“Are you here to speak to me about…Gallitep?” Daul said, hoping his voice didn’t betray his anxiousness.
The young girl turned to her companions. “Aren’t we supposed to have a code word?” she murmured, just loud enough for Daul to hear.
Daul remembered quickly—the man he had spoken to had suggested a code word. “I almost forgot,” he apologized. “Ah, rah-vu sum-ta.”It was Old Bajoran, a word that meant something almost like “child of night”—the classic poetical name for a cadge lupus.
“That’s right,” the older woman replied. “Okay, then. Tell us what we need to know.”
Daul cleared his throat and began to speak, his words tumbling out. “I suppose you are familiar with the setup of Gallitep, the physical characteristics of the camp—”
“Yes,” the man said. “It’s impossible to approach.”
“Except from inside, yes.”
“From inside?” This was the woman.
“Via transporter. I am to be taken to Gallitep in a few days, and I think there may be a way to transport a few more people in after me. There is a transporter code that will allow for it, and I think I may have gotten access to the correct code.”
“But…” The teenage girl looked at her companions. “How would we get access to a transporter?”
“You thinkyou may have gotten access?” the man said, speaking over the teenager.
Daul held up his hands. “I believe I have,” he corrected himself. “It is risky, but I believe it can be done. There is an industrial transporter at the Bajoran Institute of Science, not far from here. This transporter could not only get people into Gallitep, it could get them out, as well. If someone who can operate a transporter was able to lock on to a large group of people, that person could perhaps transport them out of the camp, and possibly to a place of safety—”
“I don’t like all this perhapsand possiblythat I’m hearing,” the man said.
“I only want to emphasize that there are risks,” Daul said. “But please believe me when I tell you that the goal is worth the risks. I have been inside the camp, and although I only saw a fraction of what I suspect goes on there, I didn’t have to see much to understand that Gallitep is the worst place Bajor has ever seen.”
“We can do it,” the woman said confidently. “I’m sure we can.”
“Why…how did you get inside Gallitep—and then back out again?” the teenager asked.
“Shh,” the older woman shushed her. “It’s not important.”
“No,” Daul said, inexplicably wishing to be honest with these people. “It’s all right. I work at the science institute. I was conscripted to develop the computer system that runs the camp.”
The girl’s mouth hung open for a moment and then snapped shut. “Oh,” she replied, and then looked away.
“Yes, I helped to design it,” Daul went on, “and now, I will help put a stop to what it is intended to do. But I don’t suppose that will redeem me. Still, maybe I can at least look at myself in the mirror again.”
“Maybe,” the woman said, and though she tried to remain neutral, she could not mask the tightness in her voice. She despised him, he could see it on her, hear it in that single word.
“I have brought you an isolinear rod with more details. More importantly, this rod will allow you access to the Bajoran Institute of Science. You must wait until nightfall, when everyone has gone home, and you will be required to enter a code to deactivate the security system.”
The woman and her companions nodded, listening closely now. At least they could set aside their hate for something so important. At least there was that.
“I will be at the camp when it happens, working on the system. I will purposely delay the work so that I am still there when you arrive. At a given time, I will program the system to simulate a mining accident, which will force the Cardassian guards to corral the workers in a common place. That is where you will come in—someone will have to transport into the camp in order to create a lock-on target for the transporters. The transporters can be programmed to lock on to Bajoran targets only—the procedure is outlined on the datarod. When it is done, when the Bajorans are safe, I will initiate the computer system to destroy the camp. The self-destruct system should kill any remaining Cardassians. At that point, you will have to transport me out as well.” He said the last part hopefully.
The man nodded. “I think we can handle that,” he said.
Daul started to remark on the second part of the task, but then he remembered something. “I almost forgot,” he said. “You’ll need these.”
The three Bajorans looked curiously at the four little comm devices he produced, relics he’d stolen from a vault at the institute, where examples of Bajoran technology were stored for later study. “These are old, but they still work. They’ll be necessary for you to project a signal that can be locked on to by the transporter. You can also use them to communicate with each other, even over great distances. And they operate on frequencies the Cardassians haven’t monitored since the Militia was disbanded.”
“I know what a combadge is,” the man said, a little curtly. He took the devices and pocketed them.
Daul went on. “I suppose your leader told you that I am asking for a favor, in return for this information?”
The woman cleared her throat. “What is this favor, exactly?”
“I would do this myself,” Daul explained, “but I won’t have the opportunity before I leave, and I have no plans to return to the institute after I’m transported to Gallitep.” He hesitated, sensing impatience from the three nameless rebels, and he went on, “Do you have the ability to hack into a computer system, including high-security files?”
“I can hack into any system,” the woman assured him.
“Good. The rod will give you more detail. There are specific data files on the institute’s computer, and the data in question must be irreparably corrupted. No one can access it ever again. I assume that will not be a problem?”
The woman almost looked amused, which Daul took to be an affirmative reply.
The man raised his eyebrows. “That bad, is it?” he remarked.
Daul thought of the system Mora Pol would soon be implementing, thought of the cold, hard smile of Kalisi Reyar. “You’ve no idea,” he said.
20
Ro was not immediately as adept at handling Bis’s warp shuttle as she had hoped. She wasn’t certain if she could successfully land the vessel, but the other alternative was to transport herself down to the surface of the gas giant’s lonely moon, with the expectation that she would have to transport herself back up when her task was completed. The prospect was a bit frightening, as she had never handled a transporter on her own, but she decided it was necessary. She could not afford to damage her vessel; warp ships were few and far between for Bajorans, after all.
With a brief recollection of the encouragement Bis had whispered before kissing her good-bye, Ro beamed herself directly to the moon’s surface near a cluster of life signs that she knew to be the tavern where she was to meet her mark. Her molecules having satisfactorily reassembled themselves, she squared her shoulders and entered the little building, advising herself not to come off like an inexperienced, gawking young girl; she had long heard tales of the Orion Syndicate, whose henchmen would kidnap women to be sold as slaves. They sounded no worse than the Cardassians to Ro, but she still wasn’t about to take any chances.
Still, she found it difficult not to stare at some of the people she encountered inside the dimly lit bar—people with brightly colored clothing, not to mention their skin and hair; people with appendages that seemed too long or too short; people with extra sensory equipment, or in some cases, not quite enough; people whose faces looked too smooth, or too lumpy. Ro had never dreamed there were so many different types of people in the galaxy. She knew there were more than just Bajorans and Cardassians, of course, but to be confronted with the reality of it was dizzying. While Bajor struggled, day after day, year after year, the rest of the universe continued to move, everyone carrying on with his or her own business, unaffected by what happened in the B’hava’el system.