Star Trek - DS9 - Fall of Terok Nor

by Неизвестный

  Rom had simply shrugged and gone on to explain in excruciatingly precise and clinical detail that the shape in the mural was not that of a Tholian head at all, but of an entirely different, but equally remarkable part of Tellarite male anatomy.

  Even as he began to laugh at Rom's hilariously rib-ald description, Quark had felt his heart actually stop beating as he suddenly remembered the presence of the two Cardassian engineers. Fortunately, both were so drunk that they didn't hear Rom dismiss the Gul's

  great work of art as nothing more than a big Tellarite... well, even in private, Quark had not been able to say the word, though he relished the aptness of the image.

  For at least a year after that, he and Rom had shared a rare moment of rapport in their guilty, private plea-sure every time Dukat came to the bar with whoever his latest comfort woman was and regaled her with the story of Admiral Alkene, ending with a grandiloquent toast and salute to the mural.

  Only Quark and his brother knew to what the gul was really raising his glass, and they kept that knowl-edge to themselves. And if any other visitors to Quark's during those last years of the Occupation rec-ognized what was hanging on the wall for what it was, they also wisely kept their expert knowledge-and their laughter-to themselves.

  Though Quark had never been able to confirm Rom's saucy identification of the mural's subject mat-ter, and for that matter had never been able to deter-mine how his idiot brother had come to have such deep knowledge of Tellarite mud-pits of ill repute, it was always in Quark's mind that if the day ever came that the Cardassians left Terok Nor, he would celebrate that glorious occasion by shattering Gul Dukat's mural into ten thousand shards.

  But that day had come and gone, six long years ago, and the mural remained, with both he and Rom still referring to it, in private, as the Admiral.

  But the Tholian mural was of no importance this night, and Quark tried not to think of the disarray the bar had been left in-or the overtime it would cost him to get it back in shape for Morn's arrival in the morning. Instead, he poured himself a snoggin of Romulan ale.

  And since old traditions are hard to ignore, he did hold up the glass to the mural. "To you, Admiral-or whatever you are. Because you're still here, and I'm still here, and I have absolutely no idea why that should be." He gulped down a mouthful of the ale, shivering as the blue fluid sliced through him like a protoplaser. "Except, that is," he coughed to finish his toast, "as some twisted reminder of the 117th Rule: You can't free a fish from water."

  "Actually..." a distant, muffled voice interjected, "that's the 217th Rule. A lot of people make that mis-take."

  The empty glass slipped from Quark's hand and shattered on the counter of the bar as he stared at the mural. For just a split second, visions of latinum came to his mind as he calculated the increased busi-ness he could attract with a talking wall decoration that knew the Rules of Acquisition. But only for a split second.

  "Rommm..." Quark sighed. "What are you doing back there?"

  "Uh, up here, Brother." Quark looked up. Rom was standing on the second floor, holding a large tray stacked with dirty dishes. He carried a server's billing padd in his mouth, accounting for the muffled nature of his voice.

  "My mistake," Quark said in exasperation, "what are you doing up there?"

  "Uh, cleaning up." Rom started down the stairs, eyes fixed on the precariously balanced dishes before him. "We had three different parties in the holosuites tonight, sooo... things are still a bit messy."

  Rom made it to the bar and put down his tray just as Quark lunged to catch the first falling glass. "Where

  are the servers?" Quark demanded. "Did they all quit? Or did you talk them into going on strike again?"

  Rom took the padd from his mouth and wiped the edge of it on his sleeve. "Well, no. I... sent them home."

  Quark shook his head, having a hard time believing he was actually having this conversation. "How could you send them home when the place looks like this?!"

  "Because... it takes longer to clean up when we've been this busy-and then we have to pay them over-time."

  Quark blinked. Had his brother actually said some-thing sensible? "Wait a minute. You sent them home- to save money?"

  Rom nodded excitedly. "Well... yes. You see, tomorrow's my day off from station duty, so I can stay up all night to clean the bar, and that saves us the over-time charges for the serving staff."

  Quark snorted cynically. "Sure. So you can pocket that money for yourself."

  "Uh, no, Brother. If we can keep overtime to a mini-mum for the next two weeks, then when we get our next beverage shipment, we'll be able to pay on deliv-ery, and that will net us a one-point-six-seven percent discount for cash. Which, when you multiply by our standard adjusted gross markup, works out to an addi-tional profit of-"

  "I know what it works out to," Quark said. "Who gave you that idea?"

  Rom looked around the empty bar and shrugged. "Uh,... you've been saying we need to cut overhead, and that made me think of how Chief O'Brien tries to... optimize the station's engineering resources, so

  I used his Starfleet scheduling programs to examine the bar's operations. And... it worked! Didn't it?"

  Whether it was the headache/earache assault, the exhaustion he felt after Odo's interrogation, or-more probably-the Romulan ale, Quark ran out of things to complain about. "You surprise me, Rom."

  Rom grinned. "Uh, you surprise me, too. I... heard you talking to..." He started to snicker. "... the Admiral."

  Quark poured another snoggin of ale. "I didn't know you were eavesdropping." Quark went to swallow the drink, but stopped when he saw Rom staring at him. "What?"

  "I heard what you said, Brother. Why is the mural still here? I mean, you always said you wanted to... get rid of it as soon as the Cardassians were gone."

  Quark took a deep breath, realized he had no answer, so he made one up. "I got used to it. It's the same reason you're still here."

  Rom's gap-toothed grin was knowing. "Oh, I know that's not true. You're just tired after being in that cell for so long. I sent a message to the Nagus!"

  Quark felt as if he had just been slapped awake. 'About what?!"

  "Well... Odo told Leeta to tell me that you said that you needed a lawyer."

  "Doesn't anyone on this station know about negotia-tions?" Quark exclaimed in disgust. "You know, when you make an outrageous demand that you know won't be met, in order to counter the outrageous demand made by the other party?"

  Now it was Rom's turn to look confused. "You mean... you don't need a lawyer?"

  "No."

  "But-"

  "But what?"

  Rom shrugged. "You killed that Andorian."

  "Rom! I did not kill anyone! "

  Rom blinked innocently. "You killed that Klingon."

  "An accident! What are you? Working for Odo now?"

  "But, Brother, if... you didn't kill the Andorian, why have you been under arrest for the past two days?"

  "Because Odo is one of those rare individuals on this station who is actually more of an idiot than you are!" Even as the words were leaving his mouth, Quark could see he had hurt his brother's feelings. "I'm sorry, Rom. Really. I didn't mean it. It's Odo who's put me in such a bad mood." Quark set up a second glass. "C'mon, have a drink to celebrate my release."

  Rom watched carefully as Quark poured more ale. "But... wasn't it supposed to be a good idea that you were in protective custody?"

  Quark handed the glass to his brother. "It was, until Odo decided I really was guilty and made it a real arrest. He still thinks I'm guilty."

  The two Ferengi clinked glasses and toasted the Admiral. Then Rom gaped like a drowning fish as the Romulan ale scorched his insides. "I... I don't... understand..." he gasped.

  "You drank it too fast," Quark explained.

  "N-no," Rom wheezed. "If Odo still thinks you're guilty, then why did he let you go?"

  "Captain Sisko listened to reason. Hew-mons do that occasionally, you know, Rom. He made Odo
release me and give me a bodyguard."

  "What bodyguard?"

  Quark pointed out to the Promenade. "That body- oh, for-"

  The Bajoran security officer he had left standing watch at the main door to the bar was gone.

  Quark crouched down and waved his hand at Rom. "Check the other door. Hurry!"

  Rom jumped back to look spinward at the smaller entrance to the left of the bar. "Uh, there's no one there either."

  Quark's desperately racing mind tried to make sense of the situation. The bodyguard had been Bajoran, so he probably hadn't been bribed to abandon his post. And if Vash was making a move on him, she wouldn't kill an uninvolved party, so she had either stunned the guard and-

  "The Andorian sisters," Quark hissed.

  Rom nodded with a happy smile. "They're very pretty."

  "They want to kill me!" Quark yelped from behind the bar.

  Rom leaned over to peer down at his hiding brother. "But... that was only because they thought you killed Dal Nortron. And since you didn't..."

  "But they still think I did!"

  Rom nodded with understanding. "Oh... then you are in big trouble. Huge trouble. Gigantic trou-ble."

  The only thing that stopped Quark from slapping his brother silly was his desire to stay down, out of the line of fire. "Thank you for figuring that out for me, idiot! Now listen carefully...."

  "Brother, I don't like it when you call me names. Chief O'Brien-"

  "Shut up! Shut up and go to security. Get Odo. I don't care if you have to pour him out of his pail-"

  "Uh, I don't think he lives in a pail anymore-"

  "I don't care! It's not important! Just tell him his guard is gone and he needs to-"

  A sudden series of swift knocks froze Quark in mid-command.

  He mouthed the words, "Who... is... it?"

  Rom mouthed back the words, "I... don't... know."

  Quark made fists with both hands, and sputtered out loud, "Of course you don't know-you..." He caught himself, dropped his voice to a whisper. "You didn't look."

  "Oh," Rom said, as if the concept of seeing who was at a door was startlingly new. "I can do that." He left the bar.

  Quark sank deeper behind it, knowing there was nowhere to run. The closest entrance to his network of smugglers' tunnels was in a wall halfway across the bar. Then he brightened. The lights were out. Maybe... just maybe whoever was at the door who had come to kill him would think Rom was Quark, kill Rom, then leave. Quark chewed his bottom lip, trying not to jinx the possibility of good fortune by thinking too much about it. But it was possible. There could still be a happy ending to this tawdry mess after all.

  "Hello?" Quark heard Rom speaking softly in the distance. "Is... someone there?"

  Quark braced for the sound of a phaser. My poor brother, he thought. How brave he is to risk his life for me. He began to plan Rom's memorial party. He was sure he could get Chief O'Brien to pay for it.

  "Hello?" Rom said again.

  Quark heard the hum of the door inductors as they began to slide open.

  "Is someone-ah!"

  Quark grimaced as he heard his brother's death cry swallowed by the crackle of an energy discharge. At least it was fast, he thought. He'd be sure that his nephew Nog took comfort in that knowledge.

  But then he heard footsteps-a sound so faint only Ferengi ears could perceive it.

  Vash, Quark thought, outraged. She knew what he looked like. That hew-mon female had killed Rom out of spite. You 'd think spite would be enough for her.

  Then Quark heard a second set of footsteps. He sti-fled a groan. Two sets could only mean he was wrong about Vash. It was the Andorian sisters. They knew what he looked like too.

  Who am I fooling? Quark suddenly thought. It was one thing to sit back and hope for disaster to strike others in order to save him. But the 236th Rule said it best: You can't buy fate.

  / have to be brave, he told himself. / have to avenge Rom's brave sacrifice. I have to stand up for what I believe in.

  Slowly, Quark craned his head around and reached for the bottle of Romulan ale, grabbing it by its neck. In his mind, he painstakingly choreographed the moves he would have to make to go on the offensive- a sudden leap to his feet, smash the bottle to create a jagged makeshift weapon, then prepare for victory. If there were any other result, he wouldn't know it until he was on the steps of the Divine Treasury bribing the Nagul Doorman.

  So be it, Quark thought with utter finality.

  And then in a brilliant burst of speed and grace, Quark thrust himself to his feet, spun around like a dancer, swung the bottle of Romulan ale against the edge of the bar and-

  -screamed in high-pitched mortal agony as the entire bottle shattered, slicing his palm with shards from the fragile neck.

  "Frinx!" Quark squealed, as he clasped his bloody hand to his chest and looked out across the bar to see the last person he expected to see-

  "Rom?!"

  "Uh... sorry brother... but there was nothing I could do."

  Quark blinked through a haze of pain. Now his hand throbbed as badly as did his head and ears. "Nothing you could do about what?!"

  "Well... he made me open the door."

  Quark wrapped a bar rag around his bleeding hand, but that only drove the bottle shards in more deeply. And despite Rom's babbling, there was no one else present.

  "Who made you open the door?!"

  Rom looked down at something on his side of the bar. "He did. He... said you wanted to see him."

  "Rom," Quark said as he rocked from foot to foot, "I can't see anyone!"

  "Uh... because you're not looking?"

  Quark sighed and trembled and wanted to cry, all at the same time. He leaned forward, looked over the edge of the bar, and saw-

  -multicolored stars explode in his vision like the prettiest globular cluster he had ever seen.

  As Quark fell into those stars, he heard what could

  only be the laughter of the much-maligned Tholian Admiral echoing in his poor wounded ears. And he suspected that the basic underpinning of his personal philosophy had been proven true once again.

  No matter how bad things look, they can always get worse.

  CHAPTER 11

  sometimes Sisko felt that he had never left the wormhole after his first meeting with the aliens. That after his first encounter with the Prophets in their Celestial Temple, everything that had happened since-or that appeared to have happened-was somehow already a memory. A memory he was merely reliving.

  Standing before the sink in the tiny kitchen alcove of his quarters on Deep Space 9, Sisko whisked at the eggs in their copper bowl, smearing out the streaks of dark pepper sauce, frothing the egg mixture into a whirlpool just as the wormhole frothed the quantum foam of normal space-time.

  How many times had he done this-made an omelette? How many times had he made this omelette? Or could it be they were all part of the exact same moment in time and-

  -he was a child standing on a low wooden step-stool in the kitchen of his father's New Orleans restau-rant. His father-Joseph-stood behind him, his large, comforting hand guiding his son's small hand on the whisk as it swept through the eggs, teaching him as his father had taught him, and-

  -he was a father looking over his own son's shoul-der. Little Jake-O was standing on a low wooden step-stool in the cooking corner of that cramped apartment he and Jennifer had rented in San Francisco as they waited for the Saratoga to return to port so they could finally share their careers, and their dreams, as a fam-ily. He held Jake's small hand in his, guiding it as his father had guided him, as Jake might someday guide his own child's hand-

  -all the same moment, these memories of things long ago and of things still to be, yet all bound up together in the soothing traditions of those kitchens.

  He laughed, softly, caught up in his discovery.

  "That sounds nice," Kasidy Yates said.

  Drawn suddenly from all moments to this moment, Sisko turned to Kasidy Yates where she sat on a chair
at the dining table set for breakfast. Her lithe form was draped in one of his caftans, a textured cotton with a bold brown and white blockprint pattern from Old Zimbabwe. Her long brown fingers gracefully cradled a cup of morning coffee, her soft dark hair still mussed from bed, her clear brown eyes not quite yet open. Her infectious smile transfixed him, as it had from the first day they'd met.

  "I've missed that," he heard her say. "You laughing."

  Sisko held the copper bowl against his hip as with-out conscious thought he continued to fluff the eggs. "I was thinking that the reason the Prophets made me