The Long Mirage

by David R. George III

  “And that’s not good information?” Ro asked.

  Quark grabbed the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “I did some checking of my own last night,” he said. “I couldn’t find any indication at all that Morn was ever in Geopolis.”

  “But does that prove anything?” Ro asked. “I mean, you hired a private investigator specifically because you couldn’t find Morn on your own.”

  Quark bared his misaligned teeth, and Ro realized that she glimpsed an anger in him that she had never before seen. “I couldn’t find Morn,” he snarled, “but I found this.” He reached into his tailored jacket and pulled out a Ferengi padd. He expertly tapped out a series of control movements, then set the device down on the desk. It emitted rays of light that formed into a three-dimensional image directly above the padd. Ro couldn’t quite make sense of what she saw, but then a form moved into the field of view. Quark stabbed at the controls and the image froze. It displayed a figure walking alone down a pedestrian pathway. A marbled blue-gray sky hung overhead.

  No, not a sky, Ro realized. The interior walls and ceiling of a vast underground excavation.

  “This is Mayereen Viray,” he said, and he worked the padd once more. A second copy of the image appeared beside the first, and then its perspective changed, focusing in on the subject’s face. Her wide, dark eyes and gold-hued skin revealed her as a Petarian. “I collected these images from a surveillance station near the main transportation hub in Geopolis.” Having once visited Janus VI, Ro knew that banks of high-speed turbolifts ferried travelers between the subterranean city and the domed spaceport on the surface.

  “I don’t see the significance,” she said. “You just told me that Viray was in Geopolis.”

  “The significance is that I captured these images two hours after I thought I saw her get abducted,” Quark said. “Do you notice any kidnappers here? Do you see her trying to get away from anybody? Do you detect any sense of panic on her face?”

  Ro examined the two still images. Viray did appear to be alone, and she displayed no outward signs of stress. Still—“Just because we can’t see anybody with her doesn’t mean that she wasn’t abducted. Maybe she’s being blackmailed or otherwise manipulated in some way.”

  “I’m the one who’s been manipulated,” Quark said, clapping a hand against his chest. He jumped to his feet, gesticulating wildly. “I should have known better.” He marched away from the desk and toward the rounded rectangular port at the far end of Ro’s office. He muttered to himself, asserted that he should have paid heed to the 119th Rule of Acquisition—the captain had no idea what that might be—then turned back toward the desk. “Viray’s been lying to me, falsifying her reports about Morn in order to extort latinum from me. She faked her own kidnapping to complete her fraud. She gauged that somebody like me would never contact law enforcement or attempt to identify and deal with her abductors.”

  “Which leaves her free to make off with your profits,” Ro said, following Quark’s thinking.

  “Which leaves her free to make off with my profits,” he said, his voice rising and arms waving. Ro had seen him animated before, particularly over the subject of profits, but she had never seen him vent such spleen. She couldn’t help wondering if the distance she’d let grow between them had something to do with that.

  “What is it you think I can do to help?” Ro asked.

  Quark paced back over to Ro’s desk. He didn’t sit, but stood with his fingertips brushing against her desktop. “I want my latinum back, so I’m heading to Janus Six to track down Viray. I need you to provide me with the assistance and protection I’ll need. I know Chief O’Brien has engaged in similar investigations before, but I’ll settle for whichever senior security personnel you can spare.”

  Ro stared at Quark for a long moment. She recognized his determination, even understood it, but she found it astonishing that he thought it even a possibility she would assign any members of her crew to join his personal crusade. “Of course,” Ro said. “You’ll no doubt need a runabout as well—or maybe even the Defiant.”

  Quark reacted as though she had physically slapped him. Ro at once regretted how brusque and dismissive she’d been. She wondered if her poor behavior had been motivated by the shame she felt for not yet having told Quark about her feelings for Altek Dans.

  “I’ve already hired a ship,” Quark said, clearly affronted. “It will be here tomorrow morning. And you can mock my request for assistance, but even though Mayereen Viray never set foot on this starbase, my transfer of funds to her under false pretenses did occur on Deep Space Nine, which gives you jurisdiction.”

  “I’m not so sure Starfleet would agree with that assessment,” Ro said, and although she had not intended the words harshly, they sounded that way. In an effort both to mollify Quark and to sooth her own conscience, she added, “But I’ll bring the matter to Commander Desjardins for his legal interpretation.” Stationed on DS9 but not under Ro’s command, Gregory Desjardins headed the judge advocate general’s office for Bajor Sector.

  The peace offering had its intended effect. Quark calmed down. He took a seat again and thanked Ro.

  “Regardless of what Commander Desjardins says, you really should report the incident to the authorities on Janus Six,” the captain told Quark. “And you definitely should not pursue Viray on your own.”

  “I won’t contact law enforcement in Geopolis because I don’t want to alert that swindler that I know what she’s done, and that I intend to get my misappropriated funds back,” Quark said, his voice beginning to rise again. “I don’t want to chase down Viray by myself, which is why I came to you.” He stood back up. “But if you don’t want to help me, I’ll have to do it on my own.” He started for the door, but stopped and looked back at her before reaching it. “It’s not like I haven’t been doing things without you anyway.”

  “Quark—” Ro began, standing up. She didn’t know what she could say to him, but she also didn’t want him leaving when he was so upset.

  It didn’t matter. Quark didn’t hesitate. He headed out into the corridor, and the door closed behind him.

  iii

  * * *

  Kira sat at the companel in the living area of her guest quarters, speaking with Kai Pralon. After a good night’s sleep, the vedek felt rested and ready to resume her “normal” life. To that end, she had earlier that day asked Captain Ro to inform both First Minister Asarem and the kai of her emergence from the Celestial Temple. Kira also asked to speak with Pralon at her earliest convenience. The vedek would have gotten in touch with the first minister and the kai herself, but she wanted neither to shock them nor to talk with any of their staff and risk word of her return spreading before she’d contacted those to whom she’d been closest.

  “It truly is good to see you, Vedek,” Pralon said, not for the first time. Kira felt the same about the kai, but also couldn’t help noticing that the Bajoran spiritual leader seemed as though she had lived longer than the two years since last they had seen each other. Only recently turned sixty, she still did not look her age, but streaks of silver had begun to twine their way through her short blond hair, and her sharp features hosted deeper lines around her eyes and mouth than Kira remembered. She also appeared haggard, as though she hadn’t slept well in recent days, and the reason seemed obvious: the religious crisis plaguing Bajor.

  “I’m very glad to see you, Kai Pralon.” The vedek had already learned from Captain Ro that Pralon had survived the attack on Idran IV—an attack during which Kira had led Taran’atar on a mission to protect the kai and her legation on their visit to the native Eav’oq—but it still felt satisfying to actually see her.

  “When the Celestial Temple closed with you inside it, I believed that the Prophets would keep you in Their care,” Pralon said. “I must confess, though, that I never expected that you would return to Bajor.”

  “I didn’t either,” Kira said.


  “It is a beneficence,” Pralon said. “I have in my life consulted all nine of the Tears, and I have twice been blessed with a pagh’tem’far, but I must tell you that I have trouble contemplating what you have experienced.” Her reaction did not seem one of skepticism or of envy, but of sincere curiosity.

  “It is difficult to discuss,” Kira said. “Not just for me to find the words to convey my experiences within the Celestial Temple, but to find enough coherence in my memories just to think about them.” Indistinct impressions remained with Kira from her time inside the wormhole—flashes of observing the Emissary’s first meeting with the Prophets, and of her living an existence as an abolitionist sometime back in Bajor’s distant past—but those recollections continued to blur at the edges, fading like long-ago dreams. The notion that she might have alit inside the Celestial Temple on a shape-shifting world comprising Taran’atar and the surviving Ascendants confused her, and she wanted to reflect on what such an intersection could possibly mean. She could have revealed to the kai the few details she remembered, or spoken in nebulous terms about the texture of what she had gone through, but she chose not to do so. The Prophets had called Kira Their Hand, and whether or not she had discharged that responsibility, it belonged to her alone, and at least for the time being, she wanted to keep it that way.

  The vedek had also debated about whether or not to tell Pralon about her travels through time in the Gamma Quadrant. Kira had confided in Ro primarily in order to learn whether her efforts aboard Even Odds and at Idran IV had succeeded in altering the past. The vedek understood the reasoning behind Starfleet’s Temporal Prime Directive, and so she had decided not to tell anybody else.

  “Whatever your experience, Vedek, I am pleased that you are back,” the kai said. “Your presence has been missed in the Vedek Assembly. Now more than ever, the combination of your depth of faith and your practical honesty is in short supply.”

  Practical honesty? Kira thought. Practical honesty? What does that mean? She could only surmise that, given the growing religious turmoil, Pralon referred to the vedek’s decision a decade prior to release the writings of Ohalu to the Bajoran people, even though Kira did not subscribe to them herself.

  “Captain Ro told me about the events on Endalla,” Kira said. “What can I do to help?”

  “Your dedication to service is admirable,” said Pralon. “Your return to Bajor will be a benefit to our people. It will mean much for them to see a vedek thought lost has now come home.”

  Kira valued the simple sentiment, but she also detected subtext in the kai’s words: positive news on the religious front could help ease the rising stresses on Bajor—­especially given that Kira had a reputation for treating the Ohalavaru fairly, despite their differing beliefs. Another thought crossed the vedek’s mind as well—namely that some might frame Kira’s return from the Celestial Temple as tacit evidence of the divinity of the Prophets.

  Is that unreasonable? the vedek asked herself. She didn’t think so, and yet the idea disturbed her on some level. She couldn’t say why, but it felt like trying to recall a fact long forgotten.

  Unable to fill in the detail of her intuition, Kira told the kai, “I’ll speak to Captain Ro. I’m sure her crew can help me arrange transport back to Bajor.”

  “There’s no need for that, Vedek,” Pralon said. “I will dispatch a ship at once to collect you.”

  Kira offered the kai a tight-lipped smile. She appreciated Pralon’s gesture, but accepting any sort of privilege always made her uncomfortable. “That’s not necessary, Eminence,” she said, employing the honorific to remind the kai of their relative positions. “I can find passage to Bajor on my own.”

  “Vedek Kira,” Pralon said, “you survived the Occupation as a member of an active Resistance cell, you served as a vital link between Bajor and the Federation, you enjoyed the friendship of the Emissary, you commanded Deep Space Nine, and you lived for more than two years within the Celestial Temple. I have no doubt that you could find your own way home. That’s not the point. I insist on sending a vessel with members of my staff aboard to accompany you back to Bajor.”

  Pralon exuded both strength and sincerity. “Of course,” Kira said. “Thank you.”

  “I will make the arrangements immediately,” the kai said. “I look forward to seeing you in person.” Pralon tapped at a control on her companel, and Kira’s display went black, the image of Pralon Onala replaced by the bisected oval of the Bajoran emblem. The vedek stared at it for a moment, until it too disappeared.

  She continued to sit at her companel, still bothered by something she could not name. Kira served her people as a vedek, and so it made sense for the kai to support her return to Bajor. Is it important that some might point to my coming back from the Celestial Temple as evidence of the Prophets’ godhood? It might matter, she supposed, but she had no wish to persuade people to her personal beliefs. As a vedek, she sought to conduct the rites of their faith, to provide comfort and solace when needed, and above all, to guide adherents on their own paths.

  I want to go back to Bajor, Kira thought, but I don’t want my return used as a weapon in the spiritual divide of our people. Did the kai intend to do that? Kira didn’t think so; that did not sound to her like the way Pralon Onala conducted herself.

  It sounds more like Kai Winn.

  Just the thought of Winn Adami chilled Kira. Her machinations, her hunger for power, her jealous self-­interest had brought Bajor to the precipice during her term as kai. The suggestion of any meaningful similarity between Winn and Pralon seemed absurd to Kira, and she dismissed it out of hand.

  The vedek rose from her seat at the companel, turning her thoughts to what she needed to do prior to departing for Bajor. Ro had told her of some major events that had occurred in and around the system during her time away, but Kira wanted both to fill in the details of those events and to learn more about what had taken place in the rest of the quadrant. As for preparing to actually leave DS9, she certainly had no belongings to pack, but there were people she wanted to contact, to let them know that she had not been lost when the wormhole had collapsed around her. She had almost no family—an uncle and two cousins—but even though they had never been close, she wanted to tell them that she had not perished. Kira would wait until she reached Bajor to inform her friends and colleagues there, but with such a significant civilian population and such a large crew on the new DS9, she guessed that there must be people aboard with whom she would want to speak.

  “Computer, this is Kira Nerys,” she said. “Compare the current crew manifest and the directory of residents to those of the previous Deep Space Nine station. Provide a list of individuals common to both.”

  “Evaluating specified data,” the computer responded.

  “Route the results to the companel.” Kira sat down again as the display winked back to life. Names and faces immediately began appearing. Some she recognized and some she didn’t, but it took a few moments before she saw people she wanted to contact: Keiko and Miles O’Brien, Nog, Prynn Tenmei, and a few others. She waited for particular individuals to appear, but when the computer had completed its task, they were conspicuous by their absence: Julian Bashir, Cenn Desca, Sarina Douglas.

  Kira picked a name. “Computer,” she said, “locate Prynn Tenmei.”

  “Lieutenant Tenmei is in her quarters.”

  Kira took a deep breath. “Computer, open a channel to Prynn Tenmei.”

  iv

  * * *

  The man did not actually smile, but the expression on his face nevertheless looked wry, as though it amused him that he knew more than Nog—which Nog felt certain he did about the subject at hand. “Two years?” the man asked. He had contacted Nog from aboard R’Novia, a civilian transport registered out of Vulcan.

  “It’s been a little longer than that,” Nog said. The operations chief stood in his quarters aboard DS9, in front of the companel, too anxiou
s to sit down. It took all of his willpower to keep from pacing. He scrutinized the man on the display, trying to take his measure in the way he’d been taught from a young age to do, as a salesman appraising a customer. It didn’t matter that Nog needed something from the man rather than the other way around; as the 151st Rule of Acquisition preached: Even when you’re a customer, sell yourself.

  “That’s a long time for a self-aware holographic program to execute without external stimuli,” the man said. Nog had detailed for Doctor Bashir’s friend the journey that Vic Fontaine had taken in getting from the old Deep Space 9 to the new starbase, as well as the dramatic and unexplained developments that had occurred within the holoprogram in the interim. “It sounds like a fascinating experiment.”

  Nog didn’t much care for the idea of considering Vic some sort of test subject, any more than he liked thinking of him as “just” a hologram. No matter his origin, no matter his nature, Vic had been a good friend. Some people might not countenance such a relationship, they might even ridicule it, but none of that mattered to Nog. “Mister Knightly—”

  “Please call me Felix.”

  “Felix,” Nog corrected himself. He had heard Doctor Bashir talk about the programming savant, the man who had breathed life into Vic in the first place, and who had coded the setting in which the lounge singer lived, but Nog had never before spoken with him. A human, Felix had dark-brown skin, with high cheekbones and a broad, smooth nose. His voice held a deep, resonant timbre. “So you think that the drastic changes I witnessed are the result of the program running in isolation for so long?” Nog asked. “Could it be another jack-in-the-box?”

  “I only included one surprise subroutine in the code,” Felix said, “and it sounds as though you already know about that one. Julian contacted me about it when it sprang up. That was a long time ago.” As Nog recalled, the sudden introduction of Vic’s childhood nemesis—who had turned into an adult mobster—had taken place before the end of the Dominion War, which meant more than a decade earlier.