It was exhilarating to fly, but being a bird was not easy. Flying was new to him, and tiring—not to mention a little frightening. Odo had never been exposed to such great vistas of height before, nor the perpetual biting wind that came with it. His experience until recently had been limited to what the laboratory had been able to provide. The possibilities of what he could do, what he could be—it was more to consider, more to process. The sooner he had finished his errand, a favor that he felt he owed the kind villagers, the better.
It took him only a short time to find the small opening in the rock, concealed by thick brush, but he could see that the brush had been pushed aside sometime recently. Someone had come through here, though it surprised him that a humanoid would clamber through such a tight passage. He transformed into a vole and entered the chamber, which immediately plunged into dense blackness. He adjusted his eyesight and made his legs longer, guessing that the distance to the resistance fighters within was considerable.
He traversed the tunnels for a long while, noting that there was more than one passage to go through. He heard many things—water and insects, other small, warm-blooded bodies moving through the dark. Finally, he heard voices, melodic whispers on the dusty air, and he followed the sounds. When he’d found the tunnel that seemed to definitively lead to the source of the conversation, he morphed back into a humanoid.
He hesitated, listening for just a moment. The voices were raised in argument, he was sure.
“Kohn Biran?” He called out into the tunnel. There was an abrupt silence, and then a lone voice responded, strained and careful.
“Who’s there?”
“I come from Ikreimi village, to deliver a message from Sito Keral.”
Another beat of silence. “I know you, friend?”
Odo was not sure how to respond. “We have not met,” he said finally.
“Perhaps you should introduce yourself,” the voice said.
“I must warn you,” Odo called before entering the passage, “my appearance is…unusual.”
The man said nothing else, so Odo entered the tunnel, which was larger now, so that he could expand to his usual height as a humanoid, and made his way to a much larger grotto; dimly lit with a few rudimentary torches. Its furnishings were plain and rough. A table—piled high with wooden dishes and the components of mismatched computer systems—some stools, heaps of bedrolls along the uneven walls. Two men were in the room, standing next to rough wooden benches, their posture tense—whether because they did not expect a visitor or because they had been quarreling, Odo could not say.
“I come with important news,” he said, the words he had memorized.
“And what might that be?” one of the men asked, and Odo recognized his voice as the one that had called to him from the tunnel. This must be Kohn Biran, the cell’s leader. Odo deduced that he was older than the other man, his heavy beard and thick, wild hair streaked with silver. The other man was no less unkempt, but appeared slightly younger.
“The anti-aircraft component of the detection grid. There is a way to reprogram it.”
“Go on,” Kohn Biran coaxed, looking at his companion.
“A code sequence may be entered to override the program’s diagnostic,” Odo continued. “It will alert the system to recognize Bajoran flyers in the same category as Cardassian craft, allowing raiders to leave the atmosphere unharmed. This is a procedure that would have to be performed on each tower individually; it will not be effective for the system as a whole.”
The two men began to speak excitedly. “The comm relays—we can finally send people out to repair the comm relays—”
“We can regain contact with the others—”
“…And if it works, the towers in other provinces—other continents—can be disconnected—”
Kohn turned back to Odo. “What about the biosensors?”
“I have no information about how to disable that aspect of the detection grid.”
“But you have the code sequence for the flight sensors?”
“I have it memorized,” Odo told him, and began to recite the code he had carefully remembered. The Bajoran asked him to repeat himself once, and Odo complied willingly. “If there is any doubt about my integrity or ability, someone may be sent to Ikreimi to confer with Keral for himself,” he suggested.
Kohn studied him for a long moment, his eyes clear and sharp, then shook his head.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr….”
“Odo,” he said. He felt that something more was required, so he added, “And I appreciate your trust in me.”
“Well, the resistance functions on trust,” the man told him, extending his hand. Odo clasped his arm.
“I’m Kohn Biran, and this is Ma Jouvirna.” The other man nodded his head.
“You are welcome to stay here, Mr. Odo. The rest of my cell has gone out for provisions. You must be hungry…”
“That will not be necessary,” Odo told him, “though I thank you.” Just as Mora had taught him. Thinking of Mora, he felt a thing he’d long known, but had only recently come to understand. Resentment, that was the word. So much to see and do, so much to experience, and Mora had wished to keep him in the lab, had wished to keep him from the world. He stared at the two men for just a moment longer before ducking his head to dismiss himself, and then he turned and backed out the tunnel, morphing again into a vole and scampering back out the tunnel, the way he had come.
Quark had welcomed Natima home with open arms, and their trysts had continued, to their mutual satisfaction. But today, this very day, Quark had received the bulk of the main transfer to his personal account, credit that he’d garnered using Natima’s access code. And when he’d seen the damages, he’d realized that his time with Natima was over. The feeling was a weight in his chest, a tightness in his throat, strangling his responses to his customers as they made their orders. Quark wished very much that he could just be alone today, but the bar needed him; his profits weren’t going to make themselves.
Not that I can’t afford it,he thought, considering what he’d just earned. The thought was like an invisible jackscrew clamped down on his heart, for there was no way Natima wasn’t going to notice what Quark had done. It had been one thing to make a few false purchases that her employer would attribute to Natima herself, but when that had turned out to be so easy, Quark could not resist using the code for further gain. He had concocted a false acquisition number for himself, and used her purchase authorization to make an order to a company that did not exist, payable to an untraceable account in the Bank of Bolias. Untraceable to anyone, of course, but Quark, for he had opened the account himself. It was foolproof—that is, it was foolproof until someone from the Information Service alerted Natima to the discrepancy on her purchase records. That day should be coming around any time now.
Quark tried to busy himself stacking and restacking the glasses beneath the bar, trying to hypnotize himself with the monotony of the activity, but he couldn’t block out the creeping misery he felt. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, but whatever it was, it was obviously built into his very constitution, and he supposed he just couldn’t help himself. If only he could believe that would be a sufficient excuse for Natima! Somehow, he doubted very much that she would accept it.
“Brother!” It was Rom, coming up behind him so suddenly that Quark almost dropped the glasses he held in each hand.
“Rom, I wish you would refrain from ambushing me in my own establishment,” Quark snapped. “What is it?”
“Uhhhh…it’s that woman again. That Cardassian female. She’s trying to find you.”
“She’s here?” Quark looked around, panicked. Should he duck under the bar?
“No, not this time. She’s on the comm system again. She wants you to meet her in her quarters tonight.”
Quark tightened his grip on one of the glasses as if he would crush it. He cleared his throat, and set the glass down underneath the bar, turning the other one over in his hands. “Tell her I can’t, I have to work a late shift tonight because…because some Bajorans who were supposed to come for cleanup duty never showed.”