Brinkmanship Read online

  “Our visit will be highly stage-managed,” Alden said. “The only consoles that we’ll get anywhere near, whether we’re kicking them over or not, are likely to have been tidied up for the occasion.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Dax agreed ruefully. “So I need strategies for investigating whether Tzenkethi weaponry is already on the station, or whether it’s anywhere near the station.” She glanced at Leishman and Helkara, her engineering and science officers, who both nodded back. Leishman even began thumbing away at a padd.

  “Unobtrusive strategies, I assume?” asked Helkara.

  “You bet,” said Dax. “The Venetans have long since decided we are belligerent. I don’t want them discovering that we’re running all kinds of scans and so giving them even more reasons to distrust us. Sure, they’ll suspect that we’re doing it, but I don’t want them to have proof.”

  Around the table, her senior staff began to murmur to each other. Dax threw up her hands. “I know, I know, it’s crazy! But it seems everyone’s out to take offense these days. So we’ve got to make damned sure that we don’t give them any opportunity to do so.”

  They got down into the minutiae of the mission: their time of arrival at Outpost V-4, who exactly would be in the away team sent over to the base. Alden briefed them on how best to deal with the Venetans (frankly) and Tzenkethi (cautiously). When Leishman threw in a few preliminary suggestions as to how the weapons scans might work based on what she knew of Venetan technology, and Helkara started to shoot her ideas down, it was clear they were moving from general business to specific tasks, so Dax halted the discussion and dismissed them. They all got up to leave, Leishman and Helkara still deep in conversation. Bowers hung back just in case but, at a nod from Dax, left with the rest. Only Alden remained.

  Dax came around the table and sat in the chair next to him.

  “You’re convinced, aren’t you, that we’re going to find something there?” she said. “Some proof that the Tzenkethi intend to use this base to threaten our borders?”

  “Yes, I’m convinced.”

  “But why would they do that? It would be absolute madness! In this climate, how much more provocative could you get? The Tzenkethi must know that none of the members of the Khitomer Accords could possibly allow them to put weapons so close to our borders. So why the hell would they even try?”

  “Why?” Alden looked bewildered that she would even ask. “Why do you think? Because they don’t trust us. And because our bad luck has brought them together with the Venetans, who have their own reasons not to trust us either.” He gave her a tired, rather hollow look. “I’m telling you, Ezri, there’ll be weapons on that base, or there’ll be weapons on the way to that base. Not just this one. All three of them. We’ll hear the same from the Cardassian and Ferengi observers at the other outposts.”

  “Okay, I’m going to stick my neck out and say I think you’re wrong. I’ve read up on the Venetans. It doesn’t sit right with my sense of what they’re like. I think the Tzenkethi have pursued this friendship simply because it embarrasses us. They’re there to rub our noses in what we lost. That’s enough for them. I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

  “Ah,” he said, lifting a finger and smiling, “I covered myself on that already. If there aren’t weapons there now, there will be soon, I said.”

  “But again I come back to the fact this is madly, insanely provocative. Why do that? Why?”

  Alden eased back in his chair. “You ever met a Tzenkethi?”

  “You know I haven’t. Have you?”

  “You know I have. I was there once.” He looked past her, down the table, at nothing. “On Ab-Tzenketh.” He shrugged. “You know how it is . . .”

  “Actually, Peter, no, I don’t.”

  “I’ll tell you about it one day.”

  “I hope you will.”

  “But my point is, I got a fairly good sense of what the Tzenkethi don’t like about us. Because make no mistake about it, they despise us.” His face clouded and his eyes went distant. “Physically, the Tzenkethi appear humanoid, but their outside shape masks a fundamental fluidity of form. You’re the counselor, work it out.”

  “Former counselor.”

  “You know enough. What do you think the effects might be of that?”

  Dax shook her head. “I don’t know . . . Anxiety about dissolution? Fear of collapse? I’m guessing here. You can’t extrapolate directly from biological form to psychological state. Nurture counts at least as much as nature.”

  “Well, I would say that you’re bang on the mark. Tzenkethi social systems are designed to stave off exactly such collapses. You’ve read about them, Ezri. You know the rigid nature of their social stratification, for example, and their convoluted codes for interacting with each other.”

  Dax nodded. She’d read about the strict naming conventions and the complex linguistic codes that communicated and reinforced function and status.

  “But you said ‘despise,’ Peter. That’s a strong word. Lots of worlds within the Federation have formal structures and ritualized interactions. Starfleet has formal structures and ritualized interactions. Why would that make them despise us?”

  “Because to the Tzenkethi, the Federation is chaos personified—their worst nightmare, their greatest fear. What are we, after all? An unruly mishmash of people, all shouting out noisily in our own voices, all bringing our own particular culture to the mix. For the Tzenkethi, it’s the monster under the bed. And, even worse, that chaos is right next to them and has a fleet of warships at its disposal. They must live in terror of what such unstable people as we are might do with all that firepower. The Venetans were a propaganda gift to them. A civilization that looked at Federation membership and then turned away . . .”

  “Now hold on,” said Dax. “The Venetans didn’t turn away. The whole process got delayed by . . . oh, minor issues like Borg invasions and a war or two. But they were going to join the Federation.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “Not because we turned them down, or they turned us down—”

  “That doesn’t matter. They didn’t join, and that’s all that counts.” His eyes shadowed. “I have to wonder how long the Tzenkethi have been working within the Venette Convention. Working on the Venetans. Reminding them why they shouldn’t trust us, whispering about how dangerous we are, seeding doubt upon doubt . . .” He gave a slight laugh. “That’s what I would have done in their place. That’s what I know they’ve been doing. I know what they’re like.”

  Dax realized she had been listening as if mesmerized. He was so persuasive, always had been. “Peter, you can’t talk this way. You can’t think this way! So much suspicion. We’ve got to . . .” She opened her palms. “We’ve got to keep on hoping that we can build trust. Otherwise . . . well, I don’t want to think where it might take us. But we’ve got to go to Outpost V-4 with an open mind. No, I know what you’re going to say,” she said when he frowned. “I’m not saying that we blind ourselves to the possibility that something might be happening there, something that we don’t want. I’m not so naïve! But even while we’re watching our backs, we’ve got to hope that we’ll be surprised—and in the best way possible. We’ve got to hope, Peter.”

  He smiled at her. There was only the faintest sign of the confident young man that he had been. This was someone weary of the world, someone crushed by the weight of experience, whose early bloom had been crowded out by weeds. The thought of that—the sight of that—saddened her.

  “Hope, Ezri?” he said. “You’ll have to take care of that, I think. All I can do is keep watch.”

  They smiled at each other. “In fact, mister,” she said, “there’s one other thing you can do.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Go to sleep. We’ve got hours yet.”

  “Sleep.” He stretched in his chair and stood up. “Yes, I think I remember that . . .”

  “Then reacquaint yourself with it. That’s an order. Good night, Peter,” she said as he
headed for the door. “Sleep well. Don’t dream of Tzenkethi under the bed.”

  He laughed and left.

  Dax sat for a while staring at the star chart that was still displayed. Counselor. She hadn’t thought of herself that way in a long time. Ezri Tigan had barely started on that role when Dax had come into her life, turned her upside down, and left her standing on her head. Now she was Ezri Dax, and Ezri Dax was a captain: a captain who had been a counselor who had eight lifetimes of experience to draw on. She was surely qualified to know when she should be worried about someone under her command.

  Quickly, Dax stood up. She went back to the head of the table and put through a private communication to the ship’s senior counselor. “Susan, meet me in my ready room. I want to talk to you about a friend.”

  • • •

  If Dygan had been troubled by Detrek’s flash of temper at the start of negotiations, it was nothing compared to his mounting alarm as the morning progressed. Negotiator Detrek seemed not to be in the mood for negotiation. Every word spoken by Rusht earned a sneer from Detrek; every suggestion by Rusht that the Venetans had the right to lease their bases to whomever they chose brought from Detrek blunt warnings that such choices came with consequences. The other members of the negotiating teams were too well trained to show their anxiety, but Dygan could see it: in the nervous twitch of Jeyn’s left hand, in Ilka’s twisting of the long chain of one earring, in Captain Picard’s increasing reliance upon formality and politeness.

  And then there was the evident displeasure of all the other Venetans in the room. They’d taken a dislike to Negotiator Detrek, no doubt about it, and they weren’t afraid to make their opinion known. In the main they let Rusht do their speaking for them, as she’d been tasked to do, but there were many whispered conversations among them and sore looks directed at Detrek, not to mention the occasional catcall when she spoke.

  The only person in the room who seemed unaffected by what was happening was the Tzenkethi observer, curled at the far end of the table, within her bright impenetrable glow, silently watching everything that was happening. And what was happening was that Negotiator Detrek was throwing the whole mission from the Khitomer Accords into disarray, leaving her allies badly flustered and the Venetans infuriated.

  “However often I repeat myself,” said Rusht, late in that long morning, “you seem unable to understand that these bases will be used for supply and refitting purposes only. We have invited you to send observers, who are already en route. The Starship Aventine, carrying Commander Peter Alden from Starfleet Intelligence, is now merely eight hours from Outpost V-4. Ferengi observers will be docking at Outpost V-27 within the hour. And your own ship, Detrek, the Legate Damar, with people from your own intelligence bureau, is only two hours from Outpost V-15. If we had something to hide, do you really think that we would invite you to come and see what operations are being established by the Tzenkethi on our bases?”

  There was a ripple of approval from around the room.

  “Why,” Rusht concluded, “would we engage in such a pointless charade?”

  “Because you’ll have had plenty of time to clean up before any of our observers arrive,” Detrek shot back. The disapproval from all around got louder as she continued. “What do you take us for, Rusht? You . . . and your new friends”—she gestured angrily toward Alizome—“must think we’re fools. But we are not fools!”

  A deep, communal growl rose up. Detrek, clearly rattled, nevertheless continued in a louder tone, “Cardassians recognize threats when we see them, and I am here to tell you that we will not accept this!”

  She slammed her hand down upon the table. The room fell suddenly silent. Every Venetan present seemed to stare at Detrek with scorn at such a childish outburst from an adult. Dygan closed his eyes. This was a nightmare, the kind of bombast and posturing he would have expected from the guls when Central Command ran Cardassia. Weren’t those days meant to be over now? Weren’t they all meant to be striving to create a new Cardassia?

  Picard eventually broke the silence. “I believe,” he said, “that we are unlikely to progress much farther at this point. We should take a short break.”

  Rusht exchanged a few quiet words with her companion, Vitig, and then nodded. “We agree that would be for the best.” She rose from her chair. “Perhaps when we reconvene,” she said, looking steadily at Detrek, “more constructive conversation will be permitted to occur.”

  Rusht and Vitig departed, with their Tzenkethi adviser in their wake. The Venetans in the room immediately broke into lively debate. Dygan watched as Ilka raised her hand to her brow, and Picard and Jeyn leaned together for a few private, rapid exchanges. He saw Crusher, sitting behind the captain, thoughtfully study Detrek, and her calm, intelligent gaze fell on him. Dygan dropped his head. He felt ashamed to be Cardassian.

  Captain Picard came across to speak to Detrek. Dygan busied himself with his notes and tried not to listen, but it soon became difficult, as Detrek’s voice rose again.

  “No, Captain,” she said. “I am not unjust. I am angry. This is provocation on the part of the Autarch, nothing more. If he wants to send his trading ships through Venetan space, he can choose routes that keep him far away from Cardassian borders.” She gathered up her padds. “What you and our friends from Ferenginar decide to do about the bases on your borders is up to you. But this point is nonnegotiable as far as the Cardassian Union is concerned. A strong Tzenkethi presence so close to our borders is not acceptable.”

  Her voice carried. There were a few more catcalls from around the room, and Detrek, gathering her dignity and her padds, strode out. Picard went over to where Crusher was sitting, and from the way they glanced over at him, Dygan realized that they must be talking about him. Again, he looked away, too embarrassed to meet the captain’s eye. After a few minutes, Crusher came over and sat next to him.

  “Hey, Ravel,” she said. “How’s your morning been?”

  Dygan couldn’t help but smile. His shoulders relaxed. He was about to open up to the doctor, tell her about his concerns, when he realized that the Ferengi diplomat, Madame Ilka, was hovering at Crusher’s shoulder.

  Crusher might be friendly, but Ilka was an unknown quantity, and he had to remember that he was here as a member of the Cardassian deputation and not as part of the crew of the Enterprise.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled, jumping to his feet and hurrying away. He heard Crusher sigh, but she greeted Ilka affably. Dygan didn’t wait to listen to what they had to say to each other. He ducked out of the convening room and ran down the corridor to the private office assigned to Detrek.

  He tapped on the door. She called out to him to enter, and he slipped inside.

  “Dygan,” she said, a small smile twisting her lips. “Here to give me a message from Picard, by any chance?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m here of my own accord.”

  She gestured to a chair, and he sat down. She seemed gentler, sadder, very unlike the person she had been at the negotiating table. He placed his hands on his knees and took a deep breath. “May I speak freely?”

  “Of course you may.” Her eye ridges twitched up. “Don’t you know that we live in a democracy now? Speak freely. But”—she lifted a warning finger—“I’m going to ask you not to question me. Not yet.”

  Dygan pondered that for a moment. “Not question you?” he said. “That’s not something you should ask me, ma’am. To ask for my obedience, without any explanation as to why?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. You shouldn’t ask me to do that.”

  “No, no,” she said quickly, “not your obedience, Dygan. Your trust. Is that unreasonable of me to ask of you?”

  “Ma’am, we have hardly met—”

  “You trust Picard, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Why? Why do you trust him?”

  Dygan thought about that. There were many reasons. Picard was wise, and just, and experienced, and he looked for peaceful solutions. He would n
ot push his Federation into war for the sake of patriotism or pride . . .

  The companel on Detrek’s desk chimed. She looked down and frowned.

  “I’m sorry, Glinn Dygan, I have to take this in private. I know you’re worried,” she said, as he stood up, “and I do understand the reasons why. But you can trust me. And for exactly the same reasons that you trust Jean-Luc Picard.”

  Dygan left her office and went in search of a quiet corner, where he sat for a while and thought. Trust her? Why should he trust her? Not so long ago, Cardassia had almost been destroyed by the blind faith its people had put in their superiors. Where had that trust brought them? It had brought the Jem’Hadar down on them; it had led them to the Great Burning. His duty to Cardassia was always to question and to keep questioning until the answers he received were satisfactory. That was another reason why he trusted Picard—because the captain was always prepared to explain. And when there was no time for explanations, Dygan would still readily do what Picard ordered, because eventually the explanation would be forthcoming, and he knew it would be good. That was what Dygan wanted from Detrek. But he was disappointed. To ask him to trust her blindly? A Cardassian should know better these days than to ask.

  A bell chimed. The meeting was about to resume. Dygan hurried back to the meeting room and took his seat. The room seemed even fuller now, and the doors had been left open. People were crowding outside in the corridors, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on inside. Clearly word of the extraordinary alien and her anger had got around.

  Detrek, entering last, smiled as she passed Dygan. “Trust me, Glinn Dygan,” she whispered as she sat down.

  But then he watched her put aside the face of the wise elder that she had presented to him in private and become the rigid combatant she’d been since arriving on Venette. He watched the Venetans’ contempt toward the representative of his people, and the silent scrutiny of the Tzenkethi Alizome. He watched Ilka fret, and Jeyn twitch, and Picard struggle to keep everyone calm. And as the afternoon went steadily downhill, Dygan felt afraid, terribly afraid, to see matters slipping beyond even Picard’s control, sure that when they did, something bad, something irrevocable, was going to happen—like the fire that had once taken Cardassia.