On the promenade is the Englishman: still waiting in an outdoor café, still sat alone at a table for two. He gazes out on an alien river flowing under an alien sky. Far from a station where he once belonged and the only human on Cardassia; Julian Bashir dreams of home.
An almost empty cup of Tarkalean tea sits in front of him on the table. Next to it is a book: 'The Constant Gardener', translated by hand and waiting to be lent. He drums his fingers on the cover.
"Where the hell are you?" he says.
As always, his friend is late.
Around him swarm the people of Lakat; all enjoying the sun, all of them Cardassian. Bashir fans his face and neck. For him the temperature is always too hot. The air is always too close.
It's twenty years since the end of the Dominion War. Twenty years since this world was destroyed, left in flames. Two million dead in this city alone. He tries to suppress the memory of bodies rotting in the heat.
But the past is not easily forgotten in Lakat.
I need a drink.
"Waitress," he calls in Cardassian and raises his hand.
Most of the passers-by react to him with muted hostility. Bashir recognises a few: patients he's treated at the hospital; neighbours he's walked by in the street; said good morning to.
They don't want me here, he thinks. They tolerate me because Cardassia needs doctors. And because I've got the right papers. But they don't want me here. I could cure the Roasdian Plague and they still wouldn't want me here.
The waitress approaches his table. She's young. Too young to remember the war. Bashir is the only non-Cardassian she's ever seen and it shows.
He gives her his patented boyish smile.
"Hello. You're new here?" She doesn't answer. He presses on, undeterred. "I'm Bashir. Doctor Bashir. From the hospital. Human… obviously." He lets a flash of his younger, tactless self seep through. "The only one of us left on Cardassia, as it happens. So I do like making new friends." He hands her the nearly empty cup. "I'll have another of these."
Her face wrinkles in scaly disgust. She eyes what's left of the thick, syrupy liquid with suspicion. It's obviously alien, obviously Human.
Deliberately Human. In the past three years, Bashir has turned simply being there, being obviously different into an art-form. Turned friendliness and not shutting up into a personal crusade.
"What is it?" she asks.
"Tarkalean tea. With three sugars." He leans forward in his seat. "Go on. Try some. If you want to, that is."
She takes a tentative sip.
"What do you think?"
Her expression softens. "It's… not bad."
"No, it's not."
He gives her the boyish smile again. Well-worn but it usually works. The waitress returns it slightly before exiting with the cup. A victory for the good guys.
His PADD, resting on the table, beeps and lights up. It's a breaking news alert.
Romulan investigators hunting those responsible for last month's biogenic attack which killed 103 people find evidence to trace the source of the gel used to-".
Bashir swipes it away. "Not today thank you." The story is from Cardassia Today, the sole 'news' provider on the planet. He can live without their daily dose of propaganda and paranoia right now.
An elderly couple walk by on the promenade. They talk about him, loudly, in Cardassian. Laughing. They think I can't understand. The Englishman waves at them - with only two fingers – and an exaggerated friendliness bordering on the vengeful.
"Glorious weather we're having!" His Cardassian pronunciation is perfect. "Tell me," he shouts as they hurry away, "do you think it will rain later?"
He's human, he's alien: they loathe him no matter what he does. Fine. Letthem. He won't hate them. I'm still a doctor. I still give a damn. Nothing will ever change that. Not war or time or loneliness and definitely not ignorant, small-minded -
"But I don't want to go shopping," moans a child from behind him.
Turning, he sees a Cardassian mother struggle her squirming daughter's claws into the restraints of a pram. "Behave," she says, "or I'll let the Human get you."
The child stills. So does Bashir. That one got through. He's bothered by that one.
"Why is his skin like that?"
"Be quiet," says the mother.
The waitress reappears with his order: one Tarkalean tea, extra sweet. Bashir buries his feelings and forces another smile.
"Thank you," he says naturally. But the ever-pleasant act is getting harder to keep up. He rubs his temples. He's going to need help. "You know, I think I need something stronger than the tea…"
"We've got kanar," offers the waitress.
Inwardly, he deflates. Oh, wonderful. Kanar. Again. A drink both blue and opaque - who wouldn't want that? In the past three years, Bashir has put up with a lot of kanar.
"Perfect," he says. "A bottle of that."
She moves to take away the second placemat.
"No-." He reaches to stop her hand. It's an unconscious, human gesture. Too sudden for Cardassians. She flinches: his skin is hot. Strange.
Immediately, Bashir retracts his hand. You idiot, he berates himself. You should have learnt by now. "Sorry; sorry. I didn't think. I'm waiting for someone."
The waitress quickly retreats inside.
"Nice work Julian." He sighs. "Damn…"
Midday: the singular bell of the ruined Cathedral clangs out from the north bank. Not quite the chimes of St Paul's, but close. Close enough to pretend. And… if there's one thing all Bashirs know, it's how to pretend.
The river. The river is right. He focuses on the distorted city reflected in the water. The shimmering and shifting shapes of the skyline; on the mirror of the Cathedral's dome. Alien architecture blurred by the flow: into an echo of London. Jules's home. His home. Long ago.
"Doctor!" A familiar voice snaps Bashir back to reality.
Another echo of the past now stands by the table. A fresh-faced lieutenant; twenty-four and rather awkward. Keen to get on in the Cardassian military and eager to impress. Bright, naïve, curious…
… saveable.
Bashir smiles at him. This is Montag Giel, the friend he's been waiting for.
"This never happened to you!" says Giel. He throws a book on the table.
The cover illustration shows one little ship dwarfed by red blood cells. Messy, Cardassian words are scrawled beneath it; the Doctor's best attempt to translate 'Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov' in purple ink.
"You can't just shrink yourself down and stroll about in a living body!" He sits.
"Well no," says Bashir. "Of course not. That'd be ridiculous." Opening the menu, he allows the Cardassian a moment of vindication before adding: "We were half an inch tall inside a circuit board."
"A circuit board." Scepticism shoots through Giel's voice.
"A vast optronic forest. Isolinear chips and towering encryption sub-processors as far as the eye could see."
"And how did you breathe?"
Bashir gestures at his unopened menu. "Aren't you eating?"
"The air molecules would be too big to take in."
"I hear the Iotian spiced pudding is rather good today…"
Giel sighs and will, Bashir knows, let the matter drop. After a year of weekly lunches with the doctor, he's grown used to asking questions that don't get answered. Used to stories that can't possibly be true.
And besides; there's A New Book. Right there on the table. A New Book that Giel hasn't read yet. Temptation left within easy reach. Bashir waits, like a good poker player waits, for the young Cardassian to take the bait.
After a moment, he does. "Is it a James Bond?"
"Not quite. Close."
The young Cardassian visibly wavers. Ah-ha. The doctor supresses a smile. Got him. The more human literature he reads…the more he likes it. A war orphan filtered into uniform, Giel no longer has an absence of father figures. He has too many of them.
"But," says Giel, trying for firmness, "Legate Vorlem says Cardassians should only read Cardassian literature. That alien culture corrupts our values, poisons our state from within. He says that's why we lost the war, why we've fallen from past glory. That species should stick to their own kind."
Bashir isn't going to listen to this bullshit today. "Legate Vorlem is wrong."
Giel scans the immediate area, alarmed someone might have overheard. "Doctor…"
"You know it. You do."
The boy fidgets and looks away. "Legate Vorlem also says… any aliens left on Cardassia, who remained after the border closed, could have some hidden motive…"
Bashir lets him talk; he knows Giel has a job to do. He's known it from the moment the boy first made contact and struck up a conversation.
"… that they could try to influence our people in favour of the Federation. Try to raise dissent against the government. Or send messages off world."
"You're not suggesting, are you Giel, that I'm some sort of spy?"
"Yes," he says bluntly.
Bashir is a little taken aback. The two of them have been playing this cat-and-mouse game for months. Giel's just broken the rules.
"I'm a doctor," he says. "Just a doctor." It's true.
"A Starfleet doctor."
"Not anymore." He reaches for the kanar and pours them both a drink.
"Loyal to the Federation though?"
"To the Federation," he concedes. "And to other things."
"Such as?"
"Oh the usual: life, liberty, the pursuit of happy hour." Bashir looks over the label on the bottle: 2370. "This is older than you are," he says.
Giel hesitates. His reptilian eyes flick down and focus covetously on The New Book. He picks it up. "Well, if you're not in contact with Starfleet…"
"I'm not."
"Then why are you wearing your combadge? There isn't a ship in the sector that could pick up its signal. At least not one we know about-"
WHAM! A phaser bolt splits through the kanar bottle.
There's chaos. A hail of splintered glass, blue liquid. Noise. Screams. WHAM! More phaser fire! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Bashir is on the ground, behind the cover of an overturned table. Did I do that? Did I turn the table over? WHAM! I must have. His brain races to catch up, to process the last five seconds. Yes, I did that, he realises. WHAM! And pulled Giel down with me. WHAM! WHAM!
"Someone's shooting!" yells Giel.
WHAM!
"I know that!" yells Bashir.
WHAM!
All around, Cardassians scatter away. Giel and Bashir remain trapped. WHAM! Whoever is holding the phaser is definitely shooting to kill and definitely shooting at us. WHAM! He grabs the disruptor from Giel's holster and takes the safety off. WHAM!
"Game of darts. Just a game of darts," he repeats under his breath, trying to convince himself. He's done things like this before, many times. Why the hell does it never get any easier?
Deep breath.
Bashir bolts up; sees the target, aims, shoots…
He's already back behind the table as the shot hits home. There's a muffled cry and the phaser fire ceases. Bulls-eye. As always, the augmented doctor has an unfair advantage.
Giel pops his head over the make-shift parapet. This is a new experience for him. "Did you get him?" he asks excitedly.
"Keep under cover," hisses Bashir.
The boy drops to his level.
That was a Federation phaser. The doctor tries to order his thoughts. The length of the blasts… the metallic taste in the air-
A thud. Behind the table, someone is moving.
Giel looks at him. There's an expression of expectant belief on the boy's face. He's looking at me the same way I used to look at Ben Sisko. This thought terrifies Bashir almost as much as the shooting did. Tightening his grip on the weapon, he raises a finger to his lips.
Stay silent. Listen. Listen…
Footsteps. Slow, heavy and with effort. A slight moan. The click of an open comm channel. And then…
… a hum Bashir hasn't heard in a long time. The unmistakable sound of a transporter beam kicking in. A Federation transporter.
Taking someone home.