Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - 062 - The Missing Page 17

  Beverly Crusher, although a quiet presence, was confident in her abilities as a doctor and a researcher. It was not in her nature to second-guess her own expertise. Nevertheless, this result sent her straight back to her initial work. Had she missed a step when she devised the map of the species’ DNA? A careful reexamination said no. So had the samples become contaminated in some way? Again, unsurprisingly, given her careful nature, Crusher found that was not the case. This left another option: there was a problem with Pulaski’s work.

  That was hard to accept, given what she knew of Pulaski. But could Oioli really be the murderer? That did not sit easily with her. Oioli had been plainly devastated over the death of Ioile. Was it possible to fake that degree of distress? Or was Oioli attempting to mask guilt? Crusher recalled something Blackmer had said in passing: that overt displays of grief generally aroused his suspicion, and one should invariably look at those closest to a victim to find the killer. But then Oioli’s grief had been in many ways contained—or, at least, it had seemed that way to Crusher. But who knew what was normal for the People?

  Which took her back to the possibility that Pulaski had made a mistake. Crusher, reaching toward her companel to open a channel to the Athene Donald, sighed at the prospect of that conversation. But a message from Pulaski was already there.

  Can’t be there yet, it said. Match between your samples and ours. But not possible for the murderer, the burglar, and the assailant to be the same person. Need more samples! Working on this and will be in touch. KDP

  I wonder what the D stands for, Crusher thought, relieved that she didn’t have to tell Pulaski that her test didn’t work. Picking up her padd, she left her office to go brief Ro and Blackmer on what she had found. Precisely nothing, she thought, and stepped into the turbolift.

  Ailoi was there. “Doctor Crusher! I was coming to see you. I understand that you’re working on some kind of DNA test for our people . . .”

  Holding the turbolift doors open, Crusher frowned. Surely Blackmer hadn’t been talking. “How on earth do you know that?”

  “Ioile was my friend,” Ailoi said softly. “I wanted to understand what is being done to find the murderer. The barkeep proved very informative.”

  Quark. Of course, he would know a great deal about the procedures of the security team. “That’s standard procedure,” Crusher said.

  “But you’ll be wasting your time.” Ailoi touched the olive markings that they had around their throats and necks. They darkened to nearly black beneath long fingers. “It can’t be done. Our protein structure changes too much.” Ailoi’s voice lowered. “I want the murderer found as much as anyone, but this is a dead end. You won’t find out who killed Ioile that way.”

  “That’s very helpful, thank you.” When the lift reached its destination. Crusher stepped out.

  As she walked toward Ro’s office, she gave a sigh of relief. It might set the investigation back some way, but at least Oioli was off the hook again. Quickly, she asked the comm officer to send a message to Pulaski summarizing what Ailoi had told her: Seems what we’re trying to do is impossible. Pulaski’s response was prompt and typical: Nothing is impossible, given time and resources. And more samples.

  “Even you have limits, Kitty Pulaski,” Crusher murmured, reading this response. “We exist in a finite universe.”

  Ro and Blackmer met Crusher’s summary of her and Pulaski’s work with equanimity. “So based on the results of your tests,” Ro said, “we can assume that someone from the People—or their species—broke into your office, but we can’t say who, and we still can’t explain how somebody managed to get in and out of Ioile’s quarters without being seen.”

  “And even then, all we know is someone from the People—or their species—went into Crusher’s office,” Blackmer said. “It could have been innocent.”

  “And when it comes to the murder, it could simply be Ioile’s DNA that we’re finding,” Crusher said.

  “Of course,” said Ro. “Because there isn’t a way to differentiate between Ioile’s DNA and anyone else’s from their species.” She sighed. “Do you think Doctor Pulaski will be able to crack this?”

  “Katherine Pulaski is many things, but she is not a magician.” Crusher smiled. “Having said that, if anyone is going to crack it, it’ll be Pulaski. Whether she can do it quickly enough to satisfy Tey Aoi, I’m not sure. And she has to get on board that ship first. She’ll need more samples across the set if she wants to study variation among them.”

  “So for the moment we wait for Pulaski,” Ro said.

  “Sounds like waiting for the impossible,” grumbled Blackmer.

  “Where does this leave the Tzenkethi, Corazame?” Crusher asked. “Do we have any reason to continue holding her?”

  “Her continued silence does suggest she might be implicated in some way,” Blackmer said.

  “But perhaps not in the crimes we’ve been investigating,” Ro said.

  “What do you mean?” said Blackmer.

  “We’ve been assuming that Corazame is somehow involved in the break-in and then, tangentially, at least, in the murder,” Ro said.

  “Because she disappeared at exactly the right time,” Blackmer said.

  “But perhaps for entirely different reasons,” Ro said. “I’m going to ask Odo to have a word with her. Try to get her to explain why she jumped ship and hid with the People.”

  “Odo?” Blackmer looked displeased.

  “They struck up a rapport, apparently,” Ro said. “She might open up to him where she won’t open up to us. After all,” she added carefully, conscious of Blackmer’s displeasure, “Odo holds no official status on the station.”

  “I don’t forget that,” Blackmer said. He sighed. “Very well, let’s see what Odo can get out of her.”

  * * *

  Cory was used to solitude. She even liked it: a rare commodity in her life. Servers such as she had many workmates and comrades around them all the time (and their Ap-Rejs, of course, always watching to ensure that the Autarch was honored and obeyed through them), and Tzenkethi in general do not like to be far away from their own kind. So Cory did not mind sitting quietly, watching the world go by. She liked to observe, and she liked to think. Her old life had given her little opportunity for this, keeping her hands busy with her tasks and her thoughts busy with the orders of her Ap-Rej and the songs to the order of all things. The holding cells on Deep Space 9, by contrast, gave her all the time in the world. So Cory used it well, lying quietly on her bunk. Since her situation could not be fixed, she reasoned that there was little point in worrying. Something would happen to bring some change. Meanwhile she lay and contemplated all that she had seen since leaving Ab-Tzenketh. All that Peteh had given her.

  Despite these gifts of patience and self-sufficiency, she was nonetheless glad to have a friendly visitor in the shape of Odo. The security man, Blackmeh, had been as unyielding as an enforcer, but without the stern charisma and steely beauty that made them a pleasure to obey. She had exchanged a few words with some of the other security staff, but they were mistrustful of their Tzenkethi guest and kept their distance. Odo, however, greeted her with a kindly smile.

  “I’m sorry to find you here, Corazame,” he said. “I hope you’re comfortable at least.”

  Cory sat up. “I have no complaints.”

  Odo studied her carefully. “Usually,” he said, “prisoners kept in holding cells greet me with grouses about the conditions of their incarceration, or demands to know when they will be released. Often they insist that I hear about their innocence. But not you.”

  “I am warm and dry, and I have eaten regularly.”

  There was a pause. “That covers the conditions of your incarceration,” Odo said. “What about the rest?”

  Corazame considered this. “I would like to be released, of course,” she said. “I have told Commander Blackmeh that I am innocent of the crimes that he is investigating. My release must be conditional upon my innocence being demonstrated. Sinc
e I know I am innocent, I am content to wait here while that happens, if it puts the station staff at ease.”

  “Which is tremendously considerate of you,” Odo said. “I wish there had been more prisoners like you during my own time as chief of security on this station. So you insist that you have nothing to do with the break-in at the medical facility?”

  Cory shook her head. “I have been asked about this already. I know nothing about it.”

  “You do understand that concealing yourself among the People during this time looks suspicious?”

  Cory turned a gentle eye upon him. “I know how it must appear. But I am not responsible. I am not a thief.”

  “Nor a murderer,” Odo said.

  Cory shuddered. “I would never kill.” In her last moments on Ab-Tzenketh, Cory had seen somebody killed. It had been brutal and shocking. It had also bought her freedom. She had liked the man who had died, an undercover Starfleet Intelligence agent who had been her direct superior for several months, and she knew that Peteh still grieved for him. But only one person had escaped Ab-Tzenketh that day. Cory felt a keen sense of guilt about the price at which her departure had been bought, even though she had not chosen to leave but had been sent.

  “Your file,” said Odo, “makes for very interesting reading.”

  “I am a very ordinary person.”

  “Hardly! The only Tzenkethi that we customarily see have been sent by your government to spy on us, or else as diplomats to work against our interests. You are unique. And as for the manner of your escape—”

  “But I am very ordinary,” she insisted. “At home, I mean. I am—I was—part of a maintenance unit. A cleaner. I did not even have Ter status. I received instructions rather than gave them. I knelt to my superiors. I was one of the most ordinary people that you could meet.”

  “At home,” said Odo. “But you’re not at home now.”

  She blinked. “I am aware of that.”

  “You do not strike me as a stupid person, Corazame,” Odo said. “You understand—don’t you—the nature of the work that Peter Alden does?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you understand—don’t you—that Starfleet Intelligence most likely wants to send you back to Ab-Tzenketh as their person on the ground? After all, who would be better placed to pass as Tzenkethi than a Tzenkethi? Far better than a human or other agent.”

  “It is true that the undercover agents I met made some very elementary mistakes when it came to our languages and customs.”

  Odo leaned in. “Was that the plan? Were you ever meant to go on board the Athene Donald? Were you always supposed to disappear here on DS9?”

  Reluctantly, she said, “I was supposed to travel with Peteh on the Athene Donald. My absence was a surprise to him.”

  “I see. But what about returning to Ab-Tzenketh? Was that the eventual plan?”

  Corazame sat back against the wall, curled her legs around herself, and closed her eyes.

  “Corazame,” said Odo, gently but firmly, “you must talk to me. Do you understand how suspicious your silence looks? Do you understand that it implicates you in a murder? That it makes it seem that you have been a double agent all along?”

  Slowly, Cory dimmed her skin tone. If she could have made herself invisible, she would have done so.

  “Do you realize that your legal status is very shaky? Do you understand what that means? You are not a citizen of the Federation. Captain Ro would be well within her rights to put you on the next ship back to Ab-Tzenketh. Her superiors may yet decide that this is the best thing to do with you.”

  A song came to her, one she had loved once upon a time. She remembered singing it at a Spring Festival, with her workmates. So long ago, that seemed. She had been very happy then. Quietly, she began to sing the tune.

  The year turns

  The world turns

  The springtime is here.

  We praise you

  Our Autarch

  Whom we hold most dear!

  We crave your indulgence

  We long for your love.

  Look down on your servants

  From the Royal Moon above.

  “Corazame,” Odo said urgently, “please, listen to me! You are in real danger of being sent home. And if you are simply what you say you are—an ordinary person who got mixed up in a dangerous game—then I don’t hold out much hope for you when you return. Please tell me why you came to DS9. Tell me what plans Starfleet Intelligence had for you. This is the only way that we will be able to protect you.”

  She sang the tune a little louder, but even that wasn’t enough to drown out his sigh.

  “Peter Alden isn’t worthy of you,” Odo said, and then he left her alone again. She lay back on the bunk and closed her eyes and pictured her home in the spring. Would they let her see it again? Would she have one last glimpse, before the end? Patiently, quietly, Corazame surrendered to whatever the future might hold.

  * * *

  Commander Peter Alden was proving to be a difficult man to pin down, but Odo grimly remained on the line until at last Alden appeared on the view screen, a severe and rather preoccupied young man.

  “Constable Odo,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Odo will do. I am no longer a constable. I’m surprised that you recognize me.”

  “The Founder who won the Dominion War for the allies? You’re very well known to me and my colleagues.”

  “Of course. Commander, I hope that you and your colleagues are well disposed toward me as a result, because I would like to speak to you about your friend Corazame.”

  “Cory?” Alden frowned. “Is she okay?”

  “She thrives upon incarceration. No, that’s not correct. She doesn’t thrive, but she seems not to suffer any adverse effects.”

  “Ab-Tzenketh is one giant prison. Much prettier than the average jail, yes, but someone of Cory’s class has very little in the way of freedom. I’m not surprised she’s coping with being locked up. But surely Ro has no grounds to hold her? She can’t still think Cory is responsible for what’s been happening on DS9?”

  “I believe the captain is still reserving judgment—”

  Alden shook his head. “This is ridiculous. I thought I made it clear to Ro that there was no need to hold Cory. She should let her go—”

  “But there lies the problem,” Odo said. “Where, exactly, would she go?”

  “I hope she would come and join me on the Athene Donald.”

  “Cory is very clear that she doesn’t want to do that.”

  Alden sighed. “I know she’s saying that, but it really would be for the best.”

  “So she is still not free to choose?”

  Alden gave Odo a cold look. “That’s not the case. But Cory has led a sheltered life and she’s much better off with me to look out for her. Look, do you think I could speak to Ro again?”

  “I’m sure you can speak to her whenever you like,” said Odo. “But that might be too late for Corazame.”

  “Too late? What do you mean?”

  “Corazame’s legal status is unclear—”

  Alden shook his head. “She’s an asylum seeker.”

  “Nevertheless, she remains in the Federation under certain conditions. Jumping ship and remaining on DS9—not to mention concealing her whereabouts—are most certainly not part of those conditions.”

  “I’ve explained this. She must have misunderstood the departure time—”

  Odo shifted impatiently in his seat. “Come now, Commander! Don’t treat me like a fool! I’ve spoken to Corazame. She had no intention of traveling on the Athene Donald, and you know that. I’m prepared to believe that this was not your plan for her, but it was certainly her plan for herself. And unfortunately that puts her in violation of the conditions placed upon her remaining in Federation space. This means she’s likely to be deported—unless somebody is willing to speak up on her behalf.”

  Alden had gone very still. “You can’t send her back to Ab-Tzen
keth. That’s as good as killing her!”

  Odo held up his hands. “There’s nothing that I can do. I’m merely the messenger.”

  “You are the person who ended the Dominion War,” Alden said. “I’m sure that you can influence whoever you choose.”

  “Perhaps I could. But why should I do that?”

  “Because Cory is innocent!” Alden was starting to sound frantic. Good, Odo thought. “They’ll destroy her if she returns to Ab-Tzenketh!”

  “You misunderstand me,” Odo said. “What I meant was why should I speak up on Corazame’s account when you are not prepared to?” He leaned forward in his seat. “Whatever plans you had for her,” he said softly, “now is the time to admit to them. Corazame seems to be keeping silent out of a misguided sense of loyalty to you. If you won’t protect her, then she’s lost.”

  Alden sat for a while in thought. Eventually, he said, “I suspect you’ve guessed most of it. Yes, the plan was to send her back to Ab-Tzenketh eventually to work on our behalf. But not for a while. She wasn’t anywhere near ready. She’s still . . .”

  “Innocent?”

  “Yes, that.” Alden sighed. “I thought she was willing. I thought she understood our reasons. Apparently not.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  “It’s way past time someone acted on Corazame’s behalf.”

  “I suppose so. I can’t have her deported . . .”

  “Not least because she knows a great deal about you,” Odo pointed out. “I’m sure the Tzenkethi would like to find out everything Corazame knows about such a key figure in Tzenkethi Affairs.”

  “That’s not the reason why.”

  “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I’m not proud of any of this. But Cory was a unique opportunity.”

  “She’s not an opportunity,” Odo said. “She’s a person.”

  “Don’t twist my words! You know what I mean!”