On his way back to the woman's table, Quark nearly tripped over one of his Bajoran day laborers, a scrawny man who had gone blind in one eye. The man looked up from where he had been scrubbing the floor, his ruined eye disarmingly cloudy and dead-seeming, and Quark scowled at the sight of him. "Out of my way," he barked, shoving the crouched old man with his knees.

"Forgive me, Quark," the man said huskily.

Quark felt a little nauseous, regarding this poor creature. Since that conversation with Gaila, he'd gone out of his way to show the Bajorans no mercy. He had his reputation to consider; for a businessman, "soft" was like a curse.

"Ferengi do not forgive," he said sharply. "I can't have my customers stumbling over a bag of bones on their way to the tables. Do your job, or it's back to the mines."

"Of course," the man replied, following it up with a coughing fit.

"And try to control your coughing! This is a place of relaxation-we don't need to be confronted with the specter of your various...maladies!"

Quark stepped over the Bajoran and set the drink down in front of the pretty woman, smiling broadly. He tapped the side of her glass with a fingernail, and the clarity of the glass was suddenly overtaken by a reddish cloud that dissipated into a soft, orange glow.

"One Samarian Sunset," he announced with a flourish.

"Thank you," she said, eyeing the Bajoran man on the floor. She seemed troubled, but Quark could not be sure, going by her mysterious expression alone. Maybe she didn't like Bajorans. He could not take his eyes off her. Her skin wasn't so much gray as the pale, metallic hue of the Ferengi sky on a spring morning. Her eyes sparkled like gems.

Quark put his hands together and watched her as she took her first sip. "Is it to your liking?" he asked eagerly.

She smiled, and cleared her throat. "It's fine, thank you, Mister..."

"Quark, the proprietor of this humble tavern." He spread his hands.

"Well, Mister Quark. I'm Natima. Natima Lang. It's a fine place, your establishment. The last time I was here, I remember thinking that the station was sorely lacking a nice place for...food and drink."

"The last time you were here?" Quark cocked his head.

She took another sip. "When I was a much younger woman than I am now." She laughed softly.

"You look plenty young to me," Quark said honestly. Cardassians hid their ages well.

She snorted a ladylike snort. "Thank you, Mister Quark, but...I doubt the Cardassians in here would agree with you. You might have noticed they can't stop staring at me."

"Because you're so attractive," Quark said, again in earnest.

She laughed again, louder this time. "It's because they can't figure out what a female civilian my age is doing in a place like this, without a male escort."

Quark slid into the seat opposite hers. "I'll admit that very question occurred to me, as well."

She set down her drink, stared at it. "I'm with the Cardassian Information Service. I've been sent to report on the state of the annexation. I was on the surface of Bajor, years ago, and now...I've been sent back, though I'll be staying on the station this time."

Quark nodded. "So I can look forward to seeing you again?"

She smiled, meeting his gaze evenly. "Yes, I suppose you can." She gestured to the soldiers that surrounded them. "If they will tolerate it."

Quark shrugged. "Who cares what they think?"

"Women have their roles within my society," she said, and sounded rueful, though Quark couldn't imagine why.

"Isn't it that way in every society?" he asked. "I mean, besides those Bajorans-they've got nothing in the way of civilized societal structure. Their women just run around, willy-nilly, doing any old thing the men do-"

"I think I'll be going now," the woman said briskly. "I've finished my drink." She stood up.

"Oh," Quark said, filing the information away. Feminist, probably. He could work around that. "Well, please do come back."

"Thank you, Mister Quark." She said it with a worrisome air of finality. She fished a slip of latinum from a pocket concealed in her dress and dropped it on the table before turning to go.

Quark didn't want it to be over, but he had no line at hand. He was reduced to telling the truth.

"Wait. It's...lonely on the station, sometimes. Perhaps I could offer you another drink...at half price?"

She stopped for a moment, actually seemed to think about his offer before shaking her head. "No," she said finally. "I'm hardly so lonely that I've been reduced to chatting all night with a Ferengi."

Quark picked up the latinum, rubbing it absently as he watched her walk out. She'd overpaid. He had been insulted, but only slightly. And she was staying on Terok Nor. He'd see her again.

Natima, he thought, and smiled his best sales smile, even though there were no customers at hand to see it.

It was late morning; Sito Keral had overslept. His family was already gone, his wife and daughter having done him the courtesy of giving him an extra hour to sleep after a particularly late night. Keral appreciated the extra rest. He wasn't young anymore and couldn't function well on just a few hours sleep. But he needed to get out into the fields to join in the harvesting. In these lean times, it was imperative that every able-bodied individual in Ikreimi village divert the sum of their energies toward maintaining the municipal crops.

He quickly dressed and sat to pull on his old boots, thinking of how nice it might be to someday have a new pair. One could not acquire such goods in his village. There was a single road that led from Ikreimi into Dahkur City, where a Bajoran traveler might take a transport to any handful of locations that would offer such things as boots, factory-made clothing, agri equipment...But that was reliant on money, not only for the goods themselves, but for travel permits, to protect the bearer from the Cardassian troops who inevitably appeared when an unregistered traveler left the boundaries of the village. The soldiers did not discriminate between terrorists and civilians without authorization. For Keral, working now only to sustain his family's most basic needs, consideration of new boots had become as distant a dream as a free and independent Bajor.

Keral plotted a course to the katterpod katterpod fields as he closed the front door behind him, hoping to avoid the attention of the others in the village who might accuse him of shirking his responsibilities. Squabbles in the village had lately been erupting into vicious and bitter conflicts. Keral did his best to settle them between others, and avoid them on his own behalf, but he was not always successful. fields as he closed the front door behind him, hoping to avoid the attention of the others in the village who might accuse him of shirking his responsibilities. Squabbles in the village had lately been erupting into vicious and bitter conflicts. Keral did his best to settle them between others, and avoid them on his own behalf, but he was not always successful.

He had to step over a trickle of foul water that spilled from a broken pipe into the gutter as he left the house. Another project on an always-growing list. Over the splash of water, Keral could hear the beating of running feet-a child's steps. He stopped to find the source, saw the lone figure of a smallish boy turning the corner of the street a moment later. It was one of the Sorash boys, out of breath as he approached. Keral was instantly concerned-children weren't supposed to be unattended in the village, not since the detection grid had gone online. The systems did not detect children, which made it perfectly safe for young ones to venture into the forest-except that their parents could not go after them, not without bringing Cardassian soldiers into the village. Fences had been built, boundaries carefully marked, but still, a child without an adult escort was always cause for anxiety.

The boy came straight to Keral and started talking, the jumbled words interspersed with gasping.

"Calm down," Keral told the boy, whose proper name he could not remember-there were three boys in the Sorash family, so close in age they were difficult to tell apart. "Where is your mother? What is it you are trying to tell me?"

"A stranger," the boy said between breaths, "in the center of town. He says...he is looking...for you. My mother sent me to-"

"A stranger?"

The boy looked uncertain, his eyes wide. It was very unusual to receive outside visitors anymore. The Ikreimi village, situated between Dahkur city and the hill territories, was remote, surrounded entirely by forests that were off-limits to Bajoran travelers. Keral couldn't imagine what specific business this traveler might have with him, business that would have earned him a travel permit...

Keral tensed, his gut knotting. He hadn't thought to ask the obvious. "Is he Cardassian?"

The boy shook his head. "Not a Cardassian," he said. "But he looks...funny."

Keral raised his eyebrows. An alien visitor? A Bajoran with some disfigurement, perhaps-a member of the resistance?

"What does he want with me?" he asked, though he imagined that if the boy knew, he would have said so.

"He says he knows your cousin," the boy told him.

"Pol?" Keral relaxed somewhat, for it was conceivable that his cousin, a man who worked for the Cardassians, might have the means to deliver a message to his family. Mora Pol's family lived in the next village past Ikreimi, so this visitor, whoever he was, must have come to see Keral first, perhaps hoping the word would be passed along.

Keral followed the boy, whose name he thought might be Tem, to the center of the little town. A flagstone-lined patch, now overrun with weeds, had once functioned as a public square, but the village lacked the time or the resources to maintain the space. There were several cracked stone benches that had been erected at approximately the time of Ikreimi's founding, many hundreds of years ago. Sitting on the nearest bench was a man with an unnatural sheen to his features-an alien, Keral surmised, though one not of a sort he could remember seeing before. His mouth and nose were roughly formed, his ears curiously simple. What struck Keral as strangest, though, was his vague resemblance to Mora Pol, the man this alien purported to know. He wore his hair pushed back, like Keral's cousin preferred, and was dressed in a simple worksuit. Keral thought he had seen Pol wear similar clothes, before he had been prohibited from leaving the institute.

Keral bent down to Tem. "Go straight to the fields," he instructed him, and the boy nodded, not needing to be told, scurrying back to where his mother worked.

"Hello," Keral said to the stranger. "I'm Sito Keral, and I understand you have been looking for me." He extended his hand as the other man rose to his feet. The alien looked at Keral's hand for just long enough to confirm to Keral that the gesture was unfamiliar to him, but he did eventually take Keral's forearm and shake.

"I am Odo," he said, his voice like unpolished stone. "Doctor Mora has a message for you. Only for you."

"I'm listening," Keral told him.

"Not here," Odo said. "In private."

"All right," Keral agreed, though to his thinking the issue was moot, since the town was nearly deserted. Everyone was harvesting. He gestured back in the direction of his house, not entirely comfortable with the prospect of inviting this strange person inside, but unable to think of an alternative.

Odo looked at everything as they walked, as though studying each tree, signpost, and cobblestone for an answer to a particular question.

"How is Pol?" Keral asked, striving to be polite.

"He is...well," the man answered, though he did not pause in his ongoing scrutiny, moving in a jerky and almost birdlike fashion. "Doctor Mora is a very intelligent man."

"Yes," Keral agreed. "He was always bright. He and I...we both came up together, studied together in the same levels at school, but Mora had much more of a natural inclination toward science and mathematics than I did. It was within the realm of his D'jarra D'jarra, of course, to be a scholar, but nobody expected anyone from this family to go so far."

Odo had no answer for him. He seemed to be startled by everything he saw, as though this was his first encounter with a Bajoran town. Keral's curiosity grew.

"How did you know him?" Keral asked. "Did you work together?"

"Doctor Mora worked with me," the man said, but did not elaborate further. Keral decided to forgo any more questions until this man could deliver the message he had promised.

They reached the farmhouse, Odo standing stiffly aside as Keral opened the door. Keral gestured him inside, and the alien awkwardly ducked his head in acknowledgment, stepping past him. A stranger, indeed...although Keral sensed no malice about the creature, and Pol had apparently trusted Odo at least enough to send him to his family. These were strange times; Keral would reserve judgment for now.

Once they were inside, and Odo had looked around for a moment, he began to speak, clearly reciting something he had carefully memorized. "Mora is functioning reasonably well, but he has limitations. His mother and father might like to know that he is thinking of his grandfather today, it being the thirteenth night of the seventeenth moon."

"The seventeenth moon?" Keral interrupted, confused. These words held no significance for him.

Odo went on. "At the time of the twenty-third Gratitude Festival, Mora was inclined to compensate for the thirty-second rule of the oracle of twelve..."

Keral was dumbfounded, listening to the alien rattle off strings of meaningless names, dates, and places, references to long-dead relatives. Odo was almost finished with his litany before Keral understood what was going on-his cousin had sent a message in code.

"Odo," Keral said carefully, "Did Pol explain to you the significance of this message?"

The alien man, whom Keral was beginning to find oddly naive, shook his head from side to side.

"Do you think you can repeat this message?" Keral asked. He walked to his desk, found paper and a graphite stylus.

The alien stared at his rudimentary tools before continuing. "Certainly. Mora is functioning reasonably well, but he has limitations..."

Keral listened more carefully this time, dredging up some long-buried memory, the number code that he and his cousin had made up as children. Of course, it was mostly Pol's doing, for he had always been the smarter of the two, but Keral thought he might be able to remember just enough of it...He asked the alien to slow down, to repeat the longer sequences, and carefully transcribed them. When Odo had finished, Keral asked him if he could repeat it once more.

As Odo recited the string of words and numbers a third time, it occurred to Keral what it was exactly that was most unusual about this man. He didn't blink, at least not in a way that seemed to come naturally to him. The third recitation concluded, Keral stared at the strange man for a moment.

"I thank you, for delivering Pol's-Doctor Mora's-message to me," he said, setting the scrap of paper on a nearby table. "I wish you well on your travels."

The alien stood, unmoving, still staring at the stylus in Keral's hand.

Keral didn't mean to be rude, but perhaps Odo needed clearer direction. "You may go now."

Keral wasn't sure if the man understood, until he spoke. "I have nowhere to go," he said in his gravelly voice.

Keral was disarmed. "Well," he said. "You, ah...you might be able to stay in the village. I could try to find you lodgings. I have to get to the harvest today-perhaps you could help."

"The harvest," Odo repeated. "I would like to help."

Keral supposed there wasn't any harm in it-an extra pair of hands was always welcome at harvest time. He glanced again at the piece of paper, knowing that he had no time to pore over it now-the harvest would not wait. "Well, then. I will take you to the fields. Come with me."

The alien obeyed him without another word.

Quark was in a foul temper already when the emaciated Bajoran man, with his one clouded eye, stumbled with a tray of dirty glasses, those left behind by the table of customers who had just departed-the bar's only patrons this morning. There was nobody in the bar to witness it, and the man managed to catch himself before he lost control of what he carried, but Quark was not feeling like an optimist. He had yet to make profit on drink sales today.

"That's it!" Quark snapped. "It's back to the mines with you."

Rom began to jabber from behind the bar. "He didn't break anything, brother. It was my fault he stumbled. I didn't finish cleaning up where Gil Rike'la spilled his synthale."

"Gil who?" Quark grumbled, before deciding it wasn't important. "Listen, you," he said to the old Bajoran, whose name had escaped him, "I've given you more than enough chances. I realize you're old and...and...decrepit...and all that, but I can't have you stumbling around my bar."

The man's voice was little more than a croak. "I'm sorry...I..."

Quark couldn't stand the sound of it. "Enough!" he yelled. "I don't want to hear it. Just...get out of here. Go back to the mines!"

"Can I..."

"Get out!" Quark screamed, and the man scuttled off.

Quark's chest was still heaving when someone behind him spoke up. "That man is too old to work in the mines."

"And what would you know about it?" Quark sneered, before he could catch himself, before he realized it was a woman's voice. "Natima," he said, turning and smiling. It could only be the Cardassian beauty; no other female had spoken to him in...in quite a while. "Miss Lang! How lovely to see you. Would you like a drink?"

"I'm not sure," she replied. "The atmosphere in here today-it's a little heated for me."

"No, no, not heated, not heated. This is a calming place, a place to unwind," Quark insisted. "Please, first drink's on the house. What would you like?"

The graceful Cardassian hesitated for a moment before taking a seat at a nearby table. "I'd like a Samarian Sunset," she said.

"Of course, of course," Quark said, snapping his fingers at his brother. "Did you hear the lady?" he shouted, and Rom nodded from where he stood, fumbling at bottles and glassware.

Quark sat down next to Natima. "So, tell me, Natima-may I call you Natima?"

She drew in a breath. "I don't see why not," she said, guarded, but not too wary. That was good, Quark thought, or at least he hoped it was.

"Tell me, Natima. Most Cardassians I've encountered think I'm too soft on the Bajorans. You seem to have another opinion."

She looked uncomfortable, and he decided he'd better change the subject. "Forget that," he said. "Let's talk about you."