“That was the old Ferenginar. On the new Ferenginar, 'good deeds are their own reward.' At least, that's what we're trying to teach on this trip.”
“And how's that going so far?”
Leeta smiles and waves at her charges. “I'm about to rip the ungrateful, greedy brats' ears off.”
Julian chuckles. “Give them time. Cardassia has a way of growing on people.”
“And so do Cardassians, I hear.” She winks.
“No one has been 'growing on' me for quite some time—Cardassian or otherwise.” He coughs. “But, er, how's Rom?”
“He's good. Back on Ferenginar with the kids.”
“The kids? I didn't even know you were pregnant.”
“I wasn't.” Leeta presses down on one of the beads on her bracelet, triggering a small, holographic projection of Rom and Leeta surrounded by several Bajoran children and Nog. “We adopted.”
Julian squints at the projection, trying to count the figures. “How many did you—”
“Thirteen.”
“Thirteen! And Rom was okay with that?”
“Not at first. But eventually I convinced him that just because the Nagal Residence has thirty-two bedrooms that doesn't mean we should have thirty-two children.”
“Thirty-two? I can't believe Bajor let you two adopt thirteen with the ban on outworld adoption.”
“The government made an exception for Rom because he's a convert and a former member of the Bajoran militia. And after the Dominion left DS9, I made him get dual citizenship so he couldn't be locked up again. . . But I have gotten a few strongly worded letters about leaving enough orphans for everyone.” Leeta deactivates the hologram and starts to amble towards the press area.
Julian follows along. “How have the kids taken to Ferenginar? That can't be an easy adjustment. For any of you.”
Leeta sighs. “It's been tough. But being ridiculously wealthy, famous, and powerful helps. So do the trips we make back to Bajor every month to visit the shrine.”
“It seems like you have a little slice of paradise on—”
Now only a few meters in front of them, Garak turns around smiling plasticly. “Ah,” he says loud enough for the assembled reporters to hear, “the First Lady of Ferenginar. How wonderful of you to join us.”
Leeta bows her head. “It's wonderful to be here on such an important occasion.”
“And you—perhaps more than anyone—would understand the importance of the orphanage's opening.” Garak smiles at the crowd. “Leeta and the Grand Nagus have adopted thirteen Bajorans orphaned during the occupation.” A hand raises in the group of reporters. “Yes?”
The reporter carefully averts his eyes from Leeta. “With the orphanage open, will Cardassia permit outworld adoptions?”
“I can't make any definite statements regarding official policy at this time. But I can say that, if we cannot find these lovely children homes on Cardassia, we may be forced to adopt them to outworlders. Even with this new facility, we simply do not have the resources to house this many orphans.”
The press corps glares rather openly at Leeta.
Garak clasps his hands together. “If any of your readers are interested in adopting a war orphan, they can schedule a meeting with the orphanage social worker.” This is dutifully transcribed on the PADD of every reporter in the audience.
Julian shakes his head in disbelief before leaning in to whisper in Leeta's ear, “You realize he's using you.”
“Of course.” Leeta snorts. “He's Garak.”
–
With the press call over and the children back inside for midmeal, Garak has about two hours to graze the catered lunch and enjoy Julian's undivided attention. Providing he can get it.
Once he manages to shake off the last stubborn reporter, Garak turns to find Bashir and Leeta engrossed in conversation, which inspires annoyance rather than jealousy in Garak. Leeta is not a threat. Well, she is a threat. Everyone is a threat. But she's not a threat as a romantic rival. She's a happily married woman sealed in Bajoran monogamy with her loving husband and their numerous children. She's also standing in the way of what Garak wants (Julian alone, in more sense than one), and Garak has gotten to a point where no longer abides those kind of obstructions in his personal life.
Garak puts on the face worthy of a gul greeting a head of state's spouse and introduces himself properly. “Leeta, I'm so pleased you and the Ferengi Volunteer Program could join us. Thank you for volunteering your and their time.”
“You're welcome,” she says. “But it's you I should be thanking. I was having a hell of a time finding relief work opportunities on any of the Dominion-devastated planets until you called.”
“Really? I hadn't heard.” He had.
She shrugs. “I think people were a little suspicious of a Ferengi volunteer group.”
“Suspicious of what exactly?” Julian asks.
“Theft.”
“Ah,” Garak says. “The thought hadn't even occurred to me. But seeing as Cardassia no longer has anything of value left, I don't think we have anything to worry about.”
Leeta chuckles along with him for a moment before her face grows stern. “I'm still going to pat them down before we leave.”
“Oh!” Garak reaches into his pocket, pulling out a microPADD from work. “Before I forget. . .” He taps a few keystrokes on the PADD. “Here is your updated itinerary.” He hands it to her.
“Updated? I didn't know—” It takes her but a second to read, “LEAVE US ALONE,” writ large on the screen. “Right.” She jams the PADD in her purse. “I should let the kids know about the changes.” She walks off to where the Ferengi adolescents are congregated.
Garak grins at Julian. “Lunch?”
A few minutes later, they are squirreled away in a corner with an assortment of cold dishes and glasses filled to the brim with fermented jivar.
Julian sips at his glass cautiously and smacks his lips together. “It's sort of like champagne. The bubbliness. But a bit heavier.”
“And slightly more intoxicating.”
“It's strange. Cardassian culture evolved lightyears away from Earth, but we still end up drinking the same things at banquets.”
“Keep in mind that a gul wouldn't be caught dead serving jivar at a formal function until quite recently.”
“A change in fashion?”
“Only by necessity. Before the occupation, jivar was considered a peasant's drink, but with kanar growing ever more scarce, you'll see jivar replace it on the menu of invitation-only State events.”
“This isn't open to the public?”
“Hardly. In a neighborhood like this, a free buffet and an open bar would have lines around the block.”
“You could hardly blame people for being hungry.”
“In the Federation, perhaps. But on Cardassia, hunger is a personal moral failing.”
“That's what people believed on Earth for some time. If a person couldn't afford food, it was because they didn't work hard enough or they managed their money poorly.”
“That's where we differ. Here, not having enough food is a fact of life, a duty certain people must perform for the State to function. However, when those people feel hunger. . . that is when they have failed themselves and Cardassia.”
“Wait, so you're saying if someone is patriotic enough, they won't notice they're starving? That's ridiculous.”
“Hush.” Garak mutters into his tiabo, “And yes.”
“And the children here. Will they be learning to ignore hunger pains for the rest of their lives?”
“Not if all goes according plan.”
“Right.” Julian snickers. “I forgot about your devious and oh-so-transparent scheme for finding adoptive parents. Do you really think that will work?”
“While you were fixing your plate, the orphanage social worker informed me that he's made four appointments with potential adopters since my Q&A went to press.”
“Do you really think those would be the best ho
mes for those kids? People who only want children so filthy outworlders can't have them?”
“If you're concerned about abuse or neglect, you should know that doesn't happen here.”
“I find that hard to believe. Even in the Federation—”
“On Cardassia, if you acknowledge a child as your own, mistreating them would be social suicide, an act of sedition against the State.”
Julian adopts one of those painfully earnest expressions of his. “And if someone doesn't acknowledge their child as their own?”
“Well, then they're allowed significantly more latitude.” Garak downs his jivar.
Julian lays a hand on Garak's shoulder, but says nothing. It's a frighteningly intimate moment: Garak, Julian, and a secret only a handful of living people know about. Strange, Garak counts himself lucky that Julian finds out this way, from Garak, rather than in a patient history from Ezri Dax or over dinner with his genetically-enhanced friends.
The sympathy is profound, pouring from Julian's touch in his own unique way. Like they're back in sickbay all those years ago, Garak gripping Julian's hand as if it's his sole lifeline in the midst of withdrawal. It was. It truly was. He wouldn't have made it through the implant's deterioration without Julian Bashir, just as he wouldn't have made it through his exile on Deep Space Nine without him. Or, if he is to be entirely honest with himself, would he have gotten through the first few months of Cardassia's recovery without the inkling that Julian's time with Dax and Starfleet would come to an end, the faintest hope that he would one day be having lunch with him again. Just as they are now.
After a lifetime of disappointment, perhaps hope isn't the fool's errand he was led to believe.
Across the courtyard, a camera flashes, capturing the moment for eternity while simultaneous shattering it as Julian removes his hand.
“I forgot how scandalous public shoulder touching is here,” Julian says. “I hope that picture doesn't land you in hot water.”
“I've been in hotter,” Garak drawls.
“No. I suppose you have. I guess after an exile as long as yours, the consequences of a steamy, public affair with a human Starfleet officer would seem small.”
“I don't foresee any negative consequences. A gul is allowed certain extravagances forbidden to the general public.”
“And that includes me? No wonder I haven't had much luck with the general public. I'm entirely off-limits.”
“Doubly so with the kind of stories the gossip columnists are spinning about us. I am apparently violently jealous of anyone who dares look at you.”
“Hold on. There's gossip columns? On Cardassia? About us? That's allowed?”
“Oh, yes. Gul gossip is an industry to itself.”
“And what exactly have they been publishing about us?”
“I haven't been able to keep up with all the rumors, but from what I last read, we have been seeing each other on and off for the past seven years, our lovers' spats on DS9 were something of legend, and Captain Sisko once told you to give me up, so you punched him in the jaw.”
Julian guffaws. “That's rich. I don't think I would've made it off the station alive if I socked the Emissary.”
“Oh, that's another thing. We were also terribly persecuted by the Bajorans on the station whose primitive religion clings on to anachronistic prejudices against same-gender relationships.”
“Well, then I suppose I better tell Vedek Luyen she needs to divorce her wife.”
Garak tuts. “Their children will be devastated.”
“Not to mention their grandchildren.”
“Poor dears. They'll have to celebrate the Festival of the Elders separately.”
“If only their grandmothers' love could withstand oppression and triumph over adversity as ours has.”
“If only.”
–
After a long Cardassian lunch, everyone files into the center of the courtyard, taking seats in front of a small, slightly raised stage. The press stand looming in the back while Garak, Julian, Leeta, and the other adults sit in folding chairs laid out in rows. The children are all plopped down on the ground in front of the stage, fidgeting in excitement.
Without any introduction, a masked figure emerges from behind the curtain and runs at full speed to the edge of the stage. With no sign of the performer slowing or stopping, the children on the ground part like the Red Sea to get out of their path. But at the very last moment, right before the masked figure steps off the stage and into the audience, they run smack dab into an invisible wall. The performer freezes in shock for a moment before falling flat on their back. The children sit up on their haunches to see if they're okay. The performer takes a deep breath, jumps to their feet, and bows causing the orphans to erupt in giggles and applause.
The performer unties the mask, revealing a young Trill woman—a blonde with all the facial features of someone with Gandres. If Julian's not mistaken, she must be Nulat, Lenara Kahn's sister. It has to be; how many other Trill women with Gandres are touring the quadrant as pseudo-mimes?
Well, whoever she is, she's one of the more magnetic performers Julian has seen outside of a holosuite. In her hour set, she performs solo, but the stage is filled with the characters she brings to life—often five or six interacting at a time—and later the orphans whom she gives an impromptu rian'koran lesson. After the show has ended, Julian and Garak stay behind to watch her play with the kids, showing them how to make space objects with dimension and heft. The little girl who grabbed Julian's ears earlier appears to be quite a natural.
“You know,” Julian murmurs to Garak, “I always got the impression that Cardassians were cultural narcissists who wouldn't expose their children to foreign ideas and art. Or anything that would interfere with their indoctrination to the State.”
“In years past, yes,” Garak says. “But following the occupation, Cardassians can no longer afford to be as isolated as we once were. Being a strong, independent power in the quadrant granted us the luxury of cultural narcissism. Now that our survival as a species depends largely on the benevolence of outworlders, we must learn to meet other cultures at least halfway.”
“Hence the Federation Artists Corps' appearance.”
“Precisely. And I also know from personal experience that sharing elements of one's culture with someone can result in a profound and invaluable relationship.”
Julian's human reflexes want his hand to rest on Garak's shoulder, solidifying another moment of emotional intimacy between them—two in one day is a record outside a Dominion prison camp—but Julian's human brain thinks the better of performing such a romantic Cardassian gesture in public again—this time in front of dozens of children. (Julian's superior mutant compartmentalization abilities allow him to file away for later the realization that he would perform such a romantic Cardassian gesture in private.) Julian settles for laying his hand on the small of Garak's back—a subtly intimate gesture by human accounts, but entirely platonic on Cardassia.
He keeps his hand there, forgetting to remove it until the social worker comes to shepherd the orphans back inside, giving Julian the chance to speak to the artist who may or may not be Nulat. He strides toward her, a hand outstretched.
“Dr. Julian Bashir, volunteer relief corps.”
She shakes his hand. “Nulat Otner, Federation Artists Corps.”
Aha. “Pleasure to meet you. I must say, Lenara's descriptions of your work hardly live up to the real thing.”
“You know my sister?”
“Yes. I was stationed at Deep Space Nine when—”
Nulat clucks her tongue, pointing at Julian. “I gotcha.”
“I wouldn't say Lenara and I are particularly close, but we had dinner once—well, twice—and she had only the most glowing things to say about you and your work. You were brilliant, by the way. I don't have much basis for comparison—I didn't know rian'koran even existed before a few months ago—but from an outsider's perspective, you were wonderful.”
“Thanks.
I'll be here all month.”
“That's classic! Very 20th century human comedian.”
“Thanks. But I will actually be here all month.”
“Oh! Really? I thought the Corps only did long-term engagements with groups of seven or more volunteers.”
“Usually. But I was the only person brave or stupid enough to agree to come here.”
“I can't blame your fellow corpsmen for being scared away. Cardassian has a rather long history of executing artists who disrupt the status quo.”
Nulat shrugs. “I'm not scared.”
“You're very unflappable for a Trill.”
“Must be the extra chromosome.”
“About that. . . Could we talk? While you're here? About, erm. . . Not as a doctor, obviously, but as someone who was a long time ago perhaps someone who might have been. . . You see, my parents. . . they fixed me. Not fixed me. Not like I was or you are—”
“They broke you?”
“A little bit. Yes.” He takes a breath. “I have friends who are genetically enhanced, but I don't have anyone who knows what it's like for people to give up on them.”
“Lenara told you about the Symbiosis Commission.”
“Yes. I'm sorry if that's a sore subject.”
“It's okay. I could use someone to talk about it with.”
“Really? That would be—I would like that. Where are you staying?”
“Volunteer dorms. I was in the VIP suite near the plaza, but some first lady bumped me.”
“Well, I guess I'll see you around then. It was lovely meeting you.”
“You, too.”
Julian walks back over to Garak, smiling at the ground the whole way.
“Make a new friend?” Garak asks.
“You know, I think I might've.” Julian jams his hands in his pockets. “Where to now?”
“Dinner?”
“I could eat again. I swear, your midmeal periods are so long here that I'm hungry again by the end of them.”
“Good. I have reservations at a place I know you'll enjoy.”
–
“What I don't understand,” Julian says, drudging up the rest of his yamok sauce with a piece of crusty bread, “is how you three got off the institute, into a secure vessel, and made your way to Cardassia.”
The Trail: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 1) Page 15
