Dukat was ready to see her, or rather, believed that Kira Nerys might finally be ready to see him. He'd watched the feeds from the processing levels off and on since her arrival, watched her shoulders begin to slump as she saw her future unfolding, grit and grease and no way out. Whatever rebellious spirit had dared her to come to Terok Nor, it had certainly been diminished. He didn't want her broken, just receptive.

He summoned Basso Tromac to his office, considering how the meeting might unfold: young Nerys, frightened and alone, brought before the prefect, a man she'd been raised to fear and even hate, who'd loved her mother in secret, taken care of her as she had taken care of him. Nerys would never know that part of it, of course. That would be...counter-productive, in any case. But he saw a real opportunity here, to act as a father figure to the girl. Perhaps his could be the firm, guiding hand that would lead her away from her vain struggles, lead her to accept a better life for herself. Surely, it was what Meru would have wanted.

He sighed, wishing that was his only interest. In truth, he also sought distraction from the steady decline in Bajor's export quotas. Until Kell and the Council finally relented, sending what was needed to keep Bajor profitable-surveyors, geologists, researchers to study pharmaceutical possibilities in the flora; the list of possibilities were endless-there would be no respite from the dropping figures. Bajor would serve Cardassia well for at least another generation, but until the Union was willing to invest, the statistics would tell a different story; would show, in fact, that the planet was beginning to run out of nonrenewable resources.

And the blame would be laid on me. He disliked the thought of how it might read in the story of the Union, the one dutifully memorized by schoolchildren. He could see how it would look, where the implications would fall...

A signal at his door, and then Basso Tromac walked in. "You wanted to see me, Gul?"

Dukat smiled, his thoughts returning to Nerys. "Yes. I think our Bajoran guest has squirmed long enough. I want you to bring her to me."

"Here?" Basso asked, his expression giving the rest of his thought away-and not your quarters? Puerile of mind. Puerile of mind.

"Where else?" Dukat asked, his smile sharp.

Basso nodded. "Of course. Right away."

He left the office and Dukat sat at his desk again. But perhaps he should be standing when Nerys was shown in. Which would be least threatening to her? It was his attention to detail that often won him the things he sought, and disarming the Bajoran girl of lifelong prejudices would be no easy task. This would only be the first session of many, he was sure, but first impressions were often the strongest.

He turned to his computer, calling up her file-calling up both of her files, after a moment's thought, the original and the one he'd personally edited. Perhaps presenting her with evidence of his sincerity would be a good beginning. A handful of internal memos popped up-authorization requests, mostly-and he quickly answered them, only pausing over one. A waste processor needed replacement, a costly and time-intensive task, and while it needed to be done, he thought it might be put off awhile- There was a noise, close behind him. Dukat turned, stylus in hand, the briefest pulse of instinctive fear clenching his gut- -assassination- -and he saw a vole, fat and sleek and holding something in its jaws, disappearing into the air conduit by the door. Another refugee from the storage bays, an ever-present nuisance that continued to thrive in spite of maintenance's best efforts. The voles arrived in cargo containers from home, lived on the refuse left out by the Bajorans, by careless shopkeepers. Terok Nor represented the very pinnacle of Cardassian technology; that they couldn't rid themselves of a few voles was an utter embarrassment.

Overcome by disgust, Dukat threw his stylus after it. He picked up a padd from his desk and threw that, too, but the gesture was a futile one. The vole was gone.

His lanky, leaning form, his thin blade of a smile, his strange precision in even the smallest of tasks...Crell Moset was gone, packed and returned to Cardassia Prime. It hadn't taken long, once the gears had ground into motion, moving the science ministry's complicated transfer process along. There had been a formal reassignment of staff, a small, private dinner attended by a handful of colleagues, and a final, inevitable night of passion with Kalisi. She had enjoyed the sex. His efforts were sincere and practiced, making it easy to forget the rest of it-what she'd read recently about his experiments with polytrinic acid, for example, on living Bajorans. Or the radiation tests, or the additive to the Fostossa vaccine, or a dozen other things she'd learned since first submitting to his caresses. Her body responded in spite of her thoughts and, she had to admit, because of them, the darker feelings adding a flavor to their coupling that had frightened her, afterwards, but had, at the time, been extremely stimulating.

Only hours after their final, lingering kiss, the very morning his shuttle left atmosphere, she set to work. She destroyed every existing variation of the sterilization component and spent several hours wiping its formulation from the records before she set the machines to work up a new synthesis. Or, rather, the old one. The one that lacked Moset's additive. On the chance that someone might later try to recover his work at the facility, she altered the lists of chemicals taken from inventory over the past year. Finally, she replicated the original masters and issued the commands necessary to begin full facility batch fermentation. The Bajorans would receive the Fostossa vaccine, nothing more.

It didn't take long to tear it all down, his brilliant solution to the Bajoran question; she'd managed it in only a few hours. With Moset gone, much of the research facility that adjoined the hospital had been shut down. Another doctor would reopen in a few weeks, someone doing a study on botanical medicine or something equally uninteresting. Kalisi was not bothered by anyone as she worked. Anyway, she had higher clearance than any wandering aide who might wonder what she was doing, running the entire system and every outlet from the computer room, searching each database for particular files that might have been cached away. By midafternoon, she was certain that there was no trace of Moset's recent work left anywhere in the system. She could do nothing about his personal hardware-he'd taken his work padds with him, of course-but she had reason to hope he wouldn't be around to use them for very much longer.

She sat in his private office, looking around at the empty spaces where the doctor had kept his eccentric memorabilia: an anatomical model of a Cardassian heart; a holo of his mother and grandmother, sharing a single stern expression; a complete set of the works of Iloja; and his prize, an extensive collection of beetles from different worlds. The room still felt like him, though perhaps that was because parts of her still ached from his heartfelt farewell, and she could still smell his breath in her hair, feel his hands on her body...

She shivered, a mix of revulsion and heat that she did not attempt to explain to herself. What mattered was that her first objective had been met. She wasn't sorry that she had acted, although she knew that if the rest of her plans didn't work out, she'd just signed her own death warrant, deliberately destroying legitimate research of use to the Union. Would Moset come after her personally? She didn't know. More likely, the ministry would insist on a trial, the doctor their main witness against her. Because her guilt was incontrovertible, a trial, too, would mean her death.

Why had she done this thing? Why would she willingly place what was left of her career in jeopardy, risk bringing shame to her family, risk her own execution? She had thought upon it often since the day she'd assisted in sterilizing an entire community of Bajorans, and had come to realize that she did not wish to spend the rest of her life haunted by what she had helped Crell Moset create. She could still have children, might even choose to do so if she met a fitting suitor to sire them; she might, she might not...But the understanding that she had the choice was important for her, as a woman and as a Cardassian, as a responsible member of the Union. As little as she cared for the Bajoran people, she didn't want her name to be associated with the sterilization of a species. If it was true, what Moset said, that allowing them to bear young would doom tens of thousands of them to slow starvation, then she'd just created an apocalypse for them. But their future was not set in stone. And if he was wrong, she'd left them a choice, and that did not seem to be such a great evil. They would probably choose incorrectly, anyway. They were an illogical people.

Her reasons no longer had bearing, which was a relief; she could stop thinking about that aspect. It was done, and if she hoped to survive the aftermath, she needed to act.

From the empty office, she put in a call to her father, using his secure channel, breathing deeply as she waited for the relays to go through. She was no longer certain she understood what evil was. She'd always believed it to be a deliberate thing, a conscious decision-one man chooses to kill another for personal gain; he is evil. Working with Dr. Moset had taken her certainty away about a number of things. He did not wish the Bajorans any harm; he simply saw them as a factor in his equations, another variable to be quantified and managed. He had his formulas and his experiments, he looked at the numbers, he decided how best to fulfill his purpose, and acted accordingly. It was cold and brutal, science without sentiment, and it was who and what she had been before coming to work with Doctor Moset. Evil? May as well attempt to apply morality to mathematics. The only thing she knew with any certainty anymore was that she never wanted to see Crell Moset again. She wanted her last chance at a real life, that was all.

She shifted in the doctor's chair, deciding how much to tell her father while she waited for the last pickup. When his face finally appeared on her screen, she was ready.

"Father."

"Kalisi!" He smiled encouragingly. He smiled encouragingly. "I've been waiting to hear from you. You've accepted the position at Culat, haven't you?" "I've been waiting to hear from you. You've accepted the position at Culat, haven't you?"

"I am about to," she said. "My supervisor here asked me to finish the project I was working on, but I'll be done quite soon, and free to return to Cardassia Prime."

"That's wonderful," he said. he said. "You'll alert me as soon as your transport is scheduled, of course. We'll want to be there to meet you, and-" "You'll alert me as soon as your transport is scheduled, of course. We'll want to be there to meet you, and-"

"Father, I need help."

He stopped talking, stopped smiling, his expression at once wary and concerned. "What is it?" "What is it?"

"There is someone-someone who poses a threat to me, should I return home."

"In what way?"

"My position at the university would be compromised," she said. "This man acted as my superior."

He waited, but she offered nothing more-nor did she have to. She was a single woman of viable age, attractive, and her father was no idealist. He sighed unhappily, probably presuming some manner of sexual blackmail.

"What would you have me do about this?" he asked. he asked.

"Your contacts at the Order," she said. "You've used them before to have people...removed."

He frowned. "I will do whatever I can to protect you, child, but you overestimate my status. I have no rank within the Order." "I will do whatever I can to protect you, child, but you overestimate my status. I have no rank within the Order."

"But if you had something to offer them, something of value...They will occasionally trade a favor for information, isn't that so?"

She already knew that it was, and he nodded slowly, his eyes full of questions.

Kalisi smiled. "Contact Dost Abor. Tell him that if he can find a way to help me with my problem, I can tell him what happened to Miras Vara."

"Miras-the girl you went to school with?"

"Please. I will explain it to you as soon as I return." She smiled again. "I'll be in Culat, Father. We'll have time."

Yannik Reyar hesitated, then nodded again.

Almost home, she thought.

A load of pulverized ore rattled and thumped endlessly along the belt, the sound lost beneath the constant roar of the giant turbines that filled the massive room. Heat waves trembled up from the floor. Dozens of dirty, sweating Bajorans stood over the line, sorting the rock with torn fingers, sending the results on to the belt that ran to the turbines; there, the ores were ground and dropped to the smelters. Another group of Bajorans shoveled the rejected material to a different belt. The air was hot and thick with dust, hard to breathe, even with the nose filters. It was hard to think think.

Kira paused long enough at her shoveling to wipe a forearm across her brow. The result was a viscous gray smear of mud. Dust covered everything, made the workers look like some childhood perception of borhyas borhyas.

We are are ghosts ghosts, she thought, too tired to fight the depressing concept. At least, I am. At least, I am. It was only a matter of time before someone decided to point out that Kira didn't belong on Terok Nor. Since the day the pilot hadn't showed, she'd been tense, waiting for some heavy hand to come down on her shoulder, to drag her before the prefect or into an interrogation room. She'd spent her "free" time meditating, trying to prepare herself. She was determined that they would learn nothing from her, but she was afraid of what they might be able to pry from her mind, with their drugs and devices. She was afraid of the pain, too, afraid of being tortured to death. She didn't want to be scared, and told herself that worrying about it was pointless, but she couldn't help it. It was only a matter of time before someone decided to point out that Kira didn't belong on Terok Nor. Since the day the pilot hadn't showed, she'd been tense, waiting for some heavy hand to come down on her shoulder, to drag her before the prefect or into an interrogation room. She'd spent her "free" time meditating, trying to prepare herself. She was determined that they would learn nothing from her, but she was afraid of what they might be able to pry from her mind, with their drugs and devices. She was afraid of the pain, too, afraid of being tortured to death. She didn't want to be scared, and told herself that worrying about it was pointless, but she couldn't help it.

The days had stretched, though, and her immediate terror gave way to other fears-like becoming one of the cowed, desperate people she'd met on the station, most of them just trying to keep their families alive. Terok Nor's Bajoran populace had few resources and were worked to the point of exhaustion, the better to keep them from organizing in any effective way. The people she'd met had the solace of the shrine but no real hope, and every day she stayed, she feared for her own failing will. Drag herself awake to work, break for food, more work, a scant meal, then back to the inadequate shelters for not enough sleep. It was almost enough to make her wish for discovery.

The shape-shifter had promised to help her, but she knew better than to pin any hope there. Odo didn't strike her as a liar, but he worked for the Cardassians; he owed her nothing. He hadn't turned her in, but she thought his willing blindness was the most she could expect. If she wanted to go home, she'd have to find her own way.

The rock blurred past her, her arms aching as she hefted another scoop of slag, tipping it onto the belt. These were the thoughts that cycled through her mind while she worked, repeating themselves endlessly and uselessly. She knew she had to come up with some kind of plan, but there was no forest to hide in, no caves to which she could run, no city in which to lose herself among its wretched populace; she was so far out of her element, she felt she didn't know how to look for the opportunities she'd need to escape, or even change her situation.

One by one, the men and women around her stopped working, looking toward the section's entry, where the Cardassian "managers" usually lingered, close to the heat but out of the worst of the dust. Kira stood up, saw the tall, grim-looking Cardassian security officer coming her way, and realized that the wait was finally over. She'd thought it might be a relief, but she was wrong. She was terrified.

She had to fight the urge to turn and flee, in spite of there being no sanctuary; this was Dukat's station, and she'd been stupid, stupid to think she could come and go as she pleased. One or two of the workers moved closer to her, and for a brief, hysterically hopeful second she allowed herself to think that she might be saved, but she also knew better. She made herself step forward, not wanting anyone else to be dragged away with her.

The Cardassian grabbed her by the upper arm, pulling her back toward the entry. The watching guards smirked, one of them shouting at the workers to return to their stations, his voice amplified to be heard over the turbines.

She had to half run to keep up with him, his viselike grip unyielding. He walked her quickly through the "clean" room, where sharp blasts of air took off the worst of the dirt-wouldn't want the interrogator to get his hands dirty-then out into the relative coolness of processing's main corridor, walking them toward the hub. The main hall clanged and thundered with the sound of heavy machinery, but it was infinitely quieter than in the channeling room.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

The security officer didn't answer, just kept walking, giving her his profile. His insignia marked him as a dalin, and he was handsome, by Cardassian standards. They favored a wide head, a tall, muscular frame. She was a strong woman, she knew that, but he was so much bigger than her-her head barely came up to his chin-she couldn't see how she could take him. She'd had some training, but learning how to throw and roll with a willing partner wasn't the same as trying to toss a full-grown, armed Cardassian to the floor. It took a very well placed kick to take one of them down, a blow to one of the bony ridges on their face, but in the position she was currently in, he had too much the advantage. She'd have to free her arm from his grip and face him before she could get the drop on him, and she didn't see it happening-not with so many of them swarming around.

Accept it, just accept it, she told herself, but she couldn't stop trying. "Did Odo send you? I spoke with him, before...Are you taking me to see Odo?"

"Quiet," the Cardassian snapped, and then they'd reached the end of the main hall. He nodded at a lower-ranked soldier standing near the lift-the garresh saluted promptly-then he dragged her inside.

When the door closed, shutting out the clamor, she felt that she could hear herself think again. The relief was physical, as if she'd been plucked out of a vast, rattling machine. The lift would let out at the Bajoran sector of the habitat ring. Maybe, if she could slip away, she could...

...I could what? she thought, looking up at the discreet camera in the lift's ceiling panel. she thought, looking up at the discreet camera in the lift's ceiling panel. Sneak onto a shuttle? Tiptoe past the recognition software? Sneak onto a shuttle? Tiptoe past the recognition software?

The lift came to a stop and she was pulled out, the dalin acting as though she was a package he was carrying. And a sudden horrible thought occurred to her, as they moved past the fenced wards, heading for the inner lifts. The ones that led up to operations. To Dukat's office.

Comfort women. There were several on the station. She'd seen them-Bajoran women walking the Promenade in elegant clothing, their expressions dumb with sedatives or shame. Dukat was well known for his preferences-young, pretty, willing to provide. She'd rather die.

"If you're taking me to be interrogated, you could at least tell me," she said, grasping for some clue. "Is it Odo? Is he-"

His grip tightened, cutting off her words. "Quiet!" "Quiet!"

The Bajorans they passed looked away, went about their business, plodding to or from some assigned destination. Kira felt ill, and as they neared the ops access lifts, she started to think she might actually vomit.

"I feel sick," she said.

"That's too bad," he said, not looking at her as they passed the lifts, heading for the crossover bridge to the outer ring. The docking ring.

Were their interrogation rooms in the outer ring? She didn't know...but the dalin was a security officer, Odo was head of security...

Kira kept her mouth shut, concentrating on keeping up. They walked to the access corridor, entered it. The hall's design, like the rest of the station, was stark and cold, maybe to balance the dreadful heat, and they walked straight through two security checks, the soldiers saluting, the dalin nodding in turn.

He was going to let her go. Or, he was going to shove her out of an airlock. Either way, she was through with Terok Nor.

I'll come back the day the last Cardassian leaves, she promised herself, latching on to the thought; it implied that she would survive this, somehow.

They turned a corner, and there was a small group of Bajoran men and women waiting at one of the station's wide, rolling locks. None of them looked well. Kira recognized one of them from her ward, a woman who suffered respiratory problems associated with breathing heavily particulated air. Jaryn, something like that. Even with the nose filters, a lot of the workers suffered chronic conditions.

The officer shoved her into the line, just as a Cardassian pilot stepped out of the lock, his expression bored.

"Is she going to the hospital, too?" he asked, nodding at Kira.

"No. This one is to be released in the Dahkur Province. By order of Dukat."

Dukat?

She looked at the dalin, back at the pilot. Were they exchanging some silent information? Was it a trick? The pilot nodded, started filing the other passengers in. As the dalin turned to leave, Kira stepped after him.

"What's going on?" she asked, keeping her voice low. "Why are you-"

Before she could speak another word, he'd gripped her arm again, roughly turning her back toward the moving line. "There's a two-minute delay on the security captures in this sector. Keep your back to the cameras."

She nodded, recognizing that she was being given a tremendous gift. "I-thank you," she said.

He hesitated, finally looking at her. "Thank the shape-shifter," he said, and then walked away.

17.

Thrax had been doing this sort of thing for a very long time, but somehow, his years of experience made it no easier for him. He was always fearful of getting caught, hence the elaborate tactics he took to avoid arousing the suspicion of Central Command-or worse, the Order. He didn't have it in him to be comfortably sly; that sort of manner was better suited to the man he was about to make contact with.

He approached the Public Hall of Records, looking for his contact but knowing that Esad would not make his presence known until Thrax reached the agreed-upon point of encounter. He entered the great building and went to the third level, where copies of modern works of poetry were kept, along with recent literature. He removed an isolinear rod from a shelf in front of him and plugged it into his padd, perusing with feigned interest.

A voice behind him made him jump. "Is this any good?" a man asked.

Thrax turned, his breath hitching. He half expected to see a stranger, but instead he saw the thin, jagged features of Kutel Esad, the man who had served directly under Enabran Tain for the last nine years of Tain's tenure as the head of the Obsidian Order. Esad was holding in his hand an isolinear recording, identical to those that were used here at the Hall of Records, but Thrax knew that this particular recording did not belong here.

"The collected works of Maran Bry," Esad said, pretending to read it from the label on his isolinear rod.

"Bry's work is not for everyone," Thrax said. He tried his best to sound natural, but his voice hardly sounded like his own.

"Is it for you?" Esad asked him. The wiry man, though he had a reputation for his cautiousness, maintained his cool composure in the face of Thrax's readily apparent nervousness.

Thrax recited the lines of one of Maran Bry's more controversial poems that had been agreed as code to proceed with the exchange. His voice wavered, though he had chosen the verse himself. If he delivered the words incorrectly, would Esad carry through with the exchange? The older man was well known for his strict insistence on careful adherence to procedure, down to every last detail. Even though he knew Thrax's face by sight, he did not trust that the Order wouldn't place a surgically altered plant in his place-if their interest in the Oralian Way warranted such a measure.

"The cold hands of a foreign morning/press themselves within my breast/isolating me from the comfort of my world's motherhood."

Esad handed him the rod. "You would appreciate this better than I," he said, and turned to go.

Thrax removed the rod that he had inserted in his padd and replaced it with the one Esad had just given him. He read for a moment, and then removed the rod, placing it back on the shelf for Esad to retrieve later. He pocketed his padd and walked as quickly as his legs could take him without actually running. He needed to get to Astraea right away.

Kalisi Reyar sat and waited, and waited...and waited.

After her conversation with her father, things had happened quickly. She'd been contacted by Dost Abor almost immediately, an extremely polite message suggesting that she pack her things and expect transport within the week. She was ready within hours of the transmission. There was little to pack, no mementos she wished to keep; Bajor had been a long, embarrassing discomfort, beginning to end, and she'd felt only relief at the thought of leaving.

Even if it was to come here again, she thought, looking around at the small, cold room where she'd first met with Dost Abor, on his dark, hidden world. It was as unpleasant as she remembered, but it was also her last stop before home. She could stand it a little longer-although it had been hours since she'd given the agent her information, hours of fidgeting and second-guessing, of looking over her padd with virtually no interest, and she was starting to wonder what was taking so very long. Starting to worry a little.

What if the story didn't check out? She'd given him the information about the identity change, Miras to Astraea, and detailed what Moset had told her about the ancient religion holding meetings in Cardassia City. In the Torr sector, he'd said. Surely, they had enough to find Miras Vara by now. Kalisi felt a dull pang of guilt. Miras had been a sweet girl, but no great mind.

She had been sitting alone for the better part of the day when Dost Abor finally walked in. Kalisi stood up, eager to be finished, to be escorted back to the ship.

"May I go now?"

Abor smiled. "Not quite yet, I'm afraid."