"No," she said. "We were restricted to the crew's mess."

A dark, troubled look crossed his face, and that hint of danger she had felt from the beginning returned. This was not a man to be trifled with. "They should have treated you better. After all, you've come here as a favor to us."

"I a.s.sumed that they made room for us where they could," she said.

He nodded. "Well, if you had seen us as you came in, you would have noted the difference in design from your s.p.a.ce stations. We have a docking ring, and a habitat ting, and we are at the cutting edge of Carda.s.sian technology-perhaps of technology all through the sector."

She didn't know if he wanted her to ask questions or not.

"We've put your quarters in the best section of our habitat ting. If there's anything you need, you come directly to me."

'I'll do that," she said.

"I wanted to show you the heart of the station," he said. "It's our Promenade. We have restaurants, stores, even a Ferengi-run bar, if your tastes run to alcohol, Dabo, and questionable holosuite programs."

"I hope I will get a chance to sample all three," she said. "I'm sure I'll need them when we have everything under control."

"You sound confident that you can cure this disease," Dukat said. "Is there something you know that my people don't?"

"Perhaps it's ignorance on my part," she said, thankful that her year with Picard had helped her brush up on her diplomacy. "I do not know as much as Kellec or your doctor about this disease, and they refused to send me the specs before I arrived. But it's my nature to be optimistic. If I weren't, I wouldn't be a doctor. We're all a bit egotistical, you know."

"I hadn't realized that," he said with all the smoothness of a lie.

These corridors seemed to go on forever. She wanted to remove her hand from his arm, but felt she didn't dare, not yet.

"Yes," she said. "We are. I think it a necessary skill. It leads us to places that aren't safe, to try things others wouldn't think of, and never to accept failure." "Have you ever accepted failure?" Dukat said.

"Accepted it?" she asked. "No. Experienced it? Yes."

"Ah, yes, your marriage to Kellec." He didn't miss much. Her sense of him was correct.

"I wasn't thinking of that," she said. "I was thinking of death. We all lose patients, and we're never happy about it."

"You're bringing that att.i.tude to my station," he said.

"I am, and so are my a.s.sistants. We'll do everything we can to stop this thing."

He paused. The corridor opened onto a larger area. It must have been the area he had called the Promenade. Ahead she saw lights and advertis.e.m.e.nts in Carda.s.sian. A group of Carda.s.sian guards were crowded around a post. She saw that catch Dukat's attention, and then saw him pretend that it didn't matter.

"I believe you will do everything you can to stop this disease," he said, and he sounded a bit surprised. She frowned. Was this the real Dukat? Beneath that reptilian coolness, was there a worded leader beneath? He would have to be stupid not to be. If the disease were half as bad as she had heard, he had to be worried about dying himself.

"Just be careful, Doctor," he said. "Kellec Ton is a bitter man. Do not believe everything he says."

She smiled, even though she had never felt less like doing so. "I know," she said. "I was married to him, remember?"

Dukat laughed. The sound echoed in the wide-open s.p.a.ce and the huddle of guards near the post all turned in his direction. He led her into the Promenade. There were shops with windows opening onto the walk area. In one window, a Volian sat at a table, hand-st.i.tching a shirt. Another door opened and a strange-looking man slipped through it. He wore a brown uniform, and he crossed his arms over his chest as she walked by. His face seemed half-formed, or imperfectly formed. She had never seen anyone from a species like that before.

Dukat was explaining what all the places were, but she wasn't really listening. The guards had lifted a man from the floor and were carrying him without a gurney in the direction she and Dukat were walking.

"And this is Quark's," he said, sweeping a hand toward a nearly empty bar. She peered inside. There was a lot of light and color, but no customers. A Ferengi stood behind the bar. He looked nervous, but then they all did to her.

This would probably be her only opportunity to let go of Dukat. She slipped her hand from his arm, and went inside the bar. The Ferengi looked at her in surprise. "Care for a drink?" he asked.

Three Carda.s.sians were pa.s.sed out at a back table, and another Ferengi was trying in vain to wake them up. She frowned at them.

"A bit of hot water on the back of the neck usually wakes up a Carda.s.sian," she said to the bartender.

"Really?" he asked.

Dukat came inside. "I thought you were in a hurry to get to the infirmary."

"I am," she said. "I just thought well, I had the impression that this would be the hub of the station."

"It is," the Ferengi said. "When no one's dying."

"Quark." That menacing tone was buried in Dukat's voice again. He sounded so threatening and yet so nice. How did he manage that?

"Have we far to go?" Pulaski asked, walking out of the bar ahead of him.

"Um, no," Dukat said.

"And I take it the infirmary is this way?" She headed in the direction the guards had walked.

"Yes," Dukat said.

She couldn't look too knowledgeable or he would get suspicious, so she slowed down just enough for him to catch up to her.

"What I've seen of the station," she said, "is already impressive."

He smiled at her, and then turned a small corner. "Here is the medical section." A door to her right slid open, and instantly the stench of rot overwhelmed her. She gagged involuntarily and put a hand to her mouth.

"She's turning green!" Dukat said, a hand on her shoulder, trying to push her further inside.

She shook him off. "It's a normal human reaction," she said, barely keeping control of her voice, "when faced with a smell like that."

His call, though, had brought a Carda.s.sian to the front, and behind him, Kellec.

Kellec. Too slim by half. He hadn't been eating again. His hair was messy and his earring was caught on the top of his ear. He had deep circles under both eyes, and lines around his mouth she had never seen before.

And he looked dear. Very dear.

"Katherine?" he asked. "Are you all right?"

"I just don't care for the local perfume," she said, and wrapped him in a great hug. He was thin, so thin he felt fragile in her arms.

He returned the hug, but she could feel him looking over her shoulder at Dukat. So she had been right. They were in a p.i.s.sing match, and Dukat had tried-and failed-to turn her into an issue.

She stepped back and surveyed the room. There were cots everywhere, and makeshift beds, all filled with green Carda.s.sians, many of them holding their stomachs and moaning despite obvious sedation. The green color was startling. No wonder Dukat had panicked when he saw her get nauseous from the smell. It showed that he was a lot more panicked than his let-me-give-you-a-tour-of-the-station demeanor let on.

She made herself turn to him, even though she didn't want to. "Thank you for your kindness, Gul Dukat," she said. "I do hope we'll be able to finish our tour later."

He bowed his head slightly. "It would be my pleasure, Doctor. And remember, if you need anything, anything at all, come to me." "I will."

Dukat glanced at the Carda.s.sian who stood to the side, and then his gaze met Kellec's. There was pride in that look, and measuring, and something else, some sort of challenge. And then Dukat left.

"Tour?" Kellec asked. "He took you on a tour of the station instead of bringing you here?"

"He's afraid I'm going to send a bad report to Starfleet," Pulaski said. "But I made him bring me here directly." "No one makes Dukat do anything," Kellec said. "Oh, I don't know," Pulaski said. "You managed to get him to bring me here." She put a hand through her hair, wishing now that she had had a chance, a very brief one, to stop in her quarters. Kellec always made her feel like that.

"Dr. Pulaski," the Carda.s.sian who had rushed to the door said. "I'm Dr. Narat."

He was hunched over more by the demands of his profession than with age. His dark eyes were sharp as well, but his face wasn't as reptilian as Dukat's. There was a softness to Narat, a compa.s.sion that seemed built into him. Even though she had never met him before, she got a sense from him that he, too, was exhausted.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "You are alone?"

"I brought three a.s.sistants. I sent them to their quarters to drop off their things before coming here. I wanted to a.s.sess the situation alone."

Narat nodded. He swept a hand toward the beds. "This is just one area, only the Carda.s.sians. We have two other rooms full in the medical section and we've had to take over an empty business s.p.a.ce right next door."

"My heavens," Pulaski said.

Kellec nodded. "If it weren't for all the deaths," he said, "we would need even more room."

She glanced at him. She wasn't used to him being so blunt. At least not about losing patients. So things were awful here. Only doctors who had seen a lot of death in a short period of time had that fiat affect, that way of speaking about terrible things as if they were commonplace.

And apparently they were.

"How many have died?" she asked.

"Everyone who has been sick for longer than two days," Narat said.

Her gaze met Kellec's. It wasn't just exhaustion she saw in his eyes. It was deep, overwhelming sadness, and more-a frustration and anger so strong that he had to fight to keep it held back. He knew as well as she, as well as any doctor, that anger only blinded. He needed to remain level.

"How many is that?" she asked gently. "How many have died?"

Kellec shook his head. "We've been too busy to keep track of the numbers, and we have no real a.s.sistants. It's not a relevant statistic at the moment."

"But how have you notified the families?"

"Niceties are gone, Katherine," he said. "We haven't done anything except triage, palliative measures, and research. We haven't had time."

"Maybe now," Narat said. "Now that you're here, we can do some of those things again."

Pulaski nodded. It wasn't like Kellec to let go of the small details. For any reason. "You said everyone who contracts the disease dies?" "Everyone," Kellec said. "Within two days."

She glanced around the room. If something weren't done, a solution wasn't found, all of these people would be dead soon. And all of the patients in the next room, and the next.

"Carda.s.sian and Bajoran?" she asked. "No one has survived?" "No one."

She shook her head. "I've never heard of a plague like that," she said. "The black plague on Earth, in the days when medicine consisted of trickery and leeches, left one-quarter of the population alive. The Triferian flu on Vulcan only killed half. The worst plague I've ever heard of, the Nausicaan wort virus, which struck a thousand years ago, killed 95 percent of the Nausicaan population. No plague kills one hundred percent. Someone always survives."

Kellec shook his head. "If you contract this thing," he said, "you die."

"And that's why you believe this is a designer virus?" she asked.

"That, and several other factors. Its precision, for one thing. And the way it works. Let us show you what we've found so far. It would be nice to have a fresh eye on things." He took her arm and started to lead her toward the office.

She stopped though, and gazed at all the moaning patients. One hundred percent death rate. No wonder Kellec didn't want to talk about it. That made their job a thousand times harder. The best way to beat a viral infection was to discover what was different within those patients who were exposed and didn't get sick. Or those who got sick and survived. Often their systems produced antibodies that worked against the virus, and those antibodies could be replicated and placed in those patients who didn't manufacture them naturally.

But a 100-percent death rate completely cut the traditional options out. The solution had to be a lab-devised one, just like the virus itself. And that required researchers, not medical doctors. She did research, yes, but her main focus had always been her patients. Maybe Starfleet had been right in trying to send the viral experts here.

Maybe. But to do so would have meant at least a hundred more deaths in the time it took those experts to arrive. At least she was here now. Her a.s.sistants could look after the patients, and she could work with Kellec and Narat to find a cure.

The confidence she had spoken of to Dukat had vanished. In her entire career, she had never faced odds like this. Terok Nor had a small population. In order to save any of it, she and her colleagues had to find a solution fast.

The problem was that all the shortcuts had been blocked off. They had to do the impossible, and she wasn't even sure how to begin.

Chapter Twelve

HE STOOD IN THE SHADOWS next to Quark's bar, marveling at the difference a few days had made. Before there had been laughter and shouting, games and relaxation, but now there was silence. The Ferengi, Quark, was complaining about the silence, still worrying about his business, not realizing that soon, everything on Terok Nor would come to an end.

He had found it amusing when Quark had carried the ill Carda.s.sian outside the bar before allowing his brother to report the illness. Quark still believed everything would turn around, things would get better, his bar would come back to life, and he would continue to earn his precious latinum.

Soon latinum wouldn't be important at all.

He had had a bad moment, though, as Quark, his brother, and his nephew had pa.s.sed, carrying the Carda.s.sian. For an instant, his shield had fizzled. He had caught it in time, but Quark had turned his head, almost as if he had seen the shimmer the malfunction caused. Fortunately, the Ferengi was so self-involved that he apparently thought nothing of it.

Ever since, though, he had kept close watch on the shield. It was his only protection here, allowing him to go undiscovered. Not that there were many left to discover him. The sick Carda.s.sians had made their way, one by one, to the medical section. The well ones were staying away from populated areas, keeping themselves in their rooms unless they had duties-and sometimes even then.

Humanoids all shared an att.i.tude toward disease. No matter how sophisticated the society, humanoids still feared tiny little microbes that attacked the body unseen. From Carda.s.sians and Bajorans to Trills and Klingons, the fear of illness was uniform. And all the more amusing in societies like Carda.s.sia's. Soldiers seemed to fear disease most of all.

He had enjoyed watching Terok Nor's leader, Dukat, when he felt he was alone. The constant washing of the hands. His reluctance to touch other Carda.s.sians or Bajorans. His nervous movements every time he was about to enter the medical section. All of them were tiny gestures, but they were oh, so telling. And if Dukat felt that way, so did all the other Carda.s.sians. He almost wished the symptomatic part of the disease lasted longer. It brought out the fear in the unaffected-or the not-yet-symptomatic, to be more accurate-so much better.

He made a mental note about that, not certain if he were going to use it or not.

But he was here to observe, and since he had arrived, he had observed a lot. The way the Carda.s.sians simply kept going until they lost control; the resigned futility among the Bajorans; the added calls to the Prophets who, of course, were not listening: All of this intrigued him. And pleased him, if he had to be honest. Things were progressing better than he had expected.

Although that could change. Dukat's mood seemed lighter since he escorted the human woman across the Promenade and into the medical section. She looked vaguely familiar, with her brown hair and calm demeanor. He had a moment of panic when she excused herself from Dukat and walked into Quark's. For a moment, he thought she was going to walk over to him. It was as if she saw him, as if she knew he was there.

Instead, she had asked the Ferengi a question or two, and then had gone on.

He hadn't expected humans on Terok Nor. He hadn't expected anyone a.s.sociated with the Federation. He had purposely chosen Carda.s.sians and Bajorans because they had no official ties with the Federation and so wouldn't request Federation help.

What this woman was doing here baffled him, but she had obviously been brought in to help find a cure. Fortunately, a cure would prove extremely difficult. If not impossible. Diseases did not act the way this one did. Most doctors weren't creative enough to understand something so different, so fundamentally alien.