"But, Benjamin—we might not be able to determine if that's the situation until after it's too late."
Across the bench from Dax, Odo turned toward the commander. "She's right. Gul Dukat is obviously behind everything that's happened so far. If we do nothing but wait and react to whatever his next step might be, we could find ourselves all being thrown out of this station. I know Dukat as well; he didn't enjoy having to turn DS9 over to Starfleet. He'd do anything to get it back in his control."
"People . . . please." Sisko held up his hand. "You're not telling me anything I haven't already thought about. What we all need to start working on—and immediately—is what our own course of action should be."
Bashir spoke up. "It would be a real help if we brought into the loop our best source for analyzing what's going on with the Bajorans. And that's Major Kira—she knows the individuals in the Severalty Front better than any of us could hope to."
"At this time, Doctor, that's not possible. I've briefed Odo on my recent decisions about Major Kira; you can get the details from him. Until such time as the major is brought back onto full duty, we'll just have to do the best we can without her." Sisko pushed the stool back from the bench and stood up. "Right now, I have to call this meeting to a conclusion. I would suggest that if any of you have ideas regarding the present situation, you should get them to me as soon as possible—we have even less time than you may previously have thought. As I was heading down here on the turbolift, I was notified by Ops that a Bajoran vessel is due to arrive at the station within the hour. It's an official visit, our first from the new government. Apparently, General Aur himself and new Bajoran Minister of Trade wish to speak to me."
The lab door slid open as Sisko pressed the control panel. He turned in the corridor outside and looked back at his senior officers.
"I don't expect it to be a cordial visit."
"They're already waiting for you, sir." One of the younger Ops staff walked Sisko toward the door of his office. "I thought it best to show them in, rather than have them standing around out here."
"Good thinking." He felt a twinge of resentment, imagining the way in which General Aur might have looked around the station's command center, like a new landlord inspecting his property. "Continue to carry out normal operations. If I require anything, I'll let you know."
The door slid shut behind him. Sisko saw two figures in the office, one seated in front of the desk, back toward him, and the other standing and gazing out at the expanse of stars visible through the curved viewports.
General Aur, hands clasped behind his back, turned toward Sisko. Sisko recognized the leader of the Severalty Front, and now the new Bajoran government, from the briefing files he had scanned on the computer panel. The rigors of the struggle against the Cardassian occupation had bowed the man's back and silvered the sparse hair on his skull; the prison-camp years had creviced the face well beyond his actual years. But now that lined face broke into a smile.
"I've looked forward to making your acquaintance, Commander Sisko." The Bajoran gave a formal nod. The expression that could be read in his eyes was one of deeply rooted self-assurance. "We have a lot to talk about."
Sisko managed to return a fraction of the smile. "Well, General, at least we're starting with something we agree on."
"The new government of Bajor has sent someone else who will be critical to our discussions." Aur gestured toward the chair before the desk. "This is our new Minister of Trade."
The chair swivelled around to show the black-clad figure in it. The man stood up and grasped Sisko's hand, giving it a firm shake.
"Actually," said McHogue with an even broader smile, "we've already met. Haven't we, Commander?"
CHAPTER 10
For a moment, he felt dizzy; he had to close his eyes and shut out the images that assaulted him, to keep from falling.
"That's a normal reaction, Commander." The voice seemed to come from far away, as though the interior of Sisko's office needed a subspace link to cross from one bulkhead to another. "I've encountered it before. I'm not offended by it."
A measure of Sisko's balance returned, though he had to concentrate to maintain it. He opened his eyes and saw again McHogue's face before him, with the same mocking half-smile that he had last seen in the holosuite's illusory world.
"Are you all right?" That was General Aur's voice, coming from somewhere beside him. "Perhaps we should call for one of your crew, to help you."
"No, no; I'm . . . I'm fine." He waved off Aur's assisting hand. "I just need to sit down, that's all. The hours I've keeping seem to be catching up with me." The excuse sounded weak, he knew, no matter how forceful he set his voice.
Behind his desk, he put his hands flat against its surface, as though it were still necessary to steady himself. The inner-ear disturbance that had rocked him for a few seconds had now faded away; a different imbalance, subtler and at the same time more profound, afflicted him.
The smooth expanse of the desktop felt somehow unreal beneath his palms. As though he could push only a little harder, and his fingertips would sink through, his forearms lapped by an opaque mist, only marginally real-seeming in his sight. He turned away from his visitors and looked across the office. The bulkheads seemed to be painted backdrops that the brush of a hand could have billowed away from the flimsy struts and framing behind. Through the viewports, the galaxy's stars were nothing more than idiot points of light, fed by fiber-optic microfilaments into a sheet of black plastic. A trick, mere stagecraft, and not very well done at that; couldn't Aur see it as well? It was enough to bring a hollow laugh into Sisko's throat—the Bajoran leader had traveled all this way, and found Deep Space Nine to be nothing more than a dusty closet, a storeroom where discarded scenery flats were kept until they might be needed again.
"It's just a simple matter of perceptual misalignment." The mordant figure of McHogue leaned back in the opposite chair and watched him. "A slippage of the reality field you carry around inside your head—as I said, I've seen it before. It's one of those things that, in my line of work, I've learned to be careful about. An occupational hazard, as it were. Not that I suffer from it anymore, but if the people with whom I need to deal are having a hard time telling what's real and what's not, I've found that it tends to erode that measure of trust that's so vital for interpersonal negotiations."
"I expect you're right about that." Sisko couldn't tell if the other man was joking or unctuously sincere. It didn't matter, at least until he knew for sure that there even was someone actually sitting in the chair.
McHogue turned toward the viewports. "General, I know we're pressed for time, but would you indulge me while I have a little chat with the commander? I feel it would be best for all parties concerned."
"By all means." General Aur made an expansive gesture with one hand, then resumed his satisfied contemplation of the stars, only occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the other men in the office.
"I know what's going on inside your mind right now" McHogue leaned forward, his voice dropping to a soothing confidentiality. "I really have come to be something of an expert on these matters. The exposure you had to the cortical-induction modules and their effects—there's a definite persistence factor associated with them that you don't encounter with your regulation, unmodified holosuites. It has to do with the intensity of the hallucination produced by the CI technology—after all, it works upon the actual neurofibers inside one's skull, rather than on input buffered by passage through the peripheral sense organs. Even ordinary reality—this stuff that's supposedly around us right now—is just something that you see and hear and taste." A sweep of McHogue's hand took in the surrounding office, the station and universe beyond. "So in that regard, the CI technology's reality is more real than this one. Or so it seems—it's no wonder that parts of your brain have gotten a little confused."