by S. D. Perry
Sensing the rising tide of Julian’s despair, Dax understood it wasn’t her he was accusing of pretense, but himself. “Julian,” she said softly. “No one has ever asked you to pretend…”
“Don’t say it,” Julian snapped. “Everyone has asked me to pretend. Even after you all discovered the truth about me, you all wanted me to keep being the same old Julian. It was all right for me to show off a little bit, but that was all. It was fine just as long as I didn’t remind anyone of what I really am or what they really are.”
“And that is?” Ezri asked.
Bashir inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly, obviously struggling to rein himself in. His voice calmer, he said, “I don’t know exactly.”
“Or you don’t want to say. Go ahead, Julian. If you can think it, you can say it.”
The lines around his eyes tightened, but then he relaxed the grip he held on himself. “A beginning,” he said slowly. “And an ending, perhaps. I’m a doctor, Ezri, a very, very good doctor. I’ve studied the issue very carefully and I’ve come to some conclusions. The frightening thing is that I think others have, too, but are afraid to say anything about it.”
“Julian, I’m not following.”
Bashir sighed. “Have you ever read a paper on human physiology, published a couple of hundred years ago by Tanok of Vulcan? He was an ethnologist who lived on Earth for fifty years during the twenty-second century. Tanok observed that human evolution had plateaued, that our cranial capacity and efficiency of neuronal activity had effectively reached its maximum unless we began to manipulate our genetic code.”
“I know about Tanok,” Dax said. “He deliberately published his paper only on Vulcan—and in a privately circulated journal—because he knew how the humans would react. This was less than two hundred years after Khan was deposed and he and his genetic supermen fled Earth.”
“True,” Julian said. “But Tanok also said that he thought the humans would eventually calm down and see that while Khan’s methods might have been too extreme, the basic concept was sound. And he posed the same question Locken did: What if Khan had won? How different would the quadrant, the galaxy, be today? What would humanity be today? And can we really know that it might not be a better place?”
“Julian,” said Ezri, “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” At first, she had thought Julian was engaging in some intellectual brinkmanship, trotting out arguments he knew Locken might use to see if she could poke holes in them. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“You can’t believe what you’re hearing?” he said, his voice rising. “I can just barely believe I’m finally saying it. Do you have any idea how many nights I’ve lain awake thinking about these things?” Julian spun around and faced the cell door, though he didn’t appear to be actually seeing anything, so deeply was he burrowing down into himself. “Do you want to know something else about me, Ezri? I don’t have to sleep very much. Did you know that? But I’ve always felt like I had to pretend, like I had to go to bed when everyone else did, wake up when everyone else did, complain about being tired because everyone else does…. But the cruel truth is that I lay there every night, willing myself to sleep, but finding my thoughts wandering. In the pit of the night, in my darkest moments, I have thought all those things Locken said: I could cure all of the Federation’s ills. I have wasted my life pretending to be less than I am because the society I live in considers my very existence to be illegal, even immoral. It’s all true, Ezri, every word, and I’m tired of lying.”
Then Julian turned and, with a single, well-placed blow, struck the steel brace that held the bed on the wall. The brace cracked and the upper bunk sagged forward.
Ezri was a good enough counselor to recognize a soul unburdening itself of long-denied emotions, but she was also frightened by the unexpected burst of violence. More, she was stung by the discovery that her lover had for months been literally lying next to her, silently seething and keeping such a secret. She felt guilty and not a little embarrassed. With a struggle, she set aside the shame, rose and moved toward Julian, hoping to offer comfort. But before she could close the distance, he was there—Locken—standing in the doorway. It was almost as if he had been waiting for those words to come out of Julian’s mouth.
“Of course you are, Julian,” he said. “And now the question is simply this: Will you allow yourself to act on those thoughts now that the opportunity has come to do something for the common good?”
“The common good?” Ezri asked, the snarl rising in her again. “Just what would you know about the common good?”
But neither Locken nor Julian was listening to her. Julian was standing at the cell door, his eyes locked on their captor. “What about Ezri?” he asked.
Locken glanced at her, then returned his gaze to Julian. “She may join us if she likes,” Locken said, “but she has to cooperate.”
“Cooperate?” Ezri scoffed. “Cooperate? Like I would ever join your new order, your elite minority…”
Locken grinned, delighted. “What a very amusing attitude,” he said, “coming from a joined Trill.” Then he turned away from her, completely dismissing her from his thoughts. To Julian, he said, “So, what’s it going to be? What’s your answer?”
Julian looked at him, then turned to Ezri and studied her expression. She sensed uncertainty and confusion and though she wanted to be steadfast and supportive, she felt herself responding with outrage: Damn you, Julian! How dare you not know what to do? Julian nodded, as if confirming a conclusion he had come to during an inner argument, then straightened his back and lifted his shoulders, as if a great weight had just been lifted. He looked at Locken and said, “My answer is yes.”
Exuding triumph, Locken pulled out his control unit and pointed it at the cell. The forcefield faded and Bashir stepped out into the hallway, then half-turned toward Ezri. He said, “Ezri, you’ll understand someday…” but stopped when her fist connected with his jaw. It was a poorly timed punch. She didn’t have a chance to wind up and the angle was all wrong. Ezri doubted that it would even leave a mark. He grabbed her arm, immobilized her with a gentle twist of her wrist, then twisted her around so that she was back inside the cell, her back to Locken.
“You son of a—” she started, but he lifted his hand and covered her mouth superhumanly fast, silencing her.
“Don’t fight me, Ezri. You’ll see I’m right…soon.” He took his hand off her mouth and gave her a small shove so that she stumbled back onto the lower bunk. She stared at him with loathing, her lips curled back over her clenched teeth.
“It’s all right, Julian,” Locken said gently, favoring her with a smile. “Maybe she’ll come around. She seems very bright. And spirited. That counts for a lot.” A touch on his control unit, and the forcefield was back up. Locken turned and started down the hall.
“Yes,” Bashir said sadly. “It does.” Then he too turned away, following Locken.
Ezri listened as the footsteps grew fainter, her body shaking as she heard the double hiss of the hall’s security door opening and closing. Then she turned and curled up on the bunk, facing the wall, her body racked with sobs. She raised her hands to her mouth as if to stifle her cries, and then, feeling certain she was safe from any surveillance devices…she spat out the object Julian had shoved into her mouth.
She kept up the pretense of crying as she turned it over in her hands, recognizing it instantly as the primary circuitry module for a Starfleet communicator. The Jem’Hadar had taken Julian’s, so this one must be hers. He must have found it on the floor of the runabout, probably cracked open just before they had been captured by the Jem’Hadar. Freed of its combadge casing, the circuitry module was small enough to conceal easily, inside his cheek, even in his hair. He must have been working on it the entire time he’d been lying in his bunk. The questions were, what had he been working on it with and what had he been trying to do?
She discreetly felt around the edge of the bunk pressed against the wall and found what she’d hoped for—a small s
hard of metal, undoubtedly from some damaged part of the runabout’s control cabin.
So, Julian had been working on a plan. Too bad he couldn’t tell me what it was. But then, lying down on the bunk, trying to look as dejected as possible, she decided that she would be able to figure it out. After all, she knew him better than anyone.
Chapter Fifteen
Vaughn decided to take his evening meal at Quark’s, on the balcony level. The place had been fairly subdued when he’d walked in, which fit his mood perfectly, but by the time he was finished with his hasperat, a reasonably rowdy round of socializing had begun on the main floor.
Somehow, Quark had tapped into the S.C.E.’s surveillance feed of the work on Empok Nor and he was dumping the pictures into several monitors he’d installed around the bar. His stated reason was so that everyone could keep an eye on the work as it progressed, though it was obvious from the amount of interest displayed by the crowd that there was some heavy wagering going on. Vaughn only hoped that the Starfleet engineers were betting against one or the other station blowing up.
Though he had been ignoring most of the action, when he pushed his plate away Vaughn looked up from the report he’d been working on and glanced at the monitor nearest his table. The EVA crews had been working all day on the delicate job of aligning and inserting the new reactor core into Deep Space 9, and a collective cheer went up in the bar as the final connections were made. Tomorrow the task of repairing and restarting the six fusion reactors would begin, but that was tomorrow. For now it was enough for the crew to be able to celebrate this clear glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
The commander was less than encouraged to hear that Quark was giving odds that even after everything was hooked up, the new core still wouldn’t work. A chill ran down Vaughn’s back and he tried to pretend that it was entirely attributable to the problems they were having with the heating plant and nothing whatsoever to do with his age. He sipped the very passable bock beer (where did Quark get this stuff?), and the hoppy aroma reminded him of something, but he couldn’t remember exactly what.
Below him, the off-duty engineers and other crewmen were all doing whatever they felt was necessary to fight off the chill. Some were talking animatedly, most were imbibing insulating beverages, and not a few appeared to be on the verge of attempting to share some body heat. Prynn Tenmei was at the center of one of the latter groups at a table, ringed by a platoon of S.C.E. engineers, all of them either impressed with her knowledge of large-scale fusion reactors or dazzled by her smile or, most likely, a little of both. Tenmei was amused by their attention—that much was obvious—but Vaughn could see by the tilt of her head that not a single one of them was going to make a ding in her shields.
Vaughn raised his mug in mock salute and said, “Good luck, lads. You’re going to need it.” Then, he drained the last half-inch of his beer and set the mug down on the table. Before the bottom of the mug had a chance to make a damp ring on the tabletop, it was lifted off and replaced by a full one.
Without looking up, Vaughn said, “Hullo, Quark. I didn’t ask for another drink.”
“I know,” Quark said. “But you looked like you were about ready. A good bartender knows these things.”
Vaughn smiled ruefully and accepted the drink. “Thanks. Put it on my tab.”
“Oh, it’s there already.” Quark, well-practiced in determining the focus of barroom stares, studied the angle of Vaughn’s chin, checked the cant of his brow, and correctly triangulated on the top of Tenmei’s head. “Come on, Commander,” he said. “Don’t do this to yourself. I sympathize, but it’s not worth it—getting fixated like that—and I know whereof I speak. Not that I fault your taste. I’ve had a chance to observe Ensign Tenmei myself and there’s definitely something special about that one.”
“Quark…” Vaughn said, taking the mug and sipping off the head. “That’s enough.”
“No, really, I understand. And she’s your conn officer, too, isn’t she? That must be hard, working in close quarters that way.” Quark wiped up an invisible speck of dirt. “But, listen, this is what you have to do: You have to get her off your mind. If you start obsessing, that leads to nothing but trouble. The sleepless nights, the gray days, the restraining orders…”
“Please, Quark,” Vaughn said. “I’m asking you to stop now.”
“But I have an idea,” Quark continued. “A visit to the holosuite. I can make you a reservation right now so you’ll be the first one in when they reopen. I don’t think you’ve had a chance yet to peruse my wide selection of Lonely Nights programs—”
“Quark,” Vaughn said, slamming his mug down, beer slopping over the rim. He inhaled deeply, resigning himself to the fact that the truth was going to come out eventually. Why not now? “Prynn’s my daughter.”
Quark didn’t respond for several seconds. Then, he picked up Vaughn’s mug, wiped up the spilled beer, and set it down again. “On the house, Commander.”
“Thank you, Quark.”
“Well, that’s going to cost me,” Quark said to no one in particular as he descended the spiral stairwell. “And it started out to be such a pleasant evening, too.” He had been doing that—talking to himself—a lot lately. “Because there’s no one else to talk to,” he decided, then realized he was doing it again.
Things had changed too much in the recent past for his taste. Kira had gone from being a zero on the fun scale to a negative number. Quark secretly blamed Odo, but he didn’t feel comfortable voicing that opinion. Sure, they said there were no more changelings in the Alpha Quadrant, but who could be sure? And they might all be working for Odo now. Quark shuddered. It was all so unfair.
Threading his way back through the crowd, he tossed his tray behind the bar and dropped the empty beer glass into the recycler. He was frustrated; there was nothing to vent his embarrassment on. Even Frool—the only one of his waiters he’d been able to bribe into staying on during the core transfer—was too busy keeping after the engineers for Quark to subject him to the abuse he was contractually obligated to endure.
And the dabo girls were all busy, too. The Federation types weren’t usually interested in gambling, but the whiff of danger in the air must have been making them feel lucky. It was still no substitute for the civilian freighter crews who’d been flooding the bar almost daily since the station had become the Cardassian relief checkpoint. But with the last such freighter for the next few days gone since this morning, relying on a smattering of Starfleet officers for most of his business was killing him.
“What’s on your mind, Quark?”
Quark looked up, but saw no one.
“Over here, Quark.”
He looked down the length of the bar and found himself staring into a pair of golden eyes set in a broad green face. He smiled his “Neutral Smile #7,” usually reserved for persons unknown who appeared to be well dressed and were not holding a weapon to his head.
Looks like not all the civilians have left, after all. “Good evening, sir,” he said, strolling toward the man. “If we’ve met, I don’t believe I remember when. And there haven’t been too many Orions around these days.”
The small, dapper Orion grinned winningly. “We haven’t met, sir,” he said. “But your reputation precedes you.”
Insincere flattery. I smell a business proposition. He pulled a glass from under the bar and set to polishing it. “You are too kind,” he said. “What can I get for you, Mister…?”
“Malic,” the Orion said, and held out his hand to be shaken. Quark quickly catalogued the stones in the settings of Malic’s rings and decided that whatever business he was currently in was doing pretty well. “And what I would like is to meet a businessman with an open mind.”
Quark took Malic’s hand and they shook. You can tell so much about a person from a handshake. For example, he decided, this deceptively small man could probably crush all of Quark’s fingers into paste if he wanted. “I believe I might have one of those,” Quark said. “For the r
ight price.”
Malic grinned and Quark was intrigued to see there was something shiny embedded in his rearmost molar, something that twinkled merrily and, more important, expensively. There’s something that you almost never see anymore, he thought. I do so like a pirate who pays attention to detail.
Taran’atar had experienced many different flavors of pain. Almost twenty-one years ago, in his first campaign against a species called the v’Xaji, he had been burned across most of the left side of his body. It had been agonizing, beyond anything his training had prepared him for, and though he had found the flavor bitter, he had learned to take comfort in it, too. Pain, no matter how intense or disabling, told you one thing: You are alive. To a Jem’Hadar, being alive meant one thing: I can still serve the Founders. But, privately, Taran’atar had also decided it meant one other important thing: I can still deal death.
So, Taran’atar took the pain he felt now—this careless but precise agony—and embraced it. He made it a part of himself so he would not forget it. He inhaled once, slowly, and though he thought the pain might stop his hearts, he let it slowly sink down through his flesh and into his bones. He exhaled, then inhaled again, then caught the scent of blood—his blood—mingled with sweat.
He heard voices—two, no, three—and focused past the pounding in his ears. The first voice was saying, “His blood’s not the right color.”
“No, it’s not,” said another. “Not dark enough.”
“That’s dried blood you’re looking at,” said the third. “It might be the right color. Let’s get some fresh.” Something touched Taran’atar’s chest and he felt a bolt of white light arc through his body. His arms and legs, he noted, were numb. That would be a problem later when it was time to escape. He tried to flex his toes, but wasn’t sure if they were moving.
“I think he’s awake,” said the first voice.
“He’s been awake,” said the third. “Parts of him, anyway.”
