. If she hasn’t yet, she’s happier that way. Leave her be.”
She knows Uru is trying to help, but it’s those words that make her feel sick to her stomach all night and well into the next day. Ironically, it’s Suga himself who cheers her up at their midday meal, when he invites her to join him in an impromptu lesson on the history of Bajoran spaceflight. His familiar smile coaxes her back into complacence. They’re the same as they’ve ever been, she thinks; no strange, unwelcome feelings between them. It’s Onea who wants to see things where there are none. No doubt she misses spying on the domestic drama of their neighbors back home – the fabrications of a bored, cunning old lady, that’s all it is.
When the siren sounds to call them back to work, she catches Uru’s hand and kisses it.
“What’s that for?” Uru asks.
“Meddling,” Naprem says, bursting into laughter when Uru swats her in the arm and pretends to chase her back to the factory.
It’s banality that leads her to complacence, more than anything. Winter sinks in around them like a bruise, and the only place that’s warm enough is the barracks where they’re all crowded in together, still sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder. But the guards only keep watch over them, mostly. There are no public executions, no floggings, no sensory deprivation chambers. The rules are fairly reasonable, and discipline is dispensed quickly and sparingly, without spectacle. Compared to Rize, life at Zarpek is very uneventful during those first few months, and by mid-winter, Naprem finds she’s adjusted most alarmingly to the constant feeling of un-belonging that follows her everywhere, to the way the smell of fish makes her want to vomit, to carefully cleaning blood out from under her nails, to the sight of her scar in reflective surfaces. She’s adjusted. She’s gotten used to all this. This is what her life is now, she thinks, in a rare moment alone, staring out at the ocean, waiting for Suga to join her in the courtyard. This is the status quo.
It’s mid-winter before anything truly exciting happens, and once it does, Naprem promptly wishes it hadn’t.
She’s grown accustomed to seeing the female Cardassian around – Glinn Zevat, Naprem’s heard her called. She’s a tall, broad woman, and walks everywhere with purpose, trailed by a small group of soldiers who all look at her like she’s a Prophet made flesh. As far as Naprem can tell, she’s the overseer of Factory 4, and maybe most of the camp besides, but it’s hard to know, if only because she never seems to bully or harangue the workers in her charge. Mostly, she supervises them: watching them work, breaking up fights, delegating when she needs to. She leads the soldiers that herd them into the factory in the morning and herd them out again at night, and for their mid-day meal. Some nights, she stands guard at the entrance to their floor. She becomes a familiar feature in the background of Naprem’s life: a part of Zarpek’s landscape, like the cliffs and the factories and the tall, surrounding walls.
One afternoon, when the sea breeze is blowing particularly strong, clipping over the rocks and pushing under Naprem’s sleeves and in through the back of her collar, buffeting the new springy tufts of hair on her head, she finishes her meal more quickly than usual, and slips, as unobtrusively as possible, back into Factory 4. They close the shutters at mealtime, and pump the factory full of warm air to re-energize the Cardassians, and though she’d usually find it absurdly hot, today it makes her feel a bit Cardassian herself. She tucks herself carefully against one of the pillars near the entrance, sighing with relief as the cold’s chased out of her clothes. She can finally feel her fingers for the first time all day – they ache, but it’s nice to be sure they’re there.
The factory is relatively empty but for a few Cardassian guards milling around. She doesn’t know if she’s allowed to be in here – there’s no explicit rule against it, but none of the other workers are, and so she keeps quiet and still, eyes down.
She stays that way for a while, warming her hands, resting against the pillars, curling her toes inside her shoes. Her hands and ears and nose ache from the cold, and her feet ache from standing on them all day. But none of the Cardassians seem to see or care that she’s inside, and the warmth is luxurious. She almost feels peaceful – satisfied, at least, soothed by the quiet and the heat.
It’s the sound of an unfamiliar voice that draws her out of her reverie; someone’s speaking with Glinn Zevat near the vats, their voice sharp and quick, ringing out over the factory floor.
“Well, this batch is free of contaminants, but we should really be monitoring them more regularly. Can’t you find someone else to run the scans?”
“Too much of a security risk,” Zevat says, flatly.
“It’s just that I’m very busy,” the other says. “You can’t imagine what it’s like for a person in my position.”
Naprem leans forward, peering carefully around the column. Zevat is standing with her back to the conveyor belt, arms folded, speaking to a short Bajoran man in a bright yellow tunic. His dark hair is twisted up into a bun at the back of his head, and he has a tricorder clutched in one bony hand. Naprem can’t see his face, but Zevat looks torn between boredom and exasperation, as always. Her tail flicks slowly with idle impatience.
“If you have an issue with your accommodations, you can take it to Gul Zuvun.”
“It’s not my accommodations I take issue with!” the Bajoran says, sharply. “I’m senior staff, I shouldn’t be… This,” he says, waving the tricorder around, “is grunt work. Surely you can find someone else to do it.”
“Zuvun wants you doing it,” Zevat says.
“I am an overseer,” the Bajoran insists. “I can teach someone else to do it. Not one of the convicts, obviously, but we have plenty of trustworthy people on staff here at Zarpek, surely—”
“Look,” Zevat says, and Naprem can tell her annoyance has overwhelmed her patience. “If you have an issue , you can take it to Gul Zuvun. But until you do, you come in here, you check the stock, you report back to me.”
“Zuvun’s not going to have any time to meet with me!” the Bajoran protests, putting his hands on his hips. “I’ve barely seen him since the start of the season.”
“Not my problem,” Zevat says. Then, her sharp eyes fall on Naprem and she frowns.
“Hey,” Zevat calls across the floor, and the Bajoran man starts, whirling around. “Tora. You’re not allowed in here right now.”
Naprem tries to bite down on her shock and disappointment, even as the other guards turn to look at her. “I just came in to get out of the cold,” she says, putting her hands up to show she means no harm.
“I don’t care,” Zevat says, though not unkindly. She jerks her chin at the door. “Head out.”
Naprem pushes off from the pillar with reluctance, mostly because the nearest guard looks like he might be about to escort her out if she doesn’t follow orders. On her way out into the wind, she chances a look over her shoulder at the other Bajoran. He’s staring at her with such fear and distaste that it feels like an insult. Before she’s completely out of earshot, he turns to Zevat, voice sharp and accusing.
“You said you’d keep those people out while I was working,” he says. “She could’ve killed me!”
“You sound pretty alive to me,” Zevat says, and then Naprem’s outside, and the rest of their conversation is swallowed by the duet of the wind whipping the waves.
She might have forgotten about the incident entirely if not for the profound strangeness of it. She’s not sure who to mention it to – it seems like a secret, somehow, something delicate she ought to be careful about.
Three days later, after the siren for work’s end has sounded, Naprem’s standing in line at the turnstiles, waiting to have her gloves removed, when a commotion begins to build out in the courtyard. There’s a chorus of shouting and yelling, and the workers close to the doors hurry out – people are pushing and shoving, craning to see over one another. Naprem gets her gloves off and then is shoved past the kiosk by an overeager neighbor. People crowd through the door, peering out into the night.
The Cardassians are shouting orders, but Naprem can’t make them out. The crowd is like a tide, sweeping her almost off her feet and out into the courtyard where the night is winter-cold and thick with salt and shouting.
Uru finds her first and pulls her by the hand to where Onea is, almost at the front of the congregation. The Cardassians are holding the crowd back – the whole camp seems to be gathered around to witness the procession of a small group that moves through the center of the camp towards the security checkpoint, and for one terrifying moment, Naprem’s sure she’s about to witness something horrible. She’s back in Rize, crowded together to watch Tirek victimize all of them in the body of one of them.
But as she gets a better view, pressing close to the front of the crowd, she sees that the Bajoran in the center of the group moving through the camp is cowering, not away from the Cardassian guards, but behind them. The workers are shouting and hissing, spitting at him.
“Step back,” Naprem hears the Cardassians saying. “Step back!”
Onea draws her close, and Naprem sees Suga in the crowd with Pama and Taya.
“Professor Suga!” she calls, barely able to hear herself over the noise, but he spots her, miraculously, and pushes through the crowd to join her.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “Who is that?”
Suga calls back to her, shouting to make himself heard. “That, my dear, is scum!”
Pama leans forward, past one of the Cardassian guards restraining the crowd, and spits. “Traitor!” she yells. “Collaborator!”
The Bajoran shrinks more behind his Cardassian entourage, who hurry him past the crowds, into the security checkpoint. Naprem can’t make out any of him in the dark, except to see his fear. After the commotion dies down and the Cardassians succeed in herding them indoors, Naprem finds it impossible to ignore the venomous indignance that’s all but steaming off the workers.
“It’s been a while,” she hears Taya murmur to Suga, through the hum of the crowd.
“And here I’d hoped he’d had the decency to kill himself,” Pama says.
“My dear,” Suga says, putting his hand on the small of Pama’s back. “Collaborators are utterly bereft of decency. You know that.”
Long after lights out, Naprem can still feel that word vibrating inside of her, like a tuning fork that’s been struck. There’s something about it – about the way Suga said it, as though he were invoking some sort of deep, ancient evil. The way his mouth curled hatefully around it, as if it were a word that had personally wronged him. She’s awake for a long time thinking about it.
“What do you suppose that was all about last night?” Naprem asks Onea the next morning, passing her a fish.
“Oh, look at that!” Onea exclaims, nudging Uru with her elbow. “She’s come back to us. At long last.” She takes the fish, flicks its last remaining scale from its side, and passes it along. “The Prophets have returned her to us, alive and unharmed. Praise be.”
Uru shakes her head a little, mouth knotted with concern. “You’re still thinking about all that?” she says to Naprem.
Naprem takes the next fish from her neighbor and hands it over. It flips its tail feebly, still fighting in a way that makes her nauseous. Onea takes it from her more quickly than usual, like she knows what she’s thinking. “I heard Professor Suga say something about it afterwards – it just stuck with me.”
“Well, a riot will do that,” Onea says, carefully stripping the fish’s underbelly.
“It wasn’t a riot,” Uru chides.
“Only by a slim margin,” Onea says. “Those people acted like they wanted to tear that poor man apart.”
“I know,” Naprem says, trying not to imagine it. “The things Pama and Professor Suga were saying… I just can’t understand it. He was Bajoran, wasn’t he?”
“As far as I could see,” Onea says.
Naprem shakes her head, taking the next fish. “Professor Suga called him a ‘Collaborator.’ Do you have any idea what he could’ve meant by that?”
“A ‘Collaborator’?” Uru asks. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“What I want to know is where they found four Cardassians just to follow him around,” Onea says. “I’d never even met the ones we saw last night.”
“You think they’re with him all the time?” Naprem asks.
“Must be,” Onea says. “I’d know them otherwise. See?” she adds, giving Naprem a snide look. “Meddling has its uses.”
“I never said it didn’t,” Naprem says, leaning into her, trying to keep herself focused and grounded in the present. She tries to be mindful, to focus on tactile sensations: Onea’s warm arm pressed to hers, cold, slippery fish in her hands, the air around them always five degrees too cold. The whole factory smells of fish and blood and sea salt, wet with the taste of the sea. She tries to focus on all that, instead of letting Suga’s words loop another few times in her brain.
“You don’t suppose he was some sort of criminal?” Uru asks.
“I don’t know,” Naprem says. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Well, maybe you ought to ask Professor Suga,” Onea says, waggling her eyebrows with suggestion.
Naprem still doesn’t like the way she says it – as if asking Suga about his hatred towards a stranger could possibly be construed as courtship – but she nods nonetheless.
“Maybe I should,” she agrees.
Again, she holds her questions in her mouth like pocket change, all through the rest of their workday, and through their midday meal. This time, she’s sure who she wants to mention it to – she’s equally sure about who she doesn’t. She’s never seen Pama’s pretty face so ugly as it was last night, twisted and bent like metal around her contempt. She has no desire to see it look that way again.
She holds onto them all through the day, and past the sunset. She holds onto them even after she and Suga begin their nightly stroll around the courtyard, until they’ve walked out past most of the other groups clustered near the barracks, and are standing along the top of the cliff face, looking out over the ocean.
She starts as calmly and careful as she can, even though curiosity is burning along the back of her teeth like a brand. “Professor Suga,” she says. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”
Suga laughs, surprised. “You’re asking permission now?”
“Should I have, before?”
“Prophets, no,” Suga laughs. “Please.”
“I wanted to ask you about the nature of what transpired yesterday. If it’s not too much.”
“Is that what you’ve been thinking about all this time?” Suga asks, still smiling.
Naprem flushes involuntarily. “Is it that obvious?” she asks.
“You simply think very loudly, my dear. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Suga tips his head a little and runs his eyes over her in a detached sort of way. “Is it eating at you that much?”
“I just want to understand it,” Naprem says. “Surely you can understand that particular compulsion.”
Suga smiles again and ducks his head. “So I can,” he agrees. “I must tell you – it’s all a bit unpleasant. This Occupation has made people behave in ways I can’t claim to understand.”
“I know what you mean,” Naprem says, folding her hands behind her back and watching the way the moonlight sparkles in the surf. Suga watches her, as though he’s trying to read her thoughts, but she’s not thinking about anything in particular – simply about the absurdity of their circumstances.
“The man you saw last night,” Suga says, “goes by the name Ovig Yaien – a Mi’tino. He and his family have owned this factory for generations.” Suga shifts, sliding his hands into his pockets and pursing his lips. “When the Occupational government signed it over for operation by the Cardassians, Ovig and his brother signed over all the workers and their families in return for preferential treatment.”
“Preferential treatment?” Naprem asks. She has difficulty even conceptualizing of such a thing – the act itself (sacrificing one’s own people for the sake of…what? Favors?) and the pursuant goal. ‘Preferential treatment ’? “What does that… entail, precisely?”
“Well,” Suga says, with a sneer, “for one thing, it means going home to their wives every evening. Living in a house; sleeping in a bed, rather than on the floor, like some sort of animal. Eating five full meals a day – food with flavor and color. Living free, as men rather than as slaves.”
“The Cardassians allow that?” Naprem asks, trying to disguise her shock.
“Why shouldn’t they? It’s the brothers Ovig who’ve guaranteed their steady supply of workers; it’s the brothers Ovig who take stock of their product and verify its quality; it’s the brothers Ovig who've presented them this entire operation on a silver platter.” Suga nearly spits with disgust. “All of us . Docile, law-abiding workers with no power to act against them – nothing like those convicts you were living with down south.”
“We weren’t convicts, Ede,” Naprem says, invoking his personal name to make sure he understands how he’s hurt her. Instantly, she sees recognition and regret in his face, hard to make out through the dark.
“I apologize,” he says, immediately. “It wasn’t my intention to—”
“I know,” Naprem says, firmly, and he swallows his words to take his lumps with dignity. “But you did. We weren’t criminals, Ede. We’d done nothing wrong but ask for more than the Occupational government was willing to provide.”
“You’re right,” Suga says, with full repentance. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s a mistake I’ll labor to avoid repeating.”
They’re quiet for a while, then, Naprem aching, insides churning like blood under a new bruise. The wind pushes at her chest and the cold pulls at the thin skin of her lips. Suga stands beside her, careful and quiet.
“The people here are… insular,” he says, finally. “They’re accustomed to a certain way of life. Once upon a time, that was what drove me away from this place. But I suppose there’s still a part of me that identifies with it.”
“This is where you come from,” Naprem says. “There’s nothing unnatural about that.”
“But there’s something cruel about it, isn’t there?” Suga watches her, brow creased. “That narrow-mindedness – it’s forced you to the outskirts.”
“You’re trying to defend yourselves,” Naprem says, keeping her tone neutral, and the cold seems to have sunk into her chest. “If what you’ve said about the Ovig family is true, it’s no wonder you’re struggling to identify who the enemy is.”
“You do understand,” Suga sighs, seeming relieved. ”It’s abominable, you know – having to be suspicious of your own countrymen.”
“I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing to their own people.”
“The Occupational government does it every day,” Suga says.
“No,” Naprem says, shaking her head. “It’s different. It’s evil, certainly. But they don’t sign away the lives of anyone they’re beholden to. We’re not real to them – we’re numbers. Statistics. An expendable resource, like iridium, or fish. No,” she says, “I’m talking about… They were the owners of this factory. They must’ve known the workers personally; their names, their families, the details of their lives. That’s different. I mean, can you imagine? Can you imagine – what if someone had come to us and asked us to give up our colleagues? Our students? Could you ever have betrayed them, knowing what they’d face? Could you have lived with yourself after that?”
“My dear,” Suga says, with no small amount of sympathy, “I admire the things you find unthinkable. I think it would shock you, the sort of things most people are capable of in the face of adversity.”
“But are you capable of those sorts of things?” Naprem asks, more aggressively than she means to.
“No,” he says, serious face composed and sincere, holding her gaze, and instantly she feels the small flame of outrage in her chest go out. “I’d defend Bajor to the death. I think you know that.”
Naprem studies his face a moment, then she nods, swallowing her uneasiness, letting Suga’s reassurance wash over her. She feels steadied by his words.
“I do,” she says.
Suga nods, turning his head to regard the ocean through the dark.
“The people here can be…suspicious,” he says. “But they just want their freedom, the same as you or I.”
Naprem nods. “So they abuse those they deem responsible for their loss of it,” she concludes.
“It’s hardly abuse,” Suga scoffs. “We curse them and spit at their feet, on occasion. Nothing more sizeable than that – their Cardassian entourage won’t allow for it.”
“There must be more constructive ways to fight back,” Naprem says.
From across the courtyard, Naprem hears the light’s out siren pierce the night, echoing through the camp. But Suga’s looking at her like she’s just invoked some sort of arcane magic, like she’s just produced a key from under her tongue.
“You two,” one of the Cardassian guards calls from further up the bluff. “Report to your barracks. Now.”
Suga turns to obey almost before she does – she follows him back up the way, heading for the barracks. Once they’ve passed the guard, he motions for her to walk closer to him.
“Come find me tonight after light’s out,” he tells her. “We’ll talk.”
Naprem wonders if they didn’t just, but he heads up the stairs ahead of her, more quickly than she can keep up with, and she lets him.