Star Trek: Fall 02: The Crimson Shadow Read online

  Exile might do that to a man, Picard reflected, not to mention the attempted extinction of one’s species. “Quite,” he said gently. “I understand.”

  “And now you have my undivided attention,” Garak said, with a smile. Picard was in no doubt of the truth of that. The ambassador’s bright blue eyes, when turned upon you, seemed to pin you to your chair. But Picard was an old hand at this game too, and he had suffered Cardassian scrutiny in the past, and he had come out intact.

  “All the documentation concerning Starfleet’s withdrawal from Cardassia is now with the president’s office,” Picard said. “They assure me that this is simply a matter of looking over the final wording of the agreement, and they don’t see any particular problems arising.”

  “Nor do we,” Garak said. “Our news organizations have been instructed to keep the details under wraps until after the event.”

  “As have ours. We understand the political significance of this event for the castellan, and we wish to . . .” Picard pondered his wording. He could hardly say outright that the Federation wanted to assist Rakena Garan in her reelection in any way that it could, but that was the bottom line. The current castellan was by far the friendliest option.

  Garak was watching him, a twinkle in his eye. “Quite,” he said, obviating any need for Picard to say any more. The two men smiled at each other. It was helpful, Picard thought, how well the ambassador understood subtext.

  “By the time she and our president join us here on Cardassia Prime,” Picard said, “we should, I hope, be able simply to enjoy the moment of watching them sign the agreement.”

  Garak let out a deep breath and relaxed into his chair; he was a man about to see months of work come to fruition.

  “This has been a remarkably smooth process, Ambassador,” Picard said. “You and your staff are to be commended.”

  Garak waved a nonchalant hand. “Impossible to have achieved any of this without the goodwill of your president, Captain. Nan Bacco is a remarkable woman. A force to be reckoned with, as my memoirs will assuredly one day record. I know there were many within the council who believed that Starfleet was unwise not to keep one foot upon our soil, despite our much closer relationship these days.”

  “Indeed,” said Picard, who had had his own private reservations about Starfleet’s complete withdrawal from Cardassian space. Were these allies as solid as hope made them? The ambassador himself had not at first been an unequivocal supporter of the Union’s entry into the Khitomer Accords. How long would his support remain? As long as it was expedient? And on Prime itself, how long would the will to continue as friends last? The experiment with an open society was still in its early days on Cardassia: its expression unconventional and its outcomes unpredictable. Cardassia was stony soil for such a graft, and there was no guarantee that it would flourish. And if it failed, what would grow in its place? Would these new allies remain allies?

  “I believe,” Garak said, “that only Nan Bacco could have persuaded her opponents that not only was it the right thing to do, it was also the most efficient use of your resources.” He smiled. “Expediency combined with morality is, as ever, an unbeatable argument.”

  And that, really, was the truth of it. No matter how much Picard, and many others, might prefer to keep a small presence in Cardassian space, Starfleet needed the people back. The Dominion War and the Borg Invasion had taken an inevitable toll. There weren’t enough experienced officers around these days. And, whatever the past, their two civilizations were now allied. One couldn’t police one’s allies, not on a permanent basis. Eventually you had simply to trust that they weren’t, in fact, going to stab you in the back.

  Garak was looking at him steadily. “This alliance is as new to us as it is to you, Captain,” he said. “We have not been in the habit of thinking of the Federation as friends. But . . . our habits have not served us well.” His mask slipped for a second, and Picard glimpsed the weary man behind the polish. “Quite simply,” Garak went on, “we are tired of war—and I believe that to be true of you also. Therefore, we must endeavor to break the habits of a lifetime and make peace with each other.” He smiled. “Friendship may take a little longer, but I remain hopeful. And I remain hopeful because, despite everything”—he turned his head once more to look at his home—“I live to see Cardassia yet again.”

  Rising from his chair, the ambassador offered Picard his hand to shake. Picard, gripping it, felt the rough scales upon un-human fingers. So very, very different. Garak, smiling, released his hold, and then something seemed to occur to him. “Ah, yes, I mustn’t forget . . .” Reaching, he drew out a small parcel, neatly wrapped. He pushed it across the desk. “For you, Captain,” he said.

  Picard, frowning slightly, picked up the parcel. Unwrapping it, he found a small red book, about the length of his hand and the thickness of his thumb, bound in the hide of some animal he did not know and covered in small spots—burn marks, he realized. This book had once had a brush with fire.

  “A small token of my appreciation for your hospitality on this journey,” Garak said, “and for all that signifies for our alliance.” Looking straight at Picard, he said, “I believe that my previous career leads you to hold me in some suspicion. I do not blame you for such sentiments. My past was not a pretty one. Therefore—” He pointed at the book, letting it say the rest.

  Picard examined the volume more closely. Was the ambassador trying to charm him? Certainly this kind of gift was a sure means of attracting his attention, at least. Although he was by no means a collector of Cardassian first editions, his eye was experienced enough to see at once that this was an object of some provenance. “I would guess this has some history behind it.”

  “It was from my father’s library,” Garak said. “Although I doubt Tain ever read it.”

  Picard ran his hands slowly over the supple binding. “Not much of that library must exist now.”

  “Not much,” Garak agreed.

  “How did it survive?”

  “I was reading it in the basement of my father’s house while the Jem’Hadar destroyed the city. Everything in the upper levels of the house burned, but the cellar, in the main, survived. You, as an archaeologist, will know that burial has saved the fragments of many civilizations in the past. This was no different.”

  Picard put the book back down on his desk, resting his fingertips lightly on the cover. “Ambassador, I am honored by this gesture, but this is clearly an item of great significance, both personal and cultural.” He pushed the book slightly back toward its owner. “I cannot accept—”

  Garak held up both hands to silence him, and, to his own surprise, Picard acquiesced.

  “I insist,” Garak said. “Whatever our history, Captain, I believe that the future of our peoples is tightly bound together. We cannot stand alone. We must be friends—somehow. More and more I am certain that if we do not secure our friendship, if we do not make a habit of it, we will surely fall alone.”

  So the gift could not be refused. It really was very beautiful, all the more so for being rare and damaged. “Then I accept. Thank you.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Garak said, and Picard found he was prepared to believe him. Once again, he opened the book, but the close-printed characters inside were undecipherable. Picard gave a short bark of laughter. “I can’t read it yet, of course. Not even the title!”

  Garak smiled. “It’s called Meditations on a Crimson Shadow,” he said, “by Eleta Preloc.” He gathered up his padds and papers. “I think that when you begin your researches you’ll learn that it’s a rare example of a Cardassian speculative novel. Our literature has tended toward the historical—one might even say the nostalgic. And indeed Preloc wrote many superb books of that kind. The tetralogy set during the fall of the Second Republic is surely the most exquisite of its type. Your own Tolstoy or Mantel would recognize those works. But with this book, she broke the mold.” He smiled. “Preloc was a visionary, not to mention a genius. And if Preloc could see a future
for our civilizations, who am I to deny genius?”

  “I am extremely honored by this gift, Ambassador.”

  “It is by no means as grand a gesture as I would wish.” Garak’s padds and papers were now neatly stacked. “Our capital city is hardly the center of sophistication that it once was, Captain, but I hope that you and your excellent wife will join me for dinner at my home.” He glanced around covertly, and Picard instinctively leaned inward. “The castellan’s cook,” Garak whispered, as if handing over a state secret, “is not a man of great talent.”

  Picard laughed. He might doubt the veracity of that statement, but he did not doubt that the invitation would be accepted.

  “And when this agreement is signed,” Garak said, “and the beaming faces of our leaders have been transmitted across the quadrant for all to see—allies and enemies alike—come again, and we will toast our alliance. Our friendship.”

  * * *

  To police a city, one must know it: know its walkways and alleyways, its hidden corners and dim back streets. Once upon a time Arati Mhevet, senior investigator in the city constabulary, had known her capital as well as a Bajoran kai knew the prophecies. Born in North Torr’s free hospital, she grew up in one of its tenements, playing along the walkways and in the tiny stone gardens set between the residential blocks. She knew the shortcuts down to the river, raced along the narrow footpaths that ran beside the tram tracks, and, with her playmates, kept open the gaps in the fences that let them slip into the industrial estates of Munda’ar, or gawp at the distant, radiant heights of Coranum. As she grew older, the city broke her heart again and again. But when the battle came to its streets, she stood and fought the Jem’Hadar building by building, alley by alley, as they razed her city to the ground, because to know a place so well is to love it, despite all, and to wish to keep it alive.

  Now, like everyone else, Mhevet was learning this city again. She’d been a quick study. Crime doesn’t wait for the police to catch up. It finds its niches and sets up its stall. Black market medicines lifted from the clinics? Certainly we can do that for you. Plasticrete panels to add another room to your new shelter? As it happens, Starfleet has left one or two lying unattended on the back of a transporter. Something to ease the pain, the particular acute pain of survival? We would be glad, so very glad to supply. No, no—there is no need to pay now. We can come and collect later. We know where you live.

  All of this Mhevet was prepared to learn again, because her love for her city was undimmed, however little it resembled the place where she had grown up. The geography might have altered, but something of its spirit had remained, however shell-shocked and bewildered—as if the Cardassian people, looking around at the destruction, called upon the strength that had always let them survive on this dry world, and said to themselves: Never again. Meya lilies, so the old saying went, can flower in the stoniest of ground. But they need nurture—and they need someone to stop the spread of weeds.

  Mhevet, leaving Constabulary HQ, felt the grit in the air coat her eyes and nose, and she slid gladly into her skimmer. A wave of clear air and the babble of a newscast hit her the moment she started the machine. She lifted the skimmer up and out onto the boulevard and relaxed back into her seat. She was a confident driver, comfortable with the machine, swinging it easily into the fast lane. On the ’cast, two voices quarreled over the significance of last night’s political missive from Cardassia First.

  “What you have to understand,” said one, “is that Cardassia First represents a new voice in our democracy, one that hasn’t really ever been heard before—”

  “And this is where you’re fooling yourself!” replied the other. “Cardassia First is nothing more than the old chauvinism masquerading as something new. Evek Temet’s a young man, but he’s telling the same old story.”

  “Yet I’m willing to bet that when the election cycle begins next month, he’ll give Rakena Garan a run for her money—”

  “He hasn’t put his name on the ballot yet—”

  “He will.”

  Mhevet shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Everyone watched or listened to the newscasts these days. Everyone wanted to talk about them all the time. But doing so made Mhevet feel guilty. Her father (murdered when the Jem’Hadar walked into their tenement shooting anything that moved) wouldn’t have approved, nor would he have approved of the political missives that were ubiquitous these days, and becoming more so as the deadline came closer for candidates to put their names on the ballot for castellan.

  Her father would have hated all this: not because he didn’t put Cardassia first, but because the whole idea of free elections would have terrified him. Why would I want to choose? Mhevet’s father had said once to a friend (quietly, one didn’t know what the Order might take exception to). What do I know about running an empire? I’m a builder. It’s good work, honest work, and I do it well. So long as those fellows up there keep the work coming in, I don’t mind what they’re doing, because they’re doing right by me.

  Little good all his hard work and loyalty had done him in the end. The Jem’Hadar couldn’t have cared less. To be Cardassian was enough. Brushing her fingertip across the companel, Mhevet found a different ’cast. Music this time, something catchy and mindless that had been a summer favorite. Love! the singer advised her confidently. It’s what we want! It’s what we need! It’s all we need! Mhevet was mumbling mindlessly along when the ’cast cut out and the request came for someone to head out to Munda’ar. Calling in to say she was on her way, she swung the skimmer around expertly and set the klaxon blaring. The traffic peeled away to let her through unhindered. Her compatriots were still Cardassian enough to obey that instruction from authority without question.

  * * *

  The Munda’ar sector was hardly the bustling area it had once been. Gone were the huge silos and warehouses, the big cargo skimmers carrying in materials and goods from the spaceport. Cardassia was nowhere near the industrial powerhouse it had once been, although the green shoots of recovery could be glimpsed here and there: some new light units; the distinctive thump of a reconditioned industrial replicator. Immediately after the war, all you could see in Munda’ar were a few small buildings thrown up wherever the rubble had been cleared and centers for distributing charity to the survivors. All she remembered of the exhausted time directly after the war was standing in lines outside those distribution centers. That, and the burials.

  The new buildings here were more in the Cardassian style: a touch extravagant, although nothing like the swagger of the Union in its heyday, but distinctively indigenous nonetheless with their curves and spires and spikes. The materials were not from here: these buildings were Federation beige and gray. Living in the Cardassian capital was like inhabiting two cities at the same time: one a ruin, the ghost of the past; the other new, half-formed and fragile, but growing. Laying foundations; setting down roots.

  The southeast quarter of the Munda’ar sector was still as flat as the Jem’Hadar had left it, however, and here Mhevet stopped her skimmer next to the single remaining wall of what had, from the look of it, once been a vast grain store. The presence of a couple of other constabulary skimmers told her that she’d come to the right place. Tret Fereny, another investigator, much junior to Mhevet, emerged from the shadow of the wall.

  “Hi, Ari,” he said. Mhevet didn’t bother much with formalities like titles as long as people did what she said, when she said it. Fereny glanced back over his shoulder. “You’re not going to like this.”

  Behind the ruined wall a familiar, depressing scene was unfolding. A handful of forensic officers were beetling around what was presumably the corpse, while a couple of constables, uniformed and impassive, stood by. On the ground near them sat two small girls.

  “Those two found the body?” Mhevet asked, nodding at the girls. “What were they doing down here?”

  “They’d been playing—playing here!—and stumbled over it.” Fereny tutted his disapproval. “They should be in school. Kids the
se days are practically feral! I blame the parents. Gone soft, living on Federation handouts.”

  Mhevet smiled to herself. Fereny couldn’t be more than twenty-five. He would have grown up on Federation handouts. There hadn’t been much else to live off for the best part of a decade. She gave the two girls a quick look-over. One was pale gray and shivering—not so adventurous now. The other was looking around with dark, inquisitive eyes. They’d have to be questioned, of course, and that would be a nuisance. Not so easy to question children these days. Not so easy to question anyone these days.

  “All right,” she said, heading over to where the body lay, hidden beneath a gray covering. “What have we got?”

  One of the forensic team bent down to reveal a gray uniform beneath the cover. A distinctive uniform, recognized across several quadrants, with a bright blue stripe across the top. Mhevet closed her eyes for a moment and cursed her luck. If only she’d left HQ a little later. . . . If only she’d taken the slow lane. . . . Right now, this could be somebody else’s problem.

  “Is that a Starfleet uniform?”

  One of the little girls, the nosy one, not the shaky one, was standing at Mhevet’s elbow, peering at the corpse with a keen interest unsavory in one so young.

  “It is, isn’t it?” the girl asked. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She all but licked her lips. “My dad says the only good Starfleet officer is a dead Starfleet officer—”

  “Yes, well, your dad is an idiot,” said Mhevet.

  “I know that,” the girl said scornfully. She nodded at the corpse. “How did he die? Did someone whack him? I bet someone whacked him. What did they whack him with?” She looked around hopefully, perhaps to see whether there was something she could use to experiment.

  Mhevet gestured to one of the officers to cover the body again. “Isn’t anyone here taking care of these kids? Don’t we have a counselor on call or something?”