Star Trek: Deep Space Nine®: Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods

Author:Olivia Woods
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Anxious to put some distance between herself and the company her father kept, Iliana briefly considered seeking out her mother, but quickly realized that Kaleen’s circle of peers was likely to be as insufferable as Tekeny’s. In the end, she found relief from the reception’s suffocating atmosphere in the cool, breezy air of a sparsely occupied outdoor balcony, east of the museum’s main hall. The balcony looked out onto a sprawling, well-tended garden under a canopy of towering trees. Guests seemed to be drawn to the grounds in pairs, descending curving granite stairs on either side of the balcony and fading into silhouettes as they followed the white stone paths that veined the garden. Innumerable lights strung through the canopy gave the place a surreal illumination, the bright pinpoints artfully merging with the stars of the black sky above. To Iliana, it was like finding an oasis after crossing a dark desert.

Most surprising of all, though, was what she found on the balcony itself. Bracketing the balustrade, near the top of each stairway, stood a bone carving—two of the largest and most extraordinary works Iliana had ever seen. Unlike the tapering curves or sharp-edged tiles that dominated so much of Cardassian design, these forms were far more abstract: flowing in a way that made Iliana think of rushing water, their unbroken fluidity in harmony with their stillness, power and violence merged with serenity.

Even more amazing, these weren’t fusions, but whole pieces, each one evidently hewn from a single enormous bone like those found among the skeletons inside. So few animals on Cardassia were larger than men, save a few remaining species of deep sea leviathans, that most bone carvings were either very small, or they were amalgams of pieces from more common animals, like the one she’d made for Tekeny. These two on the balcony had been fashioned from very old bones, and judging from their color and texture, they were sculpted centuries ago. The realization made her wistful.

So much ancient art had been lost during the great arming of Cardassia, decades before Iliana was born, when the military had confiscated the treasures of her world’s past and sold them to pay for the current age of imperialism, or destroyed them for their subversive content. It always saddened her to think about the works that she would never see: paintings and sculptures that were now part of private offworld collections; ancient books that were outlawed; artifacts of exquisite beauty crafted from rare minerals and precious metals, recycled for their value as raw materials for the military’s war machines. This pair of enormous carvings had somehow survived all that. It struck Iliana that perhaps more of Cardassia’s true soul was still out there somewhere, just waiting to be rediscovered.

“Um…excuse me?” someone said. Iliana considered pretending that she hadn’t heard the voice, in part because the intrusion at this moment was unwelcome, but also because she’d already noticed the cautious approach of the uniformed soldier who had spoken, and decided she’d had her fill of such men for one night.

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