A Stitch in Time stdsn-27

by Andrew J. Robinson

  “Don’t ever be late again.” It was stated quietly, but everyone in the room got the message.

  It was a short meeting. This was a new cell–Limor said little and made sure that we introduced ourselves with code names only. The person who was eluding my memory was called Maladek. Limor told us to put the names together with the faces and voices as best we could. This would be the only meeting like this our cell would ever have. If we saw each other again it would be “on assignment.” The clear implication was that we had better remember each other, even though we were given no opportunity to go beyond the faintest of first impressions.

  Before we left, I took another look at Maladek, and a shock of recognition traveled through my body when he returned my look. It was at that moment that I remembered: at Bamarren he was One Ramaklan, the student leader who’d been humiliated in the Competition. His look, however, revealed nothing. We left one by one in the order we had arrived (“Never in a group,” we were warned) and as I made my way to the ladder, Maladek/Ramaklan avoided my last look. Perhaps it was just an uncanny resemblance.

  I decided to walk to the Torr Sector, where my new living quarters were located, and requested directions from the comm chip. It was a beautiful night, and the sight of the Taluvian Constellations pulsing their secret messages made me think of the Mekar Wilderness and a simpler time. Perhaps if I could decode the pulses, I thought, I could begin to unravel the mystery that was engulfing my life. I slowed my pace, as I thought about Father and Mother and the path that was leading me to my new home. I felt oddly disconnected, almost as if I were walking next to and observing this person, Elim Garak, who was playing out a fateline that demanded his submission, and over which he had no control.

  A group of people pulled me back into myself. How unusual for this time of night, and how clumsily they tried to appear inconspicuous, as if ignoring each other would be interpreted that they were several strangers who happened to be on the street at the same time. I fully appreciated why Limor warned us against such group behavior. And yet, as I studied these people, they expressed no guilt or shame in what they were doing. Indeed, there was a connectedness to them that any amount of pretending couldn’t hide–and which almost made me follow as they entered this one building. Grudgingly, however, I admitted that I had better “submit” to my fate, and I continued in my direction at a quickened pace.

  It was a modest dwelling in an old residential area. The comm chip gave me the entrance code and instructed me to a side door that led down to a clean, stark basement. Another basement, but much smaller than home. I wondered if I’d ever live at ground level or higher in the City. The few belongings I owned had been transferred from Tain’s house, and were piled neatly on my pallet. It took me very little time to arrange them and acquaint myself with the room and its few amenities. When there was nothing left to do I decided to go to sleep. But I couldn’t. From upstairs there came the faint sound of someone moving about. It wasn’t Tain. But how could I be sure? He seemed to be everywhere else in my life. I thought of Father and wondered when I’d see him again. Would I ever have the chance to plant Edosian orchids with him again? The question was swallowed by the thick darkness of my new home.

  The most horrible images of littered corpses and mass destruction crowded my mind’s eye; my senses filled with the smells . . . the feelings. . . . I knew I couldn’t take much more. Faces of everyone I knew–my parents, the people I cared most about at Bamarren–distorted and frozen in their final agonies, as the sounds of a final cataclysm rose to a shrieking pitch and suffocated all breath and hope.

  And then nothing. In every direction. Surrounded by a deadened void; alone. The silence of the end of days. Nothing resounded; everything had been absorbed beyond grief and sorrow. My breathing began to clutch. The void was shrinking; the dense and darkened silence was closing in. I couldn’t swallow. End it. End it now!

  “That’s enough,” Limor’s voice said, and simultaneously the room returned. He was intently studying my reaction as I struggled to return my breath to normal.

  “You have to raise your threshold.”

  “But I didn’t say anything.” I was too defensive, and we both knew it. He was right; my fear made me identify with the images. I couldn’t maintain the distance to remove myself from the pain. He just looked at me, and I knew I was on the verge. How would I ever survive even a moderately challenging interrogation?

  “We’ll continue to work on it,” was all he said.

  “I’ve . . . never gotten this far before. The third level seems to require certain adjustments. . . .” I knew I had failed–and I didn’t want to let it go.

  “There are ways, Elim,” Limor said as he removed the device from the base of my skull. I rubbed the sensitive area in the back of my neck where the filament had been connected.

  “That’s enough for today.” Limor took the “enhancer” and left the room. I pondered my failure, the first during my orientation training as a junior probe.

  The enhancer is a chip‑size modulator designed to be used for difficult interrogations–a “tool of last resort” Limor called it, which meant that it was used only when standard techniques of sensory destabilization were insufficient. The enhancer is dangerous, because clumsy modulation can unravel a subject to the point of incoherence and insanity, even death. Once attached, it targets the oldest area of the brain, the primal nexus, which contains the master plan of our physical creation and evolution. All recovery from injury or illness depends upon the integrity of this plan. The nexus is also the storehouse for our deepest anxieties regarding death and annihilation. The enhancer attacks the sophisticated nexus defense system with neutrinos that mimic stimuli sent by the new brain requesting information for healing and repair. As the barriers are broken down by the neutrinos, the images of this stored anxiety are released like poison into the new brain and “enhanced” until the whole person is destabilized–or worse. No one knows the fear any one person can live with, and in the hands of a fool or a brute the enhancer is merely a form of torture, rather than a means of intelligence gathering.

  Limor had seen my deepest fear surface; I wondered if it would affect my future with the Order. So by the time I had moved through the various methods of interrogation and assassination, assuming identities and learning codes and complicated technological devices, I was eager to take on an assignment and prove myself in the field. It was with a good deal of relief that I received the order to attend my first operations preparatory meeting.

  7

  Entry:

  All I could think about was Tzenketh, and the image of those walls collapsing in all around me. Reading, or sewing, or moving my display clothing (optimistic about the shop someday opening again), I’d feel the walls slowly moving in. I’d look up–and they were perfectly normal. I was relieved that it was time for lunch, so that I could spend some time away from the shop and these codes. Tzenketh was the rendezvous point where–years before–I was supposed to meet my Bajoran contact. It was only after the explosion went off that I realized I had been betrayed. I don’t know how long I was buried alive in the rubble before I was dug out by my support unit. It was several weeks before I could function again. Ever since then, the image of the collapsing walls would flash in my mind’s eye when I was under stress. I cursed these Cardassian military codes. I knew how desperately the Federation needed them decoded, but every time I worked on them the walls began to move in. And they weren’t even that cleverly done! The codes we created at the Order were far more sophisticated.

  As I walked along the Promenade to the Infirmary, I let go of Tzenketh and wondered why the Doctor had extended an invitation to lunch. In the past I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but it had been so long since we’d had one of our lunches that I felt somewhat apprehensive. Our relationship had changed irrevocably, and it was foolish to pretend that even a simple lunch would be unaffected.

  “Hallo, Garak.” He was waiting at the entrance. “I hope you don’t mind, but I
had something prepared for us and thought we could take lunch in my office.”

  “No–that sounds fine.” I was taken back by the suggestion, since we had never dined in his office before. I followed as he led the way to the cluttered space he usually reserved for private consultations. When I saw that the table was set for three, my system went on full alert.

  “Are we expecting someone else, Doctor?” I asked.

  “Well, uh, yes . . . or rather, Odo was going to try to make it, but he may be held up.” The doctor was almost too casual as he busied himself serving the prepared dishes. “He said we should start without him.” He uncovered my food: tojalin yamoksauce, one of my favorite Cardassian dishes. Now I was certain something was up.

  “Where did you find this, Doctor?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him tojalis a breakfast dish.

  “Oddly enough, the chef at the Klingon restaurant fancies himself an intergalactic gourmet. However, I’m afraid the concept of chips still eludes him,” the doctor said as he held up a long, greasy strip of what he called fried potato.

  “What’s the occasion, Doctor? You didn’t have to go to all this trouble. You’re a busy man.”

  “I just thought it’d be pleasant if we had some privacy today,” he said, avoiding a direct look.

  “Oh. For any particular reason?” I asked as I began to eat.

  “Well, I . . . uh . . . actually was planning to talk about this after lunch.” I could see that the doctor was out of his element. Perhaps he was disconcerted that we had to conduct this lunch without a third party.

  “Talk about what, Doctor?” I put down my utensils and gave him my full attention.

  “Well, I was hoping that Odo would join us.” The Doctor looked toward the door with a look that corroborated my suspicion. He suddenly nodded.

  “Yes, quite right. We should do this before; we’ll digest better.” He suddenly jumped up. “I have some rokassajuice . . . tea?”

  “What is it?” My insistence pulled him back down.

  “You know how important those codes are to us. I don’t have to tell you what that information means.”

  “No one knows better than I,” I said.

  “Of course not. And I respect that for whatever reason you’re . . . unable to continue to break them down for us.”

  “Yes?” I prompted.

  “You see, this is so difficult, Garak. I know what a private person you are, and how you detest people meddling in your affairs. . . .”

  “Ironic for a spy, isn’t it?”

  “No, everyone has a right to their privacy, but . . . circumstances being what they are. . . .”

  “Captain Sisko would like it very much if I could somehow continue.”

  “Yes.” With help, the doctor had finally gotten it out.

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. But tell me, Doctor, how am I to do this?” I asked. “The moment I seethose scrambled characters, my throat tightens, and then when I start working on them. . . .” I shrugged. How could I explain the unexplainable?

  “But you see, perhaps it’s something that I can help you address.”

  “Your holosuite program. The one that allows me to visit the traumas of my childhood.”

  “I hesitate to suggest this, remembering how you reacted the last time . . . but, yes, I feel it could make a difference,” the Doctor gamely admitted.

  “Oh, Doctor,” I sighed. “We’re so different. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to express to you just how different we are.” I pushed my food away, and took a deep breath to calm the rising anxiety. “All of my so‑called childhood traumas are right here in this room with me, at this moment.”

  “Yes, of course they are,” the Doctor readily agreed.

  “But they’re not hidden. They’ve happened, they’ve had their effect, and all of it is incorporated into who I am.”

  “I know this,” the Doctor assured me.

  “No, you don’t. Because you’re operating from a psychological model that is human. Would you use a human model as your guide if you needed to perform a delicate surgical procedure on me?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t.”

  “And you’ve proven that. Not knowing Cardassian biochemistry, you went to the Arawath Colony to get the appropriate data from Tain himself in order to remove the wire from my brain. Why should this be any different?” The question hung in the air. The Doctor had no answer, and I could see by his expression that he was genuinely embarrassed by the situation.

  “Please, Doctor, I understand why you’re asking this. But the stress, the anxiety, the fear a Cardassian experiences is about what hasn’thappened. We’ve already processed the past; it’s what’s in front of us that’s worrisome.”

  “And you don’t think that what’s in front of us has any connection to what’s past?” he asked.

  “Of course it does, but not in the causal manner you’re suggesting. One model does not fit all, however admirable that model may be.” I smiled and gestured to the Doctor; but he wasn’t in the mood for a compliment.

  “I’m not trained in this field, Garak, and I’m not going to send us off on a fool’s errand–but I ask you as a friend to help us. However you can. This information could save countless lives.”

  “Help you by helping myself, you mean.”

  “However you can.”

  “You have my word, Doctor. I will do whatever I possibly can.”

  “I’ve never doubted that, Garak.”

  I nodded, looking at the third setting. “Tell me, Doctor, why did you invite Odo today?”

  “I thought since you were working together on this project. . . .” His voice trailed off. We just looked at each other. “I think I was afraid to do this by myself,” he finally admitted.

  “I appreciate your honesty, Doctor. Please assure the captain that I will pick up more codes from Odo today.”

  “Thank you, Garak.” The doctor seemed enormously relieved. He gestured to our food. “I’m afraid it’s all gone cold. Why don’t we just go to the Replimat after all?”

  “Excellent suggestion,” I eagerly agreed. The room was rapidly becoming much too confining. As we walked back out onto the Promenade, I wondered what it was about my future that was suffocating me. And how could I overcome it? Even as I thought this, I had to force myself to breathe.

  8

  Entry:

  As I walked to the Diplomatic Service building, which was not far from the Hall of Records, I went over my cover information. I was to identify myself as Alardig Ra’orn, the youngest son of Krai, the newly appointed consul to the Cardassian Embassy on Tohvun III where the off‑and‑on Federation‑Cardassian peace talks were on again. I had to be extremely careful (I was warned) with the military personnel who guarded the diplomatic compound. The military had their own security/intelligence apparatus, which did its best to discredit the Obsidian Order whenever possible. The military distrusted the Order and its seemingly autonomous position in the power structure. The fact that the Detapa Council chose the Order rather than the military for its Tohvun undercover operations only exacerbated the rivalry. There were instances of joint operations between the two, but they were rare and only happened when the Council twisted arms.

  “All right, pass through,” the glinn grudgingly allowed when my security code cleared. I smiled my thanks (this was completely ignored), and as I made my way to the appointed conference room I understood why the so‑called rivalry was one‑sided. The military mind doesn’t lend itself to subtle and creative obfuscation.

  The first person I saw when I entered the room was Maladek. He returned my look with a bored expression, and turned back to his comm chip. He was punctual for this meeting. Limor explained that Maladek was my older brother “Begom,” and another member of our cell, Oonal, was “Krai,” my father. As I studied the three of us, we did indeed look like a family.

  The purpose of the peace talks was to determine a settlement of the often violent Cardassian‑Federation border dispute that ce
ntered around several planets, Dorvan V being the most important. During these talks a truce had been declared. The assignment, as far as I was involved, was disappointing. Oonal was the experienced operative, and he was charged with the sole responsibility of working with his contacts on the Federation negotiating side. As probes, Maladek and I were there to give credibility to Oonal’s cover, and beyond that simply to observe and learn.

  “Learn your stories, follow orders, and serve Cardassia,” Limor had admonished the two “brothers.”

  * * *

  Tohvun III is a pleasant if somewhat damp and cold planet on the Federation frontier. It’s mainly an outpost for traders and those tourists interested in trekking the forested slopes of Mandara, an enormous volcano that’s been inactive for two centuries. The Cardassian Embassy compound, a bare‑bones operation, consists of a main administration building and several attached residences, which were built as temporary shelters and over time became permanent.

  Maladek and I were assigned adjoining residences; because of the shoddy construction, each of us could hear everything the other was doing or saying. The circumstances made me self‑conscious, and I tried to live quietly, but Maladek thrashed about as if he was unaware or just didn’t care. Odd behavior even for a novice security operative. His attitude toward me was guarded, but proper; neither one of us talked about anything unrelated to our work–least of all Bamarren. Even with the recognition that had passed between us at the first meeting, I was uncertain if he remembered me and, if he did, whether he knew of my contribution to the outcome of the Competition. This uncertainty kept me off‑balance.