Picard was appalled. “If they’d established themselves and their agenda, that might in time have put Cardassian membership of the Khitomer Accords into danger.”
“You understand our concerns, Captain,” Detrek said. “And the concern of your president. And so I hope”—she looked at each of them in turn—“that you will forgive the performance that I had to give on Venette. I wanted them in an uproar, Captain. I wanted these conspirators terrified. I wanted them to make mistakes.”
“A little warning might have been good,” said Jeyn.
“Or might have been enough to make Alizome more cautious,” Detrek said. “Alizome did not think she could lose. But, if I understand your Earth legends correctly, hubris is often followed in short order by nemesis.”
“Pride comes before a fall,” said Crusher. “So your agent? What was this crucial evidence she had? How is it going to help? I assume this was why the Aventine was dashing to the border.”
“You’re correct, Doctor. What our agent saw should be enough to undermine Venetan confidence in the Tzenkethi.”
“How?” said Crusher. “What does it matter to the Venetans if the Tzenkethi have been trying to influence Cardassian foreign policy? Isn’t that simply your own concern? My apologies, Negotiator, I’m just trying to understand.”
“No, it’s a good question, Doctor.” Detrek smiled around at the three of them. “I think you’re going to like my answer. The Tzenkethi, you see, couldn’t help taking out a little extra insurance policy. It wasn’t enough simply to persuade our staff to their side. They tried to blackmail them. Imagine the meeting: ‘So often we’ve met! So many good times together! What do you think your superiors will think of that?’ That’s our winning move. That’s what our agent saw—even if she didn’t know what she was seeing.”
“Ha!” said Picard, with barely suppressed delight. “One scheme too many. Game, set, and match!”
“Sometimes you can prepare too carefully,” Detrek said with a sly smile. “Blackmail, Doctor. I believe that Rusht will be very interested to hear about that.”
• • •
But it was Vitig who spoke to them. Rusht, she told them, was too ill to participate further in discussions.
“So you see, Vitig,” Picard said, “the court of the Autarch has been trying to undermine Cardassian foreign policy, but not through gestures of friendship or even through solid debate. Covertly. Suborning staff at the Cardassian embassy on Tzenketh, attempting to place them at the heart of the Cardassian government, and then blackmailing them to ensure their compliance.”
The Venetan woman considered the evidence that had been presented. “This is troubling information,” she said. “This is not the Venetan way.”
“We don’t ask you to like us, Vitig,” Picard said frankly. “You have no reason after all that has happened between us. But we ask you to consider whether we are better or worse than your friends. We ask you to consider whether Tzenkethi untrustworthiness might not also extend to what they say about those ships that are still en route here.”
“I shall speak to Alizome,” Vitig said. “I shall ask for explanations.” She cut the comm.
“That’s it,” said Crusher. “We’ve got her. Explanations? Alizome can’t give any. None that will satisfy the Venetans.”
FROM:
Ementar Vik Tov-A, senior designated speaker, Active Affairs, Department of the Outside
TO:
Civilian Freighter Inzitran, flagship, Merchant Fleet 9
Stop.
“They’ve stopped,” confirmed Worf. “They are turning back.”
An audible sigh of relief passed around the bridge of the Enterprise.
“Thank you, Commander Worf.” Picard relaxed and sat back in his chair. “Well, it seems there’s to be no war.”
“Not today,” said Worf.
• • •
Dax was pleasantly surprised to see the sweet silver face on the viewscreen in her ready room.
“Heldon! How can I help you?”
“I hope that I may be able to help you , Dax. We did some tests here, during the blockade. Took another look at that explosive device we found.”
Dax’s stomach sank. “Oh, yes?”
“I think you should know that it’s possible—only possible, mind you—that the bomb was of Tzenkethi origin.”
“What?” Dax fell back into her chair.
“Although I’m not sure exactly how to interpret this information. Your people could have intended me to discover this in the long run.” She gave a wry smile. “Do you see, Dax? I’m learning. I’m starting to think your way.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“So am I.” Heldon sighed. “But the doubt is there now. Was it your people, in desperation, or with some scheme in mind? Or was it our Tzenkethi guests, with ample opportunity and good reason to want to make us doubt you? I imagine I’ll never know.”
“I’ll never know either.”
“Life is uncertain, Dax. But we can choose how to live with that uncertainty.” She leaned forward to cut off the comm. “My best wishes to you. I hope you pass this way again in more certain times. I hope we have the opportunity to meet in friendship.”
• • •
She was glad that Inzegil Ter Mak-B was the one to take her. She had liked this young woman with the authority and sense of certainty she carried with her. She had been comforted by her. She trusted her. The young enforcer strode toward her, taking in the scene—the body sprawled on the ground, the Ret kneeling before her—and ordered, “Speak. Speak quickly. You have permission not to address me as your Ap-Rej.”
“He came in the middle of the night,” Efheny whispered, gesturing down toward Hertome. “He threatened us. He made us come with him, all this way. We were so afraid!” She looked around the bare hilltop and shivered. “It’s so lonely out here!”
The other enforcer, not Inzegil, said sharply, “Both of you? Where’s the other one?”
“Let her explain in her own time,” Inzegil said. She knelt in front of Efheny. She was grave and kind. “Carry on, Ret Mayazan. Tell me what happened.”
“We got here,” Efheny said. “Then Cory, Corazame . . . Oh, I don’t understand what happened to her! She changed. She turned on the Ap-Rej and she killed him. It was so horrible. And then . . . Please, forgive me, but this is true. In the Autarch’s name, this is true. She disappeared, Ap-Rej! Her body rippled, and she disappeared.” She looked unblinkingly into Inzegil’s eyes, willing her to believe her words. “How can that happen? How can that happen?”
“Be quiet, Ret Mayazan,” Inzegil said gently. “Do not distress yourself.” Slowly, Inzegil helped her stand. “You have been brave. Now you are safe again.” Her voice was so very kind. “You must not trouble yourself further,” she said. “You did all that could be done by one like you. My colleague and I will take your story to our superiors, and they will judge what should be done.”
She put her arm around Efheny’s shoulder, guiding her away from the body and down the hill. Her colleague gripped Efheny’s arm. “Inzegil’s right,” he said, and his voice was kind now too, much kinder than before. “You need not concern yourself with these matters anymore.”
“We are going to take you back to the boat,” Inzegil said in a clear voice, using plain words. “After that, we will take you back to the city. You can complete your restorative leave there. We will find you a peaceful place where you can rest for a while longer. You have earned it. You have been very brave.”
Late that night, a small boat arrived to take Neta Efheny away. Inzegil and the other enforcer boarded with her. They led her to a small cabin at the back and sat on either side of her. Their silver glow filled the space.
Efheny sat between them, her hands folded quietly on her lap. She knew she was not going back to the city. A Ret Ata-E could not be allowed to continue to know about other species and other worlds. She was not going to continue her restoration, whatever her kindly captors said. She was g
oing for reconditioning. For how long? She did not know. How long before you forget everything you have once known? How long before you are taught not to think? She hoped it would not be very long. Not because she feared the process, to which she would willingly surrender herself, but because when it was done, they would send her back, back to her life as a Ret Ata-E, back into the unthinking bliss she craved. Neta Efheny’s old life would be over. She would be far, far away from the trials and uncertainties that were tightening their grip upon the quadrant. She would be free to live among her beloved Tzenkethi, and she would never have to worry about anything again.
Beyond the window of the little boat, the sun set and the moons rose over the lagoon. Efheny shifted forward in her seat, and her two guards laid gentle, restraining hands upon her. The shuttle shot out into the open expanse of water. Inzegil Ter Mak-B reached out to draw a cover across the window, but before she did, the person who had been Neta Efheny lifted up her eyes and caught a shimmer on one moon of the luminous outline of the Autarch’s palace, pristine and unreachable, high above a world that she would never now leave. She twitched her hand to show her gratitude. The blind closed. Mayazan Ret Ata-E shut her eyes and listened to the low hum of the boat cutting inexorably through the water.
“Is she asleep yet?” Inzegil Ter Mak-B said to the other enforcer. She had switched to her own dialect, a Mak variant of Tzikaa!n that Neta Efheny had studied in depth before taking up her posting and could speak fluently.
“She should be. I doubled the dose.”
“Little fool.” Inzegil’s voice was full of pity, as one would have for a child who has found itself caught up in a situation beyond its understanding. “They never learn, do they? Never stop thinking they’re somehow special.” Her grip upon her charge’s arm softened: still firm, but protective. “Well, I guess you can’t blame them. What a drab little life.”
“What? Kept safe and warm and happy? Not a care in the world? They should be grateful!”
“So you’d swap with this one, Art? Swap life as a Mak for life as an Ata?” Inzegil sounded amused. “It could be arranged, you know. A little reconditioning and you’d be a whole new person.”
The other enforcer chuckled. “Not my purpose, Inzegil. Not my purpose.”
The Ret Mayazan stopped listening. Surely this was not for her to hear. Instead, she filled her head with thoughts of how tired she felt and how she would soon be at peace. She was going for reconditioning. She was going to be remade. And when this one was fit for use once more, they would let her return to her station, to her tasks and the custody of Karenzen. Soon, she would kneel again beside her workmates, and bow her head, and sing with them the songs, soothing as lullabies. Soon she would be free to sing with them forever. And their Autarch, their most exalted and beloved Rej, would look down upon his servants and smile.
• • •
Dax oversaw the collection of a large supply of emollients from Starbase 261 and then turned the Aventine back toward Outpost V-4. Will they ever even be used? Dax wondered. Will we ever know whether this whole business was bluff after bluff? Still, the emollients had to be delivered. Nobody was going to lose face.
The door to her ready room chimed and, on her instruction, Peter Alden entered, sitting when she gestured toward a chair.
“How’s the Tzenkethi woman?”
“So-so.” He jiggled his hand up and down. “Still very frightened. She didn’t know aliens existed until today. Can you believe that? Most people make first contact only with a single species. Not poor Corazame. A Cardassian, a Takaran, a human . . . I think Spon was the real shock, though.”
“Is Nekelen still insisting that she go back with him to Cardassia?”
“I think I’ve talked him out of that. Mostly Cory’s doing. She won’t speak to him, except through me. I persuaded him she might enter a catatonic state without me, in which case they’ll never get the full story about their agent. I’ve promised to share whatever information I learn.” He looked past Dax, at the bulkhead just behind her. “My superiors are very pleased about that, of course. They think in time she’ll be a valuable asset.”
“After all she’s been through? Peter, we couldn’t use her like that!”
“Well, we don’t know yet what she’s been through. She might be a perfectly happy Tzenkethi E grade who has somehow found herself mixed up in a very confusing scenario and is eager to get back home as soon as possible.”
“Would Starfleet Intelligence let her go back?”
He looked at Dax, rather sadly. “When I remind Cory of what’s likely to be waiting for her if she does go back, I think she’ll choose to remain an alien in an alien land. But she’s got some tough times ahead. They’re damaged, the Ret Ata-Es, in particular ways. Damaged by their conditioning and the rules that they have to obey. They’re taught to be helpless, to suspend judgment and let others decide—one of the worst things that can be done to anyone.” He sighed. “Who knows how she’ll cope out here? But perhaps, with care, she’ll learn. Given time, and space, she might even flourish. If I can get her to stop thanking me for everything.”
“What about the agent that died on Tzenketh? Did you know him?”
“Yes, I knew him well. Poor Alex. No partner or children, thank goodness.”
“And what about the rest of the network operating on Tzenketh? What’s the news on them?”
“A lot of arrests. We’ve arrested a lot of theirs in response. There’ll be an exchange at some point. Not soon. Poor sods.” A frown crossed his face. “Poor Alex. You know, I’m not so sure he was in danger of arrest. Tzenkethi counterintelligence isn’t as good as it thinks it is.” He gave Dax a narrow look. “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget I said that.”
“Of course. But . . . if you’re in the mood for confidences—”
“Oh, dear. Here it comes.”
“The bomb, Peter.”
“Ezri, do you really think I could have done that?”
“I’m going to take a leaf out of the Venetan book here and be completely honest with you. I don’t know. I don’t know whether or not you could—”
“Ezri,” he chided her softly.
“Peter, you’re a spy! You’re trained to do that kind of thing. You’re trained to look at a particular situation, and weigh the odds, and decide whether the ends justify the means. That’s your function. So don’t pretend to me that it’s something you couldn’t do.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’ve changed. That once upon a time I was somebody you could trust. But you can trust me. You can trust me to have the Federation’s interests at heart.”
“You do know that hearing you say that doesn’t help?”
“No?”
“It just makes me more afraid of you. Makes me even more afraid of what you might be able to justify to yourself.”
“And you understand, don’t you, Ezri, that we’re living in dangerous times? The days are gone when we could look benignly out across the universe and explore it in peace. There are people out there that hold us in contempt, whole systems of worlds that fear us and hate us because of what we are and what we stand for. They might even fear us enough to want to destroy us. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“For Alex Gardner’s sake?”
“That’s one reason, but it’s not the only one. What we have is good, Ezri, and it’s worth fighting for.”
“But isn’t it always the same, Peter? We say these things, and then what we do corrodes the very values we claim we’re trying to uphold.”
He smiled enigmatically. “You might say that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Dax left it. She wouldn’t get any more answers. She would never know who had planted the bomb on Outpost V-4.
She stood up and went to look through the port at the myriad stars. What was Corazame Ret Ata-E making of such a view?
“You know,” Dax said, “I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like. To be confronted with a universe
so vast . . . It reminds you of why we are here.” She looked at her old, changed friend. “At least, I hope so.”
• • •
The admiral was on the line. Crusher eased out of her seat and came to stand behind her husband.
“I assume,” Picard said, “from the involvement of the Aventine in extracting the Cardassian agent, that that was your priority even before the crisis began.”
“Yes. I’m sorry about that, Jean-Luc. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. But the alliance with Cardassia had to come first. The Andorian secession’s been a terrible blow to our status and prestige. If anti-Federation sentiment—or even plain ambivalence toward us—takes hold on Cardassia, we run the risk of seeing much less friendly people in charge there than the current administration.”
“And we can’t afford to lose such an ally?”
“Oh, it’s more than that. I want that alliance set in stone. I want people thinking about Federation and Cardassian ties as a special relationship. So natural that hardly anyone remembers we were once at war. I want war with Cardassia to seem like an aberration, something that could have happened only in fiction.”
“Close friendship is a good thing, Admiral,” Picard said. “But, as the past few weeks have proved, that surely gives the Cardassians a great deal of bargaining power over us—”
“I think it’s a good deal, Jean-Luc. I’ll take it.”
“What about the three Venetan bases?” Crusher said. “Will there be a Tzenkethi presence there?”
“There will,” said Akaar, “but there’ll also be observers from the nearest Khitomer powers present.”
“The Venetans agreed to that?” Crusher asked in surprise.
“The Venetans are lucky their civilization is still intact. They’ll accept what we and the Tzenkethi tell them to accept.”
“Not quite in the spirit of self-determination,” Crusher said.
“If the Venetans didn’t want to play ball in the galactic playground, Doctor, they should have stayed in their own backyard. They put themselves in the firing line. Now they have to live with that. Sad, but true.”
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