A single human woman would make no difference in this laboratory. He would worry only when teams of scientists came in. Federation scientists.

And by the time they arrived, it would be too late. No matter how light Gul Dukat's mood, the fact was that Terok Nor was doomed.

He had done the projections before he came, a timetable a.s.suming everything went according to plan-which it had, much to his surprise. It was now time for him to leave. His cloaked ship would pick him up shortly.

And probably just in time. According to his projections, Terok Nor had very little time left.

Chapter Thirteen

SHE WAS CRAZY to have come back to Terok Nor. What had she been thinking when she offered to come here? Certainly she hadn't been thinking very clearly.p> SHE WAS CRAZY to have come back to Terok Nor. What had she been thinking when she offered to come here? Certainly she hadn't been thinking very clearly.p> It no longer seemed like the risks that she took getting here in her small rebel ship, keeping it hidden from Carda.s.sian scans, and then beaming aboard, were going to be worth it. It had been harder this time, because Terok Nor was closed to almost all ships. She wasn't sure if the beam-in had been detected; she doubted anyone was scouting for security breaches in the middle of this internal crisis.

Kira stood in the center of the Bajoran section. It looked nothing like it had a few months ago, when she had come here to get a list of Bajoran collaborators from a chemist's shop. She didn't like to think about that visit, and how close she had come to becoming a true prisoner of the Carda.s.sians.

She ran her hands over her arms. She had gooseb.u.mps despite the warmth. This place smelled like rot, and if she hadn't known better, she would have thought it like one of the prisoner-of-war camps on Carda.s.sia. Dukat had always prided himself on keeping a clean, well-run station, where he treated the Bajorans "fairly."

There was nothing fair about this place any longer. Not even the most delusional could miss that.

Ill Bajorans lay on the floor, their cheeks rosy, their eyes too bright. They held their stomachs and moaned, while family members tried to take care of them. Others were on blankets or coats that someone had given up. There were no Carda.s.sian guards in sight-it was as if the guards had forgotten the Bajorans were here.

Not that it mattered. The Bajorans were too busy dying to think of revolution.

She had had no idea the disease was this bad. If she had to guess, she would estimate that half of the Bajorans she saw were in some stage of illness.

And she saw no sign of Kellec Ton at all. No sign of any doctors, no sign of any help. How could Dukat allow this? How could anyone?

There had to be someone that the Bajorans looked to for leadership, someone who took control of various situations. But she didn't even know where to look. The fine web of corridors and large rooms that had served as the Bajoran section no longer had any order to it at all. The sick lay everywhere, even in the eating areas, and there were a few bodies stacked near the entrance to the processing plants.

Bodies. Stacked. She had never expected to see this. She didn't even know where to begin.

She wanted to roll up her sleeves and help, but she knew nothing about medicine, at least this kind of medicine. Give her a patient with a phaser burn and she could treat it, or a broken arm and she could set it, but to die like this, moaning in excruciating agony while everyone around was busy with their own deaths, was something completely beyond her.

Two Carda.s.sian guards walked through the corridor. They stepped over the ill and dying Bajorans as if they were simply rocks lying in their path. They were talking in low tones, their conversation impossible to hear.

Kira tensed. If they saw her, they might bring her to Dukat. And that was the last thing she needed.

She slid down the wall, and buried her face in her knees. She couldn't bring herself to moan, to feign the illness so many others were dying of. But she kept herself immobile.

As the Carda.s.sians pa.s.sed, their conversation became clearer.

"... so desperate that he's allowing the Bajoran doctor to work on Carda.s.sian patients."

"That's not what I've heard. I've heard the illnesses are related, and if they find a cure for one, they find a cure for both." "It's a Bajoran trick." "What makes you think that?"

"They designed this virus to kill us, but it backfired. It makes them sick as well."

"Surely if that were true, Dukat wouldn't let that Bajoran anywhere near the medical section."

"Dukat is smarter than you think. Perhaps he wants Narat to catch the Bajoran infecting Carda.s.sians..."

Their voices faded. Kira raised her head just enough to be able to watch them leave out of the corner of one eye. So the rumor about the Carda.s.sians was true; they were dying of this disease as well.

And of course, the lower-level guards believed that the Bajorans were behind the illness, not realizing that the Bajorans no longer had the capability to do anything like this. Bajorans were struggling just to stay alive.

She hadn't expected it to be so easy to discover where Kellec Ton was, though. He was in the Carda.s.sian medical section, helping save Carda.s.sians. She would never have believed it of him. He had to have some other plan in mind. But she wasn't sure what that would be, nor was she certain how to reach him. It would mean leaving the Bajoran section. Some Bajorans did, she knew, but very few. And they were usually collaborating somehow.

She had been outside the Bajoran section last year, when she went to the chemist's to steal that list of collaborators, but everything had gone wrong. She had had to kill the chemist, and she had gotten caught. She managed to lie her way out of it, though, and escape with her life.

She wasn't sure she'd be that lucky this time.

But if the Carda.s.sians were sick too, and the guard levels down here were any indication, she might have an easier time of it. The entire station seemed to be preoccupied with itself, turned inward, not outward. Maybe no one cared any longer about collaborators and the resistance. Maybe all anyone on Terok Nor cared about was surviving from moment to moment.

She waited until she was certain the guards were long gone. Then she rose ever so slowly, looking both ways. As she did, the wall at her back moved.

She gasped and turned. What she had thought to be a small beam attached to the wall turned into a liquid, then formed itself into a man. The security chief. Odo.

She swallowed. He had caught her the last time, and nearly tried her for murder. But she had convinced him that she hadn't killed that Carda.s.sian chemist and he had helped her escape. She hadn't expected to see him again.

"Kira Nerys, isn't it?" Odo said, as his shape solidified.

She didn't answer him, just watched him.

"I wondered who would be foolish enough to beam aboard a quarantined station."

She swallowed hard, but lifted her chin in a defiant movement.

"Or didn't you know that everyone is dying here?" He tilted his head. He was such a strange creature. His features weren't completely formed, and yet she could see something in those eyes. A sadness, perhaps. "You're not dying," she said.

"I'm not Bajoran or Carda.s.sian." Odo crossed his arms. "You do realize that I should tell Gul Dukat of your arrival."

"I thought you said everyone is dying."

"It was only a slight exaggeration. Dukat, so far, seems fine."

"That's no surprise," Kira said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means those guards had this whole thing backwards. The Carda.s.sians designed this plague to kill Bajorans, and now it's backfired on them."

"Do you actually believe that?" Odo asked. "You always struck me as such an intelligent woman before."

She felt herself flush. "So you believe the Carda.s.sian version?"

"Actually, I have a feeling that there's something else going on entirely. Your people and the Carda.s.sians are so focused on your hatred for each other that you can't see beyond yourselves."

She frowned. "What do you know?"

"Nothing, really. It's just a hunch." He tilted his head toward her. "Just like my hunch says it's no coincidence that you're here, now. What are you coming to do? Start a rebellion now that the Carda.s.sians are weak?"

She swept her hand across the floor, indicating all the ill people. "As if that would do any good. Why isn't anyone taking care of them?"

"Believe it or not," Odo said, "someone is. It's just there is so much sickness on the station that each patient can only expect a moment or two of personal attention a day."

It was sadness she saw in his eyes. He was as helpless as she was. "Kellec Ton?" she asked. "He has been coming down here?" "Is that why you're here? To check up on him?" She couldn't answer that. Much as this shape-shifter's demeanor made her feel like trusting him, she had been in this situation too many times to trust anyone in authority. "Is he still alive?" "I thought you overheard those guards," Odo said. "He's in the Carda.s.sian section, trying to find a cure." "Is he having any luck?"

"I'm riot privy to 'the medical discussions, but from what I've seen, no. If anything, the plague has gotten worse."

She shivered ever so slightly. Kellec hadn't gone crazy, had he? He hadn't started the plague, as those guards accused him of doing?

Of course not. What was she thinking? Kellec Ton wasn't that kind of man. No matter what circ.u.mstances drove him to, he would never voluntarily take a life, let alone hundreds of lives.

"Is it as bad as they say?" she asked, not able to help herself "What do they say?" "That anyone who catches this disease dies."

He looked away from her, at the moaning people around them. He seemed smaller than the last time she saw him, as if the suffering had diminished him somehow. Or perhaps everyone seemed smaller in the face of this kind of anguish.

"From what I have observed," he said slowly, "any Carda.s.sian or Bajoran who is exposed to this disease eventually gets the disease. And anyone who gets it, dies." "So I'm at risk," Kira said. "I'm afraid so," Odo said.

They stared at each other for a moment. Then he said, "I'm going to have to locate your ship and warn its crew away from here."

She almost told him that she was in a scout ship, and that she had come alone, but he didn't need that information.

"They left anyway," she lied, "just after they brought me here."

"I'm going to check anyway," he said. "Because you made the biggest mistake of your life coming here."

"Are you threatening me?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I wish it were that easy. But this station is under quarantine. Anyone who comes here cannot leave, not until the quarantine is lifted, and I doubt it will be lifted anytime soon." She look at him.

"I will keep an eye out for any illegal transportation devices, and in fact, I think I'll recommend to Gul Dukat to raise the station's shield so that no one can leave via transporter."

"Then I will die here," she said.

"You chose to come," he said. "It was a bad decision." Then he gave her a compa.s.sionate look. "If you stay in the Bajoran section, you'll be all right."

"And if I choose not to?"

"I can't vouch for what happens to you."

"Why should I care what happens to me?" she asked. "From what you say, I'm dead anyway."

He sighed. "I have hope," he said, although his tone belied his words, "that someone will find a way to end this thing."

"You don't seem like an optimistic man."

He inclined his head toward her as a sort of acknowledgement. "I'm usually not. But your friend has brought his ex-wife aboard, and it took some doing. I have to believe she has the skills to help with all of us."

Kellec Ton's ex-wife? What had Kira heard about her? Not much, except-she was Starfleet. The Federation. That had to take some doing.

"What makes you think one person will make a difference?" Kira asked.

"I'm looking at it from a practical standpoint," he said. "She's not Bajoran or Carda.s.sian."

"And so has no stake in developing the disease further?"

"Actually, no," he said. "She has a chance of staying alive long enough to develop a cure."

Chapter Fourteen

PULASKI'S EYES ACHED from the strain of staring at the Carda.s.sian computer monitors. The LTDs here were set on a different frequency than the Federation mandated. These settings were not designed for human eyes, and were creating a serious version of eye strain. She leaned back in her chair and with her thumb and forefinger ma.s.saged the bridge of her nose.

Ten hours of work, and it felt like only a moment. Ten hours. She thought she might have something, but she wanted to rest for just a second, to allow the hope to diminish.

The mood on Terok Nor, the hopelessness, had infected her more than she wanted to admit. She had tried to get Kellec to leave the medical section, but he refused to go. She thought of actually giving him a sedative so that he could sleep, but she couldn't do that. They might need his clear thinking.

At least she had convinced Narat to rest. What she wanted to do was to place the three main doctors on a rotating schedule, two on and one off at all times. This might continue for days, and it would do no good for Narat and Kellec to court illness by shorting themselves on sleep.

When Narat returned, she would convince Kellec to go. No matter what it took.

She would be doing the same in their shoes, though. One of the reasons she wanted to set up the new system was so that she ensured she would get some rest. Right now, she was the fresh one, seeing things with a new perspective, but over time that would change. She wanted all of them to have an advantage.

She sighed and stood, stretching. Even the chairs were poorly designed, at least for her human form. Apparently Carda.s.sians had the a.s.sumption of height working for them. She had to rest her feet on the base of the chair instead of the floor, and that was playing havoc with her back. She turned and looked out the office door at the medical section's patient areas.

Ogawa was taking care of the Bajorans in the medical section, offering kind words and comfort. Marvig was below, in the Bajoran section, working in the corridors with the people too sick to make it here. Eventually, they would switch places. Pulaski had seen the Bajoran section on one of her short breaks, and it had been the worst thing yet on Terok Nor. Dozens of sick and dying people, with no one to care for them except their own families if they had any families left.

Some of them were already weakened from years spent as Carda.s.sian prisoners or as workers in the ore-processing area. Pulaski had no idea what working with uridium did to the immune system, but if uridium was like any other ore, it weakened everything it came into contact with.

Governo was ministering to the Carda.s.sians. His bedside manner was gruffer and blunter than either Ogawa's or Marvig's, and the Carda.s.sians seemed to appreciate that. They were the kind of patients who wanted the unvarnished truth rather like Klingons in that respect-so that they could make decisions from there. Only the Carda.s.sians were too sick to attempt to die with honor, as a Klingon would have done. Or perhaps it wasn't part of their culture. She didn't know. She had never really made a point of studying Carda.s.sian social habits.

"Are you all right?" Kellec was behind her, his voice soft in her ear.

She nodded. "I needed to think." "Staring out there helps you think?" "There's nowhere else to look," she said.

"Up on the Promenade, there are windows that look out to the stars," Kellec said. "I go there if I need a moment alone."

"I'11 remember that," Pulaski said. "But that wasn't the kind of thinking I needed to do."

"You've found something," Kellec said. He knew her so well. They had spent years apart, and it felt as if they had only been away from each other for a few hours.

"I think so." She turned away from the door and came back to her chair. She put her hands on it instead of sitting in it, more out of courtesy to her back than any other reason. "Let me show you."