by Mel Gilden
“How can that be if the filters are still clogged?”
“I don’t know,” O’Brien said with frustration.
“According to sensors, when we scrub away one cubic centimeter of Keithorpheum, two cubic centimeters seem to take its place.”
“What about the power conduits? I assume you’ve tried to clean them too?”
“I have, sir,” O’Brien said. “With the same result.”
Sisko nodded as he looked past them into the main control center. “What does Dax say?”
“She says Keithorpheum isn’t supposed to do that. The stuff has a simple crystalline structure and is nearly inert.”
“Then what the hell is going on?”
Dax ran up the stairs and into Sisko’s office. “Power is down another three percent.”
“Let’s find some answers,” Sisko said as he stood up.
Jake was astonished. With wary fascination, he looked from the small statue in his hand to the creature—Jake already thought if it as a Moop—as it walked around the store mumbling to itself. Occasionally, it turned and spoke while it waved its antennae at them. When it got no response, it shrugged and went back to its exploration.
“What’s it saying?” Nog asked as he edged out of its way.
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I think it’s speaking Cardassian.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nog said excitedly. “This is a great opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” Jake asked. “For what?”
“This little guy will make a great servant, a great companion.”
“We don’t know anything about him—or even if it is a him,” Jake reminded Nog. The Moop was climbing on some shelves at the back of the store. Jake admired its grace and strength; it might be a formidable enemy if it turned out to be less than friendly.
“Even if it wants to be a servant or a companion, it’ll have a hard time—it doesn’t speak Standard English.”
“Rule of Acquisition number sixty-two,” Nog quoted. ‘The riskier the road, the higher the profit.’ Let’s do a little experiment.”
“Be careful,” Jake advised, not liking Nog’s suggestion.
“It’s simple. Watch.” He glanced around, and picked up a small electronic part that had a crystalline tube at each end. “Moop,” Nog called to the Moop figure.
The creature looked over his shoulder at them.
“Come on down,” Nog coaxed, and patted the side of his leg.
“It’s not a dog,” Jake reminded him.
“What’s a dog?” Nog asked.
The creature fluttered it wings to lower itself gently to floor level. It came toward Nog, making what Jake thought of as questioning noises.
Nog gently tossed the electronic part in the Moop’s direction. The Moop stopped, then easily plucked the flying part out of the air. Nog held up his hands, and the Moop threw it back. When Nog caught it, all three of them laughed. Nog threw it to Jake who threw it to the Moop. Jake felt as if he were in a dream as he played catch with Nog and a creature that had been replicated by a Cardassian toy.
“You see?” Nog said as he caught the electronic part. “He’s a great companion! We’ll all play baseball together. It’ll be terrific advertising for our companion service.”
“Baseball?” Jake asked, starting to see the possibilities. He and Nog, and sometimes even his dad, played baseball in a holosuite. As a matter of fact, playing baseball was nearly impossible any other way. It would take eighteen kids to make up the two teams necessary for a game—not counting an umpire and spectators—but there were rarely that many interested parties on the station. “Sure,” he said. “If we can get these little guys to play, all we’ll need for a game is some equipment and an empty cargo bay.”
“Great advertising,” Nog said again. “People will come out to the game and see these guys. Everybody will want one!”
Jake was not sure that Moop baseball would be as popular as Nog imagined, but playing a real game of baseball appealed enormously. “There are two of us,” he said. “All we really need are sixteen more players.”
“Let’s get to it,” Nog said and reached for the toy figure. “I just hope we can find an empty cargo bay.”
“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “I want to make my team. You can make yours.”
Nog nodded—obviously ready to agree to anything.
Jake touched the Moop icon, and a Moop immediately leaped out of the toy figure. As before, the lights momentarily dimmed and the air recirculators slowed.
“It has wings like the first one,” Nog noted, “but it doesn’t have antennae or a tail.”
“Maybe the toy is broken.”
“I didn’t break it.”
The boys watched to see what the two Moops would do together. While the tail of the first one thrashed from side to side, they spoke to each other for a moment. The first one supplemented its conversation with the wiggling of antennae. Suddenly, the second one grabbed the first one and leaped upward. They tumbled through the air, flapping their small wings. After a few seconds, they fell to the ground with a bump and rolled around on the dirty floor.
“Stop them!” Nog cried.
“I don’t think they’re fighting,” Jake said. “I think they’re playing.”
And sure enough, they soon stopped what they were doing, and sat near each other on the floor. They spoke to each other in their own language—probably Cardassian—and pointed out things of interest including Jake and Nog.
Jake touched the screen again, and another Moop jumped out of the statue. This one was also without antennae and tail. Now that there were three of them, it was easy to see that the original Moop, the one who had the antenna and the tail, was the leader. “See,” he said, “they all sit the way he does.”
Jake made five more Moops. And though he badly wanted to play baseball, he could not help noticing that the lights were somewhat dimmer than they had been and the air was somewhat more stale than it had been before he started generating his team of Moops.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Jake said. “Those Moops are doing something to the station.”
“You worry too much,” Nog said as he took the original toy figure from Jake. “We’ll sell tickets to Moop baseball games, and be rich.”
“What if they don’t want to play?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Nog asked, confused by the question.
“That’s not the point,” Jake insisted. “The point is, replicated or not, we don’t own them. It’s not right for one being to own another.”
“What about pets?”
Nog’s question stopped Jake for a moment. Pets were common throughout the Federation. What was the difference? “I guess,” Jake answered carefully, “it’s a matter of intelligence. These Moops seem too bright to be pets.”
“All right, Jake. If you insist, we won’t force them to play. But they’ll want to. I’m sure of it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
The lights continued to dim and the noise of the air recirculators became more labored as Nog made the eight other members of his team. One of the Moops was pawing through a bundle of wire. Others rolled on the floor as the first two had. A few talked with the original Moop—seeming to get information from his antennae as well as from his words—while they contemplated the two boys.
“I don’t know about this,” Jake said, suddenly afraid. He didn’t like the way the Moops were looking at them.
“What?” Nog asked. He held the original toy figure while he stared appreciatively at the members of his team.
“If you don’t mind the low light and the stale air, you might notice that we’re outnumbered.”
“Don’t think of them as outnumbering us,” Nog advised. “Think of them as stock.”
“I wonder how they think of us,” Jake said as the Moops circled round.
“They think of us as—” Nog stopped when he noticed, as Jake had, that the Moops now surrounded them. Jake and Nog stood back to back.
>
“Hi, guys,” Jake said, and waved in what he hoped was a convincingly friendly manner.
The Moops stepped forward. They did not seem angry, or even evil. Their expressions were entirely unreadable. They were totally alien—their needs, desires, and intentions entirely unknown. They closed in, leaving the boys no escape. Jake felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare.
The first Moop suddenly spoke a sharp word. Not even Nog had time to cry out when all at once the Moops leaped at the two boys.
CHAPTER 5
Commander Sisko never did get his lunch.
Once O’Brien had pointed it out to him, he noticed that Keithorpheum covered every surface in Ops. According to sensors and the reports of other personnel on the station, the dust was all over DS9—including, of course, in the air recirculator filters and the power conduits. Everywhere, light, heat, and other life-support services were functioning at lowered levels.
Still, at the moment the Keithorpheum was no more than an annoyance. When questioned about the health risks of prolonged exposure to Keithorpheum, Dr. Bashir looked at the data that Dax provided and pronounced it safe. “Provided,” he said, “you don’t eat it or become buried in it.”
Dax and O’Brien were rigging a way to beam the dust into space. According to Dax, it was just a matter of tuning a wide-angle transporter beam so that it would pick up only the Keithorpheum. The fact that they didn’t care in what condition the Keithorpheum arrived at its final destination made matters simpler. O’Brien thought he would have the job done in an hour or two. That left plenty of time before power output fell to dangerous levels.
What irritated Sisko the most was that a pair of Trulgovian miners could bring enough Keithorpheum onto the station to cause trouble. He would not have thought it possible. He suspected something else was going on, and wished he knew what it was.
Therefore, while Dax and O’Brien were seeing to technical matters, and while Kira took care of any further problems the Keithorpheum caused for the station’s inhabitants, Sisko and Odo went to visit the miners on their ship, Cl’mntin.
The miners had not set foot aboard the station since Odo had warned them to clean up their act, but Cl’mntin had not left the docking ring either. The fact that the Trulgovians had stayed at DS9 was unusual, but not exactly suspicious.
“I can’t help wondering why they’re staying around if they have no intention of visiting the station again,” Sisko said as he and Odo marched along the corridor that would take them to the docking ring. The belt pouch in which Odo carried a tricorder slapped against his hip with every step.
“The Trulgovians are not the brightest race in the galaxy,” Odo explained. “They make Pakleds look like Daystrom Institute graduates. For all we know, they may still be washing.”
“Let’s hope that’s all they’re doing,” Sisko said.
The two entered the docking ring, and the big cogged airlock door rolled aside to admit them to the airlock itself. Before them was the meteor-scarred and sun-blasted hull of Cl’mntin. Odo worked the intercom and briefly spoke to someone inside the ship. The outer door of the ship slid upward, revealing an interior that surprised Sisko.
Being a Starfleet officer, Benjamin Sisko had seen many different ship designs. The interiors of some ships reminded him of crowded basements or factories. Others seemed more like the lobbies of fancy hotels. Some ignored the emptiness of space while others reveled in it. Each was different. Each suited the needs of the particular race flying the ship. Still, nothing he had seen prepared him for what he saw aboard the Trulgovian ship when he walked in with Odo at his heels.
They stood at the end of a long tunnel that might have been bored right into a mountain. He had heard that the Trulgovians were natural miners, creatures who felt more at home underground than in the artificial corridors of a starship. It seemed they designed their ships to reflect their preference.
Bullet-shaped Trulgovians were trudging single file along this tunnel and through a cross tunnel he saw farther down. Some carried parcels—bags, boxes, or equipment—but they did not speak to each other. As they walked, they kicked up little clouds of golden dust that was certainly Keithorpheum. Sisko supposed that he and Odo would have to undergo decontamination procedures before they reentered the station.
This was all interesting, but not as important as some other facts that Sisko noted.
“The lights are steady,” Odo commented, “and taking into account whose ship this is, the air is surprisingly fresh.”
“Yes,” Sisko agreed. “Apparently, they aren’t experiencing the problems with Keithorpheum that we are having.”
“Maybe we will find some answers here after all,” Odo said.
One of the aliens stepped out of line and approached them. This Trulgovian seemed no different from the hundreds of others in sight. “Come,” it said, and walked away without waiting to see what effect its order would have.
Sisko shrugged. “Come,” he said, imitating the Trulgovian. As was the custom of the place, he and Odo followed single file.
Following turned out to be more difficult than Sisko had expected. Though a Trulgovian may have been able to tell them apart, all Trulgovians looked pretty much alike to the commander. “Are we following the right one?” he asked Odo.
“I think so, sir. I’ve been watching our guide pretty closely.”
Sisko nodded. He’d been watching too. The fact that he and Odo agreed was a good sign.
They followed the Trulgovian—they hoped it was the right one—up ramps and through enormous caverns where tier after tier of Trulgovians worked, doing things Sisko could not imagine. This was not a real mountain, after all. What could they be digging for?
They made so many turns, went up and down so many tunnels that Sisko was quite lost. He hoped that he wouldn’t need to find his own way out.
They came at last to a room where Trulgovians stood among heaps of rock, some of which pulsed with color or glowed steadily. There were no chairs, of course, since Trulgovians did not sit, but a few of the aliens leaned in slanted troughs. Sisko supposed they were comfortable, though they did not look it.
One of the resting Trulgovians turned to Sisko suddenly. “You seek Keithorpheum,” it said.
“Not exactly,” Sisko said. “We seek a way to get rid of it.”
While the Trulgovian thought over that difficult concept, Odo wandered around the room taking tricorder readings. The Trulgovians did not seem to notice.
“We mine Keithorpheum,” another Trulgovian said.
“Yes,” Sisko said, a little angrily, “and you’re leaving it all over my station. You obviously have experience with this substance. How do you prevent it from clogging up your ship’s systems?”
Sisko seemed to have stumped them again. He waited impatiently. His station’s air quality and the power output of his fusion reactor were falling as the minutes passed.
“We mine it and we sell it,” a Trulgovian across the room explained.
Sisko didn’t know whether they were being difficult, or if there was a fundamental difference in the way they perceived language. In either case, he had no time to remedy the situation. “Odo?” he said.
“About done here, Commander.” He snapped closed his tricorder and joined Sisko.
“Thank you for your time,” Sisko said. “Please show us to the airlock.”
None of the Trulgovians moved or said anything.
“Out!” Odo shouted.
One of the Trulgovians walked over to them. “Come,” he said, and left the room. Once again struggling to keep the correct Trulgovian in sight, Sisko and Odo set off through the ship. Sisko was pleased and more than a little relieved when they came in sight of the hatch.
They stepped out of the Trulgovian ship and into the airlock, where Odo called a decontamination crew.
“We look like one of them,” Odo said as he slapped the Keithorpheum off his clothes. It fell around him in clouds that slowly settled down.
“Yes,”
Sisko said as he slapped his clothes as well.
“Remind me to speak to Dax about her definition of harmless.”
The decon crew soon arrived and caused a wave of programmed nanites to wash over them. Each nanite was a microscopic machine that picked up a speck of the dust and carried it to waiting containers. Soon Sisko and Odo and the ground around them was clean.
“Why can’t we do that with the station’s systems?” Sisko asked.
“Nanites would solve our problem neatly,” Odo agreed.
He and Sisko walked back to the habitat ring. Lights were dim and the air was unusually heavy with the musks of metabolizing beings.
“Smells like a locker room,” Sisko said.
On the Promenade, the increasingly foul air caused most beings to move slowly, as if they were badly fatigued. A few large-eyed creatures skulked in the growing shadows-night hunters, Sisko was sure. Morose customers sat at the bar in Quark’s. Nobody was playing Dabo, so the Dabo girls were, without much enthusiasm, playing some card game among themselves.
“Good luck,” Odo said as he handed his tricorder to Sisko. He indicated his office with a nod of his head. “I want to make sure no one is taking unfair advantage of our power reduction.”
Sisko walked to the lift, which frustrated him because it rose to Ops so slowly. When he arrived, Dax and O’Brien were standing at the engineering console watching the readout intently. Kira was leaning with both hands on the situation table while she glared at it.
“How are we doing, people?” Sisko asked as he leaped off the lift before it had even risen to floor level. Seeing their faces, he knew he wouldn’t like their answers.
“Tuning the transporter for sensitivity to Keithorpheum was no problem,” Dax began.
O’Brien, excited, interrupted her. “And as far as we can tell, the transporter is actually picking the stuff up. We’ve beamed almost a ton of it into space.”
A ton sounded like a lot. Not even Trulgovians could toddle around with a ton of dust on their clothes.
“But?” Sisko asked. “I’m sure there’s a ‘but’.”
“But,” Dax went on, “more of it just seems to appear.”
