It wasn’t until another month and a half passed that Thrace heard anything from the Cardassian, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the universe. The computer, despite his many attempts to get him to, refused to bring Garak up or his violent “tests,” or what the fuck was going on.
“Why won’t you tell me?” he had demanded more than once. But the damn computer wouldn’t answer that question either.
It was difficult admitting that the prospect of getting out of this hypersterilized shithole was very tempting. Not that it wasn’t tempting: it was. But all the bullshit surrounding his possible freedom had been so frustrating that he put serious effort into denying freedom’s lure and simply opted for this life, this sentence, this hell.
Forty-eight standard days later: “Garak is here, Thrace. Get up.”
He cursed himself for getting to his feet so quickly. “Fuck you,” he growled at the computer as the transporter beam surrounded him.
A moment later he stood, not in the interview room, but in a garden that most definitely wasn’t part of the prison, one flowing with green and black flowered vines and thin waterfalls, colorful lichen on the walls, and a clear pond full of meandering fish. Light flowed in from above through a curved dome, the hazy Martian pink of midday not too unlike Vulcan’s northern latitudes, where Thrace had lived for a short time. He wondered if the Martian North was where he was.
Garak sat on what appeared to be a handcrafted wooden bench next to the pond. “Mr. McCoy. Please join me.” He motioned next to him.
The colors and sounds … the fresh air … the diversity of everything from that plant leaf, just a few feet away, to the cobblestone at his feet or that pleasant curve in the bench or the glistening moisture on parts of the lichen-covered walls … it was almost too much for him to take in.
Garak watched him patiently. Thrace got hold of himself and, forcing a glare to his countenance, grunted, “Took long e-fuckin’-nough.”
He went and sat next to him.
Surprisingly, the Cardassian said nothing for a long time, and Thrace was in no hurry to get to business. This was so pleasant that he needed nothing else, then decided he did. “Could use a mint julep about now,” he muttered.
“Computer, one mint julep, please,” said Garak.
The drink materialized on the arm of the bench to Thrace’s immediate left. He stared at it like it was a ghost. With hesitation, he reached and took hold of the glass, which was cold and already becoming wet with condensation. He raised it to his lips and took a sip, then had to put it down, because …
“Goddamn you,” he said, sniffling.
“I don’t believe in God,” said Garak with a gentle smile, not looking at him.
“Technofascists rarely do,” returned Thrace, who took a bigger sip, this time hanging on to the glass.
“Your stereotype of me is incorrect,” said Garak without a trace of defensiveness in his voice. “I was a de facto member of the crew of Deep Space Nine. I saw how a democracy could work even in a military environment, one beset by all sorts of baddies seeking to take over the galaxy.”
Thrace threw him a scowl. “ ‘Baddies’?”
“I will admit to harboring strong authoritarian tendencies,” Garak went on as though he hadn’t heard him. “But as I grow older, ever older, I find myself wearying of them. Or perhaps it is my exalted position these days, and my constant battles with actual Cardassian fascists.”
Thrace took another sip of mint julep. “What the fuck was that ‘test’ about?”
“It was multifaceted,” answered Garak. “The computer had, on my instructions, purposely made your time more and more difficult, but in very subtle ways over a long span, ones that even you, with your high IQ, ostensibly, would miss. Your temper was being tested. That was one facet.”
“Dickhead,” grunted Thrace. “You and that fuckin’ computer!”
“I do not want a Vulcan on my team, strictly speaking. Well, that’s not correct; I have several working for me. Let me restate that: I do not want another emotionless individual throwing logic at me like dirty garments. I need someone who has high intelligence, but also high emotion. But I also need someone with a strong knowledge of Vulcan, who can be as dispassionate as a star-eating black hole when the occasion calls for it. Follow?”
Despite trying to pace himself, Thrace saw that most of the mint julep was gone.
“And?”
“And your test results were clearly good,” said Garak. “Four sigma above the norm in several areas. You’re an outlier, Mr. McCoy, and I want you on my team. You have the potential to make a real contribution once you get the lay of the land, so to speak.”
Thrace shook his head. “ ‘Lay of the land’? ‘Baddies’? You sound like a human!”
“A job hazard, I grant you,” admitted Garak. “Whether for good or for ill, I have spent more than half my life not in the presence of my own people, but among humans.”
Thrace got the subtext. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he appreciated it. He finished his drink and sighed. “What’s next?”
“You are not by nature a violent man,” said Garak. “I have consulted with four very high-level psychiatrists about you, as well as the team who profiled you before incarcerating you. While the data on you is oddly—or perhaps not so oddly—incomplete, and the psychiatrists could not offer any sort of prognosis about you on ethical grounds, our talks were fruitful. I need an investigator and enforcer, Mr. McCoy, and you seem like the perfect fit.”
Thrace didn’t react. Instead, after a considered moment of silence, he asked, “How many others did you ‘interview’ or ‘test’ or whatever before you found me?”
“Why is that important?”
“I don’t suppose it is.”
“There were, I believe, forty-four.”
That high number surprised Thrace. “All failed?”
“No, there was one other.”
“Let me guess—that hot piece of Vulcan tail.”
“It may surprise you to learn that Miss Q’añé is only half-Vulcan, just like you. Unlike you, however, she prefers to think of herself as Vulcan.”
“You tested her too?”
“She was a logic extremist serving time for blowing up an unmanned Vulcan freighter heading towards Earth with life-saving medicines aboard.”
“I have no desire to work with true believers,” grunted Thrace.
“She is no longer one, I assure you,” replied Garak. “Her time with me has adjusted, shall we say, her attitudes and beliefs.”
“Yeah? How do you know she isn’t playing you?”
Garak smiled serenely. “ ‘Playing me,’ as you put it, Mr. McCoy, isn’t possible.” His smile disappeared. “Or advisable.”
Thrace chuckled. “Fuckin’ Vulcans.”
“Please expound.”
Thrace thought he might not answer. What would be the profit in it? But he found himself chuckling again. “You’d think the total dedication to logic would make that culture more malleable, more changeable. But that’s a lie. In fact it has frozen them, just as I always thought was the logical outcome. Vulcan society flirts with fascism more and more and more. I read the news. Those logic extremists are gaining increasing influence in Parliament. Last year they won nearly a third of all seats. A decade ago they didn’t win even one. They don’t know it, and probably wouldn’t even admit it if they did know it, logical buttfuckers that they are, but Vulcan society is on the brink of collapse.”
That held Garak up, who didn’t answer for a long time. Thrace glanced at him. “Gone deaf, Cardassian?”
Garak brought his steady gaze to him. “I concur.”
“Yeah? Cool. So why are you acting like you’ve got a stick up your butt?”
“I’ve got a team of analysts working day and night for me. They monitor various … let’s say ‘aspects’ … of Federation society. All have advanced degrees. More than one each, actually. And what you just said took them more than fourteen months to project. You brought it up on our third meeting and with almost no resources by which to make your judgment. No ‘stick up my butt,’ Mr. McCoy. You are only convincing me more and more that you’re the man for the job.”
Thrace didn’t respond, but looked around again, taking in the peace, the solitude, the tranquil beauty of this little alcove.
“Would you like another mint julep?”
He shook his head. “One is good, thanks.”
“I find it remarkable that you haven’t asked when you start, or when you might be released from incarceration.”
“And I find it remarkable that you haven’t asked me my side of the story on why and how I ended up in that upholstered cum dumpster.”
Garak blinked. “Interesting description. And why would I do that?”
Thrace shook his head. “Yeah, why bother? You’ve read all the reports. The authorities are right, right? Why ask my opinion?”
“I don’t ask your opinion not because I don’t believe you or don’t care to hear ‘your side of the story,’ as you put it, but because I’d be inclined to believe anything you’d have to say after reading those reports, so poorly were they conceived and drawn up.”
That quieted Thrace completely, who did not expect the Cardassian—or anyone else, ever—to say such a thing.
“Another mint julep would be appreciated,” he said.
A moment later a fresh one appeared at his left hand.
“Your incarceration was a set-up,” said Garak. “You were an example that Federation ‘justice,’ so called, demanded. The political climate demanded it. You were a perfect patsy.”
Thrace took a long sip of the new drink. He didn’t know what else to do.
“Did you kill those men? Yes, you did. But the circumstances leading up to that confrontation were dodgy, to put it mildly. Which for me suggests one and only one Federation agency.”
Thrace swallowed and grunted, “Section 31.”
“As spies go, they are but amateurs, hobbyists. It didn’t even take my best operatives to dig up the truth. They exist by the bludgeon, by outright terror.”
“As did the Obsidian Order,” countered Thrace.
“Fascism doesn’t trifle with particulars or with the finer points of discussion or policy. Fascism’s approach is blunt and in-your-face, as you humans put it. The Obsidian Order was blunt and terroristic, yes. My Obsidian Order, however …”
Thrace waited. When Garak didn’t continue, he growled: “Terror is terror is terror. If I ever find those who set me up, there will be terror like they have never known.”
“Maybe,” said Garak. “However, every move you make, every decision you take, will be by and under my policies, Mr. McCoy; and if you step out of line even once, incarceration is where you will find yourself once again. Am I clear?”
Thrace finished his drink and set the glass down on the seat-arm. “I could bash your head in right now and you wouldn’t even know if it was your smashed nose that killed you or your arteries torn out of your seagull neck, or your black heart in my fist.”
“I understand the rage you feel,” Garak offered without a single shred of fear in his voice. “You have lived a troubled, violent life. You have been abandoned by everyone you’ve ever known. You have every right to be outraged, to want vengeance. I can’t promise you’ll get that vengeance, but I can promise, given good behavior on your part, that I will do everything in my power to maximize the opportunities for justice. Take it or leave it.”
Thrace didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t kiss ass.”
Garak chuckled. “I have always liked that expression—‘kissing ass.’ You are aware, no doubt, that …”
“Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Thrace. “Heavy petting for young Cardassian couples just learning about sex. Got it.”
“It’s a little more involved than that.”
“Your point?”
“What is expected of you is exactly what I expect of myself with respect to my relationship to you. Kissing my ass—literally or figuratively—is a quick way to find yourself on my bad side, Mr. McCoy.”
“Compensation?”
“The Federation does not deal in currencies,” answered Garak.
“The fuck they don’t.”
“I am unwilling to discuss such things without a commitment from you.”
“And I am unwilling to commit unless I have some idea of how my life is going to be shaped by my employer. Do I get an apartment? Am I restricted to travel? What resources do I get? Weapons? Passports? A ship, or the means to travel? Clothing? Vacation time? I refuse to be a slave!”
“No slavery. No indentured servitude. No. I may be Cardassian, Mr. McCoy, but I believe you’ll find me to be a bit more … enlightened.”
“And what assurances do I have that such will be so?”
Garak turned in his seat to face him fully. “I’m here. I’m speaking to you—negotiating. Were I a ‘typical’ Cardassian, you and I both know neither would be happening.”
Thrace shook his head in quiet defeat.
“You are extremely intelligent. But do not make the mistake of believing that because such is so, that you are alone or stand on some intellectual mountaintop. You do not; and such an error in judgment would bring mine into question: you may be stupider than tests and whatnot indicate.”
“And fuck you too,” returned Thrace.
Before Garak could respond, which he didn’t seem particularly inclined to do, Thrace said: “I have conditions for employment.”
“Good!” responded Garak. “Let’s hear them.”
“I’ll take prison over abuse of any kind.”
“Even though you have no problems doling it out? Seems a bit hypocritical to me.”
“If I’m in your employ, I will not to be abusive to you or anyone else in your organization.”
“Fair enough.”
“Disagreements don’t count as abuse.”
“Granted.”
“I am free to question your orders; I am also free to refuse to carry them out. Neither counts as abuse.”
“We are quasi-members of the Federation,” replied Garak. “I would violate Federation law given my clandestine employment with them.”
When Thrace didn’t continue, Garak turned slightly in his seat to gaze at him. “Is there anything else?”
Thrace was staring blankly into space.
“Mr. McCoy?”
Thrace shook his head. “To destroy Section 31. Tell me that’s part of the mission. Tell me, Cardassian.”
When Garak didn’t respond, Thrace pulled focus and turned to look at him, just turning slightly in his seat to do so.
“Of course it isn’t,” said Garak, smiling.
Thrace smiled back, but only after a tense ten seconds had passed. “When do I start?”
You can read an earlier edit here.
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