by S. D. Perry
Contrary to what Dez said, this seems like a safe ship, with decent people—though in my current state, I feel a little overwhelmed by all of it…which is another reason to write, to keep all this straight. There are sixteen in the crew, including Dez. So far, I’ve met Pifko Gaber, Facity Sleedow, Allo Glessin, Attarace (sp?) Prees and Srral, and two-thirds of Stessie (who apparently counts as one crew member, not five). Dez mentioned that there are a pair of Ferengi on board, brothers named Feg and Triv, they handle finances (what else?). I was surprised to hear it…and to see a Cardassian, for that matter. How any of them ended up on a “retrieval” ship, I have no idea. Of the rest, I know there are at least two more Wadi or part Wadi…though I’m not exactly clear on what everyone does specifically, beyond the obvious (medic, engineering, etc.). Dez told me that it’s taken him years to assemble the Even’s current crew, but he didn’t volunteer any job descriptions…except for a man named Coamis (Komes? Coemes?); he’s apparently an archeologist of some kind. Dez wanted to know about the prophecy, and then had a lot of questions about the B’hala dig, about what I did there. He said that if I was interested in religious archeology, I should talk to Coamis. I told him I had ended up more interested in the geological aspects, actually, which Dez seemed to approve of wholeheartedly…my writing, too, now that I think of it. He was really curious, asked a lot about what I’ve worked on, what I like to read…. Infact, we spent most of dinner talking about me. So much for my reporter’s instincts. It felt good, though, to lay out everything that’s happened since Dad disappeared, particularly with what happened to Istani Reyla. That she was murdered right after giving me the prophecy…. Anyway, Dez said that worrying about that now would only make me crazy. He was very accepting, of everything. It sounded wild to me, chasing some ancient prophecy from a religion I don’t even follow, but Dez seemed impressed, if anything. Said it showed initiative.
I’m finally getting tired, guess I’ll wrap up for now. Maybe tomorrow I can find out about this Drang place we’re headed, see if there’s a way I could take a ship from there. It’s funny, part of me absolutely refuses to give up trying to find a way home before anyone figures out that I’m missing…. But there’s another part that just wants to accept that the decision is out of my hands…or, rather, to accept that I’ve already made my decision and now have to live with the consequences. I don’t know which will win out, in the end.
4
IT HAD BEEN late when Facity finally made it to Dez’s quarters, and she’d been fully prepared to have it out over his earlier behavior on the bridge, but she never had a chance. The second she stepped through the door, he’d tackled her with a muttered “Sorry about before,” and several long, healthy moments went by before an opportunity to talk came up again.
Afterward, Facity curled up against Dez’s side, resting her head against his warm, heaving chest as they both caught their breath. Definitely a mutually satisfying arrangement, though she found herself mildly irritated that she’d lost her head of steam. As it were.
And if he ever steps on my toes like that again, in front of a stranger…
“Do that again and you’re dead,” she said mildly, tucking one mussed braid behind her ear, sure that he’d know exactly what she was talking about. Dez often came off as reckless, wild, and he was—but he also paid attention.
“I won’t,” he said, smiling but not indulging in the obvious joke. “Forgive me. It’s just…”
He trailed off, but she didn’t prompt him, curious though she was; he’d tell her when he figured out what he wanted to say. She’d discovered long ago—much to her frustration—that trying to drag it out of him only slowed things down. Exponentially.
That, and I’m more tired than I thought. She felt herself relaxing, enjoying the warm silence; postponing the conversation wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She’d spent most of the morning running Drang probability scenarios, on screen and holo. Then there was the business with the boy’s dead shuttle, followed by what had ended up being a full night arguing investment planning with Feg and Triv. A number of interesting new trade avenues had opened since the end of the quadrant conflict, but the Ferengi wanted to play it safe until the numbers were better established. They really should take more risks, though. We have the capital, particularly after that coin-collection job, and what’s the point of having wealth if we don’t get to play with it? They need to relax, dream a little, spend a little…
“He’s Benjamin Sisko’s son, did you know that?” Dez said finally, drawing her back up from a near-doze in which Feg had been wearing earrings and a crown.
Facity blinked. Benjamin Sisko…it sounded familiar. Federation? The Even Odds had been busy enough the last few years without getting caught up in the Quadrant War, but it was good business to know the players in such a consequential game. Most of Facity’s knowledge of the Alpha Quadrant came from database swaps with cultures that had had direct dealings with those on the other side of the Anomaly: The Parada, the Argrathi, the Karemma…and of course, the Even’s resident Alphies, Glessin and the Ferengi brothers.
“Isn’t he…didn’t he head up the Anomaly’s Alphie station, Federation Nine?” she asked. “The one that the Cardassians built…”
“The same,” Dez said, nodding. “Sisko was originally assigned to Deep Space 9 to oversee the Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor, the religious planet right near there…and he ended up playing a key part in the Bajoran religion, and in the war with the Dominion. A few months ago, Sisko disappeared. It appears that he either died or was whisked away by the Bajoran gods…noncorporeal life-forms who allegedly reside in the Anomaly.”
Facity was fully awake. “And Jake went looking?”
“The text I told you about, that I found in his bag,” Dez said. “It’s a prophecy, about the son of a religious figure going into the wormhole and coming back out with one of the gods’ chosen. The wording’s ambiguous enough, you can see how he got the idea….”
Facity laughed. “Makes it easy to see why there’s not more of a market for prophetic religious text.”
Dez wasn’t smiling. “We’ve chased artifacts on a lot less. And he was trying to find his father.”
“Who apparently doesn’t want be found, wouldn’t you say?” Facity asked, suddenly feeling a lot better about what had happened on the bridge. Dez had just been trying to save Jake the embarrassment of telling the story, of having to explain himself. “Poor kid…though how old is he? Just matured, I’ll wager?”
Dez seemed to tense slightly. “So?”
“So, was his father kidnapped by these gods, or what? If he chose to go off and live with them, he can probably choose to go home, too.” Facity shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like he needs rescuing…and Jake’s certainly old enough to be on his own, don’t you think?” She grinned suddenly. “I wish someone had kidnapped my father when I was his age. It would have saved me all kinds of grief.”
Dez didn’t answer, and he was definitely tense, she could feel it coming off him in waves. Facity pushed herself up and wrapped the coverlet to her chest, not sure what she’d said, if anything, to bring about the sudden coolness of his gaze.
“What?” she asked.
Dez stared at her another beat, then sighed, seeming to deflate slightly. “I told him what we do,” he said simply.
It was her turn to stare. She could feel the muscles in her jaw go tight, could feel a hot flush creeping up the back of her neck.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, her voice surprisingly mild to her own ears. “Have you forgotten what happened last time?”
“That was years ago, Fac,” Dez said, looking away.
“When you met that helpless, pretty little thing, who just needed a ride to the next port, she said, to get away from her boyfriend?”
Dez shifted uncomfortably. “There’s no way this kid staged anything, he didn’t even have a distress beacon—”
“I risked my life to get that dagger, and next thing I know, you’re telling Mi
ss Vash-the-wide-eyed all about your glorious new find—”
“—and the next day she disappeared along with the knife,” Dez said, sighing. “I was wrong, I shouldn’t have trusted her. But the circumstances really are different here—if you just talk to him, Facity…I don’t think he could lie with a straight face if his life depended on it.”
“Talk to him, right,” Facity snapped. “That’ll make me forget that we agreed, Dez, we agreed that nobody on this ship talks without both of us signing off on it. You promised me.”
Arms tightly folded, thoroughly irate, she waited for his retort, expecting him to fight, wanting him to fight, so she could fight back…and as the seconds stretched, his gaze distant, not seeing her at all, she felt her anger met by confusion. What was it, anyway, why was Jake Sisko so damned important?
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice soft. “But I want to help him. When I was…my father…”
With those two unguarded words, her anger collapsed. Dez rarely mentioned his family, his unusually mixed parentage—he didn’t even identify with a single species, let alone relative, and had he ever talked about his father with his defenses down? No. No, she would have remembered.
He shook his head suddenly, his voice turning firm, his pale eyes flashing with resolve. “Look, I apologize, all right? I should have talked to you first, but it’s done now. I’ll bet you a thousand paegs that I’m right about him. And if I’m wrong…if I’m wrong, you get to be captain.”
From self-righteous ire to dismay at the small hint of a very old wound, her emotions weren’t sure what to do with his final pronouncement. It surprised her into laughing, and after a few seconds, Dez started to smile.
“Captain, huh?” she said, and laughed again, the tension in the room going, gone. “That seems fair.”
“We have a deal, then,” Dez said, reaching for her, and with barely a token resistance, she let herself be pulled back down to meet him, wondering if he would ever stop surprising her.
Jake had just stepped out of his cabin’s tiny bathing cubicle when Pifko Gaber signaled at the door, bearing Jake’s own clean clothes and a wide, canine grin. Pif, it seemed, was a morning person. Jake wasn’t so much, but was glad to see the chatty alien; while he felt a lot more like himself than he had the day before, he was still disoriented, and there’d be no question of his having to carry the conversation.
“Dez said to give you the full tour,” Pif said happily, pacing while Jake quickly got dressed, “then head up to the bridge. I hope you didn’t mind, I was ducking your questions yesterday, I wasn’t sure what was appropriate to tell you…orders, you know. Espionage paranoia and all that.”
Pif smiled winningly, marching ahead of Jake as they stepped out of the cabin. “I could have told them, though, I knew you were all right. Let’s get breakfast.”
They set out for the mess hall, Pifko giving Jake an extended version of what Dez told him yesterday along the way, spouting facts and statistics so quickly that Jake could barely keep up—four main decks, bridge at the top, maintenance and cargo down below, quarters and living in between. The ship was 150 meters long, 120 wide, 60 high, and its mass was roughly 300,000, empty. It carried a minimum armament, and had a high shield capacity, a couple of general-purpose labs, andexceptional data-storage capacity in all of its systems. It was all very functional, although there were three holosuites on B Deck (actuality-web rooms, Pif called them, but from the description, Jake assumed they were essentially the same), two small ones for personal use and a much larger one for training and mission practice runs.
“Did Dez tell you anything about who built her, or the C-D subdeck, or the Wa?” Pif asked, as they walked into the bright, spacious dining hall. Jake saw two Ferengi sitting with another humanoid alien at the far corner, a rather intimidating one—it was bald, dark green, and built like a Klingon. A big, frowning Klingon. All three looked up at Jake and Pifko’s entrance, the non-Ferengi raising one massive green hand in what Jake hoped was a welcoming wave. It looked big enough—and scary enough—to eat the flanking Ferengi as hors d’oeuvres.
“Uh, no,” Jake said, as Pif waved back. “What’s the Wa?”
“We don’t know,” Pif said, and, before Jake could ask, “Come on, you should meet everyone.”
“Everyone” was Feg and Triv, the Even Odds’s financial team, and Brad-ahk’la, a female gemologist from a planet Jake had never heard of, in a system he’d never heard of. Pifko explained that Brad, as she preferred to be called, also acted as ship’s security when it was required.
“Not that it’s generally necessary,” Pif said over breakfast, smiling at the impressive Brad. “One look at her and problems generally disappear, if they’re smart.”
Brad had actually blushed a shade darker, insisting—in a voice like gravel being crushed—that on her planet, she was considered petite.
Feg and Triv, it turned out, had ventured into the Gamma Quadrant shortly after Quark’s early negotiations with the Dosi and the Karemma, looking to see the universe and exploit new markets. Feg was definitely the more assertive of the two, though Triv seemed to agree with his brother on just about everything. They’d met Facity on a freelance consulting job and been most impressed with her “assets,” as a toothily grinning Feg put it, though her financial acumen had impressed them even more. After looking over the Even’s books, they’d promptly lobbied the first officer for permanent positions. Since Facity had apparently grown tired of dealing with investments herself, they’d gotten the job…salary, benefits, and a percentage of sales, Feg had informed Jake proudly.
Because they planned to stay with the Even Odds until they reached an undisclosed financial goal, and the ship had never ventured into the Alpha Quadrant, they were excited for any news of Ferenginar; it had been years, Feg said, since they’d heard a word. Jake’s announcement that Rom was the new Grand Nagus was met with blank looks, followed by a slowly dawning distaste. They both remembered Quark from their stop at DS9 on their way to the wormhole—“the loudmouth with the bar,” as Feg put it—and they also remembered the loudmouth’s clumsy, lobeless brother who had spilled a snail juice on Triv’s new jacket. Though tempted, Jake decided not to volunteer his personal connection to Rom; while neither brother was unfriendly, they were stereotypical Ferengi…which meant he’d end up drowned in sycophancy the second they knew he had the connection.
Pif sat impatiently throughout the conversation, which lasted most of breakfast. As soon as Jake had pushed his plate aside, Pif was on his feet, hurrying the rest of them through the pleasantries of having met. Once they were out in the hall, his reason came clear.
“Brad’s great, and Triv is all right, I suppose, but Feg,” Pif said, shaking his head. “Impossible to get a word in, once he gets started. I mean, I’ve been known to be a bit loquacious myself, but I wouldn’t say I talk too much, would you?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m—”
“Exactly, and we are supposed to get to the bridge sometime this century,” Pif said. “It’s not as though we have all day. So…what were we talking about before? Oh, let’s head for the subdeck, the Wa starts there anyway…. Did I mention I have siblings?”
Jake sighed inwardly as they started toward the ship’s stern, Pif listing family members as they walked. There was definitely some humor to the situation, but what was he supposed to do if he had a question?
“I could have been a tour guide, you know, two of my siblings are,” Pif was saying. “When my litter took the PPs—that’s prospect-propensity testing?—the counselor told my parents that we were all highly extroverted multitaskers, good with people, good organizers…fast, too, we got that from my mother’s side. Not that it takes speed to be a tour guide, obviously, but my sister Jirro is a runner for our local parliament, an eyes-only courier? She made it to first line, too, that’s fast. Anyway, there was this one time, she had to give a parliament tour for a friend of hers who was sick—”
“What’s the name of your planet
, anyway?” Jake interrupted, not sure how else to stem the tide of Pifko. The information was all interesting, but so random that it was hard to put in any context.
“Aarru,” Pifko said, the sound emanating from deep in his throat, a very doglike, gentle bay that ended in a brief whine. “In the Buof system. I say it’s the Buof, anyway, but that’s only what the Aarruris call it.”
Being interrupted didn’t seem to bother him, Jake noted, and he couldn’t help thinking that it might be a familiar occurrence in Pif’s family. Trying to imagine seven extroverted little Pifkos growing up together, all competing for attention…it hurt his ears.
On the other hand, I bet they were cute. He thought it was a safe guess that Aarruri children looked something like puppies. With raised-back spines.
Before Pif had a chance to get back to his story, they came to a stop at a dead-end lift. Pif pointed out the corridor code on the wall, an alien alphanumeric.
“Remember that symbol. This is the only lift on B that always goes directly to the subdeck,” Pif said, “though depending on the day, there’s another one farther aft that might take you there.”
Jake nodded. DS9 had a number of diagnostic programs that were scheduled to run automatically. “You mean it’s on some kind of automatic timetable?”
“No, which is why you should never take the aft route if you’re in a hurry,” Pif said. “It’s not the lift that changes, it’s the location of the Wa.”
Okay, that’s confusing. “You’re telling me that there’s a part of the ship that moves?”
