by Неизвестный
"That barstool'd give them both something to feel," Base muttered, his small dark deep-set eyes burning into Sisko's.
"Why don't we take a walk?" Vash slipped off her bar stool and companionably took Sisko's arm in hers.
Jadzia locked eyes with the Ferengi barkeep. "Good idea, Benjamin."
"I'm still going to charge you for the stinkin' rak-tacrappos!" Base huffed as Jadzia and Vash walked out of the bar with him, one on each side.
Once out onto the Promenade, Sisko tugged at the collar of his duty jacket, puzzled by the Ferengi's
anger-and over nothing. "How can anyone stay in business with an attitude like that?"
"He does business with Klingons," Jadzia re-minded him.
"It's a bit more peculiar than that," Vash said as she quickly scanned the Promenade, both levels, right and left. "Did you notice Base's headskirt?"
Sisko thought back. "It was black. I don't often see that color."
Vash shot him a glance. "It isn't a headskirt. It's hair."
Sisko and Jadzia glanced at each other. "On a Fer-engi?" Sisko asked. They had hair enough in their ears, Sisko knew, especially as they grew older. But he couldn't recall ever having seen a Ferengi that wasn't bald.
Vash's sharp eyes studied the customers at the gift shop. "Obviously neither of you is aware that on Fer-enginar, the civil standardization authorities use Base as an example of what happens when pregnant Ferengi females travel in space and are subjected to radiation: They give birth to something like... well, Base."
"His mother left the planet?" Sisko knew that Jadzia's curiosity was warranted. Off-planet travel was still most unusual for a Ferengi female. Only in the past two months had Grand Nagus Zek introduced any gender-related reforms in Ferengi Society. Decades ago, when Base was born, it would have been almost inconceivable for a female to leave her family com-pound, let alone her homeworld.
Vash turned abruptly and began walking antispin-ward, leading Sisko and Dax toward what used to be the school, away from the gift shop. Sisko wasn't cer-tain, but it was possible Vash had recognized someone
at the gift shop. "Oh, Ferengi females leave the planet all the time," she said, in answer to Jadzia's question. "Always have. Otherwise, how would they have colony worlds?"
"By transporting their females in stasis," Jadzia said.
"And sometimes things go wrong." Vash gave Sisko a sly smile. "Stasis fields break down. A colony ship is raided on the outskirts of the Klingon Empire and one lone Ferengi female sets off on her own. Or, a lonely Ferengi businessman on a trip to Qo'noS decides to partake of the local pleasures...."
"Are you suggesting Base is a Ferengi-Klingon hybrid?"
Vash innocently widened her eyes at him. "Captain Sisko, with the enmity between those two species, and their physical differences, that would be impossible. I'm surprised you'd even think such a thing."
"Then why go to such detail explaining Base's ori-gins?"
"Just because something is impossible doesn't pre-vent people from speculating. You mentioned Base's attitude. Well, imagine how'd you feel if you were a Ferengi and everyone else thought you were half Klingon. You might have a bad attitude, too. Don't you think?"
"I think you're avoiding the question I asked back in the bar." Sisko looked at Jadzia and both of them stopped walking at the same moment. "How can we help you?"
Vash paused and Sisko saw her look past him, back in the direction they had come from. "Tell me, Cap-tain, do you take such a personal interest in all the visi-tors to this station?"
"Only when they're thieves and scoundrels."
Vash nodded appreciatively. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Captain." She started forward again, turn-ing toward the entrance to Cavor's shop.
Sisko put out a hand to hold her back, outside Cavor's display window. The featured floating antigrav balls were a popular attraction on the Promenade, and several other visitors were standing enthralled in front of the display. "I'm serious, Vash. We are in the mid-dle of a war zone here, and I have no time for games. Either convince me that you are on DS9 for a legiti-mate reason, or you're on the next shuttle leaving for Bajor."
"Now who has an attitude?"
"You want to understand my attitude? Very well. Last week, three Andorians came to this station- Andorians with troubled legal histories involving smuggling. Then Base shows up in Quark's bar, and now you. The last time we had so many smugglers onboard at one time was, coincidentally enough, the last time you were here. When Quark was going to hold an auction of your stolen Gamma Quadrant arti-facts."
"They weren't stolen," Vash said virtuously.
"Excuse me? What about the energy creature's crys-talline offspring?"
"Well, not all of them..." she amended.
Sisko turned to Jadzia. "I think I see what's going on here. Quark was going to hold another auction. Which means that either he came into possession of something he thought would be of interest to the likes of Vash, the Andorians, and Base-" He looked at Vash. "-And whoever else it is who's on this station that you seem to be so concerned about. Or that you,
the Andorians, or Base, or whoever, have come into possession of something you want Quark to sell."
Vash's studied silence told Sisko he was close.
"Ordinarily," he continued, "I really wouldn't care about what you people are up to. I'd leave you all to Odo and the Bajoran authorities. But in this case, I have one Andorian visitor dead, and one Ferengi inhabitant of this station missing. And that makes what you're doing here my business."
Vash turned away from her contemplation of the window display. "Who's missing?"
Sisko kept his expression carefully neutral. He didn't even risk looking at Jadzia. "Rultan. One of Quark's servers."
Vash shrugged. "Don't know him."
"When are you and Quark supposed to meet?" Sisko asked, as if he had just suddenly thought of the ques-tion.
"I had no plans to see Quark," Vash said.
"Not even for old times' sake?" Jadzia asked.
Vash looked at Jadzia, looked back at Sisko, and it was as if Sisko could hear isolinear circuits at work in her mind. "Quark's the Ferengi who's missing?"
Sisko didn't see the point in continuing the decep-tion. He nodded.
"How missing?"
Sisko didn't understand.
"Any sign of foul play?"
"Nothing apparent," Jadzia said. "But he disap-peared last night-which is when Base appeared."
Vash shook her head. "Base wouldn't hurt Quark. There'd be no profit in it."
"Vash," Sisko said, "this is your last chance. What's going on here?"
The way Vash looked at him, he could tell she knew at least part of the answer. This woman was madden-ing in her infernal duplicity. What would it take for her to share what she knew?
But, first, Vash had a question of her own. "The Andorian... Dal Nortron? How was he killed?"
"Lethal exposure to microwave radiation," Jadzia answered. "Odo believes it was a weapon. I think there's a chance it might have been accidental."
Vash nodded and turned back to Cavor's window display.
Though it was a struggle, Sisko succeeded in keep-ing his patience because it appeared Vash was in the midst of thinking something through. Finally, she turned and looked directly into his eyes. "Captain, do you believe what they say about Quark? That he killed Nortron?"
Sisko met her sharp gaze directly. "No." Believing that Vash was reaching her own moment of truth and would act on it momentarily, he offered no further qualifications.
"Do exactly as I say," Vash suddenly said in a low voice, confirming his supposition. "I'm going to walk away from you. I'm going to look angry. You're going to grab me and say that you don't believe me, and that you're taking me for questioning. Then do it, and make it look good. Understand?"
Sisko signaled his understanding by making no move to look around to see who might be watching. He felt certain that Vash knew who their charade was going to play for. So, he gave
her the reason she needed to walk away. 'That's not good enough, Vash," he said harshly. "I want answers."
Vash threw up her hands. "What's wrong with you
people?! I've already told you everything I know! Now leave me alone!"
She spun around and started to walk away.
Sisko took two quick steps and then took her arm.
"Let me go!" Vash shouted. "You have no right to hold me!"
Jadzia took Vash's other arm. "Yes, he does."
Sisko hit his communicator badge. "Sisko to secu-rity. I need a team on the Promenade, Main Floor South, now."
Vash tugged back and forth between Sisko and Jadzia. "You can't be serious! I haven't done any-thing!"
All signs were good that they were putting on a con-vincing show. By the time two Bajoran security offi-cers hurried around the curve of the Promenade, they were surrounded by an inquisitive crowd that was growing by the minute.
"I want this woman held for questioning," Sisko said loudly. He let go of Vash as the security officers took her. And just in that brief instant, Vash slapped a hand to the side of her neck and staggered, losing her balance.
Startled, Sisko caught her as she began to fall. On the side of her slender neck, he saw a small bronze-metal dart, no larger than a fingertip. He grabbed it, pulled, and a half-centimeter-long needle emerged from Vash's neck, dripping a fluorescent blue fluid.
Vash shuddered uncontrollably as Jadzia called Worf for an immediate transporter evacuation to the Infirmary. Sisko swiftly scanned the crowd, but there was nothing to see except the concerned faces of onlookers. Discov-ering whoever had fired the dart would have to wait until the station's security recordings could be studied.
"Quark..." Vash whispered urgently, her voice slurred. "... the auction...."
Sisko bent nearer, cradling her as he waited for the transporter lock. "They're on their way, Vash. You have to hold on."
"Must listen... was going to sell...."
Sisko leaned closer, put his ear to her lips. "What, Vash? What was he going to sell?"
Vash's eyes rolled up and her eyelids fluttered, and what she said next made Sisko's blood run cold.
"... an... Orb..." Vash gasped. "... Jalba-dor...."
And then the transporter took them.
CHAPTER 12
jadzia smiled as she watched Julian Bashir hold the neural dart up to a light and examine it closely by eye. It was so typical of him, and also what made him so endearing.
Here he was in DS9's Infirmary, a state-of-the-art Cardassian medical facility that had been full upgraded with the latest Starfleet innovations, sur- rounded by scanners and sensors that could shuffle through the dart's composition molecule by molecule and more often than not identify the planet of origin for every mineral compound used in its manufacture. Yet Julian still had to look at the dart himself, using his own hands and his own eyes to be certain no detail had been missed.
It was so... well, Jadzia could find only one way to explain that kind of self-absorbed conviction in the superiority of his abilities, and that word was "cute."
Bashir glanced over at her and returned her smile, but seemed confused about why he was doing so. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing," Jadzia shrugged, lips still pursed in a smile. "Just remembering something Emony said. It was more than a hundred years ago."
"Ah." Bashir nodded as if that explained everything, and went back to peering at the dart.
That was one of the advantages to being a Trill,
Jadzia knew. In fact, except for Leia, the first, all of
Dax's previous hosts had known it too: A joined Trill
could get away with the most outrageous behavior
imaginable, and then simply explain it away by blam-
ing it on a previous host.
Since most unjoined species could never even imag-
ine what it must be like for two minds to share a single body
and several lifetimes of experiences, they would accept such
an explanation without question. What
would be the point? To be honest, Jadzia thought, most
people looked on joined Trills as some kind of zombie held in thrall to a neural parasite.
But the truth was that she herself had found that
joining with Dax had been incredibly liberating. It was
exhilarating to be able to decide to do anything at all-
and that included indulging herself in harmless flirt-
ation with Julian right up to taking part in the most
radically charged physical challenge in the quad-
rant, euphemistically called 'wrestling' Galeo-Manada
style-and because she was joined, anything she chose to do was all acceptable.
Of course, part of the trick of deciding which pas-
sions and pastimes to explore came from trying to think of something that none of the other hosts had been familiar with-which usually meant that the
more lifetimes a symbiont shared, the more idiosyn-cratic and eccentric its hosts became.
Personally, before she was joined Jadzia had always had a particular curiosity about Vulcans, and had hoped that sometime during her career in Starfleet she'd have a chance to experience Pan farr on a more personal level than the textbooks allowed. But after joining, when she had instantly been able to look back on several Ponfarr encounters-from both sides of the Teiresian veil, as it were-there was little there that remained mysterious to her, and that lost mystery had been the key to her fascination.
Oh, someday, a century or two down the road, the right Vulcan might come along at the right time for the Dax symbiont to decide it was time to travel down that road again. But for now, Jadzia was more than happy, deliriously happy in fact, with her sweet cuddly-bear of a Klingon mate.
Jadzia coughed to cover her sudden giggle, as she suddenly recalled the look on Worf's face when she'd startled him with the endearment at precisely the wrong moment-as if there were ever a right moment to call a rough, tough Klingon a sweet cuddly-bear. But fortunately, she'd been able to blame the trans-gression on her ever-useful past host Audrid.
Bashir gave her another perplexed smile. "Emony again?"
"Audrid. I'm sorry."
"No need." He placed the dart back in a small sam-ple dish, then entered notes on his padd.
Jadzia admired the dark curls of Julian's close-cropped hair. He was close, she recalled with a sigh. If Worf had been unable to transcend his insular Klingon heritage enough to fully admit a Trill into his life.
Jadzia had little doubt that her heart could have been won by Julian Bashir. That was the other advantage to being a Trill. Life's choices that could last a lifetime for others were not necessarily a limiting factor. Other lifetimes and other choices waited to provide near infi-nite possibilities.
Bashir stopped writing on the padd, then tapped the small device against his hand.
"You've reached a conclusion?" Jadzia asked.
He had. "A linear-induction dart. Centuries-old technology. So primitive the launch tube would never show up on the Promenade weapons scanners. Car-dassian design, of course, like most assassination implements, but its manufacture, interesting enough, is Andorian, as is the neural toxin inside: bicuprodya-nide."
Jadzia frowned. "That's fatal to Andorians."
"And Bolians," Bashir added. "In fact, it has near one hundred percent lethality in any species with a bicupric-based oxygen-transport metabolism. Which means almost anything with blue skin."
"But... it's not fatal in humans," Jadzia said, per-plexed.
Bashir dropped his padd on his medical work station m a gesture of finality. "In a high enough dose it can be, Jadzia. Just from ordinary metal toxicity. But Vash, mind you, would have to have ingested a coffee mug-roll of the stuff, and even then we'd have a good ten to twelve hours to treat her. As it is, with the few milliliters that actually got into her bloodstream, she'll only have a had headache for a day or two. Nothing more serious."<
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"In other words," Jadzia said slowly as she worked : out, "whoever used the dart against Vash either didn't know about human biochemistry-"
"Or," Bashir interjected, "was equipped to kill an Andorian and shooting Vash was an unexpected, spur-of-the-moment decision-"
"Which," Jadzia continued, getting into Bashir's rhythm, "could indicate that the attacker was desperate to stop Vash from talking-"