by Неизвестный
Then Sisko turned and entered Odo's office. He instantly wished he hadn't. A wall of sound assaulted his still-ringing ears. Odo and Quark were heatedly arguing in the front office. Satr and Leen and Vash were shouting at each other and at anyone who was close to their holding cells. And a particularly irritating high-pitched howl that Sisko had never heard before seemed to be coming from all directions at once.
To save what was left of his hearing, Sisko issued an immediate command prerogative. "BE QUIET! EVERYONE!" In the sudden silence, the fluctuating siren-like howl seemed even louder.
"Is there something wrong with a wall communica-tor?" Sisko struggled not to sound as cross as he felt.
"That's Base," Odo said gruffly. "Apparently he's claustrophobic."
Sisko lost his battle with his nerves. 'Tell him if he doesn't stop that infernal squealing, I'll have him hauled off to an escape module. And then he'll know what claustrophobia really feels like."
Odo almost smiled as he headed for the holding cells off to one side of his office area.
"All right," Sisko said brusquely to Quark, "where's the Orb. and where's the map?"
Quark led Sisko and Bashir to the other side of the constable's office, where a small doorway led to a secure storage room. The outer wall of the storage room was lined with stasis safes, and one of the safes was open.
But Sisko's attention was on the storage room's cen-ter scanning table. On it was a spindle-cut chunk of what appeared to be randomly faceted red glass, and a small amber cylinder.
"That doesn't look like an Orb," he said, referring to the red glass-like object. All the Orbs of the Prophets Sisko had seen resembled shimmering hour-glass shapes of solid light. They were so breathtak-ingly compelling, so disorienting, that ages ago Bajoran monks had fashioned jewelled arks to shield and hold them so that they could be carried among the faithful.
"Word has it, it's only supposed to glow when it's close to the next Orb," Quark explained.
Sisko picked up the faceted artifact to examine it more closely. "The next Orb?"
"Actually, there're supposed to be three," Quark said. "You use one to find the next one, then use those two to find the third."
Sisko touched the edge of the artifact, felt nothing, sensed no trace of the Prophets. "I see." He put the artifact down with a sigh. "And how much were you going to make by allowing this travesty of the Bajoran religion to take place?"
"Captain Sisko," Quark said emphatically, "I swear I had no idea the Orb was real. I thought I was going to be selling a map. This thing!" He picked up the amber cylinder from the screening table and held it out to Sisko. "That's all. I make my living from the Bajorans.
Do you really think I'd risk my livelihood by insulting
them?"
Sisko took the cylinder from Quark, turned it over in his fingers, still skeptical.
So, apparently, was Bashir. "Vash told Dax and me that an Orb could fetch the kind of money that can buy and sell planets."
Quark's eyes widened and he swallowed hard. "Really?" Then he recovered. "But I wasn't selling an Orb! Just the map! A treasure map! I must sell a half-dozen of them every year!" He faltered, then quickly added, "Not for Orbs, of course. But for the lost planet of Atlantis, missing ships, T'Kon por-tals, Qui'Tu and Vorta Vor. Classic stuff. Nothing more."
Bashir seemed to be convinced. "I believe him, sir. Especially since the penalties for dealing in Orbs can-not be plea-bargained."
"Exactly," Quark said with a shiver. "Why risk get-ting involved with a criminal-justice system that has such a rigid view of wrong and right when they're so many other ways to... uh, that doesn't sound right either, does it?"
"Quit while you're ahead, Quark." Sisko held up the amber map cylinder. 'Tell me about this."
Quark shrugged. "I never saw it till Dal Nortron brought it to the bar the day he arrived. And I told that whole story to Odo just like you told me to."
"That's right," Odo said, making his appearance in the storage room just as Sisko noticed thankfully that Base's squealing had finally stopped. "According to Quark, the Andorian contacted him to arrange an auc-tion for the map."
"Where did Nortron say he got it?" Sisko asked.
"He didn't tell," Quark answered. "And I didn't ask. There are some traditions in trade, you know."
"What's it a map of, Quark? Or did traditions pre-vent you from asking about that, too?"
"Captain, really. I had to write the promotional copy, didn't I?"
"And?" Sisko prompted.
Quark sighed dramatically. "According to the Jal-bador legend, the three Red Orbs were scattered so they could never be brought together."
"Why not?" Sisko asked.
"It's a legend," Quark said testily. "Why three wishes? Why a magic greeworm? Someone told a bed-time story once and it got taken way too seriously, if you ask me."
Sisko waved a hand, realizing it was probably unre-alistic to demand much more depth from Quark's explanation. "Continue."
"So-whoever hid them made a map of where they were hidden. End of mystery."
"Well, that makes no sense," Bashir complained. "If the Orbs aren't supposed to ever be found, why make maps? Why not just launch them into the sun?"
Quark rolled his eyes. "Bajorans didn't have space travel back then, all right? Now, do you want to hear this story or not?"
"It gets better," Odo pointed out.
"Thank you," Quark said. "So, the point is, the map Dal Nortron obtained-from whatever source-appar-ently reveals the world on which the second Red Orb is hidden."
"A world's a large place to hide something so small," Sisko said.
"Exactly, Captain. Which means, you need the first
Orb to find the second. They react to each other, like a... a location beacon or something. And the thing is, I didn't know Vash had the first Orb."
Sisko handed the map cylinder to Odo. "Constable, is there any way we can see what's on this?"
Odo studied the transparent amber rod. "Looks like a standard Cardassian memory rod...." He walked over to a wall display, pressed a control and a rod holder slid out.
"Quark," Sisko warned the Ferengi barkeep, "no games now. I'll accept that you're too smart to risk alienating the entire Bajoran population. But I need an honest answer." Sisko tried not to react to Quark's sud-den look of panic at his use of the word, 'honest.' "Who else-smuggler or collector or buyer-is on this station who might have been responsible for Dal Nortron's murder?"
Only Quark could look contrite, worried, and embarrassed all at the same time. "Captain, I don't know. The Andorian sisters. Base, of course. Vash. Those are the only ones my inform-I mean, they're the only ones I've seen."
"Here it is," the constable said from his position by the display screen.
Sisko left Quark, who likely had nothing more to offer, and walked over to join Odo and Bashir.
The amber cylinder did contain a map, but not of an entire planet. Instead, it outlined a city layout, of streets and dwelling blocks.
And nothing was labeled.
"That's not going to do anyone any good," Sisko said.
Odo studied the schematics on the display screen. "Maybe the legend was wrong. Instead of showing a world, the map shows a place on a world."
"But, Odo," Bashir said, "there are millions of worlds in the galaxy."
"Maybe there's another map that goes with this one," Odo suggested.
Sisko tried a different approach. "How old is that cylinder?"
Odo tapped a few controls, read a line of Cardassian script. "According to the manufacturer's code, five years."
"So this is a copy," Bashir concluded.
"Of a copy of a copy of a copy," Sisko added. "And if this truly dates back to ten thousand years ago, when the first Orbs started to appear, then the first version of the map would probably have been carved into rock or-" He stopped and then smiled broadly. "No. It can't be hidden on any one of millions of worlds." He turned to the Ferengi and exclaimed, "Quark! You're
right!"
"I am?"
"You said it yourself. Ten millennia ago, Bajorans didn't have space travel. So the Orbs had to have been hidden on Bajor itself."
This time it was Bashir who seemed uncon-vinced.'But if the hiding place is Bajor, then why all the interest in a map that supposedly shows some world on which the orbs can be found?"
Sisko wasn't certain about that, himself, but he didn't think it was important. "The old Bajoran ideograms can be difficult to translate. They have so many meanings that change according to context. It could be as simple as the phrase, 'the world,' meaning the known world of Bajor, having been translated as 'a world,' a few thousand years ago."
Sisko shook his head to ward off any other ques-
tions that could sidetrack them again. "In any case, the mystery that should concern us right now is who killed Dal Nortron."
"Hey, Dad."
Sisko turned, automatically smiling at the sound of his son's voice.
Jake and Jadzia stepped cautiously into the storage room of Odo's security office, neither of them com-fortable with the sharply slanting deck.
"Jake-O, Old Man-who's minding the store?"
"Worf," Jadzia said with a playful smile. "We're running another diagnostic on the computer and I had to get away from those screens for a few minutes."
Under current conditions, Sisko could accept Jadzia's presence. But not Jake's.
"You know you shouldn't be here," he told his son. "The whole station's on gravity alert and I want you back at our quarters to look after Kasidy."
Jake looked at him as if he were hearing a deliber-ately bad joke. "Like I'm supposed to look after the captain of an interstellar freighter. Sure, that's just the sort of job for a helpless female."
Sisko smiled but made his request again. "You know what I mean. I want my family out of harm's way."
Jake grinned. "Really? Family? Does Kasidy know about this?"
"Don't start," Sisko warned. "Now get moving, and don't use the turbolifts."
Jake hesitated, looked at Jadzia, and Jadzia coughed.
Something was obviously going on between them. "All right, you two," Sisko said. "I know a conspiracy when I see one."
"Benjamin," Jadzia said, "just before the computer
was compromised, when you had just beamed out to the Defiant, Jake and I were having a... talk."
"You were in Ops?" Sisko frowned at his son.
Jadzia answered before Jake could. "He's been help-ing out with the computer restarts, copying files. Ant-ting down subsystems."
Sisko relaxed, reminded of what he sometimes for-got these days, of all the time Jake used to spend with O'Brien. He gave his son the benefit of the doubt. 1 take it this 'talk' was important?"
Jadzia exchanged glances with Jake. "Well, the bud-ding novelist here figured out on his own that someone was trying to sell an Orb, and that the Orb was real. He had a few other interesting conclusions, too, so I thought maybe you could use his input while you're trying to put all this together."
Sisko sighed. "Okay. But let's do that tonight, Jake. Right now, things are still too much up in the air." He could see the disappointment in his son's eyes, under-stood how the boy felt, but for now, the station had to come first.
Jake nodded without protest. He wasn't the only one who was disappointed, though.
"Don't give me that look, Old Man."
"A good commander makes full use of all his assets."
"I see. The conspiracy is turning into a mutiny." Not for the first time, Sisko observed that Jadzia and Jake were alike in that they both knew exactly how far they could push him, and when they reached that point without success, they backed off without recrimina-tion.
Almost without recrimination.
Jadzia leaned closer and whispered into Sisko's ear,
"I'd watch out, Benjamin. Someday Jake's going to write a book about you and you do want to come off as one of the good guys, don't you?"
"Tonight," Sisko repeated firmly.
Jake said his good-byes to Odo, the doctor, and Quark and then, just before stepping out of the storage room, he glanced up at the display screen with a bright smile. "Hey, you got the interface going!"
Everyone looked at him in surprise, including his father.
"What interface?" Sisko asked.
"With the Cardassian holosuite." Jake pointed to the display screen. "Isn't what that is? It sure looks like the layout of the village Nog and I saw."
"What village?" Odo asked sharply.
"The one on the Bajoran moon."
Just for a moment, Sisko felt Deep Space 9 wheel crazily around him. And the effect had nothing to do with the canted slant of the deck or with failing gravity.
Without any logic or hard data, he suddenly was certain that the last piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place.
And the truly maddening thing was, it had been there all along.
CHAPTER 21
this is it," Nog said. Then he looked up at Jake. "Wouldn't you say?"
Jake studied the holographic image that surrounded him and all the other onlookers in the holosuite at Quark's. As far as he could tell, it was a close repro-duction of the primitive village he and Nog had seen in the distance four days ago, when they had entered the Cardassian holosuite. Fortunately, the computers that ran Quark's holosuites were separate from the sta-tion's, and were still fully operational.
The resolution, however, was low, the sky was an unreal shade of dark purple without stars or Bajor, and the recreation was missing details like an evening breeze and the flickering of lights in the windows. But from the arrangement of the buildings and the sweep of the landscape, Jake would have to say Jadzia had done a great job of turning the two-dimensional map
on the Cardassian memory rod into a three-dimen-sional simulation. Best of all, she had adjusted the gravity in the suite to compensate for the station's list, so that for the first time in almost two hours everyone was standing on level ground.
"I agree," Jake said. "This is the village we saw."
He looked over at his father, secretly pleased to be able to make an important contribution to the investi-gation. Especially after being so publicly dismissed in front of so many people-who were now here to see that he wasn't just the captain's kid, who had to be kept 'out of harm's way.'
Even his father looked impressed. He turned to Odo. "Constable? Theories?"
"I think it's obvious, Captain. Dal Nortron somehow knew about the Cardassian holosuite in the hidden sec-tion of corridor. He used it to create a simulation of this Bajoran lunar village, no doubt attempting to nar-row down the location of the second Orb."
"And he was killed for his trouble."
"Undoubtedly."
"Which brings us back to Vash, Satr, and Leen as suspects. But how could any of them know about the hidden section of the station?"
"You might as well ask how could Nortron?" Odo said. "And again, I think the answer is obvious. The map is recorded on a Cardassian memory rod. That implies Nortron obtained it from a Cardassian source, and that it was a Cardassian who knew about what was hidden on Terok Nor and then told Nortron."
Even though everything Odo had said sounded rea-sonable, somehow it didn't strike Jake as right. There had to be another explanation for what had happened. He tried to think about how he would make everything
come out if this were a novel he was writing, but unfortunately all that kept springing into his mind was the usual shock ending in which the station com-mander is revealed to be the killer.
Jake suddenly stared at his father, who turned to him as if he sensed the intensity of his son's gaze. "What is it, Jake?"
"Um, Dad, are we... still following the starfleet changeling-detection protocols?"
Sisko shrugged. "All the time." Then he grinned as if he could read his son's mind. "Anyone in particular you suspect?"
"No, not really," Jake said diffidently.
"Jake," Sisko said, "if the Dominion was behind any of t
his, a Jem'Hadar attack wing would have started pounding us the instant our computers went off-line. The fact that we're still here means this doesn't have anything at all to do with the Founders."
But that didn't sound right to Jake, either. "But it does have something to do with the Cardassians, right? And they're part of the Dominion, sort of."
Jadzia looked at Sisko. "See? That's a good point."
"No, no, no," Major Kira suddenly interjected. She had gone off to walk through the simulated village and had just returned. "This reconstruction doesn't match any village on any of the inhabited Bajoran moons. It's a fake. A typical Quark forgery."