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It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Commander Benjamin Sisko had begun it with a raktajino, three urgent messages from Kai Winn (all delegated to a long-suffering junior officer) and a headache from the Cardassians.
“I hoped it was going to be Gul Dukat, calling for advice on how to take care of his flowering fern,” Sisko said to his assembled senior staff.
“His what, sir?” Bashir asked.
Sisko smiled. “His Andorian flowering fern. I gave it to him at our last meeting. They’re given as a peace gesture on Andoria, and since Quark had some left over from a recent shipment, I thought Gul Dukat might appreciate it. Someone told me that the gift of a plant has special meaning on Cardassia.”
“Or you just liked the thought of him having to carry a huge fern all the way back to Cardassia Prime,” Dax suggested.
Sisko’s smile broadened. “I have to take my pleasures where I can,” he said. “But unfortunately the call I received this morning was nothing to do with the fern. Apparently Jarmos Mell has died. He was in line to be the next Prefect of Adarak Prime.”
“Well, he won’t be missed on Bajor,” Kira muttered.
“Do fill us in, Major,” Sisko said.
“He only visited a few times, but everything always had to be perfect,” Kira said bitterly. “The best food. The best accommodation. The Cardassians bulldozed a whole village in the Eastern Province so that he would have a better view.”
“The Cardassians claim that he died of natural causes,” Sisko said, “but he wasn’t old and given his position, they were suspicious. They wanted to know if, to our knowledge, he had visited Deep Space Nine or Bajor recently.”
“And had he?” Odo asked.
“Not since the end of the Occupation,” Sisko replied. “So I don’t think anyone here can be held responsible for his death. He had a condition, Tolvrut Syndrome, which seems to have been the cause of it. But Dukat would still like to use it as an excuse to visit the station and make a nuisance of himself.”
“Perhaps I should speak to Keiko, sir,” O’Brien volunteered.
“To… Keiko?” Sisko was a little taken aback.
“About the fern, sir,” O’Brien said. “I’m sure she’ll have some advice for Dukat on how to look after it.”
Sisko gave a deep, rolling laugh. “I’m sure she would, Chief. I’m sure she would.”
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Odo was enjoying antagonising his counterpart in the Cardassian police force, an organisation perpetually hamstrung by its subservience to the Cardassian military (officially) and the Obsidian Order (unofficially).
“Constable Prak,” Odo said with something approximating a smile on his face, “you’re telling me that Jarmos Mell died of natural causes, and yet you are tasked with investigating his death. Are you a doctor?”
“No,” Prak said. “I’m not investigating anything, but -”
“You are a detective, aren’t you?” Odo asked. “If you’re not investigating anything, then you can’t be very good at your job.”
“Jarmos Mell’s family are very prominent on Adarak Prime,” Prak said, “and it’s very important to them that all avenues concerning his death are considered.”
“But it was definitely natural causes?”
“Of course!” Prak replied. “You aren’t suggesting that Jarmos Mell was murdered? I imagine Gul Dukat would be quite insulted by that suggestion.”
“What does Gul Dukat have to do with it?”
“You aren’t aware?” Prak said. “He collapsed in Dukat’s office.”
“How fascinating,” Odo said, in the most profoundly bored tones that he could muster. “But I don’t see what this has to do with me. Dukat’s office is on Cardassia Prime, and Cardassia Prime is outside my jurisdiction, you see. Frankly, I don’t care how many Cardassians get themselves murdered there. I don’t have to investigate it. That’s your problem.”
Prak looked like he might like to commit a murder himself, preferably of one supercilious Changeling. “Listen here, Odo,” he said. “I know that Mell’s death had something to do with Deep Space Nine. I can’t prove it, but I know.”
“Good luck managing that in a court of law,” Odo said. “The charge, one death from natural causes, with a connection to a space station that Mell didn’t set foot on for over two years. An open and shut case for the prosecution, clearly.”
Prak’s fury boiled over, and the comm link was abruptly terminated. Odo allowed himself a quiet chuckle before going back to work.
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and O’Brien was trying to do a very complicated job in far too little time. A Federation inspector had visited the station three weeks previously and produced a long list of systems that weren’t up to Starfleet regulations.
O’Brien had tried to suggest that the entire bloody station wasn’t up to Starfleet regulations and had they considered consigning it to scrap and starting again, but to no effect. Starfleet staff were working on Deep Space Nine, and Starfleet staff were to have a Safe Working Environment, which meant reprogramming every replicator on the Habitat Ring (though they were free to poison themselves in the Replimat), recalibrating the artificial gravity (though the starships where most Starfleet staff spent their careers were exempt from that regulation) and, now, entirely replacing the Cardassian air conditioning with Federation standard.
“Haven’t the Cardassians and Bajorans been breathing this for years, Chief?” Ensign Tala asked, halfway out of a Jefferies tube.
“Yes, they have,” O’Brien replied.
“And - so have we, right? For two years?”
“Yes, we have.”
“Do I need to go to the infirmary, sir?” Tala asked. “Are we going to be all right?”
“By all means head over there and let Dr Bashir have a look at you,” O’Brien said. “But I wouldn’t worry too much. The inspector said that there’s an inert gas produced by the standard system Cardassians use for air conditioning, the same one as they have all over Cardassia Prime, same one as in, I don’t know, Gul Dukat’s office, probably. It can have an adverse effect when it encounters certain chemical compounds in the bloodstream. But it doesn’t seem to have caused us any problems yet.”
“How do you know that, sir?”
“Because we’d be dead, Ensign,” O’Brien said, “and if I was dead, I’m sure my back wouldn’t hurt so much. D’you want to pass me that hyperspanner so we can get on with this? You can pop down to the infirmary and check you’re still breathing while I’m relining these conduits, if you want.”
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Jadzia Dax was enjoying a coffee break with Kira and Bashir.
“Apparently Captain Boday has told all his friends about me,” she said. “In a lot of detail, too. We haven’t even slept together.”
“I suppose it’s hard to keep things private when you’ve got a transparent skull,” Bashir said.
Kira snorted. Dax looked unimpressed. “Don’t you think it’s too soon, though?”
“You’ve told us all about him,” Kira said, “why shouldn’t he do the same?”
“Not in that much detail!” Dax protested. “Julian. Has Garak told anyone about you?”
Bashir was blindsided by the unexpected question, and half-choked on his Tarkalean tea. “We’re not - that is to say - we haven’t - it’s not the same!”
“Yes, but has he told anyone about you? His family, his friends?”
“I don’t even know if he has a family,” Bashir admitted. “But yes, apparently he’s mentioned our lunches to an old friend on Cardassia. He recommended a book that Garak gave to me. It’s called The Greatest Struggle. Apparently it’s the greatest work of literature to come from one of the Cardassian outer worlds - Adarak Prime, I believe.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Kira said dryly.
“Oh, I haven’t read it yet.”
“So with Boday -” Dax began impatiently, then broke off. “Oh, it’s 1100 hours, I have to get back to Ops!”
“Enjoy looking at his brain!” Kira called after her as she hurried off.
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Kira was performing one of her least favourite tasks: going through a trade shipment from Bajor to Cardassia and checking it for contraband and sabotaged items.
It was all part of a complex three-way political dance between the Federation, Bajor and Cardassia. The Cardassians had requested that the staff on Deep Space Nine check every shipment in advance - a request that couldn’t be denied. Now, if the Cardassians found anything in their own checks of Bajoran goods, the Federation would share in the blame. Sisko had decided to demonstrate his impatience with the whole circus - and his trust in Bajorans - by placing Kira in charge of the checks.
Undoubtedly, it was a shrewd political move, but she hated every moment of it. Having to make sure no one delivered a bomb to the Cardassians in their boxes of salam grass, or poisoned their milaberry wine, felt bitterly ironic.
“Are we nearly done here?” the freighter captain, Kasidy Yates, asked with only a hint of impatience. “The wine is supposed to be delivered to Cardassia Prime in time for Tret Akleen Day and you know my ship can only do Warp 6.”
Kira hefted a lid back on to one of the crates. “I just need to check over the papers and then I can let you be on your way. The tarawa root you have there, that’s labelled for Jarmos Mell?”
“That’s right,” Kasidy said. “I have to watch it like a Tarkalean hawk. My contract specifies that I have to watch it being dug out of the ground and not let that box out of my sight until it’s delivered to Mell, the man is that paranoid about being poisoned. Apparently tarawa root is only thing that keeps his Tolvrut Syndrome under control.”
“You can probably stop watching it now,” Kira said wryly. “Mell is dead, the news came through this morning. I guess the tarawa root stopped working. Maybe you can sell what you’ve got here on the station, before you leave.”
She only just managed to stop herself from saying aloud that Bajoran medicines should be used for Bajorans. Tarawa root was effective in a variety of diseases, but it was also rare. She hated to see a whole box of it leaving the planet.
“I appreciate you letting me know,” Kasidy said. “I’ll speak to one of my contacts, see if I can get a quick sale.”
“Your paperwork is in order, anyway,” Kira said, scanning the PADD. She handed it back to Kasidy with a nod. “Safe journey.”
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Leeta was trying to get an Orion drunk. Well - drunker. It was only 1600 hours but his skin was already flushed a deep forest green from all the alcohol he’d consumed. Unfortunately, he was still very, very good at dabo.
Leeta had only been in her new job for a matter of weeks, but Quark was quite clear on her responsibilities: if the customer is winning, distract them. If they keep winning, get them drunk. If they still keep winning, stop them by whatever means necessary.
Usually, it wasn’t this hard.
“I know secrets,” the Orion slurred. “So many secrets! Double down dabo.”
“You’re sure about that?” Leeta asked. He had won every time he’d played double down dabo so far.
He pouted. “I know loads of secrets. I know about Jarmos Mell. Double down dabo, girl, spin the wheel.”
“What do you know about Jarmos Mell?” Leeta asked, without the faintest idea of who Jarmos Mell might be.
“Spin!” the Orion insisted. “Spinspinspin.”
Leeta spun the wheel and - it was painfully inevitable - called out, “dabo!”
“Daboooo!” the Orion echoed.
Quark looked at her from where he was wiping glasses and made a cutting motion across his neck.
“More Alvanian brandy?” Leeta asked. “To celebrate?”
“Oh, yes,” the Orion said, hooking an arm around Leeta’s waist. “Celebrate my victory! And outliving Jarmos Mell, hahahaha.”
Leeta poured the brandy into his glass, and the Orion downed it. “I was in Orion Intelligence, you know,” he said. “And Jarmos Mell was Obsidian Order. Not many people know that! They think he was just a politician! But I know better. So many secrets, you see. And I’ve kept all of them. I’ll have two strips of latinum on green, this time.”
He dropped the strips from his large pile of winnings.
“You don’t want to go for a bigger bet?” Leeta prompted. “Go all in?” Eventually his winning streak had to run out.
“OK!” The Orion sprinkled a generous handful of latinum all over the wheel. Leeta chanced a glance at the bar, where Quark gave her an approving nod. “All on green. Spinspinspin.”
Leeta began to spin - but then the Orion held out a hand to stop her.
“You know what I know?” he said. He seemed to be having difficulties focusing his eyes.
“What do you know?” Leeta asked, topping up his glass again and extracting the payment in latinum from the stack of strips the Orion had accumulated next to the wheel.
“Jarmos Mell was Garak’s handler. He got all of Garak’s leeeetle secrets. Everything he heard in that clothier’s. Straight into Mell’s ear. They’re going to know a lot less about what happens on Deep Space Nine now that Mell’s gone. But I’ll still know all the secrets. I know where to listen. I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“Do you want that spin now?” Leeta asked. Surely the Orion was good and drunk now? She had only been on the station a few weeks and she already knew that Garak wasn’t an Obsidian Order agent any more. Why would he have a handler? What would he even have to tell Mell about? Everyone’s bra sizes? The boring conversations he had every lunchtime with that handsome doctor?
“Spinspinspin,” the Orion said, and knocked back another glass of brandy. He snatched up the bottle and took a swig from that too. “Spinspinpsinsispin. Spiiiin. Spin.” Leeta spun the wheel and the Orion watched his latinum go round, and round, and round, and round - and lost his balance, and fell, with some force, off his stool. He lay dazed on the ground.
Leeta called out to Quark, “You’d better get him to the infirmary.”
Quark nodded. “It’s very sad. He left the wheel before the spin ended, so he forfeits his winnings. Nice work, Leeta.”
Leeta beamed with pride.
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Quark was filled with the joys of profit. Just last month, there had been that shipment of exotic houseplants that some fool had abandoned right where an enterprising Ferengi might happen upon it - you could hardly call it stealing. Leeta had managed to avoid that Orion walking off with too much latinum in his pockets. And now, another opportunity, in the form of a discreet call to the Ferengi Commerce Authority.
It sometimes surprised aliens that the FCA was also the Ferengi Alliance’s de facto intelligence agency, but then they were most likely unfamiliar with the 74th Rule of Acquisition: Knowledge equals profit.
And Quark had learned something quite profitable about his cousin Gaila. He had had few qualms about sharing it. After all, there was the 4th Rule to consider: Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
“A large acquisition of which I believe the FCA knows nothing,” Quark whispered into the computer access terminal behind the bar. “But about which I would be entirely prepared to share full details… subject, of course, to the appropriate incentives.”
“Is that so?” the voice of his FCA contact came through the terminal. “Hmmm... on reviewing the taxes paid by you in the last quarter, it does seem that you’ve been overpaying by - let me see - five per cent?”
“Funny,” Quark said, “my bank account seems so empty, I thought I’d been overpaying at least ten per cent, for at least a year.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” the FCA man conceded. “But then, your cousin is an arms dealer, isn’t he? His moon will have certain defences. So our consideration of your financial position must take into account not only the value of your information, but our ability to act on it.”
“That’s true,” Quark replied. “You might consider that Gaila has become attached to an Orion girl recently. Originally he just thought of her as a one-time thing, but you know how these things go, you get attached. And she doesn’t always stay close to Gaila’s moon. Perhaps the FCA should speak to her about encouraging Gaila to be honest about his assets. People are always more vulnerable when it comes to their loved ones, aren’t they?” He chuckled. “Well, not me, I’d sell you Rom for five bars of latinum, but you know, most people.”
“You do appear to be right about that overpayment,” the FCA man said, in tones of impressively convincing surprise. “Ten per cent, over… shall we say the last five quarters?”
“I think we shall,” Quark said, his lobes beginning to tingle with the thrill of acquisition. “Now, about Gaila’s hidden assets…”
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, and Garak had just committed a murder.
He had heard the news from a Bajoran couple who had been browsing in his shop. One had said to the other, “Did you hear that bastard Mell is dead?” and the other had said, “Good riddance.” And that had been all the confirmation Garak needed that his plan had worked.
It had begun over two years ago, when Mell had visited Deep Space Nine. Of course, Garak hadn’t had any immediate intention of killing him then. It was simply a precaution; one should always know how to eliminate one’s contacts, if need be. Mell had mentioned, in passing, that he was going to pick up another shipment of tarawa root. He surely had not known that he was revealing his greatest vulnerability.
Garak sometimes wondered who had told Mell that tarawa root helped relieve the symptoms of Tolvrut Syndrome. Perhaps it was some Bajoran who also knew that tarawa root, in combination with the otherwise harmless trinorine gas produced in small quantities by most Cardassian air conditioning systems, and pollen from a certain selection of flowering plants, produced a fatal reaction that was impossible to distinguish from a heart attack. Perhaps Garak had a co-conspirator whose name he would never know.
From then on, Garak knew that if Mell ever needed to be eliminated, he only needed to ensure he was in the same room as some carefully chosen flowers.
Such careful planning! Yet only needed because of a moment of incredible foolishness.
“I have become quite close to a Federation doctor,” Garak had told Mell on one of their irregular calls, nearly two years previously. “He may be a valuable source of information.”
“Good work, Garak,” Mell had replied.
He had been ashamed of the thrill it had given him. For a moment, like being part of the Order again.
And as he and Bashir had grown closer, the depth of his mistake, born of his shallow desire for Mell’s approval, had dawned on him. He had shown Mell as great a vulnerability as Mell had shown him when he first mentioned tarawa root.
He could not risk the Order threatening Bashir’s life.
He had planned to arrange a bouquet to be sent to Mell from a secret admirer. Yet then came Commander Sisko, looking for a suitable diplomatic gift for Gul Dukat, wondering if Garak could sell him some handkerchiefs, or similar.
“A flowering plant is the traditional gift on Cardassia,” Garak had told him.
It had been the work of a moment to put Quark in the way of a shipment of Andorian ferns.
And then Garak was free.
2050 hours. He put aside the hat he had been trimming and headed for the Habitat Ring.
~
It was an ordinary day on Deep Space Nine, with all the usual range of accidents, sickness, malingering and so on. Dr Bashir had cleared Ensign Tala for return to duties after she came in fretting that the air conditioning had been poisoning her.
“What if the chemical compounds are in my bloodstream and I die?” she had asked, somewhat incoherently.
“Your bloodwork is entirely normal,” Bashir had assured her.
Then a Bajoran trader had come in, asking him about the different medicinal uses of tarawa root.
“I believe it’s used quite widely in traditional Bajoran medicine,” Bashir had said. “In Starfleet Academy, we were taught to avoid it - the active chemical can have some very strange interactions so it’s often not worth the risk - but I know that many Bajorans swear by it. I read a paper by someone from the Ilvian Medical Complex that was quite fascinating -”
“But do you want to buy it?” the Bajoran trader had asked.
“Oh,” Bashir had said, “yes, I think I could make use of it. Speak to Nurse Jabara; she’ll issue you with the Federation credits and take it off your hands.”
His day had been rounded off by a drunken Orion, verging on the edge of unconsciousness, gabbling on about the Obsidian Order and Starfleet Intelligence and goodness knows what else. Well, some people did tend towards paranoia when they got drunk. He would have to have a word with Quark about cutting these people off a bit sooner. For now, the Orion was sleeping it off with the help of a mild sedative, and Bashir was packing up for the day.
He felt a tingle of anticipation run down his spine.
Garak was coming to his quarters.
Just recently they had gone from strictly seeing one another at lunchtime to having occasional evening meals together, but always out on the Promenade, where half of everyone on Deep Space Nine walked by. Though Bashir had invited Garak to his quarters more than once, he had mostly given up hope of the offer ever being accepted; had concluded, in fact, that he had misread Garak’s apparent interest in him entirely. Perhaps what read to Federation eyes as flirting was simply a Cardassian’s way of being polite.
But then that lunchtime Bashir had said, offhand, “I have some Delavian chocolates and a bottle of kanar in my quarters that I would love to share with you,” and Garak, far from demurring as he usually did, had said, “my dear doctor, I would be delighted. How about tonight? 2100 hours?”
Bashir had already cleaned every inch of his quarters, tidied up his books, put The Greatest Struggle somewhere prominent so that Garak could see he wasn’t dismissing the literature of Adarak Prime, and hidden Kukalaka. Now, all there was to do was put out some glasses and wait.
At 2100 hours precisely, there was a soft knock at the door.
Bashir stood up, cleared his throat and straightened his uniform. He opened the door to see Garak gazing at him.
“How lovely to see you,” Bashir said, his stomach dancing with nerves. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”
“My dear doctor, why ever not?”
“Well, you have been rather reluctant to come to my quarters until now.”
Garak gave an apologetic smile. “I was… hesitant to progress our relationship,” he said. “There was a small personal impediment that prevented me from truly allowing myself to become close to you. That has now been removed.”
“I’m very pleased to hear it,” Bashir said, and added awkwardly, “personal growth is so important, ah, isn’t it?”
“Quite so, my dear doctor,” Garak said, “quite so. Now… shall I come in?”