by Неизвестный
"Me? How about you? You've already made up your mind he's guilty."
Worf stared at Jadzia as if he really didn't under-stand what she was talking about. "Of course I have. Because he is."
"Worf! We don't even know if it was a murder!"
Worf's heavy brow wrinkled, and Jadzia could see he was waging an internal debate. She decided that he knew something she didn't and was wondering if he should tell her. Jadzia decided to help him make the right decision. There were better ways to defeat a Klingon than through combat.
She stepped closer to him, slipping her hand beneath his sash this time. The old Klingon uniforms had no armor, and the thin cloth of his shirt did little to interfere with the contact of her flesh against his. "Worf..." she whispered into his ear, "I'm your wife. We have no secrets from each other, remember?" Then she bit his ear lobe. Hard.
Worf took a quick breath, then spoke quickly, as if he was worried that he would change his mind. "Odo showed me Dr. Bashir's preliminary autopsy report. Dal Nortron was killed by an energy-discharge weapon. Odo believes such a weapon would be too primitive to show up on the station's automatic scan-ning system."
"How primitive?" Jadzia asked, stilling her hand on his chest.
"Microwave radiation. Extremely intense. It... overheated every cell in his body. A weapon without honor."
Jadzia swiftly reviewed everything she knew about
microwave radiation. In this case, it was her own expe-riences as a science specialist that took precedence over the memories of Dax's previous hosts.
Microwaves were part of the electromagnetic spec-trum, one of at least seven energy spectrums known to exist in normal space-time. In pre-subspace, EM-based civilizations-that converged toward rating C-451-5018-3 on Richter's scale of culture-the pri-mary applications of microwave radiation were line-of-sight radio communications and nonmetallic industrial welding, typically with some half-hearted attempts to create first-generation beamed-energy weapons. On Earth, it had even been used for cooking food. Primitive was not the word for it. Prehistoric was more like it, right alongside stone knives and bearskins.
Jadzia took her hand from Worf's chest, amused in spite of the situation to see her groom only then resume easy breathing. "Be reasonable, Worf. Why would Quark use an old-fashioned microwave weapon when he could have disintegrated Nortron with a phaser?"
Worf glanced over his shoulder at the turbolift doors, as if worried someone was about to join them. He took a step back from her. "Phaser residue can be detected for hours after a disintegration."
But Jadzia curled one finger under his gold sash to gently pull him back to her. "Who would have known he was missing?"
Worf smoothed his sash again, trying to dislodge Jadzia's grip. "Perhaps Quark didn't want to put the latinum at risk."
"So... stun Nortron, take the latinum, then disinte-grate him."
"Just because I believe Quark is a criminal does not mean I believe he is a smart criminal. And would you please stop that!"
Jadzia was about to raise the stakes when she was interrupted by an announcement from hidden speakers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and morphs, this simulation will end in thirty seconds. Thank you for choosing Quark's for your entertainment needs. Be sure to inquire about our half-price drink specials for holosuite customers when you turn in your mem-ory rods. Now, please gather your personal belong-ings and take small children by the appropriate grasping appendage. And remember, Quark's is not responsible for lost or stolen articles or for damage caused by micro-forcefield fluctuations. Five... four... three..."
The bridge of the Enterprise melted from around Jadzia and Worf, retreating back into history. Now they stood in a simple unadorned room, its lower walls studded with the glowing green emitters of a compact holoprojector system.
"Please exit through the doors to the rear of the holosuite, and thank you for visiting Quark's-the happiest place in the Bajoran Sector."
Jadzia and Worf exchanged a look of shared puzzle-ment.
"That voice sounded like Leeta," Jadzia said.
"I have heard that Rom is introducing new policies during Quark's... incarceration."
"If Rom is next in line for the bar, I'm surprised you haven't started suspecting him of setting up his brother."
The holosuite door slipped open to reveal Odo and two security officers.
"Commanders... I trust I'm not interrupting," the constable said.
"We have finished," Worf said brusquely. He started for the door.
"No, we haven't," Jadzia countered.
"I'm sorry," Odo said, "but I do require the holo-suites for assembling-"
"That's not what I meant," Jadzia interrupted. "Odo, Worf told me that Dal Nortron died of exposure to microwave radiation."
Odo frowned. "That is privileged information. At least," he added gruffly as he looked at Worf, "it was."
"Worf was conferring with me-security operations officer to science officer."
Odo did not look convinced. But then, he rarely did. "Go on."
"A microwave weapon seems such an unlikely choice to commit a murder, I was wondering if there might be another explanation."
"I am open to suggestions."
"Well, if the body was found near the reactor levels, have you ruled out energy leaks or power modulations coming from the power transfer-conduit linkages?"
Odo blinked. "I was not aware that fusion power-conduits could generate microwave radiation."
Jadzia shrugged. "Not directly. But there's so much other equipment on those levels, a fusion power surge could set up rapid oscillations in various circuits. That's all you'd need to generate an electromagnetic field. And if the field was strong enough or close enough to something that might function as a wave-guide, it could reach microwave levels."
Odo looked off to the side as if reprocessing the
data she had just provided. "Could traces of such a field be detected after the fact?"
Jadzia ignored her husband's disapproving frown. "Absolutely. You'd need to examine everything in the area for magnetic realignment, heat damage, even signs of electrical sparking between conductive mate-rials.
"Electrical?" Odo made a sound in the back of his throat, then nodded. "Very well. I'll send a forensics team down at once. If they find evidence of anomalous energy discharges, I'll let you know."
"And if they don't?" Jadzia asked.
Odo gave her a grim smile, as if he had successfully led her on. "Then it will be additional evidence that the murder was committed with a microwave weapon."
Jadzia was surprised when Worf suddenly grunted. "Unless," he said, and Jadzia could sense his reluc-tance, "the Andorian was killed by an anomalous power discharge somewhere else on the station and his body taken to the lower levels to confuse the investiga-tion."
Jadzia was pleased that Worf had offered some sup-port for her theory, despite his conviction that the guilty party was already in custody.
But Odo rendered Worf's suggestion unnecessary. We can rule that possibility out, Commander. I do have enough security tapes and computer logs to establish that Dal Nortron took a turbolift to the lower levels approximately twenty minutes before he was killed."
"Before he died," Jadzia corrected.
"He was murdered, Commander. Of that I have no doubt."
Jadzia ignored Odo's increasing air of formality.
"Do your security tapes and computer logs show that anyone else was in that area at the same time?" she asked.
Odo's hesitation answered the question for her.
"I didn't think so," Jadzia said.
"There's no such thing as a perfect crime," Odo said bluntly. "I've already connected Quark to Nortron. They were involved in a business dealing together. They had a falling out. Quark killed him. Accidentally, more likely than not. But it is definitely murder."
Jadzia studied Odo closely. She had seldom heard such emotion in the changeling's voice. Almost as if he were personally involved in
this case.
"Odo, did you know Dal Nortron?" Jadzia asked.
"Of course not. Why would you even ask such a thing?"
Eight lifetimes of experience told Jadzia she was on to something. "No reason. But I'd find someone who did know him," she said. "Someone who can tell you why he came to DS9, and why he went down to the lower levels."
Now it was Odo who was losing his patience. 'To meet Quark."
"But your own records say Quark wasn't down there."
"Records can be altered, Commander."
Jadzia smiled sweetly. Now she had led him on. "Exactly. Altered to take someone out. Or to put some-one in. And if the records can be altered so easily, Quark and Dal Nortron could have met anywhere on the station without you knowing about it. And if they could have met anywhere, why did they choose the lower levels?"
Odo exhaled in frustration, but said nothing.
CHAPTER 4
they were called tiyerta 'nok-literally, the life-flow of iron, or as the current usage had it, the arteries of the machine.
That was the term the Cardassians gave to the engi-neering access tunnels that riddled their mining sta-tion: a complex network of barely passable crawl spaces supporting a web of ODN cables, power con-duits, waste-, water-, and replicator-mass plumbing, and air-circulation channels. But as soon as Starfleet had taken control and Terok Nor became Deep Space 9, the tiyerta nok inevitably became known as Jefferies tubes, a term some said had its origins as far back as the very beginnings of Starship design. Others said even further.
But unlike DS9's other Jefferies tubes-most of which by now had been retrofitted with new, Starfleet-standard lighting sources and ODN upgrades-the Jef-
feries tube on this lower level was dark, cramped, and cut off from the station's main air-flow system. Not a whisper of a breeze passed through it, and Jake Sisko blinked as steady drips of sweat rolled into his eyes.
"You're crazy," Nog said. "It'll never work."
Jake was flat on his back at the end of this particular tiyerta nok, lifting his cramped arms directly overhead to work on the panel set into the uncomfortably low, sloping ceiling. The much shorter Nog was crouched at Jake's feet, where the tunnel height was a bit more generous, keeping a palm torch on the panel above Jake and passing along tools as Jake requested them.
"Nog, it's perfect," Jake insisted. He wriggled a multispanner against the flathead mini-tagbolt he had finally loosened, and the second of three U-shaped clasps holding the egress panel in place dropped free, hitting him right between the eyes. "Oww!" It was more a cry of surprise than pain. "These things never used to be so tight."
"Some of the old Cardassian subsystems are self-repairing." Nog spoke with apparent disinterest, though he added with a chuckle, "Did that ever surprise the Chief when he finally figured out why some of his repairs kept reverting to Cardassian configurations. But anyway, the plan can't work, because there's no way you'll ever get past the ambassador's bodyguards."
Jake carefully put the multispanner down beside him and groped for the intergrips. Three more minis to go. "That's what the diversion's for. When the body-guards go to help the dabo girls, we slip into the ambassador's quarters, take the latinum-"
"What?! You never said anything about stealing lat-inum!"
Jake moaned and lowered his strained arms to rest
them. "Technically, we're not stealing it, Nog, we're only taking it to confuse Odo about the motive. And even if we were really stealing it, so what? We're mur-derers, remember? Cold-blooded and remorseless."
Jake squinted as Nog aimed the palm torch directly into his eyes. "Jake, my friend, you have to start get-ting out more. We 're not murderers."
"Okay, okay. You know what I mean. Quark and Morn are the murderers."
Nog put down the palm torch, but even with the suddenly increased darkness Jake had no trouble sens-ing how annoyed his friend was. "I thought you said you couldn't use their names."
"You're right. I mean 'Higgs and Fermion.' It's just that I've been thinking about this story for so long, and while you were on patrol Quark let me watch one of his smuggling transactions-"
"Jake!" Nog hissed. "I'm wearing a communica-tor!" The Ferengi teenager lowered his chin to his chest and spoke loudly and precisely for the benefit of any potential eavesdroppers. "And I'm certain my Uncle Quark would never be involved in smuggling, or any other type of illegal-or even questionable-activ-ity. Perhaps he was just playing a joke on you by pre-tending that he was."
"Oh, forget it," Jake muttered. Then he went back to attacking the third mini-tagbolt. "No one ever told me writing was such hard work."
"What's so hard about sitting in front of a computer and talking?"
"Shine the light here," Jake said. "And that part's not hard. It's all the work you have to do ahead of time so you can know what to say to the computer. That's the hard-owwh!"
The third mini was much looser than the second, and left a dent in Jake's forehead when it fell.
"We could have used the transporter to get down here," Nog said.
Jake didn't know why he bothered to keep explain-ing things to Nog, but he tried again. "That would leave a trace in the station security log." He pried at the egress panel with just his fingers now; to his relief, it came out easily. "Huh. I thought that would have been stuck after all these years."
Nog, uncharacteristically, said nothing, and Jake looked back at him with renewed suspicion. "You sure you haven't been back here since the last time?"
Nog looked offended. "Why would I come down here?"
Jake smiled insinuatingly. 'The 'Room,' remem-ber?" Then Jake used his feet to push himself back-wards until his head and upper body poked out through the wall-panel opening. A moment later, he had turned his body and swung his legs out and down, hung on to the edge of the opening, and then dropped lightly to the floor of a small stretch of corridor. The corridor was lit only by the reflected light coming in through a panel opening set high near the ceiling in the bulkhead behind him.
"Whoa... it's still not hooked up to the main power grid," Jake said.
Nog's voice echoed in the Jeffries tube before he stuck his head through the wall-panel opening and brought the palm torch up beside him, letting it play around the area. "With the war, the Chief's retrofit schedule lost its priority. Except, of course, when he needed to maintain critical functions."
Jake's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Starfleet had
made the retrofitting of Deep Space 9 a high-profile project, and accordingly Chief O'Brien had been given the authority to set up a renovation-and-repair program that would eventually move through the entire station, from Ops to the lowest level. War or no war, it was hard to believe that after almost six years, no one on any of the retrofitting teams had stumbled upon this ten-meter stretch of corridor that somehow had been sealed off from all the other corridors on the level.
Jake glanced up at Nog. "Aren't you coming down?"
"I thought you said you just wanted to time how long it would take for Quark and-I mean, for 'Higgs and Fermion' to escape through the Jefferies tube."
That was the original reason why Jake had talked Nog into retracing their old routes through the Jefferies tubes. He had decided to put his semiautobiographical novel, Anslem, aside for the time being and try some-thing more commercial. So the new crime novel he was working on, The Ferengi Connection, was going to be set on a fictional Cardassian mining station still in orbit of Bajor. For that reason, he wanted to be com-pletely accurate about how long it would take his crime lords Higgs and Fermion to secretly move from one part of the station to another. When Quark had allowed him to observe the illegal sale of Denevan crystals last Saturday night, Jake had been most interested to learn that the Ferengi used a network of secret passageways different from the Jefferies tubes. That would allow him to move through the station without being observed by Odo. Unfortunately, Nog's uncle wasn't about to give Captain Sisko's son, of all people, any details about the network, so Jake had decided t
o base
the tunnels in his novel on the engineering ones he and Nog used to play in.
"Well, we're here. You timed it. Let's go back," Nog said impatiently. He held out his hand to haul Jake back up to the panel opening.
"No," Jake said as he looked around. "I can use this in the story. A lost section of the station.... Maybe this is where Quark-Higgs, has his secret headquar-ters."
"Jake, did you ever stop to think that maybe this section was sealed off for a reason?"
Jake didn't understand why Nog was being so cau-tious. "Nog, we used to come down here almost every day after school. If there was anything danger-ous, we'd already know about it. Now get down here."