STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change

by Marco Palmieri, Editor

  “In my time here,” Odo said, “both under the Cardassians and the Federation, I have observed that law is simple; justice is a more difficult matter.”

  “You may be correct,” Thrax responded, then changed the subject. “I’d like an opportunity to question the team that retrieved the cargo pods.”

  Odo nodded, though he was surprised. He’d anticipated the request, of course, but had expected Thrax to be more interested in getting background on the Lurians first. “They’re still aboard the station. I can arrange to have them meet us in the wardroom.”

  “Excellent,” Thrax said, and began to rise, then paused, both hands pressed against the top of the desk. “I almost hate to ask this,” he said. “But you did find the safe, didn’t you?”

  Odo smiled despite himself. He’d wondered when Thrax would bring that up. “Eventually.”

  “Good. And the contents have been useful?”

  “At first. Not much of the information was still relevant after the Cardassians left, but, some of it, yes. Thank you.”

  Thrax nodded magnanimously. “Happy to be of service.”

  Following the Cardassian out the door, Odo wondered, And what will I be expected to do to pay for that?

  As Odo suspected, the two Militia officers—a pilot and a sensor tech—were both wary of Thrax. Neither of them had lived on the station during the Occupation—and therefore neither had known the former chief of security—but Odo suspected part of their unease stemmed just from seeing Thrax juxtaposed with Odo himself. Odo had encountered this sort of thing before, whenever he and Garak were seen together after Dukat had allied Cardassia with the Dominion. It seemed to have become the natural response to seeing a Cardassian and a changeling in the same room.

  Unfortunately, the men knew very little about the cargo pods beyond what was in the report. They had discovered the debris field after Kira had deployed them to investigate the explosion.

  “Did you come across anything that hinted at the cause of the explosion?” Thrax asked.

  The sensor tech shook his head. “There was very little left intact.”

  “How large were the fragments?”

  “Not large,” said the pilot. “No larger than the cargo pods, anyway. At least, as far as we could tell. The debris had spread out over quite a distance in two hours.”

  “Did you chart the dispersal pattern?”

  “It’s in our report,” the sensor tech said.

  “Yes, I have that here,” Thrax said, glancing down at a padd he held. “It says you found the cargo pods within the debris field.”

  The tech and the pilot glanced at each other. Finally, the tech said, “That’s right. What’s your point?”

  “Only that it seems strange that the pods weren’t farther out, somewhere beyond the debris field. That would be consistent with their being launched before the explosion took place, then propelled by the blast front. Wouldn’t it?”

  Odo frowned. Where is he going with this?

  The pilot said, “What difference does it make? The whole ship went off like a bomb. With all the radiation, the only reason we found the cargo pods at all was because they were all strung together like a chain and the sensor image was huge.”

  Thrax brightened. “Really? That isn’t in the report. They were chained together?”

  “Right. All seven of them,” the pilot said. “It was the kind of cord they use to tow loads in zero gee, that stuff that can go flexible or stiff as they need it to. They’re not supposed to keep containers connected with it after they leave port, you know? But everyone does.”

  “And, you didn’t notice anything else about the containers? You just towed them back to the station?”

  “Right. Standard procedure,” the pilot said. “What are you hoping to find out?”

  Exactly what I was wondering, Odo thought.

  The pilot’s question had a remarkable effect on Thrax: he hesitated. “Only the truth,” he said after a moment.

  “Is there anything else you want to know, or can we go?”

  When the Cardassian didn’t answer, Odo asked, “Thrax? Any other questions?”

  Again, Thrax didn’t answer right away, as if he was trying to decide what he should say next. “No,” he said at last. “Nothing.” He looked at the two Bajorans.” Thank you for your time. And for recovering my people.”

  “Not a problem,” the pilot said, rising. “Only sorry we couldn’t get to them a little sooner. Has anyone figured out why they were in there in the first place?”

  “Not yet,” Odo replied. “We’re pursuing several possible explanations.”

  After exchanging skeptical glances, the Militia officers rose, then headed out the door.

  When they were gone, Odo looked at Thrax, who appeared to be lost in thought. “Is that what you expected to hear?” he asked.

  Thrax shrugged. “More or less.”

  Odo wrapped his arms across his chest. “I have to say I was surprised by some of your questions.”

  “Oh?”

  “You must admit,” Odo said, watching Thrax, carefully, “if your objective was to build a case against Quark, that was an odd way to go about it.”

  “Maybe it was,” Thrax admitted, then met Odo’s gaze. “But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that it’s easy for little things to slip through the cracks. I don’t want that to happen here. You shouldn’t, either.”

  “I don’t,” Odo assured him. “But it seems to me that an investigation into the crew of the freighter would be more illuminating than the retrieval.”

  Thrax sighed, keyed a file on his padd, and handed it to Odo. “I’ve been there. It’s a black hole. See for yourself.”

  Odo examined the file, a compilation of records on the Lurian crew, and saw that Thrax was right. He had encountered countless like them during his career: men and women who, while not precisely upstanding citizens, were also not criminals. Only the captain, Ra’Chet’ka by name, had any kind of serious record, and even the charges against him were most often the minor shipping offenses any neutral merchant would accumulate over a long career. The rest of the crew were more or less the same: petty thugs, drifters, social misfits—but no hardcore criminals.

  More telling, their bank records revealed nothing suspicious. One crewman—an engineer—had made an unusually large deposit several months earlier, but closer inspection revealed that he had recently settled on a work-related insurance case. Most of the money had been spent on a vacation to Risa, then the rest frittered away on a variety of frivolous purchases. “You’d think he would have saved some of it,” Thrax commented when he saw Odo reading that part of the file, and Odo almost laughed out loud. He had thought precisely the same thing.

  “You’re right, there’s nothing here,” Odo said. “Or, at least, nothing unusual. There’s no doubt that they’d been smugglers at one time or another, but there’s nothing to suggest they were aware of anything unusual about their cargo, or that Quark had anything to do with it.”

  Thrax nodded. “I checked them out thoroughly before I hired them.”

  “And the Yridians they were supposed to rendezvous with? You said your Federation counterparts hired them.”

  “I looked into that on my way to Terok—excuse me, Deep Space 9. Another black hole.”

  “Where was the rendezvous to take place?”

  “In neutral space, near the Celeth system.”

  “Quite a distance from Cardassia.”

  “Just as well. Even though the Dominion doesn’t prevent us from making these rendezvous, Jem’Hadar tend to err on the side of caution and will investigate or even attack any vessels they think are suspicious.”

  “This has happened?”

  “Twice. Both times all hands were lost.”

  Odo shook his head. “How can you believe that these people have your best interests at heart?”

  Thrax stared at Odo, the lines around his mouth etched with repressed anger. “How can you work with the Federation when your
people are the ones guiding the Dominion?”

  “They aren’t my people. I believe what the Dominion is doing is wrong.”

  “And I believe what my people are doing is wrong, too. It was a terrible mistake to ally ourselves with the Dominion.” He glanced around the room then as if looking for hidden cameras or microphones, but then shrugged, abandoning all caution. “Even a great people can make foolish mistakes,” he concluded. “I can’t abandon them. If I did, I’d be worse than a fool. I’d be a traitor.”

  With that, Thrax stood and excused himself, telling Odo he needed to update his superiors back on Cardassia. His escort met him at the door, leaving Odo alone to contemplate traitors and fools. And which of the two he might be.

  Much later, a restless Odo was about to begin a midnight circuit of the Promenade before his next meeting with Thrax when Nerys stepped off the lift directly opposite the security office. Spotting him, she smiled, but Odo could see the lines of weariness around her eyes. Like him, she’d been working many late hours, in recent days. She fell in beside him and Odo slowed to match her pace, happy to see her.

  Walking close enough that her hand could brush against his, Nerys asked if he had time for a late dinner.

  “Not tonight, I’m afraid.” She knew he didn’t need to eat, so he knew what she really wanted was his company. He was anxious to talk to her, vaguely aware that he was plagued by some noxious thoughts, and he valued her ability to help sort through these kinds of emotions. “I have to follow up with Thrax concerning the dead Cardassians.”

  “Admiral Ross was asking about that. Any ideas how they got there yet?”

  “A couple,” Odo said. “None of them good, and none of them provable.”

  Seeing that their paths were going to diverge, Nerys halted and laid her palm on his wrist. “Then I’ll let you go. Call me later if you want to talk.”

  He smiled. “I will,” he said. “There’s nothing I would like better.”

  Smiling in response, she turned and left him to his work. Watching her walk away, he found his thoughts straying to the men and women clutching each other in the dark, cold cargo containers, wondering what it might have been like to feel the heat go out of each other, to listen to the shortening breaths as the oxygen ran out. What would he do in such a situation if Nerys was with him? Wrap himself around her? Envelop as much atmosphere as possible? But, no, of course not. There wouldn’t be any atmosphere to capture. What could he do in such a situation? What could anyone do?

  Right on time, Thrax entered the security office and, handing Odo his padd, announced, “My business here is finished.”

  “What do you mean?” Odo asked. “There’s been an arrest?”

  “No,” Thrax said. “I mean that, as of this moment, we’re closing the investigation.”

  The news stunned Odo. “You’re not even pursuing Quark?”

  “Much as it pains me, no. My superiors have instructed me to return to Cardassia as soon as possible with the bodies. Can you help me make arrangements?”

  “Of course,” Odo said, then worked his way back to the original thread of the conversation. “But why aren’t you pursuing the investigation?”

  Thrax gave him a grim look. “Because these men and women are better off dead.” Without hesitating for a beat, he continued, “I plan to leave with the bodies on my ship tomorrow.” With that, Thrax exited the security office without waiting for an escort.

  How cold could a man be? Odo wondered as he watched the Cardassian’s back recede. Better off dead ... ?

  * * *

  “ ‘Better off dead’?” Nerys asked. “What does that mean?” An hour after he had last spoken with Thrax, she sat on the small sofa in her living area, her boots lying carelessly on the floor, her feet tucked under the small blanket she kept on the sofa arm.

  “I don’t know.” Odo could not sit down. As soon as he stopped moving, the wheels of disbelief began to spin faster than he could comfortably accommodate, so he paced. Whereas motion did not necessarily equal progress, inactivity definitely felt like stagnation. “But I think I have to find out.”

  Stifling a yawn, Nerys stretched and attempted to look alert. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  Odo glanced at the chrono on the companel and was surprised to see how late it was. “No,” he said. “You’re tired. Stay and rest.”

  Smiling faintly, her eyes drooping, Nerys asked, “You need to rest too. We can both rest.” She knew, of course, that he did not sleep, at least in the manner that she did. He enjoyed being with her when she slept, but Odo never closed his eyes while she slumbered. Rather, he listened to her breathe, felt her body move slowly up and down as breaths entered and left, and allowed his mind to both drift and focus in a manner much like he imagined Nerys did when she prayed.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Soon, maybe. There’s something I want to check on.”

  Sliding down onto the couch and pulling the blanket up around her shoulders, Nerys said, “Nothing illegal, I hope?”

  “Illegal?” he asked. “Me?”

  Closing her eyes, the faint smile still playing around the corners of her mouth, she murmured, “I’ll just wait here in case you need an alibi.”

  “You do that.”

  Odo knew he was perfectly within his rights checking the logs of a public comm station if he was pursuing a criminal investigation. Even the Federation, notorious in its advocacy of rights to privacy, understood that law officers needed to have such latitude. He also knew, however, that he was mucking about in a gray zone: Was this a criminal investigation anymore? If the people against whom the supposed crime had been committed said that they no longer cared if the misdeeds were brought to light, did he have any reason to investigate? All the rules of conduct neatly filed in his office computer said, “No.”

  Men like Sisko, who was presently on an indefinite leave of absence on Earth, had always seemed adept at negotiating the narrow channels between law and justice, a trait Odo admired. There was the rule of law and there was justice, and he knew which one he served. Still, he also knew what a conflict of interest was and, to assuage his unease, accessed the logs from his quarters, not the security office.

  The logs came up quickly, and Odo skimmed through them with practiced ease. Thrax had logged into station terminal twenty-three at 25:45, and the call had been to Cardassia, which was assigned frequencies between 1000.20.304.234 and ... Damn machine, Odo thought. He must have keyed the wrong number into the interface. He checked again, and then a third time. “This can’t be right,” Odo said aloud, then felt like a fool for doing it, but couldn’t stop himself a moment later from saying, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why would he send a one-way message to a planet in neutral space?” Nerys asked. She had dozed off with her head cradled on her arm and the texture of her uniform was pressed into her cheek.

  “I don’t know,” Odo said. “That’s why I keep saying, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ ” He saw the brusque response register and tried to apologize, but Nerys waved it away.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Late. Or early depending on how you look at it. I’m sorry for waking you, but I needed to talk to someone ...”

  Smiling as she twisted her head from side to side to loosen a crick, Nerys said, “It’s okay. I understand. I should get out of this uniform and go to bed, anyway.” She rose and stopped halfway to her bedroom. “Is there anything else you can do to check on this tonight?”

  He considered the question seriously and said, “I could check on the registration number for the message and see what planet Thrax contacted.”

  Nerys rolled her eyes. “You can do that in the morning.”

  “He’s leaving tomorrow.”

  Nerys made a detour to her interface console to check the docket. “Not until the afternoon,” she read. “If we get up early, you’ll have plenty of time to talk to him.”

  “We get up early?” Odo asked, but she had already l
eft the room. Considering the options, he followed her. There were worse ways to spend the next few hours.

  In the morning, after Kira had left for ops, Odo decided to turn to the one person on the station besides Thrax who could offer the perspective he needed.

  “Constable,” Garak said, sipping his tea in the Replimat, “you’ll have to forgive me. I’m not really quite awake yet. Perhaps you could stop by the shop later this morning and we could go to lunch?”

  “No, Garak. Now. It has to be now.”

  The tailor lowered his face over the mouth of his mug and inhaled the pungent, smoky aroma. Odo had to admit that it did not appear as if Garak was faking. The Cardassian’s usually alert expression was conspicuously absent.

  “I was up late with Colonel Kira and half the general staff discussing Cardassian culture. General Martok would not let me leave until I had told him everything I knew about opera.”

  “Opera?” Odo asked. That would explain why Nerys had looked so weary. She didn’t like Bajoran opera, let alone Cardassian.

  “The general believes that a people’s soul can be gleaned by how they present themselves in their high arts. If he can understand their soul, he says, he can crush their spirit.”

  That gave Odo pause. Loath as he was to admit it, he and Garak shared an unusual bond—both of them were aiding the Federation in a war against their own peoples. Odo knew well the kind of exhaustion Garak was feeling, the weariness that came from grappling with guilt and loneliness.

  Odo tried to engage him without being too obvious about it. “Interesting theory. What is Cardassian opera like?”

  “Discursive,” Garak admitted. “Even our arias are sotto voce, as the humans say.” Amused by his joke—which was fortunate since Odo barely understood it—Garak perked up. “Very well, Constable. Since my generosity of spirit seems to be virtually unbounded, what is it I can do for you?”

  Odo sat down and pushed the padd with the details about the criminals across the table. “These men and women were the ones found in the cargo containers. You’ve heard about this?” Garak’s expression made it plain he was pained that Odo needed to ask such a question.