by Mel Gilden
While he and Nog waited for their food, customers milled around them, playing Dabo, bellying up to the bar (those creatures who had bellies), drinking at tables. The establishment was crowded and noisy.
“Maybe your uncle is in a good mood because business is so good,” Jake suggested.
“No way. I have a talent for negotiation.”
“Well, I hope you can negotiate us some stem bolts.”
“‘Wise men can hear profit in the wind.’”
“Rule of Acquisition?” Jake asked.
“Number twenty-two,” Nog replied.
A couple of creatures walked in. Neither of them was any taller than Jake, but both were considerably wider, bullet-shaped, they had no necks as such; their heads grew directly from their muddy brown bodies without a break or a bend, and they were crowned with a three-jaw mouth that clacked constantly as it worked. They did not seem to be wearing clothes, but were sprinkled with golden dust that fell off them in clouds as they moved. Each of them had three arms—one on each side and one in front, and three legs, with the third leg in back.
“What are they?” Nog asked.
“I have no idea,” Jake said. “You think they sprinkle themselves with that gold stuff every morning?”
Nog laughed.
“Maybe they do gold one morning and silver the next,” Jake suggested, causing Nog to laugh again.
Nog laughed so hard that Jake became embarrassed. If his father were here, he’d probably remind them that the universe was full of beings, and that each was beautiful in its own eyes. Sisko thought that laughing at a species not encountered before was neither appropriate nor kind.
Quark returned with their steaming plates of squarmash and queeble sticks—a glob of yellow stuff with a handful of brown sticks standing up in it. The glob had the heavy smell of meat and spices that made Jake’s mouth water. Nog began to shovel small globs of squarmash into his mouth with the queeble sticks, but Jake held the tip of one queeble stick carefully between his thumb and forefinger.
“‘He who pulls the sword from the stone becomes king of England,’” he intoned, and giving his queeble stick a tug, he pulled it from the squarmash and held it over his head.
“What’s that all about?” Nog asked.
“King Arthur. An old Earth legend. He pulled a sword from a stone and became king of England.”
“What’s England?” Nog asked.
“It’s a long story,” Jake said as he shook his head. When Nog asked questions like that, Jake knew he was a long way from home.
While they ate, their conversation consisted mainly of comments on how much they liked the food. The new aliens drank and played Dabo while clouds of golden dust billowed around them. Jake caught Quark watching them a few times, but he never approached them.
When Jake and Nog were finished, they sat briefly before their empty plates.
“I feel great,” Nog said.
“It’s been a good day, all right. That was great.”
“Better because it was free,” Nog said.
“Credit isn’t free,” Jake reminded him.
“It’s free till you have to pay the bill.”
They were still laughing about that when Quark came over to their table. “Enjoy the squarmash and queeble sticks, boys?” he asked.
“It was great, Uncle Quark,” Nog said.
“That’s fine. Time to pay up.”
Nog appeared to be as shocked as Jake felt.
“But we were buying on credit,” Nog said.
“Self-sealing stem bolts,” Jake said. “Remember?”
“We never discussed how long you could have credit,” Quark said. “The bill is due and payable now.”
“But we don’t have any money,” Jake said.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of money,” Quark said.
Jake didn’t like the oily sound of Quark’s voice, and he found out shortly that he was right to be suspicious. Quark gave them each a broom—old style brooms with neither electronics nor passive suction wave generators—and told them to start sweeping up the gold dust the new arrivals had brought in.
“This isn’t fair,” Nog said. He held the broom away from his body as if it were a Suvian snapping eel.
“Of course it’s fair. You owe me for the squarmash and queeble sticks. You have no money. I accept your kind offer to work off the debt with the sweat of your lobes.”
“We didn’t—” Jake began.
“Or, we could take up the matter with Security Chief Odo.”
“No thanks,” Jake said. He would rather sweep Quark’s floor than have Odo report to his father that he’d participated in a Ferengi deal that had been slightly shady from the beginning.
“Get busy, boys. Those miners are leaving a mess everywhere they go,” Quark said, and walked back to the bar.
“We’ve been cheated,” Nog said.
“Not cheated,” Jake said. “Just outmaneuvered by an expert.”
“Whatever. We can learn a lot from Uncle Quark.”
Jake did not comment. The Ferengi idea of what passed for education was much different from the human idea. Argument was futile.
Jake had not been sweeping long when he saw that the job was hopeless. The miners seemed determined to play Dabo as long as the wheel was open, and their supply of golden dust seemed to be inexhaustible. The section of floor he’d just finished sweeping looked as if his broom had never touched it.
“You’d think that even Cardassians could clean the station without actually sweeping with brooms,” Nog said.
“If you have plenty of Bajoran slaves around, why not let them sweep with brooms?” Jake replied as he shrugged.
Deep Space Nine had been built by the Cardassians as a mining outpost, and not so long ago it had employed Bajoran slave labor for all jobs thought unsuitable for Cardassians. Sweeping out Quark’s place would no doubt have fallen into that category.
Jake continued to sweep, but with decreasing enthusiasm. The results were so discouraging. He didn’t mind working off his debt, but he wanted something to show for it, if only a clean floor.
“How are you boys doing?” Quark asked.
“Getting nowhere fast,” Jake said.
“Put some ears into it,” Quark advised.
“It’ll take more than ears, Uncle Quark,” Nog said. He finished a stroke with his broom just as more of the fine golden dust settled onto the clean floor. “We’ll never catch up.”
“I hate to throw them out,” Quark said as he glanced at the two offending miners. “They’re drinking and losing heavily—my favorite combination.”
He considered for a moment. “You boys get out of here,” he said at last as he collected their brooms. “If anybody asks about the dust, we’ll say it’s our new decor and charge them extra for it.”
Jake and Nog did not wait around for Quark to change his mind but ran out of the bar and onto the Promenade. They walked along, oblivious to the familiar shops.
“That garbage is even out here,” Jake said. He pointed at the floor where there was more golden dust, pushed into strange patterns by the constant foot traffic.
“At least we don’t have to sweep it,” Nog said.
“At least sweeping was something to do.”
“Good afternoon, boys.”
Garak was leaning in the doorway of his haberdashery smiling pleasantly. In his store, any humanoid being could find clothing for any occasion from a formal dinner party to an expedition to the Bajoran outback.
“Good afternoon,” Jake said. Nog nodded. Though he liked Garak, Jake was never sure whether to trust him. Whereas Quark was motivated entirely by greed, Garak, being the only Cardassian on DS9, was suspected of having darker motives, more complex motives, political motives. Garak had never been caught spying, but that might mean only that he was a really good spy.
“I couldn’t help overhearing that you boys were looking for something to do,” Garak said.
“Anything but sweeping floors,” Nog s
aid.
Garak seemed surprised by Nog’s suggestion. “Oh, I’m sure I can suggest something more interesting than that.” He looked up and down the Promenade.
“Have you boys ever been down to level forty-five?”
“I didn’t know there was a level forty-five,” Jake said.
“Well, then, you boys have a real treat in store,” Garak said as he rubbed his hands together.
“Why?” Jake asked. “What’s down there?”
“I have no idea. But if you’ve never heard of it, I don’t imagine many others have either. All kinds of interesting stuff may be down there.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said.
“Could be quite an opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” Nog said.
Jake knew that opportunity was a magic word as far as Nog and many other Ferengi were concerned.
“Of course. And just think, Jake, how proud your father would be if you found out something about DS9 that nobody knew before.”
“What about profit?” Nog asked.
Garak shrugged. “One never knows,” he said as he opened his hands, releasing invisible possibilities into the air.
“What’s in it for you?” Nog asked.
“For me?” Garak asked, astonished. “Why, nothing. I’m just trying to help.”
“Level forty-five?” Nog said.
“That’s right,” Garak said.
“Thanks for the tip,” Jake said. “Come on, Nog.”
The boys ran off, but soon slowed down so they could talk. “What do you think?” Jake asked.
“About what?” If an operation showed any possibility of offering financial gain, Nog would generally dive in without thinking twice. He’d gotten burned a few times as a result.
“Garak’s suggestion,” Jake said. “He might be sending us into a trap.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. But he’s a Cardassian. That may be enough.”
“He mentioned profit,” Nog reminded him.
“Bait,” Jake said.
Nog considered Jake’s remark. “Maybe we shouldn’t go,” Nog conceded worriedly.
“Maybe we should.”
“Profit,” Nog said, as if weighing the two ideas in his mind. “Danger. Profit. Danger.”
“Let’s talk to Chief O’Brien,” Jake suggested. “He knows more about DS9 than anybody. If he says it’s all right to go, we will.”
“Chief O’Brien doesn’t like Cardassians very much.”
Nog was right. Chief O’Brien had had confrontations with Cardassians who were much less friendly than Garak, and those experiences had left their mark.
“Well,” Jake said, “then we’ll just have to be careful how we ask him.”
“Right,” Nog said.
They rose from the Promenade up to Ops, where they found everything normal. Dax was still engrossed in something at her science console, and Chief O’Brien was laboring over a tricorder at the engineering table. Major Kira was studying the station situation monitor. She smiled at them and then went back to work. Through the fancy door at the top of the stairs, Jake could see his father sitting behind his desk, still turning his souvenir baseball in one hand and reading a report off a padd.
“Hi, Chief,” Jake said. He’d helped O’Brien do a few simple jobs, and felt he could be a little familiar.
“Hello, boys,” O’Brien said. He had taken apart the back of the tricorder he held. Now, he stuck a dynamic ion brush inside and a tiny tornado of golden dust flew out of the tricorder’s insides.
“What is that stuff?” Jake asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” O’Brien said. “It’s everywhere.”
“A couple of miners brought it on board,” Jake said.
O’Brien stopped what he was doing and stared at Jake. “Really,” O’Brien said with some surprise. “How do you know?”
“We saw them down in my Uncle Quark’s bar,” Nog said.
O’Brien nodded and glanced up at Commander Sisko’s office.
“Chief,” Jake said, “what do you know about level forty-five?”
O’Brien shrugged. “It’s a level like a lot of others, I suppose. I’ve never been down there. Why?”
“No particular reason,” Jake said. “We were just wondering.”
“Probably nothing down there but a lot of Cardassian dust,” Nog said.
O’Brien shrugged. “But I wouldn’t put anything past the Cardassians.”
Dax strolled over to the engineering table and looked at them over the back of it. When she smiled at the two boys, Jake and Nog could not help smiling back.
“I think I have some answers for you, Chief,” Dax said.
“Already? That was quick.”
“The dust is called Keithorpheum. It’s a fairly common decorative potting soil on some planets, though it’s not used much anymore because it gets in everywhere.”
“Tell me about it,” O’Brien said sarcastically.
“My data base tells me it’s harmless,” Dax said, “if that’s any consolation.”
While Dax and O’Brien discussed the Keithorpheum, Jake and Nog backed away from them and quietly left Ops.
“I’ll go home and get a couple of flashlights,” Jake said when they reached the lift.
“Great,” Nog said. “If not even Chief O’Brien has been down to level forty-five, we might find something really good!”
CHAPTER 3
We’re getting some unusual sensor readings from Quark’s place,” Major Kira said as she joined Dax and O’Brien at the engineering station.
“Keithorpheum,” Dax said.
“Oh?”
O’Brien lifted his hand and showed Kira the golden dust that lightly coated it. “Jake tells me that a couple of miners came in covered with the stuff.”
“It’s supposed to be harmless,” Dax said.
“A morgo is harmless too,” Kira said, “unless it sits on you. I think the commander should hear about this.”
The three of them went up to Commander Sisko’s office and were invited inside. They gathered around his desk and told him what was going on.
“sounds like a housekeeping problem,” Sisko said.
“So far,” O’Brien agreed. “But even stuff that’s harmless on its own can be dangerous if it gets into the wrong places—our air recirculators for instance.”
“Major, have Odo visit Quark and see what he knows about the Keithorpheum.”
“Aye, sir,” Kira said.
“O’Brien, run a level-1 diagnostic on all systems. See that the Keithorpheum doesn’t clog up the operation.”
O’Brien nodded and left.
“Dax,I want to know all there is to know about this stuff, especially how to get rid of it.”
“Right, Benjamin.”
As usual, the Promenade was still crowded. Though for convenience sake, DS9 used the Bajoran day and night, the middle of the night might be day for somebody who had just arrived. Warp lag was a familiar discomfort for those who traveled by starship. And, of course, some races slept during the day and were active only at night.
Odo stood with his arms folded across his chest while he looked in through the doorway of Quark’s place, presently rollicking with races from across the galaxy. In the middle of the room Quark’s brother Rom was sweeping the floor.
An expression of disgust on his face, Odo moved between groups of noisy customers to the bar.
Ignoring Odo, Quark squirted some blue fluid into a small portable antigravity field. The fluid shuddered like a living thing, but soon settled down into a sphere about the size of a fist. As he and Odo spoke, Quark added fluids of different colors, then stuck a needle into the resulting ball and put a puff of whipped cream at the center.
“Business is good,” Odo commented.
“So-so,” Quark said without looking at him.
“I guess the Keithorpheum isn’t bothering anyone.”
“The what?”
“Th
e dust,” Odo said. “It’s called Keithorpheum.”
“If you’re so interested in dust,” Quark said, looking at him at last, “grab a broom. Rom can’t keep up.”
“Too bad,” Odo said without sorrow. “Maybe the stuff will bury you.”
When Quark picked up the antigravity field generator, the colorful ball wobbled a little. “Excuse me,” he said. “I have a saloon to run.”
“First point out the customers who brought in the Keithorpheum.”
“Over there at the Dabo wheel,” Quark said as he nodded at the two bullet-shaped aliens. They were covered with golden dust that made small clouds every time they moved. “Arrest them if you want to. They’re starting to win.”
Odo grunted. He walked to the Dabo wheel and watched the aliens through a few turns of the wheel. Quark was right. Each time the wheel stopped, they won a little more latinum. The dust was everywhere.
“Excuse me, gentlebeings,” Odo said.
“What?” one of them said, his voice barely more than a growl. Odo could not tell which of the two bullet creatures spoke. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Not every hive species was as belligerent as the Borg.
“I am Odo, the security chief of this station, and I have a few questions to ask you.”
One of the creatures made a noise which may have signified amusement.
“I must insist.”
“You arrest us?”
“I will arrest you if I must. At the moment, I only request the pleasure of your company.”
As one, the aliens picked up their latinum and followed Odo to one of the few empty tables. Odo immediately saw that this attempt at courtesy was pointless. Sitting would be impossible for them be- cause they could not bend.
Odo sighed. “You are Trulgovians, are you not?”
“Trulgovians,” one of them agreed. Once again, Odo could not determine which one spoke.
“And your ship?”
“Cl’mntin.”
“Please return to the Cl’mntin and stay there until you learn a little personal hygiene.”
“Huh?”
“You’re burying the station in this gold dust, this Keithorpheum.” Odo picked up a little of it and rubbed it between his fingers. “Wash it off. If you leave your ship again covered in this dust I will arrest you. Do you understand?”
