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

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  Julian sighs, gathering himself. “I can understand how that would confuse you; Lauren's certainly misled men like that before. Just promise you won't have sex with her again no matter what she says.”

  “I promise. . . but, what if we got married?”

  “Married? Lauren?” Julian laughs. “That's a good one.”

  Three weeks later, Julian finds out Alexander was being all too serious.

  In the middle of the night, Julian is woken from sleep by the sounds of sobs barely muffled to his genetically enhanced hearing by a pillow.

  “Alexander,” Julian croaks, voice rough from sleep. “Are you okay?”

  “I'm fine,” Alexander says, through a veil of tears and mucous.

  Julian climbs out of bed, standing with his forearm leaning on the metal bar encasing the top bunk. “What's wrong?”

  Alexander burrows his head under the covers. “Nothing.”

  “Okay. I'm here to talk if you want.” He waits a second before kneeling down to get back into bed.

  From under the covers, Alexander chokes, “Why won't she call me?”

  Julian gets back upright. “Who?”

  “L-lauren. She said she would.”

  “Lauren says a lot of things.” Julian rests his chin on top on the top bunk's metal bar. “That's just Lauren being Lauren; it doesn't have anything to do with you. Try not to take it to heart.”

  “I feel so stupid.”

  “I know. This probably isn't any consolation, but you weren't the first.”

  Julian's right; that wasn't any consolation, as indicated by Alexander's weeping and hyperventilating. “But she was the first.”

  “She was. . .? Lauren was the first person you ever. . .?”

  Alexander's head bobs up and down underneath the covers, nodding a yes.

  “Oh, kid.” Julian rubs Alexander's back through the mounds of covers. “I didn't know.”

  Eyes peer out from under the covers. “She told me she liked me.”

  “She does. In her own way.”

  “Then why won't she answer any of my comms?”

  “Because. . .” He sighs. “Lauren doesn't want the same things out of your relationship as you do. You want to get married, right?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn't have slept with her if I didn't think. . .”

  “Right, because that's how you were raised. That's what your father taught you. . . even if he seldom followed his own teachings. But Lauren. . . Lauren doesn't want to get married. Marriage has never even been a possibility for Lauren until quite recently.”

  “But now that it is, do you think she'll—”

  Julian squeezes his shoulder. “I wouldn't get my hopes up.”

  Alexander rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “I don't know what I'm going to tell my father.”

  “You don't have to tell him anything. As far as my father knows, I took an oath of celibacy at puberty.”

  “But this isn't as big of a deal for humans. For Klingons. . . Men are supposed to retain their honor for their intended.”

  “What about the women?”

  “Women gain honor when they have sex before marriage.”

  “By taking it from the men?”

  “No. . . it's not latinum. There's not a finite amount of honor.”

  “It just comes out of the ether?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whenever a woman has sex out of wedlock?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, theoretically, two unmarried Klingon women could win tremendous honor just by having sex with each other?”

  “It's been known to happen.”

  “My god. The rates of temporomandibular joint dysfunction amongst Klingon women make so much more sense now.”

  “I guess Lauren has a lot of honor.”

  “Maybe in Klingon culture, but I don't think there's anything honorable about the way she treated you.”

  “You're not going to talk to her about this, are you?”

  “No, of course not. This stays between us.”

  -

  “I can't believe you would take advantage of him like that,” Julian snaps as soon as Lauren opens the front door.

  “Hello to you, too, doctor.” She steps back, allowing Julian inside the foyer, and swings the door shut. “Haven't seen you around here in weeks.”

  “I was busy. And, quite frankly, I was too angry to come over here. For weeks, I was so mad at Garak for letting you have sex, as if he or anyone else had any control over what you'd do. Really, I should have been mad at you.”

  “All this hostility toward a woman exercising her sex drive. It's very 21st century.”

  “I'm not angry with you for having sex. You can have as much bloody sex as you want for all I care!”

  “I'm touched to finally have your permission.”

  “I'm angry at you because you hurt someone I care about. Someone I consider to be family.”

  “Alexander.”

  “Yes, Alexander. He may be a man by Klingon standards, but he's only been alive for nine Earth years. He doesn't know the first thing about love or sex or dating, and you took advantage of his naïveté so you could get a leg over. You had him believing that you two were going to get married. He thought you were going to be his wife. And then you refused to talk to him. What do you think that did to him?”

  “That's not my problem, Julian.”

  “It is your problem. If you want to have sex, you have to deal with the consequences. And you're lucky that this time the only consequence you have to face is me lecturing you. It could be worse. It could be— Do you know how much emphasis is put on Klingon male virginity? Do you know what would happen if Alexander told the mistress of his house that you cheated him out of his honor? You'd be lucky to have teeth left in your skull by the time Sirella was done with you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No! I'm not. . .” Julian sighs, leaning up against the front door. “I would never let anyone hurt you, okay? But I can't stand by and watch you hurt other people. I know that this is at least partially my fault. I'm part of a long line of doctors and specialists who thought the best way we could help you was to condition you to not have sex when what we should have done is teach you to have sex in a way that is safe, consensual, and beneficial to you and your partners.”

  “In other words,” Lauren says, “you were more concerned about making me appear normal than actually helping me.”

  Julian examines a pattern in the foyer's wood floors. “Yes.”

  “Congratulations. You're the first doctor to ever admit that.”

  “Well.” Julian forces a smile. “I was second in my class at Starfleet medical.”

  Lauren leans against the door, pressing her shoulder against Julian's. “Are you okay?”

  “I'm fine.”

  “You don't look fine. You're in a city with six million other people, and I've never seen you so lonely.”

  “I'm not used to. . . Over the past seven years, I grew accustomed to having these people—not all of them friends, but still—at my side just constantly. But at the end of the war, they scattered and now I—”

  “Feel like a piece of you has been torn out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “When Sarina left, none of us slept for a week. We were so used to the sound of her breathing, her heartbeat. It was like a lullaby—for people who've never been sung to sleep. But after that first week—”

  “You started to heal?”

  “Oh, no. Dr. Loews had us all forcibly sedated. We were on sleeping hypos for a month. By the time Karen took us off them, the pain had dulled enough that we could fall asleep on our own. It takes time, Julian. A lot of time. But you don't have to be alone until then.”

  Julian quirks a playful eyebrow. “Are you offering?”

  “No, but someone is.”

  Before Julian can ask who, Garak is strolling into the foyer from the main section of the house. “Dr. Bashir, what a lovely surprise. Are you here
to yell at me about quaint human reproductive norms again or is there something else you would like to lecture me about?”

  “Actually. . .” Julian steps forward, pulling down the hem of his tunic. “I'm here to apologize. To both of you. The last time I was here, I behaved like a complete arse and I'm really sorry. I was out of line.”

  Garak bows his head. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Julian turns, smiling at Lauren. “Is all forgiven?”

  “Not quite,” she says. “You've got a long way to go to make things up to me. But you can start by having lunch with us on your next day off.”

  “Us?” Julian asks.

  “Me, Jack, Patrick. . . and Garak, of course.”

  “Okay. As long as its alright with you, Garak.” Julian looks over his shoulder at Garak and, for the briefest moment, he swears he sees Garak glaring daggers at Lauren before masking his face with his normal gentility.

  “Of course,” Garak says. “I always have time for lunch with my favorite genetically modified humans.”

  -

  Garak doesn't entirely trust Lauren, Jack, and Patrick not to conveniently excuse themselves from their lunch date so they can observe from afar Garak's flustered, lovestruck reaction to once again sharing a private lunch with Julian. So, Garak plans the occasion carefully, mindful of any gaps in time or activities that would allow his mutant consultants to manipulate and mastermind any kind of embarrassing or emotionally devastating moment between Garak and Julian. He knows that a second of boredom or a misspoken word on his part could leave him flat on a slab, feeling bared to the world while Jack and Lauren titter about it being for his own good. Together, the three of them are menaces to Garak's perception of himself, deducing him before he knows what they’re doing, cutting him down to size with every visit, manipulating his emotions. . .

  Garak doesn't think he's liked three people more in his entire life.

  Trying to outwit them can be fun, like a game, but when it comes to Bashir, Garak is no longer playing around.

  Bashir arrives in light casual wear, something he obviously packed with him with the heat and burning rays of the Cardassian sun in mind. Incidentally, perfect for what Garak has planned.

  Jack barrels through the front door before Garak can even let Bashir in, who looks extremely distraught at the idea of Jack outside in the open air, almost seeming to consider tackling Jack and dragging him back inside. As if he would even be remotely successful in that endeavor.

  “Here.” Garak piles a chill box full of food into Julian's arms. “Help him load the hovercar.”

  “We're going out?” Julian asks. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

  “Their security detail will be joining us—at a distance. If anyone—Cardassian, mutant, or otherwise—starts any trouble, they're more than equipped to handle it.”

  “All right.” Julian heads down the driveway to the hovercar, stuffing the chill box in the rear storage compartment that Jack had gone down to open.

  Patrick and Lauren file out the door, Patrick carrying a canvas bag and Lauren putting on her sunglasses. “How do I look?” she asks Garak.

  “Marvelous, my dear. That color is quite fetching on you in natural light.”

  “Watch yourself. Flattery will get you everywhere with me.”

  Garak takes her arm and they walk down to the car in style, herding the others inside. Even with five adults, it's a comfortable fit. A hovervehicle this large is one of the few extravagances his position allows, mostly so he doesn't burn through his allotted transporter rations with the number of meetings he has about the city. It's a pittance compared to the benefits guls snagged in the old days of the empire, back when Garak was holed up in some dank, cramped apartment, lying low on an enemy planet, awaiting his orders, pretending to be a gardener or a florist. If he had been promoted years ago. . .

  Still, a private car is a luxury most Cardassians no longer even dream about. He counts himself fortunate that he has the means to make trips like this. High in the sky, wrapped in a cool, quiet, climate controlled space, they are free to see the beauty of Cardassia City from above without the heat and noise and odors and confinement and stares that would accompany them on public transportation. Even the thought of a hoverbus ride makes Garak's throat feel tight, so he can only imagine the kind of anxiety it would inspire in Jack, Lauren, and Patrick, whose senses are infinitely more acute than any Cardassian's.

  In the car, the humans marvel at the sights below, beauty marred and left jagged by the last days of the Dominion occupation. He wishes, not for the first time, that the Cardassia they see were the Cardassia he knew, but the Cardassia he knew would not allow itself to be seen by any of them, least of all Garak.

  After a short, scenic drive, Garak sets the car down in a meadow covered in soft, juvenile knot grass. Everyone piles out, Jack and Lauren and Patrick unloading the trunk, while Julian surveys the plain with squinted eyes.

  “Where are we?” he asks.

  “I'm surprised you don't recognize it,” Garak says.

  “Is this—This is the field from their model.”

  Garak nods.

  “Wow. All this was. . .”

  “A toxic swamp courtesy of the Dominion's final bombardment.”

  Julian settles down on the thick blanket Patrick spread out over grass. “Well, I like what you've done with the place since.”

  Garak cautiously lowers himself to the ground, taking a strategic sitting position between Jack and Julian. “Oh, not me. This is all them. I have little patience for science and longterm projections.”

  “You couldn't perform a four dimensional analysis of soil salinity if your life depended on it,” Jack says.

  Patrick opens the chill box and starts passing out the individualized wrapped meals within. “No,” he says. “I think Garak could do anything if his life depended on it.”

  Garak bows his head. “Thank you, Patrick.”

  “That wasn't a compliment,” Lauren says.

  “Why don't you let Patrick speak for himself.”

  “That wasn't a compliment,” Patrick says flatly.

  Julian snickers into his kivash salad. “They've really got your number, don't they, Garak?”

  “I'm afraid so,” Garak says. He sips at his puloma juice. “Although, I'm afraid there's not much to know about a tailor who's hung up his measuring tape to work in the public sector.”

  “You have exactly three-hundred-and-forty-six days until that artifice grows stale,” Jack says.

  “I'll use my time wisely.”

  “Now. . .” Julian spears a kuvar with his fork. “I imagine together the three of you have managed to learn a great deal about our plain, simple Garak. More than I ever could on Deep Space Nine.”

  Patrick shrugs. “Garak's an open book.”

  Garak rolls his eyes—at himself and at them.

  “Then what does he say?” Julian asks.

  “Nothing you'd find remotely interesting, I'm sure,” Garak says.

  “He's right,” Jack says. “There's nothing in there.” Jack taps on Garak's temple with his fork. “Nothing worthwhile. Nothing remotely significant.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” Garak drawls.

  “You're welcome. You see, there's nothing good in any of our heads. And not just because—not just because we're different. Everyone in the whole universe—whatever they use to think or feel or know is just meat in a case. Atoms arranged in a working order by happenstance and time, like erosion. How do you get a sentient lifeform? Take a nebula and chip away everything that isn't a person. It's not special; it's not remarkable; it doesn't mean anything. But put two people in a room together—or three—or four—or five—or six million and—Kablaghm!” Jack's hands mime an explosion. “Semiotic seismology. Meaning flung everywhere. Ontological significance. The death of existential death. People needing other people are the luckiest people in the world. Because they're the only ones that truly exist. Everybody else is just a body.”

  “N
ot that those people exist,” Patrick adds. “Everyone is dependent on someone.”

  “Systems of interdependency are so culturally ubiquitous that they permeate all known life,” Lauren says. “Even hermits rely on the knowledge of their forbears. No one's raised by wolves.”

  “But that—that is what the Federation would have you believe,” Jack says, sitting up on his heels. “That's what they want you to believe. That everyone that's good and right and normal is some autonomous individual who gets nourishment through photosynthesis and reproduces asexually and lives in a tree somewhere. And anyone who needs someone else more than everyone else needs anyone else doesn't count. Like a fetus or a tumor or a lungworm feeding off those Enlightenment-thinking tree-dwellers.” Jack spits on the grass. “That's what I think of that.” He wraps his arms around his knees. “Federation individualism. . .”

  “Congratulations, Garak,” Julian says. “You've had them here less than three months and they're already spouting off impassioned, anti-Federation diatribes.”

  “I'll let the Ministry of Truth know you approve of their indoctrination program,” Garak says. “Of course, they probably know by now.”

  “Oh, right.” Julian looks to the sky, squinting his eyes in the sun. “The invisible dirigibles patrolling the skies of Cardassia, listening in on any potential treason below.”

  “Oh, no. I was referring to the listening devices implanted in every blade of knot grass.”

  Julian raises his glass. “Cardassian botany at its finest.”

  “Here, here.” The five of them clank glasses.

  Julian puts his empty glass and cleaned plate back in the chill box. “Well, I am full up.” He reclines on the grass. “Any chance for a nap before we leave?”

  “No!” Jack jumps to his feet. “Rest is for the wicked.”

  “And Garak said you were going to teach us—” Patrick starts.

  “Teach you?” Julian balks. “I don't think I could teach the three of you anything.”

  “Not even baseball?” Lauren dumps the canvas bag, spilling balls and bats and gloves on the ground.

  “Baseball?” Julian laughs. “You really want me to teach you to play? I barely remember myself. I haven't played since. . . er, I haven't played in a long time.”