Force And Motion Part 8

"I'm not sure I understand it myself," Jake said. "It was like he was there, but he wasn't really. He was somewhere else, sometime else. I remember thinking he was going to drift away someday, like a balloon when the string breaks."

"Huh," Nog said, picturing the moment. "What happened? He's not like that."

"No, not now. The opposite, if you know what I mean." He laughed. "I don't know exactly. We came here. He had his encounter with the Prophets, and when he returned, well, he was back again. Back in the now. He tried to explain it to me once, what they said to him, but, honestly, I'm not sure I understand it yet. Not sure if I ever will."

"So was that your worst day?" Nog asked. "When your mom died?"

Jake jerked his head back. He looked at Nog like he wasn't sure how to reply, but, after a pause, said, "Yeah, was it yours?"

Nog shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I barely knew my mother. Even if my father had stayed married to her, I probably still wouldn't know her. That's how things are."

"Oh," Jake said. "I didn't know that." He frowned. "Now that I think about it, I've never seen a female Ferengi."

"And you probably never will," Nog said.

"Why?"

Nog threw his hands up. He knew that this was a concept most hew-mons had trouble grasping. "Because you won't," he said. "They rarely leave Ferenginar. It's cultural." He had learned that this word carried a lot of weight with hew-mons, some kind of pa.s.s. Not much got past cultural if you didn't want to let it.

"Oh," Jake said, predictably. "Okay." He settled back onto the couch. "So was that your worst day? When your mom and dad broke up?"

"No," Nog said. "I barely remember it. I just remember coming here, to the station. I remember my dad was kind of sad or mad or something, but he was trying to put a good face on it. I was relieved to be getting away from my grandfather. Have I told you about him?"

"No," Jake said. "What was he like?"

"He was . . ." Nog stumbled. He didn't have a very clear idea how to describe his feelings about Dav. "I don't know. Scary. Loud." He shrugged. "A terrible businessman." He couldn't think of anything else to say, though he knew the truth of it was that his grandfather had been a very good businessman. His father, on the other hand, was not.

"So what was your worst day?"

Nog shook his head. "I don't know. I'll have to think about it." He looked down at his padd. He had been scouring the station's auction sites for new listings of erotic figures to add to his collection, but found he was no longer interested in finding any. He flicked off the padd and found himself looking at a photo of himself and Jake on the upper level looking down at the Promenade. Jadzia had taken it a few weeks ago and sent it to the two of them with the note, "Boys will be boys." Nog still didn't know exactly what she meant by the sentiment, though he hoped it was some kind of flirtation (though he doubted it). He brightened. "But I do remember my best day."

Jake was intrigued. "Really? When?"

Nog pointed at his friend. "When you and your dad came to live here."

Jake rolled his eyes.

"No, really. It's been way more interesting since you two came here. Not that I didn't have some fun before, but, you know."

"Yeah," Jake said. "I know. Our lives are chock-full of interesting." And then he threw a pillow at Nog's head.

Nog responded in kind, and the fight continued until Commander Sisko came home and made them stop and clean up the wrecked living room.

But, afterward, on his way back to Quark's for his evening shift, Nog pa.s.sed by the turbolift where he had first seen Jake and his father, the pair of them stepping out and looking around at the Promenade, both of them appearing a bit lost and forlorn. He remembered looking at Commander Sisko's stance, his straight back and outthrust chin. He even remembered how the pips on the commander's collar had gleamed in the low light of the artificial evening. He remembered Jake too, standing there, eyes narrowed, curious, but cautious.

But, mostly, for some reason, the detail Nog remembered most clearly was the pips and thinking, Those look good. How do you get them?

January 9, 2386 Ops Center Robert Hooke "Don't let Finch get to you, Miles," Maxwell said, guiding the chief to the main bank of turbolifts. "He comes off as a bit self-aggrandizing, but he's actually pretty clever. I take it you met the Mother?"

"I did," O'Brien said, radiating mingled revulsion and concern. "And I have to wonder if it's safe, that thing just hovering there in a tank. What happens if something . . . I don't know . . . cracked the side of it?" He gestured for Maxwell to precede him onto the lift. Still deferring to the captain, Maxwell thought.

"It can't crack," Maxwell explained. "Or, I should say, it could. Anything can crack, after all. I mean, there are actually some pretty sophisticated safeguards in place. Finch wouldn't have talked about those. Not interesting enough. No show in it."

"Sophisticated? How sophisticated? Like what? And where are we going?"

Maxwell pushed the b.u.t.ton for deck six. "There's only one place to get a beer here. Not as good as the stuff Finch makes, but not bad."

"Yeah, and what about that? Brewing beer and splicing genetic material in the same lab. That can't be right."

Maxwell chuckled. "He's colorful. I'll give you that."

"I didn't say that," O'Brien protested.

"But you were thinking it."

"No," O'Brien said. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched the numbers over the door change as the car descended. "I wasn't."

"I don't think he really does that. It's just an image Finch likes to project."

"Really?" O'Brien huffed.

"I don't suppose it will come as a surprise to hear that some of the scientists on the Hooke are into some unconventional areas of research."

"I heard about the spiders," O'Brien replied flatly.

"Ginger and Honey. Right. You'll meet them soon enough. Hardly the strangest thing you'll find here if you start poking into the corners. There's an Aldebaran on deck four who's working on a shrink ray."

"A shrink ray?"

"Yes, for shrinking."

"Well, sure," O'Brien said. "What else would it be for? But you were saying about safeguards?"

"Oh, right." The car coasted to a halt and the doors parted. "The usual sort of thing in most of the labs: disinfectant sprayers, quarantine doors. Some labs can be vented directly into s.p.a.ce. The station is programmed to transport all personnel to a sterile zone if something nasty escapes containment. And, in a few of the labs, including Finch's, we have a directed radiation pulse that would kill anything inside the burst radius."

"Ouch," O'Brien said. "Nasty."

"Yeah, it is. But it shows Finch is not as cavalier as he might like to appear."

"But why seem cavalier at all?"

Maxwell shrugged, directing O'Brien to turn left. "I've given up trying to figure out why most people do most anything. It satisfies a need, Miles. Finch needs to believe he's someone or something in particular. Neither you nor I can see what that is or why, but that doesn't really matter, does it?" Maxwell pointed at a door. "Here we go: the Public House."

O'Brien turned into a room as the doors parted, hesitant at first, but then clearly pleased by what he saw: a dimly lit s.p.a.ce with a handful of small tables and unmatched chairs scattered around them. The walls were decorated with cheap posters of entertainers or sports stars from a half-dozen worlds. There was a four-meter-long bar with a small sink and a rack of various gla.s.ses and mugs arrayed behind it, and rickety stools arrayed in front.

Faces turned to check out the newcomers when they entered, but then everyone saw Maxwell and returned to their conversations. The lone figure behind the bar, a small, dark Terran woman, called out, "Hey, Ben. Get your b.u.t.t over here and take a look at the tap. I think it's busted again."

"I keep telling you, Nita," Maxwell said, "that you can't yank on it. You just pull. Gently. You have to baby it, or the keg will fill with carbon dioxide."

"That's what I said: it's busted."

"Calm down, Nita," Maxwell said, sliding around behind the bar and pointing Miles to an empty stool. "Say h.e.l.lo to my friend Miles...o...b..ien. Miles, Doctor Nita Bharad."

Bharad slipped past Maxwell in the narrow s.p.a.ce, not taking care to avoid contact. "Hi, Miles," she said. "So, it really is true that Ben used to be in Starfleet?"

"Um, well," Miles said, quickly glancing at Maxwell for confirmation that he could speak of such matters. Maxwell shrugged. "Yes. A long time ago. We were shipmates."

"He's being circ.u.mspect, Nita," Maxwell said, checking the hoses on the tap. The rig was handmade out of odds and ends that Maxwell had found around the station, so it was fussy. Carefully uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g one of the connectors, he felt a hiss of compressed gas on the palm of his hand. "It was much worse than that: I was his captain."

Bharad guffawed and slapped the top of the makeshift bar. "Captain of what? Do they have ships that just clean up the mess after the big ships are finished doing whatever they need to do?" A couple of the people at the tables chuckled.

"Something like that," Maxwell agreed, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the connector in place. "It wasn't very prestigious, was it, Miles?"

"No," O'Brien agreed.

"Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach," Maxwell said, finding a clean pint gla.s.s. "But you need latrines too."

"Well, he was too refined," O'Brien added.

"The French," Maxwell explained. "They're a refined people. Here, Miles. Try this." He handed over the pint.

"He was Corsican." O'Brien accepted his gla.s.s gratefully, careful not to disturb the masterful head.

"They're refined too," Maxwell said, half filling another clean gla.s.s. Holding it aloft, he said, "To refinement."

"Refinement," O'Brien repeated, and touched his gla.s.s to Maxwell's.

Bharad watched the two men like she was observing a tennis match, head bobbing back and forth in time. "Clearly, you two had plenty of time to work on your routine."

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Keep working on it," she said, hopping up onto the stool beside O'Brien's. "And get me another beer."

Whoever this man is, Miles...o...b..ien thought, I'm not sure he is Benjamin Maxwell. He watched as his former captain plucked another pint gla.s.s out of a rack of (hopefully) clean dishware, lifted it to the tap, pulled the lever, and patiently watched the amber liquid flow. Smiling, Maxwell half listened while Nita Bharad rambled about the latest round of havoc her "babies" (presumably the giant spiders) committed around the station, and her staunch defense thereof. Mischief was Bharad's word. O'Brien suspected mayhem might be a better fit. Remembering that he had spent too many years drinking synthehol beer, he thought, Pace yourself, Miles. He took a small sip from the pint. Rolling the stout around in his mouth, he smiled.

"Not bad, right?" Maxwell said. "Microbiologists make the best beer."

"Obviously," O'Brien said.

"Though botanists are valuable too," Bharad inserted.

"Couldn't agree more," O'Brien said, smiling and leaning back. "Married to one."

"Well, then you know."

"How is Keiko?" Maxwell asked. "And the kids? Let me think-Molly should be eighteen and Yoshi is . . . twelve?"

"Thirteen."

"Wow. Huh." He shook his head. "Amazing. Time flies."

"It does," O'Brien replied. "Faster than I can stand sometimes. They're all fine. Or, well enough. Molly is driving Keiko mad and Yoshi . . ." He shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know what to tell you about him. A bit of a mystery, that one. I don't think either of them knows exactly what they want or where they want to be."

"Did you at that age?"

"At eighteen?" The chief snorted and puffed out his chest. "I wanted to be on a starship and I wanted . . . well, I wanted to do something worthwhile." He let his shoulders sag. "But at thirteen? I think I wanted to ride bulls in the rodeo."

"And look where you are." Maxwell lifted his half-pint in a toast, though he didn't drink from it.

"I suppose," O'Brien said. "Though there are days on the station that feel a lot like bull-riding."

"I wanted to study spiders," Bharad said. "At thirteen and eighteen. And eight, now that I think of it. And thirty-eight." She tossed off the rest of her pint and turned to O'Brien. "Have you heard about my babies?" she asked, her words a bit blurry from beer.

"Yes."

"Would you like to meet them?"

"Well, I might not have time. We're only supposed to be here for a few hours, Doctor Bharad."

"Call me Nita," Bharad said. The rapidity of her speech appeared to ratchet up as her alcohol intake increased. "And there's plenty of time. Or hasn't Ben told you that wherever he goes, Ginger is never too far behind?" She directed her gaze above O'Brien's head and smiled brightly. "Oh, here she is now."

The chief glanced over at Maxwell, who was grinning maniacally. He groaned inwardly, unwilling to offend the geneticist. O'Brien tilted his head back and looked up.

There was Ginger (presumably) dangling from the ceiling, spinning slowly on a silken thread. Right over the bar. Centimeters above his head.

O'Brien felt a shudder rise up; suppressing it, he slipped off his stool so he could observe the creature from a discreet distance. Ginger checked her spin by touching one of her hind legs to the wall. Her mouth bits moved in a manner that O'Brien felt could only be described as "thoughtful."

"Say h.e.l.lo, Miles," Maxwell said.

"Ahhhh . . ." O'Brien began. "Hel-" Alarm bells were going off. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. He dared to take his eyes off Ginger and glanced at Bharad, and then Maxwell. They were looking up at the ceiling, eyes twitching back and forth. Bharad was frightened, Maxwell was alert, amus.e.m.e.nt evaporated. "Wait," O'Brien yelled so as to be heard over the din. "What is that?"

"It's a contamination alert!" Maxwell shouted back. Everyone in the bar froze for a half second, all except for Bharad, who reached up and pulled Ginger to her chest.

"What's happening?" O'Brien tried to set his pint back on the bar, but he stumbled on the stool and the gla.s.s tipped over, his stout spilling across the bar top.

Bharad's eyes were wide with trepidation, but she was quiet. Ginger had folded her legs around the geneticist's torso, either protectively, or possibly seeking protection. "Ben," Bharad said, "get to the shuttle! We need you! You can't fix this by yourself-" But before she could finish her statement, the transporter beam had immobilized her. A moment later, she disappeared.

All the other barflies had been whisked away, too.

O'Brien and Maxwell were alone in the Public House.

Maxwell pulled a small device from a pocket and pointed it at the ceiling. The alarm faded away. He pocketed the device. "Come on, Miles," he said, dodging around the bar and racing for the door.

"What's happened?" O'Brien cried at his former commander's back.

"Don't know," Maxwell shouted back. "Not exactly. Some disaster or another." The doors parted and Maxwell ran out. O'Brien followed, adrenaline pumping, his ears still ringing from the klaxon, though calm had descended. He'd been in too many situations like this to be rattled for more than a moment. Just one thing really bothered him and that was just how delighted Ben Maxwell had sounded when he shouted the word disaster.