After a moment, the shape-shifter writhed and twisted into partially humanoid form, his features glassy and liquid. “What is it, Doctor Mora?”
“Odo, did you…happen to…notice anything unusual happening in the laboratory last night?” His voice had dropped, the worry showing through.
Odo’s features solidified. His eyes were devoid of expression, but his hesitation suggested he was afraid to answer.
“Never mind,” Mora told him. “Odo, if you saw anything, you must not repeat it to anyone, do you understand? If anyone asks, you didn’t see anything happen here last night.”
“I…saw nothing,” Odo said, and Mora didn’t know if he was telling the truth, or only following Mora’s instructions. Either way, it would have to do. Mora left Odo in his tank and headed for where Yopal and Reyar were still arguing.
“Good morning, Doctors,” Mora said with convincing neutrality.
“Doctor Mora!” Yopal exclaimed when she saw him. “A terrible thing has happened! Doctor Reyar’s research has been stolen!”
Mora took a step back. “You don’t say!”
“It was your friend Daul!” Reyar shouted. “I suppose you heard what he did—he sabotaged the work camp he’d been assigned to! And then he stole my research!”
“You don’t say,” Mora said again, his voice growing faint now. “I…I hadn’t heard.” Daul? So he was behind this?
“It’s all over the comnet, Mora!”
“I…don’t have access to the Cardassian comnet,” Mora said. His personal laboratory computer was programmed to block him from the Cardassian channel.
“Yes,” Yopal sighed. “Unfortunately, it does seem that our Doctor Daul is responsible for wreaking quite a bit of havoc. Last night, the main computer server at Gallitep was sabotaged—destroyed. Nearly all the Bajoran prisoners escaped, several guards were killed in the accident—and Doctor Daul was killed, as well.”
Mora heard himself gasp, and then quickly shut his mouth. “How…terrible,” he said.
“On top of all of that unpleasantness, Doctor Reyar’s research has been destroyed, the permanent files on her computer corrupted,” Yopal went on. “Apparently, Daul was working in conjunction with a group of terrorists. Our transporter was accessed last night, and Daul’s passcode was the last one used. The security cams have all been wiped, as have all the last transporter coordinates. Only Daul could have orchestrated something like this. I knew it was foolish to allow him to use the transporters.”
“What did you know of this?” Reyar asked Mora accusingly. “What did Daul say to you?”
“Nothing!” Mora insisted, feeling like a terrible coward. He couldn’t believe Daul had the wherewithal—the courage—to pull off a thing so spectacularly dangerous. “I…haven’t spoken to Daul in almost a week. I assure you, if he’d said anything regarding sabotage—or theft—I would have reported him!”
Yopal turned to Reyar. “I’m sure our Doctor Mora knew absolutely nothing of this.”
Mora did his best to conceal a sigh of relief.
Reyar went on. “I’ll have to start practically from the beginning!” she complained.
“That’s enough, Doctor Reyar. We should think of the forty-seven brave Cardassians who lost their lives trying to protect Gallitep.”
Reyar was undaunted. “It was my life’s work, and now it’s all gone!”
“Well, at any rate, you’ll be able to recall most of it, of course,” Yopal said calmly.
Mora distinctly read uncertainty in Reyar’s eyes before she answered. “Yes, of course.”
Yopal went on. “You’ll just need someone to act as a scribe. And Doctor Mora is going to help you do that.”
Mora thought about what Reyar had been working on—the anti-aircraft device, something to shoot down terrorist raiders. He felt oddly triumphant on Daul’s behalf, through his fear and guilt—and it quickly occurred to him that maybe he could do something as well—nothing so grand, but something nonetheless.
So,he thought, I’m going to be helping Doctor Reyar salvage her research, am I?Well, he intended to make it very difficult for her; he decided it right then and there.
“Meanwhile, Mora, there is something else I’d like to discuss with you,” Yopal said, and her artificial smile looked more forced than ever. “I’ve decided that it might be more…comfortable for you if I make a little…place for you to stay, here at the institute. That way, you won’t have to be bothered with traveling such a long distance back to the village. You see, we Cardassians all live at the nearby settlement, but you’ve got such a lengthy commute from the village…”
“I’m to live here?” Mora said, surprised. It immediately dawned on him what was happening—he was no longer permitted to leave.
“Yes, I think that would be best, don’t you?”
Mora nodded, for there was nothing else left to do. He supposed he should be grateful, after what had happened with Daul, that they weren’t simply sending him straight to a work camp. He was the last Bajoran here, and he’d better not forget it. The Cardassians obviously weren’t going to.
“Gul Dukat, I have something to show you!” Basso burst into the conference room with the isolinear recording in hand, and the prefect looked up from the long table where he was seated with his visitors, a damage assessment team from sciences.
“Basso! I believe I’ve asked you numerous times not to—”
“It’s about Gallitep, sir.”
Dukat immediately stopped what he was doing and excused himself from his visitors. The sabotage of the camp took precedence over all else; Dukat was eager to amplify the blame laid on Darhe’el for the disaster, no small task. Gul Darhe’el had been away from Gallitep when the mass escape and near total destruction of the camp had taken place; at worst, he was guilty of poor timing, although he hadspecifically asked for that Bajoran scientist, the one who’d acted on behalf of the terrorists. Dukat had gone out of his way to say as much in every report heading back to Cardassia Prime. If there was anything Basso could tell him that might be useful in his quest to see Darhe’el disgraced, Dukat was eager to hear it.
Leaving the conference room, he walked briskly back to his office, the Bajoran at his heels. When the door had closed behind them, he nodded for Basso to continue.
The Bajoran was breathless—from excitement or exertion, Dukat didn’t know. “I reviewed all the security rods from the day of the disaster, as you asked me, and I found one that has something you need to see.”
“Very good,” Dukat said, and sat down at his office desk.
Basso quickly plugged the recording into a nearby monitor and found the sequence he was looking for. Dukat squinted to view the footage. “Enhance,” Basso told the computer, and the focus pulled in on a group of people edging along one of the narrow roads that lined the open-pit mine.
“There,” Basso told him, pointing to the screen. “That’s Shakaar Edon, the leader of a cell just out of Dahkur.”
Dukat nodded. “So, we know who is responsible for Gallitep. But this doesn’t get us any closer to—”
“No, no, sir, there’s more.” Basso progressed the recording a few steps further, to show another crowd shot on a road further below the first point. “Enhance,” he said again, and pointed to the slender red-haired figure that appeared onscreen. He didn’t need to say more.
“Nerys,” Dukat breathed.
Kira mostly felt triumphant, for she’d just taken part in one of the biggest missions in the history of the Shakaar cell. She’d personally had a hand in liberating the worst camp on all of Bajor. She felt dizzied from all the praise that was being heaped on her, from not only Lupaza, but Dakhana, Mobara—even Shakaar himself had commended her courage and clear thinking.
The Shakaar cell had taken proper time and measure to grieve as well as celebrate, for two members of the group had not made it back. Mobara had been unable to get a lock on two of the communicators, and made the assumption that they had been destroyed. Ornak later confirmed that Matram Tryst had blown himself up, taking at least twenty Cardassian guards with him—along with Par Lusa. Par had been only eighteen years old, and Matram not much older than that. But they’d known the risks…just as Kira did.