by Неизвестный
Quark stared in amazement, along with everyone else in the holding cells, as a human in a tuxedo four hundred years out of style strolled into the cell area, smiling with blinding white teeth.
"Vic!" Quark burbled.
"Hey, gang," the holographic mid-twentieth-century lounge singer said as he gazed around the room. "Looks like you cats could use a cake with a file baked in it."
"I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't care," Quark said. "Ya gotta get us outta here!"
"I know, I know," Vic said calmly. "You're innocent, right?"
"We're more than innocent," Odo said. "We've been put here by the real criminals who are now running loose."
"Oh, I believe it, Constable. A straight arrow like you'd never end up in a joint like this." Vic looked over to see Kira and smiled at her. "Unless it was on accounta some dame. How ya doin', sweetheart? Stretch still treating you right?"
"Vic," Kira said, "how can you be here?"
Vic shrugged. "Ya got me, dollface. There I am, up on stage at my joint, singing my heart out for the blue-rinse set, next thing I know the lights start flickering
and the power goes out. Well, management's not too upset, 'cause they've got lots of battery lights to keep the gaming tables going, but me, I got no mike. And the ice is starting to melt."
"Vic," Odo said, "I'm sure this is all fascinating but could you go back to the center office, and open the little drawer to the left of the chair, right under the dis-play screen."
"Is that going to help get the power back on?"
It was suddenly all too much for Quark. "How can you care about power when your program wasn't even running? When we came up here, all the holosuites were off except for this one."
"Quark, bubeleh, I keep hearing you people say the holosuite's off, how can I keep hanging around? But I gotta tell ya, Vic's is the original we-never-close baby. Now how that works, I don't have clue one. I'm just a hologram remember, and it sounds like you have issues you need to take up with the big guy upstairs."
"The big guy upstairs?" Quark asked.
"Felix," Vic explained. "My programmer."
"Vic," Odo pleaded. "The drawer."
"You got it, pallie. What exactly am I looking for?"
"An optolithic data rod," Odo said.
Vic held up his hands. "Whoa, slow down, Stretch. I'm strictly a twentieth-century hologram."
"It's going to look like a pencil," Jadzia suddenly said. "A fat, transparent, green pencil. Like it's made out of... oh, what was it... plexiglass! "
"That new space-age plastic. Sure, I'm with ya." Vic stretched out his arms to make his white cuffs show against his black jacket. "Little drawer, ya said? On the left?"
"If you would be so kind," Odo said.
"Always willing to do a favor for the customers."
Vic walked out of the holding-cell area. Quark heard him whistle one of his twentieth-century songs. Something about "that old black magic..."
"How can this be possible?" Kira asked wonderingly.
"Vic's stepped into other holographic simulations before," Bashir explained. "If his program's being affected by all the computer disruption that's going on, it seems to make sense that he might go looking for a cause."
"The important thing is," Jadzia added, "that how-ever he got here, he's going to get us out."
"Don't be too sure about that," Vic said. He was standing back in the doorway, holding the optolithic crystal in his hand. "I mean, this is something cats like me can only dream of." He paused, smiled at everyone until Quark almost screamed with frustration to have him get to the point. "A real captive audience," Vic said. "Badda bing!"
"Put the fat green pencil in the slot by the door frame," Odo said.
"Captive audience?" Vie asked. "Anybody? I know you're out there. I can hear ya breathing."
"Vic," Jadzia said. "If we don't get out of here as quickly as possible, there's a chance that the station's entire power grid could fail and-"
"I get the picture, Spots. The Big Lights Out." Vic went to the security operations control panel beside the door, held up the data rod. "Here?"
"That's it," Odo said. "Slide it in, then punch in this number."
Vic slid the rod into the memory reader, then scratched his head as he stared at the Cardassian con-trol pad. "Punch it in where?"
Jadzia came to the rescue again. "What's the num-ber, Odo?"
"Fifty-five, twenty-two, eight. Alpha," Odo said.
Quark repeated it to himself, then noticed Odo frowning at him.
"It's an old passcode. Big Lobes."
Then Jadzia carefully described the Cardassian sym-bols Vic would have to touch to input those numbers. "It's all Greek to me, doll," Vic said as he entered the final Alpha designator.
But at once the security forcefields flickered and Jadzia and Kira and Bashir jumped out of their cells to join Vic, while Jake carefully carried the still-unconscious Nog. Quark hung back to let Odo walk through their cell opening first. Once he knew it was safe, he quickly followed. By then Odo had left the others and hurried into the center office.
Vic rubbed his hands together. "So, whaddaya say you all come back to my place-drinks are on the house."
"We can't just yet," Jadzia said. "We still have to shut down this simulation."
Vic looked alarmed. "Hold your horses. You can't shut anything down while I'm in here."
"Can't?" Jadzia asked. "Or shouldn't?"
"Ya got me, Spots. I just said the first thing Felix put in my head. You people going to be okay, now?"
Odo appeared in the doorway holding a Cardassian phaser. "We will be soon."
"What kinda crazy pea-shooter is that?" Vic asked.
Odo adjusted the power setting on the weapon. "A Cardassian Model III phase-disruption weapon."
"Well, I'm glad you cleared that up," Vic said.
"Stand back everyone," Odo said, then aimed the weapon at the far wall.
"What good is a simulated weapon going to do?" Kira asked.
"You don't spend enough time in the holosuites," Odo said. "Small props like these are usually repli-cated, not simulated. This should be a fully operational phaser, and as Nog was good enough to demonstrate, all safety protocols are switched off."
Quark groaned. "There goes my insurance...."
"You might want to avert your eyes," Odo warned. Then he fired.
At first, it appeared as if the lance of energy shot out eight meters to hit a wall. But then, that half of the holding cell area began to waver, and finally winked out, as it now appeared that the phaser beam had hit a wall only half that distance away.
Quark grimaced as three clusters of green holoemit-ters exploded and the entire simulation of the security office disappeared.
"Someone's going to pay for that," he complained.
"Oh, be quiet, Quark."
Quark couldn't be sure who had said that, because almost everyone did. Then Quark saw Vic. It was not a pleasant sight.
The hologram was wavering, sparking with holo-graphic scan lines, and going transparent.
"Y'know, gang, all of a sudden, I'm not feeling so hot."
Bashir went to Vic as if his medical skills might have some use for a hologram. "Maybe you should head back to the club, Vic."
"You're not just whistlin' Dixie."
"Uh," Bashir said, "is that a Yes?"
Vic nodded. "And I thought Rocket to the Moon at Disneyland was an E-ticket...."
Quark looked at Odo who looked at Jake who looked at Kira who looked at Jadzia who looked at Bashir... but it was unanimous. Nobody knew what Vic was talking about.
Vic shuffled toward a wall of functional holoemit-ters and Quark was surprised to see a gray metal door materialize, with a red sign reading exit just above it. "'See ya in the funny papers," Vic said, then opened the door and stepped through it. At once, his holographic body stopped shifting and he stood upright. From beyond him, Quark could hear laughter, the clinking of coins, and the sound of a twent
ieth-century band.
Vic spun around and pointed a finger at Quark. "Next time, pallie, pay the man the light bill." Then he gave them all a casual salute, the door swung shut, and he was gone.
"I have got to talk to Felix," Bashir said.
"That can wait," Jadzia told him.
It was Jake who explained why to Quark. "Now we rescue my dad."
CHAPTER 25
sisko was in hell. It was the only way to describe what Jeraddo had become.
The ground was nothing more than stone and shift-ing ribbons of storm-driven dirt. The air was like something alive, one moment so thick that all Sisko could see was his own reflection in the curve of his helmet, then thin enough that the lights mounted on his shoulders stabbed ahead a few meters. He cringed as roiling crimson swirls and eddies of corrosive gas appeared like entrails, twisting all around him.
Sweat poured from Sisko's face and dripped from his beard. He tried to tell himself that the environmen-tal suit had been set for Cardassian temperatures, but the temperature indicator on the narrow status display board at the bottom of his helmet showed an outside temperature of more than 800 degrees, with wild swings of several hundred more degrees every few minutes. He utterly failed to convince himself that the suit's insulation was as robust as the type Starfleet used.
"Stop, Captain!" Terrell's harsh voice crackled at him through his helmet speakers. The same subspace distortions that caused Jeraddo's gravity to intensify and weaken, as if Sisko were on the deck of a madly pitching sailing ship, also interfered with the suit's communicator. In the twenty minutes they had already spent on the surface, Sisko had calculated that the communicators wouldn't work past ten meters, and even then he and the Cardassians had to shout to make themselves heard over the static. He doubted Terrell's tricorder could extend past that range, as well. And the only way they could be beamed back to Terrell's dis-guised ship was because of the high-power, tight-beam transporter beacons they each wore.
But even if he managed to run off and get out of range before Terrell could fire at him, what good would it do him? Right now, his suit had forty min-utes' worth of life in it. If he pulled off his beacon so he couldn't be traced, he still wouldn't be able to beam back to Terrell's ship. In less than an hour he'd become another featureless mound of Jeraddo debris.
Terrell and Dr. Betan stepped up on either side of Sisko, their own shoulder lights blinding as they con-verged on him.
Terrell pointed to the left. "In that building," she said.
Dr. Betan held up the Red Orb and swung it slowly toward the ancient stone wall to which Terrell pointed. The pale red light within the Orb intensified slightly, then died down when Dr. Betan moved it away again.
Sisko trudged ahead. By now, he didn't need to be
told that he must always lead the way. Terrell had made it clear that she was not willing to turn her back on him. The building, perhaps a craft hall or a farmers' market a millennium ago, was larger than most in the village. The wind-eroded outer wall was made of giant blocks of local stone fitted together only with excep-tional skill, not mortar.
The doorway through the wall was still in perfect condition, and Sisko did not have to duck down as he stepped through it, though he half-bent at the waist to aim his shoulder lights on what lay before him.
As he had suspected, the ground was littered with stones and tiles from the collapsed roof. There might have been wooden beams involved in the building's construction, but anything organic had been eaten away by the corrosive atmosphere years ago.
"Watch your step!" he shouted to the two behind him. "The floor is covered with roofing tiles." Then he stepped aside to let Terrell and Betan enter.
Though billows of red cloud still roiled through the building, the windblown dust and debris seemed less-ened by the shelter of the walls. Sisko noticed that his shoulder lights reached a bit farther, and the buffeting of the gale-force winds that had threatened to topple him from time to time was no longer in evidence.
Terrell and Dr. Betan were discussing something. They had a comm-link channel separate from the one Terrell used with Sisko.
The glow of the Red Orb was much stronger now.
Sisko watched as Terrell used a tricorder, aiming it at the ground and showing the results to Dr. Betan.
"There's a chamber under this floor," she informed Sisko. "Dr. Betan's going to find a way down." Then Sisko and Terrell stood and waited while Dr. Betan walked carefully back and forth across the rubble-strewn floor, using the Red Orb as if it primitive dowsing tool. Sisko appreciated the to rest.
He looked over at the tall Cardassian, through the flare of light reflecting from Her dark eyes were wide. She was chewing <>
"You don't need me down here," he shouted with some difficulty. His throat was becoming more and more raw. But he wanted to learn if she had any inten-tion of allowing him back to her ship. If she didn't, then that might make it easier to... make sure no one else made it back, either.
"I will," Terrell shouted back. "Dr. Betan will keep Vash's Orb, but I need you to carry the second."
"Why?"
"Because you've survived contact with Orbs before. You of all people must understand the danger these artifacts represent."
"The Orbs of the Prophets have never put me in danger," Sisko shouted. The exertion provoked a brief coughing jag. For a moment, he wondered if his suit might already be leaking
Terrell peered at Sisko through her helmet. Its trans-parent surface was already clouded from the corrosive atmosphere. "The Red Orb claimed seven of my researchers. I won't risk touching them."
"What about Dr. Betan?"
"He handled the first Orb years ago on Terok Nor.
After that, he became addicted to neural depressants. By taking them, he can't hear the voices. But it has left him with... certain other deficiencies. His temper, among them."
"Have any of you thought that perhaps these Orbs aren't shaping up to be the best transportation sys-tem?" Sisko asked. "Especially if they're driving the people who use them insane or to drugs."
"There're ways around the Orb's psychic effects," Terrell said enigmatically. "That's why I had my sol-diers save Quark from hanging on the Day of With-drawal. That Ferengi owes me his life."
Sisko didn't understand. Terrell gave him the expla-nation.
"Because he's a Ferengi. They're resistant to most forms of telepathy. Even Betazoids can't get past those four brain lobes. Too complex? Too simple? Who knows? Who cares? But I needed to get my Orb out of my lab before the station self-destructed. So I told Atrig to bring me one of the Ferengi from the Prome-nade, and he brought me Quark-and Odo."
Quark and Odo on the Day of Withdrawal, Sisko thought. He saw another pattern forming.
"What about Garak?" he asked.
"Very good, Captain. Garak came on his own. He and I never really got along but Gul Dukat and he were involved in something... it's not important." Terrell frowned, as if remembering something unpleasant. "But he and Odo and Quark did enter my lab that day-along with the two soldiers whose bodies you found fused to the hull. I always wondered what hap-pened to them." She fell silent, as if lost in thought.
Sisko touched her arm. "What happened to Quark and Odo and Garak?"
Terrell roused herself, checking ahead for Dr. Betan. who was still wandering back and forth with the Orb, then turned again to Sisko. 'Twenty-two minutes before the self-destruct went off, the three of them staggered out of my lab. The precursor effect had. already faded, and when I looked inside, the Red Orb was gone. At first, I was certain Quark had stolen it and hidden it somewhere. But then, why would he have come back to me? There wasn't any time for an investigation so I stunned them again and left the sta-tion. I thought everything would be lost when it autodestructed."
"But it didn't."
Even through her clouded helmet, Sisko could see Terrell's terrifying smile as she bared her teeth at him. "And if you knew how much time the Obsidian Order spent investigating why the autodestruc
t system failed... the record number of executions.... Even for the Order."
"Starfleet could never understand why you left the station behind."
"Well, now you know," Terrell rasped. "We never intended to."
Then Terrell turned sharply away from him, and Sisko realized she must have received a transmission from Dr. Betan, who was about fifteen meters ahead of them, pointing down at the ground and-
Sisko blinked as he saw Dr. Betan fire a phaser blast into the ground. Then he heard Terrell again.