At the table, Quark took hold of Treir’s elbow and leaned in beside her. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Treir shifted and bent, reducing her height of nearly two meters, and then draped a long, perfectly toned arm across his shoulders, the side of her body rubbing up temptingly alongside his. “We’re paying off another lucky winner here at Quark’s,” she said with an appealing lilt in her tone. “Just like we always do.” Quark knew she had said this as an enticement to the people at the table, and to anybody else within earshot, but there were not nearly enough customers around the dabo wheel to suit Quark. More than that, her words carried a little too much truth for him right now; he shuddered to count how many times she had paid out on a spin of dabo this evening.

“Well, stop doing it,” he groused. “And get some more people gambling,” he added, louder.

In an instant, Treir had extricated herself from around him. She faced Quark, peering down from her full height. “Get ’em yourself,” she said, the singsong quality of her voice now gone. “I can’t force people to come into this—” She hesitated, and Quark dreaded whatever descriptive noun she would choose to finish her sentence. “—place,” she finally said, apparently realizing—and wisely so—that it would not benefit her to insult the establishment that paid her salary.

Quark stared up at her. “It’s your jobto get customers to come in here and gamble,” he told her. At the table, two people stood up and moved away. Quark pointed after them. “Look,” he said. “See what you’re doing. Now you’re chasing customers out of here.”

“You’re about two milliseconds away from chasing me out of here, Quark,” she said. Then, lowering her voice to an ominous pitch, she said through gritted teeth, “You’d better watch it.”

Quark had just about had enough. He thought that perhaps he should chase Treir and her steep salary out of here. This did not mark the first time since he had hired her that she had argued with him. Worse than that, she often behaved as though she were his business associate, rather than merely his employee.

“Listen,” Quark told her, “if you want to leave—” He stopped. He had just heard something unexpected to his left, but when he looked in that direction, he saw nobody there. Odo,he thought immediately. The constable always used to attempt to insinuate himself into the bar to spy on him, but Quark had learned to distinguish the nearly subaudible sound of shifting fluid that Odo made, no matter his form. But Quark dismissed the notion as quickly as it had come to him. Not only was Odo off on some planet in the Gamma Quadrant oozing around with the Founders, but the only similarity between the sound Quark had just heard and the sound Odo made was that there appeared to be no source for it.

And then something occurred to Quark. He reached out to the dabo table and swiped an empty glass from atop it. He lowered it to his side, then whipped his arm upward, tossing the glass in the direction of the sound. The glass tumbled in a swift, flat arc, reflecting the orange and yellow light produced by the artwork on the wall.

And then the glass froze in midair.

The air beyond the unmoving glass shimmered, and a Jem’Hadar soldier flickered into existence. Quark heard several people gasp around the bar. He could not really tell from the face—they all looked alike to him—but from the black coverall the Jem’Hadar wore, he assumed this was the one Odo had sent here. The idea that the former constable might try to reach through the wormhole to disrupt Quark’s business seemed a natural one.

The Jem’Hadar did not move, but stood staring directly at Quark. Other sounds rose in the bar now: glasses being put down on tables, chairs being pushed back, footsteps. Quark looked quickly around and saw that many of his customers had gotten up, and still others had already started toward the exit.

“Quark to security,” he yelped, and the sounds of people rushing toward the door grew in number and volume. Still, the Jem’Hadar did not move, and Quark supposed that was a good thing. The last time a Jem’Hadar had appeared in the bar, he had later killed numerous people and attempted to destroy the station. This one often used the holosuites, causing Quark only the trouble of frequent repairs, but that was a much different thing than suddenly appearing in the middle of the bar out of nowhere. When he received no response to his call for help, he said again, “Quark to sec—”

“This is Ro,”came the lovely voice of the lovely lieutenant. “What can I do for you, Quark?”

“Lieutenant,” Quark said, purposely not using Laren’s given name, wanting to impress upon her the need for her professional assistance. “We’ve got a serious disturbance in the bar. We need help.”

“I’ll be right there,”Ro said, and Quark was pleased to hear a sense of urgency in her voice. He heard the comlink close.

Quark stood motionless, continuing to stare at the Jem’Hadar. He wanted to turn and run, or at least back slowly away, but he feared that might incite the soldier to violence. He remembered vividly how a Jem’Hadar had maimed his nephew, destroying one of Nog’s legs. So he remained still. Directly behind him, he heard Treir’s careful, measured breathing, and he could tell that she was scared too. That troubled Quark even more; Treir was a tough female.

“Well? What do you want?” Quark finally blurted, unable to control his fear. The Jem’Hadar said nothing and continued to stare at him. The eyes reminded Quark of somebody else, he realized: Garak, with that cold, intense glare that could seemingly penetrate neutronium. Quark had heard a rumor a while ago that Garak, when he had served with the Obsidian Order, had once stared at a man for ten hours straight, ultimately forcing the man into submission, and though Quark had never been able to substantiate the claim, he had never for a moment doubted its veracity.

The sound of footsteps rapidly approaching out on the Promenade reached Quark. When he heard them enter the bar, he took a chance and turned. Ro stood just inside the entrance now, phaser drawn and held out ahead of her. Sergeant Etana and Sergeant Shul flanked her, their weapons also in their hands. People streamed past them, headed out onto the Promenade.

Quark watched as Ro scanned the room, her eyes quickly finding him. “Quark,” she said, “what is it? What’s the trouble?” Before he could answer her, though, he saw that her gaze had moved past him and had evidently taken in the Jem’Hadar. “Taran’atar,” she said. “Is there a problem?”

“Not with me,” the Jem’Hadar said.

Ro approached the dabo table, her phaser now held at her side and pointing down toward the floor. As she reached Quark and Treir, she nodded to Treir and made a quick motion with her head, obviously indicating that she should leave. Treir apparently did not need any more invitation than that; she backed away toward the door.

Ro stepped directly up to Quark. “What did he do?” she asked him, clearly referring to the Jem’Hadar.

“Do?” Quark said. “He chased away what few customers I had.”

Ro nodded, then looked over Quark’s shoulder for a second. “How did he do that?” she asked. “The broken glass by the bar?”

“What?” Quark asked, and then remembered the tray his waiter had dropped. “No, no, that was Frool. But this Jem’Hadar was slinking around here, invisible.” His voice rose and his words began coming faster. “And then he appeared out of nowhere and terrified everybody—me included. You saw them pouring out of here.” He pointed past Ro toward the door.

A sympathetic expression played across Ro’s face, and Quark thought that she could see how angry and frightened he felt. Then she looked back over toward the Jem’Hadar. “He looks like he’s been drinking,” she said, any sense of exigency suddenly leaving her voice.