by Emily
Quark kept watch on die new vedek, and wasn't particularly impressed with what he saw. The mostly forgettable Yevir Linjarin had always been a man of simple, inexpensive tastes, and it seemed that getting bit by the Prophet bug hadn't changed anything. He ate a single slice of hasperat and drank only water, setting a bad example for bis small flock of beaming followers. Kira seemed to like Yevir, though, making a point of introducing Jake and Kasidy to him soon after he walked in. Quark noticed with some interest that meeting Sisko's family was the one thing that actually wiped the pious smile from Yevir's face; nice to see a little humility in the religious, particularly those who didn't know how to enjoy free food. Rumor had it mat he'd only be staying a short time on the station, at least
In all, the party was proving to be a success, the only sour note being that Ro Laren hadn't put in an appearance. Yet, he reminded himself; it was still early. It was frustrating, particularly considering he had promised to buy her a drink the next time she dropped by. With Kira picking up the tab, he could have plied the lovely Laren with plenty of high quality liquor, saving himself a few slips of latinum.
Can't win 'em all, he thought, feeling uncharacteristically easygoing, ducking behind the bar to scrounge up another pitcher of Andorian ale after noting that Shar and Morn were running dry. He was in a good mood; people were eating and drinking and betting, the sound of laughter and conversation filling the air, the bill steadily climbing. Besides, Ro wasn't going anywhere; he had plenty of time to work his magic.
"Hi, Quark."
Quark stood up, pitcher in hand, and saw Jake Sisko
leaning across the bar. Quark plastered on a bright smile, a little surprised to find that he actually meant it Not only was Jake's presence responsible for Quark's profitable night, he ... well, Quark had a soft spot for the gangly young man. He was Nog's best friend, after all, and unlike his nephew, Jake had shown the good sense not to go into Starfleet.
"Jake! Welcome home. Enjoying your party, I hope? You should try the stick sandwiches, the fruit ones are especially crisp." They also weren't going as fast as everything else, and leftovers didn't keep.
"Thanks, but I'm not planning on—" Jake started.
"Say, where's that nephew of mine?" Quark interrupted, his grin fading. Jake Sisko was important to the people of Bajor; it would be just like Nog to destroy bis only good contact.
"Ensign Chavez said he had a few more repairs to oversee in one of the defense sails, but he should be here any minute," Jake said. "Anyway, like I was saying, I wasn't planning to stay on the station—"
"Oh? Where are you going?" Quark asked eagerly. If he could talk Kira into a going-away party ...
"Earth," Jake said, apparently frustrated about something. "And I'd actually like to travel alone for a change. So I need a ship that'll get me there. Do you have one?"
Quark stared at him for a moment, then laughed. He had more of a sense of humor than his father had, Quark had to give him that much. "Very funny."
"It's not a joke," Jake said. "And I know you had a couple of unregistered shuttles stashed in one of your cargo bays before I left for B'hala. Nog told me you picked them up cheap at an auction, after the war. Do you still have one?"
Nog had a big mouth. Quark sighed, lowering his voice slightly. There were a lot of people around. "Maybe I do. But I don't run a rental agency."
"Oh, I want to buy it How much?"
As he spoke, Jake unfastened a small pouch from his belt and dug into it. Quark could hear the dully musical, telltale clink of latinum slips, the slightly deeper sound of a strip or two.
Right Sell a shuttle for strips. Being the Emissary's kid apparently caused hallucinations.
"Forget it, Jake. Even if you've got a bar in there, there's no way you could afford it. Now if you don't mind, I see some empty glasses out there—"
"Wait," Jake said, and finally rummaged out a personal account card. He thumbprinted the access key and handed it over.
Quark took it from him, trying to decide if he should bother letting the kid down gently—and then he saw the number on the tiny display. Frowning, that can't possibly be right, he expertly tapped a few keys, has to be in Cardassian leks, or Tarkalean notch-rocks...
Gold-pressed latinum. Not just bars, but bricks of it enough to buy ten shuttles. Twenty.
"Give me a couple of hours," Quark said, a little breathlessly. "You can take possession at airlock 12, 2500."
Jake plucked the card from Quark's numb fingers and slipped in back into bis bag. "I'll want to see the merchandise before we agree on a price—though I'm sure it'll be fine. Nog said he checked them out and you got a good deal."
Jake turned to walk away. Still stunned, Quark found his voice again; he had to know.
"How? How did you end up with mat kind of latinum?"
Jake looked back at him and shrugged. 'It was my dad's."
Quark shook his head. "Jake, your father worked for. the Federation."
Jake grinned, a bright and sunny smile. "Remember how Jadzia used to win at tongo?"
Quark nodded, suppressing a shudder. The woman's luck had been uncanny. Six years of it, too.
Still smiling, Jake delivered the punch. "She lost most of it to Dad, wrestling him on the weekends."
Jake returned to his party, and for a moment Quark could only stare after him, trying to mink of an applicable Rule. Something about irony. He kept coming up blank, and those glasses out there weren't filling mem-selves.
Well, at least he'd be getting some of it back; he'd be sure to charge as much as he could get away with for the shuttle. Sisko's kid or not, he can afford a little gouging....
Shaking his head, Quark spotted Frool and Broik loitering by the bar and went to yell at them.
Nog didn't get to Quark's until almost 2300. He'd been working with a crew of the new techs, slogging through the last bit of repair work on the weapons arrays, and had been afraid he'd missed everything; he was relieved to see that mere were still plenty of people milling around.
He stopped at the bar for a root beer, eagerly looking around for Jake. Uncle was in fine form, ordering the servers around and table-hopping with a vengeance,
and as Nog searched for Jake, he saw that most of his friends were still in the bar. Shar, Morn, and Ezri sat together, laughing about something, and at the table next to theirs, Kas and Kira were chatting away. Dr. Bashir was playing darts with Ensign Tenmei. A table of engineers saw Nog and waved, raising cups and glasses, and Nog held his root beer up in turn, thinking that he felt really good for the first time all day.
Hard to relax, when you know there's a murdering monster on board, an unhappy voice whispered in his mind, helpfully reminding him. It had even been hard to concentrate on work, and for the first time in months, he'd had twinges of pain in his leg.
"Hey! You made it!"
Nog turned, and saw that Jake had managed to sneak up behind him. Griming, Nog set his drink down and impulsively hugged Jake, heartily slapping him on the back before letting go. Nog already missed him; Colonel Kira had already told him Jake was probably leaving in a day or so, off to see his grandfather.
"Sorry it took me so long," Nog said. "You wouldn't believe how much stuff mere is to do around here. How's the party going? Do you want to sit down somewhere?"
Smiling, Jake jerked his head back toward the Promenade. "What do you say we go to our spot? For old times' sake?"
Nog hesitated for just a second, wondering if it was appropriate for a Starfleet lieutenant—then nodded, unable to resist. He was off duty. "That sounds great"
Jake glanced around the bar and then raised a finger to his lips. The old let's-keep-it-quiet sign reminded Nog of earlier times, days when his only responsibili-
ties were going to Mrs. O'Brien's school and helping out in the bar, when his biggest worry was that Odo would catch them exploring the station's old service ducts. It was a fond, wistful feeling so sudden that it made his throat ache.
The two of them slippe
d quietly out of the bar, taking the long way around to the small lift that went to the second floor balcony. They headed for "their" bridge, the one that crossed between the viewport and the upstairs level of Quark's bar. Without ceremony, they flopped to the floor, sitting with their legs dangling over the edge. Although mere was some noise from the bar, the Promenade itself was mostly deserted and quiet, the low, eternal hum of the station audible in the near silence.
For a moment, neither spoke, Jake gazing out the windows, Nog thinking about all the hours they had spent sitting there, talking about their plans for the future as they watched people walk the Promenade below. Jake seemed distant, and Nog supposed he was thinking about his father. It had to be hard for Jake, missing his dad. Nog missed his father, too, but Rom was on Ferenginar; he could always call him, collect, even. Rom had changed the law first thing, just so Nog would be sure to stay in touch.
"So that's what's left of the Aldebaran," Jake said quietly, Surprising Nog. There was a wide field of scattered debris far beyond the window, glittering in the light of Bajor's distant sun. Jake had apparently been looking at the floating wreckage, not thinking about Captain Sisko.
Nog nodded. "It's been a problem, too. Some of the bigger pieces have been triggering the wormhole, and
they're putting out enough radiation to confuse the sensors. The only way we can tell a ship isn't coming through is to scan for incoming neutrino bleeds, and that takes a few seconds." A few terrifying seconds, not knowing if the first wave of another Dominion aggression had just come through.
"Why don't you just blast them?" Jake asked.
"The Defiant is still under repair. I suppose we could use runabouts, but they aren't an immediate threat, and Starfleet will want to examine the remains once the task force gets here."
"When are they supposed to show up?"
Nog sighed. "Sometime in the next day or two, I guess. Not soon enough for me."
"Why?" Jake asked. "I thought Kira didn't want them to come at all."
"Because they'll probably take that Jem'Hadar with them when they leave," Nog said, hearing the bitterness in his voice. He couldn't help it, but wasn't sorry, either. Just because the Federation said they weren't official enemies anymore, that didn't mean they were friends... or that Nog had to accept one of them.
Jake frowned. "I thought—Kira told me that Odo may have sent him. And that he could end up staying, if that turns out to be true—"
"I'll quit," Nog spat. 'TII quit before I work on a station with one of those things aboard. And Odo didn't send him. There's no way he would have sent a Jem'Hadar soldier here without some kind of, of credentials."
He shook his head, the anger a sharp, hot needle hi his gut. "And even if he did, he wouldn't have sent that Jem'Hadar. If you saw nun, you'd understand. He's just
like the rest of them, he's a murderer, you can see it in his eyes—"
Jake put a hand on his arm. "Hey, you don't have to convince me"
Nog saw that he was sincere, and exhaled heavily, nodding. "Right. I'm sorry, I just—I've been thinking about it a lot, you know?"
"I understand. Maybe... well, I probably won't be around, but maybe you should talk about it to Ezri, or Vic—"
"What's to talk about?" Nog snapped. "They're all killers, nobody disputes that. I don't need to talk about it, I need for that thing to be off the station, and the sooner the better."
Jake nodded, bis expression mild. "Yeah, okay."
They were quiet for another minute, Nog feeling somehow like he hadn't made his case properly. He was upset, maybe more than he should be, but he was also right, and didn't want his anger to confuse the issue. On the other hand, he hadn't seen Jake for a while, and probably wouldn't again for at least another few weeks. It would be a waste to spend their time together talking about the prisoner in the holding cell—
"I'm probably going to leave tonight," Jake said quietly, looking out again at the debris field hovering beyond the windows.
"Why? It's pretty late ... why don't you stay for a couple of days?" Nog was a little hurt by the news, immediately wondering if Jake's decision had to do with his tirade against the Jem'Hadar.
Don't be ridiculous. He just needs some convincing.
Nog forced a grin, revealing as many teeth as possible to promote enthusiasm. "If you're here when the
Federation ships arrive, I bet we can get a dom-jot game going with some of their crew. Maybe even a tournament." Just about everyone on the station knew better than to play against diem; Nog was good, but Jake was practically a master. "We make a great team."
Jake smiled, but even that seemed far away. "That's true. But there are things I need to do ... and I'd kind of like to get away without making a big deal out of it I mean, I've seen everyone I wanted to see. They'll understand, if I just kinda sneak out of the party early."
Jake grinned. "And I will be back, you know. Maybe even in time for part of that dom-jot tourney."
"I thought you were going to Earth for a couple of weeks, at least," Nog said.
Jake shrugged. "Plans change."
For just a second, Nog had the idea that Jake was concealing something, his childhood friend's expression too innocent to be genuine ... but he dismissed the thought, deciding he was being paranoid. They weren't children anymore, trying to get away with some minor indiscretion without Odo or their fathers finding out Besides which, he and Jake were partners; Jake wouldn't hide anything from him.
"Well, I hope they do," Nog said sincerely. "I miss you, Jake."
Jake nodded somberly. "I miss you, too."
After another second, Jake smiled, and batted his eyelids. "So, you want to kiss now, or what?"
Nog laughed, and punched Jake on the arm. "You should be so lucky, hew-mon."
He thought Jake would punch him back, and for a second, he had a strong flash of nostalgia for it. Even a couple of years ago, an exchange of punches would in-
evitably have them rolling on the floor, giggling like children as they struggled to pin each other down.
Jake suddenly looked a little down, and Nog thought he knew why. Things had changed, they'd been changing for a long time, and the reminder of how things had once been was both sweet and sad. It seemed like they'd both just figured out that they couldn't go back.
Jake started talking about B'hala, and the moment was gone. Nog wasn't sure if that was good or bad, and finally decided that it didn't matter. It was good to see his best friend again.
2O
Ro wasn't as knowledgeable as some about her planet's history, but she certainly knew the high points—and it seemed that almost all of them were in the book that Istani Reyla had hidden just before her death, the events written about thousands of years before they happened.
And the way it's written... With as much truth as there was in the text, its secular nature could be considered a threat to Bajor's religious structure. Could be, although Ro wasn't sure; between the bizarre, often twisted metaphors and the occasional rantings about persecution, whoever had written it had almost certainly been insane.
Insane but eerily accurate. Eyes burning and shoulders aching, Ro flipped to the next page on the padd, fascinated and more than a little awed. The writings in the book were almost random in terms of significance, from the grand building of B'hala, to a good kava harvest in 1423—but so far as Ro knew, all of it had come
to pass. She'd checked out a few things against the station's library, and hadn't managed to find a single discrepancy. A lot of the names were different, the translation program unable to decipher quite a few of them, but the descriptions of the events were so clear that it didn't matter. They were even roughly chronological, beginning with the adversarial relationship between the Prophets and the Pah-wraiths, and their war over the Celestial Temple. ('Temple" and "Prophets" seemed to be very close to the actual written words, but the term used for the Pah-wraiths translated to something like "fire-living spirits.") It continued through the dissolution of the D'jarra ca
ste system with what the book called "the coming of the gray warriors."
Ro was just getting into the Occupation—the domination of the land and its children, in book-speak— when she realized she'd been sitting still for too long. She leaned back and stretched, rubbing her eyes, feeling excited and afraid and uncertain all at once.
"Computer, what time is it?"
"The time is 2512."
Ro blinked, thinking it was no wonder she was so sore. She'd been hunched over the book for well over four hours. She stood up and walked to the replicator, ordering ice water and a small fruit salad with sugared protein sauce. She ate standing up, gazing blankly at the ancient book itself, her thoughts all over the place.
Istani knew how important it was—whether the writer was crazy or not, it's a book of prophecy in which the prophecies are actually consistent and precise. She stole it from B'hala, and someone who knew it came after her and killed her for it, because...
Ro frowned, mentally backing up a step. How did
anyone know Istani had taken it? The prylar had gone out of her way to hide it once she reached the station— but was that because she knew it was valuable, or because she knew someone was coming for it?
She signed out of B'hala, but didn't get to the station until a day and a half later. Maybe she showed it to someone—Galihie S., for instance—before she left Bajor. And maybe Galihie wasn't all that thrilled about her keeping the book for herself. He could have been an artifact collector, or a religious fanatic, or a business partner... maybe he was her lover, and he killed her simply because she left him.
Until I know something about Galihie, 1 can only guess about why he did it. Unless—
—unless it was something in the text itself, something mat Galihie didn't want to be known. Something that had happened and been written about, that could damage him somehow... or something that hadn't happened yet, that he'd wanted to keep hidden.