Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [121]
The first stage would have the effect of spreading panic and compelling both his Empire and the other side to accuse each other of biological warfare, always a good ploy for keeping the balance of power unbalanced. Anything that sent the Federation side into a frenzy, as long as it was done subtly, was something Koval’s superiors welcomed. Many in the Tal Shiar, as well as the military and the Senate, hungered for an end to the Empire’s half-century of self-imposed isolation, and a return to expansionism. If Koval’s scheme worked on this level, he could present the expansionists with a game plan for conquering worlds and eliminating their indigenous populations without deploying a single warbird or firing a single shot.
So, how to disguise the Gnawing, and render it dormant until its purveyors could be spread across two quadrants? That was the easy part. When carried by the immunes, it could incubate for weeks, sometimes months, before spreading. Koval’s physicians did not know why the incubation period varied from one immune to another, but it wasn’t that important to them. The difficult part was not making the vector so obvious that it attracted attention too soon.
Then there was the awkwardness of having important Romulans suspected of being carriers. It was at this juncture that Koval began not only training the ghilik who were already members of his expendable cadre, but searching the Imperial Census files for those who lived in the back streets and whose disappearance would go largely unremarked. The day he cornered Zetha and Tahir in the alley near the cemetery had been only one of many.
Tahir was not an immune, and so of no use to him. But Zetha, once she had been injected with a series of “nutritional supplements” which, had Selar been there to examine them, she would have recognized at once as Catalyst, became Sample 173. The rest was only a matter of time.
Sisko cleared his throat. The annoying dry cough, which had not bothered him while he and Tuvok had at first been poking around among Thamnos’s belongings, had returned. “What are you saying?”
“Oh, come on, don’t play innocent with me!” Thamnos had deactivated the computer, closed the case full of datachips. “He’s more clever than I thought he was. I never realized he had humans and Vulcans in his employ, but then why wouldn’t he? He has the resources. But as soon as I saw her, I knew. All right, you’re branching out on your own, trying to get to the vaccine before he does. I know how that works. Fine, no problem. Only take me with you. He’s as much as threatened to kill me. You have a ship? I want out of here, and fast. I give you the vaccine, you take me with you. Deal?”
“You have perfected an actual vaccine?” Selar asked. “Derived from hilopon, as described in your paper to the Journal?”
Beside her, Zetha had covered her mouth with her hand and was backing away from all of them.
“Sure!” Thamnos said brightly. “Not here. Of course I wouldn’t keep it here. I knew this would be the first place he-or you-would look for it. It’s in a safe place. But I need to go alone. If any of the villagers spotted any one of you, even a human… they’re suspicious enough of strangers, but your clothes…”
“Your vaccine,” Selar said. “Will it work offworld?”
Thamnos’s eyes shifted from side to side.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Sisko said softly.
He nodded to Tuvok, who moved, catlike, encircling Thamnos’s neck with one long arm, the fingers of his other hand set at the precise point on his shoulder where the briefest pinch would take him down. Thamnos, recognizing the maneuver, did not fight.
“You knock me out, you don’t get the vaccine,” he said. “And you really don’t want to waste any time, you know. You’re all going to need the vaccine very soon. If it isn’t already too late.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sisko demanded, moving toward him ominously. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once he got there, but he made the move anyway.
“How long have you had that cough?” Thamnos demanded. He jerked his chin toward Zetha. “She’s the