The corona of light was now receding from me. I was returning. This time there was no effort involved; I floated in a gentle current of the soothing balm and didn’t care where it was taking me. The others were there—my fellow travelers, their voices murmuring tonelessly, producing a steady sound that permeated the medium and intensified our connection. Their voices speaking to me. Their faces, serene and loving, illuminating the darkness as they floated by. Everyone I have ever known. Family. Faces from childhood. Bamarren. People I had known briefly. People I have known forever. Loved. Hated. We were all just together now, sharing the same nurturing medium as we traveled along our currents until we gradually separated.
I was alone now. The blackness was complete, with the exception of a pinpoint of light above and behind me. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t lonely. The caressing motion of the medium continued to soothe me. The blackness began to pulse with a soft rhythm. And the voices were still with me. I was being prepared. Thump thump thump. No matter what happened, they said. Thump thump thump. No matter the damage. Thump thump thump. Everything can be repaired. Thump thump thump. Don’t surrender to the appearance. Thump thump thump. Trust the mystery. Thump thump thump! Don’t surrender, they said as they began to fade. Thump! Thump! Thump! Everything can be. . . .
I opened my eyes. I was on the floor. Someone was banging from far away. A bare room. Dark. My vision blurred. . . . I turned my body with great effort. It was so heavy and exhausted, if it hadn’t been for the pain I would have believed that it didn’t belong to me. My eyes began to focus. This was a different room. I made out the outline of someone sprawled on the floor near me. Shouts and further banging coming closer. Where were we? I crawled with difficulty to the other body. Is he still alive? I felt leaden and drugged. The body was face down. I reached out and pulled it over, and the head flopped toward me.
Faces formed and reformed. Each one superimposed on the next in a long line emerging from blackness. Maladek. Merrok. . . . The molecular structure of one giving way to the next. . . . Procal Dukat. Tolan. Floating into focus, receding back into the darkness. I shook my head, trying to stop the flow. The Hebitian mask. My face. I grabbed my “face” and screamed into it. The flow stopped. The molecules rushed together and instantly formed Barkan Lokar’s death mask.
The door burst open and several hands grabbed me.
PART III
“Mister Garak . . . why is it that no one has killed you, yet?”
“My innate charm?”
1
Entry:
When I was first “assigned” to Terok Nor, I thought that the Order and Tain would design my punishment in such a way that I would not be wasted. Why let me live if I couldn’t be used? After all, I reasoned, they needed a representative on this forsaken outpost. Lokar’s ore-processing operation had created a lucrative commercial enterprise on the edge of the quadrant that attracted all types for all reasons. What better place to employ the services of a disgraced but still useful operative?
The military, under the command of Gul Skrain Dukat, had treated the station as its own private fiefdom, but no one complained as long as the mining operation continued to process twenty thousand tonnes of uridium ore each day. And with these high numbers no one was going to object to “excesses” in the treatment of the Bajoran laborers. It was clear that the station’s enormous profits were created by the free labor of a people who had been reduced to mere slaves. It was also clear—as I followed my escort like a sleepwalker, devoid of all feeling, stripped of my past and any hopes for the future—that this was a soul-deadening environment. An ideal match for my benumbed state. As we entered Dukat’s office, I was greeted by his undisguised contempt.
“Elim Garak. How the mighty have fallen. Welcome to Terok Nor.”
“Oh, I try to visit even our humblest outposts, Dukat.”
“This is going to be more than a visit, trust me. You’ll soon wish that the execution had not been commuted,” he said, regarding me like a lower life-form he was considering as a source of food. With his long neck and oversharpened features (his ridges, I’m certain, could cut to the bone) he had the look of a predator waiting for the right moment to make the kill. Engaging this look dispelled my previous lethargy; I knew that he held me responsible for his father’s execution. As the moment extended I could almost taste the noxious combination of his hatred and frustration. Obviously it had been ordered that I was not to be touched, and the prohibition only sharpened his predatory hunger. Dukat broke the look and turned to an underling.
“Take him to his new life.” He dismissed us.
As the underling led me along the filthy Promenade, where Bajoran laborers and their Cardassian overseers played out the daily dramas of slave and master, I wondered how my “new life” would fit into all this. Laborers and overseers were equally baffled by the sight of a disgraced Cardassian, as we passed through the cluttered, makeshift living conditions. I could hardly believe that this was a station run by Cardassians. We stepped over the trash that even now Cardassian guards on the upper Promenade level were raining down on the Bajorans who ate and squatted below. Our racial policies were harsh, but Dukat evidently took them to an extreme that reduced the workers to beasts of slavery. This was truly the dark side of the Occupation, and I moved through it all completely in tune with the misery and the pain and the despair. This world was the perfect extension of my inner self.
At the end of the Promenade I was led down some steps into a dreary workshop littered with articles of clothing, uniforms, and bolts of rotting fabric. Everything was covered with the same patina of oily muck that encrusted the entire Bajoran section.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This is where you will carry out your assignment.” It’s bad enough when a toady assumes the behavior of his superior, but when the superior has the rhetorical grace of a Tarlak monument . . .
“And what is my assignment?”
“This is a tailor’s shop,” he announced.
“That’s keenly observed,” I said. He accepted my remark as a compliment. The type of toady who gives all Cardassians the reputation for having no sense of irony. “But do you want me to clean it, to burn it, to turn it into the Terok Nor information center . . . ?”
“This is where members of the occupation force brought their garments to be mended.” It was a challenge for the boy to get to the point, but I remained silent so as not to confuse him any more than he was. “The station has been without a tailor since the last one—a Bajoran—decided one day that he would no longer mend our garments.”
“I’m sure you gave him a more ennobling position,” I said.
“He was executed,” the toady replied.
“A promotion of sorts,” I muttered. “Certainly in this place.” I could see that he was growing more uncomfortable in my presence. As much as he wanted, he was unable to assume Dukat’s sneering superiority. A natural-born toady. “And I have now been given the privilege to mend the holes in your uniforms.”
He nodded in agreement. “You will be providing a vital service to the Cardassian effort on Terok Nor.”
“A stitch in time, eh?” I smiled at him. I’m sure I must have looked positively demented. He shuffled nervously, mumbling something about quotas and standards and filthy Bajorans. I continued to smile and to calculate the dozen or so ways I could end his miserable life in an instant. Finally he made an awkward exit, leaving me alone in the middle of this pile of rags and filth.
Yes, I thought, this is more than punishment; this is humiliation. I am the first Cardassian slave on Terok Nor. My new life. My place.
Entry:
Cardassians design everything carefully. Nothing is left to improvisation or chance. Everything has a function, and every function serves a purpose that fits into what the Bamarren prefect called the mosaic of the state. Just study the architecture of Terok Nor, for example. The diagonal angularity impels the inhabitants, workers and overseers alike, to move on to their next duty. There
are no ninety degree angles, certainly no enclosed squares to capture one’s thoughts and energy in any kind of meditation. Everything is designed to guide and direct subliminally so that conscious choice is kept at a minimum in our daily lives.
But exile changes all that. You can only be subliminally controlled when there is a rationale, a meaning to your existence. A tailor. On Dukat’s Terok Nor. Is this Enabran Tain’s sense of humor? The punishment that fits the crime? He must be very angry with me indeed, not only to deny me the dignity of a summary execution but to bury me on this death station and render me as useless as one of these filthy rags.
Don’t surrender to the appearances.
I shook my head as I began to sense the stirring of feelings I didn’t want to emerge and slipped the device from a hidden pocket that eluded the fools who’d searched me. I had ignored Mindur Timot’s warning never to tamper with my wire, and had devised a control that allowed me to activate the mechanism myself. I had become quite devoted to the wire’s anesthetic power, and as I stood in my new home I could feel the endorphins rush through my nerve nexus and into and throughout my perceptual body. Suddenly I was standing outside of my body, watching my reactions—and marveling at how much I had aged.
Entry:
The doors opened, and a soldier walked into the shop holding a bundle. I had my head buried in the innards of the computer, where I was rerouting the circuitry in order to connect it to the station terminal, and I only saw his outline. I was at a delicate point and I didn’t want to lose my focus.
“Just put it in the corner with the other uniforms,” I said without looking up. Before I could react, the bundle hit me with force on the side of my head. It was Dukat.
“What is this?” he demanded as he looked around the shop and saw the pile. “Are you mending these garments or collecting them?”
“I will begin the repair process once my workshop is in order,” I replied as I stood up.
“And how much longer will that be?” he asked.
“When I have the tools I need,” I answered. Dukat looked at me with his mean and deadly smile. He knew that I’d been taking my time “cleaning” the shop. The pile of garments waiting for my ministrations was growing bigger every day, and there had been numerous complaints. One soldier walked in and threatened me with bodily harm when I told him that I didn’t know when his uniform would be ready. The truth was that I had neither the expertise nor the will to launch my new career, and when I wasn’t sleeping I was rebuilding the neglected computer that appeared to have been damaged by the Bajoran’s pathetic attempt at sabotage.
“If I wanted a computer engineer, Garak, I would have given you the assignment. I want a tailor. Do you know the difference?” he asked with overdone sarcasm. “Get this operation going in two days or you will become the first Cardassian to work in the ore-processing center,” he warned. “I’m sure the Bajoran workers would enjoy your company.”
“Yes, you’ve certainly won their hearts and minds with your benign administration,” I observed pleasantly.
“Two days, Garak, or you can find out about their hearts and minds yourself. I’m afraid there’s not much call for a gardener on Terok Nor,” he said with disgust. Instead of leaving, Dukat moved to the panel where I was working and picked up one of the disconnected circuits.
“Who gave you permission to do this work?” he asked, inspecting the circuit as if he understood what he was looking at.
“You did.”
“When?” He arched his brows in a manner that told me he’d worked long and hard in front of a mirror.
“When you assigned me to rehabilitate this sad shop. Beside tools, I need instruction and information. Where do you expect me to go? My Bajoran predecessor, I believe, is now with his Prophets.” Dukat snorted, and dropped the circuit on the floor at my feet. His eyes were cold, almost dead.
“Your life means nothing to me. Just as my father’s meant nothing to you.”
“I beg your pardon? Do I know your father?” Dukat made a move to grab me and immediately stopped himself. I was impressed by his self-control; I knew how much energy fueled his hatred.
“No offense,” I went on, further testing his control. “Of course, Procal Dukat was a famous military figure. We all mourned his passing. But I never had the pleasure personally. . . .”
“Two days,” he repeated with deadly emphasis. “Get what you need—clear all purchases through my aide, Hadar—and begin work in two days. There’s a point beyond which you won’t be protected.” He nodded. “You’ll get to that point . . . and I’ll be there, waiting for you.” He turned and strode out of the shop.
Entry:
I have been taught ever since I was a child to believe that every event, every circumstance, every action and reaction in my life is an intertwining thread in my fateline, and that each person’s fateline is just another piece of that carefully designed Cardassian mosaic. In my current circumstances, the more I try to deny the past and the history that has informed me the more it overwhelms me. Even the wire can’t let me forget that this exile has a meaning: otherwise life on this station is even worse than death.
“Silence, exile, and cunning.” An expression which comes from a human someone urged me to read. His writing was too childish for my taste, but the expression always had meaning for me. Silence. Exile. Cunning. After all, we do have to get on with our work, however we can and in whatever circumstances. If mending the garments of our military occupation was the work designed for my survival in this time and place, then it would not be terribly cunning of me to refuse it. No, I decided that I was not going to sacrifice myself to Dukat’s desire for revenge. I would do this work; I would do it so well as to become indispensible to the station . . . and I would survive. I refused to be buried alive in this humiliation.
For the first time since I had arrived on Terok Nor, I felt an energy, an appetite for meeting this challenge, and I began to construct a course of action. Once the computer was up and functioning, I could get all the necessary information and guidance, but I still lacked state-of-the art tools. I quickly discovered that there was only one person on the station who could help me procure what I needed: the Ferengi publican, a Mr. Quark.
I found Quark’s establishment noisy and tiresome, filled with people looking for quick fixes and easy answers. And yet, here I was, looking for a shortcut of my own. I certainly didn’t come for rewarding conversation.
“I’m looking for a Mr. Quark,” I asked a Ferengi barkeep.
“And who’s looking for him?” he replied with unpleasant suspicion.
It turned out to be Quark himself. As I made my proposal, I was somewhat unsettled by the unblinking avarice in his eyes and the metallic assault of his voice. But as we got further into the negotiating details, I found him to be a reasonable man. Quark makes no pretense about his priorities, and woe to the person who enters into negotiations with him who doesn’t have his wits about him. And who doesn’t have a capacity for the drink Quark liberally pours during the haggling. But he delivered, Hadar paid, and I was soon set up with the tools of my new career.
Entry:
I pride myself on being a quick study, but even I am pleased with the progress I’m making in learning the tailoring craft. Indeed, I’m able to use many of the qualities I developed in the Obsidian Order: patience, precision, the ability to calculate how each part fits into the whole pattern. I suppose I should be grateful Enabran didn’t have me assigned to the ore-processing center.
But the best part—which nearly drove me mad at the beginning—is the solitude, the silence in which I work. Although I did my best to use this work to blot out every thing and person from my past, I couldn’t help but recall that initial joy I found in the Mekar Wilderness. For it’s in this silence, as I cut and sew and measure, that I’m relearning how to listen. Not to the prattling of others, certainly not to the fantasies that my memory provokes when I try to rewrite history. But to the deeper voices in myself. What is pain, for ex
ample, but another voice to be listened to? Don’t identify. Keep your distance. But listen! There’s information that can help me find the missing piece to any puzzle; that can save me from this waking nightmare. Because it’s in this silence—as I listen to these voices—that I’m learning how to reinvent myself.
As my tailoring skills increase, so do the interruptions of my solitude by people who throw their garments at me as if their imperfections were my fault. Dukat has spread the word that I am a disgraced traitor, and I have become the receptacle for any ill will that walks into my shop. But I say nothing. These are only more voices that command my attention. I pick up their garments and mend them flawlessly. When they complain that the price is steep (because I’m treated like a slave doesn’t mean I’m going to start undervaluing my work), I just give them the smile—the smile she taught me. It somehow tranquilizes them while I pick through their psyches. Oh, they pay, one way or another. When Quark found out how much I was commanding for a simple alteration he asked me how I was getting away with it. I assured him that I didn’t know what he was talking about . . . and smiled while he poured another glass of kanar.
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE ® Page 29