DS9: Okanogan Incident Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Lunch
After the morning rollercoaster of emotions, Julian had gone for a walk to explore more of the city's outdoor art, like the mural he had spotted on the day of his arrival. Garak had recommended a map for Julian to follow, that would take about ninety minutes to walk, bringing him back to Garak's home in time for lunch.
Before he had left, he had informed Garak that the holo-storage unit contained a walking tour of the Tarlak Sector, given by the renowned Doctor Thonar Marak, an expert on Cardassian Monuments.
Garak had set the walking tour on play, while he prepared their lunch. He had sent a message to Asha to bring home some fresh bread for their mid-day meal.
He had just set the salad to rest, after sprinkling some of the fresh herbs he had managed to grow in his window boxes, to add a little extra flavour. When his attention was arrested as Doctor Mark had started an interview.
The old doctor was interviewing Tolan Garak, the head grounds man of the Tarlak Monument Park. Garak's breath was stolen in that moment, as he staggered into a chair, set at the table.
He couldn't help but stare at the hologram. He didn't have a single image or recording of the man he called father for the first twenty years of his life. In that moment he was transported back in time.
He remembered his father's rough yet gentle hands as he held young Elim's in his, guiding the pruning of young plants. Hearing his adoptive father's voice again, he remembered the gentle lessons he taught him as he followed the older man through the Tarlak District as he maintained the grounds of the monuments.
In the darkest hour of the night, he sometimes wished that he had refused to go to the Braemar institute. That he had followed in Tolan's footsteps and became a gardener, instead of an agent.
After the interview had finished, Garak went to the beginning and watched it again. He lost track of how many times he watched the eight minute interview, taking in Tolan's serious expression, and gentle slow voice as he spoke of the importance of his work.
Surely, Julian must have known. He knew so much of Garak's past he must have known this too. He had after all specifically recommended viewing this tour.
It was at this point that Kelas arrived for lunch and found Garak sitting stupefied at the table, his face wet from tears.
Kelas had been deeply concerned, he had never seen Garak this emotional, not even when he found him in the rubble seven years ago, wrecked by the devastation to Cardassia City.
Embarrassed, Garak quickly wiped the tears from his face and gave a watery smile to Kelas. "It was a gift from Julian," he said.
"And it was so terrible it made you cry?" Kelas said, looking at the frozen holographic image of two old Cardassian men, wearing fashions from his youth.
"This man here is Tolan Garak," Garak pointed to the man on the left, wearing workman's clothes, suitable for manual work.
"And Bashir gave this to you?" Kelas looked dismayed at this information.
Garak nodded.
Kelas recognised the box, for what it was, a holo-storage unit. He frowned, he might not have much interest in holo-programmes, but just looking at the size of the device, indicated that it had a massive storage, it must contain thousands of Exabyte of memory.
"It contains the whole of The Imperial Cardassian Museum of Cultural Heritage," Garak told him.
Kelas looked at Garak in disbelief. He pulled the device towards him, and tried to activate the menu, but he was denied access.
"Sorry," Garak quietly apologised, turning the unit around and placing his thumb over the biometric scanner, and navigating to the main menu, before pushing the unit back to Kelas.
"When I was a medical student, I used to go to the museum every second week," Kelas told his fiancé. He quickly navigated he menu, until it brought him to the exhibition he wanted to see.
Kelas sucked in a breath, as the first vehicle that was able to take flight was shown to him. He didn't know why, but ever since he was a young boy, he had been fascinated by the early flying machines. He even learnt to fly a glider when he had been a teenager.
He loved to spend hours exploring the evolution of flight at the museum. The only time he had allowed his mind respite from his arduous medical studies.
As he scrolled through the content, it appeared to be the same as it had been when he was a young man. It even appeared to have additional displays that hadn't been available when he used to visit the museum regularly.
Even through his jealousy of Julian Bashir, he couldn't deny that this was a priceless gift to the Cardassian People.
Kelas just looked at wonder at Garak.
"Julian said he hoped that this would be payment to the council to allow me to help him track down his stalker," Garak confessed quietly.
Seeing this gift, the council would allow Garak all the time he needed. Kelas attention returned to the holo-device as the first Cardassian rocket slowly rotated in the display.
"If the unit is attached to a holo-suite, then the entire museum is intact and able to be explored," Garak said in a hushed tone.
Kelas nodded, he looked warily at Garak's awed expression and felt Garak slipping further from his grasp. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat.
Just then they hear the front door open and chatting laughing voices echoed from the hallway as Julian and Asha returned home.
"Garak, I got the bread," Asha called out moments before entering the main living area. She was wearing the bright clothing she favoured.
Julian followed her, today wearing loose trousers and three quarter length sleeves in sage green the cuffs and hem of tunic was embroidered with white and silver thread in a leaf motif.
Overall, they made a charming pair. It was at this moment that Julian looked closer in age to Asha than to himself.
Garak had placed a cutting board on the table and took the bag from Asha and placed the fresh bread on the table. As Julian and Asha visited the washroom to clean the city dust from their skin.
Soon the four of them were sitting around the large table eating lunch.
Asha caught the group on the drama occurring between her college friends and complaints of one of their professors giving out too many assignments.
Garak then told them about a soil reclamation project that was showing signs of success, he credited Kelas's team and Medical Central for identifying the microbe that was causing the blight.
Julian showed interest in how they studied the soil without modern equipment to identify the microbes in the soil. Kelas was frankly surprised that the other doctor knew so much about the manual identification of bacteria and moulds.
Julian just smiled mysteriously and said this wasn't the first time he had been a doctor. Soon the two doctors were flinging ideas at each other and first Asha and then Garak was lost in the scientific discussion outside their layman's understanding.
"If it is a novel bacterium, be sure to keep a sample, you never know what beneficial properties the bacteria may contain after the weapons the Dominion used," Julian thoughtfully suggested.
Asha crinkled her nose, "how can germs be beneficial to Cardassia," Asha asked.
Julian gave a brief synopsis of the importance of bacteria was to many species gut biome and then asked Kelas if that was the same for Cardassian's.
It was at this point that Garak put a firm stop to the conversation, not when they were still eating.
Kelas apologised with a chagrin look on his face.
"Sorry, Asha, Garak. Us doctors can get carried away sometimes," Julian sent a smile of comradery in Kelas's direction.
Kelas acknowledged Julian's look with a dignified nod. He wasn't going to admit to Garak that he was surprised by Bashir's attitude and conversation. In his experience he found Federation scientists unbearably smug and condescending.
"How come you decided to come visit us after all this time?" Asha boldly asked, bring the current conversation to an awkward halt.
Julian just raised one shoulder. "Honestly I didn't want to draw anyone's attention to Garak and his family," Julian said with a twist to his lips.
"I have been having some trouble with someone harassing me. I haven't been able to discover them myself. Hence, I came here to consult with Garak," he sincerely explained.
Garak and Kelas shared a brief look. They were both surprised that Julian was being so open.
"Harassing, how?" Asha reached over the table and took another slice of the bread as she looked at Julian, waiting for him to answer her question.
"In the beginning, it was petty inconveniences, playing mean tricks on me." Julian stroked two fingers against his temple. Asha was a young adult and he wanted to respect her adulthood. But his stalker had proved extremely dangerous. But maybe the old cliché of 'fore warned, is fore armed,' he mused.
"When it first started the most worrying instance was that someone broke into my quarters and scrawled a message on my mirror with lipstick," Julian was keeping his explanation to the bare minimum.
Asha was frowning fiercely in concentration. "I think I misunderstood you," she said. "Lipstick," Asha said as she pointed to her own lips.
Julian furrowed his brow. He was sure that Cardassian's had an equivalent, thinking back to the border officer when he was being processed to enter Cardassia.
"Weird," she said, still looking confused.
Garak with his quick wit, "what is weird about it, Asha?" Garak said hoping for a new perspective to look at the problem.
"It's just strange, why would anyone use lipstick to write a message?" Asha pondered aloud. "I mean wouldn't it have been easier to leave a message on the entertainment system." She pointed to their own screen that she left her message on this morning.
Julian looked at Asha in surprise, he never asked that question before. "It's a common Earth trope to write a message in lipstick," Julian explained.
"Trope, that implies that it is a common feature in Earth Literature," Asha questioned. She was studying Cardassian Literature as part of her tertiary education.
Garak nodded now, "I remember reading of such messages in some of that Earth literature we used to read on the station, what was the genre called again?" Garak wondered.
"Noir," Julian said. "It is a type of mystery or detective fiction usually set in the mid-twentieth century."
"Yes, I remember now, it was a message usually left by a mysterious woman," Garak added to the conversation.
"Yeah, it's weird," Asha restated. "I mean lipsticks are not usually pigment, but a miniature dermal generator that temporally changes the colour of the lips."
Julian just blinked at Asha, it had been a long time since he experimented with any makeup himself, and well he was more interested in the smoky eye then lipsticks.
"I agree with Asha, that seems not right," Kelas said he couldn't think of the word that would explain what was wrong about the term.
"Ooh! I know, but I don't know the word in Cardassian," Asha exclaimed excitedly. She quickly turned to Julian and told him the word she was thinking of in Bajoran.
"Anachronism," Julian quietly translated.
"Yes, that word." Asha looked happy now.
"Out of time or out of place," Kelas said thoughtfully, before nodding.
Garak had been watching Julian and as soon as Kelas had said 'out of time', Julian's demeanour had changed. His posture, formerly loose and relaxed began to stiffen up and a too still expression crept over Julian's face, as if prey was hiding from a predator.
"You know Asha, I had never thought of it that way before, thank you." Julian smiled at Asha, though his mouth was tight and the muscles at his eyes didn't react.
"How does noir differ from other genres of detective fiction?" Kelas asked, as a boy he had been a dedicated fan of the enigma tales.
'Bless him,' Garak thought of his fiancé for accidently diverting the conversation to safer topics. But it clearly brought back into focus his own earlier thoughts that the stalker might be from Julian's distant past and not related to his recent past at all.
He was going to have to talk to Julian about his theory, and soon.