The Trail: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 1)

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  Chapter 10: Time to Take a Little from the World We're Given

  With no volunteers working in the capital city (Kiltar was right about one thing) and very few going to the sparsely populated central timezone of the northern continent, Julian and Alexander have rarely had any trouble finding a table to themselves during their shift's breakfast. A week after his reunion with Jack and the other mutants, Julian is hard-pressed to find seats for himself and Alexander, let alone their own table. The mess hall is crowded with volunteers Julian hasn't seen since their first day.

  “Excuse me.” He taps an Ardanan man on the shoulder. “Are those seats taken?”

  The Ardanan shakes his head. “No. Go right ahead.”

  “Thanks.” Julian takes a seat, waving Alexander over to the table.

  Alexander, to his credit, doesn't drop the two trays he filled at the service line. Julian supposes adolescent clumsiness disappears out of necessity when one's professional duties include handing Klingon infants over to their stressed, exhausted, and mercurial mothers.

  “Here.” Alexander puts Julian's tray down in front of him before sitting down with his own.

  “I've never seen the mess hall so crowded,” Julian says, tucking into his meal. “I was lucky to find a place for us to sit.”

  “I wonder what all these people are doing here.”

  “If they're anything like me,” the Ardanan says, not looking up from his PADD, “they're trying to enjoy the day off without going out into that forsaken heat.”

  “Day off? Your shift's getting an extra day off?” Julian asks. “That doesn't seem very fair.”

  “Don't worry.” The Ardanan slides the PADD over the table to Julian. “You'll be getting a day off as well.”

  Julian's eyes flick over the PADD—a corps-wide message about the day's shifts being cancelled due to. . . “The transporters are down? All of them?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “I know as much as you do, now. . . But there are rumors, if those can be believed, that a volunteer tried to tamper with the transporters to beam to a location other than their assignment.”

  “But that's impossible,” Alexander says. “The transporters here are standard Cardassian, low energy, fixed location transporters. They don't have enough computing power to beam to locations that aren't hard-wired into the homing circuits. Even I know that.”

  The Ardanan shrugs. “The tamperer's mistake is my day off. I haven't reason to complain.”

  “Neither do we,” Julian says. “Alexander, after breakfast, how do you feel about visiting a few old friends of mine?”

  –

  A few hours into his workday, Garak gets a comm at his office. “Your dear doctor is planning on dropping by the house in an hour,” Lauren says. “I thought you'd like to know.” There's condescension in her voice, presumption about Garak's intentions that he would very much like to prove false, reasserting his authority over her as her boss and benefactor, but Garak is as much a slave to his emotions as he is a servant to the state. He swears that time in exile being denied all the small pleasures of citizenship did nothing for his self-discipline. If anything, he's worse now than he was before.

  As soon as Lauren's face fades from his viewscreen, Garak is out of his desk chair, down the corridor, and telling the department secretary that he'll be taking a long lunch with his outworlder consultants, hold his comms.

  Lauren opens the front door for him, saying nothing but speaking volumes with her smirk and cocked hips.

  “Not a word,” Garak hisses, brushing past her into the house.

  “Of course.” She swings the door shut. “As far as Julian is concerned, you've been here all day.”

  “Exactly.” He sniffs at her. “Don't you have work to be doing?”

  “Whatever you say, boss.” She heads down the hallway, swaying her hips.

  Garak sighs, once again questioning why he brought these people here. True, they've turned out to be just as good for Cardassia as Cardassia is for them, but managing them has been reminiscent of that inferno of Dante's. Garak is, as anyone would tell, a man of secrets. For him, security is being seen but never truly known. To surround himself with three people who can know him completely with a single glance is either a sign of tremendous personal growth or profound self-destructive impulses. Ever a cynic (especially when it comes to himself), Garak bets on the latter.

  He debates going back to their workspace and upbraiding them for something—he hasn't figured out what—but then they'd give him that look that sees right through him and he doesn't need that kind of exposure with Bashir on the way. Garak is emotionally vulnerable enough around him as it is.

  As disgusting as that is.

  Garak keeps to the foyer, reading through foreign aid reports on the PADD kept tucked in his jacket pocket. He strategically places himself near the door but out of view form any of the windows, so that he can be first to the door to greet Bashir without being seen from outside waiting for him. Garak wonders when his motions around Bashir became so rehearsed. Wasn't there a time when Bashir was the one person he could be closest to himself around? Now, in some odd switch of fate, he's laid bare in front of his subordinates, pawns he brought here to manipulate, and wrapped in pretense around the man he summoned with the intent of fostering emotional transparency.

  The best laid plans of tailors and spies often go awry.

  The door chimes and Garak rolls his eyes at his own anticipation.

  He keys the door open. “Dr. Bashir, Mr. Rozhenko, how lovely of you to visit.” To be honest, Garak could do without the Klingon. “Come in, come in.” He corrals them inside. “I'm sure the heat has not been kind to your mammalian hides.”

  Sweat pools in Julian's clavicle. “Honestly, Garak, I don't know how you survived on DS9 if this is your ideal climate.”

  “Layers, warm fabrics. . .” No one to warm his bed at night. “And someone was careless enough to leave a medical grade personal climate control device in the shop several years back. I would've returned it to its rightful owner, but I could never figure out who lost it.”

  Julian grins. “And I doubt you ever will.”

  Alexander looks around the foyer. “Where is everyone?”

  “Oh, how rude of me,” Garak says. “Right this way.” He leads them down the hall. “They'll be quite pleased to meet you, Alexander. Or, at least, Patrick and Lauren will. Don't mind Jack. He has that dreadful human tendency for—”

  They round the corner into the workroom, where Jack immediately jumps in front of Alexander, grabbing hold of him by the shoulders. “A Klingon!” Jack looks back at Lauren and Patrick. “Garak brought us a Klingon.”

  Patrick toddles over, tilting his head as he visually examines Alexander. “I've never seen a Klingon in person before.”

  “Actually. . .” Alexander squirms in Jack's hold. “I'm a quarter human.”

  “I know that! You think I don't know that?” Jack shakes him. “Look at his forehead, his teeth, his hair. . .”

  Lauren slides off her divan. “His arms, his chest, his dimples. . .” She smiles at Garak. “You brought us a prime specimen.”

  “He's not a specimen,” Julian admonishes, pushing Jack away. “He's my friend.”

  “Oh,” Patrick says. “Well, any friend of Julian's is a friend of ours.”

  “We could be more than friends,” Lauren leers.

  Alexander blushes, staring down at his shoes. “Okay.”

  “Perfect. I've always wondered what Klingons are like in—”

  An alarm sounds and Garak's foreign consultants scatter across the room—Patrick to his computer console, Jack to the holographic modeling table, Lauren to a map of K'dis on the wall.

  “Report from CR rep in the field.” Patrick reads, “Eleven firm on resource level four.”

  “Eleven?” Jack snaps. “No, no. We were supposed to have twelve. They told us twelve. We planned for twelve. We have to reconfigure the whol
e—”

  “What happened to the twelfth?” Lauren asks.

  Patrick scans the console screen. “Naban Adob tested into primary school next term.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Yes, yes.” Jack bites his thumbnail. “Good for her. Good for her. Bad for us. Bad for her mother who will have to leave work to pick her up from school and drop her off at daycare because everyone else in her family died in Lakarian City.” Jack shakes his head, flipping through interfaces on the holographic modeling array. “This will lower plant productivity by at least point-zero-zero-six-four percent. At least.”

  “What about an after school program?” Patrick asks.

  “Like the one at Capitol Day School?” Lauren asks. “That might work. Who do we have open for those hours?”

  Jack rattles off a few names off the top of his head.

  Julian leans over to Garak, watching them all the while. “What are they doing?”

  “Logistics for the water sanitation plant,” Garak whispers back. “Employment, childcare, other local concerns. . .”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am. They seem to be taking it so seriously. The Jack I knew would've thought childcare was a petty concern of normal people, not something he should devote his time to.”

  “I imagine the petty concerns of normal people don't seem so petty when you're allowed to have them.”

  –

  Garak has to drag Jack, Lauren, and Patrick away from their machines and their work for lunch—not so much for their benefit, but out of what Julian understands as a deep, abiding commitment within Garak to proper etiquette. (At least on the surface.) The head of a Cardassian household (which is what Garak seems to be here) can't very well feed himself without providing for the rest of the family and their guests.

  Like a good host, Garak provides them all with replicated tiabos—a kind of Cardassian street food that can be eaten one-handed like a sandwich—which they eat in the workroom. (Taking midmeal too far away from one's work is seen by Cardassians as a failing in commitment to the State.) Lauren lounges idly on her divan while Jack takes bites of his tiabo between jumps on the trampoline, expending that limitless energy supply of his. Patrick follows behind Julian as he looks around the room, pausing to eat at the same time Julian does.

  “Is this yours?” Julian asks, stopping next to the giant teddy bear in the corner.

  Patrick nods. “I like to sit on her lap and wrap her arms around me. It helps me think.”

  “Really? Would you mind if I. . .? Could I try her out?”

  “Sure.”

  Julian passes his tiabo to Patrick and settles down into the teddy bear's embrace. “My god. This is incredible.” He rests his head on the bear's softy, fluffy shoulder. “I may never leave.”

  Patrick smiles triumphantly, crossing over to Jack's trampoline. “See.” He pokes Jack in the chest. “It's not stupid.”

  Jack slaps his hand away. “You're too old to have a teddy bear; that's why you weren't allowed to have one at the institute. Grown men aren't supposed to have teddy bears; it's infantile.”

  “Hey!” Julian shouts. “Grown men having teddy bears is completely normal and, in fact, is very healthy. I'd even say it's a sign of maturity and reverence for the sanctity of childhood.”

  Garak smirks. “Ah, says the man who sleeps with a teddy bear.”

  “I do not—I do not sleep with a teddy bear. I merely keep him in my room near my bed.”

  “You have a teddy?” Patrick asks.

  “Yes. I do. His name is Kukalaka. I've had him since birth.”

  Patrick pulls on the front of his shirt. “Maybe you could bring Kukalaka here some time.”

  “I would. But I left him on Deep Space Nine.”

  “I thought you brought him with you wherever you go,” Garak says.

  “I do. But I. . .” Julian wraps the arms of Patrick's teddy tightly around himself. “I thought Cardassia might be too dangerous for him.”

  Garak barks out a laugh. “Well, I can assure you, doctor, no harm will come to any teddy bears under my protection.”

  “Ah. . .” Julian leans forward, letting the teddy's arms fall to the ground. “So that's the kind of benefits I was missing when I was friends with a mere tailor. It's good to see you putting your regained power to good use, Gul Garak.”

  Garak bows his head. “I am, as ever, a servant to Cardassia.”

  “And the stuffed animals within her orbit.”

  “Of course. Anything less would be a betrayal of the State.”

  “Of course.” Julian stands up from the teddy chair, stretching his arms over his head. “It's in the State's best interest to keep an eye on their mutants' teddy bears. You could hardly get that water sanitation plant in order without them.” He claps Patrick on the shoulder, taking back his tiabo. “Honestly, I think I would have found the cure for the Changeling virus on my own if I had a giant Kukalaka in sickbay.”

  “Or if you would've modified the transverse webbing of the morphogenic matrix by thirteen degrees,” Patrick says.

  “No, that wouldn't have worked because it. . .” Julian's brow furrows. “Actually, that might have worked. How did you—?”

  Jack snorts. “Please. We've had that figured out for years.”

  Patrick wrings his hands. “After we met your chief of security at Deep Space Nine, we realized that Starfleet had access to a live Changeling that they could use to win the war.”

  “That was why they rejected our proposal.”

  “No,” Julian says. “They rejected our proposal because. . . Section 31 had an ace in the hole. Damn!”

  “So much for the unyielding, fighting spirit of the Federation,” Garak says.

  “If—if you knew about the virus, if you had a cure, why didn't you tell me?”

  Jack jumps off the trampoline. “You're Dr. Julian Bashir. Starfleet. Lieutenant Julian Bashir, Starfleet's token mutant. We wondered—we wondered, all of us, how you became the exception to that rule. What you did to stay.”

  “You thought I had something to do with creating the virus?”

  “No. Not—not creating the virus. Even you're not that good. You can create a cure that can save a species, but craft the virus that will kill them? No, you don't have the stomach for it. But—but if someone told you to inject a patient with an unlabeled hypospray hush-hush wink-wink no questions asked and all the repercussions for being outed as a mutant would go away? Twenty-eight percent probability.”

  “Twenty-eight? Is that really what you think of me?”

  “You're Starfleet. We were giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I can't believe that. Patrick, did you honestly think—”

  Patrick scuttles across the room, hiding behind Garak.

  “I'll take that as a yes. And, Lauren, did you—” The divan is empty. “Where's Lauren?”

  “I don't know,” Garak says. “She and Alexander left while you were lecturing us about the merits of owning a teddy bear.”

  “She and Alexander? They left together?”

  “Yes. I believe that's what I just said.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Down the hall. Don't worry; security wouldn't let them leave alone.”

  “I'm not worried about them leaving alone. I'm worried about them being alone.” Julian takes off down the hall with Garak following close behind. “Is this her room?”

  “Yes.”

  Julian tries the handle. The door won't budge. “You let them have locks? I can't believe you gave them locked doors.”

  “I find them just as distasteful as you do, but human custom demands. You should've seen the look on the contractor's face when I asked him to install locks in a family home. It's one thing to have a lock on the head of the household's room, but on every bedroom door? That kind of secrecy does not belong in a Cardassian home.”

  “It doesn't belong in a house with Lauren in it either. She and Alexande
r could be doing god knows what in there!”

  “Whatever they are doing, I'm certain no deity in creation would want to know about it.”

  “And you're okay with that?”

  “Why wouldn't I be?”

  “Because you know how she is!”

  “If you're worried about her falling pregnant, she had a total hysterectomy as an adolescent. Apparently, your Federation doctors thought it would 'fix' her.”

  “Obviously, it didn't work. And that's why you can't be encouraging her to act out her symptoms like this. If she wants to be a normal, functioning member of society, then she needs to control her impulses. Just like Patrick needs to become less sensitive and childish and Jack needs to manage his aggression.”

  “Doctor, you are aware that many 'normal, functioning members of society' have sex drives? And I know at least one functioning member of society who loves his teddy bear. And one who could stand to manage his aggression right now.”

  “I'm not like Jack. I'm not trying to hurt Lauren; I'm trying to help her.”

  “And you're so certain you know how to do that.”

  “Yes! I'm a doctor! I have a degree in how to help people—”

  The door opens. Lauren and Alexander emerge clothes rumpled and smiles on their faces that melt under Julian's glare.

  “Don't worry, doctor,” Lauren says. “I was very gentle with him.”

  Alexander looks like he wants to be swallowed up by the floor.

  “Come on.” Julian grabs his arm. “We're leaving.”

  –

  “I can't believe you would take advantage of her like that,” Julian snaps, power-walking aggressively through the city center.

  Alexander struggles to keep up, his general ungainliness making it hard for him to dodge passersby. “I didn't. I wouldn't.”

  “So, you didn't have sex with her?”

  “No. I mean, yes. . . We had. . .” Alexander lowers his voice, conscious of the people around them. “. . . sex. But she wanted to do it. I asked.”

  “You approached her?”

  “No! She asked me to go back to her room and then she told me I was strong and handsome and had kind eyes and then she climbed on top of me and I asked if she was sure and she said yes so we. . . did it.”