The Commanding Officer of Starfleet Command did not waste time. “This leak of the text of the agreement is very unfortunate, Jean-Luc. Any idea where it came from?”
“None as yet.”
“Just as long as it wasn’t one of our people.”
“We’re conducting a thorough investigation. But you know as well as I do, Admiral, that these leaks are almost impossible to pin down to a single source.”
Akaar grunted his agreement. “Still, I have to say that from where I’m sitting I’m getting mixed messages about Cardassian enthusiasm for this withdrawal—”
“Starfleet’s withdrawal from Cardassian soil is by no means unpopular,” Picard said. “At least according to our experts at HARF. It’s the specific terms of the withdrawal that are causing complaint. What concerns me, sir, is the effect this might have on popular support for the alliance.”
“Not to mention the danger faced by our personnel in the meantime. Is there any news from the constabulary on the death of Lieutenant Aleyni?”
Picard shook his head. The death of the officer was preying on his mind and he could only hope that this was not a sign of deeper trouble. The young man’s death was tragedy enough. “None as yet.”
Akaar frowned. “Should we be pressing to carry out our own investigation?”
“I understand why that’s tempting,” Picard replied. “Nevertheless, Commander Fry insists it’s vital at this point that we signal our trust that the Cardassian constabularies will investigate this murder fully. I agree with her. What message would it send if we indicated that we don’t believe they are either willing or able to find Aleyni’s killer? Fry tells me that she knows the investigator assigned to the case and trusts her to get a result.”
“Then your advice is to leave well enough alone?”
“Yes, for the time being. Everyone—Federation and Cardassian alike—has put a great deal of work into rebuilding Cardassian institutions, Admiral. Let’s see how well they’ve done their job.”
“Very well. And in the meantime—should I be concerned about what I hear about this new political party? Cardassia . . . What are they called?”
“Cardassia First.”
“Cardassia First.” Akaar sighed. “Where do they find these names? Hardly subtle, is it? Should I be worrying?”
“Not according to Fry.”
“So clashes between rival groups of political activists on the streets of Cemet—”
“Are, according to Fry, a signal of the strength of Cardassian democracy, rather than the other way around.”
“That wasn’t the case under Meya Rejal.”
Picard shook his head slowly. Meya Rejal had been the civilian leader of Cardassia after the collapse of the Obsidian Order. Fearing electoral defeat at the hands of her rival, the beloved Tekeny Ghemor, she had delayed elections so long that the Cardassian people took to the streets to demonstrate their disapproval. When Rejal tasked Skrain Dukat to deal with the demonstrators, the result had been a massacre. “Cardassia is a different place now, Admiral. I can’t see any leader opening fire on civilians.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Not Rakena Garan.”
“But someone else might?” Akaar frowned. “Evek Temet, is that who you’re thinking of?”
“Certainly Evek Temet stirs up people’s passions. And the trouble for the castellan is that all this unrest undermines people’s belief that she is in control. This suits Temet’s purpose. The more clashes there are between these extreme groups, the more people will lose confidence in the castellan as a leader who brings stability. And it’s stability that the Cardassian people want—understandably.”
“Stability, of course, is not the same as democracy. Look at the Tzenkethi.”
“No, although ideally the two are aligned.”
There was a pause. Eventually, Akaar said, “We don’t want Temet as castellan.”
“We most certainly do not. He’s not said it in as many words as yet, but he’s surely anti-Alliance.”
The admiral was instantly alert. “Pro-Pact?”
“It’s hard to tell. He might simply be an isolationist. Nationalists of his type often are.”
“Isolationist or pro-Pact, he’s not who we want.”
Ultimately, however, it was not their choice. It was the choice of the Cardassian people, and both men knew this.
“My strong sense is that it won’t come to that. Temet has enjoyed plenty of publicity while the castellan has been away, and he’ll enjoy more until she returns, particularly if the castellan’s spin doctors continue to fail to control the fallout from this leak. But the castellan will be home shortly, and then President Bacco will be here. Nothing makes a politician look more serious than standing next to a colleague from another power. Temet will sound provincial by comparison.”
“Let’s hope that’s the case. Give my regards to the ambassador when you see him.”
“I will. He’s invited us to dinner. And he gave me a book.”
“Dinner and a book?” Akaar began to laugh. “Garak must be thinking of you as a friend, Jean-Luc. Watch your back. Akaar out.”
* * *
Lieutenant Aleyni Cam had been quartered in the residential blocks that formed most of the eastern part of the HARF compound. Parking her skimmer, Mhevet saw a handful of children playing in a nearby yard. Family quarters. She sighed. Speaking to the widow was bad enough. She hadn’t thought there might be children. . . .
She knocked at the door of Aleyni’s small, single-story house. After a few moments, the door was opened by a young Cardassian woman who looked as if she hadn’t slept for a while.
“Aleyni Zeya?” Mhevet said, uncertainly.
When the woman nodded, Mhevet had to conceal her surprise. She’d assumed that Aleyni would be married to a Bajoran or, at least, would have chosen a partner from one of the diverse species that made up the Federation. But a Cardassian wife? That, sadly, only supported Mhevet’s instinct that the murder was racially motivated. An ugly crime; amongst the ugliest. Hateful and irrational. Such a waste.
At the woman’s invitation, Mhevet stepped inside. The narrow hallway was lined with perek flowers, traditional after a death, and their perfume took Mhevet back at once to the small funeral service she had performed for her parents after the war. She’d found a single flower somehow, crushing its petals over the rubble that had been her childhood home, cutting into her hand to let the blood drop upon them, chanting the names of her dead all the while. Her fingers had held the heavy scent of the flower for days afterward, and her hand still bore the scar.
Aleyni Zeya led her to a small room that served as both kitchen and living quarters. She made red leaf tea. “I’m not what you were expecting, am I?”
Mhevet breathed in the pungent steam. “I have to admit that you aren’t.”
“Your expression . . .” Zeya gave a wan smile. “That’s how everyone always looks. They try to cover it, but they’re never quick enough.”
“I’m sorry. Rude of me.”
“It’s all right. I know it’s a surprise. A Cardassian and a Bajoran. People still aren’t quite ready for it. Do you think that’s why he died?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know much yet.”
That was true enough. Mhevet had been trying to track Aleyni’s last movements. She knew his shift had ended late afternoon, and that shortly after leaving the HARF compound, he had taken a tram down into Torr. After that he slipped off the sensors until his reappearance the next day, dead, in a broken-down warehouse in the Munda’ar sector. Mhevet had put in a request for surveillance footage before leaving the department, but coverage was patchy, and the form filling complicated. The Federation (who had, after all, put in the infrastructure) didn’t like to see it used routinely to monitor their personnel, or even Cardassian citizens, but Mhevet had a friend in the CIB who came in handy for this kind of thing.
“I was always afraid this would happen,” Zeya said. “That I would be the reason that
he died. He didn’t think it was a risk, but I wasn’t so sure. It hasn’t been a problem. Not here on the compound. Not really.” Her tea stood by, completely forgotten. Mhevet hoped she was not forgetting to eat. She remembered this period of vagueness, of numbness, when nothing seemed safe to concentrate on for too long. All Cardassians knew and recognized this state.
“What about your family?” Mhevet asked. Perhaps somebody there had not liked to see her marry a Bajoran.
“Family?” said Zeya. “There’s nobody.”
“And his?”
“His family on Bajor knows nothing about me.”
“Really?”
“His mother is a prominent vedek. Very traditional. I think she may have been active in the resistance as a young woman.” Zeya pointed to a picture on a far wall: a family group, all Bajoran, with a stern woman at the center. “That’s her. Scary, isn’t she? She’s getting old now. Cam never said, but I think it would have killed her if she’d known he married a Cardassian. You know, the Occupation.” She sighed. “It never seems to end, does it? They kill us and we kill them, and for good measure, we kill each other.”
“It’s not as bad as it was.”
“No? I’m not so sure. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with us. Something wrong with the Cardassian soul. There’s something cruel about us. We nearly destroyed ourselves once. I think it will happen again. Maybe not in my lifetime, but one day.”
“I don’t believe that,” Mhevet said, gently. “I don’t believe our nature is fixed in that way. I believe that we can choose to change.”
Zeya didn’t reply. Instead, opening the drawer on the table, she drew out a stack of papers. Mhevet looked through these with increasing disgust: a pile of graphic and violent images depicting what might happen to a Bajoran man and a Cardassian woman that got too close.
“Any idea who might have sent these?”
Zeya shook her head.
“Do you mind if I take them?”
Zeya shrugged.
Mhevet took a swig of tea. “Did you notice any changes in Cam’s behavior recently?”
“Well, he was worried. We both were.”
“Worried?”
“About the withdrawal. About where he would be sent next. I couldn’t go to Bajor . . .”
No, Mhevet thought, that wouldn’t work. “Have you eaten anything today?”
Zeya hadn’t. Mhevet poked around the kitchen and found some flatbreads and some cold terik stew. She warmed this up and sat watching Zeya, murmuring encouragingly each time the young woman put a forkful in her mouth.
“I have to ask about his job,” she said, once Zeya had eaten most of the bowl of stew. “Cultural outreach? What did that involve?”
“He went into schools! He went round schools and explained what HARF did, why they were here, how they were trying to help. He organized exchange programs between students at our universities and universities across the Federation. The last time we spoke, he was excited because he had thought he had persuaded a Klingon medical student to come and work on a study into children’s health . . .”
Zeya began to cry. Mhevet took her hand. “Cam wanted children,” Zeya said. “But I’m glad we didn’t. We should never have married. This was only ever going to end in grief.”
Mhevet stayed with her until the crying stopped, then helped clear away the plates. Offering her condolences, she left and made her way back to her skimmer. She was relieved to get away from this sad, broken home. Back in her skimmer, she saw a message from her friend Erelya Fhret at the CIB. It contained the footage she was after, and a short message: You still owe me lunch.
She watched Aleyni Cam board the tram. She watched him sit motionless for the time it took him to get to North Torr. She watched him leave the tram and disappear into the warrens of that explosive district. A Bajoran, walking around North Torr, as the day ended. Insanity. What had Aleyni been thinking? What had he expected would happen to him there?
* * *
Doctor Beverly Crusher was an old hand at diplomacy and familiar with the residences (official and private) of a large number of dignitaries across the quadrant. So the modesty of the home of the Cardassian ambassador to the Federation surprised her. But then most private homes on Cardassia Prime must be this way, she reflected, with resources rightly poured into public housing, as well as hospitals, schools, and roads.
Garak’s home was jury-rigged from a combination of Federation materials and whatever rubble had been left behind by the Jem’Hadar. The building consequently had a ramshackle feel, but the area in front was surprisingly beautiful. Here, a series of small monuments had been built, piles of dry stone formations, none of them higher than shoulder height. Around these, a garden had been planted: small, but surprisingly verdant, and very well tended. Crusher wondered who took care of this, given how much time the ambassador spent away from his homeworld. Inside, the rooms, although small, had been arranged cunningly to suggest space, and with considerable taste. There were not many possessions: chiefly books and a few pieces of art. Presumably most of the ambassador’s possessions were back on Earth. Or perhaps this was all that had survived.
Garak had invited along another Cardassian, a man of about his age whom he had called “my very good friend, Kelas Parmak.” Crusher, learning that Parmak too was a doctor, quickly fell into conversation with him about various health-care projects under way across the Union. Public health, always a problem on a world where water was in such short supply, had been a priority for each administration since the end of the Dominion War. Crusher was impressed by Parmak’s grasp of policy, and was relieved to hear that the Cardassians were now treating the health of all the members of their Union as a matter of general importance. Beyond this topic, conversation ranged from the vagaries of the water supply (a Cardassian obsession to match other cultures’ preoccupation with sports or the weather), to the problems of introducing Earth fauna into the Cardassian climate (Garak had been drawing on the experience of Keiko O’Brien), to Garak’s forthcoming public debate with Temet (the promise of which Parmak, at least, found hilarious).
Supper was plain and simple, but good—rationing was all but over within the Union, apart from a few luxuries and the ever-scarce water, and the ambassador could cook. After, the four of them sat outside in the garden. The air was perfumed by unknown herbs and late-blossoming flowers. Garak strolled around the space lighting yellow lamps. The monuments cast long shadows. A dry wind had passed through the city, clearing some of the dust, and it was a relatively clear night. Crusher saw a few white stars twinkling through the haze.
When the lamps were lit, Garak sat down, and they all looked past the stones to the lights of the city beyond. Crusher heard Garak sigh quietly to himself. His expression, watching over his city, was a curious mixture of love, pain, and desire.
“I finished the book you gave me,” Picard said.
Garak’s expression became one of uncomplicated delight. “Really? What did you think of it?”
“What book did you give him?” asked Parmak.
“Meditations on a Crimson Shadow.”
Parmak laughed out loud. “Elim, you’re extraordinary! Was this intended in the spirit of friendship?”
Garak looked put out. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Only you, Elim, could give someone a book describing the destruction of their civilization, and expect it to be taken as a gift.”
“It did make for difficult reading at various points,” Picard acknowledged, with a smile. “Particularly toward the end.”
“No wonder,” said Parmak. “A repulsive book.” He kept one eye on his friend as he spoke. “A fantasy of eternal and permanent Cardassian conquest—”
“That’s unfair,” Garak protested.
“You think so? An abject Bajor, defeated and obedient? The obliteration of the entire Klingon people? What about the whole final act—the loving, meticulous description of the fall of the Federation? Culminating in the triple flag o
f the Union flying above a ruined Paris? Are you sure I’m being unfair?”
“I admit that I agreed with you, once upon a time,” Garak said, “and certainly that must be the reason the book was licensed for publication, but when I read it again . . .” He looked around the space where his father’s house had once stood. “I read it almost on this spot, in fact, but down in the cellar, while all around me the Jem’Hadar were bringing this city low, and I couldn’t read it the way I always had. At every possible point, Preloc allows her non-Cardassian characters to express contrary viewpoints—”
“Only for them to be destroyed,” Parmak said.
“Not all of them,” Garak said. “Not the doctor.”
“A book in which the doctor survives?” Crusher said. “I like it already.” They all laughed, and Parmak conceded that this was a point in the novel’s favor. “But I’m intrigued to hear you say that you read the book differently,” Crusher said. “What changed?”
“To read it while my own world was being destroyed? How could I not see it as comment upon our crimes, rather than exhortation to greater crimes? Preloc’s imagination was vast. We know this from her other works. I’m prepared to accept that this was her intent—even if that does mean she got a seditious text past the Order’s licensing committee.”
Picard laughed. “Point to Preloc.”
“Game to Preloc,” Garak replied. “And gladly conceded.”
“Even so, Elim,” Parmak said, a fond expression on his face, “perhaps it was you that changed.”
“Then the book changed with me.”
“What happened to her?” Crusher asked, suddenly, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer. “To Preloc?”
The two Cardassians exchanged a look. “She died before the Central Command lost power,” Parmak said. “She had a state funeral. You could call it a happy ending.”
“Certainly happier than many that came after.” Garak’s eyes darkened as he surveyed the city. After a moment, he roused himself. “But Kelas and I have an argument along these lines every time I come home. You’ve not yet told me your opinion, Captain.”
Star Trek: Fall 02: The Crimson Shadow Page 6
