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Don’t Create the Torment Nexus
Starbase 375, 2372
This was to be their last meeting. The Defiant was leaving later that night. All very sudden. A race against time to take back the station before the wormhole reopened, and Dominion reinforcements poured through. Garak had his doubts about the whole enterprise, but as Chief O’Brien had so succinctly put it, Beggars can’t be choosers. No indeed. Why else had Garak been resident here on Starbase 375 all this time? At least he had nothing to pack.
Blok was putting away his notes. Garak had come to respect the man, but he would not miss him. Nor would he miss this particular little room. There had been enough of those, over the years and no doubt there would be others. There was a great deal Garak had left untold, even to himself. Especially to himself.
“I’m sorry,” said Blok, not quite meeting Garak’s eye, “about the visitors we had.”
“Visitors?”
“The two men who came—”
“Oh, them,” Garak said, airily. “You know, I haven’t given them a second thought.” Which was true, in that he'd been thinking about them continuously since they'd darkened his door. His mind unable to stop turning over who they were and what they meant – for him, for everything left dear to him, and for the Federation. What those men were ready to do, to win this war.
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Blok. He sealed the case in which he’d packed his padds, and made to stand.
“Did I ever ask you what you knew about Legate Trelkh?” said Garak.
Blok, recognizing the form of words, leaned back into his chair. He gave a half-smile. “You did not ask me what I know about Legate Trelkh, no. Because I know nothing about Legate Trelkh.”
“Oh, well, Trelkh,” said Garak, settling back in turn to tell his tale. “I read his file, once. Before I was unfortunately obliged to remove myself from Cardassia. He was the one who first proposed a solution to the ongoing Bajoran problem.”
He saw that Blok had accepted his role in Garak's make believe. “A solution—?”
“One that would secure Bajor for good. If I recall his file correctly.”
Garak assumed that this was on Trelkh’s file somewhere. In fact, he’d heard the proposal first-hand, from the man himself, during one of those weekends at Tain’s house in the country. Heady days, when important men came to stay, to take advice from each other, and set policy. Half-a-dozen of them, drunk on power and expensive kanar. Trelkh had significant interests in a number of enterprises on Bajor, and the occupation – once a nuisance – was now becoming a liability. He wanted something done, and quickly. He’d come to say what that was, and secure the support he needed to get the job done.
Tain, a connoisseur of the machinery of extraction and possessor of a considerable appetite for cruelty, had listened with interest and enthusiasm. When Trelkh finished sketching his proposal, Tain had turned to Garak, standing as ever nearby, reading and listening, and said, “Well, Elim. What do you think?”
This had been near the zenith of Garak’s influence, when Tain habitually turned to him before anyone else. Oh, and how he’d loved that; how he’d craved that! By this time Garak was a connoisseur too, in what would most appeal to Tain’s vanity, and this had been an easy one to judge. “I suppose the Legate might be on to something,” he’d said, barely thinking, flicking through the pages of the book in his hand. “He usually is.” People like Trelkh bored him, always had, and in truth Garak hadn’t cared either way. Trelkh would get what he wanted eventually; men like that always did. He might even live long enough to enjoy it. Garak’s task was to ensure these men didn’t overstep the mark. He hadn’t given the matter a second thought.
Blok, Garak saw, had gone very still. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Garak did not answer the question. That was not the rules of the game that they had established in this room. Garak asked the questions. But it was time to change the direction of this conversation. Take it where he wanted it to go. “I wonder sometimes,” said Garak, “and increasingly in these late days of our union, how a man like that comes to exist. What conditions must occur so he can flourish. He’s close to Dukat, you know. Always was. I think they share… interests.”
That, thought Garak, covered multitudes. However Blok wanted to interpret it, he’d most likely be right. Blok’s smile was completely gone. “This is appalling…”
“Yes,” agreed Garak, pleasantly. “He was. The kind of man one made sure never to stand behind.” He laid his hand upon his chest. “I’m sure you’ve met the type.”
Garak hadn’t thought much about Trelkh over the years. He’d had more than enough troubles. His exile; the failure of the mission to the Founders’ homeworld; the small matter of his imprisonment. It had been while he was confined to the holding cell, in fact, lying there trying to work out what he’d done wrong this time, why he’d failed, again, to do what Tain wanted done, to finish his work to Tain’s satisfaction. His head ringing with the Founder’s warning: They’re dead… You’re dead… Cardassia is dead… Suddenly he’d remembered Trelkh, and that weekend in the country. There in the holding cell, far from the world he had known, fallen as low as he could go, he had remembered Trelkh, and what he’d wanted done.
“Of course I only ever read his file.”
Blok was staring at him. Garak looked back with compassion. He was sorry that Blok had to be the recipient of this, but who else was there? Sisko already despised him. Bashir was practised in decoding him but… No. Not this. Never this. Blok had handled their conversations with intelligence. Surely he could put these pieces together? The question was – what he would do? What would Starfleet do?
This war, thought Garak, was going to test men like these to the extreme. How far would they go to win? They had everything they needed. They had the technology, stolen by Garak from the Romulan warbird. They had the example, set by Tain and Garak. And now he knew they had people willing to get the job done. Could they resist the temptation of such a solution? Those men – those visitors – would surely do whatever was necessary. So who was there in Starfleet, in these late days, to prevent that? The only thing that had stood between them and Garak had been Sisko. And Garak had his doubts about Sisko.
Garak’s eye fell on the rivets on the wall. Cardassia is dead… Oh, and they’d all played their part in murdering her, hadn’t they? Through greed, or appetite, or carelessness, or zeal. Each one of them, sticking the knife in Caesar’s back, each one of them guilty in their own particular way. And there she lay now, bleeding out. But this was hardly news. Everyone was guilty of something; you just had to work out what it was. Garak wasn’t sure, yet, not really, where his own guilt lay. What he had done that had not been enough. Perhaps one day he would understand. What he did know for sure was his purpose now. To do what was needed to save as much as could be saved – and then, when this war was over, to pick up the pieces left, and start again. Maybe, even now, something might survive… As for the Federation… Well, in the end, that was not Garak’s business. He could tell them, as far as he dared, how far Cardassia had fallen. He could teach them by example. But these days even that ran the risk that his words would be mistaken for counsel, not warning.
Still, for Bashir’s sake, if nothing else, he hoped he’d said enough. He hoped they’d listen. He hoped they still had the capacity to listen, where he – where Cardassia – had not.
Garak stood up. He pushed his chair, neatly, under the table. He was finished here, but there was still work to be done. “Good night, lieutenant,” he said. “And good luck.”
11th June 2026