Caretaker (4 page)

The inside of DS9 didn’t match the promise of her strangely alluring exterior. It looked unfinished, somehow—bare, arching struts visible against every unpainted ceiling and bulkhead, conduits thrumming beneath walkways made of mesh. Even the two civilian security types waiting with stiff-necked patience just beyond the docking bay’s hatch looked colorless and undefined.

But they were security all the same—Paris had gotten pretty good at recognizing the type while putting in his hours down in Auckland. He was suddenly glad that Stadi had stayed behind to batten things down after docking.

“Mr. Thomas Paris?” The slimmer of the two officers glanced pointedly at the data padd in his hand, making it clear he was identifying Paris, not asking him. “Assigned to the scout ship Voyager?”

Paris tightened his grip on the duffel slung over his shoulder, but didn’t move forward to meet the approaching pair. “Yeah, that’s me.”

The skinny spokesman didn’t seem impressed by Paris’s heartbreaker smile. “My name is Odo. I’m chief of security here on Deep Space Nine.” He had a good face for the job—expressionless and inhuman, the skin stretched tight and shiny across nonexistent features, as though some surgeon hadn’t been bothered to finish putting things right after a really bad burn. Paris could almost feel sorry for the guy if his presence here hadn’t made Paris so angry.

“Can I do something for you, Officer Odo?” Paris didn’t mean for the question to sound that sarcastic, but things always seemed to come out of him that way.

Odo tipped his head in a gesture queerly reminiscent of a raised eyebrow. “I just wanted to verify your arrival on the station, Mr. Paris,” he said evenly. “And to tell you that if you have any trouble while you’re here, you can be sure either myself or my staff will be nearby.”

Damn Janeway. Was it really reasonable for her to trust him so little—to expect so much grief—that she thought it necessary to warn local security? And him only scheduled to be onstation less than two hours. It was all Paris could do to keep the grin stretched against his teeth. “Gee, thanks, Officer Odo. I’m sure everybody here feels a whole lot better with you on the job.”

“Hey, mister—!”

Odo raised a single long-fingered hand, and the young security type behind him fell silent, an offended frown rewrinkling his already ridged nose.

“You might want to do something about that attitude of yours, Mr. Paris,” Odo commented dryly. “From what I’ve seen of Starfleet, they don’t have much use for sarcasm from their junior officers.”

A chime sounded from his padd, and Odo spared it only a flick of interest before acknowledging it with a nod. “Now, if you don’t mind, there are some more of your shipmates arriving at Docking Ring Two that I’d like to go down and greet.” Odo favored Paris with something caught between a disdainful sniff and a scowl.

“Welcome to the station.”

Some more of your shipmates… Paris watched Odo stride purposefully away down the corridor, the young security man at his back spearing Paris with more than one disgusted look before they disappeared around the bend. They’d been greeting everyone, Paris realized suddenly, one at a time as they came in. A courtesy. A true act of professional respect, from members of the civilian constabulary to their Starfleet benefactors. And Paris had pretty much spit on their boots.

It had been a long time since he’d felt quite this humiliated.

My problem, Paris thought as he started his slow, solitary way down a corridor leading away from Odo’s retreat, is that I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. Well, maybe that wasn’t his primary problem, but it certainly exacerbated all the others. He could still hear his father’s calm, cultured voice saying, “I’m ashamed of myself, Tom.

Ashamed that I’ve somehow managed to raise a son with so little sense of morality or basic judgment.”

Yeah, Dad, I’m ashamed of you, too.

It wasn’t hard to wander his way down to the station’s main thoroughfare. Paris just let his feet guide him, confident they’d end up outside the nearest bar. He eventually found himself strolling a crowded, gaudy, almost embarrassingly mall-like promenade crammed full of shops, kiosks, and milling patrons. For one disjointed moment, Paris wasn’t sure if he was on a Starfleet station or some low-tech planetoid’s barter bazaar. At least he could read a good portion of these signs.

The tavern stood out from the rest of the establishments. A lot of the right kind of lights and ambience, none of the really expensive trappings that seemed to come with the low-threat places that liked to play at being bars without actually attracting that kind of clientele.

No, this was the real thing.

Paris recognized the sounds of pain muttering from a set of Dabo tables, the sturdy-but-just-one-credit-too-nice-to-be-tacky booths and barstools, and that particular blending of synthehol and sweat that meant lots of business, lots of bodies, lots of booze. Someone had told him once that the distinctive blue-gray lighting affected by most human drinking joints was a holdover from when bars on Earth had been filled to bursting with the smoke of burning paper cylinders, all stuffed with various species of nicotine-producing plants. People supposedly drew this smoke into their lungs and purposefully held it there before exhaling. Paris found the idea of this not only unbelievable, but kind of disgusting. Still, he thought of it now as he passed through the tavern’s front entrance and was brushed in the face by a cloud of something sooty and stinging that smelled like mint.

Rubbing his nose to keep from sneezing, he walked beyond the two grinning goons who passed the burning glass between them, and found a seat at the farthest end of the bar.

“… and if I may say so, it’s been my special pleasure to see many new officers like yourself come through these portals.” The bartender—a toady little Ferengi with a vest too flashy and clashing to be worn by anyone but the owner—leaned on his elbows across the polished counter to expose sharklike teeth at a Starfleet ensign with the guileless Asian face of a young Buddha.

“I’m sure your parents must be very proud, my boy. You know, on an occasion like this—” The ensign smiled politely and shook his head.

“I’m really not interested.”

Paris winced down at the bar top. You should never say “interested” in front of a Ferengi.

“Interested?” the barkeep echoed, his beady blue eyes the very picture of mercantile innocence.

The ensign smiled again. “You were about to try to sell me something.

Right?”

Strike two, Paris thought. “Interested” and “sell” within the same five minutes. This kid was doomed.

And the barkeep was good. He pushed away from the bar, up to his full diminutive stature, so he could peer at the ensign as though from the height of great moral superiority. “I was merely going to suggest your parents might appreciate a memento of your first mission—” “—and you happen to have several to choose from.”

The Ferengi shrugged as though this were only a minor consideration.

“I do carry a select line of unique artifacts and gemstones indigenous to this region. …”

Paris ordered a Romulan ale from a waiter too stupid to keep out of his line of vision, then leaned back on his stool to keep the barkeep and the soon-to-be-penniless ensign in his sight. In that brief moment of inattention, a sizable case of sparkling gemstones had materialized on the counter. Paris couldn’t help being a little disappointed—he’d been hoping to glimpse how a Ferengi swindler could produce such a large display box from up his sleeve with so little notice.

“Why, quite recently,” the barkeep was continuing as he tipped and tilted the case to reveal every stone to its best advantage, “I acquired these Lobi crystals from a very strange creature called a Morn—” Even as one of the lumpy patrons at the other end of the bar glanced up in apparent recognition, the ensign waved the Ferengi off with a confident and knowing grin. “We were warned about Ferengi at the Academy,” he explained—quite civilly.

Paris almost heard the clank of latinum pouring into the Ferengi’s pockets.

Setting the tray down with exaggerated care, the barkeep cocked his head at the ensign in earnest disbelief. “`Warned about Ferengi,’ were you …” He said it as though no one had ever spoken those words in front of him before.

The ensign nodded with cheerful confidence. “That’s right.”

“Slurs,” the Ferengi clarified. “About my people. At the Academy.”

The look of sudden panic on the young ensign’s face was almost worth the price of the Romulan ale Paris hadn’t yet bothered to touch. “What I meant was—” “Here I am, trying to be a cordial host, knowing how much a young officer’s parents would appreciate a token of his love on the eve of a dangerous mission, and what do I get?” The Ferengi sniffed with barely contained anguish. “Scurrilous insults.” A padd appeared in the barkeep’s hand almost as miraculously as the gems had, and he was tapping out notes on its face before Paris had even finished smiling about the surgical skill of this Ferengi’s technique. “Well, somebody is going to hear about this.” He angled a positively predatory glare upward. “What was your name, son?”

“My … name?”

The Ferengi snorted at him. “You have one, I presume?”

“Kim,” the ensign blurted, eyes wide. “Harry Kim.”

“And who was it at the Academy who warned you about—” “You know,” Kim interrupted, his hands a flurry of nervous excitement as he reached across to pluck at the Ferengi’s sleeve, “I think a memento for my parents would be a great idea!”

“Oh, no no no.” The barkeep pulled himself away as though too hurt to let himself be so easily assuaged.

“Really!” Kim picked up the case and made an obvious effort to study the gaudy contents. “One of these would look great as a pendant for my mother.”

“Or cuff links for your father.”

“Cuff links,” Kim echoed enthusiastically. “Great idea.”

“They’re not for sale!” The Ferengi jerked the entire display out of the young man’s hands with a vehemence that startled Paris and actually made Kim hop back a step. “Now,” the barkeep sniffed, bending back to his data padd, “inform your commanding officer that the Federation Council can expect an official query from—” Kim planted both hands on the tray before the Ferengi could lift it out of sight. “How much for the entire tray?”

“Cash or credit?”

This was too much. As much as he fancied himself a hardened, cynical product of the Federation penal system, even Paris couldn’t sit by and watch one of the galaxy’s most insidious predators pluck apart a juvenile member of his own species. No matter how much that member so richly deserved it. Abandoning his ale (which was shamefully watered down anyway), Paris moved two stools closer to the barter to comment loudly, “Dazzling, aren’t they?”

The Ferengi shot him a look that could have melted a warp core.

“As bright as Koladan diamonds,” Paris went on, seating himself directly at the kid’s elbow.

The Ferengi almost snarled. “Brighter.”

“Hard to believe you can find them on any planet in this system.”

The Ferengi slapped his hand away from the case when Paris would have picked up one of the colored gemstones for study. “That’s an exaggeration.”

Pretending not to hear him, Paris remarked casually to Kim, “There’s a shop at the Volnar Colony that sells a dozen assorted shapes for one Cardassian lek.” He tossed the Ferengi a look of calculated innocence.

“How much you selling these for?”

“We were just about to negotiate the price. …”

Blinking as if recovering from a sharp blow to the head, Kim glanced at Paris, then at the Ferengi, then down at the display case still in front of him. Paris knew just how the kid must feel—Paris has once been stupid enough to try and barter with Ferengi, too. He still had the scars. Shoving the case back across the bar toward its owner, Kim was turned and headed for the door before Paris had even flicked an overpayment for his ale onto the bartop. What the hell—the show had been worth it, even if the liquor hadn’t.

Paris found Kim fidgeting just outside the entrance, obviously waiting for him. Kim looked impossibly younger even than he had inside, his cheeks flushed with redness, mortification plain on his face. Paris remembered at least a little of what it had been like to think you were ready for anything, just to have everything around you prove you were wrong.

“Thanks,” Kim said simply, glancing away.

Paris clapped him on the shoulder, wishing no one ever had to be this young. “Didn’t they warn you about Ferengi at the Academy?” he asked.

Kim looked for a moment like he might try an answer, then gave up and only laughed. Paris was surprised at how much he appreciated that sound.

It could have been worse, Harry Kim told himself. He could have actually been proud as well as stupid, and insisted on taking care of the Ferengi himself instead of backing off when his obviously more worldly-wise shipmate stepped in. But pride—unlike stupidity—had never been one of Kim’s big problems. While he figured he ought to be glad for that right now, all he felt was embarrassed, and naive, and young.

Kim glanced aside at the tall, quiet man who’d come to his rescue.

I’ll never be that cool, he thought wistfully. Or that tall. There was something desperately unfair about always being the young, adorable one who sparked the protective instincts of strangers all the way on the other end of a bar. He bet no woman had ever kissed Tom Paris on the cheek and sighed, “You’re so sweet!”

The walk to Voyager’s berth was more crowded and noisy than long.

Kim had arrived on DS9 yesterday-plenty of time to spend too much money at most of the shops, get sick at a Klingon restaurant, attend an extremely strange Tellarite production of The Cherry Orchard (in his opinion, they’d beaten the play up pretty badly), and talk himself into a game of racquetball with a friendly medical lieutenant. Even so, he hadn’t quite recovered from the breathless excitement that swept him when he returned to the ship after each bold excursion, thinking in amazement, This is now my home.

He realized he’d stumbled to a stop in the ship’s open hatchway when Paris bumped into him from behind. Keeping his face averted to hide another blush, Kim hurried into the open corridor and waved his companion to follow.