CHAPTER
19

BUT NOT FOR LONG.

Because Quark’s chest started to re-form.

The shattered mass pulled itself together, making odd slurping sounds. Quark staggered to his feet, turning to face the metamorph, who only had time to gape in flat-footed astonishment before Quark struck out with a fist that had the force and shape of a sledge-hammer.

Meta was hurled off his feet, thrown through the air, and slammed against the wall.

“Lights,” said Quark’s voice, except now it sounded firm, full of confidence and a hint—no, more than a hint . . . a very large dose—of arrogance.

The lights came up.

Quark’s body finished reassembling itself. But now, in the full light, Glav saw to his horror that although the head had the general outline of Quark’s—the large ears, the vague shape—the face itself was not Quark’s.

The face was Odo’s.

“Surprise,” he said.

The two shapeshifters faced each other, Glav in the middle.

“Kill him!” shrieked Glav, pointing at Odo. “Kill him! What am I paying you for? Kill—”

The metamorph moved with lightning speed, his right arm honed to razor sharpness. It sliced through the air and through Glav’s neck without slowing down. The Ferengi’s mouth was still moving because he had not fully realized that he was dead. Then his head tumbled off his shoulders, and seconds later his body was on the floor to keep it company.

Odo was stunned, but only for a moment. “You killed Glav because your plan was ruined.”

“No,” said Meta calmly. “I intended to kill him all along. I never liked him. But I found his greed and his hunger for revenge very entertaining. I like to be entertained.” He looked at Odo curiously. “You promise to be the most entertaining of all.”

Odo took a step toward him. Meta tilted his red head slightly, as if trying to get a better look at the security chief. “So . . . what do we do now?”

“Who are you?” demanded Odo.

Meta chuckled low in his throat. “Don’t you know?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Ahh,” said Meta softly. “Now it becomes clear. You have no clue as to who you yourself are. Amnesia of some sort?”

Odo made no reply.

“And you perceive me,” continued Meta, “as perhaps a link to your unknown past. But you’re not sure. I may be like you . . . but then again . . . I may not.”

“No. No, you’re nothing like me,” said Odo firmly. “I believe in justice. Nothing is more important to me. Respect for justice permeates every fiber of my being. So much so that I believe it’s important to all my people.”

“My,” said Meta. “What an egocentric being you are. What is your name, egocentric being?”

“Odo.”

“I see. It sounds like ‘Oh no,’ but spoken with a bad headcold.”

“I’m aware of that,” said Odo drily. “And you are . . . ?”

Meta shrugged. “Names are a handicap. You carry yours with you, and you feel the need to carry along the baggage of preconceived notions as well. For myself, I prefer my freedom.”

“Freedom is not an option for you,” Odo told him.

“Hmmm.” He glanced toward the door. “Am I correct in assuming,” he said, “that you have security guards—and others, perhaps—waiting outside that door?”

“That is correct,” said Odo. “Escape is not possible.”

“Indeed. Won’t it be stimulating to find out,” said Meta. He actually looked pleased. “Oh, and don’t concern yourself that I’ll do something dreary such as . . . transform myself into a duplicate of you. My assumption is that if you were clever enough to figure out what was happening around here, then you were certainly cautious enough to prepare some sort of coded identity-confirmation system.”

“That’s quite correct,” said Odo.

“All right, then. That being the case . . . let us go out and greet your security guards.”

As if he had all the time in the world, Meta strolled out the doors, with Odo directly behind him.

They stepped into the corridor. Meta looked right and left, slowly and amusedly.

At either end of the corridor, forcefields were in place. Standing just beyond the forcefields were security squads. With the squad on the right side was Commander Benjamin Sisko, armed with a phaser, as were all the security guards.

“So I am blocked into this corridor,” said Meta, not sounding especially worried. “Sealed in at both ends.”

“You will proceed to your left,” said Odo firmly. “Each screen will be deactivated for you to pass through, while at the same time the next forcefield will be activated. Once you’ve passed a forcefield, it will be reactivated. At no time will more than one section of corridor be available to you. There will be nowhere for you to run.”

“Very clever,” said Meta. “Tell me, Odo . . . did you have an easier time dealing with me when you thought I was simply some berserk, crazed monster? A bizarre aberration of your species . . . presuming we are of the same kind. Or do you prefer me this way—intelligent, articulate . . . even pleasant, if you get to know me and I don’t kill you.”

“I prefer you,” said Odo, “in a forcefield holding facility. Now move.”

Meta did not move. Instead he regarded the security squads thoughtfully. “They are all on the other side of the forcefields. Keeping them out of my reach, are you? Very wise, Odo. You know how easily I can kill them, and so you keep them out of the immediate zone of danger. That’s very considerate. Very considerate. You’re setting the ground rules in that respect, aren’t you? It’s just you and me within the forcefield area. And that’s the way it should be. You and me.”

“I told you,” Odo repeated angrily, “to move.”

Still Meta did not budge. His voice took on a singsong tone. “The game with Quark is over. That was just a means of killing time during the infinitely boring and unchallenging span that is my life . . . and, for that matter, your life, too. It’s all a game, really, isn’t it? We just chose to play on different sides.”

“You don’t choose the sides,” Odo said sharply. “The sides choose you.”

“No matter. It’s time to move on to a truly challenging game. You and me, Odo. You and me. The main event.”

Odo stepped toward him, stopping less than a foot away. “I’m giving you one last warning,” he virtually snarled in Meta’s face. “Start moving or I’ll knock you out and carry you there myself.”

Meta’s red face, which now had an almost crystalline look in its hardness, smiled. “I’ll tell you what, Odo. I’ll tell you all about yourself. Your race. Your roots. How to discipline and improve your obviously untrained morphing ability. Everything you’ve always wanted to know—if you will do one simple thing.”

“I don’t make bargains with murderers.”

“This isn’t a bargain. This is a challenge. All you have to do . . . is catch me.”

And with that, Meta went liquid and vaulted toward the ceiling.

Sisko’s comm badge was already on line; he’d established a link with Ops the moment Meta and Odo emerged from the cabin. And he shouted, “Now, Chief!”

The air in the duct crackled with energy, just as Meta was seeping into it. The shapeshifter writhed as energy coruscated throughout his form. With a loud, ugly plop, the creature fell to the floor not three paces away from Odo.

Odo took a step toward him . . . and that proved to be a mistake.

Meta’s gelatinous form lunged forward, wrapping itself around Odo’s legs. It yanked them together, and Odo started to fall backwards.

Even as he fell, Odo morphed, turning into an unrecognizable mass. The men of Deep Space Nine gaped in astonishment as the two creatures, now completely lacking any humanoid form, came together. They bubbled and seethed like lava, and it was impossible to tell who was winning, who was losing, or even, for that matter, who was where and what.

The forcefields were starting to flicker. “Keep the fields in place!” shouted Sisko.

O’Brien’s voice shot back through the comm badge. “We’re overloading the junction circuits with both the air vents and the fields going!”

“Shut down the air vents! Maintain the fields . . . and prepare to reinstate the vent charge at my order!”

Oozing about on the floor was the most outlandish sight that Sisko had ever beheld. Every moment or so he thought he saw something—the shape of an arm here, the vague outline of a leg there. The two masses were struggling against each other, and it was still impossible to tell how the battle was being fought, much less how it was going.

Suddenly the two masses separated violently, practically exploding in opposite directions. One of them crashed into a forcefield, and it crackled violently, the field energy sizzling through the amorphous being. It sagged forward and started to pull itself together . . . and Sisko saw that it was Odo.

The other shapeshifter re-formed itself faster than Odo, and just as Odo came together, the shapeshifter with a roar charged forward. Spikes lanced out from all over his body, and he lunged at Odo, trying to drive him back into the force screen once more.

Odo wheeled about—literally. His feet had shifted into wheels, and he sped backwards, gaining distance and a moment to compose himself.

Meta leapt forward. In midair his lower half morphed, and suddenly he was one-half humanoid, one-half coiled spring. He hit the floor and sprang forward—again literally. He crashed into Odo, the spikes lancing through Odo’s body.

He had Odo pinned against the wall, his hands at Odo’s throat.

Odo’s throat disappeared along with his head, sinking down into his shoulders, leaving the metamorph grasping at nothing.

“Down here.”

Meta looked down.

Odo’s head was now projecting from under his arm.

And as Meta looked down in surprise, Odo grew another arm from his chest and slammed his fist into Meta, sending him reeling.

“This is crazy!” one of the guards muttered to Sisko. “They can’t hurt each other, sir . . . can they?”

“They can wear each other out,” replied Sisko tersely. “Morphing is a strain. The trick is to make whatever shifts are least strenuous but most effective. My guess is, whoever is left standing wins.”

Meta’s right arm was suddenly shifting again, and a huge double-edged battle-ax was projecting from just above his right shoulder. He swung it at Odo, slicing right through his middle, and Odo’s form rippled just fast enough to get out of its way. In the meantime his own arm was changing, and when Meta swung the ax around again, it clanged loudly against the shield that Odo had created out of himself.

The deflected blow glanced off the shield . . . and crashed against the wall, rupturing a plate.

There was now a gaping hole in the wall.

That was enough for Meta, and he sprang through it, becoming a narrow column of gelatinous matter.

O’Brien had, of course, not prepared for that. It had taken him long enough just to booby trap the air vents. Hot-wiring the walls as well had not been an option. It turned out to be a costly compromise, for within the blink of an eye Meta was gone.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” shouted Odo. “Not this time!” And as fast as Meta had gone through the opening, so too did Odo.

“They’re in the walls!” shouted Sisko. “Ops, can we track them!”

“Negative! Repeat: negative! We have no sensor devices in the walls!” Kira said over the comm unit, and then added, her anger directed primarily toward herself, “Who the hell installs a security sensor net inside of walls and ceilings, anyway?”

“Presuming we all live through this,” shot back Sisko, “we will.”

 

In her quarters, Keiko O’Brien heard something inside the walls.

Molly was safely tucked away for her nap, and Keiko was working up the next day’s lesson plans . . . and trying to remember what it was like back in the days when she hadn’t spent every waking moment afraid for her own life and the life of her child.

Now she leaned forward, puzzled. Yes . . . something was definitely thumping around in there. It could be vermin, of course. She had shuddered when she’d seen mice scurrying through the hallways. But this noise seemed too loud to be rodents.

Perhaps it was coming from the pipes and conduits that carried energy through the station. The realization that something was thudding around behind the wall, and perhaps leaking energy, made Keiko uneasy.

She walked over to the wall comm unit and said, “Keiko to Chief O’Brien. Miles?”

O’Brien sounded extremely harried. “Keiko . . . can this possibly wait?”

“I . . . suppose so. It just sounds as if there’s something inside the wall here. But if it’s nothing dangerous, then it’s all right.”

It seemed to take a moment for what she was saying to register—a pause that she chalked up to Miles’s fatigue from the pace at which he’d been pushing himself lately. “In the wall . . . ” he said. But when he spoke again, it was with more alarm than she’d ever heard from him. “Keiko! Get out of there! Now! Hurry!”

The near-panic in his voice was more than enough to stir Keiko to action. She headed toward the room where Molly was soundly napping.

And at that moment the wall in front of her bulged outward crazily, metal shrieking in protest. Keiko gasped, trying to get past, but there wasn’t room. She was cut off from her daughter.

The wall ripped open like a burst bubble, and two beings tumbled out.

One was barely recognizable as Odo. The other was barely recognizable as human.

They were pounding on each other furiously, as if trying to tear each other apart. Meta spun and hurled Odo into the far wall. Then he tore off a large section of the bulkhead that had been damaged and ran flush into Odo. Odo had no time at all to react before being smashed flat against the opposite bulkhead. He started to ooze under the metal that was imprisoning him, but the effort was sluggish and he was clearly tired.

Meta, fully reconstituted now, turned toward Keiko, who was backing up against her desk. He grinned lopsidedly.

“Hello,” he said. “Nice station you got here.”

He reeled toward her then, an animal snarl ripping from his throat, or what served as his throat.

And Keiko snatched the phaser up off the desk, swung it around faster than she would have thought possible, and fired.

If he’d been at peak energy levels, Meta could have morphed around the beam. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. It hit him dead on, hurling him against the locked doors of the quarters. He went liquid and seeped out through the crack between the doors, vanishing.

Keiko spun and shrieked, bringing the phaser up as she saw something moving behind her. Another mass, but this coalesced into the familiar form of Odo. He put up a hand, trying to speak. Clearly he was exhausted . . . but he was also determined.

Keiko quickly went to the door and punched in the sequence to unlock it. Odo staggered forward, and Keiko extended the phaser to him. “Here, take this.”

Odo shook his head. “Sorry . . . never use them,” he said, sounding out of breath.

He stumbled out into the hallway, looking right and left.

No sign of the metamorph.

No sign anywhere.

Odo had lost him.

He sagged against the wall, trying to clear his mind. But there was no clearing, because black fury seared through him, shaking him. And he shouted in a voice that reverberated throughout the entire area . . . perhaps through the entire habitat ring, “Coward! The game isn’t over, coward! You keep running from me, coward! What are you afraid of? Eh? Afraid you’re not as good as you think you are!”

As he heaved himself away from the wall, he heard a faint suction-type sound, like something sticky being peeled off a flat surface.

He held up his hands and looked at them in horror.

His skin was running.

It was dribbling down in rivulets, and the phenomenon wasn’t restricted to his hands. His chest, his legs . . . He put his hands up to his face, and yes, it was happening there, too; his face was beginning to slide apart. His entire body was melting like a candle.

The strain of the past several days—the lack of rest, the rapid morphing—was starting to catch up with him. The only thing holding him together was sheer willpower, and even that would eventually succumb to exhaustion. If he didn’t catch the shapeshifter soon, all the determination in the world wouldn’t prevent him from dissolving into a helpless puddle, unable to move until his body was sufficiently rested.

But that time was not yet. Not yet.

He focused his concentration, calling on reserves of energy, refusing to accept any weakness forced on him by the demands of his body. The demands of his mind were of foremost concern to him. And his mind would not, would not, allow the morph to get away again, free to kill at whim.

He pulled himself together, his body firming into its customary humanoid shape. He flexed his hands, satisfied to see that they were whole once more.

“Cowaaarrrrrddd!” he shouted once more, praying that the shapeshifter was somewhere within earshot.

Abruptly his communicator beeped. It was Kira, talking excitedly.

“We’ve got him tracked, Odo!” she practically shouted. “The security grid wasn’t effective when he was imitating humanoids or oozing through air vents, but now—”

“Where, Major? Where is he!”

“Two sectors away from you! Corridor eighteen-A.”

“Computer!” snapped Odo. “Seal off corridor eighteen-A!”

“Confirmed,” the computer said serenely.

Ahead of him, he heard the forcefield flare up. The morph was clearly slamming himself against it, and Odo could hear a crackling as the field fought to restrain him.

Suddenly the lights overhead flickered, and there was the sound of something shorting out, the smell of something burning.

 

In Ops, O’Brien slammed a hand against a console.

“We’ve lost the security grid on habitat level fifteen, corridors eighteen to twenty-four,” he snarled. “The circuit junctures didn’t hold! It’s backlashing through the entire power grid! Compensators aren’t holding! Goddamn jerry-rigged Cardassian technology!”

“What kind of pressure could the metamorph have put on the forcefield that managed to—” And then, on the screen, Kira saw it—or, at least, barely managed to see it, because the screen was flickering out. “Odo!” she shouted. “Move! He’s heading your way!”

 

Odo heard it, even felt it, before he saw it. But when he did, his jaw dropped in amazement.

The floor rumbled beneath his feet, and then with the speed and power of a berserk bulldozer, Meta rolled into view.

He had transformed himself into a giant boulder, rolling straight toward Odo.

And somehow, from amid the rumbling, came the words, “Coward, am I?”

Odo started to run.

He didn’t want to morph again; he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back together. Even the strain of sustaining his ordinary humanoid form—the body he was most practiced at and, consequently, the easiest to maintain—was starting to wear on him.

He ran, staggered, stumbled, picked himself up, and ran again. He felt his body start to dissolve once more. His feet stuck to the floor, making a strange ripping noise like Velcro with every step.

The boulder was gaining on him. In his imaginings—or maybe it was real—the rumbling sounded like laughter.

Anger seared through him, and he allowed the anger to take him, to drive him. He leapt into the air . . . and morphed.

The boulder rolled toward him, but Odo wasn’t there anymore. Instead, a high-powered drill, spinning furiously, was there to meet it.

The drill whirred, emitting a shrill scream, and slammed into the boulder, penetrating it, tunneling into it, coring it out.

The boulder roared in protest and collapsed. The drill clattered to the floor.

Both shapeshifters re-formed, facing each other.

“You’re under arrest,” said Odo again.

Meta hit him.

Nothing fancy.

He just hit him.

With an anvil on the end of his arm.

It smashed into Odo’s chest. Odo staggered back, a large anvil-shaped dent in his body. He dodged as Meta came at him again, and now his arms and legs extended, split, split again. . . .

Odo was completely gone. He had become a mass of tentacles, writhing and twisting, with no identifiable central mass. The tentacles lashed out, each one razor-sharp, slicing through Meta wherever he turned. Meta shrieked under the assault and ducked back, trying to find someplace where he would be safe from those vicious slithering arms.

Meta opened his mouth wide . . . wider. His body began to shrink, while his jaws continued to grow. Huge fangs sprouted, a tongue lashed out furiously, and within seconds he was nothing but one giant mouth.

It slammed shut on the multiple tentacles, trying to catch as many as it could, and began crunching.

The tentacles punched through the back of the mouth, and then the two morphs began to lose control of their shapes. Once more they were running together, dissolving. . . .

The pounding of running feet alerted them to the fact that security squads were heading their way. Suddenly Meta tore away, hurtling through the air in a stream of protoplasm. He pulled himself into a perfect sphere and rolled away.

Odo drew himself together, the fire of his anger overwhelming, at least temporarily, the exhaustion that threatened to engulf him.

But then he started to succumb, and he was falling . . . except that Meyer and Boyajian were there, holding him up. “Are you all right, sir?” asked Meyer.

“Terrific,” said Odo with bravado. “Never better. I’m just getting warmed up. Now follow me, but stay behind me! I’ll engage the enemy. You stand back and wait for an opening! Understood?”

They nodded in unison.

“All right! Let’s go!”

 

Meta had had enough, and more than enough.

Suddenly this game had lost its amusement value.

He had resumed his humanoid form because it was easier for him to get his bearings in that manner. But it was slower, and he was starting to feel the strain from the rapid shifts. But he was not as tired as Odo, he reasoned, and allowed himself a smirk of superiority. Nevertheless . . . 

And then he saw what he wanted to see—a sign just ahead of him, with an arrow pointing off to one side: RUNABOUT AIRLOCKS AND SERVICING BAY.

Immediately he bolted in that direction, pleased that things were so clearly marked. And there he found them, just as the sign had promised: three airlocks, each leading to a runabout—one of the small ships that Starfleet provided for the convenience of the station’s personnel.

Well, now the ship was going to serve at his convenience.

He saw quickly, in studying the control settings, that the runabouts were locked into place with mooring clamps. This, however, was not a problem.

He went to the wall on his left, lifted up the paneling, and reached in toward the massive lever that kept the runabout locked in place. He raised it, slid it down, and locked it into the open position. He went to the opposite wall and did the same. Then, for good measure, he used some small bit of his remaining energy to transform his hand into a spear once more. He slammed the blade into the grid that controlled the mooring clamps. Sparks flew and alarms sounded, but this was of no consequence to him. All that mattered was that no one up in Ops would try to slide the mooring locks back into place.

He went to the wall and punched the button that rolled the airlock door open. He stepped through it.

And then, from behind him, he heard Odo’s outraged shout.

“Coward!” bellowed the security chief once more.

Meta had allowed that challenge to draw him back before. This time, though, the urge to depart the area superseded any desire to stay and exchange blows with Odo. So he gave a cheerful wave as the airlock rolled closed, shutting him off.

Odo, unable to stop his charge in time, slammed up against the airlock door, taking the impact with his shoulder. “Odo to Ops!” he called. “The shapeshifter is stealing a runabout!”

“He’s blown out the command overrides,” Kira’s angry voice came back. “Let him go! We can always pull him back with the tractor beams.”

“Let him go? Like hell!” snapped Odo. “I’m not giving him any chance to pull some last-minute stunt!”

“Odo, wait!”

But Odo was past listening. The airlock was sealed off, but the gaping conduits in the walls where the mooring clamps led through beckoned to him. Odo pulled his strength together and leapt into the conduits, morphing as he went. Within seconds he was gone . . . and a serpent had lashed itself around the mooring clamps. It moved with phenomenal speed, its body rippling, hurling it forward down the conduits, toward the service bay.

 

Meta was inside the runabout, firing it up. He made a very fast systems check, glancing around the interior with satisfaction. Yes, indeed, he could travel a fairly healthy distance in this vessel. Leave Odo forever wondering. Yes . . . yes, he liked that option a great deal.

Ideally the service elevator would raise the runabout to the surface of the habitat ring, but that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Meta disengaged the airlock and hit the upward thrusters. The runabout began to lift.

Meta was glancing at the equipment board when he was startled by a loud noise, as if something had hit the front of the runabout with the sound and impact of a small meteorite. He looked up.

His mouth spread into a grin.

Odo had flattened himself against the front bay window of the runabout. His arms and upper torso had sprouted suction pads, and he was holding on, pounding furiously.

“Sorry,” said Meta. “I don’t pick up hitchhikers. Enjoy the ride while you can, though.”

And with that, the runabout lifted out of the service bay, swung around, and fled Deep Space Nine . . . with the frustrated chief of security still pounding on the outside.