The Long Night (17 page)

"Couldn't we post some sort of guard around the ship?" Bashir asked.

"We could," Sisko said. The writing on the console was faint, almost unreadable. He had forgotten most of the ancient Jibetian he had studied anyway. "But this ship is big. We'd use a tremendous amount of manpower to watch over it, and that still wouldn't prevent some determined treasure hunter from getting in here."

"Then we have the Supreme Ruler to worry about." Dax put her hand beside Sisko's. The green glow reflected off her gloves. She didn't touch any of the panel, but she appeared to be examining it, as he was. "He's the nearest thing Jibetians have to a god."

"That should protect him, shouldn't it?" Bashir asked.

"Julian, sometimes I think you skipped all the important stuff at the Academy," O'Brien said. He was still near the sabotaged control panel. "One man's god is another man's demon."

"And sometimes," Sisko said, "it's not as black and white as that. Sometimes it's as simple as the destruction of a belief. The believers themselves might go after the Supreme Ruler once they discover his youth or his actual physical form. Not to mention what someone with actual power might do to prevent the ruler's existence from becoming known."

"You're right, Commander," O'Brien said. "We can't defend the ship here. So that leaves us with only one choice."

"If we remove the chamber with the Supreme Ruler in it, we still have the problem of the valuables," Dax said.

"That wasn't the choice I was thinking of," O'Brien said.

"Obviously, Chief, you have something in mind that we haven't thought of. What is it?" Sisko asked. He took his hand off the panel and turned so that he could see O'Brien's face.

"I think we'll have to take the Nibix to Deep Space Nine. We can defend it there."

"And you're calling me unrealistic," Bashir said. "You propose to haul this ruined piece of equipment through Jibetians and Cardassians and somehow hook it up to the station."

"It's not a ruined piece of junk," O'Brien said. "It's in remarkable shape for its years and for all that has happened to it."

"The Supreme Ruler is in remarkable shape for his years and for all that has happened to him, but I wouldn't put him through the middle of a potential battle right now," Bashir said.

Sisko held up his hand for silence. His initial reaction had been the same as Bashir's, but he also knew O'Brien well enough to understand that his chief wouldn't suggest anything completely impossible. "You believe that the Defiant can pull the Nibix to Deep Space Nine without doing any damage to the Nibix."

"I know it can," O'Brien said.

"But the Jibetians. The Cardassians. Surely they count," Bashir said.

"You're five steps ahead of us, Julian," Dax said. "I want to hear how the chief believes he can get the Nibix off this rock first."

"That's the problem, isn't it?" O'Brien said. "Even the tractor beam is useless if we can't get the Nibix back into space."

"But you have a plan," Sisko said.

"I've been thinking about it since we got here," O'Brien said. "You're interested in this ship for its historical mystery. But it was giving me a technical mystery as well. One that I'm only now discovering all the answers to."

"You could share them," Bashir said.

O'Brien gave him an annoyed glance. "I was about to. You see, the fact that the Nibix still exists is amazing all by itself. When the ship hit this asteroid, it wasn't a direct blow. Probably what happened is that the ship and the asteroid were going in the same direction and they were pulled together."

"Of course," Dax said. "I've been so interested in the contents of the ship that I hadn't thought of the ship's presence at all. If it had been a direct hit or even a glancing blow, we would only have a crater to explore."

O'Brien nodded in agreement and went on. "So I did some more scanning and determined that this ship is structurally sound. In a few places the hull has been ruptured, but in ways that affect life support, not structural integrity. If I placed a dozen or so freight antigrav units in strategic positions around the hull of the ship, it would give this thing just enough of a boost that the tractor beam on the Defiant might be able to pull it free."

Sisko glanced around the ship. Here, in the control room, such a thing sounded possible. But he remembered the destruction in the chambers near the Supreme Ruler's chamber, and that made him skeptical. "You think we can do this without ripping the Nibix apart?"

"I wouldn't suggest it otherwise," O'Brien said. "This old ship has given us enough troubles without adding one more into the mix."

Despite himself Sisko shuddered. The last thing he wanted to imagine was the accidental destruction of the Nibix. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked away from the group. He needed a moment to think.

There were so many factors here, each one spelling disaster and each one hinging on decisions he made. He still felt as if he wasn't thinking like a commander, but like an excited kid. Of course he would like to bring this toy back to his station. But was that the best thing for the Nibix, for the Federation, and for the station itself?

He wished, more fervently than ever, that he had never seen the statue, that the Nibix still remained a legend, a myth, a figment of a collective imagination.

He walked back to the group, still undecided.

"Dr. Bashir, if you have use of the station facilities, can you save the Supreme Ruler?"

"There's no guarantee, sir," Bashir said. His slender features had a haunted look. "But at least we'd have a chance."

"Not to mention three other doctors from Federation starships," O'Brien said.

Bashir nodded. "The consultation would be very helpful and very welcome."

"And it would show the Jibetians that we're doing all we can," Dax said.

"They'll have to understand that nothing like this has ever been tried before," Bashir said. "That must be a factor."

"You're asking for logic in religion, Doctor. Some races can't combine the two at all," O'Brien said.

"That's very cynical," Dax said.

"I'm sorry," O'Brien said. "I'm not usually that way. I've just been thinking what would happen to the O'Brien clan if I suddenly went back eight hundred years. The history of Ireland on Earth is rife with all sorts of religious misunderstandings, some logical and some not."

"But we're talking about the Jibetians," Sisko said, "who, after their revolution was quashed eight hundred years ago, have been stable ever since."

"That concerns me, Benjamin," Dax said softly.

He glanced at her. He didn't need more concerns.

"Jibetian history says that the Supreme Ruler's main assistant had this ship built. But he was also the one who quashed the revolution and ruled while he waited for word of the Supreme Ruler."

Sisko frowned. "I thought scholars decided that the Supreme Ruler had been hasty in leaving Jibet. That if he had waited, he would have continued to rule Jibet instead of his assistant, Bikon."

"That was the theory," Dax said. "But that was before we knew of the sabotage."

"A double-cross?" Bashir asked.

"Possibly," Dax said. "It was a conundrum with no real answer. The Jibetians always sort of skimmed over it in the history. No one ever thought to consider that Bikon might have betrayed the Supreme Ruler."

"Although they did acknowledge a small betrayal if I remember right," Sisko said. "They claimed that Bikon erred in leaving the Supreme Ruler's side. If Bikon had insisted that the Supreme Ruler stay, he would have."

"That's an old political principle," Dax said. "Admit a small mistake so that you don't get blamed for the large one."

"Now whose being cynical?" O'Brien asked.

"I don't understand why this is important," Bashir said.

"Because," Sisko said, "Bikon's family has ruled for eight hundred years."

"Discrediting him is like discrediting the entire government," Dax said.

"And you expect us to take this ship into the middle of a Jibetian fleet knowing all of this?" Bashir asked.

"We're the only ones who know about the sabotage," Sisko said. "It's not likely that Bikon let that information out. To anyone."

"That still doesn't make this safe," Bashir said. "You listed a number of reasons that this ship is in danger."

"But no one dares destroy it near the station," Dax said.

"I hope you're right," Bashir said.

Sisko did, too. He met Dax's gaze over Bashir's shoulder. Her eyes were twinkling. She loved taking risks as much as Curzon had.

As much as Sisko did.

This mission might end both their careers and could cost them their lives. But the thought of flying the greatest lost treasure ship of all time right into port was a thought neither of them could let go of.

Sisko grinned at her, and Dax grinned back. The grins soon became chuckles, and the chuckles turned into full-blown laughter, the first laughter to echo down the cold halls of the Nibix in eight hundred years.

JAKE HURRIED THROUGH the tunnels. Sometimes he was able to run. Sometimes he had to crawl. And at each intersection, he ripped off a piece of his shirt, leaving it as a marker in case he got lost again.

He was terrified that he would never find that room again. Then Nog and his family would be trapped forever.

From a logical standpoint, Jake knew that would never happen. Eventually the red alert would end, the shields would go up, and they would get out. But all the terror he felt while trapped had built into an overwhelming force since he escaped. Not only was his friend's life on his shoulders, but the station's might be as well. He had to find a way to get out of here before more information was relayed off the station.

He missed Nog's assistance and his company. Even though Nog didn't help Jake into the elevated tunnels, his constant babble had kept Jake preoccupied. Now, when he encountered a tunnel so high that he had to grab it with his fingertips and pull himself up, he worried that he would never get to the top.

He didn't know how his father did it all, bearing this much responsibility every day of his life.

Jake had long since lost his sense of direction. He only knew he had never been in these tunnels before because the dust was undisturbed. It rose around him, like a cloud of smoke, getting into his mouth and throat, making him even thirstier than he already was.

A drink would be heaven. A shower would put him in ecstasy.

He felt as if he had been running for hours, but he knew he had only been outside the room for a matter of minutes. Each minute was valuable, though, and now that he was outside, he didn't know if the red alert had ended or not.

He couldn't hear anything except his own ragged breathing. And it was so loud, he was afraid that the Cardassian who set up the spy system could hear it, too. Even though Quark and Rom believed the system to be entirely automatic, Jake wondered. The lack of dust in the area around the equipment meant that someone checked on it.

The Cardassian, phantom or not, was his first fear. His second fear was that he would discover another room with automatic doors. These, his imagination told him, might be tied to motion or intrusion, and he would be trapped forever.

His third greatest fear was that he would be crawling through this tunnel for the rest of his life.

And his fourth greatest fear was that he would die of thirst before ever reaching a way out.

He wasn't even sure he would recognize the way out when he saw it. When they had come in the grate near the Promenade, Jake hadn't really looked at it from the inside. He was afraid it would have blended into the wall on the inside, looking like a normal part of the tunnel instead of a way out.

He wasn't even really sure if it was a way out. Those bolts were on the outside. He still had his tools, but he wouldn't be able to remove a bolt from the inside unless it had the proper fittings. He wished he had looked at things more closely. He wished he knew.

Finally he saw a light ahead.

His heart pounded. His breath was coming even faster than it had before. This was the first room he had seen since he got out of the spy chamber, and it could be another trap.

Still, he had to go in it and see if he could escape through the peephole.

There had to be a way out. There just had to be.

The light ahead looked the same as it did in other rooms with peepholes. It provided just enough contrast to illuminate the darkness. Jake was able to stand upright in this part of the tunnel. He ran toward the light, pausing only briefly to place a piece of his shirt against the side of the entrance.

This room was half the size of the one he had been trapped in. It had no equipment-for which he was very thankful-and a short ladder leading up to the grate.

He climbed up the ladder and looked through the grate.

Right into the security office.

Odo sat at his desk.

Finally, Jake would have help.

"Odo!" Jake shouted. His voice rang in the small room.

Odo didn't even look up from his screen. He wasn't even doing anything interesting. Jake could see the entire screen from here, and all Odo was doing was checking the outgoing messages from the last two days. Dull stuff. Not the kind of stuff that took concentration.

"Odo! Help!" Jake shouted.

Odo always responded to a cry of help. But this time, he didn't even look up. He couldn't hear Jake. The room was soundproof.

"No," Jake whispered. He wasn't going to let this opportunity slip by, soundproofing or no soundproofing. He jammed his finger through the grate and yelped when he smashed against a hard, crystal-clear shield. No wonder the grate was soundproof. And no wonder that little room where he had been trapped with Nog had become so hot.

The grates weren't always used for listening. The one in Quark's was. The one here was used to spy on Odo's computer. Jake had learned from O'Brien a long time ago that Odo's computer had more security protections than the computers in Starfleet headquarters. Breaking into Odo's system was not an option-except through good old-fashioned eyesight.