“Right,” he said, and fished another padd from the pocket on his waistcoat to copy the characters, quickly, before he changed his mind. Guilt was for hew-mons, not Ferengi, but still, he couldn’t help but remind himself that just because he hadthe code didn’t mean he had to useit. And if he did use it, he’d use it for good. If he made a little profit from doing good, where was the harm?
Upon returning Jaxa to her parents, Odo was immediately insistent that he be the one to deliver the message to the resistance cell in the mountains. The man named Keral was grateful, but wary. His wife seemed especially afraid while Keral was drawing Odo a sort of map. Using a little stick, he had scratched out a picture on a slice of parchment, and Odo had done his best to commit it all to memory.
These people, Odo was beginning to deduce, were very afraid of the Cardassians. Odo wondered if Doctor Mora had also been so afraid of them. He knew that there was something unspoken between Mora and Reyar, but he had never quite placed it as fear. He did not understand why anyone would be deliberately unkind to another person, but he felt more aware of his own differences than he ever had before.
Odo had finally found an appropriate surface for regeneration: a wide rock with a slight depression. It was flat enough that he could spread himself out, but the raised edges were high enough to keep him from trickling to the forest floor in his liquid state. He was exhausted, having traveled for most of the day, and although he was very close to the mountain pass, he needed time to rest before he could go any further.
He had spent the day experimenting, taking on the appearance of various flora and fauna, some of the inert forms he encountered along the way, as well as animals he remembered from the laboratory database. The question of the child Jaxa had resonated with him: What do you want to be more than anything else?Odo had never considered it before, but now, as he settled into the shallow, concave well in the rock, he decided he did not care to be in solid form; being a liquid was relaxing, and felt the most natural.
The only trouble was that being a liquid didn’t lend itself to interacting with humanoids, and for some reason that he could not explain, he found humanoid interaction to be deeply compelling, to be preferable to being on his own. How he had hated the long hours and days he remained in the laboratory with no interaction from Doctor Mora! He craved the company of others, though he was not sure why; he only knew that he disliked the sensation of going for such lengthy, bleak stretches without it.
So, despite his preference for being in his natural state, while in the company of others, he would have to remain as a humanoid, as long as he could stand it. He did not want to give anyone reason to emphasize his differences, for it seemed that the Bajorans and Cardassians hated one another solely because of the contrasts between them. Odo was far more dissimilar to either race then they were even to each other—they were both humanoid; they were both solid—and yet, they clearly despised one another. For that reason, Odo knew he must remain as a humanoid if he wanted to avoid being similarly despised.
He had not been regenerating long before he was stirred from his state of pleasantly senseless liquidity. Something was moving through the forest. Odo manifested a few sensory organs in order to investigate comfortably.
It was a humanoid, coming through the forest. The clomping of approaching boots was accompanied by a series of chirps and clicks, indicating that the traveler carried several pieces of noisy equipment. Odo held completely still while the intruder passed him. It was a Cardassian male, dressed as a soldier.
Odo wondered how best to approach the situation. He did not feel especially afraid, for although the Bajorans feared the soldiers, Odo wasn’t sure if their weapons would have any effect on his physiology. He believed he could not be contained in any way, and felt calmly confident in his ability to escape, should the situation warrant it.
The soldier continued to tramp back and forth, patrolling the region in a chaotic crisscross, as though trying to confirm his suspicions about something. It was possible that Odo had left some sign of his passing, that the soldier was interpreting as evidence of another person in the area. Without thinking much more on the subject, Odo decided to make his presence known. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, and if he simply presented himself as a traveler, perhaps the soldier would then go away and allow Odo to continue with his regeneration.
Odo twisted his body into his humanoid form and stepped out into a small clearing where the soldier would be likely to see him. The soldier did see him, an expression of surprise crossing his ridged face. He pulled his weapon clumsily from its holster.
“You there!” The soldier called out. “State your business! Do you have a permit to be in this region?”
“No,” Odo said. “I am merely traversing from one location to another.”
“Travel is strictly prohibited through this area, unless you have authorization from the prefect.” He stopped short after a moment, and holstered his weapon as he came closer. “Are you Odo’Ital, the shape-shifter?”
It was Odo’s turn to be startled. “Yes.”
“I have been instructed to bring you to the prefect,” the soldier told him. “Come along with me immediately.”
“But…I am traveling,” Odo said. “I don’t want to go with you.”
The soldier drew his phaser again. “It’s not for you to decide,” he said. He seemed angry, though Odo didn’t know why.
Odo decided it wasn’t a good time to attempt to puzzle out the soldier’s motives. He was no longer feeling quite so confident that the Cardassian’s weapon would indeed be harmless to him. He decided he’d better change his form, though he wasn’t at first sure what he should become.
The Cardassian took a step back as Odo shrank, and then expanded, transforming himself into a bird. A great bird with a massive wingspan—a sinoraptor, like those he had seen with Jaxa. He spread his wings, and then uncertainly moved them, testing his abilities in this form. The structure of his tapered bones was too heavy, and he hollowed them, feeling his body lighten with the shift. The soldier looked astonished. Although he had purported to know of Odo’s shape-shifting abilities, apparently he had not expected to see the ability displayed.
Before Odo knew it, he was flying, his wings lifting him up over the treetops, over the head of the bemused and frightened Cardassian soldier, who seemed to have quite forgotten what his phaser was good for.
Natima shifted uncomfortably in the straight-backed chair of the waiting room, but it wasn’t only the chair that made her squirm. Being on the surface again had brought up memories. Not all of them were unpleasant—far from it—but she had been so much younger when she’d been here before, still full of idealism and conviction, the indulgences of youth. Being here made her feel quite old, and not a little depressed at the steady passage of time.
A male secretary in a glinn’s uniform finally nodded at her, and she rose from the stiff chair and walked to the exarch’s office without further ceremony. His office was as dark and dusty as the rest of the Tozhat settlement, a place that she remembered as being clean and well-lit, nothing like the shabbiness she saw around her now. As she knew from her research, Central Command refused to appropriate any monies toward the maintenance of the mostly abandoned Cardassian colonies.
“Exarch,” she said to the man who sat in the dim room at a broad wooden desk of Bajoran design. He looked fatter in person.
“You may call me Yoriv.” The man was polite, but not entirely friendly. He gestured toward a chair and she sat, doing her best to seem at ease.
“Certainly, Yoriv. I am here on behalf of Glinn Gaten Russol, someone who has assured me that you will be sympathetic to the requests he has asked me to put to you.”
“Miss Lang, I remind you that I feel some reluctance in discussing political matters with an information correspondent.”