HollowMen

by Una McCormack

  “It was not my government,” Garak corrected him, with a polite nod of the head, and with what Sisko was beginning to think was an unusual degree of attention to the truth by Garak on this particular point, “but it must have been a unique occasion.”

  “It was,” Roeder agreed. “Mostly Cardassian compositions, but she did some Beethoven sonatas too, if I remember right. Arranged for the trikolat, of course.”

  Garak was enchanted. “Her performances were so few and far between. I only heard her once, right back at the start of her career. She was astonishing even then. I imagine she’s improved substantially since.”

  “She was magnificent,” Roeder said, nodding. “The dynamics, the quality of the sounds she could produce…” He drew his glass across the space before him, briefly becoming absorbed in the memory.

  Garak turned to Sisko, his eyes bright and alive, shining with enthusiasm. “Ilani Tarn is Cardassia’s greatest living musician, captain. Her instrument—the trikolat—is a string instrument, but percussive too….” He waved his hand impatiently. “It’s difficult to explain,” he admitted. “Really, you would need to listen to her.”

  “I’d like that,” Sisko said softly, thinking he should have brought Judith along.

  “I understand the Cardassian Institute of Arts finally granted Tarn a full license last year,” Roeder remarked.

  “Yes…” Garak too seemed to become lost in thought for a moment. Then he collected himself. “Yes, they did.”

  “A full license?” Sisko said. “What does that mean?”

  “Musical and theatrical performances on Cardassia are regulated by the Institute of Arts, Captain,” Garak explained, “and artists are required to apply for permission from the Institute for each performance. But full licenses can be awarded to particularly prestigious artists, who then have more freedom—”

  “But they’re still regulated to some degree?” Sisko asked.

  “Naturally,” Garak replied, and took a sip of his champagne.

  Naturally…. “So what was the delay in giving her the license?” Sisko said. “If she’s Cardassia’s greatest musician?”

  “Her willingness to embrace alien composers most likely did not win her many friends,” Roeder suggested.

  “Perhaps,” Garak said. “But I suspect that it was more than just a political statement on the part of the Institute. Tarn is a very subtle artist, Captain,” Garak said, turning back to him, “but she refuses to be obscure.” He glanced across at Roeder. “I have heard it said now and again that perhaps there is a little too much truth in her style for Cardassian taste. A little too much honesty.”

  Roeder drank from his glass. “And would you agree with that assessment, Mr. Garak? Is she too honest for Cardassian taste?”

  “Now that,” Garak said, with a smile, “would be telling.”

  Roeder laughed. Sisko frowned. He had forgotten Roeder’s liking for cryptic conversation. He had equally forgotten just how much it grated on him. He took a mouthful of champagne that he did not want and stared beyond Roeder, out of the window, at the faded sky and the candlelight lining the terrace. Three officials from the Romulan delegation had gathered just outside. They were leaning together, looking inside, watching, and saying nothing to each other. Veral stood among them. The cost of it all…? Sisko doubted that Roeder could guess the full extent of it. He doubted that even Leyton could.

  Someone passed beside him, accidentally jogging his elbow, murmuring a polite apology when Sisko turned to see. The room had gotten very crowded now, he noticed. As he looked around, he felt a sudden need for some fresh air. He turned back to Roeder and Garak, now talking about one of the paintings that was hanging on the wall nearby. Roeder seemed to be giving Garak an abridged history of naval warfare. Garak seemed enthralled.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Sisko said to them both, “I think I’ll just step outside and get some fresh air.”

  In Quark’s, Odo saw the captain of the Ariadne and her odd young crewman sitting at the dabo table. Auger was staring at the wheel with a fixed intensity. He seemed, Odo thought, to have accumulated a great deal in the way of winnings. Steyn was watching the table closely, but her attention was split between Auger and the brooding figure of Mechter, who was standing very close to her left shoulder. Odo filed away the picture for later consideration and went over to the bar.

  He and Quark took each other’s measure.

  “Well, Odo,” Quark said, breaking the silence first, “this has turned out to be a great day, hasn’t it?”

  “You’re not in prison, Quark. Which prevents it from being a great day from my perspective.”

  “Well, I’ll never forget today, Odo. The day that you had to admit you’d made a mistake.” Quark dusted one of the bottles lightly. “You should never have arrested him in the first place, you know. That way you wouldn’t have lost face when you had to release him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Brixhta, of course,” Quark replied. “You made a mistake there, Odo. But he’s out now, and you were wrong, and that makes the day a great one for me.”

  “Someone has been telling you lies, Quark. I hate to have to disappoint you, but Brixhta is still safely sitting in his holding cell.”

  Quark blinked at him. He put down the bottle he was holding, leaned on the bar, and pushed himself up to get a good look at the Promenade. “Strange,” he muttered, and shook his head.

  “What do you mean?” Odo said.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I was sure that I saw Brixhta walking along the Promenade earlier.”

  “That’s impossible,” Odo denied bluntly. “Brixhta is down in the holding cells. I saw him there myself not even half an hour ago.”

  For a moment, Quark looked to Odo to be genuinely puzzled. He peered out onto the Promenade again. “Huh,” he said, and then turned his attention back to the bottles.

  Odo leaned across the bar. “Quark,” he growled, “whatever scheme you and Mexh Brixhta have got together, I will find out what it is. In the meantime, I am not in the least amused by this pathetic attempt to distract me.”

  Quark shrugged. “Have it your own way,” he said. “I’m just telling you what I saw. I suppose it would explain why he didn’t come to talk to me. And you’re so stubborn I guess I didn’t really see you releasing him, even when you must know you’ve made a mistake. Not to mention overstepped your authority—”

  “As a matter of fact,” Odo said frostily, “I am well within my authority to hold Brixhta, for as long as he presents what I believe is a threat to station security. You might want to bear that in mind, Quark, before you decide to meddle again.” He glanced over at the dabo table. “It seems to me that you have enough to worry about. How are profits looking today?”

  Quark laughed, showing most of his teeth. “That’s my business, Odo. Perhaps you should be worrying about whether that holding cell really is as secure as you think it is.”

  “Of course it is,” Odo said, with considerably more certainty than he felt.

  “Of course it is,” mimicked Quark. “Or maybe, just maybe—Mexh Brixhta really is smarter than you after all.”

  If it wasn’t one thing, Julian thought, then it was another. One minute the Dominion were kidnapping you and sticking you in a prison camp, the next it was a covert ops outfit operating within your own government that was spiriting you away. Either way, Julian had found that the net result was that you ended up with an awful lot of conference papers to catch up on. At least the infirmary was quiet at the moment. O’Brien would be kept busy on the Ariadne for the next day or so; he was expecting no distractions from that quarter. And while Julian could hardly agree with Odo’s methods, it seemed that arresting Brixhta had finally put the constable’s mind sufficiently at rest to leave him in peace for a while.

  He scanned through the list of papers from the conference he had missed on Casperia Prime, looking at the titles. Lin
ed up alongside each other, they made for grim reading, Julian reflected; they were all devoted to mitigating the effects of war. Only one or two articles on changeling physiology came close to what Julian would call pure scholarship, and even then their applications were primarily defensive. It was one of Julian’s greatest regrets in recent years that even though so much research was being done, all of it was aimed at better waging of the war.

  He began methodically, almost ritualistically, opening the first file on the list, a paper concerned with the treatments of plasma burns. Familiar as he was with the trauma, he knew that he would see a lot more of these appalling wounds. He scrolled onward to see how long the paper was, and then started to give it his full attention. He was partway through a particularly grueling section, when he heard someone give a cough that managed to be ineffably polite and yet still was judged perfectly to interrupt.

  Julian looked up. Sure enough, there was Odo, hovering in the doorway. “Am I disturbing you, Doctor?” he asked.

  Julian looked back down at the padd. He had lost the thread of the paper. He would have to come back to it later. He had heard Quark complain many times about Odo’s doggedness, and had always felt it was largely deserved. Now he was starting to feel some sympathy toward Quark’s point of view. And Julian had not, as far as he knew, even committed a crime.

  “No, Constable,” he said, automatically marking his place, and setting the padd to one side. He twisted round on his seat, and gave Odo his full concentration. “What can I do for you?”

  Odo stepped toward him, eagerly. He was anxious too, Julian thought. “There’s been another sighting of Brixhta,” Odo said.

  “Odo,” Julian sighed, “you’ve got him locked up. I thought you’d decided your security officer had just made a mistake—”

  “Quark saw him this time.”

  “Oh, well, if it was Quark…” Julian stopped as a thought struck him. “Brixhta still is locked up, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, I went and checked. He’s spread out in the cell. Asleep, I think.”

  “Then Quark can’t have seen him.”

  Odo began pacing around the room. “That was what I thought. That Quark had invented the story to take my attention away from whatever it is that Brixhta is up to. But both Quark and one of my security officers telling the same story?” Odo shook his head. “That seems too much.”

  “Maybe the security officer was telling the story in the bar and Quark overheard?”

  “The officer,” Odo said, “is behind a forcefield, and will be for several hours yet.”

  “All right…” Julian started running through options. “Perhaps Quark has managed to bribe your security officer to take part in whatever escapade he and Brixhta are carrying out, and he’s the one letting Brixhta out—” He started shaking his head. “Odo, this conversation is becoming preposterous! You have Brixhta in one of your holding cells. Neither Quark nor your security officer can have seen him. And we know that there isn’t another Hamexi on board—”

  “But still,” Odo urged, “I am not able to explain why two people have seen an Hamexi wandering around the station. They are hardly easy to mistake!”

  “But that’s what it has to be—they both made a mistake—”

  “Which is what I fear I might be saying if I don’t treat these sightings seriously.”

  “All right,” Julian sighed. “Let’s go through what we know. We’re assuming that Brixhta can’t get out, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Odo said dryly, “I think we can safely assume both the competence and the incorruptibility of my security team.”

  “Fair point. Sorry, Odo.” Julian gave an apologetic smile. “Well, that would mean it is another Hamexi.”

  “But the only life signs we picked up were Brixhta’s,” Odo pointed out.

  “If it were a clone…” Julian mused. “That would show the same life signs…. No, that wouldn’t work. It would show another reading—we’d have picked him up before.”

  “A twin?” Odo suggested.

  “Same thing with the readings. And, anyway, Hamexi don’t reproduce multiply; it’s part of their genetic profiles.”

  Odo gave a wan smile. “I knew you were the right person to come to, Doctor. Chief O’Brien would never have known that.”

  “Well, it’s certainly good to be appreciated,” Julian murmured. He looked back down at the padd he had been reading when Odo arrived. One of the titles leaped out at him now. “Odo,” he said, more urgently, “there is one thing we should have considered.”

  “Yes?”

  “What kind of alien can assume the form of another?”

  “One of my people?” Odo looked alarmed. “Why? What purpose would it serve?”

  “I don’t know!” Julian said, but the thought of another changeling on the station spurred him to invention. “Maybe there are…political or strategic reasons for the theft. It’s a lot of latinum, isn’t it?”

  “It is a great deal of latinum, Doctor, but by no means enough to bring down an economy, for example. Moreover, I run twice daily scans for the presence of any of my people on this station.” Odo shook his head decisively. “There are no changelings on Deep Space 9. Other than myself.”

  Julian nodded in relief. “Then we just have to go with the most likely explanation. Quark and the security officer both made a mistake.”

  Odo looked very unsatisfied with that answer.

  Julian sighed. “You really are convinced that someone is going to try to steal this latinum, aren’t you?”

  “I’m absolutely certain of it,” Odo said fervently.

  “Well…why does it have to Brixhta? Aren’t most crimes done by people who are on the inside?” He shrugged. “Think about it—who doesn’t own the latinum, but has been very close to it all this time? Who knows about all the security you have around it? And is here on the station, right now?”

  Odo stared at him for a moment, and then turned on his heel and headed out of the infirmary. “Thank you, Doctor!” he called back over his shoulder. Julian watched him go, laughed a little, and returned to the doubtful pleasure of reading.

  Outside, Sisko saw, the evening was drawing on. The clouds were clearing, and the sky was deepening to a clear blue-black. The stars were coming out, and a thin wedge of moonlight had already sliced its way through the branches of the trees and into the grounds that lay behind the embassy. Sisko walked past the cabal of Romulans gathered on the steps, and felt their eyes upon him as he passed. He decided that he would not acknowledge them.

  At the edge of the terrace ran a low wall, with steps leading down onto the lawn. Sisko stopped at the wall, setting his champagne glass down, and staring out into the shadows of the garden. A breeze was picking up, shifting the leaves on the dark trees. He shivered a little at the chill, and rubbed his hands together, warming them. Then he glanced back over his shoulder. One of the Romulans had gone back inside. Veral was still there, now talking intently to her colleague. Their voices were low, the words indistinct. Beyond the pair of them, Sisko had a clear view back into the reception room, lit up brightly. Just by the window, Garak and Roeder were still deep in conversation. Roeder was pointing up at one of the paintings, his hand moving purposefully as he explained some intricacy of ship construction, no doubt; or maybe the aesthetic charm of the piece. Garak looked completely fascinated. Councillor Huang might not have any more triumphs tonight, but Roeder and Garak at least looked set to be a success.

  Sisko picked up his glass and drained it. Then he went down the steps into the garden, holding the glass upside down by its thin stem, swinging it back and forth ever so slightly.

  He walked out across the lawn. The four buildings that had once been the row of houses—and that now made up the embassy—had each had its own garden, and the gardens were now combined into a single open space right in the heart of the town. The chatter and clatter from the reception receded; he could hear more clearly the distant thrum of the city traffic. He walked on, into the darkness,
breathing in the damp of the evening air, until he came at last to a wooden bench situated beneath what he guessed was an apple tree. He put the glass down on the arm of the bench, and sat down, stretching out his legs before him. He looked back at the bright hall. He looked up through the branches of the tree at the night sky. Then he put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. The noise of the reception receded further; so did Roeder, so did Garak. And Ross, and Batanides; even Leyton. All that was left was the bottom line; the whisper of his conscience, muffled and clumsily silenced.

  “Captain Sisko?”

  With a start, Sisko opened his eyes and straightened himself. He looked up. Veral was standing in front of him, her perpetual expression of slight amusement still on her face. She was clasping a champagne glass before her.

  “Have I disturbed you?” she said. “Please, allow me to apologize.”

  “No,” Sisko said. “No, you’re not disturbing me. I was just…” He gestured back toward the reception. “…just taking a break.”

  “Would it be an unwelcome imposition, Captain, if I joined you? It would be only for a moment or two.”

  Sisko shifted over to one side of the bench. “Be my guest,” he said softly. Veral, he thought, had seemed to have something to say since they had first set eyes upon each other. Perhaps now he was going to find out what the hell it was.

  Veral sat down beside him, and put her glass down upon the ground. “I’m sorry to say that this drink is not very pleasant,” she remarked. “The bubbles…I did not particularly want to mention it to the councillor—she has been most welcoming this evening, and the drink seems to have some special cultural significance. But should any further gatherings of this sort take place…” She gestured suggestively with her fingers.

  “Well, that’s certainly something we should bear in mind,” Sisko said.

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  He watched her fold her hands before her, and waited for her to speak. But she just sat, staring out across the lawn.