Second self, p.29
Second Self, page 29
“Yeah, well, let’s call it quits, eh? Peace and reconciliation.”
“I would like that, Raffi,” he said.
They walked together back down into the valley. On the nearby grave, the flowers had been moved, and, beneath the two symbols, an addition had been made.
ELIM GARAK
2321–2399
FOR CARDASSIA
15
The Stargazer was en route to Starbase 211, where a civilian transporter would take Raffi and Elnor back to Earth. Raffi had supper with Rios, drank a little too much pisco, and went to bed, where she tossed and turned. After the mission came the letdown. Always. The dangerous moment, when Raffi might reach for chemical assistance to stop her spiraling downward. Not that it ever worked. Her thoughts became dark and dangerous, and around and around in her head went the words that Garak had said to her; words she was afraid would turn out to not be lies.
There’s something broken in you, isn’t there? Something that can’t be fixed…
She should know better than to let him get under her skin. That was what he had wanted. She was sure he wouldn’t want it now.
She got up and dressed, left her cabin, and wandered the decks. The ship was on its night cycle. The few members of the crew around were busy with their duties. At a quiet observation port, she found Elnor, staring out into space.
“Hey,” she said, “you can’t sleep either?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I keep thinking…”
“Terrible idea,” she said. “Particularly at bedtime. What about?”
“About the mission. About whether or not we succeeded.”
“We went out there to find a solution to the refugee crisis,” she said. “We did that.”
“That’s not the mission I was thinking about, Raffi,” he said.
“We were sent to bring Elim Garak to justice,” she said.
“We failed.”
Raffi looked out at the speeding stars. What was that story, that old one? About an ancient spaceship pilot taking emergency medical supplies who finds a stowaway on board. There isn’t enough fuel to bring him and her and the medicine to where it’s needed. The stowaway agrees to jettison herself. Raffi hated that story. Hated the phoniness, the way the story was constructed to serve up its moral. Hated how the whole damn thing was set up to force the outcome. Life didn’t work that way. People anticipated problems; worked things out; found solutions. Sometimes things worked out and sometimes they didn’t. But you tried. You didn’t just walk out of an airlock.
“I know how you like to deal in certainties,” she said. “I know that you’ve been taught to see everything in black and white. True and false. Sometimes life is more complicated than that.”
“I struggle,” he said, “with these complications.”
“We did good.”
“But he got away!”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“He will never be tried for what he did at Akantha. People were murdered—”
“No,” she said. “He won’t be tried. Instead, he’ll watch himself make that mistake—and he knows that it was a mistake. He won’t be able to stop himself, his younger self, and he’ll live with the consequences. There aren’t tidy solutions. Perhaps what you need to do is learn to live with complexities.”
“I try,” he said. “I really try.”
“I know, honey,” she said. She tried to think of something that might help, and, on a hunch, she said, “Elnor, what did the Orb show you? When you looked into it?”
He didn’t answer right away. He was looking out again at the rush of stars, but now his expression was almost beatific.
“The galaxy,” he whispered. “I saw the galaxy.”
Raffi’s spine tingled as she felt an echo of the profound joy she could see upon his face. You’re going to be okay, kiddo, she thought. You’re going to be okay.
* * *
A quiet, still autumn had settled on La Barre. The grapes had been harvested. The trees were in that halfway stage, the green of summer now overlaid with yellow, the leaves like gold coins. One more stormy night, and they would fall. JL’s house seemed melancholy, as if saddened by the history that it contained.
Raffi had come to make her report to the admiral. “I wanted to give you my own, direct account of what happened,” Raffi said. “What didn’t make it into the official record.”
JL, pouring the wine, halted to look at her. “There are discrepancies?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I absolutely trust your judgment,” he told her. “You have no need to justify your decisions to me.”
“It’s good to hear you say that, JL,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
“We can close the book on this, if you want,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me the whole story.”
“I think I’d like someone to know,” she said. “I think I’d like to know what you make of what happened.” Because for all your blind spots—you’re still so very wise, JL.
He sat, holding his glass. “Go on.”
“Elim Garak didn’t die on Ordeve,” she said.
“That…” he said at last, “is a fairly significant discrepancy. Do I need to alert the authorities?”
“No,” she said. “Let me be scrupulously accurate. He did die on Ordeve, but not when I said in my report. He was… He was already dead.”
“Rather an important detail to omit from your report. What am I missing? Ah!” He nodded. “Does this have to do with the Orb?”
“You’ve got it,” she said. “Elnor and I did find Elim Garak in the Caanta valley, disguised as a Bajoran vedek. His Orb encounter sent him back into the past to become Vedek Saba Taan. With his knowledge of the future, he was able to rescue the Orb of Restitution and the Bajoran children from his younger self.”
JL sat back in his chair. Raffi didn’t often get the chance to surprise him. She found that she was rather enjoying the experience.
“Well,” said JL, eventually, “that is indeed a considerably different end to his story. The Bajorans have no idea?”
“Toze Falus knows.”
“The Koma Tath agent?”
“Yes. He was the one who let Garak go.” Raffi held up her hands. “I mean, it had to be his decision, didn’t it? The rest of us—we shouldn’t decide. Garak reached out, and touched the Orb…” She shook her head. “He was gone.”
“Extraordinary…” murmured JL.
“I keep thinking,” said Raffi, “about what his life must have been like, going back to Akantha. Watching his younger self arrive. I think he was very young—the first time. Twenty, at the very most?”
“Keen to establish himself. Not ready to admit he could be wrong,” said JL. He smiled. “I’ve been a young man.”
“Imagine seeing yourself about to make such a terrible mistake. Having to let it happen.”
“Yes,” said JL, “and more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“From what I have read,” said JL, “my understanding is that Ambassador Garak was, above all, a patriot.”
“For Cardassia,” Raffi said, remembering the gravestone. “Yes, I think that everything he did was for Cardassia.”
“Then think about this last century, Raffi. Think about what happened to Cardassia. Its history in that time has been one of terrible strife. The most awful devastation. The Occupation, the Dominion War, the Fire. Millions upon millions of Cardassians died at the hands of the Jem’Hadar. Cities reduced to ashes. Art, architecture, music, literature—all lost. He lived through that history—played a not insignificant part in it. He knew that the Occupation would lead, in time, to the near destruction of Cardassia. Yet he committed to living through that Occupation—as a Bajoran, no less! He did not give his younger self the foreknowledge of these events. He did not attempt to change that history, in order to ensure a different outcome.”
Raffi thought of that small house, the desk with the books and notes and letters. A little settlement, quiet and safe. What he must have done, in the time before his own arrival, using his Obsidian Order knowledge and training to turn the Caanta valley into a sanctuary. Moving to protect both the Orb and the children of the town from the violence of his younger self. Making the settlement in the valley viable. Protecting those children; caring for them. Feji Apra loved him. Raffi thought of him dying there, among Bajorans, giving shri’tal to people unlike him, trusting them to make sure that when the time came, he would make the right choices. Hoping that with the help of the Prophets—the gods of an alien and enemy people—he would get the chance to make amends. To set things right.
“It strikes me as quite the sacrifice,” said JL. “But how else are these cycles of history broken? The Orb of Restitution. How apt.” He fell silent. “I wonder,” he said meditatively, “whether, given the choice, I would do the same.”
The history that Jean-Luc Picard had lived through had been no less hard in its own way, Raffi thought. The supernova, the relief mission, the synth attack. His resignation had been a terrible loss for him; the years that followed barren and unhappy.
“I wonder,” he said, again.
Raffi thought about her own part in this history. She was sure now, as sure as she could be, that the power surge that saved their lives all those years ago had been down to Garak. On his instructions—or maybe the direct intervention of the Prophets. The gods of the Bajorans—the wormhole aliens, she told herself—smiling down on her. Someone looking out for her. That felt… Raffi didn’t quite have the words for this feeling. It felt good. It felt nice. Somebody cared for her.
“Toze made the real sacrifice,” she said. “All those years, pursuing Garak—almost his whole career. Finding bits and pieces of evidence. Tracking him down. And he put all that aside, trusting in the Prophets.” She shook her head. “What must it be like, to be Bajoran? To know that there are beings of great power—godlike power—directly involving themselves in your lives, your history?”
“An interesting experience,” he said dryly. “Remind me to tell you more about the Q, one day. Preliminary signs are that Toze’s decision is paying off. The kai is beside herself with joy that an Orb has been returned. Castellan Kalis has been invited to visit Bajor to see its installation. The first visit of a Cardassian leader to Bajor since the end of the Occupation.” He smiled. “I imagine you’ll be invited. The honored guest of both the Cardassians and the Bajorans. Very few people have managed to achieve that, Raffi.”
“Hey,” she said, “I’ll take the love where I can find it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said, and they did. Refilling their glasses, he went on, “I know that when you took on this mission, Raffi, you were concerned that it might prove damaging for you. Going back to Ordeve. Revisiting that chapter in your history. This hasn’t been the case, I hope?” He sounded anxious. “It seems to have been the opposite?”
“I’m glad I went,” she said. “It wasn’t easy, going back there. Stirred up more than I expected. Made me confront… mistakes I’ve made that I’m still living with. But I did the right thing back then. It didn’t win me many friends at Command, at the time, but it was the right thing. It’s good to be vindicated.” She considered that. “It’s good to be vindicated, again.”
* * *
In the late afternoon, Picard and Laris took the dog out for a walk. The countryside was gray, hazy under thin drizzle. The trees still wore their October colors, but the leaves were drooping and sad. They would soon be gone, and winter underway. They walked with space between them, the dog running to and fro, and Picard told Laris everything that happened on Ordeve.
“I’d rather he was dead,” said Laris, when he was finished. “Sent into the past? Sounds like he got away with it, yet again.”
“The Koma Tath agent seems to be content,” noted Picard. “According to Raffi, he was the one that made the decision.”
“Bajorans,” said Laris scornfully, “that religion makes them weak. Softhearted.”
“That’s the kind of thing that I would expect to hear from a Cardassian,” said Picard. “Not from you.”
“I hate to disillusion you this late in the day, but I’m not a very good person.”
“Demonstrably untrue,” he said. “But he’s gone now, into the past, where he can’t do any more harm.”
“He did enough of that over the years,” she said.
Number One, who had been snuffling some way ahead, came running back, shoving his nose into his master’s hand. “I mean,” said Picard, “who counts as very good, really, when it comes down to it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “How about someone who gives sanctuary to two Tal Shiar runaways? Someone who takes it upon himself to try to save an entire sentient species? Someone who resigns on a point of principle from the career that means more to him than anything? I’m just throwing these suggestions out there.”
“Laris,” said Picard, shaking his head, “I make mistakes, all the time. Sometimes I see people as instruments of a higher purpose. I forget who they are in themselves. I am stubborn and intransigent and often do not see what is directly in front of me…”
The light was fading. The leaves waited for the first storm of winter. “Daft old thing,” she said fondly, putting her arm through his.
“Is this sufficient closure for you?” he said. “Will this do?”
“It’ll do,” she said. “Thank you, Jean-Luc. Thank you for doing this for me. For us.”
For Zhaban.
“You’re welcome,” said Picard. “Shall we head for home?”
* * *
That night, Raffi lay on the comfortable bed in the quiet guest room, pillows piled around her, listening to the gentle rustle of the wind around the house. Number One lay curled at her side. She was looking down at a padd, pondering the conversation with JL. After a while, she said, “Play Saba Taan’s message.”
And there he was on-screen, Saba Taan, or Elim Garak. Still Bajoran; wearing the long earring and a vedek’s robes. Inhabiting the part completely.
“Lieutenant Commander Musiker,” he said. The dog, looking up at the sound of the voice, gave a quick sharp bark. “My greetings and regards from Ordeve under the Occupation.”
The message to her from Garak had been on the data rod that Feji Apra had given her. It was oddly gratifying to think that, even among everything else that must have been happening to him, Garak had found time for this. Or perhaps, as Feji had said, he made sure he got the last word. She had watched this message several times now, trying to work out what was best to do about its contents. Even now, she had not quite come to her final decision.
“It struck me, on my arrival here in the past, that you had never seen the temple at Akantha before it met its, ah, unfortunate end.”
When you burned it down, Raffi thought.
“And I thought that perhaps you might like to see it in all its glory, before it is no longer here. Do pass on whatever information you think is appropriate to Professor Deechi Lan at the University of Tamulna. I believe he is very well respected, whatever our mutual acquaintance Toze Falus had to say. If the slandering of innocent scholars were the worst crime committed by undercover operatives, perhaps the universe would be a happier place. But I digress. Here, Commander, is the temple of Akantha, in its glory days.”
Slowly, Garak walked her around the temple, pointing out features as he went. The warm glow of the candles on the yellow stone. The paintings on the walls. The prayer chambers. And, at the far end, a tall wooden cabinet.
“I cannot show you the Orb,” said Garak. “Its removal to the Caanta valley was the first task that I undertook on my arrival here. The local population are very trusting of their elderly vedek and are quite content to believe that I am under instruction from the Prophets. Perhaps I am. The people here know that something bad is coming to Akantha. They are doing everything possible to help me save as much as I can.”
In the background, there came the sound of young voices, shouting, quarreling, laughing, shrieking. Number One’s ears pricked up.
“And then there are the children…” Garak, looking back over his shoulder, frowned. “One moment, please, Commander…”
This was Raffi’s favorite part of the message. Watching Elim Garak, former Obsidian Order agent, now responsible for the care of a quiet rural temple, deal with an incursion into his territory from some local rascals. “Feji Ressith!” Raffi heard Vedek Saba bellow across his domain. “Put down that candle immediately!”
A heated exchange followed, which Raffi could not quite catch, and the intruders were out of the door in a matter of moments, whereupon Garak was able to return to his message. It was not simply, she thought, that this whole interruption was so amusing, providing a glimpse of his life in the Caanta valley. It was how thoroughly embedded Garak had become in this small community. How thoroughly his life was now enmeshed in theirs. Feji Ressith. Was that a relative of Apra’s? A spouse-to-be? She should ask, perhaps…
“Forgive the intrusion,” said Garak. “Bajoran children are remarkably ill-bred. They lack the discipline of a proper Cardassian education.” He sniffed. “I imagine this explains how adaptable their resistance movement is, and why it will so thoroughly trounce our too-regimented military in the forthcoming decades. But I should say a word about these children, perhaps, since I will shortly be escorting these disobedient imps to safety.”
Behind him, the temple was now quiet. Garak sat back comfortably in his seat, bathed in the warm light of the candles. You might almost, Raffi thought, believe that he was at home.
“There was a period in my life—my first exile, I call it, since my time on Earth as ambassador constitutes the second and this”—he held up his hands—“constitutes the third, when I hit rock bottom.”
His hand went up to touch his brow.
“Many years ago, still in my youth, but after my visit to Akantha, I underwent a procedure to install an implant that prevented me from experiencing pain. When I was forced to leave Cardassia Prime, I began to use the implant extensively. Continuously, in fact.” He gave her a bright smile. “I saw you, Commander, with the bud of the blood poppy. And I have read your file. I don’t have to explain to you, of all people, the use of medication for the relief of mental agony. One does tend to recognize a fellow traveler—and the life of the operative is… how should I put this? Stressful? Yes, stressful. I do not know your route to recovery, but mine was aided by the presence of a quite remarkable young man. A doctor…”
