“These look all right,” Leaner sad. “But your husband has no papers for your niece, so I’m afraid we—”
“What?” Keev said loudly, throwing a mix of both shock and disgust into her voice. She stared past both patrol officers and regarded Altek angrily. “You did this again?”
“I . . . I’m sorry, love,” Altek said, sounding duly chastened. “It was your brother’s fault. He was supposed to come down to the surgical wing today—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” Keev sniped at him. “You know we can’t travel without proper identification—not with those filthy Bajora here in the city and always trying to run.” She looked at Leaner and rolled her eyes: Can you believe I have to put up with this?
Leaner peered over his shoulder at Altek. The doctor’s eyes widened as his shoulders rose in the most minimal of shrugs, perfectly capturing the unspoken frustration of a badgered husband. It delighted Keev to see Leaner flash Altek a sympathetic look in return.
“Officers,” Altek said, “I don’t suppose you could just allow us through.” Uttered with just the right amount of pleading in his tone, he didn’t have to actually say, I’ve got enough to deal with at home, so please don’t make things worse.
“No,” Keev said. She raised her arm and pointed at Altek, but spoke to Leaner. “Don’t let him off the hook. He’s done this before. He needs to learn that there are ways we do things here in Joradell and ways we don’t.”
Leaner looked to his partner and shrugged, but Broad Back said, “We really should see the girl’s papers.”
“Officers—” Altek started again, but Keev interrupted him at once.
“Stop it!” she said, raising her voice and hoping that she read the two patrol officers accurately. “Don’t you try to make these men break the rules for you. Go back and find my brother and get my niece’s papers.” As a matter of course, members of the gild agreed on ersatz names to use in such circumstances, but even if Altek had coached Ahleen on her false identity, Keev feared that saying that name aloud could throw the girl and undermine them all.
“If I go get her papers,” Altek asked, “will you wait?”
“Of course we’ll wait,” Keev said before casting an infuriated scoff in the doctor’s direction. She looked at Leaner again, lifted her hands palms-up to the sky—Have you ever heard such an idiotic question?—then let them slap down against her sides.
Altek looked to the patrol officers. Leaner nodded. The doctor thanked him and started down the street. Keev wondered how far he would go before trying to abscond from the city. She didn’t know what had happened to make him so late, but with Ahleen disappearing from the hospital and Altek getting stopped with a girl by a patrol, he’d ended his career in Joradell—ended any chance to continue his life there. When he didn’t return with papers for Ahleen, he’d likely be reported by the patrol—if Keev left them alive. Even if the officers chose not to report the incident, Altek would have no way of knowing that; he couldn’t risk being labeled an abolitionist. At best, they would arrest and imprison him; at worst, they would brand him a traitor to the Aleira and execute him.
“I’m so sorry,” Keev told the officers, then looked past them to include the other pair of waiting pedestrians in her apology.
“If you’ll just step aside for right now, ma’am,” Broad Back said.
Keev smiled and nodded, then put a hand on Ahleen’s elbow, leading her a few paces away. She crouched down before the girl. “Everything will be all right,” Keev told her.
The girl looked back with bright eyes, and Keev saw years of experience that did not belong on the face of a twelve-year-old—exemplified by a scar in the shape of a crescent high up on her left cheek. Ahleen said nothing. Keev thought that probably for the best, and she reached up and ran her hand lovingly over the girl’s black hair; though chopped short, it still complemented Ahleen’s beautiful, dark features. It galled her to think of some man calling for this young girl to be brought to him as some sort of plaything. No matter what had happened to delay Altek, Keev could see why he took the risk in attempting to get Ahleen to freedom.
But what am I going to do? Still squatting, Keev brought her hand to her side. A quick move and she could draw her blade from where she’d strapped its sheath to the inside of her opposite thigh. She didn’t doubt that she could dispatch both patrol officers, but would prefer not having to do so in front of the girl, who’d just lost her mother. Keev also preferred not to kill, if possible, though she had no difficulty justifying such actions; the patrol officers, though not wholly responsible for the Aleiran enslavement of Bajora, worked to prop up that immoral and unconscionable system.
Whatever I do, I can’t wait for long, she thought. When Altek didn’t return, the patrol officers would have to deal with Keev and Ahleen, probably calling in other security to assist. She couldn’t let that happen; she needed to move the situation along while she had only two men to fight.
The officers finished validating the few people there, who moved on. Keev stood back up, though she placed her hand on Ahleen’s shoulder, seeking to reassure her. To the patrol officers, she complained, “He’s done this twice before. He just doesn’t pay attention.”
“Ma’am,” Leaner said, “if you’ll just wait quietly—”
“It’s hard to be quiet when your husband refuses to do things the right way,” Keev said. “I mean, he knows what the procedures are. I don’t know why he just can’t follow them.” She could see frustration on the faces of both men for having to listen to her harangue. “I mean, I know that you must see it all the time, but—”
“Aunt Meru,” Ahleen suddenly said, “I need to use a bathroom.”
Keev didn’t know if Altek had instructed the girl in any way, or if she acted on her own, or if she merely spoke the truth, but it certainly seemed helpful to their cause. “I’m sorry, but you saw what just happened,” Keev told her. “We have to wait.”
“But Auntie,” the girl whined, which Keev appreciated hearing.
“Is there anywhere we can go?” she asked Leaner.
“Ma’am,” he said, his forbearance dripping from his voice, “we’re out on the street.”
Keev looked down at Ahleen. “I’m sorry your uncle was so careless,” she said. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t take long to get back.” She saw the officers share an exasperated look. Taking a risk, Keev stared at Ahleen and gave a quick flick of her head toward the patrol. She didn’t know if the girl would take her meaning, but thought there might be a chance.
“Auntie-e-e,” Ahleen immediately wailed. “I have to go-o-o.” To Keev’s delight, the girl actually started to squirm where she stood.
Looking back at Leaner, Keev said, “Are you sure there’s no place?” Again, the officers looked at each other. “You know, I live just a couple of blocks away. One of you could take us there.” If Keev could split Leaner and Broad Back up, she’d have an easier time subduing just one of them.
“Ma’am,” Leaner began as though about to deny her again, but then he seemed to relent. “Just go.”
“Thank you,” Keev said, reaching out and squeezing the man’s arm, still playing the role she’d assumed. “Thank you. I’m sorry for all the trouble.”
“All right, ma’am,” Leaner said. “Just make sure your husband doesn’t let this happen again.”
“Oh, believe me, I will,” Keev said, making it sound as though her husband would not enjoy his night at home. She took Ahleen’s hand, then started back down the street. She led the girl past Ranga’s house, sure that the old woman had watched all that had taken place, and probably still watched, though Keev didn’t chance even glancing in that direction. She walked with Ahleen along the next block, and then left into the alley she’d come down earlier. Seeing nobody around, she whispered, “Are you all right?”
The girl nodded, her expression sad but her manner earnest.
“My name is really Keev Anora,” she said. “You can call me Anora.”
; “I’m Resten Ahleen,” the girl said. “You can call me Ahleen.” She offered her second statement with something of a grin. The small dose of humor caught Keev off guard, but she counted it a good sign for what it suggested about both the girl’s intelligence and her emotional state.
“Do you really need the bathroom?” Keev asked.
“No,” Ahleen said, her lips sneaking into a whole smile.
Keev smiled back, impressed. She retraced the path she’d taken from Ranga’s house. Before exiting the alley, she carefully peered in both directions down the street, checking for any new patrols that might have appeared. Fortunately, none had.
When they arrived at the house behind Ranga’s—with another patrol still up ahead—Keev pulled the girl along its side and then through the rotting board fence. Once in Ranga’s yard, Keev saw the back door standing open. “Come on,” she said. Her hand still wrapped around the girl’s, Keev guided her inside and closed the door behind them.
They found nobody in the kitchen. “Ranga?” Keev called out in a stage whisper. She heard no response, but then she saw the door leading to the basement ajar. She didn’t hesitate.
“Ranga?” she called as she and Ahleen thundered down the unsteady steps.
“Here, come on, there’s no time to waste,” the old woman called from the cellar. She stepped out of the way as Keev and Ahleen hurried past—Ranga didn’t even need to duck her head in the low space. Neither did the girl. “I don’t know what you said out there, but if they figure out you were lying to them, they’re going to come banging on every door, so you need to go.”
Keev saw that Ranga had already moved the proper crates and used a spade to dig out the dirt above the trapdoor, which had been hauled open. Keev indicated the dark hole, then crouched before the girl. “This tunnel is going to take us out of the city,” she said. “Okay?”
Ahleen nodded but didn’t say anything.
Keev stretched her leg into the hole, feeling for the ladder there. When she found it, she descended into the darkness until she reached the bottom of the tunnel. She felt for the corner and found the bag of clothes she’d left there, as well as a handheld beacon, which she switched on. “Okay,” Keev called back up to the cellar.
“Go on, dearie,” she heard Ranga say, and a moment later, Ahleen’s foot and leg appeared and began groping for the top rung of the ladder. Keev started back up to help, but then the girl began scrambling down. Keev stepped back until Ahleen stood with her at the end of the tunnel.
Without another word, Ranga slammed the trapdoor closed above them. Ahleen flinched at the noise, and whatever poise she’d shown with the patrol and on the way to the house vanished. Tears formed in her eyes and she suddenly seemed fragile, as though the next loud noise could break her into a thousand pieces.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” Keev assured her. “We’re going to get you out of Joradell.”
Above them, Keev heard a thump. Ranga’s covering the trapdoor, she thought. The girl’s lip started to quiver.
Keev took the girl’s hands. “Really, it’s going to be all right,” she told her. And Keev knew that it would be—eventually. But the girl just lost her mother, and right now she’s got nobody else in the world.
Keev put her arms around Ahleen and hugged her. The girl clamped her own arms around Keev and held on tightly as she began to sob. They stayed that way for a long time, the girl’s body quaking as she wept.
When finally Ahleen let go of Keev and pulled back, she asked, “Who are you, Anora?”
“I’m your friend,” Keev said.
“Are you really helping me?” The question broke Keev’s heart. How could the girl trust anybody after living a life—a child’s life—in servitude. She’d at least had her mother, but no longer.
“I’m really helping you,” Keev said. “I know it’s hard to trust anybody, but you can trust me. Things will get better. And the first thing we’re going to do is get you as far away from this place as possible.”
“And never come back?” Ahleen asked in a small voice.
Keev felt her features tense. “You never have to come back here again,” she said. “I promise.”
Ahleen looked at her without saying anything for a few moments, as though trying to decide on the truth of what she’d been told. Finally, she nodded.
“Okay, then,” Keev said. “Let me change out of this dress and we’ll get going.”
They reached the other end of the tunnel in the early evening, then waited for night to fall. Under the cover of darkness, with the landscape lighted by slivers of two moons, they made it to the wood. By midnight, they finally reached the gild.
Altek arrived the next morning, his life as a physician in Joradell finished.
Nine
Quark stood behind his gleaming new bar—purchased for a small fortune from a metalwright on Sauria—and gazed out at his customers . . . his paltry number of customers. “A brand-new starbase,” he said, picking up a clean brandy snifter and wiping it down for the third time. “They told me business would boom. Triple the number of crew as the old station. More than ten thousand civilians. And I’ve got . . . what?” He peered out over the bar, from the pair of empty poker tables sitting against the far left wall, to the equally empty dabo table in the center of the long space, to the dom-jot table located along the right-hand wall. Round black tables of varying dimensions filled the large area between the gaming surfaces, though few people sat at any of them. “Three customers,” Quark said, answering his own question. “I’ve got more employees in here right now.”
“Just remember that I’m not one of those employees,” said Treir, her tall, lithe form draped over the end of the bar.
“That’s right,” Quark said. “I’m not paying you to be here; I’m paying you to manage my place on Bajor.” After the destruction of Deep Space 9, Quark had opened an establishment on the planet, in the town of Aljuli, not far from where Starfleet had set up Bajoran Space Central to help fill in for the lost station. He thought about relocating out of the system, but the Congress of Economic Advisors agreed to pay out on his insurance only if he reestablished the Ferengi Embassy to Bajor. Of course, his transition to the planet had been rendered far more palatable—enjoyable, even—because Ro Laren had taken command of BSC.
To Quark’s astonishment, his two years in Aljuli had actually turned out solidly profitable—so much so that when the prospect of launching a bar on the new starbase had arisen, he’d considered declining. Instead, he opted to heed the warning of the Ninety-fifth Rule of Acquisition—Expand or die—and to trust in the promise of the Ninth—Opportunity plus instinct equals profit. He built a new bar—and embassy—on the new DS9, while leaving Treir to operate his place on Bajor. He couldn’t be sure that his business in Aljuli would continue in the black with Starfleet leaving the area, but it well might, since the Bajorans intended to staff and use the BSC facility. He also couldn’t guarantee that opening a bar on the new station would prove successful; although he would serve a larger population, he would do so with more competition. Of course, his transition to the starbase would be rendered far more palatable—enjoyable, even—because Ro Laren would be commanding it.
“I know you expected me to be on Bajor tonight,” Treir said, “but I was invited to the memorial. I wasn’t going to miss it.” They’d both come back from the ceremony just a few minutes earlier. Treir paused, then added, “I lost friends.”
“I lost customers,” Quark said, quietly and without malice. He thought about all the hundreds of names that Laren and some of the crew had read out that evening. Quark recognized most of those names, and could associate faces with them too. Many had been his customers. Some had been his friends.
Quark caught himself and decided to think about other things before his despondence about his dearth of customers slipped into a full-blown melancholy. “If you’re here,” he asked Treir, “then what’s going on in my place in Aljuli? You didn’t close for the evening, did you?”
“No, the bar’s still open.”
“Then who’s running it?” Quark wanted to know.
Treir smiled. “Hetik.”
“Hetik?” Quark repeated. “Hetik? The dabo boy?”
“Trust me, he’s no boy,” Treir said. She peeled herself from the surface of the bar and sat up straight on her stool to look down at Quark. “Anyway, this isn’t the first time I’ve put him in charge. He’s a good manager.” She shrugged. “He’d have to be; I trained him.”
“Marvelous,” Quark muttered to himself. He absently wiped down the snifter for the fourth time. “You probably trained him how to embezzle from me.”
“What was that?” Treir asked.
Quark looked back over at her. “Nothing,” he said.
“Good.” Clad in a sleeveless white dress—clingy, thigh length, and low cut—Treir slipped back down and arranged her arms and torso languidly atop the bar. Quark noticed how nicely her green Orion flesh contrasted with the polished silver surface.
Maybe I should let Hetik manage my place on Bajor and bring Treir back here, he thought. Customers would certainly linger—and drink—at the sight of her lounging comfortably against the bar. That is, if I actually had customers.
“By the way, you don’t have just three customers,” Treir said, as though reading his thoughts. “There are half a dozen on the second level.”
“Half a dozen?” Quark said. “I guess I can just close up now and purchase the moon I’ve always dreamed of owning.”
“Oh, stop complaining,” Treir told him. “You’ve only been open a couple of days.”
“A couple of long, empty, profitless days,” Quark said.
“You know what they say: ‘Satisfaction is not guaranteed.’ ”
“Wait a minute,” Quark said. “You’re quoting the Rules of Acquisition to me?”
Treir bared her teeth in a wide smile as intoxicating as any of the liquor behind the bar. “I’ve been around you long enough that I should know the Rules by now.”
Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust Page 16
