Part Two
The Response
“Qo’noS is the enemy. Brute force will be overcome by other force.”
—Preloc,
Meditations on a Crimson Shadow,
Vol. II (Qo’noS), 6, xii
Five
My dear Julian,
What can I write? What can I say? What can any of us say? I was with Bacco, in her office, not three weeks ago. We went through the final terms of the agreement, shook hands, and then she tore apart Torlak’s anthology. (She was not harsh enough.) How at ease we were in each other’s company! We both knew how close our civilizations were to a true and lasting friendship. We were proud of how far we had come and what we were about to achieve.
What did a leader of yours once famously say, when asked what a politician most fears? Events, dear boy, events. Events have indeed overtaken us, in the most tragic and shocking way. But events are not random. Events have instigators. We will find the instigators of this crime, and we will bring them into the light, and we will punish them. Our peoples have been cheated of our chance to come together in celebration. So let us be united in our grief, and in our desire for justice.
I find I cannot write more.
Elim Garak
* * *
Jean-Luc Picard sat and watched as his senior staff filed silently into his ready room and took their places around the table. Geordi La Forge; Beverly Crusher; Hegol Den, the ship’s Bajoran counselor; and Rennan Konya, the deputy security chief. Worf and Šmrhová remained on Cardassia Prime, liaising with the Starfleet personnel at HARF. Quickly Picard sketched for his team what Akaar had told him: that during the formal ceremony to mark the opening of the new station, President Bacco was assassinated, and that a Bajoran was under arrest.
“A Bajoran?” Konya said. “For what reason?”
“It seems that the individual concerned did not approve of the president’s growing friendship with the Union, and particularly the Cardassian admittance to the Khitomer Accords.”
Hegol Den covered his eyes with his hand. “The Occupation casts a long shadow,” he said. “How terrible if Nan Bacco was the latest casualty.”
“Now perhaps you understand why I’ve asked Commander Worf and Lieutenant Šmrhová to remain on Cardassia Prime. I want to send a very clear message that the friendship between us is not in any doubt. This is a critical moment for the alliance.” He looked around the table. “We must not let the shadow of grief darken our hearts and poison our actions toward others.”
He watched as his senior staff agreed.
“What happens next?” Crusher prompted gently.
“What happens next is that a president pro tem will be appointed,” Picard said. “After sixty days there’ll be elections.”
“And what about the Enterprise, Captain?” asked La Forge. “We were here . . . well, we were here to take Bacco home, weren’t we?”
“I’ll be speaking to the president pro tem later. No doubt there’ll be new orders. My guess is that the flagship will be wanted back home.” Picard looked with compassion around his team. “In the meantime—speak to your staff. Support them, and let them support each other. This is a time of deep sorrow for all of us. We’re all grieving; we’re all in shock. I’ll be making great demands on each one of you over the coming weeks. On us falls the burden of the grief of others. We were expecting to welcome our president here to Cardassia Prime and to escort her home after an act intended to further the cause of peace across the quadrant. Instead we find ourselves bereaved. We must honor her memory by doing our duty. Speak to the people in your care. Speak to each of them, face-to-face. I shall address the whole crew later today. And after that . . . a ceremony to remember her, for anyone who wishes to attend. Although I doubt any of us will ever forget Nanietta Bacco.”
* * *
Dim morning light filtered feebly through a clouded window. The last dust storm of the year had rolled in from the plains. All through the night the dust had been silently gathering in the cover of darkness. The sleepers of the city woke early, coughing and gasping at a dark morning without a sunrise.
In a quiet antechamber in the castellan’s wing of the new Cardassian Assembly, Elim Garak sat with his hands folded in front of him, waiting to be called into his meeting. Grief, he knew, did strange things and this, he supposed, explained his current state of mind. For Garak was blisteringly angry with himself.
He had not seen this coming. Something this huge, this terrible—and he had missed the warning signs. This terrified him. Yes, of course there were people with other agendas, of course there were people who wished to steer Cardassia onto a different course. Garak spent his days second-guessing his opponents and what they might do, laying careful plans that looked well beyond the next day into the future. And still he had not seen this coming. All his careful calculations, his patient work, slowly moving his beloved Union toward a state of greater safety—all for nothing. All bets were off now. Yesterday’s squabbles over the fine print of the agreement seemed petty and pointless. Someone had struck to the very heart of the alliance—and he had not seen it coming.
Garak studied his hands. There were faint scars all over them from his numerous previous trades. Soldier, murderer, torturer. The fine-tuned weapon of empire. But also he had been a tailor. And a gardener.
What am I? What use am I?
Garak stood abruptly and walked over to the window. Outside, the world seemed still, as if uncertain how to respond to this news. Dust crept even into this well-protected place. Garak breathed on the window and then, with one fingertip, drew a shape in the mist: a long stalk and petals on the top, a perek flower. His fingertip was now red from the dust.
What did I miss? What did I not see?
Nan Bacco, I am so sorry. . . .
The door opened behind him. Garak wiped his hands with a quick movement. One of the castellan’s aides approached him: a youngish man with a tired air about him. “She’s ready for you now.”
Garak nodded and went through into the castellan’s office. Rakena Garan was sitting behind her desk. She too looked exhausted, and they didn’t bother with pleasantries, instead sitting in silence while the aide poured out ettaberry tea: pale green, sweetly scented, a balm to sandpaper-dry mouths, scoured throats, and sore eyes. Garak drank eagerly from his cup, and the castellan too sighed in relief as she picked up her tea.
“What do we know about the new president pro tem?” the castellan asked, as soon as they were alone.
“He’s Bajoran.” Garak left it at that.
The castellan put her hand to her forehead. “This is appalling. Bacco and I were speaking only a matter of days ago. We discussed what we would do while she was here. . . .”
“I understand completely,” Garak said.
“Have you met him? The new man?”
“I’ve been in the same room as him on several occasions. On at least two of those occasions we were participants in the same conversation. I would not say that we have talked, exactly.” Garak was conscious, suddenly, of how much his usefulness to this woman had depended on his friendship with Bacco.
The castellan stared into her cup, as if that might contain advice or answers. “I’m speaking to him later this morning. I’ll be telling him that we are declaring a Union-wide day of mourning and that I personally will be leading a public commemoration event on the day that she was due to arrive here on Prime.”
“I would sincerely hope that Ishan Anjar would hear the genuine sorrow behind all of that,” Garak said.
She eyed him. “That’s what you hope? And how do you think it will be heard?”
Garak drank the last of his tea. “It’s important at this point that we make no statements that can be misconstrued. We should limit ourselves to communicating our deep sense of loss at Nan Bacco’s death and our desire to comfort and support our allies at this time.”
“But will he hear that?”
“Rakena, if you’re asking me whether a man who was brought up unde
r the Occupation is likely to be well disposed toward the Cardassian Union, my answer is ‘no.’ If you’re asking whether I think that Ishan Anjar will set the tone for Cardassian-Federation relations from here on out, my answer is ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ But we should bear two things in mind: Firstly, this is a temporary appointment. There will be elections in sixty days. Who knows who the president will be then? Secondly, while the Federation is of course currently on high alert, my sense is that right now our allies want to know who their friends are. You and I . . .” For all our differences, he silently added, and then he paused until she looked at him, in the hope that she would hear all that he was trying to say. “You and I are friends of the Federation. We are devastated by this news. If we remain constant now, we will do more to secure this alliance than anything else we have done throughout the entirety of our careers.”
She played with the handle of her cup. “I know that I’m not what you wanted as castellan,” she said, after a while.
Garak, startled, thought: This is new. . . . He said: “I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that—”
“I am not Corat Damar. I am not Alon Ghemor,” the castellan went on, with a slight smile. Of course she would have watched the ’cast too. “And I know that this is a source of great disappointment for you. But I have always tried to do my best for the Cardassian people.”
Garak felt ashamed. He didn’t think he’d been so transparent. “I don’t doubt that, ma’am,” he said quietly. “I’ve never doubted that. It’s true that I regret the deaths of both those men deeply. Rakena, they were my friends. . . .”
And they were both murdered. Garak looked down at his hands again. There was still a faint red stain on his fingertip from before. He rubbed urgently with his thumb and took a deep breath. “You should be proud of what you have done during your time as castellan. The Union is not an easy ship to steer. I know that! You’ve done exceptionally well keeping us afloat so long, and keeping us steady. I hope you’ll be rewarded for this at the election.” He added, “You’ll have my vote.”
That wasn’t a lie. And it seemed to help.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.” The castellan cleared her throat. “I understand what a wrench it must be for you each time you leave Cardassia. I am grateful for all you do for my administration. You’re tireless, Garak.”
“I love Cardassia.” His voice came out thick. From the dust? From the dust. “All I have ever wanted to do is to serve her people to the best of my ability.”
“I understand,” she said. “You do. You have.”
“I try,” he said.
“Will you make a public statement too? I think it would be for the best. I know you prefer to keep a low profile, but a response from someone else who knew Bacco well and who is not a politician would be helpful—”
“It will be no sacrifice for me to speak about Nan Bacco,” Garak said softly. “And I shall do so in the warmest of terms.”
She nodded. He rose from his chair, and she did the same. They pressed palms, and he headed for the door. Stopping there for a moment, he said, “If the architects of the alliance are now targets, Rakena . . .”
“I’ll speak to Crell. You should too.”
Garak left. What a great shame, he thought, that it had needed this to make them try to be friends. He walked out into the dark red day, his security detail filing into place alongside him. With his hands across his mouth and nose, he dashed toward his skimmer, sitting back in relief once he was inside the covered space. He began a missive to Crell: Utmost urgency . . . Situation has changed . . . Know how you must be on high alert . . . But straight from the castellan . . .
As he crafted this message, one arrived from Parmak:
This is not your doing. This is not your fault.
* * *
Struggling from her home in East Torr to Constabulary Headquarters in a skimmer with air filters that had long since been taxed beyond capacity, Mhevet choked her way through the morning traffic and abandoned all plans to speak to Starfleet Intelligence about Lieutenant Aleyni. She doubted she would be able to raise her contacts at HARF, and she would have been embarrassed to try. Assassination of their leaders was something the Cardassian people had been grimly accustomed to at one time, but there had been a sense, under Rakena Garan, that those days were passing. For it to happen to an ally, and one who had always been a model—the model—for stability, was horrible.
Everyone in the department was somber today, whether they harbored friendly feelings toward the Federation or otherwise. There was little in the way of idle chatter. The large office was filled by the whirr of the filtration system and occasional bouts of coughing from colleagues. The general mood—already poor—soured when it was discovered that the bottled water—a lifesaver on days like this—hadn’t been cooling overnight and was warm. On reflection, it was only a matter of time before someone lost his temper.
Mhevet sent a few messages of consolation to people at HARF with whom she’d worked, and then, listlessly, looked around the office. Work seemed to have been abandoned for the morning. Everyone was standing and watching the speeches in front of the big screen at the far end of the room. There were a lot of speeches. The most reliably Cardassian response to unexpected events was to stop and make a speech. Not that this was guaranteed to make them any happier. The castellan, for example, looked, to Mhevet’s eyes, shattered underneath her careful presentation. Evek Temet too was shocked and grief-stricken: at least, he was saying repeatedly how shocked he was by this news, how grievous it was . . .
“Here it comes,” said Istek. One of the older members of the department, born and brought up in East Torr, he had bitter memories of the massacre that had happened there under the orders of Skrain Dukat. He had little time for Cardassia First. He was a reasonable choice to take over Mhevet’s operations in North Torr, but he was driven too easily by anger. You needed to keep cool. You needed to keep your head. “The political point scoring will start any moment now. . . .”
“Of course,” said Temet, “if what we’re hearing now is true, that a Bajoran is responsible for this obscene crime, it will be necessary for the castellan to look very closely at our relationship with the Federation. We understand the Federation’s charity in bringing Bajor under its wing. This was of course what Cardassia once tried to do. Perhaps the Federation is now discovering what we have already learned, that there exists within Bajoran society a violent element that cannot live in harmony with other peoples—”
“But why do you think this means reevaluating the alliance, Representative?”
“It’s not for me to comment—”
“ ‘But’?” Istek prompted.
“—but if I were in the castellan’s position, I’d be thinking very carefully about whether the Federation is stable. First the Andorian secession, and now it seems the Bajorans are making their displeasure with the Federation system known, and in the most shocking way. Are we wise to be close to such a volatile power? There’s a danger that Cardassian lives will be put at risk. The castellan should take this opportunity to rethink our involvement in this alliance, and she won’t be serving the Cardassian people well if she does not—”
Istek made a noise like a buzzer sounding. Some of the people gathered around laughed; others didn’t. Mhevet, moving closer to the screen, perched on the side of a desk and watched her colleagues rather than the screen. She wondered if she should remind them of Directive 964, the bar on political discussions. But they were adult enough to know that they were in violation and, besides, she wasn’t in violation. She was sitting here drinking warm water.
“Watch what’s coming next,” said Istek. “You’ll be glad to hear you can get your requests for leave back in. He’s about to cancel his rally. Stupid idea in the first place.”
“I’d also like to take this opportunity—”
“And you’re all about taking opportunities, aren’t you, you unscrupulous bastard,” Istek said cheerfully.
“Now hold on a minute,” someone said, while others tried to hush both sides.
“—to cancel the rally that was due to be held to protest the terms of the withdrawal agreement. Under these circumstances, that would hardly be appropriate. But while we are prepared, out of respect, to forgo the opportunity to speak, I hope the castellan realizes how deeply people feel about this issue, and how many of us think that our concerns are going unheard. I commend the castellan’s decision to hold a ceremony of commemoration, and I look forward to speaking on behalf of Cardassia First at that event.”
“And we’ll look forward to switching over when your smug, lying face comes on-screen,” Istek called.
Some people were getting angry. Mhevet glanced over at Fereny who was standing to one side and looking anxious. He looked at her, and she shook her head. Don’t get involved. Another man came on-screen: the ambassador who had given Evek Temet that dressing-down the other day. He was standing in front of some stone memorials in a small garden. He was serious and suave. Mhevet’s father wouldn’t have liked him, she suspected. This kind of urbanity had always struck him as un-Cardassian.
“Ah!” said Istek. “Now we’ll hear some sense!”
“You’re out of your mind, Istek—”
“This is devastating news,” the man said. He clearly meant it. “My heart goes out to all who knew and loved Nan Bacco. My deepest condolences to the people of the United Federation of Planets. It has been my privilege as ambassador to the Federation to know Nan Bacco and to have been able to work with her. I cannot think of a better friend to our Union—”
“Yes, a tragic loss,” said the interviewer. “Do you have any sense of what this might mean for our alliance with the Federation, Ambassador?”
Star Trek: Fall 02: The Crimson Shadow Page 10
