The Zartani nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”
“That’s why I hate to bother you,” Guinan went on. “Your time is stretched so thin already. Besides,” she sighed, “with all the guests you have here, it’s probably hard to remember everyone’s comings and goings.”
“Not at all,” the manager returned.
Guinan looked surprised. “Oh?”
“In fact, I think I remember the man you’re talking about. Tall, thin, bony face…”
“That’s him,” said Picard.
But the Zartani wasn’t paying any attention to him. He was too enthralled with the captain’s companion.
“Was he here recently?” she asked.
“He arrived just yesterday,” said the hotel operator, “and checked out this morning.”
“Really,” said Guinan. “I don’t suppose he mentioned where he was headed?”
The Zartani shook his head. “Not as I recall. Why are you looking for him, anyway?”
Guinan leaned a little closer to him, and when she spoke her tone was a conspiratorial one. “Believe me,” she said, “you don’t want to know.”
Picard winced. Was that not the wrong thing to say to someone who prided himself on all he knew?
But to his surprise, the Zartani grinned and said, “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Wise man,” Guinan told him. “I’ll have to remember to send all my Zartani friends your way.”
“That would be appreciated,” said the Zartani.
With a parting smile, Guinan took the captain’s arm and steered him away. It was only after they were back in the airlock that she let out a sigh of relief.
“You handled that rather deftly,” he said.
His companion shrugged. “All I did was exercise a little patience…and listen.”
“Listen?” he echoed. “I’d say you did a bit more than that. You charmed the pants off him.”
“But I could only do that because I listened.” She glanced at him. “That’s how I was able to free you from that cell you were in—by listening.”
“To my guard, you mean.”
“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed a bit. “And that’s also how I know your name isn’t Hill.”
Picard felt the blood rush to his face, though it wouldn’t be visible under the purple cast of his skin. He was about to tell Guinan she was mistaken, that his name really was Hill. Then he decided against it.
After all, she had risked her life to get him out of the detention facility, and then risked her friend’s life to obtain a disguise for him. Maybe it was time he trusted her.
“You’re right,” he said. “My name is Picard. Jean-Luc Picard. I’m the captain of a ship called Stargazer.”
She looked interested, but not surprised. “Really.”
Then he told her about his mission, albeit in broad strokes. “So you see,” he said, “why it’s so urgent that I reach Demmix before he can leave Oblivion.”
She looked as if she was about to say something. But before she could do so, her eyes opened wide in response to something behind him.
Picard turned and saw a security patrol passing by—three officers, all of them scanning the faces in the crowd. One of them had a padd in his hand—no doubt with a picture of Picard on its tiny screen.
They had taken it just before they placed him in his cell, hoping to match it up with a file in their database. Of course, they had been unable to do that.
But it was coming in handy now. Picard resisted an impulse to flee, knowing it would draw the security team’s attention. Instead, he just stood there, letting the officers study him as they did those around him.
At first, he thought he had escaped their notice. Then one of them stared directly at him—not just for a moment, but for what seemed like an eternity. His heart started to beat harder against his ribs.
They’ve seen through my disguise, he told himself, and got ready to run.
But just as he was about to take off, the officer’s gaze moved on to the fellow beside Picard, and kept going. The captain breathed a sigh of relief.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew it was Guinan’s. “Looks like Dahlen did a good job,” she said.
“So it does,” he agreed.
Chapter Nine
OLIJ MERANT SURVEYED the crowded lobby of the Zartani hotel. Then he turned to his glinn and, in a voice intended to inspire confidence, said, “I’ll be right back.”
Tain, his features impassive but his eyes very much alive, said, “I have no doubt of it.”
Merant wondered if his superior meant something more than he was saying. As it happened, Merant often found himself wondering that.
Tain was clearly more intelligent than Merant or any of the other Cardassians assigned to this mission. No one in his right mind would have questioned that.
That was why he had been promoted to the rank of glinn—because he saw angles others did not. But it seemed to Merant that Tain flaunted his superiority a little too much, in large ways as well as in small ones.
He would have said so, too, but it would surely have cost him his life. So he remained quiet and obedient, and did everything his glinn asked of him—no matter in what manner his glinn chose to ask it.
Merant turned to Beylen and Karrid, who had accompanied him and Tain to this place. Then he said, “Come on,” and started in the direction of the hotel’s front desk.
It was a handsome-looking place, representing the most well-to-do of the Zartani establishments Tain had identified. Its low-ceilinged lobby, which was decked out in a variety of burnished metals, had been a Dranoon captain’s yacht.
The hotel proper lay beyond it, in a separate and larger but equally well appointed Enolian derelict—or so the Cardassians had been given to believe.
As Merant led Beylen and Karrid through the crowd, he knew he was in a precarious position. Having been entrusted with the task ahead of him, Merant didn’t dare fail.
Not after Tain had already taken him to task for failing to snare Demmix in the plaza. Not after the glinn had reminded him of the penalty for repeated failure.
Merant almost wished that Tain hadn’t named him second-in-command on their arrival here. He had been a lot happier before his promotion. He had worried less.
He was reminded of an old saying: “Those who fail the Union aren’t demoted—they are eliminated.”
But he had no intention of being eliminated.
Merant wasn’t going to fail. He wasn’t even going to think about failure. He was going to find Demmix and please his glinn—no matter what it took.
With that resolve in mind, he approached the front desk, which was a converted control console of some kind. The name of the hotel, the Northern Sky, was painted in small, tasteful Zartani letters on the front edge of the console.
The Zartani manning the desk was bigger and considerably broader than most members of his species. He thrust his chin out as the Cardassians approached him, projecting what seemed to Merant to be a bit too much like defiance.
“Is there something I can do for you?” the Zartani asked, his gaze unflinching.
“There is,” Merant confirmed. He took out his recording device, punched up an image of Demmix, and held it where the Zartani could study it. “Have you seen this person?”
“And if I have?”
“Then I want to know about it,” the Cardassian said evenly.
The Zartani made that hideous wheezing sound that passed for laughter among his people. It grated on Merant’s nerves.
“Do you now?” the hotel manager asked.
Merant could feel a gobbet of anger climb into his throat. “Is there a problem?”
“I think there is,” said the Zartani. “But it’s yours, not mine. You Cardassians strut around as if you own this place, but you don’t. You’re just another species around here.”
“Really,” said Merant.
Suddenly, he reached across the counter and grabbed the Zartani by the throat. The fellow tried to pry M
erant’s fingers loose, but he couldn’t.
As the Zartani around them took notice of what was happening, they backed away. Such a courageous lot, Merant thought. Had something like this occurred on Cardassian Prime, any number of citizens would have intervened.
Unless, of course, an official of some sort was doing the strangling. That would have been a different story.
“You see what you’ve done?” Merant said, his face inches from the Zartani’s. “You’ve made me angry.”
He saw Beylen and Karrid spread out to make sure none of the onlookers intervened, though it was still pretty clear that no one would do so.
Normally, they would have thought twice about confronting so large a crowd. But the scrutiny of Enabran Tain could be a powerful motivator. It could make a person stronger and braver than he might have been otherwise.
And more determined. Much more determined.
“I…can’t…can’t…” the hotel operator gasped, his face darkening from lack of air.
“I think the word you’re looking for is breathe,” said the Cardassian. “I guess that means you have a problem after all.”
“Please…” the Zartani croaked.
“But with a little cooperation,” said Merant, “we may solve both our problems. What do you think?”
“Y—yes…” the Zartani hissed, his eyes popping out of his head like a Rythrian’s.
Merant waited just a moment longer, for emphasis. Then he released the manager from his grasp.
The fellow fell backward against the wall behind him, drawing in air in great, moaning gulps. And all the while, he stared at the Cardassian.
But not with the disrespect he had shown Merant moments earlier. There was a distinct glint of fear in his eyes now—and fear was even better than respect.
Tain had taught him that.
“Where were we?” asked the Cardassian. “Oh yes…” He showed the Zartani the image of Demmix again. “You were about to tell me whether you recognized this person.”
The manager massaged his throat as he studied the likeness in front of him. But after a while, he shook his head. “I don’t,” he whispered hoarsely.
Merant scowled. “Are you certain?”
“This is a big place,” the manager explained. “Dozens of Zartani come through here every day.”
Merant doubted that the fellow was lying. He looked too scared, and he had nothing to gain by it.
“All right,” said the Cardassian. “But if I find out your memory is faulty, you’ll wish I had hung on to your throat a little longer.”
Something else occurred to him.
“And if I were you,” Merant added, “I wouldn’t go running to the authorities. Remember, I know where to find you.”
“You needn’t worry,” the Zartani told him.
Merant smoothed the front of his tunic. Then, with a withering glance at all the Zartani pretending not to peer in his direction, he led his underlings out of the lobby.
Nikolas hadn’t eaten with anybody except Obal since Gerda Idun’s departure. He just hadn’t felt like it.
As difficult as it was to fend off his friend’s encouragements, it would have been even more difficult to eat with people who had a less distinct idea of why the ensign was so distant.
His roommate, Paris, for example. Or Kochman. Or any of the other crewmen the ensign had been friendly with.
So when Obal wasn’t available, Nikolas just ate by himself—exactly as he was doing now. He sat in a corner of the mess hall, consumed whatever he could consume in as short a time as possible, and left.
Maybe because they sensed his preference for solitude, people left him alone. Most of the time. But as Nikolas forked a piece of meatball into his mouth, he saw someone approaching him out of the corner of his eye.
Damn, he thought.
It was Hanta. And he had a hard look about him.
The Bolian walked right up to Nikolas. Then, as if he meant to confide in him, he bent over and planted his hand next to the ensign’s tray.
“Can I help you?” Nikolas asked.
“I want to tell you something,” said Hanta, his voice seething with barely subdued animosity.
“I’m listening, sir,” the ensign said evenly.
“You took me by surprise back there in the mess hall. It won’t happen again.”
Nikolas turned to him. “Are you trying to scare me, sir?”
“You should be scared,” said Hanta. “Because you’re going to be decorating a bulkhead when I’m done with you.”
“Permission to speak freely?”
“Permission granted.”
“That’s a rather hostile tone, sir. You might want to find somebody who can help you channel that anger into something positive.”
Hanta’s mouth twisted. “I can’t think of anything more positive than shutting you up, Ensign.”
“Then, if I may say so, sir, you also seem to be suffering from an acute lack of imagination.”
“Suffering,” said the Bolian, “is precisely what I had in mind. But it’ll be yours, not mine.”
“You sound pretty certain of that, sir.”
“You’ll get to be certain of it, too, Ensign. That is, if you’ve got anything resembling a brain in your head, which I’m beginning to doubt.”
Nikolas managed a smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get me to take a swing at you.”
“Not now,” said the Bolian, “and not here. But the time will come. You can rest assured of that.”
“Thanks a lot,” Nikolas told him blithely. “It’s so hard to be certain of anything these days. At least I know there’s one thing I can rely on.”
Hanta didn’t answer. He just glowered at him for a moment. Then the Bolian walked away, leaving his violent intentions hanging in the air behind him.
“Well,” the ensign said to no one in particular, “that was a refreshing exchange of ideas.”
Tain hadn’t remained in the hotel lobby to watch Merant and the others. However, he had loitered outside the hatch that led to it and sampled the comments of the Zartani who emerged.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t especially pleased with what he had overheard.
In point of fact, Tain hated the idea of delegating tasks to others. In the final analysis, he trusted no one’s judgment but his own.
However, he was a glinn. He had a responsibility to separate himself from any crimes his lackeys might end up committing. If something went wrong, he was supposed to let Merant or some other underling take the blame—and they would, knowing all too well the punishment if they didn’t.
They, after all, were disposable. Tain was not.
Besides, there were three hotels and two restaurants in this part of Oblivion that catered to a Zartani clientele—and with Picard on the loose, Tain couldn’t have taken the time to investigate them all in order. Sending out squads was the only practical solution.
As long as they kept a low profile. As long as they were discreet about their objective.
And then, the glinn thought with a hot spurt of anger, there is Merant….
Tain had hoped that here, at least, the investigation would proceed to his liking. Obviously, he had been overly optimistic in that regard.
As Merant and the others emerged from the hatch, Tain studied their faces. Merant, at least, seemed oblivious of his glinn’s displeasure. He looked pleased with himself, as if he had done his job and done it well.
Tain frowned. Obviously, he would have to disabuse his second-in-command of that notion.
He waited until Merant and the others had rejoined him. Then, his emotions fully contained, he said to Beylen and Karrid, “I’ll see you back at our quarters.”
Neither of them replied. But it seemed to Tain that they understood what was happening.
He turned to Merant next and said, “Walk with me a moment, will you?”
The other Cardassian’s brow creased, but only a little. “Of course, Glinn.”
Tak
ing Merant’s arm, Tain led him through the hatch and into the next hulk, which had been a Tyrheddan freighter. It now housed a series of appraisal shops, where merchants could take their recently purchased trinkets and see if they had paid a fair price for them.
“So,” said the glinn, in a purposefully neutral tone of voice, “what did you learn in the Zartani hotel?”
“Unfortunately,” said Merant, “nothing at all. The manager had no knowledge of the one we seek.”
“You made sure of that,” the glinn said. It wasn’t a question. “I don’t think that Zartani will be able to swallow for a while, do you?”
Merant chuckled—but there was a distinct note of nervousness in it. “Probably not.”
By then, they had come to another hatch. This time, they entered the surviving portion of an Ologomwi space station, though it could hardly have been the more attractive part.
With only a row of small warehouses to commend it, it was a good deal less populated than the Tyrheddan freighter.
“Tell me,” said Tain, giving nothing away, “what made you decide to grab him by the throat?”
“He was arrogant,” said Merant. “I wanted to show him what I thought of his attitude.”
“But all the while,” Tain suggested, “you were thinking about your mission, correct? Not any personal feelings you may have entertained.”
“Of course not,” Merant confirmed.
They were coming to a space between two of the warehouses—an alley of sorts. And there wasn’t anyone in earshot who could have overheard their conversation.
Still, what Tain had to say to Merant could be said only in complete privacy. He gestured for his second-in-command to enter the alley. Then Tain followed him.
“Is something wrong?” Merant asked.
“I need to be sure of something,” Tain said. “When you choked that Zartani, were you serving Cardassia…and me?”
“Yes,” Merant agreed. “Of course.”
“Fully,” asked Tain, “with every conceivable weapon in your arsenal?”
“I did my best,” Merant said in earnest. He thrust his chin out. “And I will continue to do my best, as long as I am privileged to be in your service.”
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