“What happened?” Shar asked.

“I don’t know,” Prynn said. “It’s completely lost power.” She returned to the probe and reopened the upper casing. She examined the guidance and propulsion systems. Whatever had penetrated the outer casing had damaged the probe’s power cell. She imagined a lance of energy spiking down from the clouds, like the one that had doomed the shuttle. The cell had obviously functioned until the probe had reached them, but the greater power requirements for a liftoff had apparently overloaded it. Prynn knew at once what they would have to do, and when she told Shar, he agreed.

Twenty minutes later, she had replaced the failed power cell in the probe with one of their own. She ran some quick diagnostics, then set the probe to launch. This time, it lifted off and headed away.

Sitting beside Shar on the ground, Prynn watched the probe fade out of sight. She searched within her for her optimism but found it difficult to find now. She knew that she and Shar were essentially back where they had been last night, although the environmental suits now doubled the distances they could transport. With only one power cell, though, they would be able to beam away from here just once, either fourteen kilometers toward the site of the pulse, or three hundred fifty kilometers in the opposite direction.

Either way,she thought, it won’t make much difference.Either her father would be able to stop the pulse, or he would not. All she and Shar could really do right now was wait…and hope.

61

Ro stepped out of the turbolift and started down the Promenade. She weaved through the people, paying them little attention other than to be sure she did not run into anybody. She had just come from Kira’s office, where she had briefed the colonel on the station’s security status. Now Ro headed back to her own office, where she would continue to coordinate her teams. To this point, all of the procedures and precautions they had put in place for the summit had worked well and without incident.

As she passed the bar, she withstood her inclination to peer inside. She was still angry with Quark for the way he had acted yesterday. They had been having such nice times together recently, and their late-night stroll through the station two nights ago had been tremendously enjoyable—and even, maybe, just a little bit romantic. She and Quark had really taken a liking to each other—or at least, so she had thought.

Ro had not minded Quark’s flirtation with Treir when she had first entered the bar. Ro could be something of a flirt herself sometimes. What had made her angry, though, was that he had continued flirting with Treir at the same time that he had ignored her.

Except that you weren’t really angry, were you?she asked herself as she approached her office. She had actually been hurt by what had happened. Of course, what difference does it make anyway?she thought. The summit had started this morning, and if Bajor ended up entering the Federation, she likely would not be here much longer.

The doors to her office separated and slid open, and as soon as she walked inside, she saw Quark. He stood between the two chairs in front of her desk, apparently waiting for her. He turned, and began speaking as soon as he saw her. “Laren,” he said quickly, “I want to apologize for my behavior yesterday in the bar. I don’t really know what—”

“Quark,” she interrupted, striding across the room and moving behind her desk. She heard the office doors click closed. “I really don’t have time for this right now.” She sat down in her chair and studied a display. The harshness in her tone and manner carried with it not just her disappointment in Quark, she realized, but also her concerns about her future.

Quark did not move. “Laren,” he said quietly. “I’d just like to speak with you for a minute, and then I promise I’ll go. You don’t even have to say anything.” He sounded desperate for her attention, but she also thought that she perceived a seriousness and sincerity in his words.

“All right,” she relented, her own voice still severe. “One minute.” She sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and stared up at him.

“All right,” Quark said, looking suddenly flustered. She thought that he had probably not expected to be allowed to plead his case to her. He dropped his gaze from hers. “I just…uh…I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday in the bar.”

“You already said that,” she told him, thinking that he had probably rehearsed that line before coming in here, but perhaps nothing more than that.

“I guess I did say that.” He tapped nervously on her desk with his fingertips, then seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped. He stepped away from the desk and started moving nervously about the room. “It’s just that I didn’t mean to do what I did…I mean, I didn’t…I was…”

“Quark,” Ro said, exasperated at his hesitation.

He stopped pacing and looked over at her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I just wanted to apologize to you.”

“Well, you’ve done that,” she said, let down that Quark could not muster more than the few simple words that he had. “So go on your way.” She made a shooing gesture with one hand, then looked down at the display on her desk, although she did not actually read any of the words there. The office doors hummed opened again, and then closed. She sighed heavily and slumped back in her chair, peering after Quark.

Except that Quark had not left. He stood on this side of the doors, looking back at her. “Laren,” he said, “I’m sorry.” The desperation had left his voice now, replaced, she thought, with forthrightness. He walked back over to her desk, navigating between the two chairs. “The way I behaved with Treir—whether you had been there or not—was wrong,” he told her. “But it was especially wrong because I hurt your feelings.”

A swirl of emotions surged through Ro, not least among them, confusion. “Why, Quark?” she wanted to know. “Why did you act that way?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it was out of fear.”

“Fear?” That answer did nothing to allay her confusion.

“I’ve been enjoying the time we’ve spent together lately,” Quark repeated. “And obviously you have, too…” He paused, and she realized that he was giving her the opportunity to agree with him.

“Maybe,” she said, and then, unable to stop herself, she smiled. Quark smiled back.

“So I think I got scared,” he said. “Scared that you might get to know me better and then not enjoy spending time with me. Or scared that…I don’t know…that I might actually get something I want.”

To Ro, that answer sounded suspiciously absurd. She leaned forward in her chair and rested her forearms on the top of the desk. “Yeah,” she said, “I can see how getting what you want could be pretty frightening.”

“Laren, I’m a Ferengi,” Quark said. “That means that my entire life has been about trying to get what I want.” He stopped and took a deep breath, as though bracing himself for something. “And for most of my life, I haven’t gotten it. So finally getting something I want, particularly something as valuable as…well, as you…it really is frightening.”

Ro looked into his eyes and saw only frankness there. She was moved by that openness and honesty, and by his appraisal of her— which she chose to take in the romantic sense she thought he had intended. “I’m not sure that I completely understand,” she said, “but thank you, Quark.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. He waited, and they simply looked at each other for a moment more without saying anything. She realized she was glad he’d come in here, and even more so that he’d said the things he had, in the way that he had.