“If you want a counselor,” said Fereny, “you’ll need to get in touch with Starfleet. You ready to do that yet, Ari?”
She was not, and therefore the pair would have to remain uncounseled a while longer. Nonetheless, they did not need to remain so close to the cooling corpse of a Starfleet officer who had, by the look of things, most certainly been whacked several times around the head and shot in the back for good measure.
“Someone put them in the skimmer and give them a padd to play with,” she said. “And get their parents’ names.”
“I’m not telling you any names,” said the girl firmly. “My dad’ll kill me if he finds out I’ve been down here—”
“We’ve already established your dad is an idiot,” said Mhevet. “So get in that skimmer with my nice friend Fereny, and don’t let me hear another squeak from you.” She looked across at the other girl, still sitting on the floor and trembling, and said to Fereny in a low voice, “Get the pair of them back to HQ and rustle up some parents as soon as possible, please.”
Fereny nodded. Putting his arm around the little girl, he tried to maneuver her away from the barrier and in the direction of the skimmer. The kid dug in her heels. She grabbed hold of a nearby strut and hung on for dear life. One of the constables who had been minding her friend walked over, picked her up, and tucked her under his arm. “Consider it done, ma’am.”
“Thanks,” said Mhevet, and turned her attention back to the corpse. Behind her, she heard the kid yell, “You’ll never take me alive!” before the constable bundled her into the skimmer.
With some semblance of order now restored, Mhevet nodded to the forensic team. Again, the covering was taken off, and one of the officers rolled the body over. She groaned at the sight of the face: the ridge across the nose and the long earring.
Marvelous, Mhevet thought. That’s all we need.
Two
My dear Doctor,
I am home.
I will never tire of writing those words, and I hope you can continue to indulge me each time that I write them.
I am home.
Autumn is coming to our capital. Only last week one would not have been able to walk about in the midday sun and would keep to the shadows, while the dust rolling in from the plain would be a permanent plague. Now the heat is bearable throughout the day, and in the evening people must go long-sleeved. The rain comes sometimes—a few showers here and there, the storms will not come until autumn proper—but enough to clear the air now and then so that one might on occasion breathe freely. Autumn proper will bring respite from the harshness of our seasons—but only briefly. In a few weeks’ time the first cold wind will come down from the mountains, and the city will begin the long freeze. Spring and autumn are short here. We exist, in the main, in the glare of summer or the bite of winter.
As ever, on returning to my city after an absence, I am conscious of all that has changed. And although the ghost of the place that this once was still lingers, I see more new buildings lifted, more new homes, more tramlines connecting the outer districts. I can see the end of the bad times and the promise of better times. But I still see poverty, alas; and here and there I catch glimpses of suffering—and its bedfellow, despair. For all the growth and renewal, much about my home has not changed. We must watch for this. It may threaten us if we allow it to take root, for disparity causes envy, and envy causes hate. It is not enough for only some of us to prosper. We all came through the fire. And I have seen much of your world now, and I desire some of that peace and prosperity for all my people.
If you take, as I believe you do, a passing interest in our politics, you will know that very soon elections will open for the office of castellan. We all know that Rakena Garan will stand again as the most progressive candidate, and the friendliest toward our alliance. She has enjoyed an unprecedented run of popular support, and there is no candidate among her coalition that commands the respect she does. But now that I am home, and can watch the newscasts and read the broadsheets firsthand, I cannot help thinking that there is more than a rumble of discontent being sounded about our castellan. Perhaps it is simply that familiarity breeds if not contempt, then certainly displeasure—and our castellan is the subject of the disappointment that any politician earns after a while in the public eye.
But you know me—I always imagine the worst, because the worst has happened to Cardassia. I see a new face on the political scene, Evek Temet, and a new party, Cardassia First, arising from the ruin of the old Directorate. Certainly they speak smoothly, sounding all the right notes about free speech and democracy—but when I listen closely, I’m sure that right on the edge of my hearing, like the high-pitched whistle that one uses to train a riding hound, I catch some notes that trouble me. Let us hope this is not some kind of signal. Let us hope this does not mean trouble for our castellan, and that the visit from your president will boost support for her. The alternatives could alarm me, should I let them.
Coming home is, therefore, as ever, bittersweet—because I cannot forget what has been lost, and I cannot stop myself hoping for more, and I cannot help fearing that we are not yet free from the past.
I still hope too that one day you visit Cardassia Prime, Julian. Come in the spring, or in the autumn, when my home is at its most forgiving. You will be welcomed here by:
Your friend,
Elim Garak
* * *
“Bajoran?”
Guessing that her direct superior, Reta Kalanis, was not going to like the news she was bringing, Arati Mhevet had stopped on the way back to HQ to collect some ikri buns as a peace offering. She’d stopped too at a small eatery near the Starfleet compound that served its homesick officers food and drink from home. Kalanis and Mhevet, like many Cardassians since the Federation had arrived, had acquired a taste for coffee. The achingly long hours both had by necessity worked directly after the war, trying to set up a functioning police force in a post-apocalyptic city, had been enough to turn a taste into a habit.
For now the buns sat forgotten in their box and the coffee cooled in the cups.
“I’m afraid so,” said Mhevet.
“A Bajoran Starfleet officer?”
“A lieutenant, to be precise.”
“In the Munda’ar sector?”
Mhevet held up her hands. “I wish I could make this go away, Reta, but it won’t. His name is Aleyni Cam, and he was part of the Civilian Outreach Program at HARF.”
“Civilian Outreach?”
“You know the kind of thing. Help set up schools. Smile at children so that they don’t think Starfleet officers are monsters.”
Turning her attention to the buns, Kalanis ate one slowly and meticulously, with small, precise bites. She was a steady woman who did not let much rattle her. She made decisions calmly and then lived with the consequences.
“Well, then,” she said. “A dead Bajoran Starfleet officer it is.” She picked up another bun, demolishing that one in exactly the same way, biting around the outside before finishing up the center in two quick bites. She dusted the icing sugar off her desk and wiped clean sticky fingers. Picking up her coffee, she wrinkled her nose. “Cold,” she said.
Mhevet reached for an ikri bun of her own, licking the sugar from the top and biting straight into the fruit at the center. “I had to go past the Starfleet compound to get it,” she said. “For some reason they’re not serving it in the canteen anymore.”
“No?” Kalanis raised an eye-ridge. “How unhelpful.”
Mhevet agreed. Almost everyone on Cardassia Prime was used to human food and drinks now. Would it all disappear once Starfleet left? She didn’t want to have to ship this stuff in.
Kalanis put aside her misgivings about the coffee and drank it nonetheless. “I’m going to have to ask you to do something you’re not going to like, Ari.”
Mhevet sighed. She had seen this coming. Someone was going to have to head the murder investigation, and given the potential sensitivities that might arise with the Federatio
n president’s visit, she feared it was going to be her.
Kalanis and Mhevet went back years. Mhevet had served under Kalanis at the very start of her career, during the reforms of the police under Meya Rejal’s ill-fated civilian administration. She’d been inspired by Kalanis’s firm refusal to allow the politicians to use the constabularies to suppress unrest. Both had watched with horror when Rejal finally asked Skrain Dukat to use the military instead. Kalanis had stayed after, but it had been too much for Mhevet, and she had quit. Kalanis had never blamed her for that and they’d stayed in touch. After Rejal’s fall— when the Dominion, by Dukat’s invitation, occupied Cardassia—Kalanis, like many senior Cardassian police, was sidelined in favor of Vorta supervisors brought in to run the police. Mhevet became her eyes on the ground. She’d brought Kalanis advance warning of the Jem’Hadar massacre, and they’d both defended the people of their city when the death squads finally went on the march.
Later, after the war, when Cardassia was in chaos, Kalanis asked Mhevet to come back, to help her in the creation of the new constabulary. This was the time that had cemented their friendship, working together to satisfy the Allies that they were free of the kind of extremists that had been willing to carry out Dukat’s orders and flourished under the Vorta. Under Kalanis’s guidance, and with Mhevet’s loyal support, this city’s constabularies had been rebuilt from the ground up.
Mhevet didn’t like to dwell much on this time. It had been tough: removing people whose loyalties were uncertain, recruiting people whose reputations were unblemished. By necessity they’d worked closely with the personnel of the Allied reconstruction forces, leaving Mhevet with many friends at Allied headquarters, HARF, and a reputation for being Federation-friendly. These days that reputation was becoming something of a double-edged sword. Being known to be pro-Federation didn’t sit well with those of her colleagues who were starting to tire of Federation overseers. It also meant that sometimes Mhevet got stuck with sensitive investigations, particularly if there might be tensions between Starfleet personnel and the Cardassians whose reconstruction they were overseeing. There had been many such cases over the years. And now there was this one.
But Mhevet had other work on her mind. “Reta, this isn’t a great time to move me to something new. I’ve got someone embedded in North Torr right now, and we’re building up a clear picture of the extremists operating there. We’ve got to press on with this—they’re getting out of control. Some people are too scared to walk around North Torr these days. They had Cemet in flames last week.”
“I know how hard you’ve been working in North Torr. I know how much it means to you to get these people, but I also know that it’s going to be a long, slow process. In the meantime, we have a dead Starfleet officer and frankly, Ari, you’re the one person I trust in this department to investigate this murder properly. Tell me, what do you think is behind it?”
“First instincts? Racially motivated, surely. All the anti-Federation sentiment that’s being stirred up these days, a Bajoran officer is an obvious target.”
“I agree entirely. And so you see already that putting you on this case isn’t really taking you off your current one at all. You’re investigating extremist activity in North Torr. All I’m asking you to do is come to them from a different angle. If they’re guilty of this, you’ll connect them to it.” She lowered her voice. “If you can stick something on those bastards from Cardassia First while you’re at it, you’ll have my undying gratitude.”
Mhevet looked back over her shoulder, making sure the door was shut. She lowered her voice nonetheless. Directive 964 of the charter of the reconstituted Cardassian constabularies stated: Political affinity has no place in the work of the reconstituted constabularies. Political discussion is not appropriate within constabulary buildings or between constabulary members. The idea had been to prevent partisan disputes dividing the organization as they had done in the past.
“The problem is,” said Mhevet, “I’m not sure who to trust to look after what’s happening in Torr. You know there are CF sympathizers in the department?”
“Unfortunately, Ari, that’s their democratic right, however much it shows them up to be idiots of the first order. If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to ask Istek to take over the investigation in North Torr.”
“Istek?” It wasn’t that Mhevet didn’t like the man, and she knew that he shared her dislike of the nationalists in North Torr, and suspected them of much more than the usual troublemaking. But while there was no doubting his good intentions, he was not blessed with much in the way of subtlety. Mhevet could see months of painstaking work being ruined.
“I’ll keep an eye on him, Ari. But this murder case is important. I can’t afford any mistakes.”
Reluctantly, and with a fair few misgivings, Mhevet agreed.
“Thank you,” Kalanis said. “All right, off you go. I’ve got to tell the people at the top. We’ve got the Starfleet flagship here already and the president herself due to arrive soon to sign this agreement. Imagine how well it’s going to go down with the castellan’s staff when I tell them someone’s going around killing Starfleet officers.”
“Only one, Reta.”
Kalanis claimed the last bun. “So far.”
* * *
Afternoon settled upon the Cardassian capital. The red sun was hidden by gray dust. In the private office of the Cardassian ambassador to the Federation, the lamps had been lit since lunchtime. The ambassador’s secretary knew how her superior preferred things slightly brighter than most, as if all that time spent amongst humans had made his eyes adapt.
Shadows quietly lengthened across the room. Everything was still. Elim Garak, sitting at his desk, listened to the quiet and was at peace. His desk was, as ever by this point in the day, fastidiously neat. To his left a pile of padds—contents thoroughly read, digested, and responded to—sat in a tidy stack. To his right, a cup of red leaf tea gently cooled. Before him was a flat, square parcel, still wrapped in packaging from the long journey from Earth. Garak’s hands rested protectively upon the parcel. He had two more calls today, after which he would open the parcel and carry out the usual ritual. Then he could go home and see how his garden had fared in the time he had been away.
The comm on his desk chimed.
“Put him through, Akret,” Garak said to his chief aide.
But Akret herself came on the line. “I’m sorry, sir, but Director Crell’s office says that he regretfully must postpone your call.”
“Postpone?” Garak drummed his fingertips against his desk. Prynok Crell was the current head of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau, and Garak had numerous questions to ask him in advance of the arrival of Bacco and her team. This call had been arranged for more than a week. “Did he give any reason why?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. He said he would get back to you as soon as he could. He said he was sure you understood how busy he must be in the run-up to Bacco’s visit.”
“Well, yes, that was rather by way of being the point of the conversation!” Garak tidied up the pile of padds, which now seemed slightly in disarray. “I suppose I’ll have to wait for our diaries to be in alignment once again. Perhaps you could reopen negotiations with Crell’s office before you go, Akret.”
“Consider it done, sir.”
Garak cut the comm. This was tremendously frustrating. As well as the arrangements for the upcoming presidential visit, he also wanted to discuss the possibility of increasing his own security. Some of the anti-Federation noises he’d been hearing since his arrival home had alarmed him rather more than he’d indicated in his letter to the doctor. Not that there was anything directed toward him specifically—the castellan was the chief target—but Garak was long past the days of taking risks with his own safety. Crell, however, while not openly hostile, was not the friendliest of colleagues. Whenever Garak spoke to the man, there was, beneath the conversation, the dislike that many in the CIB held for their predecessors in the Obsidian Order. An
d then there was the question of territoriality. Keep out, Crell seemed to be saying whenever Garak appeared to be coming too close. This isn’t your business. He wasn’t the only high-ranking official on Cardassia that did this.
With a little time now on his hands, and feeling a need to be soothed, Garak turned his attention to the parcel in front of him on the desk. Slowly, with great care, Garak began to remove the packaging. Eventually, the contents were revealed. He raised it in front of him at arm’s length to admire it: an abstract painting, combining elements of Cardassian and Bajoran design, created by a young woman at the start of a promising career. In the bottom left-hand corner, a single initial acted as the artist’s signature: Z. Tora Ziyal had painted this. It was the only relic of her that Garak possessed, and it traveled with him between Earth and Cardassia Prime every time he made the journey.
With a sigh, Garak stood up from his chair and, carrying the painting carefully between both hands, went over to the wall opposite his desk. There, in a little alcove, stood a small table upon which, at his instruction, there was a vase of freshly cut perek flowers, scarlet bright. Leaning over the table, Garak hung the painting on the wall. Sitting at his desk, he would be able to look up and see it, and take courage from it. He stood for a while studying it. Focusing on the detail, he picked out delicate meya lilies, and mekla, and long winding elta, and copper ithian leaves, narrow and elegant. There were Edosian orchids too, for him, and from Bajor there were lilacs for Colonel Kira, and leaves from the moba tree, and spiny twists of basil. When Garak moved his head back to capture the whole, the intricate pattern of flowers and leaves swirled and intertwined.
“You’re remembered,” he said to her, as he did every time he performed this quiet ceremony. He often talked to Ziyal. “As long as I live, you’ll be remembered.”
Star Trek: Fall 02: The Crimson Shadow Page 3