"Sir. We have been searching for its tracks without rest-"

"When?"

The glinn took a deep breath. He looked exhausted. "Four days, sir." "Four days, sir."

"Did I not explain to you that he was to be closely monitored at all times?"

"And we did, sir. We have. It left the village in Dahkur, and we tried to follow it, but it approached one of my men. When he asked it to go with him, it-it turned into a bird and flew away. He was...startled, sir."

Startled. Dukat said nothing, and the glinn was quick to fill the silence, his desperation lending him voice. Dukat said nothing, and the glinn was quick to fill the silence, his desperation lending him voice.

"How can we track a thing that becomes water, or a stone, or a snake? With all respect, sir, we don't have the technology to keep it under surveillance."

Dukat hovered between anger at the glinn-impertinence on top of incompetence-and a kind of weary resignation, that he should have the only sharp mind, it seemed, in all of Central Command.

"It chooses to be a man," Dukat said, patient through gritted teeth. "It seeks out the company of other sentient beings. Go to the towns, ask questions. Cover the whole province, if you must. Someone will have seen something."

The glinn nodded sharply. "Yes, sir." "Yes, sir."

"And report back as soon as you've established his whereabouts. Do not approach him, or try to contain him in any way, do you understand? I will not indulge your ineptitude twice."

He cut off the transmission, shook his head. If Odo were ever to come to Terok Nor, it would have to be of his own volition. For now, keeping track of him would have to do, if his soldiers could manage it without his direct supervision.

Dukat picked up the padd with his schedule for the day, turning his attention to other matters. Truly, it was a wonder he ever got anything done.

11.

When she got the upgrade memo from the science ministry, it was all Kalisi could do not to scream. She read it three times, her blood pressure steadily spiking.

...and you will receive the newly calibrated RV7 models and have them installed before the end of the next quartile...

She read it again, then stood, agitated, pacing her small closet of an office. Only the year before, Cardassia Prime had gifted Doctor Moset's facility with a brand-new computer system, state of the art-and backwards compatible with their outdated hardware. Since her arrival at the facility, Kalisi had spent countless hours elaborately reprogramming the system to get their aging equipment online and networked. And now the science ministry had actually come through with new hardware for the lab. Hardware that was, of course, incompatible with last year's computer system.

Kalisi couldn't stand it. She went to find Crell.

It was midweek and late, so she headed for pathology, fuming all the way. She exchanged nods with a few other workers, but no pleasantries; they all knew what she was to Moset, and his blatant favoritism had distanced her from anyone she might have looked to for friendship.

He was happy to see her, in his distracted and quirky way. They hadn't been lovers for long enough to breed too much familiarity, and he seemed to enjoy listening to her complain. She ranted about the ministry for a spell, as he nodded appropriately, shaking his head in shared frustration. She didn't expect him to offer any solution, and wasn't disappointed. He had been distant lately, in a way she'd come to recognize as a precursor to some new twist in his research.

"Well, it won't be for much longer," he said finally, smiling his thin smile. "This might be among the last upgrades we'll have to suffer."

"What do you mean?"

"You're an educated woman," Crell said. "You can see that the resources here on Bajor are dwindling."

"Yes, but the projection for dropping below quota is still decades away."

Moset leaned against the metal table behind him, cocking one eyeridge in a melodramatically cryptic expression. "That's just what they want want you to think." you to think."

Her irritation was no pretense. "What do you mean?"

"That's propaganda, newscasts aimed at home. From what I hear, Cardassia will pull out of here less than a generation from now. Possibly within the next five years." He smiled with faint distraction. "I'm hoping for sooner, rather than later, of course."

Kalisi was surprised. She'd heard rumors, but hadn't believed them. Crell was well-respected, though, and had earned a number of influential friends in the science ministry and Central Command. If he believed it, he had reason to.

"What will happen to the Bajorans?" she asked, not sure why it was the first question that came to mind.

His playfulness fell away, his demeanor suddenly uncharacteristically grave. "Considering the declining state of their society and their ecosystem, in my estimation they'll be lucky to die off quickly."

As if to illustrate his point, a lab assistant wheeled a cot through the room's far entrance, a cadaver, mostly covered by a sheet. A Bajoran woman. Her skin was nearly white beneath the bright lights.

"If you'll excuse me, Doctor," Crell said, nodding at her. "I have some work to do. Perhaps we can continue this conversation at a later time?"

Kalisi nodded, already backing toward the door she'd entered by, as the assistant parked the corpse in front of Crell. She wasn't particularly squeamish, but wasn't interested in watching a dissection, either. She turned, thinking. She still had to decide how to handle the ministry's "gift." It was reprogram again or reject the computers...

She glanced back at Moset as the door slid open, and saw the Bajoran woman twitch.

Kalisi stopped, peered closer at the body as the door slid closed again. The assistant had disappeared, and Crell was pulling back the sheet to expose the woman's bare body, so strange and smooth, no ridges crossing her midriff. Kalisi was sure she had moved, like a shiver, when he had lifted the coverlet.

He tapped at a recording panel and lifted his scalpel, leaning over the naked alien.

"Subject is mid-20s-ah, 26, I believe, no history of disease before end-stage Fostossia-"

There! The Bajoran's hand this time, a spastic movement. The Bajoran's hand this time, a spastic movement.

"Crell," she said, forgetting herself as he brought the blade down.

He paused, looked up at her.

"She's still alive," Kalisi said.

He blinked, frowned. As though he was still waiting for her to get to the point. "Yes?"

"I thought-I mean, I suppose..." She wasn't sure what to say, not sure what was happening. He acted as though performing a vivisection on a living person-a Bajoran, but still a person-was something he did every day.

He smiled, straightened slightly. He glanced about, confirming that they were alone.

"You have a tender heart, Kali," he said. "This woman is already dead. Terminal coma. The disease was untreatable by the time she came to us. Better we learn something from her death, don't you feel?"

Kalisi took a step back to the table, unable to look away from the Bajoran's face. She saw it now, the quiver of her thin nostrils, a slow beat at her temple.

"What could you hope to learn?" she asked.

He gestured to the woman's flat belly. "More about their reproductive systems, for one thing."

"To what purpose?"

He smiled again, what she thought of as his teacher smile. "Ultimately, our work here is about finding ways to improve the health of the Bajoran labor force. To maintain optimal productivity. Gestation and child-rearing generally hinders the productivity of the parents."

Kalisi shook her head. "You're devising ways to sterilize them?"

His smile took on an edge of excitement. "Think. For the Union, there's no need for another generation of Bajorans-and really, it does them a kindness. Spares them from having to watch their children starve to death, once we're gone. And And, it means a more effective work force while we're still here."

He leaned over the woman and made a swift, deep incision across her lower belly. Blood pulsed and pooled, slid over her bare hips to the table beneath. He lifted the flap of tissue, gestured at the wet red inside the bleeding gash, as though Kalisi would recognize the dying woman's womb.

"That's the problem," he said, nodding once. "They breed like voles, pregnancies one right after another, with rapid gestation periods. An effective sterilizing agent solves it. Getting it to them would be a simple matter-we add it to one of the Fostossia boosters; they're all required to have them. The issue is isolating the right component. I've already tried several formulas. There were promising results in the viral carrier, but those subjects all developed tumorous cysts. Obviously, we want to treat these people as humanely as possible."

The body on the narrow table between them convulsed sleepily and gave a ragged, guttural exhalation-the last sound it would make. The blood ceased to pump, the woman's thin, alien face relaxing.

"Horrible," Kalisi said, unable to help herself.

"This one stayed unconscious, at least," Crell said, with no emotion save for the affable tint that usually colored his voice. "Your reaction strikes me as slightly hypocritical, darling. You've devoted your entire adult life to designing weapons that target and kill them."

Kalisi stared at him. "Since my detection grid was installed, combat deaths of both Bajorans and Cardassians have been reduced exponentially. My work has prevented prevented unnecessary suffering." unnecessary suffering."

Her lover nodded. "As will mine," he said evenly. After a moment, he leaned in and resumed cutting, and Kalisi left him.

The ground unfolded beneath him, broad and green and thick with shadows. Odo was tired-he'd had so little time to regenerate-but decided it was for the best that he just approach these resistance people now and be done with his task. In the short time since he'd left Mora's care, things had happened so quickly, the environments and faces and rules constantly changing. He wished for time to assimilate his new experiences, to draw conclusions, but away from the laboratory, he'd discovered that time moved differently; it seemed that there was not always opportunity to stop and think.

A final stretch of his wings, and he landed in the mountain pass that Sito Keral had told him of, hopping across a fallen tree, fluttering for balance. He became a small tyrfox tyrfox that could amble effectively over the rocky ground. that could amble effectively over the rocky ground.

It was exhilarating to fly, but being a bird was not easy. Flying was new to him, and tiring-not to mention a little frightening. Odo had never been exposed to such great vistas of height before, nor the perpetual biting wind that came with it. His experience until recently had been limited to what the laboratory had been able to provide. The possibilities of what he could do, what he could be-it was more to consider, more to process. The sooner he had finished his errand, a favor that he felt he owed the kind villagers, the better.

It took him only a short time to find the small opening in the rock, concealed by thick brush, but he could see that the brush had been pushed aside sometime recently. Someone had come through here, though it surprised him that a humanoid would clamber through such a tight passage. He transformed into a vole and entered the chamber, which immediately plunged into dense blackness. He adjusted his eyesight and made his legs longer, guessing that the distance to the resistance fighters within was considerable.

He traversed the tunnels for a long while, noting that there was more than one passage to go through. He heard many things-water and insects, other small, warm-blooded bodies moving through the dark. Finally, he heard voices, melodic whispers on the dusty air, and he followed the sounds. When he'd found the tunnel that seemed to definitively lead to the source of the conversation, he morphed back into a humanoid.

He hesitated, listening for just a moment. The voices were raised in argument, he was sure.

"Kohn Biran?" He called out into the tunnel. There was an abrupt silence, and then a lone voice responded, strained and careful.

"Who's there?"

"I come from Ikreimi village, to deliver a message from Sito Keral."

Another beat of silence. "I know you, friend?"

Odo was not sure how to respond. "We have not met," he said finally.

"Perhaps you should introduce yourself," the voice said.

"I must warn you," Odo called before entering the passage, "my appearance is...unusual."

The man said nothing else, so Odo entered the tunnel, which was larger now, so that he could expand to his usual height as a humanoid, and made his way to a much larger grotto; dimly lit with a few rudimentary torches. Its furnishings were plain and rough. A table-piled high with wooden dishes and the components of mismatched computer systems-some stools, heaps of bedrolls along the uneven walls. Two men were in the room, standing next to rough wooden benches, their posture tense-whether because they did not expect a visitor or because they had been quarreling, Odo could not say.

"I come with important news," he said, the words he had memorized.

"And what might that be?" one of the men asked, and Odo recognized his voice as the one that had called to him from the tunnel. This must be Kohn Biran, the cell's leader. Odo deduced that he was older than the other man, his heavy beard and thick, wild hair streaked with silver. The other man was no less unkempt, but appeared slightly younger.

"The anti-aircraft component of the detection grid. There is a way to reprogram it."

"Go on," Kohn Biran coaxed, looking at his companion.

"A code sequence may be entered to override the program's diagnostic," Odo continued. "It will alert the system to recognize Bajoran flyers in the same category as Cardassian craft, allowing raiders to leave the atmosphere unharmed. This is a procedure that would have to be performed on each tower individually; it will not be effective for the system as a whole."

The two men began to speak excitedly. "The comm relays-we can finally send people out to repair the comm relays-"

"We can regain contact with the others-"

"...And if it works, the towers in other provinces-other continents-can be disconnected-"

Kohn turned back to Odo. "What about the biosensors?"

"I have no information about how to disable that aspect of the detection grid."

"But you have the code sequence for the flight sensors?"

"I have it memorized," Odo told him, and began to recite the code he had carefully remembered. The Bajoran asked him to repeat himself once, and Odo complied willingly. "If there is any doubt about my integrity or ability, someone may be sent to Ikreimi to confer with Keral for himself," he suggested.

Kohn studied him for a long moment, his eyes clear and sharp, then shook his head.

"That won't be necessary, Mr...."

"Odo," he said. He felt that something more was required, so he added, "And I appreciate your trust in me."

"Well, the resistance functions on trust," the man told him, extending his hand. Odo clasped his arm.

"I'm Kohn Biran, and this is Ma Jouvirna." The other man nodded his head.

"You are welcome to stay here, Mr. Odo. The rest of my cell has gone out for provisions. You must be hungry..."

"That will not be necessary," Odo told him, "though I thank you." Just as Mora had taught him. Thinking of Mora, he felt a thing he'd long known, but had only recently come to understand. Resentment, that was the word. So much to see and do, so much to experience, and Mora had wished to keep him in the lab, had wished to keep him from the world. He stared at the two men for just a moment longer before ducking his head to dismiss himself, and then he turned and backed out the tunnel, morphing again into a vole and scampering back out the tunnel, the way he had come.

Quark had welcomed Natima home with open arms, and their trysts had continued, to their mutual satisfaction. But today, this very day, Quark had received the bulk of the main transfer to his personal account, credit that he'd garnered using Natima's access code. And when he'd seen the damages, he'd realized that his time with Natima was over. The feeling was a weight in his chest, a tightness in his throat, strangling his responses to his customers as they made their orders. Quark wished very much that he could just be alone today, but the bar needed him; his profits weren't going to make themselves.

Not that I can't afford it, he thought, considering what he'd just earned. The thought was like an invisible jackscrew clamped down on his heart, for there was no way Natima wasn't going to notice what Quark had done. It had been one thing to make a few false purchases that her employer would attribute to Natima herself, but when that had turned out to be so easy, Quark could not resist using the code for further gain. He had concocted a false acquisition number for himself, and used her purchase authorization to make an order to a company that did not exist, payable to an untraceable account in the Bank of Bolias. Untraceable to anyone, of course, but Quark, for he had opened the account himself. It was foolproof-that is, it was foolproof until someone from the Information Service alerted Natima to the discrepancy on her purchase records. That day should be coming around any time now. he thought, considering what he'd just earned. The thought was like an invisible jackscrew clamped down on his heart, for there was no way Natima wasn't going to notice what Quark had done. It had been one thing to make a few false purchases that her employer would attribute to Natima herself, but when that had turned out to be so easy, Quark could not resist using the code for further gain. He had concocted a false acquisition number for himself, and used her purchase authorization to make an order to a company that did not exist, payable to an untraceable account in the Bank of Bolias. Untraceable to anyone, of course, but Quark, for he had opened the account himself. It was foolproof-that is, it was foolproof until someone from the Information Service alerted Natima to the discrepancy on her purchase records. That day should be coming around any time now.

Quark tried to busy himself stacking and restacking the glasses beneath the bar, trying to hypnotize himself with the monotony of the activity, but he couldn't block out the creeping misery he felt. He wasn't sure what had come over him, but whatever it was, it was obviously built into his very constitution, and he supposed he just couldn't help himself. If only he could believe that would be a sufficient excuse for Natima! Somehow, he doubted very much that she would accept it.

"Brother!" It was Rom, coming up behind him so suddenly that Quark almost dropped the glasses he held in each hand.

"Rom, I wish you would refrain from ambushing me in my own establishment," Quark snapped. "What is it?"