Chapter Text
The USS Galahad, under the command of Captain Elisa Moraga, had made first contact with the Brachnians nearly five years ago. It was one of the first major triumphs of her five-year mission in the Gamma Quadrant. The Brachnians were alien in every sense of the word, but they displayed an intellectual curiosity and a pacifist attitude that made them a natural fit as Federation allies – and maybe, soon, Federation members. After a rocky first encounter, there had been no animosity between the Federation and the Brachnians. Their largest problems stemmed from difficulties in communication – Brachnians were unsuited to life on most Federation planets, so it was a technological challenge to get a Brachnian in the same room with a Federation citizen, much less to have a mutually intelligible conversation. Even so, Starfleet’s engineers had spent the past five years remotely collaborating with the Brachnians to make it possible. Now, finally, tonight was to be the social debut of Brachnians on Earth after months of preparation and remote contact. Whatever an alliance between the Brachnians and the Federation would bring, it had certainly been a long time coming.
“You can say that again,” said Miles.
“Whatever an alliance between the Brachnians and the Federation will bring, it’s certainly been a long time coming,” Julian said again. Then he peeled himself away from the wall and made a little half-pirouette to face his friend. “Shall I get us a couple of drinks?”
“You know what I like.”
“Two Andorian flirtinis, coming right up.” He waited for the wide-eyed grimace to appear. “And for you, maybe a glass of the white.”
“All right, get out of here, you – ” Miles shooed him away with a playful swat. “Didn’t realize it was amateur night at the comedy club…”
Julian sank into the sea of Starfleet white, glad that he had made a point of coming over to see Miles rather than just hanging around the crew from the Galahad, and then…
Well, the breath fell right out of him.
There was Ambassador Garak at the bar, dressed to the nines, apparently representing Cardassia quite admirably to the Bolian bartender. Julian had known he might be there. As one of the guests of honor himself, he had access to the full list of invitees. He’d made sure that an invitation was sent out to Miles and Keiko, to Ezri, and to Nog, with the hopes that he’d bring Rom and Leeta along. He had not requested that an invitation be sent to Elim Garak, and he was at a loss for who had.
He desperately wanted to see the man, of course. That wasn’t the issue at hand. He dallied on his way to the bar, hoping someone would pass by with whom he might be entangled in a friendly chat. Perhaps he’d run into the captain – but no, she wasn’t much for making an appearance for appearance’s sake. She would be in the shipyards, overseeing the Galahad’s refits. There were the Brachnians, of course, but they were so difficult to corner. There were only six of them in attendance, and the rest of the party guests were a mess of the usual suspects – an assemblage of Vulcans, Terrans, Tellarites, and so on whirling busily across the white ballroom floor, every now and then a group of them swarming around one of the hulking brass containment suits and cooing into the communication panel on the right arm.
The crowd was dense and lively enough that it was difficult to pinpoint anyone in particular, but at length, he recognized one of his crewmates: Lt. Mary Thompson. She had done something new to her hair, put it up in two frizzy black poufs on the top of her head. He could take the opportunity to compliment her, but she seemed to be engaged in a stirring round of “Logical/Illogical” with a Vulcan in a sharp little silver number that was anything but logical in design. He’d been introduced to her once before, he remembered – T’Pom, of the house of Vortuk. He’d tried to invite her to dinner and struck out miserably. Best not to interrupt them, he thought. Thwarted from conversation, he stopped simply to admire the crystal chandelier. That is, simply to stall for time. He was in a strange mood. Was he nervous? His gaze kept flickering back to Garak, trying to overhear something without being noticed himself.
The barkeep, doing his part to make a good impression on the ambassador, was putting together some kind of cocktail as a diplomatic gift from the Federation.
---
AMBASSADOR: (With his eyes far away) You can’t tell me that this is the sort of thing they drink on Earth.
BARTENDER: (Charmingly) What kind of representative would I be if I lied about that to an ambassador? Want me to fix you something sweeter? Andorian flirtini, perhaps? Or… a Blue Bolian?
AMBASSADOR: On the contrary, I am enjoying this… gin and tonic very much. I am only shocked that a Federation beverage could be so palatable.
---
Ah, that was Garak. Sly as ever, but Julian would be all right. He’d take that empty seat beside the man and surely, he thought, it would all fall into place. Read any good books lately? How wonderful! Would you like to fight about them? I haven’t had a good disagreement in ages – nothing like old times, anyways. Dear me, I’ve missed you. And then, after that, well…
---
BARTENDER: You seem to be the man of the hour, Ambassador.
AMBASSADOR: At a party to celebrate the alliance between the Federation and the Brachnians? Why, it has nothing at all to do with the Cardassian Union.
BARTENDER: Then how do you explain all the eyes on you?
AMBASSADOR: I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.
BARTENDER: Look around, Ambassador. I can point out about five people off the top of my head who have been circling you like a school of fish all night.
AMBASSADOR: By all means.
BARTENDER: (He surreptitiously indicates Miles O’Brien.) Him, for starters. He’s been eyeing you like you owe him money. You don’t, do you? And then there’s the Starfleet Ferengi, his father, the Bajoran woman, the Trill… and I haven’t even mentioned the talk.
AMBASSADOR: Why, what sort of talk?
BARTENDER: Well, you know what I’m asking about, don’t you? Everyone wants to know why you’re here tonight.
AMBASSADOR: (Coldly) I am simply representing the Cardassian Union in a show of diplomatic good will.
BARTENDER: (Trying to make a recovery) It’s funny, isn’t it? This whole to-do is all about the Brachnian-Federation alliance, but there are hardly any Brachnians here. It might as well be an Academy class reunion for all the dress uniforms swimming around.
AMBASSADOR: Think of it from the perspective of the Brachnians. They only have twelve of those containment suits. If I were them, I wouldn’t want to have them all in one place either.
---
It was just about time to bite the bullet, wasn’t it? You can do it, Bashir, you old scamp. You’ve faced worse boogeymen in the Gamma Quadrant than one dear, old friend.
---
BARTENDER: You know, Ambassador, I’m terribly interested in Cardassian literature.
AMBASSADOR: Are you? I’m afraid I can’t stomach the classics these days.
BARTENDER: Is that so? I – (Seeing someone approach) Hi, what are you having?
---
“Whatever he’s got, thanks,” Julian said as he slid onto the stool beside Garak – and my, hadn’t it been a long time? That certainly wasn’t kanar. He peered over the heads of the shifting masses and recognized what must have been Keiko standing beside Miles. Now that she was there, he certainly had to follow through with the joke. He was about to see Keiko O’Brien again, how delightful! He tried to keep himself calm by looking forward to it. “And one Andorian flirtini, if you please.”
“Doctor,” Garak said, his face dangerously unguarded. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to muster up the courage to say hello.”
“The courage to say hello? To an old friend? I don’t know what it’s like on Cardassia these days,” he said (more bitterly than he’d meant to), “but here on Earth we’re very fond of keeping in touch with our old friends.”
“Why, Doctor, I can’t fathom how you’d know the way things are done on Earth. You haven’t been on Earth in years. Or have you?”
“I find I keep abreast of things even from out in the Gamma Quadrant. We do get subspace comms out there, but maybe you didn’t know that.”
“Is that so,” said Garak mildly. A tense silence followed. The Bolian, sensing that his chances at charming a handsome tip (or some classified information) out of the Ambassador had been thoroughly blown, set Dr. Bashir’s gin and tonic on the bar with excessive gentleness and a brilliant smile, then turned away and got to work on the flirtini.
Julian took the cool glass in hand and swung himself around on the stool to face away from the bar – really, to face away from Garak. He let his eyes slip shut as the refreshing bitterness of the drink hit his tongue. He felt so unbearably hot in this uniform under these lights.
“It is quite good, isn’t it?” Garak asked, catching him off guard. Either he’d forgotten how loudly Garak spoke when he wasn’t minding his volume, or Garak was doing it on purpose to set him on edge. Both, likely, but he tried not to let it rattle him.
“Of course I think so,” he said, “but I’m surprised you’d drink something so…Federaji, is it?”
“It’s been a long time, my dear. My palate has expanded.”
“Andorian flirtini,” the Bolian announced, and there it sat, precious, pink, and sparkling in its little stemmed glass: Julian’s escape.
But Garak wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“I must say, Doctor, that I had been beginning to think there was some problem with the Galahad’s long-range subspace transmitters. You’ll have to find me again this evening and regale me with some heroic tales from the Gamma Quadrant when you have the time. I have so missed your letters,” he confessed, as though it were nothing, and then he was gone. Julian stared after him. How on Earth had he let their conversation get so rotten so quickly?
“You don’t have to take it out on the bar,” the Bolian said sharply when Julian slammed his fist down hard enough to make the glassware dance.
“Sorry,” he said, took up the darling little cocktail from the bar, and let the momentum of his anger carry him all the way over to the O’Briens like a wave on its way to crashing.
---
He ought to have treasured the bark of disbelief when he thrust the flirtini into Miles’s free hand, but it only made him feel worse. “There’s nothing to laugh about, really. Sorry it’s not a pint, but it’s a perfectly serviceable drink.”
“Julian, it was your own joke,” Miles protested, clearly put off.
“Are you going to drink it or not? Hi, Keiko. I didn’t know if you’d be able to make it.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to,” she admitted, eyeing the flirtini with bemusement, “but Molly and Yoshi were completely fine while I was at the conference today, so I thought it can’t hurt to let them stay home alone for another few hours.”
“Staying home alone already? They’re practically grown up.”
“Julian, I didn’t ask for this.” (Miles.)
“Miles.” (Said Keiko.)
“Didn’t you think it would be funny?” (Julian, belligerently.)
“Yes, Julian. Ha, ha. We all had a laugh. Now, why don’t you have it?”
“You know, I will,” he said, and then he did (It’s very good, I’ll have you know), and then he marched through a set of open doors that led onto one of the balconies (Are you going to tell me what that was about?) with his however much was left of the gin and tonic, leaving the empty flirtini glass on a table somewhere along the way.
(What do you think, Keiko? He’s throwing a fit.)
At least, that’s what he assumed they were saying now that he was well out of earshot. Even as he thought it, he knew how immature it sounded. What was it about Garak that made him regress? He threw himself towards the railing, thoroughly miffed, and – CLANG!
Julian howled in pain. Not looking where he was going, his elbow had collided with a massive brass hull – a Brachnian containment suit! As he reeled backwards, he reached for a phaser at his belt that wasn’t there (the Gamma Quadrant will do that to you if Deep Space Nine hasn’t already). The Brachnian suit buzzed with the reverberations of the impact.
A passing breeze made him shiver – the force of the collision had splashed the remainder of his drink across his front. The Brachnian did not move. Julian rubbed at his throbbing arm.
“Sorry,” he said at last, “I didn’t think this balcony was occupied.”
“Occupied,” said the comm unit on the suit’s right arm, “but not at capacity.” It raised that limb and indicated the open space at the railing.
“Thank you,” he said, and took the space.
The featureless head of the suit turned to him, its glass face empty and black as ever. “You are Bashir.”
“Yes!” Julian confirmed, pleased to be recognized. “Doctor Julian Bashir. I was there when the Galahad first encountered Brachnia.”
“You are friend to me,” intoned the comm unit on the Brachnian’s arm. It was not really an arm, Julian decided, but more like a fin. It had no phalanges, only a broad plane that tapered to a point in an organic curve. The overall effect of the containment suit was something like that of an upright whale.
“How can that be?” Julian asked. “I’m certain we’ve never met. I’ve never encountered a Brachnian face-to-face until tonight.”
“Brachnia has no face,” the Brachnian said.
“Is that so!”
“It is so,” it confirmed.
“Excuse me if I’m being a bit forward,” Julian said, “but may I ask you a few questions about your physiology?”
“You may or may not. I cannot determine.”
“Sorry, I mean – would it offend you?”
“I will not be offended.”
“Fantastic. Oh, where to start! Can I ask you if your physical form is reflected by the shape of the containment suits?”
“The containment vessel limits the body.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It determines the shape of the body,” the Brachnian told him. “Someday,” it continued, “I hope to meet the Federation body outside of its containment vessels. It may bring us pleasure to exist in that way.”
“Without – do you mean the uniform? The clothes, the white fabric coverings,” he explained, tugging at the front of his dress uniform. “I wouldn’t call it a containment vessel.”
“There are white coverings and brown coverings.”
But he wasn’t wearing anything brown, or was he?
“Oh,” he said at last, “but of course we wouldn’t perceive the same color spectrum, so perhaps there’s been a translation error…”
The Brachnian had raised its right fin to indicate its empty face. “On some of the Federation bodies, it is blue. On some, yellow. Some, pink.”
“Oh. No, no, no. This,” – he pinched the back of his hand to demonstrate – “does not contain the body. This is the body. The outer layer of the body. We call it skin.”
“The body is contained by skin at all times?”
“Well, yes, you could think of it that way, but really it’s a part of the body itself. It’s part of us.”
The murky nothingness gazed at him through its blank mask. “You end with the body.”
“…Yes. Yes, I would say that I do.”
“There is much remaining to be understood.”
Julian smiled. “Lucky for us, we have until the end of our lives to try and understand each other.”
“The end of our lives,” intoned the right fin of the Brachnian’s suit. “Does this phrase align with the meaning of ‘skin’?”
“Not quite, my friend, though I can see how you got that one,” he said, leaning over the railing, not in the mood to explain mortality to a species that might not experience it, not in the mood to confirm whether or not the Brachnians were biologically immortal, not in the mood to feel as jealous as he would if it turned out they were.
Ah, Paris! The wind lifted his hair away from his forehead. He thought of an undulating Terran jellyfish, perhaps T. dohrnii, infinitely regressing from maturity to infancy and growing up again in an immortal loop. Above – far, far above – the homeworld of the Brachnians might have twinkled at him from its distant perch in another arm of the Milky Way. Beneath, the busy lights of Paris hurried along streets and rails and over the water like the rippling bodies of ctenophores in the deep.
“Will it bring you pleasure to be alone?” asked the Brachnian. Kindly, if it were possible for that computerized voice to sound kind.
“No,” Julian answered. “Stay, if you like.”
He took a deep breath in and turned around. Through open glass-paned doors, he observed the movements within:
---
LIEUTENANT MARY THOMPSON: (Sipping a Blue Bolian) I don’t even like the way it tastes, but I like it anyways. I actually enjoy that I don’t like it.
T’POM OF VULCAN: (With a glass of champagne) I find that to be most illogical.
---
It looked like they were getting on swimmingly, but he couldn’t watch one pair for too long. He let his gaze drift across the ballroom, waiting to fall on someone else he recognized.
---
(Leeta and Rom dance a tango as the orchestra plays a waltz.)
LEETA: Rom! Rom, OW! My arm doesn’t move that way!
ROM: Sorry – oh! Sorry!
LEETA: Ouch, that was my toes!
ROM: Sorry, sorry, sorry! (To someone else) Sorry! (Whispered to Leeta) Sorry!
LEETA: Oh, Rom, I’ll love you forever.
ROM: So far, so good!
(They embrace.)
---
GARAK:
---
But he looked away.
---
LIEUTENANT THOMPSON: (Who has finished the Blue Bolian) I’ve never been good at dancing; I have two left feet.
T’POM: (Examining Lieutenant Thompson’s feet) I find that to be a most illogical expression.
---
GARAK:
---
LIEUTENANT THOMPSON: Maybe you could show me some of your moves. I bet you have a lot to teach me.
T’POM: You must have been misinformed, Lieutenant. I am no dance instructor.
LIEUTENANT THOMPSON: Oh, that’s even better! I hate learning from teachers!
T’POM: I find that to be a most illogical perspective.
LIEUTENANT THOMPSON: Then maybe I have something to teach you.
---
GARAK: (Speaking with an Andorian)
---
T’POM: Are you an instructor, Lieutenant?
---
GARAK: (Laughing in that way he does when he is bored with someone)
---
LIEUTENANT THOMSPON: Consider it more like an extracurricular activity.
---
GARAK: (Who hasn’t replied to a single letter in the past seven years)
---
ROM: Oh, Leeta…
LEETA: Yes, Rom?
---
GARAK: (Who looks very beautiful tonight – very dignified)
---
ROM: I think I have a stomach ache. I ate…too much…of the cake.
LEETA: Does that mean you want to get out of here?
ROM: …Yes!
LEETA: Oh, Rom!
---
GARAK: (Who doesn’t look any older than he did before)
---
(Rom and Leeta are gone.)
---
GARAK:
---
(Lieutenant Thompson and her partner for the evening have disappeared into the mass of bodies on the dance floor.)
---
GARAK:
---
(Lieutenant Selek of the USS Galahad descends the stairs, headed to one of the lower levels, but he is gone before Julian can think to say hello.)
---
GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
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GARAK:
---
A cohort of barrel-chested Tellarites blocked his view.
“I think I’ll have another drink,” he said unwisely. “Shall I get you something?”
“I do not consume liquid,” said the metal limb of the Brachnian, “but thank you, Doctor Bashir.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
He waited.
Nothing came.
“Well, I’ll see you later, perhaps. Thanks for the company.”
“Yes,” it said.
Yes to what? Julian wondered.
Regardless, he braced himself and dove back into the thick of things, hoping to find Miles and make amends now that he’d cooled off a bit.
---
It turned out that he didn’t have to search for too long; Miles had been looking for him, too.
“You’re leaving already?” Julian asked, crestfallen.
“It’s the last transport to Dublin in half an hour,” Miles explained apologetically. “I don’t think the kids are quite ready to spend the whole night on their own.”
“It’s not that late, is it?”
“It’s after 2300 hours, Julian,” Keiko said.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “I’d thought I’d treat you both to another drink after I embarrassed myself with the last one.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Miles, eyes firmly on the ground. (And his face was turning a bit red, as well. They two had never been the best with their feelings, had they?)
There was an uncomfortable lull during which none of them wanted to say goodbye.
“Have you gotten the chance to talk to Ezri?” Keiko asked.
“Not just yet,” he said, “but we write to each other now and then, so we won’t have too much to catch each other up on.”
If he were being honest, he was dreading the encounter.
“You write to each other! That’s good to hear. Did you see Nog? Do you know he’s already been promoted to Lieutenant?”
“I’ll be sure to congratulate him before the end of the night.”
“It’s really something that so many of us from DS9 were able to make it,” she said.
They didn’t mention the friends absent and they didn’t mention Garak.
Julian gave each of them hug, lifting Keiko off her feet and, to his surprise, getting picked up an inch or two by Miles.
“I’ll be on Earth for at least another month. I’ll be in Dublin. I promise.”
“You will if you know what’s good for you,” Miles said, threatening and teary-eyed all at once.
---
Farewells having been made, Julian headed for the nearest washroom to see about getting the front of his jacket under some sonics – he was dry now, mostly, but faintly sticky. He suspected that the dress uniforms were made of some fabric without the stain resistance factor of the standard duty jumpsuits. If he were quick, he might be able to make it in and out without anyone noticing what he was up to.
Unfortunately, he locked eyes in the mirror with Ezri Dax the moment he stepped into the washroom. She still had her hands under the sonic faucet, so she was unlikely to chase him, but he already had his jacket down around his wrists and therefore stayed put.
“Julian!” she exclaimed. Then she said: “How did you get that bruise?”
“What bruise? Oh,” he said, contorting himself in front of the mirror to get a good look, “that bruise.”
“What happened?”
“I, er, ran into one of the Brachnians.”
“Didn’t you see it coming? They’re two and a half meters tall –”
“And about as wide, yes, I know. I was preoccupied,” he said, closing the subject. He got his jacket the rest of the way off and held it taut under the second sonic faucet. “I’m glad you were able to make it, Ezri,” he said, not looking at her.
“Me, too! Have you spoken to Garak yet?”
“Well – ” he began.
“I was just talking to him a minute ago. He was telling me about his latest project with the Cardassian ministry. You should ask him about the Monument to Cardassian Memory – I’m no expert in memorial politics, but it sounds like a great project. I think he’s really proud of the work he’s been doing recently.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about it,” Julian snapped.
“Julian,” she said, admonishing.
“Don’t ‘Julian’ me, Ezri. Not in that tone. If he doesn’t want to keep in touch, that’s his prerogative, but I’ve every right to be annoyed with him for it.”
“Julian,” she began – and it wasn’t in that tone anymore, but he still couldn’t abide by it. He shook out his jacket with excessive force.
“And I did speak to him, Ezri, and it went terribly. He’s every bit as snide and manipulative as ever.”
Ezri frowned at him. “Those are pretty harsh words, Julian.”
“I have every right to use them, so don’t you try and convince me they’re unwarranted. Do you know how I found out he’d first been appointed to the ministry? I read it in a letter from Nerys. She mentioned it without a second thought, because she assumed that I would already know. I found out about his ambassadorship in a video-comm with Miles. He asked me if Garak accepting the position had been my idea, when I didn’t know a thing about it. I used to write to him, Ezri, but you’ll forgive me if I gave up after the first three years without any reply!”
His voice reverberated unpleasantly against the washroom tile. Ezri’s steady gaze made him feel as though he’d been turned into a very small Rigellian mud-toad. He put his jacket back on and started doing up the fastenings in the mirror.
“I hear you, Julian,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “I can’t tell you what you should do, but… Garak is here tonight. If there’s something you want to express to him that requires a response, this could be your only opportunity for a long time.”
She pressed her lips into a smile, put her hands on his shoulders, and squeezed.
“Thank you, Ezri.”
“Any time. Now, let’s get out of here,” she said, tilting her head to indicate the door. “I think there might be a line.”
Whatever else there was between them, she did always know how to make him laugh.
---
Once he and Ezri had parted ways, he found himself with another gin and tonic, in a much better mood, and got himself surrounded by an adulating company of nameless whoevers (he didn’t mean that) from some Federation planet or other (it was on the tip of his tongue), telling the story of the Galahad’s first encounter with the Brachnian homeworld.
“We’d beamed right down into the murk,” he said, delighting in the way his audience leaned in, angling themselves to see and hear him as well as possible, “Captain Moraga, Lieutenant Selek, and myself, all of us struggling to swim through this thick black liquid atmosphere in our diving suits. The beams from our flashlights went about a meter and stopped, so we were all relying on echo-navigation and the Galahad’s sensor readings. Completely aimless, slogging through the mucky, gooey, sticky atmosphere, in search of the life signs we’d detected from orbit…”
---
“Captain,” Selek said, “I am sure the readings were not in error.”
“I trust you, Lieutenant, but there’s nobody down here,” the captain replied. Her voice resonated strangely in Julian’s helmet.
“I sense a presence, Captain. I cannot make telepathic contact, but I do feel…a presence.”
“You’re a touch telepath, aren’t you?” Julian asked although he knew the answer – he’d long learned it made people more comfortable if he feigned a certain amount of ignorance, made himself seem a little less sure –
“And not an exceptionally practiced one,” Selek confirmed. “There are some Vulcans who would be able to follow this presence to its physical location; I myself do not have the skill.”
“I vote we split up,” said Captain Moraga. “All in favor?” (Aye!) “Glad to hear it, boys. Run proximity scans every three minutes and stay within communication range. If any of us run into trouble, we beam aboard immediately and have Li’pek bring the other two up with us – no questions asked. Be safe.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The three diverged, each stolen from the others by the swallowing black of the Brachnian sea. It was not like the dark of a cave. Even in the deepest caves of Thamet, the first moon of Hanin III, the beam of a flashlight would strike against a wall – however far away, there was a limit to the cavern. This darkness had no end. His flashlight here struck nothing – simply gave up and stopped, overtaken and absorbed into the featureless dark.
He swam on and encountered nothing. Nine proximity scans on, fear of the unknown turned to boredom. Likely the life signs they’d picked up were nothing but plankton or bacteria. Right about now they’d be plucked out of the samples they’d beamed aboard the Galahad and a delighted Lt. Thompson would just be beginning to catalogue them. All well and good for scientific observation of the Gamma Quadrant, but a bit of a snore for the exploration team hoping to document some advanced life forms, maybe even to make a first contact.
(Why do we say microorganisms are less advanced? said Thompson one night over drinks in the first weeks of their mission. It infuriates me! They’re perfectly adapted to their environments. They accomplish every task vital to survival. They have the power to alter the condition of their habitats on a massive scale. They have more power than we do, and we have the arrogance to claim they are less advanced! And they don’t have any of the troubles we have, do they? They’re self-sufficient. Show me a heartbroken bacterium. You can’t. No bacteria has ever evolved to feel sorrow.
Well, Julian had replied, we’re in the Gamma Quadrant now, aren’t we? Who knows what we’ll find yet.
Thompson’s eyes were like old Earth pennies, copper irises speckled with the blue-green patina of oxidation.
What happened that made you sign up for the Galahad?
What do you mean?
I know who you are, Doctor Bashir. You’re a hero. You could have an assignment anywhere you want. You could’ve asked for a desk job in command. What made you want to leave the Alpha Quadrant?
He’d smiled then. This was when he’d still thought he could conquer the Gamma Quadrant with his natural charms. Regression, indeed. What can I say? I can’t keep myself away from the frontier.
Thompson, tight-lipped, just shook her head. For me, it was a break-up. My partner of seven years.
And wasn’t it the same for him? There’d been no physical relationship between the two of them, but they had been – …
That’s a long time. I’m sorry, he said. Garak Garak Garak poured into his mind like water from a jug.
I just couldn’t make sense of it psychologically. To see somebody most days of the week for that long, and then – nothing. I kept thinking, why don’t I just go see him? Why don’t I just go to Earth and see him? I thought, if I’m out in the Gamma Quadrant, there will be a reason that I don’t see him anymore. I thought that would make it easier to understand.
Has it?
Not really. But I like the Galahad and I like the work. I like the crew. So far, at least. It’s good to be around new people.
I take it you haven’t met Ensign Brogg yet.
I like Ensign Brogg!
I don’t mean Alba Brogg. I mean Mora Brogg.
There are two Ensign Broggs?)
He thought he saw movement at the edge of his flashlight beam. The next proximity scan revealed nothing. His surroundings were uniform as ever. Perhaps it was a shift in the tides; a natural behavior of the liquid atmosphere, not indicative of any disruption.
(You’ve been such a good friend. I’m going to miss our lunches together.)
“I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” he said to the Garak of his memory.
“What was that, Doctor?” Captain Moraga buzzed in his ear.
“Sorry, Captain. Haven’t seen anything yet, I said. Have you?”
“No. What about you, Selek?”
Brachnia ebbed and flowed around him.
“Selek?”
“Do you read me, Lieutenant Selek?” Julian asked. Maybe Selek was still within range of his transmissions and not the captain’s.
But there was no answer.
“Are you picking him up on your scanner, Doctor?”
“No, Sir.”
“Shoot,” Moraga said. “I’ll get in touch with the Galahad and see if they can read his location.”
---
Captain Moraga slammed her fist onto the control panel and then apologized stiffly to Commander Margot Li’pek. She’d had herself beamed back aboard along with Julian, but they had been unable to lock onto Selek’s position. She didn't even strip off her diving suit before heading up to the bridge, and Julian followed in kind.
“Captain, we’re losing altitude.” (That was Ensign Mitchell at the helm.)
“Compensate, Ensign.” Into her comm badge: “Transporter room, try filtering out the atmospheric fluctuations and scan again. Lieutenant Jemison –”
“– it’s not working, Captain –”
“Lieutenant Jemison, keep trying to hail Selek.” (Aye, Sir!) “Try different frequencies.” Then she rounded on the ensign. “What are you talking about, Mitchell?”
“I can’t compensate. The gravitational pull of the planet has nearly tripled in the past – …five and a half minutes.”
She pressed her comm badge and hailed the chief engineer. “Margot, we’ve got a situation. Can you reroute any more power to thrusters?”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain.”
“It’s no use!” (Mitchell.)
“We don’t talk like that on my bridge, Ensign. How long do we have to solve our little problem?” (Moraga.)
“At this rate, no more than ten minutes.” (Mitchell again.)
“I’ve got Selek!” (Jemison.)
“Put him through.” (Moraga.)
“Captain! This is Lieutenant Selek. I’ve made contact with – something, Captain, but I cannot say what. The contact has been only telepathic.”
“Telepathic…”
“Yes, Captain. This being, whatever it may be, has immensely powerful telepathy.”
“What about telekinesis, Lieutenant?”
“…I am not sure. Why do you ask?”
“The Galahad is being drawn into Brachnia’s atmosphere at an alarming rate. We may all be dead in ten minutes, Lieutenant, so give me your best guess.”
“It’s possible, Captain, I…I apologize. It is difficult to speak.”
“It’s all right, Selek.”
“It is overwhelming. I feel – desire. Desire for understanding. Knowledge. This being wants to study us, Captain.”
“What do you propose we do about it?”
“I think that we should let it, Captain.”
Moraga took in a breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth.
“Ensign, cut all power to the engines.”
“Captain –”
“Now, Ensign.”
---
They plummeted.