Strange New Worlds 2016 Read online

  WIPING SWEAT FROM HIS LIP, Julian Bashir recalled Quark’s words when he’d opened the latest Manhunt Pool: “Odo always gets his man.” If only Deep Space 9’s head of security wasn’t relying on him. Sure, he’d played interplanetary sleuths in holosuite thrillers, but that wasn’t preparation for facing an actual Yridian con man. What if the man was packing a weapon?

  Forcing his jaw to unclench, Bashir paced the length of the vacant shop. “Dicky Poole’s business opportunity intrigues me. Are you sure this space is large enough for a Best Nest franchise?”

  “Not for the Nest Replicator Deluxe, but the Mini can provide the optimum sleep chamber for any being that shows up on Deep Space 9.” The Yridian smiled—though his face was so baggy, Bashir couldn’t be sure. “Except maybe a Nehrantha Giant.”

  The doctor offered a nervous chuckle. “You don’t need to convince me of the importance of the regenerative cycle. I’m a doctor.”

  “Ninety-nine point nine percent of all sentient creatures rely on it. And with the Jem’Hadar threat, who couldn’t use a good night’s rest?”

  “That’s my primary interest—enhancing the health of my fellow beings. But still . . .” Bashir glanced at the bag he’d left by the door—at the bar of gold-pressed latinum poking out the top. If he couldn’t get the con man to take it, Odo couldn’t make his arrest.

  The Yridian edged closer to the bait. “Sometimes even humans need a little currency.”

  “Exactly. I can’t rely on luck at dabo.”

  The Yridian jiggled his voluminous jowls. “The sooner you set up shop, the sooner you’ll profit. Never fear. Best Nest Intergalactic Limited will ship your equipment, train your employees, and advertise your grand opening no later than half a year from now.”

  Bashir gave an appropriate gasp. “That long?”

  The Yridian shrugged. “Bajorans. The freighter captains argue with the port managers who then argue with the cargo handlers. And the construction crews! If only I had a little—”

  “Gold-pressed latinum?” As soon as the eager words left Bashir’s mouth, he realized his mistake. The folds wreathing the Yridian’s eyes couldn’t hide his suspicion. Then the con man glanced at the bag by the door and flexed his webbed hands.

  “A couple of bars.”

  Bashir held his breath as the Yridian reached down. The moment he grabbed a bar, it melted. When golden goo ran through his fingers, he yelped. Touching the deck, the substance quickly built into legs, body, arms, and head—properly clothed in an unassuming brown uniform. When the liquid solidified into Odo’s stern face, Bashir’s tension drained. The constable had transformed himself already gripping the con man’s wrist.

  The Yridian tried to jerk free—unsuccessfully, of course. “In good faith, I made a deal—”

  “—that you’ve repeated dozens of times across this sector. And not one shop has opened. Up until now, you’ve pilfered your victims’ life savings electronically. Now that you’ve been recorded taking a payment—”

  “Payment?” Unfolding his neck like an accordion, the Yridian thrust out his head. “What I took was you!”

  “If you’d prefer a charge of trafficking in sapient beings . . .” Odo snorted. “I didn’t think so.” He raised his free hand, and Bashir saw two Bajoran officers trot out of the security office across the Promenade.

  Finally. “I need a drink.”

  Garak set down his glass of kanar. “Two days as I predicted. Pay up, Quark.”

  The barkeep glanced at Odo, then raised his eyebrows at the losers, Bashir and O’Brien. “Third Manhunt Pool you’ve won in a row. You must have inside information.”

  Garak watched the Ferengi slide a welcome pile of latinum strips across the bar. Though his words had been accusing, his manner was carefree. Why not? Garak thought. For operating the pool, Quark claimed half the take.

  “I’m merely a simple tailor.” Garak put on his most charming smile—half innocent, half rascal. As Tain always said, “If people distrust you, make a joke of it. If they think they’ve figured you out, they haven’t.”

  “Surely, you’re not suggesting I spy on the constable.”

  Odo harrumphed. “I’d like to see you try.”

  If you saw me, that would mean I’ve lost my touch. As the Cardassian pocketed the means to upgrade the embroidery mode on his laser-guided stitcher, he noted the good doctor fidget on his stool.

  “If I hadn’t helped catch him,” Bashir said, “I might have won my bet of five days.”

  “Really, Doctor.” The shapeshifter cupped a hand around his elbow and curled the other under his chin. “It’s only fair you helped catch him. After all, you helped set him up in business.”

  Bashir grimaced. “No need to bore everyone with the details.”

  Garak hid his smirk behind another sip of kanar. Though Odo’s approximation of a face remained expressionless, his pose of humanoid smugness was perfect.

  “Julian helped the con man?” Chief O’Brien asked. “How?”

  Odo waggled his head. “Not intentionally, of course. The doctor was duped.”

  Chuckling, Garak clapped Bashir on the back. “Maybe this time you’ll learn your lesson: to avoid treachery, expect it.”

  The doctor raised his chin. “That’s a lesson I’ll continue to skip. The way I see it, if one is suspicious of everything, one won’t recognize the truth, even if it jumps up and slaps you in the face.”

  Garak glanced at Odo. His eyes—or what the shapeshifter offered as eyes—shot him a rare look of commiseration. The United Federation of Planets: its members’ naïveté is only matched by their stubbornness.

  “The story, Odo,” O’Brien said. “We’re dying to hear.”

  Quark leaned on his bar. “I’m all ears.”

  Basking in the group attention, Odo seemed to grow taller. “If you insist.” But before he could begin, his eyes focused on something past Garak’s shoulder. He shrank a little. “Another time. I have business.” Instead of confronting whatever was upsetting him, he turned on his heel and strode out the opposite exit.

  Curious, Garak swiveled to see Major Kira walking toward them, flanked by two Bajorans.

  “Where’s the constable gone to? These old friends want to visit, and we also need to arrange security.”

  Beside Garak, the doctor slid off his stool. “You’re Dal Cerys and Lubaar Pem. You’re presenting at the First Contact Symposium tomorrow. How do you know Odo?”

  “We worked with him,” the man said.

  “Literally,” the woman added. “We were researchers with Doctor Mora Pol at the Bajoran Center for Science when the Cardassians brought him in as an unknown specimen.” For the first time, Doctor Dal seemed to notice that a member of the one-time occupying force was watching her. Garak returned her nervous smile.

  “That explains why Odo dashed out.” Kira pursed her lips. “The constable hates recalling those days.”

  “Nonsense,” Doctor Lubaar said. “We had fun. Once we discovered the blob could change its shape consciously, he became the life of the party.

  Doctor Dal glared at him in a way that suggested to Garak they were not just colleagues but spouses. “You never understood Odo. He hated playing jester.”

  Doctor Lubaar arched an eyebrow. “Then why did you keep asking him to be a chair?”

  Garak signaled Quark for another kanar. Too bad Odo had worked so hard to overcome the Bajorans’ underestimation of him. In his place, he’d have taken advantage of it.

  Early the next morning, Odo changed the key code on the empty shop before turning it over to the entrepreneurs Commander Sisko had authorized to move in: the Shaloza brothers.

  The older Bajoran, Shaloza Rokor, offered the security office padd to the younger, Shaloza Trestan. One glance, and he handed it back to Odo. “Memorized it.” Then he ra
n over to a stack of crates standing outside the shop and wrestled with the top one’s lid.

  Odo read the labels: caging towers, grooming brushes, exercise wheels, feed. “You’re really opening a pet store. On a space station.”

  “Don’t worry. Each animal is implanted with a nanochip. Anyone who buys one will fit their quarters with mini–force fields that will activate should their Banean dog, Romulan set’leth, or Cardassian lemur decide to dash out. Chief O’Brien approved the technology himself.”

  Odo growled. “So long as you don’t sell Klingon targs . . .”

  “Nothing above six kilograms.”

  His duty done, Odo gave a curt nod. “Your security code is fifteen characters long. Should you forget it, ask me.”

  Rokor smiled. “When Tres was a boy, he heard Cardassians had photographic memories. He worked hard to develop one.”

  “Smart young man.” Odo glanced at him. Already the Bajoran had unpacked three boxes. “Industrious, too.”

  “Very.” Rokor touched the silvery symbol of his faith hanging from his ear as if acknowledging his good fortune. “He was forced to leave school during the Occupation. In three years, he’s caught up enough to start university.”

  The pride in the older brother’s voice made Odo linger. Expressions of familial devotion intrigued him. Then he heard the young man whoop.

  “Roki! That’s him. I can’t believe it.”

  Turning, Odo saw Garak standing frozen in the entrance to his shop. The expression on his face was as pained as Odo had felt the night before when his two former handlers had entered the bar.

  “I heard there was one Cardassian left on the station.” Rokor tucked in his chin. “Tres, it’s best we keep our distance.”

  His brother shook his head. “You don’t understand. That’s him. The night the soldiers picked up my friends and me—the night I wondered how much torture I could stand before I died and went home to the Prophets—that’s the Cardassian who set us free.”

  On his way to lunch, Bashir made a point of stopping at Garak’s Clothiers. His enigmatic friend looked pleased to see him—until he blurted out the reason for his visit.

  “So your story was true. Our new resident recognized you, and now your good deed is the talk of the station.”

  Garak turned to fuss with a beaded gown hanging on a dress form, but not before Bashir caught a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “That pet shop fellow. He’s mistaken. I’m sure to Bajorans we Cardassians all look alike.”

  The doctor moved around until he was facing his evasive friend. “Shaloza Trestan’s famous for his memory. Nurse Jabara told me. Last year on Bajor, he won a popular quiz show. That’s how the brothers got the money to start a business.”

  Garak shrugged. “Well, I suppose I should be grateful. Young Trestan’s confusion will boost my Bajoran clientele.”

  “Typical.” Bashir shook his head. “Out of all the lies you’ve told me, the one you vigorously defend is that you don’t have a good heart.”

  Garak raised his chin. “Your gullibility in clinging to a story I spun under the effects of endorphin withdrawal never fails to astound me. If I had been an Obsidian Order operative and a Central Command gul had brought me a gaggle of urchins for interrogation—and instead of twisting out their secrets, I gave them my spare latinum and pushed them back on the streets—you think that would reveal a good heart? Hardly. Not realizing that the youngest ragamuffin was the brother of one of the most formidable assassins in the Bajoran Resistance—that would reveal a brainless dereliction of duty.” Turning, Garak straightened the fold in a diaphanous sleeve. “Good thing that fool wasn’t me.”

  If Doctor Bashir’s visit had proved uncomfortable for Garak, the appearance of the grown-up guttersnipe was worse. Bad enough that nothing he said could convince Shaloza Trestan he was mistaken. What worried him more was the horrible use the pair of customers he was expecting would make of the story. If the next Garak-related information Tain heard was that during the Occupation, his pet pupil had missed an opportunity to coerce Sleepwrecker, master of the hunter probe, into surrendering—well, the only way his exile would end would be in his execution.

  “I know why you won’t admit it,” said the young pest. “You’re shy.”

  Garak bent down to stack bolts of cloth beneath his counter. “Just like you.”

  When Garak stood up, he could see his sarcasm had made Trestan grin. “I lived on the streets for eight years. If I weren’t pushy, I’d have died.”

  “I congratulate you on your survival. And I’m thankful to my countryman who contributed. If some of the good will he earned accrues to me, business at my humble tailor shop should increase.”

  “Have it your way.” Trestan’s mouth spread wider. “What you did for me was outside everything I knew about Cardassians. You’re the reason I want to study xenopsychology. Let me interview you for my admission essay. I won’t go until you say yes.”

  Wiping nonexistent dust off his Merak II sizing scanner, Garak sighed. “If you leave me to work in peace now, you may come at eight tomorrow morning before I open.” Leaning forward, he narrowed his eyes to the same menacing degree he’d used to scare the Bajoran street brats out the back gate of the Obsidian Order Intelligence Center. “Now, shoo!”

  Constable Odo cast his awareness around the security arrangements for that evening’s event. The First Contact Symposium wouldn’t actually be held on Deep Space 9. The station was too peripheral to the academic centers of the Alpha Quadrant, and its assembly rooms were too small to host the proceedings of such a grand organization. The Cardassian Central Command that had designed the station had favored conspiring in select cabals. Democracy was alien to them, and their floor plans reflected this.

  From the perspective of efficiency and safety, Odo saw their point. If the professional opinion Doctors Dal and Lubaar would be announcing via subspace communication was so controversial, then why not use a closed space with restricted access? Instead, Kai Winn herself had decided to put on a show. So many dignitaries had been invited that a stage had been raised on the Promenade.

  Odo glanced at Major Kira. “The only faction that really cares whether the moon of Tasadae is ready for first contact is the Ferengi. Their consortium was forced to halt plans for gouge mining when word it was inhabited got out.”

  Kira cocked her head. “Oh, I think the issue’s a bit loftier than that. This is a chance to show that the treaties between the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Cardassians actually mean something. If those powers agree to protect a tribe as tiny as the Tasadae—despite commercial interests—that’s of great significance to independent planets like ours. And for Bajoran scientists to be considered expert enough to carry out that evaluation—that’s inspiring.”

  Odo made one of the little noises humanoids employed to express skepticism. He found it one of the most useful in his repertoire. “Dal and Lubaar’s reputation for analyzing newly discovered life-forms started with me. I’ll be forever grateful they advocated that I was sentient—against Mora’s wishes, I might add—but I cannot forget that both scientists failed to appreciate that their unknown specimen was sapient as well. Instead, they treated me like one of those creatures the Shaloza brothers want to sell: a pet.”

  Kira gave Odo’s shoulder a squeeze. Though the shape he assumed gave the appearance of a body clothed in a Bajoran militia uniform, in reality the substance she’d touched was Odo. Out of all the casual bumps and jostles he routinely endured aboard the crowded station, only her touch gave him the peculiar thrill he was feeling now.

  Odo made a grunt of acquiescence. “This event is important to Bajor—to you as well. Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to Dal or Lubaar at the First Contact Symposium.”

  The first thing Thebroca Horven asked when she entered Garak’s Clothiers was, “Is this place under surveillanc
e?”

  Such a question from a woman who’d grown up with the same constant monitoring he had so surprised Garak that he left his welcoming gesture hanging midair. Collecting himself, the tailor dropped his arm. “Naturally. When they departed, our compatriots destroyed as much station infrastructure as they could—surveillance equipment included—but I’m a businessman. Sensors are expected of me, so I installed them. Carefully placed.”

  “But not in your sizing chamber?”

  With a glance at her husband, Garak hastily added, “Of course not. My shop is equipped according to Federation standards, not Cardassian.”

  Thebroca disappeared into the chamber—leaving Garak to try to shepherd Gul Horven into one of the corners of his shop where sensors had carefully not been placed. No luck. Instead of seeking insights from the “eyes and ears of Cardassia” at the gateway to the Gamma Quadrant, the man plunked himself down in front of a viewscreen to meander through the undisciplined hodge-podge with which the Federation proudly filled their intergalactic network. Garak could see how lack of censorship might be tempting, but how could watching the bizarre mating habits of obscure Beta Quadrant entities be more interesting than talking to him?

  Garak’s mouth twisted. Horven had always been useless. Ironically, his lack of ambition was the reason the Bajorans found him an acceptable dignitary to attend tonight’s ceremony. During the Occupation, he’d never committed an atrocity against the rebel forces. He’d been too lazy to bother.

  Doctor Bashir was not finding lunch with the visiting neurocognitive biologist and cultural anthropologist to be as collegial as he’d hoped. Sure, Dal and Lubaar were polite to him; they just weren’t polite to each other.

  “Ethics—apart from what we’ve received from the Prophets—can’t exist outside time and space.” Lubaar banged his fist on the table. “Everything’s relative to history, culture, biology. We can hope for commonalities across species like family loyalty—but even that boils down to one inelegant, physical, time-bound imperative: survival.”