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For nearly a decade Garak has longed for just one thing - to go home. Exiled on a space station, surrounded by aliens who loathe and distrust him, going back to Cardassia has been Garak's one dream. Now, finally, he is home. But home is a world whose landscape is filled with death and destruction. Desperation and dust are constant companions and luxury is a glass of clean water and a warm place to sleep. Ironically, it is a letter from one of the aliens on that space station, Dr. Julian Bashir, that inspires Garak to look at the fabric of his life. Elim Garak has been a student, a gardener, a spy, an exile, a tailor, even a liberator. It is a life that was charted by the forces of Cardassian society with very little understanding of the person, and even less compassion. But it is the tailor that understands who Elim Garak was, and what he could be. It is the tailor who sees the ruined fabric of Cardassia, and who knows how to bring this ravaged society back together. This is strange, because a tailor is the one thing Garak never wanted to be. But it is the tailor whom both Cardassia and Elim Garak need. It is the tailor who can put the pieces together, who can take a stitch in time.

This novel contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Enabran Tain is a horrifically poor parent, particularly when his "we are the night people" speech is considered in full. In the framing arc, Garak is finally forced to confront the simple fact that, yes, Tain was a terrible parent. This occurs after Dr. Parmak reacts with horror when hearing how Tain once tried to have Garak killed. The "for the good of the state" arguments just don't hold weight anymore, and Garak's rationalizations are spent.
• After the End: The framing arc takes place on Cardassia post-Dominion War. The planet is in ruins.
• Arc Words: "Finding your place".
• Armor-Piercing Question: Can you find your place? Do you know your place? Anything to do with "your place", really.
• The Atoner: Garak, who has finally realized the evils of My Country, Right or Wrong and acknowledges his role in promoting these attitudes.*
  ^{"Fear and isolation, Doctor. You can't have one without the other. Fear isolates and isolation is fear's natural home. Just as my orchids need carefully prepared soil to protect them against disease and pests, fear needs the isolated circumstances to deepen and grow without connective or relational interference. When fear is allowed to flourish in its dark and lonely medium, then any evil that can be conceived by the fearful imagination will emerge. The death toll rises every day. We are now over the one billion mark. This is a numbing, dry statistic. I'm certain that when you read this, Doctor, you will have a disturbed reaction. Others will rationalize that the figure is commensurate with Cardassian complicity. And a third group will simply shrug: it's not their problem. My reaction would probably have been a combination of the latter two. Like most people, I want to get on with the business of my life and what's done is done and doesn't warrant any further loss of sleep or appetite. Our med unit has been converted into a burial unit. It's a logical progression; the survivors have all been accounted for and only the dead remain unclaimed. More immediate, of course, is the potential for decaying corpses to spread disease. So every day now I am engaged in the hardest work of my life; I find that nothing has prepared me for this. My feelings are spent, my moral rationalizations are empty, and I can't say it's not my problem when I'm pulling and lifting and throwing bodies of people who once only wanted to go about the business of their lives. A Federation official suggested that we simply vaporize all corpses. Underneath the suggestion was the judgment that our burial customs are archaic and morbid. At first I became angry and wanted to berate him for his lack of sensitivity as well as for his own culture's morbidity in representing death as sanitary and disassociated from life. But I realized that we were no better. We created technologies that dispensed death efficiently and from a distance; we never took responsibility for our personal actions because we were in the service of a greater good—the Cardassian state. Colonel Kira once told me how many Bajorans died during the Cardassian Occupation, and my mind rejected the figure like a piece of garbage. We'd been in the service of the state, I had told myself, and the state had determined what was necessary. But now I understand why she hated me. More important, I now understand that constant burning, almost insane look in her eyes. Most of us who are left, Doctor, are insane. We have to be in order to survive and emerge from our isolation. It's the only way we can live with the pain of what we did. Or didn't. Each of us accepts the amount of responsibility we are capable of bearing. Some accept nothing, and these people are quickly swallowed by their isolation, their insanity transformed into a rationalized evil. A smaller group accepts total responsibility, and their insanity is an unbearable burden that cripples and eventually grinds them down. The rest of us carry what we can and leave the rest. For myself, Doctor, when a corpse is too heavy to bury I try to remember to ask someone to help me."}
• Boarding School of Horrors: To the human observer, Garak's school (Bamarren Institute for State Intelligence) is this. See Training from Hell, below.
• Call Back: Many.
• Double Consciousness: Young Garak, caught between two cultures; the mainstream disciplined Cardassia promoted by his mother and Enabran Tain, and the Oralian Way represented by Tolan. Garak feels drawn to the latter, but cannot escape entanglement in the former. His attempt to resolve his Double Consciousness will last him the rest of his life. Mila acknowledges the struggle in the quote below, when attempting to keep Garak focused on the realities of modern Cardassia:
  "You are my son and you are a Cardassian. Not a Hebitian!"
• Eye Scream: Three Lubak loses an eye to a honge when he panics.
• Fantastic Racism: In the brief Klingon subplot.
• Fantastic Slurs: "Spoonhead" for Cardassians.
• Flower Motifs: Edosian Orchids. Lots of symbolic significance in various ways, throughout the novel.
• Giant Flyer: Not too giant, but the Honge.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: Garak, in his first person narrative, frequently comments on humanity as they appear to a Cardassian.
• Interservice Rivalry: Endemic in the Cardassian Union. Bashir actually makes the point that this is precisely why the Dominion found Cardassia easy pickings - they call themselves a "union" but in fact they weaken their resolve and their ideals constantly, through in-fighting and petty rivalry.
• Ironic Echo: "You're always welcome..." The closing line of the novel, addressed to Bashir by Garak, this is the same line given to Garak by Astraea, the leader of the Oralian faith. Its use at the end therefore signifies the genuine spiritual confidence behind Garak's invite, and suggests he has truly found a sense of peace within himself, at least on some level. He is "opening up" to Bashir, implicitly with genuine eagerness to make a connection. This represents considerable Character Development. It's ironic in that Garak, a "night person" is echoing Astraea, vessel of the light.
• Like a Son to Me: Tolan says this of Garak.
• Mask of Power: This is the first appearance of the Oralian Way, a Cardassian religion featuring masks in its rituals and ceremonies. The masks channel a being's spiritual power, even allowing a priestess to serve as a vessel for Oralius, the guiding spirit. The masks became important in Star Trek: The Lost Era.
• Misery Builds Character: A large part of the thinking behind Cardassian education, apparently.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Something else strongly encouraged in Cardassian education. However, following the Dominion bombardment of Cardassia Prime, and the horrors of the aftermath, Garak rejects the idea. He also says he finally understands why Kira Nerys hated him (and any other Cardassian with the My Country, Right or Wrong attitude).
• Noodle Incident: Reference is made several times to Garak’s mission to Tzenketh (where the walls fell in on him leading to a claustrophobic attack), but as usual nothing is revealed as to what exactly the mission entailed.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Krim Lokar (Nine Lubak) ends up with elements of this, after rising rapidly through the Cardassian social hierarchy due to the political manipulations of Barkan Lokar.
• Properly Paranoid: Arguably Procal Dukat.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: Some of the Cardassian military believe this, most notably Procal Dukat.
• Stealth Expert: Garak, hence his Obsidian Order identity "Agent Regnar" (a Regnar being a small animal capable of changing colour and texture so as to blend into its surroundings). Garak achieves his stealth through a meditative technique that allows him to "blend" his personal energy signatures into the background energy fields. It's hinted that all Cardassians could in theory learn the technique - if they were paying attention and weren't conditioned into ignoring the deeper realities of life around them.
  • One of the best examples is when the other students are arguing about him next to his bunk, while he's lying on it. One of the students then reaches to open a secret compartment behind the bunk, when Garak suddenly jumps to his feet, startling the student, who was convinced that Garak was elsewhere.
• Training from Hell: The Cardassian children at the Bamarren Institute. It's unclear what age they are - it could really be anything from the equivalent of 12 through to 20. The academy is run as a rather brutal military camp, with extensive physical training and combat. It also utilizes harsh discipline and extensive, often physical, punishment for failure or rule-breaking.
• Unreliable Narrator: The novel is presented as a letter from Garak to Bashir. As it's Garak, we should probably be somewhat wary of his first-person recollections. However, despite that valid point, it's presented as Garak seeking to get a lot of his personal baggage off his chest, with the passive assistance of the one man he probably trusts the most. So he's quite possibly being the most honest we've ever seen him. At the very least, his religious and philosophical insights are almost certainly truthful, even if some of the historical background might be a bit uncertain.
• War Is Glorious: The Directorate, a reactionary militant movement opposed to democratic reform, still believe this. Most of the Cardassian population now think differently, and the Directorate are unable to truly rally support. They are therefore forced into accepting the proposed elections, forming a reluctant part of the new government.
• Would Not Hit A Girl: At least some of the Cardassian soldiers, apparently. It's somewhat ambiguous - he may be angry because the men present are violating his A Real Man Is a Killer beliefs - but a Directorate thug at a public rally announces "this is sh* t. Shall I fight women?" before leaving without a fight. It should be noted, in a possible subversion of the usual trope, the possible Would Not Hit A Girl tendencies are not presented as admirable here, or a "redeeming" character trait.
• You Are Number Six: The youths training at the Bamarren Institute are not permitted to use their names; instead they are assigned a group and a number. The number (one to ten) signifies their position within the group, with the higher numbers considered superior. Supposedly, they are numbered according to skill level, but politics and birthright play just as large a role. At the end of each three-year course, the numbers switch, and it is here that lower-born youths with talent can achieve a more deserving position. It's a mix of meritocratic principles and social stratification.