by Peter David
THE CARDASSIAN CREW piloting the freighter didn’t mix with its passengers. Pulaski, Governo, Marvig, and Ogawa were confined to a small area that had once served as the crew’s mess. The tables were bolted to the floor. The walls were a gunmetal gray, undecorated, and the room smelled of stale food Pulaski couldn’t identify. There were no portholes, so she couldn’t see the stars, but the freighter ran relatively smoothly, so she also couldn’t feel the hum of the engines. It felt as if she were in a room on Cardassia Prime instead of in a freighter heading toward Terok Nor.
Her team was already working. Governo was bent over his research padd, reading about infectious diseases. Marvig was studying Cardassian physiology. Ogawa was supposed to be looking in the files to see if there was any previous history of cross-contamination between these two species, but she wasn’t. She was staring at the walls, much as Pulaski was doing.
Alyssa Ogawa was slender, with dark hair and dark eyes, as human as the rest of them. Pulaski hadn’t planned on putting together a completely human team, but Starfleet Medical thought it for the best. The less the Cardassians had to object to—and they would probably object to every species that arrived on Terok Nor—the better.
Pulaski was glad to have Ogawa for several reasons. The first and most important was that they had worked well together on the Enterprise. The second was that Ogawa was familiar with Bajoran physiology. The third was that she was the best nurse Pulaski had served with in her entire time in Starfleet.
Ogawa was also fairly level emotionally, and Pulaski would need that. Kellec wasn’t, and even though Pulaski usually was, one of the things that had caused their marriage to dissolve was that Kellec could pull her into his moods. Ogawa would help Pulaski keep her own sense of self. She wasn’t sure about the other two; since she had never worked with them before, she didn’t know if they would be calm or highly volatile. Nothing in their personnel histories suggested any problems along those lines, so the best Pulaski could do was hope.
The group had managed the trip well so far. Captain Picard had strained the Enterprise’s engines getting her to the border of Cardassian space within sixteen hours of Pulaski’s appointment. He would continue to patrol the area, waiting for her signal, for the next two weeks. If she didn’t come out by then, another starship would take its place. The area would be patrolled indefinitely—or so Pulaski had been told. She doubted that Starfleet would continue to expend such resources for four officers, albeit good and valuable ones, much longer than a month. She had mentioned that to Captain Picard and he had looked away from her ever so briefly, as he had done when he told her that Beverly Crusher was returning to the Enterprise.
I am afraid I have been told the plan for the next two weeks. The other starship will wait at least as long, but you know as well as I do, Doctor, that things change within our universe in an instant. Should something happen and the Enterprise must leave ahead of schedule, I shall get a message to you, and we shall make certain you have a way off Terok Nor.
She had thanked him, of course, but they both knew that she was taking a great personal risk. Starfleet could only support that risk so far, and then she was on her own.
She sighed and stood up. She had forgotten how warm Cardassians liked their ships. She had forgotten a lot about them. How big they were, on average, and how disconcerting it was to see that gray skin—a color she associated with illness. Governo mentioned how reptilian he thought they were; she had forgotten that he had never seen a Cardassian before. That was why she gave him the assignment to study their physiology.
The room they placed the group in was getting smaller by the minute. Pulaski hated waiting. The Cardassian pilot had told her the trip would only take a few hours. She took that to mean three. It had been four, and she felt that was too long. She did know the freighter was operating at its highest speed, trying to get her to Terok Nor.
The Cardassians on board, the pilot and the handful of others, whom she could only think of as guards, had obviously been instructed not to talk to the group. The pilot had looked uncomfortable just telling Pulaski their arrival time. When she had asked for information on the plague, he had stared at her. When she pushed, he had said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m a pilot, not a doctor.”
She had let the topic drop after that. She would find out all the pertinent information soon enough.
The door to the mess opened. She turned. One of the Cardassian guards stood in the doorway.
“We’re about to dock on Terok Nor. Gather your things.”
As he spoke, the entire freighter rumbled ever so slightly. Ogawa glanced over at Pulaski. They were the two used to being on board ship, and they both recognized the sensation. The freighter wasn’t about to dock. It had docked.
Governo put his padd in his duffel. Marvig closed her research. Ogawa’s was already put away. The three of them stood. Pulaski grabbed her two bags and walked to the Cardassian. “I guess it’s time,” she said.
He nodded.
He led them down a dark and dirty corridor, with dim lighting that made the gunmetal-gray walls seem black. Even the air here seemed thick and oily. Pulaski had to walk swiftly to keep up with him.
“Have you been to Terok Nor since the plague started?” she asked.
“No one’s calling it a plague,” he said.
That was more than she got out of the pilot.
“Have you?” she asked.
“We were told we were quarantined on Terok Nor. We were surprised to be assigned to pick you up.” His voice was flat. He wasn’t speaking softly, but the net effect, from his tone to his demeanor, was one of secrecy. For some reason he had decided to talk with her.
“How long have you been trapped on Terok Nor?”
“A week.” He ducked into another dark corridor. It felt to Pulaski as if they were going in circles, but she knew they weren’t.
“That’s not very long.”
“It is when most of your friends are dying.”
Ah, so there it was. The reason he was speaking to her. “And you don’t have the disease?”
“I probably do,” he said. “I’m going to die like the rest of them.”
“Surely you can’t believe that,” she said. “One must always have hope.”
“Hope?” he said. “You’ll forget the meaning of the word after you’ve spent a day on Terok Nor.”
He opened one last door, and pointed. Through the airlock, she saw a series of huge, round doors, shaped like giant gears in an ancient machine. The Cardassian pressed a button and the doors rolled back, clanging as they did so, one at a time.
Her door opened first. She stepped through the airlock onto the docking platform, and then another door rolled back, and she was in Terok Nor.
The heat didn’t surprise her, but a faint odor of rot did. Space-station filtration systems should take care of smells, unless the odor was so pervasive nothing could be done about it.
She resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at her Cardassian guide, but his warning rang in her ears like an old Earth curse: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
She did look around her for her team. Governo was at her side, Ogawa and Marvig were behind her. They looked as serious as she felt.
Pulaski stepped out the final door into the corridor. The ceiling was higher here than on the freighter, and the place was clean. It was still decorated in Cardassian gray, however. Didn’t they understand the value of a well-placed painting? Or even a nicely designed computer terminal?
The corridor did seem to extend forever, however, despite the branches off it. Another feature of Cardassian design, she assumed. At least poor lighting wasn’t part of the design here. The lights were bright enough in this corridor to show that these walls were clean.
Behind her someone cleared his throat. She turned. Three Cardassians blocked the corridor. She had been so intent on her destination that she hadn’t looked both ways when she came out the door, and she had turned in the wrong direction.
Two of the Cardassians stood a few steps behind the Cardassian in the middle. He was taller than the others, his shoulders broader, and his face thinner. His eyes had an intelligence that made her wary. With his strange ridges, that sickly gray color to his skin, and those bright eyes, he looked like a particularly charming reptile, the kind that smiled before inflicting its poisonous bite.
In fact, he was smiling now. “Doctor Katherine Pulaski?” he asked. He had a warm, seductive voice that seemed, to her, completely at odds with his appearance.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m Gul Dukat. I run Terok Nor. We’re pleased you could come here on such short notice.” As if she were coming for a dinner party or to give a speech.
“If you’ll point the way, my assistants and I will get right to work.”
“First,” he said, “I thought we’d get you to your quarters and give you a short tour of our facility. Then we’ll take you to the medical section.”
She drew a sharp breath. No wonder the Bajorans hated the Cardassians. How insensitive was this man? And then she realized what he was doing. He saw her as a representative of the Federation first, a doctor second. He didn’t want her first impression of his station to be one of illness and death.
Governo stepped up beside her, and was about to speak. She put a hand on his arm, and shoved him backwards. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marvig take him and hold him back. That answered one question. Governo would be her impulsive assistant.
“Mr. Dukat,” she said, purposely making a mistake on his title. “I—”
“Gul Dukat,” he said in those dulcet tones. “Gul is my title.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.” She took a step closer to him. The three Cardassians were so tall, it felt as if she were stepping toward a forest.
He watched her as if he had never seen a human before.
“I would love to see the station,” she said, “but I was led to believe the medical situation here is urgent. Perhaps if we get this thing under control, you can give me a tour. Right now, though, my assistants and I would like to put our things in our quarters and report for our duties.”
Dukat inclined his head toward her. “What you will see in our medical section isn’t normal for Terok Nor.”
She smiled at him. It would be another part of her job, she realized, to charm the snake. “It isn’t normal anywhere.” She glanced up at him, making her look purposefully vulnerable. “Perhaps Kellec didn’t tell you about me. I’m a doctor. I have no interest in politics. I’m here as a favor to Kellec.”
“And your assistants?”
“Are here because they have leave and they volunteered.”
His smile was just a bit jaded. “And that’s why the Starship Enterprise brought you to the rendezvous, because you’re a simple doctor, volunteering your time.”
“No,” she said. “Until a few days ago, I served on that ship. I am between assignments. Captain Picard gave my position to his former chief medical officer, so he owed me a favor.”
Dukat clearly wasn’t buying that, so she sighed.
“And besides, having a starship escort me was the only way we could convince Starfleet to let us come. They worry about having valuable personnel so close to the Cardassian border.”
“You’re inside Cardassian space.”
“I know,” Pulaski said. “And with luck, we’ll be able to make your people well. Please, let us work first.”
“As you wish,” he said.
“In fact,” she said, “it would probably be best to show my assistants to their quarters and lead me to the medical area. I’m sure Kellec and your doctor could use the relief.”
“All right.” Dukat turned to his guards. “I’ll take Dr. Pulaski to the medical section. You escort her assistants to their quarters, and when they’re settled, bring them to the section as well.”
“Forgive me, Doctor,” Marvig said, “but perhaps one of us should come with you. We can both get right to work.”
“Good suggestion, Crystal, but I’m used to field medicine. None of you are. Trust me, it’s better for you to get your bearings and then come. It will prevent burnout later.” Pulaski turned to Dukat. “Shall we go?”
He nodded and then, to her surprise, he took her hand and placed it on his arm. Such a courtly gesture, and one that would certainly rile Kellec if he saw it. Still, she let Dukat do it.
His uniform was softer than she expected from its design, and his skin was cooler. She wondered if the heat in the Cardassian ship and now here, on Terok Nor, was because Cardassians had cold blood, just like the Earthly creatures they resembled. She was surprised she didn’t remember, and made a mental note to brush up on her own Cardassian physiology when she had a free moment. Every detail was important, and things she had studied years ago that were now lost to the sands of time might be more crucial than she had initially thought.
Dukat led her through the maze of corridors. “What have they told you of Terok Nor?” he asked as they walked.
“Only that it’s an ore-processing plant,” she said.
“Ah, such an oversimplification,” he said. “Terok Nor is more than a simple factory. We are a very large station, and many ships come through here on their way to Cardassia Prime. Did you see the station as you came in?”
“No,” she said. “We were restricted to the crew’s mess.”
A dark, troubled look crossed his face, and that hint of danger she had felt from the beginning returned. This was not a man to be trifled with. “They should have treated you better. After all, you’ve come here as a favor to us.”
“I assumed that they made room for us where they could,” she said.
He nodded. “Well, if you had seen us as you came in, you would have noted the difference in design from your space stations. We have a docking ring, and a habitat ring, and we are at the cutting edge of Cardassian technology—perhaps of technology all through the sector.”
She didn’t know if he wanted her to ask questions or not.
“We’ve put your quarters in the best section of our habitat ring. If there’s anything you need, you come directly to me.”
“I’ll do that,” she said.
“I wanted to show you the heart of the station,” he said. “It’s our Promenade. We have restaurants, stores, even a Ferengi-run bar, if your tastes run to alcohol, Dabo, and questionable holosuite programs.”
“I hope I will get a chance to sample all three,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll need them when we have everything under control.”
“You sound confident that you can cure this disease,” Dukat said. “Is there something you know that my people don’t?”
“Perhaps it’s ignorance on my part,” she said, thankful that her year with Picard had helped her brush up on her diplomacy. “I do not know as much as Kellec or your doctor about this disease, and they refused to send me the specs before I arrived. But it’s my nature to be optimistic. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be a doctor. We’re all a bit egotistical, you know.”
“I hadn’t realized that,” he said with all the smoothness of a lie.
These corridors seemed to go on forever. She wanted to remove her hand from his arm, but felt she didn’t dare, not yet.
“Yes,” she said. “We are. I think it a necessary skill. It leads us to places that aren’t safe, to try things others wouldn’t think of, and never to accept failure.”
“Have you ever accepted failure?” Dukat said.
“Accepted it?” she asked. “No. Experienced it? Yes.”
“Ah, yes, your marriage to Kellec.” He didn’t miss much. Her sense of him was correct.
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” she said. “I was thinking of death. We all lose patients, and we’re never happy about it.”
“You’re bringing that attitude to my station,” he said.
“I am, and so are my assistants. We’ll do everything we can to stop this thing.”
He paused. The corridor opened on
to a larger area. It must have been the area he had called the Promenade. Ahead she saw lights and advertisements in Cardassian. A group of Cardassian guards were crowded around a post. She saw that catch Dukat’s attention, and then saw him pretend that it didn’t matter.
“I believe you will do everything you can to stop this disease,” he said, and he sounded a bit surprised. She frowned. Was this the real Dukat? Beneath that reptilian coolness, was there a worried leader beneath? He would have to be stupid not to be. If the disease were half as bad as she had heard, he had to be worried about dying himself.
“Just be careful, Doctor,” he said. “Kellec Ton is a bitter man. Do not believe everything he says.”
She smiled, even though she had never felt less like doing so. “I know,” she said. “I was married to him, remember?”
Dukat laughed. The sound echoed in the wide-open space and the huddle of guards near the post all turned in his direction. He led her into the Promenade. There were shops with windows opening onto the walk area. In one window, a Volian sat at a table, hand-stitching a shirt. Another door opened and a strange-looking man slipped through it. He wore a brown uniform, and he crossed his arms over his chest as she walked by. His face seemed half-formed, or imperfectly formed. She had never seen anyone from a species like that before.
Dukat was explaining what all the places were, but she wasn’t really listening. The guards had lifted a man from the floor and were carrying him without a gurney in the direction she and Dukat were walking.
“And this is Quark’s,” he said, sweeping a hand toward a nearly empty bar.
She peered inside. There was a lot of light and color, but no customers. A Ferengi stood behind the bar. He looked nervous, but then they all did to her.
This would probably be her only opportunity to let go of Dukat. She slipped her hand from his arm, and went inside the bar. The Ferengi looked at her in surprise.
“Care for a drink?” he asked.
Three Cardassians were passed out at a back table, and another Ferengi was trying in vain to wake them up. She frowned at them.
“A bit of hot water on the back of the neck usually wakes up a Cardassian,” she said to the bartender.