Bloodletter (star trek)

by K. W. Jeter

  A snort of disgust came from O’Brien.

  Sisko went on observing. Especially Odo; the shapeshifter’s usual expressionless mask had betrayed no inner emotions. But he had picked up an unintended sign, anyway: a slight curling of Odo’s fingers, as though he were grasping, seizing hold of something. A clue, something that explained or revealed . . .

  “It is not important to assign blame now.” Tahgla knew when he had been beaten. “Our own technicians will make the necessary adjustments, and then the installation of the impulse buffers can proceed as originally agreed upon.” The tone of insinuating politeness colored his words again. “I trust our scheduled departure date will still be met?”

  “I’m sure Mister O’Brien will make every effort. In fact, that’s an order.”

  “Glad to.” The words sooner the better didn’t need to be spoken. As O’Brien turned away, he leaned close to Odo’s ear. “And next time, not so damn tight!”

  Odo stayed behind when all the rest had left. “I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of Tahgla’s chief engineer right now.” He gazed down the corridor before palming the office’s door closed. “A Cardassian gul doesn’t enjoy being caught out in an underling’s mistake.”

  “Rather an interesting mistake, actually.” The diagram and specs were still on Sisko’s computer panel. “I remember learning at the Academy that the Cardassians had these differing math systems. But—” He smiled. “I don’t recall much more than that. Was there something else you wanted to tell me about them?”

  “Just this, Commander.” Odo looked behind himself, a show of habitual, if needless, caution. “The Cardassian numerical bases have their origin in the various economic classes; the damur that’s used for scientific computations comes from the base devised by their ancient merchants and traders; the unit of linear measurement is based upon the size of a seed grain common on their home planet, I understand. The umur notation—” He pointed to the numbers on the screen. “That’s the numbering base that originated with the warrior caste.”

  “Ah.” Sisko knew what Odo was about to tell him.

  “Somewhere along the line, the Cardassians translated the specifications sent by O’Brien, but into umur rather than damur.” Odo’s hand clenched tight. “That’s not an unarmed research vessel sitting in drydock. It’s a Cardassian military ship in disguise.”

  CHAPTER 2

  HE WALKED right into the ambush. He should have known that she would be looking for him. Gunning for me, thought Sisko, ruefully. That’d be the right expression.

  “I’ve been doing some more thinking.” Major Kira swung into stride next to him, almost as soon as he had entered the station’s main corridor. “About our previous conversation.”

  She had come straight toward him, the crowd parting before her, as much due to her well-known temper as her rank. Plowing through them with a head-lowered determination, she was like an icebreaker navigating the frozen seas of some intemperate planet.

  What he needed right now—after a long shift of studying classified Federation position papers and transcripts of the bickering provisional government down on the surface of Bajor—was dinner and a talk with his son Jake about the boy’s schoolwork. Followed by a hot bath and a spinal adjustment, and a seat along Wrigley Field’s first-base line, where he could contemplate the holosuite’s re-creation of a solid home run going in a perfect heart-lifting arc over the left-field wall. He didn’t need Major Kira bending his ear any further than it already had been.

  Sisko kept on walking, not even looking around at her. “I don’t suppose it would make any difference,” he said, “if I told you the matter was closed.” He kept his voice low, to avoid being overheard too easily. Faces, familiar and unrecognized, permanent and transient, humanoid and otherwise, thronged the corridor.

  “You know me better than that.” Kira made a joke of it—or nonjoke, similar to the thin nonsmile that marked her grudging tolerance of all fools that she hadn’t been empowered to toss out of the station’s airlock. At least, not yet. “I don’t give up very easily.”

  “Indeed.” At the mouth to one of the corridor’s unused branches, a Gameran peddler had set up his quick-folding table, and was doing a brisk business in what appeared to be mildly stimulative transdermal patches. Though it would have been faster to take a turbolift from his office to his living quarters, he’d made it his habit to physically walk some sector of the station every shift, to see for himself what might be going on in this strange, small world he supposedly commanded. He made a mental note to have Odo move the patch peddler on, then just as quickly canceled it; for all he knew, the Gameran was part of the security chief’s network of snoops and petty informants.

  “I feel it’s imperative to remind you that—”

  “Major Kira.” He stopped and turned toward her. The soft bulk of a Buhlmeri cargo-tech bumped against his shoulder, muttered an apology, then went on. The standing population had increased markedly over the last several shifts; when he’d first been posted here, the station’s public areas had been sparsely occupied ruins. “I’ll be frank with you: I’m tired. I’ve been working hard the last few shifts, and I’m not in the mood to rehash a subject that I’ve made abundantly clear to you is no longer open for discussion. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “But that’s exactly my point.” Kira spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes flashing twin laser-points of anger. “And you’re only fooling yourself if you think it’s something recent. You’re swamped up to your eyeballs in diplomatic affairs, enough to fill every second of every watch, and you’re still trying to manage all the particulars of DS Nine’s operations—”

  “You forget, Major, that’s my duty. My first duty.”

  “Wrong. Your duty is to see that it gets done.” She made no attempt to keep her voice down; faces along the corridor turned their way. “It’s not going to do you or the station any good for you to keel over in your tracks from exhaustion. As long as the Federation expects you to oversee negotiations with the planetside government, you’re going to have to learn to delegate some of these things.”

  Sisko felt a blood vessel at the corner of his brow begin to throb. Kira was far out of line. It would have been difficult enough for him to check his own temper, on receiving a warning like that from a superior officer, to hear it from his nominal second-in-command was aggravating beyond endurance.

  “I’ve delegated quite enough, Major.” He started walking again, to burn off the adrenaline that had welled up inside him. “Especially to you.” He swung a narrowed glance at her. “Perhaps more than I would have, if your position here had been a matter of choice for me.”

  She ignored the last comment, as she matched his stride. “Oh, you’ve certainly delegated.” Sarcasm seeped between her words. “Minutiae, the smallest things, those you think anyone else is capable of handling.” She grabbed his arm to halt him. “I’m talking about policy decisions, Commander. This station is Bajoran property—in actuality, not just as some technical legalism. The time is coming when all of DS Nine’s operations are to be turned over to my people. That’s by your own Federation’s edict. And your commission here includes preparing for that time. As the senior Bajoran officer aboard, I should be given the greatest possible authority to—”

  “My commission, Major, is to suitably prepare for the transfer of DS Nine’s control. To Bajorans who are ready to assume the responsibilities for it.”

  Kira’s lowered voice spoke of anger hotter than any shouting could express. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”

  He glanced along the corridor. The other pedestrians had slowed down, trying as subtly as possible to stay within earshot. “Come with me.”

  They were only steps away from Quark’s number-one lounge. Inside, Sisko signaled over the heads of the patrons stacked up at the bar. “Give us a private booth. And if you switch on any of your bugs, you’ll wind up eating them.”

  The Ferengi displayed his sharp-toothed smile. “Commander, I would
never . . . ” In fact, he probably wouldn’t; such discretion was part of the understanding by which Quark was allowed to keep his various enterprises running.

  With the booth sealed shut, Sisko and Major Kira were encased in a soundproof bubble. He leaned across the narrow table. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear before. Or perhaps you think I’ve forgotten about some of the decisions you have been allowed to make—and their consequences.”

  “If this is about that group of Redemptorists I let come aboard—”

  He cut her off. “What else would it be about? Correction: it’s not just about whether you showed a lack of judgment in granting them entry to the station. It’s a question of the underlying sympathies that might have prompted that decision.”

  The Redemptorists, a team of six microassembly specialists currently assigned to O’Brien’s drydock bay, had been brought up from Bajor enough shifts ago that the issues raised by the group’s presence should have begun to lose some of their sharp edges. Major Kira had been in charge of their security clearance—she still was, for any other Bajorans that might come aboard in the future; he hadn’t relieved her of the assignment—and she had personally signed their entry and residence chits. All of which Sisko had been able to verify for himself when Odo had first told him of the irregularities in the new workers’ backgrounds.

  Odo’s worries were justified, given the reputation of the Redemptorists as one of the most intractable elements in the overheated stew of Bajoran politics. They were more of a religious movement, a fundamentalist group opposed to the conciliatory mainstream faith headed by Kai Opaka. Fanaticism had inevitably progressed, as it seemed to on any world, to violence; several Redemptorists had been involved in terrorist activities directed against other Bajorans who didn’t follow their particular annihilating creed. In the murderous infighting that characterized the Bajoran splinter groups—the ever-shifting coalitions and temporary alliances and eventual drawing of daggers—the Redemptorists were notable for the ruthlessness by which they dealt with long-standing enemies and onetime friends alike.

  “Those men are not murderers, Commander. They’re all followers of the Redemptorists’ political defense wing. Their group even has members sitting in the Bajoran parliament—”

  “I’m well aware of the fine shadings that afflict Bajoran politics. As you noted, I seem to spend a great deal of my time lately on precisely that. I’m also aware—perhaps more than you are, Major—of the difficulties that the Redemptorist movement has presented to the provisional government. In fact, your government has contacted me directly, to see if there’s anything that can be done from aboard the station to jam the pirate broadcasts by which the Redemptorists recruit other Bajorans to their cause.”

  “That doesn’t alter the status of the ones I allowed on board. They’re legal—”

  He and Kira had gone over this before. “ ’Legal’ seems to be a very flexible concept with you, Major. I don’t make quite the same distinction that you do between those who murder and those who condone murder. And what the Bajoran government needs to do—the elements it has to bring inside itself to stay alive—is not going to be the guideline for how this station is operated.”

  “This Bajoran station, Commander.” Kira’s anger leapt another notch. “You keep forgetting that this is Bajoran property—”

  “Currently administered by Starfleet—and that responsibility is mine.” He spread his hands flat on the table. “And it will be that way as long as the situation on Bajor’s surface remains the mess that it is right now.”

  “But how is that ever going to change?” The words took on a desperate edge. “Those groups have to be brought into the center of things. They have tremendous energy and capabilities—”

  “Oh yes, they’ve demonstrated that, all right.”

  She pushed past his sarcasm. “If the Redemptorists and the others are left out on the fringe, unable to achieve any measure of legitimate power, what other choice are they going to have?”

  “Besides violence?” Sisko shook his head before replying. “How about patience?”

  “After what the Cardassians did to us, Commander, patience is not a word of which the Bajorans are very fond.”

  “It may not be a word that’s to your liking, Major. But it’s one you’re going to learn the meaning of. There was a time not too long ago when I felt assured of your loyalty to this station; that it was of at least equal weight with your devotion to your people. But now, I’ve begun to wonder. This incident, combined with other things you’ve said and done, raises grave concerns in my mind as to whether an underlying sympathy with the aims of these terrorist groups—and your own impatience—has gained the upper hand in your thoughts. Until I’m convinced once more that the survival of DS Nine is your top priority, the question of your being given greater authority here is, as I said before, not open for discussion.” He stood up and reached for the door control, then stopped and looked back at Kira. “I’m disappointed, Major. I would have thought that you of all people, with your own experiences back on Bajor, would remember what damage these people can do.” He saw that the reference to the incidents in her past, before she had been posted as military to the station, was equivalent to a slap across her face. She glared back at him in silence.

  The booth’s door slid open, revealing Quark right outside. “Refreshments?” He smiled and raised a tray with two synthales. “On the house.”

  Sisko got past him without mishap, but Kira didn’t. Quark looked at the major’s back as she pushed her way out into the crowded corridor, then glanced down at the puddle and overturned mugs at his feet. “I guess not. . . .”

  “When you say ‘liquid state,’ what do you mean? How much—a liter? Ten liters?” A malicious grin sliced across the Cardassian security officer’s face. “A pint?”

  Odo looked away from him in annoyance. “I find your interest in my bodily functions to be distasteful. You can be confident that I have no interest in yours.”

  He continued walking, his visual scan moving across the maze of pipes and exposed wiring that lined the station’s lower decks. These areas were little trafficked—at least by anyone who had a legitimate reason for being here—and were far down on the list for eventual upgrading and being brought back into service. The deep shadows—some sectors were almost completely unlit—and even deeper niches were consequently perfect for all those with illegitimate reasons. By his own calculations, he estimated that he had discovered and confiscated perhaps only 10 percent of the contraband moving on, through, and off DS9; the damage that the Cardassians had wrought upon the station’s exosystems had left it a smuggler’s paradise. Until the new security perimeters were phased in, all his vigilance was needed to keep the station from becoming an open thoroughfare for illicit goods.

  By contrast, his counterpart from the Cardassian research vessel sitting in drydock—inside his head, he put quotation marks around the word research—kept his gaze locked on Odo. That annoyed him, as well. Of course, he knew that was the reason for the Cardassian’s constant presence: to keep an eye on him—the watcher watched.

  “Isn’t it pretty close to that time for you?” Gri Rafod peered at him in amusement. “I’d hate for you to melt into a puddle just because you were giving me the grand tour.”

  “I’m not giving you anything.” Odo clipped the words short. “You wished to accompany me on my rounds; you do so against my wishes. However, I am bound by the terms of the agreement worked out between your superiors and Commander Sisko. You persist in this fiction that you are preparing a report to the Cardassian council on recent improvements to the station’s security, fine. As you wish.” He stopped and turned his severest gaze on the other. “But you’re not fooling me.”

  “How your harsh speech wounds me.” The Cardassian should have been an actor, he laid a hand dramatically upon his chest. “When I spoke to Gul Dukat, he told me that you were given to such groundless suspicions of others’ motives. I didn’t want to believe it, but . .
. ” He shook his head. “I suppose it’s an inevitable result of the jobs you and I have been given. We see the worst sides of sentient creatures, don’t we?”

  Odo kept silent. He had already lied to the Cardassian, a small but necessary violation of his own inner code. He wasn’t bound by any ludicrous agreement; if the maintenance of the station’s security required actions that weren’t officially approved of, the commander didn’t need to know of them—or could at least pretend not to know. Unfortunately, if he were to elude this Gri Rafod’s obnoxious surveillance—easy enough for a shapeshifter to do—it would play right into the hands of the Cardassian security officer’s superiors. The Cardassians were looking for any excuse to break the hard-negotiated pact by which all vessels, including their own, were brought into the DS9 drydock to have the impulse energy buffers mounted around their engines before being allowed access to the stable wormhole. The fact that the buffers enabled vessels to pass through the wormhole without harming its inhabitants seemed to bear no weight with the Cardassians. They cared little enough for the welfare of creatures that they could actually observe and touch, let alone the seemingly nonmaterial ones inside the wormhole.

  If he were to slip away from the Cardassian security officer, then Gul Tahgla, the vessel’s captain, would immediately cry that the duplicitous Starfleet officers manning the station had unleashed their resident shapeshifter to spy out all the secrets and classified information that might be aboard the ship. The Cardassian council would howl that the installation of buffers was just a ruse to get their vessels into Starfleet’s prying hands. The proverbial hell would break loose, the pact between the Federation and the Cardassians would collapse, the Cardassians would press for whatever advantage they could derive from the resulting chaos.

  Of course, none of that altered the fact that Odo had already decided to leave Gri Rafod hanging, and sneak undetected into the vessel sitting in drydock. He had determined his course of action even before the Cardassians’ unconscious error had revealed the vessel’s military nature.