“Oh, wonderful,” Kira said, craning her neck as if she could see through the viewscreen. Sisko stepped into her periphery and did his best to look respectful.
“Intendant,” he said.
“Benjamin, how positively lovely to see you. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming to pay me a little visit again. I’ll send you a shuttle, just like last time.”
Sisko did not look at Jennifer, but from the corner of his eye he could see her expression. “I’m not sure,” he said carefully.
Kira laughed. “Oh, Benjamin,” she sighed, her voice a singsong. “I’m sorry. I suppose I made that sound like a request, didn’t I? Be ready to go at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to see you!” She flashed a brilliant smile, and then her image vanished from the screen.
Sisko shut down the console to ensure that any conversation he had with Jennifer could not be picked up by the receiver on Kira’s end, and then turned to his wife.
“You’d better not even consider it,” Jennifer warned him.
“What am I supposed to do?” he said. “Your father said he’d do what he could, but if he can’t—”
“You’ll figure it out,” Jennifer said, and turned angrily to go into the bedroom. “You always do,” she added, and then closed the door, leaving Benjamin alone. He looked down at his hands to find the unopened bottle of synthale still there. He twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.
The Intendant was wearing her “uniform” for this meeting, in lieu of the revealing dress she had been clad in before, but the skin-tight black bodysuit she was dressed in was hardly less distracting than what she had worn at her prior meeting. She was half sitting, half lying on a settee with a few Klingon guards standing a few steps away. She gestured to them to back off, and they both did, seeming to vanish into the shadows of the half-darkened room.
“Now, then,” she purred. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I understand you’ve found yourself in a very uncomfortable situation.”
Sisko, who had not been invited to sit, fidgeted with his hands behind his back. “I’m not sure if I know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Kira raised her eyebrows, pushing her lower lip out, mocking confusion. “Oh, no? It’s interesting, your saying that. I have eyes and ears everywhere, Benjamin. Everywhere. Nothing goes on in this sector without my knowing about it. In this entire quadrant.”
“Really?” Sisko’s voice was dry.
“Yes, really.” She shifted her posture so that she was sitting up now, her feet on the floor, her hands spread out at her sides. “I have a feeling, Benjamin, that right now, even as you stand here, there is some ugly business that you wish very much would go away.”
Sisko continued to fidget, though he willed his hands to stay still. “Everyone’s got something that they wish would just go away, I guess.”
“Not me,” Kira said. “Because I make it go away.”
“That must be nice for you.”
“It is,” she said. “And it would be nice for you, too, wouldn’t it? If I would make all of your problems go away?”
Sisko only shrugged.
Kira sighed and pulled her feet up on the settee again. “Well, Benjamin, have you thought any more about my offer? Your own ship, your own crew? No more monitoring your comings and goings, at least not the way Akiem has been doing. No more confinement to a solitary star system. No destination locks, no orders to follow—from anyone but me, that is.”
Sisko tried a laugh. “Can you really imagine me, Intendant—a Terran—commanding a ship?”
Kira looked serious. “I can,” she said. “It’s not entirely unheard-of, you know. Look at Stan Devitt. Wouldn’t you like to be in a position like his?”
Sisko thought of his father-in-law’s too-tall Cardassian desk, the look of contempt that En Shrall had tried to conceal when he came into Stan’s office and took his orders. “Not really,” he said truthfully.
“Well, forget him,” Kira said. “Your position would be so much better than that. Because”—she rose to her feet and walked slowly, deliberately, toward Sisko, her hips rolling suggestively under the tight fabric of her suit—“you would work for me. And everyone would know it.”
Sisko stiffened as she touched his shoulder, examining him as though he were a piece of merchandise. “Very nice,” she murmured, and then she laughed when she saw his expression. “Oh, Benjamin,” she said, reaching up to touch his face with one soft, cool hand. “What’s the matter? I don’t bite.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” he breathed, though he instantly regretted it. He could not afford to make her genuinely angry.
The Intendant did not get angry; in fact, she seemed to take it as a compliment. She laughed as if he had told a very fine joke, and took a few steps away from him, though she continued to circle him as though she were sizing him up for a meal. “It’s not as if you’ve been entirely faithful to Jennifer,” she remarked.
“I love my wife,” he said, but it came out hollow.
“Is that right?” the Intendant said. “How sweet. Or is it only that you were infatuated with her? Or, more specifically, what you could get from her?”
“Of course not,” Sisko said weakly. He felt ashamed, and it was making him angry, but he could not allow himself to lose his temper. Kira was trying to get under his skin, and he could not allow her to succeed.
“It would hurt her deeply if she were ever to hear that you had been with another woman,” Kira said. “I understand that, Benjamin. I understand why you have a problem with coming to work for me. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about me.” She smiled.
“You could say that.”
“Well, Benjamin, I wouldn’t ever want to force you to do anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with.”
“That’s good,” Sisko said, though he did not trust her word for a moment.
Kira’s smile faded. “I’d rather you came to me willingly,” she said, her voice husky, her meaning clear. She took a step toward him, but didn’t touch him, only tipped her head back so that she could stare up at him. She was a good head shorter than he was, even in her stiletto-heeled shoes, but somehow her presence was absolutely terrifying.
Sisko swallowed. “Oh,” he said, feeling as though he had just stepped into a snare. “Well, I . . .”
“Listen, Benjamin,” Kira said. “Suppose I speak to Jennifer for you, and explain to her exactly how beneficial a thing this job could be for you? Would you like that?”
Sisko shook his head. “No . . . please. Leave Jennifer out of it. I don’t want—”
“You don’t want to hurt her? Is that it?” Kira laughed lightly. “Well, it seems to me that it is going to hurt her very much when her husband is implicated in the murder of that Farian, what was his name, Thadial Bokar? Not to mention Janel Tigan.”
His legs felt wooden. “What do you know about Janel Tigan?” he demanded recklessly. “The man disappeared nearly two weeks ago—I had nothing to do with it, he was my friend—my best friend!”
“Oh, I believe that you didn’t have anything to do with it initially. But it wouldn’t be difficult for a casual observer to start making certain . . . connections, Benjamin, let alone someone with the kind of resources that Jennifer has at her disposal. She is a very, very intelligent woman, Benjamin. Not just intelligent, but clever. It’s not likely that she won’t eventually figure out what happened. And, to be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be in a position to make you the same offer, when that happens.”
Sisko struggled to breathe normally. He didn’t know whether to be angry or sad anymore. He mostly only felt numb.
“Like I say, Benjamin, it’s very nice to have a friend who can make ugly business go away for you.”
“What, exactly, are you proposing to me?”
Kira smiled. “Nothing, yet. Aside from offering, once again, for you to go to work for me. I haven’t gotten a read yet as to whether this offer appeals to you or not.”
; Sisko shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. There has to be another way.
“Ah,” Kira said, looking sad. She went back to her settee and stretched out her shapely legs. “It’s too bad, Benjamin.”
He sighed. “May I please go?”
Kira frowned to herself. “Of course you may go,” she said. “You’re not one of my ore-processing workers, after all.”
“No, I’m not,” he said, though her words pained him. Shouldn’t it be enough for him, to have all that he had: a beautiful wife, a prestigious job that most Terrans could never hope for? Shouldn’t it have been enough that he didn’t have to work in the mines like the other Terrans? Hadn’t that been enough for him to be happy? To feel free? But now I may have sabotaged all that forever.
He turned to go, but Kira called him back. “Wait,” she said.
“What is it?” he turned to face her again.
She pressed a finger to her chin, appearing thoughtful. “How about this,” she said. “What if I offer you a shuttle?”
“A shuttle?”
“Yes. The shuttle that you used to get to Terok Nor and back. I mean, without the program locks. You could just use it entirely at your leisure, go wherever you want—within reason, of course; it’s only a small passenger shuttle with low fuel capacity—with no strings attached?”
Sisko was suspicious, but he could not help but be intrigued at the suggestion. “Why would you do a thing like that?”
“It’s a gift, that’s all. A gift between friends.” She hugged her knees to her chest like a little girl, and smiled radiantly.
“I can’t take it. You know that I can’t.”
“Well, then, if you won’t accept it, maybe you would just like to . . . borrow it, for the day. Just for one day, Benjamin. If you like it, you can keep it. But if you’d rather not, you can just bring it right back. I promise, I won’t ask anything of you in return.”
“Just for the day?” Sisko asked, thinking immediately of Kasidy Yates. “Just to borrow for a day?”
“Just to borrow.”
“Nothing . . . I won’t owe you anything at all?”
Kira dropped her legs down from her chest and crossed her ankles demurely, though her outfit was anything but demure. “Not a thing,” she said. “You have my word, Benjamin.”
It was a long moment before Sisko finally nodded his head. The Intendant smiled, and signaled to one of her Klingons to take care of the arrangements.
The shuttle was full of fuel when Sisko left Terok Nor, but he knew that it would burn fast, too fast. Even still, if he picked up Kasidy straightaway, then headed immediately for one of the colonized moons on the farthest outskirts of the star system, he should have enough to get the shuttle back to Terok Nor. He would then tell Kira that he was finished with the shuttle, and damn any further consequences. He would deal with the Thadial Bokar situation later, but for the time being, all he cared about was getting Kasidy safe.
He docked the shuttle on the cracked concrete foundation at the number two moon where Kasidy lived. He dashed from the cockpit and sprinted the twenty meters or so to the settlement, but he could see, even as he approached, that something was very wrong. Kasidy’s tent was not visible among the rookery of shacks and lean-tos.
As he got closer, he saw what was left of the tent, and felt his gorge rising. Kasidy’s shabby dwelling had been torn to shreds, her belongings strewn all around. Most of her things were broken and torn. The other people at the settlement must have picked over her things quickly, leaving behind only what could not be used. Sisko squatted to pick up the piece of torn sacking that Kasidy had been wiping her hands on when he had come to warn her. I tried . . . I tried to tell her . . .
Sisko rose to his feet and walked around the settlement frantically, hoping for any sign of where she might have gone, but she was nowhere to be found. The people all stayed inside their shelters, probably afraid that they would get the same fate that had befallen Kornelius Yates. “Kasidy?” he called, but he got no response, nothing. “Hello?” he called. “Can’t anyone tell me what happened to Kasidy Yates? Please, I’m not here to hurt you!”
An old Terran woman finally drew back her tent flap enough to poke her head through. She held one crooked finger to her lips.
“Do you know where Kasidy Yates is?” Sisko said frantically. “Please, anything you can tell me—”
“They came and got her,” the woman said softly, so quietly that Benjamin almost couldn’t hear her.
“Who came?” he demanded. “Who got her?”
“The Cardassians,” she said. “They came in an Alliance shuttle, like yours. She’s gone.”
“When?” Sisko wanted to know. “When did they come?”
But the woman withdrew, her tent flap falling closed. Sisko almost went after her, before deciding that it didn’t matter. His breath came very hard, so hard he almost felt he couldn’t exhale fast enough to keep from passing out, but he gathered his wits and ran back to the shuttle.
Once in the cockpit, he attempted to contact Stan Devitt, but the man was not answering his comm. Frustrated, Sisko switched the channel over to the next person he could think of, En Shrall.
“Where are you, Sisko?” the Andorian snapped, as soon as his image appeared on-screen.
“I . . . Shrall, do you know if anyone else was sent back to the second colonized moon after you and I left yesterday?”
“You don’t have time to worry about that, Sisko—you’ve got to get back to headquarters right away. Stan Devitt has gone missing.”
It took Sisko a moment to register what the Andorian had just told him. “Missing?” he finally said, puzzled. “Where could he possibly be?”
“How should I know? The Cardassian higher-ups are here, asking everyone a thousand questions. And the first question they’re asking is where you’ve been all day.”
“I went to Terok Nor this morning,” Sisko said. “Stan knew all about it. Jennifer knows all about it too, she should have told someone.”
“Well, maybe you’d better come back here and tell them that yourself,” the Andorian advised. “There’s a lot going on back here, what with three people disappearing in just over two weeks, and if I were you I’d want to clear my name of any wrongdoing as quickly as possible.”
Stan Devitt is missing? Sisko couldn’t even begin to imagine what had happened to the old man, but the very last thing he intended to do was go back to Akiem headquarters on Trivas when it was crawling with inquisitive Cardassians. He programmed a new destination and sat back while the shuttle took off from Kasidy’s moon.
“You weren’t gone very long, Benjamin.”
Sisko had been gone only a few hours, but the Intendant had changed her entire appearance. She was now dressed in a soft, emerald-
colored dress with loose elbow-length sleeves that were cut out at the shoulder. The color suited her much better than the harsh violet she had worn when Sisko first met her, and the style was more flattering than the severe bodysuit he had seen her in before. The long, sleek hem of her dress swept the floor when she walked, as she was doing now—pacing slowly with one hand on a slender hip, her bare shoulders gleaming next to the diaphanous fabric. She had removed her headpiece and styled her short reddish hair differently than usual, so that it was smoothed down over her forehead instead of being swept back severely from her face. She looked radiant, and deadly.
“No,” Sisko said. “I guess I wasn’t gone long.” He choked out the next sentence with deep reservation. “I’ve come to take you up on your offer.”
Kira stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him, her eyes very round with surprise. “Is that right?” she said. “Well, I hardly expected you to have a change of heart as quickly as that.” She smiled. “You’re coming to me willingly, then?”
“I’m coming to you willingly,” he said, though it was hardly the case. The truth was, he had run out of options, and he was running out of time. It would not be long before Jennifer found out that he had be
en to the abandoned mining facility with Thadial Bokar. After that, it would all fall into place, and he would be implicated not only for Bokar’s death, but for Janel’s—and possibly even for whatever had happened to Stan Devitt. Sisko would rather have Jennifer hate him for infidelity than for being a murderer, especially if she was going to be led to believe that he had something to do with whatever had happened to her father. “And you can make all my problems go away?”
Kira slowly swaggered toward him. “Just like that,” she said, and snapped her fingers. The low lights in the room flickered across the sleek surface of her green dress, accentuating each dip and curve of her lithe body. She extended her hand, and Sisko took it. Her fingers wrapped tightly around his, and she pulled him along through the dimness of the room, beyond a screen where there was a bed with a plush velvet coverlet. She turned to him as she stood before the bed, reached behind her neck, and then let the gown slip to the floor in a puddle of shimmering green.
Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins Page 33
