“Who are you?” someone demanded, and Kira took a step back, turning, her thoughts racing with the thunder of her heart. Vaatrik had caught her.

“Hello,” she began, wondering with some doubt if she could try to seduce him. “I’m—”

“I’m calling security, unless you explain yourself right away.” The Bajoran went for his comm, but Kira drew her phaser, reacted before she’d thought through the greater implications—and Vaatrik fell to the floor with a crash.

“Oh kosst,” she whispered. She had just killed Vaatrik, and the door was wide open for anyone to see. Had he signaled for security? She had to get out of here right now. There would be no other opportunity, for this shop would be swarming with Cardassians in moments, and then she would never get off this station alive. She had failed.

“Rom!” Quark was in a foul mood when he opened his door. “You’re supposed to be tending bar!”

“Frool is watching the till, Quark. I have to tell you—”

“Frool is not family, Rom. You get back there right away.”

“But, brother—”

“No buts, Rom, Frool is probably robbing me blind even as we speak!”

“But, brother, there’s a Lurian in the bar.”

Quark’s mood worsened. “Well, get rid of him!”

“But…brother, he’s really…big. And…hairy. He says his name is Morn.”

“All Lurians are big and hairy, Rom, no matter what their names are, and they’re also bad for business.” He waggled his fingers like a squawking puppet. “ Jabber jabber jabber.Find someone to deal with him. Maybe you could plant something on him, get him arrested. Now that Thrax is away, it should be easy to concoct a simple frame job.”

“Yes, but, brother—”

“Maybe I should get in touch with that Tarulian trader I did business with last year. We’ve got to make the best of our opportunities while Thrax is off the station.”

“But, brother—”

“What did I tell you about buts?” Quark shoved his brother out into the hall.

“But, brother!”Rom shouted, just before Quark could slide the door closed. “There’s a new chief of security now!”

Quark scowled. “What did you say?”

“There’s a new chief of security now.”

“I don’t believe it,” Quark muttered, and grabbed his jacket. “Come on, Rom. We’re going to the bar. I’ll take care of this Lurian of yours.”

A new chief of security? Quark hoped his brother was mistaken—it certainly wouldn’t be the first time his fool-headed brother was wrong about something. Quark wasn’t sure if a new chief was going to be a bad thing or not. He’d just gotten Thrax sufficiently broken in, really. A new chief might be too quick to make assumptions about a Ferengi businessperson. Assumptions that might be correct, but that was exactly the problem. At least Thrax always gave him the benefit of the doubt, pretended that his race had no bearing on his likelihood of being a suspect for any particular crime. A new security chief might not feel quite the same way.

Rom continued with his blithering as the two made their way down the corridor of the habitat ring and onto the Promenade. “It’s true, brother. Yesterday Dukat hired someone else, to look into a murder investigation.”

“I’ll give him a murder to investigate,” Quark muttered.

Rom ignored him. “He’s not a Cardassian, the new chief. He’s a shape-shifter.”

Quark wasn’t quite listening as the two entered the bar, and he noted that the Lurian in question was indeed big, possibly the biggest Lurian he had ever seen. He sat at the far end of the bar, his massive bulk heaved over a single staggering barstool. Poor barstool. As to his hairiness, well, Quark was less alarmed about that than he was about the bigness, but it did make him seem especially menacing. He was talking up a couple of unwitting Cardassians seated near him at the bar.

In an instant, it dawned on Quark what his brother had just said. “Wait, what did you just say about the new chief of security?”

“Uhhh…he’s a shape-shifter,” Rom said.

Quark snorted. “There are no shape-shifters in this sector, you nitwit.”

One of the Cardassians at the bar, a dal named Boheeka, turned away from the typically long-winded Lurian to interject. “It’s true,” he said. “He really is a shape-shifter. I saw him once, at the Bajoran Institute of Science. He can be anything he wants to be. He’s one of a kind, they say. Nobody knows where he came from.”

Quark felt himself go stiff with horror. “No.”

“Yes,” Boheeka said. “He could be”—he picked up a cocktail napkin—“this napkin! He could be…him!” He pointed to the Lurian, who had now fallen silent. An unusual state for a Lurian.

Quark looked frantically from the Lurian to the Cardassian. Was this a joke? A cruel, cruel joke? “Why isn’t Thrax coming back?”

The other Cardassian shrugged. “Who knows? I, for one, won’t miss him.”

“Me either,” added Boheeka. “He was arrogant.”

Quark swallowed repeatedly, his throat having gone very dry. “He wasn’t such a bad guy,” he squeaked. At least Thrax was no shape-shifter, pretending to be a cocktail napkin so as to spy on a humble Ferengi proprietor.

A Bajoran woman walked into the bar then, drawing his attention; someone from the mines, probably, though they didn’t often come into Quark’s place unless they were looking for work. This woman’s posture seemed to suggest otherwise.

“There you are!” she cried out, and walked straight up to Quark. She was pretty, young, with bright red hair and large, expressive eyes. If not for all the lumpy, cumbersome clothing, she might be something. He’d been thinking about hiring some dabo girls…

“I just wanted to let you know,” she said, coming closer, “that I appreciated the opportunity.” She came close enough then that Quark could smell her, a scent that was at once peppery and sweet, like Bajoran nyawood. With an almost imperceptible movement, she reached out her hand and pressed several strips of latinum into Quark’s palm. The careful precision of the motion indicated that she did not want to make the transaction known to the Cardassians at the bar. Quark deftly slipped the latinum into the pocket of his waistcoat.

“Of course,” he said, waiting to see what would happen next.

“I know that you have a lot of other Bajorans who want to work for you,” she went on, “and I just hope that I made an impression on you…that you won’t forget.”

“Sure, sure,” Quark said, thinking he might understand. These Bajorans! They always assumed he was going to be on their side, that he would be willing to concoct stories on their behalf, just because he had gotten himself mixed up with the business of selling supplies to them. He sighed. Well, at least there was the latinum, though it wasn’t very much. He’d better get rid of her. “You did make an impression. But I’ll have to think about it some more. There are quite a few others who are looking to work for me.”

“Thank you,” she said huskily. “Just let me know if…there’s anything more I can do.” She turned quickly and left the bar. Quark stared after the young woman, hoping he’d seen the last of her. She was sexy, sure, but something about her immediately suggested trouble, and he wasn’t interested in getting mixed up in anything else—especially now that he had to worry about a new security chief.

One of the Cardassians at the bar let out a low chuckle. Quark turned to him, returning his lascivious implication with a meaningful grin, though he felt a little ridiculous about it. He’d never seen that woman before in his life, let alone had any sort of relations with her. Although he had, on occasion, taken part in such relationships with other Bajoran women, that was hardly the business of these depraved Cardassians. He cleared his throat and looked away, hoping to change the subject—particularly before the Lurian started to prattle again.

“So, ah,” Quark said to the soldier, sitting down next to him, “tell me more about this so-called shape-shifter.”