Work Text:
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Paris, 2381
The sofa was more than fit for purpose, as Parmak made a point of telling Akret the next time he saw her. Why stand when you can sit, at this age?
“Don’t encourage her,” muttered the ambassador. “Please…”
“Definitely encourage me,” said Akret.
“Oh, I will,” said Parmak, cheerfully. As they made their way upstairs, though, he placed his hand very gently upon the ambassador’s shoulder. He had sensed, throughout the day, a quiet but rising anxiety on the other man’s part. Was it because he was leaving for home tomorrow? Or was there something else?
Back in the apartment, they sat together on the sofa for a while and made good use of some of their remaining time. But there was something plainly preying on the ambassador’s mind. He broke off, abruptly, and went across the room to open the window. He leaned out and breathed in the night air, deeply, carefully. In and out; in and out. Parmak went to join him; he rubbed his hand gently up and down the ambassador’s back.
Tell me, he thought. Talk to me…
“The first night I was here,” the ambassador said, “I couldn’t sleep. I lay on the bed in there for hours missing home and worrying about what was happening now that I wasn’t there, and whether I’d made a mistake coming here. Whether or not I was the right person… I got up. I came in here and I opened this very window. Stood here, right here on this spot… Fresh air often helps… Open spaces…” He took another breath. “There’s something about this city at night that heals the soul. I decided we would become friends, this city and I. And we have. And, I suppose, I haven’t done too badly here, in the end.”
“You’ve been exceptional. I don’t think we would have seen half as much support from the Federation as we did, without you here, reminding them of us.”
“That’s been the general idea.”
Parmak took a moment to assimilate everything he’d just been told. “Do you often struggle to breathe?”
“Sometimes…” He moved away, seeming to need even to put space between the two of them. “Little rooms, you see… Over the years, there’ve been a lot of little rooms.”
Ah, so that was where this was going. That was where this had been heading, all day. Perhaps, on reflection, they should have had this conversation sooner, before everything else. Still, it was hard to regret any of that. Slowly, Parmak folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the wall, bracing himself for what was coming next. The ambassador sat down on the very edge of the chaise longue, facing him, but with his head down. His hands were gripping his knees.
“By the time I arrived you’d been there nearly forty hours, did you know that? I imagine you lost track, that was the aim… I was amazed you’d lasted so long. Stubborn.”
“That’s been said,” agreed Parmak.
“After the third hour with you, I was almost ready to give up. But that would have meant execution, and that seemed wasteful…”
Wasteful. Had they all spoken like this, back then, one way or another? Or just some of them? How far had the infection spread?
“Besides,” he said, “I knew I’d get something out of you.”
“Which you did,” said Parmak.
“Yes.” He risked a quick look up, then down again. “But not what I wanted.”
“What? It finished my father—”
“Well, yes, opposition to the Occupation was a line not to be crossed. So that was certainly the intention – on Tain’s part.”
And this man was not, one must remember, Enabran Tain. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“We didn’t always share the same goals,” he said, with a little difficulty. “At least, I sometimes had ancillary goals, although Tain’s naturally had priority.”
“Naturally.” Parmak shivered. It was cold here, wasn’t it, by this window that had been opened.
“Tain wanted something to use against your father. I wanted information about Lang and her networks.” Now he was looking at Parmak directly, and with something close to that old stare. “If your calculation was that surrendering the former would protect the latter, then you were correct. We needed you alive for the trial.”
That had indeed been the calculation. “Good news for me.”
“And for us. You were a very valuable piece of political theatre.”
More than twenty years ago, and yet the shame burned brightly once again.
“If what you’re feeling now is guilt, or shame,” said the ambassador, quietly, “then might I suggest that you forgive yourself? That choice probably saved Natima Lang’s life.” His tone had become distant, almost analytical. “This was one of the difficulties of working for Tain. His personal vendettas often took precedence over what was best for Cardassia.”
“You think Lang’s death would have been best for Cardassia?”
“Twenty years ago, I would have said yes. Or, rather, her removal from public life, which, given where we would have sent her, would have amounted to the same thing.”
“And now?”
The ambassador, after a moment, said, “I cannot turn back time. I cannot make different choices. I’m left only with the wreckage of the present, and the chance to build some kind of future.”
“Do you believe,” said Parmak, reframing his question in a way that he thought the ambassador might be able to answer, “that people change?”
“Yes,” he replied, promptly. “I have to believe that. Otherwise I would… I would I finish this now.” He looked up at him, looked at him directly, with his bright blue eyes. “I hurt you—“
“You never even touched me.”
“But I hurt you. And I’m sorry.”
Parmak nodded, and then turned back to the window to stare at the beautiful city they now shared.
“Is there anything you want to ask me?” said Garak.
“Yes,” Parmak said. “I’ve often wondered… How did it feel, to be on that side of the table? What purpose did it serve for you?”
He didn’t reply. Parmak, thinking about everything he’d learned over the past couple of days, suddenly and deeply regretted the question. The purpose, manifestly, had been to keep himself alive.
“I never enjoyed it, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said at last. “There were other aspects of the job that I did enjoy… the secrets, you know; the lies, of course… But I never liked… It was a means to an end. And not always a particularly effective one.”
“It worked on me.”
“You made an impossible choice in impossible circumstances. The purpose isn’t to retrieve information, you do understand that, don’t you? The purpose is to demonstrate power. Was. The purpose was…” He faltered. “Still, I never enjoyed it. I was satisfied, when I was successful, yes, and I was always glad to receive… receive his approval… But I never enjoyed it. Some of us did, but not me…” He shook his head. “Besides, looking back, I see now how much the implant affected what I felt—”
“Implant?”
“Oh…” He tapped the side of his head. “They put a device in here, for when I was on the receiving end.”
Parmak hadn’t thought of that eventuality. That his line of work would bring him into the firing line at least as much as it deployed him as a weapon. “What did this device do?”
“It activated in response to pain. Increased the production of endorphins. In effect, it turned pain into pleasure.”
“I see…” Yes, that would have an effect. “Did you all get one of those?” Or was it just the sons of certain fathers?
He did not, of course, miss the subtext; in fact, he looked almost gratified that Parmak had grasped the whole. “You know, I never did find that out. I think it might have been an experiment. Something just for me.”
“Just for you. And how did it work out, this experiment?”
“Perhaps inevitably, it worked out very badly.”
“I can only imagine—”
“I got better. It’s off now. Deactivated. Has been for years.”
“Good,” said Parmak, fervently. He looked out across the view, remembering everything the ambassador had named the other night: the bright pyramid, the dark gardens, the distant monument to the unnamed, uncounted dead. He wondered what it would have been like if they’d been born here instead, on this plentiful nurturing world. What kind of men they might have been. What kind of lives they might have led. What they might have achieved, with their talents. But they hadn’t, and they were who they were.
“Are you angry?” said the other man. “Are you angry with me?”
Parmak found he had to give that question some thought – even aware, as he was, of the other man’s mounting, raw, unvoiced distress. But he knew he had to get this right.
“Sometimes,” said Parmak, “I forget how bad it was, the world we lived in. Even as we sit there in the rubble, I forget. I remember what I loved, more often. No, I’m not angry with you. I’m not even angry at everything else. Not any longer. I’m…” He took stock. “I’m… I’m glad almost beyond speech that we’re out of it. All of us. No,” he said again. “I’m not angry with you.”
He heard the other man breathe deeply, raggedly. He turned and went to kneel down in front of him. Reaching out, he put his hand beneath the other man’s chin, tilting it upwards until they were looking at each other, eye to eye. They were who they were; what that world had made them.
“I meant to have this conversation first, you know,” the other man said. “Before…”
“I think I pre-empted you there.”
“Yes, you did,” he said, the first hint of a smile returning.
“Sorry to have skipped ahead on your agenda.”
“I’m… not sorry.”
“Nor am I, really.” Now they were both smiling at each other. “How about we work it through?” Parmak suggested. “How about we give it time, and work it through?”
“Yes, please.” He rubbed his eyes. “I wonder what it is I’ve done to deserve this?”
“The work,” said Parmak. “You’re doing the work.”
“Yes, well, I always did my chores,” he replied, cryptically. There was something going on there, thought Parmak. Something not yet revealed. Ah well, he’d find out. The secrets this man held inside would not be given over easily, but Parmak would get there, given time.
“I have another suggestion to make,” said Parmak.
“Yes?” he said, looking at him hopefully.
“Let’s go and lie on the bed. My knees can’t take much more of this.”
Half pulling each other up, half dragging themselves up, they both got back on their feet. They held onto each other. The night air, coming through the open window was clean and fresh – but it was cold too, on this alien world, so they held each other closer.
“Right-hand door,” said Parmak.
“Yes,” he said. “Please, yes.”
19th March 2026