Star Trek - DS9 Relaunch 04 - Gateways - 4 of 7 - Demons Of Air And Darkness

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  liked to spend money at his bar; trade with the Do­minion, which increased his profit margin, since he was the first to open relations with the Dominion; and so much more. True the war had upset much of that, but one needed only to remember the Thirty-Fourth Rule of Acquisition: "War is good for business."

  From what Malic was saying, this was like the opening of the wormhole, but increased by a factor of thousands.

  "Where do I come in?"

  "The Iconians are auctioning off the rights to the gateways to the highest bidder. We've been able to se­cure private negotiations on this ship with one of their mediators."

  "What are the terms?"

  Malic looked up at one of the two big Orions, who walked to the table, picked up one of the padds, and handed it to Quark.

  Quark took it and thumbed it. It contained three lists.

  'The first list is the initial offer," Malic said, "fol­lowed by the secondary offer—"

  Putting the padd down, Quark finished, "And the third is the last-resort add-ons when the bidding gets fierce, I know. This isn't my first negotiation, Malic. If it was, you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of asking for me." He picked up the padd again and held it screen-out toward Malic. "And this list needs work."

  Again, Malic's frown deepened. He removed his fancy padd from his jacket pocket and looked at the screen—presumably he had called the same list onto it that Quark was speaking of. "What do you mean?"

  Looking back down at the list, Quark said, "You've got rights to the dilithium mines on Dozaria in the

  second list. The Iconians are getting rid of a method of instantaneous transportation. Do you really think that dilithium mines are going to be a sweetener for them? It's just a source of extra profit, but not a com­pelling offer in and of itself."

  "It was extremely—difficult to obtain those rights from the Breen," Malic said. "We're reluctant to part with them so easily."

  "Then don't part with them at all. They're a minor component of this deal, and if they're that precious to you, save them for some time when you'll really need them. On the other hand, the acribyte futures should move to the second list—maybe the third. Acribyte wasn't discovered until long after the Iconians were last seen in this quadrant, and it only exists in one star system. It's something brand new to them, and also something immensely profitable. That's much more compelling to this type of client"

  Quark suggested other rearrangements of the list before Malic finally said, "Have a care, Ferengi. Don't presume to—overstep yourself."

  "I'm just trying to complete my task, Malic," Quark said, opening his arms wide.

  "Your task is to negotiate with the Iconians."

  "On your behalf," Quark added, "and in order to do that, I need to negotiate from the best possible posi­tion. Now if you don't want my advice, why bring me here?"

  Malic said nothing.

  "Fine, I'll answer my own question, then. You need me."

  "The Orion Syndicate needs no one."

  Quark made a "tchah" noise. "Posturing now?

  C'mon, Malic, I expected better from you than that." He leaned back in his chair. Have to play this care­fully. The fact of the matter was, the syndicate could crush him like a tube grub, and Quark knew it. The Orions had their grubby green fingers in most of the illegal activity across half the quadrant—and a decent amount of the legal activity, too. They'd stayed one step ahead of Starfleet Intelligence, the Tal Shiar, the Obsidian Order, Klingon Imperial Intelligence, and the Ferengi Commerce Authority for decades.

  Taking a breath, Quark continued. "Look, I freely admit that I owe you for not exposing my little scheme back on the station. It's true, you've done me a favor—but you're not doing me any favors, if you know what I mean. I can turn right around and walk out of here and take my chances back on Deep Space 9." The two guards moved forward menacingly. "Metaphorically speaking, of course," Quark added hastily. "The point is, I can handle Starfleet, and I can handle the Cardassians. Been doing it for years."

  "Really? Shall we test that theory?" Malic asked nastily. "All it will take is a simple command on this padd, and all the details will be transferred to a Com­mander Ju'les L'ullho on Starbase 96 and to certain individuals on Cardassia Prime."

  "That won't be necessary," Quark said quickly. "What I'm trying to say here is that—well, no of­fense, but, you're pirates. You're used to taking what you want, not asking for it. That's why you need me—I know how to get you a bargain. So are you going to take advantage of my skills—which were the whole reason why you talked me into coming here in the first place—or are you going to guarantee that

  you'll lose the gateways before I ever even walk into the negotiating room?"

  Malic glowered at Quark for several seconds. Quark didn't move, didn't even blink. I've sat through Odo's interrogations, I can sit through this old slug's stare.

  Finally, Malic looked down at his padd and said, "What other changes would you like to make?"

  Smiling, Quark proceeded to continue with his sug­gested changes to the list.

  Once they'd gotten everything to a satisfactory level, Malic said, without looking up, "Bring some tube grubs for our negotiator—and see if there are any Bajoran hors d'oeuvres left for his companion." One of the two Orion landmasses moved toward the door.

  Quark inclined his head toward Malic. "I admire a man who knows how to treat the hired help."

  Another Orion entered the room. "The Iconians have arrived, along with their mediator. I've installed them in the conference room."

  "Good." Malic looked up at Quark. "Do well for us, Quark. The syndicate does not tolerate failure."

  The implication came through quite clearly: if the Orions did not wind up with control of the gateways, Quark would be held responsible. Never mind exposing his scam on Cardassia—Quark suspected that the syn­dicate's ideas of retribution would get a good deal more unpleasant.

  The oversized Orions stood on either side of Quark. "Let's go," one of them said.

  "Don't I get my tube grubs?" Quark asked, looking up at one of the Orions—who was actually staring at Tamra as he spoke.

  "We'll bring 'em to the table. Move."

  "Fine."

  Quark got up, and he and Tamra followed the Orion out the door, then down a corridor to another confer­ence room.

  This one was somewhat larger than the previous room, and much more tastefully decorated. No erotica here, but an impressive array of paintings lined the walls, including the best fake of T'Nare of Vulcan's ShiKahr Sunrise Quark had ever seen. If I'd had fakes that good when I was selling that alleged lot of T'Nare's work, I wouldn't have had to pay that fine. This table also appeared to be made of oak, but Quark's practiced eye recognized it as an Ordek transformer table, which could take on different appearances. At its center was a pair of opaque pitchers and two mugs.

  Personally, Quark thought, I'd have chosen some­thing a bit more friendly. There's something forebod­ing about oak.

  Then Quark looked at the people in the room, and tried to keep his jaw from dropping.

  Standing around the table were two tall, skinny bipeds with yellowish skin. Their features seemed un­finished, almost like Odo's. They wore outfits of green satin similar to the type favored by the more well-to-do members of the Orion Syndicate—light green cape with dark green brocade, a loose-fitting tunic and tight pants the same color as the brocade.

  All of that registered in Quark's mind peripherally. Most of his attention was focused on the person sit­ting at the head of the table. It was a Ferengi with small beady eyes and sporting a huge sneer. He was dressed in a suit of the finest Tholian silk. The Forty-

  Seventh Rule of Acquisition came to mind: "Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own."

  And this Ferengi was definitely not one to be trusted, regardless of his suit.

  "Gaila." Quark said the name in a dull monotone.

  "Pleasure to see you, cousin," Gaila said. His sneer widened.

  Gaila
, to whom Quark had made a loan years ago to help him start his business. Gaila, whose subse­quent success as an arms dealer was profitable enough to allow him to buy his own moon. Gaila, who gave Quark a ship in order to repay that loan, but sabotaged it, an incident from which Quark, his brother, and his nephew barely survived. Gaila, who brought Quark into the weapons business to help alleviate Quark's near-destitute state after he'd been banned by the Fer­engi Commerce Authority.

  Gaila, whom Quark had betrayed to General Nas-suc of Palamar, which had resulted in Gaila becoming a target of the general's "purification squad." Gaila, whom Quark had last seen on Deep Space 9 as a wreck, a shadow of his former self, aiding Quark on a lunatic mission to rescue Quark's mother, Ishka, from Dominion forces.

  "I was wondering where you've been keeping your­self," Quark said.

  "I've been busy. But we're not here to talk about old times, cousin. Please, have a seat. Let's get started." Gaila smiled. "We have a lot of work to do, if we're to hammer out any kind of deal here."

  "Of course," Quark said agreeably, and sat at the place opposite Gaila.

  He could feel hi his lobes that Gaila was going to

  make sure that this deal would, in fact, be as much work as possible.

  The preliminary negotiations were just that— nothing ever got accomplished during an initial ses­sion. Generally, it was just an opportunity for the negotiators to get a feel for each other, and for the precise nature of the deal to be spelled out. The Ico­nians were offering exclusive rights to, and complete instructions on how to operate, all the gateways in the galaxy. Not just the Alpha Quadrant, but the en­tire galaxy.

  Mentally, Quark had had to rearrange the order of the list. He had not realized quite how far-flung these gateways were, and certain items would need to be moved further up the list if they were even going to have a hope of negotiating with these aliens.

  Of course, the negotiator wasn't alien at all. Quark and Gaila had known each other since they were boys cheating the younger kids out of their lunch money so they could buy the latest Marauder Mo ac­tion figures.

  The question is, will Gaila take advantage of this negotiation to get some of his own back? After all, the last two times he and Quark had been together, Gaila had almost gotten himself killed, and Quark had also been more or less directly responsible for Gaila hit­ting absolute bottom. Ferengi generally didn't let per­sonal grudges get in the way of business, but Quark couldn't really count on that.

  Now they were taking a half-hour break—ostensi­bly for a meal, but truthfully so each side could figure out what their offer was really going to be. As soon as

  Quark, Tamra, and the two giants entered Malic's pri­vate conference room, the elderly Orion said, "So he's your cousin, is he?"

  "Yes, Gaila's my cousin. We've known each other since we were kids. He and I have even done a few business deals together."

  "Is that going to be a problem?"

  Quark shrugged, and lied. "I don't see why it should be. Gaila's a businessman. I'm a businessman. We're both going to do the best we can for our clients. And, before you ask, I won't be able to prevail upon him to give me a break because I'm family."

  "I wasn't going to ask that," Malic said sourly. "I've done my research on you, Quark. The last per­son I would expect to give you a break is someone who's known you since you were a child."

  Nodding, Quark said, "It's possible that Gaila's presence will slow the negotiations down a bit. After all, Gaila and I know each other's tricks—it just means we'll each have to come up with new tricks, so I wouldn't be too concerned. As a matter of fact—"

  "Quark, the more you try to convince me that there won't be any problems, the more convinced I am that there will be. So kindly shut up, and take a look at this." He indicated a padd on the table, and one of the Orions picked it up and handed it to Quark.

  The display showed a report from a Starfleet vessel called the T'Kumbra. Quark remembered that as Cap­tain Solok's ship—the ones who defeated us in that silly human bays-ball game of Captain Sisko's. The report was incomplete, but one of the items in it was that there were no gateways at all in the Bajoran sys-

  tern—a twenty-light-year-diameter hole hi the gate­way lattice, in fact.

  Smiling, Quark said, "Interesting that the Iconians didn't mention this when they were carrying on about how there were gateways all over the galaxy."

  "Very interesting. I think it's worth mentioning at the next session, don't you?"

  Quark nodded.

  A half an hour later, Quark didn't even sit down be­fore he said, "You told us that these gateways were in every sector of the galaxy."

  Frowning, Gaila said, "They are."

  "Really?" Quark stood next to his chair and looked down at Gaila on the other side. "Then why is it that there isn't a single gateway within ten light-years of Bajor?"

  Gaila, to his credit, barely missed a beat. "What need is there for one? You have the wormhole, after all."

  "Which was discovered less than a decade ago." Quark finally sat down. "Whereas the Iconian gate­ways were—apparently—built around it long before anyone knew it was there. Seems to me that this should have been mentioned at some point."

  Gaila leaned back. "We're under no obligation to explain ourselves to you, Quark."

  "No, but it does make me wonder what other little facts you've managed to leave out."

  "We've left nothing out, Quark."

  Quark regarded his cousin with what he hoped was a penetrating gaze. "You've said that before."

  "It should be pointed out," Gaila said, "that the Breen, the Romulan Empire, and the Klingon Em­pire don't much care if there aren't any gateways

  around Bajor. After all, with the gateways reacti­vated, the strategic value of the wormhole will plunge to nothing. And they've all made very com­petitive offers."

  "You forget, cousin, that I'm not here on my behalf, but as a representative of the Orions. They don't care about Bajor, either—they do care about being lied to in a good-faith negotiation."

  Smiling, Gaila said, "Quark, you're always work­ing on your own behalf—one way or the other."

  Quark swallowed, but said nothing.

  "Hig."

  "Hig here. What is it, Kam?"

  "There's a problem."

  "Another one?"

  'This is serious, Hig."

  "I'm always serious. What's the problem?"

  "There's apparently some kind of flaw in the gate­way network. There aren't any gateways within ten light-years of System 418—the natives call it Bajor."

  "That's where that stable wormhole is, yes?"

  "Yes. I want you to head over there right away."

  "Why?"

  'Two reasons. One, see if you can figure out why there aren't any gateways there. Two, see if the Bajo­rans or Starfleet or anyone else is trying to figure out why there aren't any gateways there."

  "What if they do find out? "

  "Do whatever's necessary to stop them. We can't let anything slow these negotiations down. We're going to have enough problems as it is—the Orions have already complicated things by bringing a Ferengi

  of their own in. Those two will likely go at it for days. The longer this takes, the harder it will be to maintain the illusion."

  "Fine. I'll take the gateway to System 429 and head to System 418 from there. I'll let you know what I find out."

  "Good."

  5

  THE WORMHOLE

  "Nog, can I ask you a question?"

  At Shar's words, Nog turned to look at the Ando­rian sitting in the Sungari's copilot seat. Shar had waited until they had come to a relative stop near the mouth of the wormhole before posing his query.

  "Sure."

  Shar was still working his console as he spoke. "Why haven't you asked me about my zhavey?"

  Nog broke into a smile. Shar's zhavey—appar­ently, the Andorian equivalent of a moogie—was a Federation Councillor, a fact that had come to light around the same
time as that mess with the Jem'Hadar.

  "To be honest, I've gotten so sick of people asking

  me what my father is like, I didn't think you'd appre­ciate being pestered with the same question."

  "Sensors are calibrated—beginning sweep." Once that was done, Shar finally looked up at Nog. "Inter­esting. So people ask you about your father?"

  "All the time. Well, mostly asking how he's changed. See, that's the thing, Father lived on the sta­tion for ten years before he became Grand Nagus, so everyone knew him."

  "Interesting," Shar repeated. Then he looked back down at his readouts. "I've done a full scan of the wormhole. Everything's within established norms. So far I'm not detecting anything that would explain the lack of gateways in this sector."

  "So it's probably something natural to the worm­hole?"

  Shar's antennae quivered. "We don't even know for sure that the wormhole is connected—it's a vague hy­pothesis based on circumstantial evidence. I've read the data from Starfleet on the Iconian technology and pro­grammed the Sungari computer to compare that to what we receive from these scans to see if there's any correlation. So far, mere's nothing showing up on sen­sors that would prevent the gateways from functioning."

  Nog shot Shar a look. "You went over all the data?"

  "No, I read all the data. Twice. Commander Vaughn did ask us to be familiar with it."

  Nog blinked. "You read fast."

  Shar shrugged.

  Nog tried not to let his frustration show. He'd barely had time to look at the data, what with replicat­ing and installing the Shelliak shield modulators, though the latter, at least, he had been able to delegate

  to other engineers on his staff. Of course, Ezri had to remind him that he had a staff to delegate it to. I'm still thinking like a cadet....

  "With your permission, Nog, I'd like to try a few more specialized scans," Shar said.

  It took Nog a second to remember that he needed to actually give the order. "Okay," he said. That didn't sound like an officer, so he quickly added, "Ensign."