Star Trek: Typhon Pact - 10 - The Fall: The Crimson Shadow

by Una McCormack

  The comm on his desk chimed.

  “Ambassador,” Akret said, “the castellan is on the line.”

  Garak steeled himself. “Do put her through.”

  The screen blinked, and then the castellan appeared.

  She was a small woman, with graying hair, wearing a beautiful set of amber reta beads that could only be an heirloom. Even at a distance, she conveyed a great deal of personal strength and courage. And she didn’t like him, and she didn’t trust him, and she was totally immune to his charm.

  “Madam Castellan,” Garak said with a tilt of the head. “I trust you’re well?”

  “As well as ever, Ambassador. How was your journey home?”

  “Very pleasant. The Enterprise is a most hospitable environment.” He glanced beyond her, trying to get a glimpse of the place that had, once upon a time, been his unwelcome home. Cheerfully, he said, “And how is the old place?”

  The castellan gave him a puzzled look. “It’s brand new.”

  Garak sighed. Ah, yes, that was the other problem. They did not share a sense of humor. Oh, to be talking to Bacco. She at least knows how to spar. . . . “Well, it certainly looks very comfortable.”

  “It is, but I’m on the Trager.”

  There was a pause. They had no small talk. “How can I help, Rakena?”

  “I wanted to check how the final stages of the negotiations were going.”

  Garak felt his impatience rise. He had been sending her, twice daily, meticulous and—though he said so himself—very elegant summaries of all that was happening. Not that anything was happening. Everything was proceeding like clockwork toward the withdrawal. All the castellan had to do was turn up, write her name, and hand the stylus over to Bacco. And all Bacco had to do was turn up, take the stylus, and use it.

  “It really is a done deal—”

  “A deal isn’t done until it’s done. I know you’ve only recently arrived home, but I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures from Cemet.”

  “I’ve seen them.” A sudden explosion of violent emotion between nationalists and radical progressives that could surely please nobody except the perpetrators.

  “And I imagine you’ve heard Evek Temet on the ’casts about them. ‘That the castellan should choose to go away at such a time reflects badly upon her judgment.’ ” She did a fair impression of her young opponent’s voice—slick, but with a breathy urgency behind it. “ ‘She cares more for the alliance than for her own people.’ I don’t like not being there to counter it.”

  “Aren’t your people here on top of that?”

  “I hope I’m not going to have to make some kind of gesture to prove my credentials as a tough negotiator.”

  “Such as?” Garak said, uneasily.

  “Such as asking Bacco for concessions.”

  Garak listened with some alarm. Surely she didn’t mean this? At this late stage, it would be outrageous to have to go back to the Federation team and reopen discussions on the withdrawal agreement. Just in time, Garak stopped himself from retorting that if she wanted to ask for concessions, she could find herself a new ambassador to ask for them. He didn’t want to retire just yet.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone away. Maybe I should simply have sent Vorat. I wonder if I should return home. There are parts of the agreement that are going to take some careful explaining—”

  That was certainly true, and they’d been gambling on being able to do that. “The full details won’t be available until Bacco is here. With any luck our estimable press will be so busy gossiping about the president that they won’t be bothered with the minutiae. It’s a long document, after all, and they have short attention spans, and I know I’m certainly more interested in what colors Nan Bacco is wearing this season.” He saw her eyes narrowing, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Emerald is very good on her, but I think she’s been wearing it too often in recent months. I’d like to see some signs of blue in her repertoire. Nothing navy—that would be far too dull! I mean something more on the lines of electric blue. Mark my words, Rakena, that will be next season’s color. My advice to you, as well as to remain where you are, is to start wearing electric blue.”

  She was looking at him as if face-to-face with a blithering idiot. The only person who Garak could think of who had been this immune to his patter was Worf. Even Kira had laughed occasionally, although probably more for Ziyal’s sake than his.

  “What I am trying to say,” Garak said, in a steadier tone, “is that I think your being on DS9 is a unique opportunity for you. Stand in a line with all those other heads of state and think of the images appearing on every screen across the Union. Evek Temet can’t manage anything like it. And when you return home, you’ll be there to oversee the last Starfleet personnel leave Cardassia Prime. You’ll be the star of the show. Temet will look amateur beside you: a parochial man clamoring for an agenda that you have delivered. You’ll be the castellan who oversaw the final liberation of Cardassia.”

  That earned the makings of a smile. “Very well. Thank you for your time, Garak. I know you think I’m bothering you over details, but we’ve both put a great deal of work into this, and I don’t want to see us fail at the last hurdle.”

  “On that we are entirely in agreement.”

  There was no more mention of concessions or her return and, when the conversation finally ended, Garak leaned back in his chair and sighed with relief. Now, he hoped, the withdrawal could continue as planned, and the castellan of the Cardassian Union and the president of the United Federation of Planets could shake hands and smile at each other like the allies they must be and the friends they might be.

  The comm chimed again. “What is it, Akret?”

  “Reta Kalanis on the line for you, sir.”

  “Who?” he asked, starting his own quick researches via the companel.

  “She’s the director of the city constabulary. She says she needs to speak to you. Urgently.”

  His garden, it seemed, would be waiting for him a while longer.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Aneta Šmrhová had come to Cardassia Prime without preconceptions. Yes, there had been the war, but that was a long time ago now, and the Cardassian people had suffered unimaginably, and, as far as Šmrhová could tell, had then taken seriously the task of understanding what had brought them so close to the brink of self-annihilation. Besides, Šmrhová didn’t like to generalize. She only knew one Cardassian well, and she liked and admired him. Glinn Ravel Dygan had served on the Enterprise with distinction and even turned out to be good company beneath the seriousness. When it came to Cardassians, Aneta Šmrhová had a data point of exactly one—but it was on the credit side.

  Her immediate impression of Dygan’s homeworld was admittedly less positive. She and Commander Worf beamed down in front of the main building on the Starfleet compound in the capital city and both immediately began to cough. The air was full of dust. A spare woman in Starfleet uniform, wearing the pips of a commander, strode over to meet them, palm raised in greeting Cardassian style. She wore a face mask. Clearly this was someone who knew the place well.

  “Margaret Fry,” the woman said when she reached them. “Commander, Allied Reconstruction Force, Cardassia Prime. You’re our visitors from the Enterprise, yes?”

  Worf, still coughing, nodded. Fry gave a wry smile and offered a couple of masks. “You’ll need these on the tour of the base.”

  The compound that comprised the Headquarters of the Allied Reconstruction Force on Cardassia Prime (or HARF, as this mission was more generally known) housed a mixture of Starfleet personnel, Federation relief workers, and their opposite numbers from the Cardassian military and civil service. Commander Fry, driving them around quickly in a small open-topped skimmer, gave them a brisk history of HARF’s operations on Prime.

  “Obviously there was a substantial military presence here directly after the Dominion War,” Fry said, “but over the years, the balance has shifted significantly toward the relief and reconstruction wo
rk. Most of the personnel still stationed here have expertise in medicine, construction, scientific research, education, health policy, and so on.”

  “The base is much bigger than I would have guessed,” Šmrhová said as the skimmer reached the perimeter. They were up in the hills of what had once been the prestigious residential area of Coranum. Šmrhová, looking out, saw the sprawl of the new city: the low buildings, the haphazard spiderweb of the tramlines, the sudden patches of devastation. She rubbed her eyes, which were full of grit.

  “We’ve been here a long time,” Fry said, swinging the skimmer around and down one of the compound’s main streets. “As well as offices and residential blocks, we have our own shops, our own mess, and we can keep ourselves entertained if we choose. To all intents and purposes, this is a city within a city.”

  “Probably wise,” said Šmrhová.

  Worf, however, frowned. “Have you limited all contact with the Cardassians?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Fry. “This isn’t a fortress and the intent is certainly not to divide the peacekeepers from the locals. If you walked into any building on the compound you’d find Cardassians working closely alongside Starfleet or Federation personnel. Even in the early days, the security risk was minimal. The Cardassian people were simply too exhausted. There was no fight left in them. All people wanted was shelter, something to eat, and, most of all, a reliable source of clean water. We supplied that as quickly and as fairly as we could. But we knew that that wasn’t the whole story.”

  They were driving past a playground and the children ran across to watch them go past. Šmrhová waved, and laughed at the roar she got in return.

  “There are Cardassian kids there,” Šmrhová said, in surprise. She’d assumed the schools would be for the Federation families.

  “School exchange,” Fry replied. “And some of them will be the children of Cardassians who work here. We’ve had an integration policy since we arrived. There are young adults on Cardassia Prime who will have been entirely educated in mixed schools. You see, we’ve understood reconstruction in the broadest terms possible,” Fry explained. “It’s not just about putting up buildings and installing infrastructure. It’s about revitalizing Cardassian institutions—the civil service, the constabularies, the military. We’ve had experts on hand to assist the Cardassians in creating these organizations from scratch. How do you inspire trust in institutions that have brought a civilization to the edge of destruction? How do you create new organizations to replace the old ones? This is as significant a part of our work here as getting the water running and the clinics out there. Not as desperate a task, perhaps, but with the long term in mind.”

  Reaching their starting point outside the main command center, Fry stopped the skimmer and led them inside. Šmrhová was relieved to find that reconstruction had got as far as full scrubbers. The security officer took off her mask and breathed deeply. Her hair, when she ran her hand through it, was coated with dust, even after so short a time outside.

  “Then there are the civilian projects,” Fry said, leading them through the busy building. “New farming and irrigation initiatives, R&D, bringing scientific colleagues together to work toward a common goal, whether Federation or Cardassian. Bear in mind that HARF has bases like this across the whole of the Union—not just across Prime, but pretty much on every client world, if the need was there. It’s my dearest hope that there’s not a single citizen of the Union who has not had a positive encounter with a Starfleet officer.”

  “Your work here is a byword for success, Commander,” Worf said. “Do the military exchange programs originate here too?”

  “The military is one of the great success stories,” Fry said, “when you think how the Central Command was organized and operated before it was contained by the Rejal administration, and think of the alacrity with which it got behind Dukat. But of course, there were elements in the military that never supported entry into the Dominion, and personnel who joined Damar’s resistance as soon as they could. These are the traditions that have been built on to create the new Guard.”

  “If Dygan’s anything to go by,” Šmrhová said, “the Cardassian military is in safe hands.”

  They entered Fry’s office, a comfortable but not ostentatious space that already showed signs of being cleared; packing cases stood around, and some of the shelves had been emptied.

  “How long have you been here?” Šmrhová asked.

  “Ten years,” Fry said, with a smile. “I came here with the second wave of forces assigned to the reconstruction.”

  “Will you find it hard to leave?” asked Worf. Šmrhová, rubbing at the grit in her eyes, thought that she would never have unpacked. With all respect to Ravel Dygan, his home planet was a dump.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever do work as meaningful as this again,” Fry said frankly. “It’s an amazing world, and the Cardassians have been courageous and tireless. It’s been a privilege to help them rebuild their world.”

  The office, on the third floor, offered a view marred by the reddish haze that hovered over the city.

  “What’s with the dust?” Šmrhová asked.

  Fry offered them both bottles of water, which they gratefully received. “Cardassia Prime’s most distinguishing feature,” Fry said. “Prime was aggressively over-farmed, Lieutenant, generations ago. Famine was a problem here right up to the Dominion Occupation. That’s what drove their expansion and the conquest of Bajor. What you see is, in part, the ecological effects of such farming practices.”

  “Dust bowl,” said Worf.

  “Exactly that. This city stands right on the edge of the northwest plains. The wind blows across them, collects the dust, and dumps it here. You should have been here earlier in the summer. You can’t get your hair clean. When the rains start, you’ll know autumn has arrived.”

  “You said ecological ‘in part,’ ” said Šmrhová. “And the rest?”

  Fry looked sadly through the haze at the piecemeal city. “The rest? The rest is what the Jem’Hadar left behind. You can’t destroy a civilization without leaving some trace.”

  Šmrhová shuddered, and swallowed some water gratefully.

  “Preparations for departure look well under control, Commander,” Worf said. “But are you quite sure that the Cardassian Union is ready for us to depart?”

  “You’re thinking of the recent trouble over in Cemet, I think?” Fry asked.

  “A city on fire was our impression.”

  The commander took a sip of water. She seemed unperturbed. “Cardassian newscasts can be fairly melodramatic, and civilian unrest makes people here jumpy. Not surprising, given recent history. It reminds people of the period before Dukat seized power. I don’t want to downplay what happened in Cemet, which was certainly a breakdown in order, but it was by no means as bad as the ’casts made out.”

  The Enterprise’s first officer pressed on. “Our understanding is that at least one politician is attempting to gain from it.”

  Fry gave a dry laugh. “Ah, you’ve come across Evek Temet, have you? A nasty piece of work, but clever. He’s good at saying what people want to hear. That’s propelled him to a seat in the Assembly and leadership of his party.”

  “But is he a serious threat to the castellan?” Šmrhová asked. “Could Rakena Garan lose an election to him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Fry said. “Temet makes a lot of noise, of a particular type, but I don’t think there are enough people here prepared to listen.” She looked out lovingly across the city. “I know this seems counterintuitive, but you have to see these debates as a positive aspect of Cardassian democracy. I’d rather a hundred Temets than the whole Union back under the heel of the old Central Command or, worse, the Obsidian Order. These voices may sound strident to us, but they do provide an outlet for certain sentiments that still have a hold in some parts of Cardassia.”

  Worf rumbled his concern.

  “I have a great deal of faith in the Cardassian people,” Fry said. �
��I don’t believe for a moment that they want someone like Temet in power. Finally, after so many years of instability, Cardassia is really beginning to feel stable once again. Think about where they once were, and think about where they are now. A castellan who has actually survived long enough to seek reelection. Admission into the Khitomer Accords. And now we at HARF are saying: ‘We trust you. We believe you’re ready to mind your own affairs again.’ ” She smiled slowly. It transformed her from someone rather brisk and sparse to someone with great warmth. “The Cardassian people are different now. They aren’t going to elect Evek Temet. They’re wise to what he’s peddling.”

  Worf’s frown wasn’t doing too great a job disguising his doubts. Šmrhová took a swig of water. Perhaps Fry was being optimistic, but she had been here a long time, and presumably knew what she was talking about. Still, Šmrhová picked out the boundaries of the compound, took into account the surrounding terrain, and mused upon how it might be defended.

  The comm on Fry’s desk chimed. Excusing herself, the commander took the message. Šmrhová watched her expression turn grim. “Bad news?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Fry. “One of our officers has been found dead—murdered, in fact. Lieutenant Aleyni Cam.”

  Worf’s frown deepened further. “The name sounds Bajoran.”

  “Yes, Cam was Bajoran. He’d only been here eighteen months. Recently married too. Poor Zeya. . . .” Fry headed toward the door. “My apologies, we’ll have to continue our discussions later. I should be the one to inform his wife.”