Second self, p.26
Second Self, page 26
Garak walked on. Toze followed, phaser ready, and Sokara fell in step behind. He looked back over his shoulder. “Joining us, Starfleet?”
* * *
Captain Cristóbal Rios was sitting at his ready room desk when he accepted an urgent message from Exarch Khrill.
“Captain Rios,” she said. “I have some concerning news. We’ve been trying to reach your officer on the ground, to advise her of the Romulan ships in orbit, but it seems that she, her Qowat Milat, and the Romulan liaison, Nuvu Sokara, have gone missing.”
Rios ran his hand through his hair.
“Also missing is a Bajoran archaeologist, Toze Falus. Captain, we’re extremely concerned about their safety. Have you had any news of them? Are you in contact? I’m asking the local constabulary to investigate.”
“It’s okay,” said Rios.
“What do you mean? Are you in touch with them?”
Time to come clean. “I have a confession to make,” he said. “We know exactly where Commander Musiker is—although we’re not currently able to contact her.”
Khrill’s eyes narrowed. “She hasn’t—”
“I’m afraid she has. She’s gone with Elnor and Sokara into the Caanta valley to investigate whether a Romulan settlement would be viable there. The archaeologist went with them.”
There was a pause while Khrill took a moment to compose herself. “You’re aware, aren’t you,” she said, “that there’s a ban on travel into that area? Perhaps you understand now why that ban is in force—”
“Why have you never investigated?” said Rios. “I mean, a whole valley, closed off?”
“We don’t have the resources to decommission an Obsidian Order base!”
“Is that what it is?” pressed Rios.
“I have no idea,” said Khrill. “That’s my best guess based on available data—which seems to be borne out by what’s happening now.”
“But you must have been curious?”
“Captain Rios!” Khrill’s anger and exasperation were plain. “We have had enough to do on Ordeve since the end of the Dominion War! Do you know our recent history? Jem’Hadar massacres, Romulan death squads! We barely had time to reestablish ourselves here when we threw open our world to thousands of Romulan refugees! Do you think any of that was conducive to sending an exploratory mission up into the mountains? The Obsidian Order barred entry into the Caanta valley. No, I am not curious to find out what they were doing there!”
Rios held up his hands. “I apologize, unreservedly. I understand—”
“I’m not convinced you do. I’m not pleased about this. I’m going to have to approach the office of the castellan for advice.”
“But what about—” She was gone. “Those Romulan ships…” His problem. He opened a secure channel. “Admiral Picard,” he said. “You have a diplomatic incident incoming. The exarch knows where Raffi is—although not why. You might want to speak to our ambassador to the Union. In the meantime—I still have Romulans to deal with.”
Not to mention those Bajorans. He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Tanwar,” he said into the comm, “contact the Bajorans. Ask whether they’ve had any success breaking those Order codes. It’s time to bring people back.”
* * *
They walked on into the valley. Predictably, there was little in the way of conversation. Toze handed the padd to Sokara, who periodically gave updates on the status of the force field. This remained down. Every so often, Raffi tried her combadge. Futile. The comms blackout was still in place. The beacon, up ahead, was still transmitting steadily. What could possibly be there? What horrors might the Obsidian Order have perpetrated here? Would there be more evidence, of more massacres? Were they even now walking toward a site that was poisoned, the ground laid waste by weapons testing? Was there a black site here? The kind of place into which people disappeared, never to be heard from again? A prison, a torture facility. All these things were possible with the Obsidian Order. Did even Garak know what they would find? Raffi was not sure. He walked with his head bowed, revealing nothing.
After a couple of hours, Raffi called a halt. They had reached a stream, running down from the high hills to meet them, which gave an excuse to stop walking, but she was mindful, too, that Garak was not a young man. He seemed grateful for the pause, lowering himself onto a big fallen branch. He was flexing the fingers of both hands. Raffi wondered if she should check the restraints. Perhaps Toze had made them too tight. Garak would certainly not say, if that were the case.
They passed out some rations and ate. Elnor, looking around their party, said, “It’s strange to see us all here, isn’t it?” Nobody replied, but Elnor wasn’t deterred. “Human, Bajoran, Cardassian, Romulan. I wonder what we might achieve—if we weren’t always at odds.”
“Oh please,” muttered Garak. He had eaten only a little and then stopped. Raffi hoped she wasn’t going to have a hunger strike on her hands.
“Don’t forget the Prophets,” said Toze. “They had a temple not far from here, before he destroyed it.”
“Allegedly destroyed it,” murmured Garak. “I’d ask you to remember that the charge has not yet been put before a court of law—”
“The Prophets walk with us, always,” said Toze. “They are of Bajor. They have protected us, and they always will.”
“Wormhole aliens,” said Garak, with deliberate cruelty. “Not gods. Not prophets. They don’t exist on some supernatural plane. They simply experience time differently. They can be explained without any of the superstitious nonsense that held your people back for so long. I have often thought how lucky it was for Bajor that we arrived. We are a sophisticated and rational people. You would have been nothing without us—”
“Toze, no!” cried Raffi, but he was already in motion. He reached Garak in a split second, punching him, hard, in the face. Garak gasped, and doubled over, blood spurting from his nose. But he gave Toze a look of savage triumph. He held up his cuffed hands.
“Assaulting a prisoner. Oh, you did learn so much from us, didn’t you? You are indeed what we made you!”
Raffi had to physically restrain Toze. “Don’t,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t do it.”
“In front of witnesses too,” said Garak. “Let us make sure that this is mentioned in that court. Elnor—I shall particularly require your attendance.”
Sokara, dragging Garak to his feet and pulling him away, said, “Can we gag him?”
“Tempting,” said Raffi. She turned back to Toze, who was still shaking with rage. “Don’t take the bait,” she said. “Don’t let him make you do something stupid. Not when you’re this close to bringing him to justice.”
Toze shook himself out of her grasp and strode off under the trees.
“Besides,” said Raffi, lifting her voice to address each member of this woeful company, “when we finally decide we’re done with this little up-country jaunt, we’ll still be stuck behind this damn force field and only Garak knows the codes to lower it. We have to keep him alive.”
“You could always torture the information out of me,” Garak said in a helpful voice.
“If I were you,” Raffi shot back, “I wouldn’t make that offer in Toze’s hearing.”
“True,” said Garak. “He’s been such an apt pupil.”
Raffi knelt down beside Sokara, who was wiping at Garak’s face. “Let me see.”
“I’ve got this,” said Sokara.
“Let me see.” Shame, perhaps, made her voice come out rougher than she intended. Sokara stood up and moved away. Raffi, conscious of Garak’s sharp eyes monitoring this exchange, said, more steadily, “Could you check on Toze, please, Sokara? We shouldn’t get too far away from each other.”
Sokara nodded. “All right. Elnor, with me.”
Elnor trotted obediently after him. Raffi turned her attention back to Garak. Sokara had cleared away some of the blood, but she carried on with the task, carefully dabbing at Garak’s face until it was clean. “What a mess…”
“Those are the ridges,” Garak replied. “Don’t let Toze hear you say something like that. He might construe it as a racial slur. He strikes me as very touchy.”
She ignored him. She was finding that this was the best way. Taking out her tricorder, she ran a quick check. “Not broken.” Toze had actually held back. “Don’t give him an excuse to finish the job.”
“Of course, if he were a truly effective operative, I wouldn’t be alive now.”
Toze, Raffi thought, had shown remarkable restraint under considerable provocation. She leaned back on her heels. “Garak,” she said, “do you want him to kill you?”
He shrugged. “It would be a shame, I suppose, having come this far.”
“He’ll do a lot more damage next time, you know.”
Garak was staring straight at her. Those eyes, she thought. Like a cobra.
“Broken bones mend,” he said. “The problem is everything else. Look at you, Commander.”
“Oh,” said Raffi, “this should be good.”
“Well, there’s something broken in you, isn’t there? Something that can’t be fixed. Even by the most potent blood poppies.”
Raffi held his stare for a moment or two. Then she gave a low laugh. “You know, most of the time I’m about two seconds away from smashing up everything around me. Don’t give me the excuse to get started.” She got to her feet. “You need a hand standing up?”
“No,” Garak said bitterly. He closed his eyes. “Whatever possessed me to come back to this appalling place?”
“I keep thinking the same thing, soldier,” she said. She kept her voice light, but the truth was that Garak had struck a nerve. Something broken. Raffi knew that. Knew that something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong with her life, and that the only common factor she could see was herself. Later, when Elnor and Sokara returned with Toze, she took the first chance she got to speak to Elnor.
“You keep away from him. Okay?”
She saw the first glimmer of a pout settle on the young man’s face. Damn, Elnor, not now. “Raffi,” he said, “why won’t you trust me? I won’t tell him anything—”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, kiddo. Just stay away. He’s toxic.”
And I don’t want you poisoned.
* * *
“This is turning into quite the diplomatic nightmare,” said Picard. “I have a number of angry Cardassians from the castellan’s office regularly getting in touch to berate me.”
“Same here,” said Rios. “The Romulans are kicking up a stink about Sokara’s disappearance and Khrill is holding me personally to blame.”
“The Bajorans have gone silent.”
“Can’t get a word from their inbound ships here either,” said Rios. “I wonder if they know more than they’re letting on.”
“Our covert mission seems to be increasingly less covert by the moment.”
“Nobody has mentioned Elim Garak to me,” said Rios. “Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time. The Romulans believe it’s an Obsidian Order blackout over the Caanta valley. They’re demanding full access to the area. Khrill thinks this is a move to secure entry to the area, and I’m inclined to agree.”
“Have they issued any threats?”
“They’re saying that unless they’re allowed access to the valley, they’ll bring more ships into the area to secure the safety of the refugees. That Khrill has failed to protect their liaison officer, and they’ll have to do the job themselves.”
“And the Cardassians are angry that Starfleet has apparently blundered into this situation. A diplomatic nightmare.”
“Not sorry that’s on your desk, Admiral,” said Rios.
“Thank you, Cris.”
“I know what I’m good at,” Rios replied.
* * *
Throughout that morning, they pressed on through the forest, the beacon leading them more or less along the course of the stream and heading steadily upward. There was a steep section where Garak struggled, with his hands bound. Raffi found herself walking grimly beside him, hand ready to catch him if he fell. “Time to head back yet?” she said.
“On the contrary.” His breathing was ragged, and his face looked very sore. “This is all quite bracing.”
“Are you in pain?” she said quietly.
“No more than usual,” he replied, and walked on.
At the top of this steep section, the trees thinned out briefly, and they found themselves looking out across a portion of the valley. Elnor pointed ahead to where thin wisps were rising up between the trees.
“Is that smoke?” he said. “Looks like wood fires…”
“I think it might be a settlement,” said Raffi. “But who the hell can be here?”
“Cardassians?” said Sokara. His hand strayed down to the weapon at his side.
“Do we think that’s likely?” said Raffi. “The ban on travel here was so strict that some of them wanted to stay and fight rather than come this way.”
“Still,” said Sokara, “Obsidian Order codes.”
A good point, Raffi had to concede. Had someone come out here, years ago, before the Occupation ended? Were they about to discover some remnant of the Obsidian Order, still here all these years after their downfall? Had there been some secret project underway in the Caanta valley? There was one person here who would surely know. Raffi turned to Garak.
“All right,” she said. “You’ve had your fun. Who are these people? What are they doing here?”
Garak gave a cold smile. “Oh,” he said, “wouldn’t you like to know everything that I know? Do you really think I would tell you?”
“How have you lived this long?” said Raffi.
“I’ve worked extremely hard,” said Garak. “But if you want to know who’s living in that valley, Commander, you should probably go and take a look.”
Raffi turned back to Sokara. “Have some of your people come out here already?” she said. “Ignored the ban?”
“Not that I know,” he said. “I can see the reasoning—”
“Why?” said Elnor.
“If there’s a settlement here already,” said Raffi, “then it’s harder to relocate people.”
“The Cardassian government has signed treaties that specifically ban the forced removal of populations resident in their territories,” said Garak. “I should know—I negotiated the treaties when I was ambassador.” He smiled at Sokara. “You should have just walked right in. The sight of Cardassian soldiers dragging civilians away from their homes really would be quite disastrous for any castellan. Although Romulans aren’t very popular, are they?”
“Shut the fuck up,” said Raffi.
“Really, Commander!” Garak tutted. “Such language is most unbecoming of a Starfleet officer! Whatever would Admiral Picard say—”
“For fuck’s sake, Garak!” said Raffi. “Shut up!”
“Seconded,” said Sokara.
“Thirded,” said Toze.
Elnor didn’t speak. When he realized everyone was looking at him, he said, “What? I’m not supposed to be saying anything either.”
“Ah,” said Garak. “A fellow traveler.”
“Toze,” Raffi said, cutting him off before anyone decided to start throwing a punch, “is there any chance that there are still Bajorans living here?”
“This long after the Occupation?” Toze shook his head. “I doubt it. It’s thirty years since the Cardassian withdrawal. Why wouldn’t they have come out?”
“Maybe because the force field has been in operation?” suggested Elnor. “I mean, we can’t get past them.”
“Could be,” said Raffi, although she couldn’t help thinking of those stories about soldiers who didn’t believe their governments had surrendered and who held out for decades, still fighting their war. Were they about to come face-to-face with a group of militants from the Bajoran Resistance, continuing to fight the Cardassians? At least there was nobody with a Cardassian face among their group. Just a former Obsidian Order operative, disguised to look like one of them…
Yeah, thought Raffi, this should go well.
The approach to the settlement led them up a little way at first, and then the land dipped down, and they entered a small thicket. The path through this was clear, well trodden, and well maintained. As the trees began to thin, they found themselves looking down into a hollow, where about two dozen small houses stood. Raffi called a halt.
“All right,” she said. “We need to approach this carefully.”
“Raffi,” called Elnor, from a meter away. “Come and look at this.”
They joined up under the shade of a huge and ancient tree. Raffi saw a green mound. A grave. It was well kept, with plants thriving all around, and flowers too. Whoever was buried here was remembered and perhaps even loved. On a white Bajoran marker was carved:
SABA TAAN
2321–2357
FOR BAJOR
“Saba Taan,” whispered Toze.
Raffi looked at Garak. “Can you shed any light on this?”
“No,” said Garak.
“No?” said Toze, eyeing Garak with considerable distaste. “Saba Taan was the last vedek at the temple at Akantha. He was there when the Cardassians burned the town.”
That, thought Raffi, was one hell of an alias to pick. Did Garak know? Surely it was no accident that he had chosen this name, this individual, as his cover story.
“What happened to him,” she said. “To Saba Taan?”
“He disappeared,” Toze said.
“Disappeared?” said Sokara. “You mean the Cardassians killed him with the rest?”
Toze shook his head. “There were a couple of survivors of the massacre at Akantha. They all say that Saba left the town before the killing began. They also say that he took the children with him.”
Raffi was shivering, as if someone had walked over her grave. “Like the Pied Piper…” The others, she realized, were looking at her in confusion. “Forget it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter… What happened to those kids, Toze? Did they ever turn up?”
“It’s one of the many unsolved mysteries of the Occupation,” said Toze. “There are quite a lot of them. In general, one can assume that we’ve simply not found the graves yet. Bajoran Intelligence believed that the Cardassians caught up with Vedek Saba not long after the massacre, and he and the children were killed then.”
