STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change

by Marco Palmieri, Editor

  “Yes, we do!” cried a voice.

  “Alright,” I answered the voice. “But let me ask you a serious question, my fellow long-suffering Cardassian; have you thought about what this world is going to look like if you do strike the last blow?”

  Complete silence. Stillness. They stood looking at me like stunned animals. Suddenly I hated them. I hated us all. I hated what we had become. The empathy, the connective tissue between us had rotted away along with any lingering desire for reconciliation. The best of us had already been sacrificed—the sooner the end came for the rest of us, the better.

  “Think about it. It’s very simple. Whichever one of you does strike that last blow, imagine the satisfaction as you stand all alone in a wasteland of dead bodies. The cruelty and barbarity and madness of our civilization devolves on you. And at that point, all I can wish for you is that you have enough strength and live long enough so you can bury the rest of us ... that is, if there’s even a shred of decency left in you.”

  Behind me I heard Dr. Parmak murmur, “Elim.” Indeed, this was not the speech I had imagined giving when Dr. Bashir and I had our reunion in the Vinculum. This was not the “calling” I had heard in Kel’s words to me. Perhaps it was exhaustion ... or some suicidal desire ... but what I was facing on this rubbled dais was a reality that defied all political idealism, and that had finally driven me mad. Perhaps my calling was to preside over the final death rattle of our civilization.

  The crowd, like some great organism, began to respond, first in a rolling murmur as each faction calculated what my words meant to them. Only the hooded people appeared not to react. Instantly the murmur became a roar of competing opinions and passion. There was a slight surge forward. Some truly wanted a dialogue, to follow through on the promise of a reconciliation. Many of these people actually were in agreement with my sentiments. Unfortunately, they had to deal with the outrage of the Directorate reactionaries who raised their protest to a howl and began to chant, “Death to Garak! Death to the traitors!” The traitors, of course, being the Reunion Project.

  The surge of the crowd became stronger as it was pushed from behind. Our undermanned line of defense was losing the battle of keeping them from the dais. Just before Parmak grabbed me, I noticed that the hooded people had disappeared. Whoever they were, they had suffered enough.

  Parmak had devised a contingency plan in case the rally ended badly. The reason we had located the dais where we did was because it was accessible to an old Obsidian Order underground passage. The others held the crowd back just long enough for the two of us to make our way behind the dais and disappear around a corner where a wall that was once part of the Assembly Building remained miraculously intact. We opened a ventilation grille large enough for us to slip through. The grille closed behind us and we opened a hatch on an exposed section of the ground floor and scrambled down a ladder built into the side of a hole just large enough for my body. The hatch lock clicked shut above us and we climbed down in total darkness. Parmak preceded me and opened the door to the familiar underground passageway that connected several clandestine escape routes to what remained of the Obsidian Order labyrinth. Much of it was intact because Enabran Tain, the former head of the once-omnipotent internal security organization, had reinforced the underground structure to withstand severe attack.

  “What was that all about, Elim?” Because of his facial disfigurement and the voice control he always exercised, it was difficult to discern Pythas Lok’s attitude. He was sitting at Tain’s old desk, and Limor Prang, our old mentor who never seemed to age, stood to the side. These two men had survived and made the Order’s infrastructure functional again, this time in the service of the Reunion Project. Without the revitalized Order it was doubtful that we would have been able to resist the Directorate reaction. But the house that Tain had built was now supporting a very different Order.

  “I couldn’t give the speech,” I replied.

  “Obviously.” Was Pythas smiling?

  “I’m tired of them. They behave like children,” I said.

  “They’re afraid. Did you think that scolding would bring them together?” No, Pythas wasn’t smiling.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t control myself.”

  Now Pythas smiled at the irony of hearing those words spoken in Tain’s old office. Prang, the most controlled man on Cardassia, just looked at me.

  “It’s gotten worse,” a voice said behind me. I turned as Nal Dejar entered the room. Her stern, handsome face frowned as she listened to a report on her comm chip to what was going on outside. Ever since she had nursed Pythas back from the edge of death when he’d nearly been incinerated in a Dominion ambush, Nal had been his constant companion and near silent partner. It was always a bit of a shock to hear her speak.

  “A battle is raging through the Tarlak Sector. It seems that the Directorate had planned to break up the rally in any event. Garak just made their task easier.” Nal spoke as if I weren’t in the room. I was too weary to defend myself.

  “Send in the Paldar and Akleen units,” Pythas ordered.

  “That just about exhausts our reserves,” Nal warned.

  “What can we do, Nal?” Pythas asked. “Give them the coordinates and stay in touch.” Nal left the room issuing orders into her comm chip.

  No one said a word, but we all shared the same thought. Every time there was a truce, an attempt at reconciliation, inevitably an act of violence destroyed the momentary peace. Usually it was the Directorate and their so-called Restoration Cadres under the leadership of Korbath Mondrig. His demagoguery fueled the passions of those who were convinced that Cardassia’s woes were directly related to a rumored Federation plan to assimilate the planet without its inhabitants. There had to be a reason why so many had died, and Federation genocide made as much sense as anything else. But every group, no matter what they believed to be the cause of the present horror, reacted with a paranoid ferocity to the slightest provocation. No one was saying out loud what was painfully obvious.

  “How many more fires can we put out, Pythas?” I asked. He shrugged. He knew the answer better than anyone. When I returned from the Vinculum the first time, encouraged by Dr. Bashir’s promise of Federation support, and after the Lakarian encounter with Kel and Cronal, I became a more visible presence and advocate for greater ties with the Federation. Parmak and I traveled all over Cardassia combining our task of plague alleviation with a presentation of what the Reunion Project meant. It was a strange, almost schizophrenic experience, because wherever we went we would gain new adherents to our cause, and at the same time harden the opposition against us. After Alon Ghemor had been assassinated and the civil war entered its most intense phase, the Reunion Project had to be reorganized, with Pythas as the head of the military section. Dr. Parmak and I continued to guide political strategy, but I became the primary spokesman and the magnetic point for all reaction to the Project, good and bad.

  “It’s a stalemate, Pythas. There’s no productivity, our resources are at a critical low—”

  “Yes, I know this, Elim,” Pythas interrupted. “And the fact that you know it as well makes me wonder all the more why you weren’t able to ‘control’ yourself and follow through with our plan of reconciling those groups out there.”

  “Because it’s futile. All you had to do was look into their eyes. They want revenge, someone to blame. The thugs were just looking for the opening to attack us. Nal said so herself. The only people who want reconciliation are the plague victims, and who’s going to listen to them?”

  “Then what, Elim? What? You must have had something in mind when you delivered your lecture today.” This was a tone I had never heard from Pythas before. The stalemate was getting to all of us. I took a deep breath.

  “We have to contact the Federation,” I said. No one in the room expected this. After a moment Pythas cleared his throat.

  “I quote you, Elim. ‘It’s futile.’ ”

  “It’s futile to return to the Vinculum,” I replied. �
��For whatever reason, Dr. Bashir was not able to maintain our contact in that place.” And contrary to what I had expected after my meeting with Kel, nothing more was revealed in those visits to the Vinculum.

  “If Bashir was ever there,” Nal Dejar said as she came back into the room.

  “What do you mean, Nal?” I asked sharply. I was sure that she hadn’t meant it the same way Kel did.

  Nal just looked at me. “The Directorate’s cadres are pinned down,” she informed Pythas. “They want to negotiate a truce that would allow them to return home.”

  “A truce,” Pythas snorted.

  “Kill them,” Limor Prang stated quietly.

  “No,” Pythas responded immediately. “We don’t need any more martyrs to their cause. No,” he sighed. “Keep them isolated. I want to speak to their commanders.” If Prang disapproved of this tactic, he didn’t show it. “What about the other groups?” he asked.

  “They’ve either left or they’re scattered throughout the city,” Nal replied.

  “Maybe Bashir was never in the Vinculum,” I persisted. “Maybe it was a dream. But the curative formula I came back with wasn’t a dream. Parmak and I were able to stem the plague.”

  “It’s true, Pythas,” Parmak concurred.

  “And the Federation approved our receiving that formula. If I can somehow explain to them what our present needs—”

  “May I remind you, Elim, why Ghemor was assassinated.” Pythas was losing patience. So was I.

  “He was assassinated because he refused to protect himself.”

  “No!” Pythas countered. “When Ghemor agreed with your proposal that the Federation broker a settlement to the civil war, it activated the divisions within our own group. To many, Ghemor was a traitor for even speaking to the Federation, and for all we know it was one of our people who killed him. And what are you going to do, Elim? Announce your departure for Earth with the stated intention of presenting yourself before the Federation Council and leave us here to face the reaction to your apparent treachery? Because the reaction will come, and those of us who are left behind will feel its full force.”

  “No one will know I’ve gone,” I said quietly. Pythas’s scarred, immobile face was like a mask that made his eyes so powerfully direct and open.

  “You’re serious,” he finally said.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. But when you show up in Paris, who is not going to know that you’re there? You’re no longer some anonymous operative in the Order. You’ve become the face of the Reunion Project.”

  “No one will know,” I repeated. Pythas leaned back in his chair, searching me for the answer to this riddle. Only Limor Prang understood what I was getting at. He held my look.

  “How’s Timot’s health?” I asked. Besides giving us access to the Vinculum, Mindur Timot, the Order’s technical wizard, had also devised the “wire” that Dr. Bashir had skillfully removed from my brain when I became addicted to its endorphin-producing capability.

  “He’s well enough,” Prang replied. “But I’m not so sure about you, Garak.”

  “What’s this about?” Pythas demanded. Prang and I continued to look at each other.

  “I believe Garak wants to go to Earth as a hew-mon.” It always amused me that old Prang pronounced the word exactly as Quark did.

  “That’s impossible!” cried Parmak.

  “No, it’s not,” I replied. “Pythas, do you remember when Entek abducted the Bajoran, Kira Nerys, and had her transformed into a Cardassian to make Ghemor’s uncle believe that it was his long-lost daughter?” Pythas looked back at me with a blank expression.

  “Very few people know about Entek’s misadventure,” Prang explained. “Mindur Timot devised a procedure whereby a member of one species can appear as another. A Bajoran to look like a Cardassian ... a Cardassian to look like a hew-mon.”

  “Was this common practice?” Pythas asked.

  “No, it was too dangerous,” Prang answered. “It involves adjusting the genetic code, and the procedure lacked ... precision.”

  “I’ll tell Kira that the next time I see her,” I said.

  “Why would you want to take the chance?” Parmak asked me.

  “Because we’ve run out of solutions, Doctor. Because if we don’t find one soon, you’ll be able to add Cardassians to the interplanetary list of extinct species. And because I was made a promise by a friend.”

  “So you would go to Earth as a human.”

  “Yes, Pythas.”

  “How would we explain your absence?”

  “After my behavior today? Easily.”

  The room became still. I could sense Pythas weighing this idea against the solutions that had been offered to halt Cardassia’s slide into oblivion. Dr. Parmak’s concern was evident while Nal and Prang typically showed nothing as they waited in silence. Pythas let out a long sigh and looked at Prang and Nal. Prang returned the look with a barely discernible nod.

  “How would you present yourself?” Pythas finally asked.

  “How else, Pythas? As a plain and simple tailor.”

  2

  The description of Earth as the third planet in the Sol system, a class-M world located in Sector 001, doesn’t do justice to what the planet actually looks like from the shuttle. Dr. Bashir often rhapsodized about his Earth. While we were on Deep Space 9, I think he missed Earth almost as much as I missed Cardassia. As the shuttle approached Earth’s atmosphere, I could see the attraction it held for him.

  Marbled blue, green, and snow white whirling patterns fixed by the deep and dark blue of the oceans gave the planet an organic liveliness that provoked a yearning and sadness within me. I could only compare it to the gray pallor of stress and decay of my own planet.

  “Faded, hasn’t it?” the voice of the flight attendant said. “According to the accounts of the first astronauts, the intensity of the blue was almost too much to bear.” I smiled and nodded knowingly as he looked past me to the approaching planet. “We’ll be landing at Charles de Gaulle in a few minutes, M. Tranger,” he pleasantly informed me and moved up the aisle.

  I returned my attention to the Earth guidebook padd Julian had once given me. As the shuttle entered the atmosphere I tried to expand my limited knowledge of this planet as best I could before we disembarked at Paris where the Federation was headquartered. But my eyes kept wandering back to the window and the faint reflection of my human face superimposed over the approaching world.

  The operation was short and relatively uneventful. The most difficult part was getting up the courage to look at my new facial identity. Mindur Timot was his usual affable and talkative self as he earnestly tried to reassure me.

  “Now, Elim, everything has worked out just fine. There’s nothing to be worried about. But before you look at yourself, just remember that humans have an entirely different sense of ... how shall we say? Beauty? Physical attraction? Being a different species, of course, they have their own standard of what appeals to them. Now I’ve taken as a model someone I’ve been assured is a perfectly acceptable representative of the human male.”

  “But what am I? There are so many types?”

  “Elim, with these humans, there’s no such thing as a pure racial type. This gentleman’s genetic disposition is native to the Mediterranean basin. He has—I should say, you have—family from both French Europe and Arabic Africa. Now regardless of how repellent the idea of mixing races is to us, on Earth any given mixture is possible within the human species, especially with the French. But being a mixture—hybrid, if you like—gives one certain advantages.”

  “Like what?” I was grateful for his chatter since it delayed the inevitable first look.

  “Well, for one thing your particular hybrid has greater resistance to the deleterious effects of their sun. On your previous trip, I believe, you found the solar intensity somewhat discomfiting.” While Timot rattled on he was setting up the image reflector.

  “There. Now you can look at yourself, if you like, Elim.” I hes
itated. “Sooner or later, my boy, you’re going to have to face your new identity. Come now.” He thumped me on the back as he moved me toward the reflector. “I’m eager to know what you think of my handiwork.”

  I allowed myself to be maneuvered into place ... and I looked. “Oh, Mindur,” I whispered, the breath having gone out of my body.

  “Yes, my boy?” he answered eagerly.

  “Where am I?”

  “Why, you’re right here, Elim. But you look like Emile Tranger of Paris, France, and Earth. Extraordinary, wouldn’t you say? I’ve ironed out some of the wrinkles in the process since that Bajoran woman.”

  “But at least Kira made a comely Cardassian. I look like ...” Words escaped me.

  “You look like a comely human, Elim. Absolutely first rate, believe me.”

  “And you’ve transformed my entire body!” I cried, noticing for the first time the missing shoulder ridges and the smooth skin.

  “Yes, of course. You have to be able to live a normal human life, Elim. What if you should become ... intimate with someone? Or if someone were to walk in on you when you were ‘deshabille,’ as they say en français. I’d like to see you explain your way out of that!” He positively cackled at the thought. “You look marvelous, my boy!”

  “Emile Tranger?” the customs official asked as he looked at the picture on my carte d’identité.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been away quite a while, M. Tranger. What kind of business did you have on Borlan III?” he asked. Borlan III is a neutral planet that was “programmed” into my travel documents and itinerary. As in the good old days of the Order, I was smuggled on to the planet with my new identity and history intact. I was amazed at the resources Mindur and Prang still had at their disposal. I knew that the Order had always prepared for the worst, but I hadn’t realized just how well until this moment.