Warchild

by Esther Friesner

  "A hardworking businessmen, on returning to his quarters, attempts to use his personal holoport to view a sporting event and is instead regaled with a sermon by a miniature monk who thwarts all attempts to have his program terminated," Odo continued. "The classroom holoport remains unusable. The complaints from some of the other holosuites at Quark's Place are not fit to repeat. There are hyurin dancing on the counter at Garak's tailor shop whenever he attempts to show a customer holograms of the latest styles …" He stopped pacing and faced the boys. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"

  "He did it!" Nog exclaimed without hesitation, pointing at Cedra.

  "Oh, he did, did he?" Odo's voice gave up nothing. He eyed Cedra. The Bajoran remained unmoved, although there was an almost imperceptible quiver at the corner of his mouth, and his nostrils flared with something that might have been suppressed laughter. "Nice try, Nog," the shapeshifter grated. "Talis Cedra is new here. Do you expect me to believe he could recognize a holosystem control, let alone know how to use one? Use one well enough so that all Chief O'Brien's efforts to fix the problem are blocked by a series of failsafe commands to counter his every attempt at entering the system?" Odo added. He shook his head. "You'll have to do better than that."

  "I'm telling the truth, I swear!" the Ferengi shouted. "Ask my father if you don't believe me. Ask my uncle!"

  "One Ferengi to vouch for another," Odo commented. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that."

  "Probably because you've made up your mind already," Cedra stated.

  "What did you say?" The constable gave him a sharp look.

  "What you heard," Cedra replied calmly. "Unless it was something you didn't want to hear."

  "Are you implying that I am not a reliable witness?" Odo's primitively molded face darkened.

  Cedra was unruffled. "No more than you've implied that I'm too stupid to learn how to use the holosystem. You never alter evidence, Constable; that's not in your nature. But sometimes—when the way things are doesn't fit the way your sense of justice says they ought to be—you're tempted, aren't you?"

  Odo's shoulders stiffened. "So it was you."

  "I told you!" Nog acted wounded. "I said he did it!"

  "He said he learned to do it. The question remains: who was his teacher?" Odo regarded all three of the boys closely. "Unless you want me to believe you had access to hologram projectors at that refugee camp." This last was directed at Cedra alone.

  "Maybe you should go there yourself and see what we have," Cedra answered. "It might help you learn that worse than not knowing where you come from, is knowing there's nowhere you can go."

  For once, Odo had no acerbic comment to make. He stared at the small, scrawny Bajoran as if the two of them had suddenly had their positions reversed. Now knowing where you come fro— How did he know? The instant's qualm passed. Rumors. This station is riddled with them. If he's been running around with Quark's nephew, he's had his head stuffed with every bit of gossip on the station by now, including all there is to know about me.

  "If you want to play games, I'm sure Commander Sisko will have some new ones to teach you when he arrives," the shapeshifter said.

  "You sent for my father?" Jake was alarmed.

  "I thought it might be in order," Odo said dryly. "He'll have a word or two to say about creating new problems for Chief O'Brien when he's got more vital repairs to make."

  "You won't imprison us, will you?" For the first time, Odo saw concern on Cedra's face.

  "I wasn't planning on it. Commander Sisko might order you confined to your quarters, but—"

  "He can't! Dejana needs me! She's sick," Cedra cried.

  "Your sister is getting the best of care. She ought to be out of the infirmary tomorrow."

  "I can't be separated from her; I won't be!" Cedra's cheeks paled. "Constable, if I give you my word that I won't touch the hologram system again, if I help Chief O'Brien get it back to normal, will you tell Commander Sisko I cooperated with you?"

  "I'll see what I can do." Even the normally impassive Odo was perturbed by the Bajoran child's agitation. "But I assure you, your sister is perfectly safe—"

  "Not without me!" Cedra insisted. "She doesn't know what they'll want from her. What good is it to get her out of the camp if they tear her to pieces here?"

  Nog nudged Jake and whispered, "Who wants to tear her to pieces?"

  Jake shrugged. "I heard Dad talking with Lieutenant Dax and Ensign Kahrimanis about Talis Dejana, but—"

  "Later," the Ferengi hissed. "I want to hear this."

  "Calm yourself," Odo directed Cedra. "Your sister is safe."

  Cedra shook his head. "Not until she's been presented at the Temple. Maybe not even then, but at least once the Dessin-ka have seen her, they'll be her protectors. Please, Constable, I can't be apart from her for long. I've always looked out for her …"

  "Then it's time you allowed someone else to take over that job. You are young. I suggest you see if you can't find some way of enjoying your youth without setting the whole station on ear."

  Cedra met Odo's gaze with a look that added years to the boy. "It's always easier to play, isn't it?" he said. "To do tricks for an audience and earn applause, that's cleaner than dealing with thieves and murderers, trying to see justice done. Yet we choose our work, no matter how hard, because it creates us in our own image."

  Odo's brows met, or would have, if he had any. He had the unsettling feeling that the boy had just held up a mirror between them and made it vanish, all in an instant "What did you say?"

  A guileless smile replaced Cedra's sober expression. "I said I promise I'll be a good boy. Please let me see my sister?"

  "Please, Constable." Jake joined his voice to Cedra's. "It wasn't all his fault I'm the one who came up with the pink tutu for Gul Dukat, and Nog suggested the Klingon opera singers."

  "Hey! I never did!" Nog objected. "You can't prove it!"

  Odo took control. "Very well. Commander Sisko has better things to do than deal with you three. I'll release you on your word of honor—even you, Nog—but if I catch you tampering with the holosystem again—"

  His threat was met by a chorus of effusive oaths as the boys swore up and down that they would sooner die, be dismembered, or get their earlobes clipped before they would dream of touching a projector after this. Odo didn't believe it for a minute, but he was satisfied for the time being. "Fine. Cedra, you report to Chief O'Brien. You two can go where you please."

  In the corridor outside Odo's office, Cedra waved a quick farewell to his new friends and ran off to find Chief O'Brien. Jake turned to Nog, grinning.

  "See? I told you he'd be all right."

  The Ferengi snorted. "Almost got us arrested and you call that all right? Where's the profit in that?"

  "Well, we didn't get arrested. We didn't even have to face my father. He talked Odo out of it for us."

  "He is a very good talker," Nog admitted. He grew thoughtful. "What did you father say about Cedra's sister?"

  Jake tried to recall. "He called her something—a Bajoran word I never heard before—but whatever it was, he made it real clear to Lieutenant Dax and Ensign Kahrimanis that they weren't supposed to repeat it. Ensign Kahrimanis said not to worry, he'd had firsthand experience with how dangerous it could get when people knew who Talis Dejana was. So I guess it's okay if I forgot what Dad called her." He smiled, but Nog remained serious. Jake gave him a friendly shove. "Hey! Snap out of it. Let's go back to the Promenade and get some glop-on-a-stick or something. I don't want to do my homework yet."

  "Find your Bajoran friend, if that's what you want," Nog snapped. "I have important business to look after." He stalked away, leaving a bewildered Jake behind.

  "You finished with Chief O'Brien already?" Jake was surprised to find Cedra waiting for him when he returned to his quarters.

  "They wouldn't let me stay in the infirmary. What's the matter?" Cedra was stretched out on Jake's bed fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. "Don't I belong here either?
"

  "No, you're welcome here, but I thought that if you were done helping fix the holosystem, you'd rather be having some more fun out—"

  "That fun almost got me separated from my sister."

  "Well, it was your idea," Jake mumbled.

  "Oh, good; Nog's contagious," Cedra remarked.

  "Huh?"

  "Is avoiding responsibility the only thing you picked up from him?" Cedra inquired. "Or did you catch all the symptoms?" He rolled onto his stomach. "I think I've discovered a new disease—creeping Ferengitis. I feel just like Dr. Bashir."

  Jake sat down at the foot of the bed. "Do you think they'll ever find him?"

  "Who?"

  "Dr. Bashir."

  "Yes." Cedra chewed his thumb. "No." He rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. "Maybe. I don't know."

  "Well, that covers it." Jake sounded disgusted.

  "Leave me alone. I'm tired of having all the answers." Cedra flopped back to his original position and yawned. "I'm just plain tired. Let me sleep."

  "Okay." Jake got up and fetched a set of pajamas. He dropped the wad of cloth on Cedra's head in jest. "Those ought to fit."

  The Bajoran sat up and studied the pajamas with interest. "What's this?"

  "Pajamas. Or I can find you a nightshirt if you want. What did you wear to sleep in on Bajor?"

  "Whatever we had on," Cedra answered. "Or nothing, when the weather was warm."

  "You can do that here, too, if you want. Just put on a robe if you get out of bed. Dad's kind of conservative."

  "No, no." Cedra held up the pajamas and stroked the soft material appreciatively. "These are great."

  Jake grinned. "Try them on."

  Cedra went pale. "What?"

  "Try them on. See if they fit."

  "Now?" Cedra clutched the pajamas to his chest. "You said you wanted to go to sleep. You've got to see if they're the right size. If not, I'll see if I can replicate something else." Jake sat down beside Cedra and took the pajama top. "Try the bottoms first. If those are too tight—" He made a pained face. "You know how that can feel."

  Cedra jumped up. "Later. I'm not that tired anymore. Hey, how about we go find Nog and see if we can't get him to come up with some more of those Taxman's Delights?"

  Jake was bewildered. "I thought you said you were tired."

  "I'm tired of not eating." He playfully threw the pajama bottoms in Jake's face and dashed out of the room shouting, "Last one to find Nog's a kata-bunny!"

  * * *

  "A Bajoran word?" Quark repeated his nephew's scrap of news irritably. "A Bajoran word you don't even know? How in the name of all the Rules of Acquisition am I supposed to turn that into a profit?"

  "But Uncle Quark, think!" Nog insisted. "It's something they think must be hidden! People only bother to hide things of great value."

  A slow, snaggletoothed smile slowly spread itself across Quark's face. "Is that so? All the secrecy … hmmm …" He clapped Nog on the back and cackled. "You're right, boy! I'm proud of you. With a mind like that, you'll be able to buy and sell your own father at a profit someday soon."

  "I'd rather sell you, Uncle." Nog was sincere. "You're worth more than my father."

  "So I am, so I am," the adult Ferengi said complacently. "You stick with me, Nog. Tell me everything you know. Together we'll find the answer to this puzzle and a way to wring some profit out of it."

  "Shared profit," Nog prompted.

  "Shared profit," Quark agreed. Under his breath he added, "A five-percent share for you, ninety-five for me."

  CHAPTER 11

  DR. BASHIR reined his verdanis back from a lope to a walk as they entered a scraggly grove of trees. He looked to left and right, assaying the tale that stumps and slashed branches told. Once upon a time this might have been a forest, hugging the foothills, even stretching onward, up into the mountains that flanked the Kaladrys Valley. Now it was a remnant, pathetic, and soon it would not even be that.

  They were so proud of themselves in that camp, Julian reflected, thinking of the place he and Tossi had just left. Always warm, they told me, with plenty of firewood, plenty of brand-new timbered buildings, no need to reuse patchwork pieces of old structures . . . He rested his hand on the raw scar where a branch had grown. No attempt at replanting the wood; just harvesting the forest as if there were no tomorrow.

  He sighed. He knew that that attitude was not entirely their fault. It was hard enough for ordinary people to think about tomorrow, but for refugees sometimes the present was all that mattered. Perhaps he should go back and speak with the monks in charge, help them make the people see that present comfort would only mean future hardship—

  "I can't," he said aloud. "I spent too much time there as it was, but there were so many fever cases—!" He slipped easily from the verdanis's back and tied his mount to a branch that so far had been spared the camp's unchecked wood-harvesting efforts. "Good Tossi," he said, patting the creature's long, flexible neck.

  He took down his pack, gave the verdanis its feedbag, and made camp. He had no tent, but the inhabitants of the second camp he'd visited had expressed their gratitude with the gift of a fine, weatherproof tarpaulin. With some rope and the aid of a few fortunately placed branches, it made a decent shelter. When he found himself in terrain that lacked branches, he turned the tarp into excellent ground cover, or else simply wrapped himself up in it against the chill of night.

  Dr. Bashir soon had the tarp deployed to his liking. All he needed now was a campfire to cook his evening meal. He hesitated over gathering the scant supply of dead brush, thinking of the people he had left behind in the last camp. They'll need it more than I. Cold rations weren't appetizing, but he wound up nibbling them anyway.

  Frontier living to go with fontier medicine, he thought, and enjoyed his private jest a little more than he enjoyed his meager meal.

  When he had eaten, it was full night. The moons of Bajor cast a bright, silvery glow through the branches of the devastated woodland. Julian leaned his back against a tree and gazed up at the stars caught in a net of branches. His mind drifted in the calm of the night until he realized that one cluster of twinkling lights in the blackness was not made up of stars after all. He dropped his head to rest wearily on his updrawn knees and tried not to think of Deep Space Nine. Eventually he wrapped himself in a blanket and went to sleep.

  "You! Get up!" A booted foot kicked his leg lightly but insistently. Julian's first groggy thought was that Commander Sisko had dispatched a search party for him and that they'd found him.

  They can make me go back but they can't make me stay, he thought. I'll find a way, make them see that my work here's more important, leave Starfleet if I have to, only—

  The boot kicked him again, harder, and he awoke to realize that a search party from the station would never rouse him so roughly or stand there with a row of phasers leveled at his eyes.

  "You heard me: Get up!" A tall, broad-chested Bajoran male gave him an extra kick for good measure. This one hurt. Dr. Bashir obeyed. There were too many of them for resistance to be more than a bad joke. He counted seven in all, all of them sturdy, hard-faced men whose clothing was much the worse for wear but whose weapons gleamed. One of them reached in swiftly to snatch Julian's phaser. He handed it over to the leader immediately.

  "Is that the one?" another man asked his comrade.

  "Idiot," came the reply. "How many Starfleet uniforms have you seen around here lately?"

  "Huh! As if you even knew what a Starfleet uniform looked like before the boy described one!"

  "Shut up, the two of you!" the tall one barked. He returned his attention to Julian. "Are you the healer?"

  "I am Dr. Julian Bashir of Starfeet," he replied. And you look like one of those bands of hill fighters I've heard about, he thought. The camp he'd just left had had some highly unfavorable things to say about them, enumerating long lists of supplies stolen and draft animals "borrowed" in aid of a cause the raiders never bothered to explain. At least they leav
e the children alone. The last camp had been overrun with fever, but the infection had not yet had time to take many lives. The children there still had the care and supervision of enough concerned adults to make running away not seem so attractive.

  "I am Borilak Selinn," the Bajoran said in turn. "We've heard of you. Come." He gestured with his weapon.

  Julian turned to his campsite, only to have Borilak Selinn grab his arm and yank him away with a harsh "Where do you think you're going?"

  Julian shrugged off the Bajoran's grasp. "I need to pack my things."

  "They'll be brought along for you."

  "Listen, you know I'm a healer. If you need my services, you'd better let me pack my own equipment. If you or your men break any of it, I'll be no good to you."

  The Bajoran showed his teeth, broken and brown. "Then you'd better hope my men are careful, because if you're no use to us as a healer without your toys, you're no use to us at all."

  Dr. Bashir had no choice but to follow. Two of Borilak's men fell into step behind him; the other four remained behind to secure the campsite. Julian dearly regretted having removed the biosample replicator and prayed it would survive whatever handling they gave it. He heard Tossi whicker and snort, and he knew he had probably seen the last of that untiring mount.

  Borilak Selinn led the way into the hills. They took narrow paths, rocky and overgrown with thorny brush. Down into gullies and through stands of trees still growing wild and untouched by the comfort-hungry refugee camps they went, sometimes doubling back on their tracks. Dr. Bashir tried to keep himself oriented, calling to mind the careful traceries of Talis Cedra's amateur map. His efforts were not helped by the fact that it was still night, with dawn little more than a thin line of gray against the black. Once the marchers emerged from the upland woods onto a promontory that offered a breathtaking view of the Kaladrys Valley. The thin wash of a day's light shimmered over the meandering river, picking out roads, the ruins of towns, and in the distance an abandoned Cardassian outpost. Then the trail took another turn and the view was gone.