HollowMen

by Una McCormack

  “You’re assuming that I don’t already have that matter well under control—” Odo stopped speaking as Quark arrived. He was bearing a tray, and he set O’Brien’s drink down in front of him.

  “You’re a little less patient than usual this evening, Chief,” Quark said.

  “Got a lot on my mind,” O’Brien said, and glanced round the table. “As have we all.”

  With a smooth and rapid movement, Quark tucked the tray under his arm, leaned his elbow on the table, and looked round at the three of them. “So…are you talking about the Ariadne, by any chance?” he said.

  “How do you know about that?” Odo retorted.

  Quark shrugged. “Word gets around.”

  “Again,” Odo said, “I have to ask the question—how?”

  “It’s a small station, Odo,” Quark answered. “Anyone watching could have seen you and the chief here running around the past couple of days.”

  That did not, Odo noted, explain how Quark knew the name of the ship that was due to arrive. It seemed that despite his continuing efforts, it was once again time for him to check upon the extent of Quark’s monitoring of station communications.

  “You think someone’s got their eye on all that latinum,” Quark said.

  “Stop licking your lips, Quark,” O’Brien said. “What do you think could happen?”

  “Well, I don’t really know,” Quark said. “It’s not as if I know anything about the security systems on the Ariadne—”

  Odo watched him carefully. Was it his imagination, or had Quark’s eyes strayed toward the padd on the table?

  “And it’s not something I have a great deal of experience in,” Quark said. “Having said that, friends of mine—”

  “Yes, of course,” Odo said. “Friends of yours.”

  “Some of us have friends, Odo,” Quark said, “And friends of mine who do have this kind of experience tell me that no system is entirely without faults. And that people can be endlessly creative in finding out what they are…if the profit is worth it.” He shrugged. “It’s just a question of patience and skill, Chief,” he said. “You should know that. Anyone can work their way around a technology.”

  “So people are the flaws in the system, huh?” O’Brien said.

  “So I hear,” Quark replied.

  O’Brien laughed. “Think I could have told you that myself, Quark!”

  “But there’s your answer, Odo,” Bashir said. “You need the kind of person who deals a lot with technologies.” He pushed the padd toward O’Brien.

  “Funny,” O’Brien replied. “The way I heard what Quark just said”—he pushed the padd back at the doctor—“Odo needs the kind of person who deals a lot with people.”

  Odo did not answer. He reached out to stop the padd moving around the table under Quark’s greedy eye. Then he looked up at the Ferengi.

  “Of course,” Quark said, looking straight back at him, “Odo knows of one very simple way to solve the whole problem. Don’t you, Odo?”

  “Well,” Odo said, drawing the padd closer to him, and spreading out across it a millimeter or two, “this will certainly be worth hearing. What is your expert advice then, Quark?”

  Quark gave him a predatory smile. “Simple. Arrest Brixhta and keep him locked in a holding cell all the time the latinum is here.”

  Bashir coughed up some of his synthale. O’Brien whistled. “Quark! I thought you and Brixhta had gone into business together. With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

  Odo stared at Quark, who was watching him back with more than a little interest. Then he looked back down at the padd and slowly, cautiously, began to give it a false cover.

  “It was just a thought.” Quark shrugged. “Well, Odo,” he challenged, “what do you think of it?”

  “He can’t just do that, Quark!” Bashir was outraged.

  Odo turned to Bashir and looked at him blankly. “Why not?”

  Quark laughed.

  “Odo!” Bashir shot back. “Because Brixhta hasn’t done anything, that’s why!”

  “Yet,” Odo said, pointedly.

  There was a slight pause, then Bashir collected himself. “You can’t just go around locking people up on the off chance that they’re going to commit a crime!” he said. “Where would it end?”

  “In this particular case, it could very well end with this shipment of latinum leaving the station safely in the possession of its owners,” Odo pointed out.

  “But you’ve no grounds for arresting him! Nothing apart from some suspicions based on what he did in the past.” Bashir put down his glass. “You know, I can’t believe we’re even discussing this.”

  “Why are you not surprised, Doctor?” Quark said. “It’s a very tidy answer to the problem, after all. I can definitely see the appeal of it. For Odo.”

  Odo did not respond, but stared down at the table, and expanded his cover a little more.

  “Well,” Quark said, “if we’re all done here, I still have a bar to run.”

  The silence lengthened after Quark left.

  “No need to take drastic measures, Odo,” O’Brien said soothingly, into the quiet. “We’ve done this kind of thing before plenty of times with no problem.”

  Odo did not answer. He began to draw himself in from covering the padd. He glanced over at the bar where Quark was busy with a new customer. What, Odo thought, were he and Brixhta playing at?

  “I really am sure, Odo,” Bashir said, in a quieter tone of voice, “that if you just do what you usually do, everything will work out fine.”

  Odo arranged his features into a frown. Bashir sighed, then picked up his glass and drained it. “Well,” he said, and stood up, “it’s been a long day. I should get to bed.”

  “Doctor.”

  Bashir sighed. “Yes, Constable?”

  Odo pointed down on the table in front of him. “Don’t forget the padd.”

  They ran as if they had a squadron of Jem’Hadar on their heels. Sisko decided to think of it as a strategic withdrawal. “Take a left!” he hissed, veering off, and Garak followed. They went, still running, into and along a narrow alley. Sisko led, with Garak just behind. They came out into a wide road that ran past the harbor. It was busy, full of people out in the early evening at the cafés and restaurants on the front. They lost themselves as best a Starfleet captain and a Cardassian could in the crowd, and then Sisko signaled Garak toward a set of stone steps leading down off the harborfront onto the sand.

  When they got to the bottom, they stopped. They listened for a moment or two, but nobody was following. Garak leaned back against the wall, gulping in the sea air. He caught Sisko looking at him, and he began to laugh. “I haven’t done anything like that for years,” he said.

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Sisko said, trying to catch his breath. “Do you think that you’ve got Rhemet out of your system now?”

  Garak grinned back at him. “I think so,” he replied. His eyes glittered. “And have you taken my point about censorship now?” His eyes glittered and he reached up carefully to touch his cheek. He winced slightly. “Thank you for stopping that young man for me, Captain. He was beginning to do some serious damage.”

  “Any time,” Sisko muttered. He heard footsteps hurrying down the steps toward them. Both of them peered up anxiously.

  It was Chaplin. She stopped when she saw them, halfway down the steps, and glared at Garak. Then she hit her combadge and said, “I’ve got him, Marlow.”

  “Oh dear,” Garak murmured to Sisko. “The lieutenant does not look pleased.”

  When Odo returned to his office, he settled behind his desk, and retrieved from his files a recent communication he had received. It was a Starfleet Special Order, and it was concerned with a series of new security measures that had been introduced since the Dominion had invaded Betazed.

  Odo examined the text of the order carefully. There it was, in plain language: Odo was now empowered to “neutralize security threats to the station by whatever means neces
sary.” No specific examples were given, but Odo was capable of supplying those for himself. For example, there was no specific need to charge an individual with a crime. Just hold them, until the threat was over. Or neutralized, as the order preferred.

  Odo regarded the file thoughtfully. Now he came to think about it, the language was not that plain at all. In fact, it left quite a lot of room for interpretation. Was it, for example, stretching the meaning of the order to include a possible theft of a shipment of latinum as a “security threat to the station”? It was certainly a threat to the latinum. And it was certainly taking up too much time and causing far too many distractions from the point of view of the station’s chief of security. Did that make it a threat to station security? One that should therefore be “neutralized”? Odo had a very strong suspicion that he might know what Bashir would have to say in answer to that question. He himself was not entirely sure how he would answer the question. But he was absolutely certain that implementing the order would put some stability back into what had hitherto been a most disrupted day.

  4

  SISKO SLEPT BADLY. The adrenaline from the fight kept him awake until the early hours. Then the dream that took him to the bridge of the Jem’Hadar ship woke him two hours before his call, and he did not get back to sleep.

  The day itself was filled with wrangling and circumlocution. The consequences of the counteroffensive at Sybaron had, as predicted, led to some strife among the tenuous alliance, and, as the day wore on, Sisko was increasingly aware that he was being watched. Ross, beside him, was the worst culprit, but he could feel Garak’s eyes upon his back too, although Garak had, at least, been mercifully quiet throughout the day’s sessions. And every time Sisko looked across the table, there was Veral, smiling back at him. When the last session of the day wound up, Sisko was out of his chair immediately.

  “Ben—” Ross said.

  “I have to go,” Sisko murmured, turning away from him. “Off to see an old friend.”

  He went quickly through the conference room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chaplin and Marlow with Garak. They were almost glued to him. Sisko turned away and went out into the corridor at a great pace. He took the turbolift down to the reception area, where he arranged for a transporter to take him to his destination, and sent out a communication to announce his imminent arrival. It was no more than fifteen minutes after he had left the conference that he was standing in the white New Zealand sunlight outside a bland gray building, with a security officer waiting to escort him inside.

  Back in his quarters, Garak stood by the window and looked out. The afternoon sun was shining, but it seemed to him that the world outside was made of water. It had been raining on and off throughout the day, and the sky had been washed a pale, clean blue. Beyond the verdant ranks of the trees, just on the horizon, there was the grand sweep of the bridge. But what really fascinated him was the bay. The extent of it; the sheer expanse…Garak rested his hand against the wall and stared at the water. He thought of Lake Masad, the largest lake on Cardassia Prime, lying high and narrow between barren, yellow mountains. Its surface was like black glass, and it lay still and unchanging in the harsh sun and sullen heat of home. What lay before him now was entirely different and wholly alien to him; bright blues shimmering and varying in the bright sunlight, water rippling in the breeze. He found it mesmerizing. He raised his other hand, absently, to shield his eyes.

  Much as Garak admired the water, he felt that he was not likely to get any closer to it in the foreseeable future. He tutted to himself in frustration, tapped his fingers against the window frame, and then pressed the control panel set on the wall. The glass darkened, taking some of the glare away from the room. Garak turned from the already half-hidden view, put his back to the window, and looked thoughtfully around him.

  Despite Garak’s insistence that the events of the previous evening had been a complete misunderstanding, Lieutenant Chaplin had not been amused by her charge’s account. She had asked that, outside of conference sessions and their meetings, Garak henceforth remain inside; and not just within the confines of HQ, but within the quarters that had been set aside for the duration of his visit. Marlow, by way of contrast, had seemed to be a little amused—but had firmly seconded his colleague’s request. Garak had more than enough experience to recognize that very special subset of request with which one was well advised to comply; and, anyway, if Starfleet Intelligence now wanted to keep a closer eye on him—well, really, he only had himself to blame.

  It was entirely consonant with everything else going on at the conference, Garak thought. Everyone was watching everyone else. Chaplin and Marlow, as he knew, were aware of his every move. Rhemet, too, Garak had been pleased to notice, had not now been able to ignore him entirely; indeed, every time Rhemet had opened his mouth to speak, he had glanced at Garak first. In the row behind Cretak and Veral, a veritable phalanx of Romulans was lined up, subjecting the other delegations to near-permanent surveillance. And Garak himself had spent a large part of the day watching Sisko. The events of the previous evening had not served, as Garak had hoped they might, to lift even a little of the captain’s mood. Sisko had been, if it were possible, even more preoccupied. All throughout the day, Garak had found himself wondering again exactly what had gone on in the captain’s impromptu meeting with his superiors. Garak’s worry had only increased with Sisko’s abrupt departure; when the afternoon’s sessions had closed, Sisko had absented himself as soon as he decently could. The prompt arrival of Chaplin and Marlow, ever efficiently at his disposal, had prevented Garak from following Sisko even a little way beyond the conference room, and had certainly done nothing to alleviate Garak’s own concerns.

  Garak sighed, and looked around his quarters. As prisons went, he had to admit that it was by no means the worst he had ever encountered. It was, for example, considerably better appointed than anything the Dominion had offered him. It was rather more spacious than the holding cells on DS9, with which he had, on one occasion, become quite unfortunately, but intimately acquainted. Still, even if the lock was metaphorical (and Garak had tried the door—it opened too, but Marlow had been sitting at the far end of the corridor, looking rather implacably impassable), a cell was still a cell, no matter how charming the view. And he would have liked very much to be able to open the window.

  Garak drew in a breath and told himself, not for the first time, that he had nothing to worry about. If Sisko had informed his superiors of the details of Vreenak’s death, then surely Garak would know by now? Surely someone would have come to arrest him? Surely someone would have come to speak to him, at least? It looked, Garak thought, as if he was just going to have to believe Sisko when he had said that nothing had happened. Although it went against his better nature, Garak was starting to think that he would have to assume that Sisko had told him the truth.

  For Sisko, after all, is an honorable man….

  Garak heaved another sigh. “Well,” he said, to the walls, “whatever shall we do now?”

  It was only midmorning, and Quark’s was already more than half-full. I imagine he’ll be pleased about that, Odo thought, watching with ill temper as Broik and a couple of the other barkeeps struggled to keep up with the orders. There was a certain something in the air too, Odo thought—an atmosphere of lively anticipation. Odo snorted. People often came to Quark’s filled with hope, and more often than not they left disappointed. Buying something from Brixhta was unlikely to make much of a difference to that.

  Odo scanned the room. There was a podium set up in front of the dabo table, and chairs had been set out in lines before it. They were already filling up. The clientele was a mix of visitors and locals, with a couple of unexpected faces; it looked like Kaga wanted to acquire some bits and pieces of history after all. Quark and Brixhta themselves were nowhere to be seen. However, just on the other side of the entrance, leaning back against the wall, Bashir was propped up, looking around with interest. Dax was standing next to him—a more than usually a
mused smile lighting her eyes. Odo went cautiously across to join them, walking slowly so as to create an opportunity to make an assessment of the doctor’s disposition. Bashir didn’t look quite so unapproachable this morning, he thought; perhaps giving him that padd last night had provided him with some distraction after all. Not that the doctor had been an enthusiastic audience, of course, despite all of Odo’s quite considerable effort…. Dax had better appreciate this example of his good nature.

  “Good morning, Doctor; good morning, Commander,” Odo said, nodding to them in turn when he got closer. “I had no idea that either of you were interested in buying antiques.”

  Bashir grinned back. “I’m more interested in the seller, actually, Constable,” he said. “Until last night, I’d never seen an Hamexi in the…” He stopped, as if to consider his choice of word. “Well, in the flesh before, although I did read a little about them while I was at the academy. A very interesting species, from a biological point of view—”

  Dax groaned. “Don’t talk shop, Julian, it’s far too early in the morning.”

  “It’s well past eleven hundred hours,” Bashir pointed out, but Dax was no longer listening.

  “When is the famous Brixhta due to arrive, Odo?” she said. “I assume that’s why you’re here? To keep an eye on him?”

  So Bashir had told Dax about Brixhta? Odo glanced over at Bashir, who gave an eloquently apologetic shrug. She made me tell her everything, it said. Of course.

  Odo nodded at Dax. “Indeed. I suspect he’ll be busy somewhere with Quark.”

  “Partners in crime?” Jadzia’s eyes were laughing.

  “So it seems,” Odo said, settling his face into a frown. “I suppose, at least, that if they’re together, they’re not free to cause as much trouble.”

  “Or else they’re causing double.” Bashir’s grin got a little broader.

  Yes, the doctor was definitely in a better mood this morning. “Tell me, Doctor,” Odo said, “have you had a chance to look over the information I gave you?”