The irony of transacting with the Cheka in order to combat their own weapon didn’t escape him, and he took some satisfaction in the poetic justice of it, but another part of him resented having to pay the neighborhood bully for protection against the bully himself.
When M’Yeoh learned of the deal with L’Gon he’d offered a squadron of J’Maah’s soldiers as backup, reminding Vaughn once again of the double-dealing ways of some shadow traders. The gesture had been appreciated, but Vaughn questioned the judgment of putting armed Yrythny within striking distance of the Cheka suite. Though the Consortium was politically neutral territory, legal declarations meant little in the face of heated emotions.
But Vaughn wasn’t a fool. Knowing M’Yeoh’s estimation of the danger was probably accurate—and having learned that Nog had succeeded in, among other things, restoring Defiant’s transporters—Vaughn put Bowers and Nog at his back. Defiant’s tactical officer would accompany him as far as the suite. (Certainly L’Gon wouldn’t consider that a violation of their agreement.) His job was to stay in the corridor, prepared to contact Nog for an emergency beam-out, should Vaughn fail to emerge at the designated time. Bowers treated the task like something out of the old Western vids he loved so much: he would be the gun-toting deputy while Vaughn was the sheriff heading in to negotiate with the criminals. Vaughn appreciated Sam’s enthusiasm, but cautioned him against scratching the proverbial “itchy trigger finger.”
The door slid open at Vaughn’s approach, and he stepped into the darkly lit lobby, clicking on the alarm on his tricorder’s chrono. In half an hour, without word from him, Bowers would send the signal to Nog, and Vaughn would be transported back to the Defiant. And how hot is it in here? If I’d known I was walking into a sauna…He dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. When his eyes adjusted to the lack of lighting, he realized a robot had arrived to serve as his escort.
“You are expected,” the robot squawked. “Follow.”
Vaughn complied, still not sure if he was walking toward Defiant’s salvation, or his own doom.
Funny how childhood memories color present expectations,Ezri thought, literally.She stood at the fore railing of the great hydro foil, watching the rise and fall of teal waves garnished in white foam, still surprised that oceans could be any color but purple. She might have been raised around the mines on New Sydney, but extended family on Trill brought her regularly to the homeworld and its violet seas. The first time she’d walked across the Golden Gate Bridge during her Academy days, her eyes seldom lifted to the shimmering cables suspending the bridge above the bay, but focused instead on the dark gray-blue waters, all the while wondering why they were blue. On this world, blue waters would have been too staid; teal waters better suited this stirred-up planet.
The view of Vanìmel from Luthia’s observation decks and windows captured a portrait of a warm, sleepy moss-green world, with white clouds sedately churning through the atmosphere. Descending through the clouds and close in on the surface, Ezri expected a dewy spring day and primeval forest; plants unfurling tender stalks and limbs to the sun’s soft tickle, waters lapping at the seashores with a puppy’s harmless eagerness.
Instead, hurricane force winds forced a bumpy detour away from a storm-sieged landing pad, swerving in and out of the lava-belching volcanoes that dominated the northern continent until finally, the shuttle skidded onto the flat top of a dormant volcano. She questioned the dormant part, seeing as steam oozed out of the cracked ground, the rotten-egg stench of methane permeated the air and she sworeshe’d felt the earth beneath them trembling. Ashen landscapes extended in every direction as far as the eye could see, the terrain devoid of flora and fauna. None of the Yrythny seemed worried. Vanìmel was a geologically volatile world whose rapid plate tectonic shifts had more in common with a game of checkers than a reluctant, long-simmering buildup that resisted release. As a counselor, Ezri had known those who nursed grudges, simmering privately until some provocation unleashed suppressed torrents of anger, and those who lived daily from eruption to eruption. Vanìmel appeared to be the latter type.
A swift land shuttle delivered them to the port city of Malinal where they boarded the hydrofoil that took them out to sea. By her calculations, they had been traveling for several hours, past kilometer after kilometer of water farms and quaint aquaculture villages mounted on stilts. Village residents tended the plants and animals being cultivated in surrounding waters, or served as lookouts, protecting the spawning grounds nestled along the continental shorelines. Once, the hydrofoil paused at the request of three marine patrol boats. Uniformed naval personnel talked in hushed tones with the hydrofoil captain—Ezri gathered they had been traveling on the border of a military training reservation and the officers wanted to examine the travel logs for security reasons. Later, one of the Yrythny representatives explained that a Cheka spy craft had been detected making several attempts at shoreline penetration; the military wanted to make certain their enemies weren’t gaining access to secure areas with Yrythny assistance. Otherwise, the journey had been uneventful, almost leisurely. Had the circumstances been less formal, Ezri would have been tempted to throw on some sunlenses and sunscreen, sprawl on a deck chair and make shore leave out of it. She had a feeling her hosts might not like that too much, though she wasn’t sure exactly what it was they would have preferred instead.
From the start, the Upper Assembly committee had been vague about what they wanted her to see, plying her with exquisitely prepared food, offering her comfortable seating, and breathtaking views from the hydrofoil’s observation deck. Schmoozing,as the humans called it, was expected in this line of work. In the course of his years serving the Federation, Curzon had been offered latinum, liquor and the company of beautiful women (he’d taken them up on that offer); a little gourmet finery didn’t phase Ezri. She liked the pampering. All the fuss hadn’t totally distracted her—she hoped. Several times already she’d found her mind wandering through the last time she’d done this—right before Risa, when the Federation Council …Scratch that. The last time Curzon had done this.But did it really matter who did what? She was Dax. Curzon was part of Dax, and allowing some of his harmless vices to creep into her own behavior couldn’t be all bad. Besides, she’d already learned a lot during this trip, even if it hadn’t been synthehol in that last carafe of wine. Dax had a good head for liquor, having drunk more than her fair share of unsavory types under the table…Had that been Curzon, too? Or had it been Jadzia? Ezri shook her head, hoping the cool sea spray might sharpen her senses and make her forget her argument with Julian over these very issues.
Unbidden, she remembered a similar conversation she’d had with Dr. Renhol of the Symbiosis Commission during the Europani evacuation—how she’d confronted Ezri with her recent tendency to slip into her past-host personae, blurring the lines between present and past. And it wasn’t like the weeks and months after joining either, where she’d wake up uncertain as to her sex. More like she didn’t feel inclined to reign in Dax’s various personalities. Maybe when she got back to the Alpha Quadrant, she’d return to Trill for her zhian’tara.She could only imagine what it would be like to meet these people she so enjoyed being. Ezri snorted. Who am I now, standing here looking out over this ocean? One thing’s certain, Lela would be more on task than I am.She could hear Lela’s firm, focused voice. “Time to buckle down, Lieutenant. Start putting the pieces together so you can do the job you were left here to do.”Recommitting herself to the task at hand, Ezri considered what she’d learned.