10
IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS NEWEST SCRAMBLE BREAKER PICKED UP THE transmission between the Trager and DS9, Quark put a call in to Ro. He simply told her that he knew, then sat behind the bar on a high stool, his feet pulled up, nervously scanning the floor for movement while he waited for her. Those long moments were a spin through the Vault of Eternal Destitution; not only was there a possibility of evil alien attack, the dinner crowd was horrifically light, less than a dozen patrons—a full twenty percent drop from the night before. And they weren’t tipping, either. To top it off, the Jem’Hadar and his little gray girlfriend, Wex, were hanging around out front again, probably scaring off the few customers that hadn’t been taken over. When Ro hurried in a few seconds later, it was all he could do not to start shouting curses. That bug that had attacked Macet outside of Trier’s quarters hadn’t been an escaped lab experiment, after all. There were parasites aboard, and they were obviously eating his patrons, and no one had bothered to tell him.
To Destitution with the patrons, what about me? No, they’re perfectly happy to watch my business die a pale and listless death, then wait and see if the things have a taste for Ferengi. Which they surely would. Ferengi flesh was said to be quite tender.
Ro approached the bar with a look of vague irritation on her face; it was nothing to what he was feeling.
“You know, I expect as much from Kira, but why didn’t you tell me?” he spat, still hardly able to believe it. “Who else knows?”
Ro glanced to either side before addressing him, keeping her voice low. “Very few. Keep it down, if you wouldn’t mind. How did you find out?”
“I have my resources,” he said. “And no, I didn’t tell anyone. I guess we have that in common, don’t we?”
She at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Orders. I didn’t have a choice. I am sorry, but until we get a fix on who’s who—”
“What do you mean?” Quark asked, wounded. “Do you think I’m one of them?”
Ro sighed. “If you were, you wouldn’t have called to tell me that you’d found out, would you?”
“So instead of telling people that they’re in danger, the powers that be have decided to make it a conspiracy to keep Bajor out of the Federation,” Quark said acidly. “Like anyone is going to believe that.”
Ro cocked an eyebrow. “You did.”
“Yeah, well, now I don’t. And if you don’t think anyone else is going to figure it out—”
“They will
given the right equipment,” Ro said, watching him closely. She was fishing. Quark didn’t blink. “But right now, we’re buying time.”
“Time is latinum,” he shot back. “How many people have they gotten? Is that why my revenues are down?”
Ro shook her head. “Not that many. Ten, now, all in stasis. Business is bad because people are scared, by the lockdown and the possibility of anti-Federation terrorism.”
“And if word were to get out, that there is no terrorist threat?” Quark asked, quickly warming to the idea. “That being in a crowd is actually safer than staying in?”
Ro scowled. “You let it leak, you’ll be up on charges, Quark. I mean it.”
Quark was unfazed. Jail time was a definite drawback, but on the pro side, he was looking at vastly increased profits—which outweighed even the very worst of cons. Everyone on the station would pack together like slugs in a tin, and where better than the most popular dining and gaming establishment on the Promenade? And the biggest? “It’d be worth it. Look around. How can things get any worse?”
Ro leaned in, her scowl deepening. “I can make it worse, Quark. Count on it.”
As always when she was close, and irritated, Quark felt a chill run through him, from his lobes to his toes
though probably not the kind she intended. “Come on, Laren,” he said, grinning, inviting her enthusiasm. “The truth will come out soon enough, anyway. Why shouldn’t someone profit from it?”
Ro’s face had fallen carefully blank. “Because the parasites might very well target you.”
That was a definite con. “You’re kidding, right?” Quark said, reflexively pulling his feet up higher.
“No. Think about it—this is one of the few places on the station that’s open to everybody. You’d have half the station in here, crowded together, under your direct influence. Who’d make a better host?”
Quark stared at her, not sure by her cool expression if she was lying. “But—I’d be safe, surrounded by all those people
.”
Ro’s eyes narrowed, her voice dropping even lower. “You’d have to sleep sometime.”
Another beat of cool silence, and Ro straightened up. “Besides, I’d never speak to you again.”
An out, and an opportunity. Quark took it. “That, I couldn’t bear,” he said, letting his romantic-charm grin resurface. “The secret is safe
but only if you’ll keep me in the loop. As much as possible,” he quickly added.
Ro nodded, standing. “You’re doing the right thing, Quark.”
And the safest.
“Anything for you, Laren,” he said, with such sincerity that he believed it himself, for a second or two. He mentally amended that to anything priced reasonably, but saw no reason to spoil the moment with such details.
Ro seemed to soften slightly. “Is there anything you need?”
The possibilities were infinite, but he settled for the most nagging. “Could you get that alien monster and his new friend to move?” he asked, pointing at the Jem’Hadar and the gray alien. “They’re scaring people away.”
Ro followed his gesture, gave a small shrug. “I asked Taran’atar to keep an eye on the bar, for exactly the reasons we’ve been discussing,” she said. “Wex is from the Gamma Quadrant. If she decides to spend part of her time in his company, his presence will be less disruptive. Be grateful.”
Quark looked exasperated. “Grateful for what? She’s got an expression that could turn back time. Would you at least ask her to try smiling once in a while?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She promised to try and make it in for a midday meal the following day, and then was gone, pausing for a moment to ask the gray girl—Wex, her name was—to cheer up. As soon as she walked away from the unlikely patrons, Wex shot a look in at Quark that suggested she might also like the taste of Ferengi flesh, and not in a nice way. Quark glared back at her until he saw the Jem’Hadar glowering in his direction, and quickly turned back to studying the ruins of his dinner business.
He sighed again. The news would get out soon enough, he supposed; secrets didn’t last too long on the station. Until then, he’d have to try and make the best of it.
At least I never got rid of those old vole traps, he thought, brightening. If there were parasites running around, he could at least make it a bit more difficult for them to get to him
though what to bait them with?
He started to get up, then thought better of it, reaching toward the signal light for the kitchen. Why leave the safety of his nice, high stool? Grimp could head down to the dark, shadowy storage compartment for the traps; after all, what was he paying them for, if not to make his life easier?
“Hey, Quark,” Treir said behind him. “Call for you. It’s from Ferenginar.”
Quark’s hand froze centimeters from the signal light. He frowned. “Did they lift the comm blackout?”
Treir shook her head. “The call’s being routed from the Militia comnet on Bajor.”
The Militia? They’d only let a comm through during a state of emergency for a military reason, or for some muckity-muck VIP, like a head of state
Looks like my idiot brother is finally learning how to use his position as Grand Nagus to get what he wants, Gint help us all. Scowling in irritation, Quark stepped around the bar and thumbed the DNA scanner to let the call through.
The companel screen lit up with the familiar, vacuous grin he hadn’t seen in over eight months. “Hello, Brother!”
“Rom,” Quark said, “this better be important. I’m a busy man.” He felt no guilt about the lie. Seeing Rom in his nagus regalia, latinum-headed staff in hand, was too painful, especially given Quark’s current state of affairs. Of all the people Zek could have picked to be his successor, he’d chosen small-lobed Rom. Never mind that he could barely scrape two slips of latinum together while under Quark’s employ, or that he’d quit the bar to become a lowly engineer for the Bajoran Militia, or that he’d let his own son join Starfleet instead of steering him toward the proper pursuit of profit
or even that he’d broken with tradition and married a poor Bajoran. One of Quark’s own dabo girls, no less. No, the worst thing was that Zek had actually chosen Rom because of all those things, so that someone would be in power to uphold the insidious democratic reforms Quark’s mother Ishka had convinced, connived, and otherwise enticed Zek into implementing before the two of them retired to Risa.
“But Brother, I have wonderful news!” Rom beamed.
Quark’s lobes tingled. Maybe his luck was about to turn. If Rom was calling to slip him advance word of an opportunity, his troubles might well be over. And he certainly looked excited.
Quark grinned. “I’m all ears.”
“Leeta’s pregnant! You’re going to be an uncle again!” Rom reached off camera and drew his wife into view. Leeta smiled at Quark across the light-years and waved her fingers, her belly already visibly big with child.
Quark’s grin fell, crashed on the floor, bounced a few times, and rolled against the bar before it came to a stop and burst into flames.
“How nice,” he said.
Rom, predictably, looked confused. “What’s wrong, Brother? I thought you’d be happy for us.”
“Oh, I’m thrilled,” Quark snapped. He reached for a bottle of Saurian brandy and poured a shot. “Really, I couldn’t be happier. I mean, let’s look at my situation: either Bajor’s going to join the Federation, or we’re all going to be eaten. Either way, business is in the waste extractor and I’m going to have to close the bar. I have no prospects, and my personal life is a shipwreck.” He bared his teeth in a sneer and raised the full glass to the screen. “But hey, Leeta’s pregnant. So it must be Happy Hour!” He kicked back the brandy and slammed the glass down on the bar.
Rom and Leeta stared back at him, their eyes wide. “I had no idea things were so bad, Brother,” Rom said. “I’m sorry.”
Quark looked away, irritated. Just like that, he’d spat on Rom and Leeta’s good news, and just like that, his brother had responded to him with genuine sympathy. Didn’t it figure.
“No, Rom, I’m sorry,” he said, looking back up at the screen. “You too, Leeta. That’s great news. Really. I’m just having a bad day here.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Leeta asked.
Quark almost laughed, remembering his earlier misguided optimism that Rom was calling to tip him off about an opportunity. In the old days, being a member of the nagus’s family would have guaranteed Quark’s solvency, no matter how bad things got. But in these enlightened days of reformed business practices and fair competition, good, old-fashioned nepotism didn’t stand a snowball’s chance on Vulcan.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” he lied. “I always am.” He could see they weren’t buying it. He’d have to cut this short. “Look, I need to get back to work. I’ll see you around, okay? Congratulations again.” Without waiting for them to answer, he cut the signal. The Quark Enterprises logo replaced their faces on the screen, and he stared at it for a full minute before he turned back to the bar and started taking drink orders.
There’s always the Orion Syndicate, he thought. They may still be a little mad about that whole gateway fiasco, but business is business. I could probably smooth things over. After all, I am a people person—
Wait a minute. What was the name of that guy from Farius Prime, with the investment opportunity? Kostaza?
Already, a new scheme was taking shape in his mind, filling him with renewed optimism. He wasn’t out of the game yet. There was still one more hand he could play.
Liro Kavi was nervous, but determined not to let it get to her. She’d been on DS9 all of three months, most of that training, and had been on security detail for only two weeks, since right before the assassination. As if that hadn’t been bad enough—being brand-new to the job and the station, just in time to see the first minister murdered—now she’d been put on a night watch, lurking through DS9 in the small hours, searching for alien threats in the loneliest of places.
She walked slowly through the low-lit bay, palm beacon in one hand, phaser in the other. She could see the glow from Bennings’s beacon reflecting high on the far wall at least thirty meters to her left, heard what sounded like a curse as the young human male ran into something or other, a sharp clang ringing through the vast storage area.
Liro tapped her combadge, as much to hear a friendly voice as anything else. “Problem, Bennings?”
A long pause. “I was attacked by a box of stem bolts, thank you,” he said finally, also keeping his voice low. They’d shared the same detail for the past week. He was another postwar addition to DS9, and though he’d been in security longer than her, transferring from a Federation base, he was also two years her junior. Hassling him was one of the few perks of her day.
What is a stem bolt, anyway? Liro wasn’t sure, and didn’t care; what she did care about was getting through the cavernous bay as quickly as possible, so they could be somewhere else. Bay 5G was a nightmare jumble of discarded crates and stored excess, plus about a thousand personal items belonging to station residents, things too large to be easily stored in quarters. There was a lot of sporting equipment, furniture, a number of massive art pieces
basically, a lot of shdowy crevices for things to hide in. Occasionally, Bennings’s tri-corder would beep with a new contact, and each time he’d insist it was only a vole.
Liro shivered. She knew that Lieutenant Ro wasn’t telling them everything, but what had filtered down was more than enough. There was an alien presence aboard, in the form of small insectile or worm-like creatures that could actually take over a host body. The powers that be were keeping it quiet from the majority of those on board, but security had to know. Liro wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She preferred the truth to ignorance, she supposed, but when you were basically alone, walking in the dark
A flash of movement, there, to her right—or was it just the echo of her light, the darkness closing in as the bright beam moved away? The beam jerked back to the small, tight space between two storage units, Liro staring so hard that her eyes started to burn. Nothing there
or whatever it was had moved on.
Alone in the dark, knowing that there were parasitic aliens on the loose. Liro suppressed another shiver and started moving again. She figured that between security and upper management, there were probably only a hundred-plus people on the station who knew about the creepily subtle invasion. Maybe twice that; in truth, she didn’t have any real idea. For obvious security reasons, the lieutenant had made it very clear that they weren’t to talk about it, not even to one another. A good idea, but the lack of communication was making everything much more nerve-racking. All the security officers were being scanned constantly, three times each shift, but that there was even a chance that they, too, could be infiltrated
“Anything?”
Liro started at Bennings’s sudden question. She reflexively glanced at the far wall, saw the glow of his light perhaps forty meters away, before tapping her badge.
“No, you?” she asked without thinking, shaking her head slightly at her own stupidity. If he’d found something, he probably would have said so.
“Just a lot of dark. It’d be nice to turn on a few lights around here.”
Liro silently agreed. The malfunction of the power grid in this sector of the docking ring was what had led them to the bay in the first place. While engineering worked on the problem, she and Bennings were investigating the affected areas. In the dark.
She bit back another chill. How many people had been taken over? No one was talking, and all the secretive lurking around was getting to her. When would Colonel Kira make an announcement? Or would it be from Bajor, from the Assembly or Asarem? The truth was probably already leaking, even as she and Bennings and half of the rest of security were wandering through the station’s many empty places. It couldn’t be soon enough. Her recent training had stressed that knowledge was power, and that security was about containing knowledge, but being able to fight the aliens directly seemed infinitely preferable to how things were now.
Think about something else. Right. She swept her light slowly around some kind of wine rack, trying to force her mind to other things. Rumor had it that Lieutenant Ro wouldn’t be transferring to Starfleet, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Though she respected the woman, Liro couldn’t help thinking that someone else might be better suited to the position; Ro wore her earring on the wrong side, like some rebellious youth
though at least she hadn’t turned to the Ohalavaru. Liro’s mother said that the Prophets would turn away from those who rejected the truth, and—
Liro froze, her eyes wide. She’d heard something, faint but close by, a sound she couldn’t place. It was more like a change in the air than a noise, like sensing movement, feeling someone next to you flinch, or quickly turn their head. She reached for her combadge with her phaser hand, saw Bennings’s light on the far wall
She felt her jaw clench, a light sweat breaking across her body. The muted glow of his palm beacon appeared to be in the same place it had been the last time she’d looked. Exactly. As though it had been knocked out of his hand, perhaps.
Got to get help—
She fumbled at her combadge, the phaser getting in the way, almost dropping her beacon as her mind raced with the possibilities, all of them horrible. She swung around to find the exit, to mark where she needed to run—
—and there was Bennings, a meter behind her. The beam from her light splashed across his grinning face, his eyes dark and unknown as he raised one hand, his grin opening into a silent laugh. He reached for her, and before she could scream, he had her.