Текст книги "Twilight "

Автор книги: David George

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“The shuttle is ready to go,”he reported.

“Very good,” Vaughn said. He glanced down once more at the padd. The progress bar had now passed the eighty-five-percent point. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” he said. “Vaughn out.”

Dax nodded and continued out of the ready room. Vaughn watched her go, the deck’s main port corridor briefly visible beyond her as the door opened and closed. He turned in his chair to the computer interface on his desk. With practiced movements, he quickly accessed the file of sensor readings the probe had recorded at the source of the pulse. Vaughn really had no idea what they would be able to do once they got down there, even if they were able to learn more from a closer examination. The best hope, of course, lay in the notion that the pulse might be the product of a mechanism that could be shut down, or that they could destroy with the shuttle’s phasers. Somehow, Vaughn doubted any solution would turn out to be that simple.

Not for the first time, the prospect of unleashing the phaser cannons and firing a salvo of quantum torpedoes occurred to him. In his mind, he saw the powerful weaponry pounding the planet, the surface collapsing and eventually liquefying amid a hail of light and explosions. But for all they knew, the energy of the phasers and torpedoes—if they could even penetrate the cloud cover and be delivered accurately to their target—might hasten or even strengthen the next pulse.

Vaughn again reviewed both the raw numbers of the sensor data and the analyses the crew had so far done. To this point, they had learned very little. He could only hope that going down to the planet would provide them with more information.

A few minutes later, a tiny chime signaled the completion of the download. Vaughn switched off the computer interface, then reached over and picked up the padd. He sequenced through a quick diagnostic to verify the success of the data transfer. He then opened one of the Vahni files to ensure that the translation algorithms functioned properly. As the colorful and complex shapes of the written Vahni language marched across the display, the plain letters of Federation Standard crawling along beneath them, Vaughn vividly recalled the scene of the crowd singing at the memorial service, their “voices” a prismatic flow of forms and contours.

Vaughn switched the padd off and stood up. He reached over past the computer interface, to where he had earlier tossed his old Starfleet field coat. Surface temperatures around the source of the pulse had read mild during the day, but would likely drop during the night. Vaughn put on the coat—which he had managed to hold on to since his days as a cadet—and tucked the padd into an inside pocket. Then he headed for the shuttlebay.

The door to the shuttlebay opened to a jet of fire. Along the starboard side of the battered Sagan,Ensign Permenter guided a laser torch across a section of twisted hull plating; where the ruby beam contacted the metal, sparks flew in a bright fountain. The starboard warp nacelle, which had nearly been torn from the shuttle during its ascent through the Vahni atmosphere, lay on the deck behind Sagan,still in obvious need of repair. Beside Permenter, Ensign Gordimer used a tricorder to monitor the work being done. Both officers wore protective eyewear. Gordimer, Vaughn knew, was a security officer, but on a ship with a crew of only forty during an extended mission, people often had to labor outside their specialty.

As Vaughn started into the shuttlebay, he heard somebody call to him from behind, barely audible above the hissing drone of the metalworking. “Captain.” Vaughn turned in the doorway to see Dr. Bashir rushing to catch up to him.

“Yes, Doctor?” Vaughn said, raising his voice to be heard.

“I need to talk with you, sir,” Bashir said as he reached the doorway. Vaughn looked at the doctor, saw the serious expression on his face, and stepped back out into the corridor. The door glided shut, cutting off the noise of the laser torch.

“What is it, Doctor?” Vaughn asked. “I assume this can’t wait.”

“I’m sorry,” Bashir said. “I’ve been struggling with whether or not to approach you about this, and, well, I’ve decided I really don’t have much choice.”

“Make it quick,” Vaughn said, his voice registering the annoyance he felt at being delayed. “Time is a factor here. I need to get on the shuttle.”

“That’s just it, sir,” Bashir said. “I’m wondering whether you’re the right person to be going on this mission.”

“Excuse me?” Vaughn said, nonplussed that the ship’s chief medical officer seemed to be taking exception to personnel assignments.

“You’re the senior officer on the ship, Captain,” Bashir explained, “and for you to take part in a potentially dangerous away mission—”

“Just a minute,” Vaughn said, interrupting. “Who would you have replace me on the shuttle?”

Bashir had a ready answer. “Lieutenant Bowers, I think, would be a good selection.”

“Lieutenant Bowers,” Vaughn echoed, and he suddenly thought he understood the doctor’s motivation. He took a couple of steps past Bashir, then turned back to face him. “Not Lieutenant Dax?”

“Bowers, I believe, has more experience on away missions,” Bashir said, although he did not sound entirely convinced of his own words.

“I see,” Vaughn said. He considered several ways of dealing with the doctor on this issue, but quickly opted for expediency. “Are you worried about me going down to the planet,” he asked, “or about Lieutenant Dax being left in command of Defiant?”

“I’m concerned about Lieutenant Dax,” Bashir admitted. “I won’t deny that. After what she’s been through, I’d also say that’s a legitimate concern.”

“You’re right, it is,” Vaughn said. “Which is why I took it into account when I made my decision. I believe Lieutenant Dax is up to the task I set her.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Bashir said, “that may not be the case. She may seem to be all right when she’s on duty, but off duty, she’s—”

“Don’t tell me,” Vaughn said.

“But, sir—” Bashir began to protest.

“I don’t want to know,” Vaughn reiterated. He looked down a crosscorridor and away from the doctor for a moment, attempting to rein in his displeasure at having to deal with this now. At the same time, he realized that Bashir’s apprehensions about Dax were not without reason. “I like Lieutenant Dax,” Vaughn said, looking back over at the doctor. “I suppose that we’ve even become friends in a way that Curzon and I never managed to. But I’m also her commanding officer, and in the middle of a mission. And what I see from her professionally right now is that she has worked out the loss of Ensign Roness.”

Bashir nodded. “What I’m suggesting,” he said, “is that perhaps she hasn’t actually worked it out as well you think she has.”

“But that’s my point,” Vaughn said. “In her job as a Starfleet lieutenant, as first officer of this ship, she’s behaved perfectly well. Whatever her private feelings are, she’s not allowed them to interfere with the performance of her duties.” Vaughn paused, then said, “I have confidence in her abilities.”

“As do I,” Bashir returned at once.

“But what is this about,” Vaughn asked, “if not her ability to command under stress?” When Bashir did not respond right away, Vaughn stepped back over to him. “Is it maybe about the difficultyof command, about the substantial burden of its responsibilities, especially under stress, and you wanting to shield her from that?”

“I suppose it might be,” Bashir said, looking down briefly.

“Don’t be so troubled by that, Julian,” Vaughn said. “It’s not a wrong or bad point of view. I understand it, and even appreciate it. But I can’t permit it to influence my command decisions.”

“Of course, sir,” Bashir said in a tone that seemed to indicate his understanding.

Vaughn moved away from Bashir and said, “Carry on, Doctor,” dismissing him.

“Yes, sir,” Bashir said.

Vaughn walked forward and the door to the shuttlebay opened. He expected to be greeted with the screech of the laser torch slicing through metal, but instead, only the voices of Permenter and Gordimer reached him. As Vaughn started through the doorway, Bashir called after him again.

“Good luck, Captain,” he said.

Vaughn glanced back over his shoulder. “And to you, Doctor,” he said. Then he continued into the shuttlebay, and the figure of Bashir disappeared behind the closing door.

The shuttlecraft Chaffeehied to port and down. The great, veiled mass of the planet swung into view in the forward windows, implying the movement that the inertial dampers denied. Vaughn scanned the clouds for breaks and saw none. Already, the shuttle had descended toward the planet twice, only to have to pull back when the transitory routes through the cover had been swept closed.

“The depression is increasing,” Ensign ch’Thane reported. He sat at the front starboard console, working the shuttle’s sensors; Vaughn sat directly behind him. Their scans could not penetrate the clouds and the energy surges contained within, but they could visually detect where the cover had parted in an area; ch’Thane tracked such an area right now. “It seems to be stretching far down.”

“If it opens all the way through, I’m ready for it,” Prynn said at the flight-control console. “I’ve put us into a tight spiral course around the central point of the hollow.” Vaughn watched as her hands moved fluidly across the panel, operating her controls like a conductor leading an orchestra.

Minutes passed, and Vaughn sat quietly, allowing the two ensigns to do their jobs. The deep, solid hum of the engines pervaded the hull of the small vessel, enclosing the cabin in a cushion of steady vibration and sound. The stars swam sideways past the windows as Chaffeecircled above the potential breach in the clouds. Monitors to either side of the two main consoles displayed the images of the constantly stirring atmosphere directly beneath the shuttle.

Vaughn gazed at the monitors, but he could see nothing but the agitated expanse of gray. Still, a quarter of an hour later, Ensign ch’Thane announced that a route completely through the cover had opened. “It’s the same point we’ve been focused on,” he said.

“Acknowledged,” Prynn said. “Bringing us in.” She worked her controls, and the nose of the shuttle dipped toward the planet. Ahead, the horizon rose in the windows until it was lost from sight, the planet filling the view.

“Twenty seconds until we reach the top of the cover,” ch’Thane said. Vaughn peered through the windows and still could not discern the passage through the clouds. As they descended, though, details of the atmosphere became visible, evanescent structures of air, billows and wisps and swirls. “Ten seconds.” A helical formation curled away to port. With nothing to provide perspective, Vaughn found it impossible to gauge scale. What seemed like a small coalescence of vapor could easily have been kilometers long.

And then the grayness swallowed the shuttle. Chaffeebucked and began to shake as the colorless walls of air shot upward past the windows. Vaughn recalled the mythical tale of Jonah, as well as his own past experiences when he had felt, either figuratively or literally, as though he had been in the belly of the beast.

“I’m getting intermittent energy readings,” ch’Thane said. “No discernible source.” The shuttle began to rattle more strongly, as though the vibrations had reached a point of resonance. Vaughn clasped the arms of his chair, trying to steady himself. The cockpit became a shuddering blur, and the hum of the engines fluctuated, rising and falling as the shuttle made its way downward.

Vaughn looked at the monitor to Prynn’s left, but had difficulty focusing on the image. “Energy readings are climbing around us,” ch’Thane said, raising his voice to be heard above the increasing sound in the cabin. “The clouds are moving…the break is shifting below us.”

“I see it,” Prynn said calmly. Her gaze had left her panel, Vaughn saw, and had shifted to the monitor displaying the path below Chaffee.She held her arms tensely over the conn, her fingers moving sporadically as she adjusted the shuttle’s course. Chaffeeveered to port, and Vaughn felt his momentum shift as the gravity of the planet asserted itself over the inertial dampers.

The shuttle trembled as though something had struck it, and a loud boom filled the cabin. Vaughn imagined the fragments of the Vahni moon as they had battered Sagan,incapacitating Dax and robbing Ensign Roness of her life. “That was an energy surge,” ch’Thane called over the rising noise. “I can’t tell where it came from.”

Vaughn looked to his right, to the system status monitor set into the bulkhead there. “Power’s down three percent,” he read, struggling to keep his eyes steady. “The shields are holding.”

“As long as the shields stay intact,” Prynn said, “we can get through anything.” Vaughn looked over at her and saw tremendous concentration reflected in her features. He would not have been surprised if he learned that she had no idea that she had even spoken. “Hold on,” she said a moment later, and Vaughn did so, clutching tightly at the arms of his chair. The shuttle rolled to port, the clouds spinning in the opposite direction in front of the windows. Prynn righted Chaffeefor a moment, then maneuvered back the other way.

Then something slammed broadside into the shuttle and sent it plowing through the air. It could have been a current of air shearing into Chaffee,Vaughn supposed, but he suspected that they had been rammed again by a surge of the mysterious energy. He tried to read the status monitor, but found it impossible with the shuttle shaking so violently now. Vaughn saw the clouds now up against the windows; Chaffeehad been pushed from the break in the atmospheric cover and into the cover itself.

Prynn rolled the shuttle to starboard, and then did it a second and third time in rapid succession, the circular acceleration keeping everybody in their seats. Vaughn felt a momentary sense of vertigo, and then the shuttle straightened. At the windows, the gray air had moved away again; Prynn had pulled the shuttle back into the breach. The shaking lessened, and Vaughn read from the status monitor. “Power is surging in the port engine,” he said.

Vaughn saw Prynn glance down at her console, then back up at the monitor. “Cut power to it for ten seconds,” Prynn said. Ensign Ch’Thane looked in her direction and did nothing. “Do it,” Prynn said again, yelling now, “or the engine will shut down automatically.” Ch’Thane moved then, calling out his actions as he followed Prynn’s directions. Vaughn watched the power level of the port engine drop to zero on the status monitor. After ten seconds, ch’Thane reengaged power, and the readouts returned to normal.

“One more time,” Prynn called. “Hold on.” She pulled the shuttle over to port, and then plunged the nose down. Vaughn lost all sense of orientation, but felt an increasing acceleration, as though he were falling from a great height. He looked through the windows again and saw tendrils of gray air buffeting them. Chaffeebegan to quiver again—

And then stopped. The flight of the shuttle stabilized and quieted, and the view before the windows cleared. Prynn pulled Chaffeeup, leveling it out, and only then did Vaughn realize that they had been shooting nose-first toward the ground. He consulted the status panel. “Engine power is down nine percent,” he read.

“That’s not bad for the pounding we took,” Prynn said. Verifying that, ch’Thane calculated the enormous amount of energy that had struck the shuttle. “I don’t think all of those were surges,” Prynn said. “I think anytime the clouds came into contact with the shuttle, there was a discharge of energy.” Ch’Thane concurred with that conclusion.

Vaughn stood up and stepped between Prynn and ch’Thane. He raised his hands up and rested them on the backs of their chairs. “Well done,” he told them.

Vaughn leaned forward and peered out the windows. Above, an unbroken sea of clouds stretched to the horizon in every direction, diffuse sunlight penetrating them from above. Below, a nearly lifeless terrain spread out before them, dark patches dotting the rugged topography, the colors washed out in the gloom.

“Look there,” Ensign ch’Thane said, bringing his hand up and pointing just to the right of their flight path. Vaughn gazed in that direction and saw a series of shapes rising up in the distance from the otherwise barren landscape. As the shuttle drew closer, the shapes resolved into buildings.

“It’s a city,” Vaughn said.

“Captain,” Prynn said, “I’ve calculated our course, based on the coordinates collected by the probe.” She looked up at him. “We’re traveling in the wrong direction.”

Vaughn took a last look at the city, then said, “Bring us around.”

“Aye, sir.” She operated her console, and the shuttle tilted to port. Within a few seconds, the city had slipped from view.

“How are sensors functioning?” Vaughn asked.

“There’s some interference from the energy in the clouds,” ch’Thane said, “but we’re getting solid readings.”

“Good,” Vaughn said. “Scan astern for the city, and get what you can. I want to learn as much as possible while we’re down here.”

“Yes, sir,” ch’Thane said, and he worked his controls.

The shuttle began to straighten, pulling out of its wide turn to port. “Coming onto our new course,” Prynn reported. Vaughn watched as she headed the shuttle toward the source of the pulse, half a world away.

30

Kira walked down the dimly lighted hall, tired after a long shift. She had accomplished a great deal today, but the one item that had eluded her had been a conversation with Taran’atar. Now, on her way to her quarters for a light dinner and a period of meditation, she had decided to track him down and deal with the matter before another incident occurred. She had contacted him via the comm system and found him in a holosuite; he had offered no objections to her stopping by to speak with him.

Kira stepped up to the door of the holosuite, wondering what spectacle she would witness this evening, what sort of hideous, unimaginable beast she would find Taran’atar fighting. Or will it be something simple,she thought, like a Borg?She had observed him taking part in his combat training programs several times now, and it had been both horrible and fascinating to watch him in battle. She found the precision and callousness with which he killed troubling, even in a simulated environment, but at the same time, his tactics and physical abilities impressed her. Certainly, for a humanoid his size, his strength, dexterity, and stamina were unparalleled. So far, she had watched him defeat a huge, insectile beast with claws that could have snapped him in two; an incredibly fast, flying creature with twenty-centimeter fangs and razorsharp wings; a horde of mugato;and a small army of Breen soldiers.

Now, as she touched the control pad beside the door, she found herself more than a little curious about what she was about to see. The door opened with a mechanical hum, and for a moment Kira could not make sense of the scene that lay before her. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the holosuite appeared black, but matched the actual surfaces of the room in dimension. Taran’atar stood near the center of the space, peering straight ahead. A series of blue filaments hung in the air before him, some straight, some curved, some vertically oriented, some horizontally. Much smaller than the lines and figures, a series of red markings marched through the air all about them.

Kira moved inside and around to her left, along the line of the wall, attempting to get a better view of the scene. She circled around toward Taran’atar, to see from his angle the images suspended in the air before him. Only when she had drawn close to him did she get an idea of what she was looking at: mathematical equations and their graphical representations.

The symbols in red were unrecognizable to her, but the manner in which they had been laid out suggested mathematics, as did the lines and figures. There seemed to be x-, y-, and z-axes hanging in the air, as well as several other forms, including curves, cones, parabolas, and several irregular polyhedrons. This looked essentially like a trigonometry lesson.

“What is this?” Kira asked.

Taran’atar must have heard her enter and approach him, of course—few things escaped a Jem’Hadar’s notice—and so he did not start when she spoke. When he answered her, he continued to stare at the mathematical tableau. “You know it as ‘calculus,’” he told her, “or ‘differential equations.’”

“Well, some people know it as that,” Kira said.

Now, Taran’atar turned and looked at her. “I do not understand.”

“Mathematics and I never got along very well with each other,” she said.

Taran’atar stared at her and said nothing. She was about to explain her remark when he finally said, “Let me render the statements in your own language.” He ordered the computer to translate the symbols into Bajoran. The red characters vanished, replaced a second later by others.

Kira shrugged. “I recognize the numbers and letters now,” she said, “and even some of the symbols, but it’s all still Romulan to me.”

Taran’atar studied the statements for a moment. “This is not Romulan,” he said.

“It’s just an expression,” Kira explained. “It means that I don’t understand it.”

Taran’atar regarded her silently, his eyes staring into hers. “How can that be?” he asked. “You operate spacecraft, you utilize weaponry.”

“Yes, I do,” Kira agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I understand the numbers behind them.”

“But…” Taran’atar seemed at a loss for words, and despite his continued and evident discomfort with being on Deep Space 9, as well as his curt nature, Kira had never before seen him speechless.

“I learned by doing,” she told him. “And the more experience I gained, the easier it became to acquire new skills and sharpen the old ones. But as for the theory behind piloting a runabout or aiming a phaser…I guess a lot of the technology helps with that.”

“What if you lacked the technology?” Taran’atar asked her. “What if your survival depended upon this?” He gestured toward the red figures and blue shapes, his hand passing through one of the equations and—Kira assumed—the curve it defined.

“If I had to rely on mathematics to live,” Kira said, a smile on her lips, “then I suppose I’d die.” Taran’atar said nothing. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t die,” she amended, “but I’d have to act intuitively, not by calculation. Like I did in your simulation with the Rintanna.”

“Do you understand none of this?” Taran’atar wanted to know, looking again at the mathematical layout. For all of the unfamiliar experiences Kira had seen him endure since arriving aboard the station, he seemed more puzzled now than she had ever seen him.

Kira turned her full attention to the graph and the statements. A memory of her father and her brother, Pohl, attempting to tutor her rose vividly in her mind. The scent of the parchments on which she had tried to do her exercises filled her nostrils, and she could almost hear her brother’s frustrated voice endlessly repeating the intricate concepts to her. She peered at the mathematics hanging before her and looked for anything more than just familiar. She walked around Taran’atar and indicated a pair of equations. “This is a derivative of that,” she said, pointing first to the lower equation, and then to the upper. She then found the two-dimensional curve that went along with it, a tangent connecting to it at one point. It was probably the simplest set of equations and figures in the room. “It’s the instantaneous rate of change at the intersection of the curve and the slope.” To her surprise, Taran’atar nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

She tried to find something else she understood, but could not. “These are more derivative symbols,” she said, waving her hand through several other statements, the red light flashing over her skin like momentary tattoos, “but I don’t understand them.”

“They are partial differential equations,” he said.

Kira suddenly realized that Taran’atar obviously read Bajoran. The Jem’Hadar really were amazing creatures– beings,she corrected herself; people—and she wondered what they might evolve into once unshackled from the Founders’demands that they live only as soldiers. She remembered when a Jem’Hadar infant had been found and brought to the station more than five years ago. Odo had believed that the Jem’Hadar, which had developed into an adult inonly a few days, could be freed by the proper care from his genetically engineered predisposition to violence. Kira had disagreed with him, and she had ultimately been proven right in that instance, but now, here was Odo making the argument to her all over again, and this time, she was beginning to see that he might be right after all.

“Partial differential equations,” Kira said, echoing Taran’atar. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“For the limitations you possess,” Taran’atar said, “your combat skills are truly amazing.”

The comment surprised Kira. “I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult,” she said.

“It is simply a fact.”

“All right,” Kira said. “So what is it you’re doing here?” she asked, suspecting that she already knew the answer.

“I am training,” Taran’atar said.

“Of course,” she said. “Which is what I expected, except that I thought you’d be in here fighting some powerful, deadly creature.”

“The mind must be trained as well as the body,” he said, “otherwise neither will survive long.”

“That’s true,” Kira agreed, thinking about the mental and emotional discipline it took to struggle against the Cardassians during the Occupation. She also recalled that Taran’atar had told her that he had programs to train his mind; she just had not expected any of them to be a mathematics lesson. “Anyway,” she went on, getting to the purpose of her visit here, “I’d like to talk with you about what happened in Quark’s last night, and in the child-care facility the other day.”

“Very well,” Taran’atar said.

“What were you doing in those places?” Kira asked.

“I was doing as the Founder instructed me to do,” Taran’atar said.

“I’ve noticed that you haven’t been spending as much time in ops recently,” Kira said.

“As the Jem’Hadar have seen in battle, humanoids are given to developing patterns,” Taran’atar said. “When a high percentage of what I saw and heard in the operations center began to repeat my earlier observations, I decided I should go elsewhere.”

“You got bored?” Kira said, feeling herself start to smile. Taran’atar looked at her and said nothing. Kira put her head down and walked forward into the center of the room, thinking about how best to proceed here. When a blue line and several red symbols crawled up her arm, she stopped, turned, and stepped back out of the mathematical display. “So you decided to observe other aspects of life on the station,” she said. “Where did you go?”

“The first place I went was Defiant,”Taran’atar said.

Given the long conflict between the Dominion and the civilizations in the Alpha Quadrant, Kira felt herself grow concerned at this revelation. A moment’s reflection, though, convinced her of the futility of such a concern. Taran’atar already had essentially unlimited access on the station, something even more obvious from a practical standpoint when considering his ability to shroud; he could go just about anywhere on the station without anybody knowing about it. More than that, though, Dominion personnel had already spent time on both DS9 and Defiant,and whatever military secrets Starfleet held had doubtless been fleeting. And besides, Kira actually trusted Taran’atar, at least to a point, both because of his behavior since he had come aboard, and because of his ties to Odo.

“Why the Defiant?”Kira asked.

“As I walked through the ship after my meeting there with Commander Vaughn,” Taran’atar explained, “I decided it would be a good place to continue my observations. So I spent several days there.”

“All right,” Kira said, satisfied with his answer. She could see the blue lines of the display reflected in his eyes. “Where else did you go?”

“The gem merchant’s establishment,” he said, and Kira wondered how the proprietors would greet that news. Of course, even had Taran’atar been an enemy, she doubted he would have posed a threat to their merchandise; she could not picture a Jem’Hadar wearing an earring or a necklace. “The security office,” he continued. “The child-care facility, the flower merchant’s establishment, the bar and gaming establishment.”

“I see,” Kira said, thinking she might have to mention something to Ro, in light of the increased security that would be needed for the upcoming summit. Even though she trusted Taran’atar, she did not believe the delegates—or Admiral Akaar—would enjoy learning that a Jem’Hadar soldier had access to secured areas. “But why did you shroud yourself?”

“At first, I did not,” Taran’atar said. “But on board Defiant,I encountered a Starfleet officer who reacted to me with great fear.” Kira resisted the temptation to ask who it had been, not wanting to change the focus of the conversation. She supposed it might have been Permenter or Richter, or maybe—

Nog,Kira thought, and realized that he had better reason than most to fear the Jem’Hadar.

“Because such a reaction to my presence interfered with my mission,” Taran’atar continued, “it seemed a reasonable course to shroud myself, particularly when I chose to enter areas beyond direct control of Starfleet and the Bajoran Militia.”

“But why did you unshroud last night then?” Kira asked.

“Because the Ferengi heard me,” he said.

Kira was stunned. “Quark heardyou?”

“Yes,” Taran’atar said, and he seemed abashed by the admission. “I underestimated the sensitivity of Ferengi hearing.”

Me too,Kira thought but did not say. She had always known that the ears of the Ferengi were not just for show, but she had never known they were that good. “What about in the child-care center?”

“I was paying attention to many things,” Taran’atar said in a rush, his tone almost defensive. “Somehow, I allowed a…a child…to run into me.”