Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins (40 page)

But would it make me seem more guilty if I stopped coming here altogether?
Sisko ordered another synthale, to clear his head, he told himself, but again he downed it rapidly and felt as though his thirst had not nearly been slaked; had not even been touched.
I should go,
he decided, but he ordered one more synthale. This one went down a little more slowly, and Sisko found that, even though sitting here at the bar alone was not especially enjoyable, it seemed that it must be far better than whatever was waiting for him at home.

Sisko lost count of how many ales he drank before he finally picked himself up from the bar stool and found his way back to the apartment that he shared with his wife. When he walked in the door, he expected Jennifer to be asleep, or maybe working on one of her many projects at the computer console in the bedroom. But the lights were all on, and Jennifer was sitting at the low-backed sofa in the front room. She did not appear to have been doing anything; she was apparently just waiting for him, and her expression made him very uneasy. He had found himself less and less able to read her moods in the past few years, but it could not have been more clear that she was unhappy about something.

“Hello, Jen,” he said carefully.

“Hello,” she replied. She lifted her chin slightly to look at him, but said nothing else. He stood before her without talking for a moment, and then he went to the kitchen for another synthale.

“I never see you anymore.” Jennifer’s voice came from where she sat on the couch.

Sisko walked back into the front room and stood before her once again. “I know,” he said, hoping there was some way he could keep this fight as brief as possible. “I’m sorry.”

“When I do see you, you’re drunk.”

He looked at the bottle in his hand. “I’m not drunk,” he said softly.

“Yes, you are. I can always tell when you’re drunk, even before you say anything. Your . . . your
posture
is different.”

Sisko had no reply. He just continued to stare at the bottle in his hand. Was she really just angry about his drinking?

“Well, go ahead and have it,” she said, indicating the synthale. “I’m not going to stop you. You’re already drunk, it hardly matters.”

There was a chime from the other room, indicating that a communiqué was coming in to the console.

“Who would be calling this late?” Sisko wondered.

“It’s not that late,” Jennifer said, and got up from the davenport to check the console.

Sisko didn’t say anything to that; it felt very, very late to him, but he supposed it was only an effect of how exhausted he was.

Jennifer made a little sound, a clicking of her teeth, seeming to indicate that she was frustrated with whatever she saw on the console.

“What?” Sisko said, following after her. “Who is it?”

Jennifer pressed the receiver panel without answering him. The screen immediately drew up an image of a pale-skinned, wide-eyed woman with red hair and a silvery headpiece encircling her forehead. It was the Intendant of Terok Nor.

“Hello, Intendant,” Jennifer said formally. “How good to hear from you at last.”

“Jennifer,”
Kira replied, blinking her eyes rapidly and letting her mouth slide into a disarming smirk.
“I hope your husband is available.”

“He is,” Jennifer said, turning to Sisko so that only he could see her dark expression. “You’re lucky—he just walked in.”

“Oh, wonderful,”
Kira said, craning her neck as if she could see
through the viewscreen. Sisko stepped into her periphery and did his best to look respectful.

“Intendant,” he said.

“Benjamin, how positively lovely to see you. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming to pay me a little visit again. I’ll send you a shuttle, just like last time.”

Sisko did not look at Jennifer, but from the corner of his eye he could see her expression. “I’m not sure,” he said carefully.

Kira laughed.
“Oh, Benjamin,”
she sighed, her voice a singsong.
“I’m sorry. I suppose I made that sound like a request, didn’t I? Be ready to go at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning. I can’t
wait
to see you!”
She flashed a brilliant smile, and then her image vanished from the screen.

Sisko shut down the console to ensure that any conversation he had with Jennifer could not be picked up by the receiver on Kira’s end, and then turned to his wife.

“You’d better not even consider it,” Jennifer warned him.

“What am I supposed to do?” he said. “Your father said he’d do what he could, but if he can’t—”

“You’ll figure it out,” Jennifer said, and turned angrily to go into the bedroom. “You always do,” she added, and then closed the door, leaving Benjamin alone. He looked down at his hands to find the unopened bottle of synthale still there. He twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.

The Intendant was wearing her “uniform” for this meeting, in lieu of the revealing dress she had been clad in before, but the skin-tight black bodysuit she was dressed in was hardly less distracting than what she had worn at her prior meeting. She was half sitting, half lying on a settee with a few Klingon guards standing a few steps away. She gestured to them to back off, and they both did, seeming to vanish into the shadows of the half-darkened room.

“Now, then,” she purred. “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I understand you’ve found yourself in a very uncomfortable situation.”

Sisko, who had not been invited to sit, fidgeted with his hands behind his back. “I’m not sure if I know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Kira raised her eyebrows, pushing her lower lip out, mocking
confusion. “Oh, no? It’s interesting, your saying that. I have eyes and ears everywhere, Benjamin.
Everywhere.
Nothing goes on in this sector without my knowing about it. In this entire
quadrant.
”

“Really?” Sisko’s voice was dry.

“Yes, really.” She shifted her posture so that she was sitting up now, her feet on the floor, her hands spread out at her sides. “I have a feeling, Benjamin, that right now, even as you stand here, there is some ugly business that you wish very much would go away.”

Sisko continued to fidget, though he willed his hands to stay still. “Everyone’s got something that they wish would just go away, I guess.”

“Not me,” Kira said. “Because I
make it
go away.”

“That must be nice for you.”

“It is,” she said. “And it would be nice for you, too, wouldn’t it? If I would make all of your problems go away?”

Sisko only shrugged.

Kira sighed and pulled her feet up on the settee again. “Well, Benjamin, have you thought any more about my offer? Your own ship, your own crew? No more monitoring your comings and goings, at least not the way Akiem has been doing. No more confinement to a solitary star system. No destination locks, no orders to follow—from anyone but me, that is.”

Sisko tried a laugh. “Can you really imagine me, Intendant—a Terran—commanding a ship?”

Kira looked serious. “I can,” she said. “It’s not entirely unheard-of, you know. Look at Stan Devitt. Wouldn’t you like to be in a position like his?”

Sisko thought of his father-in-law’s too-tall Cardassian desk, the look of contempt that En Shrall had tried to conceal when he came into Stan’s office and took his orders. “Not really,” he said truthfully.

“Well, forget him,” Kira said.
“Your
position would be so much better than that. Because”—she rose to her feet and walked slowly, deliberately, toward Sisko, her hips rolling suggestively under the tight fabric of her suit—“you would work for
me.
And everyone would know it.”

Sisko stiffened as she touched his shoulder, examining him as though he were a piece of merchandise. “Very nice,” she murmured, and then she laughed when she saw his expression. “Oh, Benjamin,”
she said, reaching up to touch his face with one soft, cool hand. “What’s the matter? I don’t bite.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” he breathed, though he instantly regretted it. He could not afford to make her genuinely angry.

The Intendant did not get angry; in fact, she seemed to take it as a compliment. She laughed as if he had told a very fine joke, and took a few steps away from him, though she continued to circle him as though she were sizing him up for a meal. “It’s not as if you’ve been entirely faithful to Jennifer,” she remarked.

“I love my wife,” he said, but it came out hollow.

“Is that right?” the Intendant said. “How sweet. Or is it only that you were infatuated with her? Or, more specifically, what you could get from her?”

“Of course not,” Sisko said weakly. He felt ashamed, and it was making him angry, but he could not allow himself to lose his temper. Kira was trying to get under his skin, and he could not allow her to succeed.

“It would hurt her deeply if she were ever to hear that you had been with another woman,” Kira said. “I understand that, Benjamin. I understand why you have a problem with coming to work for me. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about me.” She smiled.

“You could say that.”

“Well, Benjamin, I wouldn’t ever want to force you to do anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with.”

“That’s good,” Sisko said, though he did not trust her word for a moment.

Kira’s smile faded. “I’d rather you came to me willingly,” she said, her voice husky, her meaning clear. She took a step toward him, but didn’t touch him, only tipped her head back so that she could stare up at him. She was a good head shorter than he was, even in her stiletto-heeled shoes, but somehow her presence was absolutely terrifying.

Sisko swallowed. “Oh,” he said, feeling as though he had just stepped into a snare. “Well, I . . .”

“Listen, Benjamin,” Kira said. “Suppose I speak to Jennifer for you, and explain to her exactly how beneficial a thing this job could be for you? Would you like that?”

Sisko shook his head. “No . . . please. Leave Jennifer out of it. I don’t want—”

“You don’t want to hurt her? Is that it?” Kira laughed lightly. “Well, it seems to me that it is going to hurt her very much when her husband is implicated in the murder of that Farian, what was his name, Thadial Bokar? Not to mention Janel Tigan.”

His legs felt wooden. “What do you know about Janel Tigan?” he demanded recklessly. “The man disappeared nearly two weeks ago—I had nothing to do with it, he was my friend—my best friend!”

“Oh, I believe that you didn’t have anything to do with it initially. But it wouldn’t be difficult for a casual observer to start making certain . . . connections, Benjamin, let alone someone with the kind of resources that Jennifer has at her disposal. She is a very, very intelligent woman, Benjamin. Not just intelligent, but
clever.
It’s not likely that she won’t eventually figure out what happened. And, to be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be in a position to make you the same offer, when that happens.”

Sisko struggled to breathe normally. He didn’t know whether to be angry or sad anymore. He mostly only felt numb.

“Like I say, Benjamin, it’s very nice to have a friend who can make ugly business go away for you.”

“What, exactly, are you proposing to me?”

Kira smiled. “Nothing, yet. Aside from offering, once again, for you to go to work for me. I haven’t gotten a read yet as to whether this offer appeals to you or not.”

Sisko shook his head. “I can’t,” he said.
There has to be another way.

“Ah,” Kira said, looking sad. She went back to her settee and stretched out her shapely legs. “It’s too bad, Benjamin.”

He sighed. “May I please go?”

Kira frowned to herself. “Of course you may go,” she said. “You’re not one of my ore-processing workers, after all.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, though her words pained him. Shouldn’t it be enough for him, to have all that he had: a beautiful wife, a prestigious job that most Terrans could never hope for? Shouldn’t it have been enough that he didn’t have to work in the mines like the other Terrans? Hadn’t that been enough for him to be happy? To feel free?
But now I may have sabotaged all that forever.

He turned to go, but Kira called him back. “Wait,” she said.

“What is it?” he turned to face her again.

She pressed a finger to her chin, appearing thoughtful. “How about this,” she said. “What if I offer you a shuttle?”

“A shuttle?”

“Yes. The shuttle that you used to get to Terok Nor and back. I mean, without the program locks. You could just use it entirely at your leisure, go wherever you want—within reason, of course; it’s only a small passenger shuttle with low fuel capacity—with no strings attached?”

Sisko was suspicious, but he could not help but be intrigued at the suggestion. “Why would you do a thing like that?”

“It’s a gift, that’s all. A gift between friends.” She hugged her knees to her chest like a little girl, and smiled radiantly.

“I can’t take it. You know that I can’t.”

“Well, then, if you won’t accept it, maybe you would just like to . . . 
borrow
it, for the day. Just for one day, Benjamin. If you like it, you can keep it. But if you’d rather not, you can just bring it right back. I promise, I won’t ask anything of you in return.”

“Just for the day?” Sisko asked, thinking immediately of Kasidy Yates. “Just to borrow for a day?”

“Just to borrow.”

“Nothing . . . I won’t owe you anything at all?”

Kira dropped her legs down from her chest and crossed her ankles demurely, though her outfit was anything but demure. “Not a thing,” she said. “You have my word, Benjamin.”

It was a long moment before Sisko finally nodded his head. The Intendant smiled, and signaled to one of her Klingons to take care of the arrangements.

The shuttle was full of fuel when Sisko left Terok Nor, but he knew that it would burn fast, too fast. Even still, if he picked up Kasidy straightaway, then headed immediately for one of the colonized moons on the farthest outskirts of the star system, he should have enough to get the shuttle back to Terok Nor. He would then tell Kira that he was finished with the shuttle, and damn any further consequences. He would deal with the Thadial Bokar situation later, but for the time being, all he cared about was getting Kasidy safe.