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Survival Skills

By Cardie-ologist

"But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing
and kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering
how much longer I can stand living in this cruel,
damnable world."

George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House

***

Odo hadn't been called upon to investigate a crime in five days, and for that he was profoundly grateful. Changing all the security protocols back to Federation configurations, rooting out lurking Cardassian booby traps, implementing all the new programs designed to beef up resistance to sudden Jem'Hadar beam ins were tiresome, time consuming, and negatively impacted by interruptions. There had been little opportunity for him to recover from the emotional devastation that had accompanied the Federation's otherwise welcome retaking of Deep Space Nine. The rift between Major Kira and himself had not healed, and simply being in the same room with each other had become a terrible ordeal for both of them. Moreover, the inaccessibility of the Link made him painfully aware of his incompleteness. Having cast his lot again with the solids, he nevertheless kept being consumed by thoughts of them as insignificant and limited. It made his interactions with them rather awkward, and he was thus relieved that since he had resumed his duties as station security chief, all the work had been of a purely technical nature. The Alpha Quadrant was still too tense and unsettled, he supposed, for those solid emotions of greed, anger, and lust to result in local infractions requiring his investigative skills.

Then his good luck ran out. His comm channel beeped. He had been working in silence so long that it made him jump. He pressed the "listen" key. "Odo here. Is there a problem?"

"I'm not sure, sir," said the young Bajoran security officer. "For the past hour there've been reports of loud noises coming from Garak's tailor shop. Sounded like furnishings being thrown around, that kind of thing. The proprietor's supposedly in there, but he doesn't answer when we hail him, and the door's locked and won't respond to the registered access code."

"Let me check a few things, and I'll advise you how to proceed."

"Standing by, sir."

Odo spoke into the computer console. "Computer: state the whereabouts of Elim Garak."

"Elim Garak is in the Garak tailor shop on the Promenade," said the familiar female monotone.

"Are there any other life forms present?"

"No other life forms present."

It was as Odo had suspected. Garak went through periodic paranoid cycles during which he changed his security access codes daily and routinely "forgot" to inform security of the new codes. After serving on the Defiant against his fellow Cardassians, he for once had good reason to be paranoid. One of Dukat's first actions upon reassuming command of Terok Nor had been to destroy everything in Garak's shop, to wipe out any trace of his enemy's ever having lived on the station; Odo doubted that Damar had any more of an inclination to forgive his renegade countryman.

"Nekara, I believe Mr. Garak is just being reclusive. The noise no doubt is a result of his efforts to restore his business establishment to operating conditions. But I'll override the security protocols, so you can go in and make sure nothing's wrong. Report back on what you find."

Nekara reported in again almost immediately. "Sir, the door still won't open."

"Hmm. That's odd," Odo said. Garak didn't usually take his precautions to the extreme of bypassing station security completely. "Nekara, I'm coming down there."

As Odo neared Garak's he saw that a crowd had gathered, no doubt gossiping about the mysterious goings on. "Did any of you people see anything unusual," he asked. There were only negative murmurs. "Hear anything?" "A couple of crashes," a woman offered. "Some sort of, I don't know, clanking," a man added. "It's been quiet for the past quarter hour," someone else piped up.

"Well, we'll check it all out now. You can go about your business," Odo told them. Murmurs of disappointment traversed the crowd, and he had to ask Nekara to move them along. These solids and their infernal curiosity! He gave a reflexive shake of his head. Why did these thoughts keep coming to him? Because he'd heard the phrase 'high and mighty Founder' coming from the bystanders?.

With the crowd finally dispersed, he got to work on the access panel. He first tried the Cardassian override code. Perhaps the lock hadn't been reconfigured yet. No luck. He'd had the foresight to bring with him a PADD containing a number of obsolete Obsidian Order codes that he had managed to get the Cardassians to give him during their temporary alliance when the Klingon War had erupted. The fourth one on his list opened the door.

Odo wasn't prepared for what he saw. Every piece of furniture had been overturned; fabric samples were pulled from their containers and strewn everywhere; the few ready made garments had been pulled from the racks and savagely ripped apart, apparently with the pair of Garak's tailoring shears that had been impaled, points down, in one of the bolts of fabric. Covering the walls were graffiti in Kardasi characters: "Traitor." "Federation lover" "Garak you turncoat bastard."

Surveying the room hurriedly, Odo saw no sign of the shop's maligned proprietor. Yet, the computer scan had said he was there. "Garak, Garak where are you?" he shouted. "Are you all right?" There was no answer.

"Sir, the door to the back office is closed and locked, too," Nekara observed. "Perhaps Mr. Garak is in there."

"Hmf. That's possible." As Odo punched the Obsidian Order code into the inner door panel, he could see in Nekara's eyes that she, like he, feared that they were beginning a murder investigation. The door slid open, revealing Garak slumped over behind his computer console, his head resting on one arm. The other arm was stretched out on the desk, a glass in the hand. Several bottles of brown liquid were scattered about, one of them overturned. "Garak!" Odo shouted. The Cardassian stirred and muttered something incomprehensible but did not raise his head.

Odo went over to him and gently lifted him into an upright position. Garak sprang suddenly to life, striking out at Odo. "Don' touch me, don' touch me. I'm kite cwoncious . . .quite conscious," he said with exquisite effort. Relieved and amused, the Constable leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed against his chest. "You are quite drunk, Garak."

" 'deed I am. Never let myself have the lux'ry since unfort'nate problem with implant. Kite a pleasant sensation."

Odo's smile faded. Garak rarely drank at Quark's. Odo had assumed that, wary as the tailor habitually was, and with an addictive incident in his past, he'd never risk becoming even slightly intoxicated. Yet here was evidence of a significant private stock of kanar. Odo remembered, when he had been locked in humanoid form, how soothing alcohol could be. And despite Garak's mask of jovial self possession, Odo could imagine that his similarly exiled existence required soothing from time to time.

"Garak, what happened here?" he inquired at length.

"Most amazing spect'cle. Three Cardassians jus' beamed in, wrecked everything, locked me in, disabled comm. Figgered I might as well get drunk till my rescuers arrived." He gestured cheerfully at Odo and his deputy.

"Do you have any idea who they were?"

"Never seen 'em before. Bet they're renegade supporters of the great Dukat. Always was sore loser."

This was all wrong, Odo thought. If Cardassians capable of the rage that had been vented on the shop's contents had caught Garak unawares, he wouldn't be sitting here alive and unmarked. And there'd been no indication on his security scanners of any unauthorized beam ins. Not that it came as any surprise that Garak wasn't telling him the truth.

Well, he wasn't likely to get any closer to that truth while the tailor was in his current state. He'd best get him back to his quarters to sober up. Then he could conduct a proper investigation in the morning.

"Deputy Nekara, why don't you see Mr. Garak to his quarters in the habitat ring," Odo said as the two of them with considerable difficulty got the Cardassian to his feet.

Leaning heavily on Nekara, Garak turned to Odo, his manner suddenly subdued. "Nice girl, very sweet. But she's dead, you know."

"What are you talking about? Deputy Nekara is perfectly healthy."

"No, no. Ziyal. She's dead," Garak intoned mournfully.

The answer hit Odo in a flash. He remembered what his quarters had looked like the time that he had despaired of Kira's ever loving him. Grief over the much more irrevocable loss of Ziyal hardly explained the slurs painted on the walls, but with Garak one had to expect wheels within wheels. Odo pledged to himself to make the further questioning as painless as possible. Watching Nekara successfully maneuver Garak out onto the Promenade, he realized that he needed to take another step to lessen the tailor's pain. Activating his commbadge, he hailed the Infirmary, "Dr. Bashir, could you send someone around to Garak's quarters with that useful potion you used to prescribe for me in case of hangover?"

***

Just to make sure he wasn't jumping to conclusions, Odo checked and double checked the sensor logs for anything remotely resembling a transporter signature; detailed scans of the ravaged fabric bolts turned up no Cardassian DNA save Garak's. Armed with this certainty, he contacted Garak and asked if he could come by his quarters to try to get a better idea of what had happened the previous day. The Cardassian on the viewscreen appeared well rested and much his usual self. He suggested that Odo "drop in" an hour hence.

Odo's interactions with Garak had usually taken place in the tailor shop, or occasionally at the Replimat. He had never visited the man's private quarters. Before he could even touch the access panel Garak opened the door. That was to be expected, a former spy likely had full surveillance cameras trained on the entrance to his home. "Come in, Constable. I promise to be far more coherent than last evening," Garak said with gracious suavity.

The room had been furnished with standard issue station furniture, but the resident's personal touches were everywhere. All the chairs were draped with colorful, patterned fabrics. Matching rugs cushioned the computer station and a low, rectangular table made of ancient polished wood. Garak sat down behind this table, indicating that Odo should take the chair opposite. There was a hot beverage mug on the table. Garak picked it up and took a sip. "I hope you don't mind? Despite our breakfasts, I often wonder about the protocol of drinking in front of someone who doesn't."

"No, by all means. I'd have no friends whatsoever if they felt constrained from eating and drinking in my presence. It has been my observation that sol that humanoids are much more forthcoming with a raktajino to fortify them."

"It's not raktajino--or rokassa juice. That gets so tiresome day after day. This is cappuccino, an ancient Earth beverage." Garak leaned back in his chair. Odo found it odd that his obvious grief of the day before could have vanished so completely. Another thing was odd, as well. Odo had never seen Garak wear any clothing that didn't have a noticeable pattern. Yet here he was dressed in solid black, and in a long robe rather than his usual tunic and trousers. Perhaps it was his sleeping costume. Odo had never understood why humanoids had to have special garments for sleeping; but then he'd never really grasped the concept of covering one's natural substance with alien materials at all. He stopped this train of thought before it went further. Hardly fitting preparation for an interview with a tailor.

"So, Odo, have you got any leads on those thugs who vandalized my shop?" Garak asked innocently.

Odo decided against a prolonged fencing match with the Cardassian. "Garak, there is absolutely no evidence of any Cardassian trespass into the premises. The last time you sabotaged your own shop and blamed it on your enemies, you made it much more convincing."

"Ah, you've found me out," Garak replied, breezily unrepentant. "The last time the sabotage was part of a well considered plan; this was the product of an overwhelming, unfortunate impulse."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me what really happened," said Odo gently.

"Well, you know poor dear Ziyal had such a high opinion of my tailoring skills. I felt I owed it to her memory to get back into business at once. As I was restocking the shelves, I suddenly said to myself, 'This is meaningless, this dream of hers, my delusions about a quiet life as a tailor.' Before I knew what I was doing, the place was a shambles. You can imagine my embarrassment. I locked the doors and to calm me down I had a few kanars obviously a few too many. Then I came up with the idea to blame the mess on Dukat. In retrospect a quite ridiculous plan."

Odo rose. "I'm sure that grief at such a loss could cloud anyone's judgment. I won't disturb you further."

Garak rose also, stepping between Odo and the door. "Grief? Do you think it's as simple as that?"

"From everything I know about humanoids, it is certainly a powerful enough emotion to explain your destructive outburst."

"Yes, it is, but in my case it doesn't. Ziyal's death is merely one of many events that led up to last night. I'm not sure myself how they all fit together," Garak said. "Odo, I need to talk about this with someone. Can you stay?"

Odo folded his arms and shifted his weight uneasily. "Really, Garak, this isn't a security matter. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have such a discussion with someone close to you, like Dr. Bashir?"

"Ah, I do prefer to remain something of the man of mystery to Julian. Some of the things I want to discuss, I'd prefer not to share with him."

"Then perhaps you could make an appointment with a counselor," Odo suggested, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

Garak stepped closer. "Odo, you're the one person on this station who can possibly understand me."

"I don't mean to be insulting, but we're nothing alike." Odo replied.

"Oh, no? We both grew up alone in institutional settings. We're both exiles from our own people; indeed, more than exiles, we're actively fighting them. We've both worked in Cardassian security. Most importantly, you're the only person on Deep Space Nine who's ever been a subject of one of my interrogations."

Odo looked at him suspiciously. How long had Garak spent coming up with that speech? Had he written it out and memorized it? All his claims of impulsive loss of control, uncertainty about his own motivations, were patently false. Whatever the cause of these events, they had been carefully calculated. The difficulty getting into the tailor shop should have alerted him immediately. What kind of unexpected onslaught of grief and rage was preceded by a re engineering of door locks?

"All right, Garak," he said, sitting down again. "I'll listen to what you have to say."

***

Garak took several more sips of his drink. Eager as he had been to obtain Odo as his audience, he now seemed reluctant to begin. Finally he spoke. "Odo, you've spent considerable time around Cardassians. Have you ever heard the term 'g'reakh?'"

"I believe so. It's an obscenity applied to persons whose parents were not legally joined."

"Bravo, how delicately you put that, Constable," the Cardassian responded. "Well, my name is a pun on that word. My father's little gift, to make sure I would never forget that I was a bastard. It's another fact about my life you're uniquely qualified to comprehend, Odo'ital. I wonder which is worse, having a name that brands one an obscenity or proclaims that one is nothing?"

"Names are merely like the clothes you make. They may influence perceptions, but they have nothing to do with who you really are."

"That's a very mature view, Odo. Unfortunately, when a schoolmate first points the joke out to you when you are six, the consolations of philosophy are absent."

"True. My name caused me considerable pain as well, for many years." Odo then added, "Since you mentioned your father, I feel I should tell you that I know he was Enabran Tain. I've known ever since the disaster in the Orias system."

"And everyone else has known since Worf, Julian, and I returned from the Dominion prison. It's of no importance anymore, now that Tain is dead." Garak paused. "Odo, are you familiar with Cardassian bastardy laws?"

"No. Those aren't among the statutes Gul Dukat charged me with enforcing on Terok Nor."

"Hardly likely that he would. By Cardassian law, all bastards derive any and all rights totally from their sires. Including the right to live."

"Are you saying that Tain could have killed you with impunity?" No matter how much Odo had learned about Cardassians over the years, the unpleasant surprises never seemed to be exhausted.

"Of course he could have." Garak sounded amused at Odo's naiveté. "And he'd have been quite in step with the fashion. Approximately 73% of Cardassian bastards die before the age of 20."

"I had no idea," Odo said somberly.

"It's not exactly an aspect of our culture we advertise to offworlders. It is an aspect of our culture which ensured that I would live my life overly obsessed with the idea of survival. You see, Odo, Cardassia itself has struggled to survive for centuries. Our planets have few natural resources, our climatological parameters are notoriously unstable. If we hadn't been able to . . . take advantage of other worlds, our people would have struggled daily just to have enough to eat, to have sufficient energy to power our technology. That's why our military has always had to emphasize expediency and efficiency, what offworlders so unfairly call ruthlessness and brutality. When a culture's basic existence is assured, the integrity of its homeworld intact, it can afford such luxuries as Klingon honor or Federation fair play. I'm afraid all we Cardassians can offer is the well placed shot in the back when the occasion requires. So, both as a Cardassian and as a Cardassian bastard, I've spent my life in the cunning pursuit of survival. Unfortunately, survival has its costs. That's what last night was about, a life spent trying to stay alive."

"I'm not quite sure I understand," Odo replied.

"To understand, you'll have to know much more about my past." Garak said.

"Hmf! you're planning to tell me the story of your life? And expecting me to believe it?" Odo inquired skeptically. He really didn't relish listening to one of Garak's elaborate prevarications.

Garak's face appeared decidedly serious. "I know I haven't earned the right to be believed. Will you at least agree to hear me out, and then judge my veracity for yourself."

"Will it be a terribly long account? Perhaps I should go regenerate first." Garak laughed. "Now, Odo, while I do have a reputation as a terrible liar, I think you'll agree that I am rarely found to be a bore. I promise an enthralling tale that will end before you are compelled to liquefy. We can pass over my unhappy childhood. Let me begin by telling you how I joined the Obsidian Order," he continued. "It was certainly a formative experience."

"Very well," Odo acquiesced.

"I was 18, completing my final months in preparatory school my seventh in five years and I had no idea what I was preparing myself for. I had assumed I would be applying to Central Command Military Academy, but when the application forms were passed around, the Lector said that my 'guardians' had informed him that I wouldn't be a candidate for admission. So the year rolled on, and I, who had lived in boarding schools for the past twelve years, wondered where I might be living after graduation indeed wondered if I'd be living after graduation.

"Then one day I was contacted by a man, who had been contacted by another man, and so on for several more layers of obfuscation. He advised me that I should take the next shuttle to Cardassia Prime and go to the Ministry of Information, where Enabran Tain wanted to meet with me."

"Were you pleased or were you frightened?" Odo asked. "Or both?"

"I had exhausted those emotions in connection with Tain years before," Garak replied. "Essentially I was curious. I hadn't seen him in the flesh, or communicated directly with him, since I was five, even though he'd never stopped controlling every aspect of my life.

"I had to pass through seven separate security checkpoints before I got to his office. I'd imagined that it would be some grand cavernous place, full of mysterious machinery, but it was only an ordinary little room, with a desk, computer console and comm array. The walls were lined with shelves filled with datapadds. He was sitting with his back to the door, working at the computer. The man who was escorting me announced, >Mr. Garak to see you, sir.' Tain turned around but didn't get up. He motioned the man to go, and me to sit down in a chair in front of his desk.

"'My, my Garak, you're quite the man now,' he said. What are you planning to do with your life?' I didn't quite know what to say. Was he waiting for me to acknowledge that the decision was his? Was he actually giving me a choice?"

"You could have told him you were planning to be tailor, perhaps?"

Garak chuckled. "Oh, yes. He'd have probably had me shot on the spot." Then his voice grew more serious. "Besides, my tailoring was the one thing Tain had no hand in. I intended to keep it that way. Finally I muttered something about training to be a Lector, since I'd gotten rather used to living at schools."

"He gave me a look, but didn't say anything for a few seconds. >Your instructors tell me you have a talent for gathering information. Did you know that I'm in the information business?'

"'I had suspected as much,' I replied, 'Especially since this is the Ministry of Information.'"

Odo interrupted him, smiling, "You certainly had outgrown your fear of Tain."

"The man was treating me like an idiot. What was I supposed to say? At any rate, after he added that the Lectors had also told him that I was far too clever for my own good and quite disrespectful of my elders, he asked me if I had ever considered a career in information. Of course I hadn't; I couldn't imagine, after all those years of making sure that no one could connect me to him, that he'd ever want me to go to work for him. I stammered out something non committal. At that moment, the man who'd escorted me to Tain's office came in and handed Tain a PADD. He read it for a while and then told me that he needed to go confer with one of the 'specialists' who worked for him. Would I like to come along?

"I knew immediately that it was a test and realizing that it was a test was the first challenge involved. We got into a turbolift and went down several levels underground, to the interrogation rooms. Before we got out, Tain gave me some words of caution: 'Takenral, the man we're going to see, is in the midst of punishing a criminal. It's a sad case, really; a g'reakh of 16 years, abandoned to make his way on the streets, grabbed a currency belt containing considerable latinum from an elderly man and took off running. A security trooper managed to trip up the young thief, but he made the fatal error of dropping his guard once the youngster was on the ground. The little bastard pulled a knife and stabbed him 25 times, half the blows coming after the man was already dead. Finally a second trooper arrived and stunned him with a phaser. He'd have done the boy a favor if he'd gone ahead and vaporized him where he stood. Instead, the security division handed him over to us to carry out his death sentence with whatever methods we chose. There've been a number of refinements on some of our most popular interrogation instruments, and Takenral is trying them out on our poor young friend. It won't be a pleasant sight, Garak.' I told him that if I were thinking about becoming an information specialist, I needed to know about all aspects of the job."

Odo made no effort to hide his disgust. "And such things happened routinely on Cardassia? Adolescents tortured to death without trial?"

"Oh, not adolescents with full Cardassian citizenship; they do have certain rights and protections, even when they stab policemen to death in the street in front of fifty witnesses. But this was only a bastard. We bastards have no official standing in the justice system. Or any other part of society. We're entitled to nothing, except what our sires might choose to give us."

"I see," Odo replied. "And Tain wanted to impress that fact upon you."

Garak nodded. "We walked down what seemed a kilometer of corridors and finally found the interrogation room we were seeking. There was a two way viewscreen that looked out onto the hallway. Tain called me over to watch. The boy's wrists were bound together with a rope that was run through a pulley on the ceiling. His arms were pulled up at full length above his head; his feet were manacled to the floor. There was blood everywhere, he scarcely looked humanoid anymore " He paused abruptly, reacting to the horror in Odo's unfinished features. "Sorry, my dear Constable, I forget that not everyone has Cardassian sensibilities. I'll try to be discreet about the details.

"We stood there while the specialist made four applications of the instrument. The boy's mouth was a constantly rounded scream. Of course the rooms were sound proofed, so we couldn't hear anything, until suddenly Tain switched on the intercom. The screams were a high, animal sound, the most terrible sound I'd ever heard in my life. Tain told Takenral to leave off for awhile, he was coming in to talk to him. Takenral turned off the instrument, and the screams died away into a whimper. Normally, I'm sure Tain would have called the man out into the corridor, but he wanted me to take in the situation directly.

"The air in the room was heavy, and it smelled with all the smells that fear and pain can draw from a man. Tain was conferring with Takenral, and I was trying not to look at the prisoner, and to keep everyone from noticing that I was turning green. The boy had just been sobbing to start with, but I suppose seeing new people in the room had given him some irrational hope, because he started begging for mercy. He was saying things like 'Don't hurt me any more' and 'I can't stand the pain' and finally he began repeating over and over, 'Please let me die, please let me die.'

"This went on for about five minutes, until Takenral yelled at his assistant, 'Shut that cowardly g'reakh up, Dakren.' So the assistant shoved a gag into the boy's mouth. Tain asked how long they had been working on him. Takenral told him, 'About four hours, but he's young and strong; there's plenty of life left in him.'

"Then Tain said, 'Still, it's a tragedy. If a sire isn't willing to provide for his bastard, he should have the decency to terminate him. Let's put the poor creature out of his misery.' Tain sounded like he was chastising someone for letting a pet go stray. Takenral just shrugged. I'm sure he regretted being deprived of his fun, but Tain was the boss, and he agreed to anything the boss wanted. Tain looked right at me and asked if I concurred; I nodded yes, with great conviction. 'Well, then,' he continued, 'You can do the honors, Garak.'

"I'd never killed anything before. Tain knew that. This was the final test. He wanted to find out if I could do it. I asked for Dakren's disrupter, but Tain said no, that I should kill the boy with my bare hands, like they'd taught me in fifth form military science. I knew I dared not hesitate.

"I walked over to the prisoner. His head was bowed, and he was making blubbering noises through the gag. When he realized I was there, he jerked his head up and started I don't quite know how to describe it bleating. His eyes were filled with despair; they were pleading with me not to start the torture again, while simultaneously acknowledging that I was coming to do just that. I took his head in both my hands and made him look at me directly. 'Don't resist,' I said. 'I'll do it quickly. Die like a Cardassian.' He looked at me with this absurd gratitude and held his head up and stopped making the noises. I moved around in back of him, put my forearms against the most vulnerable neck vertebrae, and one knee against his spine, just like they'd taught us, and applied all the force I could muster. Within a minute his neck snapped like a twig, and he was dead."

"How terrible for you," Odo whispered.

Garak had described the wrenching incident in a flat, emotionless monotone. Now, with a slight shake of his head, he regained his usual jaunty irony. "Terrible? Not at all, Constable. I was positively elated."

"Elated?" Odo asked in disbelief. "Because you had ended the boy's suffering?"

"Ah, yes. That would be the politic answer. Just what I would have said if someone else had reproached me for my action. But no, this isn't the time for self serving lies. I was elated because, by killing that boy, I had made certain that I wouldn't some day find myself in his place. As I turned and walked back toward Tain, I saw in his face that he was glad that he hadn't terminated me and had provided for me all these years. He knew that I could be useful to him. He stepped forward to meet me and put his arm around me. 'Well done, Garak,' he said. 'I didn't think you had it in you.'

"I was covered in the boy's blood, so Tain took me back to his office and found me a change of clothing it had probably belonged to some subject of his who never made it out of interrogation alive. He told me that he'd send me the necessary forms to apply for a place at the Ministry. He winked and said that he could guarantee that the application would be accepted. Before he called his aide to escort me out, he pressed some currency vouchers into my hand and told me to buy myself a new suit.

"I knew that I could make myself two suits with what he'd given me, even using particularly rich fabrics I'd only dreamed of working with before, and still have a bit left over. So I went to the bar at the space port and treated myself to my first glass of kanar.

"Half a year later, with an honors prep diploma to my credit, I reported once again to the Ministry of Information to begin my training as an apprentice interrogator. And a glorious career was born."

"And was it truly glorious?" Odo asked skeptically. "Didn't you resent the way Tain had manipulated you into choosing it?"

Garak was silent a moment, his face impassive. "In many ways it was a career I would have chosen freely. I did love to uncover what people didn't want found out. After all those years of being Tain's dirty little secret, it was most gratifying to learn that so many people had something to hide. And I was very good at digging out secrets. Later, when I became a full fledged member of the Order, a real spy, I found the challenges and the risks positively exhilarating. While I was in interrogation, though, my successes and they were many were shadowed by an unfortunate weakness on my part.

I'd always had a vivid imagination; I guess it had something to do with all the books I read as a child. It usually served me well in my profession; for instance I was never without a convincing story for any occasion. But when subjects weren't forthcoming, despite all my cleverness, despite highly effective forms of psychological manipulation, and I had to put them to the torture, I could imagine what they were suffering, quite vividly. I would manage to hide what I was feeling while I was still in the interrogation room and I could still proceed with utter ruthlessness, don't mistake me but when I was alone, there were nightmares, I had attacks of claustrophobia.

"So I gradually started developing other techniques. I discovered that fear was a better tool than pain for eliciting information. I became a master of intimidation, and if my sessions took a good deal longer, they also produced very impressive results. Still, I knew the other interrogators said behind my back that I was soft. An embarrassing number of my subjects even used to forgive me just like you, my dear Odo."

"Yes, I could sense your empathy," Odo mused. "And besides, you did finally turn the infernal contraption off."

"That always was my goal. Of course, one did have to rough them up a bit at first, or the intimidation didn't work, but after two years I was only putting about one of ten subjects to the really serious torture."

"An accomplishment to be proud of I'm sure," Odo sneered.

"Don't scoff, Constable," Garak chided. "For a Cardassian interrogator it was."

"Was it this reluctance to cause pain that led to your exile?"

"It would be quite the ironic moral fable if it did," Garak replied. "However, when I'd served eight years as an interrogator, I was promoted to full time espionage, and my little weakness took care of itself. My exile was the result of other duties I used to carry out from time to time, private assignments from Tain."

"What kind of assignments?" Odo asked.

"Assassinations," Garak said simply. Odo gave him a searching look. "When you have as much power as Enabran Tain, you make enemies, not the enemies of the state the Order was pledged to ferret out and eradicate, but very personal enemies. It's often kill or be killed with such enemies, and in this regard Enabran Tain was at a distinct disadvantage."

"What kind of disadvantage?"

"He was a totally inept killer. Not that he had reservations about it. He could condemn others quite dispassionately; watching the most grisly acts never sickened him. He just had no talent for it, like some people can't play sports or sing on key. He couldn't hit anyone with a weapon at any range greater than six centimeters. If he'd tried to break that boy's neck, he'd have been at it twenty minutes. At first I'd wondered why he tested me with killing that poor creature, rather than seeing if I was capable of continuing his torture; but it wasn't half a year before he asked me to do my first job for him. By that time I'd already heard about his 'problem.' The apprentices all joked how the great Tain had to be given special exemptions from all the weapons re certification training; otherwise there wouldn't be a judge left unsinged on the course, while the targets were unscathed.

"It was no laughing matter, however, for him to have to trust his subordinates to carry out his private clean up operations. How much safer to employ the son who owed everything to him. Not that he ever put it that way; he never directly acknowledged our relationship at all. He simply gave me a name and a location and expressed a desire that the person disappear. I understood the rest."

"And these assignments disturbed your . . . imagination as well?" Odo inquired.

"Not in the same way the interrogations did. Unlike my father, I was quite skilled as a killer. I took my targets by surprise and dispatched them quickly. There was little suffering. Tain assured me that his enemies were Cardassia's. It served me well to believe that. Seven years ago, however, he gave me an assignment that made me question that belief, an assignment I couldn't carry out. And then he took everything from me." Garak rested his head wearily on his hands. It was his first display of emotion Odo had seen that was at all congruent with the ghastly tale he had been unfolding.

After a moment Garak got up. "Excuse me, Constable. I could use another cappuccino. Actually, I could use something far stronger, but it will be more prudent to avoid intoxicating beverages for the present."

As the Cardassian walked over to the replicator, Odo noticed that he wasn't quite steady on his feet. The remarkable self possession he had shown thus far was clearly being achieved at some cost. Odo wondered if Garak, upon his return, would indeed reveal the true reason for his exile from Cardassia. That information was the key to unlocking the jackpot of the longest running betting pool at Quark's. At last count, the winner was due 300 bars of latinum. Odo fervently hoped that Garak would admit to one of the 97 explanations currently posted. He would take great pleasure in watching the Ferengi having to hand over such a sum.

Garak returned, sipping on the drink as he walked. Sitting again, he drank thoughtfully for a few seconds before setting his mug on the table. "Now, where was I?" he said with an absolutely unconvincing display of forgetfulness.

"You were about to tell me the nature of the assignment you refused to carry out for Tain," said Odo, making no effort to conceal his growing annoyance. "And I trust this revelation may finally have some bearing on yesterday's incident."

"Patience, patience my dear Constable. I must tell my story in my own way. So the disaster began routinely enough. Tain told me that there was a prisoner in one of the Ministry holding cells who presented a severe security risk in regards to the rapidly deteriorating situation on Bajor. I'd resolved many similar matters before, but when I opened the cell door, I was totally unprepared for what awaited me.

"The prisoner was a small woman in her middle years. She was sitting quite calmly on the bench, and when she heard the door opening she turned toward me with a look of relief on her face and said, 'Oh, Elim I had hoped he would send you.'

"You knew this woman?"

"Yes," Garak replied. "She was Mila, Tain's housekeeper of many years. She was also my mother."

"Your mother!" Odo was flabbergasted. Once again doubts as to the veracity of Garak's tale assailed him. Despite Enabran Tain's well deserved reputation for ruthlessness, it was difficult to imagine that anyone could make such cruel demands of his own son.

"Don't sound so surprised, my dear Odo," Garak said. "I hardly sprang fully formed from Tain's loins, although I suppose he would have preferred it that way. He never tired of telling his agents that having romantic entanglements was the surest way for a spy to court disaster. No one in the Order could ever document a single incident in his life on Cardassia that would have reasonably enabled him to have a rendezvous with a woman. There were rumors that he was celibate or impotent or involved only with unisexual aliens. Of course I knew that he had to have had at least one tryst with a woman of his own race.

This housekeeper was the only woman who had any connection with him whatsoever, so everyone in the Order that assumed him to be sexually active when at home was fairly certain that she was his mistress. One of my fellow apprentices who held this view confided in me his admiration of Tain's craftiness in choosing a woman 'of such execrably low caste for his physical convenience' that he could eliminate her without a qualm should she ever become inconvenient.'"

"And it was on the basis of such rumors alone that you concluded her to be your mother?" Odo asked.

"Not just the rumors. Whenever I visited Tain's home, she fussed over me interminably. Tain would have to order her from the room on some occasions. Of course it would have been much too dangerous for any of us to speak of the relationship openly. At any rate, you can imagine how appalled I was to see her sitting there as my assigned victim. I froze at the door, recalling a party at Tain's several days before, when the conversation turned to speculation over whether Central Command would actually betray us all and order a pullout from Bajor. She had unwisely offered an opinion on the subject, and one of the younger agents whispered, but loudly enough to be heard by all, "Pillow talk, eh, Tain?"

She ran from the room. Tain looked as though he was going to erupt more violently than Mount Getenderal, and he shouted that we were all to leave at once. The young agent was found dead by his own hand the next morning. Now I was being asked to take care of the other loose end.

"My mother saw my hesitation, and she said, >Don't feel sorry for me, Elim. I was very foolish and brought this entirely on myself. I accept my death. But before you kill me, let me speak to you at last as a mother to her son. You've known me to be that for a long time, haven't you?' Words stuck in my throat, and I could only nod. Then she said that she had always loved me and regretted that she hadn't been able to be a real part of my life. Just this one time, would I embrace her?

"I hugged her as hard as I could and kissed her on the forehead. She had trouble returning the embrace because he'd put her in wrist and ankle restraints; after all their years together he didn't even have the decency to spare her that indignity!" Garak's tone had been growing increasingly bitter. "I offered her my cheek, and she kissed me in return. Then she looked at me very calmly and said, 'I'm ready now, Elim. Be quick; I won't resist.'

"To hear from her lips the words I had spoken to that poor boy so many years before! I sat down beside her and asked, 'Mother, what kind of man do you think I am, that you think I could do this?' I couldn't believe her response: 'You are the son of Enabran Tain. So of course you will kill me. He has trained you well.'

"I removed the restraints, kissed her again, and said, 'Not well enough for this.' I got up and walked out of the cell and didn't look back as she pleaded with me not to sacrifice my life for hers that was already forfeit."

Well, no winners in Quark's pool, Odo thought. Even the most lurid speculations about Garak's past had not imagined the depths of pain and guilt it had contained. "And so you ran?" he asked gently.

"Oh, no, not at first. If the sum total of my life was that my mother thought I'd have no hesitation to end hers, then it was hardly worth preserving. I went straight to Tain's office and told him I wouldn't do what he'd asked. He said that I had sorely disappointed him, that the Order could never trust me again. I said that I understood, I was prepared to give up my life. But that wasn't a solution that suited his purposes. I was his heir apparent. We had never quarreled or competed for power. My death at his hands would raise too many questions, and the truth was not an acceptable answer.

He told me to take my personal runabout and go anywhere I pleased, so long as I never set foot in Cardassian space again. He would announce to the Order his discovery that I had been bought off by the Bajoran Resistance to work toward achieving an end to the Occupation. Over the years I had made a number of 'soft' decisions in regard to Bajoran prisoners, particularly the younger ones. It wasn't hard to put them together as evidence of a persistent pattern of collaboration. I was still desperate enough for Tain's good opinion that I helped him piece the story together. Then he showed me the door, informed me that he wouldn't sound the alarm for three days, and wished me a 'long, miserable life.'"

"And your mother?" Odo inquired delicately. "Tain found someone else to . . . eliminate her?"

"That's the irony of it." Garak shook his head sadly. "The next day Central Command voted to end the Bajoran Occupation. The Order was thrown into a state of chaos, and by the time things settled down, my mother's little slip of the tongue didn't seem so grievous. Tain relented and took her back into his house. When he was lost in the Orias system, I made some inquiries to see if I might be able to get her out of Cardassia, perhaps even bring her here. My contacts reported that when the news came that Tain's ship had been taken by the Dominion, she swallowed a fatal dose of poison."

Garak bowed his head and stirred the cappuccino absently. Odo noticed a slight tremor in his hand. Time to put an end to this, he thought. The Cardassian was clearly under a terrible strain, and whatever was compelling him to share these horrors could wait. The man needed much more rest than he had permitted himself.

"Garak, I'm going now," he said. "I'm honored that you trust me enough to share these painful memories, but they have nothing to do with what happened yesterday, and I fear you'll do yourself serious harm if you continue to dwell on them."

Garak grabbed him tightly by the arm to prevent him from rising. "Please, Odo," he cried urgently, "if you let me finish my story you'll see how it's all relevant. It's much worse for me to be alone with these memories than to share them with . . . a friend. Besides," he regained his normal conversational tone, "we've now arrived at the point in the tale where Elim the tailor makes his first appearance."

Odo settled back into his seat with reluctance. "How did you ever become a tailor in the first place? I had often thought that it was a cover you used in your espionage activities, but you said that it was a pursuit you took up as a schoolboy?"

"Yes, quite a curious one for a student in Cardassian military preparatory schools, I assure you," Garak chuckled. "It all started when I got tired of wearing the accursed, dull uniforms. You see, the school supplied everything we needed for our classes, and for the sports and training exercises, but individualized clothing for leisure activities were brought from home and I had no home other than school. I couldn't imagine that I'd ever amass enough replicator rations to buy even one suit of civvies, but then one day, I noticed that one of our maids was mending some torn uniforms by hand, using an old fashioned needle, thread, and scissors.

It seemed that when boys exceeded their uniform rations for the term, their parents were assessed extra fees, so a number of them would pay her out of their pocket money to repair minor damage. I asked her if a person could use such tools to make new clothing as well. I don't think she knew what to make of the request, but she finally agreed to teach me to sew. When I'd developed sufficient skills, she brought me some bedclothes that were slated for the recycler, and a simple suit pattern. Within a week I had my own distinctive leisure outfit. I'd patched together so many different fabrics that I looked rather like the trickster in the fall harvest festival, but I didn't care. All the boys thought me a fairly odd bird anyway. For the first time I felt that I had some control over my own life. I began to study everything about the art of tailoring and fashion design that I could possibly download.

"Every time I put on one of my own creations, I had this fantasy that I was no longer Garak the bastard. It was as if the clothing were magical, turning me instead into Elim, the brave little tailor. On Cardassia, the use of the given name alone is reserved for one's blood kin and very close friends. Rather like the Bajoran second name, although the Bajorans are far more profligate with theirs than we would ever be. Since I had grown up without family or friends, I'd never been called Elim at all. I felt therefore that he was untouched by the life in which I was despised by most and barely tolerated by the rest. Of course Elim had no parents either, but in his fantasy world, who you were yourself was the only thing that counted.

"Now, when Garak of the Obsidian Order became such an important man on Cardassia, I grew rather ashamed of poor Elim. I blamed him for all my weaknesses in the interrogation room, and later, in my darker moods, I gave him the full responsibility for getting me exiled. Time and again, as I prospered, I told myself that I could at the very least stop this absurd hobby of making my own clothes. Yet I was very adept at it, and it gave me such pleasure . . . and Cardassian clothiers had no sense of style whatsoever. So the tailor was pushed into a very small corner of my life, but he never quite disappeared.

"And quite a good thing that was, when I found myself adrift in a galaxy that had no use for Garak."

"However did you decide to seek asylum on Deep Space Nine, of all places?" Odo asked.

"At first I had no plan to go anywhere. I flew the runabout a light year's distance from Cardassia Prime and spent the first day orbiting the system at that radius. I suppose I had some thought of just drifting into oblivion. Gradually, though, I began to get angry. All those times Tain had criticized sires who wouldn't take responsibility for their g'reakhs--and now here he was, denying me an honorable termination, and abandoning me to my fate like a street boy. Someday, I thought, he'd need me again, and regret what he'd done. I vowed to survive somehow until that someday.

"But where to go? I was banished from Cardassia, and hated everywhere else for being a Cardassian. Then a chance presented itself. I'd been monitoring all the subspace transmissions between Cardassia and Bajor, and learned that the Federation was coming in to take possession of Terok Nor. Garak had never had dealings with the Terrans. Perhaps they would tolerate Elim."

"How did you manage to infiltrate the station?" Odo asked suspiciously.

"In stages, using some of the tricks I'd picked up along the way. And it wasn't easy escaping your prying eyes, Constable, give yourself credit. With the evacuation in progress, however, hardly anybody noticed an extra Cardassian soldier scurrying about. I'd been on Terok Nor a number of times in connection with assignments on Bajor; I knew the layout well. The central quartermaster depot for the Occupation was located in a secure area of Upper Pylon 3. I'd accumulated a significant store of latinum over the years: it wasn't hard to bribe the hastily departing staff to leave behind enough of the equipment to stock a small tailor shop. There had always been a 'Cardassians Only' section of the Promenade. For all the Bajorans knew, I might have been plying my trade for years." Garak broke off, struck by a new thought. "You would have known, though, wouldn't you, Constable? Why didn't you alert the Federation?"

"I was of the opinion that it would be easier to keep track of what the Cardassians were up to if we didn't have a totally 'Cardie free' station. When you inexplicably failed to depart, I took advantage of the opportunity. I simply made sure you were under constant surveillance. That was all."

"Ah, yes, those charmingly primitive listening devices in my shop and my quarters. I thought of disabling them, but, for once, I really didn't have anything to hide. So why not lull you into complacency?'

"Hmf," Odo grunted. "I've never been complacent about you, Garak. I was rather surprised that Sisko let you stay."

"Ah, I gave our good Captain a sad tale about having 'nothing to go back to' on Cardassia-quite true enough as it happened. Said I'd come to consider the station home over the years. Of course they all thought I was a spy left behind by the departing occupiers, but they had no proof. And where would all their grand pronouncements about infinite diversity be if they evicted someone simply because he was Cardassian after all, our government had made a treaty with the Federation. I wasn't an enemy alien."

"They might have let you stay even if you had been," Odo replied. "Deep Space Nine is a most accepting place."

"Yes, it is," the Cardassian acknowledged. "Of course I had a very hard time at first. If people didn't know the extent of Garak's crimes, they had their suspicions of the kind of man he must have been. And he was there inside of me, hating the obsequious mask that was Elim. Yet, over time, people rather took to Elim. Dr. Bashir enjoyed his refined taste in literature, an increasingly large clientele appreciated his fine work on their clothing. When situations presented themselves in which Garak would have acted one way, and Elim another, I found myself going with Elim's point of view, and those were the times when my actions gained the most approval on the station. So, little by little, Elim pushed Garak back, and while I was never quite in the inner circle of station society, I did begin to feel a part of something larger than myself, someone who might be missed if he happened to vanish, someone people were -quite recklessly in my view beginning to trust. And, then, Ziyal came into my life."

"Finally!" Odo hadn't meant to say it aloud, but he did.

"I told you this story would all hang together eventually," Garak grinned. "Yes, dear Ziyal had more certain knowledge of Garak's sins than anyone else on the station; her father had made sure of that. Yet, when she looked at me, she never saw anyone but Elim. I don't know why, but she believed in him totally. When we were together I began to imagine that Garak might after all be the fantasy, and Elim the reality. In her sweet way she could be quite relentless, especially where her affections were concerned, and after much initial resistance on my part, she became the first person I ever permitted to love me."

"You'd never been intimate with another person before?"

"I didn't say that." Garak's tone was indignant. "You can hardly expect a man to reach my age still a virgin."

"So you had had sexual experiences without love?" He could never quite understand the distinctions these solids made between passion and affection. "And this was satisfying to you?"

For the first time in the lengthy colloquy Garak looked uncomfortable. "Really, Constable, that's a very personal question."

"And everything else you've been telling me isn't?" Odo shot back incredulously. Clearly this area of his life had not been included in Garak's script, and Odo saw the chance to take him off guard and perhaps get closer to the truth behind this performance. "I don't think I can understand your relationship with Ziyal unless you make clear to me what other kinds of relationships preceded it."

Garak cleared his throat uneasily. "The life I've had never taught me anything about love. I don't think I know even now what it is. But I've always had a highly developed taste for the pleasures of the mind, and of the flesh. All sorts of people over the years have aroused my desire, and I'm sure if you asked any of them, they would tell you that I was a skilled and gentle lover who left them most satisfied. And that's about all I choose to say on that subject."

Odo refused to let him off so easily. "What did they do to satisfy you in return? Intimacy is after all a mutual activity."

"They didn't have to do anything. I took my pleasure in giving them pleasure."

It was not an answer Odo had expected, and it started him off on a line of reasoning that had not occurred to him previously. "Just like in the interrogation room," he mused.

His comment clearly struck a nerve. Garak's gray features took on a bluish tinge. "I said that I was gentle," he shouted. "And I never, EVER sexually abused my subjects, never."

Odo was perplexed. Could it be possible that intimacy was sometimes bound up with torture? The concept was inconceivable to him. Yet there was that ridiculous Vulcan Love Slave holo program Quark was always waving in his face. Odo had gathered something of the sort went on in it. And nothing appeared to be out of bounds when Cardassians were concerned. So apparently this was another one of those atrocities whose borders Elim had prevented Garak from crossing.

"I only meant that in both instances the other party apparently was expected to be passive while you made all the what did you call them? applications, whether for pain or for pleasure," Odo replied.

"It's not as if I tied my lovers down or anything like that," Garak pouted, still obviously offended to the core of his being.

"No, but it has been my observation that you try to deflect any expression of affection or friendship that is offered, whether a kind word or a pat on the back. I would imagine that you demanded of your lovers such inaction that they might just as well have been tied down."

Garak sighed, "I can't explain it to you clearly Odo, it's not something you could understand from those trashy romance novels you read. Now I have a superb collection of erotica that might give you some understanding of my passions . . ."

"That's all right," Odo hurriedly demurred. "As with your interrogations, I would rather not get too heavily into the details of your sexual practices."

Garak smiled at Odo's embarrassment. "Well, it is your loss, Constable. As for the rest, you're right. I longed for affection so long without ever receiving any that somewhere along the way I decided that affection was overrated and, further along, that it might actually be harmful. My 'sexual practices' as you call them always occurred quite independently of affection on either side. Until Ziyal."

"With her your intimacy was more mutual?"

"We never were physically intimate," Garak said, with some difficulty.

"You weren't?" Odo was shocked. "It was my understanding that when sol- humanoids love one another, coupling follows quite quickly."

"Very often it does. But Ziyal was so young, so vulnerable. I was the only Cardassian man she'd ever known well, other than her father. It seemed that I had an advantage it would have been most ungentlemanly to press. Not that she didn't let me know in myriad ways that she was willing."

"During the Dominion Occupation, the station was overrun with young, handsome Cardassian soldiers. I never saw Ziyal give even one of them a passing glance," Odo responded kindly.

"Thank you. It is gallant of you to tell me." Garak took a deep breath. "Nevertheless there was more to it than that. I cared very deeply for Ziyal. I think I might have loved her, although I always feared that what I loved most was her being in love with me. But she never sparked my desire. I can only pray that she never guessed that to be the case."

Odo saw that Garak's eyes were tearing up, but the Cardassian quickly brought his emotions under control. "However," he continued "all those months I was away on the Defiant and on Starbase 375 my lack of physical passion for her grew insignificant. She was never far from my thoughts. I vowed that if I ever survived to return to the station, I would ask her to marry me. I would do everything to give her pleasure in every way. We would have many children and finally become a part of the sacred Cardassian family life we had both been denied for so long. Garak would be buried forever. Alas, that was not to be."

"Then we've come a long way to arrive at the first conclusion," Odo said in exasperation. "Your grief over Ziyal's death made you lose control in the shop yesterday."

"It's more complicated," Garak insisted. " Ziyal believed so fervently in the fantasy of Elim, that I, too, was swayed into believing it. When Tain died in that Dominion prison, and I knew that Ziyal was waiting for me back on Deep Space Nine, I foolishly allowed myself to think that I could wipe out Garak and all the terrible things he had done. But only a few months later that incident on Empok Nor summoned him forth in all his glory. Then, on the Defiant during the war, I came closer than I had ever been to feeling part of a group with a common purpose, accepted, valued. You can imagine that, with our necessity for mutual suspicion, there was never any such camaraderie in the Obsidian Order. Yet who was this person the crew so valued, not Elim the tailor, but Garak, the effective killer, the man with the crucial covert knowledge? On one of our earliest missions, my sewing kit was lost. It was an omen. I'm afraid that Ziyal's death was another. Elim can't ever be who I truly am, and now that Garak is once again of value to people, I've decided to eliminate Elim once and for all. That's what happened at my shop. In a few days I'll find some ship in the ninth fleet that needs a skilled and ruthless tactical officer with special knowledge of Cardassian military strategies, and I'll leave Deep Space Nine. So that's the solution to your mystery and an explanation for what will seem to many here a totally inexplicable action."

Odo clapped his hands slowly several times. "Bravo!" he said. "An excellent narrative. Now tell me how you're going to do it."

"Do what?" asked Garak. "Find a ship that will take me?"

"No. How do you plan to kill yourself?"

"Kill myself? how absurd. What are you talking about, my dear Odo? Haven't I just spent an unconscionably long time explaining to you my great skills at surviving."

Odo leaned forward, his blue eyes burning intently. "What you have been telling me, in many different ways, is that 'Garak' alone never deserved to live, that it is only because 'Elim' is also a part of you that you have fought so valiantly to survive. If you truly now believe that 'Elim' can no longer maintain the strength to influence 'Garak,' then I don't see that Elim Garak has any choice but to destroy himself. This whole remarkable tale has been in the way of a Tribunal, hasn't it? You've already passed judgment on yourself and issued the death sentence. You're just required first to confess your guilt."

Garak's body went limp, all signs of self possession gone. He looked up at Odo with a haunted expression in his similarly blue eyes. "I had thought of it more as a lengthy suicide note," he said with a slight shake of his head, "But you're absolutely right. It was a Tribunal. And you were my Nestor, a role you've played superbly in the past. Don't fool yourself into thinking the sentence will be commuted this time, however." Garak got up and moved about two meters away from his chair, his back turned to Odo and his gait unsteady. When he turned around, there was a phaser in his hand, pointed directly at the Security Chief. "I warn you. Don't try to stop me, Constable."

"I have no intention of subduing you by force. If I had, I would simply have done it before confiding my suspicions." This was true. Odo himself had on more than one occasion, some of them quite recently, found thoughts of self immolation remarkably attractive. He had always resisted the temptation, but the choice had been his alone. He would not dream of denying another being the right to make a different rational choice, but in his view, Garak's current mental state was far from rational. "I will, however, urge you to reconsider, at least at present. You've been under a terrible emotional strain. I don't think you're in any condition to make such an irrevocable decision now."

"The only thing wrong with me is that I'm barely in any condition to go through with it," Garak cried out in anguish. "I was going to do it without fuss there in the shop. I've got this hypospray of xerinthylin." He produced it from one of the pockets of his robe. "It's instantly fatal to Cardassians. One of the assassin's weapons of choice. I always made sure to save a dose for myself, in case of emergency. Blaming my death on Dukat's followers would have been a nice final gesture. And then I go and get drunk and ruin everything."

"I don't see any compelling reason why you should want to die now. Whatever you say about 'Garak,' you've come through the war as a bit of a hero."

"By the Prophets, Odo, spare me! A hero! I should have died years ago for what I did in the Obsidian Order. Can you deny it, after hearing my story?"

"Garak, listen to me. Tain forced you into that life. You had no one, and he offered you his protection if you did what he wanted. Believe me, I know what it is to long to be once more a part of a family that has apparently abandoned you."

"Ah yes," Garak responded bitterly. "Your great longing for the Link. Yet, whenever the Founders suggest that you join them in something truly despicable, you always find the strength to say 'No.' And, as much as Ziyal loved her father, she broke with him when she thought he was wrong. But not old Garak. 'Kill that boy and I'll love you,' Tain as much as says. So kill him I do. What if I'd insisted to Tain that I really did want to become a Lector. We don't know that he would have terminated me. He might merely have been disgusted with me, but for all that I could have been living peacefully on Cardassia Prime these past thirty years, teaching the classics of Cardassian literature to generations of enchanted twelve year olds. No, I had to have his 'love.' I never even thought about making a better choice."

"When I found my people, I had already made a life for myself here," Odo explained carefully. "I had responsibilities, people who depended on me, friends who cared about me. But do you think if a Changeling had suddenly materialized in front of my beaker in Dr. Mora's lab, when I was as alone and helpless as you were when Tain summoned you to him, saying "I'll take you away from all this," that I wouldn't now be sloshing about in the Link, helping them devise the best strategies for keeping the leash on the solids? And remember, your conscience always tugged at you. Think of the generations of interrogators who never held back from the worst atrocities and died in their beds without a qualm."

Garak refused to be swayed. "Yes, I had a conscience all right. What a curse for a Cardassian, to find the moral values of the Federation persuasive! I never should have read all those alien books. But that made it worse, don't you see? The sadists who enjoyed giving pain, the patriots who never doubted that anything was permissible in defense of the state, how could they have chosen differently? I, on the other hand, knew I was doing wrong, yet I still went through with atrocities enough."

Odo found himself out of arguments. He chose to fix Garak with his gaze and say nothing. Garak held the hypospray in one hand, and the phaser in the other. Both hands, Odo observed, had begun trembling violently.

"All right, Constable, you leave now," Garak commanded, gesturing with the phaser toward the door. "I'll be dead before you can even tap your comm badge."

"No," Odo said calmly. "If you're going to do this, you're going to have to do it in front of me."

Garak shrugged, "If you insist. That way you can file a complete eyewitness report." He raised the hypo to his neck, but his hands were now shaking so severely that he dropped it. Odo saw a look of utter despair come over his face. Odo debated swatting the hypo out of reach, but thought better of it. Not good to panic him with any sudden movement. The Cardassian didn't bend down to retrieve the hypospray either. Instead he turned the phaser toward his throat. Odo heard the power settings being adjusted to "kill."

"Odo, many humanoid species believe that when you die, you rejoin those that have gone before you," Garak said, his voice little more than a piteous moan. "Do you think I might find Ziyal and my mother again?"

"I firmly believe that this life is the only one we're given," he said urgently.

Garak's features contorted, giving testimony to some great internal struggle. The trembling intensified, then suddenly lessened, and when he spoke at last, it was with his usual urbanity. "Yes, I suppose with a Changeling's lifespan that might be your conclusion. We humanoids aren't nearly so fortunate." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I rather imagine if there were an afterlife, it wouldn't be Ziyal and mother, or even Tain, who came to meet me, but a whole parade of my victims." He slammed the phaser to the floor.

This action had apparently taken the last of his strength. He began to sway back and forth unsteadily. His eyes rolled up in his head. Stretching forth his hands, palms upward, he cried out, "Odo, help me." If the Changeling hadn't been able instantly to extend his arms three times their normal length, Garak would have fallen to the floor, but Odo caught him and carried him to his bed, wondering all the while whether that last cry was a plea that Odo help him to live or help him to die. With the unconscious Cardassian safely bestowed, the Security Chief tossed the hypospray into the recycler, confiscated the phaser, tapped his commbadge and called Dr. Julian Bashir.

***

"Yes, Garak is a fascinating case," Bashir was saying, in full diagnostic mode. "He'll retain an absolutely amazing self possession under circumstances that would drive an ordinary man to distraction, but there seems to come a point when it all gets to be too much for him, and then he lashes out and afterwards simply collapses. I've seen it before. I've given him a strong sedative. Usually with the proper amount of rest, he bounces right back."

"It might not suffice this time," Odo cautioned. He knew that Garak had only revealed what he had on the assumption that he would be dead before Odo could tell anyone. The Changeling felt uneasy about violating the man's confidence under the circumstances, especially to Bashir. So he had been extremely vague about what had transpired.

The doctor regarded Odo suspiciously. "You said that he was telling you how his grief caused him to vandalize his own shop, and then he suddenly passed out. Is there something more?"

Odo realized that at the very least he could not conceal the fact of the suicide attempt. "There were some details I left out, in deference to Garak's wish for privacy. In addition to destroying the shop, he also intended to kill himself. He would have made another attempt today, if he hadn't fainted first."

Bashir looked genuinely shocked, no doubt partly because that particular scenario hadn't even entered his genetically enhanced assessment of his good friend. "But why now? He's weathered quite a few losses in his time."

Odo chose his words carefully. "Without revealing facts with which he entrusted me in strictest confidence " he saw the hurt in Julian's eyes, that he had not been the recipient of such confidences " I can tell you that Elim Garak is a decent man who committed horror upon horror, until he had done more ill than a decent man could possibly bear. Doctor, you've spent time with Enabran Tain, enough to know what kind of man he was?"

"Indeed - a very unpleasant kind of man."

"Imagine what it must have been like for Garak. Here's the father who holds his life in his hands, who keeps him at arm's length until he suddenly offers his approval and his companionship if only his son will do these unspeakable things for him. To be offered what you've yearned for all your life, only to realize that what you've yearned for represents complete moral monstrousness."

"Are you talking about Garak, or about yourself, Odo?" Bashir asked softly.

Odo smiled slightly. "Probably both of us. The Founders and Tain demanded a high price for their embrace of their banished children. Garak's to be congratulated that he doesn't use this to excuse himself, but now he's reached the point where he can't forgive himself either."

"He once asked me to forgive him," Bashir mused. "He has friends here, we can bring him through this."

"No. I don't think the solution is in the hands of anyone besides Garak himself. In some ways it's easier when you've betrayed others" Odo's pain at his actions during the Dominion Occupation flashed briefly through his mind "because the others may be persuaded to forgive you. Garak, however, has betrayed the deepest and best part of himself, over and over. I think he believed that once Tain was dead, the part of him that did Tain's bidding would be gone too. But the War has shown him that's not the case. And then it took from him the one person who believed most strongly in the best part of him I don't know how he's going to recover. I suppose he needs to imagine some future capable of redeeming his past. Can you think of any way to give him that, Doctor?"

Bashir's olive complexion colored to a ruddy bronze. "Not in the way he wants, I'm afraid, Constable," he said with considerable embarrassment.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Um, Odo, in this remarkable confiding that Garak did, were his sexual preferences by any chance discussed?"

"In a fashion. I didn't, ah, ask for many details. He did offer me a glimpse of his erotic literature collection. I, of course, declined."

"If Changelings had circulatory systems you'd no doubt be the rich purple red hue of the Bajoran keva berry about now," Bashir laughed. "However, if you intend to keep playing the father confessor to Garak, I think you'd better overcome your modesty and have a look at his erotica. It will explain a lot."

"You've read them?"

Bashir blushed again. "Well, yes, they were some of the first books he ever lent me."

"Oh, I see. I had no idea." So, Odo mused, for all that Garak had confessed, he'd still held one secret back. "If you'll pardon my inquisitiveness, doctor, I have the feeling that even the friendship you and Garak shared may not be what it once was."

"You're right, Odo." Bashir replied. "Ever since he found out about my genetic enhancement, things have been rocky between us. He liked the idea of playing the wise man of the world to my inexperienced youngster. It's disturbed him, I think, to discover that I was playing a role just as much as he was. And for my part, that mocking cynicism and anxious self regard of his that I always found so amusing over meals, well it didn't go down so easily when we were in those life and death situations on the Defiant. But if I thought that our bickering had any part in driving him to this--"

"He never said anything to that effect," Odo put in quickly. "It was just something I had observed when you two returned to the station."

The doctor hesitated, then quickly resumed his professional manner. "In light of what you've just told me, I really think we should confine Garak to the Infirmary where he can be closely monitored."

"I can take care that he doesn't have other opportunities to harm himself without sending him there. He'll be particularly eager that as few people as possible know what's really happened." Odo gave a sharp look to Bashir. Julian didn't have to be a genius to read the implied warning against the young doctor's unfortunate tendency to gossip. The Changeling went on pensively, "I'm sure we can preserve his physical existence; but that won't be anything unless his spirit's mended."

"As I said, I'm sure he'll come through it. He's very resilient," Bashir insisted.

Resilient? Odo thought, how could mere resilience compensate for that helpless despair he had seen in Garak's face? To have lost both Tain and Ziyal it was as if he, Odo, had to live in a universe where both the Founders and Major Kira had been obliterated. The enormity of it was staggering. "I hope you're right, doctor," he said somberly. "All I know is that the man I've been talking to these past several hours is lost, utterly and completely lost."

Bashir was for once speechless. Finally he said, "If what you say is true, I think I should increase the level of sedation. Then I'll write down a strict treatment regimen for the next few days and leave it here for whatever med tech is available for house calls. I gather you don't think I should treat him myself?"

"Not for awhile." Odo could sense the doctor's wounded feelings, but couldn't think of any way to spare them without harming Garak's fragile emotional state. They returned together to Garak's room, to find that the unconscious Cardassian had restlessly tossed his blankets to the floor.

"My God, Odo," Bashir said. "Look what he's wearing."

"Is it significant? It struck me as somewhat odd, but nothing beyond that."

"It's called the Robe of Iniquity, the traditional costume that condemned Cardassian criminals wear at their executions. The Enigma Tales Garak is always lending me detail such rituals with tiresome repetitiveness. Those must have been some sins he confessed to you!"

Odo merely nodded. The shaken Bashir injected the patient with a hypospray, took out a PADD, made several entries, placed it on the table beside Garak's bed, and left without another word, still trying to come to terms with everything he had seen and heard and with his obvious failure to sense and assuage his friend's desperation.

Odo tapped his commbadge and called for one of his deputies to come and stand watch over the Cardassian. While waiting for the man to arrive, he absent mindedly picked up the PADD and surveyed its contents. Besides several files whose subject lines consisted of medical jargon, one read "Personal Message for Elim Garak." Before he could prevent himself from doing so, Odo had accessed the file. It read: "Garak, When you're feeling stronger, let's resume our lunches at the Replimat. I still have much to learn from you. Bashir." Odo stared at the lines thoughtfully for a few seconds and then changed the salutation to "Elim" and the signature to "Julian." Part of him registered an automatic self reproach for resorting to tactics more suitable to Quark than to the station security chief, but the other part told him that it was the least he could do for a fellow guilt wracked exile suffering the pangs of unrequited love.