Vectors Read Free Page A

were wounded, but he felt uncomfortable here in cases like this. Illness. Especially unrecognized illness. The very idea made his skin crawl.
    The displays were flashing, the monitors constantly recording various bits of information. In the main section, the physician assigned to Terok Nor, Narat, sat at his desk studying a screen before him. On beds hooked up to the monitors were two of Dukat's guards. Their skin was an odd greenish color, almost the color of a body shortly after it begins to decay.
    Dukat raised his head slightly. Through the door of the second, smaller room, he could see the blanket-covered feet of the two Bajoran patients. Their doctor, Kellec Ton, stood beside them studying a Cardassian padd as if it were in a strange language. It looked odd to Dukat to see Bajorans here. They belonged in the medical part of the Bajoran area. It wasn't as well appointed as this, but then, they were workers. They didn't need all of this equipment.
    He wouldn't have allowed them up here if Narat didn't believe that the disease the Bajoran workers had was related to the disease these two guards seemed to have.
    Dukat took another step into the medical lab. Narat turned. He was slight, and his neck scales were hardly prominent. His eyes almost disappeared into his thin face. They were always bloodshot, but they seemed worse now. His thinning hair was cut short, almost too short, and stood straight up. He wore a lab coat over his uniform, and it gave him a scholarly air.
    "Ah, Gul Dukat. I appreciate you coming here so quickly."
    Dukat glanced at the patients on the bed. He felt uncomfortable, so he wasn't going to give any leeway to Narat. "I don't like to have Bajorans up here."
    "We have a forcefield at the doors, just as you recommended," Narat said. "But they're not going anywhere. They will die here, probably within a few hours."
    He sounded certain. "I'd like you to see them."
    Dukat frowned, glancing again at the guards. One of them moaned and thrashed, clutching at his stomach. Narat uttered a small curse, then found a hypospray and shut off the quarantine field around the bed. He stepped inside, restarted the quarantine field, and administered hypo to the man's neck. The guard calmed slightly.
    "What about them?" Dukat asked.
    "In a moment," Narat said, as he let himself out of the quarantine field. "Let me tell you this in my own way."
    He led Dukat to the second room. They stopped at the door. The forcefield Dukat had insisted on was more for the Bajoran doctor than it was for the patients, but Dukat didn't tell Narat that. Dukat wanted Narat and Kellec Ton to work together as best a Cardassian and a Bajoran could. He just wasn't going to take any chances.
    As if he knew that Dukat was thinking of him, Kellec Ton looked up from his padd. He had the wide dark eyes that Dukat found so compelling in Bajorans. His nose ridge set them off. His face was long, but didn't give an impression of weakness like Narat's did. On Kellec, the length accented his bone structure and gave him a suggestion of power.
    Dukat had been careful around this Bajoran doctor, and had limited his access to the Cardassians. Women found him attractive, and Dukat didn't like that. Kellec Ton had the kind of charisma that could be dangerous if allowed to run free.
    Dukat couldn't study him any longer. He had to look at the patients.
    The Bajorans on the table were not a strange shade of green. In fact, their color was normal. Better than normal. If he hadn't known better, Dukat would have thought them the picture of perfect health.
    It was the stench that made their illness dear. The pervasive odor of rot clung to everything, as if there were food spoiling along the floors and walls of the mom-4ood and unburied bodies decaying in a powerful sun.
    He resisted the urge to bring his hand over his face. 11ec Ton was watching him, as if measuring Dukat's tension. ' gusting, isn't it?" Kellec said. "You should go into the Bajoran section. The smell is so