Work Text:
Primary Sources
Coranum, 2394
One bright spring morning, Ghrell Orlar – emeritus professor of history at the University of the Union – caught the north-bound tram from his home in Paldar to the end of the line. After that there was a short walk to the house on the hill which took him past a small set of shops and a very attractive little stone garden. Ghrell was having breakfast with one of his oldest friends, Kelas Parmak, who had kindly agreed to read his latest book.
A long time ago, before the world ended and then began again, Ghrell produced a book a year. Rather dull and mechanical biographies of dead military leaders; serviceable, safe, and secure. Over the course of a decade, Ghrell inched ever closer to what had been, in fairness, a very clearly drawn line as to what was acceptable in such publications. After he quite flagrantly crossed that line, he’d had to run away from the Union. He’d gone into exile on a pleasant world where he continued to drink more than was good for him and watched the depressingly inevitable final act of his civilization’s self-immolation. He came back sooner than most, which meant he dug his fair share of graves, and then he tried, like everyone else, to put the pieces back together again.
Ghrell hadn’t written a book in this time. There hadn’t been much call for that kind of thing and he’d struggled to see the purpose. Three years ago, however, shortly after retiring from his post, he was approached by a flatteringly well-respected press who wanted him to write a biography of a particular military leader. If the subject had been anyone else, Ghrell would have said no. But to be the one to set the terms of the debate on Legate Corat Damar was far too tempting. One last book, thought Ghrell; one last shot at trying to make some sense out of everything.
Ghrell had visited the house on the hill several times before. He and Parmak would sit in the garden and admire the view and gossip about their circle. Sometimes, the human doctor put his head round the door and said hello, but had not yet stopped to talk at length. Of the third member of the household, Ghrell saw nothing. He’d met him once, a few weeks prior to the man’s election, and of course his face had been everywhere for several years, but, since his return from Bajor, he had been an elusive figure. No interviews; no appearances; nothing. He’d turned out for the memorial service on Liberation Day a few months back, and he could be spotted around the capital, if you knew where to look. Otherwise, he seemed to have retired. “Don’t ask for an interview,” Parmak said, when Ghrell told him the subject of his book. “He won’t do it.”
There was discreet but careful security around the house; Ghrell, a known visitor, passed the perimeter quickly. He knocked on the door, and Parmak opened up. “I’m running a bit late,” he said, apologetically. “I haven’t been down to the bakery yet. Sorry, I know I promised you breakfast—”
“That’s all right—”
“Let me go down there now.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No,” said Parmak. “I won’t be long. Go on in. You know where everything is.”
Ghrell went in. Parmak left, closing the door behind him. Inside, everything was quiet. Ghrell headed towards the kitchen, thinking that he might as well get the tea underway.
“Hello, Professor Orlar.”
Ghrell snapped his head round. Over by the big window that looked out across the garden, sitting at his desk, was the third member of the household.
“I’m sorry,” said Ghrell. “I didn’t realize you were here. Am I interrupting?”
“Not in the slightest,” said the other man. “I’ve been looking forward to talking to you.” He nodded at the armchair pulled up beside the desk. “Please, sit down.”
Ghrell took the seat appointed to him. The other man smiled. He looked older than when they’d last met, his face more lined, his hair more silvered. No surprise. Prison was prison, after all, even of the kind in which this man had been held. His clothes were comfortable and casual; his eyes very sharp. Once he was sure that Ghrell was settled, he turned back to his desk. Ghrell, unable to resist, leaned forwards to take a closer look. There wasn’t much to see. A lamp; a few postcards propped up; a small metal model of a lattice tower; a little vase filled with violet emeni. And a large stack of paper.
Oh, thought Ghrell, he’s read my book…
He watched as, page by page, the other man began to go through the manuscript. Ghrell could see small notes in the margin here and there. It was, he thought, a very long time – more than forty years – since he’d turned out for a tutorial. This was rather like one of those nightmares where one found oneself sitting an exam for which one had not prepared.
“Did you enjoy writing this?” said the other man, at last. “I would have thought that reliving some of these events could have been quite harrowing.”
“It was, in places,” said Ghrell. “But I did enjoy myself, in a way.”
“Why?”
“It was interesting to reflect upon a period of history through which I’d lived,” he said. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Yes, I’ve read your previous books,” he said, and carried on turning the pages. “They took an interesting direction, towards the end.”
They’d become downright seditious. When had this man read them? Back then? Or in preparation for this meeting? “You know,” observed Ghrell, “I’m usually the one in that chair.”
“I’m always the one in this chair,” the other man replied. He lifted up a page on which two paragraphs had been circled, in red. “You might want to check this with Starfleet.”
“What section is that?”
“You’ll see when you read through.” He put the page face down on the left-hand pile before Ghrell could be completely sure, and continued his scrutiny.
“On the whole,” he went on, after a while, “I thought you did very well with these first few chapters. The early years. Hardly the most scintillating material. Those small towns must have been extremely dull. I imagine that’s why so many of the young men enlisted. Who wants to spend their life as a minor administrator in Pelekh or Tulak or the like? And I doubt very much that a scholarship was on the cards in this particular case… Records must have been hard to come by?”
“They were,” said Ghrell. His subject’s home town, Durelkh, had been more or less obliterated at the end of the war. There’d been a handful of survivors, holed up in an empty grain silo on the outskirts as the death squads passed through. Some of them remembered him as a boy and as a young man, or thought they had. And of course there was no family.
“Yes, a good job…” He paused briefly to make a note in the margin before continuing. “I thought the same about the sections on the military service. How, really, does one enliven that? How do you personalise the whole business? The point was hardly to turn out individuals, was it? Obedient servants of the Union, that’s what was required. That came across well, by the way.”
“There was good information on the Federation side,” said Ghrell. “And I managed to find a couple of people still alive who served with him back then.”
“Very thorough. And preferable to relying entirely on what Starfleet has to say…” He carried on. Ghrell watched as the war drew ever closer. The page-turning slowed down, ever so slightly; his attention was, if possible, even more focused. He stopped a few times, here and there, pen hovering. He lingered over one page, sighed, and moved on. He made no more amendments, although at one point he seemed to be murmuring the words as he went along.
“It’s a very lively account of the journey we made to the capital,” he said. “Of that whole period, in fact. You spoke to Nerys?”
The First Minister of Bajor, he meant. “At length.”
“I thought I recognised some turns of phrase.”
“She was very generous with her time.”
“Yes, she would be.”
“Anything you think I should add?”
He looked up. “No,” he said, and looked back down.
There were not many pages left unscrutinized now. They were coming to the final chapter. The appraisal of the man’s life, in the context of his times. The other man went through this slowly, until the last page was placed upon the pile. He put down his pen, tidied the stack, and turned the whole thing over so that the title page was once more on top. He leaned back in his chair. Let the questioning commence, thought Ghrell.
“An interesting genre, biography,” he said. “The conceit seems to be that a single life might in some way illuminate the broader society in which the subject lived, or stand for the larger history unfolding around them. Would you agree?”
“I think I would.”
“Do you think you’ve achieved that?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Ghrell sat back, and made himself relax – not easy given who was sitting opposite. He collected his thoughts. “My purpose with this book,” he said, “was to map the trajectory of his life against perhaps the most significant transformation our society has undergone in centuries. My suggestion is that his own, personal journey was representative of that change. A change that many of us underwent simultaneously.”
“Laudably ambitious,” said the other man. “What do you think was the substance of that change?”
“You want me to sum up my entire argument in a couple of sentences?”
“If you can manage it.”
Very well, he thought, I shall submit to examination… “Then I would say… I would say that what has changed is that we no longer take young men and turn them into murderers or torturers or exiles or drunks or corpses,” Ghrell said. “And I think we’re all the better for that.”
He didn’t reply. The fingers of his left hand tapped briefly against the desk, and then stopped. An old man, much changed. Two old men, much changed. History had a way of doing that. People had a way of doing that.
“I also think,” said Ghrell, looking straight at him, “that I understand you now.”
The other man gave an opaque smile. “What’s to understand? I’m just a plain and simple former castellan and convicted war criminal.” He picked up the manuscript. “You understand Cardassia – and that’s what matters.” He handed the book back. “Thank you for the opportunity to read.”
“Thank you for reading.”
The front door opened. Parmak came back inside, carrying a paper bag. He looked at the pair of them, and sighed. “I see you didn’t manage to make the tea before you got down to business.”
“I was waiting for you to come back with the ikri buns,” said the other man. “Shall I make some now?”
“If you could,” he said. “Ghrell, bring that chair back round, will you? If you’re done, that is.”
“We’re done,” said Garak.
11th May 2026