Vectors

TEROK NOR. Its name was as dark as its corridors. He actually found himself seeking the light, but carefully. Oh, so carefully. Sometimes his cloak malfunctioned, and he was seen. Partially, like a heat shimmer across desert sand, or an electronic memory buried in an old computer. But he was seen.

He didn't dare make that mistake here. The General didn't tolerate mistakes from his agents.

He stood in the shadows just to the left of the main entrance to a place called Quark's Bar. The area the Ferengi bartender had called the Promenade lay before him, turning away to the right, bending with the shape of the station design. The walls were gray, the floors gray, everything was gray. The Cardassians had made no effort to decorate this place. Even the bar seemed dismal.

He shuddered and drew his cape around his body. He was glad he wouldn't have to stay here too long. This Terok Nor reminded him of his prison cell. He had lost too many years of his life there. He had spent too much time staring at gray metal walls, dreaming of escape. The metal walls, the ringing sound of boots against hard surfaces, the stench of fear-impossible to hide, even though the Cardassians kept their Bajoran prisoners separate from the rest of the population permeated the place. If he shut his eyes, his other senses would find nothing to distinguish Terok Nor from that hideous cell, from that prison he had finally left. The prison had changed him-made him bitter, made him wiser, made him more careful. Oh, so careful.

Two Cardassian guards walked the wide passage. Their gray skin matched the depressing decor. The only thing that seemed wrong to him was the heat. By rights this station should have been as cold as its walls, but it wasn't. The heat was thick and nearly unbearable. He didn't know how anyone could stand being here for long. The heat also accentuated the smells: the processed air, the unwashed bodies, the Rokassa juice wafting out from the bar. The sensations were almost too much for him.

He reminded himself that Terok Nor was the perfect testing ground. Two races, living in close proximity, with others coming and going. Their petty differences didn't matter. That one race kept the other prisoner, that one made the other labor in uridium processing were merely details. The important factor was much larger.

Terok Nor was the perfect testing ground for the General. A closed system, for the most part. But anyone entering the system or departing the system~ would leave a record. A trail he could follow, should he so choose.

He didn't choose at the moment. Now he was most interested in Terok Nor itself. To his right in the bar, crowds of uridium freighter pilots and crews shouted and laughed, the sounds echoing off the high ceilings. A few moments before, he'd been in there sitting at the bar, watching.

Waiting.

Trying to stay cool and block out the uridium smell with the odor of one of the pilots' Gamzian wine. But it hadn't helped, and besides, he couldn't see that well or hear that clearly with his cloak on.

A clang from the far end of the Promenade caught his attention. One of the Cardassian guards had dropped his phaser pistol, then grabbed the wall as if for support. The other guard bent over him, then glanced from side to side, as if worried that a Bajoran might see and take advantage.

He was too far away to hear their words. The first guard shrugged the other off. The second guard picked up the pistol and spoke on his communicator. Two guards who had apparently been patrolling just out of his line of sight ran toward the far end of the Promenade.

The first guard put an arm around the second, who again shrugged him off. The second tried to stand, and nearly collapsed. The first guard supported him, and together they walked along the walls, keeping as far out of sight as possible.

He felt excitement flash through him, and he tamped it down. He couldn't let his emotions interfere with his observations. This might be nothing. It was a bit early to see results. He hadn't expected anything so soon.

The guards passed him. He had to press himself against the gray metal so that they wouldn't brush him. They weren't conversing, although he wished they would. He wanted to know exactly what had happened.

He needed to know.

He had moved to follow the guards, but the Promenade gave him no cover. So he remained in the shadows.

He would wait here, in the heat and the stench, just as he had done in his cell. He was good at waiting, especially when he knew it would end. And it would end.

Soon he would get his answer.

Chapter Two "I TELL YOU, BARTENDER," the drunk Cardassian freighter pilot was saying, none too softly, "someone has been sniffing my Gamzian wine."

"You don't sniff Gamzian wine," Quark said for the eighteenth time. He loaded up another tray, carefully balancing the Saurian brandy bottle in the center so that Rom wouldn't drop the whole thing. As if training his brother weren't enough of a headache, Quark had a bar full of pilots and crew-mostly Cardassian, all of them drunk, and none of them more annoying than the pilot at the very edge of the bar, nearest the door. He had been complaining about hearing sniffing sounds, which, Quark had to admit, he had thought he had heard too. But they had been coming from an empty chair beside the pilot. They were probably an acoustical trick, caused by loud voices and even louder laughter, not to mention-A crash echoed through the bar, and all the noise stopped as everyone looked at the table closest to the Dabo game. Quark couldn't see what was going on, but he knew. He knew even before his brother Rom pushed his way out of a group of Cardassians, looking like a misbehaving child trying to find his way past a group of annoyed grownups. Rom was bowing and apologizing and moving quicker than Quark had ever seen him move.

Rom darted behind the bar, just as a Cardassian stood, drenched in Romulan ale. The blue liquid coated his neck ridges, making him look as if some fanciful person had decided that he needed a spot of color.

"Ferengi!" he barked.

Rom was cringing behind the bar, clinging to Quark's legs. Quark kicked him off.

"It wasn't my fault, brother," Rom said.

"Sure looks like it to me," Quark said.

Rom peeked over the bar, then ducked quickly, narrowly missing the tray Quark had just filled. The Cardassian was heading toward them. He looked bigger than most Cardassians, if that was possible, and meaner too. Quark shook his leg, but Rom wouldn't let go. The Cardassian shoved two patrons aside as he reached the bar. "You!" he said, grabbing Quark's collar and lifting him against the bar itself. Rom was still clinging to his leg, and Quark felt as if he were being stretched so hard that he might actually snap.

"Me?" he asked, trying to sound innocent.

"You!" The Cardassian pulled harder. Quark shook his foot desperately. They were going to break something or worse-he'd be tall as a Bajoran when they were done.

"Me?" Quark said again, still shaking that foot. Rom was like a tube grub.

"You!" the Cardassian said, and yanked. Quark's foot slipped through Rom's grasp, and he overbalanced the Cardassian, who fell backwards, pulling Quark with him. Quark grabbed at the bar, then a customer, then a table to catch his balance. Instead, he bounced on the Cardassian's chest.

The man smelled so fiercely of Romulan ale that Quark nearly sneezed. He apologized and rolled off the Cardassian, resisting the urge to scramble behind the bar as Rom had done. Quark had learned, in his years on Terok Nor, that the best way to handle Cardassians-usually-was to act as if their most unreasonable behavior were normal.

He braced himself on a chair, got to his feet, and tugged his shirt in place. The Romulan ale smell had followed him, and he resisted the urge to glance down. Once that stuff was on someone's clothing, it never came off. He didn't want to add a ruined shirt to Rom's list of errors this night.

"Much as I enjoyed our game," Quark said to the Cardassian, "I must get back to work. Is there anything I can get you?"

The Cardassian held a hand to his head. Quark couldn't tell if that was because the man had hit it or because the liquor he had consumed was finally making itself felt.

"Get me the Ferengi weasel whom you use as a serving wench." "Wench?" Quark heard Rom's voice from behind the bar. This was the wrong time for Rom to take offense, at anything.

"You must mean my brother," Quark said, trying to think of a way to placate the Cardassian. "He's filling in tonight. He has never worked in a bar before-"

"That's obvious," someone said from behind Quark.

"-so if he's offended you in some way, let me make it up to you. I could refill your ale, or give you a half hour in one of my holosuites, or find someone to clean and press your uniform-"

"I want the Ferengi," the Cardassian said. He was sitting up on one elbow, his face prayer than Quark had ever seen Cardassian skin look.

Quark glanced at the bar. Rom would pay for this. All of it. The entire day. The entire week. "I'm a Ferengi," Quark said.

"I'm not blind," the Cardassian said. "I want the other one!"

Quark closed his eyes for a moment. He would never get into the Divine Treasury. Never. Certainly not with Rom on Terok Nor.

"He's behind the bar," Quark whispered.

"What?" the Cardassian said.

"Behind. The. Bar." Quark opened his eyes. His eleven-year-old nephew Nog was watching him from the stairs, the boy's round face filled with a mixture of sadness and anger.

The Cardassian got to his feet. "You, you, and you," he said pointing to three other Cardassians. He certainly wasn't big on names. "Get that little maggot out here."

Quark held up his hands. "I really don't approve of bloodshed in my bar." "I am not interested in blood," the Cardassian said. The three Cardassian crewmen pulled Rom out from behind the bar. He was kicking, shaking his head, and apologizing all at the same time.

"Hold him there." The Cardassian pointed at the chair Quark was standing near. Quark took a few steps back, sneaking another glance at Nog.

The bar was silent except for Rom's protests. Nog mouthed, Help him, to Quark, who promptly turned away.

The Cardassians did as they were bid, placing Rom on the chair. Their ale-covered leader grabbed the Saurian brandy off the tray.

"Wait! Wait!" Quark said. "That's rare and precious and-"

The Cardassian was staring at him, the stench of Romulan ale coming off him in waves. "And?"

Quark bowed slightly so the Cardassian couldn't see his expression. "And I hope you enjoy it very much."

"I will." The Cardassian uncorked the brandy and poured it slowly, lovingly, over Rom's head. A roar of laughter went up in the bar, and then all the other Cardassians piled forward to pour their drinks on Rom.

Quark scuttled through the crowd and made it back to the relative safety behind the bar. He used a napkin to mop the ale off his shirt, and winced as another roar of laughter filled the place. The mixed drinks were turning purple on Rom's skull. He was spluttering, using his free hand to wipe at his nose and mouth.

"Stop them." Somehow Nog had found his way behind the bar. If Quark had thought his brother annoying, he had been mistaken. Annoying was this kid who seemed to think he knew everything, even though he believed his father was worthy of respect.

"After all the glasses Rom has broken today," Quark said, "I think I owe him one."

"You owe him one," Nog said. "They do not. They're making a fool of him."

"He made a fool of himself," Quark said, and moved to the edge of the bar.

The lone Cardassian pilot still sat there, staring at his Gamzian wine. He was muttering. Quark hurried away.

Laughter again rose from the group.

"Why aren't you doing anything?" Nog asked.

"I am doing something," Quark said. "I'm making more drinks. Everyone will be out in a moment." "How can you?" Nog said. "He's your brother." "Don't I know it," Quark said. Rom was still standing on that chair. No one was holding him anymore. His head was covered with a sickly yellow liquid; his clothing was drenched; and it looked like his shoes were melting, even though they couldn't be. The drinks, even mixed together, weren't toxic enough.

But the shoes could be cheap enough.

The Cardassians were standing around him, shouting and laughing each time someone poured a drink on Rom, but more and more the Cardassians were noticing that they were running out of liquor. A few were already bellying up to the bar to order more. Then a few more came. And a few more.

Suddenly, he was swamped. "Nog?"

He turned. The boy was gone. Nog was as bad as his father and as worthless, too.

Quark moved faster than he had in a long time, mixing drinks, trying to keep the drunken Cardassians from tearing up his bar further. Rom would have to clean up those drinks before anyone fell. Quark didn't want to think about the damage that a falling Cardassian could cause. He didn't want to think about money at all. Right now, all it would do was make him mad.

Even though he was raking it in at the moment. Maybe he should hold a "Drench the Ferengi" contest once a month. The only catch would be that the customers would have to buy the drinks that they poured on Rom. And it would have to be on Rom. He wasn't good for anything else.