BERAT HAD MADE UP for many sleepless days and nights in the time since his arrest. According to the Starfleet medic, he'd been lucky. Residual nerve damage was only four to six percent, and he might recover perhaps half of that in the next few months, as he healed naturally. "Sleep and rest," Bashir had told him. "That's the best thing you can do now."
And the only thing, here in detention. But Berat had no complaint. As that odd-faced security chief had made clear, he might still be facing serious charges from station officials. But at least the penalties couldn't possibly be as bad as what Gul Marak would have handed out.
Now, at the sound of someone approaching his cell, Berat sat up, still slightly apprehensive. His fugitive instincts weren't quite dead yet.
Seeing the dark-faced Starfleet commander, he stood up nervously. The other, much paler, officer with him looked familiar. Berat's memories of his capture were confused and fragmented, but: a strange corridor, a brief glimpse of a face, a startled expression, a hand going for … a weapon?
Berat's hand opened and closed, missing the grip of the phaser. This was the man he had shot.
As the two humans came up to the front of his cell, Berat took a step backward.
The Federation officers looked preoccupied, even grim. Berat started to feel a touch of panic. Were they going to charge him with shooting the officer? Or would they revoke his asylum? Hand him back to Gul Marak, after all?
But Sisko said brusquely, "Mr. Berat, I'm here on an urgent matter. This is my chief of operations, Miles O'Brien. I believe you might remember him."
The commander's darkly ironic tone helped Berat regain his mental balance. "I …" He forced himself to meet O'Brien's eyes. The human didn't look vengeful, only worried, and very tired.
Berat stammered, "I'm sorry I shot at you. I was … I only saw someone in my way. . . ."
But Sisko said impatiently, "Mr. Berat, I understand you were a station engineer. O'Brien tells me you know what you're doing. What I want to know is: Will you help us?"
"Help you?" Berat hesitated.
"I think you're aware of what's been happening on this station. We have a serious bomb threat. We've located the device. It's planted on one of the fusion reactors. I think you know what that means. There are still hundreds of people on this station. I want to know if you can help us disarm it."
"Is it a Bajoran bomb? Who planted it there?"
"Frankly," said Sisko, "we don't know yet who's responsible. It could be Bajoran terrorists. And to be honest, there's a possibility that it could have been a Cardassian agent. I know we can't force you to help us. But the people who'll die are almost all civilians. Noncombatants, children. Please remember that."
Berat put his hands to his head. "I have to think."
They had called him a traitor, a Bajoran-lover. But he knew it wasn't so. He had never betrayed his homeworld. And the war was officially over now—these people weren't his enemies.
He raised his head. "Where exactly is the bomb planted?"
"On the antimatter-containment pod of reactor B," Sisko answered him grimly.
"Merciless gods!"
O'Brien agreed, "You could say that, all right, and if that thing goes up, we'll all be meeting our gods soon enough."
O'Brien handed Berat his own tool kit. "We managed to retrieve this for you," he said with a slight grin.
"How much did you have to pay the Ferengi?" Berat wondered, only half joking. He had realized by this time that the Ferengi had known all along that he could have had asylum just by asking for it. It did rankle.
"Constable Odo made them an offer they couldn't turn down. Not if they wanted to stay out of detention while everyone else evacuates the station."
Berat stood in silence a moment as they waited for the lift to take them down through the station core. "You told your commander that I was a good engineer? But—you don't know me."
"I've seen your work here and there around the station. It told me enough about you—what I needed to know."
Berat nodded silently. What they had in common went beyond human and Cardassian. A fuel pump was a fuel pump, regardless of design. And so was antimatter, unfortunately.
When they got off the lift at level thirty-two, he looked around. "I hid out down here for a while. When I first got a look at this station, I thought: The things they say about the Bajorans must be true. Everything was a mess. Then, I saw that the damage was deliberate."
"You should have seen the place when I first got here."
The bitterness in O'Brien's voice made it easy for Berat to imagine what that scene must have been like. He hesitated before saying, "It was hard for us to leave Bajoran space. We put a lot of unrecoverable resources into building a station like this. Then, to just abandon it, hand it over to them …"
"You took a lot of resources out of Bajoran space, too."
Berat couldn't deny it. He was silent as O'Brien led him through the restricted-access door into the powerplant control room. Then, as he looked around, his face lightened like a man coming home after a long journey. This, at least, was the same as it had always been.
The monitor showed the bomb still in place, inconspicuous and inoffensive-looking among all the banks of equipment, unless you knew what it was.
"How did you find it in here?" Berat asked.
"It took a while," O'Brien admitted. "All the bombs that have gone off so far were too small to do serious damage to the station. So I started to ask myself, if that was all you had to work with, how would you go about blowing the whole place up? When I thought about it that way, the answer was obvious. These reactors have been threatening to blow us up ever since we moved into this place. All it would take was a nudge."
Berat shook his head in disbelief. "I can't quite see how they managed to get a bomb through here. Even one this small. I mean, security—"
"Our security's been stretched a little thin these days," O'Brien said sharply, and Berat had nothing to reply to that, either.
They got into radiation suits, a precaution as natural to Berat as suiting up to go EVA, but he noticed O'Brien grumbling at the necessity. Berat was more concerned with the Bajoran technician watching them watch him. He wanted to turn and say, "I never did anything to you people, I never was even in Bajoran space before." But he was silent, and kept his face turned away.
There were heavy double doors that led into the reactor itself. The two engineers walked through the massive power-storage grid, seething with radioactive sodium, up to the magnetic containment pod that held the far more dangerous antimatter. If the pod was damaged, if the antideuterium slush came into contact with normal matter, the resulting reaction would vaporize the station. In which case, of course, the protection afforded by their radiation suits would be laughable.
O'Brien shook his head. "This system, I've never trusted it."
Berat turned sharply. "What do you mean? This is our most advanced type of generator. Of course, we don't have the limitless resources that Starfleet does."
"Sorry, I mean it just isn't what I'm used to, I suppose." But O'Brien's expression as he stared around at the grid was still mistrustful.
They got down to the serious business of examining the problem. The bomb was an example of deadly simplicity. Planting it on the containment pod had depressed and activated an arming switch so that any attempt to lift or remove it would detonate the explosive.
"I don't see a timing mechanism," O'Brien said. "It looks like remote control."
"Unless the timer is hidden inside the case," Berat corrected him.
O'Brien looked unhappy at that reminder. "I haven't dared to scan it. No telling what might set it off."
Berat agreed. Without knowing what was inside the case, how the bomb was intended to detonate, there was no way of knowing how to safely scan it. Most devices he was familiar with could be sensitive to X rays, to sonic probes, radio waves, to any fluctuation in the electromagnetic field—you could never be sure what. Even those wires holding down the bomb—what would happen if you cut one of them?
After a long while considering and rejecting all the other alternatives that came to his mind, he said reluctantly, "The best—the safest thing would be to shut down the reactor completely. But that would take—" He glanced at his chronometer. "How much time did you say we had?"
O'Brien shook his head grimly.
"Then the only thing else I can think of is to isolate the problem—remove the pod and the bomb altogether. As a unit."
O'Brien looked worried. "I was afraid you might say that. But removing it, shifting it—won't that set off the bomb?"
Berat frowned. "I don't … The mechanism is designed to go off if you lift the bomb from the pod, not if you move the whole thing—not unless it has some kind of gyroscopic detection device. I haven't heard of one of those, but I suppose it could be. But of course we'll have to pump out the antimatter, first."
"What other choice do we have?"
Both of them tried once more to think of something. Finally O'Brien said, "You're fairly familiar with this system, aren't you?"
"I was systems control officer on Farside Station for almost two years—before I was recalled. The basic plans for all our stations are essentially the same."
"Then that's how you knew how to foil our security systems?"
"And which maintenance tunnels to use, where to hide." Regretfully, "Only I didn't count on that reactor section being sealed off."
"Both the A and C reactors are contaminated. It was sabotage. Deliberate. We had no choice. I don't know if we'll ever be able to get them operational again. At least our energy needs aren't that great."
They came out again into the control room. "How do you think we should do this?" O'Brien asked.
"Well," said Berat, stepping up to the control console and pulling off his head protection and gloves. Then he hesitated, looked back.
"Go ahead," O'Brien urged him.
Berat sat down, flexed his fingers slightly. Then he began to call up schematics of the power grid onto the console's screen, moving his lips slightly as he scanned the readings. "The flux level on this containment field is awfully high, did you know that?"
O'Brien did. The erratic magnetic fluctuations of the reactor containment fields had done nothing but lose him sleep ever since he came onto DS-Nine.
Berat glanced back again to O'Brien, with the Bajoran technician standing mistrustfully next to him. "I'm going to have to pump the antimatter out of this pod and shunt it somewhere. I take it sections A and C are out of the question?"
"Completely sealed off," O'Brien said firmly. "The antimatter pods were removed altogether. I tell you, that was a job!"
"I see." Checking the readings again, "Then it'll have to be reactor D. It has the most excess capacity."
"We've shut that system down," O'Brien said, worried.
"But the containment-field generators are operational?"
"They ought to be," the technician volunteered.
Berat called up the specifications onto the console. "They are," he confirmed.
"Do it," said O'Brien.
Berat bit down on his lower lip as he examined the figures on both systems. "You can run the station on just one reactor?"
"If we have to."
"Mmm," Berat replied wordlessly, preoccupied by the readings on the magnetic containment-field generator for reactor D. He muttered a number of things about flux and made small adjustments to both the generators. "Give me two percent more. Steady. I don't like that oscillation. There. That's better."
He looked up at O'Brien. "Where do you get your supply of antihydrogen? Starfleet?"
O'Brien nodded.
"Specs?"
In response, the station's operations chief called up a dense display of figures to the console's screen. Berat studied it for a moment, then punched in new adjustments to the containment generators. "All right," he said finally, exhaling. "Activating magnetic pumping system."
On the console, new readings flashed onto the display. A schematic showed the volume of antideuterium slush in the reactor-B pod beginning to be reduced, passing through the system of magnetic conduit into the D containment pod. After a few moments the computer's voice issued a warning: "Flux level is up by ten percent. There is a possibility of generator overload. Suggest pumping volume be reduced immediately."
"Bloody hell, we don't have time—" O'Brien cursed, but Berat had already started to punch in new adjustments, never looking away from the monitor. Soundlessly, his lips shaped the readings: Nine point seven, nine point six, nine point five … The flux level on the display declined slowly while the pumping volume continued at a steady rate.
O'Brien exhaled. Berat continued to work at his console, but from time to time he had to clench his fists together tightly to stop the trembling. Finally he looked up at O'Brien, holding out his shaking hands. "I'm going to have to go over to voice command. Nerve damage," he said ruefully, but there was an edge of exhaustion to his voice. "Unless you want to take over here."
"You can override the automatic protocols now with voice command," O'Brien assured him.
Berat looked surprised. "You can? But the computer—"
"I think," O'Brien said wryly, "you may find the computer has had a slight change of attitude. I've had to deal with this kind of problem before."
"Our regulations don't allow modification of the protocols."
"Well, fortunately, Starfleet regs don't cover the specs on Cardassian equipment. So, we sort of … bent a few of them."
Berat's face briefly showed envy before his attention turned back to the console. Indeed, just an instant later: "Warning! Flux level is up by twelve percent. Oscillation increasing. Pumping volume will be reduced—"
"Override! Increase field damping to eight-two. Reduce power to field generator one by point-two percent. All right. Hold that."
"Um," the technician broke in, "that capacitor—"
"Engage backup," said Berat automatically, and the Bajoran stepped up to the auxiliary control, made the necessary adjustment. As soon as the backup unit went on-line, the oscillation started to stabilize.
"All right," Berat said, "that ought to hold it now."
It was impossible to rush the process without risking the very blowup they were trying to avoid, but all three men in the control room were constantly aware of each second that passed. No one knew for certain when the bomb was supposed to go off. There was only the vague reference to seventy-two hours on the terrorist's sign, and more than half of those were irrevocably gone now.
But at last, Berat slumped back in his seat. The monitor showed the containment pod empty, the antimatter transfer complete. He continued the pumping process for several minutes longer, just to be sure the last antihydrogen atom had been flushed from the pod before they shut off the containment field.
The computer warned: "Antimatter levels depleted. Reactor output will be reduced to eighty-eight percent of capacity."
"Acknowledged," O'Brien said. "Now we can go back in there and pull that pod." Berat pulled on his head covering again. O'Brien was starting to do the same, but the Bajoran tech interrupted. "What should I do? Do you need my help?"
"Stay on the monitor. Watch the containment field in reactor D," Berat told him. "It probably isn't used to that level of stress."
"I'll do it."
As the technician took over the seat at the console, O'Brien and Berat went back into the chamber to begin what was essentially, as O'Brien put it, "nothing but plumbing," now that the pod was emptied of antimatter.
It was O'Brien who did most of the physical work of disconnecting the pod, Berat feeling useless and guilty with his gloved hands still shaky. The Starfleet doctor couldn't say just how much nerve regeneration he could expect.
"Last connection," O'Brien whispered. Holding his breath, he took hold of the meter-long pod. Released the last valve. Did the pod move? Yes, and it hadn't exploded in their faces. He and Berat let go of their breath simultaneously. Slowly, so slowly, O'Brien released it the rest of the way. At last it was free, the heavy weight of the pod supported only by the transfer cradle, with the bomb still there on its side, wired into place, still unexploded.
"You did it!" Berat breathed.
"We did," O'Brien corrected him.
"We did!" They were both grinning like fools.