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

in this twentieth-century Earth scenario as he had been trying to control a holographic boat that seemed bent on tossing him overboard. But she didn’t appear ready to bolt. At least not yet.

Which, Quark realized, had to be due to the reassuring presence of Vic Fontaine, who stood near Ro’s table, an authentically archaic-looking stage microphone in his hand.

Acknowledging Quark’s entrance with a knowing nod and a worldly smile, Vic turned toward the stage, where a trio of tuxedoed humans struck up an expert piano-bass-and-drums accompaniment as Vic began warbling a bouncy musical travelogue whose recurring refrain was “Let’s Get Away From It All.” Just before beginning his performance, Vic mentioned that an Earth singer named Sin-Ah-Trah had made the tune famous.

Quark took a seat across the small table from Ro, realizing that he’d already missed the opportunity to pull her chair out for her. But that was all right. If she could learn to feel as comfortable in this alien milieu as he had become over the past few months, then perhaps she would lower her shields voluntarily. Quark recalled how he had once regarded Vic’s holographic establishment as unwelcome competition, until the upheavals of the Dominion War had taught him that ancient Las Vegas was really a refuge from troubles of every sort. A refuge that could be overused, as Nog had demonstrated during the months following the loss of his leg, but one that stood ready to offer solace at all times. Twenty-six/seven, as some of the hew-mons around here like to say.

As Vic concluded his number and took a bow before the applauding dinner crowd, Quark glanced at Ro, who seemed engrossed in the environment. Good, he thought.

Quark leaned forward and assayed his most nonthreatening smile. “You got here a little early.”

She nodded, a wry expression on her face. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I’m less accessible here than I am in the security office. Besides, after the dress shop finished sewing me into this costume, I realized I wasn’t exactly dressed for work.”

“There’s more to life than work,” Quark said, grinning.

She favored him with a silent that’s-easy-for-you-to-say glower.

Sensing that something else besides the demands of her job was bothering her, he decided to change the subject. “How do you like Las Vegas so far?”

“It’s…interesting.” Her tone was noncommittal and her brow remained furrowed as she gazed around the room. The earring dangling from her left ear gleamed enticingly in the room’s subdued lighting.

Quark hadn’t noticed that Vic had taken up a position alongside their table. “Interesting, doll-face?” the crooner said with an urbane smile.

Ro cast a quick glance over her shoulder as though convinced Vic had to be addressing someone else.

“No need for the double take, sweetheart,” Vic said. “I was just wondering when your beau here was going to get around to introducing us.”

“I think maybe I need to have my universal translator checked,” Ro said.

“This is 1962,” Vic said, his smile disarming. “Here you’ll have to pick up the lingo the old-fashioned way. By experience.” He turned toward Quark while making a courtly gesture in Ro’s direction. “So are you going to keep this vision you’ve found all to yourself?”

Quark realized he had been staring at Ro the entire time, drinking in her image. He shook himself as though from a dream. “Vic, meet Lieutenant Ro Laren, the station’s chief of security. Ro, Vic Fontaine.”

With the deftness of an expert stage magician, Vic somehow managed to take Ro’s hand and raise it to his lips—without prompting her to throw him bodily across the neighboring table. Charmed, I’m sure, Quark thought, feeling all the satisfaction of a man entering the finalstage negotiations of a killer deal.

Until he noticed that Ro’s forehead was still as wrinkled as her Bajoran nose.

Vic had obviously noticed as well. “If you don’t mind my mentioning it, you seem a little distracted for someone who’s here for a night on the town.”

“So are you a touch telepath as well as a singer?” Ro asked, her frown persisting.

Vic laughed and shook his head. “I never work Harry Blackstone’s side of the street. But I’d have to be a real Clyde to miss the fact that something’s really eating you. A farmer could scrub his overalls on your corrugated but otherwise charming forehead. I think I’d better expedite the drinks. First round’s on me.”

“Quark, I thought you might try to seduce me,” Ro said with a wry smile. “But I never expected you to subject me to some sort of…covert counseling program.”

Vic motioned to an improbably short-skirted waitress, who brought a small tray to the table, replete with a bottle on ice and a trio of champagne glasses. “It’s flattering that you think of me as some sort of professional head-shrinker,” he said. “But I’m just a humble holographic student of the human—I mean the humanoid—heart.”

Ro’s eyebrows shot straight up, momentarily smoothing away the striations of worry. “You know you’re a hologram?” she asked Vic.

Vic made an exaggerated bow. “Like a great man once said: ‘Know thyself.’”

“Of all the holograms in all the hospitality venues in all the quadrant,” Quark said, “Vic is unique.”

Ro examined the bottle the waitress had set down before her. “Spring wine?”

Vic shook his head as he began filling the three glasses. “No can do. It’s 1962, remember? I might be a self-aware hologram, but I’m also period specific. But Dom Pérignon isn’t too shabby as a consolation prize.”

Taking his lead from Vic, Quark raised his glass. Ro followed a moment later. “To the future,” Vic said, then took a drink. Quark and Ro did likewise.

But Ro’s dark expression returned almost immediately.

“Something wrong with the bubbly?” Vic asked.

Ro shook her head and regarded the contents of her glass, evidently transfixed by the continuous upward motion of its stream of perfectly uniform, nearly microscopic bubbles.

“Well, since the problem clearly can’t be the company,” Vic said in a bantering tone, “it has to be my toast.”

Ro’s contemplative scowl only deepened.

And Quark realized in a flash that Vic had, as usual,