Trier nodded. “Yes, I know. You aren’t the first male I’ve met who disappeared into the unknown when faced with a midlife crisis.”
“It’s nota midlife crisis!”
“Whatever. Why are we rehashing this?”
“What you don’t know is that Ro’s supposed to come with me,” Quark said. “She resigned her commission.”
That got Treir’s attention. She sat up. “Why?”
“For the same reason I’m leaving: the Federation.”
“Really,” Trier grunted. “Huh. That’s a surprise.”
“What’s so surprising?” Quark said defensively.
“Don’t get all indignant, Quark,” Treir said. “I just meant that I got the impression Ro was starting to like it here. I’m just surprised she’d want to leave.”
“That’s just it!” Quark said. “I’m starting to wonder if she really does. We’ve been talking for weeks about how our lives would change if Bajor joined the Federation, and when the idea to leave and go into business together came up, I thought she was all for it. She even told Kira she was quitting. Then Shakaar gets himself killed, and suddenly she’s more driven than ever. It’s as if I’ve ceased to exist. I haven’t been able to talk to her since the assassination.”
“Quark, what did you expect?” Treir asked. “That she’d turn her back on her planet during what may be its worst crisis since the Occupation?”
Quark stared at the floor, feeling frustrated and unsure how to articulate it. “I expected her to be honest with me,” he said.
Treir looked back at him in silence for a moment, then said, “Quark, I’mgoing to be honest with you. I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on between you two. On the surface you seem as preposterous a couple as I’ve ever encountered. But you’re right, ever since we escaped from the Orion Syndicate, I’ve had the opportunity to watch you both, and I can see that you two have managed to pierce the absurdity of the mere idea and actually made a connection.”
Quark was unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. “What’s your point?”
“Do you love her?”
Quark became flustered. “I don’t know. No. Yes…. Maybe.”
Treir smiled. “Then let her be who she really is, whateverthat turns out to be. That’s love. Anything else is just a transaction.”
Quark continued staring at the floor, shaking his head. “I have to be who I am, too,” he said quietly.
“And who is that exactly?” Treir asked.
Quark looked up and met Treir’s gaze. “You wanna know the truth? I’m not even sure I know anymore. Everything I do now, every choice I make, I keep making Laren part of the equation, whether I mean to or not. And now I wonder if the only way she and I will ever get together is if one of us becomes something we’re not. Which would kill it between us, wouldn’t it?” Been living on this station too long,he thought. I’m starting to think like these people.
“Have you ever stopped to consider,” Treir asked softly, “that the person you think you’re turning into is the one you’ve been all along, and just never realized it?”
Silence fell on the room, in the midst of which Quark wondered if he should fire Treir—or give her a raise. Then the silence was broken by a thud against the wall, coming from the corridor. It sounded as if a body had been thrown against it.
Treir was on her feet at once. “What the hell was that?”
“Probably a Klingon who had a few too many,” Quark said dismissively. “I’ve seen it before. Let security deal with it.”
Ignoring his advice, Treir went to the door and opened it. Quark chased after her. It wasn’t a Klingon. A Cardassian was leaning heavily against the wall a few meters away. And not just any Cardassian,Quark realized. It’s Dukat’s lookalike relative, Gul Macet. He doesn’t look too good, either. Oh, frinx, please don’t let it be another bad bottle of kanar….
“Are you all right?” Treir asked.
Macet was grimacing in pain, jerking his head violently as if experienceing some kind of attack. His hands clawed at his own face, drawing blood.
“Yuck,” Quark said.
Macet opened his eyes, seeming to fight to focus them on Quark and Trier, his lips moving soundlessly. He started to fall, but Treir ran up to him and caught him before he hit the deck.
“Heeellllpppp mmmeeeee…” the gul rasped.
Quark found a corridor companel. “Quark to infirmary. Medical emergency on the habitat ring. Section 015, level two. It’s Gul Macet.” If it was the kanar,at least he’d could say he tried to save the man’s life. What’s that smell?
“Goddess, what’s happening to him?” Treir said.
Quark looked. Macet was staring up at Treir. The gul was still trying to speak as a thin trail of smoke wound its way up from his open mouth.
Treir turned him over, probably thinking that Macet might need to vomit whatever it was that had gotten into him. Never seenkanar dothat.
And there on the back of his neck, Quark saw something that looked like a pale blue thorn wriggling.
15
“It could be anything,” Kira said, frowning at the energy profile displayed on the sciences station monitor on the bridge of the Gryphon.“I mean, it’s obviously residue from the distortion field created by a cloaking device, but the telltale fluctuations that would identify it as Klingon, Romulan, or something else are completely absent.”
The science officer, a Tellarite named Croth, agreed with her. “One might almost say it’s generic,” he said. “I realize that isn’t terribly scientific, but it best describes what we’re seeing here. This field shows no sign of any of the unique modifications that cloak-enabled species utilize to enhance the effectiveness of such technology. In that regard, it’s very—what’s the human expression?—‘no frills.’”
“So it’s either very sophisticated,” Mello interpreted, standing behind Kira with her arms folded across her chest, “or very unsophisticated.”
Croth smiled as he looked up at Mello, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “Aptly put, Captain, but there’s no real way to know which based on the current data.”
“I assume you’ve tried a tachyon sweep?” Kira asked. Over the years it had been learned that such sweeps could be most effective in exposing a cloaked ship. Usually.
Lieutenant Spillane, the security officer standing opposite Kira, nodded. “We’ve tried it hourly since before we left the Bajoran system. Nothing. Whatever’s generating this field is constant. We can’t even tell how far ahead of us it is, and we’re already pushing warp 9.5.”
“What’s our ETA at Trill?” Kira asked.
“Twenty-nine hours,” Montenegro answered.
“We hope to catch our quarry much sooner than that, Colonel,” Mello said, trying to be reassuring.
Kira considered that. “What about Starfleet ships in Trill’s immediate vicinity? Could they intercept—?”
“Admiral Akaar has already made arrangements for the three ships nearest Trill to sweep the region,” said the captain. “And Starfleet forces stationed on the planet are on high alert.”
“What if the Trill government tries to protect the assassin?”
No one answered. She suspected none of them wanted to consider that possibility. That was when Kira realized the larger implications Mello and her crew were facing. If Trill tried to protect Gard, it meant a Federation member government was complicit in Shakaar’s assassination. And where would that lead? Revolution on Trill? Secession from the Federation? Trill being thrown out as a rogue nation? Schism as other worlds started taking sides? War? This was much bigger than Bajor, Kira realized. This had the potential to tear the Federation apart.