by David Mack
“Far too optimistic.” Lense shook her head. “The hardcore kooks will say we were running a clandestine genetic-engineering program to turn the Andorians into the Federation’s version of the Jem’Hadar, warrior-slaves we secretly control with rationed drugs in their water.”
“Are you sure the replicator didn’t spike your soda?”
“I’m serious,” Lense insisted. “I’m not talking about reputable news sources like FNS or INS. I’m talking about the fringe channels. The loons with vid-visors and public uplinks.”
She dismissed Lense’s fear of the paranoid. “Their kind will always be with us, Elizabeth. We can’t shy away from bold work on the off chance that some deluded fool will try to tar us with ridiculous lies.”
Her protest got a dour chuckle from Lense. “They aren’t the ones who concern me. I worry about the ones who might tar us with the truth—even if only by accident.”
“You knew this job was dangerous when you took it.”
“That I did. Unfortunately, I forgot to explain that to my seven-year-old daughter.” Lense downed the rest of her soda in three quick gulps, then stifled a belch by pressing the side of her fist to her lips. She stood up and stretched. “You’ve been lovely company, but I have to go and find a dense pillow so I can spend a few minutes screaming my way to inner peace.”
Pulaski pointed toward the administrative wing. “Try the manager’s office. I think I heard Julian mention it was soundproofed.”
“Good to know.”
Lense moved in stiff, heavy steps toward the doorway—then stopped as Lemdock barged through it and collided with the doorframe hard enough to knock his vaporator off-kilter. Gasping for air, he croaked, “Come quickly!” Staggering backward, he beckoned Pulaski and Lense with broad waves of his webbed hand. “Hurry!” Then the flustered Benzite jogged off, back the way he had come.
Intrigued and full of guarded hope, Pulaski got up and followed him, and Lense hurried along beside her. Neither of them said anything. Maybe because we don’t want to get each other’s hopes up, Pulaski reasoned.
Lemdock led them to the spacious meeting room that had been set aside for Bashir’s exclusive use. Waiting just outside its open doorway was Tovak. The Vulcan stood with his arms crossed. His face was a portrait of hard, unyielding focus. Pulaski, Lense, and Lemdock gathered at his back and peered over his shoulder at the virtual genome model Bashir was assembling.
Brimming with optimism and impatience, Lense whispered, “What’s he found?”
Tovak was either unwilling or unable to tear his eyes off Bashir’s work as he replied in a tone of hushed respect, “The answer.”
Lense and Pulaski traded wide-eyed looks of joyous disbelief. Pulaski scrutinized the genome model projected in front of Bashir, then she glanced up at Tovak. “You mean—?”
“Unless I am gravely mistaken . . . I think Doctor Bashir has designed a stable new genetic model for the Andorian species.”
Fifteen
I’ve never seen so many personnel evaluations. Deep Space 9’s department heads had taken until the last possible moment to complete their scheduled crew reviews, a consequence of the backlogs inflicted by Bacco’s assassination and the delays it had caused in the rest of the station’s unusually crunched schedule. It was almost enough to make Ro Laren turn to religion and worship the Prophets as deities, just so she could beg them to strike her dead, to spare her the agony of signing off on more than two thousand paraphrasings of “performs to expectations.”
Where to start? The Engineering division? Its reports were the driest and most mind-numbing. Ro was sure half the words engineers used didn’t actually exist but had been cooked up just to pad their files with empty jargon and acronyms. The Medical division? Doctors were the only ones whose professional patois made engineers sound intelligible. Command division? Reading three hundred eighty-four junior officers’ variations on why they felt they’d demonstrated exceptional leadership skills meriting promotion sounded to Ro like a probable contributing factor to suicide. The Security division it is, then. At least its reports tended to include funny stories about all the other departments’ personnel and their myriad screwups.
She had just called up the Security division’s evaluations on her padd when her office’s overhead speaker beeped softly, granting her what she hoped would be an interesting reprieve. Colonel Cenn’s voice filtered down, loud and clear. “Captain, you have a Priority One subspace signal from Federation President Pro Tem Ishan Anjar.”
Ro tried to stay calm, but her jaw clenched, her muscles tensed, and her left hand closed into a fist. She had never met Ishan Anjar, even though they both had been active during the final decade of the Bajoran insurgency against the Cardassian Occupation. All she really knew of the man was his reputation, which was sketchy, at best. As far as Ro knew, Ishan had never been accused of any wrongdoing, but whispered intimations of back-room deals always seemed to follow his name everywhere Ro had traveled on Bajor since its liberation.
His ascent through the ranks of power in the Bajoran government had been so swift that he had escaped all but a cursory vetting from the people. Some Bajorans had dismissed his election to the Federation Council as a dead-end career move. Instead, his panache for striking bargains had elevated him temporarily to the summit of Federation political power—a move he was looking to make permanent in just a couple of months. Now most Bajorans hailed him as a hero, a triumphant native son. Ro was not one of those people. To her, he was just another politician looking to complicate her already lousy day.
She stood, moved to the middle of the room, and faced the viewscreen mounted on the bulkhead, above the sofa opposite her desk. “Put him through, Colonel.”
The diagram of Deep Space 9 that normally occupied the large screen was replaced by a subspace feed from President Pro Tem Ishan. A string of icons in the lower left corner confirmed that the channel was encrypted and secure, while side-by-side chronometers in the lower right corner informed Ro that while it was morning on the station, it was late at night at Ishan’s location on nearby Betazed, where he was busy campaigning for the upcoming special election.
Ishan’s chiseled features were crowned by dark hair accented with distinguished streaks of steel gray. His nasal ridges were subtle and upswept, and he met Ro’s normally implacable gaze with a stare that she was sure could unnerve almost anyone.
“Captain Ro. I hope you’ll forgive me if I cut straight to business.”
“By all means, sir.”
“What, exactly, is the purpose of Doctor Julian Bashir’s medical conference on Bajor?”
The question raised the hackles on Ro’s neck. Please tell me he doesn’t know. She opted to stall for time. “His sabbatical request said he’d be working on new therapies for Kalla-Nohra Syndrome and Pottrik Syndrome.”
Ishan held up a padd. “I know what it says. I have a copy of it right here.” He cast the tablet aside. “I also have a report from Starfleet Security that says your people captured a Breen spy who was trying to blow up the conference center four days ago.”
“Our interrogation of the Breen agent is ongoing, sir.”
A Tellarite leaned into the frame and whispered something into Ishan’s right ear. The president pro tem’s hazel-green eyes narrowed. “Captain, it’s been brought to my attention that Doctor Bashir has been in contact with an Andorian citizen, most likely his former crewmate Thirishar ch’Thane, via secret diplomatic channels provided by the Ferengi. As you might be aware, ch’Thane works with Professor zh’Thiin on research involving the Shedai Meta-Genome. That, and the fact that Bashir has gathered four of our preeminent genomic-medicine specialists for a conference with no published agenda, has led me and key members of my staff to suspect that Bashir and his compatriots are working on the Andorian medical crisis—something they would be unable to do without access to classified information about the Meta-Genome.”
Ro knew she had to tread with great caution. A fine line separated artful omission from
outright lying to the appointed head of the civilian government. No matter what her personal opinion of the man might be, she was bound by oath to respect his office. “Sir, do you have any solid evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Doctor Bashir or his colleagues?”
“This isn’t a court of law, Captain. I’m responding to what I consider to be a credible threat to the security of the Federation. If Bashir and the others are working with the Meta-Genome, and the Typhon Pact knows enough about it that they tried to sabotage it, there’s a significant chance they could escalate to acts of mass destruction to achieve their goal. Even more alarming is the possibility that some other player on the interstellar stage will steal the data and use it to invent something too horrible to imagine. We can’t let that happen.”
It galled her to admit he was right. “What are your orders, sir?”
“Take a Starfleet security team to Bajor and find out what they’re working on. If it’s the Meta-Genome—for that matter, if it’s anything to do with the Andorian crisis—shut them down and take them all into maximum-security custody immediately, and until further notice.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Notify my office when it’s done. Thank you, Captain.” He closed the channel, switching the screen momentarily to the Federation emblem before it reverted to its usual station diagrams.
Ro walked out of her office and snapped orders at Cenn on her way to the turbolift. “Have Blackmer and Douglas meet me with an armed security detail at the Rio Grande in five minutes. We’re heading back to Bajor.”
• • •
An electric mood infused the room. Bashir hunched forward, manipulating the three-dimensional holographic magnification of the modified Andorian genomes he had designed, while his four peers huddled close behind his shoulders, admiring his work with rapt attention.
He triggered a new round of recombination simulations. “As you can see, regardless of which regional, ethnic variant genes we introduce into the simulation, the fertilization and integration paradigms remain stable. Even double pregnancies should be stable and healthy.”
Wonderment lit up Pulaski’s careworn features. “Don’t sell your work short, Doctor. You’ve done more than stabilize their fertility problem. You’ve eliminated more than three dozen known congenital defects from their genome by replacing their weakest chromosome.”
“Most remarkable,” Tovak said. “I see you incorporated my suggestion regarding the error-correction gene. That should permanently suppress the recessive gene that gave rise to the original problem over a millennium ago.”
Bashir nodded. “It was an inspired notion, Doctor.” He looked back at his colleagues. “You all made amazing contributions. Thanks to your work, not only can we fix the Andorians’ fertility issues, we can extend their life spans, increase their average intelligence, and render them immune to a wide variety of diseases and syndromes that have plagued them for centuries.” He felt as light in his head as he was dead on his feet. “This may be the finest work of my career.”
Lense rested a hand on Bashir’s shoulder. “Mine, too.” Lemdock and Pulaski patted him on the back, and Tovak honored him with a subtle lowering of his chin.
Their moment of celebration was dispelled by the heavy rhythm of marching feet, drawing closer in the corridor outside. Bashir turned off the holographic projector, shut down the runabout’s computer, and met his friends’ looks of concern with cool resignation. “We knew this was coming.” He stood, stepped between the others and the conference room’s door, and smoothed the front of his uniform. Seconds later the door slid open, and their guests arrived.
A squad of ten Starfleet security personnel filed into the room and fanned out to circle behind the five doctors and surround them. None of the security officers drew their phasers, but they all rested their hands on their weapons’ grips and stood ready to react.
The last three people to enter were Sarina Douglas, Captain Ro, and Deep Space 9’s chief of security, Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Blackmer. Ro’s countenance was red with anger. Douglas looked both embarrassed and apologetic. The security chief’s expression was absolutely neutral, a perfect poker face. The captain focused her fury on Bashir. “You’ve got a real knack for finding trouble, Doctor.”
“I consider it a gift.”
“Well, I don’t. Would you care to guess who sent us here?” It was obvious to Bashir that her query was rhetorical, and that the only correct response was to stay quiet until she continued. “The president pro tem himself ordered me to arrest you and impound your work.”
It was Elizabeth Lense who shot back, “Did you tell him what we’re working on?”
“He seems to have a fairly good idea.” Ro fixed Bashir with a look that could slice through a starship’s hull. “And that’s exactly what I warned you about, four days ago.” For a moment she shut her eyes and pressed her palm to her forehead, as if to push past a brutal headache. She turned toward Blackmer. “Jeff? Impound their computers—all of them: their padds, the conference center mainframe, every isolinear chip, and all the cores on their shuttles and the Tiber. Put it all under guard with transport scramblers, and tell Cenn to launch the Defiant to come take it all back to the station. Once it’s secured, I’ll brief Starfleet Command.”
“Aye, sir.” Blackmer waved the other security officers into motion. The mustard-collared personnel started gathering up all of the doctors’ equipment and storage media.
Ro edged into Bashir’s personal space. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done here, Doctor?”
“Yes, I do. If anyone’s failing to see the big picture, Captain, it’s you.”
“Spell it out for me.”
“We have the cure, Captain. We found it.” Petty as it was, Bashir took a small measure of satisfaction in watching Ro recoil from his news. “That’s right. By using the last three years of Professor zh’Thiin’s work on the Meta-Genome as a springboard and filling in all the gaps in their data with sequences from the complete Meta-Genome . . . we’ve cured the Andorian fertility crisis. You just ordered Blackmer to box up the Andorians’ only hope for survival.”
The angular beauty of her face went pale as the truth sank in. Then her lips vanished into a hard frown, and the creases in her forehead deepened with her resolve. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We have executive orders to place you all under arrest.”
“Do you think this is what President Bacco would have done?”
“She’s dead, Doctor. What she would’ve done doesn’t matter anymore.”
Bashir felt his pulse quicken and throb in his temples as he watched security officers cart away all his work and shut down the conference center’s computer network. “This is insane! At least let me talk to Ishan.”
The captain’s reaction was incredulous at best. “What do you think that’ll accomplish?”
“Maybe once he sees that we’re not just talking about a hypothetical, he’ll see the value in what we’ve done! With the cure in hand, we could win back the goodwill of the Andorians and keep the Typhon Pact off our doorstep.”
Ro tilted her head. “That actually doesn’t sound crazy.”
“Is that a ‘yes,’ Captain? You’ll let me talk to Ishan before you shut us down?”
“No, we’re still shutting you down. But I’ll let you talk to him before I hand you over for a one-way trip to solitary confinement.”
“Too kind.”
“You know me: I’m just a big softy.” Ro headed for the door and stopped beside Blackmer on her way out. “Keep him here while I open a channel to Ishan.”
Blackmer looked at Bashir, then at Ro. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why not? How much worse can this get?” The captain pointed a threatening finger at Bashir. “Do not make me sorry I just said that.”
Sixteen
“By what right do you presume to question my orders, Doctor?”
Confronted by a larger-than-life viewscreen image of Ishan, Bashir noted that the president pro
tem looked older and more weary than his public image on the newsfeeds. Fatigue had underscored his eyes with puffy, dark crescents, and his dark hair had streaks the dull gray of lunar regolith. But for all his apparent frailty, he projected a steely will and a fierce temper.
“With all respect, Mister President Pro Tem, as a physician I am in some cases bound more by my Hippocratic oath and my own conscience than by the law.”
His heartfelt assertion deepened Ishan’s ire. “Is it your contention that because you’re a medical doctor, you should be exempt from Federation law? Or from executive orders?”
“Not at all, sir.” He looked down for half a second to gather his thoughts. As he took a breath, he felt the nervous anticipation of Ro, Blackmer, and Douglas, who stood off to one side of the conference room, auditing his conversation with the temporary head of the Federation government. “I’m just trying to explain that my actions aren’t the result of any wish to harm the Federation. They’re the product of my vow to defend life before all other considerations.”
Ishan’s hard, hazel-green eyes narrowed. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor, but didn’t you also take an oath of service to Starfleet and the Federation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So how do you justify betraying that oath to serve another?”
“In my opinion, sir, I am doing no such thing. If you would hear me out, I think I can show that my actions in fact serve the best interests of both Starfleet and the Federation.”
The skeptical Bajoran crossed his arms. “I’m listening.”
“First and foremost, sir—it’s the right thing to do.”
“I disagree.”
“This is no mere abstraction, sir! The lives of real, sentient beings are at stake here! Even now the Andorian species is nearing a biological tipping point, one from which it will be almost impossible to revive a genetically robust population. It’s time to put aside our resentment over their secession and give them the cure.”
Ishan shook his head. “My staff and I have already discussed this. Andor betrayed the Federation once when it seceded, and a second time when it entered into treaty negotiations with the Typhon Pact. We can’t be seen to reward that kind of behavior with concessions. It would be an invitation to every member world in the Federation to secede in order to extort us.”