by Неизвестный
Their cries became muffled as the scarlet glow spread over them, flowing around them like a hungry wave. Then, horribly, slowly, their wildly flailing arms and legs ceased their struggle, as if the light itself were somehow thick and resistant.
Forgetting for a moment that Atrig no longer was behind him to prevent his escape, Quark stared at the faces of the two trapped Cardassians. Their gaping
mouths were stretched in soundless wails. And then, like a plasma whip being cracked, the two were sucked back into the vortex of light, disappearing in an instant.
Odo-now held by no one-knelt on the deck and looked back at the light. Quark could see him silently mouth a single word, over and over-Yes... yes... yes....
The two female soldiers still held on to Garak, showing no fear, but clearly ready to leave as soon as they were ordered.
Quark turned to flee, but Terrell blocked his way. Her palm phaser was aimed directly at his head. "Hurry!"
Quark stared at Terrell. It was madness to do what she wanted. It was guaranteed suicide. But as much as he hated to admit it, if he didn't do as she ordered, then that fool Odo would be on his feet and stumbling forward in Quark's place, into something that for some unknown reason the Cardassians believed only a Fer-engi could survive.
Quark told himself it wasn't respect he felt for Odo. It was just that after so many years of being adver-saries, he knew how the shape-shifter thought, knew his strategies. And most importantly, Quark thought, he knew how much he could get away with. And for some inexplicable reason, the shape-shifter had stayed at his side all the way from the Promenade, when he could have escaped and left Quark to his fate-alone.
Quark's chest swelled out as he drew in a deep breath. As the old Ferengi saying had it, Better the Auditor you know, than the Auditor you don't. Some-times, he told himself, you just have to sign the con-tract you negotiated.
"Now!" Terrell ordered.
Quark released his breath in a mighty sigh, covered his head with his arms, and ran straight through the doorway into the blinding red light and-
-his cut and bleeding foot suddenly sank into a soft sludge of cooling mud.
It was raining. A soft mist, really.
Quark stood completely still, eyes tightly shut.
The air was sweetly perfumed with the fetid rot of a swamp.
The swamp.
Quark lowered his arms from his head. Opened one eye. Then the other. And then he gasped as through the dark silhouettes of reaching branches and hanging moss, he saw the soft and welcoming lights of the Fer-enginar capital city shining through the distance and the dark of night.
"Home..." he cried, delighting in the magical way the word created a delicate puff of mist before him.
But Quark was no believer in magic. He needed to know how it was he could see his breath as a delicate puff of mist. There had to be another source of light nearby.
He looked around trying to figure out where the lab had gone, where Terok Nor had gone, if he had finally died.
But all questions were erased as he saw a sparkle of blue-white brilliance approaching through the swamp trees, as if a living diamond were floating toward him.
Quark was completely overcome by the beauty of the spectacle. He stood transfixed until...
"Quark? Is that you, son?"
Quark's mouth dropped open in incredulity. "Moo-gie?"
"Over here, Quark...."
Quark shifted in the mud of his homeworld, and suddenly the glittering diamond was before him, held in his beloved mother's arms.
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming home," Quark's mother said crankily. "I would have made your favorite mooshk."
Quark's mouth watered at the intense memory of his moogie's mooshk. And to see her right now, glowing as if she were a part of the crystal she held, her com-pletely unclothed skin faceted with light.
"So the only thing I have to give you is this," Quark's mother said. She held out the glittering jewel to him, until it seemed to float by itself, a shining, hourglass-shaped orb of promise and hope and every-thing anyone could ever want. "Go ahead, Quark. Take it...."
Quark reached for the orb like a child reaching for a toy. Everything was going to be perfect now.
But as his hands closed on the object his mother was giving him, one tiny nagging thought came to him.
Small. Subtle. Barely worth mentioning.
Something that might only occur to a Ferengi.
"Moogie," Quark said. "Can I ask you a question?"
And as Quark's mother began her transformation, Quark shrieked louder than any Ferengi had ever shrieked, as he saw-
CHAPTER 2
-stars flashed before Quark's eyes, and he slapped his hand to his expansive forehead, grimacing with pain.
"Who designed this frinxing bed..." he muttered, as he swung his feet over the edge of the narrow Car-dassian sleeping ledge and tried once more to sit up, this time without banging his head on the underside of a utility shelf.
Then he looked around at the stark holding cell in Deep Space 9's Security Office and answered his own question.
"Cardassians. Ha!"
Quark had had it with Cardassians. In fact, even though the Cardassian Occupation had ended six long years ago, Quark had had it with this station. "Deep Space 9, Terok Nor... Federation bureaucrats, Car-dassian secret police.... What's the difference? I ask you...."
He stood in front of the holding cell's forcefield and checked to make certain the Security Office beyond was still empty. Though the lighting levels were low, set for DS9's night, the main door was still sealed and Quark remained safely alone. He cleared his throat. "Computer: Release the prisoner."
The security screen flashed with silver scintillations, then shut down. At least, it appeared to shut down. Quark wasn't a Ferengi to take anything for granted. He carefully flicked a finger toward the boundary of the forcefield, until he was certain the screen was off. Only then did he step over the lip of the cell doorway.
Quark trudged across the deck in his nightclothes, scratching where it itched. He came to the replicator, smacked his lips, then punched in his prisoner code for a cup of millipede juice, hold the shells. The cup appeared and Quark gulped the pale green bug squeez-ings down, looking around to check that he was still-
"Bzzzt-you're dead," Odo said, only one meter behind him.
Quark choked, then sprayed a mouthful of millipede juice, forcing Odo to step back out of range.
"Don't do that!" Quark sputtered indignantly, wip-ing bug juice off his sleep shirt.
Odo shook his head, not impressed. "Would you rather the Andorian sisters did that?"
Quark jammed the cup back into the replicator for recycling. "You're supposed to be protecting me. That's what this is, remember?" Quark waved his hands to include the entire security office. "Protective custody."
Odo pointed to the holding cell. "In there. Behind a forcefield. That's protective custody. Out here, you're fair game."
Quark rubbed at his temples, not knowing where the pain of his impact with the shelf left off, and his ten-sion headache began. Twenty meters away, just across the Promenade, his bar was in the hands of Rom. Engineer Rom. Turned-his-back-on-everything-Fer-engi, work-for-free, use-a-padd-to-total-all-bills, good-for-nothing Rom.
"Are you all right?" Odo asked.
"Do you care?"
Odo crossed his arms. "Not particularly."
Quark muttered a partially satisfying Ferengi epithet under his breath and looked around for a padd.
"Now what?" Odo asked
"I need something to read. Rom's driving me into bankruptcy and there's no way I can sleep."
"Actually, the bar has seldom been busier."
In a sudden wave of apprehension, Quark grabbed Odo's tunic. "He's cut prices, hasn't he? Go ahead, I can take it."
Odo firmly removed Quark's hands from his chest. "Rom is treating the customers fairly. Word must have gotten out, and so business is up. You should be happy."
Quark couldn't believe the foul language Odo was capable of using. " 'Fairly.' I'm... I'm ruined. I..." And then Quark could see no other way out. "All right, that's it. Protective custody is over. Thank you. I'm going to my-"
Odo didn't let him finish. And didn't let him leave. "It's not that simple, Quark."
Quark had been battling Odo for more than a decade. He knew what that tone meant. "What do you mean, not that simple? Being in here was my idea."
"It was your idea. Now, I'm afraid, it's mine."
Quark rocked back on Ms bare feet, studying Odo more closely in the dim light. "You are worried about me. I'm touched. But, I'm also running behind, so-"
Odo didn't move from Quark's path. "Please return to your cell."
Quark laughed derisively, smiled broadly. "Odo... you almost make it seem as if you're putting me under arrest."
Odo said nothing. He didn't have to.
"You can't be serious," Quark said. He knew his earlobes were flushing telltale red. "No, I take that back. You're always serious. What I meant was, you're joking. No, you don't do that either. But what you do do is..." Quark's throat tightened. He couldn't bring himself to say the words.
Odo could. "Put people under arrest."
"For what?!" Quark demanded. His face creased in a disbelieving grin as he said the most outrageous thing he could think of. "Murder?"
But Odo's silence and unchanging expression made the grin fade.
Quark's head throbbed unbearably. "Odo, you know me. How many times do I have to say it? I did not kill Dal Nortron."
"That's right. I do know you, Quark. Which is why I don't believe that you planned and carried out the pre-meditated cold-blooded murder of your Andorian busi-ness partner."
Quark sagged with relief. "Well, at least we can..." He looked up at Odo with sudden fear. " 'Business partner'?"
"Did you honestly think you could keep it from me?"
"The Andorian sisters did it! They killed him!"
"And they say that you killed him. Imagine that."
"So you're arresting me on their word but you're not arresting them on mine?!"
Odo uncrossed his arms and shook his head. "Quark, we've been over this. If I arrest Satr and Leen while they are on DS9 as representatives of the Ando-rian government, they will file a diplomatic protest, I will have to release them, and I guarantee they will leave the station and my jurisdiction within the hour."
"Sure! Right! So that's why they can walk around the station free as a greeworm while I'm in here-"
"Where they can't get you."
"No!" Quark exploded. "Where / am under arrest!"
Odo looked away as if preparing to leave. Quark knew that was how the changeling preferred to solve most of his problems. By avoiding confrontation.
But then, Odo looked back at Quark, and there was almost an air of sorrow about him. "Quark, listen care-fully. This time, you are in serious trouble. Two nights ago, Dal Nortron won a considerable amount of lat-inum from you."
"It happens, Odo," Quark said tightly. "That's why they call it gambling."
But Odo did not allow himself to be interrupted. "Two hours later, Dal Nortron died-"
"Of unknown causes!"
"Under mysterious circumstances. The latinum- gone."
"Odo, think about it. How long would I stay in busi-ness if I started killing everyone who won at my dabo table? Are you kidding? I give the winners presents! I give them unlimited holosuite sessions-even free drinks!" Quark shuddered at the thought of it. "I do whatever I can to get them to return to that table so I can win my latinum back. I don't kill customers!"
"Satr and Leen say you had an argument with Nortron."
Quark glared at the changeling. "I have arguments with you. And I haven't killed you. Yet."
"Quark-pay attention! If I hadn't put you in pro-tective custody, the Andorians would have killed you for revenge. They see justice in rather more simplistic terms than I do."
Now the sorrow was Quark's, as well. "Justice? So you do think I'm a murderer."
Odo reluctantly confirmed Quark's conclusion. "There is the matter of Kozak-"
"Kozak?! That was almost four years ago. And it was an accident!"
"Exactly," Odo agreed. "As I said, I do not believe you planned to kill Dal Nortron. But accidents do hap-pen. Especially in the heat of an argument between business partners."
Quark swung his hand at Odo as if trying to clear the air. "Why don't you just string me up on the Prom-enade and be-" He stopped speaking, suddenly over-whelmed by a powerful sense of deja vu.
A few moments of Quark staring blankly into space was apparently all Odo could take. "Quark-?"
"I was... having a dream. Just before I woke up. Hit my head." Quark rubbed at his forehead again. The pain seemed diminished. He let his fingers trail to his throat and ran them lightly across his larynx, as if expecting to find rope burns there. "They were hang-ing me...."
Odo frowned. "Guilty conscience?" Quark knew he'd get nowhere arguing this any longer with Odo. He started back for his cell.
"We still have a few things to discuss," Odo said. "I
will need to know the details of your... 'business arrangement' with Dal Nortron."
Quark stepped over the lip of the cell. 'Talk to my lawyer."
"You don't have a lawyer."
Quark shrugged. "Then I guess we have nothing to discuss until I do get one. Computer: Restore security field."
The air between Quark and Odo flashed with silver sparkles.
"Quark, don't make this more difficult than it has to be."
But by this point, Quark didn't care about making anything easier, especially not for Odo. "When is Cap-tain Sisko back?"
'Tomorrow afternoon. If they don't run into any Jem'Hadar patrols." Odo's stern attitude softened. "That captain they were trying to rescue... she was dead."
"I suppose you think I killed her."
"She had been dead for three years. Apparently, an energy field around the planet she'd crashed on shifted the subspace signals through time."
"Odo, let's get our priorities straight. What does any of this have to do with me?"
"Please forgive me," Odo said icily. "I forgot with whom I was dealing. Pleasant dreams, Quark."
Odo turned like a soldier on parade and marched toward his office.
He had just reached the doorway when Quark called out to him. "Odo, wait."
Odo stopped, but didn't look back.
"Can I ask you something?"
Odo looked over his shoulder. "You can ask."
Quark held his hand to his throat again, trying to recapture the elusive threads of his half-forgotten dream. "Those last few days on the station..."
"What last few days?"
"The end of the Occupation. When the Cardassians withdrew."
"What about them?"
"The Cardassians never liked me."
Odo turned back to face Quark. "Can you blame them?"
Quark struggled to find the words for what he knew / he had to ask. "They destroyed so many things on the station... four Bajorans dead..."
"Your point, Quark?"
"Why didn't they kill me? I mean, that's what hap-pens when governments fall. People like me are lined up and..."
"Shot?"
Quark saw an image of Ferenginar's capital city. He was there, doing something important in... in a swamp? "Hung," Quark said quietly. "Strung up on... on the Promenade... ?"
"Sounds almost... poetic," Odo said.
Quark stared at Odo, saw the glimmer of recogni-tion in the changeling's eyes. "You've said that before. Or something like that. I can see it. I can remember it."
And then something went dark in Odo. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do," Quark said.
"I'll tell Rom you want a lawyer. When you're will-ing to talk about your business arrangement with Dal Nortron, we can talk again." Odo turned to leave.
"Where were you on the Day of Withdrawal?"
<
br /> Quark called after him. "You answer that and I'll tell you everything about Dal Nortron!"
Quark saw Odo hesitate. "Come on, Odo, admit it. There's only one way you can resist an offer like that."