“And we’re beginning to run out of time,” Jeyn said. “Those ships are on their way to Outpost V-4, and we still have no real idea what’s on them. We need to get the Venetans talking again. To us and to the Cardassians. Because, given their current antagonistic stance, my feeling is that should the Cardassians detect any Tzenkethi merchant ships moving toward the Venetan base on their borders, they’re not going to wait to find out whether they’re carrying medical supplies or candy or enough biomimetic gel to kill every Cardassian on Prime. They’re going to scream into Venetan space. And then . . .”
“And then we’re at war,” Crusher said softly. “Again.” And with biogenic weapons. She stood up and paced the room, trying to suppress her revulsion at the thought.
The room fell silent. At last, Jeyn spoke. “We need to get the Cardassians and the Venetans talking again. But how can this be achieved? I can’t see either Rusht or Vitig being willing to talk to Detrek.”
“What about Dygan?” Crusher said. “He’s the link between us all. He’s worked alongside us on the Enterprise, which associates him with us as much as with Detrek, whom he barely knows. Yes, I know we’re not exactly flavor of the month with the Venetans, but at least we haven’t been spying on them.” She raised her eyes upward. “Well, they haven’t discovered any Federation spies here,” she said. “I’m not even going to speculate what might happen if they did. But if they won’t speak to Detrek, they might speak to Dygan.”
Picard said, “And as long as they’re speaking to someone, there’s still a chance that we can find a way through all of this.”
• • •
Dygan arrived at the door of their suite within minutes of receiving the message from the captain. He looked doubtful when Picard explained how they hoped he would be able to help, but he immediately offered his services.
“Of course if you think I can help, Captain, then I’ll most certainly try,” he said. “But I’m not sure a Cardassian face is what the Venetans want to see right now—”
“We have to try, Dygan,” said Picard. “Somehow, we have to keep on talking to each other.” He turned to Crusher. “Beverly, I want you to go with him.”
“Me? Jean-Luc, I think this needs someone more experienced at negotiations—”
“No. If Jeyn or I go, it will appear by sending our front-line negotiators that we are backing down. But sending you—a senior Starfleet officer—will make clear to the Venetans that we are taking this meeting very seriously.” He squeezed her hand quickly. “You’ll be fine. Keep it simple. Remember that you’re there as a diplomat, not as a doctor. All you need to communicate is that we want peace, but we also need proof that Outpost V-4 is not about to become a threat to us.”
Crusher was not entirely convinced that the nuances of Federation diplomatic hierarchy meant much to the Venetans, but it seemed simple enough when he said it. So when she and Dygan arrived at the atrium, she was dismayed to see that Vitig had brought Alizome Vik Tov-A.
“I thought this was to be a private meeting,” Crusher said warily.
“The Tzenkethi are our friends,” Vitig said, sounding exactly like a parent becoming impatient with a willful child. “We have no secrets from them. I would tell Alizome everything that happens here. Why then should she simply not attend the meeting herself?”
Crusher was appalled. Nothing gets past Alizome.
“Besides, her people have been offended by you as much as we have been offended by the Cardassians.”
“You speak truly as ever, my friend Vitig,” Alizome said quietly and graciously.
“But come, Ravel Dygan,” said Vitig. “You wished to speak to me.”
Dygan nervously cleared his throat and stepped forward. He lifted his hand, palm forward, in the traditional Cardassian manner, a friendly and respectful gesture. Vitig, to Crusher’s surprise, responded correctly, pressing her palm against his. She seemed amused by Dygan but not in an unkindly fashion. Again, Crusher was left with the impression of someone very old watching children at play.
“Dygan,” said Vitig, “you find yourself in a difficult position, do you not? You’re caught between friendship to your Starfleet colleagues and loyalties to your homeworld’s representatives. None of us would care to find ourselves in such a predicament. But the way that you have conducted yourself during your time on this world has impressed us greatly. We are prepared to hear what you have to say.”
Dygan blinked. Crusher too was surprised. The Venetans had shown no sign of paying much attention to the junior members of the various deputations. How did they know so much about Dygan? They couldn’t be spying on them, could they?
Crusher shook herself. That was impossible. For the Venetans to engage in such a degree of underhandedness while managing a seemingly genuine display of horror at the thought of Cardassian spies walking among them would imply a degree of psychosis that she didn’t want to contemplate. And Crusher was as sure as she could be that with the Venetans, what you saw was what you got. There would be nothing more behind Vitig’s knowledge of Dygan than the fact that the Venetans paid equal attention to everyone, regardless of title or function. It was to their credit, rather than something to arouse suspicion. But suspicion is too easily aroused at the moment . . .
Dygan again cleared his throat. Vitig gave him an encouraging smile.
“I’ll try not to waste your time, Vitig,” Dygan said. “I’m from a culture that enjoys word games and wordplay, and that likes to leave meaning in the gaps between words, but I don’t think that will go down well here.”
Vitig nodded, and Dygan seemed to gain a little confidence.
“What I want to say is that it seems to me that we’ve misjudged you at every turn, Vitig, and it’s my belief—I’m speaking for myself, you understand,” he said hastily, “not my government—that we’ve represented ourselves in the worst possible light. We’re a people with a troubled past. I’m sure that you know this.” Vitig nodded again. “Not too long ago, we brought ourselves to the brink of destruction, and since then we’ve been learning to do things differently. We’re still learning, and sometimes we make mistakes. But our hearts”—he gave a small smile and tapped his chest—“are in the right place.”
Vitig smiled back at him. “And what about the leader of your mission? Is it your opinion that her heart is in the right place?”
Crusher watched Dygan turn a slightly paler gray. “I’m afraid I don’t know the negotiator very well.”
Vitig’s smile deepened and her eyes were warmed by the slight amusement Crusher had seen before. “Your people chose strangely when they delegated her to speak for them here. They’d have been wiser to choose you.”
“Me?” Dygan looked genuinely startled. “I’m just a glinn—”
Vitig fell back in her chair. “Oh, these titles that you give each other and take upon yourselves! It’s as if you believe in them. Believe that they define you, rather than define a function that you perform. Whatever a ‘glinn’ might be supposed to do,” she said, “Ravel Dygan, I think, speaks truthfully and honestly, and with the desire to do good rather than harm. Yes, your government chose the wrong negotiator.”
She favored Dygan with a full smile. Dygan ducked his head. Crusher, sitting quietly next to him, bit her lip and hoped . . .
“Yet his government makes many such strange choices,” Alizome said suddenly, from her corner. Crusher saw the fur on Vitig’s arms rise ever so slightly.
“What do you mean by that?” she said.
Alizome stepped forward. She moved like liquid, Crusher thought, every step flowing as if her whole body was in motion, and her skin shimmered silvery-blue like moonlight on the water of a lagoon. “I can think of many unfortunate appointments made by the Cardassian government, even in recent years, when, according to Glinn Dygan, his people have been trying to make amends for their former crimes.”
“Such as?” Vitig frowned. “You must be specific, Alizome. Implication and insinuation serve none of us, and do us no cred
it either.”
“Such as the Cardassian ambassador to Earth.”
A pause. Hell, thought Crusher.
“Go on,” Vitig said quietly.
“The Cardassian ambassador to Earth was once a member of the Obsidian Order,” said Alizome. “I know that your convention has kept itself distanced from the affairs of the wider quadrant, Vitig, but I believe that name is familiar to you.”
Vitig rose from her chair. She took a few paces around the atrium, which was quiet and empty this late at night. “Yes,” she said after a while. “Yes, it is. And the Federation has seen fit to welcome such a person as a suitable ambassador to their world. Crusher, do you deny this?”
“No,” Crusher said simply. “I don’t. I can’t. But I would say that everyone deserves a second chance.” That was weak, she thought as she said it, and she saw Alizome’s skin glitter ever so slightly. Amusement, Alizome? Or triumph?
“How do you know that Ambassador Garak was once a member of the Obsidian Order?” asked Crusher, more out of curiosity than in challenge. “That was a very secretive organization, after all.”
Alizome gave her a pitying look. “We know the ambassador of old, Doctor Crusher.”
Vitig turned back but did not return to her chair. “I think that you should leave now,” she said. “I have nothing else to say to you tonight, Beverly Crusher.” She glanced at Dygan. “Ravel Dygan, I hope that you will take no sense of personal failure from how this meeting has ended. But I would advise you to reflect upon whether the people you choose to serve deserve your service. Please,” she said again, “leave now.”
Silently, Crusher and Dygan left the atrium. Dygan looked stunned. “I’m . . . not sure I quite understand what just happened then, Doctor,” he said, when the door to the room closed behind them.
They walked slowly along the corridor. What happened was that we were stitched up, Crusher thought angrily. We skipped in there like a couple of amateurs and Alizome sent us packing. This wouldn’t have happened to Jean-Luc, or Jeyn—or Chen. Why am I here?
“We were outclassed,” she said shortly and, seeing Dygan’s glum expression, she patted his arm. “Not your fault. I wasn’t expecting Alizome to be there.” But, Crusher thought, she should have expected Alizome to be there. It was clear to her that Alizome was the one controlling events, and she, Jeyn, and Picard combined seemed unable to find a way to counter her moves. Tzenkethi plans for Venette had been laid long ago, Crusher suspected. The Federation and its allies had been invited along only to participate in the endgame.
They came to the door of Dygan’s quarters. He hesitated before going inside. “I hope you’ll pass on my sincere apologies to Captain Picard,” he said quietly.
“What? Dygan, you have nothing to apologize for. If anything, I should apologize to you. I wasn’t prepared, and I took you in there with me—”
“Nevertheless,” said Dygan.
“What I’ll tell Captain Picard,” Crusher said, “is that you behaved impeccably, and that you’re a credit to your uniform and your people.”
That seemed to cheer him up a little. “Thank you, Doctor Crusher. Good night.”
He went into his quarters. Crusher hurried back to their suite. Both Jeyn and Picard looked up at her hopefully.
“No good,” she said flatly.
Jeyn’s shoulders slumped. “Then what now? They won’t talk to the Cardassians, they’ll barely talk to us. Who else is there?”
“There’s still someone,” said Picard, “someone with whom you’ve made a particular connection these past few days, Beverly.”
“Of course.” Crusher snapped her fingers. “Ilka!”
• • •
Heldon at last got back in touch. Dax took the message in her ready room. She left Bowers on the bridge. She was increasingly uneasy about having another present and unacknowledged during these encounters with Heldon, as if she was violating some trust. Besides, the whole conversation was being recorded.
“Heldon,” she said. “Can we come and inspect your medical facility again?”
“I am prepared for you and one other—your doctor, perhaps—to come across again, Dax. But I have one condition.”
“Fire ahead,” said Dax with a slight sense of foreboding.
“The Tzenkethi medical team must be present throughout.”
“I’m sorry, Heldon,” Dax replied, “but that’s not acceptable. This is between you and me, between the Venetans and the Federation. I’m not here to deal with the Tzenkethi, and I’m not empowered to deal with the Tzenkethi.” That last wasn’t entirely true, Dax thought guiltily, as she was fairly sure that any action she took that prevented any navithium resin from arriving on Outpost V-4 would eventually be forgiven by her superiors. Any action within reason. I doubt they’d want me running amok shooting every Tzenkethi within range . . . But it was a helpful fiction if she was going to be able to deal with Heldon without the Tzenkethi always nearby. “I don’t have the authority to deal with them.”
“Authority?” said Heldon, baffled. “Aren’t you a citizen of the Federation? Is that not sufficient to give you authority?” She shook her head. “Your customs and your systems are very strange to me, Dax. But if that’s how it has to be, then I must decline. You have to understand that when you show suspicion toward the Tzenkethi, you slight us, their hosts. They are our friends.”
“That might be the case, Heldon, but they are most emphatically not ours.”
And so their conversation ended at an impasse again. Dax checked on the arrival of the Tzenkethi ships. They were a little under ten days away from the border. A little under ten days, or two hundred hours, and counting down.
“Think, Dax,” she muttered to herself. “You have to prove to Heldon that what’s coming on those ships really is the serious threat that we believe it is. So how do you do that?”
First of all, she decided, by going back to her briefing documents and, in particular, the reports from Leishman and Helkara of the scans they had conducted of Outpost V-4. After two hours with her head down (one hundred ninety-eight hours to go), she realized she was coming back again and again to the solvents. The P96 solvents already on the base, which were used to stabilize a variety of compounds including navithium resin. If they had a sample, perhaps they could narrow down which solvent it was, and so which compounds it was going to be used for.
But Heldon wasn’t simply going to hand them over.
Dax stood up, stretched, and rubbed the back of her neck. Then she took a deep breath and opened a comm channel.
“Susan,” she said. “Will you come to my ready room, please?”
• • •
Susan Hyatt, hearing what Dax had in mind, nearly started bouncing off the bulkheads.
“No, Ezri, I won’t tell you that it will be fine. It’s a terrible idea. It would expose Peter Alden to exactly the kinds of triggers that could do him enormous harm. A tired man in a stressful situation, the possibility of capture by Tzenkethi—he should be resting, not running around on undercover missions on a Tzenkethi-held base!”
Guiltily, Dax thought of her conversation with Heldon in which the Venetan woman had said much the same thing.
“Send someone else with Kedair. Send Sam. He’s been desperate to get off the ship—”
“It has to be Alden,” Dax replied. “Only he is even remotely equipped to deal with the Tzenkethi technology in that medical facility. Susan, he’s my friend. I don’t want him to come to any harm—”
“Then don’t put him in harm’s way.”
“But I have to know whether those Tzenkethi ships are bringing navithium resin here. I’ve asked nicely, again and again, and I’m getting nowhere.”
“But there’s no guarantee that getting a sample would even answer that question. It might not tell you that the ships are definitely bringing the resin. It might only tell you perhaps.”
“Even then, it would be a much less qualified ‘perhaps.’ Besides, it will be a bargaining chip. And I n
eed something, because right now I don’t have anything. The Tzenkethi might be days away from putting bioweapons within strike range of Federation space, and there isn’t a damn thing I’ve been able to do about it! Well, now I think I can. They’ve been outmaneuvering us at every step. It’s time we started to outmaneuver them.”
“You’re the captain,” Hyatt said. “But if this comes at the cost of Peter Alden’s sanity, I don’t think you’ll forgive yourself, Ezri.”
• • •
Alden, summoned in his turn to Dax’s ready room, sat and listened to her speak, then leaned back in his chair. “You want me to go back to Outpost V-4,” he said.
“Yes.”
“With Lieutenant Kedair.”
“Yes.”
“In secret.”
“Yes.”
“And acquire from its medical facility a sample of the P96 solvents stored there.”
Dax too leaned back. “You’re sharp as nails tonight, Peter.”
“And this is a request.”
“Yes, and haven’t I asked nicely?”
“Why don’t you just order me over there, Ezri? After all,” he said bitterly, “you all but ordered me to leave.”
“Peter, whatever you think of me right now, you know in your heart that I am your friend and that I’m concerned for you. You went too far earlier, and you know it. You also know that your behavior could have jeopardized this entire mission and taken us some way toward outright hostilities with these people.”
He stared at her for a while, and then he began to laugh, full and very genuine laughter.
“What?” Dax said. “What’s so funny?”
“You’ve got some nerve, that’s what. In one breath you’re asking me to go on a dangerous mission and in the next you’re insisting that you’re concerned for my welfare!”
“Yes, well, captain’s prerogative. Will you go?”
“What? Oh, of course I’ll go. A chance to get one past the Tzenkethi? I’m not going to turn that down.” He rose from his seat. “I should find Kedair. We have a mission to plan.” He stopped by the door. “I won’t let you down, Ezri.”
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