Cathedral by Michael Mangels (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

in Latin. Or when I tried to ask the replicator for a cup of Darjeeling and instead just confused the computer. I can’t even get the damned sonic shower working on the first try.

Thinking about things like preganglionic fibers or postganglionic nerves right now only makes me want to weep. Or smash something.

On the bulkhead beside the bunk are the words I etched this afternoon with one of the laser exoscalpels Ezri overlooked the last time she’d tried to rid our quarters of anything that might endanger me. My clumsy wall engraving occurred during one of those “red periods,” and evidently involved my very last vestiges of Latin. I see that I’d been thoughtful enough at the time to carve an English translation as well. My own personal Rosetta stone, rendered in a hand that looks too childlike to be my own. In a few hours, it could be my epitaph as well.

“Vox et praeterea nihil.”

“Voice and nothing more.”

When I last closed my eyes to survey the progressive damage still going on inside my mind, it took longer than ever even to reach the outside of my memory cathedral. To get to the front steps, I had to step across an open pit filled with fragments of cobbles and concrete, apparently left behind by some massive piece of demolition equipment. An east-facing buttress was almost entirely gone, shattered by some force I couldn’t even imagine.

Inside, the dome had begun letting in slivers of sunlight through several long cracks that weren’t visible from the outside, as though some gigantic predatory bird had just raked its talons through the stonework and glass. Rubble lay everywhere, with books and papers scattered randomly against pieces of cracked, upended masonry and shattered bookcases. Tapestries lay twisted and soiled, discarded haphazardly across the floor. I started up the staircase leading to the upper-level library and paused on the fifth step from the bottom. It no longer squeaked.

If my memory processes had been functioning properly, that step would have squeaked automatically in response to the pressure of my mental foot.

Withdrawing from the staircase and walking through the main gallery, I saw that the dream corridor was completely bricked up. This had been the tunnel entrance leading to a twenty-second-century-vintage outbuilding where I kept my dreams in temporary storage until eventually filing them away permanently under the dome. Everywhere else I looked, portals and entryways were similarly barred. Several slender, spidery creatures worked diligently to add to the chaos.

Each of them had Kukalaka’s gumdrop eyes.

It seemed that there probably wasn’t much more room left inside the Hagia Sophia than there was in my shrinking quarters. And I filled the tiny soundproofed space around me with screams.

14

As Quark dressed for the evening, his belly roiled with a curious mixture of anticipation and fear. The anticipation was easy enough to understand—Ro Laren was an extraordinarily attractive female. The fear was a little harder to fathom. After all, tonight wouldn’t be the first time he and Ro had shared dinner together. But it would be the first time he had been the one to pick the evening’s activities.

On the previous occasion, Ro had treated him to an evening of pointlessly strenuous windsurfing on a body of water called the Columbia River, which she had told him she’d visited during her Starfleet Academy days. No fun at all really, except for the company.

He set aside the tooth sharpener and inspected his tuxedoed reflection one last time. What if she can’t relate to this holosuite scenario at all? he thought as he carefully smoothed his cummerbund and adjusted the knot on his black bow tie. It’s not as though she’s some nostalgia-crazed hew-mon.

As he made his way from his quarters onto the lightly populated Promenade, he tried to put his lingering misgivings aside. Whether or not Ro would appreciate Las Vegas might not matter any more than Quark’s attitude toward windsurfing had.

Because if there was one being in the entire quadrant capable of putting Ro into a romantic frame of mind, it was Vic.

He entered the bar and crossed to the spiral staircase that led to the upper level and the holosuites. Behind the bar, Frool was doling out drinks to a pair of Rigelians and a Valerian while Morn appeared to be trying to regale them all with one of his innumerable traveler’s tales. Quark walked quickly to avoid being drawn into the verbal melee. As he ascended, he glanced down toward the dabo wheel, where Broik was taking drink orders while Deputy Etana watched a hulking Nausicaan with obvious suspicion. Hetik, the aggressively profitable dabo boy Treir had hired, was doing an admirable job hustling the dabo customers—representatives of at least a half-dozen worlds—who had obviously been drawn to the gaming area by Treir’s abundant charms. The tall Orion woman met Quark’s gaze and regarded him with an unrestrained smirk. He wondered yet again what she had really said to Ro about their impending dinner engagement, then decided that it wasn’t worth worrying about. It’s never too late to fire the staff, Quark thought, quoting the 193rd Rule of Acquisition to himself. Let’s see how the evening goes first.

There still was no sign of Ro, which concerned him. She was nothing if not punctual. Then he opened the holosuite door, where Julian Bashir’s 1962 Las Vegas lounge scenario was perpetually up and running—except on those occasions when Vic himself voluntarily took his own program off-line. The band was tuning, perky cocktail waitresses were serving, and hew-mon alcoholic beverages of various sorts were flowing freely among the sparse but growing dinner crowd. Quark noted with considerable relief that Taran’atar apparently hadn’t left the place in ruins after his visit a little earlier. It was important that everything go perfectly tonight.

Ro was already seated at a table not far from the stage, looking exquisite, if somewhat uncomfortable, in a black, off-the-shoulder evening gown. He had no idea whether she was as uneasy