Chapter Seven

Behavioral Studies

Was Bashir entirely okay, himself? What if he was infected too? Maybe this was still a nightmare.

If only.

Quark turned reluctantly back to Bashir who went on, "We don't know what the Keeoopii are either. We checked the coordinates they gave you. They're fake."

"They weren't when I checked them," Quark retorted.

"Then they must have deceived you somehow, but what is interesting is that we did find out about a race known as the Aavara."

"How'd they deceive me?" was what Quark wanted to know.

"I already said, I don't know, but the Aavara is a race that no longer is supposed to exist according the records we found of them— with difficulty, unfortunately. The accounts of their being a short, blue, highly sophisticated race also seem to fit the descriptions we received from patrons from the bar, anyway."

"Why didn't you just ask Broik about it? He was there."

"Well, that's the other thing. There's no sign of Broik anywhere. We don't know if he was beamed off before the power failure, but I'm sure he's been infected as well. Unless someone else is also infected, his parasite is most-likely the one who sabotaged the power on the station."

"What?"

"No ships can leave the station or enter it," said Bashir calmly. "The communications are down. Beaming is unsafe. Much of the power is low—"

"You're using the computers," Quark pointed out with a hand waving towards them.

"Whatever is being used to conduct this power failure is an unknown technology meant to strand us not to kill us."

"So I'm assuming up to this point there's been no contact with Bajor or Starfleet."

"No."

"Aren't they checking other people for parasites?"

"Of course. The medical staff members here are fully occupied with that duty."

"Where's Pel?" asked Quark, suddenly recalling her presence in all this too. "What's she got to do with this?"

"Pel is helping in the search for Broik."

He thought of pointing out Bashir's obvious deviance from what he knew Quark's question to be about, but he only closed his eyes in disgust.

"Then we're back to you and me," said Quark; he was too dizzy to attempt to continue his interrogation.

"That about sums it up, yes."

Even though, you seem to know more about this parasite than you let on, especially since the medical personal on the station are leaving me all to you, Quark added to himself.

Out loud he said wearily, "So, what are you going to do?"

"The only thing I can do at the moment. Figure out this parasite, and I'd like your cooperation to do it."

Quark shook his head and shrugged despite his further disgust at that typical human psychiatric tone. No one had to talk down to someone with that tone on Ferenginar to get a point across like a person was a pet or a two-year-old baby. In fact even pets and two-year-old babies weren't spoken to in that way on Ferenginar.

"You have my full cooperation, doctor," he assured Bashir.

#

"No matter what happens, don't look at me. Don't look at my equipment or the tricorder, or anything that will give the parasite more information than it already has. Don't speak to me. Don't expect an answer. Just look where I tell you to and keep as still as possible. If you do feel any of the symptoms that led to the first time it overtook you, tell me immediately."

While everyone else was taking care of the station, Quark had to remain for the study of his parasite. Naturally, there was enough power for a real study, except advanced research into databanks beyond the station.

"Now when the parasite is awake, I'm not certain whether it can read your thoughts or only your emotions. I believe that your thoughts are pretty much private unless you give it access to them, due to the fact the a Ferengi mind is powerful enough to protect itself from such things, but we don't know that for sure, so when I rouse it, I want you to pay close attention only to what I'm showing you."

"Well," snorted Quark humorlessly, "if it can read my mind, it doesn't matter what precautions we take."

"I believe it is only emotional responses that it really understands of its host even if it obviously understands spoken words."

"Unless the Ferengi mind is more impenetrable than others even with a parasite like this as you suggest," remarked Quark with a grin despite himself, but he shook his head at his own digression, "it probably can take advantage of the universal translator then. It understood you well enough to understand that you were onto him. And that also brings up the question… well, how you or Pel knew about this to begin with?"

"No giving it more information than it needs to know," Bashir said firmly.

Quark glared.

Bashir had just told him that the immobilization of the parasite would keep it from having access to Quark's mind for this conversation, why should it be any different with another? He may have kept a straight face but Quark had been around Humans enough to know when they sounded inwardly uncomfortable about a topic, especially for personal reasons.

"The longer it's awake the stronger its hold will be on you," Bashir added.

"Then is this really necessary?" Quark pressed.

"With the limitations, I'm still wasting no time seeing how much I can find out before we continue."

"Then what?"

"Well, then we'll have to make the decision based on the result, and hopefully we'll have a better understanding," Bashir said simply, "if not a closer idea of a cure against the parasite by the time we can reach Starfleet and Ferenginar, so if we—"

Quark held up his hand. "Okay, you know what?" he said. "This is starting to get anti-helpful. Let's just get on with it."

He tried to sound unafraid and cocky, but he knew Bashir knew him as a patient too well for him to fall for it. Still, it made Quark feel better. There was no amount of prep talk that was going to make the prospect of waking up the beast any better. Even with Bashir's assurances that he would have the experiment at least 98% under control, Quark did not like that two percent. If Bashir wanted his two slivers' worth, they had talked enough about it that if they talked about it anymore he might start screaming.

"Okay. If you're ready."

"No," Quark whined.

But it was too late. Julian Bashir took away the pressure that was subduing his Keeoopii brain leech. Quark shut his eyes and braced himself as for a sudden pain, but as the seconds rolled by, he felt no real difference, except that the artificial pressure in his head had ended. His vision was with fuzz and color for a moment when he dared to open his eyes. Blinking once or twice, he frowned as his vision became clear again, and the dizziness he had previous felt had vanished entirely.

"I don't feel anything."

But true to his word, Bashir did not answer. He just motioned to the screen on a little computer pad, while he worked with his equipment behind Quark's head. He would have hated reminding Bashir that what he heard him doing was almost as good as seeing it for a Ferengi, but he decided it probably was better to just comply. After all, maybe the parasite could not utilize Ferengi hearing to its fullest extent of understanding, anyway.

With a sigh he held up the pad and looked at the screen. He felt like he was taking a psychiatric test. With a Human, no less.

First there was an image of some scene from Ferenginar's capital emerged from its vast swampy surrounding. Then there was some picturesque waterfall from Bajor. A picture of the bar. A picture of the commander's office. A picture of Rom. A picture of latinum. A picture of some other scene from a Ferengi backwater town. A picture of Morn. Dukat. Worf. Odo. A picture of himself from the back that he never knew anyone had taken of him doing something suspicious.

He rolled his eyes and leaned his chin on one hand as he held the pad.

Without thinking, after a yawn, he rolled his whole head in Bashir's direction, but Bashir held it back and forced it towards the screen.

He lurched with even more annoyance, but he kept his mouth shut. When this was over, he would have a few things to say to him.

There was a picture of Vulcan. Starfleet Academy. Some random Ferengi that briefly worked for him. A picture of Nog. A picture of more latinum— admittedly it did look nice sitting there all neat and tidy as though on his counter.

Oh, come on, what's the matter with you?, he thought to himself as a picture of some tube grubs went by, buying into this psychological idiocy… unless, the thing is getting to me again?

He turned a second time to his doctor.

"Julian, I—"

A second time, Bashir turned his head back.

Quark growled to himself, but he remembered again that he was not supposed to look at him.

There was a whole treasure horde this time. Bashir obviously took that to be the most important thing in Quark's mind. Well, sure in a way it was, but that was not the point. The point was that it was starting to get degrading. In fact the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became about it too so that he really was not staring at the pictures at all anymore.

"Oh, haven't we done this enough?" Quark complained, and he turned the third time.

Bashir reached out his hand almost absently to turn Quark's head, but this time, Quark heard it coming. He snatched that slender, pale Human hand and glared down Bashir right into his hair brimmed human eyes.

"Don't do that," snapped Quark before he allowed the doctor his hand back, which the doctor gratefully accepted.

In fact, after quickly removing his equipment from Quark's vision (leaving one specifically attached to the back of Quark's head) he took the pad from his patient and stood back quite satisfied.

"So, after my study, I've come to the conclusion that there is no way to remove the parasite properly."

"What?" demanded Quark first in fright, but then he glowered and threw out his hands in protest. "From that?!"

Bashir threw his hands behind his back and said, "I'm afraid termination as the only viable option."

Quark jumped.

"No," he then laughed. "You can't be serious."

He can't be serious, he thought to himself, but he did not seem to take his own advice. In fact, he could not believe anything but the opposite. They were going to terminate him.

No. They weren't going to do that.

His vision began to haze again as before. Fear. Rage. Hatred. It was all swimming back like being plunged under water by the legendary ancient krokatwa from the tales of Ferenginar's Norgaxi Bayou Region and down into murky, suffocating depths where the undercurrent was stronger than one might suppose from the lethargic surface of the water.

"I'm quite serious," said Bashir calmly; his voice seemed somewhat distorted.

He felt himself bolt upright.

"No!" said Quark.

"Quark!" said Bashir. "I was just testing its reaction."

"No!" said Quark again.

"Listen. It's the final thing I need to destroy it."

Quark stopped. He pushed through. Or was it allowing him to. He was still trembling, but he registered the words.

Not me. Just it. Not me. Just it. I told you so.

But he did not seem to believe himself. Or was it the Keeoopii controlling him now with its emotions instead of using Quark's emotions against him? He stood up. Emotions, no matter who's they were, were drowning him.

"I won't be destroyed!" he heard himself say.

Was it really the Keeoopii, or was it merely his own emotions being twisted that caused him to say it?

"You do have some level of control over it. Try to."

He just barely perceived the words. His senses were failing him to the overwhelming power clouding his rationality.

"I'm trying!" he growled.

It was him. He knew it was one hundred percent his words this time. Bashir seemed to know that too. He felt the torrents subsiding. He could see the surface, as it were, but just as he felt confident about it, like a boy who thought he understood how to make a good deal only to lose everything by some technicality by the one more experienced, he lost it. "Pride comes before a fall," as Humans were apt to say.

His senses failing yet again, he still vaguely found his muscles lurching forward with anger and fear he could not contain. He leapt from his chair as though to make a break for the door.

But before he lost his senses entirely to the inky depths, Bashir grabbed him by the arm. Whether the Keeoopii was too lost to its own emotions to think straight either; it thought its host to be stronger than the seemingly unassuming doctor; or between the emotional turmoil of two minds clashing so that no one was thinking straight but the doctor, Bashir pulled him back easily, so that Quark's arm was made useless behind his back.

Quark let out a Ferengi cry from the surprise and the sudden pain even if normally it would not have been enough for such a howl, and Bashir nicked the creature unconscious yet again with his device.

Quark himself nearly swooned as he was released back into his chair. He moaned loudly and clutched his throbbing skull. Even his

ears felt a tad prickly, and miserably, he let his head fall into his hands.

"Are you alright?" asked Bashir leaning down beside him.

"No!" growled Quark down into his lap.

Forcing his head upright, he spat the rest in Bashir's face, "Don't ever do that again!"

"I won't need to," said Bashir. "I've found what I wanted to know from this study."

Through a panting heave and pounding veins, Quark managed, "So you really can get rid of it now? Or was that a lie too?"

"I was testing it to see how much control it has, and how separate it is from you. Things I could not determine with accuracy while either of you was unconscious."

"Well, abuse me again, why don'tcha?" Quark said. "I'd file a lawsuit over this if it weren't for the fact that I need you so badly! So if you didn't figure out how to kill it or remove it, what did you find out that was so important?"

"That although it is very much entwined with your brain, it is very much separate in brain activity and it does not have full control of you. You also have some control of it, but certainly not enough to trust. We also don't know if you can become more in control or if different Keeoopii have different strengths of control. My guess is that the one meant for the Grand Nagus would be stronger than the one given to you."

"Makes sense, and I'm sure that the idiot Nagus would be easy for any larva-stage Keeoopii to control, anyway, but this is still mostly speculation, Julian," Quark warned. "The facts!"

"I think one of the most interesting things I've learned is that it reacted to the latinum more than you did."

Quark paused to consider this briefly.

"Really?" he said dryly. "What would that imply?"

"A sense of starvation."

Quark smiled wryly. "What, does it eat latinum?" He paused uneasily. "I hope not."

"I doubt it, but it also displayed that same sense of starvation or need when seeing members or places of your race, whereas you reacted differently to each of them. But it also did have, again, some amount of influence over your own reactions, more than you over it. It reacted to pain instantly in time with you so it is connected in that way to you…"

"Hmm. So can I go until I need to return to get the thing under control again every four hours?"

Before Bashir could answer— and Quark had a strong feeling it was going to be an unfavorable one— the doors suddenly slid open. Before he could see what was beyond in the darkened corridor, there was that way-too-familiar sound of phaser fire. Who it was, Quark did not have time to see exactly, but he saw who was with him. Broik… or his hijacked body.