Wesley nodded vigorously. "Yes, sir. We've been discussing the situation, and she has some ideas."

"Make it so," Picard said, and smiled. "I believe this is the first time a cadet has picked his own commanding officer. Now there is something else I would like to discuss, Cadet."

Wesley braced himself. The incident, he thought. "Yes, sir."

Picard sighed. "I don't require Counselor Troi's talents to know that you've been uneasy in my presence. You're still troubled by what you did at the Academy, and my presence jogs your conscience."

"Yes, sir," Wesley said awkwardly. "I just feel ... it's like-I don't know."

"You feel as though you'll never come to terms with what you did," Picard said. He nodded at the model starship in his office: the Stargazer. "I felt the same way after I lost the Stargazer."

"Sir?" That puzzled Wesley. "That isn't the same thing. You didn't destroy the Stargazer; the Ferengi did."

"I blame myself for the way I handled events at Zeta Maxia," Picard said. "A better captain might have found a way to avoid trouble. It does not matter if I am wrong or right; the point is that I still believe that I erred ... somehow. That I am responsible for all the lives I lost.

"But you learn to accommodate yourself to such an experience. You find that it becomes a part of you, that it exerts a certain influence on your judgments. High as the price is, it can make you a better person and a better officer."

"I think I understand, sir," Wesley said. "You mean it stops being like a weight on your back, and starts being like a sibyl."

"Something like that," Picard said with a smile. The sibyls had been ancient prophetesses, and according to legend they had given advice to the early Romans-advice that sometimes came at great cost. "I see you've been studying Latin."

"I've taken a course in it, sir," Wesley said, recalling that Latin was one of Picard's many interests.

"It's a remarkably useful language," Picard said. "The study of Latin forces us to remember that not too long ago we humans were as 'primitive' as many of the races we encounter on new worlds. The works of Cicero and Marcus Aurelius also show that 'primitives' can possess wisdom and genius without our technological trappings."

"I hadn't thought of that, sir," Wesley said. "I guess I've been too wrapped up in declensions and verb conjugations to notice anything else."

"I was the same way when I began my study of Latin." Picard spoke to the intercom. "Have Amba.s.sador Offenhouse and Ensign Shrev report to me. The amba.s.sador will have a few things to say, I'm sure."

"Yes, sir," Wesley said. He felt relieved that he had faced the captain and the world had not ended.

Offenhouse stepped into the ready room a moment later. "What's up, kid?" he asked as he seated himself.

"I'm sending Cadet Crusher and Ensign Shrev to Megara," Picard said.

The amba.s.sador's face turned hard. "No. Not him. It's too dangerous."

"That's not my a.s.sessment of the situation, Mr. Amba.s.sador," Picard said. "Our relations with the Ferengi have been largely peaceful, and I am confident of Cadet Crusher's ability to handle this a.s.signment without incident."

The two men stared at one another for a moment before Offenhouse relented. "All right," he said, and looked to Wesley. "You've been snooping around this problem. Got any ideas about what the Ferengi are up to?"

"Ensign Shrev thinks they're working for a third party, sir," Wesley said. For a moment he had been afraid that Offenhouse would have his way. Wesley wanted to visit Megara, both to satisfy his curiosity and to show the captain that he would not disappoint him again. "What they're doing down there doesn't make sense by Ferengi standards, unless somebody else is paying them to do it."

Offenhouse nodded thoughtfully. "Could be," he admitted. "That just beggars the question, though-who hired them, and why? Does this Shrev have any ideas about that?"

"Not yet, sir, except that they're probably hostile to the Federation," Wesley said. "Megara has a good strategic location."

"Maybe not," Offenhouse said, more to himself than to Wesley. "It could be some kind of trading post ... somebody outside the Federation, looking to do business with us while getting a head start on the compet.i.tion. Or a research base, for somebody who wants to study us without attracting our attention."

"Those are interesting possibilities," Picard said, as Shrev entered the ready room. At Picard's gesture she sat down next to Wesley. "Mr. Amba.s.sador, I believe we're ready to begin the briefing."

The leather pouch of gold coins tugged at Shrev's hip. "There's plenty more where that came from," De Shay said, "so call me if you use it up."

"Thank you, sir, I shall," Shrev said. It was hard to imagine spending so much gold-De Shay said there were two hundred coins in the bag, which weighed two kilos-but her orders from the amba.s.sador were quite specific. Given the endurance of her people, she might need more gold to fulfill those orders.

Wesley fastened a pouch to his waist and stepped onto the transporter stage with Shrev. He nodded to her, and she took that as a sign of readiness. "Energize, please," she said to De Shay.

The transporter room faded into a bleak street. The sky was covered with clouds, but Shrev's sensitive eyes found the sun easily enough. Light polarization let her establish directions; north was that way, so the breeze came out of the west. Gravity was a bit lighter than that aboard the Enterprise, but not drastically so. Electric cables crisscrossed above the street, and cargo vehicles-some of them so primitive that they used wheels instead of suspensors-moved along the street. Nothing in the air smelled very good.

There were humanoids here, male and female, and with few exceptions they dressed alike in baggy coveralls. They walked on either side of the street, leaving its muddy center to the clumsy vehicles. They were basically human, Shrev thought, noting a general similarity to Wesley. Her antennae superimposed their own information on what her eyes saw, highlighting the gray faces and bodies with the shimmering traces of body-electric fields.

Wesley was looking around. "I wish I had a tricorder," he said.

"A tricorder? Why? We are but humble tourists," Shrev reminded him. She smiled. "Even though we have an exhausting task ahead of us."

"Huh?" the human asked. "I don't understand that, Shrev."

"Did not the amba.s.sador tell us to shop till we drop? If I comprehend that-"

Wesley laughed, then caught himself. "My apologies, Shrev, I don't mean to suggest that you're wrong. From the way his words rhymed, I think the amba.s.sador was joking. That sounds like a humorous way of telling us to spend a lot of money."

"Ah." Shrev had heard about rhymes, but she hadn't known that humans used them in casual conversation. "We must still spend money. Do you see any suitable places for this?"

"Well ..." Wesley looked up and down the street. "I don't know, Shrev. This place is dreary."

"It looks impoverished to me as well." She pointed down the street, where her antennae sensed a crowd. "People swarm that way; let us see which flowers draw them."

The street opened into a square. As the two aliens crossed it, Shrev noted how the natives regarded them. The Megarans walked clear of their visitors, and watched them out the corners of their eyes. None of them spoke within earshot of Shrev or Wesley. She wondered if the Megarans had any unusual senses that they might focus on the visitors. "Wesley," she said, "you mentioned dreariness. Could these people lack your color vision?"

"My-oh." He looked around, then shook his head. "No, I don't think they're what we call colorblind, Shrev. I see colors here, but not many of them. Most of the clothes here are drab, either gray or dull blue. It reminds me of a prison, or a labor camp."

"As though the Ferengi keep them as slaves?" she wondered.

"Maybe. I've never heard of a world where people like to dress this way." He hesitated. "Although they might see their garments as attractive. I don't wish to seem offensive, but to the limited human eye your tunic appears gray and drab."

"Your point is well taken," Shrev said, idly fingering her tunic. "This material contains special metallic threads. Although invisible to your eyes and mine, they reflect certain radiations to which my antennae are sensitive. Yet I must note that the Megarans appear to have only senses equal to yours."

"It is puzzling," Wesley agreed. He pointed. "There's a store."

The store was one of a dozen brick structures that lined one side of the square. It had gla.s.s windows, which displayed a strange a.s.sortment of goods. Shrev saw a dozen musical instruments, including a double-flute similar to her people's merredivy, and a set of metal wind chimes. Other items were pretty, if useless; she smiled at the thought of trying to slip that ta.s.seled bonnet over her antennae. And what good were earrings to a person whose earholes were surrounded by concentric chitinous ridges?

She and Wesley went into the shop. It was lit by a single incandescent light bulb in the ceiling, and divided into a maze by long wooden tables. The room was perhaps ten meters on a side, with a drapecovered door in the rear. After a few seconds, a youngish man came into the shop. He wore a patch over one eye, and his pinned-up coverall sleeve emphasized his lack of a right arm.

His good eye scanned his customers. "Yes?" he asked, his tone flattened by the Universal Translator.

Shrev picked up a twelve-stringed musical instrument, a device with a long neck and a bowl-shaped body. "Please excuse a foolish question," she said, "but is this work of art for sale?"

He made a grunting noise which the translator ignored. "If you the price have, for sale it is,"

"I am uncertain of how to settle the price. Perhaps you would aid me?" Shrev handed him a coin from her pouch. "If this can serve as money, how many would you request?"

The man's one eye bulged as he fingered the coin. He bit it, grinned suddenly, then forced down his grin. "Six," he said, holding up a hand and displaying all his digits.

"The price delights me," Shrev said, paying him. He slid the coins into a pocket. Wesley found a packet of small iron tools, an octant and a ma.s.sive spiked club. He gave the man thirty coins.

Wesley hefted the club. "I'm giving this to a warrior friend," he said-loudly, Shrev thought. "He'll want to know if it's been used in battle."

"Many times," the shopkeeper said. "When the Vo Gatyn, with cobwebs may her name grow tangled, the Vo Darvit fought, Anrom himself into combat on Ardev ground this mace carried. Before that ..."

Shrev drifted away from Wesley and the man while they discussed combat-it seemed a universal constant that males enjoyed talking about different ways to butcher one another. The man made her uncomfortable. Among her people, anyone so badly maimed would seek to die, to avoid the disgrace of resembling a mutant. She reminded herself that many races had different views. Humans, for example, saw crippling injuries and deformities as a challenge to their ingenuity; the ship's chief engineer was living proof of that.

Shrev looked at trinkets until a wide metal plate caught her eye and antenna. The plate's surface showed that it had been beaten with a hammer, and something-impurities in the metal, some trick of polarized light, something-made it look like a flower impossibly rich in nectar. It looked even richer than the wall mosaic in her quarters, and it shimmered like the quilted fabric of her tunic. It was all she could do to keep from tasting the metal.

It might almost be a sending from the All-Mother, she thought. She knew that was rank superst.i.tion, yet such icons were important in every Zhuik religion, a symbol of wealth and plenty. It was a remarkable coincidence to find such an object here.

Shrev carried it back to the shopkeeper, who still chatted with Wesley. The cadet glanced at her and smiled. "My friend would be pleased to spend more money, Mr. Anit," he said.

"For that?" The man seemed disbelieving.

"I find it beautiful," Shrev said. "Have you more like it?"

"No," he said. "Its maker by the rateyes was taken away."

" 'Rateyes'?" Wesley repeated. "Oh, you mean them." He held a hand out, as if indicating something barely waist-high.

Shrev realized he meant the Ferengi. Something about the man changed, and Shrev noticed a sudden flicker to his body-electric fields, a sign of apprehension. "The rateyes are a problem on many worlds, I sorrow to say," Shrev told the man. "But let us not speak of them when I hold something of beauty."

"Er, yes," the shopkeeper said. His one hand rubbed his chin as he stared at the plate. "A beauty to you that old plate truly is?"

"To me, yes." She smiled at him. "I do not see it as you might. You may have noticed that I am not like my good friend, or like your own estimable self."

"We're from out of town," Wesley added.

The man laughed, although it sounded forced. "For you, only one of those-credits, you said? One credit only I ask."

Shrev paid gladly. "If you can obtain more objects in this style, I shall happily buy them," she said, and looked around the shop. "You seem to have a talent for acquiring diverse items."

The man hesitated. "Yes ... well ... for a soldier to keep soul and body together these days, dealing in junk the only way left is. Honor to the rateyes nothing means," he added.

"You need say no more," Shrev said. "We know too much of-" She duplicated Wesley's waist-high gesture. "But they are no matter. Would you know of another shop that might sell more art in this style?"

"A poser that question is." His hand caressed his chin again. "About a shop that something might have I can tell you. Out of the square to the north go, and on your right at the second street turn. Down three doors on your shady side go, and there an open-air shop with utensils you'll find."

Shrev and Wesley said their good-byes and returned to the bustling square. "The universal translator needs work," the human said.

"Work it needs," Shrev agreed, and chuckled with Wesley. They walked toward the square's northern side. "Did you learn much from the man?"

"Yeah. The local ruler, the Vo Gatyn, is a green."

"That sounds bad, but I fear I don't understand the meaning," Shrev said.

Wesley hesitated as though trying to frame his reply. "My apologies for expecting you to know an obscure detail of our history. A 'green' is a human who serves a nonhuman conqueror. During our Eugenics War, a British colonel named Green turned traitor and helped the Khans invade Australia."

"So you use his name this way," Shrev said. She knew a little about Earth's Eugenics War, which had started after a clique of scientists used some crude genetic techniques to create a race of superior humans. The superiority had proved a dangerous trap when the new race had decided to enslave the old. "I take it that a 'green' serves willingly?"

"Very willingly," Wesley said. "Anyway, that's one reason I bought this mace. Anit-that's the shopkeeper's name-looked like an old soldier, and I figured I could get him to talk about the local wars. He told me that when the Ferengi showed up, they bribed a minor chief named Gatyn into helping them conquer the planet. They gave her modern weapons and transport, and she trounced everyone else. Now she's a puppet ruler."

"So the Ferengi do not exert direct rule," Shrev said.

"Correct," Wesley said. "Officially, Gatyn has hired the Ferengi to modernize her world. They even had this big public contract-signing ceremony to make it look right."

"So they pretend to work for their slave," Shrev noted as they came to the square's northern exit. The cobbled road was uneven from the wear of heavy traffic, and they made slow progress through the crowd of natives and vehicles. Several vehicles floated on artigrav units. "Wesley, you implied that you had more than one reason for buying that mace," Shrev said, seeing the hostile gaze of many people. "Do you expect to use it here?"

"No," he said. "It's a gift."

"Indeed? It seems a rather exotic gift."

Wesley nodded. "It's big, it's clumsy, it looks like a cactus with a thyroid problem. Worf will love it. Data will like the octant, and my mom will like these old surgeon's tools." He held up the bag.

"Just as my clan's hive-matriarch shall appreciate this." Shrev tapped the plate. "I perceive this plate as the heart of a nectar-rich flower. In my religion, that symbolizes-" How to translate hzs'sz? "-divine favor," she finished.

The phrase was inadequate, but Wesley appeared to understand. "Do you think we can find more like it?" he asked.

"We shall see," Shrev said. She turned her head several times as a lack of something registered on her mind. "Wesley, am I mistaken, or are there no children about?"

"I don't see any little Megarans, either," he said after a moment. "And I haven't, not since we beamed down."

"As if they were being kept hidden from aliens."

"Yeah," Wesley said. "There's something else odd, Shrev. I look a lot like the natives, but you stand out. You should attract a lot more interest than you have."

"Unless Zhuiks are common visitors here, which I doubt," she said. She looked around again. "People seem to avoid us."

"Not all of them," Wesley said. "We're being followed."

"Dieu merci," Picard muttered as the amba.s.sador entered the transporter room. Offenhouse had dressed in a black dovecote jacket, pinstriped pants, and a stovepipe hat. A wide ribbon held a gold-plated Federation medallion on his chest. He carried a walking stick with a fist-sized diamond k.n.o.b.

Offenhouse chuckled under Picard's scrutiny. "I know. You can dress 'em up, but you can't take 'em anywhere."

Picard cleared his throat. "That's hardly standard dress for modern diplomats, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

"Look rich, be rich-that's an old Ferengi proverb. I'm out to impress Chudak." He twirled the walking stick. "And jam any bugs with this beauty. The medallion has a translator and a limited-spectrum tricorder built into it, too."

Picard nodded. "And what does the hat do?"

"It keeps my head dry when it rains." Offenhouse stepped onto the transporter stage with Picard, then scowled at the deck pads. "Say, Picard, did you ever see The Fly?"

"I don't believe so," Picard said, and gestured to the transporter technician. "What is it?"