I, the Constable

by Paula M. Block

  “Now,” the smile said, “the only question left is what I’m going to do with you.”

  The shape-shifter looked around the room, searching for something he could use to bind the two together. Suddenly his gaze fell on the food replicator in the pantry where he’d tossed the flight bag.

  “Ah,” he said. “Let’s see what we can cook up, shall we?”

  Chapter 23

  I’m glad Leeta talked me into buying this model, Rom thought.

  He’d set the velocity for full impulse, a safe but still almost-too-fast speed for a vessel traveling so close to the planet’s surface.

  But this was definitely an emergency, and, he rationalized, I am the nagus.

  When he’d acquired the vessel, he hadn’t anticipated taking it far—and hardly ever offworld—so its warp-two capacity had seemed a bit extravagant. The nagal purchasing agent, charged with helping to preserve the government’s latinum reserves, had counseled, “Only a fool would purchase more capability for speed than he can use,” adding, “As I once heard a hew-mon explain it: ‘Haste makes waste.’ ”

  Leeta, however, in a way that only Leeta could, convinced him that this was the perfect shuttlecraft for him. “It’s so streamlined and fast, Rom!” she’d cooed. “And that Corinthian leather interior is soooo sexy. It’s you, inside and out!”

  Rom didn’t believe that, of course. But he’d liked the way the words sounded when she said them. He’d tried to argue that it would cost much more than a traditional shuttlecraft. That’s when his beautiful wife had countered by whispering, first into his left lobe, “Every nagus is entitled to splurge now and then,” and then into his right, “Otherwise, what’s the point of being the nagus?”

  Rom couldn’t clearly recall what had happened next, but apparently he’d notified the agent to complete the transaction, because the shuttlecraft showed up at the Residence the next morning.

  He was still reminiscing, when suddenly the shuttle slowed, indicating it had reached the preset coordinates. Below, Rom saw a pair of vehicles parked near a dome-like structure, but he opted to set down on the opposite end of what appeared to be a construction site.

  Now what? he asked himself.

  He didn’t particularly want to get out and start wandering around looking for Quark and Odo. But it wasn’t just the obvious cold that gave him pause.

  What if Odo hasn’t captured all of those goons yet, and what if I run into one of them? he worried.

  And what is a goon, anyway?

  Seated within the warm shuttle, he attempted to contact Odo’s comm. He received no response, visual or verbal. After a moment, he decided that he didn’t have much choice. He would look like a fool if Quirk showed up and he was just sitting here—waiting.

  He’d have to get out and look for Quark and Odo.

  Puffing up his chest the way Leeta always encouraged him to when he climbed onto a podium at official ceremonies, he opened the shuttlecraft door, stepped out, and slowly began to tread across the slippery white surface.

  The temperature, as he’d suspected, was much, much, much lower than he’d have preferred. I should have thought this through and brought a thicker tunic, he thought. His family had grown up in Ferenginar’s temperate belt, where it rained a lot, but the rain never got hard and crunchy like the stuff he was walking on. Kicking some of it, he thought, There are piles of the hard water everywhere. Why would anyone choose to live here?

  His family never had accumulated much latinum, but he suddenly felt grateful that they’d been able to avoid this climate. He knew, of course, that was due to his moogie’s firm hand in steering the family’s financial course along the Great River. If Keldar had insisted on being in charge, they’d likely have wound up living in a terrible area like this. Or, at the very least, on the wrong side of the river, where all the unsuccessful families, the failed investors and entrepreneurs, tried to eke out a meager living.

  Rom rubbed his already frigid hands together and looked around. No one was outside except for him. And since Odo wouldn’t—or maybe couldn’t—respond to the summons of his communicator, Rom decided to try contacting him the old-fashioned way.

  “Odo?” he said, his voice coming out as a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “ODO?”

  Better, he realized, but he’d have to shout even louder. The wind was picking up, and sharp little pieces of white stuff were hitting his nose. Graupel, he thought. I’ve heard about this, but I’ve never seen it before. On impulse, he stuck out his tongue and caught a few pieces on its fleshy surface. The icy substance melted immediately, and Rom resisted an urge to giggle.

  Okay, maybe this frosty stuff would have been fun to play in as a schoolboy. For a day or two.

  He walked through the construction site, periodically shouting Odo’s name. His feet were getting cold, and he noticed that he was leaving footprints in the piles. Shivering, he paused to assess the situation.

  This is stupid. I’m stupid. Maybe I should just wait for Quirk in my shuttle. At least I wouldn’t freeze to death.

  Then his thoughts froze on another possibility. One that he’d been trying hard to avoid.

  I could go investigate that dome thing—see if anyone’s in there.

  He shuddered. Somehow he knew that if the goons were anywhere, they would be in there.

  But of course, Odo might also be in there.

  And Quark.

  Come on, Rom, he urged himself, trying to make his feet move in that direction. But his feet seemed frozen in place—and not from the cold.

  In desperation, he let out one last plaintive wail, hoping against hope that he’d get a response: “OOOOOOOHHH-DOOOOHHH! WHERE ARRRRRRRRRE YOOOOOOOUUUUU?”

  And then, miracle of miracles, he heard a muffled cry: “Heeeellllllpppp meeeee!”

  Rom looked around, wondering where the sound had come from. “HELLLLLLOOOOO?” he called.

  At first, he could hear nothing other than the sound of the wind. Then: “Leeeetttt meeee ouuuuuutttt!”

  It seemed to be coming from a small shed that he hadn’t noticed before. Rom shuffled toward it, stepping around a large accumulation of graupel to get to the door.

  “Is somebody in there?” he said, his lips close to the door.

  “Rom?”

  The Nagus blinked in surprise as he recognized the voice. “Quark?”

  “Rom! Thank Gint! Open the door!”

  “Oh! Oh! Hang on, Brother!” Rom shouted, looking around for something to use as a battering ram. But there was nothing in the immediate vicinity. He looked down at his cold feet, then began to kick the door.

  BAM!

  BAM!

  With his concentration entirely on opening that door and freeing Quark, the nagus didn’t notice the nearby pile of graupel shifting. A few tiny chinks appeared in its smooth surface. Then some large pieces rolled down, leaving trails. Finally an icy hand burst forth from the top of the pile . . . followed by a head, topped with a smaller pile of graupel.

  BAM!

  BAM!

  As Rom continued to kick the door, a pair of frost-rimmed, bloodshot eyes opened behind him . . .

  “What are you doing out there, Rom?” came Quark’s voice from within.

  Rom paused in his efforts, panting heavily from the exertion. “I am trying . . . very . . . unsuccessfully . . . to get the door . . . open!”

  “Well, try something else!”

  Rom bent over to study the lock mechanism on the door. “Hmmm,” he said.

  “What?” demanded Quark.

  “It doesn’t look very complicated. There’s no biometric sensor. There’s not even a keypad. I think it works with an ordinary desealer.”

  “Can you pick it?”

  “Well, I could if I had my old desealing rod.”

  “I’m hearing a big ‘if’ in that response.
Let me guess—you didn’t bring it with you.”

  “Well . . . no,” Rom admitted. “It’s at the Residence. Leeta sometimes uses it in the kitchen . . .”

  “She what?”

  “But I might have something in my shuttle that will work,” he added with an enthusiastic smile. He stood up straight. “It’ll only take me a minute to get it, and—”

  Rom stopped, startled. He felt something weird . . . something warm on the back of his neck . . . Something breathing on his neck?

  He spun around to see a large Ferengi standing right next to him, its orangey skin nearly purple with cold, its features distorted with rage.

  The nagus closed his eyes and began to scream.

  Chapter 24

  Bakke grimaced. “Ucckk!” he said. “This smells disgusting!”

  “Really?” commented Odo. “Well, considering the vast number of disgusting things your species considers delicacies, I don’t see how this can be worse than anything else in your pantry.” He retrieved one last coiled skein of gray organic material from the food replicator’s dispenser window. “Now, be a good boy and show me your hands.”

  Reluctantly, Bakke attempted to move his already bound wrists. The Changeling added an additional loop of the stinky restraints, pulling the binding tight as he did so. Then he wound a length of the material around the Ferengi’s plump midriff—twice—and carried it across to tie a figure-eight loop around Yrena’s equally large waist. With the remaining length, he added a number of loops to her wrist wraps.

  Stepping back, Odo admired his innovative handiwork. Entwined back to back. Not bad, he thought. They can barely move, let alone get free from each other. He’d been concerned that using a Ferengi food replicator for security applications would have its drawbacks. Since it couldn’t be programmed to produce anything designated inedible, metallic restraints or rolls of unbreakable wire were out of the question.

  So the Changeling had improvised. “Targ intestine makes a fine ligature,” he informed the pair. “A testimonial to the quality of your replicator. I’ll have to recommend it to Lieutenant Commander Blackmer when I get back to Deep Space 9.”

  “If you get back,” the Ferengi male growled as he struggled to pull his wrists from the tangle of intestine. All he managed to do was poke his mother with his elbows.

  “Oww! Stop that!” snapped Yrena, poking him back.

  “No, you stop it!” snarled Bakke.

  “Show some respect for your mother!” she barked, aiming an elbow at one of his kidneys.

  Bakke grunted in pain as it connected. And he stopped squirming.

  “Your transportation should be here at any minute,” Odo said, picking up a dangling end of the intestine to use as a leash. He gave the pair a shove toward the door. “Let’s go outside to greet it, shall we?”

  Mother and son shuffled sideways with their heels banging together, doing a slow dance toward their fate.

  Odo pressed the door’s release, and it slid open. A chill wind immediately engulfed the trio. Squinting into a flurry of icy crystals, the Changeling observed that Quirk had not yet arrived. However, a new vehicle was parked out there: a shuttle bearing the official symbol of the nagus, parked on the opposite side of the construction site. Tightening his grip on the leash, he pushed the bound couple into the open air, stepped outside . . .

  . . . and heard a voice.

  “Release them or I’ll kill the nagus!”

  Odo glanced toward the shed where he’d left Quark and spotted the brute that he’d previously tossed into a heap of frozen moisture. The criminal was flashing a toothy snarl . . . and holding a shiny hunting knife against the nagus’s throat.

  Well, that complicates things, Odo thought with a frown. The Changeling noticed that the thug was shivering violently, and that his skin had gone purplish. He’s in a weakened condition. Still, Rom is pretty scrawny. It wouldn’t take much effort to slice through something vital.

  “That’s a bad idea,” Odo shouted. “I’m sure that nagus-cide is a capital offense on Ferenginar.”

  “Not . . . not if they don’t c-c-c-atch me!” Rom’s assailant bellowed. “Now, LET THEM GO!”

  Odo paused for a second to evaluate. The guy appeared to be on the verge of hypothermic shock. Yrena and Bakke were trussed up. Even if he dropped the tether, they wouldn’t be able to get far. I still have the advantage here, he thought.

  And with that, he let go of the intestine.

  “They’re free . . .”

  The goon watched his mother and brother clumsily crab-step toward Yrena’s shuttlecraft.

  “. . . Now, let go of the nagus,” Odo said.

  Rascoe made a gurgling noise that sounded vaguely like a chuckle. Then again, he might have been trying to clear his throat. “Not . . . yet!” he managed to choke out.

  And he began to drag Rom toward the shuttlecraft.

  Not good, thought Odo.

  With his heels skating across the slippery surface of the compound, and the knife so close to a major artery, Rom looked terrified.

  Then, from inside the shed, Quark’s pathetic wail filled the air. “Is anybody out there? Help meeee!”

  Abruptly, the nagus stopped dead in his tracks, triggering an angry tirade from the semifrozen oaf behind him.

  Rom began to whimper, his voice quite pitiful. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what, you sniveling little dwisel,” growled his captor.

  “Can’t . . . leave . . . my . . . brother!” Rom responded, brutally stomping down on his captor’s foot.

  The goon howled in pain, and more significantly, he loosened his chokehold on the nagus.

  Rom frantically began to struggle. Well aware of the knife in the thug’s hand, he reared his head back—and then threw it forward, striking like a cobra. Burying his teeth into the frosty skin of the Ferengi’s cold, bare arm, Rom chomped down. Hard.

  All those years of Ishka having stressed regular hygienic sharpening paid off as Rom heard the thug shriek like a little lobeling.

  And before Rascoe could regain the fortitude to overcome the agony, Rom slipped from his grip and took off, scrambling over the frigid terrain. Until he abruptly slipped, skidded, and landed face-forward in the frozen muck.

  Had Ferenginar’s sun been shining, the prostrate nagus would have felt a shadow move over him. But the sun seldom shines above Bowog Bog. Rom sensed the shadow nonetheless. Quickly, he rolled over and looked up. Standing above him, with blood dripping from dozens of tiny holes in one arm, and a very large knife gripped in the opposite hand, the abominable goon sneered. His eyes radiated lethal anger as he slowly waved the blade back and forth, and lowered its tip closer and closer to Rom’s face.

  Screaming and kicking, the nagus tried to get some traction and scoot away. Flailing about, making and destroying snow angels with his every move, Rom’s hand suddenly struck a hard obstacle. Which felt, oddly, like a disruptor.

  With the blade only millimeters from his face, Rom grabbed at the object, picking it up in his frozen fingers. Fingers he couldn’t quite control. And that triggered the weapon before he knew what was happening.

  BLAAAM!

  The blast streaked past Rascoe’s ear, startling him to the point of panic. He immediately turned and ran, almost bumping into Odo, who had raced across the site when he saw Rom fall.

  Rom didn’t see Odo. His focus was on the monster running from him. And he was thinking of the other monsters that had been released, all because of him. And of his brother, locked in that shed. Sitting up and aiming the weapon over his bent knees, he shouted, “EVERYBODY FREEZE!”

  The words resonated throughout the windy construction site. Odo, uncomfortably close to the barely-under-control weapon, decided that it would be wise to do as the nagus said.

  He was, however, the only one who seemed to feel that wa
y.

  For his part, Rascoe hightailed it for the shuttle, passing the struggling Yrena and Bakke on the way.

  “I said FREEZE!” Rom shouted at the fleeing trio, to no additional effect. Disappointed, he decided that a warning shot might make more of an impression. Pointing the disruptor in their general direction, he triggered it a second time.

  BLAMMM!

  An energy beam sizzled past Yrena and Bakke, striking Yrena’s shuttle. It blasted a huge hole in the front panel. Still entwined in targ innards, the pair screamed and, with great difficulty, changed directions, heading toward Bakke’s smaller shuttle. By the time they got there, Rascoe already was climbing into the open hatch.

  Rom smiled. Hey, I’m getting good at this. Especially considering I have no idea what I’m doing. He didn’t really want to kill anyone, but he knew this might be the only chance to stop them.

  So he closed one eye and fired again, praying that no one died.

  BLAMMM!

  Yrena and Bakke froze in their frozen tracks as they watched the compact shuttle split in two. The portion carrying Rascoe flipped wildly through the air and landed with a splat in slushy mud. To Rom’s relief, his former captor pulled himself out of the wreckage and flopped into the frozen oozy substance. Yrena and Bakke, hoping to save themselves, spun around with even greater difficulty, and headed toward a rocky escarpment on the edge of the construction site, hopping, falling, and crab-walking the entire way.

  Suddenly, Rom noticed that Rascoe had managed to get to his feet. Arbitrarily picking a direction, he started to lumber across the site. Past the dome. Past Odo, who seemed to ignore him. Past the shed. Heading for the hills.

  Whoops! Can’t let him get away!

  Rom took in a deep breath and pulled the disruptor’s trigger one more time.

  The energy beam flashed toward the muddy brute, but hit the shed. With an echoing BOOM, it disintegrated the side of the structure. Pieces of construction debris flew in all directions, and smoke poured out of the building, mingling with falling graupel. Rom suddenly realized what he had done.

  “Brother!” he shouted, dropping the disruptor and running toward the shattered shed. Fearfully, he peeked through the huge opening he’d made. “Brother?” Oh Gint, he thought, Moogie will never forgive me. I’ll never forgive me.