*     *     *     *

ACT IV

(SISKO's quarters. SISKO is getting into his civvies for the big event. ODO enters without ringing)

ODO: Commander Crisco! Last night I comprehended two auspicious persons--

SISKO: Odo, can this wait? I have to go to the Phrenellian wedding.

ODO: But Commander, this is remedially elephant to the pheromony you're about to intend. I have reason to respect that Stork and this harassian were perspiring to erupt the bedding. Will you please come down to the sprig and irrigate them?

SISKO: Odo, whatever Bashir prescribed for you, it's not working.

ODO: Commander, please! I have recovered some kind of bastardly plot and I need someone to surrogate them before the shredding is ruined.

SISKO: Odo, whoever they are, interrogate them yourself, I'll read your report after the wedding. (Passes him on his way out)

ODO: Coriander! I can't do it myself! No one can countermand what I'm braying! (SISKO waves at him and walks off. ODO growls and proceeds to the turbolift) How am I proposed to corrugate them in this partition?

(Scene shifts to a large reception hall that has been fitted up as a Phrenellian temple. A Phrenellian priest is behind the altar. Guests have
already started filling up the benches, including SISKO, DAX, KIRA and O'BRIEN, who are all sitting together. D'JONN and CHAULID enter, speaking to no one, and take up position on one side of the altar. CHAULID looks extremely unwell and appears to be nauseous; D'JONN is calm. GARAK enters)

KIRA: I don't know what you all did to him, but he is one happy Cardassian.

SISKO: I just put out the line, and the Chief reeled him right in. It was a thing of beauty.

DAX: Well, I caught Julian in Quark's with a PADD this morning working on something that looked like it had line breaks.

KIRA: Poetry? (DAX nods) No! Get out!

SISKO: Chief?

O'BRIEN: I can say it all in two words: No bloody darts.

SISKO: The game's afoot. People, if we all get drummed out of Starfleet on my next rogue mission, let's start our own dating service. (GARAK joins them just as they stop laughing)

GARAK: May I share the joke or is there only enough for you?

SISKO: Mr. Garak! Come sit down. We were just taking bets on how Julian's going to look in his new wedding outfit.

GARAK: How else but radiant? After all, I helped him pick it out. (Titters from the peanut gallery. SISKO glares at them to hush up.)

SISKO: Well, I'm sure he's in good hands.

GARAK: Commander, since you're here, I had a question to ask you. I know it's possible for a ship's captain to perform marriages, and I was curious to see whether a station commander...(Before the suppressed mirth among the officers can explode, the procession enters and they all rise. BASHIR, in his new suit, leads the way with TL'OANE. They carry between them as a screen an unfolded tapestry behind which REOH walks, followed by the musicians. They move down the aisle. D'JONN and CHAULID stand as they take up position on the other side of the altar. GARAK notices CHAULID's distress)

GARAK: Is that the groom? (KIRA nods) Oh dear. He doesn't look well. Are you sure he wants to be here?

KIRA: Reoh says they've been in love since they were children. I'm sure he's just nervous. (BASHIR and TL'OANE fold up the tapestry and withdraw behind REOH, who stands opposite CHAULID. The priest advances)

PRIEST: Whose house gives up this woman?

TL'OANE: My house.

BASHIR: And mine.

PRIEST: Whose house receives her?

TL'OANE: Chaulid of Garano's. (PRIEST turns to CHAULID)

PRIEST: Do you, Chaulid of Garano, take this woman to your house.

CHAULID: No. (Consternation. TL'OANE recovers)

TL'OANE: No, Patriarch, D'Jonn is the elder brother. It is he who has to open the house to her.

PRIEST: Of course. My mistake. D'Jonn of Garano, do you take this woman to your house.

D'JONN: No. (More consternation)

GARAK: Is this part of the ceremony?

SISKO: (puzzled) Maybe.

CHAULID: Tl'Oane, do you give me your sister?

TL'OANE: You know I do, freely and with my heart. What is the matter?

CHAULID: How can I ever repay you for this precious gift?

D'JONN: Never, unless you give her back again.

CHAULID: You always have the answer, brother D'Jonn. (CHAULID grabs REOH and throws her back at TL'OANE) Take her back again! Do not profane our friendship with this whore! (REOH screams and collapses. BASHIR rushes to her.)

BASHIR: Sickbay, medical emergency. (Starts examining her)

CHAULID: I hope you did not know what rotten filth you offered me when you gave Reoh up.

KIRA: This is not part of the ceremony.

TL'OANE: Chaulid! If you have persuaded her to give herself to you--

CHAULID: Not me! O Gods! I loved her as I should! I never raised my eyes to hers, or spoke an unpermitted word--

REOH: No more did I! Chaulid, have you gone mad?

D'JONN: (disgusted) She names her lord in public. (To TL'OANE) This is what comes of your ideas of reform! I trusted you, I thought you had the best interests of Phrenellia at heart, but after what I saw last night I know that your policies would be the ruin of our houses!

CHAULID: (to REOH) Who did you meet with in the Ferengi's bar last night between two and three?

REOH: No one! I wasn't there! I was asleep!

CHAULID: Dishonest and a whore. You do your house too much honor. (To TL'OANE) I saw your sister, in the Ferengi's bar, at that time last night, couple with--a Cardassian! (GARAK suddenly pricks up his ears. REOH screams, pitches forward, clutches at her throat and begins seizing. By this time BASHIR's stuff has been brought from the infirmary and he is able to tranquilize her. GARAK slips off the bench and makes his way through the general chaos toward BASHIR)

TL'OANE: I won't believe a charge so infamous--

D'JONN: I am sorry for it; we always have been friends. I know you thought you did right by bringing Reoh up independent. But look on the result and reconsider. Their ways cannot be ours. Our women cannot maintain their honor without the rules. It hurts me, Tl'Oane, but from now on my house and yours are enemies. (Looking at REOH, who is unconscious on the floor being tended by BASHIR) Come, Chaulid. We have no more to do here. Your love that was is dead. (They barge out through the crowd, which is breaking up and exiting. KIRA runs forward to help REOH)

SISKO: Dax, get to ops and seal all the airlocks. Lock the docking clamps on the Phrenellian vessel. No one leaves this station until we know what happened here. (She nods and leaves.) O'Brien, find Odo and see if he's making sense yet. If he is, bring him down here. (O'BRIEN leaves. SISKO approaches GARAK, KIRA, TL'OANE and REOH.)

TL'OANE: My life is over.

SISKO: Do you have an explanation for this?

TL'OANE: I can think of none, except that their charges are true.

KIRA: None of this makes any sense. Why should she pick the night before her wedding, of all the nights--

TL'OANE: Major, was she in your room between two and three?

KIRA: I don't know. I was asleep. I'm sure she was too. Most people are.

TL'OANE: Oh Gods! My fathers and grandfathers, our mother, forgive my blindness...(REOH moves)

SISKO: How is your patient, Doctor?

BASHIR: Reviving.

TL'OANE: In the name of the five winds, what for? (As REOH sits up, he grabs her by the hair and throws her back to the ground) Do not live! You
have burnt our house, blackened my name and drowned yourself in the deepest infamy there is before our hosts and guests from all over the quadrant! Was there a shortage of gallants on this station that you had to choose as Cardassian lover? Was defiling yourself too small a crime, that you had to add treason to it)

REOH: Brother, they lie!

TL'OANE: Never let me hear your voice again! Listening to it cost me my honor and yours. Crawl back into death, there is nothing for you to do on the honest earth! (He lunges for her; GARAK lays him flat on the floor with a blow to the jaw and stands over him smiling)

GARAK: Sir, sir, be patient. I'm far from understanding what's happened here, myself, but their story can't possibly be the undiluted truth.

BASHIR: I'll go further. It's a tissue of outrageous lies from beginning to end. How could you, of all people, believe Reoh capable of this?

SISKO: Julian, may I speak to her?

TL'OANE: Speak to her, touch her, enter her; it doesn't matter now.

SISKO: Reoh, who is it that you're accused of meeting?

REOH: (Weak) Chaulid and D'Jonn may know; I don't. I've never spoken to a Cardassian in my life. (To TL'OANE) Brother, I know...because of your position...and the ascension...it was even more important for me to observe the rules. I swear on my womanhood I have never broken them!

TL'OANE: Your womanhood! You've lost that forever! You are dead to me! (REOH collapses again.) And I...I am undone. (Staggers against the altar and collapses. BASHIR runs to him)

SISKO: Someone has deliberately sabotaged this wedding. Why?

KIRA: Maybe someone didn't want the Phrenellians allied with the Federation.

SISKO: But D'Jonn and Chaulid both support the alliance. I spoke with them about it yesterday.

GARAK: Let me guess. D'Jonn represented himself to you as a fervent patriot who sees alliance with the Federation as the best insurance against Cardassian encroachment.

SISKO: He did.

GARAK: That's very interesting. (BASHIR finishes the first aid to TL'OANE)

BASHIR: We've got to get them both out of here at once. Major, take Reoh back to your quarters and keep Tl'Oane away from her. Don't let her see anyone or talk to anyone, not even Sisko or the others. Contact me if her condition changes. (KIRA nods) Commander, Tl'Oane is your responsibility. Take him back to your quarters and stay with him until he revives. When he comes to, you must convince him that this will not adversely affect Federation relations with his homeworld.

SISKO: That's a pretty tall order.

BASHIR: His life depends on it. It will lessen some of the shame. Please.

SISKO: I'll try. (KIRA and SISKO heft their respective burdens and exit with them. GARAK watches them go. The last stragglers leave the room.
BASHIR picks up the tapestry, puts it on the altar, and bends over it with his back to GARAK, crying quietly.)

GARAK: Well, this marriage business is certainly more exciting than I would have expected from reading--(turns around and notices BASHIR, walks over to him and touches him on the shoulder) Doctor. (BASHIR turns) Your face is wet. (Touches it.) Why Doctor, you've been crying.

BASHIR: Once again your excellent deductive skills come to the rescue. I have indeed been crying and what's more I'll be doing so for quite some time.

GARAK: I hope not.

BASHIR: I'm afraid it's not in your power to stop me. I wish it were.

GARAK: Oh, come now, Doctor. I'm afraid this marriage was not to be, but if you ask me, she's better off without him.

BASHIR: That's not the point! (GARAK, who has never seen BASHIR get really angry before, draws back) Phrenellians have been culturally conditioned  to respond to emotional crises with biological symptoms. Shame is extremely dangerous for them and because it's a patriarchy women are far more vulnerable than men. She has been called a whore, on her wedding day, by her fiance, in front of a crowd of family and strangers. She can't recover from this, Garak. If her name isn't cleared, she will die.

GARAK: But if her name is cleared?

BASHIR: It can't be! This kind of thing is impossible to disprove. It's their word against hers. Her own brother won't stand up for her. I'm a
foreigner, my testimony wouldn't count. She won't be allowed to speak for herself and if she did no one would believe her. My God! They did a very complete job of it. Out in public, at night, having illicit sex, in a bar, with a Cardassian, in full view of two reliable witnesses! They've killed
her! How could Chaulid do this to her? If only I weren't a doctor, I'd kill him myself!

GARAK: Let's not get carried away, Doctor.

BASHIR: Carried aw--Garak, Tl'Oane won't even be able to bury her properly. She'll be thrown into the acid pits and left to--If only I could I'd rip his heart out with pleasure. Garak, I was an only child. My final semester in college both my parents were killed when their ship disappeared in the Penares nebula. Tl'Oane and Reoh were a family to me when I needed one most. And now he's taken them both away from me--he's ruined and she's dead--don't talk to me about restraint! (Turns away from GARAK. GARAK takes him by the shoulders and brings him around)

GARAK: Doctor. Doctor, look at me. (BASHIR does) Lately I've developed a number of interesting symptoms which I would like to share with you. I've made my own diagnosis, but--

BASHIR: Garak, not now!

GARAK: Let me finish. (Gathers his forces) I've noticed, for instance, that when I wake up the first thing I think of is when I'll be able to see you.
Also, I have observed that when I am with you, I'm not aware of anything or anyone else except that I can hear my own heart beating, which is not usual for me. Furthermore, I've always been pleased with my quarters, and looked forward to retiring to them after a long day, but now I find that when I go home at night it seems brutally unfair to me that you are not there waiting for me. And now, I notice that to see you in trouble distresses me extremely and that in order to save you or someone you loved from pain or suffering I would do anything, including killing Chaulid, who I don't even know and who has never done me any harm. Now, I'm not absolutely sure, because my research on the subject has been somewhat haphazard, but I think this means that I love you. (BASHIR stares) Isn't that strange?

BASHIR: Stranger things have happened to me.

GARAK: Really? Such as what?

BASHIR: It's--possible--that I love you as well-- (GARAK's eyes light up. He advances on BASHIR, who backs away babbling) I'm not saying I do!  (GARAK stops in his tracks) But I'm not saying I don't! I don't know--I admit nothing--I deny nothing--I--I am sorry for my sister!

GARAK: I think you do love me, Doctor.

BASHIR: I think you may be right.

GARAK: Then tell me. Let me hear you say it.

BASHIR: If finishing all 4,000 pages of "The Never-Ending Sacrifice" just so I could talk to you about it isn't a declaration of love, I don't know
what is.

GARAK: No. This has never happened to me before, and I don't mind telling you I'm frightened out of my skull. I've invented so many pasts and
identities I don't even know any more what parts of me are fiction and what aren't. You can't possibly know how disturbing it is to me to discover that what I feel for you can't be denied, altered or disguised. I need to know whether it's the same for you. If it isn't, tell me, but don't dance around it because we're way past all that. So look deep into that four-chambered organ of yours and tell me, do you love me?

BASHIR: Garak, I--(extremely tense pause) Of course I love you. I wish I had known it sooner. (They come together and there is a certain amount of joyful goings-on. This being Paramount, however, they are curtailed early when BASHIR, in mid-clinch, draws back)

GARAK: What is it?

BASHIR: It's Reoh. (They separate and sit, dejected) She may already be dead. I have to go to her. (They stand. BASHIR begins to exit. GARAK stops  him)

GARAK: Tell her not to die yet. She will be cleared.

BASHIR: How?

GARAK: That's my business.

BASHIR: Garak...please, don't do anything rash.

GARAK: Oh, Doctor. I am many things, but never rash.

BASHIR: (Laughing and drying his eyes) You know, Garak, after all this I do think you might start calling me Julian.

GARAK: I'll see if I can get used to it. Go, take care of your sister. I have to see a woman about a dress.

(GARAK's shop. GARAK hands the wedding dress to OPHIDIA)

OPHIDIA: Thank you. I hope it wasn't too much trouble. What do I owe you?

GARAK: Let's negotiate.

OPHIDIA: Mr. Garak, I'll be blunt. I am the worst haggler that ever walked a planet. Please, just name the price you're really after and I'll pay you.

GARAK: That's not what I meant. You have an academic background, do you not?

OPHIDIA: For all the good it's done me.

GARAK: How would you like a chance to work in your field?

OPHIDIA: You have a tenure track job open?

GARAK: Not exactly. There's a delegation of Cardassian historians on the station and I need some information about one of them. I'd be more than willing to waive the alteration charges, and even throw in a little something else, if you think you can get it.

OPHIDIA: This is going to mean attending that conference reception this afternoon, isn't it? (GARAK nods) Well, all right, but it's gonna cost ya.

(SISKO's quarters. TL'OANE is laid out on a couch in the living room. JAKE is doing his homework at a nearby table. TL'OANE revives, stares at JAKE)

TL'OANE: Are you the gatekeeper?

JAKE: Excuse me?

TL'OANE: Are you the gatekeeper?

JAKE: I don't think so. I'm Jake Sisko.

TL'OANE: (disappointed) Then I'm not dead.

JAKE: I'll tell my dad you're up. (Exits. SISKO enters)

TL'OANE: How is my sister?

SISKO: She's alive. Small thanks to you, I'm afraid.

TL'OANE: (sitting up with difficulty) I know. I lost my head. (Shakes his head) For years I watched my friends treat their sisters and wives like that
and told myself I would never be capable of that kind of cruelty. It must be the guilt that brought me back. Death is too light a punishment for me.

SISKO: We were all caught by surprise. But surely you realize now that your sister was framed.

TL'OANE: I can't believe that she has done what she was accused of, but I don't understand who would want to kill her.

SISKO: Has it occurred to you that she may not have been the one they were after? (TL'OANE waits) What happens to your career as a result of this fiasco?

TL'OANE: I will resign and submit to public castigation when I return to my homeworld. My house and its belongings will be forfeit to the state and I will become a transient.

SISKO: So someone else will ascend at the next casting.

TL'OANE: Of course. D'Jonn.

(The bedroom in CHAULID and D'JONN's guest quarters. CHAULID lies on the bed, very ill. D'JONN is nearby tending to him)

D'JONN: Yes, of course, as soon as you're strong enough to travel we'll leave. I know it's not good for you to be here where you'll be reminded of her.

CHAULID: Thank you, brother. I would never have believed...

D'JONN: I know, I know. Try to sleep. (CHAULID nods and closes his eyes. D'JONN exits into the living area, which is darkened.) Computer, lights. (Lights do not come on. Instead, D'JONN finds himself suddenly pinned with his face to the wall and GARAK hissing into his ear)

GARAK: If I were you I wouldn't struggle. Taking your life wouldn't even be a blip on the sensors as far as my conscience is concerned.

D'JONN: What do you want with me?

GARAK: You don't really want me to answer that question. Fortunately for you this is business and not pleasure, or you wouldn't still be alive.
You've deliberately framed, slandered, and murdered an innocent woman in whom, for reasons that are not relevant to our discussion, I happen to have taken an interest. Now, it is just possible that in some twisted way you do have a patriotic motive for this piece of treachery and if so, I would advise you to share it with me now.

D'JONN: I don't know what you're talking about. My brother and I saw that whore at her trade ourselves. Her guilt is palpable and her death only
proves it. Let me go.

GARAK: I see. So the name Spen Jiliam means nothing to you. (Silence) Very well, if you won't talk, listen. I know Chaulid thinks what he saw was real, but you don't. You staged that scene in Quark's and you'd better pray to whatever god will listen to you that I find out how, because if I can't clear her name I will avenge her death. (Disappears. D'JONN turns, but GARAK is already gone. Lights come back on. He rubs his throat nervously)

(In another reception area, a large banner reading "WELCOME IMPERIAL HISTORY CONFERENCE" hangs above a table on which the bar has been set  up and around which most of the Cardassian professors are clustered. Outside the door is a table with a Cardassian woman behind it and nametags arranged on it. OPHIDIA stops in front of it.)

OPHIDIA: Hello, I'm sorry but I can't find my nametag. I'm Ophidia Varegia.

WOMAN: (Checking the list) I don't think there is one. Which faculty are you with?

OPHIDIA: (reading one of the tags) I'm Professor Krashl's research assistant.

WOMAN: Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't make nametags for the graduate students. (Hands her a blank tag and a marker)

OPHIDIA: Of course you didn't. (Writes her name on the tag, puts it on, and enters. After casing the room, she gets a drink from the bar, finds a group of two males and two females in the corner wearing handwritten tags, and joins them) Hello.

STINAL: (reading the tag) Ophidia Varegia. You're not in the Perok program, are you?

OPHIDIA: No, no, I'm at Daril Promontory. It's the only place that takes off-world students.

RAKTA: I'm Rakta, this is Stinal, Bevin and Grink. Stinal and I are at Perok and Bevin and Grink are from Kronat.

OPHIDIA: Kronat! I had a friend there in the language and literature program. You probably wouldn't know him--he cracked up about two years in
and he's been institutionalized since then.

GRINK: I'm not surprised. Financial worries?

OPHIDIA: That and the endemic paranoia and despair.

GRINK: He's better off in confinement. Lang and lit was hit even harder than we were. They just lost 75% of their government funding.

OPHIDIA: Yikes.

BEVIN: Yeah. They've got 30 graduate students battling it out for three fellowships and one assistantship with a 4-4 teaching load. It's ugly. We
got by with a 50% cutback because someone in Central Command is convinced that history can be put to use on the battlefield. Otherwise we'd be in the same position.

OPHIDIA: Well, Daril gets no funding to start with so it has nothing to lose.

RAKTA: What's it like there? I've heard horror stories.

OPHIDIA: I would imagine they're all true. It'd be hard to make up anything more gruesome than the reality. The program is huge, for one thing. I've never had a seminar with under 20 students in it. But at least they aren't competitive like they are some places.

RAKTA: That's good.

OPHIDIA: Well, it's only because there's nothing to fight over. They do offer teaching assistantships but they don't pay any salary.

STINAL: Unbelievable.

OPHIDIA: And you have to bribe the department chair just to get one. Plus if you survive the program it gets no better. Do you know they haven't
placed a job candidate in 10 years?

STINAL: Ten! How do they get new students with a record like that?

OPHIDIA: Oh, the usual combination of misinformation, deception, and exploitation. (They laugh)

BEVIN: Don't talk to us about exploitation, Rakta there works for Spen Jiliam. (Chorus of disgusted groans)

OPHIDIA: Lucky you! What are you, his research assistant?

RAKTA: I'm his personal slave, as far as I can tell. He won't let me near his actual scholarly work, if he's doing any, which I doubt. All I do for
him is send communications, arrange travel and accommodations, keep his mistress away from his wife and heat up his yamuck sauce. All for a stipend that would be funny if it weren't tragic.

OPHIDIA: (handing her the drink) Here, you need this. (RAKTA chugs it) In fact, you all look like you could use another round. Grink, what are you drinking? (Collects orders and proceeds to the bar)

(The brig. ODO sits in the chair, sullenly glaring at QUARK and JILIAM, who are being held in one of the cells.)

QUARK: I demand to be released. I have done nothing to warrant this shameful treatment.

ODO: You'll be policed when I'm good and ready to police you. (To JILIAM) As for you, you're going nowhere until you tell me more about your little abstraction with Spork.

JILIAM: I refuse to be questioned by an obvious lunatic. I demand to see an advocate.

ODO: You paid Quirk for deriding a woman who could help you stage a clamorous discounter between yourself and another woman who it was your accomplishes job to imperpetrate. Now what I want to know is why.

JILIAM: Why what?

ODO: For whose benefit did you conflagrate this resignation?

JILIAM: What resignation? (ODO stands)

ODO: You know exactly what I mean.

JILIAM: No I don't. Neither do you. I haven't understood a word you've said since you arrested us. Either you are insane or you are simply an ass, and--

ODO: (chillingly) What did you say?

JILIAM: An ass! An ass! YOU ARE AN ASS!! (ODO, in a fit of frustration, morphs into a large and frightening creature with many clawed arms and
several mouths, all of which are emitting a fearsome howl of rage. JILIAM and QUARK tremble. GARAK enters behind him as ODO resumes his usual  shape)

GARAK: Is there something I can help you with, Constable? (ODO's eyes light up as he spots GARAK. He grabs him by the lapels)

ODO: Garak! Will you interpolate these two benefactors? (GARAK spots JILIAM)

GARAK: I'll be delighted. (Advances to the cell, where JILIAM attempts to hide his face) What's the matter, Jiliam, surprised to see me?

JILIAM: Not really. I knew you'd wash up on some trash heap or other.

GARAK: I must say I'm a little surprised to see you. I thought your little misunderstanding with the Order had finished you off years ago.

JILIAM: I was given the chance to start a new life in a different career.

GARAK: So you sought out the groves of academe in search of a more peaceful existence.

JILIAM: I've left the Order behind, Garak. I advise you to do the same. They don't take their black sheep back into the fold.

GARAK: True. But sometimes the sheep have a hard time accepting that.

ODO: Tell me about it.

GARAK: As I said, I thought you were dead or at least incarcerated. When I saw you last night on the Promenade I was almost prepared to believe I'd hallucinated you, thought what you would have been doing in my subconscious I cannot imagine. (JILIAM gets nervous) Who was that Phrenellian you were talking to, anyway? Ah--no--don't tell me--it must have been the fiance's brother--what's his name--D'Jonn.

JILIAM: I was nowhere near the Promenade.

ODO: Just like you were nowhere near Quark's at two plundered hours.

GARAK: At two hundred--Odo, tell me, this is very important--exactly what did you arrest them for?

ODO: Inspiring to lubricate a glamorous encounter for hilarious porpoises. (GARAK's face falls. ODO motions to him to wait. He produces the next speech with great care and enunciation) I watched Quark's as a table. I saw them pull the scam. Then I found him in Quark's room. He paid Quark for the job. This consignment revolved--(stops himself; starts again) This job was to find a girl who looked like another so that they could trick a third party. No doubt into thinking she was untrue. Why, I do not know. But we are close, I feel.

GARAK: Yes, I believe we are. (Advances on JILIAM) You arranged with Quark to hire a woman to impersonate Reoh. D'Jonn and you had already arranged for him to bring Chaulid by Quark's at a certain time of night, when you would be there doing your pathetic best to simulate a passionate encounter with her. As a result, Chaulid and D'Jonn broke of the wedding and shamed Reoh in public, thus destroying Tl'Oane's political viability and leaving the field open for D'Jonn.

JILIAM: You're insane.

GARAK: Not as insane as D'Jonn is if he thinks Central Command will let him go blithely on his way after helping him gain the ascension. Or as you are, if you think the Order will really take you back into its good graces for this little performance.

QUARK: Constable! I had no idea this was a political intrigue. I thought it was a straightforward case of blackmail. Honest. All I did was provide him with the place and a girl who looked like the picture he showed me. Oh, and I broke into Kira's quarters and stole some clothes out of a traveling bag. But I put them back! That's all. On my honor as a Ferengi.

ODO: I believe you, Dork.

QUARK: You do?

ODO: Of course I do.

QUARK: So when can I go?

ODO: When you've served your combined sentence for felicitation, broad, faking and rendering, and weft.

GARAK: You, however, will go now. Specifically, you'll go with me to explain exactly what you did and who hired you to do it to Reoh's fiance.
After that we'll instruct you in the Phrenellian retraction ritual.

JILIAM: I've done nothing wrong. I protest this treatment. I have rights. I'm a Cardassian citizen.

GARAK: For the time being. (OPHIDIA appears) I think I could get the Order to convince Central Command to reconsider your citizenship status.

JILIAM: Garak, I told you, I haven't worked for the Order in years. I'm just a simple academic...(ODO snorts; GARAK smiles.)

OPHIDIA: Academic? Dude, I've seen your resume. It's about as convincing as Ricardo Montalban's chest and just as thickly padded. Either you slept with your entire rank and tenure committee--

GARAK: Or you are in fact an Obsidian Order plant being funded by them to carry on internal espionage. I think they'd be interested to know how you're spending their money, don't you?

OPHIDIA: (reading from a PADD) Thirteen two week vacations to the pleasure planet Rysa in the past year, seven of these with a female companion named Koa and six with various other students designated "sub-operatives," entered under the "covert operations" column.

JILIAM: My expense account! Where did you--

OPHIDIA: Forty thousand credits on alcoholic beverages and thirty in restaurant and accommodation charges, all entered under "infiltration and
indoctrination." A whopping fifty thousand six hundred and twenty credits for an in-house holodeck and adult holoprograms, entered under "recruitment and training."

JILIAM: How did--who--

OPHIDIA: Hell hath no fury like a graduate student scorned, Professor Jiliam. The originals of those electronic receipts you thought you'd had
altered are all preserved in their pristine glory in a hidden file on Rakta's hard drive. (JILIAM howls) And don't bother trying to delete it,
it's been downloaded into directories and drives in PADDs, desktops and mainframes all over this station. If you want to keep the Order in the dark about your adventures in creative accounting you'll have to keep Mr. Garak and me pretty happy. And if I were you, I'd double Rakta's stipend and shorten her work week while you're at it.

GARAK: So. Are you coming to confess, or should I share the results of Ophidia's informal audit with payroll?

JILIAM: All right! I'll do it!

GARAK: That's the smartest decision I've ever seen you make.

*end act IV*