Part 3 (2/2)

Now it was only a matter of time.

What he wanted was all that equipment in the Carda.s.sian medical bay. The bright lights, the quarantine fields, the chance for his people to survive. Instead of working down here in the worst possible conditions, on the worst possible disease.

At least he had access to the station's computer system. Not all of it, of course, not even most of it, but Narat had made the medical files-the official medical files-available to him. What Kellec wanted was the unofficial files. He had heard that the Obsidian Order had done experiments on Bajorans, and it seemed likely to him that this was one of those experiments gone awry. Not in its treatment of Bajorans, but in the fact that it had somehow spread to the Carda.s.sians.

GUL Dukat hadn't eased Kellec's mind on that, even though he had tried to. The fleeting look that had crossed his face when Kellec had accused the Carda.s.sians of this acknowledged the possibility. If this were a Carda.s.sian experiment to destroy the Bajorans that had gotten out of control, then Kellec needed to know. He was better at solving puzzles when he had all of the relevant information.

He pulled a blanket across the poor girl. The disease accented her natural beauty, flushed her thin cheeks. Her hands were permanently dirt-stained and callused, but with them covered, she looked as she should have looked at this age, a young girl who had just finished flirting with a young man, a girl with no cares at all.

Just by looking at her no one would be able to guess that she would probably be dead before the day was out.

The comm link that Narat had given him beeped. That was the third time in less than an hour. Kellec supposed he should answer it. He had been trying to ignore it. The Carda.s.sians believed that Kellec should be using his considerable brain power to help them, not his own people.

He hit the comm link so hard that he hoped he'd shattered it. But no such luck. Instead Narat said, ”Why haven't you been answering my hails?”

”Because I've been treating dying patients down here,” he snapped. ”I got fifteen new patients in the last hour. Thirteen in the hour before that. I've forgotten how many came in the hour before that. So my hands are a bit full. What do you want?”

”Gul Dukat wants you to come up here. He believes you can't get work done down below.”

Kellec clenched a fist, and then glanced around the room. People everywhere, holding their stomachs, rolled in fetal positions. The moans were so soft and so prevalent that he had to focus on them to hear them. And the smell ....

Kellec shook his head. His a.s.sistants were doing what they could. A handful of others, brave volunteers, were sitting at bedsides, holding hands, comforting, even though they knew they were staring in the face of death. ”Work?” Kellec asked. ”What kind of work?” ”Finding a solution to this thing. We need-” ”We need some understanding. My people are dying. Or has Gul Dukat forgotten how sympathetic he believes he is toward the Bajorans?”

Narat was silent for a moment. A long moment. Then he said, ”I presented this wrong. I know you're working below. But you and I must solve this thing together, and that takes research, I'm afraid. I have patients too, and they're dying-”

”Are they?” Kellec said. ”Well, they're dying in better rooms than my people are, and so far they're dying in fewer numbers. I don't see what I'll gain from working with you.”

”Then you're not the man I thought you were,” Narat said.

Kellec took a deep breath. He did know what he'd gain. He had lied. It was precisely what he had been hoping for a few minutes ago. Better equipment. More access. Hope.

His a.s.sistants couldn't do the research. Only he could do that. And he was essentially useless here. ”You're wasting time, man,” Narat said. ”And we both know how precious time is.”

”Yes, we do,” Kellec said. He sighed. It wasn't that he hated the Carda.s.sians. He did, in theory, although Dukat had been right when he said that Kellec would save a life before he'd take one. Any life, even a Carda.s.sian life. No. His hesitation was more complex than that. He feared that his work with Narat would help the Carda.s.sians at the expense of his own people.

”Kellec,” Narat said into his silence. ”You are the better researcher.”

How much that must have cost the proud Carda.s.sian doctor. To admit that he was less talented at medicine-at his job than a Bajoran. To admit he needed a Bajoran's help.

”I tell you what,” Kellec said. ”If Gul Dukat is so set on needing my services then he must pay for them.”

”I don't have the ability to authorize payment,” Narat said, just as Kellec expected him to. But Kellec didn't give him time to say anything more.

”I want to move all of my people, both the sick and those who were exposed, to your medical area. I don't want them held in place like prisoners, although I do want quarantine fields so that we can do proper work. I want them to die with dignity if they're going to die, Narat, and if we find a way to save them, I want to make sure my people get treatment as fast as your people do. I also want my a.s.sistants up there, at my side, helping with all the work.”

”Done,” Narat said. His answer was too fast. He apparently had been going to promise that anyway. Kellec paused. He wanted more. Some other concession, something that would make him feel like he wasn't being pulled by the Carda.s.sians.

”If Gul Dukat wants to keep his prisoners alive and working in uridium processing,” Kellec said, ”he needs to increase the food rations. And he can't keep up production at its current rate. We have too many sick down here, and if he pushes the remaining people, the illness will just get worse. I want a mandatory eight-hour sleep period for all Bajorans, and a decrease in production.”

”You know I'm not authorized-”

”Yes,” Kellec said. ”I know you're not authorized. But Gul Dukat is. He's the one who makes the rules. Have him make this one. If he does, I'll come up.”

”I'll do what I can,” Narat said. ”But you're wasting time.”

Narat signed off.

Perhaps Kellec was wasting time, but he didn't think so. He needed to take care of his people first. It would only take Narat a few moments to get Dukat to agree to the concessions.

In the meantime, he stood and stretched. He needed some nourishment himself. He had some food and vitamin supplies in the tiny room the Carda.s.sians had allotted him. It would do his people no good if he succ.u.mbed to this disease too. He had to do what he could to fend it off, and part of that was remembering to eat.

He slipped out of the medical area, and hurried down the corridor to his room. He suspected his room had once been some kind of storage closet. There was barely s.p.a.ce for his bed. There was no replicator, no real bathroom-only a makes.h.i.+ft one with an old and malfunctioning sonic shower and no porthole. Still, it was personal s.p.a.ce, which was greatly lacking for Bajorans on Terok Nor.

He reached into his kit for a supplement, and saw instead that his personal link was blinking. He felt cold. He had brought the system up from Bajor, and so far the Carda.s.sians hadn't tampered with it. Or if they had, they hadn't said anything. On it, he kept all his medical notes, and an open line to Bajor itself, since he theoretically was not a prisoner here.

His people on the surface were not to send him messages unless it was urgent. He had received several messages in the last few days about the plague, messages he had forwarded to Narat, partly as information, partly to prove he wasn't hiding anything from the Carda.s.sians. Most of the messages requested that he return home. The plague had struck there, too, and was running through areas of Bajor the way it was running through Terok Nor.

He had sent carefully worded messages back, saying that he would remain on Terok Nor. Gul Dukat might see that as a twisted form of loyalty when, in fact, it was prudence. Kellec had not received word that the Carda.s.sians on the surface had been affected. They had been here. That, plus the promise of using the Carda.s.sian medical files, was enough to keep him here, for the moment. He had a better chance of finding the solution on Terok Nor.

With a shaking hand, he reached for the message b.u.t.ton. It was a notification transmission. Once he responded, the person on the other end would be alerted, and they could have a conversation. He sat down and waited.

To his surprise, Katherine's face appeared on the small viewscreen. Her brown hair was tangled about her face, and her blue eyes were filled with compa.s.sion.

She looked very, very good.

And very far away. ”Ton,” she said. ”Katherine.” ”I was worried about you.”

He smiled tiredly. ”You always worry about me.”

She nodded. ”I'm hearing very bad things about your part of the quadrant.”

”We're at war, Katherine,” he said. ”No,” she said. ”I'm hearing more than that.” He frowned. She was asking about the plague. Had word reached the Federation then? He didn't dare ask her directly.

”Why are you calling me now, Katherine?”

”I'm surprised to find you still on Terok Nor. I would have thought they needed you on Bajor.”

”They've been requesting my services on Bajor,” he said. ”But I'm too busy here. I haven't slept in two days, Katherine. I'm sorry, but I don't have time for small talk. Otherwise I'd ask about you and the Enterprise and all your various adventures. But I'm needed desperately elsewhere. Gul Dukat has demanded that I work in the Carda.s.sian sickbay as well. It seems that my expertise is now considered to extend to Carda.s.sians.”

”It sounds serious,” she said.

”It is.” Then he paused and looked at her. They had always been attracted, and incompatible. He missed that soft, calm manner of hers. She had never been as intense as he was, but she was as driven, perhaps more so. She simply believed in conserving her energy for important things. ”Are you all right?” she asked softly.

”Tired,” he said, ”and distracted. There's too much I don't know, Katherine, and I have no time to learn it.”

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