Force and Motion (8 page)

“I'll never look at fish and chips the same way,” O'Brien said.

“Nor should you,” Finch replied, unfazed by the chief's tone. “My grandfather made vinegar. Perhaps that was the beginning of my fascination with microbiology. I remember his mother, a grand creation of unfathomable depth and maturity. When I completed my work and gazed upon my creation hovering elegantly in her watery abode, I was struck by how much this Mother reminds me of my grandfather's. And so she was named.”

“But I still don't understand what it . . . she . . . is,” Nog admitted.

“She is a ready template,” Finch said. “A source of life, but herself alive.”

“Less poetically, it's a baseline that he can program similar to how a replicator rearranges matter,” O'Brien said.

“Nothing so ignoble,” Finch said, “though correct in concept. The Mother is the basis for all the programmable cells I create. She is modular, undifferentiated, but it takes only a few adjustments to create viable descendants.”

Understanding finally dawned for Nog. “You've already solved ninety percent of the problems in nurturing a new life-form.”

“Correct,” Finch said, grinning.

“And you just have to make sure you don't harm anything when you create the specialization.”

“You have grasped the fundamental concept correctly.”

“That's wonderful,” Nog said, genuinely impressed.

Finch bowed.

“I'm not a biologist,” Nog said, “but it's obvious when you think about it, so . . .”

“Why hasn't it been done before?” Finch completed the question. “It has been tried. Endlessly, in fact. Maintaining a stable yet open genetic code is a complex business. The organism is extremely susceptible to free radicals and environmental degradation. And the inclination of cell lines is to differentiate and specialize. Suspending that propensity, yet keeping the organism viable, is difficult.”

“But you figured it out,” O'Brien said.

“Indeed I have,” Finch said, preening.

“But you won't explain to anyone how you've done it.”

“Not unless they pay my price.”

“That's not science,” O'Brien stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Perhaps not,” Finch said, “but it
is
good business. I can demonstrate the efficacy of my tailored organisms if given the chance. I would even be willing to donate my services if that led to an agreement. But I will not open my notes to the scrutiny of bureaucrats and functionaries.”

“That is an old business model,” O'Brien said, his anger evident. “One I've heard plenty of times: ‘First taste is free.' ”

“Chief,” Nog said, surprised by the tone of his voice, “we're guests.”

“I know. But I didn't come here to see
this.”
O'Brien nodded toward the tank and the oily blob floating in its center. “I came to see my—”

“And he's here,” said a voice from the stairwell. “Sorry I'm late. Had to tend to a small problem. Well, not that small. Just big enough to clog the waste extraction system.”

A man stepped out of the shadows and strode forward, hand extended. “Hello, Miles. How are you? It's good of you to come all this way.” Maxwell was smaller in stature than Nog had expected, accustomed as he was to craning his neck back to look most hew-mons in the face. He was fit, compact, and stood with his shoulders back and chin up in the manner of most career Starfleet officers. He glanced at Nog as he crossed the room, grinned, and nodded, and the engineer felt as if he had actually been
seen
and not merely viewed. For just a second, Nog imagined what this man must have looked like standing on the bridge of a starship and thought,
I would follow him.
All this, despite Maxwell's stained shirt, wet boots, and the lingering smell of a potent disinfectant.

Maxwell and O'Brien shook hands enthusiastically. The chief grinned and looked for a moment like he might try to embrace his former captain, but Maxwell took half a step back, then turned to Nog. He nodded again and said simply, “How do you do, Commander? I'm Benjamin Maxwell. I've heard a bit about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Nog was startled, but pleased. He reached out and took Maxwell's hand. “Heard about me? From whom?” Maxwell glanced meaningfully at the chief and then
shrugged as if to say
Who else?
Nog laughed, confused but delighted.

“Well, I have to talk about
something
when I write,” O'Brien said.

“I take it Doctor Finch has been keeping you entertained while you waited?”

“I guess that's a word for it,” the chief said. “Good beer, anyway.”

“No room for another one?” Maxwell asked.

“I didn't say that.”

“Then come with me. I know someplace we can go and get caught up. Unless you had something else you needed me to do, Doctor Finch?”

Finch waved him off. “As we both know, Ben, you know more about what needs to be done around here than I. If you're going to take Chief O'Brien with you, perhaps you'd like to chat a bit more, Commander Nog?”

“Oh,” Nog said. “Uh, sure. I guess.” He had thought he was going to accompany O'Brien and Maxwell, but suddenly he became aware that he might not be welcome at just that moment. It made him wonder again,
Why am I here?

“I'll come find you, Commander,” the chief said. “Just a bit of a chin wag first. Talking about people you don't know and wouldn't care about.”

“Sure,” Nog said, as graciously as he knew how. “Not a problem. Have a good time.”

O'Brien and Maxwell departed immediately in a cloud of
bonhomie
and chatter. Two old friends, reunited, they spoke in their mutual language. Nog felt deflated and a little trapped, like he was a small child who had
just been dropped off at a dreaded relative's house for an unknown length of time.

“Perhaps,” Finch said, drawing nearer, his face wreathed in purple light reflected from the liquid in the tank, “you'd like to hear more about the Mother?”

“Sure. That would be . . . great.” Nog's mind raced, but he didn't feel as if any gears were catching. An image of friendly faceted eyes popped into his head. “Or maybe we can go see the giant spiders?”

Chapter 7

Twenty Years Earlier

Benjamin Sisko's Quarters

Deep Space 9

“W
hat's the worst day you ever had?” Jake asked.

“What?” Nog said, surprised by the question. The two of them had been lounging in Jake's living room, Nog in the big easy chair and Jake sprawled on the couch, each of them with their padd propped up on their knees, neither of them talking or really paying attention to the other.

“I said, ‘What's the worst day you ever had?' ” Jake repeated.

Nog turned to look over at Jake, just to be sure he was asking a serious question. Hew-mons, he knew, had a tendency to harass each other, sometimes out of boredom, as a sort of test that Nog didn't really understand, but nothing about Jake's expression or demeanor indicated he was teasing. “I don't know,” Nog replied. “I'd have to think about that. Why do you ask?”

“It came up in school today. Mrs. O'Brien told us a story about when she was a girl, when her family went to a park on a picnic.”

“Where?”

“Where what?” Jake asked, confused.

“Where was the park?” Nog replied. “If you're going to tell a story, set the scene.”

“Oh. Sorry. In Japan, I guess. She grew up in Japan. Do you know—”

“I know where Japan is,” Nog said. “Okay, Mrs. O'Brien was telling you all . . .”

“Not all of us,” Jake said. “Just the older kids. She breaks us up into groups sometimes, by age. And we'd been reading this short story called ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish.' Have you ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“Well, it's old. Like, from the twentieth century. It's about this guy who was in a war, he comes back, gets married, and goes to a resort with his wife. And then—I'm not too sure about this part—he has a conversation with this little girl on the beach about bananafish.”

“What are bananafish?”

“I don't know. I think he made them up. Or they're extinct. One or the other. Anyway, then he goes back to his hotel room, where his wife is taking a nap . . .”

“Yeah?” Nog was suddenly more interested. Were the man and his wife going to have sex?

“And then he takes out a gun and shoots himself in the head.”

“Oh,” Nog said, startled. “I didn't see that coming.”

“No. Me either. I think that's the point.”

“What happens then?”

“Nothing. That's the end.”

“Really?”

“Really. But that's not what I was going to tell you. Mrs. O'Brien was talking to us about this story—the historical background and the critical reaction and why it's important, you know—the kinds of things teachers tell you.”

“No, I really don't,” Nog said, “as you already know.”

“Right, right, sorry.” The situation with regard to Nog and not attending school was already a sore topic. “But then she suddenly stops and tells us how when she was a little girl, she went with her family on this picnic and wandered off into the woods and found this man hanging from a tree limb.”

“Hanging? Like, what? Holding on to a branch?”

“No. Not
hanging
, like grasping, but
hanged
. With a rope around his neck. Just dangling there a few feet off the ground. She said there was a little stool nearby on the ground. Kicked over. Mrs. O'Brien said she always remembers that detail because she saw the stool
first
, before she saw the man, and wondered,
Why is there a stool on the ground out here in the forest?
And then when she saw the man, she said she wasn't scared—I think she was like five or six years old—but confused. She thought it was part of a show or a play and that she had accidentally wandered onto a stage.”

“What did she do?”

“She ran back to find her parents and told them what she found. Her father went to see, and when he came back his face was wet, like he had been crying, but she didn't understand why. Mrs. O'Brien said she kept asking him why he was so sad, but he wouldn't tell her, even after the police came.”

“Was she scared?”

“No,” Jake said, leaning back into the couch. He had been leaning forward, the telling of the tale lifting him up out of his seat. “She said that mostly she was just mad because they didn't get to have their picnic, and when
they finally got home—there were lots of people talking, she said, some of them asking her questions—the little tea cakes they'd gotten for the day had gotten all runny from the heat. The icing dripped off, I guess, and she had really been looking forward to having hers.”

“Oh,” Nog said, unsure what the appropriate response was. “Did she ever find out what happened?”

“I asked her that too. She said her parents told her that the man had been very sad and had died. For a while after, she had thought they meant you could die from being sad. Which is true, if you think about it . . .”

“Sure. I guess.”

“But, then, when she was older, she finally figured out she could look up the police records on the database and find out who he was. The man had had a family, two kids and a wife. They died in an accident. ‘A toxic event,' whatever that means. Two years before.”

“Two years. Huh. That's a long time.”

“Mrs. O'Brien said she figured he gave it some time, to see if he would get over it. Probably what the counselors and his friends would have said. But he couldn't get over it, so he killed himself.”

“That's really sad,” Nog said, surprised at how the tale was affecting him. Working in a bar, he had overheard people from many worlds tell every manner of miserable story imaginable, but their sorrow had bounced off him. Nog had just assumed it was part of being a Ferengi and a businessman. People were despondent. His role was to profit from it.

“It is,” Jake agreed. “But the worst part was knowing
he had probably tried to get over it, tried to feel better, and he just couldn't.”

“I'm surprised the counselors couldn't help him.”

“Counselors can only help you if you let them,” Jake said. “You have to be willing. I . . . I know something about that.” He looked down at his padd, scrolling through the menus like he was looking for something important. “After my mom died, I remember my dad, he spent a long time—a
long
time—hurting and he didn't want to do anything about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm not sure I understand it myself,” Jake said. “It was like he was there, but he wasn't really. He was somewhere else, some
time
else. I remember thinking he was going to drift away someday, like a balloon when the string breaks.”

“Huh,” Nog said, picturing the moment. “What happened? He's not like that.”

“No, not now. The
opposite
, if you know what I mean.” He laughed. “I don't know exactly. We came
here
. He had his encounter with the Prophets, and when he returned, well, he was back again. Back in the
now.
He tried to explain it to me once, what they said to him, but, honestly, I'm not sure I understand it yet. Not sure if I ever will.”

“So was that
your
worst day?” Nog asked. “When your mom died?”

Jake jerked his head back. He looked at Nog like he wasn't sure how to reply, but, after a pause, said, “Yeah, was it yours?”

Nog shrugged. “I don't know. I mean, I barely knew my mother. Even if my father had stayed married to her, I probably
still
wouldn't know her. That's how things are.”

“Oh,” Jake said. “I didn't know that.” He frowned. “Now that I think about it, I've never seen a female Ferengi.”

“And you probably never will,” Nog said.

“Why?”

Nog threw his hands up. He knew that this was a concept most hew-mons had trouble grasping. “Because you won't,” he said. “They rarely leave Ferenginar. It's
cultural.”
He had learned that this word carried a lot of weight with hew-mons, some kind of pass. Not much got past
cultural
if you didn't want to let it.

“Oh,” Jake said, predictably. “Okay.” He settled back onto the couch. “So was that
your
worst day? When your mom and dad broke up?”

“No,” Nog said. “I barely remember it. I just remember coming here, to the station. I remember my dad was kind of sad or mad or something, but he was trying to put a good face on it. I was relieved to be getting away from my grandfather. Have I told you about him?”

“No,” Jake said. “What was he like?”

“He was . . .” Nog stumbled. He didn't have a very clear idea how to describe his feelings about Dav. “I don't know. Scary. Loud.” He shrugged. “A terrible businessman.” He couldn't think of anything else to say, though he knew the truth of it was that his grandfather had been a very
good
businessman. His father, on the other hand, was not.

“So what was your worst day?”

Nog shook his head. “I don't know. I'll have to think
about it.” He looked down at his padd. He had been scouring the station's auction sites for new listings of erotic figures to add to his collection, but found he was no longer interested in finding any. He flicked off the padd and found himself looking at a photo of himself and Jake on the upper level looking down at the Promenade. Jadzia had taken it a few weeks ago and sent it to the two of them with the note, “Boys will be boys.” Nog still didn't know exactly what she meant by the sentiment, though he hoped it was some kind of flirtation (though he doubted it). He brightened. “But I do remember my
best
day.”

Jake was intrigued. “Really? When?”

Nog pointed at his friend. “When you and your dad came to live here.”

Jake rolled his eyes.

“No, really. It's been
way
more interesting since you two came here. Not that I didn't have some fun before, but, you know.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I know. Our lives
are
chock-full of interesting.” And then he threw a pillow at Nog's head.

Nog responded in kind, and the fight continued until Commander Sisko came home and made them stop and clean up the wrecked living room.

But, afterward, on his way back to Quark's for his evening shift, Nog passed by the turbolift where he had first seen Jake and his father, the pair of them stepping out and looking around at the Promenade, both of them appearing a bit lost and forlorn. He remembered looking at Commander Sisko's stance, his straight back and outthrust chin. He even remembered how the pips on the commander's collar had gleamed in the low light of
the artificial evening. He remembered Jake too, standing there, eyes narrowed, curious, but cautious.

But, mostly, for some reason, the detail Nog remembered most clearly was the pips and thinking,
Those look good. How do you get them?

January 9, 2386

Ops Center

Robert Hooke

“Don't let Finch
get to you, Miles,” Maxwell said, guiding the chief to the main bank of turbolifts. “He comes off as a bit self-aggrandizing, but he's actually pretty clever. I take it you met the Mother?”

“I did,” O'Brien said, radiating mingled revulsion and concern. “And I have to wonder if it's safe, that thing just hovering there in a tank. What happens if something . . . I don't know . . . cracked the side of it?” He gestured for Maxwell to precede him onto the lift.
Still deferring to the captain,
Maxwell thought.

“It can't crack,” Maxwell explained. “Or, I should say, it
could
. Anything can crack, after all. I mean, there are actually some pretty sophisticated safeguards in place. Finch wouldn't have talked about those. Not interesting enough. No show in it.”

“Sophisticated? How sophisticated? Like what? And where are we going?”

Maxwell pushed the button for deck six. “There's only one place to get a beer here. Not as good as the stuff Finch makes, but not bad.”

“Yeah, and what about that? Brewing beer and splicing genetic material in the same lab. That can't be right.”

Maxwell chuckled. “He's colorful. I'll give you that.”

“I didn't say that,” O'Brien protested.

“But you were thinking it.”

“No,” O'Brien said. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched the numbers over the door change as the car descended. “I wasn't.”

“I don't think he really does that. It's just an image Finch likes to project.”

“Really?” O'Brien huffed.

“I don't suppose it will come as a surprise to hear that some of the scientists on the Hooke are into some unconventional areas of research.”

“I heard about the spiders,” O'Brien replied flatly.

“Ginger and Honey. Right. You'll meet them soon enough. Hardly the strangest thing you'll find here if you start poking into the corners. There's an Aldebaran on deck four who's working on a shrink ray.”

“A shrink ray?”

“Yes, for shrinking.”

“Well, sure,” O'Brien said. “What else would it be for? But you were saying about safeguards?”

“Oh, right.” The car coasted to a halt and the doors parted. “The usual sort of thing in most of the labs: disinfectant sprayers, quarantine doors. Some labs can be vented directly into space. The station is programmed to transport all personnel to a sterile zone if something nasty escapes containment. And, in a few of the labs, including Finch's, we have a directed radiation pulse that would kill anything inside the burst radius.”

“Ouch,” O'Brien said. “Nasty.”

“Yeah, it is. But it shows Finch is not as cavalier as he might like to appear.”

“But why seem cavalier at all?”

Maxwell shrugged, directing O'Brien to turn left. “I've given up trying to figure out why most people do most anything. It satisfies a need, Miles. Finch needs to believe he's someone or something in particular. Neither you nor I can see what that is or why, but that doesn't really matter, does it?” Maxwell pointed at a door. “Here we go: the Public House.”