Exterior tracking shot of Deep Space Nine. Cut to Major Kira's quarters. Kira, Dax, Bashir and Odo are seated around a card table. The camera moves in. Everyone is watching Odo expectantly. He smiles and nods with satisfaction. "Ah-ha. Just as I suspected. Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the revolver." Collective exhalation as everyone concedes victory. Kira: "I don't know how you do it, Odo." Odo: "I do. Years of experience in the practice of criminal investigation." Bashir: "Or blind luck." Odo: "Justice is blind, Doctor. Luck is cross-eyed." Dax picks up the yellow piece, holds it in front of her crossed eyes, and says: "You shall hang for this, Mustard." A moment's silence as they look at her, wondering which personality that came from. She shrugs and twinkles. Bashir: "Odo, are you telling us you never failed to solve a case? What about that Cardassian, Borot?" "That is an ongoing investigation." "But not an on-getting investigation. I'll tell you what I think about Borot. He was murdered to keep him quiet about a ring of smugglers operating on this station during the Occupation. Somebody poisoned him with arsenic-laden yamok sauce, and hid the body in a service conduit, and when you brought these facts to the attention of the Cardassian authorities some high-placed individual fingered Gul Ducat's former personal chef Nufrek, who was speedily tried and executed, thus protecting the true felon." Dax: "And you think the real villain was Ducat." Bashir: "It makes eminent good sense." Dax: "But if Ducat is behind it, why didn't he retrieve the Orb we found hidden in the service conduits? Surely of all the contraband to come through here during the war, the Orb was the singlemost valuable item. Ducat wouldn't have just abandoned it, and he had ample opportunity to get it off the station even after the Cardassians evacuated -- assuming he knew it was here." Kira: "Don't tell me you think he didn't! He had control over every living thing on this station! The only people he was answerable to were in the Central Command! Hold on a minute! Suppose Ducat *wasn't* the top man in the operation! Maybe the Orb was too hot to handle and he had *orders* to leave it behind! It all makes such sense! This could go right to the top of the Cardassian chain of command!" Bashir: "A grand conspiracy? More probably Ducat was double-crossing his superiors, and it was too dangerous for him to be connected to the Orb, which I'll just bet was stolen, not only from the Bajorans, but from the Cardassian authorities as well. I'm certain we're looking at a nest of black market war profiteers headed by Ducat." Dax: "But didn't the physical evidence place Borot in the service conduit well before the Cardassian evacuation? If he and the Orb are connected, you have to face the possibility that knowledge of the Orb died with him. I can't see the Cardassian government *not* wanting to get a Bajoran Orb to Cardassia as soon as they knew it was here, and black marketeers would have moved it out as soon as they could too. Besides, you can't prove a conspiracy theory, grand or otherwise, if Ducat has already covered his tracks. How can you hope to touch his superiors if you can't touch him?" Odo (standing): "Justice can touch anyone. Allow me to thank you all for your insightful analyses. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to see whether my guests in Security have been fed and watered." He leaves. Dax: "Do you think we annoyed him?" Kira: "No." Bashir: "No." Cut to Odo stomping along a corridor. "Hmph. Amateurs." An icy asteroid rolls by, spewing cometary material. "Crawlspace. The final frontier. These are the voyages of The Door Repair Guy. His mission: to install and maintain proximity-activated entranceways, to stake out new rooms and new service conduits -- to boldly go where no one with a pass key has gone before." Deep Space Nine space station drifts into view. A runabout shoots past, revealing the words: Star Trek: Door Repair Guy Starring Door Repair Guy as Himself Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko Rene Auberjonois as Odo Siddig El Fadil as Doctor Bashir Terry Farrell as Lieutenant Dax Colm Meany as Chief O'Brien Armin Shimerman as Quark Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko Nana Visitor as Major Kira The FTL pipeline undergoes a quantam polarity reversal while the concomittant ring singularity displays a sync shift of 4764 microcochranes in consequence of which the terminal verteron membrane dilates polychronously and a spaceship flies out. [Commercial: "FM77, all the hits of 1977, all the time! Great hits like 'You Make Me Feel Like Dancing', 'Undercover Angel', and 'Anarchy in the UK'! The kind of music *you* want to here. FM77. It's a great demographic!(tm)"] The Sisko residence. Jake is slouched in an armchair holding a computer pad in two hands and typing rapidly with his thumbs. He finishes his paragraph, takes a deep breath, pages back to the beginning and reads what he wrote. "That's no good." He deletes a sentence and reads on. "Oh man, I used that word three times." He deletes again. "Oh, no, wait a minute. She wouldn't say that." Delete. "What did I say back there?" (Pause.) "Man, I deleted it!" He makes a face, and throws the pad on the couch beside him. "I gotta stop deleting so much." His eyes fall on the replicator. He jumps up and goes over. "Ah. Computer. I want a pencil. And some paper." *Please specify lead type.* "I don't want a lead pencil, I want a wooden pencil, like they used to make. You know, yellow, with an eraser on the end. No lead." A pencil materializes, yellow, with an eraser on the end, and no lead. A pad of yellow paper also appears. He picks them up and inspects them with pleasure. "I think the paper's supposed to have lines on it." A pad of yellow paper with vertical lines appears. He turns it around and puts it under his arm. He gives the pencil a good look. "It's supposed to have a carbon core isn't it?" *Please specify carbon core type.* "Ah, what are the choices?" *HB, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, -- * "Computer! 2B." A 2B pencil appears. He picks it up. "2B or not 2B." He grins at his own erudition. "And a pencil sharpener." A crank-type pencil sharpener appears. Cut to Jake, back in the chair, trying to hold down the pencil sharpener, hold in the pencil, and turn the crank, using only two hands. "I think this thing has to be bolted down." Dissolve to Jake leaning over the table with his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth, scribbling furiously on the yellow pad with the 2B pencil. Scrunched-up sheets of paper lie everywhere. Beside him is the pencil sharpener bolted to the side of the table. Benjamin enters. He's about to say something, but sees Jake hard at work and starts to move as quietly as he can to the next room. His curiosity gets the better of him however and he drifts back, craning to see over Jake's shoulder. Jake, sensing his presence but in the middle of a thought, shifts around so Benjamin can't see. Benjamin dodges the other way and Jake makes an exasperated face and moves again. Benjamin puts his hands on Jake's shoulders and leans past him to read. "Dad!" "Oh, come on, Jake! Don't you know your old man's curious about his son's writing career?" "I won't have one if I don't get some privacy." Benjamin puts Jake in a headlock and affectionately rubs his knuckles on his scalp. He releases him and thinks. "You could borrow one of the rooms in the unused Habitat levels. You'd get plenty of peace and quiet there. I'll get Major Kira to assign you one." "Swell." Cut to Jake moving down an unused corridor with his yellow pad, a handful of pencils, and his pencil sharpener. He comes to a door. He checks the room number against the number on his pad and presses the door control. It makes a "please enter access code" bleep. He checks his pad again and enters the number into the control. The door opens. He enters. "Computer. Lights." They come up dimly. "Cardassian. Computer, human light level." *Please imput environmental default reset code.* "Man, I don't know it. Forget it for now, computer." He crosses the empty room to the window. In the distance the Wormhole opens, admits a tiny speck, and closes again. "Wow! Great view!" He looks around the room, pleased with his new studio. "I'll have to get a desk. And a chair." He goes to the wall and begins to bolt his pencil sharpener to a metal protrusion. It's a bit of a struggle. All at once the piece of wall comes away in his hands. He looks at it in his hands, then into the hole in the wall. "Latinum!" Shot of the heap of ingots. [Commercial: "New PUMP-FM! We only play *your* favorite band. And only *their* best album!" Play-out: "Love in an elevator . . . ."] Ops. Kira looks up from her console. "A Bajoran vessel has just entered the Wormhole." Dax: "That's unusual. There's hardly been any Bajoran traffic through the Wormhole since the destruction of New Bajor by the Dominion." "I wonder what they're doing." Dax: "There's an incoming message from Bajor." "On screen." We see an officer of the Bajoran Defence Force. *Major Kira. A Defence Force fighter has been stolen and is headed toward the Wormhole. You must intercept it.* "I'm sorry, General. It's already gone through." *Then the crew is doomed. The Jem'Hadar will see to that.* "There's still time to send out a runabout and bring them back." *It's just as well.* "Just as well? Shouldn't we at least try to rescue them?" *Major. This is not the first such incident. Members of the Circle have attempted this several times in the past month. So far we have managed to stop them inside the Bajoran system. These ones got the jump on us.* "I don't get it. What are they up to?" *We don't know. Please institute a standard sweep for Bajoran vessels approaching the Wormhole and place any you find under arrest. As of this moment all Bajoran traffic through the Wormhole is forbidden by order of the Provisional Government.* The transmission ends. Kira: "Don't know, or won't say." Dax: "Our communications relay on the other side is still operational. Maybe we can use it to make contact with the Bajoran vessel." "Try it." Dax plays the controls. "I have visual contact." "On screen." We get a static-laden image of the interior of the fighter. The pilot and navigator are shouting. *Three more to starboard!* *Evasive!* The scene rocks. *Shields down!* *I have to -- !* The console in front of the pilot explodes, killing him. We see the navigator twist around toward the navigational control, then fix his stare at a monitor there. We can almost read the approaching torpedoes in his look. In the last instant he shouts: *The true Kai!* The scene explodes and ends. Kira steps toward the screen, shaken, realization dawning. "The true Kai!" [Commercial: "New CLUB-FM, the first members-only radio station. If you're not jammin' with us, we're jammin' you."] Security. Odo is at his desk. The doors slide open and admit Quark. Quark: "I heard young Sisko found some latinum." "That's right." "It's mine." "It's yours?" "Yes, that's right. It's mine." "I didn't see your picture on it. How do you know it's yours?" "By process of elimination. The latinum was hidden in that wall during the Cardassian regime. Am I right?" "It appears that way." "Who was here then who's here now?" "There was me, you, and your brother Rom." "Does the latinum belong to you?" "No." "If it belongs to Rom, it falls to me. He owes me money. That leaves me. It must be mine." "Impeccable thinking, Quark. Tell me, if it's yours, will you be willing to answer the criminal charges pending against the owner?" "Criminal charges?" "It turns out the suite in which the latinum was found was once the residence of chef Nufrek, a convicted murderer and suspected black marketeer. There is strong evidence that that money was used to purchase the Orb later found in the service conduits. Under Bajoran law, the purchase of stolen religious property is a serious offense." "How serious?" "They're always looking for field labourers in the farmland reclamation project." "You won't find my fingerprints on that money! Black marketeering! Who ever heard of such a thing? I'm an honest businessman doing an honest day's work! In fact, I've got no time to stand around here and indulge you in your fishing expeditions. Goodbye!" The doors close behind him. Odo smiles and nods his head. [Bob: "Hey, back to Door Repair Guy in a minute, but first we're here at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and you can see it just behind me, that's the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and you may have heard that NASA is going to privatize the space shuttle program, and guess who's going to buy the Space Shuttle Atlantis? You guessed it! Baton Broadcasting! And of course CHRO is a member of the Baton Broadcasting family! So pretty soon you're going to see the word NASA painted out and the BBS logo painted on there, and I'll bet you're wondering how is this going to affect your television viewing? Well let me tell you it'll be just . . . well, I'll tell ya, whoa boy. Because once a month for eight days a month we'll be broadcasting *live* from orbit! That's right, CHRO and all the other BBS affiliates will receive live broadcasts -- direct from orbit! Our set guy is already working on the studio module that'll fit right into the cargo bay . . . right here . . . boy, it's tough holding this mike and this model at the same time. Here, can you hold th . . . . . . [rumple] . . . . . closer, that's good, just like that, and anyway, as you can see, this remote manipulator arm, the Canadarm, makes a great sound boom. So no more clip-on mikes! Isn't science wonderful? And anyway, who do you think is slated for the first mission? Can you guess? It's not Ian Black. No, not J.J. Clark." He waits. "No, it's not Peter Van Dusen." He stands waiting. We see the camera guy's fingers count off four, three, two. Grumpy: "Back to Door Repair Guy after this."] [Commercial: "So many radio stations seem to be programmed for people drinking coffee. Now there's BEER-FM. When you wanna shout WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! -- it's BEER."] Sisko's office. We see him studying his computer screen with close attention and gathering forehead musculature. The door chimes. He shuts off the computer display and says, "Come in!" Major Kira enters. "Benjamin, there's something developing on Bajor you should know about." "What is it, Major?" "Rumours are spreading that Kai Opaka is still alive. Several members of the Circle have tried to get through the Wormhole to make contact with her. So far as we know they have all either been intercepted by the Bajoran Defence Force or blown up by the Jem'Hadar. I don't get how this story got out. Only you, I, and Doctor Bashir knew the truth about the Kai." "This may enlighten you." He retrieves the file he was reading and turns the screen toward her. Kira scans it. "A top Starfleet intelligence officer in charge of Bajoran affairs has defected to the Maquis! I guess that would explain it. She must have read your report to Starfleet." "I take it this will have a destabilising effect." "I would call that an understatement. I think we're looking at wholesale religious war." "Just what everybody needs." Dax: *Transmission from Kai Winn, Benjamin.* "Here we go. Put it through, Dax." Kai Winn appears on the computer screen. *Emissary. How good of you to take my call so quickly. Kira, child, what a pleasant surprise. I hope I find you both in spiritual health?* Sisko: "As well as can be expected, Kai Winn. To what can we credit your call?" *Oh, Emissary, would that it were simple fellowship. How I value our talks together. But, sadly, the forces of evil are at work once again on the minds of our poor beleaguered people. Not only must we religious leaders struggle against the pernicious brutalizing legacy of the Cardassian occupation, not to mention the irreligious influence of interplanetary scientific humanism and relativistic philosophies, but now we have the new spectre of schismatic doctrine within our own dear religion. Formerly worthy followers have begun to question the authority of the office of the Kai and to circulate the heinous untruth that our sainted Kai Opaka is not only alive, but preparing to return to Bajor and assume the government of the planet. How could such a story have gained currency? Everybody knows the Kai left this life and joined the Prophets in the Celestial Temple when she was travelling in your care. Isn't that true?* Kira and Sisko make no move toward answering. *I said, isn't that true?* Sisko: "No, Kai Winn, it isn't true." Kai Winn presses her hand to her breast in apparent shock. *Child, is what the Emissary tells me true? Have I been the victim of a deception?* "That's correct. You were misled." *Emissary, how have I offended you that you should take such an ungenerous attitude toward the Bajoran people?* "Kai Winn, we were respecting the wishes of Kai Opaka. She didn't want others to follow her into danger." *Well, we have danger now, don't we? Danger that millions of Bajorans will fall into the error of disobedience. Far be it >from me to criticize the Prophets' chosen one, but I'm truly sorry you weren't able to keep your little secret. I wonder what sort of bad advice you've been receiving, Emissary. I sometimes wonder why there is no Vedek resident on a Bajoran station. Kira Nerys, how many people will suffer because of this lapse of yours?* Kira shows some reluctance in answering. *I asked you how many?* "I don't know the answer, Kai Winn." *You don't know. Then perhaps next time you'll think. Kai Winn out.* Kira exhales. They glance at each other. Sisko: "I'm sure I had her in Grade Three. Please put the Defiant on alert status. It looks like we'll be making a trip into the Gamma Quadrant." [Commercial: "Tune your radio to AM 590: Happy Radio. Optimistic-only programming for work and play. Why get sad when you can get Happy? (tm)"] Camera moves in on Odo in his office. He is addressing his communications screen. "Thank you for taking my call, Glinn Alcol." *We are instructed to co-operate in whatever way we can with our new Bajoran friends. How can I help you?* "I require access to certain records accumulated during the occupation of Bajor." *Surely you must know those records were transferred to the Provisional Government under the terms of the peace treaty.* "I am aware of that. I am also aware that a Cardassian would rather part with his life than his documents. I'm sure you kept a copy of everything. I would not be bothering you, but this is a matter that requires a certain measure of discretion. I find it expedient to go around the Bajorans in this matter." *I appreciate the sentiment. I will agree to assist you, as long as you undertake to protect the confidentiality of your source.* "Agreed." *Now, what is it you would like to know?* "I am transmitting a fingerprint to you now. Whose is it?" We see the Cardassian turn and tap at a computer control. His eyes widen ever so slightly. He turns to the screen. *Your request has produced a positive identification. I am relaying it to you now.* We watch Odo's face as the answer appears on his screen. "This is more than I anticipated. Thank you for your assistance. Odo out." A clanking wheeze is heard. The Security office doors open and Borg implant specialist Not Fragile steps over the threshold carrying a large tool box. "Not Fragile to see Door Repair Guy." Odo (advancing from the communications screen): "For what purpose?" "His regular tune-up." "I'm afraid that's out of the question. The prisoner is under maximum security confinement facing a variety of charges ranging from noise bylaw violation to tampering with the space- time continuum. No visitors." The Borg steps forward and places the tool box on Odo's desk. "Constable, you fail to appreciate the true importance of your prisoner. He is the first of what I would call a new model of Federation citizen. Practically everything we've learned about elective recreational cybernetic implant surgery we've learned from that man. He is a prototype, a test model. Which is to say that any one of his components could blow out at any time. From what I've heard he has been putting his systems under stresses totally unplanned for in the design specifications. Now, if I were Doctor Bashir and I came in here worried about the health of one of your prisoners you'd usher me right in. How is this any different? How do you propose to explain it to Starfleet Security when you go in there tomorrow morning and find him dead on the floor?" "GRrrrrrr. If you put it that way. But the file stays here." Not Fragile pauses, opens his tool box, removes a large rasp file, and drops it on the desk. Odo: "If you'll follow me." [Commercial: "I work underwater. When I'm on a job I like to take along my waterproof FM radio. But music doesn't sound the same in a liquid medium. All my favorite songs sound weird. Isn't there a radio station that plays songs *I* like, in a way that lets me enjoy them while *I* work?" "Now there is! FM-WET, the new underwater music source. FM-WET. Water, water everywhere, and great tunes too! (tm)"] Odo and Not Fragile enter the holding area. Paving Contractor leaps to his feet in one cell and begins to harangue them, but the white noise filter is on. He is quite expressive in body language though. Odo steps to the control console and deactivates the force field to the other cell. The force field shimmers and disappears. Door Repair Guy blinks, sits up and yawns. Not Fragile: "You'll have to switch off the transporter damping field too. I can't examine his personal transporter otherwise." Odo growls and turns it off. DRG: "So where's your lovely assistant Madeline? I thought you two were a pair. You know, sort of a John and Yoko thing going on there." Odo: "It's a trick!" He reaches for the damping control but Not Fragile and Door Repair Guy disappear in a Dominion transporter effect. Odo: "Gah!" He hits his commbadge. "Odo to Sisko. The Dominion has just kidnapped Door Repair Guy." Cut to Sisko hurrying along a corridor toward the Defiant. He slows at the news, blinks, speeds up, stops, puts one hand on his hip and scratches the nape of his neck. DRG and Not Fragile materialize inside an alien vessel. Not Fragile looks at Door Repair Guy and transmogrifies into the spokeswoman of the Founders. "You're not Not Fragile!" "But that doesn't mean I'm fragile either." And she knocks him out with a mallet where her hand ought to be. ------------ Written by Douglas A. McLeod, ai919@freenet.carleton.ca ------------