The Long Mirage

by David R. George III

“I think it’s the best place to start our search,” Nog said. “Here’s where it is.” He pointed out a line drawing of a building adorned with palm trees and a stylized sun.

  “And we’re on Sunrise Avenue, right?” Candlewood asked. Back in Nog’s quarters, the operations chief had shown him a map of the area. Candlewood glanced around, saw a street sign where the road intersected another at an acute angle, and walked over to it. “We’re at the junction with Fremont Street.”

  “Right,” Nog said, studying the map. “Got it.” He pointed out what seemed like the most direct route for them to take: just over to Bruce Street from Fremont, down to Charleston Boulevard, and from there to South Las Vegas Boulevard.

  “All right,” Candlewood said. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

  ix

  * * *

  During the many hours Nog had spent in Vic’s holoprogram, he had almost never ventured outside the hotel and casino where the singer lived and worked. As he and Candlewood walked along what Vic called the Strip, the densely packed gambling center evoked certain similarities to Ferengi culture. The city appeared to exist expressly for the purpose of divesting visitors of their capital, and it made only the barest pretense otherwise. Great lighted signage everywhere advertised big payouts and improved odds, but Nog had observed and played the various games in Vic’s casino—craps, keno, roulette, slot machines, wheels of fortune, and others—and it didn’t require much analysis to realize that, in almost all cases, the probabilities were stacked heavily in favor of the house. By the same token, visitors to the city sought their own fortune, hoping to cash in on random chance rather than on hard work or well-crafted financial deals. Nog had traveled all over Ferenginar, had traveled throughout the Alpha Quadrant and beyond, but rarely had he seen such an obvious monument to avarice as the Las Vegas of Vic Fontaine.

  “This is really something,” Candlewood said as they neared yet another set of connected buildings fronted by a large, well-lighted marquee. A second sign blazed atop the tallest of the structures, embellished with a glowing cactus. Both announced the name of the establishment: Desert Inn. Already, they had passed numerous other hotel-and-casino complexes, with names like Sahara, Thunderbird, Riviera, Stardust, Silver Slipper.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, Nog watched as a stream of automobiles turned from Las Vegas Boulevard onto the grounds around the Desert Inn. He surveyed people as they strolled toward or away from the casino, not expecting to spot any familiar faces, but looking anyway, just in case. In the distance, farther along the Strip, a tall letter S shimmered in the night. “Sands,” he read. Below the single word, in smaller block type, the sign read A PLACE IN THE SUN. The names of entertainers performing there filled the marquee below. “Vic’s hotel should be—”

  Nog halted abruptly, and a man and a woman walking arm in arm nearly stumbled into him. They weaved around and continued on their way. A few paces ahead, Candlewood stopped and looked back. “Nog?”

  The operations chief pointed. “We’re here,” he said. Just up ahead, amid the crowded run of signs and buildings, a wide marquee in the shape of sand dunes featured palm trees with gleaming fronds on one side and a sparkling yellow sun on the other. The words SHINING OASIS ran across the top of the sign. Below marched a list of performers currently playing there: Faith Shay, Mick Frey, the Alison Armanza Singers, Comedian Frankie Nedboy. Nog hadn’t expected to see Vic’s name, but its absence still disappointed him.

  “We’re here,” Candlewood said, “but Vic isn’t.”

  “Come on,” Nog said, and he started toward the nearest driveway that led into the Shining Oasis Hotel and Casino. Unlike its immediate neighbors with their tall buildings—the Desert Inn complex contained a rectangular nine-story structure, while the Sands’s round tower rose five additional floors—the Shining Oasis only sprawled. Its highest building reached just three stories.

  As Nog and Candlewood approached the entrance to the casino, the science officer said, “I really wish we had our own weapons. Not phasers, I don’t mean modern weapons, but something appropriate to the period.”

  “I’m glad we don’t,” Nog said. “We’ve already seen enough firearms in this program. The holosuite safety protocols will protect us, but that’s not true for Vic. What we need are ready funds.”

  “Funds?”

  “They’re often a much more useful weapon,” Nog said. “Fortunately, I should be able to access some capital here.”

  “Here? How?” Candlewood asked. “You’re not going to gamble, are you?” The science officer seemed to think about that possibility for a few seconds, then said, “No, of course you’re not. You only have minimal stakes to bet with.” Users of Vic’s holoprogram always entered it to find themselves with the modest financial resources necessary both to enjoy the lounge, where they could pay for food and drink, and to gamble in the casino, where they could wager on various table games and machines. Some visitors to Bashir 62 managed to accrue greater funds through gambling, which they could bank with the casino for future visits.

  “I don’t need to gamble,” Nog told him. “I have a substantial account at the Shining Oasis.” When Candlewood gave him a questioning look, Nog shrugged. “I used to come here a lot.” Nog had enjoyed some success playing blackjack, which could be beaten by using skill, rather than relying on chance.

  Inside the casino, it pleased Nog to see that it didn’t look any different from the last time he’d been there. Familiar noises buffeted his ears, dominated by the spin of slot machine wheels, the jangle of coins, and human voices. People communicated not just in words, but in myriad other sounds, from groans to laughter, from exclamations of defeat to shouts of victory.

  Nog led the way directly to the lounge where Vic used to sing. At the moment, nobody performed there, the entertainment for the night clearly ended. A placard placed in the entrance to the lounge showed a picture of the headliner onstage, a dark-haired songstress named Faith Shay. Nog leaned in close to the image and studied it, seeing something that encouraged him. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.

  Together, Nog and Candlewood wended through the late-night gamblers to a bank of cashiers. An older blond woman with a well-lined faced greeted Nog with a thin-lipped smile. Her name tag read MADGE. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “My name is Nog,” the operations chief said. “I have an account here that I’d like to access.”

  “Very good, sir,” Madge said. She collected a piece of paper from a stack set off to one side, along with a pencil. “May I have your account number?” Nog provided it and Madge dutifully copied it down. She then excused herself to check the casino’s records, crossing the cashier’s compartment to a cabinet comprising numerous small drawers. She opened one and riffled through the cards inside.

  “You remember your account number?” Candlewood asked. “When you haven’t been here in more than two years?”

  “I may be in Starfleet,” Nog said, “but I still have the lobes for business.”

  “I guess so,” Candlewood said. “Remind me to play dabo with you next time we’re in Quark’s.”

  Nog chuckled. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

  “Which Rule of Acquisition is that?”

  “It’s not one of the rules,” Nog said. “It’s a human saying I learned from Jake Sisko.”

  Madge returned carrying a card in her hand. “Mister Nog,” she said, her smile considerably brighter and cheerier than it had been when she’d first addressed the operations chief. “I see that you haven’t been with us in some time. I’d like to welcome you back to the Shining Oasis.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How can I help you tonight?”

  “I’m in town for a few days and I’d like to have some cash while I’m here,” Nog said. “A thousand dollars should suffice.”

  “Yes, sir, right away,” Madge said. She set down the card and
made a notation on it, then slid it over to Nog for him to sign. As he did so, Madge asked, “Will you be staying with us this week, Mister Nog?”

  “Uh . . . yes,” Nog said, deciding that since they needed to stay somewhere inside the program, it might as well be the Shining Oasis. “My colleague and I haven’t checked in yet, though.”

  “Let me call over to the hotel and speak with the concierge for you,” Madge said. She accepted the card back from Nog, examined it for a moment, then opened a drawer in front of her. From it, she withdrew a stack of green-hued bills, counted out ten hundreds, and pushed them over to Nog. “By the time you get over to the hotel,” she said, “your suite will be ready.”

  “Thank you, Madge.” Nog scooped up the bills, folded them, and tucked them into an inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  “My pleasure, sir.” As Madge picked up the receiver of a telephone, Nog and Candlewood started away.

  “Now what?” the science officer asked.

  “Now we check in to our suite and get some sleep,” Nog said. “Tomorrow, we find Vic.”

  x

  * * *

  Ro stood in front of one of the ports in the living area of her quarters, her arms folded across her chest as she stared out across the spread of natural grass that bordered the residential deck. She spotted two of her crew—Ensigns Amélie d’Arnaud and Betulio Becerra—strolling along one of the footpaths that curled about beneath the transparent bulkhead circling the middle of DS9’s main sphere. Becerra looked in the captain’s direction for a moment, as though he sensed her attention, but Ro knew that the one-way ports did not allow visibility into the starbase’s cabins from outside.

  Beyond her two crew members, beyond the clear bulkhead, the stars shined in the night sky. From her vantage, Ro could see several vessels docked along DS9’s wide ­x-ring, including Diomedes and a number of civilian ships. Past them, unseen in the firmament, the Alpha Quadrant terminus of the Bajoran wormhole lurked, waiting to open, either to admit or expel travelers as part of a journey of seventy thousand light-years that almost miraculously lasted just minutes. Ro’s mind returned to the great subspace bridge again and again, and to its mysterious and powerful denizens, even as she tried to concentrate on all that her visitors had to say.

  After the vedek had shown up at her door, Kira and Dans had taken easy chairs in the sitting area, facing each other across the low table there, while the captain had remained standing. Driven by Ro’s many questions, as well as their own, the two time-travelers spoke of their shared experiences in Bajor’s past, with the vedek recalling more details as the discussion wore on. None of it made sense to Ro, and yet she could not deny that what she heard felt like it bore the imprimatur of the Prophets.

  More questions spun through the captain’s mind, none of them admitting of any obvious answers. Assuming that the events of which Dans and Kira spoke had actually taken place, that they were not phantom memories left by some mutual Orb experience or pagh’tem’far or the like, then for what purpose had the Prophets sent the vedek into history? Had Keev Anora been a real person, and if so, had Kira somehow taken over the woman’s life? Why? And why had Dans been brought forward in time? Was it a coincidence that the vedek had returned from the Celestial Temple just as Dans was about to travel to modern-day Bajor for the first time? The captain also wondered if their separate arrivals on Deep Space 9 had anything to do with the discovery of the Endalla falsework.

  After her initial spate of questions, Ro had mostly listened as Dans and Kira talked, occasionally interjecting to ask for clarification on some point or another. The captain did not raise the issue of the relationship between Altek Dans and Kira Nerys—or between Dans and Keev Anora—and neither did they. It didn’t matter. Ro did not need the details spelled out for her; she had seen the emotion on Dans’s face, and the sense of recognition on Kira’s: in their time together in Bajor’s past, the two had been not merely lovers, but in love. The captain did not lie to herself that the observation didn’t hurt her, but she chose to push it aside in favor of trying to comprehend and deal with what seemed like larger issues.

  As Dans spoke of Kira in the person of Keev Anora, as the two of them recalled the intensity of their time together struggling to free slaves from servitude, they attempted to piece together the tapestry of the Prophets’ plans for them, individually and together. It seemed like a fool’s errand, with multitudes of uncertainties and an even greater number of possibilities, but no ready answers. Ro feared that, even if they somehow developed a theory that explained all that had happened, they would have no means of determining its veracity.

  The captain heard the sound of somebody rising, and she turned from the port to see Kira on her feet. Dans rose as well. “It’s late,” the vedek said, and Ro glanced at the companel to see that the time had passed midnight. “It can be a powerful and illuminating experience to explore the will of the Prophets, but it almost never results in any sort of definitive understanding.”

  “I’ve found that, even without answers, asking questions can still bring us closer to the Prophets,” Dans said.

  “Of course,” Kira agreed, “and it can lead to personal revelations as well.”

  Such sentiments did not impress Ro. Even as recent observations and experiences had motivated her to reconsider her evaluation of the Prophets’ divinity, the language, rites, and trappings of the formal Bajoran religion had become no less objectionable to her. She listened without comment.

  The vedek looked to Ro. “I hope we can talk more, Captain,” Kira said, “but I’ll be departing early tomorrow morning, so I need to go. Thank you again for everything.”

  “Of course,” Ro said. “Have a pleasant trip back to Bajor.”

  Kira turned her attention to Dans. “It was good to see you,” she said, her manner awkward. Ro imagined that the vedek didn’t know if she could be, or should be, or even wanted to be with a man she had known well, but when she’d worn a different persona.

  For his part, Dans seemed uncomfortable as well. He skirted the table and walked over to Kira. Ro thought for an instant that he might embrace the vedek once more, but instead, he offered his hand. She took it in both of hers. “It was good to see you too.” He did not say the name Anora, but it seemed poised on his lips. Despite the lack of demonstrative affection at that moment between Dans and Kira, Ro sensed the emotional undercurrents at play.

  The vedek raised the hood of her robe as she crossed the compartment, and left. After the door closed behind her, a laden atmosphere descended on the cabin. Ro chose to break the silence before it could extend too long. “That was . . . unexpected,” she said. She crossed from the port over to the sitting area.

  “It was,” Dans agreed, “but maybe it shouldn’t have been.” He sat back down on the sofa, and Ro took a place next to him.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Dans shrugged. “We’ve been questioning why I’m here ever since I arrived,” he said. “I’ve been questioning it. None of it has made sense to me . . . being ripped from my time and deposited here. I’ve been adapting—what else could I do?—but it would still help to know that this hasn’t been random.”

  “And your experience with Vedek Kira, and now seeing her here, tells you that.” Ro could see how that would be the case, even if the reasons for what Dans had been through remained inscrutable.

  “Yes, I guess so,” he said, though he sounded less than convincing to Ro. Dans appeared pensive, and it seemed to her that even if his seeing Kira—or Keev—helped him in some way, it also provided an entirely new set of challenges.

  Which undoubtedly includes his relationship with me.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Dans. She reached over and placed her hand atop his. He didn’t move—neither pulling away nor taking her hand in his. “I know how difficult all of this has been for you, and now seeing Kira . . .” She didn’t really know what else to say.

/>   “Yeah,” he said, the word barely audible. “It’s . . . it’s hard.” Without warning, he stood up, breaking the physical contact of their hands. “I’m sorry. I need to sleep too.” Ro interpreted his declaration to mean that he would not be spending the night in her quarters. “Maybe after a good night’s rest, I’ll be able to find some clarity tomorrow.”

  “I understand,” Ro said. She anticipated him telling her that nothing had changed between them, that he still wanted to see her, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he headed for the door to leave. Ro accompanied him, and for her, the moment felt fraught with suppressed emotion and things unsaid.

  At the door, Dans turned to her. Ro waited, unsure what to do. At last, he said, “Good night.” He leaned in to kiss her, but his lips did not find hers; instead, they brushed along her cheek. Then he turned and left.

  Ro stood and stared at the closed door for a long time.

  xi

  * * *

  The night, already long, grew longer.

  Ro lay in the darkness of her bedroom, unable to get comfortable. She adjusted her position, moved from one side to the other, onto her belly, onto her back, but sleep eluded her. Worse than simple insomnia, uncomfortable thoughts and images crowded her mind. The love she felt for Dans gave way to the unmistakable expression on Dans’s face when he first saw Kira Nerys, and later, when he said good-bye to her.

  Those thoughts led Ro to think of Quark. I’ve seen that look on his face, haven’t I? The question came as a prickly reminder that she had failed to live up to her personal responsibilities with respect to their relationship, no matter its casual nature.

  In some ways, everything Ro felt lately in her day-to-day life seemed new to her—her romance with Dans, her neglect of Quark, her deliberations about faith, all of it. New, and unexpected. What’s wrong with me? In many regards, Ro believed that she remained the person she had always been: strong, focused, principled. But maybe not as rebellious, she thought. Maybe not as contrary . . . not quite as willing to overlook rules and regulations.