by Неизвестный
"Not with Odo in charge," Quark complained through clenched teeth. He turned to Sisko. "Cap-tain, I formally request you take him off this case because of conflict of interest. He should be a sus-pect, too."
"I will do no such thing. As far as I'm concerned, I agree with Dr. Bashir. Too many people are jumping to too many conclusions on too little information." Sisko looked at the doctor. "I want you to prepare complete DNA profiles for these two bodies so we can identify them."
"Through Cardassian Central Records?" Bashir asked.
"That's right."
"I'll prepare the records," Bashir said, "but aren't we at war with the Cardassians?"
"For humanitarian purposes, Starfleet and the Car-dassian Union have established unofficial lines of communication to facilitate the identification of war dead and the repatriation of remains. You give me the profiles, I'll handle the rest."
Then Sisko faced Odo. "As for you, Constable, I want a complete report on Dal Nortron's death on my desk within the hour. And I don't want to read any conclusions not supported by incontrovertible evi-dence. Is that understood?"
Odo's initial reply was terse. "Yes." But then he continued. "Unfortunately, I will not be able to provide
a complete report because Quark has refused to co-operate with my investigation."
"Is that right, Quark?
Quark squirmed under Sisko's intent gaze, but he remained defiant. "Why should I cooperate?" Quark said. "Odo's not interested in the truth."
The captain's reply was so loud, it echoed off the hard surfaces of the Infirmary walls and ceiling, and Quark reflexively covered his sensitive ear channels to protect them from the assault. "I am tired of this game you two are playing. Even if you don't think Odo's interested in the truth, you can be certain I am. Co-operate."
Quark knew a bluff when he heard one. "You can't order me to do anything," he countered.
"You're absolutely right," Sisko agreed. "But what I can do is decide that neither Bajor nor Starfleet has jurisdiction over the death of two Cardassian nationals. Which means, I could turn over these bodies to the Cardassians, along with our prime suspect, and let them settle this matter."
Quark swallowed. Hard.
"The choice is yours, Quark," the captain con-cluded. "You can either cooperate with Odo, or you can 'cooperate' with the Cardassians."
Quark frantically sought to extract some benefit from a deal he knew he would be forced to accept. "All right, but I want Odo to release me from custody, and to provide me with a bodyguard."
The look on Sisko's face told Quark that was the last thing he had expected the Ferengi to say. "What do you need a bodyguard for?"
"Dal Nortron's partners," Quark said. "The Ando-rian sisters."
Sisko looked at Odo for clarification.
"Their names are Satr and Leen. They claim to be representatives of a trade mission from Andor so they have limited diplomatic immunity. They both believe Quark murdered Nortron and have filed for the Ando-rian Rite of Kanlee."
"And just what is the Andorian Rite of Kanlee?" Sisko asked.
"Roughly translated," Quark said darkly, "it means kill the Ferengi."
Odo ignored the interruption. "It's an old Andorian tradition," the changeling told Sisko. "They believe Quark killed Nortron. To maintain the balance of good and evil in the universe, they want to kill him. They are... a passionate people."
For a very long moment, Sisko stared at Quark, and Quark could tell the captain was making his decision. Quark felt almost sure he could predict what it was going to be.
"Here's my offer, Quark. You cooperate with Odo in the investigation of Dal Nortron's death, answer all the questions he asks, and instead of being confined to your cell, you'll be under station arrest, with a body-guard."
Sisko's terms were exactly what Quark had expected. He took it as a minor victory. "Thank you, Captain."
But also as he expected, Odo didn't approve. "What about the murder of these two Cardassians?"
"For now," Sisko said, "I'll handle that investiga-tion." He glanced around the Infirmary once, as if to make sure no one else had anything to say, then con-cluded, "I think we're finished here."
"But-but-" Quark protested, "what about the Day of Withdrawal?"
"One investigation at a time," Sisko told him. The captain looked back at the incomplete bodies of the unknown Cardassians. "This is one mystery where time is no longer of the essence." Sisko then nodded at Kira and the new Bajoran officer. "Major Kira, Com-mander Aria, you're with me." Then the captain and the two Bajoran officers left the infirmary.
Odo gestured sarcastically toward the door. "Come along, Quark. You're with me."
But it appeared Dr. Bashir wasn't quite finished with either of them. "Just a minute, you two. Is it true what you both said about not being able to remember what happened on the Day of Withdrawal?"
"A complete blank," Quark said emphatically. "I remember starting to pack up the breakables in the bar when the first reports of the troop transport launches started coming through... and then... next thing I knew, Rom and Nog found me asleep in the storage room and it was the next day."
Bashir looked at Odo. "How about you, Constable?"
"Nothing so mysterious," the changeling growled. "I've been thinking more about it, and I do remember breaking up a fight outside the chemist's shop. I was obviously hit by phaser fire, and woke up a day later when the Bajoran provisionals arrived."
"You're sure that's what happened?" Bashir asked. "I mean, someone saw you get shot, or you confirmed there was a fight at the chemists?"
Odo nodded. "Now that you mention it, yes. I do recall looking into it over the next few days. When the fighting broke out, I went to the Promenade, and the next thing I knew I was waking up and the whole thing was over-the withdrawal, Gul Dukat's departure, I missed it all."
Quark hid a smile of victory. Odo had just told his biggest lie of the day-one that would be easy to dis-prove. At a time when it would be most profitable to do so, that is.
"Well," Bashir said, "a phaser stun would certainly explain a loss of short-term memory."
But Quark wasn't willing to let Odo escape so eas-ily. "Tell me, Doctor, would Odo's getting hit by phaser fire explain why / don't remember what hap-pened that day? Or why Garak doesn't remember?"
Bashir looked confused. "Garak said he remem-bered everything perfectly."
Quark rolled his eyes at the doctor's incredible gullibility. "Dr. Bashir, Garak says he's a tailor. You don't believe that, do you?"
Bashir hesitated, then apparently decided to sidestep Quark's question. "There are techniques available, completely harmless, that I can use to see if either of you-or Garak-might be suffering from some type of post-traumatic stress syndrome, perhaps causing you to block out some kind of unpleasant memory of the Day of Withdrawal. I'd be happy to... see if I could help."
"Thank you, Doctor," Odo said. "But I doubt if I have anything to remember other than being in a phaser coma."
"I'll get back to you," Quark said drily. He would need many more details about how Bashir's techniques worked before he allowed himself to be in a position where someone might have access to his safe combi-nations and account passwords.
Bashir seemed disappointed by Quark's and Odo's lack of enthusiasm for his suggestion. "Well, you know where I am."
With that, Odo escorted Quark from the Infirmary, and they both made their way along the Promenade to the Security Office. Quark was only too glad to leave the unsettling smell of death and disinfectant and return to the bustling life of commerce the Promenade represented. Appreciatively, he sniffed the sweet tang of frozen jutnja mixed with the incense from the Ba-joran Temple, all overlaid with the exotic perfumes of twice a dozen worlds. It all was pure magic to Quark. Because to him, the combination of all these scents from all these potential customers gathered together to shop in one place invariably coalesced into the sweet-est scent of all-latinum.
His snug jacket expanded to the breaking po
int as he breathed in deeply, happily. Then he saw the crowds in his bar to the left and instantly his sense of well-being evaporated. His eyes widened in alarm. There was no way his idiot brother Rom could handle that kind of crowd. He started toward the entrance. "I'm just going to check in with-"
But Odo grabbed him by the ear. "After you've 'cooperated,' " he hissed, and pulled Quark after him.
It was only with immense effort that Quark kept himself from squealing in public. Odo knew how much that hurt. But Quark continued without protest, because in just those few seconds he had had to look in through the main entrance to his bar he had seen three people who he did not want to notice him in his current state of custody.
Two of the people were those Andorian sisters, together at a small table and leaning so close together in intent and sibilant conversation that their blue antennae almost touched.
But the third person, sitting at the bar, trying and
failing to look interested as Morn prattled on and on and on to her, was far more important to avoid than either of the Andorians.
She was Vash, a human female who had traveled the galaxy not only with Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise but with the unfathomable entity known only as Q. She was also Quark's favorite archaeologist-the one potential business partner he constantly thought of with real regret, as the one who got away.
And if Vash had returned to Deep Space 9 ahead of schedule, then Quark had no doubt that the news of Dal Nortron's untimely end had already spread across the quadrant-and all of Quark's other 'special' cus-tomers were already on their way.
Unfortunately, for that exact same reason-Dal Nortron's death-Quark had been left with nothing to sell.
Which meant that over the next few days, the Ando-rian sisters were not the only ones on Deep Space 9 who'd be looking to kill a certain Ferengi barkeep.
CHAPTER 8
"ALL right," Sisko said to Kira and Aria as the turbo-lift began its short trip from the Promenade to the Operations Center, "who wants to start? The Day of Withdrawal."
Kira looked at Aria, who shook her head. "It only took a day on DS9," Kira said. "But it was more like a week of withdrawal on Bajor. The Cardassians pulled back to their garrisons and the spaceports in stages." She paused for a moment, clearly remembering scenes of devastating destruction, then doggedly continued. "Burning the villages, poisoning the land and the rivers. For the first few days, the Resistance didn't know it was happening everywhere. Each cell thought it was seeing the leadup to a concentrated regional bombing attack. The Cardassians had done that sort of thing before."
The lift rose up through the final deck and, as
always, Sisko felt a familiar sense of coming home. Ops was the heart of Deep Space 9, as much so as the bridge of a Starship. Even the harsh angles and bare metal of its towering Cardassian components had become an oddly welcoming sight to him.
He exited the lift car with Kira and Aria close behind him and headed off in the direction of the sci-ence station, where Jadzia was on duty. She was run-ning a metallurgical analysis on her screens.
"Dax," Sisko said, "join us." He nodded at the short flight of stairs leading to his office. Jadzia rose from her station to follow him at once.
As Sisko started up those stairs, he asked Kira if she could remember exactly where she had been on the Day of Withdrawal.
She shook her head with a rueful smile. "I missed it. Twenty years in the Resistance, and the week the Car-dassians left I was in a triage center in Dahkur, burn-ing with fever and pretty much delirious. Lake flu. It swept through the whole province that year."
"No lasting effects, I hope."
Kira shrugged. "So do I."
Behind them, Jadzia stepped through the entrance-way, and the doors to Sisko's office slid shut.
"What about you, Commander?" Sisko asked Aria. He was pleased to see that whatever air of over-famil-iarity she had exhibited an hour ago, she was keeping it in check now.
"Oh, I was on the Solok."
Sisko hadn't recalled that posting from his quick glance at the Bajoran newcomer's file. "The Vulcan science vessel?"
Aria nodded. "We were at Qo'noS. A very dull assignment to remap the Praxis Ring."
"So, you weren't involved in any of the events of Withdrawal either?"
Kira broke in. "She wasn't involved in the Occupa-tion. Period."
As if a ship had just decloaked before him, Sisko was suddenly aware of the tension between the two Bajoran officers, and realized with a start that it had been there since he had first seen them meet.
He exchanged a quick glance with Jadzia and her subtle nod confirmed that she saw the same animosity. Sisko wondered how he had missed it. But he could guess what was behind it.
"Is that right?" he asked in as neutral a fashion as he could.
Aria kept her eyes on him, ignoring Kira. "My grandparents lived on B'hal Ta. A Bajoran colony world. When the Cardassians annexed Bajor, my fam-ily was able to relocate to New Sydney. That's where I was born."
"You were fortunate," Sisko said. He decided that that accident of fate was more than enough reason to account for the major's feelings toward Aria Rees. He knew that there were those on Bajor-especially those who had served in the Resistance like Kira-who believed that expatriate Bajorans who had not suffered through the Occupation, and who had not voluntarily returned to their homeworld or taken up arms against Cardassia, were only one step removed from being collaborators.
"Yes, sir, very fortunate."
Sisko decided to bring the conversation back to the less-controversial present. "So, from your experience, Major, and from any research you might have done, Commander, can you think of any reason why person-
nel on board DS9 on the Day of Withdrawal might have suffered from memory loss, selective or other-wise?"
"Benjamin?" Jadzia asked. "Who's suffering from memory loss?"
Sisko quickly summarized for his old friend Quark's claim to be missing memories of the day in question, and the Ferengi's suspicions that Odo and Garak were similarly affected.
"Fascinating," Jadzia said. "The old name for it is 'Missing Time Syndrome.' On Earth, it goes back cen-turies, before first contact, when the Reticulii were conducting their genetic profiling of humans and didn't want anyone in the sample group to know they had been transported to the orbiting medical ships. Today, the Federation's own First Contact Office uses the same techniques if a duck blind's exposed or a pre-contact investigator is detected."
"In this case," Sisko said, "I think we can rale out any involvement by the Reticulii or the First Contact Office. What other possibilities should we consider? Medical experimentation?"
Kira shook her head. "The Cardassians conducted a horrendous amount of so-called medical research on Bajoran prisoners. Some of it involved mind control. But that was mostly in the camps. Up here, they kept the slave workers in line with force and random execu-tions. So I think it's unlikely anyone experimented on Quark-especially since, if the Cardassians had exper-imented on him, their protocols usually called for the experimental subjects to be killed when the experiment was finished."
Aria looked hesitant, but now offered her own the-ory. "I don't know how relevant this is, but Starships
use anesthezine gas to disable intruders, and memory lapses are sometimes reported as a side effect."
Sisko looked at Kira. "We have a Starfleet anesthezine system installed on DS9. But there're also the remnants of a Cardassian neurozine gas dispersal network which, as I recall, was kept on hand in case of worker revolt."
Kira's voice was bitter. "Crowd-control inhalants like anesthezine are nonlethal. And nonlethality was never a concern of the Cardassians. They used neu-rozine at fatal concentrations, and if they had used it up here on the Day of Withdrawal, there would have been a lot more than just four Bajorans dead."
Sisko turned to Dax, who had so many times in the past been able to share the wisdom and experience of her past hosts. "Old Man?"
But she didn't look hop
eful. "Benjamin, there're so many methods of blocking memories that I wouldn't know where to begin without more information."
"What kind of information?"
Jadzia pressed her lips together in thought. "Well, I'd like to know how much time Quark believes he's missing. Is it the same length of time that Odo and Garak can't account for? Is it the exact same period of time? Were they together on the Day of Withdrawal? Were they exposed to... a radiation leak? An unusual subspace discharge?" Her face brightened as if she had just had a sudden insight.
"Something just occurred to you," Sisko said.
"I talked with Odo yesterday about his investigation into the Andorian's death. He thinks a microwave weapon was used, but I think it's possible some sort of accidental energy pulse could have caused similar injuries."