Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles (10 page)

He’d been sent by a gaunt-faced “merchant” to his newly assigned lodgings, to find not much at the far end of a bleak, curving corridor—a bunk, a table, basic replicator, outdated computer console—but it was comfortable enough for someone who’d just been ejected from a tramp freighter. Quark was in no position to complain—he hadn’t expected Risa.

He quickly set about contacting his family on Ferenginar to inform them that he was still alive, but of course his fool-headed mother was apparently too busy with some trivial female pursuit to answer a transmission from her beloved eldest son. He left her a message, and then one for his idiot brother Rom, and then he waited. There wasn’t much he could do now, not until he’d arranged for his funds to be transferred. He didn’t have a padd; he had virtually no assets besides his few crates of delectable odds and ends—
milcake
mix,
sargam
filets, caviar, pickled
plomeek
—and his brilliant business acumen. Which was awesome, of course, but it didn’t pay the bills, not yet. There were his personal effects—at least Gart had tossed out Quark’s bag along with the refrigerated, “poisoned” containers—but nothing he could consider much of an asset. At least not among Cardassians.

Except the disruptor, maybe
. Quark looked over at his bag, considering. You never knew when you might need to defend yourself. Of course, on a place like this, a single disruptor pistol was brittle reassurance—especially since he had never actually fired the thing. In any case, he couldn’t imagine a need for it. He had been blessed with the gift of gab.

The little console in front of him chimed to indicate that one of his messages was being returned, and Quark fumbled around a bit with the alien keyboard before he managed to access the image of his mother, her wizened face showing deep concern. Quark was disgusted to see that Ishka was wearing some piece of fabric swathed around her neck.

“Moogie!” he cried out, embarrassed. “Take that thing off!”

His mother looked down, and then plucked at the scarf.
“Sorry, son. I was just trying it on. I forgot it was even there.”

“Ugh.” There was nothing more terrible than seeing your own mother in clothing. It wasn’t so bad when other women did it—it was suggestive, of course, but suggestive wasn’t necessarily horrifying. Quark remembered when Gera had put on his jacket, once, after he’d taken it off—a bold gesture, one that should have been upsetting, but she’d looked oddly cute in it…He promptly buried the thought. The sub-nagus’s tart of a sister was why he’d had to leave home in the first place.

Ishka got right to business.
“Quark, what has gotten into you? A Cardassian station! Haven’t I told you about those people? They have no interest in profit at all—they’re almost as bad as the Klingons, but with less scruple! All they want to do is plunder, and then plunder some more. No head for business!”

“That’s enough!” Quark shouted. His mother had such nerve, trying to tell him—the eldest male!—what to do. “All I need to hear from you is that you’ve made sure Rom has transferred all my accounts over to the Bank of Bolias.”

“Son, I’m not so sure your brother can handle your request. Maybe it would be better if I just—”

“Rom has to do it,” Quark said firmly. Of course his mother knew that Rom was an idiot, as stupid as any Klingon when it came to matters of money, but there was no one else. Cousin Gaila would have skimmed, and there were no other close male relatives to whom he could turn.

“For Exchequer’s sake, Quark, it’s a simple request. I don’t approve of what you’re doing, but if I can just put in the call to the bank for you—”

“Put in the call?” Quark said, a little sick at the thought of it. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

His mother pursed her lips beneath the hook of her nose.
“Of course I am,”
she finally said.
“I’ll contact your brother right away. And don’t worry, I’ll see to it that he doesn’t miss anything.”

“Good,” Quark said. “I’ve got big plans for this station. I’m going to be rich in no time.”

His mother continued to look fretful.
“But…son…Cardassians? There’s a war going on there, isn’t there?”

“Not exactly,” Quark told her. “But even if there was, don’t forget the Thirty-fourth Rule of Acquisition.”
War is good for business
. That’d shut her up.

“Don’t forget the Thirty-fifth Rule, either,”
Ishka reminded him. “‘
Peace is good for business.
’
Couldn’t you come back to peaceful Ferenginar, carry out your plans close to home?”

“Moogie, I’ve got cases and cases of unreplicated food, and I’m on a station full of starving Bajorans.”

“Quark, don’t get mixed up in the local politics! Aligning yourself with the Bajorans—”

“Who said anything about alignment? It’s supply and demand. You should see some of these people, Moogie. They’re ugly enough as it is—tall, straight teeth—”

“And what makes you think they have any money?”

“Some of them do. They’re bound to! They have vendors on this station, and I’ve seen Bajorans patronizing them. But you can’t eat money, can you? From what I’ve heard, there are food shortages on their planet, and they don’t seem to have a pair of decent shoes between a dozen of them, let alone a replicator. If they have the money, they’ll pay. Believe me, Moogie.”

“The Cardassians won’t stand for it. You’ll be killed.”

“The Cardassians don’t have to know,” he said, lowering his voice from force of habit, though he’d already checked and double-checked the channel’s security. The Cardassians were good, but not that good. “Besides, I’ve got an idea for a legitimate venture. You wouldn’t believe what passes for leisure here. These soldiers—they’ve got nowhere to unwind! I’m going to change that, though.”

His mother frowned, her eyes moist.
“So, there’s no way I can convince you to come home?”

Quark shook his head firmly. “I figure it’ll be at least another decade before it’s safe to show my face again. The sub-nagus isn’t likely to have forgotten me.”

“Maybe if you’d just married his sister,”
Ishka said sadly.

“She was engaged,” Quark reminded her. “Anyway, I’ll never get married. I’m not like Rom.”

There was silence for a moment as Quark read his mother’s disappointment—because of no more grandchildren, or because of Rom in general, he couldn’t say.

“How is Rom, by the way?” he asked guiltily. “And that little baby of his…what was his name? Gob?”

“Nog,”
his mother said sharply.
“He’s just fine, and he’s hardly a baby, Quark. He’s a lovely little seven-year-old. A brilliant boy.”

“Takes after his mother, does he?” Quark muttered.

Ishka cleared her throat.
“I’ll send the money your way,”
she said.
“I mean, Rom will.”

“Thank you, Moogie,” Quark said again, and signed off the transmission. He stared at the blank screen for a moment, allowing himself a moment of nostalgia for his home, back on beautiful green and wet Ferenginar, the air so moist and temperate, not like the arid heat on this station. At least his room had separate climate controls, though he couldn’t get them to even begin to mimic the humidity he craved. His sinuses were parched. He decided to go to bed. With any luck, his money would be available in the morning. Until then, he had nothing to do but maybe try to make some Bajoran contacts, and he wanted to be rested before he made his way back over to the Bajoran side of the station. Rested, and armed.

Kalisi didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified when the flyer finally slowed, came to orbit of an unknown world. She had no idea where she was. Her knowledge of star charts was scanty at best. She’d never had any desire to study the geography of space, and had paid only brief attention to that part of her education, learning just enough to satisfy her requirement for graduation. She only knew that below her was a very small, very dark planet, distant from its minor sun.

The sharp-faced pilot did not address her, only tapped his comcuff. “Two to beam down,” he said aloud, and Kalisi felt the cool rush of the transporter beam. When the sensation passed, she found herself in a long, brightly lit hallway, the pilot ushering her toward a door at the end.

“This way, Doctor Reyar.” He did not sound unfriendly, exactly—in fact, there was no detectable emotion in his tone whatever. There was no one around, but she knew they were being watched. She could feel it.

Obsidian Order, then.

The pilot led her down a set of curving steps and into a large vestibule that housed a great many computers, floor-to-ceiling units with dozens of screens on each row, lit up with flickering characters and intermittently changing live feeds. There were shots that Kalisi recognized as public gathering places on Cardassia Prime: the Hall of Records, the upper levels of the Assembly building, the grounds of the Ministry of Science. Other feeds depicted scenes that Kalisi surmised were from other worlds, so alien was their appearance. She had scarcely blinked when she was greeted by a middle-aged Cardassian man whose features were as broad as the pilot’s were pinched. He stepped forward, ushering her into a small room off to one side. He closed the door behind them, leaving the pilot outside.

“Doctor Reyar,” he said. He flashed an unnervingly handsome smile. “Forgive me for bringing you here under such mysterious circumstances. Discretion was of the utmost importance. But no matter. We’ll have you to your required destination in no time at all. But first—if you don’t mind—I have a few questions for you.”

Kalisi’s initial reaction was anger, but she recognized the futility of it, and worked out a kind of smile. “Of course,” she said, choking slightly on the words.

The man gestured for her to sit. “We would have done this on the surface of Bajor, but you see, my duties do not permit me to leave this facility. Not without the sayso of my superiors.” He smiled again, and Kalisi could not suppress a shiver, for although the room was well-appointed, if small, it was cold here—colder even than on Bajor.

Kalisi sat, feeling an odd mix of indignity and fright as she waited for him to explain her kidnapping. Her father had ties to the Order, which should have insulated her from danger, but the isolation of this facility was anything but reassuring. Kalisi knew the sorts of tactics the Order employed to extract information from their interviewees. Her gaze darted nervously about the room. She didn’t see anything that resembled the fearsome interrogation equipment she had always imagined, but then, perhaps her imagination was lacking. Maybe such a device was something so thoroughly innocuous that it had already been administered to her, without her even noticing.

“Doctor Reyar, I’ll not keep you guessing. This matter concerns an old colleague of yours, from the Ministry of Science.”

“The ministry,” Kalisi repeated, trying to think of anyone suspicious she had known at the old facility.

“Yes, a woman named Miras Vara. You were quite close to her at one time, were you not?”

“Miras!” Kalisi exclaimed. Miras was hardly the sort of person that warranted the attention of the Obsidian Order. But then, perhaps Kalisi had been wrong. Perhaps this was not the Obsidian Order at all? Nobody had identified it as such; in fact, this man had not identified himself in any fashion.

“May I ask what this is about?” she said, feeling a little less frightened, a little more confused.

The man hesitated, and then spoke again. “Doctor Reyar, you contacted your father some years ago regarding Doctor Vara, and her strange behavior following an incident with a Bajoran artifact.”

Kalisi immediately remembered. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “But I have not seen Miras in years. Not since…”

“Not since she disappeared, following that incident.”

“She…disappeared,” Kalisi repeated—a statement, but then she wasn’t sure if she had known it. She had been so busy with her research at the time—so determined to be recognized by the Cardassian Board of Scientists so that she could develop her prototype on Bajor…

“That’s right,” the man said. “No one has heard from Doctor Vara since you notified your father about that object. And no one has been able to find the object, either. In fact, some time ago, I sought to retrieve it from the Ministry of Science, where it had been…misplaced for a good long time. But do you know what I found, when he went to remove it? Remove it legitimately, I might add, with proper permit and credential?”

“What?” Kalisi asked in a small voice, for she had not quite puzzled out what any of this had to do with her.

“The object was gone!” he said, in mock surprise. “Gone, after it had been confirmed that the director at the science ministry had relocated it, at last.
You
knew, before any of this occurred, Doctor Reyar, that the object held some significance. You knew enough to tell your father that he would be wise to inform Enabran Tain about it, didn’t you? Now, I would like you to tell me anything you know regarding Doctor Vara’s disappearance, Doctor Reyar.”