by Неизвестный
As Quark pondered the shape-shifter's motives, that portion of his brain that constantly counted and calcu-lated registered that they had descended precisely ten
levels. Almost unconsciously, Quark braced for the turbolift car's change of direction as it would begin to move laterally along one of the station's spokes.
But the direction didn't change. The car kept descending past the level of the docking ring.
Quark began to feel again the clammy touch of panic. Up till now, he had been operating under the assumption that there was something these three Car-dassians-and she, whoever she was-wanted him to do. The fact that they wanted anything at all meant, reassuringly, that he was in the middle of a business transaction. And when it came to business, Quark knew he was definitely fighting on home soil.
But now, once again, he was heading into unknown territory. As far as he knew, the lower core of the sta-tion was the site of the fusion reactors, the power trans-fer manifolds and basic utilities, and its few residence levels were little more than prison cells for Bajoran ore workers. It was a realm for engineers, not business peo-ple. Even worse, he was not aware of any docking ports off the lower levels. The only way out of the lower core would be back up through the turbolift shafts.
Or through an emergency airlock, he thought queasily.
Quark moaned as he realized the trap he was enter-ing. Then moaned again when he realized he had been so thrown off-balance by the lift car's continued descent that he had actually lost count of the levels they had passed. And every fool knew that a Ferengi who lost count had lost everything.
The two phaser-armed Cardassians continued to stare at him, their weapons held loosely at their sides as if daring him to break the rules and talk. But, finally, Turbolift 5 reached its destination.
The stop was so sudden, Quark felt the car rise back up a few centimeters as if it had overshot the desired deck. Then the doors opened.
The level beyond the open doors was so dark, it looked to Quark like the void of space itself.
But the Cardassian leader in the torn blue tunic pushed him forward anyway, and Odo at his side, even before a welcome pool of light from a palm torch sprang to life ahead of them.
"Straight ahead," the Cardassian leader ordered,
Quark limped on, as told. Adding to his resentful discomfort now was the fact that the deck plates on this lower level weren't covered by any type of carpet. They were just bare hull metal as far as he could tell. And since the station's lower core was terraced like a towering cake built upside down, Quark realized with a sinking feeling it was entirely possible that bound-less space was really only a few centimeters below his feet.
But then, why are the deck plates so hot? he won-dered.
He decided he absolutely hated Terok Nor. He'd be glad to leave it.
Alive, he added quickly, in case the Blessed Exche-quer or any of his Exalted Tellers happened to be lis-tening in.
The long, curving corridor on this level was nar-rower than others on the station. The ceiling lower. And except for a pale patch of light which Quark was just now beginning to perceive ahead, it seemed that none of the emergency glowpanels was functioning down here.
The spot of light from the palm torch kept skittering ahead, leading the way. On either side it was too
gloomy for Quark to make out the Cardassian direc-tional and warning signs on the bulkheads, but every few meters he passed an inner door. Some of these were open, with total darkness beyond.
If I were Odo, Quark thought darkly, I'd be through one of those doors so fast the light from the palm torch couldn't catch me.
But most inexplicably, the shape-shifter remained at Quark's side, even letting the Ferengi's injured foot set the pace.
Finally, just as Quark feared he would fall to the floor in exhaustion, the Cardassian leader ordered them to turn right at the next intersection. It was a cul-de-sac, where Quark would normally expect to find a turbolift. But instead, he halted before three more Car-dassians, all females this time. Two were in soldier's armor, crisp, unmarked, the composite surfaces gleam-ing in the way Quark had come to recognize only the most elite Cardassian units were able to maintain. And despite the cold level of threat the two uniformed females presented, there was no doubt in Quark as to which female his three captors served.
She was the one in the middle, the only one in a matte-black civilian outfit that clung, Quark apprecia-tively noted, to the ridges of her spinal cords like a second skin.
"This is the only Ferengi on the station." Surprisingly, it was not the Cardassian in the torn blue tunic who was the first to address the female. It was the bald Cardassian with the tricorder. But in any case, Quark knew they were now in the presence of the real leader of the entire group, male and female-She.
The female leader studied Quark as if he were live-stock at an auction. Quark straightened up, smirking
engagingly, but her widely spaced dark eyes turned to Odo. "Why is that here?"
The bald Cardassian's reply was instant. "I thought we could use him as a backup. He can take on the shape of a Ferengi."
Quark's evaluation of the female shot up in value with her skeptical response. "But can he take on the brain of a Ferengi?"
"Terrell," the bald Cardassian said deferentially, "with respect, we are running out of options. Dukat has left. The station will be under Bajoran control in hours."
Terrell frowned as she hunted for something in the engineer's case she wore at the side of her wide belt. "Unlikely. In fifty-three minutes, the station will be a debris field and navigational hazard. Dukat activated the self-destruct." She removed a palm phaser and without a moment's pause shot Odo.
The constable grunted and slumped to his knees, gasping painfully for breath. But to Quark's intense relief, Odo was only lightly stunned.
Terrell lowered her palm phaser and glared at the bald Cardassian. "Atrig, that thing is a shape-shifter. It could have escaped you whenever it chose. The fact that it didn't, suggests it was spying on us."
The bald Cardassian's reaction to his leader's admo-nition was most revealing to Quark. It was definitely not that of a soldier. The Cardassian in the gray tunic merely clenched his teeth, glanced down, embarrassed more than anything else. Definitely not the response of a soldier. Quark's fuschia-rimmed eyes narrowed in speculation. If these two had come into his bar as cus-tomers, Quark would have instantly concluded that Atrig, Terrell's bald subordinate, was desperately in
love with his superior, while Terrell considered Atrig as nothing more than a useful tool she might carry in her case.
"Of course," the bald Cardassian said, in almost a whisper, his head still respectfully lowered.
Terrell dropped the small phaser back into her case. "Just see you keep it stunned in case we do need it." Then she turned her attention to Quark. "You will per-form a service for the Cardassian Union. If you suc-ceed, you will have time to reach an escape pod before the station self-destructs. If you fail...." Her smile was cruel.
Quark looked questioningly at Atrig. Atrig under-stood. "Now you can talk."
"What kind of service?" Quark demanded. Let the negotiations begin, he thought.
"A simple one." Terrell turned her back to him and faced a blank bulkhead. Though he couldn't see exactly what she was doing, Quark could tell she was operating some kind of small device, for the bulkhead began to move to one side, revealing an extension of the corridor.
Quark's first reaction was one of true surprise. His second was of true apprehension. Over the years he had mapped every hidden section of the station, to establish his network of smugglers' tunnels-but here was a corridor extension completely unknown to him. And beyond it, there was a light source, about ten meters past the bulkhead.
Quirk squinted at the light. It appeared to be ema-nating from a door whose center glowed pale pink.
"What's in there?" Quark asked nervously.
Terrell turned back to him. "Nothing for a Ferengi to fear." Then she nodded, and Qu
ark felt himself
pushed forward, toward the light, a phaser jammed between his shoulder blades.
Halfway to the door, he heard a sudden commotion behind him, then phaser fire. Odo. The constable must have tried to make his escape, and not been fast enough.
Quark chanced glancing over his shoulder and did a relieved double take. Odo was still staggering along behind him, supported by the Cardassian in the torn blue tunic.
But now the two armor-clad female Cardassians held a third stunned captive.
Garak.
The Cardassian tailor was no longer in the strange uniform Quark had been unable to identify, but was back in his usual civilian garb. Quark didn't stop to question the change. He had always suspected that Garak wasn't the plain, simple tailor he made himself out to be. All Cardassians were masters of conspiracy, duplicity, and deviousness. The only remaining mystery for Quark was how the contentious aliens had managed to occupy Bajor as a cohesive force for as long as they had.
Atrig grabbed Quark's shoulder, forcing him to a stop three meters from the glowing door.
Correction, Quark thought. The door wasn't just glowing. It was pulsating. The effect was difficult to define precisely, but to Quark it seemed as if the door alternately bulged out and relaxed in, as if it were the flank of some large creature slowly breathing. The glow intensified with each intake of breath, changing from rose-pink to dark red, and Quark saw now that the light it created wasn't uniform. Instead, the vertical surface rippled outward, like a rock-disturbed pool of water standing on its side.
But that shimmering surface wasn't liquid, Quark knew. It was a solid layer protecting those on the out-side from something that these six Cardassians didn't want to face-or couldn't.
Yet for some reason, they believed a Ferengi could.
But why? Quark thought, even now still trying to find an angle to exploit. If whatever was causing the door to ripple and glow was some deadly form of radi-ation, the Cardassians could have captured anyone to... to do whatever it was they wanted done. It was a well-known fact to everyone on the station that no Cardassian officer would hesitate to order a fellow Cardassian soldier to face death.
So why do they need a Ferengi? And only a Fer-engi?
"Garak," Terrell said with sarcastic condescension. "I don't know which surprises me more. That you haven't left the station already. Or that Dukat left you alive."
Quark looked back to see Terrell standing before Garak. The tailor's sagging body was held upright by the two female soldiers, each holding an arm. Garak shook his head as if to clear it.
"I was merely trying to warn you," the tailor said faintly. "I believe that Gul Dukat may have failed to inform you that for some reason the station's self-destruct system has been inadvertently activated. You should leave as quickly as possible."
Terrell patted the tailor's cheek. "Why, Garak, how noble of you."
'Terrell, my dear, given all that we mean to each other, I feel I owe it to you."
Interesting, Quark thought.
"And I owe you. So much."
Quark shivered at the unpleasant edge to Terrell's cool voice.
Garak merely nodded as he glanced at the glowing door. In the rose-colored light, his gray Cardassian skin took on an almost sickening, raw-meat color. "Well, I can see you're busy. So I'll be on my way."
"You'll leave with me, Garak. Interrogating you will help pass the time on the way back home." Now Ter-rell's voice was openly menacing.
Garak's careful civility gave way to cold rage. "You know I cannot go back to Cardassia."
"I do know," Terrell said. "That's why I'll execute you myself before we arrive." Then she turned toward the glowing door, her back to the Cardassian tailor as if he no longer existed.
Quark's eyes followed her movement to the door. He alone of the observers gasped at the change. It was as if Terrell now faced a vortex of glowing magma, blaz-ing with light, yet producing no heat. Pulsating coils of red light snaked out from the rapidly deforming sur-face of the door. Some tendrils seemed almost ready to break free of the surface, as if whatever lay beyond was increasing its efforts to escape confinement.
Quark felt himself pushed forward again by the bald Cardassian.
"Terrell," Quark squeaked, his voice breaking in its urgency. "I'm going to need some information." More than anything else, he longed to run home. But he knew that wasn't possible. Perhaps he'd never see Ferenginar again. "What in the name of all that's prof-itable is in there?"
"A lab," Terrell said tersely. "What you're seeing is merely a holographic illusion. A new type of holosuite technology."
Quark couldn't be certain of the truth. He couldn't see any holoemitters in this hidden section of corridor. But then, they could be installed behind the illusion. Maybe-
Don't be a fool, Quark told himself.
Whatever was responsible for the phenomenon before him, it wasn't an illusion, and it was dangerous. There was no other reason for him to be here.
"So what do I have to do?" Quark asked.
"Go into the lab-"
Quark couldn't help himself. "Through that thing?! You're crazy!" He flinched as Atrig shoved a phaser into his back. "My mistake," he croaked.
"We will open the door," Terrell continued. "You will go inside the lab, ignoring everything you hear, everything you see, except for the main lab console on the far wall."
"Everything I hear?" Quark asked, his voice trail-ing off as his imagination got the best of him.
Terrell ignored his apprehension. "On the main console, you'll see a... power unit. A... type of power crystal. Sixty-eight centimeters tall. Twenty-five wide at its top and bottom. Spindle-shaped. You can't miss it."
The corridor fell into momentary darkness as the door heaved inward.
"And you want me to bring it out," Quark said weakly.
Terrell nodded at him. "Very perceptive. It's in an open housing. Simply disconnect two power leads to detach it from the console, then carry the crystal out. As soon as you do... you'll be free to go."
Her very unconvincing smile confirmed the situa-tion for Quark. He instantly knew that if he did sue-
ceed in retrieving the crystal from the lab, a minute later he'd be as dead as if he were still dangling at the end of an ODN cable on the Promenade.
Quark's agile mind raced to identify the loopholes in this transaction.
But he had run out of time.
"Open the door," Terrell ordered.
At once, the Cardassian with the torn blue tunic moved to place himself alongside the pulsating door, one arm stretched out before him. With one trem-bling hand, Quark shielded his eyes from the increas-ing red glare to see what the Cardassian was trying to do.
At the edge of distortion effect, Quark saw a door control. The Cardassian in blue touched it gingerly.
Incredibly, the door seemed to melt to one side, and Quark squinted as the light level reached an almost painful intensity.
"-YES- "
Startled, Quark looked around, trying to see who had just cried out.
It was Odo.
"YES! YES, I UNDERSTAND!" Odo shouted. He struggled in the grip of the Cardassian in the new brown tunic, the Cardassian who Quark suspected was either a soldier, a coward, a spy. "/ WILL-" Odo screamed. Then the shape-shifter began to reach out his arms, stretching away from his captor toward the blood red light of the lab.
"Stop him!" Terrell commanded.
Instantly, Atrig stunned Odo again and the shape-shifter slumped, as his semiconscious body slowly assumed its humanoid shape once more.
"What happened?" Quark demanded.
"You didn't hear them?" Terrell asked in return. "The voices calling?"
"What voices?"
Terrell's face blazed with reflected crimson light. "You'll do fine," she said. "Go! Now!"
Pushed relentlessly forward by Atrig, Quark swayed before the open doorway. He could see nothing in the lab except a swirl of light, a whirlpool of lumines-cence.
&
nbsp; "Hurry!" Terrell shouted.
And then the light swirls fragmented before Quark, becoming writhing tendrils that seemed to reach out for him and-
"TERRELL!"
This time the outcry came from Atrig, as the bald Cardassian leaped through the air to meet the coil of light heading directly for the woman he loved. The light hit Atrig square in the back, hurling him across the corridor as if a battering ram had struck him.
Atrig's limp form crumpled to the deck, a glowing patch of carmine light flickering over him.
Quark ducked as two more tentacles of flame-red energy snapped out from the doorway. Beneath the crackle of their passage, he heard hideous screams. Saw the Cardassian in blue and the other in brown lifted up from the deck, wrapped in red light.