by Peter David
"Ompar Tenzil?" Kira said briskly. "You've been named as a co-conspirator in a black-market scheme—"
"In the black market, yes," Ompar Tenzil said faintly. He didn't seem to care that they were accusing him of anything, or even that they were in the room. "Yes. That's right. And there's really not much of anything you can do about it."
At that moment, Varis felt a scratching in her throat, a distant heaviness in her lungs. And she knew. It was the first, earliest sign, the most preliminary of symptoms. But she knew that finally, finally, the Wrath had caught up with her.
And that was when she snapped.
All the rage, all the hurt, all the fury that had roiled within her suddenly bubbled over. She had never seen Ompar Tenzil before, never had any dealings with him. He had not physically hurt her in any way.
But Ompar Tenzil was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Varis's unfettered anger was unleashed at him. With a growl that sounded completely wrong in a humanoid throat, she leaped at him, her fingers outstretched.
As they wrapped themselves around his throat, she bore him backward, knocking him off the chair. The two of them tumbled to the floor.
"Get off him!" Kira shouted.
"Come on, let him go!" Ro admonished.
It took the efforts of both women to pull Varis off the man. Slowly he sat up, dusting off his bulk and not looking particularly put off by the way he'd just been handled.
"He admits it!" Varis hissed. "He admits what he did, and he doesn't care! He doesn't care!"
Ompar got to his feet, with an expression of incredible sadness. "You're right, my dear. I don't." He tapped the computer terminal. "You'll find here all the records you need to dismantle the trade links through the black market. Some of it you may already have, but I'm sure there's much that'll be of value to you."
"It's a trick!" Varis snapped.
She struggled against Ro's grip, but couldn't get anywhere. The woman was a lot stronger than she looked.
"A trick?" Ompar echoed. He seemed surprised. "No, my dear. It's no trick. Think of it as … a parting gift."
Kira glared at him. "You don't think we're just going to let you walk away, do you?"
The official regarded her. "Walk? Oh, no."
And then, without another word, Ompar Tenzil dashed toward the window. He moved with startling speed for one of his bulk.
Kira took a step, trying to stop him, but he was out of reach. He slammed into the glass with his shoulder and it shattered, giving way before his charge.
He was out into midair and, for a moment, seemed to hover there as if he were going to fly away over the spires of the city. Then gravity seized hold of him, and he fell.
The women ran to the window and watched helplessly as he plummeted toward the ground. He didn't scream, he didn't make a sound. His arms were outstretched as if he were a wounded bird, and when he hit the ground he was so far down they didn't hear the impact. All they heard were the screams of passersby who had witnessed the suicide.
For a long moment, Varis and her companions said nothing. They looked at each other in stunned confusion. Then, as if operating with one mind, they went to the computer and activated the program on it.
The screen showed them a suicide note from Ompar Tenzil. Ompar Tenzil, trader and traitor, black marketeer. Ompar Tenzil, who had just learned that he had the Wrath, and decided he wasn't interested in waiting for the illness to run its fatal course.
His last request was for forgiveness from the Prophets. Somewhere, Varis imagined, the Prophets were laughing at the man's arrogance.
Bashir had done it. He had discovered a cure for the virus.
Again.
Except this time, the damned thing wasn't going to mutate and ruin his moment of triumph. This time, he had beaten it once and for all.
"Well?" he said, turning to Dax. "What do you think?"
She was gazing at the monitor in front of them, which displayed a microscopic multitude of the virus helixes. They weren't bent, either, since Bashir had abandoned his original approach to dealing with them. But they were also no longer purple.
They were a silvery white. A most attractive silvery-white, now that he thought about it—and not only because of the way it looked to him. This particular silvery-white meant that the viruses had been sheathed—isolated from their environment.
In short, they had suffocated it with a mineral-based compound—a close variation on the theme invented by the Anderians centuries earlier, when it had been their turn to confront the plague.
Dax nodded. "That's it," she confirmed.
And of course, she would be the one to know. As Lela Dax, she was the only one now living who had seen the Andevians' cure.
"Of course, we still have to test it," Bashir said. "That will require a volunteer. And since we have only one full-blown case of the plague here on the station …" He let his voice trail off as he glanced in the direction of Morn's bio-bed.
The Trill looked at him. "Morn's not going to be a willing guinea pig."
"Perhaps not," the doctor acknowledged, as he led the way into the quarantine area. "But I think I've got a way to convince him."
Dax grunted. "The prospect of dying isn't going to do it," she noted. "Morn is one big baby when it comes to things like this."
"Actually," Bashir said, "I had a different motivation in mind. A bribe, as it were. Free drinks at Quark's—or Rom's, as it's called now—for a month."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the Trill couldn't help but chuckle. "For that, I think he just might heal himself. But don't you think we should ask Rom first?"
The doctor shook his head. "We're doing him a favor, aren't we? If everyone on the station perishes, who's going to patronize his place?"
Dax nodded. "Good point."
"I thought you'd appreciate it," Bashir replied.
Then he approached Morn with the terms of his offer.
CHAPTER
16
DEEP SPACE NINE had never looked so good to Sisko as it did now on his monitor. He turned to Quark, who was still at the helm controls.
"Don't worry," the Ferengi assured him. "I'll take care to dock your ship without damaging it. After all, I'd like to get home safely, too."
The captain grunted. "I never doubted the strength of your instinct for self-preservation."
"And my piloting skills?" Quark asked.
"As a pilot," Sisko gibed, "you make a hell of a bartender."
Tapping his communications padd, he opened a channel to Ops. "This is Captain Sisko," he said. "Requesting permission to dock."
Dax's face appeared a moment later. And she was smiling. "Welcome home, Benjamin."
The captain looked at her. "Dare I hope …?" he began.
"We've found a cure," she confirmed, "one that we tested successfully. In fact, we're pumping it through the station's ventilation system right now."
"The station?" Sisko inquired.
She nodded. "After you left, it began to show up in non-Bajorans. But there haven't been any casualties."
"I see," he said. "And what about Bajor? How are you going to deliver the cure there?"
"Chief O'Brien suggested that we use the runabouts to seed the atmosphere. And since it was his idea—and he had a personal stake in the matter—I let him lead the mission. Also, I told him he could visit with his family when he was done. I thought he had earned that."
Of course, thought the captain. Keiko and Molly. If the plague had begun to jump species, they would be in jeopardy.
"Good idea," he agreed. "Incidentally, if this works, the Bajorans may name Bashir a Prophet."
Dax laughed softly. "Just what he needs to soothe that fragile ego of his."
Sisko laughed, too—and a pain shot through his side. He winced.
Suddenly the Trill's brow creased. "Benjamin … are you all right?"
"Just a few cracked ribs," he told her. "Nothing the doctor can't handle, now that he's done saving the planet." He paused. "
How's Kira?"
"Fine," Dax said, "last we heard. She's still down on Bajor, trying to find the last link in the chain of corruption—the one you and Quark supplied her with."
The captain was concerned. However, he reminded himself, Kira was a big girl. She could take care of herself. Likewise for Ro.
"We'll speak some more after we dock," he told the Trill. "Sisko—"
"Hang on a second," Quark said, leaning over so he could be seen by Dax. "How's my bar?"
The captain couldn't quite decipher the Trill's expression. But if he were the Ferengi, he knew he'd be disconcerted by it.
"I've got to go now," she replied. "Dax out."
Quark stared at the monitor for a moment. Then he harrumphed. "You know," he commented, "if I didn't know better, I'd have said she was trying to keep something from me."
Sisko looked at him, unable to resist one last jab. "Well," he said, "we'll soon find out … won't we?"
Keiko O'Brien stood underneath the awning in front of the Gnago Island research compound, her hair whipping savagely in the rain and the wind, and watched a massive black stormfront attack the sky like a savage beast.
Thin needles of blue-white lightning stitched the underbelly of the dark heavy clouds. There was a distinct smell of ozone in the air, and a long vicious crack of thunder.
Keiko had needed a breath of fresh air, a brief respite from the care Molly required. And with her daughter sleeping soundly for the first time all day, she had taken the opportunity to go outside for a moment.
But only for a moment—because she couldn't forget that Molly needed her. Taking a last look at the stormfront, she went back inside and made her way through the sick ward to her daughter's bed.
Not so long ago, this room had been a research lab, dedicated to scientific study. But all the researchers were sick now, some very much so. And judging from what they'd heard over the Bajoran comm net, it was only going to get worse.
Keiko knelt by Molly's side and her daughter's eyes fluttered open—as if she knew her mother was there again. The little girl's face was flushed and feverish as she looked up at Keiko.
"Is it a big storm, Mommy?"
"A very big storm," Keiko confirmed.
The girl grunted softly. "It's a good thing we're not in the mountains anymore—right, Mommy?"
Keiko smiled down at her daughter and nodded. "You're a smart girl, Molly. If we were in the mountains in this kind of weather, we'd all have been in big trouble."
Her daughter was silent for a moment. She seemed to be thinking about something. Thinking hard.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, love?"
"Fola Mirax says the storm is the Prophets' way of saying they're mad at us."
Keiko frowned. It was impossible to be on Bajor and not hear such talk these days. She regretted now that she'd decided to come on this expedition—that she'd put them both in such terrible danger. She'd just never expected anything like this.
"Well," she said at last, "we're not Bajoran. We don't have to believe in the Prophets if we don't want to." It was an awkward way to say it, but at least she'd gotten her point across.
The girl sighed. "Fola Mirax says that's why they're mad. Because there are so many people from other planets on Bajor now—people who don't believe in them."
Keiko cursed Fola Mirax beneath her breath. "Don't believe everything you hear," she advised Molly. "Sometimes people say silly things when they're scared."
Molly looked up at her again. "Are you scared, Mommy?"
Damned right I am, thought Keiko. But of course, she wasn't going to admit that to her daughter. "Not really," she lied.
"Not even of the plague?" Molly pressed.
"Not even of the plague," Keiko told her, with an assurance she didn't feel. "And you know why?"
The little one shook her head. "No, why?"
"Because people like your daddy are working to help find a cure for it. That's why I'm not scared."
There was another crack of thunder. The walls of the place seemed to shake with it.
Oh, Miles, she thought, where are you?
Just then, a Bajoran standing by the door made a sound of surprise and pointed to something outside. Another Bajoran joined him, and then another, and before Keiko knew it there was a buzz all around the room.
"What is it?" she asked another woman, whose son and daughter had both come down with the plague.
The woman turned to her with a expression of curiosity and hope. "Something's landing on the grass in front of the compound. Some kind of ship, I think."
A ship? Landing here on Gnago Island, of all places? Suddenly Keiko's heart leaped. Could it be …?
Molly tugged on her sleeve. "What is it, Mommy?"
Keiko looked down at her. She didn't want to get her daughter's hopes up, but she had to see for herself. As gently as she could, she bent and picked Molly up in her arms, blanket and all. Then she negotiated a course through the maze of beds to the open doorway.
What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. It was a ship, all right. A runabout—the kind that could only have come from Deep Space Nine. The rain was coming down harder now, sizzling over its smooth silvery hull.
Somehow she made her way to the front of the crowd that was forming outside beneath the awning. As she watched, her heart pounding in her chest so hard it hurt, the hatch of the runabout opened.
And out stepped Miles. Before the hatch could close behind him, the rain had turned the mustard color of his uniform a dark brown. It streamed through his hair and down the sides of his face, making it difficult for him to see.
But somehow, he saw her. He smiled at the sight of his wife and then his daughter, and with everincreasing strides made his way across the grassy field to where they stood.
The Bajorans either recognized or guessed who he was. In any case, they parted like the Red Sea as he approached, leaving Keiko and Molly standing all alone in his path.
At first, there were no words said between them. They didn't need any. And besides, Keiko's throat had closed too much for her to speak.
She just reached out to Miles and held him close to her, and he hugged her back. And though Molly was too weak to hug much, she did her part as well.
"Daddy?" she whispered. "Are you helping to find a cure, like Mommy said?"
Miles beamed at her. "Not anymore, baby. We found one." He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, wiping aside what was mostly rain but not all rain, and added, "That's what all this water is about. We seeded the clouds with the cure."
Keiko looked up at the dark and tumultuous heavens, wanting to believe, but afraid to. "Is it true?" she whispered. She gazed at her husband again. "Is this the end of it?"
Her husband nodded, looking haggard and drawn and yet happier than she'd ever seen him. "It's over," he assured her. "We can go home."
Kira Nerys, patched up and scrubbed clean, suddenly found herself nostalgic for the likes of Manimoujak and his disruptor-brandishing guards. They were certainly preferable to a face-to-face meeting with Kai Winn.
Nonetheless, protocol demanded that Kira stop at the Kai's temple to pay her respects while on her way to the special session of the provisional government. It was a session that was going to deal with the blackmarket problem that had infested Bajor, and Kira was to be Deep Space Nine's official representative.
Kira stopped at the entrance to the temple and cleared her throat loudly. "Kai Winn," she called. "It's—"
"Kira Nerys." The voice of the Kai seemed to float as if trickling down from heaven above. "Come in, my child, come in."
A little wary, Kira walked into Winn's inner sanctum and was startled by the expression on her host's face. The Kai looked overjoyed to see her.
"Kira, my dear," she said. "Enter. Enter, please. It is good to see you."
The major chose to stand a few feet away from the Kia, her hands clasped behind her back. "You look well, Kai Winn."
"Indeed," the Kai told her, "I am well
. Then again, anyone who has been given a new lease on life would look well, don't you think?"
Kira shrugged. "I suppose."
"Our world is on the mend, child," said the Kai. She didn't seem to walk around the room so much as float. "You see before you one of the many who have recovered from the plague."
"I … had no idea you were ill," Kira told her. "I … am pleased, obviously, that you have recovered. You might like to know Deep Space Nine has sent personnel down to aid in the restoration of our world. Some of the more extreme cases needed additional medical attention, and there were secondary infections …"
"It will all be attended to," Kai Winn said confidently.
"Yes," the major agreed, "it will. Captain Sisko is overseeing the operation, and he's certain that—"
The Kai laughed softly. Kira had heard Winn laugh on a couple of previous occasions. In each instance, it had chilled her to the bone. Now, however, it actually sounded sincere and joyful. Frighteningly so, in fact.
"I wasn't referring to the Emissary," the Kai explained. "Oh, make no mistake, I'm sure his intentions are genuine and honorable. Whatever help he wishes to give us will be appreciated—of course. But it's not as if we really need him."
"It's not?" Kira asked.
"Not at all," Winn said. "Not in the face of the miracle."
"The … miracle?" The major felt clueless, as if she'd walked in on the middle of someone else's conversation.
The Kai crossed to her and placed her hands on Kira's shoulders. The major tried not to cringe.
"Don't you see, my child? All this time … we thought we were facing the Wrath of the Prophets. That they had called down upon us some hideous disease, designed to wipe us off the planet. But it was a test, Kira. It was a test, as so many of us who didn't lose faith believed. And the Prophets looked down from their palace, saw that their children were afflicted … and saw that we had not lost hope."
She turned away from Kira and spoke with her arms raised to the sky. "And they sent a cure to us. They saw our need, they saw our faith, and they wept with joy for our trust in them. Their tears came down from the clouds, showered upon us, and made us whole again."