by K. W. Jeter
“And I suppose you’d be the one to tell the provisional government all this?”
“How could you prevent me?” The look in Bashir’s eyes was like that of a gambler at one of Quark’s dabo tables, who had suddenly realized how far over his head he’d gotten. Only by throwing everything in on one desperate play was there a chance of saving himself. “Throwing me in the brig—that would mean a court-martial before I could be removed from my post on the station. The Bajorans would naturally be interested in something like that—they’d likely send a team of observers to the trial. And when I’m in open court, I’ll say whatever I damn well feel like.”
“Ah.” Sisko pressed his fingertips together and studied Bashir through the cage they formed. “You realize, of course, that to go up against your commanding officer—and by extension, all of Starfleet—is undoubtedly the surest way of scuttling your career in this service? Even if the court-martial were to rule in your favor.”
Bashir’s neck and jaw muscles were tensed rigid. “And what would your career be like after that?” His voice could barely squeeze through as a whisper. “Or is that not really a matter of concern to you anymore?”
So it’s gotten out this far, thought Sisko. He knew what the doctor was referring to. That Bashir could speak of it—the resistance he’d put up against taking over the command of DS9, the request he’d made to Picard, and then retracted, for an Earthside transfer—only proved there were few secrets on the station. “My personal feelings don’t enter into this.” Sisko’s index fingers tapped against each other. “What would make you feel better about this mission for which the quarantine module is required? As chief medical officer, that is.”
Bashir took a deep breath before replying. “You spoke of it as a one-person operation. I’d like to change that. There’s more than enough room—the module’s set up for dozens of occupants—for me to go along with Major Kira.”
She’ll have something to say about that. He kept the comment to himself. “Why would you want to?”
“Commander Sisko, I’ve been pushing for access to the wormhole since it was discovered. Since you reported the existence of the creatures inside it. These are life-forms whose nature and habitat have no equal in the galaxy—they should be studied. They possess capabilities that we have no understanding of—they created a stable wormhole! The future of the universe’s exploration may rest with them. . . .”
“Of course. And since you’re the chief medical officer in this sector, you’d naturally be the one to go into the wormhole and read their temperature and take their pulse.”
“Well . . . ”
“And you would be the one to achieve galactic renown for your groundbreaking studies of the wormhole’s inhabitants. I’m sure the number of journal articles you’d get out of it would considerably advance your career.”
“Yes, but . . . ”
“Perhaps you could even go on the lecture circuit.” Sisko smiled. “Doctor Bashir, I think we understand each other very well.” He pulled open the bottom desk drawer and took something from it. “Here, catch.”
Bashir looked down in bewilderment at the spheroid of stitched leather his hands had reflexively trapped against his chest. “What’s this?”
“I thought you might be aware of my love for the ancient Earth sport of baseball—”
“Oh. Yes, of course; you have a library of the old players in the holosuites . . . ”
“That,” said Sisko, pointing, “is what hardball is played with. Perhaps you’d like to keep it as a little souvenir of our discussion today.” He leaned back, his smile growing wider. “I can tell when I’ve been outgunned. It’s a two-person mission now. You’ll be aboard the retrofitted quarantine module strictly as a scientific observer—you’re not to interfere with Major Kira’s operations in the slightest degree. I don’t think I need to warn you that if you do get in her way, she’s likely to make pretty short work of you. Understood?”
Bashir collapsed back in his chair, his entire body suffused with an attitude of relief. “Perfectly, Commander.” His upper uniform was soaked with sweat.
What Sisko didn’t tell him—and he wasn’t about to, either—was that he’d been prepared to grant the doctor’s request from the beginning. But now, Bashir had learned to fight for what he believed in; now, he was that much closer to being an officer as well as a doctor.
The commander decided Bashir had had enough for one shift. “I’ll run interference for you with Major Kira, and tell her about the change in plans. Maybe you’d better get hold of the chief engineer and let him know.”
There was no delay in finding Kira; she was waiting right outside. A drained-looking Bashir slipped past as she strode into the office.
“Commander—” She planted her hands flat on the desk and leaned forward, her eyes pieces of heated steel. “There’s something—”
“Let me guess. Something you found in the computer files that didn’t sit well with you. What would that be?”
“Just this.” She grabbed the edge of the panel and turned it so that they both could see the data she called up. “You removed the restricted access code on Odo’s report.” Her nail tapped the screen. “And there’s the date you logged the original file into your private memory node. And that date is before the Cardassian vessel left for the wormhole!” She blanked the screen and stood erect. “Commander, you knew beforehand what Gul Tahgla was up to. You deliberately let the Cardassians go—you even countermanded a hold order that Odo had already placed on their vessel—and thus jeopardized the success of DS Nine’s mission here.”
He sighed, eyes half-closed in weariness. Facing his first officer’s anger was like leaning into a storm wind. “This seems to be my shift for being an educator. Sit down, and I’ll give you a small but important lesson.”
“I’m only interested in an explanation—”
“Sit down, Major.” The thunder in his voice brought an even harder glare from Kira. But she sat. “You may not believe so, but DS Nine’s success is my top priority. To ensure that, I’ve had to do some things that are not in the Starfleet operational manuals. I’ve been aware of the flaw in our control over the wormhole since practically the first shift we moved the station to this sector—only a fool wouldn’t have been. And I’ve been in constant communication with the Federation authorities, urging them to allocate us the funds and material necessary for placing a substation at the wormhole’s other end, before anyone else could do the same. Since you’re not as experienced in dealing with the Federation bureaucracy as I am, it may come as a surprise to you that my request is tied up in committee meetings. I know that the only way to get the Federation to act is to manufacture a crisis that it can’t ignore. Gul Tahgla’s little ploy is exactly what I needed. The threat of the Cardassians gaining any control at all over the wormhole will be enough to force the Federation to provide the means of establishing a permanent substation at the other end.” He shrugged. “If I’d known of another way of getting action—other than allowing this situation to go right to the brink—I would have taken it. But there isn’t any other way.”
“You’ve thought this all through . . . haven’t you?” Kira’s anger had been replaced by a look of grudging admiration. “It’s something you’ve been planning for a while.”
“I knew we wouldn’t have to wait long. The Cardassians’ council has the virtue of being more ruthlessly organized than the Federation’s decisionmaking body. They seize opportunities quickly. That’s why it’s up to officers on the line, such as ourselves, to anticipate their moves.” Sisko leaned across the desk. “And now, I’ll tell you something else I’ve been planning. And that’s my putting you in charge of this operation. Even before you allowed that group of Redemptorists aboard a few months ago, I’ve had my concerns about this division in your loyalties—a division that seems more important to you than to anyone else. You seem to feel there’s some kind of conflict between performing your duties as a Starfleet officer and being a Bajoran patriot. I
don’t see that conflict, Major; as far as I’m concerned, you best serve your people by ensuring the success of this station’s mission.”
Kira began to say something, then forced herself silent.
“Consider this operation as something of a test.” Sisko began sorting through the papers on his desk. “Your attitude toward it is, in some ways, as important to DS Nine’s future as actually getting the substation in place. Think about that.” He looked up from the papers. “Dismissed.”
Her hands squeezed the arms of the chair, words forming at her tongue, before she got up and strode for the door.
He watched her go. When the door had slid shut, he closed his eyes and laid his head back.
CHAPTER 6
ODO KNELT DOWN and turned the corpse onto its back. The body was relatively undamaged, despite having been found inside the massive gears that opened and closed the cargo bay doors. That alone indicated to him a murder that was the work of an amateur, or at least somebody unfamiliar with the operations of DS9. A professional—and he’d admit there were some aboard the station—would have known that sensors activated by the chemical traces of complex organic matter were built into the gear teeth, to prevent crushing accidents to the dock’s crew. The machinery could never provide a means of disguising a violent cause of death.
“I suppose we’ll need an autopsy.” Major Kira leaned over his shoulder. She had been called, as well, to the scene by the cargo bay’s foreman. “Maybe Bashir will have to be pulled off the substation mission to perform it.”
He detected a hopeful note in her voice. “I hardly think one is necessary.” Kira’s sour relations with the chief medical officer were no concern of his; he wasn’t about to help her out on that score. “This man’s death is obviously due to multiple stab wounds.” Odo placed his hand over the bloodied abdomen and let it flow inside; a second later, he extracted the probe. “From the size and shape of the blade, I’d say a personal weapon.” Taking a handkerchief from his uniform’s pocket, he re-formed his hand and wiped it clean. From the corner of his eye, he noted—with some satisfaction—a wince of distaste from Kira. That’ll teach her to butt in on police work. “Male Bajoran, early twenties . . . ” He spoke into his comm badge, the details being logged into his data base back at the Promenade security office.
“You recognize him?”
“Not by name.” He glanced up at Kira. “Or not yet. But I know he was one of that group of Redemptorists, the ones doing microassembly over in the engineering bay.” He caught another change of expression, a slight tautening of the corners of her mouth, that told him she had known that much, as well.
He completed the description, then called for a gurney to take the body to the medical unit’s morgue. Still kneeling, he made a quick search through the corpse’s pockets.
“Find anything?”
Odo stood up. Two small silver squares glittered on his palm. “Just these.” He held the recording chips closer to his eye. “The seal’s been broken on them. They’ve been used.”
“Oh.” Kira squinted at them. “Clues.”
“Yes,” he said patiently. “That’s what they’re called.”
After the body had been wheeled away, Kira followed him back to the Promenade. He wanted to ask her if she didn’t have anything more productive to do, but refrained. She was probably tensed up about the substation mission, he knew, anxious to get through the wormhole and out to the Gamma Quadrant. The last time he had encountered O’Brien in Quark’s bar, the chief engineer had complained of her incessant pushing to get the quarantine module ready for travel. O’Brien finally had threatened to have her barred from the engineering bay, so he and his crew could work in peace.
As Odo pushed his way through the nonstop crowds on the Promenade, with Kira in his wake, he pondered the difficulties with humanoid emotions. He hadn’t gone to great lengths to cultivate them inside himself, except for the ones useful in his job, such as suspicion and distrust; like the human appearance he bore on the exterior of his form, emotional traits would have been carefully acquired. The advantage to his essentially liquid-based nature, he’d often thought, was that few of the small things that troubled someone such as Kira had the same effect on him. He could let them sink without a trace, like stones dropped into an ocean.
“What’s that smell?” Kira scowled as she looked around the security office. “It’s like somebody had set fire to their old socks and then—” She used a Bajoran vulgarism that Odo knew meant to extinguish by urination.
The memory of Gri Rafod and the cheap tobacco that Quark had unloaded on him did manage to irritate Odo. “Trust me,” he told Kira, “there were aspects to our last batch of Cardassian visitors that were worse than you can imagine.” The smell had yet to completely fade.
He sat down at his desk and loaded first one chip, then the other, into a player. Neither produced sound. “These were never recorded on.” He studied the chip player’s small readout screen.
“How can you tell?”
“The type of recording device used with these first lays down an index of tracks. Even if the material is later erased, the index matrix remains. These chips don’t have anything like that.”
Kira leaned over the desk to look at them. “Not much good as clues, then, are they?”
“That, Major, is why I’m chief of security and you’re not.” Odo leaned back, holding up a chip between his thumb and forefinger. “Consider. A young Bajoran of known Redemptorist sympathies is found murdered, and in his possession are two recording chips, seals broken but not yet recorded upon.” The chip made a small noise when he dropped it onto the desktop. “Perhaps someone wanted him to believe they contained recordings.” He nodded slowly. “I’ll have to think about this.”
Kira made no move toward the office door. After a moment, Odo brought his gaze back round to her. “Is there something further I can do for you, Major?”
She shook her head, as though his voice had woken her. “No . . . nothing . . . ”
When she had left, and the door had slid shut behind her, Odo watched his forefinger push one of the chips around the surface of the desk. It wouldn’t have taken any great skill at detection to see that something else had been on Kira’s mind.
“What are you going to use for electromagnetic scanning?” Lieutenant Jadzia Dax, the station’s chief science officer, looked up at the blueprints on the engineering bay’s wall. The thin membrane, some ten meters square, was connected to the DS9 data bases and could call up any magnified schematic within seconds. “I don’t see any of the usual data routes—”
“We’ve taken over the perimeter sensors and reconfigured them.” Beside her, Dr. Bashir pointed to a section depicting the exterior of the quarantine module. “They were really needed only for docking maneuvers, but they have a pretty wide spectrum built into them—more than enough for what we need. Computer, give me the control layout.” The images blurred and shifted on the membrane, then drew solid. “You see?” He leaned closer than necessary to Dax, reaching around her shoulder to indicate the new set of prints. “There’s a lot of carrying capacity for the diagnostic and treatment equipment that we’re not going to be using now. We just shunt those aside and use the circuits for whatever we need. Clever, really.”
“Very.” She ignored his arm—it wasn’t actually touching her—and turned her self-possessed Trill smile toward him. “Your idea?”
“Well, no . . . ” Bashir followed her toward the QM. “O’Brien’s, as a matter of fact. But my approval was needed for it,” he hurriedly added. “All these retrofits first have to go by me. . . .”
The chief engineer stood inside the module, sparks raining around him as he prodded a welding torch inside an open ceiling panel. Beyond him, the metal-on-metal sounds of his crew’s labors boomed out of the QM’s farther recesses. Black power cables snaked around his feet.
“Haven’t used one of these since I was an apprentice.” Through the noise, O’Brien had heard their approach. He switched o
ff the torch’s plasma flow, and the eerie ionic glow that had masked his face vanished. He pushed up his darkened goggles. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“Well, I’ve really only seen the plans,” said Dax. “But it seems like a lot to get done. Do you really think you can make your departure date?”
“This pup is going out the door as scheduled, even if I’m still riding on its back with a socket wrench.” O’Brien flicked on the torch again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . . ”
“Give me a call at Ops when you have the chance, Doctor.” Dax began picking her way out through the QM’s clutter. “I’ve got some ideas on ancillary stat probes you might find interesting.”
“How about right now?” Bashir moved to catch up with her, just before O’Brien brought his thickly gloved hand down from the ceiling panel and snagged him by the arm. “I’m not—”
“Not so fast.” O’Brien held onto him. “I need you here. We’ve got some decisions to make.” He signaled goodbye to Dax with the welding torch. “I’ll send him up to you when he’s finished his homework.”
Bashir followed the chief engineer to the front exterior of the quarantine module. “So, what exactly is it that’s so important?” His words sounded sulky even to himself.
“More important than your hormone level? Practically everything.” O’Brien stood beside the intricate mandibles of the towing link that had been grafted onto one end of the QM. A passage large enough for a humanoid to crawl through ran along the center of the four C-shaped locking arms. “Actually, this isn’t anything you have to make a decision on—I’ve already set it up, and I’m not changing it. You and Kira just need to know about it.” He pointed to a set of black ovoids around the central channel’s rim. “See those? I pulled some of the explosives from the interior walls and formed them into shaped thrust charges. That’s because there isn’t time to rig up fancy maneuvering jets with enough force to disengage the module from the cargo shuttle we’re rigging up as a pusher vessel. Once you and Kira get through the wormhole and into range of your target position, and she transfers over to the substation, one of you will have to calculate your firing angle and let ’er rip.” He picked up a cable with bare metal showing at its tip. “The trigger line’ll be wired right into the pusher’s control panel.”