Chapter Five

Old Wounds, New Strings

Quark heard them long before they entered through the door. There was a prick in his mind as he listened in a double-take. He recognized Bashir. That was not so strange. Unusual, yes, but not strange. What would bring him back to the station was beyond him as nothing out of the ordinary was happening that would require his presence. Recognizing Pel speaking with him? He felt himself tense despite himself. Pel alone, he might have believed as much as Bashir alone. Pel and Bashir together was a thing out of some annoying dream.

He could not hide his surprise and confusion even if he did withhold the suspense of his distrust and annoyance. He was not going to make it easy for them by asking them, though. They could come to him if they wanted to speak with him. Their voices bespoke way more than pleasantries, and the way they hushed up as soon as they stepped through the doors made it almost eye-rolling.

He let them roll up to his new fancy lightshow dancing with the background music.

The odd couple wasted no time either, and before another customer could ask him a question, Bashir and Pel were at the counter. His smile was instantly plastered on his face warmly, and he held out his hands as though to a pair of dear old friends.

"Bashir," he said. "What a pleasant surprise. The usual?"

"Uh, yes, thank you."

Bashir looked so distracted, he might have said that to a cup of radioactive mud.

Quark added cheerfully, "And Pel too, huh? I can't say you two don't complement each other. You want something more familiar to home or are you more into root beer these days. Or is there even a difference these days? I hear it's a favorite with the Grand Nagus and his family, after all."

Pel frowned and opened her mouth to say something.

Quark held up his hands to keep her from speaking. "Now, don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. You've done wonders for yourself. I can see that. My ten bars of latinum didn't go to waste. A good investment on my part! So grown up, so— Pelipan, isn't it? Not a bad place. Perfect place for you, really. Out of the way, quiet, loose with their rules but no idiots—I bet they're already telling you how you were destined to be there with a name like 'Pel', though, right? Pel for Pelipa?"

"Quark, we didn't come here for you to patronize Pel," said Bashir.

Quark's eyes widened in surprise. "Patronize?"

He might have called it himself stalling if anything, but he rolled his eyes again and looked Bashir as hard and as seriously as he could. "Julian. I mean every word of what I say. If anyone's doing the patronizing…"

He turned to Pel and smiled gently. "Excuse me, Pel. What will it be?"

Impatience flooding her face, she burst, "Quark, I—!"

"You're time on Pelipa can't have made you forget the 214th Rule of Acquisition."

Pel sighed. "They agree with it there."

"Good. I knew they had some sense. So tell me what you want to order. Then we'll hear all about what's on your mind."

Pel looked at Bashir and back at Quark again in disbelief. Quark had to admit, he felt it odder still that Bashir was making Pel do the talking after his chivalrous defense. Though, was not chivalry on Earth considered an insult to a strong, self-sufficient woman?

"Never mind, I'll get you the house special," said Quark, turning around. "So, I bet you're running the shebang in the kabyu races, huh?"

"Oh, Quark," sighed Pel miserably.

"Ferengi have had trouble weaseling into that business, and I've heard even when they do they find it's not really worth all the effort in the end at such a small scale as it is, you know, but it's a good start, I'd imagine."

"Thanks, I guess…"

"Riding attire and everything. Fits you."

"I—"

"Actually embracing the races must be the way to get into their good graces, but you'd be the one to do it, I suppose," he said.

"Quark!" Pel whined.

Spinning round, he put the drink down in front of her, a little more roughly than he had intended. At least the bar was not as busy as it sometimes was to hear all this nonsense. Well, that was the only good thing about it not being so busy at the moment, but before he could speak again, he really noticed Bashir. Pel noticed him too, and her eyes narrowed in horror as she gasped.

"You okay?" Quark asked cocking his head as he leaned over the bar carefully studying Bashir with a raised brow.

He winced.

As for Bashir, his eyes were locked to Quark's. It was a ghastly, wide-eyed, harrowing look that made Quark feel that strange prick again. For a second, he wondered if it really was Bashir and not some creature out to get him disguised as him like a changeling. Those hazel green orbs stared right through him.

No, not through him. It was as though they were trying to dissect his soul.

"Bashir?" Quark cracked.

"Have you ever heard of the Keeoopii?!" Pel demanded.

He blinked back to Pel with great alarm.

A jolt went through him— violent. Almost painful. It struck through him with surprise that was unwarranted. He almost felt sick with it as it passed, and he realized even his shock at Bashir's expression was overacting too. The jolt passed quickly, but he was still buzzing strangely with it all. Irrationally. He knew it was irrational and yet he could not contain it. He felt anger rising. He felt almost dizzy with it.

They were trying to stop him. That's what they were doing.

Yes.

It was his business what he did with his business.

It was his business they were interfering with. The last of all he had was right here in this bar.

Normally, he would have just brushed off the question with a nonchalant smile and say he never heard of the Keeoopii, but he had already betrayed himself.

Why?

Was something wrong with him?

Bashir apparently woke up from whatever stupor he had been in from Pel's outburst. With a strange gasp of his own as though breaking through the surface of a surf, Bashir nearly fell out of his chair and knocked over his drink, but he steadied himself again.

"What do you people want?" Quark finally got out.

"We just want to know if you've ever heard of the Keeoopii," said Bashir calmly, but his calmness made Quark's tension rise even higher with that sort of psychiatric tone. "It can't be that difficult of a question to answer."

"I tried being nice, and that wasn't good enough, so what do you really want?" said Quark. "I'm here minding my own business…" He laughed despite himself as he spoke, "which is apparently one of the hardest things for people to do these days, isn't it? Boldly interfering with other people's business like no race has done before! Busybodies. All of 'em. That's the Hew-mon way, isn't it? Call it a different name, but it's always the same thing. You did it to each other to death with every group of people that didn't agree with your philosophies and now since Earth wasn't big enough for you, you're bent on having it that way with the whole rest of the universe, is that it? Well, I don't want any part in it. So either you pay for your drink and mind your own business, or leave. Why not ask the Bajorans? Why not look it up somewhere in your extensive records? Ask someone through the wormhole."

Bashir's eyes darkened now with concern. "Quark. You're not acting like yourself."

"Is he—?" Pel squeaked, but Bashir grabbed her almost uncharacteristically roughly to make her stop.

Quark stopped too after a huff.

He was not acting like himself and he knew it. Bashir had not needed to tell him that, but if he was not acting like himself, it sure wasn't his fault, and it only started when his life was interrupted by Bashir and Pel. He shook his head before the fire could start again.

"No one's accusing you of anything. We just heard that the Keeoopii have been here and we wanted to know where they were going."

"What's Pel got to do with this?" asked Quark lightly with a completely different change of mood. "I mean, seriously. This obviously isn't an official Starfleet investigation."

"No," said Bashir honestly before Pel could state something that would have been most-likely a lie.

Quark shrugged. "Then what's this about? Pelipa? Starfleet certainly has no business with Pelipa. I know for a fact that more people are talking about joining the Federation on Ferenginar than Pelipa."

He laughed again, lightly this time, but still just as sarcastically.

Before either Pel or Bashir could speak more, Quark cleared his throat.

"Broik!" he called to him from across the bar.

Broik turned.

"Hold the counter."

Broik nodded and obeyed in his usual quiet way.

"Look," Quark then said confidentially to his guests. "Things aren't going the greatest right now. Tensions high. Bad business with some Klingons last night. Okay. Let's just go back into my office and find out if any… what? Keeoopii came through."

"Quark, I'm sure you know whether or not they came through."

"If you want to conduct business with me, we're going to do it privately, okay?" said Quark. "Besides, this is a delicate matter. You know I can't just give away everyone's business to every Starfleet officer that comes through here with an idle question, all right? It's not good for the reputation of this place. I don't run a spy agency. I run an honest business."

"I'll pay you twenty bars of latinum," said Pel.

Quark paused, more for show than for actual thought. Then he nodded in his usual business manner.

"Right, step back this way," he said ushering the way.

"No," said Bashir.

"No?!" demanded Pel.

"No?" Quark laughed, but he glared, the prick becoming unbearable.

"Whatever they promised you was a lie, Quark," said Bashir. "You make that more evident with every move you make, and we're not going someplace private for an ambush. We have reason to believe you have been infected by a parasite that is doing something even now to your mind and if you're still yourself enough to understand the urgency, the Keeoopii are on their way to infecting the whole planet of Ferenginar."

"Parasite?" demanded Quark; even from his own lips it sounded fake. "Bashir. Keep it down, you want everyone to panic?"

"If it means getting your attention, yes."

"If there was an outbreak on the station everyone would know about it. And you know that Ferengi are a pretty hard race to break through with any kind of disease that infects most other races so easily. If I was infected, so would everyone else be infected. You think Bajor doesn't have its own monitors, its own medical staff?"

"Then come with me to the infirmary and we'll find out," said Bashir. "Kira already knows that something may be seriously wrong with you. There's no reason to fight this. The station knows why we're here already."

Quark's mind for a moment was completely blank. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He would have complied, even with a few complaints. No one wanted to risk being infected by some horrible parasite. Come on! But something held him back, and it was more than pride, despite how it was pulsing through him.

Almost unnaturally… Something unexplainable, and something unreal.

His mind fuzzed. He heard Bashir, but he did not understand him. He felt rage build up, but he did not know why anymore.

He held onto the counter for support, but he could barely feel it. All he really felt was rage. He felt the strongest, vilest urge to get rid of Bashir. He wanted him to leave. He wanted him gone. Nothing compared to the blind hatred he felt right now.

He wanted him dead! Nothing less than dead!

Mutilated, tortured. He had never pictured someone so mutilated for pleasure before. Then dead!

He threw something. He did not know what, but he threw it, and he heard it echo in its smashing.

Roars. Shouts. Then… nothing.

#

"Oh, what a horrible dream…" moaned Quark.

Consciousness came to him; even if sluggishly at first, but he had to be in bed.

He felt a little tingly, a little sore. There was a dull pain in his shoulder and part of his back. Even the computer sounds were not enough to shake him from his oncoming denial.

Maybe it was still just part of the dream.

Yeah.

"Pel and Bashir a couple. Ha…!" he snorted groggily trying to wake himself to the reality he wished it to be as he turned his head and squeezed his eyes tighter against the light that would not be in his bedroom. "Coming into my bar to ask about some parasite that came in with the Keeoopii. Right…! Even the background music had been off-kilter. Maybe I'm playing too much of it. Let dabo give the ambience, right? Shoulda listened to Morn. I—"

"I'm sorry to break this to you, Quark, but none of that was a dream," said a familiar voice.

He was not lying flat, and the noises were definitely the computer sounds of the infirmary. He should know. He'd been there more often than he dared recall, but he didn't need that to tell him that the dream was the reality and his cozy bed was the dream. Did he even want to open his eyes?

"Except maybe the Morn part," Bashir added.

Quark moaned and opened his eyes. The lights were dimmed for some reason, but he did not register that long before turning his head back to Bashir.

"What happened then?" Quark grumbled sullenly.

He didn't look much different. For all he knew the time between the last time he saw him and now might have been the dream and Start Fleet had never left the station. Just like old times. Except if it was just like old times Odo would still be around.

"What's the last thing you recall?" asked Bashir.

"Something about the parasite and then I blacked out over my own counter."

Oh, he would rather just curl up and die at this point. Why was his life so filled with pain and utter humiliation? At least, his regulars would remain loyal regardless.

"So you really don't remember throwing a case of bottles at me and trying to escape down the hall?"

"What?" Quark demanded, the strength at last returning to his voice.

"Your staff told us that the Keeoopii came less than a week ago to offer their trade arrangements."

Squirming more from irritation than discomfort about the topic, he shook his head and sat bolt upright.

"Yeah. So, did you get rid of it?" he demanded.

Bashir hesitated.

"No."

"Why not!?"

"Because that's going to be more difficult than I'd first anticipated."

"But you're a genius, aren't you? Why can't you get rid of it?"

"Apparently the parasite has a way of matching its host's body. Everything about it is intertwined into your system. Your brain doesn't even have a distinction between it and you. Even your emotions are linked from one to the other, and from what I've been able to gather, though I can't prove it yet, it takes advantage of that.

"It's sentient?"

"I can't prove that yet, either. It mimics your blood-type, your synapses, and its long tentacles are holding so thickly to you that to detach it from you is no easy task without serious risk."

"You mean kind of like a Trill?!" Quark squeaked.

"I don't think it's quite that intertwined," said Bashir, and he seemed to be checking something on his medical tricorder, but Quark thought he just wanted an excuse not to look him in the face as he added, "At least not yet."

"Not yet!?" hissed Quark, and he began to stand up in his excitement. "I can't go through life with something that'll make me—"

Bashir held his shoulder, and Quark spun towards him in angry panic.

"Just relax for a moment, alright? No one said this was going to be permanent. We just have to work it out. And remain… calm."

He allowed Bashir to pull him back down. Swallowing hard, Quark tried to keep from trembling and to slow his quickening breath as he stared vacantly out in front of himself.

"Is it…" Quark began fidgeting a little and shifting his eyes upwards as though that would help to see it for himself in the back of his brain, "controlling me now in any way?"

"It's immobilized. While you were out I figured out a way to at least temporarily do that without keeping you unconscious as well. It should work for a few hours, anyway. Up to four."

"You can separate it out for that, but you can't remove it?"

"No, in fact, even now it is possible that the immobilization may hinder your motor ability just a touch… do you feel dizzy?"

Quark winced. "A little…"

There was another short pause before Quark looked Bashir in the face again very hard, "Are you going to explain what's going on then, at least?"

"I think you already know just about as much as we do," replied Bashir so annoyingly casual that even without emotional interference from a parasite he had this thought about kicking him. "You already know they are aimed for your home planet, and are likely making their arrangements with your unwitting brother even as we speak."

"Pfft, 'unwitting' is right. If Zek was still Grand Nagus…" muttered Quark, but he shook his head. "How do you know about it? I've never even heard of the Keeoopii before this or this parasite."

Bashir glanced at him in a strange, almost apologetic sort of way. It was more unnerving than any sort of disapproving frown ever could be. Quark could not help but recall that wide-eyed vacant look at him before the parasite had taken over.