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This was how he found himself getting lightly drunk with a Bajoran, a Klingon, a Bolian and a Vulcan around midnight on his second day on Cardassia Prime. Well … it was more that he was summoned from his post-landing report to Starfleet by Gr’vor pounding on his door and roaring for ’Starfleet’ to stop studying and come out to play.
He quite liked them. After some icebreaking chat, Threp had asked him what he thought of Cardassia, and they all had listened with what had seemed to be genuine interest. Well, there was no time the like the present to learn how to be diplomatic … Skipping entirely over his time on the station and role in the Dominion War, he summarized his opinion of the sites of the day. He explained that it was clear that they had been working hard to take care of themselves, he had tried, with attempted diplomacy. The waterworks -
"You've seen a water purification plant?" Jedas had sat up straight for this. He had been, unsurprisingly, working hard to both tolerate being here and be tolerated by the populace. The Ambassadors from Bajor rotated in and out Cardassia even faster than the Federation Ambassadors had.
“Yes,” Julian answered
Gr’vor laughed "Be careful to drink only replicated water." It was almost funny to hear something so pedestrian delivered in the bass crescendo of Klingon speech.
“Urgh,” Jedas leaned back in his chair, then groaned something that the UT translated as “Fucking fuck!”
T’mel said, “I was not allowed out of this sector of Cardassia City on my welcome tour.”
Jedas almost slapped his hands on the table in frustration, “I’ve been asking to see water and sewer for weeks! They showed me one generator tower that looked like it was in good repair and have been evading the question ever since.”
“The power plant mostly works,” Gr’vor said, but when Julian reacted to this, he turned quickly, “Or have they shown you the broken ones?”
“I’m afraid so.”
They engaged in a round of information sharing. A little discussion revealed that the others had seen very few imperfections. They’d seen functional power plants, well organized food distribution centers, orphans in group art and music therapy sessions. While Gr’vor had enjoyed a thorough education on why he shouldn’t drink the water, he had not been taken to a hospital for treatment - a sort of medical away team had come to him. None of the Ambassadors had been inside a hospital. None of them would even be able to recognize a hospital center from the outside of a building.
The next day, Julian’s tours continued. In comparing what he saw to accounts of his new peers, he realized that they had been presented a Cardassia seen through a carefully curated lens of resilience. The library and research hub. The University students taking their shifts in restoration and support work just as all citizens old enough to be helpful did. An art museum.
Briel did take Julian did see a hospital, and then he saw a hospice home for the dying. Both were appallingly undersupplied and understaffed. She solemnly recited statistics on suicide rates (increasing) new illnesses and diseases (surging) and food availability (irregular) and elementary school education (available to only two thirds of Cardassia’s children). Violent crime had surged in the chaos, assault and murders going uninvestigated. He was where four bodies had been found, there was where someone had deliberately poisoned a water source. Julian was exposed to the ugliness of the city as though he were a benevolent Kai or a colonizing princess. The only thing missing was a camera to catch him holding the hand of a leper and looking dreadfully sympathetic.
It made him uneasy. They stopped for lunch at a sweet little cafe with a pleasant atmosphere that relieved some of his concerns for the more standard concerns over what he’d just seen. and were joined by Chuhak.They chatted, respectful of his silence, the sombre Briel and the bubbly man meeting in the middle for a discussion of the health of their mothers. It gave Julian the chance to examine the unease, to try to unravel the source of it.
It it had been the reverse, if he had been shown the pride of Cardassia, the proud achievements in the rubble, he might have thought that someone was trying to make a surreal gift of the capital city to him. But that wasn’t the case, and it was unlikely that the difference in what he and the other Ambassadors had seen was coincidental.
Or maybe Garak just knew him well enough to know he couldn’t have kept him away from areas of public health if he tried. The simplest lies are the best.