“For the resistance!” Ver exclaimed. “She’ll never get to where they are hiding by herself!”
“Someone must go after her,” Keral said, pleading. “Ver, your uncle has papers. Couldn’t you ask him to…” He trailed off.
The other two men looked at each other, an unspoken note of impassive defeat passing between them. It was clear enough, even to Odo, that Ver did not want to ask his uncle to perform this favor.
Again, there was conflict here, and Odo thought he knew how best to solve it. He stepped forward. “The detection grid will ignore me,” he said. “I’ll go.”
“Go where?” Keral asked, looking a little surprised. He seemed not to have been aware that Odo was even present.
“To get Jaxa,” Odo replied promptly. “I’ll look for her and bring her back.”
Keral had water running over the lines in his face—tears, of course—but he had a look in his eyes of hope. Odo recognized it as he recognized it within himself. Hope, the feeling that what is desired is also possible; that events may turn out for the best. He’d long known the definition; to see it was compelling, to say the least.
Odo left the mill at once, without looking back, and without waiting for a reply from the others, for it seemed to him a matter of some urgency. Children were important to the Bajorans, and ill-equipped to be alone. He was pleased that he could be of further assistance to these kind people.
9
Natima liked the look of Quark’s smile as he gazed at her across the bar. It was at once friendly and lascivious, and she felt that the look on her own face probably mirrored his. She remembered, with slightly embarrassed pleasure, the holosuite experience from the night before—and what had come after the holosuite, in Quark’s quarters.
It was late, the establishment mostly empty. He leaned across the polished surface, over the remains of the two Samarian Sunsets in front of her. Quark refused to charge her for her drinks, a matter that seemed to entirely astound his brother Rom and the Bajorans who worked there. Apparently, Quark didn’t have a reputation for generosity. Natima knew better.
“Will you have another drink?” Quark asked her.
Natima smiled. “I don’t think I can handle any more this evening,” she told him. “I feel lightheaded.”
“I do, too,” Quark said, “and I haven’t had a drop.”
Natima’s smile grew broader, probably more foolish. Quark glanced over her shoulder then, looking toward the door, and his eyes went wide, his smile disappearing.
“I didn’t do anything!” he cried out. She turned around and saw that Thrax, the station’s chief of security, had just entered the bar and was making a beeline for where she sat. She shifted nervously. Had Quark made a mistake in his black-market transactions? Or was it Natima he was after? She wasn’t sure which option would be more unhappy for her.
She got her answer quickly enough as the tall man stopped by her chair. “Miss Lang,” he said coolly. “I’d like it if you’d come with me to the security office.”
Natima cleared her throat. “May I ask what this regards?”
Quark was gaping. “What do you want with her, Thrax?”
Thrax’s already menacing expression grew even more so. “Mind your business, Ferengi.”
“I am minding my business,” Quark said. “The lady’s business is my business.”
Thrax’s forehead creased with mocking curiosity. “Is that so?”
“It’s not true,” Natima said quickly, rising to go. “He has nothing to do with me.” She wouldn’t be responsible for getting Quark in trouble—Cardassian politics were not his concern.
“Natima!” Quark said, clearly hurt.
“It’s all right, Quark. I’ll see you later this evening.”
“You will?”
“Yes.” She said it with firm finality, trying to convey to him not to get involved, but he continued to look concerned, and she hoped very much that he would stay out of this, whatever “this” amounted to.
She followed Thrax across the Promenade to the security station, and took a seat in his cramped office. She drew a deep breath, reminding herself to be careful, not to let him intimidate her. But his manner of interviewing her was not threatening at all. In fact, he was oddly pleasant, a tack Natima presumed was meant to disarm her.
“Miss Lang,” he said. “It’s come to my attention that you have contacted the exarch at the Tozhat settlement.”
“That’s correct,” she told him, thinking there was nothing suspicious about it. “On Information Service business,” she added.
“Oh?” Thrax said. “But that isn’t what you told him. You said that you spoke to him as a citizen of Cardassia only.”
Natima felt her face darken with alarm, to hear him recite the exact words she had spoken to Yoriv Skyl. Had he been listening to the entire transmission? To all her transmissions?
He smiled. “There is nothing that goes on here that escapes my attention, Miss Lang,”
“What is this about?” she demanded. If he meant to arrest her, she’d rather he just get on with it. She had no interest in playing shadow games.
“I’m only satisfying my curiosity,” he told her. “I’m a man who likes to stay on top of people’s intentions. I’m especially curious to know something. You mentioned a name that is familiar to me. Glinn Russol.”
Natima sat frozen, terrified at the prospect of incriminating her friend.
“Is this the same Russol who bears the first name of Gaten?”
Natima didn’t know what to do. “I…I…”
Thrax nodded. “I thought so,” he said. “Well. That is all I’ll be needing to know from you, Miss Lang. You may go now.”
Natima stood up on shaky legs, confused.
“Oh, and, Miss Lang?”
She turned back to him, tried not to look as though all she wanted to do was get away from Thrax and his stifling office. “Yes?”
“I’d appreciate your discretion about this meeting. In return, I will happily keep the contents of your transmissions to myself.” He paused. “You’ll do best to avoid discussing your business with your new Ferengi friend. I know what he’s up to. He thinks he’s clever, but he makes plenty of mistakes. Mistakes that could easily come to the attention of Dukat, if he isn’t more careful.”
Was this a threat? “Th—thank you,” she replied, and left the security office, her heart hammering.
Doctor Seia Trant led this day’s trip to another work camp, another Fostossa vaccination for another tired line of grubby, sullen workers. It was the third time Kalisi had been sent along on one of the excursions to manage the equipment, to set hyposprays, and to see that the camp medical systems were compatible with Crell’s. This camp was a few hours from Moset’s hospital; it had some local name she’d already forgotten. She disliked the trips, disliked looking at the sickly workers, disliked Trant’s knowing smirk whenever Moset was discussed, but she didn’t see that she had a choice. Someone had to assist, and Moset had been locked in his lab for days, finishing up some radiation study for the science ministry.
Today, there had been little for Kalisi to do. The camp’s system was already compatible with the hospital’s—they were both obsolete—and medical files had been downloaded, backed up, sent off. She could either wait in the shuttle or assist Trant with the inoculations, which would at least get her back to the warmth of the facility that much faster. She sat at the counter behind the generally glum-faced Trant, refilling hyposprays, ignoring the smell of unwashed flesh and sour breath as the Bajorans filed into the room, ten at a time, staring around themselves like dumb cattle. A handful of soldiers stood by, most of them looking over the two female doctors with smirks of their own.
Kalisi watched another thin old man step up to Trant’s table, as weak and tired looking as the rest of them. He slouched on the low stool, took his injection without comment, stood, and was motioned back out again by a soldier with a rifle. It was galling, how little these people appreciated what was being done on their behalf. Crell Moset had spent years studying Fostossa, had found a vaccine for a disease that had killed thousands of these people in the early years of the annexation. She had yet to hear a single appreciative word.