Enigma Tales

by Una McCormack

  “I’ll contact Ambassador T’Rena,” Garak said. “I’ll say that you’ve brought their concerns to me, and that they should not worry. Katherine Pulaski has more to fear from herself than from me. And my very best people are looking for Elima Antok.”

  Parmak, blessedly, began to relax. “I’ll speak to them for you,” Parmak offered. “If you’d prefer.”

  “You’re not my messenger,” Garak said. “It’s not appropriate for it to come from you, and—to be frank—it’s not appropriate that they used you as a channel to me. Still,” he said, “I’m glad that we’ve talked.”

  Parmak nodded. “So am I.” He took another sip of kanar, then said, “And Lang?”

  “Natima Lang,” Garak said, “needs to start answering some questions.”

  Parmak nodded. The man was calmer now, happier—­but Alden, Garak thought, had taken a cruel revenge.

  * * *

  The comm on Lang’s desk had been going wild all day, red lights flashing and chimes ringing. She turned off the sound early on. All calls were currently being fielded by Servek and an experienced but harassed U of U press liaison. But the simple knowledge that she was currently the most talked-about person in the Union—and the thought of why—made work impossible. She had tried going back to Reta Ghemeny’s thesis, but it was no use. Then she had tried simply to read, choosing texts that would relax rather than challenge her, but that did not work either. Her mind was inevitably drawn back to the terrible accusations being leveled against her, and most of all her thoughts were full of the twelve children concerned. Were they still alive? Were they still on Cardassia Prime? Did they know what had happened to them, what had been done to them? Our crimes, thought Lang, our terrible crimes. Will we ever be free of them? Will we always find yet another unburied body?

  Despite Lang’s stated preference, Servek had been clear that going to the house in the Perok district was out of the question. The press, she told Lang, knew that the house was hers and that she had been planning to go there, and were already camped on the doorstep. Lang wondered vaguely who had told them her plans, but realized she had been talking about them for some weeks. Anyone could have supplied the information—although it saddened her to think that a colleague would choose to speak to a journalist rather than protect her. Perhaps she should have given that interview to that young man after all. You never knew how you were storing up trouble for yourself. But the house was out of the question, and Servek, for whose quick decisions Lang was starting to find herself extremely grateful, had booked a flight for Lang offworld. There was a small resort in the Arawath system, expensive but discreet, where Lang could hide until this all blew over. All they had to do was get Lang to the spaceport, but even then it wasn’t straightforward.

  “I’m guessing,” said Servek, “that there might even be people at the city spaceport. Your flight is going from Metenok.”

  Lang nodded. An old military base, now refitted as a small spaceport, and some distance from the capital. A much less likely starting point.

  The day wore on. Lang paced her room. She felt trapped, frightened, like a creature stuck in a maze, an experiment of someone else’s devising, or a character from the human author Kafka. This was not the first time she had been forced to leave Cardassia Prime in a hurry, but she had thought those days were over, and the fact that this was happening now, when she had believed that the Union was, if not wholly cured of sickness, then certainly well on the way to recovery, was shocking.

  Who is doing this to me? Why am I being tormented in this way?

  There was a tap on the door, and Servek, without waiting for her to answer, came in, wheeling a small case behind her.

  “I sent someone to your house,” she explained. “They’ve packed this for you. It should have everything you need. We were right not to send you there. Half a dozen journalists from several different ’casts were sitting on the doorstep.”

  “Thank you,” said Lang faintly.

  “I hope we got everything,” Servek went on. “There’s always the replicator on the transport, I suppose . . .”

  They stared at each other. Lang felt ashamed. She had not been generous to this woman, she thought; she had not wanted her here, and she had not gone out of her way to integrate her into her working life. But today, Servek had shown her why she had been on Therok’s staff. She had kept a level head and helped Lang stay away from anything that might have caused her difficulty.

  “The tickets are all booked,” said Servek. “I got a good deal on the exchange, although it is rather late notice and I couldn’t avoid a fee for that. But it won’t break the bank. The resort is rather pricey too, but I think the press office has been persuaded that you should claim some of that back in expenses. Better for them to have you safely away from the press.” She gave a knowing smile. “Oh, and there’s a skimmer coming to collect you.” She checked the chrono on the wall. “Well, it should be here by now. I asked the driver to go to the back of the next building. There are journalists out front hoping to catch you. But you’ll be able to get away without attracting any attention. They’ll work out eventually that you’ve gone, but with luck you’ll be safely aboard the Perek before then.”

  Lang nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

  “It’s what I’m here for,” said Servek. She bustled across the room, found Lang’s jacket, and helped her into it, surrendering the suitcase to Lang’s care. “The resort has been instructed to block all calls,” Servek said. “Once the ’casters work out you’ve left, they’re going to try to track you down. But I’ll start putting about a story that you’re with friends up in the mountains. Really, Professor—don’t take any calls.”

  She held the door open for Lang. They went through Servek’s office and out into the corridor. One or two colleagues were hanging around, but they looked away with embarrassment as she passed. Of course, she thought, they’re afraid that there’s something to all this. They must hold me in contempt.

  She almost cried at the thought of that, but, grimly, she gripped the handle of the case and marched with her head high to the main elevator. She went down to the lowest level, a basement level, coming out into the warren of corridors that connected the whole campus.

  Beneath U of U was a busy underground complex, with geleta stops at various points, and the odd small eatery where students and staff could grab a bite to eat before dashing off to their next class, or sit with friends and colleagues and debate their most recent sessions. It was a clever addition to the campus, connecting all the disparate buildings and providing cover during the days when heat, cold, or dust made being outside unbearable. Today Lang was very glad for that cover. She dashed through the corridors and came up again into the next building, finding the back door where, as Servek had promised, a small private skimmer was waiting to collect her. The driver, a stocky male, took her case and opened the door for her. She fell back into her seat with relief.

  Soon they were out onto the road cutting through the campus and leading to the main circular. The driver offered no conversation. Lang was grateful. She had enough to think about without having to make small talk. Anxiously, she checked tickets, travel documents, anything to keep her mind away from her situation. When she looked up again, they were on the city circular. They took the southwest exit and then struck north, heading out on the big road past the main spaceport and toward Metenok. Lang felt herself begin to relax. She watched the road go past for a while, and then opened Reta’s thesis once more. Soon her eyes began to close.

  The driver cleared his throat. Lang opened her eyes, unsure how much time had passed.

  “Professor Lang,” the driver said, sounding apologetic, “I’m afraid we’re being followed.”

  Lang’s heart sank. Journalists? The whole plan had relied on her getting away unnoticed. They would easily find out where she was going and follow her to Arawath.

  “If you have any idea how
to shake them off, please feel free,” she said, and she was rewarded by a smile from the driver. He took the next exit off the boulevard and started winding through back roads.

  “Any luck?” said Lang after a while.

  “No,” said the driver. “Whoever’s driving that skimmer knows what they are doing.”

  They drove on, eventually hitting the northern edge of the city again. Soon they were weaving through Coranum. Lang checked the time. “We’re going backward,” she said. “I’m going to miss my flight.”

  The driver nodded. “It’s up to you, Professor,” he said. “We can stop and sort this out now, or we can turn around, head to Metenok, and deal with them there. But I won’t be able to shake them off.”

  Lang, after a moment’s thought, told him to pull over. The big black skimmer behind followed suit. As they waited for someone to come and speak to them, Lang said to the driver, “Why are you helping me?”

  “I heard your talk,” he said with a shrug. “The one about the enigma tales. I love enigma tales. The missus thinks they’re rubbish. It’s nice to have a comeback for once.”

  Saved by pulp literature, thought Lang wildly. There was a tap on the window, and she pressed the control to open it. A tall broad male in a nondescript dark suit leaned down to speak to her. She heard the driver mutter something under his breath.

  “Apologies for disrupting your ride, Professor Lang,” he said. “Perhaps you could step outside for a moment.”

  “Well, I am in rather a hurry,” she said. “I have a flight to catch.”

  “Just for a moment.”

  “Can I ask on what authority?” Lang said.

  The big man said, “Step outside, please, Professor Lang.”

  “You don’t have to get out if you don’t want, Professor,” said the driver.

  No, thought Lang, but where would I go? They’ll follow me wherever I go. This lie will follow me, wherever I go. She opened the door and got out. She looked around, wondering if she could run, if there was anywhere to hide, but she did not think she would get far.

  “This way,” said the man, pointing toward the big skimmer. “It won’t take long.”

  My dear Doctor—

  From the university we move west into Barvonok, where the banks and businesses have their offices. Do you have places like this in your moneyless society? Like everywhere else, this district is not what it once was, and its tall and glossy towers were flattened along with everywhere else. It rebuilt quickly—money is resilient—but the nature of the district has changed substantially. The new Barvonok is home to the many news organizations that have sprung up since we have embarked upon our democratic project.

  Of all the sacrifices I have made for Cardassia, and there have been many, allowing the emergence of a free press has to number amongst the most trying. How much easier life was when nobody dared say a word for fear the Order would come knocking at their door! I tell a lie, of course—keeping tabs on what everyone was doing and saying and reading and thinking consumed the waking hours of a great number of people, not to mention a significant amount of money in keeping our army of informers paid and happy. It is in fact much easier just to let people say what they think. Someone else, it turns out, will always be ready to take on the burden of telling them what a fool they are, and they are happy to do it for free.

  Besides, I doubt even the Order could keep track of everything being churned out now. Newscasts, broadsheets, channel upon channel—there is too much. It keeps a lot of people very busy. Still, I foresee some difficulties ahead. The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently. All of this might cause problems for our fledgling democracy. We are new at this game. We are still practicing. We are still learning.

  I might set up a committee.

  If you have any ideas, let me know.

  Garak

  [unsent]

  Eight

  Arati Mhevet was weary of corpses. She knew that this might beg the question of what she thought she was doing in her current job, but Mhevet was police through and through, and could not imagine herself doing anything else. She had long since resigned herself to the more distressing aspects of the job, although she did not have to like it, and from the depths of her being, she longed to live in a world without violent death. Whenever she was called out to one, she would find herself remembering a conversation she had had once with a man who had, at the time, been her people’s ambassador to the Federation. “There is a universe of wonders out there,” he had said. “And all I ever seem to see is small rooms and seedy alleyways.” Shortly after this conversation, Garak had become castellan. Mhevet reckoned he didn’t see so many small rooms and seedy alleyways these days. So she had taken over responsibility for maintaining and extending the list of the small and seedy. “Bad canteens” had featured heavily once upon a time, although since her promotion to constabulary chief, she had seen fewer of these, swapping them for “ill-lit meeting rooms.”

  And, of course, there were the crime scenes. Once upon a time, not so long ago, the whole of the Cardassian Union had been one vast and suppurating crime scene, and all Mhevet and the other unlucky survivors did was bury bodies. She had thought at the time, about a year and a half into this nightmare, that there would be no end to it, that life would only ever be one long, endless funeral. She watched people come to terms with it in many different ways. Some cried all the time. Some went dead behind the eyes and never really recovered. Garak, she thought, still burned brightly from the memory of this time, as if the fire lit inside him during those days would never be extinguished. Sometimes she worried that would consume him. As for Mhevet: she had done what she always did. She got on with policing. And yet she never quite inured herself to what it meant when someone died, and it seemed to her that every untimely death these days was crueler. To have survived the Fire, for so long, and then to have one’s life cut off seemed the most heartless tragedy.

  The death was compounded by where the body had been found, dumped in the pond that surrounded the campus memorial. Sickening, thought Mhevet. One of the most heartbreaking massacres at the end of the war—the deaths of so many young Cardassians who could have done so much to help in the reconstruction, and someone had put the body there. There were good reasons: it was private, and only a few people came by regularly. A violation. Mhevet was not religious, but she felt that some kind of taboo had been broken. Murder was bad enough. Soiling the campus memorial was vile. She would be glad to arrest the perpetrator, and she would be glad to see them imprisoned. Even if, as she feared might be the case, the murderer was Natima Lang.

  The hunt for Lang was on, and the professor, for such a public figure, was proving oddly elusive. Mhevet had numerous teams out looking for her, and the professor’s picture was all over the ’casts and the public screens. But so far, there had been no sign. It was as if she had been spirited away (and Mhevet was having all locations they searched checked for transporter signatures). She was not at her office on the campus, nor was she at her home in the Paldar sector. This stood dark and empty, although a few journalists were still lurking on the step in the hope of an exclusive. Getting permission to review security footage was a somewhat cumbersome process these days (the Cardassian people were understandably twitchy about surveillance and regulated the access thoroughly), and eventually their breakthrough came from good old-fashioned police work. A skimmer had been booked earlier that day from Lang’s aide’s desk, and one or two colleagues reported that they had seen Lang going through the building with a suitcase around the time the skimmer had been booked to arrive. There had been another sighting or
two of Lang in the corridors that ran below the campus. Given that checks had already proven that she had not arrived at Metenok, and that Mhevet’s people were waiting there, the driver of the skimmer was the best lead. A couple of officers found him taking his ease at a geleta house in North Torr.

  “It was very strange,” he told the officers when they asked. “A skimmer came after us—big thing, not cheap, out on the Metenok road. We turned back and it followed us all the way to the city, and then we had this slow, stately chase around Coranum—ridiculous, really, those roads are full of bumps, you can’t get up to speed. When I said I wasn’t going to be able to get away, she instructed me to pull over—this was up on the north heights—and the fancy skimmer stopped right behind us. Tinted windows. Looked like the kind of thing the Order would have. A big man got out—the kind of person you hire to punch people for you, but smart. Not showy. They talked for a while—no, I didn’t hear what they were saying—and then Lang got into the skimmer. I was about to get out and make sure she was all right, and then the next thing I knew, the skimmer pulled out! Without paying! I was furious, I can tell you. I was about ready to chase after them, when a triple payment popped up on my account. Can’t say fairer than that, so off I went.”

  And that was the last anyone had seen of Lang, getting into the kind of skimmer that the Order would have. Mhevet sighed. She had strong suspicions as to where Natima Lang was right now, and she was very unhappy about the conclusions she was drawing from all this. She sat for a while, thinking about her job and why she did it. To watch. To be vigilant. To never let anything like the Obsidian