This Gray Spirit

by Heather Jarman

  “Just three in each dish,” Quark said absently. “I assume everybody will know not to eat them. Except maybe the Klingons.” He stopped his inventory abruptly and looked at her. “You aren’t gonna tell me they’re toxic, are you?”

  “No, that isn’t what I—”

  “Because the last thing I need is some extended family member of Chancellor Martok winding up facedown in the melon.”

  “Relax, Quark. No one’s going to die tonight from eating your food…strange as it is to hear myself saying that.” Ro hurried on before Quark could retort. “To answer your original question, though, I’m stuck here for the duration.” She hopped up to take a seat on the edge of a table. “The colonel’s pretty uptight about whatever Lang and Macet have planned.”

  “I don’t know why she’s worried. Natima’s about as honest as they come—I always liked her in spite of that.”

  “You have any clue what she might be up to?”

  “You’re asking me? I thought you two were best friends these days. Doing each other’s hair and having sleepovers.”

  “Quark—”

  “All I meant is that you have better access than I do under the present circumstances. What did you come out here for, anyway? You miss me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I came by to tell you I decided what we’re doing for our evening in the holosuite.” She slid off the table and started back toward the reception hall.

  “Oh? And what might that be?” he pursued her doggedly through the maze of tables and chairs.

  “I think I’d rather surprise you.”

  “Surprise? Is this a ‘you’re under arrest for tapping the comlinks to the habitat ring’ kind of surprise, or is it a ‘I’m not wearing anything underneath this raincoat’ kind of surprise?”

  She stopped and turned around to face him, stopping his mouth with her index finger. “I swear, Quark, you say one more word and this little experiment is over. 2100 hours. In two days. Holosuite one. Assuming you aren’t on my last nerve by then.” Quark opened his mouth to speak. “Not a word,” Ro said, cutting him off.

  Quark’s mouth snapped shut. He smiled genially and nodded to her before retreating into the side rooms.

  Ro wondered not for the first time since she agreed to see Quark socially whether such an agreement was a monumental error in judgment. Regardless, she’d said she’d give it a try and she felt obligated to keep her word. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t getting anything out of the deal. Quark liked her for herself, taking her on face value. And he didn’t have any expectations except to have a good time (she wanted that, too) and good company. Whether there was any potential for something more than friendship had yet to be seen—actually going on a date with him would go a long way in establishing whether they were hopelessly incompatible.

  Empty plates were coming off the tables when Shakaar stood and moved to the front of the room, holding a full glass of spring wine. He tapped the goblet, calling for his guests’ attention.

  Shakaar might have protested his unsuitability for politics when the idea of running for first minister was first suggested to him, but he’d certainly grown into his leadership role in the years since. With hundreds of eyes focused on him, he radiated a serene confidence that Kira admired. In that moment, she found it easy to forgive the ongoing strangeness between them because he was so good at what he did. She was grateful it was him, and not anyone else, who was navigating Bajor through these confusing times.

  “Our visitors, the Cardassians, have requested a moment of our time tonight and we are honored to hear from them. It’s my understanding that our visitors hope to invite us to embark on a journey with them. And while we Bajorans have traveled with the Cardassians before, we must have courage to explore new territory. I don’t anticipate this will be an easy journey, but this time, we have another companion to offer us aid and support: the Federation.” He placed his glass down on a buffet table, freeing up his hands to applaud. Everyone in the room followed suit. “So let us move forward bravely, always mindful of what brought us to where we are now but always hopeful of where we can someday be. I raise a toast to the hope of new friendship!”

  Over two hundred voices joined to proclaim Shakaar’s toast and Kira, her own glass raised, gazed out over the room, filled to capacity with peoples of every species and political stripe, unified. To her immediate left, she saw towering Admiral Akaar leaning down to speak with Ambassador Lang, a mere slip beside him, and beyond her, Macet, nodding his head in apparent agreement with whatever Akaar was saying. The Andorians—Dizhei, Thriss, and zh’Thane, the councillor a portrait of elegance with her upswept white hair—earnestly conversing with the Romulan attaché and Captain Mello. Across the room stood Minister Asarem beside Klingon Governor Krodu, listening intently to the very animated Trill Ambassador Gandres.

  Only the Federation could have done this: brought together, in friendship, former enemies and associates of disparate political stripes. What the Federation does best, she thought with a wry smile, pleased that someday, Bajor would be part of facilitating this process.

  A young Cardassian, presumably an aide, pushed a portable holoprojector into the center of the room. Kira was suddenly jarred back to anxious expectation. There was a lot of present that needed to be lived through before that idealistic future came into being.

  Lang assumed the spot where Shakaar had stood only moments ago. The crowd hushed.

  “Because I believe First Minister Shakaar articulated very eloquently the task at hand, I wish to offer, on behalf of Alon Ghemor and the people of Cardassia, a token to christen this journey. A symbol of hope that personifies not only the terrible beauty of where we have been, but a vision for the future.” She nodded to her aide and the lights dimmed.

  Kira directed her gaze to the center of room and waited. The hologram flickered into focus.

  Of the many possibilities she had imagined, what followed was not one of them.

  11

  Jeshoh treaded water while patiently waiting for Ezri to adjust her gear. Activating the lens datafeed proved challenging with her dexterity hampered by the gloves she wore, but she had it working properly after the third try. The goggle viewscreen was a neat feature. Instead of Jeshoh providing her with a running narrative, she had only to press a button on her wristlet to take a sensor reading. Within seconds, the data would be displayed on the lower quarter of her goggle lenses. At that point, she could request further clarification. She double-checked her suit temperature, made certain the rebreather’s oxygen ratios were comfortable, and then indicated she was ready to explore the ocean. While most of the committee—and Dax’s crew—went one way, Jeshoh pointed Ezri in the opposite direction.

  No one had told her what they were visiting or why. Ezri assumed that she would learn as she swam. Dax stirred inside her not long into her dive. Since her joining, Ezri noticed she responded more intently to liquid environments, from the glub-glub of air bubbles rising to the surface and the feel of water caressing her body to the swish of sea grasses swaying with the currents. And that was odd. Ezri paused, studied the environment more intently and realized it was devoid of any plant life. She initiated several scans, discovering that outside their dive party, only microbial life existed within sensor range. Not even algae or barnacles grew on the empty shells scattered on the sea floor. An ocean not teeming with life didn’t seem possible, especially on this world. Jeshoh noticed her falling behind and swam back to check on her.

  “Is something wrong?” he said over the comlink.

  Ezri shook her head visibly. “What’s wrong here? Where are the fish? The seaweed?”

  Jeshoh pressed a series of buttons on his own wristlet, pointed it in the direction of Ezri’s and transmitted data to her.

  Ezri read the chemical analysis scrolling across her goggle lens. “The levels of nitrogen in here are toxic. What—?”

  Nudging his head in the direction of dark, shadowy mounds, Jeshoh swam off, with Ezri following behind. She kep
t expecting to tangle her feet in a kelp bed or encounter a school of fish; the eerie lifelessness made her nervous. The sound of her own breathing sounded foreign and in the vast, empty plain rolling out as far as she could see, she felt vulnerable, exposed. Increasing the tempo of her kicks, she propelled nearer to Jeshoh.

  Growing closer, Ezri recognized that the mounds weren’t the coral or rock formations she’d supposed; as her eyes adjusted to the goggles, she discerned several carved archways, one partially collapsed, a lump became a fallen dome and so forth until she realized she saw the remains of a city. All the way out here? Corroded skeletons—hundreds of Yrythny—lay beneath fallen walls and wedged in window frames. Swimming from ruin to ruin, the sights varied only minimally. Such destruction characterized worlds less evolved than this, usually those fumbling toward warp in the fossil and nuclear fuel stages. What happened here? A nuclear blast? She activated her sensors, and while waiting for the results to appear, Ezri asked Jeshoh to explain what she was seeing.

  “You’re looking at the remains of House Tin-Mal, a social experiment of four hundred years ago,” Jeshoh said. “You see, Lieutenant, we’re not the narrow-minded elitists you might think we are. In fact, in the case of Tin-Mal, my ancestors were very progressive.”

  “This was a Wanderer city, wasn’t it?”

  Jeshoh retrieved a platter-size chunk of wall, carved with Yrythny pictographs and passed it to Ezri. Brushing off the sand, Ezri traced the story with her gloved fingertip, imagining that by so doing the tale was being written in her mind.

  “Your translator program will confirm this, but this segment explains how House Tin-Mal rose from the sea off the Fès reef, glorious in its spires and towers, a testament to how wrong the Houseborn were to repress our brethren. They grew in numbers. Built more platforms. Advanced aquaculture.”

  Among the litter on the sea floor, Ezri deciphered the rusted outlines of machine gears, tools, weapons and primitive energy chambers. Of course she couldn’t be certain, but the design exhibited the same original flair she’d seen in Luthia. The Wanderers didn’t seem content to make something work when it could work with panache. She had to admire their creativity, though she knew their boldness likely resulted in the disaster crumbling all around her. “They did this to themselves, didn’t they?” she asked, more to affirm her suspicions than to learn something new.

  “Carelessness. Arrogance. Stupidity. Pick one. For all their intellectual capacity, the Wanderers decided their energy system wasn’t adequate so they began augmenting the existing infrastructure with incompatible technologies. There was an accident, an explosion and everything for a thousand kilometers was contaminated and destroyed. How many hatchlings died, the fish and plant life, the reef itself? None of it survived. Now, almost half a millennium later, the waters are still recovering.”

  His mournful tone touched Ezri and she wished she could offer him consolation. During the time she’d worked with Jeshoh, his love for his planet informed his every word and action. She knew he believed in pressing forward, taking Vanìmel into a new era. For all his efforts, however, the consequences of the past reverberated through generations. How well Dax understood that truism! Wisps of memories—especially Lenara and Worf—drifted back for a wistful moment. And Dax was reminded that by constantly revisiting the past, one could easily be shackled to it. Time passed, circumstances and technology changed. As horrific as the Tin-Mal experiment was, Vanìmel had moved on, as had the Yrythny. Maybe the time to rethink this chapter in the past had arrived.

  Though she had no doubt that Jeshoh spoke from knowledge and conviction, she had lived far too many lives to accept only one perspective on any situation. Expect a child to do an adult’s task, the task will be done as a child would do it, not as an adult. Ezri suspected the Wanderers had been set loose here with all the exuberance and idealism of youth, but with no practical experience. House Tin-Mal was doomed to fail before the first archway had been built. How to say this to Jeshoh? Audrid had always had a way of phrasing things just right. What words would she use? Ezri allowed Audrid’s steady nurturing nature to suffuse her before speaking again. “While the outcome speaks for itself, I can’t help but wonder if these Wanderers had been raised with the same opportunities and experiences as the Houseborn, would the outcome would have been different? Couldn’t they be taught how to be proper caretakers?”

  “And in the course of teaching, how many more mistakes would they make? How many mistakes could Vanìmel’s fragile ecology withstand?” he argued. “I accept that Houseborn history is not without its ugliness. Pollution, destruction, squandering resources. And how we treated the Wanderers? I am ashamed by my ancestors’ ignorance. But now they have representation, education—everything they need to lead long, fulfilled lives. Is it so hard to understand why we don’t permit them to breed and pass on their weaknesses?”

  Thick silence fell between them as Ezri searched for the right words, the only sound, faint echoes from far above them, of water curling up into frail crests, crashing into weak whispers.

  * * *

  So far, so good.

  L’Gon waited for Vaughn in a cramped vestibule located down the hall from the main door. The dark paneling and orange-tinted lighting made it hard for Vaughn to see much. Squinting, he saw the brushed fold of floor-to-ceiling velvet draping, a plate bearing food scraps—greasy bones and skins sitting in a pool of bloody juices—and in the rear was L’Gon, clinging to a silken web. Vaughn’s misshapen face mirrored in the burnished surface of his eyes. The Cheka deigned to rise, instead gesturing with one of his slender legs for Vaughn to take a seat on a backless stool sitting beside his couch. The robot offered beverages, brought a bowl of fried cartilage to snack on.

  L’Gon didn’t waste any time dancing around his payment demands. As soon as the robot delivered Vaughn’s drink, the Cheka listed them.

  Because the Cheka’s vibrating metallic voice took some getting used to, Vaughn asked his host to repeat his request. Doubt I heard L’Gon correctly, hundred-year-old ears and all, he thought cynically.

  “We want your cloaking technology.” With pincers affixed to the end of a leg, he clipped a fine filament suspending an amorphous chrysalis from the ceiling. L’Gon squirted sticky brown liquid into the sack, waited a moment, and then slurped up the liquefied contents through a tubule. Carelessly, he chucked it aside, biomatter dripping off his fangs onto the fine hairs growing around his spinnerets.

  Vaughn’s face betrayed nothing. How the Cheka had come by his knowledge of Defiant’ s cloak, didn’t matter at the moment. What did matter was that Vaughn treat the revelation as nothing unexpected. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “We don’t require the device itself,” L’gon went on, “just the engineering specifications and any parts we might find difficult to reproduce. In return, the matter load you require can be delivered immediately.”

  Vaughn dropped his glass on a drink tray and stood up. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll let myself out.” He’d taken only a few steps when L’Gon stopped him with a question.

  “You do understand how this process works? I have something you want, you have something I want. We negotiate.”

  “I’ve made clear what I was prepared to offer in exchange for the matter load. So by all means, please let me know if you change your mind.” Vaughn turned back for one last look, though L’Gon’s hard-shelled thorax made reading body language impossible.

  With silk thread extending from his abdomen, L’Gon lassoed fried cartilage from the tray, dousing it in gooey enzymes before lifting it to his mouth.

  For a moment, Vaughn waited, watching L’Gon for a sign that he was interested in further negotiations, but saw no indication the Cheka wanted anything but lunch. “I’ll let myself out.” He left without another word, even to the android chasing stiffly down the corridor after him.

  When the Cheka suite doors locked behind him, Vaughn checked his chronometer. Less than ten minutes. He’d always been a m
an who knew what he wanted—why waste time tilting at windmills? Bowers looked disappointed when he saw the commander emerge unscathed, having looked forward to a showdown at the O.K. Corral. Vaughn slapped him on the back, assuring him that he was fairly certain the bad guys hadn’t yet left town and that he still might get his chance.

  Not wanting to risk an encounter with any of L’Gon’s henchmen who might be lurking in the Core, Vaughn called Nog and requested a beam-out.

  How the hell did he know about the cloaking device? The question ran round and round in Vaughn’s mind. Few of Defiant’ s crew had left the Avaril since they’d arrived at the Consortium and knowing them as he did, Vaughn believed all to be the soul of discretion. Once again his mind was pulled back to their first day on the journey here. Someone is watching us. The question is, who?

  By his calculations, Shar and Keren had been hiking along the cliffs for almost an hour. Whether they’d made any progress was another issue entirely: every time the trail turned, Shar expected to look down and discover they’d reached the top. Instead, he faced trudging through yet another stretch of rocks and mud, sending pebbles skittering through the grasses with every step. Rainstorms had brought down weathered branches, gravel and debris from the above hillside onto the footpath. One way, Shar would have to scramble up a collapsing slope; the other required secure footing on water-slick lava rock. His muddy uniform testified to how much success he’d had the last time he’d gone off the path. How he wished they were traversing the wonderfully flat stretch of black beach below. He’d happily walk from here to where the beach vanished into the horizon if it meant he left the mud behind.

  It hadn’t looked this difficult when he’d agreed to hike in lieu of using transporters. He enjoyed hiking—having grown up in Andor’s western hill country, he spent a good deal of his youth scrambling up and down the slopes around Threlfar Province. But the terrain hadn’t been anywhere near as treacherous as this.