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To Paullina’s TV set . . . 
Long may it wave
Preface 
Several years ago, when Rene Auberjonois was starring on Broadway in City of Angels, I waited at the stage door after one performance and, when he came out, got him to sign my plush toy of Sebastian the Crab from The Little Mermaid—his nemesis in that film, since he had voiced the crazed French chef. 
Who would have thought that my little autographed plush crab (notice I avoid saying “stuffed crab”) would suddenly, with the debut of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” be transformed from a novelty item into a valuable Star Trek collectible. 
A lot of things have been surprising about “Deep Space Nine.” I’m surprised that I’ve been enjoying the series as much as I have, since I must admit the initial descriptions didn’t sound promising. But as of this writing, five episodes have aired and I’ve found them to be, by and large, rather entertaining. I’ve certainly liked it a lot more than the extremely uneven first season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” 
I’m surprised that I’m writing this novel. I figured I’d get around to doing one and had even been discussing a “Mr. Scott and Lwaxana Troi Visit Deep Space” novel because my last few Trek books have featured Lwaxana, and I figured I was on a roll. 
But this isn’t that novel. This had its origins much the same way that The Rift did—namely, editor Kevin Ryan came to me and said,
“How would you like to be the first writer to . . . ?” In the former case, it was “have two Trek novels out back-to-back?” In this case, it was “write the first original Deep Space Nine novel.” 
How could I resist such an opportunity? Being offered the chance to work on a group of characters, using five scripts and the series bible for guidance, knowing full well that by the time the book comes out the characters might very well bear little resemblance to the way they’re being depicted right now? Knowing that I might have fans saying, “How come the book isn’t consistent with the way Sisko was portrayed last week?” 
Well . . . ’cause I thought it might be fun. And besides, my car is breaking down and I need a new one. Two solid reasons as far as I’m concerned. 
I wish to thank my wife, Myra, for her support as I once again put myself into one of these suicidal deadline-or-die positions. Myra, who can probably sympathize with Abigail Adams, wife of John, who proclaimed, “Think of it! To be married to the man who’s always first in line to be hanged.” 
Likewise, the girls—Shana, age twelve; Jenny, eight; and Ariel, seventeen months—who stayed out of my way. Far out of my way. 
Also, Mike Okuda of the Trek offices, who gave freely of his time to answer my many questions about DS9 in general and Odo in particular. For several days he fielded questions like “What about Odo’s mass?” and “Can Odo fly?” Little things like that. 
(Note to sticklers: Throughout this novel you will see Odo do lots of stuff that, chances are, you won’t see him do in the series. Having covered my bases thoroughly and checked and rechecked, I will state here that the reason Odo hasn’t performed many of the stunts I have him doing is not because he can’t. Rather, we’re getting down here to the realistic TV constraints of budgets. The only
way that Odo could pull off on TV the stunts he does in this book is if “Deep Space Nine” had a budget of $85 million, rather than $2 million, per episode. Novelists are not limited by monetary constraints. I don’t have to figure out how to make something work on screen; all I have to say is “It happened.” So if you’re going to be one of those people who say, “Gee, we’ve never seen Odo transform his arm into a spiked sledgehammer, so that means he can’t, well, in the words of Robin Williams, “I’m sorry  . . . I’d agree with you if you were right.”) 
Likewise, to my intrepid editors at the various comic book offices I work for—which, by the way, is nothing like what you see on Bob Newhart’s new program, so stop asking, okay?—who were, once again, kind enough to cut me some slack—particularly Bobbie Chase and Joey Cavalieri. Thanks, guys. 
Also many thanks to several people who influenced this book, including Agatha Christie, James Cameron, and Alan Young. 
Oh . . . the tone of this book? For those people who like to be warned about such things? 
Well . . . it’s . . . 
It gets kind of intense, actually. 
There. Now you’re warned. 
So . . . 
Let’s get deep.
PROLOGUE
THE VESSEL with the killer on it moved through space.
The vessel was small and quite energy-efficient. It moved quickly and briskly through the depths of the void. Its destination lay not too much farther off.
Soon.
Soon the business would be done.
The killer stared out one of the small viewports, watching the distant stars move past. His thoughts were his own, his face inscrutable.
Soon.
Soon it would be done. . . .
But of course before it was done . . . it had to begin.
This was not going to be a problem for the killer. He was quite certain of that.
He had had a long and very successful history. He went where he wished. Did what he wished. None could anticipate his moves. None could stop him.
He would visit terror upon them and do his business, and then he would leave, when he felt like it.
And none would stop him. None could.
He turned away from the window . . .  and released the shape he had assumed. His body oozed downward, reconfigured itself. . . .
And, moments later, had become a simple suitcase.
The killer went to sleep and dreamed of the killing to come. . . .
And no one would ever see him. . . .
CHAPTER
1
“NOW WATCH CAREFULLY.”
Miles O’Brien, square-jawed, curly-haired, and the most aggressively patient individual on Deep Space Nine, smiled broadly, which was the only way he was capable of smiling. He had a look in his eye that gleamed of mischief and deviltry. It was, in fact, the exact look that he had used several years previously on a certain young botanist aboard the USS Enterprise, when he had first spotted her lounging in Ten-Forward. And she had found that look refreshingly guileless, even playful. A pleasing mixture of a little boy’s soul in a grown man’s body.
That was over four years ago.
Now she just found it damned irritating.
Keiko, his wife—the irritated woman—did not look up from the lesson plans she was preparing for the next day.
At first glance, and even at second, Miles and Keiko O’Brien were mismatched. In contrast to the buoyant Irishman’s open expression and “Hi, pal, gladdaseeya” air, the Asian Keiko was far more low-key, far more reserved.
When O’Brien’s spirits were high, they couldn’t be anchored with a crate of gold-pressed latinum. When they were low, a team of
horses could be hitched up and whipped into a frenzy, and still not drag him out of the doldrums until he was ready to go.
Keiko, on the other hand, was far more steady. She was not quick to anger, but instead would build gradually. O’Brien sometimes teasingly called her “the slow cooker.” But when she did get angry, volcanoes had nothing on her.
She was light-skinned where he was swarthy, delicate where he was coarse. Yin, as she put it, to his yang. He, on the other hand, would say that she was Abbott to his Costello—a reference that she did not begin to understand, along with most of his references to arcane and archaic Earth matters.
There was much about him that she did not understand, even after four years of marriage.
She did not understand his fondness for poker, a relatively dishonorable game where the object was to win through deceit and trickery rather than through an honest matching of skill against skill.
She did not understand why she was supposed to adjust to such a radical change in her life as coming to this godforsaken space station that was so isolated it wasn’t even in the middle of nowhere but rather in the distant, bleak outskirts of nowhere.
She did not understand why in the world he had been dead set on naming their offspring Elvis if it had been a boy. Fortunately the issue had been dodged when a girl arrived, during one of the more tempestuous days of Enterprise life that she had experienced.
And most of all, she did not understand why he did not understand.
“Miles, please,” she said, rubbing her temple—an early warning sign indicating that her beloved husband was really pushing matters. “I’ve really got a lot on my mind right now.”
O’Brien, who rarely, if ever, picked up on the aforementioned early warning sign, said, “It’ll just take a minute.”
“Miles . . . ”
I miss the Enterprise, and I miss my life, and it’s a struggle to get any children to come to my classes because they’d all much rather be out causing trouble or something, and anyway, I never intended to be a teacher—I’m a botanist. And I never intended for Molly to grow up in a snake pit like this station, and I hate that she has to, and I hate this station, and I hate feeling grungy all the time, and I hate this whole stupid situation, and I hate—
“Something on your mind, hon?” he asked.
She looked at that hurt puppy dog expression of his, and she couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve never been one for kicking helpless small animals,” she said softly.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She waved it off and put down her padd. “Go ahead.”
“All right.” He grinned, fully comfortable with her dismissal of anything being wrong. “Quark showed me some magic tricks, and I figured when we have Molly’s birthday party, I could entertain.”
“Miles . . . Molly isn’t interested in magic tricks. You know what she wants for her birthday: a pony, like she’s seen in her books. She wants to ride a pony around the habitat ring.”
“Well, it’s not bloody likely, okay? A magician will have to do. Now . . . watch carefully.”
He held his hand out, palm up. There was a coin in it.
Keiko, trying to muster enthusiasm, applauded.
“I didn’t do the trick yet,” said O’Brien.
“Oh . . . sorry. I just thought the coin was pretty. What is it, anyway?”
“A Ferengi tri-esta. Now . . . watch carefully.”
“You said that already.”
“Well, do it,” he told her, trying not to sound irritated.
Gamely he held the coin up in his left hand. Then with his right hand he reached over and scooped it up. He held his right hand up high over his head and then snapped it open.
The coin was gone.
“Taa-daaa!” he proclaimed.
She stared at him.
“Well?” he said. “What did you think of that? The coin’s gone.”
“It’s still in your left hand,” she said flatly.
His face fell. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.” She reached over and pried his clenched left fist open. O’Brien rolled his eyes as the tri-esta glinted in the dim lighting of their quarters. “See?” Then, when he didn’t say anything immediately, she added uncertainly, “Taa-daaa.”
He waved his empty right hand around in irritation. “You were supposed to be looking at this hand. It’s called misdirection.”
“But that wasn’t the hand the coin was in.”
“Yes, but that was the point!”
“I thought,” she said cautiously, “that the point was that I was supposed to watch carefully. That’s what you said. Twice. I remember. I counted. If I’d watched your right hand, I’d have been looking in the wrong place.”
“But that’s the bloody trick!” he said in exasperation.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead again. “I’m sorry, Miles. Would you like to do it again? I promise I’ll look in the right wrong place this time.” 
“No, forget it,” he said. “Just forget it. Go back to . . . to whatever it was you were doing.”
“Fine,” she said. “I wouldn’t have stopped if you hadn’t disturbed me.” 
He paused a moment. “Y’know . . . I think I know what I did wrong. I wasn’t fast enough. Look, let me try it again—”
At that moment his communicator beeped. He tapped it and said, “O’Brien here.”
“Chief, this is Dax,” came a calm female voice. “Could you come up to Ops for a moment? Something’s going on that I’d like you to double-check. I know it’s late, but—”
“On my way,” he said. He turned to Keiko. “Sorry about this,” he said apologetically. “You always complain that you hardly see me.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said quickly. “I’ll find something to do while you’re gone.”
“Thanks, Keiko.” He squeezed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “You’re the best.”
He left their quarters, and she sat there in the blissful silence. She picked up her notepad to continue lesson plans . . . 
At which point Molly, from the next room, started to cry.
Keiko sighed deeply. She seemed to sigh a lot these days.

O’Brien’s quarters were in the habitat ring, as indeed were everyone else’s quarters. Deep Space Nine comprised a series of ringed structures connected by crossover bridges and vertical and horizontal turbolifts. The outermost ring was the docking ring, which contained the docking ports, cargo bays, facilities for the mining operations that had been Deep Space Nine’s original raison d’être, and six protruding docking pylons. 
The next ring in was the habitat ring. In addition to the roughly three hundred individuals who were permanent residents of Deep Space Nine—including, as Keiko O’Brien would have said, some
fairly reluctant residents—there were enough quarters to accommodate several times that number. This greatly facilitated Deep Space Nine’s ability to service and deal with the various travelers who stopped by to conduct business, get their ships serviced, get themselves serviced, or see to whatever other needs might arise. 
The habitat ring was also the location of the defensive weapon sail towers, which had been outfitted with Starfleet phasers after the original armaments had been stripped away by the departing Cardassians. There were also six runabout landing pads—platforms that could transport the great space station’s runabout vehicles to and from the runabout service bay deep inside the habitat ring.
At the center of Deep Space Nine was the aptly named core section. The operations center, or Ops—Deep Space Nine’s equivalent of a starship bridge—was situated at the very top of the core. It served as the nerve center for the entire station, and lately it seemed to be O’Brien’s second home. Hell, the way things had been going at home, sometimes it was more his first home.
The core section was also the location for the station’s shields, its fusion reactors, its communications array, and—some people would have said most importantly—the Promenade. With its shops, cafés, and such, the Promenade was the center of commerce.
To say that it served a variety of needs was to put it mildly. In one section of the Promenade, for example, was Quark’s casino, run by an unscrupulous Ferengi—“Is there any other kind?” the security chief was once heard to mutter—named Quark, who provided anything, from exotic drinks in his bar to exotic sex in his holosuites.
But in another section of the three-deck Promenade, Keiko O’Brien labored daily to try to educate—or at least keep out of trouble—the young people who resided on Deep Space Nine. It was not easy, since a good education seemed to be the last thing on the
minds of the kids who ran about unsupervised on the station. And while Keiko struggled to improve their academic health, Dr. Julian Bashir labored in his Cardassian-manufactured infirmary to keep their physical health up to snuff.
Deep Space Nine—a bizarre conglomeration of requirements, goals, and desires. Sometimes it seemed only a matter of time before the entire station blew apart. The only question was whether it would blow from the physical stress that the broken-down station put on its structures and operational systems or from the emotional stress of trying to keep the lid on a variety of disparate, and oftentimes contradictory, individuals.

Lieutenant Jadzia Dax stood a respectful distance away as O’Brien labored at the science station. “I appreciate you taking the time, Chief.”
O’Brien didn’t speak at first. To be precise, he wasn’t “at” the science station so much as under it. He had the bottom panel off and was lying on the floor, his body slightly contorted, running a series of tests on the sensor arrays.
This was not regarded as an unusual sight in the operations center. Some damned thing or other was always breaking down. Quark had once commented in a snickering tone that there were prostitutes who spent less time on their backs than O’Brien did. Although O’Brien was not exactly enthusiastic about the humor at his expense, he had to admit somewhat grudgingly that Quark had a point. At Ops—indeed, at points throughout the space station—something was always going wrong. O’Brien sometimes wished he were twins, but then he would dismiss the notion as inappropriate. After all, why wish a life like this on anyone else?
Dax was infinitely serene. “Is there anything I can do to help, Chief?” 
“Just stand back and give me room, Lieutenant.”
Since she was already standing far enough back to accord him sufficient space, she presumed that he was speaking metaphorically. Her hair was pulled back tight, revealing the graceful arch of leopardlike spots that tapered gracefully down around her forehead. She looked, in every respect, like an attractive, confident, young woman.
Which was simply an example of the age-old lesson that one should not take what one sees as a given.
After a few more moments O’Brien sat up. “I understand your caution, Lieutenant,” he said, “but it’s not the instrumentation this time. I’ve double-checked all the arrays, and the readings you’re getting are perfectly accurate. For once, the equipment isn’t screwed up.”
“Indeed.”
Dax turned with raised eyebrows and regarded the image on screen.
At first glance, nothing appeared there except the emptiness of space. 
That, too, was an example of looks being deceiving.
“Thank you, Chief,” she said. And with that she headed up to the office of the station’s commander, Ben Sisko, to report her findings. It was not a report that he was going to be overly pleased to hear.
O’Brien replaced the paneling and, as he watched Dax go, muttered, “The Trill is gone. And here I guess I’m just a Trill-seeker.”
“What was that?” 
O’Brien looked up, embarrassed that his little jokes had been overheard. 
Odo stood over him, his hands behind his back.
Looking Odo directly in the eye was always a bit disconcerting, since his face—with its smooth forehead, lack of eyebrows, and “unfinished” nose—wasn’t quite “right.” It was not, of course, unusual to encounter an alien species who happened to have developed differently from humans. 
But O’Brien was well aware that this appearance was one that Odo had assumed in an endeavor to look human. It was the attempted approximation of humanity that O’Brien found just a touch unsettling. Nothing that he couldn’t get used to, of course. Just something that was going to take some time. 
“Just a little joke, Constable,” he said. 
O’Brien remembered how Data had always looked at someone with childlike curiosity when he didn’t immediately comprehend something. 
Not Odo. Oh, he encountered things that he didn’t understand, but when he did, he simply looked annoyed. Even impatient, as if the person who did understand the situation had no business being better informed than he. 
He had one of those looks now. 
“I always understood that humans liked to tell jokes to an audience,” said Odo. “For mutual entertainment.” 
“Well . . . sometimes we’ll make little jokes to ourselves as well, just to keep ourselves entertained, or to show ourselves how witty we are.” 
“And substituting ‘Trill’ for ‘thrill’ is an example of that?” 
O’Brien shook out his foot, which was starting to fall asleep. “Kind of. Yes.” 
Odo didn’t smile, because he never did. He did, however, grimace, which he did a lot. 
“Hilarious,” he said sarcastically.
“Thanks for the vote of support.” O’Brien pulled himself to his feet, then said as an afterthought, “Hey . . . I want to show you something.” 
“What do you want to show me?” Odo sounded cautious. 
O’Brien pulled out the coin and said in a low, conspiratorial voice, “Magic.” 
Odo sighed and feigned interest, about as successfully as he feigned a human nose. 
Which didn’t matter a whit to O’Brien. “Now . . . watch carefully. . . .”
- 
CHAPTER
2
COMMANDER BENJAMIN SISKO looked at Dax’s results on one of the video monitors behind his desk. Normally the monitors were used for keeping track of routine station data or for communications.
But they had been put to a different use now, as Dax had transferred the contents of her preliminary studies to Sisko’s office.
Dax was seated in the cramped office. Standing just to her right was Major Kira Nerys. Nerys was, in fact, her first name, which was why she was usually addressed as Major Kira, Kira being the family name.
Whereas Dax had an inner peace, Kira seemed to burn with an inner fire. She demanded instant answers before people were ready to give them. As far as she was concerned, if people didn’t have the answers within the period of time that she allotted, then they probably didn’t understand the question.
“Are you sure about this, Dax?” she asked.
She nodded. “At first I allowed for the possibility of instrument failure,” she said. “So I had Chief O’Brien check the systems. He confirms that they are working to within correct specifications.”
Ben Sisko swiveled his chair around to face her. His features, as was so often the case, gave no real hint as to what was going through his mind. His eyes glittered in his dark face. “A steady, high flux of neutrino particles from the wormhole,” he said. “And getting progressively higher.”
“That is correct, Benjamin,” said Dax. “Whenever the wormhole is in use, of course, it emits concentrations of neutrinos.”
“But it’s not in use at the moment,” Kira said thoughtfully. “Dax, could it be that the wormhole is becoming unstable? Even . . . collapsing?” She looked to Sisko. “That would be a damned shame.”
When Sisko replied, it was in that slow, measured tone that people had come to know. “No one is more aware than I am of what a damned shame it would be if the wormhole suddenly disappeared. Having the only gateway to the Gamma Quadrant has certainly not hurt the Bajoran economy . . . not with all these dignitaries and high-muckety-mucks passing through.”
Kira acknowledged the accuracy of his comment with a slight dip of her head. “There’s no harm in being concerned about the state of the Bajoran economy,” she pointed out. “I am, after all, Bajoran.”
“So is the vast majority of this station’s population, Major,” allowed Sisko. He drummed on the table for a moment and then said softly, “Ever since we discovered that wormhole, it’s been both a blessing and a curse. Without it—frankly, and nothing personal intended—things would be pretty damned boring around here. On the other hand, it’s the equivalent of staring down the barrel of a gun. Any time at all, something very large and very heavily armed could pop out of there and turn us to space dust before we could blink an eye. And they wouldn’t give a damn about me, you, or the Bajoran economy.”
“Are you saying that you hope the wormhole does collapse?” said
Kira. “We’ve been so certain that it’s stable . . . ”
He fixed her with his piercing gaze. “How do we really know that, Major? The fact is, we don’t. We have only the vaguest understanding of the beings who created that . . . anomaly. Stable? By whose definition? Ours or the wormhole’s creators’ or that of the universe itself? The whole of humanity has been around, in cosmic terms, for less than an eye blink. We believe it’s stable. We hope to hell it’s stable. But we don’t know beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is. In fact—again, in cosmic terms—it probably isn’t. Even if its life span is ten million years, sooner or later the clock will run down . . . and who knows precisely when that will be?”
“That’s very eloquent, Benjamin,” said Dax with a small smile.
“Thank you, old man.”
Sisko’s occasional offhand way of addressing Science Officer Dax still threw Kira Nerys, as did Dax’s faintly amused, paternal air when talking to Sisko. Sisko and Dax had a history together, but in that history Dax had been an old man named Curzon Dax—the host body for the wormlike symbiont that was now part of Jadzia Dax. Dax had been something of a mentor to Sisko, hence his affectionate use of “old man” despite the decidedly female form that Dax now inhabited, the old man’s body having worn out.
It was a situation that Sisko continually had to try to adapt to. And that was not easy.
“However,” continued Dax, “your speech was of no real relevance.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”
“Yes. Because I don’t believe that the wormhole is collapsing. This situation is, in fact, not unnatural.”
He sighed. “Lieutenant,” he said in a more formal tone, “I hope this won’t shock you, but when I was at the Academy, I didn’t realize
realize I was going to have to become Starfleet’s leading authority on wormholes. I learned enough about them to know that I should not go into them. I learned enough to know how to get out of one if I did wander in. I learned enough, in short, for survival. Beyond that”—and he spread his hands wide “I leave it to science officers to educate me.” He turned to Dax. “What’s happening out there?”
“Subspace compression.”
“Ahh,” he said. “Subspace compression.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“Just a guess here,” he said. “Technobabble?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Nature abhors a vacuum, Benjamin. Well, space is a vacuum. And space abhors a wormhole. It’s a rip in the fabric of reality, and reality is constantly trying to stitch itself back together. That’s why most wormholes are unstable. The force that’s keeping this one in place is a function of the alien technology that created it . . . but that doesn’t make it immune to the pressures being exerted upon it to try to eliminate it.
“To a degree, subspace compression is the wormhole equivalent of sunspots. It’s fairly routine, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. What’s essentially happening is that the subspace field is—”
But she didn’t get to finish the sentence. Ultimately, she didn’t have to.
They were about to have fairly graphic evidence of the effects of subspace compression.

“You never took it out of your left hand.”
“Dammit!”
Odo looked mildly surprised at O’Brien’s reaction. “Were you unaware that the coin was still in your left hand?”
“No, but you were supposed to be unaware,” said O’Brien in frustration
frustration. “I don’t get this. When Quark did it—”
“Ah,” said Odo, “well, you see, that’s part of it. You’re attempting a simple misdirection trick. Quark is so blasted ugly that people find themselves staring in fascination at his revolting face. They’re paying only the slightest attention to what he’s doing with—”
Abruptly, Lieutenant Chafin, who had stepped in to monitor the science console when Dax went into Sisko’s office, called out, “Drastic neutrino acceleration! Levels are hitting the upper register! Something’s coming through!”
Odo immediately turned and bolted for Sisko’s office. He got there just in time to hear Dax saying something about the subspace field, but she was already halting in mid-sentence. Sisko’s office overlooked Ops, and at the first sign of something happening, he was on his feet. He was halfway around his desk when Odo appeared at the door.
“Something’s coming through the wormhole,” said Odo without preamble. That was hardly unusual for him; Odo was not someone who wasted a lot of words. 
“It won’t make it,” said Dax.
Sisko glanced at her. There was sadness in her eyes, but also a firm conviction based on her personal understanding of the wormhole. “It won’t,” Dax said again. “I’m sorry, Benjamin. There’s nothing you can do.”
Sisko pushed past her and down into Ops. He took his position at the operations console and didn’t even have to glance over to know that Kira was right next to him.
The main viewer was already focused on the familiar coordinates of the wormhole. “Extreme magnification!” called out Sisko. There was a subtle shift in the picture, but still nothing visible. Naturally,
the wormhole was not detectable until something actually went into or out of it.
Resuming her place at the science station, Dax said calmly, “Readings off the scale.”
Abruptly Sisko became aware that, if the wormhole was indeed starting to go haywire, it might have rather dire consequences for anyone or anything in proximity . . . like, for example, Sisko and his crew.
There was, however, no trace of apprehension in his voice. “Shields up,” he said as calmly as if it were a casual afterthought. “Go to yellow alert.” 
The deflector shields flared into existence around Deep Space Nine. And then, moments later, the wormhole itself flared into existence as well.
The second he saw it, Sisko knew that something was wrong.
Usually the wormhole looked like a swirling purple vortex . . . a thing of beauty, really. A cosmic miracle.
Now, though, there was nothing beautiful about it. The outer rim roiled like an ocean during a storm. Energy crackled out in all directions, greedy fingers extending to see what they could grab and hook on to.
“Pulse waves!” Kira shouted.
Sisko hit a comm link that fed his voice throughout the entire station. “All hands! Hold on!”
It was barely enough warning as the station shuddered under the buffeting.

Down at Quark’s, the Ferengi screamed in fury as bottles of his finest vintage tumbled down out of their shelves. They didn’t shatter
shatter; they were too sturdy for that. They did, however, ricochet off his skull and body.

Keiko had just gotten Molly back to sleep when the trembling knocked her off her feet. Molly rolled right off her bed and hit the floor, her piteous wailing filling the air. “I hate this place!” Keiko shrieked, forgetting that her life on the Enterprise had hardly been less hectic.

Up in Ops, Sisko raised his voice to make himself heard. “Damage report!”
“Shields holding!” said O’Brien.
They could see, just for a moment, into the maw of the wormhole. Instead of the funnel shape through which ships safely passed, the interior was writhing, as if some invisible force were clamping down on it. The sides met, energy rippling out of the wormhole, filling the main viewer with a display of fireworks that gave them the barest hint of what it would have been like to be present at the Big Bang.
Dax, imperturbable, was running a sensor sweep. “I’m getting a lot of subspace interference because of the heightened neutrinos,” she said, “but I’ve got something coming out of there. At three two two mark five . . . ”
“Get tractors on it,” Sisko snapped. “We can still save—”
But Dax wasn’t finished. “ . . . at three two seven mark five . . . three five seven mark five . . . ”
He turned to her, not understanding at first. But then he did. “Debris,” he said tonelessly.
She nodded.
The wormhole, like a cat coughing up a hair ball, spit out the
remains of the unfortunate traveler. And then it simply vanished, folding back in on itself and disappearing as if it hadn’t been there at all.
“ . . . Three nine three mark five,” she was continuing. “A lot of debris, Benjamin. Whatever it was, it was shaken to bits. Any crew members were probably ripped to pieces by the stress.”
There was a long moment of silence.
Kira, standing near Odo, happened to look over at the security officer . . . and saw a sadness in his face that cut right through her. But it was only there for a moment, and then he replaced it with his usual hard-bitten feral mien.
Then Sisko said, “Chief, stand down from yellow alert.” He looked at Dax. “So that’s subspace compression.”
She nodded. But she wasn’t looking at Sisko. Instead she was studying her readouts.
“Anything we’ve encountered before?” he asked.
She didn’t answer Sisko immediately. Instead she ran a quick check. But then she said, “According to analysis of the remains, yes. As a matter of fact, I can even show you a recreation of what it looked like before the wormhole pulverized it.”
“Put it up on the main viewer,” he said.
The image of space remained there for a moment, and then it was replaced by a visual printout from Dax’s science station.
An outline appeared on the screen, with a list of technical specs running next to it. But no one was looking at the specs. Instead they were focused purely on the ship delineated on the screen.
It was elegantly simple in design, and eminently recognizable.
It was a cube.
For a long moment nothing was said. It was Odo who broke the silence.
“It’s a Borg ship, isn’t it?” he said.
Sisko nodded. His voice sounded hollow. “Yes, Constable. That’s exactly right. It was a Borg ship.”
“The operative word being ‘was,’” Kira said. She appeared calm, but inwardly she shivered.
Sisko likewise appeared composed. But his heart was pounding at trip-hammer speed. “Major,” he told Kira, his tone as neutral as he could keep it. “Kindly contact all local systems and Starfleet. Inform them that the Bajoran wormhole is temporarily closed for repairs. We may not be able to control who is entering it from the other end, but we can certainly make sure that we don’t send anyone through.”
“Several groups have already filed passage plans,” said Kira. “They’re undoubtedly on their way.”
“Anyone who intended to pass through the wormhole is cordially invited to be a guest here at DS-Nine until such time as the neutrino emissions indicate that the wormhole has managed to pull itself together. If any of them complain,” he added, allowing the corners of his mouth to turn up slightly, “they can view our records of this latest incident. I suspect that will deter them.”
“Yes, sir,” said Kira.
He stood there a moment more and then said, “Oh . . . and, ladies and gentlemen, to avoid any possible, and ultimately pointless, alarm, let us keep to ourselves the nature of our frustrated visitor, shall we?”
There were nods from all around Ops.
CHAPTER
3
“SO THE WORD IS that the wormhole trashed a Borg ship today.”
Benjamin Sisko looked up from his reading. Standing in the doorway of his quarters was the individual he shared them with: his son, Jake.
Sisko saw a lot of Jake’s late mother in the boy—which was interesting, considering that Jake’s mother had always said she saw a lot of Benjamin in him. Now, with the teen staring at him with a look that said he wasn’t going to stand for any half-truths or evasions, Sisko started to think that maybe his wife had been correct.
Sisko slowly put the reading padd down. “Now where,” he said gravely, “did you hear a thing like that?”
“Nog,” he said.
“Ah. Of course.”
Nog was a teenage Ferengi lad, Quark’s nephew and the son of Quark’s brother, Rom, who was also in Quark’s employ. Nog was not precisely the type of kid Sisko really wanted Jake hanging out with. On the other hand, there weren’t really a lot of kids on DS9 for Jake to hang out with . . . and considering that Sisko had assured his son that just the opposite would be true, the situation remained something of a sore point between them.
“And where,” Sisko asked, “did, um, Nog, hear it?”
“From Quark,” Jake said readily. Anticipating his father’s next question, he continued, “And Quark heard it from Garak. The chain gets a little fuzzy after that.”
“I see.” He shook his head. “You know, when I’m trying to make my way around this station, it seems immense. But when we’re trying to keep something quiet, it’s the smallest place I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s true, then.”
“Would Garak, the Cardassian prince of fashion, lie about that?”
He tried to make it sound light, but then he saw the boy’s expression and knew that tap-dancing around the problem wouldn’t accomplish anything. “It’s true. But it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?”
Jake looked as if he wanted to continue, but he bit off the words and turned away. Sisko rose and went over to him. “Jake . . . ”
His son wouldn’t look at him. “You must really think I’m stupid, Dad.” 
“Of course I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Those . . . those Borg things destroyed dozens of starships. They . . .  they killed Mom.” He turned to face his father. “How long do you think DS-Nine would last against them? Huh? Do they make small enough units of time to measure it?”
Sisko’s voice hardened. Normally he took such pains to be a friend to his son that he often had to remind himself that it was just as important to be his father. Putting on his command tone, he said, “Jake, you’re not thinking.” 
“There! You are saying I’m stupid.”
“No. Even the brightest people in the world don’t think sometimes. Look  . . . the Borg coming through just now was the best thing that could have happened.”
Jake stared at him. “You gotta be kidding.”
“Yes. As I said: think. Either the Borg discovered the wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant and decided to explore it or they stumbled upon it accidentally and were sucked in. Either way, we know something they don’t. We know that, by and large, the wormhole is stable. All they know is that one of their ships passed through it and was destroyed.”
He saw that the boy was actually paying attention, and he forced himself to sound reasonable. “Now, according to all the reports I’ve read, the Borg have a linked mind. What one knows, they all know. And that means that as the ship was being ripped apart by subspace compression, the central mind was living through every glorious moment of it. I have no doubt that by the time the remaining chunks of the Borg ship were spit out on this end, every other Borg ship out there was being warned to steer clear of that wormhole. They have no reason to believe that sooner or later the condition will reverse itself and the wormhole will settle back to normal. Why should they? Stability is not the norm for wormholes. The Borg will just post a big Do Not Enter sign for themselves and leave it alone.”
Jake took it all in, and then slowly—to Sisko’s relief—he started to nod.
“So you see, Jake? Nothing to worry about.”
And Jake stared at him.
“Tell me, Dad, when you became first officer on the Saratoga, did you tell Mom the same thing—that there was nothing to worry about? That everything was going to be okay?”
Sisko had no answer. Actually, that was not quite true. He did have an answer, and both he and Jake knew what it was. But he didn’t want to say it. 
There was nothing he could say, in fact, that wouldn’t sound
forced, hollow . . . and easily assailable by the young man who regarded him with the same fierce gaze that Sisko usually saw when he looked in the mirror.
“G’night, Dad,” Jake said after a long moment, and went off to bed.

Taking a stroll through the Promenade, Kira stopped outside the security office and peered in. To her surprise, she saw Odo seated behind his desk, staring resolutely at a series of video displays. The monitors were flashing scenes of various parts of the station as Odo scanned for trouble.
Quark’s face seemed to pop up often. Obviously Odo kept checking back on him more often than anyone or anything else on the station.
Kira poked her head in. “Odo?”
He glanced at her and gestured for her to enter. She indicated the screens, where Quark was busy overseeing his gambling activities. The Ferengi was rubbing his hands together greedily as an annoyed Tellarite slammed a hairy fist down after losing his third straight pass. “I’ve never seen anyone who revels in making money as much as he does.”
“He lives for it,” said Odo. “He eats it and breathes it. You know, I don’t even think he sleeps.”
“What about you?” asked Kira, sitting in front of the desk. “Shouldn’t you be a puddle in a bucket about now?”
He winced. “You know, I hate that.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to insult—”
“Insult?” He gave her an amused glance. “Major, if I’ve learned to tune out Quark’s mockeries, I assure you that nothing you say could possibly give me offense. No, I simply meant that I hate the limitation
limitation of my physicality. I hate having to return to my natural state once every cycle. I’m convinced that while I’m sitting there, gelatinous and relatively useless . . .  that’s when Quark is up to his greatest mischief.”
“You can’t obsess about it, Odo,” she said with a smile. “You’ll give yourself ulcers.”
“How fortunate that my lack of internal organs makes that unlikely.” He paused a moment, studying her. “Major . . . your company is always welcome. Certainly our shared contempt for authority figures has always given us common ground. But I am curious. Did you stop by for a reason?”
“Well . . . ” She shifted in her seat. “It’s just that . . . I noticed while we were in Ops during the emergency . . . you seemed rather upset.”
“An unknown vessel had been pulverized by the wormhole,” said Odo. “If you did not find that upsetting, Major, I think you should be concerned about yourself rather than me.”
“Now, come on, Odo,” she said in a don’t-kid-a-kidder tone. “There’s more to it than that.”
He sighed and then leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. “It’s nothing extraordinary, really.”
She waited for him to continue.
“Look . . . Kira,” he said, dropping the formality, “you know what it’s been like for me. I’ve lived among Bajorans for half a century now, ever since I was found floating about in the Denorios Asteroid Belt with no clue as to my identity.”
He rose from behind the desk, as if the additional height made him more comfortable with the situation. “They thought I was a freak . . . and they were right. They were right,” he said quietly. “Even after I learned to imitate humanoid appearance, after a fashion
fashion,” he said, touching his unformed nose in wry acknowledgment of his limitations, “even after I worked my way into a position of—dare I say the word?—authority . . . ”
Kira gasped in mock horror.
“Even then,” continued Odo, “even now, I still hear the word ‘freak’ echoing in my head, no matter how hard I try to tell myself that I don’t. And I’m always hoping that somehow, in some manner, I’ll find some of the answers I’ve been looking for.”
“And you think the wormhole might provide them.”
“It makes sense,” he acknowledged. “The ship I was found in might very well have passed through the wormhole. And that means that, sooner or later . . . ”
“Another one might come through as well.”
“Precisely. Don’t you see, Kira? Every single time that wormhole flares into existence and the neutrino levels kick up, every single time something starts to come through, I can’t help but think, This might be it. This time it might be the answers I’ve been waiting for.”
“So when you saw that ship get demolished, you thought . . . ”
“I thought, Just my luck that others of my race finally come through, and they’re destroyed. Imagine my relief when I learned otherwise.”
“Indeed.” She studied him a moment. “You know, Odo . . . not that I’m trying to get rid of you or anything, but . . . ”
“But why don’t I leave Deep Space Nine and go through the wormhole? Try to find the answers myself?” He smiled gamely. “Now, Major, this station would fall apart without me.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” he said flatly. “Besides, there is no way on Bajor that I would give Quark the satisfaction of watching me leave.”
“You make it sound personal.”
“It is, in a way. I cannot find it in myself simply to walk away from the unjust and let them go on about their business. Besides, I’ll outlast him. I’m not certain what my life span is, but I haven’t really detected any measurable deterioration of my physical body over the past fifty years. However long I do live, I’m reasonably certain it’ll be longer than Quark. Maybe when he’s dust . . . Ah, but there’ll probably be someone just as bad to take his place. So much injustice.”
“It’s not just here, Odo,” she pointed out. “There’s injustice throughout the universe.”
“No!” he said, acting as if the notion came as a shock to him.
“Yes. And you can’t eliminate all of it.”
“Not all at once, certainly. But,” he said, pointing at her, “I’ll tell you, Major . . . I’ve never been the sort who would walk away from a job that’s half finished. I suppose I’ll just have to stay here until my job is completed. And once that happens, then I’ll move on. Until that time . . . ”
He stopped, his voice trailing off. He was looking at one of the monitors in surprise. “Well, now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
“What?” She looked at the display he was indicating.
“There. Sisko, stopping by Quark’s.” Sure enough, there was the commanding officer of Deep Space Nine. He had just sat down, and an obsequious Quark was running over to him, asking him what he could provide.
“You’re right,” she said. “That is rather unusual. Think we should check it out?”
“I don’t see why,” he replied easily. “First off, it’s none of our
business. And second, I can always pump Bashir for information later.”
“Bashir?”
And there was Dr. Julian Bashir, walking up to the table where Sisko was seated. He was pointing at the empty chair, clearly asking whether anyone was sitting there. Sisko gestured that he was dining alone and that Bashir was welcome to join him.
“Well, Odo . . . I don’t really think you have to do that. Talk to Bashir, I mean.”
“No?”
“No.” She smiled thinly. “I’ll ask Dax to do it. He’s hot for her. Short of breaching medical confidences, he’ll tell her anything.”
“This isn’t right, you know,” said Odo. “The two of us sitting here, hatching nefarious little plots so that we can keep abreast of all the gossip and stick our noses into the business of Starfleet personnel.”
“Oh, absolutely. It’s not right at all.”
“Terrible.”
“Monstrous.”
“A lot of fun, though.”
“Hell, yes.”
Odo looked down at his hand and frowned. And now Kira saw that his hand was starting to smooth out. She knew from long association that it was going to dissolve into a puddle of goo any minute.
“Looks like I’m more tired than I thought,” said Odo dryly. “Major . . .  I’ll have to bid you good night.”
She rose from her chair. “Good night, Odo.” As she headed for the door, he called to her, “And please keep an eye on Quark, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she said. As she headed out the door, she heard a thick, slurpy splash behind her. But she was too polite to look.

“May I join you gentlemen?” Bashir and Sisko looked up to see Dax standing just behind them.
“By all means!” said Bashir, just a bit too quickly.
Immediately he stood, out of a sense of chivalry.
Sisko remained where he was, laughing inwardly despite his glum mood. Numerous men on the station were attracted to Dax, and whenever Sisko saw one of them using the typical considerate behavior that males used toward females, all he could see in his mind’s eye was them fawning over an elderly, somewhat amused man.
Bashir, of course, had only known Dax since she arrived on the station. Having no preconceived notion of her, he was reacting purely to what he saw. And what he saw, he liked.
A lot.
He slid a chair over for her. Dax, who had not been a female for over eighty years, smiled that killer smile of hers and said, “Thank you, Julian,” as she sat. “So,” she looked from one man to the other. “What are you two gentlemen up to?”
“We were discussing the commander’s trouble with his son.”
“Oh, ‘trouble’ is too strong a word,” said Sisko.
Quark immediately drifted over, ogling Dax as he purred, “Ah! More arrivals from the command crew. We’re honored by your presence. Can I get you anything? Another double-whipped I’danian spice pudding, perhaps? You devoured the one you had the other day.”
“I know,” Dax said ruefully, and patted her hips.
“And it’s still with me. For some reason, ever since I became a
woman again, I feel this tremendous impulse to watch my figure.”
“I share the same interest,” Quark replied. By Ferengi standards, his behavior was rather suave. By human—and, for that matter, Trill—standards, he was practically slobbering.
“Thank you, Quark,” Sisko said firmly. “She doesn’t want anything. That will be all.”
Quark frowned and muttered a Ferengi oath as he shambled away. “What’s the problem with Jake?” Dax asked, turning her attention away from the departing Ferengi. “Same as usual, Benjamin?”
“Yes,” he said, sighing. “Same as usual. These things don’t go away overnight.”
“That’s for certain,” said Bashir.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Benjamin. Teenagers have tremendous difficulty adjusting to even the best of circumstances. And this”—she gestured in a manner that took in the entire space station—“is hardly the best.”
“I know, I know,” said Sisko in frustration. He was nursing a glass of synthale. “And why shouldn’t he miss his mother? I miss Jennifer pretty badly myself. It has been easier for me, I’ll admit. When I went through the wormhole the first time, I had the opportunity to work out a lot of the frustration and anger that I was experiencing. I had a chance, in essence, to come to terms with the loss.” He took an unenthusiastic sip of his drink. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “Jake hasn’t had that opportunity. He has a lot of anger toward the universe in general and me in particular.”
“Why you?” asked Bashir.
“Who better?” said Sisko reasonably. “Jennifer would have been perfectly content to live on Earth. Hell, Jake would prefer it. If I told him we were going back, he’d be halfway there before I even
finished the sentence. And he wouldn’t even need a ship. He’d just run.
“But they followed me. It was my career that decided in what direction our lives went. I brought us out into space. If it hadn’t been for me, we wouldn’t have been aboard the Saratoga, and Jennifer wouldn’t have died. We’d have been on Earth . . . ”
Bashir laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sort of laugh.
“I was on Earth,” the handsome young doctor said. “The Borg were heading our way, remember? The news was all over the internet. The entire planet was going berserk.” He took a swig of his own drink as if to steel himself against the memories. “It wasn’t pretty, Commander. Citizens of Earth didn’t exactly take it well when the end of everything they knew was barreling at light-speed right toward them. If the Enterprise crew members hadn’t pulled a last-minute miracle out of their hats, I might be sitting here pasty white with a gun instead of an arm, saying ‘Drinks are irrelevant.’”
“He’s right, Benjamin,” said Dax. “The fact is, no place in this galaxy is one hundred percent safe.”
“Perfect,” Sisko said mirthlessly. “I’ll go back to Jake and say, ‘Don’t feel bad, son. The fact is, there are no guarantees. No matter where you are, you could still be alive one minute and dead the next.’ That will doubtless assuage his concerns.”
Dax shrugged. “We’re all of us alive one minute and dead the next, Commander. It’s just a matter of when and how.”
“Dax is right,” said Bashir, who would have found a way to agree with Dax even if she’d been flat-out wrong. “All we can do is try to live the best life we can and accept the restrictions that are placed on us. One of the harsh realities of medicine is that we can’t save every patient. Our primary rule is that, as people of medicine, we shall do no harm.”
“Do no harm to your son, Benjamin,” said Dax. “Let the rest of it play out as it will. He’s a good kid. He’ll come around.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m sure she is,” said Bashir, and he smiled at Dax. Sisko rolled his eyes.
CHAPTER
4
“THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! I am doing the work of the holy K’olkr! How dare you interfere?”
The gentleman on the Ops main viewscreen was not happy. And he looked like someone who, when he was unhappy, went out of his way to make sure that as many people as possible were unhappy along with him.
He wore a hood pulled up, obscuring much of his face. But what they could see of his skin was solid ebony black. His deep-set eyes glowed red from within the folds of his hood.
O’Brien leaned over from the engineering station and muttered to Kira, “All he needs is a scythe.”
She looked at him curiously. “Why?”
He was about to explain, but decided that it would take too long. “Never mind,” he said.
From his station, Sisko tried to sound calm and reasonable. “Sir,” he said, “I appreciate your situation . . . ”
“Do you know who I am?” His voice became louder, and he practically thundered, “I am Mas Marko! I am one of the premier spiritual leaders of the entire Edema system! I am the voice of the spirit of K’olkr. Who are you to tell me that I cannot follow his will?”
Sisko was one of those people who, the angrier people got at him, the more composed he became. It was as if he fed off the hostile energy. “I,” he said, “am the commander of Deep Space Nine who is endeavoring to save your life. The wormhole is, at this time, closed to all travel. We sent out warnings about it; we were very specific.”
“Commander, your warnings mean nothing to one who has heard the word of the spirit of K’olkr. He has told me that I am to do his work in the Gamma Quadrant. I am to spread the message of his truth. I am,” he said fervently, “charged with a sacred mission to spread his word. Compared to that most holy duty, Commander, your warnings—restricted by the concerns of mere mortal existence—are of no relevance.”
“Is that a fact? Very well, Mas Marko, I make you this offer,” said Sisko, unruffled by Marko’s belligerent tone. “My first officer will feed through to your shipboard computers a replay of the events related to the subspace compression of the Bajoran wormhole.” He didn’t even have to turn in order to know that Kira was doing as he had mentioned. “I ask that you view them. Then touch base with the spirit of K’olkr and see what he has to say about it. If he still encourages you to commit suicide, I won’t stand in your way.”
“Are you mocking me?” Mas Marko said dangerously.
“Not at all. I’m speaking the truth. You see, Mas Marko, as your viewing of the incident in question will testify, you won’t have a prayer once you enter the wormhole. So all I’m saying is that you might as well get your praying in now. Sisko out.”
The screen went blank, and Sisko turned to Kira. She nodded and said, “All right . . . it’s been sent through.”
“You weren’t serious, Benjamin,” Dax said. “Were you? I mean, you wouldn’t really let them . . . ”
“If I were a cynic,” Sisko said dryly, “I would say that if Mas
Marko and his party are stupid enough to hurl themselves into oblivion for no reason, then the galaxy’s gene pool is well rid of them. I am not, however, a cynic. Chief, bring tractor beams on line.”
“Aye, sir,” said O’Brien.
“The Edemian ship will be in range in . . . ?” He looked questioningly at Kira.
“Twenty-two minutes,” she told him.
“Twenty-two minutes. Prepare to snag the Edemian ship before it gets within range of the wormhole.”
“To be fair, sir,” Kira pointed out, “you did say you wouldn’t stop them from going in if they wanted to.”
“I lied, Major.”
She smiled. “Good for you, sir.”
It did not, however, come down to the question of whether or not Sisko should have kept his word. Because less than two minutes later Mas Marko’s dark image once again appeared on the screen.
This time, however, he sounded somewhat less aggressive than before. 
“K’olkr has had a change of heart,” said Mas Marko. To Sisko’s great surprise, Marko even sounded amused at his own words.
“How fortunate for all of you,” Sisko dead-panned.
Marko took a step closer to the screen, his eyes glowing brighter. “Commander,” he said, “I am not a fanatic. I have no desire to see myself or my family become fodder for a cosmic anomaly. Obviously the work of K’olkr cannot be accomplished by his servants if his servants have had their molecules scattered across thousands of light years.”
“I admit I am not familiar with K’olkr,” said Sisko, “but from where I stand, he seems a rather reasonable deity.”
“I may indeed have the opportunity to sway you over to his view of the universe,” Mas Marko said thoughtfully. “Presuming, that is, that you can find room for me and my followers at Deep Space Nine until the wormhole is safe for passage. The trip from Edema has been a lengthy one; I have no desire to turn around and end this mission prematurely if that can be avoided.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Myself, two retainers, and my wife and son.”
“That will not be a hardship,” said Sisko. “When you are within range, we will specify docking instructions.”
“It will be a pleasure to chat with you in person,” said Marko. The screen blinked off.
Sisko let out a slow breath.
“How pleasant,” Kira said, “to see that we aren’t dealing with a fanatic. That could just as easily have gone the other way.”
“Yes. But just to make sure . . . monitor them very carefully once they get within range. Their warp-coil emissions in particular. If those accelerate, it will be the first indicator that they’re going to make a run past us and try to get into the wormhole.”
“But Marko said they would stay here until the wormhole is passable.” 
He shrugged. “I don’t have a monopoly on lying, Major.”

The Edemian ship, however, made no suicidal run at the wormhole. Indeed, once the course of action had been decided upon, the ship glided to the docking ring with nary a complaint or whisper of trouble. Sisko, deciding to exercise protocol, was on hand to greet them personally. He also decided to exercise caution, and for that reason he took Odo with him.
Mas Marko was the first off.
Sisko and Odo looked up.
And up.
Marko was nearly seven feet tall, it seemed. He had to bend over slightly to get through the docking bay door. But he did it so smoothly that it was clear he was quite accustomed to situations that were inconvenient for someone of his height.
What impressed Sisko most was that he didn’t walk so much as glide, as if he had wheels instead of feet. For all Sisko knew, he did, for his robes trailed down to the floor and whisked about the deck.
He’d heard O’Brien’s whispered wisecrack earlier and now was certain that there was indeed some merit in it. If Mas Marko had been carrying a scythe, he would indeed have been the image of the Grim Reaper.
This impression was diluted somewhat when Mas Marko pulled back his hood. His face was still a gleaming ebony, but now enough features could be discerned to give him a somewhat human aspect.
His eyes still gleamed a disconcerting red, however.
“Commander Sisko.” He spoke slowly, as if giving thoughtful weight to every syllable. His voice was deep and seemed to originate from somewhere around his shoes.
“Mas Marko. An honor.”
“You seem a bit surprised, Commander.”
“I admit,” said Sisko, “that when major dignitaries arrive, they are usually preceded by their entourage. Standard-bearers, as it were, announcing their leader’s arrival.”
“How egocentric,” said Marko mildly. “And somewhat disingenuous in depicting their station in life. I am Mas Marko, Commander. I am my people’s leader. What sort of leader would I be . . . if I merely followed?”
“As you say. This is Security Chief Odo.”
“An honor.” He seemed to regard Sisko with some amusement. “Security chief? Are you anticipating difficulty, Commander?”
“I always anticipate difficulty,” Sisko said easily. “Ninety percent of the time, there isn’t any. But I’d rather be wrong ninety percent of the time so that I can be prepared to be right that irritating ten percent. Because those are the times when my people’s welfare is on the line.”
Mas Marko appeared to consider that. “A very reasonable approach,” he said at last.
He turned and extended a large hand in the direction of the airlock. Several other Edemians now emerged from behind him—two males, a female, and a child. They were somewhat shorter than he, but still hovering around the six-foot range, except for the child, who was a more reasonable five feet. Then again, for all Sisko knew, the boy might be at an age where, if he were human, he’d be averaging around three feet.
They are one tall damned race, thought Sisko.
All were dressed in flowing robes, but the patterns were far brighter, less solemn, than Marko’s own. Perhaps, Sisko reasoned, Marko’s robes were a sign of his office. Either that or he just liked to look ominous.
The two males stepped forward first. As near as Sisko could determine, they were almost indistinguishable from each other. “This is Del,” said Marko, “and this is Lobb.”
“An honor, sir,” said Del, bending slightly at the waist.
Lobb seemed a good deal less formal. “Handshakes, right?” he asked. His voice sounded younger than Del’s although it was impossible to truly discern his age based on his face.
“Pardon?”
“Humans do handshakes. Is that correct?”
“Uh . . . yes,” said Sisko. “That is correct.”
Lobb pumped his hand, and Sisko endeavored not to wince at the strength of the grip. “A pleasure, sir.”
“Lobb is new to missionary work,” said Mas Marko. “His enthusiasm is rather contagious. It gives me fond recollections of my days as a novice.”
“We’re going to do K’olkr’s work,” said Lobb, still shaking Sisko’s hand. “There is no greater honor than that.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Sisko politely disengaged his hand. As he flexed his fingers to restore circulation, Marko gestured for the woman and boy to come forward. They did so, with that same remarkable glide effect.
“She who is my mate,” said Mas Marko. His voice sounded slightly more formal. “Azira, daughter of Eweeun and Kragar. Out of deference to your rank, Commander, you may address her as Azira. And my son, Rasa, who supports the spirit of K’olkr and hopes to enter into the presence of his holiness pure of thought and deed.”
Sisko blinked. Something about that introduction sounded just a little . . . strange.
If there was anything odd about it, Azira did not let on. She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment of the introduction. Rasa did likewise.
Sisko stared at Rasa for a moment. There was something in the boy’s eyes, something in his demeanor . . . 
“Commander,” said Mas Marko, sounding curious, “is there a problem?” 
“No,” said Sisko gamely. “No. No problem at all. Azira . . . Rasa . . .  a pleasure to meet you both.”
Azira smiled—an amazingly sweet smile, considering the fierce-looking face that the mouth was a part of.
Rasa did not do anything. He simply stood there.
Trying not to be distracted by the lack of vigor in the boy, Sisko said, “The constable here will guide you to your quarters. You have free access to any unrestricted area of DS-Nine, although I’d explore the Promenade cautiously if I were you. Some of the inhabitants there can be somewhat . . . rowdy.”
“Rowdy.” Marko’s interest seemed piqued. “Without religion, one would think?”
“Depends how you define ‘religion.’ They worship drinking, gambling, and profits. They’re as fervent about that as the holiest of men about their own respective gods. No offense intended.”
“None taken,” Marko said. “Indeed, we may be performing K’olkr’s will, despite our original intention of passing through to the Gamma Quadrant. It is possible that he has arranged for this . . . what did you call the wormhole’s condition?”
“Subspace compression.”
“Yes. He might have arranged for this compression expressly so that we could spend some more time here at your station spreading his word to those who need it.”
“K’olkr moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform,” said Sisko. 
Mas Marko looked at him as if truly seeing him for the first time.
“That is very profound, Commander,” he said. “Do you mind if I quote you on that?”
“Not at all,” Sisko said, as generously as he could.
“This way, please.” Odo gestured to the turbolifts.
Mas Marko and his entourage preceded them. But Sisko held Odo back just long enough to say in a low voice, “If they wander about the Promenade, keep an eye on them. We don’t need Marko or his people getting roughed up if any of the Promenade inhabitants feel
disinclined to convert to the ways of K’olkr.”
Odo nodded his understanding and followed the Edemians. “Please be careful in the turbolifts,” he called. “They can be a little bumpy.”
Sisko shook his head and was about to head back to Ops when his comm badge beeped. He tapped it. “Sisko here.”
“Commander,” came Kira’s voice. “We have another arrival. This one’s unexpected. Is Odo there?”
“He’s guiding the Mas Marko party to the habitat ring.”
“A suggestion, then, sir: we may want to keep our new guest in the docking ring until Odo can handle him personally. This is definitely a security matter, and considering what’s involved, the constable will probably want to deal with it himself.”
Sisko was confused. Kira was describing a situation that sounded as if it had the makings of being very dangerous, but the tone of her voice suggested that she was entertained rather than alarmed. Trying to get a handle on it, Sisko asked, “Is it another frustrated wormhole passenger?”
“Actually, no. He’s here specifically to do business with someone on Deep Space Nine.”
“Oh, really? Who?”

“Quark . . . ”
The Ferengi recognized Odo’s voice even before he turned around. Quark’s face bore his typical expression when dealing with Odo: smugly confident, but with a bit of caution. After all, he never knew when Odo might have something on him.
He turned slowly, saying, “What can I do for—”
But the words caught in his throat.
There was a Ferengi standing next to Odo. He had a singular triangle
triangle of brown spots on his eye ridge. He grinned at Quark, exposing his sharp and fairly vicious-looking teeth to their best advantage.
“Quaaaaark,” he said in a low drawl.
Quark uttered a small shriek and promptly assumed the defensive posture commonly known as the Ferengi cringe. He held one arm out as if to ward off an enemy, and the other encircled his head so that, if something hideous did happen to him, he wouldn’t see it or hear it.
He backed up rapidly, knocking over a table.
The other Ferengi, standing next to Odo, looked up at the constable calmly. “I told you he’d react this way.”
“Keep your distance, Glav!” Quark said shrilly. “Just . . . just keep your distance!”
“Oh, stop it, Quark,” Odo said. His patience with the rodentlike Ferengi was not great to begin with, and this was pushing it far beyond its tolerance. “I’m not going to let him do anything to you.”
“Oh, reaaaallly.” Quark’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. He had backed up against a wall—another common Ferengi maneuver, that way, no one could attack from behind. “And you would just be sooo upset if something happened to me, wouldn’t you, Odo?”
“If it happened here, yes,” Odo said firmly. “I put aside my personal feelings when it comes to enforcing the law. If I didn’t, Quark, I can assure you that something would have happened to you a long time ago. Glav here wants to talk.”
“Glav here wants to see me stripped naked and strangled with my own entrails!”
“You’re confusing Glav with me,” came Odo’s sarcastic reply.
Glav held up his hands, looking as nonthreatening as a Ferengi could possibly look. “Sir,” he said to Odo, “I believe I can clear this up.”
Odo folded his arms and waited.
“Some years ago I had a major investment deal going on,” Glav told him. “I had put all my personal fortune on the line to ensure that it would go through. And then Quark here came swooping in and persuaded my clients to bargain with him instead. He undercut me, offering the same material at a lower price.”
“I did nothing wrong!” snarled Quark. “Everything was done in accordance with the Ferengi law of dealing! Besides . . . I was a youngster back then. You can’t hold me accountable just because—”
“Because I was driven into bankruptcy,” said Glav. “I had extended my credit too far. My creditors wanted payment. I had failed to make the sale. They took practically everything. I was ruined.”
“And now he’s come back for revenge!” Quark reassumed the Ferengi cringe.
“No, Quark. I’ve come back here to tell you that it all worked out for the best—for better than the best.”
This prompted Quark to peer out from under his own elbow. “What do you mean?”
“I was left with only one thing, Quark—some property on Xerxes Six that was deemed so worthless that no one took it from me. I went there to live . . . and, I admit, to nurse dark thoughts against you. But—” He paused dramatically.
Quark, curious in spite of himself, slowly lowered his arm. “But what?” 
“I started doing geological surveys.” Glav smiled raggedly at his own ingenuity. “The preliminary surveys when I first arrived revealed nothing of interest, but I had time on my hands, so I probed deeper. And I found a massive deposit of calvinum.”
Quark gasped. “Ca . . . calvinum?”
“That’s right. The stuff that the Byfrexians use to power their ship engines. The stuff is in remarkably short supply.”
“The Byfrexians will pay an arm and a leg for even a gram of it!”
“Bah! Arms and legs I have no use for. Two million bars of gold-pressed latinum, however . . . ”
Quark put his hand to his chest. “Tuh . . . tuh . . . tuh . . . ”He gulped. “Two . . . muh . . . muh—”
“Million,” said Odo peevishly. “Oh, do get on with it.”
“There’s not much more to get on with,” said Glav. “I’m rich, Quark—‘rich beyond the dreams of avarice.’ If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be eking out a living wheeling and dealing, not knowing that I had a fortune right under my nose. I even made a few safe investments, and I’ve doubled my fortune since then.”
A crafty look crossed Quark’s face. “This is a con! That’s it! He’s coming in here pretending he’s rich so he can pull some sort of scam on me! Get my place away from me!”
Glav looked around Quark’s establishment with barely concealed disdain. “Why would I possibly want it? Look, Quark . . . you don’t have to believe me. Run a thorough check on me using the Ferengi Bureau of Audit. I’m listed on the exchange; my net worth is no secret. I’m proud of it—wouldn’t you be?”
He stepped forward and took Quark firmly by the shoulders. Quark flinched, still expecting a sudden blow to land on the top of his head.
“Luck was with you, Quark. With both of us,” said Glav. “Bear you ill will? Pfaw! In a way, I owe you everything. As I said, check me out. Satisfy yourself through as many different sources as possible. I’ll keep my distance from you until you’re ready to talk with me. Because once you are ready, Quark, I’m going to make you a very, very rich Ferengi.”
He released Quark and stepped back. He nodded slightly toward Odo and said, “Thank you, sir. I can find my way from here.” And he turned and strolled casually down the Promenade, hands clasped behind his back, looking for all the world like someone who had everything he could possibly want.
Quark watched him go and then muttered, “I don’t trust him for a second.”
“No reason you should,” said Odo. “We know how far we can trust Ferengi.”
“Yes, we know how . . . ” Quark began to echo, but then he caught himself and gave Odo a dirty look. Odo walked away without further comment.

“You have been doing a most impressive job with the station, Commander,” said the Cardassian. “Gul Dukat is most impressed.”
They were sitting in Sisko’s office. Sisko was more than aware of the occasional look of utter revulsion that Kira delivered in the Cardassian’s general direction. Wisely, however, she kept silent, not particularly trusting herself.
Sisko nodded. “Thank you, Gotto. And you may report to Gul Dukat that he is welcome here at any time.”
Gotto smiled thinly at that. “Oh . . . Gul Dukat hardly believes that to be the case. That is why he has sent me, his trusted envoy, to do his business for him.”
“And his business is . . . ?
“His.”
“I see.” He paused. “And Deep Space Nine is my business. And where those two overlap . . . I do not like being unaware.”
They regarded each other for a moment, and then Gotto shrugged. “Oh, it’s of no consequence, truly. Gul Dukat simply likes
to keep all those aboard this station subtly aware of the Cardassian presence. To do otherwise would be a sign of weakness. I am instructed to spend the next several days mingling, chatting, making myself seen. That is really the extent of it. You do not have a problem with that, do you, Commander?”
“Of course not,” said Sisko calmly. “As long as that is all you intend to do. Who could possibly find fault with that?”
“We have an understanding, then.” The Cardassian slapped his thighs and rose from the chair.
At that moment Dr. Bashir walked into Sisko’s office.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked.
“Dr. Bashir . . . Gotto Lon,” said Sisko. “Gotto Lon was just leaving.” 
“A pleasure as always,” said Gotto, and he walked out of the office. 
As the Cardassian left, Sisko motioned for Bashir to sit. “Doctor, how well informed are you on Edemians?”
Bashir smiled. If there was one thing on which he prided himself, besides his looks, it was his expertise in multi-species medicine. Indeed, his encyclopedic knowledge amazed Sisko, although he tried not to let on.
“Fairly conversant, sir,” he said. “They’re a fairly hardy race.”
“Would you know a sick one if you saw him?”
“Just on sight? Possibly. If I examined him, definitely.”
“A group of them just arrived on DS-Nine. One of them—the youngest—seems a bit . . . off. Nothing I can put my finger on . . . ”
“Was he bleeding? Coughing? Anything overt?”
“No,” admitted Sisko. “Nothing overt, but . . . well, Doctor, all I can tell you is that when you’re a parent, you develop a sixth sense about these things.”
“It happens occasionally to doctors, too,” Bashir said soberly. “Do you want me to go to their quarters?”
“Not yet. I’m still uncertain enough about this that I don’t want to make too much of it. The Edemians shouldn’t be difficult to spot; they’ll probably set up shop in the Promenade and try to do missionary work among the poor godless denizens therein.”
“Indeed? Then they have their work cut out for them.”
“I agree. I want you to get close to them. Observe what you can. And if you deem it necessary, bring the youngest one to the infirmary for in-depth testing.”
“And if they object?”
“They do not have that option. This is a closed environment, Doctor. I’m in favor of being tactful, but the bottom line is . . . if the boy is carrying a disease, we’ll have to isolate him. I have no desire to see another virus get loose in this station. Do you?”
“No, sir,” said Bashir, shuddering inside. Not long ago an aphasia virus had gripped the entire station. That nightmare had nearly resulted in the death of practically everyone on board. The only ones who had proven immune were Quark and Odo.
Odo had privately told Bashir that for him, the possibility of everyone on the station dying was only part of the problem. The true horror for Odo was his concern that he and Quark were both carriers . . . which meant that they could not leave DS9. Ever. With the station quarantined, and with no way of filtering the virus out of the air, Odo and Quark would have been stuck together forever on the empty station, each being the only living individual for the other to converse with. “You, at least, would have been dead,” Odo had informed Bashir archly. “For me, the nightmare would have just begun.”
“All right, then, Doctor,” said Sisko. “Thank you. That’s all. And keep me apprised.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”

Several other travelers—two humans, a Tellarite, and a Boffin—stopped at Deep Space Nine for a variety of reasons. None of them were particularly pleased to learn that the wormhole was closed to passage until further notice, but all seemed willing to make the best of a difficult situation.
And down in one of the ships that had docked along the great outer ring of Deep Space Nine . . . 
A suitcase began to move.
It seemed to melt, becoming a thick mass of gelatinous goo. And then it oozed forward.
It flowed out of the ship and into the airlock. The seal into the docking bay was airtight, but the mass did not attempt to break it. Instead it moved up and along the paneling until it found a section that seemed weak enough.
The slime drew back, as if coalescing for a fleeting moment into a fist, and then it punched through the paneling. The panel crumbled under the impact, and the mass seeped through and around the heavy docking clamps.
Within seconds it had made its way along the clamps and reached the far end of the airlock. It was only a moment’s work for the slime to push out another panel and trickle down onto the floor.
Then the mass started to come together, to re-form. It became a small tower of ooze, and then it assumed form and definition.
Within moments it had morphed into a passable imitation of a humanoid.
It looked down at its hands, touched its face, and nodded in satisfaction.
The metamorph walked away from the docking bay. Within minutes it had reached the Promenade deck and was mingling freely with the other denizens of the station.
Deep Space Nine was under siege.
But no one knew it yet.
CHAPTER
5
“COME! COME FREELY and experience the word of K’olkr!”
The Edemians had set up shop in an empty booth along the Promenade. Mas Marko rang a large, resounding chime to attract the attention of passersby. It worked to the degree that it got people to glance the Edemians’ way. But it did nothing to get anyone to take them seriously.
Sisko, far more familiar with the parade of life that was the Promenade, had gone over some ground rules with Mas Marko. There was to be no physical accosting of people; no getting in their way; no attempt, in any way, shape, or form to force their beliefs on the denizens of Deep Space Nine. The reason for that was simple: Sisko was looking to avoid starting a fight.
Fortunately for all concerned, Mas Marko readily accepted Sisko’s rules. “Only those who willingly embrace the word of K’olkr can truly understand,” he had replied. “We can but expose individuals to those thoughts. K’olkr teaches us that his way is the way of acceptance. Acceptance in all things, Commander. You cannot quarrel with that, certainly.”
Indeed, Sisko could not.
So now Mas Marko stood in the Promenade, trying to appeal to
that which was worthwhile and decent and good in the Promenade’s browsers. Which was not, unfortunately, a lot.
He was surrounded by his entourage, who were trying to hand out treatises on the greatness of K’olkr. No one seemed particularly interested. 
Bashir stood a short distance away, watching carefully. In particular, he was watching the boy, Rasa.
From his knowledge of Edemian physiology, he determined that the boy was roughly ten earth years in age. Edemians were almost indefatigable. Marko and his followers had been calling to people nonstop for several hours now.
All except Rasa. He remained quiet, listless. The prodding from his mother to participate in their endeavors was met with indifference.
And she was worried.
Even from where he was watching, Bashir could see her anxiety. But was she worried about something and did not know what? Or was she genuinely concerned about something in particular?
Either way, Bashir felt it was worth his time to find out.
And he knew of a very simple way to do it.
He walked very casually toward the Edemians. As he got within range, he saw that Azira was still urging the boy to take part in what they were doing. Bashir was lucky enough to make eye contact with the unenthusiastic lad, and he raised an eyebrow to indicate interest.
“Have you heard the word of K’olkr?” asked Rasa. His voice was high-pitched, not at all like the stentorian tones of his father. Up close, Bashir could even see some of what Sisko had already picked up. One didn’t have to be an expert in alien medicine to see that Rasa looked . . . diminished, somehow. His eyes, rather than the
softly glowing red of the others, were mere flickers, like smothered embers.
Furthermore his skin was not the solid ebony of the others, but instead was inconsistently colored. Looking closely, Bashir could even see signs of splotching.
All this he noted in a second. Covering his clinical assessment smoothly, he said, “Why, no. I haven’t. The word of K’olkr?”
His response caught the attention of the others. They turned toward him, but Bashir deliberately didn’t look at them, instead focusing entirely on Rasa. He wanted to make it painfully clear that the dialogue was between him and the boy. “Who is K’olkr?” he asked. “A friend of yours?”
“Uh . . . ” Clearly the boy hadn’t expected any response. He licked his lips and looked nervously to his father for guidance.
“He asked you, son. Tell him,” came Marko’s response.
“Uh . . . ” Rasa looked back to Bashir. “K’olkr is . . . is all.” It was clear that the words his father had drilled into him were slowly coming back to him, out of reflex . . . or perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation. “K’olkr loves us. K’olkr protects us. He . . . ” He looked once more to his father, who merely nodded in calm surety. “He guides us,” said Rasa. “By trusting ourselves to the fate decreed by K’olkr, we have that much more security in ourselves.”
“Trusting yourselves to the fate K’olkr decrees?” said Bashir. “So you believe purely in predestination? Or do you accept the notion of free will?” 
Rasa looked somewhat surprised at this. It was as if he hadn’t been certain until just this moment that Bashir was actually paying attention to what he was saying. Automatically he said, “Free will when it comes to dealing in mortal affairs. But trusting in the wisdom
wisdom of K’olkr when it comes to those matters that are the affairs of gods.”
Bashir suddenly snapped his fingers. “Blast! You know, this is so interesting . . . but I have to get to my duties.”
“Oh.” Rasa looked deflated. He glanced apologetically at his father. 
“That is a pity,” said Mas Marko. “It is clear to me that your conversation with my son is of interest to you, Mister . . . ”
Bashir was about to correct him out of habit by saying, “Doctor,” but some internal warning sense stopped him. Instead he said simply, “Bashir. Julian Bashir.”
“Mr. Bashir. Must you leave so abruptly?”
“I’m afraid so. Although . . . ” and he paused, as if just coming up with the idea. But then he said dismissively, “No. Forget it.”
“What?” said Rasa, momentarily forgetting that his father was supposed to take the lead in discussions. Marko, however, did not remonstrate with him. He was obviously proud to see his son actually taking charge of a situation. 
“Well,” Bashir said, “perhaps this young man would be interested in accompanying me. Much of my job, I hate to admit, is somewhat drudgery-filled. Certainly some stimulating conversation would be a vast improvement for me. Although . . . well, he’s probably helping you far too much here.”
“To be honest, sir,” said Mas Marko, “we have been here for some hours and have not had much success in attracting more than sniggering looks. That being the case, I would hate to lose momentum with you. Rasa, would you care to accompany the gentleman?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rasa immediately.
But at almost the same moment Azira said, “I don’t think so.”
Rasa looked from one to the other, as did Bashir.
Something was definitely going on between the boy’s parents. Their faces were absolutely unreadable. But whatever was happening, it was quite clear to Bashir that Mas Marko was still in charge. Azira held his gaze for only a moment before lowering her eyes.
Marko spoke to her in a voice that seemed filled with understanding and a very faint sorrow. “Like all of us, the boy must accomplish all that is possible during his time in this sphere. You must be willing to let him go.” 
“That is what I do,” she said. It wasn’t a comment that Bashir fully understood, but Azira turned to Rasa and said, “Make K’olkr proud.”
“Of course I will, Mother,” he said.
Deciding that further conversation would only delay matters—and possibly shift them in a different direction—the doctor started walking without further hesitation. “So how do we know when we are operating under our own free will . . . and when we are to leave matters in the hands of K’olkr?” 
Rasa immediately fell into step next to Bashir. “Well,” he said, “we have a set of laws called Siilar that enable us to study situations and make determinations. . . .”
Their voices faded, mixing into the general babble and buzzing of the surrounding voices.
“He will make us proud,” said Mas Marko firmly. He did not look at Azira or even seem to be addressing her.
Azira said nothing.
The matter already apparently concluded, Mas Marko spoke with even more fervor to the next person who happened by. As if encouraged by the apparent success his son was having with the Starfleet man, he said, “Sir, the words of K’olkr would be of interest to your life—”
“Unless the words happen to be ‘profit,’ ‘money,’ and ‘greed,’ I seriously doubt it,” said Glav, and he walked away from the Edemians.
As he neared Quark’s establishment, he slowed down his brisk pace . . .  and then, very deliberately, gave the place a wide berth. He saw Quark busily attending to customers, being his usual servile self. Glav managed to angle himself to just within Quark’s view and then started to walk away.
Quark, however, moved like lightning. “Glav!” he shouted. He practically leapt over a table and barreled across the Promenade, knocking people aside to get to Glav as quickly as he could.
He struck another very distinctive Ferengi posture the moment that he was at Glav’s side: he bent over slightly so that his eye level was just below Glav’s. This was a body-language method of saying, “I acknowledge the greatness of your place in the universe. How may I serve you so that you may enrich me?” 
The body language said all that. Quark, for his part, licked his lips with anticipation and purred, “Glav, old fellow, where have you been? I’ve tried repeatedly to reach you in your quarters. You weren’t there.”
“Oh . . . I’ve been looking around this fascinating station of yours,” he said, turning in a slow circle so that he bore a passing resemblance to an antique conning tower. “This is quite an amazing situation you people have here. But enough of me, Quark. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?” 
Quark bobbed his head in appreciation and gave a high-pitched laugh. “Ah, Glav . . . no one can tell a centuries-old joke like you.”
“That’s extraordinarily obsequious of you, Quark.”
“Thank you,” said Quark, bobbing his head appreciatively. “I strive for perfection in all matters.”
“So tell me, Quark . . . am I correct in assuming that you have checked out my . . . status?”
“Thoroughly,” said Quark. “Very thoroughly. Glav, dear fellow . . .  you’ve managed to keep a rather low profile personally, haven’t you.”
“I have tried to do so,” agreed Glav. “Oh, if you do research under my name, it is quite easy to find my net worth. Otherwise, though, I’ve managed to be fairly subtle about it.”
“Exceptionally subtle,” crowed Quark. “Subtle as the whispering winds of space. Subtle as—”
“Quark.”
“Yes, Glav?”
“You’re overdoing it.”
Quark stepped back and bowed slightly. “I apologize.”
“It’s no matter,” said Glav. “To be honest, Quark, I expected no less of you.”
“Then it is my honor to live down to your expectations.”
Glav put a hand on Quark’s shoulder. “We can do business, Quark.”
Quark gasped in amazement and pleasure, not to mention fulfilled hope. “How can I, from my lowly station in life, hope to aid you? My humble business is barely worth your notice.”
Glav looked around and then gestured toward a nearby table and chairs at the outskirts of Quark’s Place. He sat down, Quark opposite him.
Elbows on the table, head propped up, looking the soul of disingenuousness, Glav said, “You have connections.”
“I do?” Quark looked momentarily confused. But then he cleared his throat and, recapturing his self-possession, said, “Well . . . of course I do. But not . . . I mean, how could the people whom I have
connections with possibly compare to the scope of—”
“It’s the individuals whom you are connected with,” said Glav. He sighed and lowered his gaze. “I have a confession to make, Quark.”
Quark looked at him questioningly.
“When I came to this station,” he said, “I was . . . Well, my motives were not particularly honorable.”
“So?” The concept of honorable motives did not have much importance in Quark’s worldview.
“I came here,” sighed Glav, “because I was very much looking forward to rubbing my good fortune in your face. I wanted to parade my success before you, make you squirm, perhaps even dangle a business proposition in your face . . .  and then depart. It was . . . ” He shook his head. “It was petty vindictiveness.”
“It’s understandable,” said Quark.
Glav looked up in surprise. “Why, Quark . . . you’re not even being obsequious. You really do understand.”
“Squirming, vindictiveness . . . pfaw. What’s not to understand?”
“If you understand that, then certainly the subsequent events will be well within your comprehension as well. For as I was walking around this incredible station, I had a realization. And my greed, I will admit, came bubbling to the surface. It was a heady feeling, Quark. With the amount of money at my command, my sense of pure greed had become . . . stilted. Lost.” 
Quark gasped. “You poor bastard.”
“You know, I hadn’t even realized I’d lost it. That’s the truly tragic thing. It’s far too simple to become content. Beware contentment, Quark. It can lead to your undoing.”
Quark shifted uneasily in his chair. “Well, I am . . . I am happy with my situation in life. But,” he said more firmly, “but content?
No. No, never. I always dream of riches. Of the deal,” he said reverently.
“The deal,” said Glav, “sits before you. Look at me, Quark. I hold the key to the deal.”
Quark stared at him for a long moment.
And then suspicion played across his face.
“This is a scam,” he said slowly.
Glav looked confused. “What?”
“It is!”
“Quark! I have been honest with you!”
“Ah, but here it comes!” Quark raised his voice in anger and alarm. “The scam! The sting! Put me off my guard with sweet words and then persuade me to participate in some insane enterprise in the hope of improving my station in life. When, in fact, your real intention is to deprive me of—”
“I’m not going to deprive you of anything!” said Glav in confusion.
Quark sat back, his fingers interlaced, looking confident and smug. “How much?” he said. “How much were you going to ask me to contribute to whatever scheme you were launching? Eh? Enough to put my entire establishment at risk? Or—”
“Nothing!” cried Glav. “Nothing, I swear! I . . . ” His face turned dead serious. “I swear on Amorphous, the shaper of Ferengi dreams of avarice, that I was not going to ask you to put your establishment—or any of your personal fortune, however paltry that might be—at risk in any way.”
Quark’s jaw dropped. A Ferengi did not swear by Amorphous lightly. Even among the Ferengi, certain things were simply not done, and lying to another Ferengi in the name of Amorphous was
one of them. It was enough to restore Quark’s confidence to some degree.
“All right,” he said slowly. “All right. What can I contribute? I don’t understand.”
“This station,” said Glav, barely able to repress his rising excitement. “This station . . . for pity’s sake, Quark, look at it. The potential, Quark. The potential! I’ve been doing a study of it. Projecting across the probable expansion of the business that will come through here as a result of the Bajoran wormhole. Furthermore, I’ve been analyzing the percentage of effectiveness in the way that business is being done here. Would you like to know what I’ve found?”
Quark nodded eagerly.
“There is potential here,” he said, “for increasing profits . . .  thirteen hundred percent!” Upon Quark’s startled intake of breath, he nodded his head. “Yes, you heard me right. Under the right management . . . under the right mind-set . . . this station could be the single largest profit generator in this entire sector.”
“Under the right management? But the Federation—”
“The Federation!” Glav laughed coarsely. “The Federation! Oh, please, Quark. If you want a painfully boring continuation of the status quo, you call in the Federation. But if you want profit”—he tapped his chest—“you call a Ferengi.”
“But . . . no one called us.”
“We Ferengi do not sit around waiting for the deal to come to us. We find the deal. We exploit the deal. We”—he thumped his fist on the tabletop to emphasize each word—“we make . . . the . . . deal. There are those in this universe to whom things happen. And there are others who make things happen. Which would you be, Quark?”
“Well . . . obviously, the latter.”
“Then you will help me?”
“Help you what?”
“What! Isn’t it obvious?” He smiled toothily. “I want to buy Deep Space Nine.”
Quark stared at him skeptically for a moment. “You . . . you aren’t serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
“Well, because . . . for pity’s sake, Glav! It’s not for sale!”
“Have you asked?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Ah,” said Glav, leaning forward, “but you see, it’s amazing what’s for sale if the price is right. And I’ll tell you right now, Quark, what we Ferengi already know: when the price is right, anything is for sale. That is where you come in.”
“It is?” Quark sounded less than enthusiastic.
“Yes. Because you are going to be able to use your influence to help.” For a moment he seemed uncertain. “You do have influence, don’t you?” 
“Uh . . . why, yes, of course.” Quark gathered his composure. “The fact of the matter is that I am one of the major influences on this station. Why,” he continued, becoming more full of himself by the moment, “just last month, all the station personnel were ill. Whom did they turn to in their hour of need?” He thumped his chest proudly. “I ran the entire station single-handed.” 
“Now you’re boasting.”
“I swear! There I was, all alone in Ops, holding things together. And then there was the time when I became the very first source of relics brought through the wormhole. I held an auction here that they’re still talking about throughout the sector.”
“Then you can help me.”
“I—”
At that moment, an irritated Orion shouted, “Quark! You call this a drink?”
Seeing the source of the complaint, Quark turned to Glav apologetically. “I hate to break off, but I fear I really must attend to this. The last time an Orion was dissatisfied, the damage took me a week to repair.”
“I understand fully. We’ll talk later.”
Quark slid off the chair and headed toward the disgruntled Orion. Glav, for his part, walked away humming to himself, looking around the station as if trying to figure out where he was going to redecorate.
And the table that they’d been sitting at, unseen by either of them, shifted. Within moments it had dissolved into a puddle and then built itself back up again to become the distinctive form of the station’s security officer. 
Odo shook his head.
“What fools these Ferengi be,” he muttered.

Rasa looked around the infirmary with curiosity. “What is this place?” he asked.
“It’s where we treat the sick,” Bashir told him, trying to look casual. He watched as Rasa opened a cabinet and stared in fascination at the contents. “Certainly you’ve seen places like this before.”
“No,” said Rasa. “I’ve never had the need.”
“Hmm. Well, you’re a lucky young man. Never to be sick a day in your life.”
He waited until Rasa’s interest in the cabinets seemed to flag and then he said, “You know what this is?” And he tapped the monitors up on the wall over a bed.
Rasa shook his head.
“All sorts of lights come on,” said Bashir. “Here . . . watch. Hop up onto this bed and lie down.”
Rasa, curious about the equipment, did as he was told. As he lay back, the bioscan units came on. Readings immediately began feeding into the diagnostic files of the computers. Oblivious of what was happening, Rasa twisted around so that he could see the blinking lights and the source of the noises. “What’s that thumping sound?” he asked.
“That’s your heartbeat. It . . . sounds a little fast,” said Bashir, still endeavoring to seem casual. “Fast for an Edemian, at any rate. Tell me, Rasa, does your head ever hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“When?”
“Oh . . . in the morning. And a little at night. And . . . sometimes in the middle of the day.” Rasa was starting to sound uncomfortable. “I thought you wanted to talk about K’olkr.”
“Well,” said Bashir reasonably, “if I’m supposed to learn a bit about your life . . . seems only fair that you learn a bit about mine, don’t you think?”
Rasa started to sit up, and Bashir moved quickly to his side, holding his shoulder down gently to prevent him from rising. “Let me go!” shouted Rasa, but he didn’t have the strength to back up his command.
And then he started to cough.
It was a deep, hacking sound. The exertion had cost him, and he coughed more and more violently. Within seconds the hacking became so fierce that his legs flexed upward while his upper torso cramped over, as if he were curling into a fetal position with each sudden expulsion of air.
“Nurse!” called Bashir. He started to order a hypo that would settle
settle Rasa down, but ultimately it proved unnecessary. Rasa stopped of his own accord, the coughing settling down until the fit simply ended. Rasa looked up at Bashir then, and the glow in his eyes seemed just a bit dimmer.
“Are you all right?” asked Bashir.
Rasa nodded. But he didn’t look all right, and he didn’t sound all right.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” the doctor said.
“It’s all right,” said Rasa. He swung his legs over and slid off the biobed. “I . . . think I’d better go back to my parents now.”
“Don’t you want to discuss K’olkr?”
Rasa studied him. “I . . . don’t really think that you do.”
“How about you?”
The boy let out a long sigh that Bashir feared, for a moment, would set off another fit. But instead Rasa simply shrugged fatalistically.
“No. Not really.”
And he walked out of the infirmary.

Lobb studied the passersby carefully to see who might be amenable to hearing the message, the word, the glory, of K’olkr.
The follower of Mas Marko then thought he saw a likely candidate—an attractive young woman who looked lost and adrift on the sea of humanoid consciousness.
She was walking away from Quark’s, holding a drink as if it were her last friend in the cosmos. Merely looking upon her, Lobb felt tremendous empathy.
K’olkr seemed to whisper to Lobb, saying, “Yes! Yes! She is one for whom you’ve been waiting. She will be your first convert to the wisdom of K’olkr. You can do it. Steady. Speak to her in soft, alluring
alluring terms that will draw her to you.”
As she passed nearby, Lobb raised his voice in vehemence that surprised even him. “K’olkr wants you!” he called out. “K’olkr loves you! You, young woman!”
She stopped in her tracks. She turned her head slowly to stare at him. 
“Your life,” he said, his fervor rising, “can be a beautiful and splendid thing. Your life can be beyond anything you might have imagined possible. Your life can be sanctified, glorified, purified, if you accept, understand, and embrace the wisdom of K’olkr!”
He stretched out a hand to her, gesturing for her to come over to him. 
She regarded him for a moment more and then—slowly, ever so slowly—approached him . . . 
And then she raised the glass and hurled its contents at him.
The liquid hit Lobb square in the chest. A huge stain spread in no time, the red liquid pouring down his chest and trickling to his waist. He stared at it in stupefaction.
“My life is fine as it is, fool,” she said tartly. “Maybe you’re the one who should be reevaluating your life. Standing around shouting things at people who didn’t ask you to come and don’t want you here.”
She turned on her heel and walked away.
Lobb stood there, unmoving, not certain what to say or do. He felt utterly humiliated in front of Mas Marko. He was all too aware of his leader and mentor’s presence looming over him.
Sadly, Mas Marko put a hand on Lobb’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lobb. I’m afraid that the realities of our mission aren’t going to be particularly easy to deal with.”
“Why . . . ” Lobb seemed to grope for words. “Why do they hate us so much?”
“They hate themselves,” Mas Marko told him. “We hold up a mirror to the emptiness and misery of their lives. They see what they have . . . see the meaninglessness and misery of a life without the spirit of K’olkr . . . and the vast majority of them react with hostility. The truth can be very difficult to accept, but a very small number will see what we have to offer and be drawn to it. It is for those few that we commit our lives to constant labor.”
Lobb nodded understandingly. Unfortunately none of it made him feel any drier or any less humiliated.
Azira had listened without comment to all her husband had said. But now she perked up slightly as she saw Rasa heading across the great open area of the Promenade. “Rasa,” she called. “Darling! Over here!” And she waved.
“He knows where we are, Azira,” said Marko. He didn’t sound harsh or angry, but something in his voice indicated quite clearly that he found her behavior inappropriate.
Azira folded her hands into her gown, accepting her husband’s mild rebuke. But when Rasa walked up to them, Azira put an arm around him protectively and gazed up at her husband with an expression that might have been called deliberately blank.
Mas Marko ignored it. “Rasa,” he asked, “how did it go with the Starfleet man?”
Rasa didn’t say anything at first. Marko looked at him curiously and then said, with more firmness in his voice, “Rasa, I believe I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know, Father.”
“You don’t know how it went?”
“No, Father.”
Marko was silent for a long moment. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Mas Marko,” Azira said, choosing to use the full formal address since they were out in public. “I think the boy is too tired to concentrate right at this moment.”
“Is that the case, boy? That you are too tired?”
The boy looked down at the toes of his boots with great interest. “Yes, Father.”
“I see. Very well.” He turned to Lobb. “Would you be so kind as to escort Rasa back to our quarters and make certain that he settles down for some rest? You can take the opportunity to go to your own quarters as well and change to something . . . drier.”
“Thank you, Mas Marko,” said Lobb. He was just starting to feel the uncomfortable dampness and chill from the liquid, and was rather eager to change out of the sodden clothes.
They walked away, and as Mas Marko watched them go, he was aware of Azira stepping a bit closer to him than was typical for public behavior. But he did nothing to discourage her, for he knew what was on her mind, and he was not, after all, without feelings or heart.
“He looks so small,” she whispered. “So small.”
Mas Marko shook his great head. “K’olkr moves in mysterious ways,” he said. He tried to keep the sadness from his voice, but was only partially successful.

Rasa had settled down easily enough. Indeed, “settled down” might have been too mild a phrase. When the boy lay down on his bed, Lobb saw that Rasa was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
Satisfied that his mission had been successfully completed, Lobb stepped out of the quarters that Mas Marko was sharing with his
wife and son and started to head to his own across the hall.
There was a man standing there.
He had thick red hair, and his face was fixed in a sullen deadpan. His chin came to a point; indeed, his entire face looked like a perfect triangle. He was not particularly tall, not particularly short, not particularly anything.
He simply stared.
“Can I help you?” asked Lobb.
The man said nothing.
“Are you interested in learning the wisdom of K’olkr?”
Nothing.
Out of reflex Lobb was going to press the point further, but then he became more aware of the sogginess of his clothes. The dampness was becoming uncomfortable, and a chill began to spread through him . . . although some of that chill was possibly a result of the sullen, fixed scrutiny that he was receiving from this odd red-haired man.
“Perhaps we can discuss matters later,” he said, not really feeling like prolonging the encounter. He stepped past the red-haired man and, for some reason that he could not readily pinpoint, suddenly tensed as if he expected an abrupt attack.
But there was nothing. The red-haired man made no motion at all, and a few seconds later Lobb was safe in his room.
Safe?
What an odd word to occur to him. Safe. Had he been in danger just then? 
The red-haired man had been unarmed and unassuming. What possible threat could he have posed?
Lobb stared into a mirror, looking sadly at the mess on the front of his robe. No wonder he felt paranoid about someone as unthreatening
unthreatening as the red-haired man. Certainly he had not expected to be assaulted by the charming woman whom he had been trying to help. So it wasn’t surprising that he was starting to give a second look to everyone he ran into.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. It might help him stay one step ahead of those who would like to see people like him come to harm.
And then he heard something.
It was like . . . something dripping, something thick and gelatinous, slurping around. . . .
He spun.
The door was not airtight. Through the joints now poured some sort of bizarre . . . stuff.
“What in the . . . ” he managed to get out.
It was viscous and red, bubbling into a large puddle on the floor. Lobb was afraid to touch it, for he had no idea what it might do to him. But it was blocking the exit. If it started to seep toward him, how would he get around it to safety?
He took a step to the side, trying to figure out a way to maneuver around it.
And then, in defiance of any logic, the mass began to grow.
It was as if a tower were rising underneath it, and it took Lobb a few moments to understand that, in fact, the mass was reshaping itself.
It grew, expanded, began to fill out, and then took on definition. He could see the outlines of arms close to the sides of a body, a head starting to form, features coming into existence.
The red-haired man.
Lobb rubbed his eyes, trying to deny what they had already told him.
The glubbing and slurping sounds ceased. The man was now fully formed in Lobb’s room, studying him with detached interest.
“Who in the name of K’olkr are you?” whispered Lobb. “What do you want?” 
The red-haired man gave a reply . . . but it was not verbal.
He drew back his right arm, and it re-formed.
It became a cube-shaped mass, square and gleaming, like a solid block of metal.
Lobb gaped, not comprehending.
And the red-haired man took four quick steps forward, like a bowler about to release a ball. The movement of his right arm was fast, smooth, and liquid as he slammed it forward.
Lobb had just enough time to emit a high-pitched, terrified scream. And then the hand-weapon took him squarely in the face, driving the young Edemian back. And then it kept on going, before Lobb even had a chance to scream, and connected solidly with the wall. Lobb’s cranium, unable to offer the slightest resistance, collapsed with the sound of a crushed melon.
The red-haired man remained in that position for a moment, as if admiring his work or waiting for photographers to take pictures. Then he withdrew the anvillike fist, paying no attention to the sickening thud of Lobb’s remains to the floor. The red of the drink that had been tossed onto Lobb’s robe now mingled with the dark tint of his life’s blood.
A massive smear of blood had spread over the wall.
The killer stared at it for a moment and then extended a finger toward it.
And he began to write.
CHAPTER
6
“HE WANTS TO WHAT?”
Sisko seemed unsure whether to laugh or not. Odo, for his part, tended to take everything seriously. No one could quite recall ever hearing him laugh at anything.
They were in the commander’s office, and now Sisko was indeed starting to laugh. But it was more of an abrupt bark of amusement. “He wants to what?” he said again.
“You heard me, Sisko,” said Odo sharply. “He wants to buy Deep Space Nine.”
Sisko pondered that a moment. “What sort of offer is he planning to make?”
Odo tilted his head, not quite understanding. Seeing the shapeshifter’s confused look, Sisko said, “Well . . . we want to know if he’s going to make it worth our while. How much do you think we can get for this station?”
“Sisko!”
“Well, you don’t think we should simply dismiss the offer out of hand, do you? Where would the sense be in that?”
Odo looked hard at him. “This is one of those joke things, isn’t it?”
“Well . . . I admit I’m not being entirely serious, if that’s what you mean. Perhaps the Ferengi were playing a joke on you, Constable. Is it possible they knew you were there?”
“Hardly.” Odo sniffed.
“Ah, well.” Sisko allowed a smile. “Relax, Constable. You have to admit, with all the difficulties we’ve had to deal with on DS-Nine, handling a Ferengi who wants to buy it from us is rather lightweight.”
“I suppose,” allowed Odo. “It is fairly nonsensical. Of all the Ferengi schemes I’ve had to short-circuit in the past, this is certainly one of the most ludicrous.”
“It’s not even a scheme. It won’t require your intervention,” said Sisko. “Let them come, make their offer. I’ll listen politely, tell them the station’s not for sale, and that should be that.”
“If I know Quark—and believe me, no one knows him better than I—that is rarely, if ever, that.”
Sisko gave the matter some thought. “Have you ever wondered, Constable, what it would be like to be unscrupulous?”
“No,” said Odo, sounding faintly puzzled. “Why would I wonder about something like that?”
“Well, imagine it,” said Sisko. “We agree to sell the station, fabricate official documents transferring ownership, and then . . . I think the old phrase is ‘take the money and run.’”
“I think you’re losing your mind, Sisko.”
Sisko sighed. “No. Not losing my mind. Just . . . always pondering the possibilities.” He eased back in his chair, but did not look comfortable.
Odo wasn’t quite sure what to say. Clearly Sisko had something on his mind, but Odo wasn’t sure it was something the Starfleet commander wanted to talk about. And even if it was, why should
Odo waste his time with it? Let Sisko unburden himself to Dax or someone else. Odo regarded Sisko as, at best, a necessary evil. At worst, a nuisance. A living symbol of an organization whose members wore a holier-than-thou attitude on their uniform sleeves.
Still . . . 
“It’s Jake, isn’t it?” Odo said, feeling some reluctance about mixing into this.
But Sisko actually seemed grateful for the opening, and Odo rationalized it to himself by concluding that ingratiating himself with Sisko now might prove useful in the future, so that Odo would be free to do his job his way. 
“It’s not easy,” said Sisko slowly, “to make decisions in life that you know are right for you . . . when you constantly have to worry about how they’re affecting someone else.”
“It’s Jake,” said Odo firmly, his question answered. “Sisko, he’s a boy. He knows nothing from nothing.”
“He knows he’s unhappy. He knows he’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of growing up alone. Of having no friends. Of losing me. I mean, DS-Nine holds challenge for me. What does it hold for him? What does a life in Starfleet hold for him?”
Odo said nothing.
Sisko rose, feeling his temper bubbling, and he suppressed it. Instead he turned it into bleak humor. “I should do it. Sell the station to the Ferengi, then take the money and run. To hell with it.”
“I’d probably have to arrest you,” said Odo.
Sisko regarded him with mild interest. “I’d like to see you try. I warn you, Constable . . . you’d have your work cut out for you.”
“I think I could handle you,” Odo told him.
“Don’t be so sure. You’re looking at the meanest phaser this side of
the asteroid belt. Do you know what they called me in Starfleet Academy?”
“Just a guess here: Sisko?”
“They called me Dead-Eye. That was because . . . ”
“You were blind in one eye?”
“Nooo. Because I was the best shot there. You’re looking at the inventor of the two-cushion phaser ricochet shot. I’d set up a mirror, bounce a phaser shot off it, and still hit the target.”
“I see. I don’t imagine you’ve heard the adage about the shortest distance between two points being a straight line.”
Sisko stared sadly at Odo. “Constable, you have no sense of adventure at all.”
“There are more subtle ways to deal with things than by shooting them, trick shots or no,” said Odo. “Unless, of course, you plan to knock some sense into your son’s head by bouncing a phaser beam off his cranium.”
“That would hardly solve the problem.”
“No,” Odo said reasonably, “but it would stop him from whining about it.”
Before Sisko could respond to that rather mean-spirited comment, Dr. Bashir stuck his head into the office. “Do you have a moment, Commander?”
“We were finished,” said Odo, before Sisko could reply. He rose and walked out into the main Ops area.
As Odo passed O’Brien, the chief engineer suddenly said, “Constable!” 
“Yes, Chief?”
“Remember how you nailed my sleight of hand before?”
“Yes.”
“You have to give me a chance to even things up.”
“I do? Why would I have to do that?”
“Because if I can do a trick that will fool you, then I can certainly do tricks to fool Molly.”
“Ah. You feel that I have the same deductive capabilities as your tot. I see.”
But O’Brien wasn’t listening. He had produced a deck of cards and was rapidly shuffling them. Before Odo could make clear that he wasn’t remotely interested in participating, O’Brien held the cards up in a fan. “Pick a card,” he said.
“Why?”
“So I can do the trick.”
“Oh, very well.” He pointed to one card, facing down like all the others. “That one.”
“All right. Look at the card.”
Odo stared at it.
From nearby, Dax watched in mild amusement. Kira tuned out the entire business, concentrating on charting the flux in the emissions from the wormhole.
“What are you doing?” asked O’Brien, barely hiding his impatience.
“I’m looking at the card,” replied Odo, who was making no effort at all to hide his impatience.
“I meant take it out of the deck and look at it,” said O’Brien, and then added quickly, “and then replace it without telling me which one it is.”
Odo did as he was told. O’Brien then reshuffled the deck, fanned the cards once more, and then triumphantly produced a seven of hearts.
“Is this your card?” he asked.
“No,” said Odo.
O’Brien’s face fell, but only for a moment. He gamely sorted through the deck once more and this time produced the two of clubs. “Is this your card?” 
“No.”
They stared at each other.
“Devil take it,” muttered O’Brien. “Maybe I should just take up juggling.”

Bashir held his medical padd in front of him as if it were a shield. On it were all the medical records that the biobed had discerned from young Rasa and the diagnosis that Bashir had developed in tandem with the resources of the computer.
“Are you sure?” Sisko asked him.
“Yes, sir,” said Bashir. “It’s called panoria. It’s a viral condition, and extremely debilitating. Most Edemians have a natural immunity to it. About three percent do not. The short-term effects of this illness are general malaise, easy exhaustion, and an overall negative effect on the metabolism. In the long term . . . it is much worse. In less than a year it causes a gradual shutdown of the entire metabolic process. The patient becomes an invalid . . . for the brief period of time that is left him.”
“It’s terminal, then.” Sisko’s voice sounded like the chime of doom, even to him.
“If left untreated, yes. Most definitely.”
“I’ll order Rasa quarantined immediately.”
“Not necessary, sir,” Bashir said with conviction. “Panoria is unique to Edemians and two other races, neither of whom are present in Deep Space Nine; for that matter, they don’t even possess sufficient technological capabilities to travel this far. Rasa may be a danger to himself . . . but not to others.”
“You said, ‘if left untreated.’ Does that mean the boy can be saved?” 
“Absolutely,” said Bashir firmly. “I’ve checked over our medical stock, and I can very easily synthesize the elements required. We would have to start him on medication immediately. Ideally, it should have been started several weeks ago.”
“Several weeks? Doctor, how long has the boy been ill?”
“The symptoms would have easily been noticeable”—Bashir paused, counting backwards in terms of the usual known progress of the disease—”three weeks ago. Elevated pulse rate, nausea, fever, malaise, aches and pains . . . ”
“Why in the world hasn’t the boy been treated already?”
“I’m hardly in a position to answer that, sir,” said Bashir.
“In that case, let’s go ask the people who are.”
He rose and came from around his desk, but as he and Bashir approached the office exit, Odo appeared in the doorway.
“Another problem, Constable?” asked Sisko.
“That,” said Odo, “is putting it mildly.”

One of Odo’s security men was standing there at the entrance to Lobb’s quarters arguing with Mas Marko when Odo, Sisko, and Bashir walked up. The security man, Meyer by name, looked relieved upon Odo’s arrival.
Marko turned to face Sisko and Odo. “Commander,” he rumbled, “your man is being uncooperative.” He pointed a large ebony finger at Meyer.
“Following your orders, sir,” Meyer said flatly. “No civilians in or out. Boyajian and Tang are in there now with the . . . victim.”
“Who filed the report?”
“Passerby, sir. Said she heard a scream. We checked it out and found . . . the situation.”
“This is the quarters of one of my people,” said Mas Marko firmly, his voice rising and sounding more and more dangerous. “If one of them has been injured or is in any sort of peril, I must go in immediately. Now, in the name of K’olkr, let me pass!”
Sisko didn’t exactly ignore him. But he was clearly not about to be intimidated by him, either.
“Is the room secure?” Odo asked.
“Yes, sir,” Meyer said. “No one was seen leaving, and our people have the room sealed off.”
“All right,” said Sisko. “Let us in. Mas Marko, wait out here, please.” 
“I—”
Sisko’s glare was palpable. “Wait out here, please.” His tone was flat and unyielding.
Marko said nothing. He did, however, glower more fiercely than anyone Sisko had ever met, with the possible exception of Odo himself.
Odo seemed to have forgotten Marko entirely. He entered the room with Sisko and Bashir right behind him. The door rolled shut.
Sisko was immediately hit by the stench of death. He had encountered it so many times in his life that it seemed to be permanently embroidered on the inside of his nostrils.
But this . . . 
This was beyond the pale.
Boyajian and Tang were going over the quarters with tricorders, trying to stay as far from the body as possible. Bashir leaned over the corpse, running his medical tricorder over it and clearly fighting to maintain his medical dispassion. That was not easy.
It was hard to find anywhere on the floor to step that was not thick with blood. The head had been crushed beyond recognition—as brutal and hideous a death as Bashir had witnessed in his brief medical career.
“I take it cause of death is the obvious?” Sisko tried not to shudder as he looked upon Lobb’s corpse.
“Massive, catastrophic head trauma,” said Bashir. “The victim was definitely one of the Edemians.”
“Before we let Mas Marko in here,” observed Odo, “we’d better make damned sure he has a strong stomach. Boyajian, Tang . . . go over every centimeter of this place. Take it apart molecule by molecule if you have to. I want this killer found, and found immediately. Nobody gets away with this on my station. Nobody.”
“Constable,” said Sisko, “what, precisely, do you make of this?”
Odo stepped over to the wall, to see what Sisko was pointing at. “I saw it the second we came in,” he said in a low voice. “It was impossible to miss.” 
On the wall, etched with Lobb’s own blood, was a large number one.
“Crosshatch followed by an Arabic numeral,” said Sisko. “The killer was human.”
“Either that,” said Odo, “or the killer wanted to make sure that the human commander of this station got the message.”
“And in your opinion, Constable . . . what is that message?” But he was afraid he already knew the answer, and Odo confirmed it.
“Where there’s a number one,” said Odo slowly, “there’s usually a number two, a number three, and so on. Sisko . . . we’d better catch this lunatic fast. We might very well have a serial killer loose on Deep Space Nine.”
CHAPTER
7
MAS MARKO AND AZIRA sat in their quarters. There was a dim expression of shock on Azira’s face, but Mas Marko had his carefully neutral mein on display. 
Bashir sat facing them, while Sisko and Odo stood slightly behind him. 
“Poor Lobb,” Azira was saying in a hushed voice. “It . . . it doesn’t even seem possible. We . . . we just saw him. K’olkr . . . Marko, we’re responsible.” 
“Don’t be absurd,” Mas Marko said calmly. 
“How do you figure that, Azira?” asked Sisko. Her hands moved in vague, undefined patterns. “We . . . we sent him back here with Rasa. We sent him to where his murderer was waiting for him. If it hadn’t been for us—” 
“You can’t blame yourself,” said Sisko. “There was no way that you—that anyone—could possibly have known.” 
“Listen to the commander, Azira,” Mas Marko told her. 
Marko had been all bluster earlier when Sisko finally emerged from the quarters and agreed to let him in. But upon entering, he had become very quiet. He had knelt over the lifeless body of his follower and murmured prayers for five minutes, asking K’olkr to
accept and cleanse the soul of the extremely worthy, extremely young, and extremely unfortunate missionary. He had spoken with such fervor that Sisko had found himself rather moved. 
Faith, thought Sisko, was a nice thing to be able to cling to in a universe where nothing made any sense. 
Kind of a shame he still had trouble with the concept. 
Mas Marko turned back to Sisko. “Do you have any clues as to the murderer yet?” 
Sisko turned toward Odo. “We have some promising leads,” said Odo confidently. 
Sisko knew this was total fabrication. Odo’s security guards had been over every inch of the place. They had not turned up even the slightest clue as to who might have gained entry into the quarters, killed Lobb, and escaped. “It might as well have been a ghost, for all we know,” Odo had said in irritation. 
But Odo spoke with confidence now. “It’s only a matter of time. That’s certain.” 
“Commander,” Mas Marko said gravely, “we have a slight situation on our hands. Our beliefs call for a funeral within twelve of your hours after the deceased’s soul has passed to be with K’olkr. We would like to return to Edema—” 
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Sisko. 
They stared at him. “Whyever not?” asked Azira. 
It was Odo who responded. “We’re in the midst of a murder investigation,” he said sharply. “No one will be allowed to depart the station until we have our killer safely locked up.” 
“You . . . ” Azira looked stunned. “You would . . . keep us here? With some madman running around, capable of such . . . such hideous deeds, you would force us to stay here and be at risk?” She
turned to her husband pleadingly. “Marko, tell them they can’t do this.” 
But Marko was studying Odo thoughtfully. “You were lying before, weren’t you, sir?” he said. “You don’t have the slightest idea who was responsible for Lobb’s death. I, my wife, Del . . . everyone on board this station is equally likely to be the perpetrator. You can’t let us go because you have no more reason to believe that we did not do this . . . this hideous thing . . . than the lowliest of the liquor-guzzling slime that crawls through your Promenade. Isn’t that so?” 
“We have several promising leads,” Sisko said flatly. “But with something like this, Starfleet has very, very specific procedures that we must follow. And we will follow them, even if it means keeping you here.” 
“And exposing us to the same hideous fate that claimed Lobb,” said Azira tonelessly. “How . . . how could you—” 
But Mas Marko put up a hand, and Azira once again lapsed into silence. Then his voice resonated in the quarters, as if he were giving a benediction. “If this is how you must proceed, Commander, then that is the way it must be. We are followers of the word of K’olkr. We trust that he will guide us through this . . . this dreadful business, just as he will guide you to the heartless creature that perpetrated this crime. And when he does . . . we will ask K’olkr to forgive him.” 
“Praise K’olkr in all things,” whispered Azira, her hands wrapped around Mas Marko’s arm. It was a far more overt action than she would have taken normally with outsiders present, but clearly she felt confused and frightened by the entire business. 
“But if we are to be confined here, Commander . . . then I must request that we be allowed to conduct funeral services for Lobb.” He looked saddened. “To be truthful, he had no family. No loved
ones, besides those within the Order. No one except us, truly, to mourn for him. Perhaps, indeed, it is part of K’olkr’s grand plan that he be interred here in space . . . to wander forever, in body if not spirit. Would that be acceptable to you, Commander?” 
“Of course,” said Sisko. “Tell me what your requirements are, and I’ll made the arrangements.” 
“If we’re done here,” Odo said, “I have a murder investigation to conduct.” 
Sisko nodded to him, and Odo walked out. 
Mas Marko looked at the Starfleet men with a slight question on his face, clearly not understanding why they were still there. 
Sisko looked to Bashir significantly, giving a silent cue as to what he was going to say next. Bashir nodded, showing that he understood. “Mas Marko,” said Sisko, “Azira . . . there is something else we must discuss.” 
“Something else?” said Marko, sounding suddenly tired. “More joyous news to share with us?” 
“It’s . . . about your son. Dr. Bashir here—” 
“Doctor?” Marko looked up at him, and his eyes narrowed. “Ah. Now, isn’t that a remarkable coincidence.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“Nothing, Commander. Pray continue.” But his face hardened, and Sisko suddenly felt a chill pass through him. 
“Your son and I were in the infirmary chatting,” said Bashir. “Did Rasa tell you?” 
“No.” 
“Yes, well . . . one thing led to another, and I happened to run a standard exam on him . . . ” 
“Indeed. Doctor”—Mas Marko rose, towering over the two
men—”shall we end this shadow dance? Will you tell me what you found . . . or shall I tell you?” 
Sisko and Bashir looked at each other. This wasn’t precisely the way they had anticipated this going. 
“Panoria,” said Bashir flatly. “It’s a viral infection, potentially deadly.” 
“Is that the name for it?” said Marko, sounding only mildly interested. “Thank you for telling us.” 
“Were you aware of your son’s condition?” asked Sisko. 
“We were aware that he is not the healthy young man he once was,” said Marko. “That, we knew.” 
“Well, there’s good news, then,” said Bashir. “You’re lucky that we caught it. That we were able to diagnose the illness. Bring Rasa to the infirmary, and I can start him on medication immediately. We’ll have him out of danger in no time at all.” 
“As out of danger as he could be, considering that there’s a capricious murderer stalking your station,” Marko said. 
“That’s hardly the point.” 
“Yes. Yes, you are quite right, Commander. Indeed, not the point at all.” Marko steepled his fingers, as if trying to determine how best to phrase what was going through his mind. “Gentlemen, your . . . zeal is appreciated. But I must ask you not to interfere.” 
It took a moment for his comment to sink in fully. Sisko tried not to gape, but he was quite clearly stunned. “I . . . beg your pardon?” 
“I said you must not interfere,” repeated Marko. “That is not too difficult for you to understand, is it?” 
“Mas Marko,” said Sisko carefully, “perhaps Dr. Bashir did not make himself clear. Without treatment . . . your son will die.” 
Mas Marko laughed.
It was not a cold, unfeeling laugh, but rather one that seemed to speak of a bitter, ironic grasp of the situation. “And you are saying that, if he receives this treatment, he will never die? Is that it?” 
“Of course not,” Bashir spoke up. “We’re not saying he’ll never die. That’s absurd. We’re saying that it need not happen now. That’s all.” 
“These things happen in their own time and in the time that is accorded to them by K’olkr. Isn’t that right, Azira?” 
“As you say, Marko,” she said. It was the softest that Sisko had ever heard a woman speak. 
“Mas Marko . . . you’re saying that you do not want us to aid your son?” 
“That is correct.” 
“But . . . why?”
“He is in the best of all possible hands,” said Mas Marko serenely. “He is in the hands of K’olkr. K’olkr will determine his fate, as he will determine the fate of all things.” 
“This is absurd!” Bashir snapped. 
Sisko said warningly, “Doctor . . . ” 
But Bashir didn’t seem to be listening. “You want me to just stand aside and let him die? When medicine can still save him? What . . . what sort of monster are you?” 
“Doctor,” Sisko said again, this time in a tone so dangerous that it caught Bashir’s attention. But the young surgeon was still clearly roiling with barely suppressed anger. 
“Apparently you are having difficulty understanding this,” said Mas Marko. “I do not see why, however. Certainly the concept of noninterference should not be alien to you, Doctor. Nor to you, Commander. I have some passing familiarity with the ways of the Federation and Starfleet. And, as I recall, doesn’t your primary law stipulate noninterference?”
Sisko nodded. 
“And it is a good law. A solid law. A law that is in existence,” said Marko, “to prevent you from unknowingly forcing your own unasked-for assistance upon others. It is a law in which you are saying, in essence: we will not mix into those affairs that may not be ours to understand. Is that not right?” 
“In a manner of speaking,” said Sisko. 
“We are guided by similar beliefs, Commander. Matters of sickness and health, life and death . . . these are within the purview of K’olkr. We may not gainsay him. We may not interfere with him. That is clear. All life comes from K’olkr. He decides when we are put into this sphere, and he decides when we depart it. And no one—not you, not my beloved Azira—no one has the right to question him on matters such as these.” 
“I’m not asking you to question your god’s actions.” 
“He’s your god, too, Doctor,” said Marko serenely. “You simply aren’t aware of that yet.” 
“Fine, whatever. But as I said, I’m not asking you to question his actions. I don’t want you to compromise your