by Peter David
Taking out a pluffa sponge from underneath the bar, Quark went to work on the g'nerra drop. Little by little, it rubbed off. But, thought the Ferengi, as he put the sponge away again, he didn't have time to tidy up the place. That's what his brother was for.
Sighing, Quark recalled the sixth rule of acquisition: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity."
It was a good rule. It was an outstanding rule. Yet he continued to disregard it, day in and day out, by keeping Rom in his employ.
And why? Because his brother would have been an even bigger pain in the lobes if he were working somewhere else, where Quark couldn't keep an eye on him.
His reverie was interrupted by the approach of a customer. At least, the Ferengi thought it was a customer—until he saw the black beard that went with the man's red-and-black Starfleet uniform.
"Captain Sisko," he said, mustering up all the considerable charm at his disposal. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Unfortunately, pleasure would have nothing to do with it. Quark knew from sad experience that when the captain approached the bar, he had a bone to pick. It was just a question of which bone it would be.
The Ferengi bit his lip. Not that little oversight concerning the regulator nodes, he hoped. That had been the Maratekkan's fault more than his. And besides, how was he supposed to know the damned things had gotten polarized in the blasted storage compartment?
"Actually," Sisko said, as he pulled up a seat at the bar, "there's something I'd like to discuss with you." And then it happened. The captain smiled at him.
Quark shook his head, not at all sure what to make of that. Then he noticed that something else was wrong as well.
"You're sitting at the bar," he observed. He looked at Sisko with a wary eye. "You never sit at the bar. You always take a table."
"Well," the human countered, "I guess there's a first time for everything."
The Ferengi swallowed. There was something going on here, something that was going to leap up and bite him where he sat if he wasn't careful. But what was it? What in the name of the Nagus did Sisko have in mind?
"Can I … er, get you a drink?" he offered, stalling for time. "On the house, of course."
The captain thought about it for a moment. "How about a glass of wine? Something red, not too sweet."
Alarms went off in Quark's head. Sisko never ordered wine. He always had a raktajino. As the Ferengi reached under the bar for the Terran vintage Bashir favored, his mind was racing.
However, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what the captain wanted. Not as he grabbed a glass, or as he poured, or as he placed the wine glass on the bar His only option, he realized, was the one he hated most of all.
He would just have to wait and see.
In no apparent hurry, Sisko raised the glass and took a sip. He smiled again, forcing a little shudder out of Quark.
"Perfect," he said. "Just what I had in mind." He leaned closer to the bar. "You know," he added, "you're a hell of a bartender."
That did it, thought the Ferengi. A smile, he could tolerate. A seat at the bar, even a sudden yen for the fruit of the grapevine. But a compliment? From Benjamin Sisko?
"All right," he blurted, "what is it? What do you want from me? Just tell me and get it over with." He drew a ragged breath. "I can't stand the suspense."
The human swirled the wine in his glass. "It's nothing much, really. Just that I hear you're something of an expert on the Orions."
Quark looked at him. "The Orions?" he repeated.
"Uh-huh." Sisko held his drink up appraisingly to the light. "I have it on good authority that you completed a rather complex negotiation with them recently. In the matter of some slave women, I believe."
The Ferengi held up his hands. "That was perfectly legitimate," he maintained.
"Oh?" Sisko said, peering over the rim of his glass.
"Absolutely," Quark insisted. "Of course, I might have bent a few regulations to bring those poor abused females to civilized space—but they were Orion regulations. As far as the Federation is concerned, everything I did was according to the book."
"I see," the captain replied. "And what exactly did you have in mind for these poor abused females—now that you own them?"
The Ferengi winced. "Own is such a harsh word. I prefer to think of them as individuals, free and enfranchised—who happen to owe me a debt of gratitude. And if they choose to display that gratitude by working as dabo girls in my establishment?" He shrugged. "Who am I to deprive them of their dignity?"
Sisko looked around at the rather sparse lunchtime crowd. "And with Orions as dabo girls, you're certain to pack the place. Aren't you?"
Quark smiled. "Sometimes," he explained, "good deeds are rewarded. This may turn out to be one of those times."
"Then there was nothing about the transaction I need to have investigated?" the human asked.
"Nothing at all," the Ferengi assured him.
Apparently, he told himself, his fears had been unfounded. Inwardly, he heaved a sigh of relief.
"Now," he continued, "if you'll excuse me, I have—"
"Just a minute," Sisko said.
Quark frowned. He knew it was too good to be true.
"Yes?" he responded.
The human took another sip of his wine and replaced his glass on the table. "I need a favor from you," he declared.
The Ferengi looked at him. "What kind of favor?"
Sisko's demeanor changed. Suddenly he looked a lot more grim.
"A big favor," he replied.
Quark felt faint. "How big?"
"Very big," the human told him.
Then Sisko told him about how they had narrowed down the suppliers of the replicators to the Orions. And he described what he wanted of the Ferengi.
Quark hadn't had any luck with his own investigation, so he was glad to learn that someone else had. But that wasn't the only reason he felt a smile spreading across his face. In fact, by the time the captain was finished asking his favor, Quark was positively euphoric.
"You don't look as distressed as I thought you would," Sisko observed. "Just why is that?"
That's when the Ferengi told him about Mephil Trantos.
CHAPTER
5
O'BRIEN STOOD AT his console in Ops and watched the Defiant describe a tight arc in space. A moment later, it switched from thrusters to impulse engines and took off.
"Defiant has left the station and is on course," he announced.
"Acknowledged," Dax replied a little absently.
She was at her customary station as well—at least in body. Her mind, O'Brien decided, was somewhere else, and had been since she set foot in Ops a little while ago.
No doubt, she was worried about the disease down on Bajor. But then, they all were—O'Brien as well.
He couldn't help remembering that Keiko and Molly were on the planet's surface—trapped, now that a quarantine was in place, though the disease seemed only to effect the Bajorans. With communications channels between Deep Space Nine and Bajor devoted almost exclusively to the exchange of medical data, the chief had only been able to talk to his wife once.
Keiko had told him that no one on their island had been afflicted with the disease—at least, not yet. They were continuing their work, waiting for word that it would be safe to leave.
Apparently, Molly had been unruffled by the heightened tension among the adults. Though she sensed something was wrong, Keiko had said, there was no fear in her.
O'Brien smiled now at the image. Stay that way, both of you, he urged them silently. We'll get you out of this before too long.
A voice broke into his thoughts.
"We're receiving a communication from Starfleet Command," announced Ensign Michael Hagen, a short dark-haired man who'd arrived with the latest batch of fleet personnel. He looked to the Trill, who'd been left in charge of the station. "They're asking for Captain Sisko, sir."
Dax didn't seem to hear him.
; Hagen spoke a little louder. "It's Starfleet Command, Lieutenant. Should I put them through on your monitor?"
Emerging from some private reverie, the Trill seemed a little disoriented as she responded. "By all means, Mr. Hagen, put them through."
Watching Dax from Kira's station, O'Brien frowned. He'd served under all kinds of commanding officers, from the stubborn and later fanatical Ben Maxwell to the sure and even-handed Jean-Luc Picard to the dedicated and occasionally fiery Benjamin Sisko.
All were strong figures who commanded respect, no matter their idiosyncrasies. Dax, of course, seemed far more interested in her research and her studies than in the exigencies of command. Yet, thanks to the memories she carried from her past host bodies, she was capable of leading when the situation called for it.
At least, that would normally have been the case. Right now, O'Brien thought, she was letting her preoccupation get the better of her.
Her conversation with Starfleet seemed to come to an end rather quickly. Dax shook her head in annoyance.
He made his way over to her. "Problem, Lieutenant?"
The Trill glanced at him. "Not really, Chief. Command was just looking for an update on the plague." Her brow creased for a moment, as if she were in some kind of pain, then it smoothed over again. "I wish I had more to tell them," she added. "All I could say was that Julian is doing his best."
O'Brien nodded. "I checked the perimeter sensors. You'll be glad to hear there's no sign of the Cardassians."
One fear he had harbored was that with the sector critical, the Cardassians would move in and cause trouble. So far, that didn't seem to be the case.
Dax sighed. "That's good to hear. Thanks, Chief."
"Don't mention it," O'Brien replied.
He had started back to his post when someone called him. It was Hagen. The chief joined the new man at his console,
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
Hagen looked uncomfortable. "Sir," he said in a quiet voice, "three requests for departure from the station have been filed in the last twenty minutes or so. They're queued on Lieutenant Dax's line, but she's not acting on them." He winced. "We're getting some rather irate protests from the ships' captains."
O'Brien nodded. "Good lad," he replied. "I'll handle it."
Completing the journey to his console, he accessed Dax's comm line and confirmed the information he'd been given. It was true, apparently. Three requests for departure had indeed piled up over the last twenty minutes, and not one had received a reply.
The chief scowled. It was understandable that Dax should be worried about the Bajorans. It was not understandable that she was ignoring her responsibilities as acting commander.
Crossing Ops again, he moved to the Trill's side. "Lieutenant," he asked, "is there some problem with the departure requests?"
Dax looked at O'Brien, her eyes wider than usual. "What do you mean?"
He pointed to her screen and showed her. Along the right-hand side, there was a list of ships waiting to depart.
The Trill frowned. "Damn. I should have seen that."
She began to assess each request and issue curt orders. In a matter of minutes, she had everything sorted out.
Another crisis averted, O'Brien mused. But he'd barely finished the thought when Hagen came to him with something else, a new expression of concern on his face.
"Sir?" said the specialist.
"Go ahead," O'Brien told him.
"We have a problem with the ventilation subroutines," Hagen reported. "I'm reading some power fluctuations—"
"I fixed them," the chief pointed out, with more than a little annoyance. And he had—shortly after Keiko's departure.
The specialist nodded. "I know, sir. But they're back again."
The chief grunted. "Acknowledged, Mr. Hagen. I'll look into it."
It was the third programming problem caused by the spikes. O'Brien had to wonder if he was missing something.
Below Ops, in the infirmary, Bashir was in the midst of congratulating himself. The monitor in front of him showed him a microscopic swarm of bent DNA helixes—concrete evidence of his triumph.
He had done it. He had discovered a cure for the virus.
Taking a cue from the proteins it contained, he had ordered a vast collection of serums from the medical database. It helped that he could discount several hundred serums already tested by the Bajoran doctors.
Still, with millions of possibilities to sift through, he had needed to isolate the ones most likely to destroy the invading disease. His hunch about the proteins had done that.
The result? A single serum that encouraged the virus to create flawed copies of itself—copies incapable of replicating themselves. And if the virus couldn't replicate, it would be gone in a single generation.
The doctor smiled as he checked and rechecked the results of the one successful test. There had been no mistakes. He had really done it.
End of disease, end of threat, end of story.
Tapping his communicator badge, he put in a call to Ops. "Bashir to Dax."
There was a delay, perhaps longer than there should have been. "Dax here. What is it, Julian?"
"Good news," he told her. "I've got a cure."
There was a pause on the other end, as of disbelief. "That's wonderful," said the Trill.
Yes, he couldn't help thinking, it is pretty wonderful, isn't it? But what he said was "I couldn't have done it without the Bajorans. I've got to tell them about it as quickly as—"
The doctor stopped in midsentence as he caught sight of something on the monitor in front of him—something that filled him with cold crawling terror. Where only moments ago there had been a swarm of bent helixes, they were now being joined by an army of healthy ones—helixes every bit as capable of multiplying as their forebears had been.
Bashir shook his head. He had never seen anything like it. Somehow, in a matter of minutes, the virus had mutated into something impervious to his cure. It was back in business again.
And the Bajorans were just as badly off as before. Even worse, perhaps, since there was now one less thing that could stop the plague.
"Julian?" Dax said. "I didn't catch the rest of what you were saying."
The doctor swallowed his bitter pill. "I was wrong, Jadzia. It's not the cure I thought it was. In fact," he told her, with infinite disappointment, "we're back to square one."
Again, there was a pause on the other end. "I'm sorry," his friend said, an emptiness in her voice that made it clear her comment was an understatement. In fact, she was very, very sorry his cure hadn't worked.
"So am I," he said. "So am I."
"You've got to keep trying," she told him. "Those people down there …" Her voice trailed off.
"I know," he told her. "Bashir out."
Leaning back in his chair, heavy with frustration, he eyed the army of helixes once more. Damn, he thought. The thing was spreading with every passing moment, and he hadn't done a thing about it.
Yet, he reminded himself—and got back to work.
Kira had made up her mind that she simply wasn't going to speak to Ro. That's all. She wasn't going to speak to her.
Oh, sure, she might say something along the lines of "Watch out, that boulder is falling on you!" Something like that. Otherwise, though, she was just going to keep to herself.
She had figured that she would get some measure of satisfaction from that. But as they trudged across the rough terrain ahead of them, Kira discovered something interesting—namely, that it wasn't particularly fulfilling giving someone the silent treatment when that person's demeanor and manner made it clear she couldn't care less.
To make matters worse, Ro was whistling.
And to make matters even worse than that, she was whistling off-key.
Their field packs jostled against their backs as Ro contentedly rendered some tune Kira couldn't even begin to identify. Just when Ro reached the end of it and relief seemed in sight, she started all over again.
&nb
sp; They were climbing a small incline studded with tufts of grass. Kira remembered this area from her youth; it had been a favorite hiding place of those trying to stay one step ahead of the Cardassians.
There were plenty of places in which to hide, and the terrain was uneven. Of course, she was fit enough to handle that with no problem.
Secretly, she kept waiting for Ro to have some sort of difficulty keeping up. But no, the Maquis just kept whistling and eating ground at a steady, even pace.
Kira, meanwhile, found herself starting to get a bit parched. She tried not to acknowledge it for as long as she could, but the Bajoran sun seemed particularly hot that day, and finally the major decided to take a break.
She didn't announce her intention. She simply dropped herself down by the nearest reasonably shady tree.
Ro's whistling never wavered, not even to acknowledge the sudden stop. Most irritating of all, she didn't sit down. She simply leaned against the tree, arms folded, and continued chirping that same damned song.
Kira took a quick drink from her carefully rationed water and tried, tried with all her willpower, not to say anything. But finally she couldn't stand it anymore.
"Would you please stop that damned whistling?" she said.
It promptly ceased.
To be immediately replaced by a humming.
Kira softly thudded her head against the tree. "You're doing this deliberately to irritate me, aren't you?"
"No," Ro said. "I'm doing it to amuse myself. Irritating you is just a side benefit."
"Well," Kira rejoined, "I hope you're amused."
Ro glanced at her. "Actually, it's had to determine what's more amusing—your irritation or your holier-than-thou attitude."
"My attitude?" Kira snorted derisively. "You Maquis … the lot of you … acting as if you're the moral conscience of the galaxy . . . ."
"We don't act that way at all, Major," Ro retorted. "We simply act like people who want what is, by all rights, ours. That doesn't seem particularly unreasonable to me. You remember what that's like, don't you? Back in the days when the cry was 'Bajor for Bajorans?' A cry that's been replaced by, 'We've got ours and you're on your own,"'
