Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins (37 page)

“I do.”

“Well, then, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to have to start doing your job.”

“You mean … actually condemn those people to die?”

“Either that, or get them to pay,” Janel said.

Sisko sighed. “I know you’re right.” He had been forced to hand
out a few death sentences in his time at Akiem, but he hardly relished it. In truth, he knew very well that if he worked for the Intendant, he would have to genuinely do what he’d been hired to do, and he had hated himself when he’d done it in the past. That could never be worth having his own ship. At least, he told himself that it never could.

Janel drained the last of his ale and then rose from his bar stool, clapping Benjamin on the shoulder. “Maybe you’d better go home to Jennifer a little early tonight, eh?”

As the Akiem shuttle found its way to another pathetic little moon in orbit of Trivas, Sisko was thinking about what the Cardassian acronym actually stood for. Akiem was the best Terran approximation of the Cardassian letters; Sisko felt it was fitting that the meaning was supposed to be something like “Integrity Drives Our Foundation.” There was a double meaning to it, though, known only to Terrans. The Cardassian word for “integrity” sounded very like a particular dialect of a Terran word for “angst.” It was a joke among some Terrans, but as far as Sisko knew, the Cardassians were not aware of this coincidence. Jennifer’s father had made it abundantly clear that Sisko was never to joke about it; such “humor” could lead to very unpleasant consequences.

He was alone for this particular visitation. This would have been unusual just six months ago, but his status had been slightly elevated lately, thanks to Janel’s careful manipulation of the tallies. Now Sisko might find himself doing a solo venture as often as twice a month. He relished these occasions; though the shuttles were tiny, short-distancecapacity things with powerful homing signals, the trips still gave a fairly convincing impression of freedom—not to mention the sweet, sweet silence he could enjoy in the cockpit.

This moon had some long, ancient name that most people didn’t bother to remember. It seemed much too small and insignificant a place to have such an important-sounding name. Apparently, some old Bajoran astronomer had named it for a woman—a woman with a very long name—whom he had been in love with. But nowadays, most people in the Trivas system referred to it either as “the second moon” or “number two.”

Sisko’s shuttle landed on an old concrete platform, possibly the
foundation of a long-gone building, set a short distance outside of a scattered Terran colony that he had visited twice before.

This particular client had missed three payments already, and Sisko wasn’t sure how many more he could cover, especially after the conversation with Janel. He might have to engage in some actual coercion if these people didn’t start coming up with some cold, hard latinum. The trouble was, it was no fun to coerce a blind man who’d lost the ability to string two coherent syllables together. The man had been badly injured in a mining accident, and the parent company that owned the mine’s interests had paid to put the man back together again. His medical expenses had been astronomical, despite the fact that the Terran doctors who’d been paid to slap him back together hadn’t done the most competent job at it—not good enough for him to ever be able to work again, anyway.

It was with the blind man’s sister that Sisko usually dealt, a tall, strong-willed woman named Kasidy. She was pretty, voluptuous, and lippy. Part of Sisko dreaded dealing with her again, but another part of him, a part he wished to deny, could not wait to see her. He wasn’t sure which part was going to dominate this afternoon.

The blind man was sitting outside a large round tent supported by a series of poles set into the hard, dusty ground. One of his legs was twisted beneath his body in an unnatural posture, but Kasidy had assured Sisko that her brother always sat that way; it seemed to agitate him if anyone tried to move him. The man, whose name was Kornelius, sat silently, his half-lidded eyes seeming to be shrouded in an unseeing fog.

Kornelius did not stir when Sisko walked around to the entrance of the tent. There was a bell on a string that Kasidy had rigged, and Sisko pulled it while simultaneously throwing back the flap to the entrance.

“Miss Yates?” he bellowed. “It’s Benjamin Sisko from Akiem. Yes, it’s that time again, Miss Yates. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The tent was dim inside, but once Sisko’s eyes adjusted to the low light, he could see a faint moving shadow from behind a partition, a shadow of a woman’s seated figure. He felt his face heat up for a moment as his eyes traced the lines of the woman’s body. The figure rose,
the shadow’s projection on the fabric screen suddenly resembling a malformed giant, and the partition was whipped aside.

“I’m not
hiding
from you, if that’s what you’re implying, Mister Sisko.”

Sisko folded his arms. “I would never suggest such a thing, Miss Yates. It’s dark in here.”

“Light enough for me to do my mending by,” she muttered, but she picked up a very small palm beacon from the floor, switched it on, and set it back down, its narrow, yellow finger of light pointed at the ceiling. “Power cells cost money.”

“Am I to interpret that as you telling me that you still can’t pay?”

Kasidy angrily gestured to the outside of the tent, indicating her brother. “How am I supposed to pay? I can’t leave him alone all day, and I can’t get much more work than the mending I do—and that’s all just to trade for food, clean water. If the Cardassians intended to patch him up just enough to make him a liability to me, then they did an excellent job.”

“Should they have let him die?”

Kasidy frowned, looking ashamed. “No,” she said in a low voice. “Of course not. But if they can’t understand that he is now a full-time job to me, then I don’t know what else I can possibly tell them.”

Sisko could find no reply, and Kasidy went on. Her shoulders sagged, and she rubbed her fingers along the upper part of her jaw. “It was a trap, the entire job. They would give him work in the mines, they said, but he would have to pay them back for his tools. He would have to pay them back for his clothes, for his shoes, his meals, and the living quarters they gave him. They never mentioned the interest they were planning to charge him—and increase every quarter. They never mentioned that the clothes, the tools—all of it—would cost triple or quadruple what they would have cost for anyone but a Terran, even without the interest. Even before the accident, there was no way he would ever have been able to get out from under them. It’s what they do to all of us Terrans.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “Is this what they’ve done to you, too?”

Ben met her gaze evenly. He felt deeply annoyed with her, though he knew she spoke the truth. He didn’t know what good it did to reiterate the bleak details of reality. “What do
you
think?”

Kasidy folded her arms. “Well, then, I suppose I can’t entirely fault you for doing what you’re doing. But you know as well as anyone that you’re never going to get one thin strip of latinum from me, or probably from any of your Terran clients, for that matter.”

Sisko struggled for a moment before finally succumbing to his frustration. “Now you listen to me, Kasidy Yates,” he snarled. “I have covered for you and Kornelius the past
three months.
I wish I could help you, I do. But it’s every man for himself, can’t you see that? If you don’t start paying—and
soon
—I’m going to have to make good on my job. I’m going to have to turn you over to them.”

Kasidy slowly shifted her weight to one hip, but she didn’t answer, and Sisko rambled on. “I don’t have a choice in the matter, Miss Yates. There’s nothing more I can do. Why can’t you just make my job a little easier and come up with some cash? Do you think … I
like
doing this?”

Kasidy didn’t budge, her expression unmoved. “You don’t
dislike
it enough to stop, I’d wager.”

Sisko was getting angrier by the second. “And how am I supposed to stop?” he snapped.

“They’ve given you access to a shuttle! If you had any gumption at all, you’d learn to reprogram it, to sabotage the homing signal. How difficult could it be? You could get yourself out of here.”

“And run for the rest of my life?”

“That’s what I’d do, if I were in your shoes.”

“Well, you’re not, are you?”

Kasidy shifted her weight to the other hip, unfolded her arms. “No, I’m not.” Her gaze was penetrating. Something in her eyes, her expression, Sisko was not sure exactly what, but he suddenly felt that he couldn’t take it anymore. Was she judging him? Did she pity him? He felt a subtle but powerful snap occurring somewhere deep inside him, and his hands tightened into involuntary fists.

“What’s the matter?” Kasidy said softly.

“I … I . . .” Sisko stammered, feeling hot tears beginning to leak from the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just … don’t know if I can keep this up … but I … I … don’t know what else to do.”

“Ben,” Kasidy said, using his given name for the first time that
he could remember. “We have to work together, not fight each other. Can’t you see what they’re doing to us?”

Before he quite knew what was happening, she had put her arms around him. Her body was warm and yielding. The hands stroking the back of his neck seemed to erase the tension he had been carrying there for years. He couldn’t remember the last time he had held Jennifer like this. He wondered if he had ever held her like this.

“Kasidy,” he whispered, and then his lips were on her neck, and then they were on her soft, welcoming mouth. There was a pallet behind the fabric partition, and Kasidy pulled him to the makeshift bed, gently guiding him down, pressing the weight of her body against his chest and legs.

I can’t do this, I’m a married man.
Sisko pushed the thought aside, pushed aside all thoughts of his wife. Jennifer had come to believe that the marriage had always been a farce, and deep in his heart, he feared she was right. He routinely told himself that he truly loved her, but he knew as well as she did that the benefits he could enjoy from the association with her prestigious family would always overshadow any feelings he had ever had for her. At this point, he couldn’t even remember if he
had
loved her, though he wanted to believe that he had.

He succumbed to Kasidy’s caresses with no further thoughts of Jennifer.

Their bodies moved hard together. Sisko held her so tightly she cried out, and he did not know if it was from pain or pleasure. He didn’t let go, but she didn’t seem to resist him, either. When they finished, they were both slick with perspiration. Sisko let her go, finally loosening his hands. He moved out from beneath her body. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I … shouldn’t have . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kasidy said brusquely. “I know you’re married, Ben. Sometimes you just have to … live for the moment. Because you don’t know how much longer you
will
live.”

Sisko was silent, numb, as he watched her get up and put her clothes back on. He started to reach for his shirt, but Kasidy sat back down on the pallet before he could dress. She reached for his hand.

“We could all get out of here,” she said suddenly. Her expression was wild, now. “We could all just
go.
Anywhere, like I was saying. Reprogram the shuttle. You, me, Kornelius. There are Terran colonies not
terribly far from here that the Alliance has mostly left alone, on worlds where there aren’t enough resources to bother with. We could make do, just like I’ve been doing here. Barter, beg, borrow, steal. Just think of it—never have to cower in fear from them ever again.”

“I’m not going to run for the rest of my life.”

One corner of Kasidy’s mouth twisted. “You’re a fool if you can’t see that you’re running now.”

Sisko shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.

“I’m
not,
” she said, and stood up, folded her arms the way she had done before, when she was silently judging him. “You’re the one who’s crazy, if you’d rather just keep living like this.”

Sisko put his clothes back on and turned to go.

Janel Tigan was shaking his head as he pulled at his Romulan ale. Janel and Sisko were alone in the tavern tonight, as they were most weeknights, except for the proprietor, a Terran man who tended bar. He was off in the back room, probably looking over his gambling receipts. He would come out, if he was summoned, but otherwise the two men had little need to fear being overheard or observed.

“Janel, come on. You’ve got to help me just this one last time. I promise, this will be the only exception. This woman … there’s simply no way she’s going to be able to pay. Her brother is … he’s had irreparable damage to his brain, he can’t work, she can’t leave him … Her situation is desperate.”

“And what do you care, exactly?” Janel said, turning on his bar stool and simultaneously wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I … don’t,” Sisko said. “Except that it’s just … it’s not right, what’s happened to her brother. I don’t know.”

Janel made a face, pursing his lips. “I can read you like a book, Ben Sisko,” the Trill declared. “You’ve had … relations with this woman, haven’t you?”

Sisko tried to prevent his expression from darkening, but Janel clucked his tongue.

“Ahh,” he said, and then chuckled. “I knew eventually you’d come around to it, considering that cold fish you married.”

“Don’t,” Sisko said, pained. He’d always had an inkling that Janel didn’t care for Jennifer, but he preferred not to hear about it, and Janel
knew it. Sisko had a feeling that maybe the Trill had drunk more than usual. He wasn’t acting drunk—he never did—but he was being even more outspoken than usual.

“My apologies,” the Trill said, and finished his ale. For once, he didn’t immediately call for another. Instead, he leaned in very close to Sisko, startling him with the sudden proximity. “I’ll help you this one last time,” he murmured. “But maybe it’s time you did something for me.”

“I . . .” Sisko pulled away a little, confused. “What do you have in mind?”