“Maybe just one drink,” she said, and he nodded eagerly.
“I’ll see you in the bar, then,”he said. He grinned broadly, exposing his filed teeth. “I’m looking forward to spending some time with a beautiful lady.”
He promptly ended the transmission, and Natima sighed. Perhaps it was simply the flattery. Even from this odd little alien man, someone whom she did not find physically attractive in any way—but then, she had never been one to be tripped up by a man’s good looks. The few times in her life she had ever been drawn to a particular man, it had been the measure of his integrity that had called to her. And while she found it difficult to believe that a Ferengi bartender would have much of that, she supposed she could stand a night of listening to someone tell her she was youthful, attractive, whatever else he was going to say in trying to woo her; in truth, her ego could use it.
The Bajorans of this village had been kind to Odo, and he understood that they were appreciative of his assistance with their harvest. But he also wondered how much of their acceptance was a result of his remaining in his humanoid form, at least while anyone was present. Nobody had asked him to approximate the shape of anything else, nobody had instructed him to revert to his natural state, nobody had insisted that he hold still while they waved a tricorder around him or poked him with an electrified probe. He found it refreshing, though the children in the village made him ill at ease—they all tended to stare and whisper whenever he was around, something the adults at least refrained from doing.
He had been given leave to rest at an abandoned farmhouse, and offered meals at a communal table. Odo had no need for food, but he understood that it was a necessity and a social activity for Bajorans, and so he joined them as often as seemed appropriate. He still did not know what he meant to do, now that he had left the institute, but he was satisfied that he’d made the right choice in leaving. Doctor Mora had turned away from him, after giving him the message to carry, and had told him not to bother returning until he was ready to continue their work. Odo had grown used to Mora’s manipulations over the years, had come to understand that the doctor did not have many choices. Odo enjoyed having choices. He liked the variety of people he was meeting, and was beginning to understand that while he was quite different from the Bajorans in some ways, there were also distinct similarities. They spoke of their feelings with such freedom, smiled and laughed and cried with ease, embracing their lives…It was all foreign to him. He had amassed thousands of facts, of definitions, of data threads in his years at the institute, but had learned little of the ways of people, and found this new situation quite appealing. Doctor Mora had been comparatively quite subdued, and few of the Cardassians he’d met had ever bothered to speak to him of their personal lives.
On this day, the people of the town had continued their shelling of katterpodbeans, their primary staple food. When the sun had risen, they had gathered at the enormous mill to work, as they had for the past two days; most sat outside in the cool, early light, shelling beans for various purposes, while a few worked inside, carrying some of the shelled beans to the millstones; they would be ground into flour that could be used to bake a type of flat bread called makapa.
Odo’s unsurpassed strength in operating the massive millstones seemed to be valued by the Bajorans, who tired much more quickly than Odo and required a longer rest between work periods. He was therefore working the mill, an apparatus that years before had been driven by water. For reasons that Odo did not entirely understand, the water no longer flowed with any regularity, and the equipment now had to be driven by brute strength. He was pleased that he could assist. Doctor Mora had often asked him to perform, but never to assist.
Two Bajorans who had accompanied him inside the old building were beginning to quarrel about their method of shelling the beans. “If you stack them like that, the beans on the bottom will be crushed,” said the first man.
The other man made a face. “They won’t be,” he insisted. “It’s much more efficient to do it this way. And anyway, the crushed beans can go into the flour bin. You have to account for a few crushed beans in the harvest.”
His companion shook his head. “We can’t justify the possibility of spoilage,” he said. “Crushed beans are twice as likely to mold if they’ve sat for more than a day.”
“They won’t sit,” his friend argued. “I’ll have all these shelled by this afternoon, at the latest.”
“You say that, but you don’t know your limits. I’ve been watching you, and your pile only disappears when you’ve got a helper with you. By yourself, you won’t be able to shell this entire heap by tomorrow. You have to lay them out to shell them.”
The other man was beginning to look angry. He started to reply, but first he looked up and caught Odo’s eye, and the shape-shifter realized he’d stopped turning the stones in order to stare at the men, a behavior he remembered Mora specifically instructing him not to do. He dropped his gaze.
“What is it?” one of the men asked, his tone unfriendly. “Do you have an opinion about katterpodstacking, Odo?”
Odo shook his head from side to side. “No,” he said. “But I do have an opinion about conflict in the face of hunger.”
The man narrowed his eyes, and his companion spoke up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Odo chose the words in his customary careful manner. “I only mean that the particulars of the food harvest shouldn’t be a matter of such dispute. What matters is only that it gets done, because your survival depends on it. Is that correct?”
The first man nodded slowly, and looked at the other. “I’ll help you shell this pile when I’m done with mine,” he said.
Odo went back to pushing the stones, happy that the unfriendly tone had gone out of the man’s voice. Several times since he’d come to Ikreimi, he’d witnessed unpleasant interactions, and he was coming to learn that a third party could sometimes redirect their intentions. He was as polite as he knew how to be, and often asked to be corrected if he was in error; and somehow, the things he said to them seemed to make them stop to reconsider their conflict. He couldn’t say why he did so, he only knew that he felt relief when the arguments ceased. It reminded him of the things Doctor Reyar had used to say to Doctor Mora—unkind things, things that had filled Odo with unwelcome tension.
The two men both turned their heads at once as another man entered the mill. It was Sito Keral, the man Odo had originally come to the village to see. He looked frantic.
“What’s with you, Sito?” one of the men asked him. “You were supposed to be here nearly an hour ago.”
Keral’s face was all downturned lines. “Ver, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do. Jaxa’s gone!”
Odo ceased to walk, loosening his arms, remembering the small girl with yellow hair. She had smiled at him the day before, at the midday meal.
“Gone! What do you mean, gone?” Ver asked.
“She’s run off toward the mountains, into the forest,” Keral said.
“What would make her do such a thing?” the other man cried out. “Isn’t she old enough to know better by now?”
“It’s my fault,” Keral said miserably. “My cousin sent me a message that indicated she could…she could…But now—” The man had run out of breath.
“Your cousin, the collaborator?” Ver said.
The fear and panic in Keral’s eyes gave over to rage. “My cousin is a good man!” he shouted. “The message was for the resistance. That is why Jaxa has gone—she is trying to help!”