Quark shrugged. He was about to say no, but then decided otherwise. “I’ll just have a snail juice,” he said.
“Snail juice, right,” Vic said, shaking his head as he motioned again to the bartender. Quark peered back at the stage and saw that the horn player had managed to wrestle his instrument into its case. All packed up, the musicians started to leave, most going backstage, but a couple descending onto the floor and heading out the front entrance. A moment later, Vic stepped up to the table and set a short, frosted glass down in front of Quark. “So, you mind?” he asked, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the table.
“Sure, why not?” Quark said. Vic put his own drink down with a thud softened by the white tablecloth. Then he sat himself down.
“So, I don’t wanna know what’s doin’ with you?” he asked. “Or you don’t wanna tell me?”
“Believe me,” Quark said, “it’s not very interesting, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.” He lifted his face from atop his hand, then dropped his arm onto the table and wrapped his fingers around his drink. The glass felt cooler than he usually liked his snail juice, but then, why should he ever expect to get what he wanted?
“Hey, you don’t wanna sing, that’s fine with me,” Vic said. “I been doin’ it all night.”
“I heard. Well, at least the last few songs,” Quark said. He had come up to the holosuite after he had closed the bar. He had been surprised to see so few holographic patrons in the club. My business is so bad,Quark had mused, it extends all the way to Las Vegas in 1962.Now, to Vic, he said, “You sounded good.” Quark actually enjoyed the hew-monmusic that Vic sang, though it really did not sound very hew-mon;the music seemed too…sophisticated to be of Earth origin. In fact, Quark would not have been surprised if he found out that hew-monshad appropriated the style from some other people on some other world that they had assimilated into the Federation. They were worse than the Borg.
“Thanks for sayin’ so,” Vic said. “With ears like those—” He pointed his chin in the direction of Quark’s lobes “—that means a lot.”
“Don’t mention it.” Quark picked up his drink and absently moved it around in a tight circle, swirling the snail juice around. He heard the shells ticking along the sides of the glass.
Vic lifted his own glass and took a healthy swallow. “So,” he said, lowering the drink back to the table, “how’s business?”
In an annoyed monotone, Quark said, “Don’t mention that either.” He plunked his glass down and slumped in his chair.
“Uh-oh. Trouble at the till?”
“Trouble everywhere,” Quark lamented, and he complained about Treir.
“Treir,” Vic mused. “She’s the green one?”
“Yes,” Quark said. “How did you know?” He was certain the Orion woman had never used this holoprogram.
“It’s amazin’ what you can learn cooped up in a memory buffer,” Vic explained. “I’ll tell you what, though. You twenty-fourth-century types are more colorful than the strip at night. It’s fabulous.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care what color she is,” Quark moaned, “she’s been causing me grief.” He told Vic about what she had done today, and about how she continued to behave like his business partner rather than his employee.
“Hmmm. Seems to me that if a farmer puts a fox in charge of guardin’ the henhouse,” Vic said, “and then the fox eats the hens, well, it ain’t the fox’s fault.”
It took a moment for Quark to decipher Vic’s words. “You’re saying it’s my fault?” he asked.
“Hey, pallie, I don’t know, I’m not there,” Vic said. “I’m just sayin’.”
“Well, stop saying,” Quark told him. “Besides, I’ve got a lot more problems than just Treir. Things haven’t been the same since the war, I’ve got monsters chasing away the few customers I do have, and romance is dead.”
“Hey, I know somethin’ about the effects of war, and all you can do is ride it out,” Vic said. “Now, I don’t know from monsters, but I can tell you that not only isn’t romance dead, it ain’t even sick.”
“Maybe not in Las Vegas,” Quark muttered. He lifted his glass again.
“Not in Vegas, and not on that floatin’ bicycle wheel of yours. Not anywhere, at any time,” Vic maintained. “Look, if a lonely, little-lobed lightbulb like me can get the girls, what does that say about a big-eared, smartly dressed guy like you?”
“These lobes aren’t what they used to be,” Quark said. He raised his glass and took a swig—and gagged, and then spit the mouthful of whatever it was out in a spray, just missing Vic. Quark managed to get the glass back onto the table, half its contents spilling out. Around his coughs, he managed to say, “That’s…not…snail juice.”
“Mr. Quark,” Vic said, leaning one arm onto the table, “this is1962. If there’s somebody somewhere on Earth drinkin’ liquefied snails, I don’t know about it, and I don’t wanna know about it.”
“What is that?” Quark asked, wiping his mouth. The vile drink had combined an unbearable iciness with some harsh and unidentifiable taste.
Vic held up his glass. “Same as I’m drinkin’,” he said. “Vodka and tonic.”
“It’s awful,” Quark said, wiping his mouth with the flat of his hand. “The next time—”
The comm signal sounded, two short, low tones. “Incoming message for Quark,”the computer announced. Quark had set up the holosuite comm system tonight so that nobody could get directly through to him. He had thought that Treir might want to talk, might want to try to get him to change his mind about their agreement. But he had decided that he did not wish to be disturbed.
“Whoever it is, tell them I’m busy,” Quark said. But then it occurred to him that maybe Ro was trying to contact him, and as unlikely as that seemed, he could not help finding out. “Wait,” he told the computer. “Who is it?”
“The message is from Lieutenant Ro,”the computer responded.
Quark felt his heart begin thudding wildly in his chest. His lobes tingled. “Computer, put the message through,” he said, sitting up in his chair.
Laren’s voice rang through the comm system. “Lieutenant Ro to Quark,”she said simply.
“This is Quark.” He looked over at Vic, but the hologram was gazing off toward the bar.
“Quark, I’m sorry to bother you while you’re in the holosuite,”she said. “I stopped by the bar, but you’d already closed up.”She paused, and then said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Not at all,” Quark said. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I just got off duty—”That surprised Quark; it was late. “—and I don’t really feel like going to sleep, so…I guess I was just looking for some company.”
Quark could not believe it. He felt his mouth drop open, and he quickly closed it, folding his lips around his teeth. “Uh, all right,” he said. “Where are you?”
“In my office.”
“All right,” he told her. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” That would give him enough time to stop in the bar and put on some cologne.
“Great,”she said. “Ro out.”The com channel closed.
Quark peered over at Vic again, who still pretended that his attention was elsewhere. “Well,” Quark said, standing up, “nice talking to you.”
Vic looked over at him. “Always a pleasure,” he said. Quark headed for the door. Behind him, he heard Vic say, “I guess romance isn’t dead on the ol’ wheel after all.” Quark did not bother to stop or look back. But he did smile.
Quark strolled with Ro in the dim, nighttime illumination of Deep Space 9. They walked through one of the crossover bridges and headed from the docking ring toward the habitat ring. It had been more than two hours since he had met Ro in her office, and they had been meandering about the station and talking ever since. They had both admitted to being tired and to having had a difficult couple of days—Quark had actually claimed more than merely a couple—but their time together had been comfortable and filled with laughter. Quark realized that their senses of humor—rooted in their similarly sarcastic sensibilities—meshed well.