"So you can imagine how surprised I am to see you again."
"By now," said Malen, smiling, "you should never be surprised."
She knew it was unlikely that Malen Aldris would ever be listed as one of the heroes of the Bajoran resistance; that designation was usually reserved for those like General Aur, who had no hesitations about bringing about the deaths of others, and little apparent regard for their own lives. Malen valued his intact skin too highly, and was too squeamish about violence, to earn any medals. Not that he would have wanted them; any recognition would have interfered with the clandestine nature of his affairs. During the Cardassian occupation, Malen had specialized in ferreting out warehouse managers, distribution supervisors, military logisticians, anyone who was involved in shifting Bajor's increasingly meager food production from one spot to another, and cajoling, bribing, or otherwise inducing them to look the other way while a precious trickle of supplies was diverted to the resistance fighters. As much skin-and-bones as she had been during that time, she and the comrades beside her would have been actual whitening skeletons without Malen's efforts. The brain inside the overly prominent dome of his skull had been skilled at juggling figures, delivery dates, inventory databases—essentially making two sacks of meal appear where only one existed. Unfortunately for that brain and the hunched, fidgeting body attached to it, such activities involved close, friendly-seeming contact with a large number of Cardassians, a state that was subject to being interpreted as collaboration with the enemy by less well informed members of the resistance. Kira wondered how fast he'd had to talk escape the firing line.
She also had to wonder what he had been doing at the headquarters of the Severalty Front.
"Were you trying as well to get in to see General Aur?" She was willing to assume that he had some scheme of his own in motion.
"Why should I have to try? I see Aur practically every day, whether I want to or not." Malen sat back in the rickety chair. "I'm the head economics adviser for the Severalty Front's shadow cabinet."
"Oh." She hadn't expected an answer like that. "You're working for them."
"Of course I am—the Front's where the action is right now. And I'm at a pretty high level, Kira; when the Front comes to power, I'm in line to run the entire Bajoran treasury."
"I see. Not if, but when, is it?"
Malen shrugged. "Would I be hooked up with them if that weren't the case? Let's face it, Aur's got all the trump cards. The provisional government is falling apart; if they last out the year, it'll be a miracle. And where there's a vacuum, something is bound to rush in and fill it. That's what Aur and the Severalty Front are ready for."
Kira nodded slowly. "You know, there is something else that I'm surprised at. You always used to think everything through so carefully, Malen. Have you considered that there won't be much of a Bajoran treasury for you to run, after your new government breaks off all contact with the Federation. You'll be lucky if you have two minim coins left to rub together."
"Given your position with Starfleet, Kira, I could hardly have expected you to be jumping up and down with joy at the prospect of the Severalty Front setting its program into effect. But you needn't be worried about me; let's just say that I got a good deal more inside information than you do, at least about Bajor's economic potential. The Federation might be a bit discomfited when it finds out what Aur and his advisers have up their sleeves. The new Minister of Trade . . ." Malen picked up his cup and took a hefty swallow.
She peered sharply at him. "Minister of Trade? Who's that going to be?"
"Hmm . . . this stuffs stronger than I remember it being." He gazed into the empty cup. "Has the unfortunate consequence of loosening tongues, doesn't it?" He waggled a finger at her. "You'll have to pump somebody else for secrets, I'm afraid. Didn't care for yours?" Malen reached across and took her cup, draining it before setting it back down in front of her. He pushed back his chair. "Kira, I'm really sorry we wound up on opposite sides on this one—but I suppose it couldn't be avoided. Good seeing you."
"Same here." She watched as he walked, a bit unsteadily, toward the door and the bright daylight beyond it. Only when she looked before herself, eyes readjusting to the tavern's gloom, did she notice the tiny scrap of paper stuck to the side of the cup.
Carefully, so that no one would notice, she peeled the slip back with one fingernail.
WE'RE BEING WATCHED AND LISTENED TO. Below those words were a hastily scrawled address, one that she recognized as being in one of the city's more disreputable quarters, and the notation 7 P.M. Looking around the tavern's dimly lit interior, she saw two disheveled men hunched over their drinks, their sidelong gazes still directed toward the doorway.
Unobtrusively, she rolled the paper into a tiny ball and slipped it into her uniform pocket. Getting up from the table, she knew that the time was already close to noon and her appointment with General Aur.
She was out of breath by the time she reached the top of the last flight of steps. The building was close enough to the edge of the city to have sustained damage during one of the resistance's skirmishes against the Cardassians; a chill night wind billowed through the tattered canvas that had been nailed over a missing section of wall. Shards of broken stone mingled with the years' accumulated dust.
That does it, thought Kira as she waited for her pulse to slow back down. No more taking the turbolift everywhere I go aboard the station—at least until I'm back in shape.
"There was a time when you could have sprinted all the way up here." Malen had read her thoughts; he peered at her from around the edge of a door cobbled together from scavenged wood planks. Yellow light fluttered from the lamp he held in his hand.
"That's what desk jobs will do for you." Kira took a deep breath and straightened up.
"Come on, get inside." He drew back into the dark behind the door.
She looked around as Malen set the lamp down on a low table. "A little shabby for the future head of the Bajoran treasury."
"I've done business out of worse places—you should know that." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "How did your meeting with Aur go?"
A shrug. "As I'd come to expect it would. I came ready to talk sense to these people, and no one is having any of it. Aur and the others may or may not have something special up their sleeves, but they're certainly acting as if they do."
"They've got a lot of reason for being self-confident. " Malen fussed with the lamp, to keep the flame from extinguishing in the oil below. "The Severalty Front can rightfully say that history—plus a lot of other things—is on its side."
"You sound like a true believer."
"Me?" He shook his head. "I've gotten to the age where I justify being interested solely in my own welfare. I've already done enough for Bajor, remember? Though I suppose for someone like you, there's no such thing as enough."
She ignored the last comment. "If all that were true, Malen, you wouldn't be talking to me now. Not in a dirty little hiding hole like this."
"Let's just say I like to be prepared for any eventuality. Such as the remote chance that the Severalty Front won't pull off all that it's planning."
"A remote chance that'll be brought a little closer by what you're going to tell me now."
He said nothing, but smiled thinly over his shoulder at her before turning back to make a final adjustment to the lamp.