The Long Mirage

by David R. George III

  When Shay finally sang her last note, took a bow, and announced that she would return after a short break, Nog moved quickly. “Come on,” he told Candlewood. Nog stood up and led his crewmate over to the right-hand side of the curved stage. Nog watched as the musicians set down their instruments. He recognized only one of them, the bassist, whom he’d seen in the background of the poster advertising Shay’s appearance at the Shining Oasis. “Cool Papa,” Nog called in a stage whisper.

  A couple of the musicians peered over, including the bassist. The man had dark, leathery skin, and a dusting of gray colored his close-cropped, curly hair. He looked first at Candlewood, and then at Nog. When he saw the operations chief, he finished placing his instrument in a stand, then made his way over to the side of the stage and stepped down to the floor of the lounge.

  “Nog,” he said in a raspy voice. He always sounded as though he might have just swallowed a handful of gravel. “Been a while.” He held out his hand, which Nog gripped in his own, feeling the roughness of the man’s long, callused fingers. An angry scar the operations chief didn’t recall creased the man’s left temple.

  “Quite a while,” Nog agreed. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  “How come I think I know what this is about?” the man asked, though the question seemed rhetorical. He nodded toward Candlewood. “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is John Candlewood,” Nog said. “John, this is Vernon Owens.”

  “Only my mama calls me Vernon. I’ve been ‘Cool Papa’ just about as long as I can remember.” He reached out to the science officer. “Good to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Candlewood said, shaking Owens’s hand.

  “So what can I do for you, Nog?” Owens asked.

  “I was hoping I could ask you some questions about Vic.”

  Owens reacted by peering around the lounge, as though checking to see who might be observing their conversation. He kept his manner casual, but Nog perceived a nervousness about him. “Haven’t seen the man,” Owens said. “Don’t know where he might be these days.”

  Despite the disclaimer, Owens’s manner conveyed a different message. Nog dropped the volume of his voice so that he would not be overheard. “We know Vic’s in trouble,” he said. “That’s why we’re here. We want to help him.”

  Owens hesitated. “I know you’re friends with Vic,” he said, “but I’m not sure you can do anything for him.”

  “Then you do know what’s happened to him,” Nog said, excited at the chance of finding out something that would lead them to Vic. “What can you tell us?”

  Owens took a long time to respond. Finally, he said, “I don’t know nuthin.”

  Nog’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t require the instincts of a Ferengi to see that Owens did have information about Vic. “You clearly do know something.”

  “Sorry, man. I gotta get ready for the next set.” Owens started for the steps leading up to the back of the stage.

  “Cool Papa,” Nog said, his voice still low, but carrying the urgency he felt. “You said you knew I was Vic’s friend, so please let me help him. Tell me what you know.”

  Again, Owens looked around, then walked back over to Nog. “Not here.” He reached into a pocket of his suit jacket, didn’t find what he wanted, then reached into another pocket. He pulled out a packet of matches, followed by a stub of pencil. He quickly scribbled something on the matchbook cover and pushed it into Nog’s hand. “Meet me there,” Owens said, his eyes once more scanning the lounge. “Two thirty.”

  Before Nog could respond, Owens climbed back up onto the stage. He paced over to his bass and took a moment to examine something there. Then he walked offstage, disappearing into the wing opposite the two Starfleet officers.

  “What did he write?” Candlewood asked.

  Nog inspected the matchbook. “It’s an address and an apartment number.”

  “Is it Owens’s address?”

  “I don’t know, but I guess we’ll find out,” Nog said. “Let’s go back to the suite and find it on the map.”

  As the two men started out of the lounge, Candlewood said, “I wonder why he was so wary of talking about Vic.”

  “I don’t know,” Nog said. “But I don’t think he was just wary. He was also scared.”

  vi

  * * *

  Ro studied her cards carefully. She didn’t often play tabletop games. For that matter, she didn’t much care for sports, other than solo events in which she could challenge herself. In her experience, competition mostly brought out the worst traits in people—not just in Bajorans, but in Ferengi, humans, Klingons, and numerous other species. Of course, most Ferengi men lived in a perpetually competitive state, striving virtually every moment of every day to “win” by accumulating more wealth.

  And yet despite all that, she thought, here I am playing cards with a Ferengi man and having a good time doing it.

  Seated in the passenger cabin of the Nexvahl vessel, Ro selected two of her cards—a green 2 and a blue 8—and set them faceup on the table in front of her. “Collecting value,” she said, trying to sound surer than she felt. Although she and Quark had occasionally played various games over the years, including the current one, Ro had never quite gotten accustomed to Antarean decks, which consisted of round cards of various colors based on a hexadecimal numbering system.

  Quark quickly reached forward and tapped at the padd sitting beside the cards on the table. “I’ll double the bet.” On the display, the number 6400 became 12800.

  “Again?” Ro said.

  “What are you complaining about?” Quark asked. “You keep winning.”

  “You can relax, you know. We’re not playing for actual latinum.”

  “Which is a fortunate thing for me,” Quark said, “considering the paltry finances of Federation citizens. I’d never be able to collect.”

  “What we lack in funds, we make up for in charm,” Ro countered.

  “I don’t know about the rest of the Federation,” Quark said, “but you certainly do.” He picked up his cup of snail juice—she’d ordered it extra smooth for him—and toasted Ro. “Of course,” Quark added, “we Ferengi have both finances and charm.”

  Ro smiled, picked up her glass of pooncheenee, and raised it toward Quark. “I don’t know about other Ferengi,” she said, “but you certainly do.”

  Quark threw his head back and laughed, a hoarse, guttural sound that nevertheless delighted Ro. It had been a while since the two of them had spent any real time with each other, and it pleased her that they could so easily find their way back to joking and having fun together. She realized that, despite whatever else had taken place in her life, she genuinely missed Quark.

  “Kind words,” he said around his sharp, skewed teeth, “but do you accept the wager?”

  “Why not?” Ro said, hitting a control on the padd to confirm the bet. “By the time we get back to Deep Space Nine, you’ll probably own the whole starbase.”

  “If I do, I’ll leave you in command.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky captain?” Ro said, also smiling. “But I think you’re stalling, which means you were trying to bluff me.”

  “Ferengi never bluff,” Quark said, putting on a serious expression. Ro couldn’t help but howl in laughter.

  “Ferengi always bluff. Now go.” Quark chose a card from his hand and tossed it atop Ro’s green 2; it was an orange 2. “I knew it,” Ro said, and she swept up the pair and added them to her pile. “What else have you got?”

  “Nothing on the eight,” Quark said, and he dutifully pushed it into the discard patch. Then he took two of his own cards and played: a 4 and an E, both of them blue. “Collecting color.”

  “Nothing on blue,” Ro said quickly, then she scarfed up the 4 and put it in her hand. She arranged her cards and laid them down. To one side, she set her discards, but directly befo
re her, she placed two Bs, a C, and the 4 she had just acquired from Quark. “Fizzbin! ”

  “Fizzbin?” Quark groused. “You need a D and a two, not a C and a four.”

  Ro hiked a thumb over her shoulder, pointing at the port in the starboard side of the ship. “The stars are out, so it’s night,” she said. “That means I have a fizzbin.”

  “But it’s probably daytime on Beta Antares Four,” Quark argued.

  “But it’s night on Deep Space Nine, and that’s where this voyage originated.”

  “All right, all right, you win,” Quark said, tossing his cards down and holding his hands up in supplication.

  “Which means it’s your turn to check the ship’s status.”

  Quark leaped to his feet. “Yes, Captain,” he said, offering up some convoluted gesture with his hand that might’ve passed for a salute somewhere in the galaxy. Ro snickered as he marched into the cockpit. As she waited for him to return, she picked up her glass of pooncheenee and sat back in her chair. “The autopilot reads optimal,” Quark called back to her. “The ship is on course and maintaining velocity. Navigational deflectors are up full.” If any of that hadn’t been the case, the onboard computer should have notified them, but it always paid to verify the performance of an unfamiliar vessel, even one with a valid operating certificate.

  Ro sipped at her fruit juice. As Quark came back from the cockpit, a thought popped into her head. “We don’t have a name for this ship,” she said.

  Quark walked over to the external hatch and pointed to a small plaque beside it. “Technically, it’s Nexvahl Scoutship Seven-Eight-One-Eight dash Seven-Three.”

  “That’s not really a name so much as a designation,” Ro said. “We can do better than that.”

  “All right,” Quark said. “How about . . . Laren?”

  “That’s a little dull, wouldn’t you say?”

  “All right, then, how about Laren’s Latinum?”

  “Which would mean it didn’t exist,” Ro said, though she found Quark’s attempt to name the ship after her sweet. “It should have something to do with the reason we’re aboard.”

  “Tracking Down Quark’s Stolen Latinum doesn’t exactly sound like poetry.”

  “No, but what about Quark’s Quest?” Ro watched his reaction: a grin from ear to ear. Which has to mean more when you say it of a Ferengi.

  “I like it,” Quark said. He walked over and settled himself back in his chair. “Shall we play another game?”

  Normally, Ro would have demurred, but she could not deny how much she had so far enjoyed their journey. She shrugged. “I’ll be happy to take all your virtual latinum before we get to Mericor,” she teased. She scooped up her winning cards and mixed them in with the spread of discards, aligned them, and reached for Quark’s hand. As she gathered up his cards, it surprised her to see red and yellow among them . . . and also a 4 . . . and— “Hey,” she said. “You knew I wasn’t playing for green or blue, so why didn’t you try for the other colors? And why did you throw down a four when you had another one in your hand?” She peered across at him.

  “I guess I’m not on my game tonight,” he said, but Ro could see a flush crawling up his lobes.

  “You let me win,” Ro said, astonished. She would never expect a Ferengi, even among friends, to willingly lose a game, whether playing for genuine stakes or not. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I wouldn’t say I ‘let’ you win.”

  “You did,” she said, the mealy character of his denial confirming her suspicion.

  “It’s not as though we’re playing for real latinum,” he said, but something in his manner told her that the nature of the stakes had nothing at all to do with his decision to throw the game.

  “You can’t fool me, Quark,” she said, pointing at him across the table. “You wanted me to win, and that wouldn’t have changed even if were betting actual latinum.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you would forfeit profit like that.”

  “I wouldn’t count it as forfeiting profit,” he said.

  “Of course it would be.”

  “No,” Quark said, his tone defensive. “Not if I hoped that, one day, we would commingle our finances—” He abruptly shut his mouth, as though to prevent himself from saying something he shouldn’t.

  Except he already said too much, didn’t he? Ro realized that Quark had essentially revealed his plans at some point to essentially propose a romantic commitment between them—not just an extension of what they’d shared, off and on, for the better part of a decade, but more than that.

  “Quark,” she said, “I don’t know how to react.”

  “There’s nothing to react to.” He waved his hand dismissively through the air. “Forget I said anything. Deal the cards.”

  “I can’t forget,” she said. “I won’t forget.” Ro could have stopped speaking at that point—she wanted to stop. She could have dealt the cards and let the conversation move on to another subject. Instead, she set the deck down on the table. She owed Quark more than that. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I don’t see us ever—”

  Ever what? Making a long-term commitment to each other? Getting married? Ro found it difficult to choose her words, and so she opted to use his. “I don’t see us ever commingling our finances.”

  “I have enough reserves now for both of us,” Quark said, a statement that, for a Ferengi, amounted to a declaration of love. “We have so much in common, and we obviously enjoy being together.”

  “I know,” Ro agreed. “Already, this trip has been a tonic for me. I can’t tell you how much our time together means.”

  “You can try,” Quark said meekly.

  “You’re right, I can,” Ro said. “But you already know because we’ve been doing this for a long time. But as close as we are, as much as we do have in common, we’re still very different people.”

  “Every pair of people in the universe are different,” Quark said. He stood up and paced away, though he couldn’t go far in the small compartment. Near the aft doorway, which led to the sleeping quarters, he said, “Our distinctions make us who we are, and what does it matter if the people we are care for each other?”

  “All of that’s true, Quark,” Ro said, but she knew that she needed to be wholly honest with him. She’d known that all along. She never wanted to hurt him, but Ro had to admit that she didn’t avoid doing so solely for his sake; she selfishly wanted to avoid the distress that comes along with breaking somebody’s heart.

  I took the easy way out, she thought. I took the coward’s way out. She told herself that she had to stop doing that, and she had to stop at once.

  “You must know how much I care for you,” she said.

  “I used to know,” Quark said, “but not for a while now.”

  “I can understand that,” Ro said. “But I still care for you. That hasn’t changed.” She tried to steel herself for what she knew would come next. “What has changed is that I developed feelings for somebody else.”

  “For somebody else,” Quark said, his tone accusatory. “You mean for Altek Dans.”

  Ro felt ashamed that Quark already knew about her relationship with Dans. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told you sooner. You should’ve found out about it from me.”

  “I did find out about it from you,” Quark spat, disgusted.

  “What? I never said anything to you.”

  “Not to me, no,” Quark said. “But I have ears. I hear things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things like your tone of voice when you talk to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ro said again. “I should have told you sooner, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have changed our situation.”

  “It would have for me.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right,” Ro said. “But whatever I had with Dans is over now. The point i
sn’t that I’m carrying a torch for somebody else; it’s that I could develop an emotional attachment to another person while I was involved with you.”

  “So it’s my fault?”

  “No, no, I’m not saying that at all,” Ro told him. “The pain you feel is because of me. Part of it’s because of my negligence in not being open with you about Dans, but part of it is about my feelings for you. I love you, Quark, and I value you being in my life, but not in a way that will allow me to make a long-term commitment to you.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Quark, I really am sorry,” Ro said.

  “Yeah,” Quark said. “So am I.” Without another word, he stalked off to the aft section of the vessel, leaving Ro alone with her guilt.

  vii

  * * *

  Kira sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her knees up, a padd propped on her thighs. She felt comfortable—no, not comfortable, but normal, as though the fabric of her life, torn into shreds, had finally been stitched whole. Her existence had been a patchwork of sorts, but the one thread sewn through all the pieces—through the Resistance, Deep Space 9, the Dominion War, the clergy, the Celestial Temple and the past, Taran’atar and the Ascendants—the one thread unifying it all had been Bajor. Even before reaching an age when she could understand about the Prophets, before faith blossomed within her, she accepted the idea of home. Growing up under the yoke of Cardassian oppression, she could not tie the concept to a residence of any kind, and the refugee camps were places to stay, but often became inhumane prisons, or worse, killing fields. Throughout her teenage years into her twenties, during her years battling the Occupation, she lived on the run. But through all that time, she held fast to a free Bajor, birthplace to her people, and the objective for which they risked their lives.