The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [36]
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of who’s responsible already,” she said grimly. “One of my communications operators—Thomas Grede.
Unfortunately, Mr. Grede met with an accident last night. It seems that when he came off shift, he took a wrong turn and walked out an airlock.”
“He was murdered.”
“Thank you, Jean-Luc, but that thought had occurred to me already. I’ll fill you in on the details when you arrive.”
There went his advantage. “How the devil did you know the Enterprise was headed for Starbase 193?”
“The usual base channels,” said Miyakawa with a wry smile. “I overheard it in a bar.”
“Of course, it’s not just any bar,” explained the commander later that day as she and Picard walked through the doorway of the Due or Die. “This is Camenae’s bar, and that makes all the difference.”
The dimly lit room was crowded, with no empty tables, but one of the waiters waved them over to a booth. Two Tellarites and an Andorian scrambled off the benches with half-filled drinks still clutched in their hands.
Picard heard their muttered curses as he and Miyakawa settled into the hastily vacated booth. Another waiter swept by and left two glasses of synthehol in his wake. “Are these the perks of base command?”
“Some of the very few,” sighed Miyakawa.
“Camenae, for reasons I haven’t yet fathomed, likes to maintain the fiction that I’m a power to be reckoned with on this station. Perhaps the tourists find the illusion of law and order comforting.”
“You weren’t this cynical at the Academy.”
She shrugged and gestured toward the patrons of the densely packed bar. A group of Ferengi merchants were huddled at one end of the room; Orions were at the other end; in between, Picard counted at least ten other alien races, none of them known for their pacifism or a highly developed sense of ethics.
“I’m one Starfleet officer working alone in a den of smugglers, thieves, and cutthroats. If I ever manage to get my hands on any hard evidence of criminal activity, I’ll probably end up walking out an airlock just like Grede.” She downed her drink in one gulp, then said, “Which hasn’t stopped me from trying, mind you.
However, Camenae is fond of me, so she works very hard to keep compromising materials out of my reach.”
“Just who is this Camenae?” asked Picard.
“Officially, she’s merely one of the inhabitants of the starbase, but unofficially, I’d have to say that Camenae is the real administrator of this place. I may supervise the base’s technical services and facilities, but Camenae runs its affairs.
She always knows what’s going on in every corner of this sector, so if someone wants information, she sells it to them; when something needs to be done, she arranges it.”
“Does that include murder?”
“I’m sure it does.” Miyakawa frowned, then shook her head. “But I don’t think she ordered Grede’s death. It was a sloppy job, and Camenae would never allow one of her informants to be killed in such an obvious way.”
“But you think she knows who did?”
“Yes. Not that I’ll ever be able to get that information out of her; and unless she gives the signal, there’s not a single being on the starbase who will talk to me about Grede’s death.”
“So you’re telling me that the murderer will go free?” said Picard angrily.
“Without any evidence, or any witnesses, my hands are—” Miyakawa was cut off by the crash of heavy furniture and a stream of curses uttered in a mixture of Ferengi and Federation Standard.
“Nothing!” continued the Ferengi who had overturned a chair as he staggered to his feet; he was weaving back and forth in place. “Bruk says he found nothing in the wreckage but my brother’s corpse!”
One of his companions plucked at the sleeve of his gray jacket, but the Ferengi swatted away the restraining hand.