CHAPTER 13

O'BRIEN SHIFTED uncomfortably in the center chair of the Defiant. It wasn't that he had never taken command of the ship before. But he had never done so when Captain Sisko was standing at his side.

“We're at fifty kilometers and holding,” Commander Arla said from her position at the flight operations console. Beyond her, on the Defiant's main viewer, Deep Space 9 was a distant, sparkling smear of jeweled radiance against the translucent lavender plasma wisps of the Denorios Belt. There was no atmospheric distortion in space to account for the constant flickering of the station's lights, O'Brien knew. Instead, it was DS9's slow rotation that caused lights to flare erratically from viewports and disappear behind defense sails and docked spacecraft, like the twinkling of stars.

“Um, what do I do now?” Arla asked.

It was obvious to O'Brien that the young Bajoran Starfleet officer was about as at ease as he was with their new assignment—which was to say, not at all. And for good reason. Apart from Captain Sisko, Arla and O'Brien were the ship's only crew for this mission. Arla claimed she hadn't piloted anything larger than a shuttle since she'd graduated the Academy, and now she was at the conn of one of the most over-powered, hard-to-handle starships in the fleet.

“Activate automatic station keeping,” O'Brien told her. Reflexively, he looked up at Sisko to make sure he had said the right thing. The captain's nod told him he had.

“Relax, Chief. Worf is standing by at Ops. If anything even looks like it's about to go wrong, you can have a full crew beamed on board in less than a minute.”

But the cause of O'Brien's unease wasn't the prospect of disaster. He couldn't resist the impulse any longer. He started to get out of the chair. The chair. “You sure you wouldn't feel more comfortable doing this yourself, sir?”

“The Defiant's in good hands, Chief. Now sit down.”

O'Brien sighed as he did. But it still didn't feel right.

“Are the tactical sensors reconfigured?” Sisko asked.

“As best they can be,” O'Brien answered. “Though they really were never designed for this kind of detail. I mean, I had to modify the gravity generators to create an artificial inertial-matrix aperture for the—”

“I don't need a lecture, Mr. O'Brien,” Sisko said gently. “Just your assurance that they're going to work.”

“Oh, they'll work, sir. Just not as fast as if she were the Enterprise.”

“How long then?”

O'Brien had already done the duration calculations, but he worked through them again just to be sure. “I'd say ten hours for the full sensor sweep. Maybe another hour for the computer to finish the comparison between the Cardassian schematics and the scan results.”

“And then we'll have a complete interior map of the station—”

“—with all deviations from the original designs called out by the computer. If there are any more hidden rooms in there, we'll definitely find them.”

“Very good,” Sisko said. “Now I'm wondering if while you're conducting the station scan, you can look for something else that's gone missing.”

O'Brien sat forward in his chair, apprehensive. “I can try, sir. What is it?”

“Quark.”

O'Brien frowned at the viewer before him as he contemplated the computational effort that would be required by what the captain was asking of him. On the Enterprise, with her special-purpose science sensors and multiband hyperspectral arrays, O'Brien would have felt confident he could do a biosweep of Deep Space 9 and find an hourold outbreak of mold on a single slice of bread in a neutronium-lined food cooler inside of fifteen minutes. Finding a full-grown Ferengi would have taken less than half that time.

But the Defiant wasn't built primarily for science. Her scanners and sensors were designed to locate and analyze targets first and further humanity's understanding of the universe second. To tune and focus sensor emanations to ignore all living matter in approximately two cubic kilometers of space, except for one Ferengi. . . .

A sudden thought struck O'Brien. “Captain, are you sure Quark's even on the station?”

“That's what I'm hoping you will tell me.”

O'Brien's brow became deeply furrowed as he calculated his chances of success. “Is there any chance you might get all the other Ferengi to leave the station for the day?”

“As I said, I don't want anyone to know that any kind of a scan or a search is under way. That's why you and Commander Arla got the job. And only you two. Do you think you can do it, Chief?”

O'Brien nodded, his head already filling with a list of the adjustments he'd have to make to the sensor scan rates, the density-overlap mapping algorithms, even the power-output waveguides. The subspace resonance patterns would have to be tuned to the exact salt content of Ferengi muscle tissue and . . . . He suddenly realized he hadn't answered the captain's question because he'd already become caught up in the how of his assignment. Not to mention the why. “Yes, I can, sir. Is Quark in trouble, Captain?”

Sisko nodded gravely. “He might be.”

O'Brien found himself wondering if Quark had become the victim of a kidnapping. If so, then his sympathy was with the kidnappers. “Then should I scan the docked ships, as well? Just in case he's on one of them?”

“Good idea, Chief. And keep scanning them as they dock, just in case someone's going to try to slip him onto one that's arriving later.” Sisko tugged down on his jacket. “Anything else before I go?”

O'Brien reviewed the assignment again. “Well, it would help if I knew where Rom and Nog and all the other Ferengi staff from Quark's are, so I can rule them out as the sensors find them.”

“Very well. I'll have Odo put someone on it. But I think it's a good bet that if Quark is on the station, he won't be on the Promenade. You'd be safe ruling out any Ferengi contacts you make there. At least, at first.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Carry on, Chief.” Sisko touched his communicator. “Sisko to Worf. One to beam out.”

O'Brien watched as his captain dissolved into light, and then the Defiant suddenly felt as if she were twice the size of any other starship he had ever been aboard.

But at least with no one around to tell him otherwise, O'Brien could finally get out of the chair.

He headed over to his familiar engineering station, settling into his own chair with a relieved sigh. He was home. “Computer,” he said, “transfer command functions to the engineering station.”

“Command functions transferred,” the computer promptly acknowledged.

O'Brien took a few minutes to enter the standard biological assay parameters that would have to be implemented to search for Ferengi life-forms, then announced, “Activating sensor sweep,” as if somehow the bridge was staffed by a full crew. He touched his finger to the ‘initiate programmed sequence’ control, and the display screen above his station changed its subspace-frequency-response graph to show that the scanning had begun.

“So that's it.” He looked over at Arla.

The young Bajoran officer looked back at him. “Ten hours?”

O'Brien understood what she meant. “I'm afraid so.”

“Afraid isn't the word for it. I mean, automatic station keeping, automatic sensor sweep. What are we doing here, Chief?”

O'Brien got up from his chair to walk over to the empty science station. He preferred to be on his feet anyway, rather than sit around waiting for things to happen. “Well, the one thing you have to expect in space is that nothing will ever go the way you expect it will. So, today we're the Defiant's insurance and her last-ditch backup system.”

As if restless also, Arla swung her tall form around in her chair to watch the Chief cross the bridge. “I want to run a starbase, not pilot a starship.”

As if his hands had minds of their own, O'Brien leaned down to the science workstation and entered the commands that would start a level-four diagnostic running in the science subsystems. Just to be on the safe side. Couldn't hurt. He smiled as the science displays came to life, running through their paces. He glanced sideways at the young Bajoran officer, tried to remember what it was she had just said . . . Oh, yes. “It's good to know how to do different things, Commander. So in an emergency, everyone can trade off. Watch each other's back. That sort of thing.”

“Would you call this an emergency?”

“I don't know what the captain knows.” O'Brien kept his attention on the science displays.

“And that doesn't bother you?”

Arla's voice was serious. O'Brien sighed. “It's not my position to be bothered by it, Commander. But I can see that you are.” He could see where this conversation would be going. He straightened up, deciding he might as well head back to his engineering station. If Arla was going to talk his ear off, at least he'd be comfortable.

Arla, it seemed, had come to a decision of her own. “Can I speak freely, Chief?”

Safe in his chair, O'Brien nodded, giving her a half-smile. “You're the commander, Commander.”

“Captain Sisko, he's not the most orthodox commanding officer, is he?”

“Well, let me say that this isn't the most orthodox command. Y'know, before I came here, I served on the Enterprise —”

“Under Picard?” Arla asked, with true admiration in the way she said that famous name.

O'Brien appreciated that attitude. “The one and only,” he said proudly. “And for a starship captain on the cutting edge of the frontier, out where no one's gone before, you need exceptional flexibility, because the situation's always changing. Picard was brilliant at that kind of give-and-take. Still is, from what I've heard. But, when I took this assignment at DS9, I thought I'd be settling back into a more normal routine, like being at a starbase.”

“From what I've heard, I didn't think anyone ever got tired of serving on the Enterprise.”

“Oh, I didn't get tired.” O'Brien chuckled. “I got married. Had a little girl. And all of a sudden, as much as I loved the Enterprise . . . .” He thought back to those agonizing days, when he'd debated endlessly with himself about putting in for a transfer. And the terrible nights, when he awoke from stomach-twisting nightmares in which the Enterprise ran afoul of Borg cubes, black holes, runaway warp cores . . . a thousand and one disasters that must never touch Keiko and Molly.

And how he'd felt when he read the reports of what happened at Veridian III, the ship blown from space to a terrifying crash landing, with all its crew and its families and the children . . . at the same time that he'd said a prayer for the survivors he'd thanked the stars that he and his wife and their daughter were safe and not with them.

“You were saying, Chief—as much as you loved the Enterprise . . . ?”

O'Brien, still distracted, made an effort to retrace his thoughts. “What I meant to say was, Commander, as . . . as complicated as I thought commanding that ship was, I've found DS9 to be even more . . . challenging. I suppose that's the word. I mean, Captain Picard could take us to a planet in trouble, we'd show the flag, do what we could to resolve things, and then we'd move on, knowing that three other ships and half the Federation's bureaucracy would be in our wake to follow up on what we had done. But here,” O'Brien looked at the young Bajoran officer, wondering if she could understand what he was trying to stay, with life experience so different from his own, “staying in one sector, dealing with the same worlds over so many years, there's no chance to move on. Captain Sisko has to live with the consequences of his decisions. It calls for . . . a very creative approach to command.”

“Plus,” Arla said carefully, “he's the Emissary.”

“Ah, now, I wouldn't know about that.” O'Brien knew his limitations, and this kind of discussion was not his strong suit.

“So you don't believe the wormhole aliens are gods?”

O'Brien knew the right way, for him, to answer this one. “Captain Picard told me an interesting thing one day. He said one of the best lessons he ever learned at the Academy didn't come from a classroom, or an instructor. It came from Boothby.”

O'Brien waited a moment to see if that name registered with Arla. It did.

“The gardener?” she asked.

“Among other things, it seems. But the captain said that Boothby told him, and I quote, ‘Jean-Luc, when you find yourself locked up on a ship hundreds of light-years from nowhere and with no chance of escape from your crewmates, there are three things you must never discuss: politics, religion, and another crewmate's spouse.’ ” O'Brien stretched back in his chair. “So, right about now is when I think it's a good time for me to follow old Boothby's advice.”

Arla tapped her fingers on the edge of her flight console. “There are a lot of cautious people on Deep Space 9.”

“Goes with the territory.”

Arla nodded. “I had a long talk with Dax about Captain Sisko.”

That didn't surprise O'Brien. Dax was the most experienced member of the DS9 crew, and she was never reluctant to pass on whatever help or advice she could. All anyone ever had to do was ask. “They've been friends for a long time, those two.”

“She wouldn't answer my question, either. About the wormhole aliens being gods.”

O'Brien felt he was going to regret being sucked into this debate, but he didn't see as how the young commander was giving him any choice. If Julian were here, O'Brien knew, the doctor would view the situation entirely differently. Julian would relish the argument. O'Brien didn't. But it was either join the discussion or spend the next ten hours watching level-four diagnostics run. “I take it, then, that you don't believe the entities in the wormhole are gods.”

Arla shook her head, and O'Brien thought he could detect a hint of unhappiness. “That's why I'm trying to understand how it is that Captain Sisko, an educated, intelligent man, an alien, brought up without any cultural influence from Bajor—how could he accept that they're gods? I mean, someone born on Bajor—fine, I can understand that. I don't agree with it, but I understand. They don't really have a choice. The whole primitive Prophet belief system permeates every aspect of our culture. There's no escape.”

“You escaped.”

“I wasn't born on Bajor.”

That explains a lot, O'Brien thought.

After a few moments of silence, Arla leaned forward. “You're not saying anything.”

O'Brien shrugged, looked around the unnaturally empty and quiet bridge. “I don't see that there's a lot I can say. Obviously, the type of environment someone's born into has a lot to do with what they end up believing in life. Vulcans embrace logic. Klingons find honor in battle.”

“So what do you believe, Chief? Not about the Prophets. But about . . . whatever faith you were raised in.”

O'Brien relaxed. This was one of the questions he could answer, one that rarely caused offense. “Oh, I'm a great believer in IDIC, Commander. Infinite diversity in infinite combination. The beauty of it is that nobody's wrong. Logic. Battle. They're all facets of the same thing. As if the true reality of the universe, whatever final answers there are to be discovered—if they can be discovered—is like a hyperdimensional string. Look at it one way it's an electron. Another way and it's a proton. Yet another one, you see a verteron. But it's all the same thing, just different ways of looking is all.”

As pleased as O'Brien was with his answer, he didn't like the way Arla was staring at him, as if she had heard those exact words too many times before.

“Well, I'm not afraid to say when something's wrong.”

Oh, oh, O'Brien thought. This is where it can get ugly.

“I think,” Arla proclaimed, “that my people's delusional worship of the Prophets turned them into the galaxy's biggest victims.”

“Now, that's harsh, don't you think?” O'Brien asked.

“No, I don't. Do you know how old Bajoran culture is?”

O'Brien wasn't sure. He thought back to that lost city the captain had rediscovered. “Twenty thousand years, I believe.”

“Try five hundred thousand years,” Arla said. “Think of that, Chief. Half a million years of almost unbroken continuity of culture. No notable worldwide disasters. No great empires fell. No dark ages. And no natural ebb and flow to history like on so many other worlds. But one unbroken strand of culture that has lasted since before your species ever evolved.”

“Quite impressive,” O'Brien said.

Now Arla's sadness abruptly became disgust. “Quite a waste.” She stood up, started to pace. “Half a million years of utter, contemptible passivity! That whole time, we did nothing but pray and wait for the gods to guide us. And ten thousand years ago, when it finally looked as if some forward-thinking communities were at last going to throw off the yoke of stagnant religious belief, what happens?”

“I wouldn't know,” O'Brien said nervously, though he could guess. He had heard the number ten thousand before. But somehow, he didn't think Arla was really interested in what he knew. She was working her way through some argument that had nothing to do with him. And one he wished that he knew how to deflect.

“The first Orb lands on Bajor.” Arla's face twisted with loathing. “It was the worst thing that could have happened to my people.”

O'Brien didn't like the hostility Arla was expressing. He wondered how anyone could get through the Academy with such negative views of an alien culture. Since Arla wasn't born on Bajor, he felt justified in thinking of the Bajoran culture as an alien one from Arla's perspective. “To be fair, Commander, I don't think you'll find a lot of Bajorans agreeing with you on that.”

“Of course not,” Arla said. “Because for the past ten thousand years, the wormhole aliens have been manipulating our culture, breeding us, in fact, to develop even greater passivity.”

O'Brien couldn't believe what she had said. Even at the risk of provoking her further, he felt he had to object. “You're going to have to explain that, Commander. I've known too many Bajorans from the Resistance to think of you as a passive bunch.”

“The facts are simple, Chief. Ten thousand years ago, humans were just getting ready to invent the wheel and the roads that go with it. Vulcans were bloodthirsty savages. Klingons were less than Vulcans. And Cardassians? Ha! They were still swimming in swamps catching fish in their mouths. But we Bajorans were peaceful, advanced, and shared a world government.”

“What's your point, Commander?” O'Brien wondered if it were too late to make a call to Worf. Just to check in. That sort of thing.

“My point is, ten thousand years later, every other race in the quadrant is busy carving up the galaxy—except Bajor. Instead, we've been brutalized, terrorized, occupied, and looted. And do you know why?”

“No,” O'Brien said, his hand on his communicator, “but somehow I know you're going to tell me.”

“Because for the past ten thousand years, the wormhole aliens have dropped their Orbs on us, deluding us into thinking that there are gods above managing our fates. And since the gods are taking care of us, why should we bother taking care of ourselves?” Arla now stood in the center of the bridge, arms spread wide in frustrated anger. “Honestly, can you think of a better way to cripple a species than by telling them that if they just wait peacefully, everything will be given to them? There's no need to study, to learn, to explore. Or even to dream. Just sit down, make yourself comfortable, and wait for the next dispatch from heaven.” She shook her head, oblivious to O'Brien now, caught up in her own speechmaking. “You humans, and the Vulcans, and Klingons, and Cardassians . . . you reached out to the universe. You built starships and went looking for your gods. But on Bajor, with those hideous Orbs, the gods kept coming down to us, telling us not to worry, and not to try to better ourselves.”

Arla flung herself down in her chair as if exhausted. O'Brien regarded her warily, wondering if she would settle down soon. “The Prophets occupied our world long before the Cardassians ever did,” she concluded bitterly. “And that makes them the biggest enemy of the Bajoran people.”

“Commander Arla, I don't mean any disrespect. But I certainly hope you know better than to go spouting off like that in public.”

Her frown wrinkled her epinasal ridges. “I do know. But I asked if I could speak freely. . . .”

“You did that, all right.”

“Sorry, Chief,” Arla said. “It's just that, coming to Bajor, seeing the shape my people are in, when I know how much more we could be capable of . . . .”

O'Brien nodded, relieved that her outburst was over, and that he hadn't had to alert anyone else. That he'd been able to handle the situation himself. Even Julian could not have done better. “That's all right. It's all off the record.”

Arla nodded and turned her chair back to the board and the distant view of Deep Space 9.

“Someday, the Prophets are going to destroy us,” she said quietly. “And the horrible thing is, sometimes I think I'm the only Bajoran who realizes it.”

O'Brien didn't begrudge her having the last word, though he suspected there was something else the young commander wasn't telling him—whether about the Prophets, about her past, he couldn't be sure. But now was perhaps not the time to probe for it, not when the topic was so disturbing to her. There'd been enough emotional venting for now.

The Chief contemplated the next ten hours of silence with more equanimity than he had before.

It wasn't as if they had to be unproductive hours.

With his spirits already rising in pleasant anticipation, he asked the computer to run a level-five diagnostic on the engineering subsystems.

In all the confusing diversity of the universe, O'Brien knew he could always find his peace in the beauty of a well-constructed machine, operating according to the inalterable laws of physics.

He wondered where Arla and others who felt as she did would find their answers—their peace. And what might happen if they didn't find it soon.