Cardassia Prime: Evening in Cardassia City

[Isabeau Delevan 0]

*Special note of thanks to Samantha Kent for playing Gilani & Joret Narak. Thanks, Sam :)

 

Isabeau arrived on Aegis thinking it would only be a matter of time before she had an opportunity to visit Cardassia Prime and finally meet, in person, Doctor Gilani Narak. Gilani, a Cardassian botanist with whom she’d begun corresponding professionally almost two years ago, had become a friend. Preparations on Aegis for the move and then the Breen situation had brought her to the disappointing realization that she might not manage a meeting after all.

 

Nick asked the medical staff for volunteers to go planetside to do final inspections to see what holes, if any, Aegis’ leaving might cause from a medical supply and services standpoint. She’d immediately volunteered and had wasted no time in contacting Gilani to ask if she might be available during the small window of time she'd be in Cardassia City. She was leaving for Culat first thing in the morning and so would have only a few hours in the capital the first evening. Gilani and her husband lived on the outskirts of the capital in a residential district and luckily. she and her husband were free at that time.

 

The shuttle ride down to the capital had been eye opening. From the air it was very obvious what sections of the capital still lay in ruins from the Dominion occupation; a stark contrast to the towering and tiered trapezoidal shapes that dominated the skyline in the rebuilt areas of the city. Isabeau wondered what she would find in Culat. Lillian Belar would be traveling to Lakat, while Mimi would stay in Cardassia City.

 

Isabeau was looking forward to visiting the Narak home and she dressed with care; she wasn't visiting them as a Starfleet officer but as a friend. The heat and humidity cried out for something light and cool and she'd packed a short-sleeved tunic and trousers made of a very fine fabric in a deep shade of garnet. Cardassians seemed to prefer rich but dark shades so she figured it was appropriate. She was so looking forward to meeting Gilani in person, and she was very nervous about it going well.

 

Isabeau left the floor where their rooms for the night were. There were no signs of the three security guards that had accompanied Mimi, Lily and herself to the surface and she assumed they were off entertaining themselves. The Security officers and Mimi had been very clear that it would be smarter to go nowhere alone since they weren’t familiar with the city. There was no problem with moving around the capital so far as she knew and she’d let both Nick and Mimi know she was having dinner with friends. ‘Friends’ plural was probably stretching it. She’d never spoken with Gilani’s husband Joret and she doubted he was overly thrilled to have to pick up his wife’s human friend and have dinner with her. She entered the lobby area and took a seat, not wanting to keep Joret waiting when he arrived. She worried a little uneasily that a Detapa Councilman was probably too busy in general to act as chauffer.

 

Joret Narak had not been thrilled when his wife asked him to travel to the capital that evening; a member of the Federation station forces was not his ideal guest, but Gilani had seemed pleased at the notion of meeting this...Delevan was the name she had said. Human, a doctor and scientist...no wonder Gilani expressed such enthusiasm. It could be worse, he supposed; she was most likely not directly involved in the political shambles he and his fellow councilmen still labored every day to try to rebuild. So it was with a certain resignation that he pulled his hovercar to a stop outside of the government hostel where some of the medical Fleet officers had been placed prior to their work with the fever vaccines. Joret stepped through the sliding doors of the building and looked once around the room, his dark eyes scanning the people of various races moving in and out and finally lighting on the human woman seated as if waiting for someone. He approached her and looked her over once appraisingly before addressing her. "Doctor Delevan?"

 

At the sound of her name, she rose to her feet, looking inquiringly at the tall, dark eyed Cardassian. "Yes, I’m Isabeau Delevan.” She hesitated, although there was really no one else he could be unless someone else had been sent. Her smile tentative, she asked questioningly, “Councilman Narak?"

 

Joret nodded once in acknowledgement that this was indeed his name, and glanced sideways, back towards the door he had come from. "My transport is outside." She was at least respectful. Some of the Starfleet officers had shown a tendency to come swaggering into Cardassian cities as if they owned the place.

 

Isabeau tried to recall the last time she’d felt this burdensome and couldn't but she knew it wasn't personal. Cultural differences not withstanding, many husbands would be less than excited to drive clear across town to pick up a complete stranger after putting in a hard day at the uh...council chamber? "I appreciate your coming to pick me up, Councilman, thank you," Isabeau murmured and moved towards the doors. She saw the hovercar was under the hotel’s overhang with some relief. When she'd packed this outfit, she really hadn't thought that there would be a driving rain-Cardassia was considered somewhat arid in spite of its humidity. If this tunic got wet, it was going to shrink like nobody's business and she could say goodbye to any kind of personal dignity.

 

Joret gave a faint, slightly self-deprecating smile. "You may thank my wife. I am merely her emissary." He popped the rear door of the hovercar open and gestured her inside, then took his own seat at the controls and started the vehicle's small engine.

 

Isabeau stepped into the car and glanced around curiously. Small, but compact and comfortable, she thought as she leaned back. "You can be sure I'll thank her when I see her," Isabeau responded warmly, Joret Narak's smile doing a great deal to make her feel more relaxed. "I'm looking forward to seeing the Torr District lit up for the night." The Naraks lived in the Paldar District so they would actually see a good bit of Cardassia City from the ground before they got there.

 

Joret steered the small vehicle away from the hostel's overhang and began to quickly direct it through the crowded streets of the city. "It's something of a sight," he said with a curt nod, watching the road rather than looking back at her. He had long since gotten past any inclination for sightseeing in this city, but he supposed to an outsider such as Delevan it no doubt held some level of the exotic.

 

"Yes, it is," Isabeau, agreed pleasantly, able to tell from his tone that he didn't think it was anything to write home about. Clearly, the Councilman hadn't signed on to be tour guide as well as chauffer and she was more than willing to let, if not a comfortable, then at least a polite silence fill the space between them. Besides, her knowledge of Cardassian politics was limited, and she assumed he wanted to hear about medical inspections about as much as she felt like talking about them. There was always the weather, but since it never changed from hot, humid and overcast, it would be a very short conversation and she might have to save it in case the dinner table talk went south and she was clutching at the proverbial straw.

 

The drive passed fairly quickly and Joret took the opportunity to examine their visitor in the rear mirror of the hovercar. She was clearly feeling a little awkward, but she had a respectable level of composure and personal restraint which made the excursion much more bearable than it could have been. He let the silence stretch between them for a while before breaking it as they began turning into the smaller residential roads near the Narak home. "Gilani was very pleased to hear you would have the opportunity to visit," he said, glancing at her sidelong. "I understand you share her botanical interests?"

 

She smiled, her eyes lighting up as she met his glance, appreciating being thrown a conversational ball. "Yes, I do; it's how we first became acquainted. Before Gilani started working with crop applications she was part of the team that published the definitive work describing the medical benefits derived from the juice of the Edosian Orchid. I was very excited when I read it because it echoed something similar that I'm involved with and I contacted her and we began to correspond. I don't think that we really expected we would get a chance to meet in person." Isabeau sighed happily and glanced through the rain spattered side windows, seeing the lights in the homes, and thinking how ordinary it all seemed and yet how completely extraordinary it was for her to be here.

 

Joret almost laughed at the expression of pleasure Delevan got when he opened the conversation, and he nodded slightly as she accurately described some of Gilani's work from the last two years with definite enthusiasm. Yes, it was no surprise his wife was excited about this visit. "I know she misses the medical work," he said after a few seconds. "But she has done great work with the crop advances; this is a difficult world for such things." He pulled the car to a stop outside of a small but comfortable looking house buried in one of the side streets of the district.

 

"She's gifted, Councilman," Isabeau responded simply, and pressed the door release, exiting the car. The rain had stopped so she was spared an embarrassing dash to the front door and she stood for a moment, breathing deeply, savoring as she always did the chance to breathe actual atmosphere. The station and ships were all so sterile. It was always good to walk on solid ground and breathe unfiltered air. Well, so long as you weren't being chased or poisoned, she mentally qualified. Isabeau fell into step at Joret's side as he walked to his front door, her eyes tracing the elegant lines of the home and noting the attached greenhouse. She couldn’t wait to see Gilani’s setup and what she kept at home.

 

"She is indeed, Doctor," Joret replied, and his smile grew from polite to honest for a moment. He was very proud of the work his wife had done, although his own scientific knowledge lay somewhere to the left of minimal. Then he let out a tired sigh and climbed the few steps to the front door, unlocking it and pushing his way through into the outer living room. "Gilani!" he called as he proceeded further into the house. There was half a second's pause and then his wife emerged from a room further back in the house.

 

Gilani Narak had been busy preparing for the arrival of their visitor and was certainly much more pleased about it than her husband; she stepped into the room with a smile and immediately focused on Isabeau, moving towards her and extending a hand. "Beau!" she said, then glanced at Joret with a teasing expression. "Oh, and you too. Hello." Looking back at Isabeau she gestured for their visitor to move into the house. "Come in, please."

 

Isabeau stepped forward, her smile wide and warm, left in no doubt about her welcome from this particular Narak. She took Gilani's hand, squeezing it briefly. "Gilani, it's so good to see you!" One of the great pleasures of knowing someone only through subspace transmissions was when you actually got to meet them in person and for Isabeau it felt doubly sweet because she’d never really thought she'd get the chance to meet her Cardassian friend in person, let alone in her living room.

 

Gilani's smile widened and she nodded vigorously several times. "Likewise...I'm glad you were able to find time to stop by. When I heard the Aegis crew was planning to depart I was very disappointed." Her eyes flicked almost imperceptibly towards her husband; she knew his feelings regarding the presence of the Starfleet crews and teams on and around their world and had wondered how he would react to Beau's presence, but he gave her a slight tired head-shake, the silent communication of a long marriage in full force. No, I won't spoil your good time. With a polite look at Isabeau, he nodded at the two of them. "I'll leave you two to talk then. The dinner will be ready soon." Turning, he moved towards the rear of the house.

 

Isabeau returned Joret's nod with a pleasant smile and watched him walk away before turning back to Gilani with a raised eyebrow and a wry grin. "I don't want to know what you had to promise to get him to come pick me up and then have me in for dinner."

 

Gilani smiled cheerfully and quirked an eyebrow to match Isabeau's. "Nothing I wasn't willing to pay. We have enough politicians coming in and out through this house as if we lived in a revolving door, anyway; it was the least he could do." She gestured Beau towards one of the chairs in the living room. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink?"

 

Chuckling at Gilani's expression as much as her comment, Isabeau walked into the living room and then turned, giving a slight shrug and a smile that was anticipatory. "I don't know. How about whatever you're going to have? We had lunch at the hotel today and it was nice but a little bland, probably geared to a generic Fed palate if there is such a thing."

 

"Ah, well, here you'll get none of that; only the best Cardassian cuisine comes out of my husband's kitchen," Gilani said, shaking her head in mock-disapproval. "Zabo steak and rulat grain bread..." she paused, then grinned. "Courtesy of the latest updates to my seed genomes. And I think I may have convinced Joret to get out the best kanar, unless you would prefer red leaf tea." She looked pensive for a moment. "I can't recall if you ever told me if you drink."

 

Isabeau started to laugh. "I don't think that ever came up, and I think I'm glad that if it did it's not in a way that strikes you as memorable, but I do enjoy a drink if the occasion warrants it, and this qualifies. If Joret doesn't mind, I'd love to try the kanar. Just one, please, because we're up early tomorrow and I'll be heading to Culat."

 

Gilani smiled and disappeared into the rear rooms, reappearing a few moments later with a bottle of blue liquid and two glasses. "Yes...you never did tell me exactly what it is that brought you down here -- is that classified Starfleet business?"

 

Isabeau turned away from a shelf that held a beautiful glass sculpture of some kind of animal she didn't recognize and some holopics of family and friends. Two of the holos, each one that of an older couple, probably Joret and Gilani's parents. She knew that Gilani's parents had been living in Lakarian City and had perished when it was destroyed. "No, but if it was, it's the worst kept secret ever." Isabeau smiled and sat down. "It's part of Aegis' withdrawal from this sector. I'm down here with other members of the medical staff doing a final evaluation of what might need to be done to continue the smooth production and dispensing of the hemorrhagic fever drug as well as any other supplies that are normally funneled through Aegis."

 

Gilani poured a glass of the kanar and held it out to Isabeau. "I suppose that's worthwhile enough business to forbear spending too much of this on you," she said, nodding slightly, then laughed. "After all the botany talk it's sometimes easy to forget you do other work. No doubt things are quite chaotic for you these days; moving an entire station..."

 

Isabeau took the glass with murmured thanks, thinking the blue liquor was really pretty. She looked back to Gilani. "It's just a final wrap up. My understanding is that there is pretty good infrastructure in place now and all that we really need to do is make sure that any gap left by Aegis' leaving will be covered either by Cardassia or Fed ships in or coming through the area regularly." Isabeau took an experimental sip and smiled a little weakly. "Strong." She only sounded a little hoarse, she thought as she felt the liquor burn down her throat and then the resulting warmth spread outward, adding, "But very good." The stuff was lethal. She took another sip.

 

"I think you may find we're quite capable of taking care of ourselves." Joret had re-entered the room and had caught the tail end of Isabeau's speech and answered her conversationally, his voice not particularly confrontational but the firm tone of a politician with a position to hold, one he had spent countless hours discussing and rediscussing in various forums for years now. Gilani glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow and he shrugged, then looked back at Isabeau and continued, "Your departure is well-timed -- for both parties. It is time Cardassia learned to stand on her own legs. And, no doubt, for Starfleet to expend their resources elsewhere." He gestured in the direction he had come with a host's air and said with a slight smile at his wife, "Dinner is served."

 

Isabeau rose smoothly to her feet glass still in hand and with a faint smile nodded her head to Joret, quietly answering, "It does sound like admirable timing, Councilman.” Isabeau smiled and met Gilani’s eyes. “Dinner being served that is. It smells wonderful and I have to admit that I'm very much looking forward to a traditional Cardassian meal presented with what I've been told is always unmistakable Cardassian style." No way in hell was she going to ask what Joret thought Cardassia would have done if the Breen had actually arrived and Aegis and the Federation Fleet had been off being resourceful somewhere else. Besides the Fleet wasn’t actually leaving—just Aegis was.

 

Gilani sighed, grateful that Beau had not decided to take offense at Joret's bluntness, and nudged her husband in the ribs as she passed him into the dining room. "Behave," she muttered. "You're not in the council now, and she is not a politician." Without waiting for an answer, she moved on into the dining room, where the evening's meal was already spread out stylistically on the small table. For all his lack of enthusiasm about their guest, Joret had definitely done his part as host. She looked over at Beau as they sat down. "Well, I don't know what stories you've been told but I hope we manage to live up to them."

 

Joret settled himself quietly at the head of the table and began serving the food, which was still steaming fresh from its preparation -- dark zabo steak with yamok sauce, the rulot bread loaf sliced at the center of the table, and a tossed salad constructed of various vegetables both native and imported which Gilani had been testing in the difficult Cardassian climate. All in all not a bad spread for Isabeau's introduction to Cardassian culture, Gilani thought with some satisfaction. She just had to keep the conversation off politics

 

Isabeau followed Gilani and Joret into the dining room and looked from the table and its contents to her hosts. "I heard that if I was lucky enough to experience a Cardassian meal then I was in for a wonderful treat and from what I can see and smell, they were right." She took the seat indicated by Gilani and set her glass of kanar to the right of her plate. She twisted slightly in her seat so that she was facing Joret. "Gilani has told me that when you were younger, you studied architecture. Have you found that to be useful as the rebuilding continues?" That had to be safer than politics.

 

***

 

Isabeau looked around Gilani's greenhouse with something approaching real envy. She was used to working in a lab and no one appreciated more than she did the convenience of using the finest equipment available in a totally controllable environment but this...this was something else again. if she ever settled on terra firma...she would have one. Dinner had been wonderful. New and exotic tastes and good conversation. They hadn't drifted back to politics and even if they had, she wouldn't have cared. She wasn't political. This evening was satisfying on so many levels that she took it for what it was--a gift. She was watching as Gilani packed orchid seeds for her. She grew them here and they were amazingly, strikingly beautiful. Of course, if mishandled they were also poisonous. She had no idea if she would be able to grow one--the Edosian was very particular. “Gilani, You haven't mentioned how the new rulot strain is progressing. You haven't had a setback have you?"

 

Gilani didn't look up from the seeds she was carefully enclosing in a small airtight container; they were somewhat fragile and she didn't want to provide her friend with defective merchandise. "Ah, you know this kind of work, Beau...it's all setbacks," she said with some amusement. "Sometimes it seems like the plants are deliberately getting my hopes up just to dash them. I think I told you last month about how the last strain decided after an entire season of health to suddenly contract...I still haven't found a name for it but I've never seen a plant shrivel that fast." She shook her head and laughed. "It's a fungal agent in the soil that causes me no end of trouble. But I think I've found a strain resistant to it and I'm working on a stronger hybrid -- I can send you some of the data if you'd like to have a look."

 

"You know I would." Isabeau walked to the end of the greenhouse. It was time to get going but she was loath to leave. She looked into the glass panes and because it was so dark outside, could only see the view from behind her reflected back. Gilani at a workbench and then the interior to the house...home. She turned and walked towards Gilani, her smile and tone teasing, "Think Joret's ready to take me back?"

 

Gilani chuckled. "If you're sure you can't be convinced to stay another day or so. I'm sure we could find space for you." There were few enough botanists -- and certainly few enough Federation ones -- with whom she got to interact and converse on any sort of personal level and she was really enjoying the opportunity for face-to-face discussion. She looked slightly hopeful as she glanced up and proffered the box of seeds at Beau, but she doubted she would make much impression. From what she knew of the other woman's "real" mission on Cardassia, it was not one that could really be allowed to wait.

 

She took the seeds, thinking that as souvenirs went you couldn't get much better, while she met Gilani's hopeful expression with one of true regret. "You don't know how much I wish I could stay, and thank you for asking me. I'm sure Joret would be thrilled if I did, but as it is, I was lucky that I didn't have to leave directly for Culat upon arrival.” Isabeau's smile was slightly lopsided. “Besides, you never know, I might be back this way again. That's a wonderful thing about Starfleet; you’re always in motion—even, as it turns out, if you are posted to a station."

 

Gilani sighed. "Please don't be offended by Joret; he hasn't had time to get to know you, and he's...very opinionated. I assure you he has nothing against you personally. Things are merely...complicated here." She smiled faintly, but brightened at the suggestion that Beau might return. "I hope that's the case, and in the meantime there's always subspace. It would be nice to have you around when the crops are high, perhaps; a good walk in a Cardassian field with a tricorder in one hand and a sample box in the other...there's nothing like it." She winked conspiratorially at Beau, knowing that her friend understood the kind of appeal that their kind of research had.

 

"I was teasing about Joret. He's been very nice and I'm glad I had the chance to meet him, but as for being back by next harvest, I think that might be stretching it. I'll have to bask in your success as reflected by subspace." Isabeau smiled at the box of orchid seeds in her hand and then met Gilani's eyes. "I don't know where we're headed but if I find anything interesting, and you know I'm going to find something interesting, I'll send it to you." Isabeau paused for a moment, her smile sliding into a smirk, as she added, "After, I ascertain it won't cause some horrible blight and undo all your good work, of course."

 

Gilani laughed. "I expect to hear all about it in glorious detail -- you've never failed me yet." She patted her friend lightly on the shoulder. "And do take care of yourself. Wherever you're going, I have no doubt you'll see your share of excitement."

 

Isabeau’s eyes gleamed as she followed Gilani from the greenhouse back into the living area, murmuring, almost to herself. “Aegis hasn’t disappointed me yet.”

Edited December 8, 2008 by Isabeau Delevan

[Sorehl 0]

This is an outstanding log, Delevan. It really captures the flavor of Cardassia and the current environment. Well done!