Vectors

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Not that she was in any position to give advice.

  She was here chasing rumors. She had heard of serious illness to the south, and had actually seen some of the bodies in a message sent to her by Shakaar. The problem was that neither she nor Shakaar had seen them die. There was talk of a disease, there was talk of a plague, but—so far—no one in her part of Bajor had seen evidence of it.

  Not that she doubted that it existed.

  She was told that Javi’s cell knew more about it, and she had set up a meeting with one of her contacts. It had brought her here, a long trip through areas that weren’t friendly to people like her. She was known as a member of the resistance, and even before last year’s escapade on Terok Nor the Cardassians had been watching for her. They didn’t know she had been to Terok Nor—the station’s constable, Odo, had seen to that—but they suspected her. They suspected her of everything, but could never catch her.

  Not for want of trying.

  She sighed and ran a hand through her short hair. She could feel the sweat at the roots. She wished Javi would hurry. She didn’t like waiting in this heat.

  Finally, a woman slipped out of one of the tents. She wore a ripped dark dress, stained with sweat and dirt. The poverty here—even among the resistance—broke Kira’s heart.

  “Javi will see you now,” the woman said.

  Kira wasn’t sure she wanted to go inside the tent. It had to be even hotter in there. But she climbed up the small incline to the creekside where the tent was, and slipped inside.

  She had been right. It was hotter here. The heat felt old and oppressive, as if it had been accumulating for days instead of hours. Javi sat cross-legged near his portable computer system—the heart and soul of each resistance cell, Shakaar had once called those things. Javi was thinner than he had been the last time Kira saw him. His skin had the look of malnutrition, but his eyes were still bright.

  Near him sat Corda, his second in command. She was taller than Kira and too thin as well. But on her it looked tough, as if the dry air and the heat and the lack of food had hardened her skin and made her more resilient.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Nerys.” Javi spoke slowly, as he always had. He had been part of Shakaar’s cell for a brief time, and he had always irritated Kira with his cautious consideration of each decision. Apparently he had annoyed Shakaar too, because one day Kira heard that Javi had left with some of his own people to form a new cell. They were on speaking terms, though, and still had the same goals, unlike some of the resistance cells Kira had come into contact with. There were some that frightened even her, with their talk of noble suicide and total destruction.

  “If I had known what it was like in here, Javi,” Kira said, “I would have insisted you keep me waiting longer.”

  Javi shrugged. “You get used to the heat.”

  “Maybe you can get used to this heat. I certainly couldn’t.”

  “Don’t start, Kira,” Corda said. “You’re not here to criticize us.”

  “And it’s a good thing, too, because I think your campsite is too exposed—you’re putting your entire cell in jeopardy.”

  “But you’re not here to tell us that,” Corda said sarcastically.

  “No,” Kira said, “I’m not. I’m here because I’m supposed to confirm some rumors.”

  “About the plague,” Javi said.

  Kira went cold despite the heat. “They’re calling it a plague now?”

  “Hundreds dead, Nerys.” Javi’s voice was solemn. “Everyone who comes in contact with this thing gets ill.”

  “Everyone?” Kira asked.

  “In time,” Corda said.

  “How have you gotten your information?”

  “Do you mean were we exposed?” Corda asked. “No. We’ve been getting it the same as you have, in messages sent through sanitary computers.”

  Kira had never liked Corda. And the heat wasn’t improving Kira’s mood. “I’m not here to talk to you.”

  “You get to talk to me whether you like it or not,” Corda said. “I’m the one who has been following this thing and reporting to Javi.”

  Kira glared at her for a moment. Corda glared back, not at all intimidated.

  “This isn’t helping us,” Javi said. “We need to work together. Nerys has come to us for information, the kind, I believe, that isn’t easily sent.”

  “But Corda just said that you haven’t heard anything that we haven’t heard,” Kira said.

  “I did not,” Corda said. “We’ve gotten that, and we’ve gotten reports from other sources.”

  “Others?”

  “Non-Bajorans. Some of the relief teams not tied to the Federation. They seem to be unaffected.”

  The relief teams were from charitable organizations that went to planets they considered not as developed to help with basics: food, medicine, clothing. Sometimes Kira appreciated their presence, sometimes she resented them more than she could say. What she wanted was Federation intervention, to stop this occupation by the Cardassians. But the Federation had rules and regulations, things she had never bothered to understand, and those rules and regulations didn’t seem to apply to Bajor, although some people were telling her to be cautious with her tongue, that some day the Federation might come through.

  She would believe that when she saw Bajorans move around unfettered on their own planet.

  “What are they doing to stop this thing?” Kira asked.

  “What they can,” Corda said.

  “Most of them are volunteers, Nerys, with no more medical training than we have.” Javi sounded tired. Kira wondered how much power he had ceded in this cell to Corda, and how long it would be before she took the group too far. “They provide comfort where they can, but they can’t do much.”

  “They are sure it’s a disease, then?” Kira asked. “Shakaar wasn’t. He thought maybe it was a Cardassian trick to get us focused in the wrong direction.”

  “It’s a disease, all right,” Javi said. “But it might also be a Cardassian trick.”

  Kira frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The disease is too virulent.” Javi’s words hung between them.

  Kira’s chill grew deeper. She wiped sweat off her forehead. “Not even the Cardassians would do something this monstrous,” she said.

  “Do you actually believe that?” Corda asked.

  Kira wasn’t sure. “If we’re talking about a disease that infects everyone who comes in contact with it—”

  “We are,” Corda said.

  “—then we’re talking genocide.” Kira swallowed. “The Cardassians have always made it plain that they see us as a lesser species, as people who ‘benefit’ from their rule, as slaves to work in their various mines and processing plants. But not as creatures to be wiped out of existence.”

  “They’ve always wanted Bajor,” Corda said.

  “Yes—but with its Bajoran population.” Kira wiped the sweat off her face.

  “Get her something to drink,” Javi said to Corda.

  “But—”

  “Now,” Javi said.

  Corda sighed and got up, sliding past Kira.

  “I’m sorry, Nerys,” Javi said. “I know you don’t much like Corda. But you must listen to her. She has run this cell, for the most part, since last fall.”

  Kira glanced over her shoulder. Corda was out of the tent. “I’m just worried, Javi,” Kira said. “She didn’t always understand the complexities of the Occupation.”

  Javi smiled. “Once I could have said that about you.”

  Kira looked at him. “Why is she running everything, Javi? What’s going on?”

  “The Cardassians had me for a while, Nerys. We’re just beginning to bring me back to health. The tents are here not because Corda thinks it’s a good spot, but because my body can hardly tolerate thin air at the higher elevations. Even this valley is difficult for me. We should really move on, now that the creek is dry, but the cell has opted to stay with me. I’ve tried to order them to leave, bu
t they won’t.”

  Kira threaded her hands together.

  “Corda loves me,” he said.

  “And is making the wrong decisions for the cell because of it,” Kira said.

  Javi nodded. “We agree on that. But they’re not life-threatening. Not yet, anyway. And I’m nearly mobile—I think we can get out of here soon. But do me a favor, Nerys. Listen to her. And don’t fight her. This Cardassian threat is too great for us to be fighting amongst ourselves.”

  Kira let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. Javi was right, of course, and she knew it. But she had disliked Corda for a very long time. It was hard to set aside that kind of antipathy, even now.

  “All right,” Kira said.

  “Good.” Javi placed his hands on the ground behind him and rested his weight on them. “I hope she brings me something as well. You’re giving me an appetite again, Nerys. That’s a good thing.”

  Kira laughed. “I’ve been accused of worse, I guess.”

  “What’s he accusing you of?” Corda asked as she came in. She was carrying a tray with three mugs. She handed one to Kira. It was moba fruit juice, and somehow they had found a way to keep it cool in all this heat.

  Kira took a sip, and relished the bittersweet coldness. Corda handed Javi his mug, and he sat forward, taking it in both hands as if it weighed too much for him. Kira wondered if his prediction was wrong, if he wasn’t getting better at all.

  “He’s been yelling at me to listen to you,” Kira said. “He says you’ve changed.”

  Corda glanced at Javi as if he had betrayed a confidence. He was looking at the mug he was drinking from and didn’t seem to notice.

  “Whether I’ve changed or not shouldn’t matter,” Corda said. “What does matter is what’s happening. You don’t believe the Cardassians can commit genocide. I do.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Kira said. “I said it’s not in their best interest to kill us all.”

  Corda sat down, cradling her own mug in one hand. “But what if it is now? What if they no longer need us for all those jobs Cardassians refuse to do? What if they’ve finally found a way to automate the most dangerous tasks?”

  Kira stared at her. It was possible. It was even probable.

  “Now tell her the rest,” Javi said.

  Corda set her mug down. “We don’t know for certain.”

  “Tell her,” Javi said. “If you’re going to do this right, tell her all you know. In every case.”

  Maybe Corda hadn’t changed after all. Maybe Javi only believed she had. Maybe he had no other choice. Kira waited for whatever “the rest” was.

  “We’ve heard,” Corda said, “through less reputable sources, that Cardassians are dying of this also.”

  “That’s not possible,” Kira said. “They’ve always lorded their superior physiology over us, saying they’re not vulnerable to Bajoran diseases. How could that change?”

  “Do you believe all Cardassian lies?” Corda asked.

  “That one I do,” Kira said. “I’ve seen Bajorans die of horrible diseases, and never once have I seen a Cardassian get sick like that.”

  “Maybe they don’t allow their people to get sick.”

  “And maybe it’s the truth,” Kira said. “If they got sick, we would have seen it. I’ve been in places where I know I would have seen it.” She set her mug down as well, although she was reluctant to give up the last of the juice. “Maybe you’re the one who is believing the lie. Maybe the Cardassians are the ones spreading the rumors that Cardassians are getting sick. That would make this illness look like an innocent virus instead of something the Obsidian Order dreamed up.”

  Javi smiled slightly. He was still the only one drinking. “See why we needed to hear from Kira?” he asked Corda. “Neither of us thought of that.”

  Corda’s lips thinned. “We can’t operate on supposition.”

  “I agree,” Kira said.

  “What we have heard is that a few Cardassians here have gotten ill, but they’ve been spirited away so fast that no one can confirm that it’s the same disease. A few of the rumors say it’s not. The Cardassians turn green and their scales flake off—or so they say. And Bajoran victims look even healthier than they did before they got sick, so maybe it’s not related at all.”

  “But we don’t know,” Kira said.

  “That’s right,” Corda said. “We don’t know. And I have no idea how we could find out.”

  “Where were the Cardassians taken ill?” Kira asked.

  “In the same regions where the Bajorans were sick,” Corda said. “And a Ferengi said that he saw some green Cardassians on Terok Nor.”

  “Ferengi can’t be trusted,” Kira said. “They can be paid to give false information.”

  Corda nodded. “The problem is that, if my sources on Bajor are right, the sick Cardassians here have already been sent away.”

  “To Cardassia Prime?”

  “I don’t think so. But it doesn’t matter. We have no idea where they’ve gone.”

  Kira frowned. “Just before I came here, I’d heard that Gul Dukat just gave an order that no outside ships were to arrive on or leave Terok Nor.”

  Corda’s gaze met hers. Javi set down his mug. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “I didn’t think much of it, until you mentioned the station.”

  “Dukat wouldn’t care about his Bajoran prisoners,” Corda said. “But he would care if Cardassians were getting ill.”

  “And even if he didn’t, Central Command would order him to shut down operations if the Cardassians had a disease that spreads the way you described.”

  They stared at each other.

  “What if it’s a different disease?” Corda asked.

  “What if it’s not?” Javi asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kira said. “I’d been thinking of going to Terok Nor anyway.”

  “What? Nerys, what are you talking about?”

  She turned to him and took his hand. It was cold from the mug, but the skin was dry and his bones felt thin beneath her fingers. He had lied to her. She had seen starvation victims before—the ones who survived but were never really healthy again. He wouldn’t live long, and it wouldn’t take a designer virus to kill him. A simple cold would do it.

  “I’ve been to Terok Nor before, Javi,” she said. “Just last year, I was there getting information for the resistance. It’s dangerous, but it’s possible to get around.”

  “Why would you go?”

  “I was planning to go for a completely different reason,” she said. “If the rumors of the disease among the Bajorans proved to be true, and now after talking with you I believe they are, I was going to Terok Nor to bring Dr. Kellec Ton home.”

  “What’s Ton doing there?” Corda asked.

  Kira glanced at her. She hadn’t expected Corda to be familiar with Kellec Ton.

  “Apparently, Gul Dukat sent for him a month ago. Dukat claimed his precious workers needed better health care, which I think is unlikely. Dukat has never cared for anyone. His production must have been down or something.”

  “Or perhaps this disease started on Terok Nor,” Javi said, “and that’s why he sent for Kellec.”

  “Maybe,” Kira said. “But it didn’t sound like that. I talked to Kellec before he went. He was going to see what he could do to further the resistance on Terok Nor. He was also going to use his free time to find weaknesses in the station, maybe a way for the resistance to get the Bajoran workers out of there.”

  “We don’t have the ships for that,” Corda said.

  Kira shook her head. “You need to choose someone else to lead this cell after you, Javi.”

  “I don’t appreciate all your insults, Kira,” Corda said.

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you about the benefits of a quick and dirty surprise operation. We may not have big, powerful ships like the Cardassians, but we can slip in and out of any place, and with the right plan, we could get workers off Terok Nor.” />
  Corda’s smile was cruel. “Just don’t pick Kira to relieve me, Javi,” she said. “Kira has no idea about the realities of war.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “Ladies!” Javi said tiredly. “We fight Cardassians, not each other.” He ran that thin hand along the side of his face, tugging at his earring. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad mission, Nerys. Going to Terok Nor. You could find out if the Cardassians were ill, and if they were you could report back. But bring Kellec home.”

  “If he wants to come.”

  Javi nodded. “One more thing. I’ve been studying the information we’ve received. It’s only a matter of time before everyone on Bajor gets ill if this is as bad as it seems. And so far, whoever has gotten ill has died.”

  Even in the heat, Kira couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  Chapter Ten

  NOG WAS SITTING on the bar, his feet dangling over the edge. He was kicking the front with one heel, then the other, with no apparent rhythm at all. Quark didn’t know what was worse, the boy’s idleness, his disregard for the bar’s rules, or the constant bang, bang, bang echoing in his ears.

  “Do something useful,” Quark said, shoving Nog as he passed. “And get off my bar.”

  “There’s nothing useful to do, uncle,” Nog said.

  “There’s always something useful.” Quark picked up a dirty glass off one of the empty tables. Three groups of Cardassians sat at various tables, but they certainly didn’t look as if they were celebrating. They were at least drinking—to excess, always a problem with Cardassians. Not that Quark could blame them. If there was really a disease going around that was going to make him turn green (which was only one step down from that hideous Cardassian gray), he’d probably start drinking too.

  Or leave. Sneak off. Find somewhere else where the threat of death wasn’t hanging over everything. He might do that anyway. He’d hardly had any customers in the last few days.

  “But what, uncle?” Nog asked, still on the bar.

  “For one thing,” Quark said, “you can get off my bar. Then you can polish it from top to bottom with an earbrush.”