The yellow radiance grew a fraction brighter, enough to send their shadows wavering over the ash-smeared walls. Kira watched as he paced across the narrow chamber. "It's this Minister of Trade—the one that Aur's going to install in office once the Front takes power. All their plans hinge on that one individual." Malen appeared to grow more agitated as he walked, rubbing a bony fist into the palm of his other hand. "These are things that can scarcely be credited. If they didn't need me to keep the books, I doubt if I would have been told anything at all." He stopped in front of the door and turned toward her. "The new Minister of Trade—"
There weren't any more words. But instead, a rose that blossomed from his chest—it looked like that to Kira, though she already knew what it really was, and had dived toward the corner of the room to get out of the line of fire. Crouching there, she watched as the last consciousness faded from Malen's eyes, one hand trembling as though in wonderment against the jagged splinters of his breastbone. A corpse, that looked like a bundle of rags with an empty face attached, crumpled to the floor.
A figure that Kira had last seen sitting behind a desk at the Severalty Front's headquarters stepped over the body and into the room. The functionary who had tried to keep her from seeing General Aur held an archaic particle weapon poised in his hand. Kira had used identical sidearms when she had fought in the resistance; the familiar, sharp explosion of its thrust charge still echoed in her ears.
"Don't move." The functionary turned the muzzle of the gun toward her. He glanced behind himself at Malen's corpse, then brought the resulting thin smile around in her direction! "Surely you're not surprised—didn't he say that everything the two of you did was being watched? And knowing that, to try and set up this little rendezvous . . ." He shrugged. "Very foolish. Or perhaps your old comrade had grown tired and had developed a bit of a death wish. And this way it could happen the way he thought it should have a long time ago."
"Spare me the philosophizing." She could feel the muscles coiling inside her limbs as her brain raced, calculating some way around the weapon's small, lethal black hole. "Thoughtful murderers disgust me."
"Indeed. I hadn't expected such tender sensibilities from one of your reputation, Major. But I assure you that this man's death comes about with genuine regret on my part. Malen's skills would have been very useful for the purposes of the Front's coming government. I should know; I was the one who compiled our dossier on his . . . interesting financial activities during the Cardassian occupation."
"I see." Kira carefully gauged the distance between herself and the weapon. "You're obviously not the doorkeeper flunky I took you to be." If she could keep him talking, there was always a chance of distracting him, breaking the concentration that kept the weapon unwaveringly pointed toward her.
"No—and I'm neither inexperienced or foolish enough for you to have a chance of succeeding at what you're so obviously thinking about." The functionary's smile vanished.
"You forget how widespread the resistance was, across the face of Bajor; there were elements—groups, organizations, even individuals such as myself—of which you would have had absolutely no awareness. Just as now you have no real idea of the Severalty Front's intentions."
"They must not be too admirable, if you didn't want Malen telling me what they are."
The functionary hazarded a glance at the corpse, his gaze immediately flicking back to Kira before she could move. "Unfortunately, for all his potential worth to the Front, there had been some questions all along about the depth of his loyalties—a logical consequence, given the nature of his rather shifty reputation. Believe me, Major, if it hadn't been for my own intervention on his behalf, he would have been dead long before now." The functionary shrugged, causing the muzzle of the weapon to tilt slightly, then settle into aim again. "But I guess I was guilty of mere sentimentality. I was reluctant to believe that all members of the resistance's old guard, such as Malen and yourself, should be eliminated out of hand—or at least not until it could be proven that they couldn't be brought around to our way of seeing things." He gestured with the weapon. "Please stand up, Major. You must be uncomfortable."
Now she was able to look straight into the functionary's eyes. "If you're planning the same fate for me, you might want to remember my technical status as a liaison to Starfleet. It's unlikely that you'd be able to conceal my death for very long—or eventually being held responsible for it. And Starfleet does not regard the elimination of its personnel lightly."
"I admire your self-possession in what many others would consider to be an intimidating situation." The thin smile returned to his face. "But how Starfleet feels about the brushing aside of, shall we say, impediments to the course Bajoran progress is not something that concerns me. Your Commander Sisko and all the rest of Starfleet are at the end of a leash held by the Federation. Only the utterly naive are ignorant of the fact that both murder and the toleration of murder are often required in the interests of diplomacy."
Kira's gaze grew harder and narrower. "I'm beginning to think you got these annoying little lectures from someone else. This all sounds like General Aur to me."
"Whatever. It's true, no matter whose words they might be."
"Aur better hope he's got one hell of a trump card stashed away." Kira's muscles tensed, ready to feint down and to one side, then knock away the functionary's weapon hand with a forearm blow. "If he's going to take on the whole Federation . . ."
"At this point, it doesn't really matter." The functionary lowered the weapon, its muzzle pointing harmlessly to the floor. "Perhaps later. Fortunately for yourself, you present no threat to the plans of the Severalty Front. Even if Malen had been able to tell you what he knew, what he had found out—that wouldn't have changed anything. Because it's too late now." He stowed the weapon in a pouch slung from his uniform's belt. "You're free to go." He stepped back and gestured toward the doorway. "As, in fact, you always were."
She heard the explosions then. In the distance, trembling the night air. But close enough that she could hear the shouting voices mingled with them, somewhere at the city's heart . . .
The old building's stairwell echoed with her running. She came to a halt in the street outside, looking up at the fiery lights slicing open the sky.
Already, the distant shouts had begun to change, to cries of jubilant triumph. She had heard that sound before, when the gears of this world had turned and meshed with each other, when one rule of power had changed and another had begun. A coup, she thought. What else could it be?
"We decided not to wait." The functionary stood right behind her. Without turning around, Kira was able to detect the smile in his voice. "And . . . we didn't have to."
CHAPTER 7
He knew that the doctor would err on the side of kindess. If he let him; that was why Commander Sisko ordered the station's chief medical officer to tell the truth, no matter what pain and guilt was involved.
"It actually looks pretty good," said Bashir. The two men stood in one of the infirmary's small consulting rooms; on the wall-mounted computer screen was a dense section of the results he had been reviewing when Sisko had entered. "I ran a complete battery of tests on Jake; everything from real-time neural pathway charting and catecholamine receptor indices, to old-fashioned Rorschach inkblots and draw-a-picture sequences. Given the resources we have on board DS9, there aren't any further diagnostic procedures I can administer to him."
Sisko nodded slowly. "And what did you find?" He could hear how grim his own voice sounded, as though the words themselves were laden with the weight that had formed around his heart.