by Неизвестный
Sisko remained silent as before. The more she talked the more chance he had to learn what he knew that they didn't.
"Verteron traces," she said proudly. 'That's what gives the Red Orb its color-a subspace-particle colli-sion that traps chromic oxide atoms in a solidified energy vortex."
The sound of her voice rattling on while Major Kira lay untended not a meter away, made Sisko's head ache. How soon would it be before Worf would won-der why the meeting in the holosuite was taking so long?
"Not actually solidified energy, of course," Terrell said with a chuckle, "but one with a relativistic rate of temporal decay a billion times slower than the local inertial frame of reference. Am I boring you, Cap-tain?"
"You'll never be able to leave this station," Sisko said challengingly. The safety of his people depended upon his keeping her off-balance, distracted until Worf could make his move.
Terrell's harsh, barking laugh was scornful. "My people built this station. We know more about it than you ever will."
The Cardassian waved her phaser at Quark, who ducked forward, lowering his head to his knees, his eyes tightly shut, expecting the worst. When it didn't come, he opened them one at a time to find Terrell regarding him with amusement. "Those smugglers' tunnels that you use for all your petty crimes, how do you think they came to be built, Ferengi? Because the designers of Terok Nor made an error? Or at the com-mand of the Obsidian Order?"
Quark whimpered at the dreaded name and closed his eyes again.
"There is no Obsidian Order anymore," Sisko said.
Terrell shrugged, as if she were beginning to lose
interest in their conversation. "They had outlived their usefulness. But rest assured a dozen other groups are now battling to see who will emerge as the Order's replacement on the Detapa Council."
Sisko strove to regain her attention. "Do you hon-estly think the Dominion will allow any group to attain the power of the Obsidian Order?"
Provoked, as he had hoped, Terrell threw the ques-tion back at him. "Do you think Cardassian patriots will allow their home to be enslaved by the Founders forever?" She shook her head in contempt. "In one guise or another, Captain, the Order will be reborn. Just as Cardassia will throw off her oppressors. And the key to this great new victory is the second worm-hole in the Bajoran system."
"But what you're saying is impossible!" Sisko said quickly. Inwardly, he sighed with relief as the Cardas-sian picked up the challenge and began talking rapidly, intensely.
"Captain, / studied the Red Orb. Right here. On this station. That single Red Orb had verteron traces differ-ent from those of the Blue Orbs. We were able to tell from those traces that it had been exposed to multiple bursts of negative energy-exactly the energy signa-ture created by the sudden intrusion of a wormhole into normal space-time. A form of hyperdimensional Cerenkov radiation, if you will. But where the Blue Orbs contained very slight verteron tracks-almost impossible to measure-the Red Orb had multiple tracks. And that meant that though it was possible the Blue Orbs might have passed through a wormhole once-whatever the Orbs were, wherever they had come from-there was no doubt the red one had been close to an opening wormhole many times.
"You can see why that Orb captured the interest of everyone in the rarefied assemblage of the Order's sci-ence directorate. Somehow, that Red Orb could be the key to actually creating a wormhole."
Sisko's eyes widened with her next words. He tried not to look at Jake and Nog, praying that they would not speak or draw the Cardassian's attention to them.
"I set up my lab right here on Terok Nor," Terrell said. "In that hidden section of corridor you found. But it wasn't hidden from you. It was hidden from Gul Dukat, who never had a clue as to what I was doing here. And it was in that lab, with that Red Orb con-nected to a... well, let's just say, the right equipment, that I was able to release just enough of the solidified energy trapped within it. What I am saying, Captain Sisko, is that / was the first to create a wormhole pre-cursor field-a thinning of the surface tension of space-time such that only a small push would be required to break through into a nonlinear realm. The realm of-"
Sisko's arms dropped to his side. He regarded Ter-rell with amazement. "Are you saying you made con-tact with the Prophets?"
"The aliens!" Terrell snapped. She gestured with her phaser and Sisko placed his hands on his head again. "Wormhole aliens. Not face to face, but oh, they were in there. And they contacted us before we could contact them. Some of us could hear their thoughts. Almost all of us could see the images they created for us, enticing us into their realm as they opened door-ways to whatever place it was we each most wanted to go. Disturbing, wouldn't you say? An alien race reach-ing into our minds, knowing our deepest desires like that?"
"Sounds like something only the gods would know," Sisko said softly.
Terrell's response was harsh and blunt. "It's also something that could be known by telepaths. Tele-pathic aliens with a perverted desire to make less-advanced beings worship them."
The Cardassian looked away from him, up to the holographic image of Bajor in the simulated night sky. "But even knowing what we were dealing with, there were those on my research team who heard the aliens' voices and... obeyed them, stepping through the pre-cursor membrane."
Terrell closed her eyes for an instant. Sisko saw Atrig and Dr. Betan look at her with concern. "Most never came back."
Sisko seized the opportunity to make eye contact with Bashir and Nog, who gave him imperceptible nods of agreement. Even though they were on their knees, they were ready to move the instant he judged the Cardassians' weapons would not be a threat. Sisko wished there were some way he could signal Jake to run for cover ahead of time.
"And then, when we were so close-" Terrell was now so caught up in completing her story that she had begun to pace back and forth. The gaze of her two associates followed her as she continued to speak, "-when / was so close to finally controlling the Red Orb's energy, the order came to withdraw from Bajor. Who knows the reason? I think it was because the patience of the Cardassian people had reached an end. Here we had spent decades and the lives of so many good soldiers and trillions of bars of latinum to help restore some semblance of order to this ungrateful world, and still its pathetic natives
resisted us. What was the point of continuing? If the Bajorans wanted to remain the playthings of the alien telepaths they called the Prophets, then at some point we had to say, 'Enough.' We can't save everyone. We couldn't save them from themselves. Anymore than we can save you from yourselves."
Sisko shifted his knees against the rough stones, getting ready, still forced to listen to the Cardassian's self-serving, offensive recollection without objec-tion.
"I knew I couldn't leave my lab behind for the Bajo-rans to discover," Terrell mused thoughtfully. "As chal-lenged as they are, some of them have a certain natural, Pakled-like aptitude for machinery. They would never have understood the subtle complexities of subspace manipulation, but they might have been able to duplicate my equipment and quite by accident stumble upon a method for completing it. For that rea-son, the Obsidian Order gave the command to have the station self-destruct once all Cardassian personnel had been evacuated."
Sisko couldn't help the retort that rose to his lips. "So the station's continued existence is yet another example of the Order's effectiveness."
Terrell paused for a moment in her pacing, idly rubbed her thumb against the force selector switch on her phaser. Sisko heard the series of faint clicks that indicated the selector was dialling through its possible settings, like the spinning of a dabo wheel. "Captain, you're an intelligent being. The ability to open an arti-ficial, stable wormhole between any two points in the galaxy, perhaps in the universe, would be the ultimate defense against aggression. Cardassian fleets could take off from Cardassia Prime and in minutes be in the
atmosphere of any enemy's homeworld, having com-pletely bypassed all that world's defenses."
Though he did not comment on what Terrell was sa
ying, Sisko was perfectly aware of what wormhole technology offered the galaxy-or, in the eyes of some within Starfleet, how it threatened the galaxy.
"In a day," Terrell said calmly, "the Dominion would cease to exist. In a week, the Alpha and Beta Quadrants would begin an era of peace unsurpassed in galactic history."
Terrell now crouched down beside him. Sisko sup-pressed the urge to draw back from her in distaste. "You see, I know what drives humans to join Starfleet. I even know what you are, Captain. You're an explorer, a dreamer, someone who needs to propel his species beyond all limits of knowledge. In other words, you are just like me... like any other Cardassian."
"Don't count on it," Sisko said grimly. Surely Worf had had enough time to make his realization. He could feel the eyes of his own staff on him, expectant.
Terrell gave his shoulder an indulgent pat, and then stood up again. "You'll see. When the Dominion has been crushed. When the Pax Cardassia embraces all our worlds. When a bold new age of peaceful explo-ration and development of the galaxy has begun. I've no doubt you'll be there. On the bridge of a Cardassian science vessel or one of your own, it doesn't matter. Because we will all be joined in a common cause-"
"Never."
But Terrell was no longer listening to him. She was looking up once again at the simulated Bajor. "Com-puter, download current program to memory channel Alpha Prime. Authorization, Terrell, level 9, Green."
When the computer responded, Sisko was surprised
to hear not the voice of Quark's holosuite management unit but the station's own synthetic voice.
Terrell smiled at his reaction. "The Andorians weren't the only ones to augment your station's com-puters with their own codes," she said. 'Terok Nor will remain nonoperational until I have completed my mis-sion."
"What is your mission?!" Sisko demanded. There was no time left for subtlety.
And, as if she felt the same way, Terrell finally told him. "The one thing that held back my work," she said, "was the fact that I only had one Red Orb. After all, Bajoran legends say that the doorway to Jalbador shall be opened only when all three are brought together. But in sixty years, the entire might of Car-dassia could only locate one of those three. Until Quark so helpfully announced that he had a map to sell."
"This is not my fault!" Quark said vehemently.
"Calm down, Ferengi. You'll be a hero to my people if to no one else."
"So what?" Quark grumbled. "That and a slip of lat-inum aren't even worth a slip of latinum."
"So," Terrell continued for Sisko's benefit, "with the chance to find a second Red Orb-which could possi-bly provide the means to recover the Orb lost on the Day of Withdrawal-it was time for me to return to my old home.
"And that is my mission, Captain Sisko. To obtain the three Red Orbs. To wrest from them the secret of creating a translocatable wormhole. And then, finally, to destroy the aliens within it so its full power will be in the hands of the greatest force for galactic peace ever imagined."
Sisko heard the station's computer voice again. "Program-transfer completed."
"End program," Terrell said, and the crude recon-struction of the Jeraddon lunar village began to dis-solve.
The familiar hardness of the holosuite's smooth deck replaced the rough stones previously beneath Sisko's knees. The lighting brightened. In the green glow from the standby holoprojectors, the three Car-dassians resembled supernatural beings emerging from some alien pit.
But all Sisko was conscious of was that at last he knew what Terrell's weakness was. "You lost an Orb," he said, making his statement an accusation.
"I prefer to think of it as... misplaced," she said, her attention alarmingly now focused on Jake. "But the fact that your internal reports are full of references to the 'lost Cardassian holosuite' leads me to believe that the Red Orb is nearby, its residual power still with enough of a contact to my old lab to maintain the pre-cursor condition."
Terrell poked Jake's shoulder with her phaser. "You weren't in a holosuite, young human. You were look-ing at visions of what you wanted most, created by the wormhole aliens to lure you into their realm." She looked back to Sisko, whose heart was pounding at the Cardassian's closeness to his son. "And if the Red Orb had still been connected to my equipment, your son might have stepped through the boundary layer into that realm and been lost forever."
And as quickly, as unexpectedly as that, it all came together for Sisko. Everything Terrell had said and, more importantly, what she had not said. He took a deep breath. "I know the questions you need
answered," he said. He nodded at the other prisoners.
"Let them go."
"And you'll tell me everything I want to know?"
"Yes," Sisko said. It was not a lie, and it was not capitulation. The truth was, he could answer her ques-tions now, but she would not be able to use what he told her.
"Very well," Terrell said. She aimed her phaser at Jake. "But you will tell me everything I want to know before I let everyone go. Or I will kill them all, starting with this one."
It took all of Sisko's self-control not to respond automatically. He told himself her threat was hollow. After all, she could have killed everyone but him the moment she and Atrig and Dr. Betan made their pres-ence known. But she didn't. Could it be she actually does see herself as a force for peace? he asked him-self. In her twisted mind, is there really some ethical compunction not to kill?
He made his decision. "You don't want to kill them, Terrell. You told me yourself. You're a scientist, an explorer. All you really want is information. And I will give it to you. Once I know my son and the rest of my people are safe."
His eyes met hers without flinching.
'Terrell," Dr. Betan warned. "You can't trust him."
Terrell didn't turn away from Sisko's steady gaze. She motioned him to rise to his feet. "I believe I can. Computer: Run Odo Ital, One."
At once, the holosuite became a duplicate of the sta-tion's security office. Sisko looked around carefully, noting that it was not an exact duplicate. Some of the wall displays were different. And the Promenade beyond the transparent door panels was drab, washed
out by dim blue light. Then he realized where he was, and when.
"Odo's office from the time of the Occupation," he said.
"Fitting, don't you think?" Terrell said. She gestured to Atrig and Dr. Betan to move the rest of their prison-ers into the simulated holding cells.
Sisko heard Quark's indignant protest, "This is not one of my programs."
"The systems of Terok Nor are integrated in ways you can't imagine," Terrell said to Sisko in explana-tion.
"The Obsidian Order?" Sisko said, rather than asked.
"Precisely, Captain. As you know, to observe every-one all the time requires immense computational abil-ity. Even these holosuites are connected to the station's main computers, though not by links any of your engi-neers would ever suspect."
The last prisoner to be locked up was Odo. By now, the constable had regained consciousness, though he was still groggy. Atrig and Dr. Betan pushed him into the last cell, then activated the force field.
Now, only Sisko and the three Cardassians were free.
Sisko stood outside the force field sealing the hold-ing cells. He looked at Jake.
"Satisfied?" Terrell asked.
"How long will this simulation run?" Sisko asked.
"Thirteen hours. More than enough time for me to go where I need to go next, and for you to tell me what I need to know."
Sisko stiffened. She was changing the rules on him
again. "Why don't I tell you what you need to know, and then you go wherever it is you have to go."
Terrell shook her head. "I'm willing to trust you. Captain. But only to a point."
She lifted her wrist communicator. 'This is Terrell. Four to beam out. Energize."
And then, before Sisko could protest or even say a last word to Jake, he was lifted out of Deep Space 9, on his way to wherever it was that Terrell needed him
to go.
CHAPTER 23
the moon of Jeraddo was a seething crimson orb of gas wreathed in violent, thousand-kilometer filaments of blazing-blue lightning.
Three years ago, the moon's molten core had been tapped to produce power for Bajor, the world it orbited, an ingenious concept first developed by the Klingons. Decades ago, that initial concept's design flaws had caused the spectacular destruction of the Empire's main generation facility on the moon of Praxis. The flaws had since been corrected by assidu-ous Federation engineers focusing a low-level sub-space inversion field on the moon's core. As a result, the normal convection of heat generated by the decay of natural radioactives had been accelerated a thou-sandfold.