Without a word, Odo morphed into a cadge lupus, a shaggy, vicious-looking Bajoran animal he’d learned about from the institute’s database. Reyar took a step back and made a frightened noise.
“Something Cardassian,” Mora said quickly, and the lupuschanged into a massive, square-headed Cardassian riding hound, similar to the lupusbut with longer legs and short, wiry fur.
Reyar seemed no less horrified. “How dreadful!” she exclaimed. Odo changed back into his humanoid form.
“I have upset you,” Odo said. Reyar ignored him, turning back to Mora.
“So, what kind of progress have you made with it?” she inquired.
Mora was taken aback, for he’d thought Odo’s demonstration illustrated his progress well enough. “Well, I’ve learned quite a lot about him in the time since I was assigned to him. His optimal temperature, his mass, which, by the way, can be changed at will. I’ve also taught him the basics of humanoid speech, as you can hear, and he’s beginning to learn many things that will hopefully help him to someday assimilate—”
“Yes, but I mean, what have you learned about him that will contribute to the betterment of Cardassian society? For isn’t that the ultimate goal here at the institute—and in the sciences in general?”
“Yes, of course,” Mora replied. “But I’m learning about a new species, Doctor Reyar. Surely you see the value in that type of research. It is inherently important to learn all we can about—”
“I don’t really see the value,” Reyar said. “I suppose I’m just a traditionalist that way. But I guess you are to be congratulated for teaching it to do…tricks and the like.” Her tone was dry, or maybe Mora just imagined it was. Cardassian mannerisms still eluded him at times.
The two women left him alone with Odo, who wasted no time getting to the inevitable questions.
“Doctor Reyar. This is a man?”
“No, Odo, she is a woman.”
The shape-shifter nodded. “I thought she looked like a woman. But…I thought it was men who did not make good scientists.”
Mora laughed, a little puzzled. “Doctor Reyar is probably a perfectly good scientist, Odo.”
“But, Doctor Mora, I thought that science, the study of science…the study of… me…I thought this was the quest for knowledge, for information and truth about the environment that surrounds us.”
He was probably quoting something from one of the informational padds he’d been given, Mora thought, and felt a surge of pride that his project seemed to have internalized what he was reading. “Yes, well, Odo, not all scientists have the same priorities, I suppose. Doctor Reyar believes science is valuable only if it makes people’s lives quantifiably better in some way.”
“People’s lives,” Odo repeated. “Whose lives? My life? Your life?”
Mora cleared his throat. He wanted to say the Cardassians’ lives,but he said nothing. Odo was so naïve, Mora was well aware that anything he said in the shape-shifter’s presence was likely to be repeated.
“You are learning so quickly, Odo,” Mora finally said. “But it’s time for me to check your liquid mass. If you wouldn’t mind stepping into the tank, please. I need you to revert to your natural form.”
Odo, obedient as always, did as he was told, and Mora shifted his focus to his notes, remembering that he would not be able to devote so much attention to this in the near future. He hoped Odo would understand.
19
It seemed a very long time since Daul had used a transporter. The Bajoran Institute of Science was outfitted with one that was used primarily for equipment and supplies, though occasionally the Cardassian scientists employed it to transport themselves from place to place, but the Bajorans were not allowed access to it. This rule was unspoken, but it was very well understood.
Today, however, an exception was being made. The prefect had strongly implied that Gallitep’s overseer was a notoriously impatient man, and that Daul needed to begin his new task as soon as possible. Daul was quickly authorized for transport and beamed directly into a long, cool corridor with chrome doors on either end. He was met there by a lean Cardassian who introduced himself simply as “Marritza.”
“Gul Dukat recommends you highly for your expertise,” Marritza said as he escorted Daul down the corridor.
Daul had the distinct impression that the other man was nervous. He wondered if he was afraid of Bajorans; there was so much propaganda among Cardassians regarding the resistance that civilians probably expected every Bajoran to be ready to spring up and murder their Cardassian neighbors without a second thought.
“I’m flattered by his confidence,” Daul said. In truth, he was anything but flattered. He was disgusted, and he was terrified to consider what he was about to be confronted with at Gallitep. At least last time, he hadn’t been made to travel to the actual camp; his software had been electronically implemented into the mine’s online system from the institute’s database.
“It has been explained to you what you are expected to do?” Marritza inquired.
Daul nodded. “Yes, I’m to reprogram the system to begin a gradual shutdown. It will have to be done in two sessions, however. I trust Gul Darhe’el is aware of this necessity?”
“I will be sure he is informed,” Marritza said. “My job is to keep the camp’s records and the details of its operation up to date, but I daresay Gul Darhe’el will not wish to be troubled with such minor matters. He has so much else to concern himself with…” The clerk smiled then, with a strange trace of what seemed like bitterness.
Daul found the Cardassian to be very unlike any other he had encountered, his expression difficult to read. Of course, Daul couldn’t purport to have a very broad understanding of the Cardassian psyche in general, but at least most of them seemed to be motivated by the same things. Marritza seemed somewhat more…complicated.
As the two men traveled up the corridor, Daul was made very aware of the intense droning of the mining equipment outside: drills, ore-processing conveyors, smelters, and the rushing water from the great concentrator that delivered slurry to a tailings pond many kellipates away from the site.
But beneath the tremendous grinding, echoing din, there was another sound, one that Marritza seemed to be taking great pains to ignore. To Daul at first it sounded like the faint cries of a tyrfox, or perhaps a pack of faraway cadge lupus; but Daul immediately knew what he was hearing—the cries of the prisoners here, the moans of the dying workers, suffering as they were from Kalla-Nohra. Daul cleared his throat. “Doesn’t Darhe’el see to it that the workers who are ill are properly treated for their condition?”
Marritza gave a quick nod, almost frantic. “Oh yes,” he said. “Productivity is of the utmost importance here. Darhe’el is adamant about the treatment of all victims of the disease—Bajoran…and Cardassian…alike.” In the inflection of his voice, which sounded very much as though Marritza repeated a long-rehearsed falsehood, Daul thought he detected a single truth—that Marritza himself was infected with the disease. Without meaning to, he gave the other man a look of sympathy. Marritza looked away, and Daul decided to avoid further mention of the subject.
They reached the end of the passage and Marritza keyed open a door. Suddenly the narrow, neat corridor was enveloped in a roar of sound; the floor beneath their feet gave way to a trembling catwalk, which opened up over a yawning chasm. The wind whipped fiercely overhead, the narrow footbridge swinging gently, though it was protected from the relentless gale by the walls of the open-pit mine, which shot up at a kellipatefrom where they stood. This bridge had been constructed at what was once near the very bottom of the mine, but the hole had plunged far beneath this point in more recent years, and the spindly catwalk was suspended hundreds of linnipates above firm ground.
Daul glanced up, where the burning sun hung motionless in the cloudless sky, beating down heavily on the workers in the massive pit beneath them. Marritza handed him a headset, which would drown out the noise and allow them to talk to each other. Daul stepped gingerly onto the footbridge that spanned the mine.