Quark moved away from them to the next table. Pera, the Bajoran, had a large pile of chips in front of him. He had a quirky half smile and a series of small white scars that ran down the side of his face—product of Cardassian torture. Pera claimed that he was never part of any terrorist group but his scars belied it. Quark put the sherry down in front of him and more Romulan ale in front of his companions.
The two Romulan men, Darak and Kinsak, were as well-known for their tempers as for their poker-playing skills. They had already yelled at Quark for allowing Klingons to play. He had told them that anyone could play regardless of race, as long as they had enough credentials and gold-pressed latinum.
At the edge of the table, the Sligiloid sat alone. She was tall and slender, and covered with thin blue scales. Rom had brushed her when taking her name, and her skin had flashed with a brilliant blue light. She had also cussed him out in her native tongue so harshly that Rom had refused to go near her again.
“Nothing for me, Mr. Quark?” asked the human woman sitting just behind Klar. Quark smiled at her. He had had his eye on her since she arrived. She wore a diaphanous pink gown that revealed more of her voluptuous figure than it concealed. She also carried a tribble, which had caused some stir when she came through the docking bay. Odo had refused to allow her on the station until Dr. Bashir made sure the cooing blond furball was sterile.
“I’m sorry, Miss Jones,” Quark said, hovering over her. If he craned his neck slightly, he got a good view of her cleavage. “You didn’t order anything.”
“Hmm,” she said, leaning back. “The Romulan ale looks good.”
Quark leaned forward. He could see all the way to her navel. “Yes,” he said. “Looks good.”
A hand slapped his back—hard—sending pain all the way to his toes. Quark stood up. A tall, balding human stood behind him, a smile on his uneven features. Berlinghoff Rasmussen. He was known throughout the galaxy for the scams he pulled, starting with the one he tried on the Enterprise crew when he arrived from the past, claiming he was from the future. “I think the lady wanted a beverage,” Rasmussen said.
Quark nodded, once. He didn’t want to tangle with his guests so early in the festivities. “Romulan ale. Anything for you, sir?”
Rasmussen paused, then grinned. “I would like a beer as well, but a human beer. Make that Irish, from the late nineteenth century—a stout—and serve it warm.”
Quark grimaced. He hated drinkers with a palate. “Would you like it from a wooden barrel with a cork, or a tin barrel with a stopper?”
“Very good!” Rasmussen said. “But not quite right. Storage became an issue in the twentieth century—”
“You getting drinks?” asked a male voice behind Quark.
He turned to it as quickly as he could. Rasmussen was known to carry on a conversation past its death. The man sitting at the table with the Romulans was small and dark, with a thick beard and dark hair on his arms and back. Sergei Davidovich. “I would like Anubian vodka. Bring the bottle.”
“Yes, sir,” Quark said. He left the table as quickly as he could. He stood in the center of the room and snapped his fingers. From the main bar, the Dabo girl rolled her eyes at him, but she came to his summons.
When she was beside him, he whispered the drink orders to her.
“They’re not going to smell, are they?” she asked, glancing at the remaining table.
Quark followed her gaze. The Meepod, a five-armed, soft-skinned creature, had just finished her drink. The Klingons beside her were still sipping theirs. “Not if you hurry,” Quark said.
The Dabo girl scurried out of the room. Quark took a deep breath and headed for the remaining table. He already saw trouble. Two Klingon men—Xator and Grouk—sat with their backs to the first table Quark had stopped at. Directly behind them, with her back turned, was Naralak. Quark twisted his hands together. He knew that he would have to face having Romulans and Klingons play against each other, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. At the last major poker tournament in the quadrant, two Klingons had died at the hands of Romulans.
Still, Quark couldn’t do anything without calling attention to the problem. He would just have to worry about it in silence. Besides, one of his ringers, Baun, sat at the table. His pile of chips was dishearteningly small. Quark sighed. Tomorrow everything would work better.
Much, much better.
Rom ran into the room, carrying the drink order Quark had given to the Dabo girl. Quark frowned. He would have to yell at her for making Rom do her job. The Dabo girl caught Quark’s gaze, waved three fingers on her right hand, and closed the door to the back room.
Fine. She couldn’t be any clearer about her unwillingness to do her job.
A handful of other players mingled. Two more Klingons—those trouble-making women from the House of Duras—conversed with a long-haired Freepery. His other ringer, Nam, was trying to corner a human woman near the buffet table. A tentacled Totozoid, who had requested half hour breaks so that it could wet its gills, dripped on the carpet near the door.
“Quite the crowd.”
Quark didn’t have to look up. The voice belonged to Rasmussen. Again. Quark sighed silently. He would have to put up with the man for the next few days. “Yes,” Quark said, “and not everyone is here yet.”
“I’m amazed at the folks who are,” Rasmussen said. “Naralak who is known for her by-the-numbers cheating system. Darak and Kinsak who haven’t been in a room with Naralak since the Great Poker Shootout on Risa two years ago. Pera, known for smuggling anything, as long as it profits Bajor—”
“I’m familiar with all these players,” Quark said.
“Then I’m surprised you invited them,” Rasmussen said. He smiled that goofy half-grin that Quark always wanted to wipe from his face. “I mean, everyone knows that Cynthia Jones can’t abide Grabansters. They eat tribbles, for heaven’s sake. Klingons and Romulans in the same room. Good thing Cardassians aren’t here, what with Pera—”
“Wait until tomorrow,” Quark said. He weaved away from Rasmussen. Quark knew about the tensions, and he knew things that Rasmussen probably didn’t know—that Harding was wanted for assault on Sift IV, and that Sergei Davidovich beheaded the Irits’ podmate during the final moments of a heated Seven Card High Low game in the Miridious Belt. He merely hoped that the players would forget their differences in the thick of the game.
Rom hurried over to Quark, tray at his side. “The Meepod wants another drink,” Rom whispered loudly. “And that Dabo girl refuses to serve any more.”
Just as Quark turned to Rom, the room went dark. The words Quark was about to say about firing that Dabo girl died in his throat.
The station rocked and Quark had to grab a chair to keep his balance.
Curses in a dozen different languages flew around the room.
Alarms wailed from the corridors.
Quark tried to stare through the darkness. What was going on? Was the station under attack? He heard no announcements, had seen no preparation. No one had said anything to him. Sisko would hear about this! Sisko and the entire Federation!
The rocking slowed. Quark regained his balance and took a deep breath. Maybe they had just hit something. Maybe it was some internal problem. Maybe it was nothing at all. Just a momentary glitch.
Quark wiped a hand over his brow. The automatic temperature controls must have gone out as well. The room had suddenly grown stifling hot.
The wet-dog smell of the Grabanster became overpowering in the heat. Beneath it, Quark thought he caught a whiff of smoke. Panic rose in his stomach. He pushed the feeling down.
This was the worst thing that could happen. The worst. Rumor would spread across the sector that Quark’s was a low-life dive that couldn’t even host a proper tournament.
“Please, everyone,” Quark shouted above the noise. “Remain in your places. The emergency lights will come on in a moment.” He hoped. He wasn’t even sure the bar had emergency lights.
He reached out and gra
bbed to his left, hoping Rom had not moved. The flesh his fingers found was ridged and cool. And familiar. He yanked Rom close to his face. “Find O’Brien,” Quark whispered with as much force as he could. “I want to know what is going on. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt the game.”
“But I can’t see any more than you can,” Rom said. His voice almost had a human whine. Rom had picked up too many habits from the Federation do-gooders who filled the station. Before, the Cardassians had been teaching Rom proper, treacherous manners.
“I don’t care if you can see or not,” Quark said. “Just go.” He shoved Rom hard in the direction of the door. He heard Rom crash into a chair and swear. Another voice rose in a curse and something crashed again, before Quark heard the hiss of the door. Good. Rom would find O’Brien and get this place working again.
A drop of sweat rolled in the ridges of Quark’s brow, itching something fierce. “Please just stay calm,” he said, hoping to quiet the protests. “It won’t be long now.”
“It better not be,” a female voice said. Another female squealed and a slap resounded in the darkness.
The alarms sounded like screams outside the door. Beside him, the Grabanster chattered constantly. Quark felt like telling it to shut up, but he had seen the color of its gold-pressed latinum. No sense in angering a customer before a big game.
“You touched my cards,” a deep, accented voice said. Quark couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female, Ferengi or alien. He hated this blackness. He tried to move toward the voice. He didn’t want any accusations of cheating before the game began.
“Why would I do that?” The responding voice had a flat accent that made Quark think of Earth-raised humans. “I can’t see your cards any more than I can see you.”
The voices were coming from an area behind Quark. Everyone else had quieted. Except for the alarms, honking like a Davesian goose.
“Just keep your hands to yourself,” the first voice said. “Or I—”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Quark said, hoping he had the gender right. The table was in his way. His feet banged into a chair and someone growled. “Please. The lights will be back on in a moment and we will start the hands over again.”
“I said, keep your hands off my cards.”
A chair fell back with a clatter, then something crashed through a table. Quark closed his eyes. His beautiful game. Voices rose, screaming and yelling in a dozen languages. The chattering beside him sounded almost like a rat screaming.
Another chair clattered, then another, and the thud of fists hitting flesh filled the room. Quark grabbed a scaly arm, and the Sligiloid flashed a brilliant blue light that showed the room in a strobelike instant: Twenty-two humans and aliens clustered around the tables. Some beings were standing, but most were sitting. Baun clutched his cards to his chest, his smaller-than-typical ears twitching. Good. He was guarding his cards even in a pickup game.
The Sligiloid slurped. The sound was not friendly. Quark edged away. The smell of sulfur filled the air as the strobe light faded. The thudding sounds continued. The moment of light had not illuminated any fighting.
Quark snaked around the Sligiloid, careful not to touch it again—touching them made them angry—and followed the sound. He tripped on another chair just as the lights came back on.
Quark blinked at the brightness. The bead of sweat caught in his brow ridges fell into his right eye, burning it. He rubbed at it anxiously as he scanned the room.
Near the door, one table had fallen, and all the chairs around it were down. Sergei Davidovich and the Meepod were sprawled on the floor. The Meepod was slugging Davidovich, but he was giving as good as he got, using his long legs as leverage while he butted his head against the Meepod’s belly.
“Stop them,” Quark shouted at the scuffle. The Klingon, Xator, and the Romulan, Kinsak, pulled the fighters apart. Then Xator growled at Kinsak. Kinsak’s eyebrows narrowed and his mouth rose in a sneer. Quark hurried over and placed himself between them all. “Thank you,” he said, pushing the groups away from each other. “Thank you very much.”
Davidovich’s face was bloody and half of his beard had been pulled away. The Meepod had turned green. Quark couldn’t remember her name, only that it was unpronounceable. “I should ban you both from the game,” he said. Putting the idea of cheating in the heads of the other players. It would make his job so much tougher now. They would all be watchful.
The Meepod wiped black ichor from her stomach, clearing the mouth that hid in the folds of flesh around what would be a chest on a Ferengi. She was standing free. Kinsak had let her go to protect himself from Xator. “But he was fixing my hand,” the Meepod said in her deep voice. “I could feel it.”
“How could I do that? We weren’t even at the same table!” Davidovich said. Xator held him like a shield and continued to growl at Kinsak.
“Then you were cheating for someone!” the Meepod said. “I felt your hairy arm on my skin.”
Quark made sure he remained between Davidovich and the Meepod. The Meepod’s black ichor had a rotting flesh smell. Another drop of sweat caught in Quark’s brow ridges. “Stop it,” he said. “I will not have this sort of behavior in my place. Is that understood?”
“Quark!” Baun shouted from the back of the room.
Stupid ringer. Didn’t he know that he shouldn’t call attention to himself? Someone might suspect that Baun worked for Quark.
“I’m busy,” Quark said without turning around.
“Quark!”
The rest of the room had become quiet. Even Xator had stopped growling at Kinsak. The alarms outside had shut down, leaving a ringing in Quark’s ears. The sweat dropped off his brow ridge and landed in his left eye. Now both eyes stung.
“Quark!”
Quark had heard this tone in Baun’s voice before. Those moments when Baun went from wide-eyed innocent to competent cardplayer. Something had happened.
Slowly Quark turned to look. Naralak was slumped in her chair, her squinty eyes forever opened on the world. Her green blood mingled with the lovely green felt on the table in front of her. More blood spattered the wall and the surrounding chairs. Baun stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. One of Quark’s specialty cutting knives, used only for Ferengi Cold Ilami dishes, stuck out of her chest.
“I thought,” Baun said, “that I could help her, but she had already been gone too long.”
The Klingons gathered around like Sturgan vultures. “She looks much better now,” B’Etor from the House of Duras said.
“Did you touch her?” Quark asked Baun, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. If Baun had touched her, then that would solve two problems: It would get Baun out of the game now that he had called attention to himself and give the players a patsy so the game could continue uninterrupted. Then Quark could get a new ringer, someone who was a bit more discreet.
“Quark,” Baun said with that patronizing tone Quark hated, “there is no sense in touching a body that is so fully and completely dead.”
The remaining Romulans stood at the side of the table opposite the Klingons. The Romulans stared at the dead woman. “If you killed her, Klingon,” Kinsak said, “I will make sure that our government knows of your crime.”
Lursa laughed. “As if you’re on speaking terms with the Romulan government.”
The Irits peered over the table. “This . . . is . . . most . . . un-for-tu-nate,” it said. “Perhaps . . . there . . . is . . . a . . . kil-ler . . . that . . . has . . . lost . . . its . . . mind. We . . . will . . . all . . . die.”
“We will not die!” Quark said. How stupid. His players don’t need to think about that on top of everything else. “This was just an accident.”
“A very convenient accident,” the Meepod said.
“Well, you didn’t help much,” Quark snapped. “How do I know your fight wasn’t providing cover for someone?”
The Meepod drew herself to her full height, even though the movement was clearly painful. “Meepods never h
elp anyone,” she said.
“I do think we have a problem here,” said Cynthia Jones. Her tribble hadn’t made a sound. “We can’t play tomorrow with a dead body in the room.”
“Quite right.” Quark swallowed, and made his way around the tables to the dead Romulan. The blood had soaked into the felt—the stain wasn’t that noticeable—but someone would have to scrub the walls. Poor Rom. Quark hoped his brother didn’t have plans for the evening, because those plans would have to be canceled.
“Of course, we will have to notify Odo,” Baun said. “I think—”
“You think too much,” Quark hissed. Then he smiled. “Of course I will notify Chief of Security Odo.” Just much later, he thought.
Quark smiled at those gathered around. “The game will continue tomorrow as scheduled. You have all traveled much too far to let a little problem like this set you back.”
“We’re going to play with a killer on the loose?” Baun asked.
If Quark could have kicked Baun, he would have. “Gamblers never let anything get in the way of a game.” The men at the table nodded. “Of course, you could resign, Baun. I’m sure I could find another to take your place.”
Baun frowned. No one else seemed terribly upset by the turn of events. Kinsak was still focused on Xator, and Darak, the other Romulan, was pointedly staring at his cards. It seemed that Naralak didn’t even have friends among her own kind. What luck. Quark suppressed a smile. He loved professional gamblers.
“Well,” Baun said slowly. “If that’s the way it’s done . . . “ He slumped into the empty seat. “You will tell Odo, won’t you, Quark?”
“Of course,” Quark said. In his own good time, though, after the tournament was over. Now all he had to do was to hide the body, and the players would forget the commotion.
He wished Rom was back. His good-for-nothing brother was never around when Quark needed him. Quark would have to carry the body to the storage room himself. He couldn’t ask Baun. That would prove that Baun worked for him.
THE BIG GAME Page 2