Work Text:
More Questions Than Answers
“Take it from me, it's a lot more fun asking questions than answering them.”
—Garak, “Favor the Bold”
There were substances that could be taken to assist one’s performance in rooms like this, that sharpened one’s mind and one’s focus, freely available on request. Not that Garak required them – of course, not that – but given they improved efficiency one was duty-bound to make use of what was on offer. Certainly he’d done so in the past. Which was moot, since nothing like that was available here.
Behind him, Blok shifted slightly in his chair. Garak, standing by the wall staring at the rivets, looked back over his shoulder. The lieutenant commander had, at some point, lost the jacket and was sitting with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. Garak, faultlessly turned out as ever, decided not to take this personally. But, really, did nobody make an effort these days? Truly these were desperate times.
“Well,” he said. “What shall we talk about next?”
“You’re the one setting the agenda,” said Blok.
“That’s correct.”
There were devices, too, that took the edge off most things. Garak hadn’t baulked at using these either; better to feel euphoria, surely, than anything else. Nobody had ever said that one’s duty must be agony. Tools like that cut both ways, of course. One man’s workplace was another man’s dungeon.
“So ask away,” said Blok.
“Very well,” said Garak. “What do you know about the terrain near the base on Soukara?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You expect me to believe that from a Starfleet officer?”
“It’s the truth.”
Simulations, mind-altering drugs, interruptions to the rhythms of the body, of sleep and day and night… A whole set of well-honed instruments to persuade someone that what they’d always thought - what they’d always believed - was in fact quite the opposite from reality.
“And if I asked you about the sensor grids?”
“I’d tell you that I don’t know anything about them either.”
How you moved your body. When to speak; when to stay silent. He’d broken a man once just by looking at him. A man’s whole world, smashed to pieces, without a word. What was that expression? He’d overheard it once, in a bar; had mulled it over for a while after. Oh yes. Careless talk costs lives.
“You don’t know much about anything, do you?”
“So it seems,” said Blok.
Garak turned his attention back to the rivets. He’d counted them numerous times and the answer by now was reliably the same. Still, something might change…
“You didn’t say anything about the transport scramblers.”
“Well,” said Blok. “That’s because I don’t know anything about them.”
“Seriously?”
Blok held up his empty hands.
And then there was the application of violence. The unspoken but foundational truth upon which all this rested. Hit them, cut them, blind them, break them - the list of options was endless, and not particularly subtle. None of this was particularly subtle, was it? Garak didn’t think that kind of thing would be happening here. Of course, you could never be sure until it was over…
His breath misted the metal of the grey wall. The colour reminded him of sick flesh. Why was everything about this always so ugly?
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“I’ll decide when I sit down,” Garak snapped.
“Of course,” said Blok quietly. “Of course.”
Garak sat down, slowly. He was controlling this. He ran the tip of his finger along the steely edge of the table. “What does the name Lasaran mean to you?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Of course,” said Garak. “Of course.”
They continued in this painstaking fashion for a couple of hours. Hardly any time, really, considering what was being given up. Eventually, they reached the limit.
“I don’t know about you,” said Blok. “But I need something to drink.”
“Do you,” said Garak. It wasn’t a question.
The replicator supplied a decent cup of coffee and some truly appalling gelat. Garak drank it anyway, staring at the door. When Blok put down his cup, Garak said, “Have you had enough yet?”
“I’m done if you’re done,” said Blok.
Garak got up and tapped on the door. One of the officers standing outside - a lieutenant - took him back to his quarters. The other, a commander, went into the room, where Blok was calmly writing up his notes.
“Anything useful?”
“Plenty to be going on with,” said Blok.
“Think there’s more?”
“Oh yes,” said Blok. “We’ll pick up where we left off in the morning.”
5th June 2026