He strode along, darting left and right through the midday crowd, anxiously rapping the padd in his hand against the side of his leg. He dashed past the bar without even glancing inside, heading instead for the security office. Laren would know about whatever was going on, and she would tell him.
If she’ll even talk to me now,he thought.
The doors to the office parted before Quark. He began speaking as soon as he stepped inside. “Laren, I just came from—” He stopped at the sight of the person standing behind the desk. She turned from peering at one of the security displays just as the office doors clicked closed.
“Can I help you, Quark?” Sergeant Etana asked.
“No,” he said, drumming his fingers against the padd. “No, I…where’s Lieutenant Ro?”
Etana looked left and right, then back at Quark. “Not here,” she said. The expression on her face suggested that she thought Quark had asked an improper question.
“I can see that,” he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Can you tell me where she is?”
“She’s working on a security issue,” Etana said evasively.
I’m sure she is,Quark thought. He realized that this gathering tonight must be why Laren had been working such long hours the past few days. He spun on his heel and, without saying anything more to Etana, bolted out of the office.
Quark sped across the busy Promenade toward the bar. He had to find Laren as soon as possible. And not just about the gathering,he thought, recognizing the other cause for his sense of urgency: he had flirted with Treir in front of Laren. What had he been thinking? After he and Laren had spent such a wonderful few hours together last night, walking through the dark, quiet station, talking and laughing. “Idiocy must run in my family,” he muttered as he entered Quark’s.
He quickly slipped behind the bar, headed for the companel at the far end. He skirted by Treir, who was busy serving a customer. “Hey,” she said, “how did it go with Colonel Kira?”
Quark ignored her, dropping his padd on a shelf with a clatter. He ducked down below the companel and worked to unlock a compartment there. As he did, Treir came over and bent down beside him. “Is everything all right?” she asked. “Didn’t she approve the menu?”
“Yes, yes she did,” Quark said hurriedly, not wanting to be distracted. He reached up to the shelf and pulled the padd from it. “Here,” he said, handing it to Treir. “Can you take care of this?”
Treir took the padd and examined it. “Um, sure,” she said, “but if I’m working on the catering, then who’s going to run the bar?”
Quark looked at her, but he had to replay in his head what she had just said. “You stay in charge of the bar,” he told her. “Find Broik and have him work on the catering.” He turned back to the compartment.
“All right,” she said. She stayed beside him for a moment more without saying anything. Finally, she stood up and moved away.
Quark finished unlocking the compartment, then slid its door open. He reached inside and withdrew a small, unexceptional box. Holding it on his knee, he flipped open the lid, revealing a cache of isolinear optical rods. Quark pulled out a particular rod, then closed the box and set it back inside the compartment. He rose, then instinctively glanced around to make sure that nobody was watching him too closely. Satisfied, he opened a hinged access plate in the companel, pushed the security-breaching rod into a receptacle, then flipped the plate closed. Not wanting anybody to hear what he was doing, Quark chose to key in his query: LOCATE LIEUTENANT RO.
The response came back at once, spelled out on the display: LIEUTENANT RO IS IN THE WARDROOM.
Of course,Quark thought. The gathering tonight would be held in the wardroom. Laren was no doubt securing the area. He entered another command: IDENTIFY PERSONNEL IN WARDROOM. A list of three names appeared, Laren’s and those of two other security officers. Quark wanted to talk to Laren, but he would wait until she was alone.
He deactivated the companel, then removed the orange isolinear rod and slipped it inside a jacket pocket. He would return to his quarters and monitor Laren from there, then go see her when the opportunity arose. First, though, he dropped down to the compartment again, sliding the door closed and locking it.
As Quark stood up, the companel emitted a quaver that signaled an incoming audio message. He touched a control to receive the communication, foolishly hoping it might be from Laren. “Quark’s,” he said.
“I want to use a holosuite,”a rich voice announced. Quark recognized both the words and the tone at once. It was the same message as always, delivered in the same manner—which, despite its lack of courtesy, still worked better than having the Jem’Hadar stalk into the bar before going to one of the holosuites. “ProgramTaran’atar Seven.”
He quickly checked the availability of the holosuites on the companel. “This is Quark. I’ll send somebody with your holoprogram up to holosuite one.” The channel closed without even an acknowledgment from the Jem’Hadar. “Not only are they ugly and nasty,” Quark mumbled to himself, “but they’re also rude.” He turned toward the bar, located the right box of programs on a shelf beneath, and picked out Taran’atar Seven.
Quark peered around, searching for Treir. His gaze found her at the dabo table, delivering drinks to a group even larger than this morning. He looked for Frool and Grimp, and saw them also busy with customers. Actually, now that Quark noticed, the bar had quite a few patrons, at least for this time of day. For any time of day, lately,he thought. And yet the increase in business failed to cheer him.
Deciding just to deliver the holoprogram himself, Quark hurried out from behind the bar and over to the nearer of the spiral staircases. He bounded up, one hand sliding up the outside railing, his footfalls ringing on the metal stairs. At the top, he headed for the holosuites. He found the Jem’Hadar waiting, rigid as a statue. As a gargoyle,Quark thought. He remembered when the soldier had unshrouded in the bar three nights ago, and how unnerving and frightening that had been. Now, though, seeing the Jem’Hadar in this context, wanting to enter a holosuite, Quark felt less threatened—not unthreatened, but less threatened.
“Here,” he said, holding up the isolinear rod. The Jem’Hadar reached forward, delicately plucked it from Quark’s hand, and turned without a word toward the holosuite door. Quark started to go, but them an abrupt chill coursed through the outer ridges of his ears. Anxiety gripped him. He did not know the purpose of Kira’s gathering this evening, but an image came to him of the Jem’Hadar tearing through the wardroom, leaving a slew of mangled bodies in his wake—one of them Laren’s. He turned back to the Jem’Hadar, who was operating the panel in the bulkhead beside the holosuite door. “Why are you here?” Quark asked, startled to hear a note of challenge in his voice.
The Jem’Hadar took his hand off the panel, looked over, and regarded Quark for a moment. “I am here to train,” he finally said. “This program simulates—”
“No,” Quark interrupted, waving off the explanation. “Why are you here,on Deep Space 9?”
Again, the Jem’Hadar looked at him for a few seconds without saying anything, and Quark got the uncomfortable feeling that the soldier was deciding whether to answer his question or break his neck. Very quickly, the fear Quark had felt the other night in the bar returned. It suddenly seemed like a bad idea not only to have asked the question, but to have come up here in the first place. Quark contemplated running, but then the Jem’Hadar spoke. “I am on this station,” he said, “in order to observe life in the Alpha Quadrant.” Quark declined to point out that the Jem’Hadar could not do much observing in a holosuite—well, unless it was a certain type of program, but he chose not to mention that either. “And I am also here to keep an eye on you.”