"Don't play coy with me, Quark." He leaned over the unordered drink, which had been deposited in front of him as a fruitless attempt at ingratiation. "Just last shift, you might have been welded to my elbow, the way that you were tugging at me and hinting that you had some huge secret to impart. And now it's business as usual around here? You're severely trying my patience."
"Please . . . could you keep your voice down?" The Ferengi's manner became even more nervous and agitated. That was what Odo had expected; these types with an obsessive interest in other people's affairs always reacted in panic at the thought of their own being revealed. "I assure you—"
"You'll assure me nothing." Odo brought his voice up another notch in volume. "But you will expand upon those rather broad hints you were so generous with before. You seemed quite concerned about what you termed 'unusual developments'; there's apparently some negative impact on your manifold business enterprises, from certain 'unsavory characters'—though I can't imagine anyone so far gone in depravity that you could justifiably call them that."
"I so enjoy these witticisms of yours." Quark forced one of his sharp-pointed smiles. "Kindly and well-intentioned as I'm sure they're meant to be. But look—" He leaned closer, his words set in a conspiratorial whisper. "I've got . . . well, business arrangements with half the individuals in this bar. All strictly legitimate, of course."
Odo emitted a snort of disbelief.
"All right, sort of legitimate. Harmless, let's say. But these people tend to be a little on the paranoid side; they don't have the same long-standing relationship of trust with you that I do." Quark scanned the premises again, directing an even broader smile and a wave of a hand to a table ringed with scowling faces. "Be right with you." He turned back to the chief of security. "Give me a break," he pleaded. "If everyone sees the two of us having a long, intimate conversation, I could wind up going out one of the waste-disposal chutes little pieces."
"Very well." Odo took the tray from Quark and set it down beside the untouched synthale; his next action was to grasp the Ferengi's lapels and slam Quark down into the chair next to him. "Then my advice to you would be to talk fast."
Quark had barely enough breath for a panicky squeak. "It's the holosuites—"
"What about them? Other than the fact they represent a good percentage of your profits."
The Ferengi managed to regain some of his composure. "I run a few holosuites, true, but their value to me isn't the revenue they generate—believe me, I hardly cover my expenses on them. Rather, they're all part of my role here as host to legions of weary travelers. I've often suggested to Commander Sisko that Starfleet should consider subsidizing some of my activities here, for the sheer social value and goodwill they generate among visitors to DS9. Now, in a properly administered transit station—"
"I thought you were in a hurry."
"Yes, of course." The comment prompted another nervous survey by Quark. "You're fully aware that no matter what your own personal views might be about the morality involved in my operating the holosuites, they are inspected and fully licensed—by you, as a matter of fact."
"My feelings don't enter into it," said Odo sourly. "If the DS9 regulations allow you to do business in such a manner, then I allow it. That's all."
"But you have to admit that I run a clean operation. Some of the programming for my holosuites may be a little bit on the risqué side—all right, a lot that way—but it's all within the established guidelines for, shall we say, adult entertainment. There's certainly nothing in my holosuites' programing that could be considered harmful . . . nothing that anybody could get hurt by. . . ."
Odo peered more closely at the Ferengi. "What are you talking about?"
"The problem, my dear Odo, is that I no longer control all of the station's holosuites; there are these new ones that have been brought on board. Now, if you and the commander were to see the wisdom of granting me an exclusive franchise . . ." A hopeful tone crept into his voice. "All right, all right; never mind." Quark began sliding off the seat. "Look, I've already stayed too long here talking to you. I've got a bar to run." He picked up the empty tray and clutched it to his chest. "It's not my holosuites I was referring to. They're not the problem. And that's all I can tell you right now."
Odo watched the Ferengi making his rounds among the other tables, attempting to mollify the thuggish patrons who had been casting narrow-eyed glances Quark's way.
Outside Quark's establishment, Odo moved through the crowded Promenade. There was another sector of the station that he wished to investigate.
"How's that little gadget working out? You know, the one I rigged up for you." As he crouched down with the old-fashioned manual screwdriver, DS9's chief of operations looked up at the figure standing beside him.
"'Gadget'? Oh, yes." Odo nodded. "Quite satisfactorily, thank you. I didn't bring it with me—" He displayed his empty hands. "Otherwise, I would have been happy to demonstrate the device's efficiency."
"No need." O'Brien had gotten down on his knees, the better to apply force to a particularly stubborn panel fastening. "I'm already immodest enough about the quality of my work." He signaled with a crooked finger. "Could you point that light a little more this way? There, that's fine." With both fists clenched around the screwdriver's handle, and teeth gritted together, he strained against the reluctant bit of metal.
"Actually, I need to ask another favor of you along those lines." Odo peered around the flashlight's beam. "The device you made for me just reads out the access code of someone who's currently using a holosuite; what I require now would be something that could give me a cumulative history of a holosuite's past users. Would that be possible?"
"Sure; no problem." The screw had finally broken free, and O'Brien began backing it out. "These babies all have a log-in chip wired into the basic circuitry, so every access occasion gets recorded—you could have the times and dates, too, if you wanted." With a tiny ping, the screw fell out on the metal flooring. Out of habit created by years of practical engineer work, O'Brien picked up the screw and tucked it into a belt pouch before it could get lost.
"That would be most helpful."
Rubbing the small of his back, O'Brien looked over the panel. There were another sixteen fasteners to go. It would have been less work to use a power tool, but both he and Odo had agreed they didn't want anyone to know they were back here in this narrow space, and the noise might have given them away.
It had been less than half an hour ago that Odo had cornered him in his office on the engineering deck and dragooned him along on this expedition. Or "investigation," as Odo would have it. The sector in question, one of DS9's remoter and less-frequented corridors, held a row of the new holosuites. He hadn't been able to conjecture why anyone would travel all this way to use them, when there were better-maintained ones on the Promenade.
"Exactly," Odo had replied to the chief of operations' musings. "And where one finds a mystery, one must then look for a motivation."
Spoken like a real detective, O'Brien had thought. They had checked and found no one using any of the corridor's holosuites; he had then led Odo back to the normally closed-off space behind them, from which the holosuites' workings could be reached.
"Actually," continued O'Brien, "there would be a wee bit of a problem." The second of the panel's screws fell into his palm; he started on the next one. "And that'd be the same as with the other device: what you're asking for is not quite within regulations." With a raised eyebrow, he glanced up at Odo.