CHAPTER 21

“THIS IS IT,” Nog said. Then he looked up at Jake. “Wouldn't you say?”

Jake studied the holographic image that surrounded him and all the other onlookers in the holosuite at Quark's. As far as he could tell, it was a close reproduction of the primitive village he and Nog had seen in the distance four days ago, when they had entered the Cardassian holosuite. Fortunately, the computers that ran Quark's holosuites were separate from the station's, and were still fully operational.

The resolution, however, was low, the sky was an unreal shade of dark purple without stars or Bajor, and the re-creation was missing details like an evening breeze and the flickering of lights in the windows. But from the arrangement of the buildings and the sweep of the landscape, Jake would have to say Jadzia had done a great job of turning the two-dimensional map on the Cardassian memory rod into a three-dimensional simulation. Best of all, she had adjusted the gravity in the suite to compensate for the station's list, so that for the first time in almost two hours everyone was standing on level ground.

“I agree,” Jake said. “This is the village we saw.”

He looked over at his father, secretly pleased to be able to make an important contribution to the investigation. Especially after being so publicly dismissed in front of so many people—who were now here to see that he wasn't just the captain's kid, who had to be kept ‘out of harm's way.’

Even his father looked impressed. He turned to Odo. “Constable? Theories?”

“I think it's obvious, Captain. Dal Nortron somehow knew about the Cardassian holosuite in the hidden section of corridor. He used it to create a simulation of this Bajoran lunar village, no doubt attempting to narrow down the location of the second Orb.”

“And he was killed for his trouble.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Which brings us back to Vash, Satr, and Leen as suspects. But how could any of them know about the hidden section of the station?”

“You might as well ask how could Nortron?” Odo said. “And again, I think the answer is obvious. The map is recorded on a Cardassian memory rod. That implies Nortron obtained it from a Cardassian source, and that it was a Cardassian who knew about what was hidden on Terok Nor and then told Nortron.”

Even though everything Odo had said sounded reasonable, somehow it didn't strike Jake as right. There had to be another explanation for what had happened. He tried to think about how he would make everything come out if this were a novel he was writing, but unfortunately all that kept springing into his mind was the usual shock ending in which the station commander is revealed to be the killer.

Jake suddenly stared at his father, who turned to him as if he sensed the intensity of his son's gaze. “What is it, Jake?”

“Um, Dad, are we . . . still following the Starfleet changeling-detection protocols?”

Sisko shrugged. “All the time.” Then he grinned as if he could read his son's mind. “Anyone in particular you suspect?”

“No, not really,” Jake said diffidently.

“Jake,” Sisko said, “if the Dominion was behind any of this, a Jem'Hadar attack wing would have started pounding us the instant our computers went off-line. The fact that we're still here means this doesn't have anything at all to do with the Founders.”

But that didn't sound right to Jake, either. “But it does have something to do with the Cardassians, right? And they're part of the Dominion, sort of.”

Jadzia looked at Sisko. “See? That's a good point.”

“No, no, no,” Major Kira suddenly interjected. She had gone off to walk through the simulated village and had just returned. “This reconstruction doesn't match any village on any of the inhabited Bajoran moons. It's a fake. A typical Quark forgery.”

“I resent that,” Quark said huffily. “My forgeries are anything but typ—never mind.”

“Captain,” Kira said, “we're wasting our time with this.” But Jake could see that Kira's argument had made his father think of something else. “Just a minute, Major. Let's accept that this simulation doesn't match an existing lunar village. But could it match an ancient one?”

“Lunar villages aren't that ancient, sir. The oldest ones, even going right back to the first landings, would only be a thousand years old.”

Jake understood the reason for his father's quick smile. It didn't mean that he was taking what Kira said lightly. His amusement stemmed from the fact that Bajoran culture went so far back that a thousand years to them was like a long weekend to anyone else.

“Forgive me, Major.” Sisko's apology was sincere. “Rather than ‘ancient,’ let's say ‘old.’ Could this represent an old lunar village?”

Kira turned around to stare back at the simulation. “Well, the architecture is right, even if the layout isn't. But if the Red Orbs are supposed to have been split up ten thousand years ago, how could one of them have been buried on a Bajoran moon one thousand years ago?”

“Maybe someone's keeping track of them,” Jake suggested.

Kira shook her head. “Oh, no, Jake, you can't have it both ways. Either the Orbs are hidden or they're not. It doesn't make sense for anyone to be moving around Orbs that supposedly can never be brought together.”

“Of course,” Bashir said slowly, “there is one way for everyone to be right.”

That the doctor suddenly had everyone's undivided attention was an understatement. Jake felt a little envious that Bashir and not he might be about to solve the mystery, but he was excited, too, to be here on the spot, as his father's murder investigation proceeded to its solution, step by step. All of this was vastly preferable to being sequestered somewhere safe while all the really interesting activities on the station were going on without him.

The doctor gave a little bow toward Major Kira. “What if these Orbs are forgeries, but ones manufactured a thousand years ago which would give them a certain air of authenticity. This would make them rare Bajoran artifacts that could have been hidden a millennium ago, and would mean they could still serve as a motive for murder today. At the same time, they would then also not be the legendary, and possibly, apocryphal, Red Orbs of Jalbador.”

“Makes sense to me,” Kira said.

“Except for that Cardassian connection,” Sisko said. “I wish we knew what moon this was supposed to be. . . .” He turned to Jake. “Where was Bajor in the sky?”

Jake and Nog both turned and pointed away from the village. “Up there,” Jake told his father.

“We were beyond the terminator,” Nog added, “but we could still see part of the sunlit side.”

“Computer,” Sisko said, “add Bajor to the night sky, as seen from the Bajoran moon of Baraddo.”

Jake looked up as the purple sky suddenly rippled and turned black, now dotted with twinkling stars. A few moments later, a full Bajor appeared against the stars, green oceans sparkling with the brilliant reflection of Bajor-B'hava-el.

“Too small,” Nog said at once.

“That's right,” Jake said. “It was twice that size at least.”

Sisko nodded. “Computer, which moon of Bajor would correspond to an apparent diameter of the planet twice the width of what's displayed now?”

“Unable to comply,” the computer answered. “Library access has been temporarily interrupted.”

Jake knew that meant the computer had tried to contact the station's central computer banks, which were still off-line.

Sisko gave the challenge to Kira. “Major, pick a moon. There're only five that are inhabited.”

Kira looked troubled. “But some have eccentric orbits. . . . Computer, adjust the sky as seen from the moon of Penraddo.”

Jake watched as Bajor seemed to jump closer in the sky, almost doubling in apparent diameter.

“That is still not quite right,” Nog said, frowning. “Is there any moon that orbits the planet even closer?”

“Not habitable,” Kira said.

“You mean, not habitable now!” Sisko's smile was triumphant. Jake didn't know what his father was talking about. But Kira apparently did.

“Jeraddo?” she said.

“If I wanted to hide something so that it could never be found,” Sisko said, “what better place than a moon that will kill anyone who tries to land there? Computer: Show Bajor as it would have appeared from the moon of Jeraddo before the moon's atmosphere was converted.”

Instantly, Bajor jumped even closer in the sky.

“Now that is the right size,” Nog said.

Jake nodded.

But Kira wasn't convinced. “Jeraddo was only converted to an energy source five years ago, not a thousand.”

Jake had a sudden flash of inspiration. “Which means,” he said excitedly, “someone could have hidden the Orb on Jeraddo five years ago! To keep it out of the hands of whoever's been trying to find the Orbs and bring them together!”

Kira suddenly developed a pained expression. “Jake, where did that come from?”

Jake could tell that his interruption had surprised her. He was getting more and more used to that reaction. It was hard for the adults on the station to stop thinking of him as the little kid they'd always known. And it was hard for him to suppress the ideas he had about just about everything around him.

“Well,” he began explaining enthusiastically, “Jeraddo was converted into an energy moon five years ago. The memory cylinder the map is on is five years old. So maybe the map isn't a copy—maybe it's only five years old. . . .” Jake could see Kira wasn't buying a word. And neither was anyone else. Too bad, Jake thought. It would make a great conspiracy novel. He could even use his father's suggestion and call it The Cardassian Connection. He could write a whole series. He could . . . see the almost pitying look on Major Kira's face. “Never mind,” he said.

“I won't,” Kira replied. She turned to Sisko. “Shouldn't we all get back to work?”

Jake could see his father wasn't ready to let go of this latest lead that he and Nog had provided. “Don't you have any curiosity for making an even more detailed simulation from the map? Maybe find out exactly where the Orb is hidden?” Sisko asked.

“Absolutely none,” Kira said. “That Orb will never be found because it either doesn't exist, or if it does, because it's hidden on Jeraddo. Either way, that map means nothing.”

Jake watched as his father's glance polled the rest of the group in the holosuite—Odo, Bashir, Quark, even Nog and him. No one else offered an objection to Kira's conclusion, so neither did Jake.

“All right,” Sisko said. “We move on.”

Jake braced himself for the return of the station's unbalanced gravity field.

“Computer,” Sisko said, “end program.”

But nothing changed.

“Computer,” Sisko repeated, “end program.”

The simulation remained.

“That Rom” Quark sputtered. “Computer, this is Quark. Implement safety override in holosuite C.”

But again, nothing happened. Quark looked frantically back and forth at the unchanging Bajoran lunar village. “We're doomed,” he said.

“Not yet,” a disembodied voice replied.

Jake looked at Nog as everyone else scanned their surroundings, trying to find the source of the voice.

“Stay calm, and no one will get hurt,” the voice said again.

Jake saw his father and Major Kira turn to look at one another at the same moment.

“Leej Terrell.” To Jake, the way Kira said the name, it sounded like she was cursing.

Then something even more unusual happened. Jake was amazed to see the distant landscape shimmer just for an instant, as three Cardassians—one female and two males, including one who was bald and badly scarred—stepped through the holographic simulation to join the group in the holosuite.

Except they weren't here to play games.

Each held a Cardassian phaser.

“Thank you, Captain Sisko,” the female said. “You finally found our missing Orb.”