-: To: Dr. Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer,
Deep Space 9.
How odd you humans are.
Or is it just the Starfleet people?
Captain Sisko has just invited me to join the invasion-
for which I am eternally grateful.
The opportunity to liberate my homeland
renews and animates my sluggish spirit.
But the good captain makes no mention of the fact
that this invasion is now possible
because of the incident with the Romulans.
I'm simply to report at his office at 0900 hours
with ideas as to where the Dominion defense perimeter
might be vulnerable.
Oh, our dealings with each other are nothing less
than proper.
"Mr. Garak."
"Captain Sisko."
But what's so odd,
is that he pretends the incident never happened.
And you and I both know how deeply affected
he was by the whole business.
Only when we exchanged direct looks,
do I perceive a flicker of... what?
Anger? Betrayal? Violation? Odd people.
Humans seem to walk through life's infinite variety
of relationships and situations,
taking them all at face value.
They rarely looked behind the façade or the mask
where real intentions - the truth of our motives - live.
And the fact is, more often than not,
they deny that they have any mask at all.
These humans (and I do exclude you, Doctor,
I will come to that shortly)
believe that what they present to the world
and conversely what the world presents to them,
is the truth.
It's this belief that makes them dangerous.
In Cardassian society, we are taught from an early age
to mask all feelings and thoughts,
to deflect all outside perception and observation.
The objective of this education is to create
a citizen who can work within the group
to accomplish a group goal, established by the leader.
And at the same time, work in such a way
that none of the other members of the group
knows what he or she is doing.
As long as the goal is accomplished,
it's nobody's business how you went about your work.
So why Captain Sisko is so upset with me because
I accomplished the goal (which he established!)
of getting Romulus into the war against
the Dominion, baffles me.
And it's not because of a few lives that were sacrificed.
Federation expansion has taken a toll
in countless life-forms,
about most of which they are blissfully unaware.
The moment you step into a garden and begin to cultivate
and prune, you become a killer.
Perhaps the captain was upset because he had hesitated
to do what was necessary,
to ensure the integrity of 'his' garden.
Sentimentality is another trait that makes humans dangerous.