Rebels Conquered

PRELUDE THIRTY YEARS AGO "MY LORD, what may I bring you from our Prophets?" Sister Winn asked, as Gul Ragat and his Cardassian friends and colleagues roared with laughter at her impishness. "From your Prophets?" echoed another young Cardassian, a gul in the Cardassian land forces. The boy--Akkat, Sister Winn remembered--wore a sneer that he obviously practiced before a mirror. His voice held a nasal quality found to a lesser extent in most Cardassians--probably a species trait--but grating to Bajoran ears nevertheless. "Yes, Lord Akkat," said the priestess, bowing low to the boy who was only a little more than half her age. "The Prophets offer peace and hope to all, even Cardassians." The council room was dim and cool, with harsh dark-wood chairs surrounding a severe table. Com- munications equipment, viewers, touch pads adorned the place settings, along with a chalice of Kanar for each man. There were four other Cardassian lords and overlords around the table, including Winn's own master, Gul Ragat. They all laughed at her last statement, and Gul Dukat, master of Terok Nor and one of the governors of Bajor Province, proba- bly in line to succeed Legate Migar as prefect of all Bajor, nudged the young colonel. "Are you going to allow a Bajoran priestess to speak to you that way? Offering you leftover blessings from her gods-- after the Bajorans take what they want?" If Akkat was haughty before, he was positively livid now. He leapt to his feet, knocking over the heavy Cardassian-style chair. His facial ridges stood out stark and white... an ominous omen. Sister Winn was used to such Cardassian outbursts, and she knew what she had to do. She had survived most of her adult life under Cardassian occupation, and she was no fool. Winn fell to her knees, bowing until her face was pressed against the floor. "Please, My Lord! I meant nothing by it. I spoke in error, and I beg your indulgence." Akkat pushed his way around the table, teeth clenched; he even shoved Gul Ragat out of his way in his rage--a bad move, as the gul, though just as young, outranked him by quite a margin of social status. "Wretched beast! Get up off the floor and accept your correction like a--like a Cardassian child would!" But the priestess's own master rose, now an- noyed at Akkat for pushing him. "Akkat!" he shouted, deliberately ignoring the lesser soul's title (a serious insult in Cardassia). "Don't touch my servants! Take your hands away; if you want to damage property, damage your own! I still have use for mine." Ignoring the warning, Akkat swung his open hand at Winn's face. She did not try to shield herself from the blow; she was too canny froin years of experience. Instead, the priestess twisted her head in time with the blow to minimize impact, then allowed herself to fall in the same direction, exaggerating the force. Then she covered her face with her arm and again begged forbearance. Gul Akkat looked uncertainly at his colleagues, aware he had just struck a woman--a Bajoran woman, to be sure, but even so. When Gul Dukat himself turned an angry gaze at the young gul and said, "A Cardassian does not lose his temper around Bajorans," Akkat slunk back to his seat, his face flushed with embarassment. Still stretched out on the floor, Sister Winn felt several moments of triumph that she had finally goaded the weakest Cardassian into humiliating himself. She had subtly taunted him for several minutes: nothing overt enough to truly give him cause to strike her (in which case, the others would have ignored the incident), but sufficient needling that he lost control at the most innocuous of statements. Then Winn felt a twinge of her own conscience; she tried to tell herself that it was a "strategic" maneuver, trying to make the lords

and overlords lose confidence in one of their own. But that was a lie: it was a petty, vindictive act and not in keeping with the teaching of the Prophets. She rose to her knees, bowed again to Lord Akkat, and said, "I humbly beseech your pardon for the disrespect I have shown." But she was not talking to the young pup ofa Cardassian; in Winn's heart, the words were directed skyward, to those who heard even the quietest heartfelt prayer. The rest of the meeting proceeded routinely. There were no secrets discussed, and the lords took no precautions against any of the servants, includ- ing Sister Winn, listening in. The matters were run- of-the~mill administrative reports and the issuance of standing orders that were already available over the subspace newsmitters anyway. It was more a formal event, held so that four guls and the legate could set themselves aside as the administrative (and military) leaders of the subcontinent. In fact, it was quite an honor that Gul Ragat was even allowed to attend, as he excitedly told Winn during a break, walking alone in Legate Migar's garden with only a "personal priestess" in attend- ance. "Winn, you have no idea how extraordinary it is for a mere provincial subgovernor to be invited to Legate Migar's for the monthly bulletintea!" "I know it is a very great honor for your lord- ship," said the priestess. "A great honor, indeed." The young gul turned serious for a moment. "I'm afraid it's too great an honor, Sister Winn." "Oh, surely not, My Lord!" "Relax, Winn. We're alone now." The boy turned an astute face to the priestess, who felt the most absurd impulse to comfort the lad. "I'm not disparaging my family; my lineage is if anything even grander than that of Legate Migar himself... and the old man knows it. But since when does the provincial subgovernor of Shakarri and Belshakar- ri rate an invitation to the bulletin-tea?" Winn thought for a moment; the child had a point, not that she particularly cared much about Cardassian rules of protocol. "Perhaps they are grooming M'Lord for a promotion?" Gul Ragat grinned and chuckled, shaking his head. "It's called a grant of honors, not a promo- tion! Silly girl. But I understood what you meant, and I confess that I've been thinking the same thought myself... and damning myself for being an ambitious man even for thinking it." Sister Winn said nothing. The garden was too tight, too martial, as were most Cardassian arti- facts. The trees were planted too close together, like soldiers in ranks, and the paths were straight as Cardassian roads, intersecting with each other at precisely defined angles that one could see for many steps ahead. Sister Winn preferred either the soothingly planned garden of the Kai, which she had seen only once in person but had walked often in her dreams, or the rambling, meandering foot- paths of the woods outside her native village. Gul Ragat stopped and sat upon a stone bench, watching the Fountain of Discipline: the spigots fired in bursts like a weapon, launching a cylinder of water into the air, arching over the hexagonal plaza to land squarely in a small catch-basin on the other side. Sister Winn did not, of course, sit beside the gul; it would have surprised him and made him uncomfortable... though he would not have punished her for it. He might also have taken the wrong idea. One night, he had somewhat drunkenly explored his options with Sister Winn, but she made it clear (by "failing to understand" his advances) that she may be his servant, but she was not his toy. She much preferred somewhat an air of formality, to ensure the two did not get too close; Sister Winn had no illusions about their relationship, the conquered to the victor. "Winn, I'm..." The gul trailed off; Sister Winn did not prompt him--it wasn't her place, and she hoped he

wouldn't decide to confide in her anyway. "Winn," he said again, "I'm afraid." "Afraid, My Lord?" "Afraid of the added responsibility. Afraid of what we're doingre" Gul Ragat froze in midsen- tence, looking around himself in an almost comical paranoia. "Sister Winn, do the Prophets truly exist?" "I have spoken with them frequently, My Lord." Ragat did not ask whether they answered her when she spoke. "Winn, I'm--afraid for the soul of Cardassia, what this occupation is doing to us. I know Akkat; we go way back." He g going to tell me what a good person he is, thought the priestess with amusement. "Winn, Akkat is such a good man! I know you feel hurt and humiliated by what he did, striking you like that for no reason. You're confused, and you're angry--furious at us! No, don't deny it; I know how you Bajorans feel about this occupation. And to tell the truth, I even understand it. There's no heavenly reason why Cardassians are any better or superior to you people. I understand you com- pletely." Sister Winn said nothing, not trusting her self- control. She decided it was politic to bow her head; she also put her sleeves together and savagely gripped one hand in the other to prevent them moving of their own accord where they wanted to go. Oh, Prophets of Bajor, please forgive and take from me my violent impulsest "But it's this damned military thing," continued the young gul, little aware of the emotions he was stirring in the normally placid Sister Winn. "It warps us, makes us the sort who--who strike an old woman because she reminds us of how uncom- fortable we feel, trying to civilize the Bajorans by force... trying to force our civilization upon the Bajoran civilization, I should say." Winn seized upon the phrase "old woman," successfully translating her homicidal feelings into mere indignation that a woman in her thirties would be called "old" by this young aristocratic snot. She thanked the Prophets for their gift from the mouth of Gul Ragat. "Oh, I'm blathering. Let's return; Legate Migar probably wants to start the meeting again, and I don't want to be the last man back." He flashed her a boyish grin. "Could give him second thoughts about my promotion, what?" PRESENT DAY Kai Winn awoke in her bed, thirty years after the dream that had seemed so strong, so real. Am I that old, she asked herself, that I live in ancient memory instead of the present? Tomorrow is an important day, and I must rest. The Kai rolled over, and was, thank the Prophets, dreamless for the rest of the night. 0

CHAPTER 1 CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO stood in room 77A of the All Prophets Council chambers on Bajor, facing Kai Winn and surrounded by sixty-six vedeks and conciliators and priests and rotaries and even an audience circumnavigating the viewing stage above the council floor. The crowd mobbed in from the left, circled the viewing stage, and exited on the opposite side, where their prayer tokens were col- lected. Major Kira Nerys stood next to the captain. As they had arranged, Kira spoke first. "Most Gracious Kai," said Kira, "the Federa- tion offers an... assignment of Deep Space Nine on a temporary basis, to Bajoran command." Kai Winn frowned in the virtual council cham- bers, smoothing her plain frock. She pulled at one finger, carefully framing her reply in the most diplomatic terms possible. Although it was Kira who had spoken, she addressed her reply to Cap- tain Sisko. "If the station remains under Federa- tion control, Emissary, yet Shakar or some other member of the council becomes its governor, doesn't that mean we have accepted the authority of the Federation over Bajor?" Damn her. Sisko--the "Emissary of the Prophets"---was careful to keep his poker face, but the Kai had a point. Tricky diplomacy was re.quired not to offend the Bajorans. "The United Federation of Planets most certainly does not claim hegemony over Bajor, the councit~ or any vedek or political leader who might assume temporary con- trol of the stafford." Kai Wi~m shook her head; "more in sorrow than anger," quoted Sisko silently to himsetfi "Emis- sary," she sa~d, "if we control the station only subject to approval of our actions by the Federa- tion Council, then we are nothing but puppets of the Federation." She put her hand over her mouth as if she had accidentally let slip an indiscretion. Good acting job, thought Sisko glumly. Kai Winn never did artything by accident. "I beg your par~ don .... Perhaps it would be better to say we would be nothing but-political subsidiaries of the Federation. Rather like a colony or a protectorate." Sisko took a deep breath. Winn had negotiated his back right up against a wall: he was authorized by the Federation Council to offer one further step... then that was it; if Kai Winn and the other vedeks didn't accept that offer, negotiations were at an end. "The Federation is prepared to forgo the normal review process for turnovers of this sort in lieu of an explicit timeline of events, culminating with a final evaluation." "You won't be looking over our shoulders? Emis- saw, how kind of you to make such an offer." "No reviews until the final evaluation, Kai," added IGra, bobbing her head rapidly~ "But does the Emissary have the diplomatic authority to make such an offer?" "I do," Sisko said. "And the Federation feels that with tensions between us and the Cardassians in abeyance for the mortlent, this would be an excel- lent time for such an experimenW' "How pleasant to carry on such productive nego- tiations." Kai Winn smiled broadly. She~ going to take it, thought Sisko. And he was right: "I, too, am authorized by a vote of the leading vedeks of each party in the council to agree to the Federation offer~on a temporary basis, of course, subject to our own evaluation of the ongoing process." Fancy footwork on first base to confuse the pitch- er, thought Sisko with a simile. But the extra escape clause allowing Bajor to terminate the agreement early would not substantially alter the final propo- sal; the captain was certain the Federation Council would approve. "Then we have agreement, Kai Winn, Members of the Council. In nine days, you will send up a governor to assume control of Deep Space Nine for a period of sixty days... which may be extended indefinitely, provided both par- ties

agree." The Kai's eyes flickered toward First Minister Shakar when Sisko mentioned "governor." An ex- cellent choice, thought the captain. Major Kira's only fear had been that Winn would try to take the position herself. For obvious reasons having little to do with the future of Bajor, Kira was quite pleased with the prospect of once again working under her old Resistance commander... and cur- rent romantic interest. Before the final ceremony could begin, they were interrupted by the a chime of a cornbadge. Sisko tapped his combadge as discreetly as possible. "Captain," Worf said, "My apologies for inter- rupting. But there is an urgent message for you from Starfleet. You are needed on Deep Space Nine at once." "This had better be good," Sisko said to Worf under his breath. He was not looking forward to the explanations and apologies he'd have to give the council. Back on the station, Kira was in no way pleased with the interruption from Starfleet. "Captain, couldn't whatever this message is have waited until we finished the negotiations or at least-" "Let's see what Starfleet wants, Major. If it wasn't worth it, we'll soon know," Sisko said. As he spoke, he read down the text of the message on the padd that had been handed to him the moment he stepped into Ops. "Sir, Kai Winn and the vedeks are going to be very upset. We walked right out on a meeting of the Council of All Prophets .... That's likere" "Apparently a group of renegade Cardassians have invaded a star system on the edge of the Federation," Sisko said bluntly. "I think even Kai Winn and the vedeks will understand the urgency of the situation." Kira froze in midsentence as the implication sank through her annoyance and humiliation and crash-landed on her comprehension circuits. If the Cardassians, any Cardassians, were starting a ma- jor offensive, the Federation was in grave danger, indeed--as was Bajor, needless to say. The Cardas- sians had never forgotten the embarrassment of Shakar and his compatriots forcing them off the only planet they never quite managed to subdue. "How close?" she asked. "Not very close, Major," said Worf, hovering nearby--as usual when the subject is war, thought Kira. "The Cardassians have invaded the system around SierraBravo 112, the active half of the binary star system that includes the neutron star Stirnis." The captain shook his head. "I was afraid of something like this; that's why I fought like the devil against this turnover of DS9 ....At least right at this moment." "Oh? And why is that?" She didn't mean it to sound quite so frosty; it was almost an autonomic reaction. "I mean no slur against Bajor, Kira." "I'm only concerned," he continued, "about the timing. While Starfleet is claiming that these Car- dassians are renegades, disavowed by their central command, there could well be more to this. At the moment, I think it's a terrible idea to remove the Federation presence here." "Radiation readings," said Dax, stepping for- ward from her science station, "in the vicinity of Sierra-Bravo 112 indicate a technological civiliza- tion on the second planet from the star, but the Federation long-range survey ship didn't pick up any subspace transmissions or warp signatures." "Prime Directive, Old Man?" asked Sisko. "Yes, Benjamin, I'm sure the Prime Directive would apply." "Benjamin," continued Dax, "There are no ene- my ships anywhere near here and a quarter of the Klingon fleet is on standby in case anything nasty comes out of the wormhole. Now is as good a time as any for the turnover--much as I hate to leave." "Perhaps you're right," allowed Captain Sisko. "But in any case it's not an option: gentlemen, we have been ordered by Admiral Baang to at least investigate SB- 112 .... Investigate, not necessarily to act upon what we see. That, at

least, Starfleet leaves to my discretion." KJra's blood leapt in response to the simple announcement--stop! It's just another mission, it's nothing! But her pulse raced regardless. The admir- al had downplayed the potential for fighting, but Kira somehow knew the rumor would turn out to be true, and they would have no choice but to intervene. And by the Prophets, I want to be on that job. She tr/ed to tell herself it was only to avoid tedious duty during the turnover... or even (a dark thought) to avoid the inevitable deep, mean- ingful discussion with Shakar about where they were headed--they, as in They. But she was too honest to deny what she knew: she had killed Cardassians for so long--her whole adult life and much of her youth-that she had become accustomed to blood. She fought the dreams every waking moment and gave in to them at night... slinking once again through the black dark with disruptor rifle in arms, approaching the Cardassian sentry as quiet as a meurik, and "taking him out" (such euphemisms for perverse joy) with a k-bar knife. Kira smiled, remembering grim and glorious days in the Shakaar resistance cell. "I can see where you're going to need someone like me, Captain." To go to battle again--against Cardassian aggres- sion-was surely enough to overcome her con- flicted desire to be with Shakar during his moment of triumph. Besides, she thought, putting a pious spin, he'll be proud of my role in a mission like this. It would mark the first time she went to war with Cardassian slavers on her own, without Shakar. Sisko stopped, turning to gaze in seeming sereni- ty upon the assembled senior crew, Kira in particu- lar. "And that is why I am disappointed to have to leave you behind, Major." "What?" She blinked, not understanding. "You are of course a very good choice for this type of job, but you are the only person who can smooth the inevitably choppy waters of the turn- over of Deep Space Nine to the Bajoran govern- ment." "But I--" "Major Kira, when First Minister Shakar ar- rives-or whoever is sent by the council--I cannot give him an executive officer who is a member of Starfleet; Kai Winn would never allow it. She's already as nervous as a cat that this is a conspir- acy to take away Bajor's independence. There are only two people on the station she almost trusts... and one of us, Major, has to command the Defiant." Captain Sisko turned and ascended to his imper- ial roost, leaving behind a Bajoran major with her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. But... I shouM be in charge of the Cardassian operation! Who else could Alas, when Kira turned for moral support to the rest of the Ops crew, they had all returned to their ongoing task to ready the station for the turnover. Kira blew a breath through her clenched teeth. "Aye, sir," she said belatedly and angrily sat at her station. Don't be such a whiner, she berated herself; perhaps it's a hidden blessing from the Prophets. Leaving Kira as executive officer of the station not only provided stability, it would mean sixty days of face-to-face contact in a relationship that already appeared to be drifting toward the shoals of ne- glect. She smiled, wondering what it would be like to once again take orders from the most brilliant leader she had ever known. 0

CHAPTER 2 Two DAYS flickered past in the wink of an eye, but not without terrible yet vague foreshadowings of doom in Odo's imagination. The thought that he would probably be kept on by the Bajorans for a week or two, to facilitate in the turnover, before ultimately being let go, didn't calm him; just the reverse: if he couldn't stay on Deep Space Nine with Major Kira--and Kai Winn would never agree to any but a security officer who was Bajoran in descent as well as in name--Odo would much rather leave with Captain Sisko and these other people he had come to care for; far better a strange posting with my friends. Odo would not admit it to himself except in the darkest moments of contemplation in his bucket, but he was frightened. Despite the physical appear- ance of a fully grown man, Odo was, in the long and short, less than fifteen years old; insecurity seized him, just as it had eight years earlier, when the Cardassians left and handed the station over to the unknown quantity of "The Federation." Odo felt as if he were learning the basic shapes all over again: cube, tetrahedron, pyramid, cylinder. There was terribly much to do... so many things that could only be taken care of by Odo himself--and others requiring the personal atten- tion of the captain or Dax or Worf--that departure on the Defiant to investigate the reports of Cardas- sian boojums was delayed for two days. When at last everyone who was anyone (except for Kira) boarded the ship and prepared to cast off, leaving the rest of the packing-up and shippingoff to enlisted crew and sundry ensigns and "jaygees," Odo found himself staring out the window of the Defiant at the cold, silent station outside, as if it might be the last time he would ever see it again. As well it might, he told himself. Now stop dithering and pull yourself together. They would probably be returning, not to Deep Space Nine, but to another starbase and a detailing officer for new assignments... unless, against all odds, the Bajorans decided they didn't want the station after all, and they gave it back in sixty days. (If the Federation took it back, over Bajoran wishes, Odo decided glumly, it would cause a quadrantwide diplomatic incident.) In the four years Odo had known the captain, he had learned to read the man, and Sisko was, if anything, even more agitated than the constable. Captain Sisko paced on the bridge, something he never did, and he snarled at Dax when the lieuten- ant commander tried to tell him what a great job he'd done as CO on the station. "You're already writing my obituary," said the captain quietlyre not quietly enough. He sat in his command chair with a loud thump. Dax took the drastic events with more equanimi- ty, which didn't surprise Odo in the least; in all her lifetimes, she must have been uprooted and sent to Outer Nowhere more times than she could count. She probably no longer even felt nervous or lonely in new places. Or perhaps she~ just better at hiding her feelings, he thought. But Dr. Bashir sat white- faced and whiteknuckled in the supernumerary jump seat; Deep Space Nine, Odo knew, had been Bashir's very first posting after leaving Starfleet Academy-his first and only Starfleet home. He was as nervous as a Ferengi on trial about what might lie ahead--not on Sierra-Bravo, not for Deep Space Nine, but in his own life and career. Worf and Chief O'Brien were stoical; but then, they had only recently arrived from some Starfleet ship, and Worf would never show his nervousness any- way. The chief will at least bring his family along, the constable realized. Curiously enough, Odo decided he would even miss Quark. Well... perhaps a little; I'll miss the relentless games and contests-games I always won. But Odo sighed, realizing he was only fooling

himself; over many years and too many near-death experiences to count, he had come to hold a grudging respect for that one particular Ferengi. And he suspected that Quark, who would be even more reluctant to admit it to himself, would miss Odo every bit as much. Commander Dax ran through the departure checklist: "Check balast .... Nay systems on-line and operational .... Weapons and shields within operational capacities .... Level-three diagnostics nominal .... Doctor? Doctor Bashir? Defiant bridge to Doctor Bashir." The doctor jumped up with a strangled noise and darted to the nearest console. "Infirmary--I mean, sickbay diagnostics nominal; no problems detected." Odo listened to the pulse of departure, all the routine tasks that junior officers struggled over, but which the senior crew now aboard could do in their sleep. The sounds were familiar, not quite as com- forting as reading the daily incident reports in his security office, but better than standing and staring out the porthole. "Dax," began the captain, "what have you found out about Sierra-Bravo 112 from the planetary database?" "Hm? Oh, it's a six-planet system, but only 112- II is of any real interest. The inner planet is a burned-out hulk of nickle-iron; the outer four are gas giants. "112-II has a technological civilization at least capable of broad-spectrum EM transmission .... No warp signatures detected in the three sweeps on ultra-long-range scanners, but that was eighty years ago. Spectroscopic analysis indicates it's extraordi- narily rich in latinum, selenium, and trilithium- disulphite." Odo interrupted. "Which cannot be easily sepa- rated into dilithium, as I recall." "On the nose, Constable." Dax continued. "There are atmospheric traces of cyanide, so there's probably some cyanide compound in the local life-forms." "Doctor Bashir," queried the captain, "should we have to beam down, can you protect the away team from the level of cyanide in the atmosphere? And can we eat the local food?" Odo watched the doctor poke at his console, transferring Dax's data entry to his own station. "Well, yes and no, sir: yes, a simple hypospray can counter the level of poison residue on the atmospheric dust, but no, we surely cannot eat the local food." "Then it's com-rations all the way," said Sisko with a smile. There was a sudden and urgent pounding on the airlock door; everybody on the bridge jumped and stared except for the captain. Sisko closed his eyes and let his head fall back on his command chair. "Who is that rapping at my chamber door?" He did not sound pleased that his final departure from the station had been marred by such an unseemly occurrence. Worf looked back and forth, twice, between Sisko and the door; the infernal racket started up again, sounding to Odo as if some persistent neigh- bor were beating on the airlock with a battering ram. Odo moved to the airlock and cycled it open. Standing before him was an aggrieved and very noisy Quark. "Don't tell me you simply forgot to let me in on the departure time," whined the Ferengi. "Forgot? Quark, I never forget anything. Let me assure you, the snub was quite deliberate." "Captain--I appeal to you in the name of... of kindly benevolence. These people who are taking the station over are absolutely impossible. They haven't the first idea of how a free market should work--believe me, I know. I've tried to open a franchise on Bajor for the past--" "You mean," interrupted Constable Odo, inter- preting for the captain, "you've been trying to palm off your stolen merchandise, but the Bajorans are too moral and ethical to deal in contraband." Odo crouched low to stare directly into Quark's eyes; he was gratified to see the felonious Ferengi lose his train of thought. But Quark quickly rallied. "Not in the least, Captain

Sisko. I have legitimate business interests in the sector you're headed toward .... " Odo was on a roll; Quark couldn't seem to open his mouth without convicting himself. "Really, Quark? And just how do you know where we're headed? That information is classified." The Ferengi managed to look innocently sur- prised. "Aren't you going to the binary pair of the neutron star Stirnis? I heard through the grape- vine--" "There is no grapevine, Quark; the information was classified. And I suppose you're going to deny tapping into the station computers?" "Odo! That would be illegal." Quark grinned, exposing a full, snaggly set of freshly sharpened teeth. "Captain, I just want to come along with you. I can't stand all this... religion." He shud- dered, glancing back over his shoulder. Odo stretched both hands out and gripped the sides of the airlock door, expanding his arms into a nice imitation of a thorny thicket. "Captain, I strongly advise against allowing this... unin- dicted co-conspirator to accompany us." Dax wormed her way past an exasperated Worf and stood next to the constable. "Oh, come now, Odo. Would you rather leave this unindicted co- conspirator alone on the station to work his magic while you're gone for at least two weeks?" Odo said nothing at first; then the full horror of the lieutenant commander's point became clear to him. Quark, alone on the station, with nothing but Bajoran religious figures to control him ....Quark running amok. "I believe Dax has you there, Constable," said the captain; he almost sounded as though he were smirking. "The real question is, are you selfish enough to wish Quark on the rest of the station just so you, personally, won't have to deal with him?" The blow slid home like the well-aimed thrust of a Klingon d'k tahg. "No, I... I suppose I'm not," mumbled Odo, feeling thrice a fool, three times over. Glumly, he retracted his thickets; after a moment spent in a glaring contest with Quark, Odo stepped aside and allowed the Ferengi to enter. "Thank you," said Quark, with a shirty sort of exaggerated politeness; he rolled his eyes as he passed the constable. "Really, imagine trying to hog all that latinum for yourselves." It took a moment to sink in. "Latinurn? Quark, how did you know about the latinum? You did break into the Federation planetary database! That's a class-two felony ....Captain, I must insist--" "Odo, Odo, Odo," said Quark, shaking his head sadly. "I'm shocked, shocked that you have never heard the Ferengi legends of, ah, the Grand Planet of Latinum, fabled in Ferengi lore. Have you?" "No, Quark," said the constable, curling his lip, so close, he could almost taste the charge... and the Ferengi was in danger of slithering away again. "I've never heard of a 'Grand Planet of Latinum,' and neither have you! There is no such legend." The Ferengi made a grand theatrical gesture. "Why, every Ferengi knows it lies in, why, right there in Sierra-Bravo 112. When I heard where you were going, I just knew I had to explore... for Ferenginar--for the Grand Nagus, not for myself." "Every Ferengi?' demanded Odo, making him- self bigger. "So if I were to ask, say, Nog--" "Ah, youth! Young Ferengi are so poorly edu- cated these days, and I'm afraid my ignorant neph- ew is even less assiduous about it than most." Odo opened and closed his mouth, feeling as a starving solid must feel when food is dangled, then snatched cruelly away. But once again, Quark had beaten the charge. The constable snorted and turned away, frustrated. "All aboard," sang out Chief O'Brien; it was evidently some obscure Federation reference, and Odo didn't catch it. Snorting heavily, Worf poked at the door panel with a meaty forefinger, and the airlock slid shut. "Are we all done now?" inquired Captain Sisko, looking directly at the constable. "I, uh,

don't think there will be any more inter- ruptions," muttered Odo, still struggling to find the flaw in Quark's ridiculous fabrication. Great Plan- et of Latinum! "Thank you. Cast off, Old Man; let's really wring out this beautiful piece of machinery. Who knows? It may be our last time." With a wistful-sounding "aye, aye," Dax ran the final launch checklist, detached the Defiant from her moorings, turned a sharp 130 degrees, and headed off toward the star system known onty as Sierra-Bravo 112. Odo watched Quark as if the Ferengi might shoplift a warp coil. The days crawled with exaggerated slowness for Major Kira Nerys as she nervously awaited Sha- kar's arrival. She paced the long, crowded corridors in the habitat ring, sidestepping the hundreds of boxes and antigray dollies, dancing around civilian and Starfleet movers, and occasionally studying some transitioning resident's requisition without really seeing what she saw. She really had too much to do herself to waste time wandering the rest of the station; every security code and classified pro- gram in Ops had to be either changed to Bajoran standards or encrypted and hidden away, in case the "temporary" turnover really did turn out to be temporary. Secretly, in her heart, Kira suspected that was the most likely outcome. I guess I really don't think we're quite ready yet, she thought, feeling strangely ambivalent where she ought to feel either patriotic pride in Bajor's accomplishments or burning shame at the places where they fell short. But having sat through more than her share of Bajoran council meetings and seen, firsthand, the astonishing acrimony over the slightest miscommunication or dispute, she was sure the Federation had been wise to slip in the sixty-day escape clause. Am I just being an unpatriotic snob? What, Bajor's not "good enough" because we're not the wonderous, omnipotent FEDERATION? The thought truly bothered her, as did what it implied about her lack of confidence in Shakar, but there it was with all its humiliating consequences: I truly believe we're just not ready and this whole turnover is going to be a fiasco. What was worse, Kira was ninety percent certain that Kai Winn was setting Shakar up to fail; and the Kai would use his so-called "failure" as a hammer to bludgeon him out of his post as First Minister. "Beware, Shakar; Winn has always wanted exclusive power in the hands of the ve~ deks," spoke Kira into a letter log she planned to send down to Shakar before he departed for the station. But she knew it was to no avail; if Winn offered the governorship to Shakar, there was no way he could refuse it without appearing weak and losing face. That, too, might cost him his ministerial rank. Shakar would just have to take his chances; maybe, against all the odds, he could succeed so well that the turnover would become permanent. Kira finished the letter log and encrypted it using the special, one-way key code she and Shakar used. (It was definitely the sort of undiplomatic missive one didn't want falling into the "wrong hands," especially the Council of Vedeks.) Then she sent it with a request for receipt confirmation. The major waited for fifteen minutes near the console, but there was no friendly double beep; evidently, Sha- kar was not available to hear it right away. Odo's office was immaculate, of course; he had not packed up anything, since there was still a reasonable chance that the Bajorans would keep him on as internal security officer, or "constable." Kira had made a persuasive case that Odo could enforce Bajoran social-religious law as easily as he could Federation law... or for that matter, the harsh Cardassian legislative code of Terek Nor, though she still wasn't quite sure he appreciated her efforts. Still, because it was a good time to do it--Captain Sisko would need a full legal account- ing for

his final outprocessing report--Kira wanted to perform a complete inventory of all cases handled, their dispositions, active and ongoing investigations, informant lists, and profiles of "suspicious characters," as Odo termed them (by whatever arcane methods he used to arrive at that determination). Odo would have done it him- self, of course; it was just the sort of nitpicky thing that Odo loved and the major detested. But he was away on the Defiant, and the task fell to her. She started setting up the query criteria for the computer, similar to an engineering diagnostic scan but for security office actions rather than computer responses. She yawned several times... and then blinked her eyes, confused, feeling the warm, smooth press of Odo's desk against her cheek. It took Kira several seconds to realize she had actually fallen asleep at her task, and more than an hour had passed. Jumping up with a confused start, she stared wildly around; the computer beeped, and Kira realized that was what had awakened her in the first place. "Attention Major Kira," said the smooth female voice, "runabout from Bajor docking at Docking Bay Four, carrying the new governor of Deep Space Nine." "Shakar!" So that~ why he never acknowledged my message; he was already en route. Kira headed for the door but had to stop halfway and squat onto her hams to avoid passing out. When her blood pressure climbed back to "awake" level, she jogged to the nearest turbolift, which hauled her out to the habitat ring, up the pylon, and into the docking bay. She straightened her uniform and only belat- edly realized that she was the only person in the reception area not in dress uniform. When the huge airlock door rolled aside on its geared teeth, she felt a flush of embarrassment creep up her neck to her cheeks and nose ridges. If only she hadn't stupidly fallen asleep, she could have greeted the First Minister with the proper ritual. Her cheek still felt creased from Odo's desk. The inner airlock and the door of the runabout rolled back simultaneously in opposite directions, and a mob of diplomatic-looking Bajorans shuffled out, murmuring ritualized greetings and well- wishes. Then the mob parted, and a large gentteman--a vedek Kira didn't knowmstepped up to her. "Ma- jor? May I present the credentials of the new governor of Deep Space Nine, now called Emis- sary's Sanctuary." The vedek stepped aside, and a small, plump and frumpy woman stepped forward with grave dignity and a phony, ingratiating smile. "Hello, my child," said Kai Winn, beaming. "May the peace of the Prophets be with you always." Kira forgot every word of the wonderful speech she had prepared. She stared in horror at her new boss for the next sixty days... or maybe forever. "I... !... hi, Kai." Then she flushed even hard- er. "The, ah, station greets you, my Kai; may the peace of the Prophets be on you. Be with you. This is so... so--" "Unexpected?" suggested Kai Winn with a toothy smile. It wasn't exactly the word Major Kira had in mind. 0

CHAPTER 3 THIS IS a bad dream, thought Major Kira. Any minute now, I'll wake up and-Kira sat up suddenly in bed, head spinning like a gyroscopic stabilizing unit. She had been having a nightmare: Kai Winn fired everybody in Deep Space Nine, even the Bajorans, and replaced them with corpses and monsters reanimated by black magic. The reality wasn't much different, except instead of the walking dead, the Kai was in the process of replacing all the longtime administrative personnel on the station with her own cadre... what Kira insisted upon thinking of as the Kai's "toadies." Although the top officers of Deep Space Nine were all Starfleet (hence, leaving anyway), the women and men who did much of the day-to-day "real" work were civilians: the janitors, dockwallopers, communications and traffic controllers, ship in- spectors, security personnel, jailers, tour guides, lawyers and paralegals, maintenance workers, as- tronomers, fuel handlers, painters, and polishers. None of these people was actually required by Starfleet to leave when the Federation pulled off the station, and since most of them were Bajorans, Kira had simply assumed that Kai Winn would keep them in their jobs. No such luck. The Kai arrived in the airlock with sixteen bags of personal effects and a fortyscreen list of patrons who had supported her bid to jump from vedek to Kai. Kira stood next to Kai Winn, still blinking pieces of sleep out of her eyes and desperately wishing for another coffee, and highlighted names on the list as they showed up at the station. The docking pylons had become huge traffic snarls, jammed with resentful members of the newly disemployed shuffling out and down, to be replaced by smug and fervent boosters of Kai Winn cycling up and in. The major's only consolation, as she broke up the third fight that morning--a laid-off gardener with two children tried to plant a geranium in the skull of a childless, unmarried lay pastor who had just taken his job--was that Kai Winn was setting herself up for a spectacular failure .... After which, with Winn disgraced, surely the Council of Vedeks would reconsider the only other obvious candidate for governor... First Minister Shakar. The lay pastor's head turned out to be much harder than his attacker anticipated; Constable Odo was away on the mission to Sierra-Bravo; Kai Winn was far too busy to worry about minor details like assault and battery; the holding cells were already full to overflowing; and to tell the truth, Major Kira's sympathies lay entirely with the gardener. There was nothing to do but scream at the attacker for several minutes and send him on his way. The major was just pushing the subdued family man onto the runabout, which would take him down to Bajor and a long stint in the Office of Labor Resource Allocation, waiting for another job opening, when the stupidity of what Kira had been doing for the past few days hit her square in the conscience. She turned away, mumbling a long string of blasphemies against the Kai through clenched teeth, and discovered herself nose to nose with Kai Winn. The Kai smiled ingratiatingly. "Child, what troubles you? Do you worry about the justice of removing so many people, even Bajorans, from their jobs?" "Kai!" Kira stared, dithering between keeping her job and keeping her sanity; sanity won. "Well... now that you mention it, yes. Why are you doing this? What have these people ever done to deserve..." Kira groped for the word. "To deserve exile?" "Exile? No one is being exiled, child. They are all welcome to stay." Kai Winn gestured expansively, evidently including the entire station. "If these Bajorans wish to begin taking more seriously the traditions and spiritual beliefs of our people, they may even be given new jobs here

on the Emissary's Sanctuary." "Big of you." Kira struggled in vain to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Kai Winn shook her head sadly. "They have made their choices, child; those who choose to live by the secular law alone, not according to the ancient wisdom of the Prophets, have only those rights protected by the law: which means, my child, l can let them go whenever I decide others should take their places." Isn't there anyplace in the heart of a Kai for compassion? Kira thought, and for a moment won- dered if she had spoken aloud. But if Kai Winn heard anything, she chose not to take offense; she merely smiled and repeated the justification that those being "let go" were the purely secular work- ers who were either not devoted enough to the Prophets... or at least not public enough in their devotions and rituals. "Fine. Just fine--my Kai." Then I should be the first one fired, Kira thought as she squeezed her fists, fingernails stabbing painfully into her palms; and where the hell were YOU when we 'geculars" were fighting Cardassia to ,give you back your bloody world? Fortunately, the major left the latter unsaid. "No, Major Kira," said the Kai with the same smug, irritating smile, "you are still needed. For reasons i cannot discuss, I must retain you in your position as executive officer of Emissaryg Sanc- tuary." Kai Winn put her hand on Kira's head, murmur- ing a blessing; then she walked away, already having forgotten the major's outburst... and the very real concerns that sparked it. She doesn't understand that the turnover is just a temporary measure, thought Kira, amazed; does she really think it~' going to be PERMANENT? The major's next thought was even more chilling: What if she has a plan I don't know about? The Federation ordered the turnover to see how well the Bajorans could adapt to running a full- sized starbase, a "coming-of-age" test to see how mature Bajor was after decades of Cardassian occupation. Kira had always told herself that after the sixty days, everything would revert to normal. But Kai Winn was a Very Imporant Life-Form in the Federation recently... and if the Kai abso- lutely insisted on keeping the station, would Star- fleet risk an interstellar incident by insisting on taking it back? In fact, who was to say the Kai hadn't already worked it out (at a level far above Captain Sisko) that Bajor would keep the station, no matter what the agreement read? For the first five days of Kai Winn's tenure (of either sixty days or forever), Kira's anger and jumpiness increased exponentially. She followed the Kai around like a pet dakthara, taking dictated orders and being sent to tell families that their fates were now in limbo: they were being removed from positions they had held, quite literally, since Deep Space Nine had been Terek Nor. By the end of the transition period, as the last of Kai Winn's "toad- ies" was ensconced in a job that used to be consid- ered critical but now was just patronage, Kira had developed a burning itch to beam the Kai into empty space. The major had just begun to envision the infuriating old woman gasping for a lungful of nonexistent air when she realized what a blasphe- my even such a thought was. Kira forcibly erased all violent thoughts from her mind; she was more religious than she generally liked to let on, even to herself. She sat in her normal chair up in Ops, all alone, feeling as if she were the one who had moved to a new duty station; instead, it had been quite literally everyone else who had abandoned her. The patrons of the Kai who had been placed on Ops duty rotation-every one a brother, sister, or an or- dained sub-vedek--were far too busy "adminis- trating," whatever that meant, actually to stand their watches; they never showed up, leaving Kira to do the work of four people. It hardly mattered. The stationwide com- channel chimed,

catching Kira's attention. The Kai's beaming visage appeared on the main screen--a prerecorded message, Kira guessed. "Good day, my children. I know how hard it must be for you to adjust to your new duties. The ears of Bajor have heard your heartfelt pleas .... Until this trying turnover is complete, Bajor, in my person, hereby bars all ships' traffic with Emis- sary~ Sanctuary. For the moment, until we stand aright again, we Bajorans must concern ourselves only with Bajor; the outside world must wait." "Excellent idea," muttered Kira, making sure no "ears of Bajor" were stretched nearby. "Who needs the sector, the quadrant, the entire Federation when we can stick our heads in a hole instead?" Surely we couldn't be invaded TWICE.t but she kept the last thought silent. "In keeping with this new focus," continued the smug smile of Bajor, "each must concentrate him or herself on the inner soul. There are a number of old customs and laws from the bright days before the Occupation that must be restored, if Bajor is to be once again Bajoran. A complete list shall be available on the main computers and will also be posted on bulkheads in the Promenade, in accord- ance with the ancient custom." "By All the Prophets," breathed a stunned Kira, "are we going to revive the old laws?" She stared at her hands, hands that had about as much chance of becoming great sculptors as Kai Winn had of winning a Ferengi beauty contest. Frantic, the major poked at the panel before her, calling up the file. It took a moment to find; she finally tried "Code of the Prophets," and the list appeared. It wasn't as long as she'd thought it would be... and it did not include certain archaic pro- visions that she had feared--praise the Prophets and the Kai~ mercy/But as Kira read each law, most of which she had never seen before, her mouth opened in astonishment. "Rank? Seniority? Etiquette between boys and girls? This is a military code." When she reached the detailed passages about food preparation, incense burning, hair length--she fingered her own too-short hair, won- dering whether the executive officer of Emissary's Sanctuary would be forced to grow locks down to her shoulders--she sat back, more amused than angry. "Yeah, good luck, my Kai." Kira met Kai Winn on the Promenade. "Child," said the Kai, "there is one den of iniquity that I'm sure you'll be pleased to see converted to more, shall we say, appropriate uses?" Kira thought for a moment, but really, the refer- ence was clear. "You mean Quark's Place?" Winn leaned close. "It's not just that it serves liquor," she whispered, glancing left and right conspiratorially; Kira followed suit automatically. "Child, you cannot be aware of what dreadful debauchery lurks in the upper chambers." "Oh, you mean the..." Kira stopped; if the Kai thought she hadn't known about the holosuites, why disabuse her? "You mean the other Dabo tables?" Kai Winn shuddered, marking the sign of the Prophets upon her ample belly. She took Kira's arm, clumsily wrenching the major's elbow pain- fully. "You don't want to know, child; truly, thank the Prophets you were in ignorance! But now that the--Ferengi--will be leaving, we must decide what to do with the space. And we must inspect the premises now, painful as that may be. "Let your moral code guide you," prayed the Kai, "and walk hand in hand with the Prophets." Rom, who was looking after the bar while Quark himself was mercifully away with the Defiant, in- stantly busied himself monkeying around with the glassware. His hands shook, and he clinked the glasses hard enough to break one, leading Major Kira to the conclusion Rom was very much aware that almost everything about Quark's was a viola- tion of the Code. The Ferengi didn't even glance up as Kira and the Kai entered, clinching the case, but Kira decided to keep her mouth shut,

hoping the Kai was too preoccupied to notice. "Rom/" shouted Kira, trying to alert him. "Two root beers. Kai Winn, you have to try this drink/" The Kai declined and headed out quickly. Kira hurried on behind the blithely indifferent Winn as she bustled out of the erstwhile bar and headed into the Promenade; the Kai set a straight line for the turbolift, ignoring the swarms of the devout who parted around her like waves before a ship. Kai Winn enunciated a firm "Operations" to the computer, and the lift obediently began to rise. Dog's breakfast, that's what Chief O'Brien wouM have said,' this whole experiment is turning into a real dog's breakfast. Kira should have exulted: the station in an uproar, positions filled by incompe- tent political hacks, ancient religious codes forced upon reluctant residents... surely all this non- sense would lead to the complete disgrace of Kai Winn and her entire faction. The major almost smiled, but she didn't feel like smiling; instead, she felt a great sadness that Bajor had been given a chance and was throwing it away in a futile effort to recapture the glory days of the Prophets instead of moving into the modern cen- tury. "Dog's breakfast," said Kira with conviction. "I'm sorry, my child, I don't understand." "It's something Chief O'Brien says." "Oh, yes. Colorful man. What does it mean?" Kira shrugged. "Oh, I can't really say." Not QUITE a lie, she told herselfi The turbolift hummed for Ops, carrying the Kai to the very office once occupied by the Emissary, and before him, by Gul Dukat, as he oversaw the enslavement of the world. "A pig's breakfast," said Chief O'Brien, reading the scanners over Dax's shoulder. "A real pig's break fast." The Trill science officer looked back at the chief. "What exactly do pigs eat for breakfast?" The chief didn't answer the question, at least not literally. "Seven Cardassian warships, Captain," he added. "Couple of heavies, GM-class, a cruiser, and the other four are speeder-destroyers. Identifi- cation shows they were all reported stolen over the last two years." "So they may well be renegades," Sisko said, "or perhaps Cardassian Central Command is looking for plausible deniability. Chief, what odds would you give us?" "If we popped off the cloak and opened fire? Well, we might cripple one of the GMs in the first volley, then the other would engage us, and the destroyers would nibble us to death." "Wouldn't advise it?" "No, sir. Not if you're wanting to make it away in one piece. And frankly, sir, I wouldn't advise revealing our presence for any reason... not even to send a diplomatic message for them to bug out." The captain stroked his beard; "I don't like this," he said to Dax. "I don't like sitting here doing nothing." "Then we'd better get down to the planet our- selves, Benjamin," she replied. Amen to that, thought O'Brien .... Then he remembered the odds: seven Cardassian warships could mean as many as fifteen hundred soldiers on the ground. Odo stepped off the turbolift onto the bridge, fresh after several hours spent in his bucket. O'Brien watched the constable narrowly; Odo frowned and scowled, clasped his hands behind his back, and made other fidgety signs that he wasn't satisfied. The chief decided information was more important than secrecy. "Captain, I'd like to make a full level-three scan of the entire system." "Chief, wait," said Jadzia Dax, "the Cardassians can detect level three ....Maybe we'd better make it level two." "That won't tell us enough, Commander." As usual, O'Brien found himself annoyed when he had to argue with a commissioned officer; he always had the sneaking suspicion that he was starting several points down already. "Level three will show us any technology hidden on the second planet. We can't rely on the lack of

ships." "And the Cardassians?" asked Sisko. "I'm hoping they're too preoccupied with sup- pressing the planet to pay that much attention to their passive sensors." Sisko nodded absently; surprised at winning so easily, O'Brien quickly completed the scan before the captain could change his mind. The systems chief stared at the viewer as the readout slowly crawled across the screen; his mouth opened wider with every pass. Dax, crowding the screen, said, "What are you . . . oh. Wow." "Well?" demanded the constable. "Is there any hidden technology on the planet?" "Well, Odo, I really can't say," said O'Brien. "And why not?" The changeling looked even more annoyed than usual. The chief snorted. "Because I can't read a sundi- al under a spotlight." Everyone on the bridge except for Dax stared at the chief. "You're going to have to explain that last one," said the captain. If he g upset now, just wait until he sees the report. "I mean, sir, I'm not sure whether we're going to rescue the life-forms on this planet... or vice versa," said O'Brien. "Thank you, Chief," Odo said, "now perhaps you'd care to explain your explanation?" "In short, simple sentences," added Sisko, articulating each word distinctly. "What he means, Benjamin," Dax put in, "is that there's so much technology on that planet-- technology far beyond anything the Cardassians have, or us either--that there's no possible way to tell if there's anything unusual; it would be lost in the glare." "And that, "said O'Brien in triumph, pointing at the viewer, "is what a pig eats for breakfast." 0

CHAPTER 4 JAOZIA DAX hunched down at her console so every- body could peer over her head at the viewer. "Yes," she said, "I'd say this qualifies as a porcine meal, Chief." Sisko voiced the thought on everyone's mind... certainly on Dax's. "I don't think I've ever seen so much technology in one place. And what technolo- gy! I can't even begin to guess what half of it does .... But why haven't they warned away the Cardassians yet?" Dax noticed something and moved to shift the scan frequencies, but Bashir's elbow was in the way. "Julian J. Bashir, do you mind?" He jumped away from her instruments. "J? What does the J stand for?" "You don't want to know," muttered the Trill, readjusting to scan for life-forms. "Um... well, looks like there's life on that planet, all right." "How many species?" interrupted Bashir. "Hm." Jadzia Dax ran a quick subroutine. "About three million, Julian. Mostly insects, I'd guess." Bashir gave her a look. "I mean how many sentient species, as if you didn't know." "One. Wait, I take that back: there are actually three .... Cardassian, Drek'la, and an unknown-- presumably the natives of the planet. There are about a dozen Cardassians, a thousand Drek'la, and eleven million natives." "Drek'la?" Sisko asked. "Never heard of them." "Me neither," Dax said, "let me check the re- cords. Here they are. They're a space-living race, very small in numbers. That thousand of them must be a good percentage of their entire species. They're like hermit crabs, stealing and/or recover- ing old spaceships and using them as home." "Interesting. Are they working for the Cardassi- ans, or did they capture the Cardassians along with their ships? And just eleven million of the natives on the entire planet?" "Yes, pretty sparse. There are quite a few cities, but they're mostly deserted, except Cardassians occupy two of them. The indigenous population is sticking to the countryside. No subspace or radio communications, no space presence." "But that's it. "The chief suddenly stood, staring at the forward viewer; he paced right up to it, so close he was probably looking at individual pixels. Dax waited patiently; Chief O'Brien continued. "Captain, that's the explanation for everything: these eleven million creatures must be the degenerated remnants of the mighty civilization that built all this technology. They probably don't even know how to use it anymore." "I hate to say it," said Quark from across the room, "but the chief's got a pretty good explana- tion." "When did he sneak in here?" demanded Odo, but no one answered. "It would explain why they don't just zap the Cardassians--or Drek'la or whoever--out of orbit," concluded Quark. "Let's not jump to conclusions. Dax, is there any sign of resistance? Weapons discharge, explosions, fires, battle lines?" Dax scanned from pole to pole, letting the planet revolve beneath the Defiant, whose orbit was high enough, forty-two thousand kilometers, that they were only moving at half the angular velocity of the planetary rotation. "Nope; nothing on this side. The Drek'la and a few Cardassians are filling up the cities, the natives are going about their business in the countryside." "As if they weren't even aware they'd been invaded," mused the captain. "All right, Dax; throw an away team together. Starfleet Command and I want to know what's going on down there." Dax stood, slipping out from the knot of players to decide who would accompany her downstairs. Worf obviously; O'Brien to evaluate their technolo- gy; hm... oh, of course: Odo for infiltrations. "You, you, you--volunteers. Meet me in trans- porter room three in ten. Oh, Worf, where do you keep the planetary exploration-survival gear? And weapons; there are enemies

about." Quark spoke up unexpectedly. "Commander Dax, if you don't have any objection, I'd like to be on the away team." Quark? QUARK? "Well, Dax may have no objection," snarled Odo, "but I certainly do." Quark shook his head sadly and spoke to Dax. "I suppose he just has a problem dealing with any authority but his own. Especially female authority, poor fellow. If you choose to have me--I mean, have me along--I don't see how it's any decision of his; after all, the captain did put you in charge." Dax chuckled; she knew exactly what Quark was doing. He made the same mistake everyone did: assuming Jadzia Dax was as young and easily charmed as Jadzia might have been (though in truth, Dax didn't think even the prejoined Jadzia had been all that innocent and naive a girl). On the other hand, Dax did not have quite the same knee- jerk reaction against Ferengi capitalists as did most Starfleet officers, who believed that the Federation had long since "transcended" such "destructive competition." As an alliance of traders, the Ferengi would deal with everyone... which meant they had to learn to deal with anyone. Necessity had given them an uncanny ability to penetrate right to the heart of unknown cultures and civilizations-- and figure out what they could be talked into buying. "Thanks for volunteering, Quark; glad to have you aboard." Odo opened his mouth, but Dax interrupted before he could say a word. "Get down to the transporter and try not to kill Quark before we make planetfall." Less than ten minutes later, everyone stood on the transporter pads wearing backpacks with enough equipment to climb Mount Traxanaxanos on Betazed (a task which Torias Dax had actually tried three times before giving up in disgust). A transporter chief waited patiently for the order to energize. Bashir went to each away team member in turn and hyposprayed him in the neck. "There are trace particulates in the air that are poisonous," he explained. "This should protect you. But you'd better perform a complete microbioscan of any- thing local you want to eat or drink; a single hypospray can't protect you from large doses." "Hit us," said Dax, pointing at the woman; after a moment's hesitation, the transporter chief ran her fingers down the transporter touchplate. The next thing Dax saw was the side of a mountain, appropriately enough; they were standing on the slope, looking down into a verdant valley dotted with small hamlets. She turned and did a slow scan with her tricorder. "Well, one direction's as good as another, I sup- pose," said the Trill. "Let's head down that way." She set out toward the nearest hamlet, setting a brisk pace that would get them to their destination in just over half an hour. The Cardassians were a hundred klicks away, not moving at the moment. The plant life was lush, but everything had a peculiar bluish tint; Dax scanned the vegetation carefully as she passed it: in addition to a form of chlorophyll, the plants also contained peculiar trace elements. "Cynanine," she reported, "and a lot of radical cyanogens." "What does that mean?" asked Worf. "It means the doctor was right: please don't eat the grass. We'll have to pack our lunch." "The food is poisonous? To Cardassians and Drek'la as well?" "Well, I'm sure the Natives enjoy the spice. Yes, Worf, poisonous to Cardassians and Drek'la too." O'Brien spoke up. "So what would they be wanting with the planet, then? They can't live here; they can't colonize the place." Quark was on hands and knees; at first Dax thought he had stumbled, but he was examining something on the ground. "That's an excellent question, Chief," she said. "It's been noted and logged. But at the moment, I don't have a clue why." "Well, I think I do," muttered Quark; he began to slither on the ground, sniffing at the dirt. "Looks like that

Starfleet database--I mean the Ferengi legends were actually right." He continued rooting along the soil like a worm. "Oh, please," said Odo, rolling his eyes in dis- gust. "I've half a mind to change into a verlak bird and swallow you whole." Quark looked up at the constable. "Well, you're definitely right about one thing." "Oh? And what's that?" "You have half a mind." "Gentlemen, please. Now what did you just say, Quark?" The Ferengi stood up, brushing off his painfully colorful knickers and vest. "Oh, nothing. Never mind." But Dax was wise to the ways of Ferengi. She pointed her tricorder at the dirt. "Interesting," she exclaimed. "The soil is saturated with latinum drops." Quark stared mesmerized at the ground. "There must be... thousands of bars, just waiting to be siphoned up .... " Quark's nose was right; but latinum was the least of the riches: tiny dilithium crystals were also liberally scattered through the soil, as were eleven other rare minerals. "The Ferengi Alliance would die for the mining rights," remarked Dax. "Hey, I saw it first," wailed Quark. He dropped to his knees and spread his arms protectively over the ground. "I claim this dirt in the name of Quark's Mining and Mineral Processing Facility." Odo snorted and pointed an accusing finger, stretching it a full meter to wag directly in the Ferengi's face. "You have no mining and mineral- processing facility." "I do now," responded Quark defensively. "It belongs to the Federation, not to you and your Nagus." "Look, I don't mean to interrupt," said Chief O'Brien, "but this planet already has eleven mil- lion owners. If anyone owns it, they do." Dax smiled. "Anyone who wants the mining rights will have to find something the Natives want more and negotiate for it." "That can be arranged," added Quark, still sul- len at being denied his claim. "If necessary," he added under his breath. "But at least," continued the Trill, "we have a pretty good idea why the Cardassians and Drek'la are here. And that means they're not likely to just pack up and leave." Dax, she imagined Benjamin saying, if you say "this place is a goM mine," your away team is going to mutiny. She wrinkled her nose--even she could smell the metallic tang of latinurn. While everyone else mulled over the fortune they were standing on, Dax decided to change the subject. She recalibrated the field variables on her tricorder and did another sweep. "I really, really don't like being surrounded by tons of technology, and I mean literally tons, that I don't have a clue about. The stuff is just lying around, unattended." Even worse was wondering how much of it the Natives knew how to operate. At least there are no Cardassians or Drek'la around, she thought with relief; they would almost certainly figure out some- thing quite nasty to do with the stuff. The away team headed into the village, still spotting no one. "Big clump of Natives about two hundred meters that direction," said Dax, point- ing; she held up her hand, and everyone came to a halt upwind of the mob. "The Natives are having an intense discussion." "Must be some kind of a town meeting," guessed the chief. Dax scanned. "Well, everyone's over there for sure. The houses and stores are all empty." Odo glared at Quark for several seconds. "Well?" he demanded. "I know you can hear them with those big ears you're always boasting about. What are they saying?" Quark glared needles, but turned in the direction Dax pointed; he closed his eyes and started to mumble inaudibly. "Out loud, Quark," snarled Constable Odo. "Give me a break. There's more than one of them talking." He continued his mumble act for a solid minute, then opened his eyes. "Everybody's talking at once, and they're all saying things like 'what's she doing now,' 'did she find one yet,' 'is she getting

out,' 'she doesn't have much time,' 'isn't she out of the well yet,' 'maybe she's just too young,' 'too bad, she seemed like such a bright child.' Lots of other things, but that's pretty much the consensus." "Out of the well, Quark?" demanded the consta- ble, incredulous. "With all this technology around us, you're saying they get their water from a well?" "I don't interpret, Odo; I don't translate; I only repeat." "Perhaps it is merely a rustic decoration," grum- bled Worf. "I have seen such things in holodeck programs." "Surely they would just turn a tap, or at least use a modern, sealed well." "Maybe it's abandoned?" suggested Dax. She noticed that Chief O'Brien appeared anxious, look- ing back and forth from the group to the direction of the mob. Dax looked at him and gestured for him to spit it out. "Pardon me, sirs, but can't we save the philo- sophical gobbledygook for later? There's a little girl stuck in a well over there." Whoops. "Chief's right: double time, let's rescue a kid." And maybe ingratiate ourselves just a wee bit with the Natives .... Dax led the charge, weav- ing through the buildingsmplastic houses and storefronts molded into asymmetrical geometric shapes made of triangles and hexagons, like pieces of a honeycomb. She stumbled over nothing, dropping tricorder and phaser; picking them up and rubbing her shin, Dax stared back at the faint, shimmering beam along the ground, ankle high. "Watch out for the force beam," she warned. O'Brien stepped carefully over the beam, follow- ing it left and right with his gaze. "You know, I think it's a bench." "So? As you said, we have a damsel in distress." "But Commander... if they can manipulate force beams like that, why can't they use them to levitate the little gift out of the well? For God's sake, even we can't make a park bench out of a mobile force beam." Shrugging, Dax continued threading the houses toward the congregation. But he does raise an interesting science question, she conceded. When they reached the last building facing on a large clearing, she finally saw the Natives. Human- oid, fortunately, and not too different from the Alpha Quadrant norm. The shape of their noses was remarkably Bajoran, enought to make Dax wonder if the ancient Bajorans, who used a type of solar sail to ply the starwinds, might be related to these natives in some way. Dax held up a hand, halting the away team at the edge of the clearing. At Dax's command, Odo, the least vulnerable officer, led the away team forward, followed closely by Worf, then Dax and O'Brien, with the gnomish Quark hiding in the back. As they crossed the clearing toward the mob of nearly seventy people, the murmurs from the crowd gradually faded to silence and everyone turned to look at the new- comers. "Greetings," said Odo, making no gestures; the universal translator would turn his words into the Natives' speech, but there was no telling what a raised hand might mean on this planet. "We come from... another village a few days' journey from here." "Another village?" said a gamine, nearly androg- ynous woman; the others deferred to her as if she were the local hetman. She looked the away team up and down. "Are you sure you don't come from another planet?" "A-another planet?" said Dax, surprised. "Those who occupy the cities came from another planet, so I figured you might've. You look strange enough, especially the short one with the cooling flaps." "Cooling flaps!" shouted Quark, enraged. "Shh," soothed Jadzia. "Quiet, Quark, or you'll never close the deal. My name is, ah, Dax. Whom have I the honor of addressing?" "I am Asta-ha. I speak for these Tiffnaks." Just then, a shrill burst of profanity emerged from the center of the mob, complete with reverb and echo effect. If it was the child, she seemed to be in reasonably good health; kid has breath enough for some powerful

screaming, in any event. "Asta- ha, it sounds as if there's a little girl trapped in that well there. Do you need help getting her out?" Asta-ha's face brightened at the suggestion. "Can you find the tool? We can't help her, of course, the poor child." "May we take a look?" Dax dodged her way up to the lip of the well and peered over; the sun was in later afternoon, and the slanty rays didn't quite reach all the way down to where the little girl waited, presumably stuck. Still, the well walls had a high enough albedo that Dax could just pick her out in the dim, reflected sunlight. "Hold on, little girl; we'll find something to haul you up." Jadzia Dax was answered by another long chaw from the profanity plug, which the universal translator thankfully failed to translate; the meaning was nevertheless as clear as an unstressed dilithium crystal, connecting the little girl's desire to be about ten meters higher than she was with her annoyance that she had no means to levitate her- self. O'Brien pushed his way through the crowd to join Dax at the well. "Ah, anybody have a rope?" he asked hopefully. "And some wood," added the Trill, thinking of a painter's chair. "A chunk at least this wide and this thick." The crowd oohed and ahhed in amazement. Asta-ha clutched at Dax's elbow. "You can raise her with such simple tech? How?" The lieutenant commander stared for a moment, nonplussed. She opened her mouth to say some- thing, then decided it would be unkind. Poor woman probably got stuck with a bad set of chromo- somes. "Well, get us the rope and the wood, and we'll show you." 0

CHAPTER 5 FINDING A SIMPLE ROPE and hunk of wood proved harder than Miles O'Brien had anticipated. You'd think they'd have a hardware store back in the village, he complained silently. Or even just a clothesline. But at last, a couple of nameless Natives--what did they call themselves? Tiff- naks?--returned with the implements. Commanders Dax and Worf busied themselves hacking the wood down to manageable size (using hands and feet, not phasers), while the chief un- coiled the rope and began tying loops for the little girl's legs to fit through; it wouldn't do to haul her halfway up, then have her tumble off the seat back down the well. The shrieks from the child lent him a sense of urgency ....He could just imagine that was Molly down there. "Sir, I've got the rope ready," he cried. Dax handed him the wooden seat, and O'Brien set about carefully tying the rope to it so the loops would dangle on either side. All the while, the crowd pressed closer and closer, seemingly aston- ished anew by each phase of the operation; they pointed at the rope, the seat, and the knots and whispered amazed explanations to their neighbors. [ can't believe they've never even heard of a rope rescue, thought the chief, even more amazed at the crowd's amazement. Everything he was doing was just plain common sense. At last, they had a workable "painter's chair," on which artisans used to sit so they could decorate the sides of buildings, back in the ancient days before antigravs or even scaffolding. Worf dangled it over the mouth of the well and began to lower it, while O'Brien shone his hand torch down the shaft; curiously, the same crowd that had stood aston- ished at the painter's chair took the flashlight without a second glance, as if they'd seen hundreds of them, trading a score for a strip oflatinum. Worf lowered the chair, swiftly but well controlled. After a moment's silence, there was a loud thump, followed by a renewed string of cries from the innocent child. "I think we made contact," said the chief. "Sit on the chair, honey," he shouted clown the shaft. The child seemed as utterly confused as the crowd was amazed. "Little girl, sit on the chair, and we'll haul you up here." At the words "up here," the little girl's brownish face brightened into a smile. She tugged the chair down into the ankle- deep water at the bottom of the well and obediently straddled it. The pose was all wrong; they wouldn't have made it even a meter without losing her over the side. "No no, honey; not that way ....Just like it was a swing." "Swing'?" she queried--the first words that the universal translator had deigned to translate. "You know, like the swings on your playground." Blank stare. "Urn... well, put both legs on the same side of the wooden seat--yes, now the other leg, my wee tiny colleen. That's good, honey. What's your name? Can you stick your legs through those two dangly loops, dear?" "I'm Tivva-ma, and I'm seven." "That's wonderful, my heart. Now Tivva-ma, can you put your legs through the little loops?" After several minutes of begging and pleading, O'Brien, with Commander Dax's help, managed to talk Tivva-ma into the proper way to seat herself on a painter's chair. As she held on tightly, Worf pulled up the rope hand over hand; within a few seconds, Tivva-ma's dark face and bluish yellow hair appeared over the well. O'Brien made a diving catch, grabbing the girl in a strong bear hug and depositing her on dry land. "You made it, honey. You're safe." Then he held her back at arm's length, inspecting her with great concern. "Are you all right, Tivva-ma? Is your mommy here?" "Yes, of course," said Asta-ha, "I haven't left." The entire away team stared at the plump wom- an. "You're Tivva-ma's mother?" demanded an incredulous Dax.

Asta-ha seemed oblivious to the tone of shame in the commander's voice. "Why yes; she's the crown mayor, my heir." "Does this count, Madam Mayor?" asked Tivva- ma in great trepidation. "It was rather an unorthodox solution," mused Mayor Asta-ha, "but I suppose you could call this ingenious rope thing new tech of a sort." The lady mayor looked around the crowd. "Anyone want to dispute the mark?" There was a low rumble of voices as everyone glanced back and forth at his neighbor; the hubbub gradually turned into a chorus of negative re- sponses. "Yes, precious one," said Asta-ha, leaning hands on knees, "it counts. Congratulations on attaining the first mark." Tivva-ma whooped and began to march around the clearing like a band leader; O'Brien stared back and forth in confusion and mounting anger. "Do you mean tae tell me," he shouted furiously, "that this whole thing was a coming-of-age ritual? Throwing a little girl down a well, your own daughter?" Again, Asta-ha blinked in confusion. "We didn't throw her down the well. What do you take us for--monsters from another planet? We lowered her quite carefully." Something was wrong; something smelled fishy to the chief. He wrinkled his nose, savoring the taste of the lady mayor's last remark. "Wait... you lowered her? But--you were all shaken by the rope rescue we just did .... You'd never seen such a thing before. I don't understand." "Truly, we haven't. ! never realized you could do such complicated tricks with such a simple piece of new tech." Commander Dax butted her way back into the dialogue. "Then if you don't mind us prying, Madam Mayor, how did you lower her down?" Asta-ha answered slowly, as if fearing it was a trick question. "With old tech, of course. Like this .... " The mayor fished a tiny piece of equipment out of her sporran; it looked like one of Dr. Bashir's hyposprays; she pointed it at Worf and depressed a button. As Asta-ha raised the tool, the gigantic Klingon floated into the air; he began to bellow and thrash his limbs. "Put me down. At once/" The lady mayor held Worf dangling over their heads for a few moments, then carefully lowered him back to the ground, landing him with a gentle thump. The Klingon didn't actually attack Asta-ha, but O'Brien could tell it was only by the most extraordinary forbearance on his friend's part. If steam could erupt from a Klingon's ears, Worf would have resembled a teakettle just then. Smoothly interceding before Worf could ex- plode, Commander Dax said, "We would abso- lutely love to see your village, if you have no objection?" "Objection? Tiffnak is open to all, unlike the angry villages across the big water." "Can someone show us around?" persisted the Trill. "I shall do it myself," said the mayor proudly. "Tivva~ma, the crown mayor, must be paraded through the streets anyway for her great success." ttER great success? snorted the chief to himself. "Excuse me," he interjected, "but did you say the town is called Tiffnak?" "Yes. Isn't it a wonderful name?" "What does it mean?" inquired Odo, looking around curiously at the mix of high-tech buildings and force beams and lowtech, rustic touches like the wishing well. "It doesn't mean anything," said Asta-ha. "I thought it perfectly expressed our emotion this less-moon. As a people." O'Brien was trying to get at something. "So when you say you people are the Tiffnaks, Mayor Asta~ha, you mean you people here in this town, this--ah, less-moon?" "Don't you like the name?" asked the mayor, blinking her blue green speckled eyes at the chief; he was almost overpowered by the urge to reach out and pat her head. "It's a lovely name," said Dax, smiling. "But I think what O'Brien is asking is whether you will still be the Tiffnaks in, say, another couple of less- moons... or what

people a day's journey from here would be called." "Two lessmoons? Oh, I'm sure the mood will have changed by then. We'll have lots more new tech, since we have nine ceremonies of various sorts scheduled before then. Our mood always changes with each new tech; in fact, after seeing what you gave us with rope and wood, I'd have to say that maybe Tiffnaki would be better now." Asta-ha brightened, and her nose ridges paled. "That's it! We shall have another meeting, and I'll suggest Tiffnaki. I'm sure it'll be approved." O'Brien mulled this answer. He edged closer to the commander and spoke quietly; Astaha made no effort not to listen .... Evidently, the Tiffnaks or Tiffnakis had little concern for other people's privacy. "Commander, I'm starting to get the im- pression that these people didn't create all this technologyrathe force beams and such." "They use it," she pointed out. "I think they find it, but maybe they don't build it." Dax stared at the chief, lowering her dark brows. Her spots were pale, always a bad sign. O'Brien tried again: "What I mean is, I think somebody else built all this stuff, and these peo- ple-Tiffnaks, or whatever they call themselves-- use what they find. I think they have coming-of-age rituals where they put someone in a weird predica- ment, like down a well, and see if she can find some piece of 'new tech' that gets her out." Dax whipped up her tricorder and scanned all around her, not only at the Tiffnakis but the plants surrounding them. "Well," she said, "their DNA is obviously related to that of every other living thing within tricorder range. I think they did evolve here, Chief." Now that he listened, Chief O'Brien heard click- ings and rustlings in the wide-bladed, grasslike flora at his feet; stooping low for a moment, he saw large four-legged "insects" with bodies three or four centimeters long and a pair of leg tufts at each end; he saw what looked like a worm; and in a fenced-in area near one building, he saw a furry, tinned animal that looked like a cross between a wolverine and a Bajoran whipbeast sunning itself. While he watched, the animal rolled on its back and writhed, just like a dog scratching its back against the lawn. What a cozy, domestic scene, he thought, almost enviously. He leaned even closer to the commander. "Well... maybe their ancestors invented the stuff, and somehow their civilization has degenerated? How old are these buildings?" Dax scanned again, looked puzzled, and recali- brated. She repeated the scan. "Well, according to the decay rate of trace radioactive elements, I'd guess these buildings are at least two million years old." "Two million? Are you sure, ma'am?" Dax raised one eyebrow in a look she must have learned from some Vulcan she knew in a previous life. "I'm sure; I checked for carbon 14 in the wooden squares encased inside the plastic, but it was entirely gone. That was my first clue; I had to switch to elements with a longer half-life to get a preliminary estimate .... It's between two and seven million years, which makes these structures among the oldest still standing in the Alpha Quad- rant." Well, ask a stupid question. O'Brien accepted his lumps for having questioned the science officer's science. "Well, that fits in with the thesis, doesn't it, Commander? I mean, if they still had the technological know-how, they'd have torn down these old houses, or at least built new ones." "There's not a building here that was built within the past two thousand millennia," said the commander. "They're not just using old wood chips, if that's what you're thinking, because if they were that old, they'd have long since rotted away-- unless they were enclosed in the plastic, which I presume happened only during construction." O'Brien blinked, wondering whether he was go- ing to be tested. "All

right, all right; I believe you, Commander." Mayor Asta-ha (and her daughter, the crown mayor) took them on a Cook's tour of the village; it looked pretty much like any other village on any planet in the Federation, except for the extraordi- nary level of technology .... And the trivial uses to which the Tiffnakis put it: they used antientropic heat generators to dry themselves after bathing; they used transporter technology to beam repli- cated groceries from one end of the town to the other; the children played on force-beam jungle gyms. Worf sidled up to the chief while the hereditary mayor explained the use of a self-mobile tractor beam to sweep up rubbish after a picnic. "This is like the Federation gone mad," he complained bitterly. "If we are not careful, this is where we shall end up." The tour was broken by a celebratory luncheon that was actually for Tivva-ma, having passed her first ceremony; but the Tiffnakis turned it into a welcoming for the newcomers "from another plan- et" as well. Tivva-ma was not exactly thrilled at sharing her day; but she was only the crown mayor, not the mayor. Luncheon was somewhat a misnomer; because of the high cyanogen content of the food, which broke down into cyanide, among other chemicals poison- ous to Federation and Ferengi personnel, the entire away team had to beg off the local delicacies. The chief was uncertain how to do so, but Dax ex- plained the rudeness by resorting to the religion dodge: they were on a special diet ordained "by the tech" and could only eat the food they brought with them. Odo simply claimed not to be hungry. Most of the food looked like exotically prepared fungus, and Chief O'Brien felt a great sense of relief that he could eat none of it; Dax, however, being more culinarily adventurous, seemed disap- pointed. When the Tiffnakis had bloated them- selves on a magnificent fungal feast (and the away team had shoveled down some miserable combat rations, "com-rats"), the postprandial interroga- tion commenced. "Mayor Asta-ha," asked Commander Dax pleas- antly at luncheon, after Tavvi-ma had given a "commencement" speech that O'Brien found simultaneously charming and frightening, "you spoke of the Cardassians and Drek'la earlier. How do you know about them?" "Oh, it's all across the bush," said the mayor. "They have overwhelmed several villages not far from here. They live in the abandoned centers and strike outward, trying to conquer all the different people, I suppose." "Ah, gravy please," said the chief, pointing at the away team gravy boat being monopolized by Quark. "Thank you, your... mayorship. Doesn't that concern you, aliens having conquered and destroyed whole villages?" demanded O'Brien, in- credulous that she could be so blas~ about the obliteration of her own people. "Yes, it might pose some risk to the Tiffnakis, but we have a great deal of new tech, surely much more than did the worthless and unsuccessful villages that fell to the invaders. You're sure you wouldn't like some succulent fungus?" "No... no thank you." Chief O'Brien stared around the table, seeing only mirrors of Asta-ha's own mask of unconcern. Sensor readings now indicated Cardassian life signs within seventy klicks, but nobody appeared to care. "Look," he added, "maybe you're not aware of what some aliens can do to the people they conquer. Odo? Explain, will you?" "Yes," admitted the constable reluctantly, "I'm afraid I do know a bit about it." He proceeded to regale the mayor and her contingent for several minutes on the atrocities visited upon the Bajorans by their Cardassian masters, the scars still left behind. "But that's terrible," cried Asta-ha, her mouth dropping open. The mayor shook her head, clucking in sympathy. But still, she didn't seem to connect the stories and the

pillaging of the other villages with immi- nent danger to her own townful of Tiffnakis. "If you don't mind my asking," tried O'Brien, starting to feel frustrated, "how did the other villages fall? I mean, you have enough tech here, new and old, even just what little bit I can figure out, to send the Cardassians packing. How could the other Natives--the other villages lose?" Asta-ha took on a dreamy aspect. "They must not have found favor in the tech's eyes," she opined. Looking heavenward, she added, "We Tiff- naksmI mean Tiffnakismare beloved in the eye of the tech." "Um, how do you know?" Blinking her way back to the here and now, the mayor said, "Isn't it obvious? Were we not so favored, would this marvelous and exciting new tech have been given us? Imagine, a rope and a stick that has the power of an antigray." She looked so excited that O'Brien hadn't the heart to contin- ue the inquisition. Later, after luncheon and after the away team had been shown every point of interest in the town--no churches or temples, O'Brien noticed, not even one to "the tech"; replicators but no fields or stockyards; technology for entertainment put upon the same level of importance as that for survivalsthe team huddled to voice their observa- tions. At first, Asta-ha stood right next to them, listening in a polite but somewhat uninterested fashion, until Commander Dax asked if she could leave; the mayor toddled off without apparently taking offense. "All right, people," said the commander, "I want to pull everything together before we contact the ship; I want to give the captain answers, not questions." "Frankly," said the chief, kicking off the discus- sion (which he considered his right whenever the subject was engineering and technology), "I don't think they have anything to worry about. I don't know the half of how these weapons work"--he gestured at a haphazard pile of devices that the Tiffnakis said they used to defend against other villages' tech-raiding parties--"I mean, they might be excavation tools, for all I know. But they make damned good weapons; I saw Asta-ha's little daughter Tivva-ma, no older than Molly, carve a furrow in a hillside with that thing over there that looks like a magic wand." "I concur with the chief," said Worf, his deep basso vibrating O'Brien's teeth in their sockets. "There is much here that Starfleet should investi- gate." "Such as, besides the earth-moving equipment?" Dax seemed considerably brighter at the news that they had good stock to work with in defending the planet from the Cardassians. "There is a personalized force shield that some- what resembles those used by the Borg," said Worf. "And a projection device that I'd swear can drain power from a phaser or disruptor at a dis- tance," added O'Brien, remembering a fast demonstration by one of the other Tiffnakis, a tall man with one bluespeckled eye and one red-speckled. "I couldn't actually try it out because I wasn't sure whether we should allow them to see our phasers." Quark spoke up. "By the Divine Treasury, do you people even realize what we're sitting on here? This is the greatest technological treasure trove since--since I found the wormhole ....Or even since the first Grand Nagus invented warp drive." "Ah," sneered Odo, "the new toys have driven all thoughts of strip-mining the landscape out of the tiny lump of latinum that stands in for Quark's brain." The Ferengi glared at his old nemesis; not for the first time, O'Brien found it somewhat surreal that the animosity/friendship between the constable and the Ferengi smuggler went back much farther than the discovery of the wormhole (by Captain Sisko, not by Quark), or the liberation of Bajor .... In fact, the pair had known and hated each other with passion since long before the

Federation even knew of the existence of Deep Space Nine, then called Terek Nor. The marriage of hatred between Quark and Odo predated O'Brien's marriage of love with Keiko, which seemed to have been around forever; Sisko was probably still a lieuten- ant commander without even his own ship yet when Quark and Odo met and discovered revul- sion at first sight, and Major Kira was probably rankless and hiding in a cave. With a connection of hatred going back so far into the mists of antiquity, how could Quark and Odo not be the closest of enemies? "Constable Odo," said the Ferengi, with a deep undertone of "talking to the idiot child" rippling behind his words, "any fool would realize that brand-new technology, especially weapons in time of war, would be far more lucrative than mere minerals. Any fool would jump at the chance to profiteer--I mean profit--from such a discovery." "Yes, Quark," said the constable, smirking slightly, "any fool." "Time's up," chirped Dax. "That was your one exchange for the day. Now let's get back to business .... Quark, your zeal to exploit the re- sources and technology of these people is duly noted; it will be greatly to your credit when you reach the Divine Treasury." "Well, all right then," he mumbled, but contin- ued working his mouth-as if trying to weigh the whole planet on a latinurn scale, the chief thought. O'Brien took a deep breath and broached the subject that had started nagging at him while they discussed what they had seen. "Commander, I'm a bit concerned about the Prime Directive ....How do we apply it in this case?" Worf had an opinion on that subject, too. "Sure- ly it does not apply to cultures this technologically advanced." "But these people are not spacefarers," pro- tested the chief. "They only barely know they live on a planet. They don't even have a one-world government .... How could they be considered an advanced civilization?" "They use warp technology," insisted the Kling- on, gesturing angrily at the pile of stuff on the table. "Several of these devices are offshoots of warp technology, including the power-draining device and the personal shields. Chief O'Brien will con- firm my observation." "Well, technically that's true," admitted the chief; he was reluctant to interject his position in between that of two lieutenant commanders and a security chief, which must be a rank at least equal to full, three-pip commander. "The planet's already been invaded, so any vio- lations have already been committed; the Natives are already fighting--and we want to keep our presence here secret in any event," said Dax. O'Brien, satisfed that the officers had arrived at a consensus that he, the lone enlisted man, could definitely live with, tried to steer the meeting to a close so he could get back to something important: playing with the new toys to see what he could learn. "I think we can report to the captain that the Natives are mobilizing against the Drek'la and the spoon-heads--I'm sorry, been hanging around the major too long--the Cardassians." Worf suddenly sniffed the air; he looked around, wetting his finger and raising it as high as he could. He looked like a man who had a strong suspicion about something. Plucking Commander Dax's tricorder from her belt, he poked at it and then made a sweep. When Worf realized everyone was staring at him, he cleared his throat. "Well, we are about to find out whether the chief's observation about the--the planetary natives is accurate." "Why, Commander?" asked O'Brien, already feeling the familiar tightening in his belly and urgent desire to find a handy tree that he always felt just before combat. Dax looked over Worf's shoulder down at the tricorder. "Because we're about to have extraplane- tary visitors," she said; "the Drek'la are com- ing .... They're about forty

kilometers distant and moving fast."

0

CHAPTER 6 ASTA-~IA came scurrying up to the away team, proving that the Tiffnakis, at least, had as good an early-warning system as did the Federation. "Ene- mies coming, like you were talking about. Can you fight?" "We can fight," said Worf; then remembering what Jadzia had ordered, he added, "You must arm US." "Spoken no faster than undertaken," said a short man at Worf's elbow; his blue-and-red hair crest was elaborately curled alternating left and right, grooming that doubtless took hours to perfect. The man handed Worf a tiny toy that looked and felt like a finger torch, a child's flashlight operated by squeezing the plastic sides together. Worf scowled down at it, wondering whether he was being made light of.... But he had enough respect for the technology of the Natives not to point it at anyone he liked. O'Brien was handed a man-sized rifle with sights and a trigger, adding to the humiliation; the Kling.. on almost offered to trade with the chief, but he reflected that it would be dishonorable. Jadzia received the excavating tool that Chief O'Brien referred to as a "faerie wand," while Quark and Odo were each given tubes with tiny bumps. "Urn... um... what do I do with this?" demanded the panicky Ferengi. "I don't know every function yet," said Hair Crest, "but I've discovered that if you point this end at the enemy and press this yellow nodule, his skin cracks, causing intense pain." "But--but what do the blue-and-gray nodules do?" demanded Quark, staring in horror at the innocuous-looking tube. Hair Crest shrugged, unconcerned, and the Ferengi staggered away mutter- ing curses befitting his cowardly shopkeeper's personality. Constable Odo seemed quite happy with his tube. Worf edged close enough that no one would overhear. "Perhaps you should shapeshift into one of the planetary natives, to further confuse the Cardassians. We do not want to be discov- ered." "I think it might upset the Natives, as you call them, if they saw me changing shape before their eyes... don't you think?" Worf frowned; much as he tried to avoid it, the psychology of the individual kept cropping up. "A warrior does not concern himself with such fears," he muttered, retreating to the front line. Such as it was... there was no military organi- zation, not even any attempt on the part of the Natives to find cover or concealment. Jadzia and the rest of the away team had found outlying buildings to hide behind, and Worf joined them, but the mayor, Asta-ha, and the other Natives simply stood in a clump, monkeying with their weapons and waiting for the Cardassians to slaugh- ter them. "What are they doing?" urgently demanded the Klingon in Jadzia's ear. "Best guess? To them, technology is warfare. They don't have any idea what to do but stand in the middle of the road and fire their tech at anything unfriendly that approaches." "Have they never fought in any wars?" Jadzia shrugged. "Why don't you ask them? Maybe you can get them to hide behind something, at least." "How long until contact?" "The advance has stopped. It looks like our friends are waiting for something. Interesting. I'm showing a force of Drek'la led by a solitary Cardas- sian." "Perhaps the Cardassians ~lied with the Drek'la when their ships were captured." Worf rose, snuck a quick peek in the direction where the Cardassian invaders waited, then trotted to Asta-ha. He was shocked to see that she had her daughter Tivva-ma with her... and the young girl also carried a weapon. Is this the honor of a young warrior? he won- dered, or is it complete ignorance of the danger? "Mayor Asta-ha... have your people, the, ah, Tiffnakis, ever fought a war before?" "War?" She pronounced the word as if it had not been translated by the universal translator... per- haps because

the natives had no word for war in their language. "Do you have-enemies?" Asta-ha's puzzled look turned to sudden under- standing. "Oh, enemies all around! There are the Day who live over the hill toward the needle; we aren't very friendly with the Tiffnakis, either." Now it was WorPs turn to be puzzled. "But... you are the Tiffnakis." "Yes. Do you like the name?" "How can you be on unfriendly terms with the Tiffnakis if---" "What? No, we're the Tiffnakis; it's the Tiffnakis we have to worry about. They live to the left hand of the needle." Worf snorted loudly; clearly, there was a nuance of pronunciation that he could not hear. "Very well. But should you not get to cover to more effectively kill your enemies?" Asta-ha looked blank. "Cover?" "It is--you use..." Worf had what O'Brien would call a "brainstorm." "It is another piece of our new tech: you use the buildings as a... new- tech shield against disruptors. As we are doing, see?" The female's astonishment was painful for Worf to see. Clearly, no such thing had ever occurred to her in all her life; it was, truly, new "technology" to her--the simplest, most rudimentary of tactics. Without bothering to thank the Klingon--why not? did not "new tech" fall from the trees every day?-she bustled to her comrades to demonstrate the gift from the tech. Satisfied for the moment, Worf returned to the away team, still feeling a vague disquiet. "There is something very wrong with these people," he com- plained. "Well, we're about to see whether it affects their ability to defend themselves." "Our friends are moving." "They paused for five minutes, then started to roll again." Dax stood, called loud enough for her own troops to hear: "Stand ready, men." Worf crouched, holding his weapon at arm's length to get a better sight picture; he felt the thrill of battle surge though him .... I am alive, a Kling- on, a WARRIOR! He could barely contain his glee when he saw the dust kicked up from the Cardassi- an skimmers darken the eastern horizon--"the right hand of the needle," the natives would proba- bly say, assuming their needles pointed to magnetic north. Worf held his fire until the first blast came from the enemy. Then he squeezed his flashlight. Noth- ing .... He tried again and again, but the weapon was dead. "Blast," he snarled. "Somebody give me a weap- on; mine has malfunctioned." In front of the Klingon, Jadzia threw her "faerie wand" to the ground in disgust and drew her phaser, but Worf swiftly grabbed her hand and pointed the weapon towards the dirt. "No, Jadzia. We must not let them know Starfleet is here." Snarling like a true Klingon woman (to Worf's marveling eyes), Jadzia stood and spoke in com- mand tones: "Does anyone have a working Tiffnaki weapon?" From O'Brien's passionate, rich, Irish cursing, Quark's temper tantrum, and Odo's look of dis- gust, Worf understood the answer even without anyone answering. Running across the gap to the natives, who now milled about in total shock and confusion, he discovered that their weapons, too, had simply ceased working. There was not a man or woman in the entire village whose tech would operate .... Somehow, the Cardassians had turned it all off. Jadzia leapt up and gave the hardest order for any warrior to give: "Retreat!" she shouted, waving to the Natives; they stared in confusion--evidently, it was yet another piece of "new tech" they had never seen. "Run away," she tried, to no avail. "Are you deaf?." she shouted, pointed rearwards. "Point your- selves in that direction and run like the wind.t" A few of the natives understood, including Asta- ha and the mayor's daughter; they turned and ran, slowly at first, then in panic as the Drek'la leisurely opened fire with their disruptors on the clumped group. Worf caught a glimpse of Natives being torn to

shreds by the Cardassian weapons, then he, too, was forced into the ignominy of running away like a dubbop being chased by a hunter. It was easy to escape; the Drek'la were in no hurry. The away team and approximately two hundred of the Tiffnakis kept running until they had put five kilometers between themselves and the village; the Drek'la stopped in the settlement and settled in, at least for the night. The first pitched battle between the Drek'la and the Federation for the tiny mud ball Sierra-Bravo 112-II was a rout. Worf grabbed Jadzia by the arm as she limped past, trailing blood. She refused to rest until after she made sure O'Brien, Quark, and Odo were safely stowed, as a Klingon would. Her eyes were the color of violets with flames around their edges, or the Klingon Sea of the Stand when the sun was nearly set in the distant waters. Her face burned with shame, and the Trill spots were dark against her bone white skin. She looked like the goddess of death. "It was not your fault," Worf said, offering a warrior's comfort. "It was a system failure that you could not anticipate." Major Kira sat in Ops, sipping tea and musing on the wild workings of chance and fate. She closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the station .... What had been Deep Space Nine was now Ernissa- ry~ Sanctuary--and it was running like a Bajoran children's prayer top. To Kira's immense frustration and annoyance beyond her (political) ability to say, every senseless move Kai Winn had made had turned out per- fectly: the vedeks and flatterers she had placed in charge of every aspect of station operations, tossing out men and women who had done their jobs with ~clat for years, turned out, each and every one, to be brilliant bureaucrats; and contrary to everything the major had always believed, good bureaucrats were exactly what the station truly needed all this time. The vedeks managed to bring out the best and most selfless devotion in the workers, and jobs that were done only haphazardly at best under Captain Sisko sparkled under Governor Kai Winn. The infrastructure of the station, which Miles had spent every waking hour complaining about, was syste- matically replaced with fine Bajoran craftsman- ship; it could have been done under the Federation, but it would have taken every hand working triple- overtime shifts around the clock for a week... which was exactly what the new Bajoran workers did at a word from the Kai. Devotions at the temple had never been better attended; even the replicators seemed to work better; the food tasted like the devices were being overhauled every other day--which they probably are, thought Kira in mingled awe and bitterness. At this rate, far from replacing the Kai as gover- nor of the station, Shakar would be lucky to keep his post as First Minister. "Oh, Prophets," breathed Kira, eyes still tightly shut and head back, "if only she could face a small crisis or two. Just a little one--it's all I ask." Immediately, Kira felt a chill run along her spine. "Be careful what you wish, for you may get it" was as common a saying on Bajor as it was in the Federation. She had the most terrible feeling that such prayers, especially this close to the worm- hole, the lair of the Prophets, were far too easily heard: something was surely about to go terribly wrong. 0

CHAPTER 7 ThE FroSt disruptor blast took Major Kira com- pletely by surprise. There'd been no warning. There they were, eleven ships, to be precise. They'd plowed out of the wormhole in minutes. Not one of them showed up on Deep Space Nine's deep-imaging sensors, none tripped the early- warning alerts. There was nothing. When the pounding began, the first thing Kira did was raise the shields; while they were still rising in intensity, she scanned for enemies. At last, she switched to straight visible-light viewing--"look- ing out the window," as O'Brien called it--and that was when she finally saw the eleven ships. According to the scanners, they weren't even present. "Dominion," said Kira to no one, since the last time she checked, she was alone on the Ops floor; Kai Winn's patronage appointees still refused to show up for their watches, though she had to admit they had done a good job with the routine aspects of running Deep Space Nine.... No, it's Emissary's Sanctuary now, she thought, smiling at the grim joke. Some sanctuary. "Are you sure, child?" said Kai Winn from directly behind the major. Kira jumped and spun around. How could such an outof-shape woman as the Kai move so quickly and quietly, on a station that was heaving with every hammer blow? "Kai! Sure about what?" "That it's the Dominion." Kira returned to her threat board. "I can't aim the damned phasers .... The sensors don't even see them." Kira tried a couple of line-of-sight shots, but the attackers were moving too quickly, making random evasive turns. "Who else would it be? They came through the wormhole, and they don't show up on the sensor array." But she didn't even recognize the ship design--they were like no Dominion ships she had ever seen. The Kai seemed remarkably cool, enough so that Kira noticed in the heat of battle. "Isn't there any other weapon you can bring to bear against them?" she asked. "Yes, of course. The quantum torpedos--they don't have to be precise hits." Kira snapped the guards off the arming touchplates and proceeded to arm the thousand torpedoes that Captain Sisko had installed against just such an eventuality. Her hands were working so quickly, she had already moved to key in the launch sequence before realiz- ing that the board had not caught up with her. PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZATION PASSWORD.' Kira blinked, staring at the message. The com- puter's mellifluous voice repeated it out loud. "Child, what are you waiting for?" asked the Kai, leaning over Kira's shoulder. "Enter the pass- word." "There is no password," blurted Major Kira, shocked. "But Kira, it asks for one." "It never has before." Kira half rose, forcing Kai Winn to stand quickly to avoid contact. "Damn it! Ah... ah--Kira Nerys, authorization Bravo- AlphaBravo-Echo ....Unlock the damned torpe- does!" "I'm sorry," said the computer with detached efficiency, "but that is not an authorization pass- word. Please enter authorization password." There it was, staring her in the face .... PLEASE ENTER AUTHORIZATION PASSWORD' "Blood of the Prophets!" "Child?" "Sorry--urn, Sisko, Benjamin, authoriza- tion..." She struggled to remember what she once had overheard the captain say to unlock a personal message from Starfleet Command; she had never used the code herself, of course, and it took her a second to remember... a second during which the attackers fired two more salvos, jerking the station noticeably, even right through the shields. "Au- thorization Hugo-Uniform-NovemberKilo." "I'm sorry, but that is not an authorization password. Please enter authorization password." Kira felt a flush of horrified understanding creep up her neck and across her face. She hadn't ex- pected the code to work, since the computer would realize

she was not Captain Sisko, but it gave the wrong error message. She had expected the com- puter to respond, "Invalid use of authorization password," which would mean she had to tear into the circuits and cross her voice patterns in the main database clip with those of the captain. But the response had been the same as to her own normal authorization code. Kira turned and discovered to her astonishment that the Kai had vanished; but a moment later, the turbolift arrived carrying six mean-looking Bajor- ans, four men and two women; they hustled to the Ops battle stations without sparing a glance at Kira: two at Dax's console, one at Worfs, and the other two with heavy phaser rifles scanning the room with low-intensity phaser beams to flush out any changelings who might have infiltrated as seat cushions or pieces of equipment. The Kai reappeared on Sisko's balcony. "My flock, the Emissary's Sanctuary is under attack by unknown enemies from the Gamma Quadrant; they may be Dominion or may not... but we must defend ourselves and our planet, regardless." The combat team looked at the Kai with such reverence that Kira felt outnumbered and uncom- fortable. Then they turned their attention to the phasers. She had no complaints about their competence; they were a professional phaser crew either from a Bajoran patrol ship or from the planetary de- fense forces themselves. "Sensors out--visual track, follow my tracer .... One-mark, two-mark, three-mark--pattern analysis .... Are they re- peating?--bracketing shots... clipped one, no telemetry. Kira found herself excluded from the fight. No- body told her to leave, but she quickly lost track of what the combat crew were saying-they spoke in the code word staccato of a squad that had lived, eaten, slept, trained, and fought together for months or years. Realizing that she was about as necessary as a piloting stick on a runabout, Kira stood down from her console and joined the Kai on the balcony. Kai Winn followed the battle with hard, calculat- ing eyes; she betrayed no emotions and even of- fered intelligent and workable suggestions to the team (which accepted them gratefully). "They're trying to get close enough to launch boarding parties," warned one of the two women at Dax's console. "Seal the station," ordered the Kai. "Kai Winn," said Kira in great urgency, "I have to contact the Federation and get the authorization codes for those torpedoes." Without looking away from Ops, which had become a de facto CIC, a combat information center, the Kai responded forcefully: "I'm sorry, child, I absolutely forbid it." "But without the torpedoes, we'll never--" "This is a test sent by the Prophets, Major; we must survive without the help of your Federation. I have already sent for Bajoran destroyers." Kira's mouth was dry; she tried to lick her lips, but there was no moisture. The station was struck by a particularly close hit, and the deck yawed left, nearly dropping Kira over the railing to the floor below. The Kai crouched, clutching the rail tightly; the combat crew didn't react. "Bajoran destroyers won't stand up against these disruptor blasts," warned Kira. "The most they can do is distract the ships long enough for us to get a clean shot." "Then they will distract the enemy ships, child," said the Kai, still following the performance in Ops rather than the conversation she wasn't quite hav- ing with Major Kira. Gritting her teeth, the major spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Kai, the Federation will release the tor- pedoes-this is an emergency. With the quantum torpedoes, we can blow these jerks to hell and back, right back through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. Don't you understand? We need those codes." For the first time since the assault began, the Kai looked directly at Kira. "I am in command of Emissary~

Sanctuary, child. You are my executive officer. The decision is mine to make, and I will not run to the Federation for help." She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "We are all in the hands of the Prophets now." Kira waited a long moment, searching her heart for what she should do, for Bajor, for Sisko, for her friends and enemies still aboard the station: for Jake, for Keiko, for Rom... even for that lousy excuse for a Cardassian, Garak. "Yes... my Kai," she said at last. Winn was right; there was no other way out for Bajormand the future of Bajor trumped everything else. "Hadn't you better begin organizing the de- fenses, Major?" "But your combat crew is handling it perfectly well. I couldn't do any better." Kai -Winn looked directly at Kira again, and this time, the major saw in the old woman's eyes the same granite she had seen in the captain's when he stood on the same balcony, overlooking a team much like the one in the CIC below (a team that always included Major Kira). "You had better prepare the internal defenses, child; call out the station militia." Winn handed Kira a data clip. "This fight is not going to be easy or quick, I believe; I've been here before. Prepare for forcible boarding." Kira stared at the viewers; she had a good look at the ships every time they passed one of the camera eyes while shooting and dodging return fire: she had definitely never seen the design before. "Who the hell are these guys?" she asked, but the Kai had already returned full attention to her CIC and the combat crew running the desperate defense of Emissary ~ Sanctuary. Kira Nerys slid down the ladderway, feet and hands upon the rails, and darted for the turbolift platform, snatching up her personal phaser en route; she was almost thrown to the deck by a shot that set the rotational axis of the station swinging gently, like a pendulum, for several cycles before the gyros restabilized Emissary's Sanctuary. Sealed by the turbolift after leaving Ops, Kira tapped her combadge and said, "Computer, scan all messages from Starfleet to Deep Space Ninem or, ah, Emissary~ Sanctuary--since the turnover, in particular any verbal explanation of the message locking out the quantum torpedoes." "There is no record of a transmission locking out the quantum torpedoes." "Headers of all nonroutine message traffic from the Federation Council to the senior staff of the station." The computer began rattling off a list of message headers, most having to do with administrative elements of the turnover, but then Kira heard, "Message thirty-eight of forty-four, weapon exten- sion lockout explanatory communiqu6." "Stop. Read me that message." Another booming pair of assaults testified to the battle still raging beyond the hull--the station was holding its own, but it couldn't continue forever. The damned Bajoran ships better arrive soonest, thought Kira, gritting her teeth; the brief distraction might be the only hope we have. "Please enter authorization password." Oh, Prophets. Here we go again. But when Kira gave her own code, "Kira Nerys, BravoAlpha- Bravo-Echo," the computer accepted it without qualm; evidently, the accompanying text was not as highly secure as the torpedoes themselves. "The Federation Council regrets that the new administration must be informed that certain clas- sified extensions of the weapons subsystems of the station formerly known as Deep Space Nine have been reallocated to a terminated state pending approval of subsequent demonstrations of success- ful operation of station service optimization proto- cols; at time of such approval, normal preoperative status of the affected subsystems will be reinitial- ized into a resumptive condition." Translation, thought Kira, who really was be- coming quite an expert at burospeak; after a while, if

you don't blow up the station, we'll send the signal to unlock your torpedoes. But what was a while? How 1ong--a week? The Bajorans had run the station for nearly a week already, and there clearly had been no reinitialization into a resumptive condition. A month? The end of the sixty-day trial period? With a chill, Major Kira realized they were enmeshed in a terrible struggle against unknown enemies while blind and crippled: they could nei- ther see the attackers on the sensor array nor use the only weapon that didn't require precision aiming. And of course, much as it galled the major to admit it, Kai Winn was right: if Bajor were to go screaming to the Federation for help now, barely a week into the turnover, the chances of it being made permanent were like unto those of finding a shrine to the Prophets on Cardassia Prime. The old--woman--gets another point, she glumly admitted. The Kai had been full of sur- prises lately, from her efficiency at running the station to her startling capacity for command un- der fire. Add now an insightful analysis of Federa- tion psychology. Every such success stuck in Kira's throat like a bone splinter, one more stone in the pouch of First Minister Shakar, weighing down his chances; he was already swimming upstream by trying to force the government to remain secular, when the Kai and most Bajorans clearly preferred rule by vedek decree. The turbolift jerked to a stop at the Promenade level, and Kira pushed into a scene from a mad- house: civilians, nearly all Bajoran, were running to and fro in a frenzy; some were injured by the shaking, though no shot had yet penetrated the shields, and with every blow, more civilians fell to the ground screaming or ran into each other or tried to rush the turbolifts that could take them to the habitat rings, the launch bays, and presumed "safety" away from the station. The Kai's security guards refused to allow the civvies to storm the lifts, quite properly: they were needed to transport the security forces (the one area that Kai Winn had packed but not purged). "Commander," shouted Kira. The acting CO in Odo's absence, Dag Haraia, ran to Kira and saluted; Kira was nonplussed for a moment .... No one ever saluted on Deep Space Nine. Then she remembered that he was now "militarized" and under arms, which changed things considerably. "Dag, round up these peo- ple"--she handed Dag the data clip of names she had gotten from the Kai--"and arm them; put men at every port and airlock and shoot anyone coming through; and get these damned civilians into the shelters." "Yes ma'am!" he shouted; he saluted again and ran to his lieutenants. Kira was surprised to catch herself taking a moment to pray: Please, 0 Prophets, she said clearly in her head, don't make me be the one to have to explain it all to the captain. "The big one that didn't quite get away," she muttered to herself, but she was too busy to listen. Limping from her wound, which was still bleed- ing slightly, Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax led the rest of the away team, plus Asta-ha (the hereditary mayor of the nolonger-extant village of the Tiffnakis) and the surviving members of her entourage, over a pair of hills that she named Dreary and Black, across a stream that O'Brien dubbed the Anna Liffey, and through a wood. (The trees were the same scintillant blue and green as the Natives' eyes.) They had put fifteen kilometers between themselves and the Drek'la, who camped in the ruins of the town after disruptor fire cut the two-million-year-old buildings to shards; Dax de- cided they were safe for the moment. If the worst came, and the Drek'la struck too quickly for them to bug out conventionally, the Trill had already decided they would call for an emergency beam-out of everyone, and to hell with the Prime Directlye. "It's too bad we can't move any

faster," she said. "Are you sure none of your neighbors has any tech for moving quickly along the ground... say, something with wheels or float- ing on an antigravity field?" Asta-ha shook her head; her daughter Tivva-ma, who announced she was still seven, shook her head at exactly the same time, causing both Dax and of course Chief O'Brien to chuckle. "Damn," mut- tered Dax; she wondered whether she could talk Sisko into having the Defiant replicate a vehicle and beam it down where they could "stumble" across it. "Please watch your language, Commander," cautioned the chief. "There are young ones present." "Um, sorry about that, Chiefi" The Curzon within her ached to cut loose with a stream of profanity that would straighten out O'Brien's hair and turn it white, but Jadzia Dax controlled it. Asta~ha sighed. "Yes, too bad. If you really wanted to get somewhere fast, we could use the Instantator tech in the village of the Shignavs. But I'm afraid I have no tech of the kind you seek." "The... Instantator?" Dax suddenly had a hor- rible feeling she knew exactly what they were talking about... and it could have saved them a lot of grueling travel. "I have seen it in operation," breathed the hered- itary mayor. "You step into a booth, sparkles obscure your body, and you disappear--only to reappear days' and scores of days' travel distant, in the next booth." She described the obvious transporter with such holy reverence, Dax almost felt like bowing her head; from the description, Dax realized that, like the one in the Tiffnaki village for food, it was a booth-to-booth device, but sophisti- cated even by Federation standards. Still, she sighed, it wouM have been useful. Quark came limping up to the group, moaning and trying to massage his calves while still walking; he was followed closely by his elongated shadow, Constable Odo, sneering at every Ferengi protestation of weakness, being done for, and prediction of dire consequences. "Oh, get off it, Quark; you're going to make it, because no one is going to pick you up and carry you. Honestly, you're like a spoiled child at an excessively permissive nursery school." "Have a little heart, Odo ....Or better yet, why don't you make one?" "It's too much effort to bother with unnecesary internal organs, Quark; besides, I'm happy as I am. Too bad you can't say the same about yourself." The Ferengi sneered. "Well, you certainly didn't put any effort into a brain, now did you?" "Oh, very funny. I'm hysterical, ha, ha, ha. Let's see how your quadrant-famous sense of humor gets you through your upcoming ordeal: selling your banned bar and becoming an employee of Kai Winn." Quark shuddered. "I'd tell you to bite your tongue, if you had one." "Gee... I wonder whether Rom has unloaded the bar to some luckless Bajoran yet?" Quark simply glared, so Odo won the round. "Boys, boys," said Dax halfheartedly; in truth, she was barely listening to them bicker .... She was far more concerned about what had happened back at the village of the Tiffnakis. I blew it. I screwed it up and nearly got everyone killed. Now that the immediate danger was past, and they were far enough away to feel a little safety, Commander Dax began to get the shakes. The more she thought about the Cardassian raid, the more like a fiasco it looked. "I think I've figured it out," said O'Brien, plop- ping down on the dewy teal grass with a disassem- bled mass of components in his hand; the jumble used to be a disruptor rifle. He glared at the hunk of disassembled junk--then turned a sympathetic gaze on Dax herself. She leapt to an interpretation: even the chief thinks I completely screwed up the mission, she raged to herself; it3 only the sheerest luck that we weren't all butchered back there. Dax started to realize that she could have, should have, evacuated the village; if she had, a

hundred dead Tiffnakis, including a dozen children, would still be alive. She felt sick. "You figured out what happened back at the defense?" she asked, leaning forward too eagerly, trying to drive deep inside thoughts of her own terrible command decisions. "What went wrong with all the weapons?" "Nothing, Commander; nothing at all." O'Brien sounded bitter, and he looked like he wanted to spit into the mechanism. "Nothing?" "But it looks like it runs on some kind of broadcast power, of a variety our tricorders couldn't detect. The Drek'la must've somehow cut that power before attacking." But would Asta-ha have withdrawn anyway? "You mean, Chief, that there isn't a single backup power source anywhere around here?" "No, Commander"-the chief scanned with his own tricorder--"I've adjusted my tricorder and can now get faint readings of the kind of power being broadcast. The nearest power source I can detect is four hundred kilometers away." While they spoke, Worf, Quark, and Odo had joined them. "Gentlemen," said Dax, "I've got a very bad feeling about this whole mission. If all the enemy has to do is kill the lights and pull the plug, then we are in giant-sized trouble." Worf spoke up, immediately seeing the tactical situation: "The natives will have to learn to fight on their own, even without their devices." Dax looked at the Klingon and felt a chill; was he looking at her with a faint trace of charity? Was he? If he was, she couldn't stand that. "Fight and win, "corrected Dax. Her wound was painful, possibly infected, and the pain was making it hard to think. Courage and bravado can take me only so far; there's more than my pride at stake here. As much as I'd like to finish this mission, it's time, as Benjamin would say, time to call in a relief pitcher. "People," she said, "I'm kicking this decision upstairs. And I'm taking myself out of the game." 0

CHAPTER 8 CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO materialized in a loose wood, the trees not quite thick enough for cover or dense enough for concealment; but there were enough of them to make any disruptor shot tricky. As soon as he appeared, he glanced first at Worf, then Odo, then O'Brien; the three stood alert but not tense, and the captain relaxed a bit. He had just completed a very unsatisfactory and alarming conversation with Dax. She had filled him in somewhat but wanted the captain to make his own assessment before she made her full re- port... so his tactical judgment wouldn't be "in- fluenced by expectation." He had reassured her that there was little she could have done differently without psychic abilities... but she was still furl- ous at herself for not foreseeing the future and preventing the deaths of the villagers. The away team stood by themselves on a small rise; water welled from underground at the base of the rise, trickling down to form a meandering, sluggish stream that cut mostly northeast, eventu- ally becoming a tributary to the largish river that Dax reported crossing (which the chief called the Anna Liffey, after the river that bisected old Dub- lin, fabled in song and legend). The rest of the escapees, two hundred and twenty of them, hud- dled across the ministream, fire-shocked and shak- en not only by the suddenness of their loss--many of their friends, enemies, and neighbors had died, including children--but, if Dax was right, as much by the sudden loss of their tech from heaven: they had nothing, for nothing worked. They didn't even know enough to build shelters or campfires against the coming cold night. "Fill me in," said Sisko to his away team. They did so. "All right"--Sisko looked toward the alien threat to the eastm"let's hear some strategic team thinking: what are we going to do about the situa- tion?" This time, Worf was first to speak; he was on familiar, rehearsed ground. "We must set up an immediate military training facility," he advised, "and forge these people into an effective fighting force against the invaders." "And what do you expect them to fight with?" demanded O'Brien. "Spears? Bows and arrows?" "If necessary." "But they don't even know the first thing about even that level of technology, Worf. They don't have any math, any physics or engineering, no materials science, nothing of chemistry or field flow, no plasma technology .... Nothing that could possibly discommode the enemy or even slow them up. They would roll over the Natives tike--like Klingon warriors across a Boy Scout troop." Worf growled deep in his throat, but he said nothing in response to the chief. Odo, standing unnaturally straight--like a changeling, not like a solid, who had to balance on muscles and bone-cleared his throat. "Sir, perhaps it would be better to begin at the beginning." "Teach them basic math, engineering, and chemistry?" asked the captain skeptically. "As Worf said, 'if necessary.'" "Necessary it may be, Constable, but is it workable? Chief O'Brien, how long would it take you to teach a crash course in the fundamentals of weap- ons engineering, just concentrating on what they need to build bombs, guns, and other destructive devices?" The chief squatted on his haunches, dipping his knees in the moist ground; he tapped away at his tricorder, presumably figuring out what he would need to teach. Then he stood, shaking his head. "It's hopeless, sir. Unless the Natives are engineer- ing supergeniuses, it'll take months of' academic work, and we don't have that much time." "And there is more to it than that," said Worf glumly, obviously realizing he was shooting down his own idea. "It takes more than weapons to make an army, as we have just

seen demonstrated. It takes organization and leadership, as well as an understanding of long-range strategy and short- term tactics." "Aren't these Natives organized at all?" Sisko couldn't believe that the planer's people, with ac- cess to such sophisticated technology, weren't at least curious about each other. Quark answered for the team, startling everyone except the captain. "Why do you think we call them 'Natives"? It's because they don't even have a generic name for themselves. Everything is just village this and village that .... "Quark leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, glancing at the disheartened villagers as if afraid they would overhear and cut off his lobes. "And they don't even have intervillage trade. Can you believe it? it's the basis for mercantilism, which must precede capitalism--they don't even have the concept of money!" "Money isn't everything, Quark," said Odo, curling his lip in disgust. "But indeed it is something, Constable," said the captain. "Quark has an unhappy point. On Earth, it was merchants following trade routes who even- tually converted isolated city-states into great na- tions." Quark picked up the thread, surprising even Captain Sisko with his sudden earnestness; the subject was clearly dear to his Ferengi heart. "These Natives are living in a posteconomic society .... Everything they need, they literally find scattered on the ground like dead leaves. They've never had to trade for anything in their lives. "They don't understand the concept of making things or the division of labor or the accumulation of capital to finance large-scale projects. How do you expect them to learn it all in an eye blink? And if they don't, what makes you think they won't just wander off in the middle of one of Chief O'Brien's engineering lectures?" "And if the enemy just repeats their sneak at- tack," said the chief, "clicking off the broadcast power to a village, then attacking it, over and over, then the Natives will panic, and their villages are going to fall, one by one, until the Cardassians control every Native settlement on the planet. I don't have to tell you what that means." Indeed he didn't; Sisko thought of all he had learned about the brutal occupation of Bajormand that was when the natural cruelty of the occupiers was tempered by the frequent revolts and rebel- lions of the Bajorans. With such helpless slaves, the captain shuddered to think of the depths of deprav- ity that might occur. "Perhaps we ought to send a subspace message calling for backup," suggested Odo. Couldn't the Defiant simply call for help, for some Starfleet ships to drive away this Drek'la- Cardassian alliance? Dax had asked exactly the same question. This time, the answer from Cap- tain Sisko was an abrupt "No, Constable. Think of the technology that must be in the hands of the Cardassians and Drek'la by now. We don't know what they've learned to use or mounted on their ships. At the very least, we have to learn that much before we call in Starfleet. So for now, we're on our own." "Then it looks like we don't have any other option," the chief said. "We have to find a way to start training them to fight, however long it takes." Sisko looked from O'Brien to Worf to Odo and even to Quark; each man's unhappy, resigned look told him what he didn't want to know. The chief had stated the consensus; he was sure that when he got Dax's full report, it would contain the same recommendation. "We need to start by forcing them to see their own need for training," said Worf. "My thoughts precisely. It's time, I believe, for a shakedown hike." The away team looked blank, not understanding what Sisko meant. "Get the troops in line, Mr. Worf," said the captain, survey- ing the tricorder topographic map he had down- loaded; he studied the contour lines, trying to chart a

reasonably efficient route westward .... Better than the pell-mell dash away from the victorious enemy--a route rather than a rout, he thought somewhat uncharitably. "We're about to organize the Native Scouts of Sierra-Bravo." 0

CHAPTER 9 THREE DAYS OF BO? Scout hell. Chief Miles O'Brien moaned as he massaged his aching calves; he had never quite managed to become involved in Scout- ing--never seen the urgency behind forty- kilometer forced marches, slogging through swamps (enthusiastically labeled "wetlands" on the tricotder map) and steamy jungles, up and down precipitous slopes, all the while trying to beat into the Natives' heads that they didn't need all that technology manna falling from heaven--they could do it themselves with lower-level but sustain- able technology. Worf was exhilarated, and the captain seemed chipper enough, but O'Brien found himself siding more and more with Quark; the two grumpy old men of the group didn't see anything stimulating about a huge gorge to cross or a marsh to wade through. The chief was amused, however, to watch Captain Sisko's best laid schemes gang aft a-gley. The countryside was rugged and forbidding. The mineral composition of the soil meant the ground was spongier than on other planets, and since they were in a very moist climatic band above the planet's equator, they were inundated by water from all directions: rain, seepage, and rivers, slug- gish and meandering on the plains, rushing white water in the hills. The combination of the spongy soil and seepage meant quicksand, of course, and the mineral content made it more like cement sand. Just walking was hazardous. Though the brilliant blues and greens, in trees and rocks alike, punctuated by streaks of brilliant orange-and-red algae and fungi, made for a colorful (if deadly, draining, and inedible) hike. The planetary axis tilted alarmingly toward the sun, so the sun rose not so much in the east as the northeast, hooking around the sky in a great crescent, then setting in the northwest. Masses of clouds (more particulate precipitants in the air) acted as heat transfer engines, warming the air to an unbearable mugginess in the daytime, then dissipating to allow rapid cooling close to zero degrees Celsius at night. A real garden spot. The overt purpose of the hike, as Sisko explained it to the Natives, was to trek across seventy-five kilometers of wilderness to reach a certain village far enough away from the enemy that the Tiffnakis (and the away team) would stay out of the invaders' way--until they were ready to return and fight. Unsurprisingly, Asta-ha and her Tiffnaki comrades were spoiling for a rematch. "I want to immobilize them with my motion constrictor," she said, fixing the chief with a mad, rigid stare, "and slowly rip their limbs off with the lift pull, the murderers." The motion constrictor, O'Brien discovered after they got far enough away to begin picking up power broadcast from another relay, was a small, onehanded neural-impulse in- hibitor; the lift pull was a phaser-sized tractor beam that required an anchor point. O'Brien had never seen either one of those two pieces of tech- nology before in his life. The covert reason for the march was to put the Tiffnakis into a position where they had to rely on themselves and their own ingenuity. It was Captain Sisko's idea to march them across the most forbid- ding landscape imaginable so they would be forced, willy-nilly, to discover three of the four basic engines of antiquity: the lever, the pulley, and the inclined plane (neither the captain nor Chief O'Brien could think of a way to introduce the Tiffnakis to the water screw). At the least, the away team expected the Natives to finally understand ropes, especially after rappelling down a cliff face. Alas, as the Scottish poet Bobbie Burns wrote, a verse that came back to O'Brien again and again: But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o'mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley, An'

lea 'e us naught but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy/ --And the trip did not work out quite the way the captain planned. The first tiny glitch occurred late the first full day of travel, when they came to the precipitous cliff face (marked on the tricorder map by an incredibly tight convergence of sixteen contour lines) down which Sisko intended them to rappel. Looking over the face of that monstrous cliff, even O'Brien felt his gut tighten, and a chill passed from tailbone to cervical vertibrae. "We're, ah, going to rappel down that... sir?" But the captain beamed, happy as a proverb. "I always feel so exhilarated when I drop down a mountain," he exclaimed. He walked away from the milling Tiffnakis, whom Worf struggled to keep from pressing close to the cliff like penguins trying to chivvy one of their number off the edge to see if it was safe. The chief watched Captain Sisko tap his combadge and speak in low tone~ for a moment; a few minutes later--long enough to get to the De- fiant's replicators and back, thought O'Brien-- eight harnesses, ropes, and anchor stakes materi- alized on the ground nearbywalong with more edible combat rations, "com-rats," for the Feder- ation members, who could not, of course, live off the poisonous wasteland. Sisko returned. "The constable and Quark will demonstrate the technique... won't you, gentle- men?" Odo didn't look too worried; he can shape - shift into a bird or something if he starts to fall, thought the chief. But the Ferengi was first con- fused, then shocked, then horrified as Worf took Quark by the elbow and hustled him over to the rigs and ropes. "Think of the harness as a sort of chair made of nylochite webbing," said the captain, flashing a face-splitting grin. "You basically sit in it, as Quark is demonstrating." "What?" demanded the Ferengi, turning dis- tinctly pink. "You were serious? You expect me to trust my precious life to that pile of primitive junk?" His eyes grew nearly as huge as his ears, and he tried to back away--only to back directly into an immovable Chief O'Brien, who had casually shifted behind the Ferengi, trapping him. Worf steamed; he did not like the humidity one bit. "You will put on this harness," he snarled, "or I will put it on for you." Quark breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, would you? There's a good Klingon. You'd make a much better test subject than I." With a howl of frustration, the Klingon surged forward, webbed harness in hand, and struggled with the Ferengi; a moment later, a yoked and harnessed Quark cringed before the mighty-thewed Klingon warrior. "Your years of sitting behind a bar have made you fat and sluggish," said Worf. "I don't sit, I stand," mustered the Ferengi with some dignity. Constable Odo, meanwhile, had pulled on his own harness with no fuss. "Now observe carefully," said the captain to the fascinated Tiffnakis. He found a solid rock without difficulty and pressed the anchor pins to the rock surface, one by one; they phased partially out of existence, dropping deep into the rock with hardly any resistance; then they phased back to solid with a bang .... They were embedded into place much more strongly than could ever be the old-fashioned kind that one pounded into a crack. Running one end of each rope through the an- chor pins, Sisko showed Asta-ha and another gag- gle of Tiffnakis designated the "second group" how to run the rope through the carabiners attached to the front of the harnesses. Then Odo backed to the edge of the cliff and began to jump, letting out rope as he fell... rapidly enough for a quick descent, but not so fast as to lose control. Quark took some prodding by Worf; he fell jerkily, shouting and cursing all the way until his voice faded from earshot. Fearless, the Tiffnakis crowded the edge of the cliff, craning their necks to follow the progress of the two

"volunteers." 'Such tech," breathed Tivva- ma, Asta-ha's daughter. Odo landed on the ground and quickly shed the harness, which Chief O'Brien hauled back up. A few seconds later, Quark lighted, but the Ferengi just stood there shaking. "Come on, you coward!" shouted the chief. "Strip that thing off so the next batch can go." Quark stared up at the chief, silently mouthing something obscene in Ferengi. Then he pulled off the webbing (fighting off some unwanted help from Odo), and O'Brien hauled up that har- ness as well. "All right, then," said Captain Sisko, striding forward with more harnesses in hand. "Where's my next batch of Scouts?" O'Brien looked around for Astaha. "Well, she was right here," he said, puzzling over the disappearance. "Maybe she got frightened and ran ot~." Suddenly, Worf shouted in surprise, pointing down the cliff face. O'Brien jumped, so startled he almost fell off. Heart pounding, he leaned over and saw Asta-ha and about twenty of her Tiffnaki villagers slowly floating down the cliff in perfect com- fort... wearing nothing but their clothes. Sisko, O'Brien, and Worf stared openmouthed, no one saying a word, as the Natives drifted down at a constant velocity, finally landing at the bottom with a tiny bump. Cupping her hands, Asta-ha shouted up to the Scout troop still waiting above: "Perfect. Send down the next group, Captain Sisko." Another group was already stepping toward the cliff edge when Sisko waved them back. "How the hell did they do that?" he bellowed. Fighting back a grin, Chief O'Brien told the captain about the antigrav device Asta-ha had demonstrated back at the well the first time they saw her. Sisko leaned close to the chief. "This was supposed to be a learning experience," he said, patiently but with much menace behind the words. "We're supposed to be teaching the Natives how to survive without their technology. Confiscate all antigray devices right now." "Yes, sir," the chief said, "I thought we had. They must have had more." The Tiffnakis remaining at the top of the cliff looked startled as the chief relayed the order; reluctantly, thirteen of them handed over devices ranging in size from a medical scanner to a phaser. The chief put them in a bag and handed them to the captain, who quietly had the Defiant beam them up. "Much better," he concluded. "Now let's get them down the cliff." O'Brien and Worf returned to the cliff edge, but something was wrong: most of the Tiffnakis were gone--disappeared. Struck with a sudden suspi- cion, the chief went immediately to the cliff edge and looked over; now the Tiffnakis were descend- ing on a slant, as if sliding down a gigantic slide .... But there was nothing there. For an instant, O'Brien felt a surge of panic; he had never longed for a bottle of Tullamore Dew as much as he did just then. Then, with a sigh of relief, he recalled the force beam benches in the village; evidently, some enterprising Tiffnaki had set up a device to project such a force beam slantwise down the cliff, and the rest were simply sliding down it to the ground. By the time the three away team members on top of the cliff located the device, all but three of the Tiffnakis were already on the beam slide. Worf and O'Brien stopped the last three, but of course they couldn't shut off the beam until the last person touched ground (not wanting to drop the sliding Tiffnakis to their deaths). Sisko confiscated the force beam generator; up it went to the ship. "Any more force beams?" demanded the cap- tain, his teeth grinding and fists clenching and unclenching. The remaining three Tiffnakis shook their heads. "Antigray devices? Aircars? Para- chutes?" "What's a parachute?" asked one of the remain- ing three. O'Brien jumped in to explain, while the captain cooled off for a moment. "A piece of material shaped

like, um, a dome or hemisphere, which catches the air and lowers you gently when you fall." A Tiffnaki brightened. "Oh. That's right, I al- most forgot." Before anyone could stop him, he walked to the edge and stepped off. Sure enough, when O'Brien stared downward, there was the telltale blue billow as the native wafted gently down the cliff, like a dead leaf falling from an autumn branch. Sisko lunged forward, grabbing each of the re- maining two Tiffnakis by the scruff of his collar. One was Owena-da, the man who had handed out the weapons before the disastrous fight against the Cardassians; O'Brien didn't know the other one. "Get-in-the-harnesses," enunciated Captain Sisko, hands shaking with suppressed emotion. Confused by the captain's obvious rage, the two Tiffnakis quickly complied, stepping into the webbed affairs alongside Worf, O'Brien, and the captain himself. The chief swiftly planted three more anchor pins for a total of five, one for each of them. "Walk to the edge backwards," said Sisko, back in control of himself, "and step off." O'Brien turned around and demonstrated, as did Worf on the other side of the Tiffnakis. O'Brien tried to keep his right hand clear, in case he had to reach out and grab a Whatsit, should one panic and lose control of the rope. The captain was still giving helpful advice: "Lean back against the rope and let it play out .... Slowly, there's nora" Sisko froze in midsentence, as both Tiffnakis had simply backed off the cliff with no hands and begun to plummet. Leaping wildly, O'Brien struggled to catch up with the Natives, who were simply falling at nor- mal gravitational acceleration, their ropes slack; then the chief pulled up short as he abruptly caught up with them: they had come to a sudden halt-- but their ropes were still slack. They started to descend once more, lowering at a constant speed while still not holding their ropes; it was as if they were being lowered by an invisible fishing line attached to a reel on top of the cliff. The chief bounced closer, straining to see if there was a wire; what he saw instead was that each Whatsit had his hands cupped, as if holding something. At that moment, O'Brien remembered the hand- held "tractor beam" toy that Owena-da had shown him. He sighed deeply and bounced the remaining distance to the ground in one mighty leap. When the captain touched ground minutes later, he may as well have been wearing a sign that said "Abandon hope all ye who talk to me." O'Brien touched his combadge and quietly said, "O'Brien to anchor pins: release." The ropes went suddenly slack, and the freed anchor pins dropped to the ground, bouncing a couple of times on the hard, mineral-rich surface. Wordlessly, Captain Sisko stormed off along his preplanned route, not even bothering to collect the handheld tractor beams .... The commander and the chief took it upon themselves to confiscate the cheat-tools and send them upstairs. "Well, sir," said O'Brien cheerfully, five kilome- ters later, "what's next on the outdoorsman's test?" Captain Sisko had cooled off his own temper by leading the Scout mob on a fast march: five klicks at six and a half kilometers per hour. It would have been a fast walk along a paved road; in the wilder- ness, it was more like an overland run. Fortunately for O'Brien (and the only point that kept poor Quark alive), the planet had a gravitational acceler- ation only 0.79 that of Federation standard .... It was like the chief had dropped sixteen kilograms, or more than two stone. The Tiffnakis were huffing and blowing so much, it sounded like a balloon- inflating contest. Neither Worf nor the captain was even sweating heavily; nor Odo, of course, but he didn't count. Sisko consulted his tricorder map, smiling faintly in a way that raised snakes in O'Brien's stomach. "Dead ahead

is a marsh that preliminary tricotder readings put at about a meter deep, with the approximate consistency of tar." "Oh, lovely. This is a really... challenging course you've laid in for us, Captain." The chief didn't mind physical exercise, when it was fun, like stretching himself against Dr. Bashir at springball. But slogging through a sticking bog, with tendrils of goo that clung to every step like the vengeful dead resenting the footsteps of the living, was decidedly not Miles Edward O'Brien's idea of a grand time. "Scout troop, halt," ordered the captain; Worf relayed the order up and down the line of two hundred in a series of bellows that could probably be heard by Dax up in orbit. O'Brien stared at the vast expanse of nothingness ahead of them. The marsh (bog, fen, swamp, mud hole) stretched as far as his eye could see... a blue black sea of frozen waves and humps that were probably sandbars of relative solidity. Then again, knowing the captain, they might be bottomless dust bowls, thought O'Brien; he decided to give leadership its privilege of going first. "Well, troops," addressed the captain, "I will leave it up to your ingenuity to get yourselves across this mess. You're going to have to know how to traverse such terrain if you want to fight a guerrilla war against the--against your invaders." Sisko turned back to the mob, jabbing his finger at Asta-ha, then rotating to include all the Tiffnakis in the admonition: "And there shall be no use of force beams, parachutes, paragliders, or antigravita- tional devices of any sort. Is that understood?" "Why not?" asked the hereditary mayor in puzzlement. "If the tech gives us the means to cross this smelly and unpalatable fen, why shouldn't we use it?" O'Brien responded for the captain. "Don't you remember what happened in the battle? The invad- ers have the capability to make all your lovely tech stop working. What are you going to do when your antigrays fail, and you're a hundred meters in the sky?" Asta-ha nodded sagely; her little girl Tivva-ma imitated her with tremendous gravity. "Yes, I see your point," admitted the mother. "No antigravs, or anything else that could injure or kill us if the tech suddenly chose to take itself away." The Tiffnakis called a town meeting to discuss the new, perplexing rules, and Sisko gestured the away team away to allow the villagers to work out their own problem. The captain sucked in a lungful, looking upon the slough of despair as if it were a rolling line of modest hills under a soft carpet of Bajoran dushti grass. "This takes me back," he said. "One thing I find I miss as commanding officer is the opportunity to lead an away team: just me and my command against the elements. It's invigorating." Odo was staring at the mob of Scouts. "It also appears to be exfoliating," he said. "What?" asked Sisko. "Constable, if you could be a bit more..." The captain trailed off, and O'Brien followed Sisko's gaze. The Tiffnakis, led by Asta-ha, were just finishing burning a path arrowstraight through the swamp, using a projection device that strongly resembled an old-fashioned coffee grinder, including the hand crank. The mayor was using the crank as the away team watched, playing an orange beam up and down the new path... a rock-hard rut with permanent sides that appeared to be-"Obsidian," breathed the chief. "Volcanic glass," responded Constable Odo au- tomatically. Probably wondering if he can shape- shift into it, thought O'Brien. "This is completely unacceptable!" shouted the Klingon, but the captain merely sighed and shook his head. "I can see this just isn't going to work," he said sadly; "I have a very bad feeling about this." Asta-ha put the finishing touches on her creation, and with a wave, the Tiffnakis began marching normal-pace along the hardened furrow she

had dug; at the rate they were trucking, O'Brien figured they would be at the other side of the bog in thirty minutes... without a spoiled shoe or muddied pant leg in the lot. Chief O'Brien heard an abrupt cry for help from twenty meters away in the opposite direction; it was Quark, who seemed to be the only person floundering in the swamp for some peculiar reason. In the SWAMP? puzzled the chiefi Odo led the pack over to his old sparring part- ner. "What's the matter, Quark? Did you go swim- ming too soon after stuffing your face?" "Get-memOUT/" shrieked the Ferengi, pan- icked. For some reason, everyone turned and looked at O'Brien. "Well, how come I have to dive in and get covered with that foul-smelling mud?" Nobody answered, but nobody else volunteered, either. "Oh, all right. Why not? Clearly it's the job of the senior chief to wade into the mud hole to rescue any random bartenders we happen to find." "Chief, HELP.t I'm dying, I'm dying!" O'Brien scanned with his tricorder. "Oh for God's sake, Quark, it's only a meter deep--just stand up." "I can't. I'm--my coat is too heavy!" The chief waited a few moments, expecting Quark to stop whining and get up, but it became obvious that the Ferengi was struggling against a heavy weight, like a huge pair of hands rising from the mud to suck him down. "Chief," said the captain, "I think you ought to see to your team- mate." O'Brien rolled his eyes, but Sisko had a point: having accepted Quark onto the away team, they had to treat him like a normal member. Sighing in exasperation, Chief O'Brien waded into the goo, stepping gingerly to avoid slipping and falling. He struggled his way to Quark. "How the hell did you get out here?" he demanded, trying to get a grip on the Ferengi's mudsoaked jacket. "I slipped and kept sliding," snarled Quark. "What did you think, that I was swimming to the opposite shore?" "What have you been eating? You weigh a ton, Quark." The Ferengi looked simultaneously smug and put-upon. "I'11 thank you to keep your personal comments to yourself," he sniffed. Something felt strangewwrong. "In fact," mused the chief, "it's not you what's so heavy... it's your damned jacket!" "W-w-what do you mean? How could a jacket be heavy?" Quark tried so hard to look casual that O'Brien instantly grew suspicious. Reaching around Quark from behind, the chief yanked the jacket off the Ferengi with a swift move. Sure enough, the gar- ment weighed nearly twenty kilos. Quark popped up immediately, now jacketless and no longer mired. "Give it back!" he shrieked, snatching for the coat. "You have no right--itg mine!" "There's something in here," announced the chief, holding the jacket aloft with one hand, just out of Quark's reach. "It's mine. I found it." "Now now, Quark," said Odo, striding into the mud to intercede between the struggling pair; he removed the jacket from O'Brien's hand and held it aloft himself.... Three meters aloft. "You wanted to be part of the away team? Well, now you are .... So whatever you found belongs to the Federation." O'Brien quickly looked at the Tiffnakis, but they were long out of sight; Odo had been careful not to let them see him shapeshifting ...."One shock at a time," the constable explained. "Why don't you bring that coat out here," sug- gested Captain Sisko. "We can all take a look and see what wonderful thing Mr. Quark has found." Constable Odo slooshed his way onto the bank; O'Brien let go the Ferengi and followed, leaving Quark to struggle his way out unassisted. The chief stared at Odo; naturally, the changeling's "trou- sers" were still sparkling clean, since they weren't cloth at all but Odo's own body cells. O'Brien and especially Quark looked as though they had been dunked in an inkwell. Laying the jacket out on the ground, Odo began searching each pocket.

"Hey," shouted Quark, ral- lying for one last defense of his privacy, "don't you need a search warrant?" The constable smiled condescendingly at him. "Not to safety-check the equipment of a member of the away team, surely." Odo pulled packet after packet out of Quark's pockets, laying them on the ground at the Ferengi's feet. O'Brien bent and studied them. "Dirt," he pro- nounced, pouring it into his hand and sifting it through his fingers; it felt cool, crumbly, and faintly metallic. "Quark, why in God's name did you fill your pockets with dozens of bags of dirt?" The Ferengi said nothing, but Odo rolled his eyes disgustedly. "He didn't fill his pockets with dirt .... He lined his pockets with latinum-- latinurn drops." Quark snarled at the ground, saying nothing lest it be taken down in evidence and used against him. Worf snarled and edged closer to the Ferengi; O'Brien thought the Klingon looked like he was hoping to get in one good shot before Captain Sisko could stop him. "So, Mr. Quark," said the captain, defusing the situation with a smile, "I see you've been collecting geological samples. Not a bad idea. Let's send them up to the Defiant for analysis." He touched his combadge: "Sisko to Defiant." Silence. The captain tried a hail again, then added, "Dax, are you there?" There was no re- sponse. Feeling suddenly apprehensive and very much alone, O'Brien slapped his own badge. "O'Brien to DaxmCommander, can you hear us?" The re- sponse was the same: nothing. Worf, Odo, and even Quark tried with no better luck. O'Brien whipped up his tricorder, dialed the scan range out to maximum, and swept the sky. "Captain," he said slowly, hardly believing his own words as they came out his mouth, "it's gone." "Gone?" Sisko didn't seem to understand. "Gone. The Defiant, it's gone--it's no longer in orbit." "Dax," said Worf, with a sudden and very per- sonal apprehension; he got hold of himself immediately, turning to the captain. "Perhaps the Cardassian ships discovered the Defiant, and Com- mander Dax took it out of orbit." O'Brien checked again. "No, there's no warp signature; nobody has used warp engines around here since we arrived. She's just..."mhe looked up--"gone, Captain." Taking our future luncheons and suppers with her, he thought. A pensive Captain Sisko absently rubbed his beard and stared after the Tiffnakis. "Gentlemen," he said at last, "this is no longer a Scouting hike. This is now a military action. And like it or not, those"--he gestured at the trail burned through the mud~"are our only forces." Then he turned back to the team and grinned. "Let's see just how much hell we can give," he said, grinning like a Klingon general. I should be scared out of my wits, thought the chief, but he didn't feel frightened: he felt the most curious sense of liberation. At last, a chance to scratch the itch that had bothered him ever since the Cardassians had defected from the war to join the Dominion; a real hullabaloo, and no holds barred. "Too bad we don't have any Tullamore Dew," he muttered, but nobody heard him. 0

CHAPTER lO LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Jadzia Dax sat in the Defiant's lonely command chair--lonely not only because all her comrades were down on the planet below, but because she felt she should be with them. Julian said her wound was healing nicely, and that she'd be ready to fight in another day or two, but that meant nothing now. Stupid, she berated herself, fretting won't help them. She tried to keep a poker face for the duty shift on the bridge, Ensigns Weymouth and N'KdukThag (with a glottal stop; Dax couldn't quite pronounce it) and Lieutenant junior grade Joson Wabak, a good-looking Bajoran man that made Jadzia think fondly of her wilder days. Cur- zon had had lots of "relationships" that he'd given little long-term thought to, but in her female years Dax had rarely been quite that frivolous. Suddenly, Lieutenant Wabak at Ops jumped in startlement and stared intensely at his threat board. "Commander," he said hesitantly, "we were just scanned." Dax considered. "Random sweeps by the Cardassian ships. Right?" "No, ma'am." Wabak looked up nervously. "We're being scanned by the planet." "By the planet?" Dax half rose. "By the Natives? Or is it a Cardassian probe?" "I mean scanned by the planetary defense sys- tem in orbit ....Not the Cardassian ship, ma'am." Uh oh .... Dax almost sprinted to the threat board. Looking over the lieutenant's shoulder, she double-checked his read. He was absolutely right: the scan came from orbit, and it wasn't a Cardassi- an signal-processing system. Dax uttered a single Klingon oath before she remembered she was in charge: raw ensigns (and jaygees) did not want to hear their commanding officer get upset. "All right, so we've been detected by the planetary defense systems; they're not firing on the Cardassians ....Any reason to think they'll fire on us?" "Well," hedged Wabak, "we are a lot closer than they are." "Mr. Wabak, how much higher in orbit are the Cardassians?" "We're at half-synchronous, about forty-three thousand. The Cardassians are all somewhere around a hundred thousand kilometers." Ensign N'Kduk-Thag cleared his throat; it sounded like sandpaper across a washboard. "The Cardassians would doubtless prefer to be at a much closer orbit to support their troops," he said, speaking perfectly correctly but without inflection. "Or even at the one percent atmospheric level, to cover the entire planet more quickly," added Wabak, "like a low orbit with a one- or two-hour period." Ensign Weymouth said nothing; she sort of contracted within herself--earning a possible "down" on her OOD watch, whenever Dax got around to doing the CDO log. "In either case," continued the monotone of Ensign N'Kduk-Thag, "the Cardassian ships would not be so far away from the planet's surface unless they were afraid of being detected and classified as an unfriendly object by something--presumably the planetary defenses." The opening salvo of something struck them at just that moment. "Incoming," shouted Lieutenant Wabak, somewhat belatedly. There was no shock; the Defiant didn't rock or shudder. The beam that struck them was nonde- structive, fortunately--since of course they had no shields. They were "silent running," as the Trill recalled submariners used to call it centuries ago; the cloak was incompatible with shields. "Shields up," said Wabak. Without a perceptible pause, Commander Dax responded, "Belay that. Ensign Weymouth, diagnostics .... What the hell is the beam doing to us? Anything? Is it a scan?" The brunette--whose hair was shaved into some improbable design that was probably a religious symbol (otherwise Starfleet wouldn't allow it)- squeaked nervously, but her hands flew across the console. Once you kick her in the butt, she~ not too bad,

thought Dax abstractly, editing the log entry in her head. "It's, um, not doing anything. I mean, I don't see any problems." "Try a levelthree." "I did, levels two through five. No damage, sir." "Wabak? N'Kduk-Thag? Sorry if I mangled your name .... Can I call you Nick?" "You may call me Nick. Commander, I can detect no effect from the beam." "Neither can ..." Wabak trailed off, staring at his threat board with eyes so bright blue, Dax idly wondered whether they would shine in the dark. A pity he hadn't come aboard Deep Space Nine a year earlier .... "What is it, Wabak?" "The Cardassians are scanning us--and they're heading right toward us." Dax was up and out of the command chair again, looking over Wabak's shoulder, vaguely aware it probably wasn't a good idea--it might make him think she lacked confidence in him. "Now what? How are they... Weymouth, fire a probe, oppo- site direction from the Cardassians." The ensign poked at her board, Dax heard a faint hiss. "Probe away." "Point it backwards and take a look at us on sensors; put it on the main viewer." Five pairs of eyes on the bridge, counting the silent security chief by the turbolift, stared up at the main viewer. Dax saw a star field, with a pair of dots moving slowly closer; each dot was accompa- nied by a bright green box full of information about the type and specs of Cardassian warship it was. But the centerpiece of the screen was a giant- sized picture of the Defiant, accompanied by its own bright green box... and the ship was radiat- ing on all frequencies. "So much for the cloak," said Dax, more disappointed than incredulous. "No wonder we're at- tracting attention. We're lit up like a courting lantern." "Well," said Lieutenant Wabak weakly, "at least now we know what the planetary-defense beam does, Commander." "Belay that last belay, Lieutenant. Shields, quickly--before the Cardassians get close enough to take a clean shot." "Incoming torpedo from the cruiser," said Wabak, raising shields, but the shot was far wide, of course .... They were only barely in range. "Ensign Weymouth, evasive maneuvers." "Which-which pattern should I use, sir?" "Pattern four." The Defiant began to bob and weave, maneuver- ing to keep the planet in between herself and the Cardassians... an impossible task, Dax quickly realized, as the seven ships fanned out: the two GM-class heavy cruisers, either of which could probably handle the Defiant by itself, backed away, waiting for the cruiser and the four destroyers to harass and chivvy the Federation vessel, which had probably been identified by then, into the open. Dax felt herself begin to sweat, feeling like a burglar when someone suddenly turned on all the lights. "Commander--should we contact the away team?" "Negative. The Cardassians will just follow the signal--" "And they will locate the away team," finished the unpronounceable Ensign Nick. Please Benjamin, she prayed silently, whatever you do, DON'T call me right now. The Defiant lurched with another disruptor tor- pedo, fired this time by one of the destroyers; it was only a small charge, and not a direct shot in any event, but Dax realized it was the harbinger of more, many more, to come. "Commander!" shouted Wabak. "Should we re- turn fire?" "Don't bother," she said, glumly. "What?" "Don't bother returning fire, we're out of effec- tive range. Weymouth, continue evasive maneu- vers .... Do it randomly--use the computer, that's what it's there for." Dax paced nervously, aware she was showing her stress, hoping it would just appear as battle lust. It would make sense; over the last few centuries, they know I've been a berserk- er warrior more than once. "Incoming," said the jaygee. "Torpedo, two dis- ruptor blasts--took us on... the disruptors took us

on the for'ard left flank, shields holding." "Sort of," added Dax, noticing the bridge lights flicker... a subtle sign of power strain as the computer instantly compensated. "Return fire?" "We're not close enough, Lieutenant; just vamp until ready." "What?" "Sorry ....Just fly in circles, try to keep the planet between us and the heavies." Centuries ago, on ancient Earth, when the vaudeville acts weren't quite ready but the audience were restive, the MC would "vamp until ready"--come out, tell jokes, sing songs, insult the audience, and in general make a turnreel, literally a noise, until the first juggler or dance act felt the psychic moment was perfect to make an appearance (or was paid the extortion money they demanded not to walk off the show). At the moment, against two heavy dreadnoughts and five smaller ships, that was about all the Defiant could do--and Dax knew it. The junior officers should have known it too, but Jadzia Dax was more willing to forgive the sins of youth than her youth- ful prot6g6, Benjamin Sisko. Suddenly, Lieutenant Wabak jumped half out of his chair and his skin. "Incoming missiles/" he nearly screamed; then without bothering to ask permission, he fired a pair of photon torpedoes. The explosion literally spun the ship, sending it tumbling in its orbit until Ensign Weymouth cor- rected and regained control. "What the hell was that?" demanded the commander. "Planetary defenses," bellowed Wabak, trying to regain control of himself. "Prophets, more mis- siles." "Get us out of this orbit, Mister." Discussion ceased as the bridge crew poured on the impulse engines, increasing momentum in the direction of their orbit; in accordance with gravita- tional laws that not even the Joint Federation, Klingon, and Cardassian Peace Negotiations Dis- cussion Subcommittee could yet repeal, the Defiant drifted farther and farther from the center of the planet. "Take out any missiles aimed at us," or- dered Dax retroactively, for the record. The lieu- tenant junior grade repeated his earlier actions, though this time one of the missiles got too close, and the explosion tore right through the shields and shredded the external packet of one of the nacelles. "Dax to Bashir. Casualties on decks, ah, nine and ten." The battle continued, forces conjoined, and Dax forgot everything, even the casualties, in her mad zeal somehow to keep the rest of them alive for at least a few more minutes. Dr. Bashir, running down a corridor in the increasingly damaged Defiant, staggered and fell against the bulkhead as the damned ship heaved and shook under the bombardment. He barely avoided actually sprawling on the deck and drop- ping everything. A nurse behind him unnecessarily grabbed him under the arms and helped him up. "I'm all right, Aaastaak," he snapped, testy under the strain. Julian Bashir sighed as he continued down the corridor, slower this time. Well this IS what I signed up for, isn't it? "A lesser man would crum- ble," he muttered, but Virjaaj Aaastaak didn't hear, of course: Toorjaani were known throughout the quadrant for their lousy hearing, made up for by an almost psychic empathy with the injured, nearly as good as the Betazoids'. Taking a break from bumpy noses, evolution had equipped the Toorjaani with noses that bent at a right angle, pointing left (the dominant caste) or right (servants, doormen, boot polishers, so on); the Federa- tion had debated their admission for years. And here I am, mentally babbling again, thought the doctor angrily. Bashir pushed through an emergency door that was flashing red; had it been flashing blue, it would have indicated hull breach beyond it, and Dr. Bashir would have needed a pressure suit to treat the casualties--assuming they managed to survive a close encounter with the Void. And

casualties there were. Sixteen crewmen were scattered about the room, bloodstains painted the floor an eerie red with streaks of green (Vulcan) and silver and black (any of several different species; Bashir would worry about identifcation after tri- age). '~,taastaak!" shouted the doctor, catching the Toorjaani's attention. "Her and her, emergency transport to sickbay. The ones I'm marking get your immediate attention." The ship rocked again, throwing Bashir to his knees. What the hell is going on up there?he wondered, climbing back to his feet. As the two most injured crewwomen disap- peared into sparkles, Bashir drew a device from his bag and spray-painted the faces of seven other crewmen: they all had broken bones, multiple contusions, and serious but not life-threatening lacerations and abrasions; one was bleeding badly enough that the doctor staunched the flow before spraying him. "Leave the rest until later. They can wait." Bashir slapped his cornbadge. "Marge. Start..." Realizing he was still shrieking like a banshee, Bashir cleared his aching throat and started over. "Marge, prep the two patients for immediate sur- gery, then start with an alpha wave inducer and start isolating the most serious internals with an exoscal- peL I'll be down in three or four minutes." He was holding tight to a hatch-access handle; nevertheless, he was almost knocked off his feet anyway when the ship first lurched forward, like a boat sliding down a particularly grim wave, then jumped backwards, as if it had slammed into something solid (like a planet). Leaving Aaastaak in charge of the first serious casualty site, Julian Bashir picked up his tricorder and medical bag and literally ran to the next chamber. He found only four more casualties, none as seriously injured as the ensign and the patient he had already sent to surgery. "People, listen up," he said. "You can all make it next door except you, Ensign. The rest of you go into that room there"-- Bashir pointedm"and the nurse will take care of you after he squares away some other, more seri- ously wounded patients." Bashir pressed his lips together, playing his por- table plasma infusion unit across the chest of the far more seriously injured Ensign Yamada, who had lost a significant amount of blood. The ship seemed to roll; at least Julian Bashir was pressed against the floor with nearly three times the normal gravitation allowed by the inertial dampers. "Ensign Jones," he gasped when he could breathe again, "I checked you out: your pulse, respiration, and blood pressure are all normal. Whatever you're feeling is entirely in your mind; your body is all right, except for some minor scratches." Dr. Bashir looked up at the sweating, shaky starman. "It's all right to be searedmI'm scared to death. You're going to be fine .... trust me. I am a doctor." He smiled at the man, who looked terribly embarrassed at his outburst. When Bashir had stopped Yamada's blood flow with his hypotourniquet, despite being knocked to his rear twice because of torpedoes or disruptors pounding against the fading shields, the doctor had the computer transport himself directly to sickbay. Just as he arrived, the ship rolled so severely that the inertial dampers couldn't quite keep up; Bashir found himself hanging from the edge of the opera- ting table, while the bulkhead separating the sur- gery from his office abruptly became the "floor." Then normal gravity reasserted itself, and he fell to the deck. He stood, holding his stomach and trying to find the breath that had been knocked away by the blow. "Oh, Marge... this is going to be a relaxing session." He shook his numbed arm. "I can just feel it in my bones." The nurse looked at Bashir and shook her head, as if ruing the day she had ever been assigned to Dr. Julian Bashir. Jadzia Dax was far too busy to be sick to her

stomach; after the third time thrown to the deck, she sat in the command chair and ordered every- one, herself included, to strap in. It was the most lopsided battle she had fought in more than a century: the Defiant had been so busy dodging, she had gotten off only a few, poorly aimed shots at the Cardassian attackers... and those had done barely any damage at all. "Weymouth, continue evasive maneuvers. Wabak, shoot anything you see, keep us outside the planetary defenses-last thing we need is to be dodging their impulse missiles in addition to torpe- does and disruptors." She tapped her cornbadge; "Dax to Ensign Nick, private channel." She started to correct herself and use his actual name; surprisingly, N'Kduk-Thag responded instantly .... The computer must have been listen- ing to us, mused the Trill. "Nick, you're the only one not engaged in keep- ing us alive: I need input. We're being pounded .... Got any suggestions?" She spoke quietly into the ether, not wanting to distract either of the other two bridge officers; they had their hands full dodging Cardassians. "We nmst exit the vicinity," suggested the emotionless, or at least uninflected, Ensign Nick. "Yes, but how do we disengage when we're surrounded by Cardassians? Before we made a move in any direction, the minute their sensors picked up the impulse engine run-up, they'd be all over us like--well, never mind." She wrinkled her nose at the image she had been about to invoke. "Then there is only one course. We must surren- der the ship," concluded the rational but not exactly morale-boosting ensign. "Surely the Car- dassians are more interested in capturing and studying the Defiant than blowing her to pieces." Dax thought for a moment: something as yet inchoate floated in her stomach, reaching pale tendrils of cognition up her throat toward her brain. Something... something there ....Sud- denly she knew what to do. "Ensign Nick," she called sharply, "open a channel to the lead ship-well, either of the ships. Use the Cardassian guard frequency, ah"-Dax closed her eyes for a moment and felt the nausea she had fought off so far-- "twenty-seven, thirteen, thirteen, thirty, three- niner." "Channel open, Commander." "This is Lieutenant Commander Dax, commanding officer of the United Federation of Plan- ets vessel Defiant. I hereby surrender my ship and crew and demand you cease fire in accordance with the Uniform Rules of Warfare Treaty." The rest of the bridge crew fell silent, nearly forgetting to dodge the final incoming hammer blows.

CHAPTER 11 THE DEFIANT took six more hits to the shields, then the Cardassian ships grew silent; everyone drifted along his previous course, eyeballing each other. "Shields down to eleven percent," said Ensign Nick, science duty officer, doing the analysis that really should have been performed by Ensign Wey- mouth, "extensive hull and bioelectrical damage on most decks, atmospheric containment still oper- able, thirty-seven casualties--two fatal, six critical. Doctor Bashir has commenced medical treatment reports." Weymouth and Wabak stared back at the Trill, and Joson Wabak's mouth was open in astonish- ment. "We're surrendering?" he demanded, incred- ulous. "Sure sounded like it, didn't it?" Dax wasn't being intentionally cryptic; she sometimes con- ceived a plan and concealed it even from her own conscious mind. A cautious voice responded over the comm link. "I am Captain Maqak. The New Cardassia accepts your surrender." The New Cardassia? That wasn't a name Dax had ever heard before. "We await further instruc- tions, Captain Maqak," said the commander. She caught Ensign Nick's eye and drew her finger across her throat; he understood and severed the connec- tion. "Lieutenant," Dax said, leaning forward con- spiratorally, "cut the shields, but let them kind of flicker out, like they were failing." "That won't be hard," Wabak responded, eyes cold and dark. Damn Bajorans, thought Dax, always so emo- tional about everything. Wabak's hands were shaking with suppressed anger, frustration, humiliation, as he killed the shields. "Are the Cardassians surrounding us?" asked Dax. "Pretty much, ma ~m, "he said, rolling his eyes. "Perfect. Weymouth, listen close: just tap the impulse engines a tad, just enough to nudge us so that we pass very close on the lee side of this dreadnought here." Dax unbuckled and strode to the ensign's console, pointing at the nearest of the two larger ships. "The--lee side, Commander?" She looked puz- zled; the term was too ancient to be familiar to her,... a problem a multi-lived Trill had more often than one might think. "Just get that dreadnought between us and the source of that discovery beam from the planetary defenses, Ensign .... You follow? I want us in Maqak's shadow, far as the beam is concerned." Jadzia Dax glanced over at Wabak, the cute but hotheaded young Bajoran. The look of growing comprehension on his face was music. Ensign Weymouth seemed to get it as well. She expertly maneuvered the crippled Defiant into po- sition, even allowing her to tilt alarmingly, as if she had lost control of her attitude stabilizers. "Let me know when the discovery beam is blocked," said Dax to Wabak, who stared intently at his threat board. "But Commander," queried the greenish blue Ensign Nick, whose literality seemed to slow him down at times, "even if we restore the cloaking device will not the beam simply find us again and strip it away?" "Out here? We're obviously beyond the trigger- ing distance, or else they'd be shooting at the Cardassians." "Commander, the beam is blocked," shouted Wabak. "Joson, ready to cloak? Do it now." Dax waited a couple of seconds for the cloak to take full effect. "All right, Tina, now. Point zero seven five im- pulse, dive and to the right, get out from between 'em." The engines hummed and rattled, obviously damaged. Come on, babies, just a little more. We'll have plenty of time for repairs and coddling later-- just GET US OUT OF HERE. Unwilling to leave navigation, Dax hovered over Ensign Weymouth, gripping the chair and feeling excitement build in her gut like a nova. Dax's mouth was dry and her lips stuck together; she tried to lick them, but she had no saliva. As the Deftant dodged around the Cardassian hedge and broke

free, she alternately clenched and unclenched her fingers on the back of Weymouth's chair. "Nick! Are we trailing any debris, ionized triti- um or gallium arsenide, anything like that?" The ensign checked. "Yes, Commander, we are leaving a trail of tritium plasma. I will attempt to correct." "No, leave it .... We want them to track us." Wabak shot Dax a suspicious glance; Weymouth was too busy driving and Nick obeyed without question. "Turn and head directly for the planet, maintain point zero seven five." "What orbit?" "No orbit. I said, directly for the planet." Oh boy, she thought, if this doesn't work... well, at least ! won't ever have to see Benjamin staring reproach- fully at me ever again. The Defiant turned and dove directly for the planet, as Dax ordered. "Cardassians," shouted the commander. Joson Wabak checked his threat board; for an untrained crew of junior officers, they actually weren't doing half bad, Dax realized .... At the back of her mind, she was already writing the log entry: Competent and dutiful but somewhat unoriginal. "Hope I get a chance to log it," she said under her breath. "They're--ah--they're kind of milling around; they're sweeping the area for a warp signature." "Hah. Well, we're not running." "Now they're fanning out--they're heading low- er. I think we're..." "What? We're what?" Dax caught hold of herself; someone had to remain levelheaded. She back into her command chair and buckled up again. Wabak looked back at her, eyes wide. "Com- mander-they've spotted the ionized tritium trail. They are tracking us. They're following us down. They'll see right where we're going!" Dax grinned like the Cheshire Cat in that old Earth book Jake Sisko had insisted she read. "I'm counting on it. That's why we're going slow enough they can follow. Tina, set speed to one hundred kilometers per second but wait to engage for my mark." The Defiant plunged closer and closer to the planet; Dax ordered Ensign Nick to count off every ten thousand kilometers, which he did a little faster than one beat per second. When they hit forty thousand kilometers from the planet, Dax said, "Tina, engage. Hang on, kids; Wabak, take over emergency helm--hands off, Tina--Joson, be pre- pared to dodge any accidental missile intercepts." Wabak was impressed. "Oh... Commander, that's brilliant! Cold, but brilliant." Not surpris- ingly, the Bajoran seemed less than concerned about Dax's coldness toward their Cardassian at- tackers. A few moments later, the pursuing Cardassians, having forgotten their lesson, also passed below forty thousand kilometers, and the planetary de- fenses engaged. Missiles began to launch so quickly that, even though none was fired directly at the Defiant, it was all Joson could do to dodge the ones headed for the targets behind. "A hit," he shouted; since Dax hadn't felt any shudder in their own ship, she concluded he was talking about hits on the Cardassians. "Another hit .... Two--correct--three more; Cardassian destroyer down/" he whooped in triumph. His triumph was short-lived, alas. "Prophets take us," he snarled, "the damned discovery beam is back." "Found us again?" "Yes. Now they're shooting at us." "Ten thousand," called out Ensign Nick. "Slow up again, Wabak. Ten kilometers per second. We don't want to swat the ocean like a bullet." As they approached the great northern ocean, Dax had them slow again, and again, until finally they approached the water at a stately five hundred meters per second. Wabak continued to dodge missiles, which became tougher every time the speed dropped. Dax touched her combadge. "Dax to crew: crash positions. Repeat, crash positions--everyone strapped in or down on the deck. Julian, put a stasis around the patients and get down." "Aye, aye, Commander."

"How close, Commander?" Joson asked ner- vously. "Stay the course, Wabak." "We're headed right for the water." "Stay the course, Lieutenant. We're headed right into the water. Hang on, everybody. Count it, Nick." "Five seconds until impact..." He paused; Dax held her breath, gripping the arms of the command chair, wondering for a moment whether it wasn't all just a mirage. It struck-hard. The inertial dampers couldn't cushion the entire blow, and Dax felt a tremendous impact against the restraint webbing, which almost jerked her eyeballs out of her head. Her head snapped forward savagely, and her arms and legs splayed out in front of her. When she blinked back to full consciousness, she made the mistake of shaking her head to clear her vision; the pain in her neck was so severe, she almost cried out. But she gritted her teeth, playing Klingon, and made no noise. Still, with every movement of her body, espe- cially her head and neck, Dax lurched just slightly off balance, her brain compensating for too much motion. A frightening feeling: not quite the spin- ning room of vertigo or the inability to stand still of dizziness, but the imbalance frightened her enough that her heart pounded. Within a few minutes, the horrible sensation coalesced into an angry pain in her neck, and she realized it was caused by the sudden jolt of the ship's impact against the sea surface. The Defiant rolled and pitched far beneath the ocean waves, caught by deep underwater currents. Out the forward viewer, all the commander saw was a swirl of gradually dimming silvery blue and millions of green-glowing bubbles. "Computer," she gasped, "color correct for water transparency." Now she jumped in vertigo, causing her head to throb as if someone were kicking her brainpan with an iron-shod boot: the ship was headed straight for an immense rock wall. She blinked, and realized it was the ocean floor; they were still pointed directly downward, though their speed was tremendously diminished--the impulse engines ran at the same power level as if they were in vacuum, but the enormous drag of seawater slowed their progress to a crawl. Well, good, she thought; otherwise, we might're smacked into the dirt before we even recovered from crashing the surface. "Ensign Nickmwhat's our depth?" "We are at one thousand one hundred meters below the surface; the pressure against the hull is one hundred and ten atmospheres, still descending; ocean floor in five hundred meters." "Is the hull going to cave?" "The hull is not built for high external pressure." "Wabak, full power to the hull integrity shields .... In fact, overcrank it; I better head down to engineering to pump it up a bit. Tina, land us on the ocean floor and maintain the cloak." She unbuckled and stood. "Good job, crew; we made it. We're safe." She didn't add the caveat she thought silently to herself: Safe FOR NOW~ How long "now" would be was open to considera- tion .... depending on whether she could goose the hull-integrity field to withstand an eventual hundred and sixty atmospheres of pressure from the surrounding seawater longer than a few min- utes. Otherwise... Dax left the bridge for the turbo- lift with visions of a fist crushing an egg, splattering the contents across the deckplates and the over- head. Quark squatted on the frigid ground, trying not to think of hundreds, thousands of bars worth of raw latinum buried beneath his feet. Focus, he ordered himself; greed is eternal; even a blind man can recognize the glow of latinurn; home is where the heart is... but the stars are made of latinum. The Ferengi couldn't help smiling, though his stu- dents couldn't possibly see him in the dark, despite the moons; when the immortal Seventy-Fifth Rule of Acquisition was writ, who could know how literal it would turn out to

be? Quark popped a glowtube. He and his twelve students were away in a dark part of the plain, not near one of the fires that dotted the heath; the fires were warmer, of course, but the Federations tended to circulate among them--and Quark's plans did not include the away team, and especially not Odo. "Now these," he said, letting a pile of torn paper bits fall to the ground, "are called money. Chits, credits, whatever you want. Each chit represents-- oh, call it twenty bars of gold-pressed latinum." If we're going to go for it, let~ go for it. Asta-ha, the female leader, nodded as if she understood. "Do you know what gold-pressed latinurn is?" asked Quark. "Neg." He sighed deeply. All right, let's start back a little farther. Suppose you wanted something you didn't have... say a piece of new tech; this glowtube, for instance. Now, I have a bunch in my pocket, and you want some. What do you do?" Asta-ha puzzled for a moment; then she asked, "Could I have one of your glowtube techs, Quark?" "Certainly, Asta-ha, but I want something in return. What will you offer me?" Without a thought, the female extracted her force beam projector. "No. That's totally ridicu- lous," snarled the Ferengi, pocketing the projector. I thought Sisko confiscated all that, he idly won- dered, feeling virtuous in removing another Tiff- naki cheating tool. "This glowtube gives you light for four hours, then it stops... but the force beam projector works forever. You gave up some- thing much more useful for something of limited value .... That's uneconomic." "But what should I offer?" she asked, still trying to work it out. "Just something equally valueless and tempo- rary, like--" Quark struggled for an example; the problem was, all the technology on this priceless gem of a world was seemingly perfect and eternal. "Like a sandwich, or some other foodstuff. Yes, that's perfect. A meal gives you about four or five hours of sustenance; the glowtube gives you four hours of light .... A perfect trade. See why?" "I guess so," said Asta-ha; she didn't look sure at all. "But what if you just ate?" Quark beamed; the perfect straight line. "That's where this money comes in. It's a placeholder for the value. I give you the glowtube and you give me one of your chits; I hang onto the chit until I get hungry again .... Then I trade you back your chit, and you give me a sandwich. Get it?" "Yeah... yeah." "And suppose," continued the Ferengi, on a roll, "! get hungry and you're not around. Do I starve? No. I can trade the chit you gave me to anyone else who has food, and he'll give me an equivalent amount of food. Then he keeps the chit I gave him, and eventually, when he needs something from somebody else, he trades the chit for it." In reality, Quark thought darkly, a Sierra-Bravo sandwich was just the ticket if he ever ended up destitute and an employee, and he decided to end it all; the local food was deadly poison to Ferengi and hu-man digestion. Which raises an interesting question, he thought: what ARE we going to eat when we run out of the despicable Federation corn-rats? There didn't seem to be an edible beetle in sight. Rimtha-da, a burly man who didn't know his own strength, interrupted. "Money tech. This is an amazing discovery, Quark. You nmst show your friends, too." The Ferengi sighed again. "No, it's not new tech, it's old tech... and anyone can use it. It's not like, ah, the antigray, which is controlled by one person at a time; this tech only works if everyone uses it." Quark worked with the Tiffnakis for more than an hour, all the while looking apprehensively over his shoulder for the omnipresent constable; some- how, Quark was certain, Odo would find a way to harass Quark for giving so generously of his knowl- edge of profitable capitalism. No good deed ever goes unpunished, he quoted to

himself; it was the very last Rule of Acquisition, number 285, to be exact, and truer words were never spoken. He made the Tiffnakis work with him, construct- ing several hundred pieces of "money" from the paper he had borrowed from Drukulu-da, the Tiff- nakis' bard or recorder or historian--Quark wasn't sure which description fit the man best. After some false starts, the Ferengi had the Natives buying and selling all their possessions from one another, using the chits to mark the value .... It was truly a remarkable accomplishment, Quark thought, teaching these innumerate barbarians the principles of capitalism in just one hour. Then Quark began to notice something odd. By the light of his fading glowtube, he examined one of the chits: he was sure he had seen that exact chit just a few moments before, and there were so many, they shouldn't be recycling so quickly. He shrugged it off, too busy to worry about the strange coincidence; he was involved in a difficult negotia- tion with Asta-ha for her mineral separator, which she had acquired by the Profits only knew what bizarre series of trades from someone else in the group. A cynic, such as Odo, might have thought that Quark concocted the whole lesson just to get his greedy hands on the device, which would allow him to separate all the latinurn from the soil compound. The Ferengi grinned. Well, cynicism is an ugly emotion... but the universe is sometimes an ugly place. Then, trading away the useless (to Quark) anti- gray device, which could be found aplenty on Deep Space Nine, he received from Tivva-ma, Asta-ha's daughter, a handful of chits, among which were three exact duplicates of the chit Quark had just puzzled over. He stared at the four: they were identical, right down to the irregular tear along one edge, the exact style of numbering in the Tiffnakis' complex and inefficient duodecimal system, and even a stray charcoal mark on the back of each one of the papers. Somebody, he realized with a terrible shock, is counterfeiting chit markers. Fingers counting auto- matically, Quark's mind raced: the only way to perfectly counterfeit the little slips of paper would be to use a tiny, handheld replicator... but the replicators on the ship and the station were huge, bulky affairs, run by the entirety of the ship's computer system. Quark felt dizzy at the prospect; imagine, a replicator he could carry in his pocket while out on a stroll--I'll be a millionaire/shrieked the vital greed center of his brain. The image of a million bars of gold-pressed latinurn made him actually lose count of the "money" Tivva-ma was handing him. 0

CHAPTER 12 SNAKING FROM DESmE, Quark initiated inquiries. "Asta-ha, have you ever seen a piece of tech--I don't know whether it's new or old--that lets you, ah, duplicate objects? Like if I had, oh I don't know, one of these chits, I could use the tech to make an exact copy?" Quark shrugged his shoul- ders, trying to look and sound casual; in the dim, green light from the glowtube, it occurred to him that no one could see him anyway. "Never heard, never seen," said the female, shrugging right back at the Ferengi. She pointed to a female Quark had never met. "Jokka-ha keeps better track of tech than I. Try her." Quark sidled up to Jokka-ha, a huge, strapping female who looked like she could roll the Ferengi into a ball and boot him into the Cardassian encampment. She, too, claimed never to have heard of such tech. Jokka-ha sent him to Manna-ha, who sent him to Drukus-da, who sent him to Alba-ha, who sent him to Iniyard-da, who directed him to little Veelishdeiey-ma, and so on through a progression of more then forty Tiffnakis, until Quark was certain he was being given the royal runaround by the Hereditary Female Mayoress. But abruptly, the shuck stopped there with Tivva-ma herself. Quark cast a dirty look at the little girl's mother, but Asta- ha was obliviously involved in her own elaborate arms negotiation with Owena-da. Tivva-ma solemnly nodded when Quark asked the by now ritual question about the "duplicating tech." "Yes, I have," she said, holding up an object the size of a hypospray. "Can you show me?" asked Quark, tingling with excitement; he fished in the pocket of his once beautiful, now mudruined coat for something to test and found only a plastic-wrapped treat he had taken along and promptly forgotten. He extracted it cleverly, laying it on the ground in front of Tivva-ma: "Want some Huypyrian bee candy, little girl?" It was a sad but useful fact of biology, according to Dax's original analysis, that Ferengi food was not poisonous to Natives--though it did lack essential nutrients like cyanide, and they couldn't live on it. The negotiation took another hour. During the course of teaching the essentials of profit, many of the chits had somehow stuck to Quark's fingers. He fished them all out now, along with the force beam projector he took from Asta-ha as punishment, and several other pieces of tech he had accidentally acquired in the course of the away team mission. The girl drove a brutally hard bargain, but at last, the Ferengi brought together exactly the right com- bination of tech, promises, Federation technology, and chits. Tivva-ma handed over the minirepli- cator. Gleefully, Quark hopped to his feet, stopped to pat the little girl on the head (which indignity she took gracefully), and pranced away, dancing in little circles... directly into a solid, massive ob- ject that felt like a ship's bulkhead but turned out to be the dreaded Constable Odo's immovable chest. "Well, well, Quark... what have we here?" Darting his hand faster than the Ferengi's eye could follow, Odo seized hold of Quark's wrist and twisted his hand palm-side up; Quark clenched his hand into a tight fist around his new acquisition. Odo hummed happily; maintaining the death grip on Quark's wrist, Odo slowly began to meta- morphose his other hand into a nightmarish entrenching tool, with huge, jagged, metal shards instead of fingers. The metal claw snapped open and closed a few times; then it began to move inexorably toward Quark's clenched fist with terri- ble purpose. Quark screamed and opened his hand by reflex, as quickly as he would have jerked his fingers from a red-hot hunk of metal. Odo's hand contraption expertly plucked the minireplicator from Quark's trembling paw. "That's mine!" shouted Quark. "You

can't have it!" "Oh? And how, exactly, did you get it?" "I bought it legitimately," said the Ferengi stuffily. "From whom?" "From Tivva-ma." "You bought it legitimately by tricking a child out of it?" "I didn't trick her! I paid very handsomely for it." "And you paid what, exactly, Quark?" The Ferengi licked his lips, wondering just how much of the truth to tell. '2, uh, gave her a force beam projector and an antigray device." Best not tell him about the Tiffnaki death ray, Quark de- cided. Odo arched his eyebrows. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Quark, but didn't those devices belong to the Tiffnakis already?" "Well... I bought them earlier." "With what?" "With these." Inspired, Quark dug into his pock- ets and coughed up another handful of chits. "You bought three devices from credulous Na- tives with little pieces of paper marked in your own handwriting .... Is that your story, Quark?" The constable curled his lip. Quark scowled; as usual, the witless Constable Odo, unable to win a fair battle of the minds, was resorting to sarcasm and mockery. "Well, earlier I traded them some of my glowtubes, and a ph..." "A ffffJ~. What's a fffff?" Odo tilted his head, almost smirking. "Were you about to say a phaser? So in addition to theft and fraud upon a child, you also engaged in culture contamination. You've had a busy day, haven't you, Quark?" "Odo, for profit's sake. I was teaching them something about money and the market." Constable Odo perked up. "Well, perhaps they'd enjoy a lesson about jurisprudence, then. I'll have the chief confiscate the phaser; I have more enjoy- able duties regarding you." Turning about, Odo stalked toward the fire where the rest of the away team sat; the constable's hand around Quark's wrist shapeshifted into an iron manacle, and the Ferengi was dragged, willy-nilly, toward disgrace, dishonor, and the probable loss of the single greatest treasure trove ever discovered by any Ferengi since Grand Nagus Zek first realized the potential of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. This has not been my day, sighed Quark. The Defiant settled at approximately a fifteen degree angle to the seafloor, according to the sen- sors. Julian Bashir checked once more on his surgery patients; they were all recovering nicely, sleeping soundly with the help of an alpha rhythm inducer. Nurses Marge and Aaastaak monitored the patients carefully; really, there was no reason for Bashir to stay in sickbay. He took the turbolift to the bridge, but Dax wasn't there. "Computer," he said, "locate Lieu- tenant Commander Dax." A few minutes later, he knocked on her quarters door. "Enter," she said glumly, and the door hissed open. "Jadzia! Why are you sitting here in the dark?" She rubbed her temples. "A, I'm trying to get rid of this headache, and B, I'm trying to figure out how the hell we're going to contact the away team. There are so many ionized minerals in the water, I can't get a subspace communication out... and we can't beam through this stuff, either; the reflection scrambles the beam pattern." "You have a headache?" asked Bashir, picking up on the one problem where he could at least have some positive impact. He played his tricorder across her skull, probing for the problem. Hyper- tensive, he thought .... Perfectly normal, consider- ing the circumstances. "Let me give you a mild analgesic, if you don't mind." "Will it make me slow and stupid?" She stared at him with hard, dry eyes. "Because I just can't afford that right now." "I'm not giving you a sedative." Julian smiled, and Jadzia couldn't suppress a tiny smile herself. He injected it below the skin of her scalp using the hypospray, and she started feeling better after a few moments. "Here's the predicament," she said, lying back on top of her rack. "We're stuck on the ocean floor

at 1,640 meters below the surface. We can't beam through the water, it's too heaviliy ionized. We can't send a message to the away team, same reason. And we can't rise out of the surface because the four remaining Cardassians in orbit will spot our leaky impulse thrusters, as will the planetary defenses, and the two of them will bomb us into constituent atoms. Any suggestions from the medi- cal staff?." "Take your vitamins," said Julian. But it was only a pro forma witticism; inside, he was trying to arrange the situation into a logical, coherent pat- tern so his superior brain could analyze it. Hiding his advanced genetics from his friends was vital, but not more vital than Jadzia's and everyone else's life. "Obviously there's no logical engineering fix," said the doctor, "or you'd have already thought of it." "Thank you." Julian continued, unsure whether she was being sincere or sarcastic. "So what we're looking for is a solution resulting from thinking sideways." Jadzia rolled onto her side. "All right, think sideways. With the Cardassians on the surface, I'll bet Benjamin has his hands full... and we must find a way to communicate with him to find out whether he can hold out long enough for us to run to the fleet and get a couple of escorts-assuming they're not heavily engaged themselves on the Cardassian border." Bashit completed the thought: "Or whether the captain and the team need immediate extraction, no matter what." "So how do we exchange pleasantries with Ben- jamin and the away team?" Julian sat down in Jadzia's desk chair, putting his chin in his hands to ponder the problem; then, remembering his own analogy, he stretched out on his side on the floor, facing her. He closed his eyes, trying to envision every crazy method of distance communication he had ever read about, from sub- space bouncing to the old radio days of ancient Earth, to semaphor, bagpipes, signal fires, two paper cups connected by a string. He decided to think out loud, hoping to stimu- late the brainy Trill. "I've heard that the old sub-- what are they called?--submarines used to extend a wire on a float to the surface so they could send and receive message traffic without surfacing." "Subspace communications require line of sight; they don't bounce around like electromagnetic waves. The team would have to be within a few kilometers of our antenna... and they're not." "All right, then; how about electromagnetic waves? Old-fashioned radio, I mean." "But how would we send to the captain?" ob- jected Jadzia. "He doesn't have a radio receiver to pick up the signal." "Can't you rebuild a cornbadge so it receives radio frequency?" "Of course. But why would he think to do it? We didn't arrange anything like this before they left." Julian Bashir thought long, hard, hot, heavy, cool, sneaky. He envisioned himself and Jadzia somehow rising from the sea as gods or water sprites. He wondered whether they could replicate a bullhorn on a seventeen-hundred-meter pole, raise it up, and shout for the captain. Julian gasped; he half sat--he had it! but where had the answer gone?--then it poured back into his consciousness. "Jadzia," he shouted, startling her so that she sat bolt upright; she clutched her head, swearing lustily ....Evidently, the headache was not utterly gone. "You'd better have something after shouting me up like that," she declared, making a threatening fist. "Jadzia, why merely communicate with the cap- tain when we can have a face-toface meeting instead?" She considered him for a moment, scanning right to left across his prone body, head to boots; she turned to the empty air next to him. "Deranged," she said to the man who wasn't there. "Totally deranged." "No, really. If we transport ourselves to the surface, can't we find the captain?" "Julian,"

she explained patiently, "I already told you we can't beam through this water." "Who said anything about beaming? What about using the runabout?" Jadzia blinked, startled by the suggestion. "I never even thought of that," she admitted. "It's a nice idea, but the pressure would crush the run- about like a paper lantern. It's not built for that." "what if we pressurized the inside to match the outside?" Smiling, the commander said, "That would save the runabout, but we'd die from oxygen poison- ing.... At that pressure, the partial pressure of oxygen is enough to be toxic." "Put a force shield around the runabout, like the ship has?" Jadzia considered. "That would delay the crush- ing, but I still think we wouldn't make it to the surface." "Replicate armor plating for the hull?" "We'd need the industrial-sized replicators they have at the shipyards ....Ours are much too small." "All right then," said the good doctor, "one last suggestion: we put a force shield around the run- about to delay the crush, and we replicate deep-sea scuba diving gear and wear it on the way up; when the runabout is about to blow, we let the seawater in ourselves, stick the regulators in our mouths, and swim the rest of the way." Dax stared at Julian, her expression utterly un- readable until the doctor realized she was doing the math in her head--she probably didn't even see him. "You know," she said, "this is going to sound crazy... but your crazy scheme might just possi- bly work." She blinked back to the same space- time coordinates occupied by her body. "Give me a couple of hours to run some simulations, and in the meanwhile, can you set up a scuba holosuite pro- gram?" "Yes, I think so. The experimental holosuite is still on board. Why?" "Because I need the practice. I've never dived below thirty meters in my life." Julian Bashir bowed his head. "Your wish, as always, is my command, Jadzia." Captain Sisko deferred any judgment about Quark and his alleged nefarious activities "until such time as we're not in imminent danger of being blown to small bits"; neither Odo nor Quark was happy about the delay, but it was the fastest way to quench the fire. Sisko was far more concerned with supervising the division of his troops, the Tiff- nakis, into a semicoherent military organization. Though they fought frequent wars with their neighbors--"oh, enemies all around!" repeated the mayor, Asta-ha--the skirmishes, near as Sisko could sort them out, consisted of two ragtag armies standing in lines, facing each other, and activating various pieces of found technology until one side cut and ran. They had no sense of strategy, tactics, supply lines, military hierarchy, reserves, or any- thing else routine to armies everywhere else in the quadrant. He consulted with his two most experienced battlefield commanders: Lieutenant Commander Worf and Master Chief Petty Officer O'Brien. "The first step," rumbled the Klingon, truly in his ele- ment leading an army against Cardassians, "is to train an elite corps of commandos. They can train the rest of the troops of the village, and even travel to other villages to train the Natives there." "Worfs right," said the chief, "but there's noth- ing in any manual I've ever seen telling how to train a people who don't even know how to use a rope. Without all their fancy tech, they're helpless." Worf took a long, hard look at O'Brien. "I can think of another great people with that same problem." "You're not on about Risa again, are you, Worf?" The chief sighed in exasperation. "I tom you, it's totally different. The natives never even--" "Gentlemen," said the captain, holding out both hands for silence. "I like the idea of training an elite commando unit; both of you, start picking out who you want to be in it. When you start the training, I

want to see both the constable and Quark heavily involved... together." While Worf and O'Brien conducted the planet's first military draft, and Quark and Odo continued to try the Ferengi's case before it got so far as a formal complaint, Captain Sisko paced in the dark- ness, trying to calm his mind and think clearly, logically. He kept coming back to his ill-fated Scouting trip with the Tiffnakis. Fundamentally, he told himself, I had the right idea: put them in a situation where they CAN'T use their tech and force them to start improvising. Genetically, the Tiffnakis and their fellow planeteers--the captain had little experience with worlds that were not unified into a single planetary government .... What did one call them, other than Natives? Genetically, they were exactly the same as they were when they created all that fancy technology; they were obviously intelligent enough to improvise real solutions to their problems. If only their culture weren't so blasted fixated on techno manna falling from Heaven. According to Asta-ha, every one of their rites of passage, at every stage of life, followed the same pattern: put the candidate into a difficult, or at older ages dangerous, situtation, surrounded by various disguised pieces of old tech and new tech; then stand back and wait for the candidate to discover the right piece and use it to solve the problem. But wasn't that in essence the way all science worked? "Finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me," as Isaac Newton wrote more than six centuries before. Without realizing it, the Natives might have prepared themselves for their true renascence, as they were ripped from their womb of sleep and thrust into the adult world once again. Sisko chuck- led, amazed at his own melodramatic nature; he felt like Captain Ahab, not Captain Sisko, standing one-legged on the deck of the Pequod, spouting jeremiads at the great white whale. But fundamentally, I was RIGHT. He clung to that thought like a shipwrecked sailor to a floating spar. "I just didn't go far enough," he said aloud. "Beg pardon, sir?" said O'Brien from directly behind the captain. Suppressing the urge to spin about, Sisko kept his back to the chief, contemplating the horizon. "Fundamentally, I was right," he said, "on the idea of the Scouting trip. I just didn't go far enough .... I should have strip-searched the damned Natives before we set out." Sisko turned; the chief was uncharacteristically silent for a moment before speaking. "I'm, ah, not sure what Keiko would think about me strip- searching females, sir." The captain snorted. "I think we can trust the women to search the women and the men to search the men; I don't think we should be involved at all. But we must impress upon them the urgency of keeping nothing technological Nothing." "Um, how about rope, sir?" "No. Nothing but their clothes... and run a tricorder over the clothing to make sure there's nothing hidden. We'll teach them how to weave rope." "Food?" "We'll pick it, pluck it, or catch it." "All right. Does that apply to the instructors as well?" Sisko chuckled. Not unless we have a death wish, he thought. "Aye, aye, sir," said O'Brien. "Then what? Where are we going?" "The commandos, led by the away team, are going to watch the Cardassians conquer another village. I want Asta-ha and her raiders to see how an enemy strikes--and how their own people fall apart when their little toys are taken away." "I... don't know that I could just stand my ground and watch women and kids being killed, Captain." Sisko felt his own gut tighten, but he had long ago learned the primary Law of Command: some- times, you simply have to let some people die to save a larger or more important group.

"You won't have to, Chief. But these people, they're asleep. We have to shock them to wake them up, and this is the only way to do it." O'Brien turned to stare at the same horizon that the captain had found so fascinating a few mo- ments before; was he seeing the same visions, or his own, private, Boschian hell? "Aye, aye, Cap'n. I'll tell Worf." "Muster the troops and the away team in one hour and we'll begin stripping away their manna." 0

CHAPTER 13 NEVER, in more than twenty years of hard service in Starfleet, training scores--hundreds--of young enlisted men and even a few officers, never had Chief Miles Edward O'Brien had to nanny such a whiny group of complainers as were these Natives. Everything was all wrong. The hike was too long; the slope was too steep; the ground was too hard; the sun was too hot; the wind was too windy; the rocks were too rocky. By the time the nonchalant Captain Sisko had led them but thirteen kilometers "into the wild," Chief O'Brien was wishing he had palmed one of those force beam projectors to whack a few of his squad members over the head. "Sure," grumbled the chief to Worf, "what does he care about all the complaining?" He nodded his head at the captain, as if Worf might not under- stand who he was. "He doesn't have to hear it. He's up there at the front, gawking at blue trees and birds with metallic feathers .... We're the ones back here having to stomach all this junk." Worf growled deep in his throat. "Chief O'Brien, you are making as much noise as they." Miles raised his eyebrows; whenever Worf resorted to calling him Chief O'Brien, it meant the huge Kling- on was at the end of his rope. "Can you not just be silent except when correction is called for?" Sud- denly, Worf pointed at Owena-da, who had stopped by the side of the road and was staring at the ground as if looking for something. "You! Get back in line--" Owena-da looked back at Worf, blinking in con- fusion. "Neg, fellow--I mean, no sir, I thought I saw the sparkle of new tech among the weeds here. In fact..." Owena-da reached for a small box, the size of a tricorder, but Worf was quicker. He flashed past Chief O'Brien before the latter even registered what Owena-da was doing, and tramped down on the "new tech" with Federation-standard footgear that somehow looked more like an iron-shod jack- boot when Worf wore it. "I see no new tech," said the Klingon. "It's right there, under your foot." Worf crouched down to look the frightened Tiff- naki in the eyes. "I see no new tech," he repeated, his voice taking on an unmistakable tone of menace. Owena-da swallowed hard. "You're, ah, right; I must've been mistaken, sir. There's no new tech beneath your boot." "Get--in--LINE.t" The Tiffnaki didn't waste any time; he shot past O'Brien faster even than Worf had, but in the other direction. By the time the chief swiveled his head, Owena-da was back at his assigned row and file, matching steps with the other Tiffnakis in the march. "Well," remarked O'Brien to his friend when the Klingon returned, "I suppose that's one way of stopping them from whining. Now are you going to scare the rest of them half to death?" Worf shot O'Brien a look, and the chief grinned. He allowed his stride to shorten as he moved outside, and the column marched past him; when he was even with Odo and Quark, the rear guards, O'Brien tried his complaint again, this time to more receptive ears. "I know exactly what you mean," sympathized Quark, shooting a venomous sideways glance at the constable. "Being around people who spend all day, every day complaining about this or that tiny little infraction of the most insignificant regulation, makes me want to pack it all up and move some- where." "Oh, really, Quark?" said Odo, his lip curling. "Well, who's stopping you?" "You know," mused the Ferengi, "maybe it is time I made some lifestyle changes. All that hustle and bustle on the station--Quark, fetch me anoth- er drink. Quark, the Rigelian bloodwine is too cold. Quark, the gagh is too sluggish? "Oh, my heart just bleeds for you; when did you say you were leaving?" "And the help!" Quark smacked his forehead and stared skyward, as if appealing to the Final Accountant. "Rom was bad enough, but those

Bajorans that Kai Winn brought over with her. You'd think their Prophets had something against alcohol, synthehol, and Dabo girls." "Why, I can't imagine what." Quark and Odo were on such a roll that O'Brien felt himself jollied right out of his mood just listening to the pair. "So I thought that maybe..." Quark leaned close to O'Brien to speak in a conspiratorial whis- per; Constable Odo made no effort to move closer, but the chief noticed that Odo's ears grew distinctly larger. The advantages of a shapeshifting eavesdropper, thought O'Brien. "Perhaps," contin- ued Quark, "the captain wouldn't be averse to my moving to some nice, quiet, out-of-the-way planet more or less permanently." "Such as here," suggested O'Brien. Quark shrugged. "If you like. Someplace where I could settle down, grow some roots--" "Mine a little latinurn," added the constable without missing a beat. "And so what if I do? Is there some law against honest labor, a day's pay for a good day's toil?" "If there is, Quark," smirked Odo, "that's proba- bly the only law you're in no danger of breaking." Before Quark could respond to the latest outrage, a whisper traveled along the column: "Silence behind--on the signal, break ranks, find cover in the woods." O'Brien watched Captain Sisko, way at the front of the regiment-sized column; without further warning, the captain raised his left hand fiat and touched his right fist to the left palm, the signal for "Attention." Then he gestured to the right with his now-opened right hand ...."Scatter; cover," the signal meant. O'Brien raced for the silver blue woods, leaping over a thicket of purple berry plants; this time, most of the regiment actually beat him to the tree line, though it still took them too long to fall fiat behind something solid. Sisko waited in front of the trees until he could see no one; then he melded into the forest himself and vanished. Even knowing where the captain was, O'Brien could barely pick him out from among the trunks, now bluish gray in the waning sunlight, under the first moon. Even Odo awkwardly hid behind a tree, though the chief could tell he would have been happier becoming, a tree. Chief O'Brien listened closely but heard only the faintest of rustlings as somebody squirmed to a more comfortable position. At least no one shushed him this time, laughed the chief silently to himself. The last time, the chorus of shushes were so loud, they totally drowned out the squirming unfortu- nate. O'Brien heard the tramping of boots. From around a bend ahead of them came a troop of Natives .... Probably enemies of the Tiffnakis, thought the chief nervously; he had not forgotten Asta-ha's insistance that "enemies are all around." They were, on the whole, taller than the Tiffnakis, and all had silvery hair. Either it~ a dye job, thought O'Brien, or there ~ REALLY no interbreed- ing between the villages. They all dressed similarly in togalike wrapping garments, unlike the Tiff- nakis, who dressed like a roomful of color-blind Ferengis, grabbing jackets and pantaloons at ran- dom from a bin, no two alike. The ghostly parade shuffled silently down the road; they sported a guidon carrying a guidon: a white, triangular pennant that flapped in the breeze, seemingly glued to a curved, sectioned pole that looked as if it would expand and contract like a pointer. Glancing neither left nor right, the fifty or so Natives marched on past. O'Brien held his breath; the last encounter had not gone well. Despite nearly a whole day working with the Tiffnakis on the principle of concealment--"such a powerful new tech that requires no device... better even than rope tech," insisted Asta-hamthey had made so much noise, each person trying to shuffle to a more comfy position or better concealment, or loudly shushing the other noisemakers, that the

previous troop the Tiffnakis passed had easily heard them. That group, who looked like a contingent of Highland Scots with kilts and feathered blouses, had stopped and stared at the hedgerow behind which the Tiffnakis attempted to conceal them- selves; then one of them pointed a device at the semihidden mob, and the hedges flattened like they'd been blown over by gale-force winds. O'Brien had felt the push from the probing force beam, but he refused to react; alas, the Tiffnakis evidently decided the game was up, and they stood up, waving to the kilt wearers, who turned out to be friends of theirs (one of the few other Natives who weren't Tiffnaki enemies, again according to Asta- ha--who evidently thought her hereditary position largely required keeping lists of who around them was naughty and nice). It was a fiasco, of course; it took Worf and O'Brien fully fifteen minutes to restore some sense of order and get the two mobs of friendly Natives separated again. Quark and Odo were no help whatsoever, especially after Quark accused Odo of shapeshifting, a direct violation of the captain's orders; the ensuing argument, pursued in loud whispers to keep it from the ears of the curious Tiffnakis, occupied both the constable and the Ferengi. Captain Sisko ignored the scene, observ- ing the ruddy sun sinking toward the horizon. The chief had to admit the sky turned a beautiful shade of amber, then purple, then dark blue, due to the metallic dust in the atmosphere; the Whatsit planet boasted three moons, but only two were visible from the surface .... The two shining together cast about half the light of Earth's gigantic moon, Luna. But annoyed as the chief was, hc knew that Sisko was only exercising the CO's prerogative of leaving all the headaches to his XO... Lieutenant Com- mander Worf, in this case. As the new group passed by, Chief O'Brien tried to lick his lips with a tongue as dry as the dust he lay in; the silent phantoms scuffed along the trail, holding some wicked-looking devices at port arms. From the hang and the care the women took with them-only the women carried the devices--the chief knew they were hefty weapons of unknown technology... and on Sierra-Bravo 112-1I, un- known technology was a deadly term. I!e turned his head slowly to the left, careful not to make any moves sudden enough to catch a glance, or to rustle any leaves. Owena-da was nearby, and from the tension with which the weap- on master of the Tiffnakis clenched his fists and his jaw, O'Brien knew these Natives were no friends of the Tiffnakis. Abruptly, everything was real; this was no longer a Scouting hike into the Big Woods; the exercise fell into focus for what it was: a military excursion into enemy territory, where a single dumb mistake could cost people their lives. Possibly even mem- bers of the away team. The chief had only one hole card; he had held back a small hand phaser, concealed in his boot, when the captain ordered everyone stripped. "He only means the men," insisted the chief to Worf, nodding at the Tiffnakis, but he didn't check with the captain, not wanting to find out he was wrong. Worf seemed skeptical; but O'Brien would bet his last replicator ration that the Klingon had not completely disarmed himself, either. O'Brien watched the toga-wearing Natives shuf- fle past... and realized to his amazement that they hadn't noticed a thing. In only the second test of the Tiffnaki ability to grasp the brand-new concept of hiding, they looked to have scored a bull's-eye. He felt like half a man as Sisko resumed the march; but he wasn't too self-absorbed to notice that time and patience had proved the captain right: the Tiffnakis, hence Natives in general, were trainable. The war for Sierra-Bravo 112-II no long- er looked quite so bleak. After several hours of annoying bandying with the

Ferengi bartender, Odo reached his limit of tolerance. He knew the next stupid insult, the next clumsy attempt to stake a claim on the topsoil of the planet, even the next arrogant sneer directed at anyone motivated by any principle loftier than profit, and orders or no, Odo would change his fist into a sledgehammer and pound Quark right into the ground he so coveted. To spare everyone the pain and heartache, the constable turned about and strode into the blackness of night. Seeing was no problem; away from prying eyes, he risked a little bit of shapeshifting to give himself owl eyes .... In fact, he had been working on the entire bird, but the eye-morph was as far as he was willing to push the captain's strict prohibition. Odo stared around the bleak landscape, realizing that anyone with infrared sensors or light-amp goggles could see the Tiffnakis as plainly as if the sun were up. Well, Captain $isko has the tricorder, and he's convinced we're alone out here. Of course, if one of the Natives--ridiculous name, so typical of Com- mander Dax--if one of the Natives had a sensor shield, the regiment could be in for a rude shock. He stared up at the sky, feeling a terrible sense of 1onliness and-anxiety. Something was dreadfully wrong with the scenario, but Odo simply couldn't put his fist on it. Without even noticing, he found his feet directed him toward the captain's circle of firelight as if they had a mind of their own. Well, technically they do, I guess, he realized; Founders--changelings--didn't have a distinct central nervous system or brain, of course, else they could never transform into any- thing flat; the Founders' mental activity occurred everywhere and nowhere... which only meant that the language of "solids"--terrible term-- simply wasn't equipped to handle the biomorpho- genic concepts. "Good evening, Odo," said the captain without turning around. "Sit down, take a load off your mind." Had Odo been the gasping sort, this would have been a good time: how did Captain Sisko always seem to know what he was thinking? "I've been thinking about the Defiant, "he said, nervous at the lie. "I'm very concerned about Commander Dax and our transportation back home." "As are we all, Odo." Odo's eyes were good enough to see the captain's tense jaw and shoulder muscles. Yes, you especially must be fi'antic, thought the constable. "Even if we win this war, and I'm not admitting the probability yet, how would we even let anyone know we're here?" Captain Sisko smiled mysteriously. "Actually, I've been playing with one or two of the toys we removed from our pack rat troops," he said, "and I'm more than ever convinced that their ancestors did have warp field technology." "They did? You're sure about that, Captain?" "Some of these components look so damned familiar, but just different enough. Given a few months, I'm sure that Chief O'Brien and I could build a workable subspace communicator powerful enough to reach to the nearest Federation out- post." Odo frowned, wishing he could imitate more subtle emotions. "If they had warp technology, then why didn't they leave the planet?" "Maybe they did, Odo." The captain gestured Odo toward the fire, perhaps forgetting that a changeling didn't get cold. Quickly morphing his eyes back to normal, the constable sat where he was directed. "You think they did leave this planet, sir? Could you elaborate?" The captain shrugged. "There are simply too few, ah, Natives for a technology this advanced. The traces of warp technology, the advanced tech--more advanced in many ways than ours-- make me suspicious. How can a culture develop antigravity, force beams, and all those other things and not develop warp drive?" "So... they were here and they left? But where? Why?" "Who can say? The first thing I would check

is whether the Natives and all the other plant and animal life here share the same DNA; this might have been a forgotten colony." "I believe Dax did so; they evolved here." "In any event, for some reason, the ancestors of the Natives stripped all warp technology from the planet before they left: they wanted these people to stay." Odo had a disturbing thought; he mulled it over for a moment, then offered it. "Captain, could this planet have been a penal colony or medical- quarantine planet? Or a--what did your planet use to call it?--a lunatic asylum?" "Unless we locate central records of some sort, we'll never know." Captain Sisko leaned forward to milk the fire of all the heat he could. "Well, unless we can help these people throw out the Cardassians and the Drek'la, it's going to become a slave colony, just like Bajor was." Odo heard the crunch of hurrying footsteps long before the captain, with merely solid ears, could do so. "Sounds like Commander Worf is on his way here, double time," he warned. Captain Sisko stood to receive his executive officer. Worf spoke quickly in a low tone, not to be overheard. Of course, Odo heard perfectly: "Cap- tain, tricorder readings of fuel cell emissions indi- cate the Cardassians are on the move again. Asta-ha believes they are headed toward a city of people called Druvats-nasas that is only fifteen kilometers away. If we hurry, we can reach a bluff that overlooks the city before the Cardassians arrive in force." The captain nodded. "Rouse the troops for a night march, Commander; get them moving in ten minutes." "Aye, aye, sir," said the Klingon with a vengeful grin that made the constable shudder. 0

CHAPTER 14 ODO FELT very uncomfortable with the military turn of events, aware he knew absolutely nothing about military discipline and strategy. His only duty, he decided, was to obey orders and to keep Quark in line: the creeping Ferengi had already tried to sabotage the development of the planetary natives once by corrupting them with the concepts of money, capitalism, and profit, before they were ready to develop them on their own; and Quark had also made several serious attempts (worthy of formal charges upon return to the station) to ex- ploit the planetary resources without authorization from the planetary ruling body. But what IS the planetary ruling body? wondered the constable. He had never before dealt with a situation of such anarchy, where there was no world government. How can anybody ever decide to do anything .... Who supplies the authority to--to buiM a village, dam a river, or even plough a field? After all, virtually anything one could do would affect people all around .... Plough a field and you change the local ecosystem for your neighbors, driving away roaming animals and attracting insec- tal (and insectivorous) pests. Irrigation would alter the water table; even the very air could be affected. As the unruly mob of Tiffnakis were whipped into a semblance of order by Commander Worf with his bellows and Chief O'Brien with angry gestures and "butt-chewing" (a solid term Odo found distasteful in the extreme), the constable threw his entire energies into rousing the practi- cally somnambulant Quark and prodding him into shouldering his pack and falling in at the rear of the column. Still he fretted: how was it possible for an individual Tiffnaki to make even the simplest deci- sion without a single controlling legal authority to set the rules? Odo shook his head; it was yet another mystery of solids... worth a long conver- sation with Nerys--with Major Kira--when I get back. Something else nagged at the constable. It had been nearly fourteen hours since he had last been able to slip away during the night and revert to liquid form, and now they were headed out on a march that surely would take Odo "past his bed- time," as Commander Dax would probably put it. Feeling apprehension, Constable Odo scanned the bleak surrounding countryside for someplace to hide; he found nothing. But then, sentient solids generally had very poor night vision, sacrificed in evolution's blind drive toward the larger brain. The darkness itself was Odo's friend. Still, he needed that controlling legal authority. Leaving the half-asleep Quark, Odo hurried his pace and caught up with the captain just as the latter gave the order to "head 'em up and move 'em out." "Sir, may I speak to you privately?" "Certainly, Odo. I'm always happy to talk to you." "Captain, it's getting to be about that time." "Time?" "For me to regenerate." Captain Sisko raised his eyebrows; he often forgot the needs of his shapechanging constable, especially after Odo's lengthy interregnum as a solid himself. "Odo, I cannot possibly delay the march." "No, and I wouldn't ask you. All I ask..." Odo simulated a deep breath, a habit he had picked up during the interregnum; strangely, it still worked to calm him down and center him. "All I ask," he said quietly, "is for you to leave me behind; let me liquefy for a few hours .... Then when I'm myself again, let me shapechange to a hawk and rejoin you." The captain frowned. "I'm reluctant to allow you to do any shapechanging here. We've already pushed the limit of the Prime Directive." "I won't let anyone see me ifI can help it. I'll add a bluish tint to my feathers, and perhaps I'll be mistaken for a local avian even if I am spotted." Captain Sisko struggled with his first inclination for a

moment, then relaxed. "All right, Constable; Worf will show you where we're headed and give you the approximate time of arrival: but I want you there when the battle commences. I need your eyes, Odo." 'Tll be there," the constable promised. He consulted Worf, then ieft the outraged Chief O'Brien in charge of Quark. Then Odo let himself slip farther and farther behind the march as "rear guard," finally stopping, shapechanging into a hawk for practice, and flying far enough aside that even a sharp-eyed Klingon shouldn't be able to see him in the one-mooned gloom. He found a vaguely cup-shaped indentation in a rock; with a deep sigh of relaxation, Odo squatted in it and allowed his form to break down into the sensuous, liquid pool. He slept and he dreamed, something unusual: Odo remembered his brief interlude in the memo- ry pool of the Founders, on his homeworld, the embracing peace of being part of the whole, in his proper order, surrounded by and filled with his own kind. Odo dreamed of touching minds, being At One--a concept frequently enunciated but nev- er truly understood by any solid creature, forever locked away from its fellows by walls of flesh and bone. When he jerked awake, many hours later, at first he couldn't remember which "one" he was supposed to be. It was a delicious feeling at first; then he remembered he was supposed to do something, something urgent--and he panicked until, by force of habit, he rose as Constable Odo again. The task jumped back into his consciousness. Settle, settle, he commanded himself to little avail. The horizon was lightening; it was later than he planned. It was three forty-one. Odo was shocked to dis- cover he had overslept. Nervously, he tapped the combadge: "Odo to Captain Sisko." No reply, so he tried again. Odo was stumped. No response from the Defiant he could understand: they had left orbit. But until this moment, the combadges had been working person to person among the away team. Something (or someone) was jamming the signal ....Well, if it's the Cardassians, I'd better get aloft. Furious at himself, and dreading the captain's animadversions almost more than the possibility of mission failure, Odo burst into the form of the hawk again and flapped aloft, only remembering the color -tinting minutes later. Once at cruising altitude, carrying the combadge safely tucked inside his abdomenal cavity, the constable was surprised anew, as he was every time, at the freedom he felt from earthly restraint. He soared, feeling almost as if he could flap harder and harder and fly right into orbit. He circled for a few moments, finding his bearings; Odo had to compare the two-dimensional line rendering of the terrain with its topographic symbols and contour lines to the living, pulsing, three-dimensional, full- color image hawk eyes sent to hawk brain. At half a kilometer in altitude, the sun had already dawned, though it wasn't yet five o'clock local time; remembering the tilt and rotation of the planet, Odo oriented himself the correct direction, and of a sudden, the map and the territory merged and he saw his route. He pushed his head and neck forward and pumped powerful wings to eat up the kilometers. Odo saw no Cardassian vehicles along the route; evidently, they were not the ones jam- ming the combadge's subspace transmission. Could there be some sort of planetwide defenses? mused the constable. Surely Cardassians had no subspace countermeasures strong enough to jam a combadge from orbit. Even as the hawk flies, fifteen kilometers is no negligible distance; by the time Odo could see the lights of the city, and the bluffs overlooking them--filled, as he squinted his eyes, with creep- ing, spreading Tiffnakis and the away team--the terminator line, with the brightness of daylight right behind, was already crawling across the

city of the Druvats-nasas and headed toward Captain Sisko's regiment at their position in the heights. Odo couldn't help being astonished at the blue gray beauty of Sierra-Bravo 112-11 in dawn's light: the high metal content highlighted every color with shimmers and sparkles, while the dust in the at- mosphere drew out the reds and yellows ofthe sun, forming an inverse of the holosuite program of Earth's Bryce Canyon .... On Sierra-Bravo, it was the iron-latinum cliffs that were Magritte blue and the sky that was rust red. From his height, Odo saw another sight to freeze him solid: an advancing line of Cardassian planet- skimmers headed toward the town, then pulled up short, freezing in place... except for one, solitary skimmer that set out at an oblique angle for the captain's position. At first, the hawk's spirit leapt; they were discov- ered. Then the Cardassian stopped, and Odo real- ized the true destination: a small, rounded building that resembled an oversized mushroom cap. The Cardassian in the single skimmer fired his disrup- tor at the building, evidently blowing the lock; then he stepped inside. An instant later, the lights of Druvats-nasas town flashed bright and faded instantly, and the constable understood. The rest of the column resumed its drive; the attack was underway. For a moment, Odo hesitated, making long, lazy circles in the air, catching the hot, rising currents off the already day-lit bluffs. What is my duty here? Must I rejoin the captain immediately, or should I act as his eyes? From the regiment's vantage point, they couldn't have seen the Cardassian skim to the powerhouse and cut off the broadcast power~so in a sense, Odo's tardiness already had paid a dividend. Well, that's one way to rationalize it, he thought bitterly; it sounded just like one of Quark's post hoc "explanations." Regardless, however, the con- stable continued to circle above the battle, alternat- ing between using his hawk eyes to view individual actions with telescopic precision or pulling back to more normal eyes to view the larger picture. The battle was as devastating as the one in the Tiffnaki village: without the power broadcast to animate the tech they had come to depend upon, the Druvats-nasas were helpless before the on- slaught. The invaders used no particular finesse or grand strategy; after cutting the local power relay, they simply disembarked from their skimmers and walked forward in a straight line, sweeping disrup- tors back and forth across the defenseless mob. There was of course nothing the Druvats-nasas could do; there was nothing that Commander Dax could have done--and Odo made a mental note to tell her that, next time he saw her. IF I see her again, he added with a chill. With the Defiant missing in action and Dax nonresponsive on the nonexistent subspace corem link, it was beginning to look doubtful that Odo would see anything familiar again .... Not even his wonderful, old bucket, or the bucket-of-bolts station that con- tained it. The villagers fell back, more orderly at first than the Tiffnakis had been; but it made no difference in the long run--when the Druvats-nasas line broke, it broke suddenly, like a dam collapsing outward from a single crack at the center. Watching as a hawk, Odo had already picked out the obvious leader of the village, the hereditary mayor, or whatever they called the post; he was a man with immensely long, reddish blue hair hanging across his naked torso to his waist, where he had tucked it into a green sash he wore. A powerful man with corded neck muscles reminding Odo of a bull's, and supplying the constable with ideas for future shapeshifting experiments. When the leader suddenly threw down his use- less rifle and bolted for the rear of the central company of defenders, his nearest comrades-at- arms panicked first; the rout spread from the

center out, as more and more Druvats-nasas realized the futility of their position, and then saw their own leader running like a thief in the night. The one- sided firefight was over in nine minutes. The line comprised no more than twenty Drek'la and the two commanding Cardassians, but they overran the village and seized the four core build- ings, which outlined a large village green (or village blue, actually) filled with booths. Odo swept a little closer and saw that the booths contained grab bags full of tech; at the back of each booth were a number of targets and trinkets for testing the new toys as people acquired them. The Drek'la began burning the targets with their disruptors, for no other reason that Odo could see but sheer devilry. The other Cardassian, the one who cut the power, rejoined his compatriots. He climbed out of his skimmer with little of the usual Cardassian strut; he stood, hands clasped behind his back, viewing the pillaging. Something struck Constable Odo about the man, something wrong and out of place; but he couldn't quite put his talon on it. He continued to circle, to watch, knowing his instinct was trying to tell him something--but not yet what it was. I'd better have something worthwhile for the captain, considering how angry he~ going to be anyway. The Cardassian observed for a while; then he slipped into a shadowy recess to gather some of the devices that had fallen over when other invaders destroyed the stall. At once, the incongruity struck Odo full force: Cardassians were arrogant, strut- ting, condescending figures, each of whom thought himself more than the equal of all the other Car- dassians; they thought of themselves as the elder race, civilized long before most of the others, and they observed the "young" races much as one would observe a monkey or a Thoractian curl- tail .... But this one was turning the same clinical gaze on the Drek'la--and the other Cardassian. There was no trace of the swagger of Gul Dukat in the lone Cardassian's stride; there wasn't even the overly self-effacing preening of Garak, back on the station. There was the cold, clinical gaze of a zookeeper. While he watched, circling around and around, Odo thought he saw something else. In reaching for one of the fallen pieces of tech, cdo could almost have sworn that he saw the Cardassian's arm lengthen to the ground, grab the gun, then return to its normal length. He was so stunned, he almost forgot how to fly. Founders? A Founder is with the invaders? He thought for a moment, turning his loops into figure eights. Or perhaps, he admitted, a Founder is lead- ing the invaders. Then the questionable soldier looked up, fixing Odo with a piercing glare of his own. Feeling suddenly terribly vulnerable himself, Odo decided on a bold approach: he picked from the air a spot where many Druvats-nasas defenders had died. Swooping down on the spot, Odo walked behind a body, flaring his wings, and pecked at the ground behind the corpse. Odo fervently hoped that the Cardassian, whether Founder or not, would be fooled by the perspective into thinking that the hawk was actually eating the dead flesh. It seemed to work; when Odo looked up a moment later, the lone Cardassian was gone. But the constable was shaken. I don't know for sure what I saw, he told himself, but it's hard to deceive the eyes I'm currently wearing. Odo continued pretending to peck at dead bod- ies, waiting for an opportunity to lift off and return to Captain Sisko's vista point. At least now, Con- stable Odo reflected, he certainly had enough new intelligence that the captain would probably for- give him the minor indiscretion of oversleeping his watch. As it happened, Chief O'Brien was the first to spot the spectral hawk circling far above the car- nage. "Commander," he said, nudging the Klingon and pointing at

the bird. "What about it?" answered Worf in an irritated voice. "Five days of replicator rations says it's Odo, spying for us." "Hm," said Worf; then he said it again and rose to crawl toward the captain. O'Brien continued to watch the hawk, seeing it circle, circle: the prodigal bird returned, and lo, it was Constable Odo. He stood tall, a tempting target were he not far enough back from the edge of the cliff to avoid detection. O'Brien saw Worf and the captain slithering toward Odo, and he quickly joined them; Quark, meanwhile, had also noticed Odo but was moving away from his ancient foe. "I think I saw something," said the constable gravely. "If so, it's grave news indeed, Captain." "What is it?" asked Sisko, in a voice indicating he really didn't need any more grave surprises. "I think one of the Cardassians isn't a Cardassi- an," said the constable. "Captain... I believe at least one of the Cardassian overseers leading the Drek'la is a Founder. And the other Cardassians don't know it." It was Worf who made the intuitive leap: "If that is true, Captain, then I believe we are dealing with a renegade contingent of Cardassians. If they were with the main force, the Founder would not be hiding his presence from the rest of them." "My God, Worf," said O'Brien, "you've hit it on the head. These aren't Cardassian invaders .... They're Cardassian fugitives." 0

CHAPTER 15 Ar rnE darkest crystal of night, when the world is at its stillest, comes first the faint tinkle of morning, heraMing the light that will shatter the blackness like hammer against glass. Captain Benjamin Sisko lay at the top of the bluff, stating down at the smouldering ruins of the Druvats-nasas village, raked by disruptor fire in a profligate waste of life and property; and when did Cardassians ever care for another's life, somebody else's property? But spread to either side of the captain, his own Tiffnaki commandos radiated their own burning light of revenge and anger. When their own village was destroyed, they were too demoralized, fright- ened, ashamed, and stunned to nurse the feelings of injustice and rage necessary to spark a rebellion against overwhelming odds: Fiat justitia, ruat caelum-Let justice be done, though heaven fall. Perspective, thought Sisko, that's what's needed. It was not the slaves directly under the whip who rebelled against early Earth slavery; it was a slave who had escaped slavery, Frederick Douglass, who was the movement's most gifted orator. And closer to home, he thought, the Cardassians were driven off Bajor not by those who were most directly controlled, such as Kai Winn, but by the fieedom fighters in Shakar's and other groups who had momentarily escaped the lash. Perspective: his Tiff- nakis needed the perspective of seeing the pain, blood, and humiliation of other Natives to awaken the burning flames of justice in themselves .... And that was no distorted reflection on them; it was a universal truth. Benjamin Sisko looked left and right; the Car- dassians had long since won, and there was little reason to fear they would scan the overlooking cliffs for observers. But the Tiffnaki commandos were silent with hatred and bitter resolve, to a man and woman of them. The flesh of the once chipper, voluble Asta-ha was pale blue, and Owena-da clenched his fists so hard, Sisko heard the bones crack from three meters away. Sisko knew what the scene would look like back at the main encampment, where they had left the rest of the villagers, once they had all been told the evidence that only a handful had seen this day: the men would stop chattering, the women would dress for camouflage. Both would begin finding metal (in abundance on SierraBravo), crystal, anything that would take an edge. Even the little children left behind at the river, even Tivva-ma, would take to crying silently--not with a wail, as a child wanting attention uses (how well he remembered Jake as a child), but simply letting the tears roll unheeded down their grimy cheeks, neither demanding nor even expecting a grown-up to do anything about their pain. Captain Sisko had seen wars; he had seen war with the Cardassians. He even remembered himself, if it really was himself, in the years just after the Borg killed Jennifer, his wife and Jake's moth- er. I've set them on the road to a terrible future, he thought in leaden silence, but what else couM I do? We MUST believe that death is better than subjuga- tion and slavery--or why would anyone EVER resist the tyrant? With a gesture, Sisko drew his freedom fighters back from the brink. They crawled slowly back- wards until the village was no longer visible-hence they were no longer visible to the Druvats- nasas village. Then they stood, and flanked by the reassembled away team, they beat a cold, quiet retreat. Nobody spoke but Asta-ha, hereditary mayor, and all she said was, "We will learn the new tech, Sisko; neg, we are not fools." She said it as if Sisko had implied they were. Well, perhaps I did, thought the captain sadly; he'd tried not to let his annoyance and disappoint- merit show, but it probably came across despite best intentions. Sisko felt a gigantic presence loom behind

him and heard the crunch of boots that had never even attempted to sneak quietly. "Com- mander Worf," he acknowledged without turning around. "Captain, what is the destination of our march?" Wordlessly, Sisko turned and walked at a right angle to the rest of the troop, followed by the Klingon; when Asta-ha looked questioningly at him, he said, "Carry on, Mayor." The Tiffnakis continued their slow, beaten march. "Worf," said the captain quietly, "we must re- join the main force. I suspect you will see a gratifying seriousness of purpose among the com- mandos now." The Klingon curled his lip. "Then they were tweaking our beards. I knew they must have been .... Nobody is so witless as to think it per- fectly fine to--" "Commander," said the captain, so low that Worf had to pause and cock his ear to hear, "they were born into a culture where 'found tech' was the only way they had to solve problems. Don't be too harsh." Sisko smiled faintly and whispered, "Who but a Klingon could follow Kahless?" in Worfs native tongue. The Klingon calmed down, breathing slower and deeper, and the captain continued. "We've turned them, Worf; they finally understand the stakes. Let's wait and see what happens over the next few days, on the way back." Captain Sisko grinned like a grim Ferengi: "I've mapped out another Scouting trail for the return trip." How on God's blue Sierra-Bravo does he expect to do anything with this lot? Chief O'Brien sighed; nothing that Captain Sisko had done should have had any effect whatsoever. And when the column came to another cliff, and Sisko ordered yet anoth- er rappelling "evolution," O'Brien expected ex- actly the same shenanigans as the last time. But something seemed to have seeped into their heads. Something! O'Brien set the phasing stakes, grunted the anchors into place, and hurled the ropes over the edge. One didn't clear the base of the cliff, snarling on a teal scrub line with branches shaped just like grappling hooks; the chief labored to haul it back up again for another cast. "You know, Worf," he said, "there's a wide difference between the officer who says, 'set those anchors,' and the working man who has to sweat them into place." The Klingon, who had been studiously ignoring the drama with the rope, turned a scowling face toward O'Brien. "If you are incapable of casting the line far enough, I will do it for you." "I can throw a damned line! I was just comment- ing on..." O'Brien returned to his task, grum- bling. It wasn't that setting the lines was particularly heavy labor. It's the sheer futility of it all/O'Brien was already fuming that after all this work, the Tiffnakis were just going to make a mockery of it again. But when the lines were properly set, and the Natives began to rappel down the cliff, the chief's mouth dropped and stayed open until the first wave hit the ground. The Tiffnakis carried out the entire evolution exactly as taught at Starfleet Academy. No cheating. No magic. No teleportation or flying earpets or pocket elevators. Mayor General Asta-ha dropped in the first wave; she squirmed into a harness, hooked her carabiner into the line, and stepped backwards over the edge. The cara- biners, being safety equipment, were among the only pieces of technology that the captain had allowed the Tiffnakis from the wellstocked back- packs the away team still carried from the first Scouting trip. The chief winced a bit, watching her make that first step into thin, thin air, suspended only by a string, dangling a hundred meters above the ground. But Asta-ha seemed not even to notice the drop beneath her feet. It ~ like she never developed the normal fear of falling, he decided, since the damned "new teeh" has always been there to save her. The rest of the Tiffnaki commandos followed three by three, each showing the same lack of fear about the height as

their mayor general. Drukulu-da, the "historian" of the mob, if O'Brien's universal translator was doing its job, got into trouble going down the cliff; he let himself go too fast, burned his hands, and in a panic, yanked himself to a halt halfway down the cliff face. When Worf shouted for Drukulu.-da to con- tinue, the historian yelled back that the rope had slipped along the carabiner and was trapped against the "Swiss seat" harness he sat in. Drukulu-da had only made the commando cut at the last minute when another Tiffnaki was elimi- nated making a rude gesture behind Sisko's back, and now Worf complained bitterly that O'Brien had talked him into accepting the writer. But without prompting, Asta-ha at the bottom already put her fingers into her mouth and blew two short, sharp whistles, followed by a longer third. Owena-da, supervising the drop from the top, sent another man, Rimtha-da, down the parallel rope. Rimtha-da was the largest of the Tiffnakis, and he slid perhaps a little too slowly but steadily down his own rope until he was next to Drukulu- da. Rimtha-da hooked himself to the trapped man with one loose carabiner, then got Drukulu-da to put his weight on Rimtha-da while the latter un- jammed the rope. Then both men untethered and slid down their respective ropes to a chorus of undulating whistles, which Chief O'Brien decided was the Whatsit version of applause. Nobody lost his cool, and what was most aston- ishing, they cooperated on an innovative solution to a sudden problem. "My God," said O'Brien somewhat sarcastically to his Klingon friend, "there's an improvement already: they didn't even start check- ing the cliff face for new tech." Worf merely grunted in response; but it was his all-right-somaybe-I-was-wrong-for-once-in-my-life grunt, and O'Brien understood. When the Tiffnakis came to the bog, they had a slight setback. Someone found another force beam projector carelessly left on the ground, and Owena- da started to use it. But when Sisko strode up angrily, the weapons master shuffled his feet like Molly caught with her hand in Keiko's mochi jar, and he handed over the device. "Target practice, Worf," shouted the captain, throwing the projector high in the air over the swamp. For the first time on this planet, the Klingon drew his service phaser and fired a short blast, all in one fluid motion. The device exploded noisily, making the point more brutally than any number of words could have: when the Natives ran up against the Cardassians, the invaders could make all the tech, new or old, vanish as quickly if not as dramatically as Worf had just "vanished" the force beam projector. O'Brien was fascinated to see what lowtech method the Tiffnaki commandos would invent to get across the swamp; the final technique, master- minded by Owena-da and Asta-ha, but with input from virtually everyone in the platoon, was impressive enough that Chief Miles Edward O'Brien awarded it his "Croix des Cerveaux" with cukoo- nut clusters: the Tiffnakis retreated a kilometer to a forest they had bypassed; using knives they improvised out of the sharp pieces of shale that seemed to be everywhere on Sierra-Bravo 112-I1, they hacked down a number of small saplings. They spent two hours tying the saplings together and covering them with wide, palmlike fronds of some local fern; when they finished, they had a pair of long, flat "minibridges" with half a dozen stubby legs about a meter long on either side. Each mini- bridge was long enough that the entire platoon, including the away team "officers" (counting Odo, Quark, and O'Brien as officers for the sake of discussion), could stand along it without much crowding. Then they returned to the bog. Placing the first minibridge down into the muck, Asta-ha led the way onto it. The plank sank into the mud, but nowhere

near as deeply as an individual person would; the muddy water that slooshed across the top was easily waded. Once the entire platoon was onto the minibridge, they passed the second across the tops of their heads to drop it into the muck in front of the first. Once everybody had traversed onto the second plank, the team--they were truly working as a team now--drew up the first by means of twistedvine ropes. Passing it along overhead, they re- peated the process all the way across the swamp, arriving in half the time it would have taken to wade, and with perhaps a tenth of the mud clinging to their legs and torsos as Quark had when he had played Diving for Latinum a few days earlier, on the first, abortive Scouting trip. Even Captain Sisko admitted it was a brilliant improvisation... but he said he would reserve judgment until they returned to the main regiment of Tiffnakis. But Chief O'Brien was already start- ing to feel the swell of pride that he always got when "his" recruits began to shine. Owena-da got the award for Conspicuous Obvi- ousness when, after long minutes of silent thought on the part of all the commandos, he was the one to figure out how to ford the rushing river: they put their best rope thrower up in a tree with a vine rope, and he lassoed the opposite tree. Alas, when they tried to shimmy from one to the other, the vine rope stretched enough that every- one got a thorough dunking in the angry river... as O'Brien had secretly suspected would happen. Fortunately, the chief insisted that everyone tether to the tightrope using the carabiners, so no one was washed away. Chief O'Brien sighed and took his dunking when his turn came. "Well, at least it's washed away the rest of that muck," he told Odo on the other bank. Odo was most annoyed at having to get wet. Probably wishes he couM've just turned back into a hawk and flown over, thought O'Brien, smiling to himself. The biggest obstacle faced by the commandos was the lake, which the captain added as an after - thought after seeing how well they did on the bog. Chief O'Brien paced to and from the shoreline, watching the Natives spread along the lakeshore, pointing to the other side and talking excitedly. Whenever they used the newly discovered "tech" of exerting their brains for innovation and problem- solving, they tended to yell at each other in excited tones and flutter their hands up and down directly in front of their chests... either a cultural or evolutionary characteristic, the chief wasn't sure. The patrician but still good-looking Asta-ha, with her straight, bluish blond hair and small, boyish figure, wrapped her cloak around herself and said nothing, staring directly across the water with an unwavering gaze and mumbling to herself. Owena-da drew figures in the wet sand of various "weapon techs" he had seen or heard about, won- dering if any of them would help them across. The other Tiffnakis offered exaggerated and increas- ingly fantastical suggestions, ineluctably reminding O'Brien of the scene in the holoplay Cyrano de Bergerac, where the seventeenth-century courtierswordsman extemporizes twelve methods of flying from Earth to the moon (including a sedan chair drawn by geese and a hot-air balloon). "Keiko made me go see that play," he nmttered to himself... going insane trying to stop himself suggesting the obvious solution: a raft. "And I'm glad she did." "I beg your pardon?" asked Odo, standing di- rectly behind the chief. O'Brien jumped guiltily; he hadn't heard the constable come up behind him. But then, no one ever does, he consoled himself. "Sorry, Odo; I was remembering a holoplay that Keiko made us attend. Actually, I wanted to go; but sometimes it's a good thing"--he leaned forward and gave the constable a winkm"to be reluctantly dragged away and then gush about how much you enjoyed it.

Good for the marriage, I mean." Odo shook his head in puzzlement. "I'm afraid I still can't understand why you play so many games with your relationships. Isn't it enough simply to enjoy common interests, without having to trick your wife into believing she convinced you against your will?" O'Brien shrugged, so very paradoxicalma pregnant Irish bull, he half remembered from some- where. "What could be more fun than playing silly games with the woman you love?" But thinking of Keiko made him long for her, and Molly. O'Brien grinned a somewhat goofy, cockeyed smile. "I really miss them, Odo. I miss them both; I miss the station. Damn it, why do we have to leave? Even if Kai Winn is in charge, all right, I can accept that; but why do we have to leave?" "I hate to say it, but I miss the station whenever I'm away," said the constable, surprising O'Brien. "I'11... probably be asked to depart permanently as well. Somehow, I can't picture the Kai using any security officers but her own. And I must admit, there are several Bajoran deputies on my staff who would make reasonably adequate constables." The constable pulled a long face, literally. "I wonder whether I can accompany Captain Sisko to his next billet?" "I wonder how they're doing," mused the chief. "I'11 bet Keiko really has her hands full, trying to pack and take care of Molly." He sighed, thinking of Deep Space Nine, his home for the last four years .... the home he probably would never see again after returning and immediately departing. O'Brien continued to pace and grumble to him- self for another hour before the struggling Tiffnakis finally hit on the idea of a raft. They had a hard time with the concept of buoyancy at first; Asta-ha (an early raft convert) required every gram of persuasion at her command to convince the rest of the commandos that Dalvda-ha's "floating bridge" would actually float: "You know Tivva-ma, you know she is strong in the tech. My Tivva-ma has floated such toys herself on the Electromagnetic River southeast of the village .... Some of your own children have done so with Tivva-ma; and you, Owena-da, have even seen the sticks she floats." "But those are sticks, Mayor Asta-ha. How can you compare a stick to a bridge? The bridge is far larger, hence it will sink. A great rock sinks faster than a tiny pebble, doesn't it?" O'Brien listened, fascinated in an abstract sort of way. Knowing the answer so deeply--Archime- des' principle was still one of the first engineering concepts taught at school, even three thousand years after its discovery on Earth (and thirty thousand years after the Vulcans figured it out)--it was incredibly hard for the chief to put himself in the position of someone who literally had never heard of a boat. The principle was actually not as selfevident as it seemed from his perspective. I mean, he thought, why SHOULD a big, heavy object float on top of the water? But finally, the girls, Asta-ha and Dalvda-ha, persuaded the rest of the commandos to give it a try. After a number of false starts, occupying the better part of a day, they put together a passable raft that passed inspection with the captain. It carried them across the lake and within five kilo- meters of the place along the tributary river where the rest of the Tiffnakis waited (they hoped). But by the time they arrived, it was well into night, and the greater moon had already set; Sisko decreed they would start out in the morning. "Tonight," said the captain, "when the troops have gone to sleep, I shall see the away team in my tent." Two hours passed uneventfully. The Natives, after some instruction and training sessions, man- aged to get a fire started using a bowstring to rotate a stick in a hole. It was an ancient military tech- nique, but Chief O'Brien hadn't learned it in Starfleet .... He'd picked it up watching old Amer- ican Western

holoplays. Oddly enough, it worked; other Tiffnakis were experimenting with a hastily woven gill net, and fish aplenty (with legs!) were caught for dinner. The away team ate more corn-rats in silence; O'Brien found his nearly as inedible as Native food would be. As O'Brien saw Worf stealing through the night toward the commanding officer's tent, and just before the chief himself was to leave, Odo sidled up. "I've just had the most disturbing conversation with that female," said Odo, looking stuffier than usual. O'Brien shrugged. "Should're taken my advice; women like a little mystery." "Oh, get your mind off such nonsense. That-- that lady mayoress just came up to me and asked if I..." He looked sideways, left, right; O'Brien found himself doing the same, though he had no idea what he was looking for. "She asked me if I was going to turn into jelly again anytime soon." "Well? Are you?" "Yes, of course. But that's not the point, you-that's not the point, Chief O'Brien." Odo sucked in his lower lip and glared back at the Tiffnakis, who were beginning to snore (they made an irritating hissing noise, less like sawing logs than frying bacon). "The point is, Chief, that she saw me shapechange." He lowered his voice to a conspira- torial whisper. "Despite all my precautions. They must have excellent eyesight. But she and who else? Do they all know I'm a shapechanger?" "Odo, ! don't know what to say. I know the captain ordered you not to shapechange, but he knows you can't hold your form longer than sixteen hours." As O'Brien led the way; Odo said nothing more about the incident... and the chief was amused to notice that the constable said nothing to Captain Sisko, either; evidently, Odo had been paying at- tention after all to O'Brien's oratory about the games solids play. 0

CHAPTER 16 THE ENTIRE AWAY TEAM was at the meeting, of course, and it was the first time O'Brien could remember in days that they had all gotten together as a team, without anyone but themselves in at- tendance. Just us, he thought; just us alien invaders. Sisko sat at the far end of his inflatable tent, the fire burned down to embers between him and the open door. The rest of the team filed in one at a time and found a seat. O'Brien sat cross-legged, closest to the tent flap, so he could keep an eye behind them, at the commandos huddled on the open ground, without tent or blanket: he still didn't quite trust this planet. "We are in danger of allowing this mission to run away with us," said the captain gravely, his thoughts seeming to echo the chiefs. "We've allowed ourselves--/ have allowed us--to inte- grate more thoroughly into this planet's culture than I intended. From now on, I mean to be the captain of the Defiant away team... not the gen- eral of the Sierra-Bravo defense force." O'Brien spoke up. "It was a good plan, sir, if I do say so. But it's done; we've set them on the road .... Isn't this their fight from now on?" "You are missing the point," objected Worf. "We are not helping one side in an internal power struggle. The Cardassians, not we, have interfered in the planet's development." "Worf is right," Sisko adjudicated. "This is still our fight, Chief, but I don't want us leading the Native charge, if you can see the distinction." "Perhaps," said Odo, "we should confront the Cardassians personally, ourselves, not surrounded by a mob of native life-forms." "But how?" demanded the chiefi It was a great speech on the captain's part, but vague on the details. "How are we five to stop the Cardassians and a thousand Drek'la foot soldiers, or even slow them down? Perhaps the best we can do is stay here and lead the troops into battle." "No, Chief; that's too close an involvement. We should face them directly .... Somehow." O'Brien swallowed, and neither Quark nor Odo looked particularly happy. Worf, however, showed a terrible, frightening Klingon grin of battle joy. "Yes ....Perhaps to- morrow will be a good day to die." Here we go again, thought Chief O'Brien, but the captain was surprisingly on Worfs side. "Yes, Commander, perhaps it will. But in the meanwhile, I'd rather stay alive a while longer and burn the Cardassians rather more than we have so far." Quark, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, could no longer contain himself. He burst forth with a cynical yet truthful observation: "More than we have? We haven't burned them at all." Snarling and muttering darkly, the little Fer- engi paced up and down. "I can see where this is going .... Nowhere. None of you has a clue how to handle the situation." "Oh," jeered Odo, "and I suppose you do?" Quark sighed, shaking his head as if speaking to a six-year-old; O'Brien fought the impulse to wind up and kick the barkeeper into the next campfire. "Of course I, personally, would have plenty of better ideas, because I, personally, have a code of life to live by." "Oh, of course. The Federation Code of Criminal Offenses. How shortsighted of me." "I'm talking about the Rules of Acquisition, you runny-faced bucketsitter." O'Brien noticed that when Quark got really piqued, his face turned almost bright pink, the color of the flowers of the deep Glen Tsismusk on Bajor. Sisko interrupted smoothly, trying to keep the argument on some productive track. "Do you have a particular Rule of Acquisition in mind, Mr. Quark?" The Ferengi paused, taking a long glare at Odo before saying, "Yes, Captain; as a matter of fact, one has been lodged in my planet-sized brain ever since we saw the Cardassian attack on Brew--on Druvis-miss-niss-whatever the heck it

is." Quark paused as if finished. "Well?" demanded O'Brien; Worf glowered and Odo snorted; only Captain Sisko seemed to have enough patience to outwait the melodramatic Fer- engi. "I've been almost obsessed with the two hundred and eighty-fourth Rule," said Quark. Sisko spoke up instantly: "Deep down, every- one's a Ferengi." Quark's eyes widened. "Very good, Captain! Better than Rom, as I'm sure you're not surprised to hear." Odo snorted again, even more loudly. "Typical Ferengi arrogance. All right, Quark, how is everyone deep down a Ferengi, and how does that help US?" "It means that when you push anyone hard enough, he'll manage to find a core of ingenuity somewhere within him .... Though I admit, the rule does seem to have one or two exceptions-- Odo." "All right; so how do we push them hard enough?" prompted the captain. "My next thought was of Rule Forty-Four .... Do you know that one, Captain?" Sisko smiled. "1 memorized them all; it's not that difficult, and good mental discipline. Never confuse wisdom with luck." O'Brien was starting to catch the Ferengi's drift. "The Cardassians, right? They've won every battle, and they probably think it's because of their bril- liant tactics. But it's really just their luck that they landed here, where the power-cutting trick works such magic." "You see, Odo? If only the hu-mans would start to teach the Rules of Acquisition in Starfleet Acad- emy, they could rule the... wait. Forget I said anything." "All right. So the Cardassians have been winning because of their luck, that the Natives never learned how to respond to the loss of all their toys; but if you scratch them hard enough, like we've seen here, all that inborn ingenuity comes back, and suddenly they're a formidable enemy. So what's the key, Quark? What's the magic bullet to connect Forty-Four with Two Hundred and Eighty- Four?" Quark smiled, then curled his lip in a snarl of triumph in Odo's direction. "The Rule that keeps me alive on Deep Space Nine, or Terek Nor, or whatever it ends up being called tomorrow: It's always good business to know about new customers before they walk in your door." "One Hundred and Ninety-Four," muttered Sisko. "Or in this case," concluded the Ferengi, "it's good strategy to know all about a new Cardassian tactic before they use it on you." Sisko stared at Quark. In the wink of an eye, the mad scheme had become crystal clear. "Quark... you're suggesting we cut the power over the entire planet at once." "Cut the power on the whole planet?" asked Worf, not following the logic. "Worf, it's brilliant!" Chief O'Brien felt more alive, excited than he had since transporting down to the forsaken, senseless planet. "What's the one big advantage the invaders have in every battle?" "They cut the power broadcast and render the Native weapons useless. But I do not see how this--" "But it's not that the toys stop working, Worf; it's that they stop working just before the fight. And the Natives are so shaken by the sudden loss of everything that they can't even mount a defense at the level of spears and swords." "Slings," said the captain, "arrows, traps-- everything that a poorly armed and equipped band of freedom fighters ever used to bring a superpower to a grinding halt." "So we cut the powerfirst"--O'Brien was in his element, explaining something--"and by the time the Cardassians get to the next village, the Na- tives'11 have already had days or even weeks to get used to the new way of things." Sisko nodded. "I must admit, Quark, it's a plan." "It's a ridiculous plan," objected Odo, "and it's totally illegal. We can't go around cutting the power of people who depend upon technology for their very survival. How are they to eat? How will they defend themselves against each other?" Sisko

grinned. "Constable, you have hit the nail square on the head. That's it exactly: they will find a way to eat, to defend themselves against other Natives--and to defend themselves against the Cardassians." Chief O'Brien blinked. Well. Constable, there g yet another example .for you. The chief chuckled. "Beats me why they don't just accept reality and repeal the bloody thing," he said. Nobody paid attention. The captain rose, his head just brushing the ceiling of the tent. "Gentlemen, we have our plan: we will find the central power generators for the whole planet and kick them off-line .... Temporarily, at least. Chief, put together an action plan for finding them, and work with Worf to profile what sort of generators the planet would need and how we might sabotage them. Odo... be prepared to infiltrate the Cardassian camp; we must find out whether the chief was right, and they're fugitives from the empire--or whether this truly is a front in a new war ....And whether there is a Founder among them." Chief Miles Edward O'Brien rose first, followed by the rest. Full plate, he thought, happy for the first time since arriving in orbit and looking over Dax's shoulder at the technology readout; at last, there was something positive to do. But how humiliating that it was Quark who had to think of the key. The only point that made the embarrassment bearable was when O'Brien thought of poor Odo... stuck with a Ferengi who would never forget or allow the constable to do so .... For years and years, if the chief were a good judge of character. That is, assuming they all lived that long. Major Kira Nerys stood in the Kai's private audience chamber, what once had been Captain Sisko's office, overlooking Ops and the fatigued, frustrated, but still utterly professional defense team. The station shuddered regularly now with the pounding from alien invaders attached to the hull, as they tried to bore their way by hand through the containment field and the station's outer skin. The enemy worked its way at every joint and join, and still Kira had no idea in the world who the bloody attackers were! She paced back and forth, parallel to Kai Winn's desk, mumbling inaudibly to herself. The Kai seemed perfectly calm, adding to Kira's fury; "se- rene" is the word that popped into the major's head: That blasted woman is always so damned SERENE. I can't take any more of it. Kira turned her back on the Kai, so the woman wouldn't see the tears of a chained attack dog. "I should be out there. People ~re dying!" "Your place is here, child?' "I should be fighting! I'm a warrior--I fought in the underground, I should be fighting now to defend this--this little piece of Bajor from the Prophets know what is trying to worm under our skin." Kira whirled to face Kai Winn. "Can't you understand that?" Stunned, Kira stared again at the sensors, the viewers; both showed the same tragic scene: four Bajoran cruisers sliced open like dissected animals, their guts streaming into space. The invaders hadn't even bothered either to rescue or to kill the survivors of the ill-fated effort to relieve the sta- tion. There might be another expedition, but not soon. The rest of the Bajoran navy was desperately needed to defend the planet... assuming the pi- rates from the Gamma Quadrant next turned their attention thither. There was no help from the homeworld, no help from home. The Kai shook her head. "You are the one who does not understand, child," she said sadly. "The senior officer's place is not at the head of the troops, where he could be slain by a single lucky shot. His place is behind the lines, at the nerve center, where he can control his followers." Kira shook her head, astonished. "You talk as if you know what you're talking about," she said; the words began in respect but ended in a scream of fury. "What do you know about

fighting?" It was an unfair charge; the Kai had done re- markably well so far. The enemy (whoever they were) had not yet penetrated the station itself; they had managed to slither inside the defensive screen of DS9--rather, the Emissaryk Sanctuary; but there, they had so far stalemated: they crawled all along the skin of the station in bulky black pressure suits, hacking and chopping and trying to drill their way inside. But in another sense, it was something Kira had to clear from her conscience. "Kai Winn, with the deepest, most profound respect, I must say that I know a lot more about this sort of fighting than you... and I should be there in the thick, leading the troops-Bajoran troops--to victory." Behind the words, inside her head, Major Kira came to a decision at that very moment that made the tragedy complete: orders or no, Kira Nerys decided that she had no choice but to broadcast a Priority One distress call to the nearest Federation ship, begging for assistance from Starfleet. It meant the end of her dream ofa Bajoran Deep Space Nine, but not to do so would strike the final gong for the station and everyone inside, and perhaps for Bajor itself. I have no choice/she screamed silently. She would do it the next time she was able to leave Ops, which if the Kai had her way, would be never. But Kira would find a way to deliver the message; she always did. In the meanwhile, Kira stood rigidly opposite her Kai, the people's Kai, the freely elected (in a sense) leader of the government of Bajor--the self- selected governor of Emissaryk Sanctuary. Kira had to talk about something, make conversation; there was nothing else to do for the moment. The alien attackers controlled everything from the skin of the station outward; the Bajorans owned the flesh, blood, heart, and brains beneath. Unless there was a breakthrough--Prophetsforbid!--Kira was a helpless, caged animal, useful only to wait, and wait, for penetration. But the Kai was taking this all calmly, as if she'd been through it all before. "Kai Winn," Kira asked, "I know a Bajoran doesn't ask another this ques- tion, and if you don't want to answer, I'll under- stand." "Why child, what could I possibly want to con- ceal?" Yeah, right. "Kai... what did you do during the Occupation?" The reason it was considered terri- bly impolite to ask such a thing was the huge numbers of Bajorans who were forced by necessity and empty stomachs to cooperate with the puppet government established and run by Gul Dukat, who ruled from his iron fist in orbit, from the dreaded Terek Nor. Why drag through the mud the last shreds of dignity an old, frightened woman might still possess? Even if she was the Kai. "During the Occupation?" The Kai seemed quite genuinely suprised. "I'd... just as soon not discuss it." Stunned by the sudden turn of events--the Kai had actually accepted the challenge--Kira relaxed slowly into a chair, staring at the seemingly stub- born, old woman. Kai Winn began to speak, her voice so soft, it caressed Kira's cheek like the wind through the trees of Glen Tsismusk. "But if you have to know... the Occupation began before I was born, but by the time I turned twenty-one, before you were born, child, I was the primary house slave to a young Cardassian gul--a gentle man, as far as that went." The Kai smiled disarmingly, winking at Kira. "But that's not all I was, my child; you freedom fighters were not the only enemies of Cardassia." Kira waited, breathlessly... but that was all the answer she got. The (fake) walls of the (ersatz) runabout cracked under the (pretended) pressure of the hulking sea. Jadzia Dax licked dry lips inside her scuba hel- met-the holo-simulation was so real, too real!-and spoke through a (faintly) cracking larynx over the comm link. "How... how much pressure, Julian?" Bashir looked at the gauge as

the runabout lurched in the current. "I read it as seventy-three standard atmospheres." "No, I don't mean in the simulation. I mean for real. How much pressure as soon as we exit the Defiant?" The puzzled doctor stared sideways at Dax, turning his whole body, since his head and neck were constrained by his own helmet. "Jadzia, you know the answer to that better than I. The ship currently sits at approximately one hundred and seventy atmospheres." "Enough," she said, almost to herself, "enough to crush a runabout like a..." "An egg?" She smiled wanly. "We already used that one. Crush us like some... small, crushable thing." Bashir reached across, piercing her with his limpid, brown eyes, seen through the faceplate, putting a heavily gloved hand on her arm. "Steady, Commander. We'll be all right. It was your own calculations." He gestured with his head at the seawater beyond the (holo) hull of the (holo) run- about. "It appears to be working, you see? Your calculations are correct. Shields down to forty percent. We should rupture and lose pressurization in about six minutes." "Computer," said Dax quietly, "end program." The two of them stood, still absurdly attired in deep-ocean scuba gear. Dax cracked her seals and removed her helmet, just in time to be berated by her aqua-comrade. "Jadzia, why did you do that?" Bashir stared in open-mouthed irritation. She shook her head. "It's no good, Julian. It's not the real thing... but it's too real. If I do this now, I might not be able to do it for real, when the time comes." The doctor pressed his lips together, stared at the walls, floor, and ceiling of criss-crossing lines of holoemitters. "You don't want to rehearse?" "Not my death, Julian." Bashir sighed. "It was the one thing keeping me from screaming in terror." He snorted. "All right, we'll split the difference. We've already practiced the first ninety meters; I suppose we'll just wing it the rest of the way." Shrugging in apology, Jadzia turned and left the holodeck, leaving Dr. Bashir behind. Pride held her rigid through the passageway, down the turbo- lift, and into her quarters. Only then did she allow herself to collapse on the bed, shaking like an out-of-balance turbine. She fell into a thrashing, fitful sleep and dreamt of trillions of tons of poisoned water crushing host and sym- biote alike into undifferentiated constituent atoms. "But what did you do during the Occupation, Kai?" persisted Major Kira. "I kept myself occupied, child." Kai Winn fidg- eted; she was determined not to fall into the sin of living in the past, as did so many others who suffered through the decades of brutal occupation. It was such a common failing! So many people, decent people who loved the Prophets and tried to live as kind and good a life as possible, too many began nearly every sentence with a sigh, a glance flickered over the shoulder--as if there might be a Cardassian informer in the next booth--and words like, "Back during the Troubles, I--" or "It's not like it was during the Bad Times, when I . . ?' I will NOT be one of those people, Kai Winn firmly told herself. She despised such people. No, that~ not fair; I despise that evasion, but I pity such people. Pity was a very unpopular emotion, but it was one of the most decent (when it wasn't used as a euphemism for "look down upon"). "I resisted, child." Finally, the Kai's young protfig~e--sureiy Kira didn't know she was a pro- t~g~e!--took the hint and sat down, still trembling like a racing beast waiting for the gong. The Kai felt a terrible sympathy; Kai Winn had been through so much, so muc?, more than anyone realized, that this small attack could not pierce her shield. She knew she was not fated to die at the hands of unknown aliens in the Emissaryrs own sanctuary; she had looked into the Orb

and seen herself older, seen struggles ahead. She didn't know just when she would die (thank the Prophets!), but she knew it was not now, not here. There is a great comfort in knowing one will survive one's present difficulties; Kira had no such certainty, the poor dear. Just as I had no certainty during the Occupation that Nerys so obsesses upon,' I knew not what Gul Ragat wouM take it into his head to do next. Stop! The Kai wrenched her mind out of the indulgent groove and returned to the present time. She could see that the past could not be suppressed utterly; it would out now and again. But she would control it, at least awaiting a more opportune moment. Perhaps during the night; Kira, who just arrived on duty after a fitful five hours of supposed rest, would take command while Kai Winn re- turned to her own quarters in the back of what had been the Emissary's ready room. Then will be the time; then I will allow the demons of the past to engulf me... for a little while. In the meanwhile, she had to manage the battle. "Child, there has been no new assault while you slept. The Gamma Quadrant aliens are maintain- ing their siege positions, but I'm sure they're plan- ning something." "I don't think they're just going to give up, my Kai. They've invested too much--and they've killed people on the Bajoran destroyers. They must know we won't let them simply leave!" Kira's skin darkened as the blood rushed to her face. She was desperately suppressing an emotion that could overwhelm her senses if she allowed it. Don't slip the floodgates, warned the Kai silently. "They know," agreed Winn. "They're planning to breech the station manually. They've been scanning us continually, very high-level scans." "Looking for a crack?" Kai Winn nodded. "Is there a crack, my Kai?" The Kai shrugged. "Probably. It's in the hands of the Prophets; we can only do what we can do, imperfect beings that we are." Nerys seemed glumly dissatisfied with this re- sponse as well. She stood and slid down the ladder- way to the main level of Operations; there she paced around the central control panels, probably distracting the Kai's personal defense squad, who manned the battle stations. Kai Winn sighed, wishing she could as easily give vent to her anxieties as her young prot6g6e. But the Prophets were strict: they required self-control and discipline. The Kai smiled, imagining what Major Kira of the Shakaar resistance cell would think if Kai Winn were to tell her the destiny she envi- sioned for Nerys' that someday, and not too far into the future, Nerys would herself hear the call of the Prophets .... and would take holy orders, eventually succeeding Winn as Kai. She'd probably laugh in my face, then turn bright red with horror! Kai Winn smiled at the thought. She hoped someday to see confirmation of her vision in the Orb; until then, it was a mere possibil- ity, nothing more. Nerys, thought the Kai, forgive me, but you would make an excellent priestess,' if only you could believe it! The last hour of the Kai's shift passed unevent- fully. When she felt the fatigue of her aging body overtake her brain, she knew it was time to hand over the reins. "Nerys," she said, catching the young officer's attention; Kira looked up, surprised at the familiarity of her given name. "Take com- mand. I must rest; remember my authority, Major .... Do nothing to undermine it." Kira's face burned red again, and she couldn't look the Kai in the face. "I--I will, my Kai. I mean I won't." Kai Winn smiled as she turned away to the ready room. She~ going to betray me, she thinks; she~ going to call the Federation for help against the invaders. But of course, it was all part of the Prophets' plan... whatever Kira chose to do. Yawning fiercely, Kai Winn took stately, mea- sured steps into her new office, overlooking Ops, and

ordered the door shut. Then she relaxed and became an older woman once more. A few hours of just being Winn--not Kai nor vedek nor interpreter of the Prophets--was what she urgently needed. Just being Winn, like the young girl who found herself, a newly minted sister, assigned to tend the spiritual needs of Gul Ragat's Bajoran slaves... and a slave herself, of course. Sister Winn was not a warrior. What did you do in the Resistance? I may not have carried a gun and planted bombs, but child, I surely resisted.t And how much harder it always was to resist without weapons .... Something the soldiers never seemed to appreciate. Remaining appropriately dressed, in case she was summoned from sleep by an emergency, Kai Winn lay carefully on the bed that once was the Emissary's emergency cot, feeling a small, girlish thrill at being so close to the man so personally blessed by the Prophets--who spoke to them di- rectly! She barely closed her eyes, giving herself final permission to let the dead past rise, when she found herself dreaming of days gone by .... She was back in Governor Legate Migar's mansion attending the young and dashing Gul Ragat, subgovernor of the Bajoran provinces of Shakarri and Belshakarri .... TO BE CONTINUED IN Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rebels Book Two The Courageous

CHAPTER 1 THIRTY YEARS AGO THE BULLETIN-TEA in Legate Migar's headquarters droned on and on, stretching into its fourth tedious hour. Sister Winn and the other Bajoran servantsmShimpur Arian, who served Gul Feesat; Lisea Nerys and Alahata-something, who were brought down to the planet by Gul Dukat; and the six servants of Legate Migar who cooked and served the food (one was a true collaborator, Winn was certain)--were at last allowed to eat their own lunch in the kit chen... after they had waited upon the high-ranking Cardassians, served, fetched, and cleared away. Alone with themselves now, the Bajorans let their bitterness erupt; like a baby spitting up, thought Sister Winn, surprising herself with her own cynicism. Alahata spoke of his anger at servitude. He was nearly as young as Gul Ragat, but he had grown up in a village not far from Winn's, Riesentaka on the Heavenly Blue River. Winn tried to calm him with homilies from the Prophets, but the boy would not be placated. He'll learn, she thought in sadness, noting the interest of two of Legate Migar's valets, one of whom was probably the snitch. The others spoke of domestic issues. Nerys was worried about the rains, which had come too soon for her father's farm. But even in the simplest conversation, Sister Winn could practically cut the tension with a knifetif Bajorans in service to a gul had been allowed knives. They each knew who and what they were, and how precarious was the thread by which their world dangled. The Bajorans fell silent as Winn blessed the food, and they ate; the food was too rich for the priestess, not the simple, country fare she had grown up with, but the elaborate, spicy meats the Cardassians preferred among Bajoran foodsfood from the Northern Islands, Winn said to herseld Her mother had come from there, but her father had forbidden spice in the family meals, as he had

a weak stomach. The kitchen was gigantic but cozy. Legate Migar had not built his own house, but taken over the house of the original governor of the subcontinent, Riasha Lyas. Riasha had disappeared thirteen years ago and was rumored to have been sent up to Terok Nor,' but no one who returned from the station orbiting Bajor had ever reported seeing him. A stained-glass window facing northwest allowed in much natural light in the afternoon, but Winn could not see outside. A smaller, plain window set above the stained glass afforded an abbreviated view... assuming the priestess were to stand on a chair. The men used the plain window to look out for arriving VIPs. Red and blue shadows crossed the kitchen table as Winn pushed her food from one side of the plate to the other, hoping to fool the cook into thinking she had enjoyed the mea l. She answered automatically whenever one of the other Bajorans would ask her religious advice, or beg for a prayer or benediction for the weather, the crops, a sick cousin, the soul of Bajor. But she smiled and turned her face full on whoever was speaking, seeming to give undivided attention; inside, Sister Winn was thinking dark thoughts and wondering how she could pull off her mission without ending up the Headless Sister of Shakarri. At last, the table was cleared by the probable collaborator, whose name she learned at last: Revosa Anan. She filed away the information for future use. Sister Winn rose, gave a final blessing and thanks to the Prophets, and bowed her way out of the kitchen, saying she had to return and see if her master needed anything. She stepped lightly toward the conference room but paused in the courtyard; no one appeared to be watching; the house felt heavy, sleepy after the midday meal. Bowing her head and walking with a firm step, Sister Winn turned to the right and cut across the short angle of the courtyard toward a small, forbidden door she had observed from its other side when she first arrived at Legate Migar's palace. The door opened to her firm touch; she entered, smiling and readying an obsequious apology if she ran into an overly dutiful Cardassian

guard. Not that an apology would matter. If the door turned out to lead where she prayed it did, and she were caught inside, then the next stop would surely be Terok Nor... and GUl Dukat's tender ministry. Sister Winn entered the small antechamber that led to the formal reception room, and in the other direction, to the entrance hall. The walls were done in bloodwood paneling, very dark, and the only light came from two "electric candle" light fixtures at opposite sides of the outer wall. Between the fixtures was another door, this one soundproofed and sealed with a push-button combination lock popular among the erstwhile Bajoran military missions... like the house of Governor Riasha. Swallowing hard, the priestess approached the lock. Her steps faltered. If she were caught in the next few seconds, no amount of bowing and scraping could save her from interrogation, followed by execution--and disgrace and exile for Gul Ragat; but quite frankly, Sister Winn could not have cared less what happened to her Cardassian "master." His own conscience was in the hands of the Prophets; either he would see and save himself, or he would remain in ignorance and be forever barred from their embrace. The strangest thing about Cardassians, Winn pondered, is how thoroughly they believe their rules of conquered and conquerer.t They had won the battle; they had won the war. Simple honor among soldiers required that the Bajorans accept their status and work to achieve full recognition as eventual citizens of the Cardassian Empire. It certainly never occurred to Legate Migar to run around replacing all the locks in his house. It never penetrated his bony Cardassian skull that although poor Governor Riasha was probably in the arms of the Prophets a decade since, and the officers of the Bajoran Army were all executed or imprisoned in penal colonies or mines around the planet and even on Terok Nor, that many of the governor's former civilian engineers had also worked in the palace... and some had frequent occasion to work in the communications room. And the legate, who had never been any kind of an engineer, civilian or military, was evidently un-

aware of the disdain with which such people treat security precautions. In particular, Legate Migar had never heard of a lock having a "back door," used by the engineers if the military men changed the lock and neglected to tell the civilian contractors. He had ordered the combination altered, of course; but he never realized that there was more than one combination. Licking her dry lips, Sister Winn took a deep breath, stepped up to the lock, and punched in the back-door code she had received from her cell leader. The lock clicked twice, and the red lights on the side turned green. Sister Winn pressed firmly on the door, and it pushed noiselessly open, exposing a dark room whose walls were lined with communications equipment. In front of the six chairs were lists of common frequencies, map displays, and miracle of the Prophets, a current codebooM Please protect me, she begged; then she stepped into the room, pushing the door nearly shut, and felt in the heel of her knee boot for the tiny, digital holocam she had carried for four months, waiting for just such an opportunity. The bright displays beckoned, but Sister Winn knew her first goal; she activated the codebook and began to click through it, snapping pictures of every screen. When Sister Winn finally finished holocamming the book, a wave of relief flooded her brain. She wasn't "off the mountain," as her villagers used to say; she still had to exit without losing the holocam and get the images to her cell--or some cell, at least. But at least, even if she got nothing else, her mission was successful. But in a lapse of security that would be incredible to anyone who hadn't lived with the Cardassians for years and didn't know the depth of their disdain for the "lesser races," the communications room remained unattended for another ten minutes. During that time, Winn took holopictures of every screen and all the frequency settings; she even dared project different maps on the coder's viewer and holocammed them as well; though her mouth was so dry, she was having trouble breathing. If there were a history file, somebody was going to be awfully suspicious... and if there were secu-

rity viewers, she could be under fatal observation as she brought up map after map, caught and convicted by her own hand. Then Winn heard what she had expected to hear minutes earlier: the bootsteps of the Cardassian guard returning on his rounds. With a lot less coolness than she would have liked, she rested her boot on the console and rotated the heel outward with trembling fingers. She replaced the holocam and swung the heel shut, hearing it lock into place. She exited the room just as the guard turned the corner, but she didn't dare pull the door shut... the guard would hear the click of the lock and be alerted. He paused when he saw her standing with her back to the communications room door, staring with a vacant expression as if she were in a trance. "Bajoran slave! What are you doing here?" he demanded. Winn turned toward the guard, blinking as if she had never seen a Cardassian before in her life and wasn't quite sure whether it was alive or not. "Sir?" she asked, striving for an intelligence level somewhere above imbecile but well below normal. The Cardassian was only too happy to oblige, seeing her as a conquered "animal." He spoke very slowly, enunciating every word in Bajoran (but with a barbarous accent). "Whymare--you-here?" Winn brightened. "Oh! Can you help me? My master needs the activity reports on Resistance action for the last month. He's very important." "Activity reports? I don't know anything about that! I have received no word. Who is your master?" He paused, and Winn stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Who--ismyour--MASTER?" shouted the impatient guard, raising his clenched fist. The priestess cringed away from the man, burying her face in her hands and falling heavily to her knees. "Please don't hurt me! My master is Gul Ragat, subgovernor of Shakarri and Belshakarri! He is here to meet with their lordships Legate Migar and Gul Dukat for the bulletin-tea." The guard, wearing the uniform of a sergeant major and carrying only a hand disruptor at his belt, paused to ponder the new information. He

was evidently aware of the bulletin-teas, but didn't seem to know for sure which guls were on the invitation list. "Well," he snarled, "where are you supposed to find this report? You're not allowed to be in this part of the building!" "Please, sir! My master told me to report to the duty officer of the communications room." The sergeant's gaze strayed immediately to the door, still open a crack. His eyes widened. "What--!" Rushing to the door, he threw it open, seeing only the dark room with a few illuminated controls and the main viewer showing the Cardassian insignia, the neutral "background" image when nothing else was displayed. A moment later, he returned to the hall, staring down at Sister Winn with a new light of crafty intelligence. "Did you enter this room, Bajoran?" "I wanted to," she blurted out, "but I was too afraid! I don't know what the report looks like, and--and I was afraid to go poking around where I wasn't--I didn't know what to do, so I just waited until..." Winn began to sniffle, making hemelf cry real tears and sneeze; it was a talent she had learned as a child, always good for eliciting sympathy from sympathetic adults. It didn't work quite as well against Cardassian conquerers; but still, it was the only weapon she had. Her knees hurt, which helped the deception. "Look, stop that sniveling! Did--youmenter-this--roorn? Just answer the question!" Winn shook her head vigorously. "No, sir, but I . . 9,

"Yes?" "I didn't, but I..." "You WHAT?" The sergeant major was rapidly losing what tiny bit of patience he had. "I--I--I touched the door/Oh, Prophets preserve me, I pushed it, and it swung a little, and I--I looked inside for a minute/" The guard sighed and seemed to slump a little. He looked away, starting to be embarassed by the sight of a but still somewhat pretty, young woman sobbing hysterically on the floor. The priestess

peeked through her fingers and saw the man chewing his lip and staring at the door, probably wondering whether he's going to get in trouble over the open door, she understood. "Stupid civilian com- techies," he muttered in Cardassian. Then he looked back over his own shoulder, reached out, and pulled the door shut tightly. "Look, you couldn't get the report thing you wanted because there wasn't anyone in the room. You got that? Do--you--underSTAND?" The sergeant major nodded his head affirmatively. "There wasn't... I couldn't get the report?" Winn put on a look of bewilderment. "Therewwasn'tmanyone--here! Oh, for goodness sake, it's sommeasy!" He used an obscenity Winn had heard before, but only from lower-class Cardassian soldiers. "Oh! I couldn't get the report because... because..." Winn paused, tapping her forehead as if thinking through the sche me. "... there was nobody in the room!" "Yes!" he exclaimed, pushing her back against the wall. "Open your foolish Bajoran ears next time! And"--he leaned close to snarl directly in the priestess's facem"don't you ever push open a door like that again! Never/You understand me?" For emphasis, he put his metal-shod boot on Sister Winn's back; she made no move to push it away, merely drawing back in terror, and the sergeant major didn't put his weight on it, either. "Yes, sir! I understand, sir! Thank yo u, sir!" He let her up but made no move to help; Winn rose shakily to her feet, bowed and cringed in the most servile manner she could manage, and backed awayinstill bowing and thanking him for correcting her. As soon as she rounded the same corner whence the guard had come, she turned and bustied as fast as she could manage to the "allowed" section of Legate Migar's house. She didn't meet any more Cardassian guards along the way; this deep inside the pale, the gul had no fear of Resistance actio n, and he seemed to take an austere pride in living virtually alone with his family and only a skeleton force of soldiers. She had already returned to the conference room, where her master was desperately trying not to nod off during an intermi-

nable supply report by Gul Feesat before the reality struck her full, starting her trembling all over again: I did it/she screamed inside her mind; I actually did it and got away/ But another voice answered back, the voice she usually used to correct her behavior when she violated the word or spirit of the Prophets: You've not gotten away yet, child; or haven't you noticed whose house this still is? She couldn't help smiling, praying that the worst was over. But her inner nag warned that the worst had just begun. Sister Winn was now officially "hangable." The young Gul Ragat was still brooding over his possible elevation, and annoyed that nobody mentioned anything at the bulletin-tea about it: Legate Migar and Gul Dukat simply spoke to him as they normally did, with no special winks or nods, nothing to indicate it was other than ordinary that Ragat be invited to such an unordinary meeting. He complained--or hinted at his irritation, actually-to Sister Winn in a long soliloquy in the garden that evening, while Winn did her best to appear sympathetic and hopeful. Her own agenda was somewhat different. "My Lord," she said soothingly, "I'm sure you were right in your original thought, that you are being groomed for the higher grant of honors. Sur ely you see the hand of the Prophets in this?" "The Prophets?" Gul Ragat blinked at Winn. "I don't quite follow. How do the Bajoran Prophets figure into my elevation?" "They know what a compassionate man m'lord is; they must know that of all the Cardassians, Gul Ragat is most concerned about the physical and spiritual ills of the Bajoran people! Surely they have brought your qualities to the attention of Legate Migar for a reason." Ragat paced agitatedly. "A reason? Because I will be a more compassionate master than, say, Gul Dukat, with his iron fist and heart of stone?" "Oh, you most certainly would be." She wondered whether he would catch the significance of the reference to the spiritual ills; Winn had heard

that somewhere in the Cardassian Empire, scattered and powerless but there, was a group of Cardassians who argued bitterly against the occupation of Bajor, and indeed all the other planets forcibly "civilized" into the empire. She knew Gul Ragat was not a member of that outlawed group-he certainly wouldn't be given even a subgovernorship if there were the slightest hint in his background check!--but if Winn had heard of them, then Ragat had heard of them... and she would not give up hope that the Prophets would in time lead those Cardassians with even the slightest hint of decency to the moral position. "Yes," he mused, "I suppose I could do much to alleviate the needless suffering of your people, were I to be granted a higher position in the administration of Bajor." "My Lord," said Sister Winn, bowing her head and looking intently at her feet, "may I speak frankly?" "Of course, of course! I allow all my servants the freedom to say what is truly on their minds, in private." "My Lord, if your people continue along this path they have chosen, there will certainly be bloody resistance against Cardassian rule. My Bajorans are a proud people, and we do not take well to the leash." "Winn, you are a priestess! A spiritual leader! How can you threaten such a terrible thing?" You young fool.t "My Lord, I do not threaten; I predict. I know my own. And I know that a few hundred thousand Cardassian troops will not hold against an entire planetful of bitter, determined freedom fighters. I shudder at the images my mind conjures, fantastic scenarios of mass destruction. But I cannot turn my face from the inevitable." Gul Ragat turned his back to Sister Winn. "I cannot listen to a prediction of such betrayal! Sister, I'm surprised at you, giving credence to the juvenile boasting of that Resistance rabble. You know what would happen: those who revolted would be wiped out, as well as their family and probably their friends, even if innocent." The garden was dark and cool, but Winn saw it full of menace and unfriendly, grasping tree

branches--though it was the same, friendly garden as in the days of Riasha Lyas. Evil had escaped from the Cardassian garrison inside the house and permeated the trimmed paths and hedgerows of the pastoral arboretum. "And it would be such a waste of resources," sighed the young subgovernor, almost to himself. Winn was glad the garden was dark, so Gul Ragat could not see her rolling her eyes in disgust. She quickly and silently apologized to Those who did see, because They saw all. Then her young "master" made one more offhand remark that electrified the priestess: "Perhaps it would secure my advancement and serve the true interests of your people both," he mused, "if I were to bring in a few of these rabble-rousers myself... the ones who incite peaceful Bajorans to bloody revolution and cause us no end of trouble." There was nothing, nothing that Sister Winn wanted more desperately than to ge t away from Legate Migar's palace and relocate somewhere she could pass along the priceless content of her holo cam. But Bajoran servants--slaves, she corrected herself unemotionally--simply did not travel alone without travel documents issued by the Cardassian Planetary Authority... not even priestesses on a religious mission. There were only two ways for Winn to remove herself from Migar's estate without exciting attention: get her gul or another, higher-ranking gul to send her on an errand; or else, get Gul Ragat to travel with her. The first was virtually impossible; anything important enough to go get was by and large too important for a Cardassian to leave to a Bajoran. The invaders had skimmers; they had shuttles; they had starships with beaming facilities. If Gul Ragat really wanted something physical, an artisan's vase or a barrel of sunberry wine, he would either transport it to him or transport himself to it; he would not send Sister Winn. But ff Ragat wanted to personally capture some antiCardassian Resistance leaders--especially without alerting other guls who might want to elbow into the credit--he was pretty much restricted to moving by skimmer, as he came... and moving his entire entourage in the direction of home.

Anything less, or moving in any other direction, and the Planetary Authority would demand his travel documents! Since he didn't have enough skimmers for everyone, he and his household would ride, while everyone else, Cardassian honor guard and Bajoran domestics, would go as they had come, on foot, as befit their station as a subject race. It's amazing how many opportunities a lengthy walk presents, thought the priestess craftily. But before she could plan an escape or rendezvous, she first had to start the wheels in motion: Winn had to persuade Gul Ragat to take the trip in the first place. "My Lord, I..." Winn trailed off, then tried to look as though she had said nothing. "Yes, Sister Winn?" Gul Ragat waited; Winn could feel the tension in his body, and she realized she had struck just the right tone: I've got a terrible secret, but I don't know whether I can tell you! She fidgeted. She opened her mouth and sucked in a breath, then let it out without saying anything. "You can tell me anything when we're alone," soothed the gul, deliberately standing far enough away from her that she wouldn't feel crowded. Again, the priestess almost spoke and didn't. Finally, she pretended to come to a resolution. She sat slo wly on the bench, despite the fact that her gul was standing... a terrible breach of protocol! "My Lord, I know of a rise that's planned for a few days from now--but I cannot tell, I cannot! Not even to secure your advancement." Now, Gul Ragat couldn't contain himself. He spun to face her and asked breathlessly, "You do? You know? You have? You will?" "I cannot violate the trust of my people, even if it means your grant of honors, Gul Ragat. I just can't!" Come along, chiM. . . convince met The gul stepped back, seeming to stop himself by brute force from grabbing Winn's shoulders and shaking her vigorously. "But, Winn--Sister Winn... you wouldn't be doing it for me; you'd be doing it to help your own people!" "My own people? How do you mean?" She allowed a note of hope to creep into her voice.

"Your own people, whom you would save from the brutal retaliation sure to be inflicted upon them by the harsh and stern military leaders of the Empire! Imagine what will happen to the Bajorans living in that province or prefecture if you allow this insane rebellion to proceed!" Sister Winn gasped. "I never thought of that." "You must! You must think on it, and you will see that the only thing to do is to tell me now, quickly, so I can stop the troubles from ever starting by arresting the callous, uncaring leaders." "Must I?" Ragat shook his head sadly, sorrowing with her, not at her. "There is no other honorable course for you to take. You are a leader, the voice of the Prophets. You must look after your--your flock; yes, that's the word. They look to you for guidance! Exercise your moral leadership to lead them to acceptance of the inevitable, and think of how much happier they will be." Sister Winn suddenly jumped to her feet, pretending guilt at suddenly realizing she was sitting while her "master" stood. "Forgive me, My Lord!" she cried; Gul Ragat waved away the infraction, intent upon the information she might give him. Winn felt like a fisherman reeling in her catch. The problem, Winn realized nervously, was that she actually had the information to give. In her position as spiritual leader for all the Bajorans who lived at Ragat's compound and many in the village of Vir-Hakar, in the county of Belshakarri, she always heard rumors of Resistance activity... often well-founded. She knew, for instance, that there was a planned meeting in precious Riis, a meeting that would probably lead to action against the spaceport ten kilometers away--a facility now used by the Cardassians to transport high-ranking members of the military and important visitors to and from the planet. A bombing was likely, and a full-scale assault was not out of the question. It was the only such action that she knew of; if she wanted to give Ragat something he could substantiatemand it was clear he would check it out through his own intelligence network--there was nothing else for her to give. The attack could probably be postponed without much danger, if she

got word to the Resistance in time! If not... then Sister Winn would have just committed a real, honest-to-Prophets act of collaboration which would surely result in the violent deaths of many Bajoran freedom fighters. It was a terrible choice! But really, she thought anxiously, I have no choice. With the information digitized in her holo cam, such blows could be struck as to completely eclipse the strike at the Riis Spaceport, called the Palm of Bajor. If she could get the holocam to her cell leader; as always, IF! "My Lord," she whispered, "I have heard that there is to be a rising very near to here." "Yes?" "Between here and our own home, in fact." "Yes?" Gul Ragat's excitement was palpable; Winn fought hard to keep her expression neutral, her eyes cast respectfully downward, and to sniffle a bit. "It will be in-- in Riis. That is what I heard." "Riis? On the Shakiristi River?" "That is what I heard, M'Lord." Now Ragat sat suddenly, wearing a goofy grin and staring into space... staring at his grant of honors, thought the priestess bitterly. After a moment, he remembered himself and grew solemn. "You have done a noble and brave thing, Sister Winn. You have saved many of your people from a terrible fate. The Prophets would be proud of you... I'm certain of it." Oh Prophets, she prayed, please grant me that same certainty! But the Prophets, as was often the case, remained as mute as the stones on the issue. Once more, Kai Winn woke in the night, the tendrils of the past wrapped around her. Now, at least, she knew there was some reason--that the Prophets were sending her a message, something that she must, must, be clever enough to grasp. CHAPTER 2 "LISTEN UP, away team," said Captain Sisko, standing before his away team on a dark red bluff overlooking a shady, indigo valley; Worf came to attention, awaiting the new orders. A hundred

meters below them, "Mayor-General" Asta-ha and her commandos--the Terrors of Tiffnaki, the name suggested by the hereditary mayor's daughter Tivva- ma--ran the rest of the Tiffnakis through a heavy set of drills, trying to beat into their posteconomic heads some sense of the danger they were in. Worf had designed the drills himself, and he was pleased at how quickly the Natives were learning how to fight as a unit. "All right," asked the captain, "what's it going to be, then? We cannot reach the main planetary power stations and destroy them on foot; they're thousands of kilometers away. We need transporation, and the Deftant seems to have left orbit. So, do we try to overwhelm a small patrol by force or by stealth?" Days earlier, the away team had finally left the natives of Sierra-Bravo to continue training themselves, for all the good that would do. Worf had few doubts what he would find upon his return: ragged, threadbare, unarmed, frightened, cowering, starving refugees crouching in the bushes like animals. But what could he do, stay forever with Asta-ha and her "Terrors" of Tiffnaki? The captain was right: it was time the Starfleet team took direct action against the Cardassians who had invaded this world and routed themthe inhabitants. The handful of Cardassians and their Drek'la footsoldiers had struck upon the perfect tactic... The Natives, tho ugh not technological themselves, somehow had access to bucketsful of technological toys left over from a previous higher civilization. But everything worked off of broadcast power from central power plants relayed by local stations. The Cardassian- led assault teams simply blew up the relay stations, obliterating all power to a given region; and all the deadly toys used by the Natives instantly ceased operation, leaving them utterly defenseless, stunned, confused, ready to be harvested like scything wheat. The captain's plan is bold, thought Worf; it is Klingonlike. No other Starfleet officer would have dared! Sisko had decided, after much agonizing, to take his team to the central power plants and knock them off- line himself, plunging the whole planet into darkness. The Natives, forced to react to the

loss of power for weeks or months before the invaders got to them, would be over the shock and better able to resist conquest. The only problem, however, was that the power plants were thousands of kilometers away... and the away team was on foot. They would need to find an enemy camp, somewhere, and liberate a skimmer to have any chance at all. Worf, as usual, was first to express his opinion on the purely military question of tactics once they located the Cardassians. "I have nothing against stealth, Captain; as you know, Kahless himself often used stealth against a superior enemy-- it is entirely honorable." "For once," said Quark, "I totally agree with the wise commander." "However," continued Woff, glaring at the Ferengi, "in this case, I do not think we can manage to steal a skimmer without being detected. We do not look anything like Cardassians or Drek'la." "Oh, I don't know, Worf." The Klingon turned and immediately fell into a defensive posture: the speaker was a very mean- looking Cardassian wearing a face mask and the uniform of a gul. Worf grabbed the Cardassian infiltrator with one hand while he drew his d'k tahg knife with the other, but his brain finally caught up with his warrior's body, and he realized he was about to plunge a knife into the absent heart of Security Chief Odo. "Odo!" he snarled. "You fool, I could have killed you!" "Not unless your d'k tahg can penetrate a centimeter of titanium," replied the changeling laconically, tapping his breastplate. "Odo makes a pretty compelling argument, if you ask me," said Chief O'Brien. Taking a deep breath and calming his violent impulse, Worf decided it was honorable to admit when one was in error, despite the merriment that might give to the wretched Ferengi. A glare from the Klingon following the admission silenced Quark. The captain smiled. "Odo has given us the seeds of an excellent plan. Now let's see if we can't make them grow into something tactically usable."

Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax quickly ran through a pro forma departure checklist with Julian Bashif; most of her mind was busy living anywhere but the present, crammed into a tight and motion-cons tricting dry suit, an air tank backpack, mask, and flippers within easy reach. The Nylex gloves made her palms itch, and the rolled up hood pressed uncomfortably against the back of her neck. I'll bet Julian is as comfortable in Nylex as he is in a unifo rm, she griped inwardly. Her mind ranged ahead and behind, worrying about everything in the quadrant. She worried about Joson Wabak, the jaygee now in command of the submerged Defiant; she had issued final orders for him to follow another suggestion from the strangely helpful Julian Bashir: the seventeenhundred- meter-tall antenna that would poke into the air. Subspace communications between the ship and the surface had been swallowed up as soon as the planetary defenses spotted them; but perhaps they could still transmit along the surface. If not, both Julian and Jadzia had modified their combadges to send and receive in the radio frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum... just in case. In either event, she would probably need line-of-sight with the raised antenna, unless they could bounce the radio signal off the cloud cover. Jadzia fretted about the hull integrity of the ship, even though she herself had supervised the containment field modifications; if the hull began to buckle, Wabak would have to order them to upship and face Cardassian pounding again. She nervously wondered how long the runabout hull would withstand the ocean pressure; she was terrified of the possibility of having to scuba to the surface, despite two run-throughs in the holodecks with the good Dr. Bashir. And she still fumed about her performance in the battle, poor enough by her own standards that she had relieved herself of command. Get a grip, girl, she commanded herself; your mind is everywhere but here and now. Julian finished the departure checklist and segued immediately into the launch checklist; Jadzia absently responded.

She touched all the right touchplates, slooshing with every flex of her dry suit, and got the engines spun up to speed; then she said, "Off the checklist, Julian; let's flood the launch bay." She glanced at the doctor--always too cute by half to attract her; she liked her men rugged and perhaps a little cruel 1ookingmand both of them took deep breaths as Jadzia pressed the transmit touchplate: "Amazon II to Defiant; open the floodgates, Joson." "Aye, aye, Commander," said the Bajoran jaygee. Dax heard a loud bang, followed by a prolonged clanking; she imagined an immense anchor chain winding up somewhere, pulling open the locks to let the seawater rush into the bay. Looking out the front viewscreen, she rotated the fish-eye lens to show the hastily improvised "floodgate"; a stream of blue green water shot through the small holes, kicking up a turquoise froth as it poured across the deckplates and began to fill up the launch bay. "I guess around here," said Julian, tugging at his own hood, rolled and circling his neck, "the Natives go blue-water rafting." Jadzia debated making a witty comeback, but decided the doctor's joke was feeble enough not to warrant response. It's just his way of warding off anxiety, she told herself. Soon, the water was crashing around the runabout's legs, and in a few moments, climbing up high enough to start filling the viewscreen. After four minutes of flooding, Joson Wabak said, "Flooding complete; you're clear to launch. Good luck, Commander." "Don't forget about the giant antenna," said Dax, "and don't hesitate to take off if you have to. You can probably leave orbit before the Cardassians spot you." "Come on, Jadzia," said Bashir, "he knows what to do." "And Joson. Listen on both subspace and radio frequencies for our signal ... we might need you in a hurry." "Aye, aye, Commander," said the Bajoran. "Goodbye, Lieutenant," shouted Dr. Bashit, killing the corn- link. "Jadzia, are you going to release the docking clamps? Or are we taking the Defiant with us?"

Jadzia Dax sighed and touched the release light. The ship shuddered and immediately began drifting towards the overhead; though she'd been somewhat expecting it--the ship was essentially an air bubblerathe rapid movement still took her by surprise. By the time Dax corrected for the drift and brought the Amazon II under control, they were dangerously close to the ceiling. "Dax to Wabak; open the launch bay doors." The doors slid open with a grinding noise, much louder than normal because the seawater conducted sound so well. The commander piloted the Amazon H perfectly through the dilated aperture and shot into the open ocean. Behind her, she knew, the doors were slowly contracting and the seawater being pumped out of the bilge. For good or ill, they were committed to their ocean adventure. Ensign Joson Wabak tried desperately not to tremble under the crushing weight of sixteen hundred meters of seawater above him and a crew of seventy-eight below. In cornmand! He was twentythree years old, a newly minted ensign in Starfleet, and in command of the U.$.S. Defiant. It was an awesome and shuddersome thought. Command might have been intoxicating were they in orbit, instead of scuppered at the bottom of a purple sea. "Containment shields down to forty-six percent," announced his erstwhile classmate, Ensign N'Kduk-Thag, or Ensign Nick, as Commander Dax had dubbed it, in its uninflected voice; unlike Vulcans, who experienced emotions but suppressed them (Joson had been told), the Erd'k'teedak literally did not experience emotions the way Bajorans like Ensign Wabak did. Under extreme stress, their rational centers might shut down, and they could begin acting what would be called mad were it any other race: Joson had personally seen N'Kduk-Thag marching naked in a circle around the flagpole at the Academy, chanting Starfleet general orders at the top of its lungs, in the middle of finals week one year. Joson steered his friend inside before the other cadets could see and misunderstand. "Measurement of hull distortion up to one point three percent water seepage detected on outer hull

behind containment shield alongside decks four through nine suggest ship is in danger of collapse." Joson's mouth was dry. How wonderful... my first command, and I to preside over the Defiant being crushed like an egg in a clenched fist! 1,640 meters of seawater above them translated to about a hundred and sixty atmospheres of pressure on a hull never designed for more than one! Normally, the Defia nt drifted through mostly empty space, bumping into only the tiniest wisps of hydrogen or the occasional micrometeor. In a pinch, the ship was also designed to plough its way into the atmosphere of a relatively Bajorlike planet, dealing with air pressure of perhaps as much as two atmospheres. But the water pressure outside was more,than e'~hty times that maximum rating. The only reason the ship wasn't already smashed to a mangled hulk of metal was that Commander Dax had personally modified the shields to strengthen the external containment surrounding the hull. But not enough, thought Joson glumly. "Ensign Weymouth," he said, catching the attention of the third commissioned officer on the bridge; everyone else was a chief petty officer or below, and refused to make command decisions--though they often were overeager with advice. "Yeah, Joss?" Joson waited, frowning down at her from the command chair. "I mean,--yes, sir?" "Instrument check?" She was supposed to follow with a readout of all the pertinent instruments as soon as N'Kduk-Thag finished its readout of engineering diagnostics. "Oh, sorry!" Stung from her contemplation of the forward viewer, whose image of the seafloor (color-corrected for water transparency) seemed to mesmerize her, Tina fluttered her hands over the combined navigation and science console. "Uh, uh, cloak is holding fine; nobody's detected us, I think--at least they haven't scanned us. Scanning around the ship; no, nothing but a big..." Weymouth's voice trailed off, and she stared bug-eyed at the scanner display. "Ensign, what is it?" demanded Joson, feeling

tentacles of fear wrap around his own head. Just what I need, more trouble! Now what? But Weymouth merely sputtered. Blood of the Prophets, it's just like at the Academy/Cadet Weymouth barely graduated at the bottom of the class; in fact, she had to repeat her first Academy cruise, because she "downed" it--received a failing mark from the instructor for freezing a several critical junctures. "Tina, snap out of it! What the hell do you see?" "It's... it's huge! And it's coming this way!" "What's huge? What's coming this way?" Weymouth turned completely around in her seat to stare at acting-Captain Wabak. "Joss... it's a sea monster!" Both Wabak and N'Kduk-Thag stared at the girl. "By a sea monster do you mean a large aquatic creature?" asked Ensign N'Kduk-Thag. "By a sea monster," snarled Weymouth, "I mean this/" She touched a light on her console and put the short-range scanner image on the forward viewer. Joson Wabak stared at the shadowy, fluctuating image of a creature more than two kilometers in length, with thousands of hundred- meter tentacles waving about, and a gaping maw that was doubtless the thing's mouth. The "aquatic creature" was fifteen klicks away but moving fast enough to arrive within the half hour. "N'Kduk-Thag," said Joson weakly, "could you please do a computer search through the Starfleet first-contact manual for any references to--ah-sea monsters?" The ensign- in-command was only half joking.

0 CHAPTER 3 "READ ME OUT the hull pressure and containment integrity, Julian; thirty second intervals." "Aye, aye, Jadzia." The doctor unbuckled from his seat and slooshed to the midsection of the

runabout, reading the strain gauges directly rather than trusting to the helm instruments; high pressure and strange minerals in the water might mess up the electronics, but the strain gauges themselves were so simple as to be virtually foolproof. "One hundred and sixty-two atmospheres on the outer hull," he said, "containment field integrity is... well, call it ninety-six percent. Looking good so far, Dax." She checked her own instruments, and they differed from the gauges by only three or four percent, within expected tolerance at this depth. For the first time, she breathed a sigh of relief; we might just make this without having to put our flippers on. With every ten meters they rose in the runaboutsubmarine, they bled off another atmosphere of pressure on the hull. Soon Julian was calling out "a hundred and fifty... hundred forty-nine..." Dax realized she was sweating; it~just the suit, she told herself. But the suit wouldn't explain her pounding heart and the fact that she caught herself clenching and unclenching her fist so much, her forearm started to ache. "Pressure one forty," said the doctor, "containment integrity is--" The suspense became unbearable. "Yes? Is what?" "Well, I don't like the looks of this, Jadzia." "What? What don't you like?" Dax started to breathe too quickly, to shallowly; she took a deep breath, forcibly calmed herself down. "Well, it was holding nicely at ninety, ninety-one percent, but it just dropped to eighty-five in the last minute. Whoops, eighty; it's dropping fast, Jadzia. Can we ascend any faster?" Dax pointed the Amazon II virtually nose-up and increased the thrusters as much as she dared; the ship was never intended to "fly" through water, just a single atmosphere or the vacuum of space. She couldn't push the engines any faster than the fraction necessary to move at ten meters per second. "Wait," shouted Bashit; "pull back, slow down!" Shaking, Dax cut engine power to nearly zero;

vertical motion slowed to a crawl, one meter for every three seconds... same speed a diver is supposed to ascend, she remembered from the doctor's scuba instructions. "Julian, talk to me. What's going on?" "It's the speed. The water drag is sapping the containment field; it's down to sixty percent... but the drop-off has slowed. We might still make it. Pressure one hundred atmospheres and falling." Briefly, Jadzia Dax wished she were a Bajoran, so she could pray to the Prophets. Dry- mouthed, she increased the rate of ascent to balance field collapse with reduction of hull pressure. Julian continued to call the numbers: "Hull ninety, field fifty-four percent; hull eighty, field fifty; hull seventy, field forty- five... we're going to make it, Dax." "Yes we are, yes we're going to make it," she mumbled. Then she felt a drop of water on her forehead. Her breath caught in her throat; it's just sweat, she said, as it rolled down her face and into her mouth. It tasted of saltwater... but of course, sweat was saltwater. She spat it out, suddenly remembering the high cyanide content in the local flora. But after several more seconds, she felt another drop, then a steady trickle of them. "Julian," she croaked, "we're leaking." "Yes, here too," he confirmed. Jadzia risked a glance back; the thin, dapper doctor was actually holding his hand against the skin of the runabout, swiveling his head back and forth between the two main gauges. "Fifty atmospheres, thirty percent. Jadzia, pull your hood on and don mask and backpack; I'm going to start a controlled flooding of the cabin." "You said we were going to make it," she said, trying to make light by clicking her tongue. "We will," said Julian, with equally false bon homie; "but I didn't say the Amazon H would." Dax said nothing more, just pulled on the rest of her scuba gear as quickly and efficiently as she could. By the time she finished, water was spraying into the cabin from every seam, and several of the

instruments on her panel were giving obviously fractured readouts. She pulled up her regulator, blew a few experimental blasts to clear it, and clamped her teeth around it. By the time she was ready, the water was above her waist. She looked at Bashir, and he gave her the scuba diver's "okay" circle of thumb and finger; Dax returned it, feeling nowhere near as okay as she put on. Julian removed his regulator long enough to say, "It's going to be colder than the holodeck. Don't panic; just do it exactly as we practiced. I'll stay with you every meter, and I'm an expert diver, so don't worry." Dax could barely hear him, and she felt a sharp pain in her ears. Of course, she realized; the air pressure inside the Amazon II was climbing. She held her nose and blew gently but firmly, clearing first one ear, then the other with a sharp pop. The icy water touched her exposed chin; Julian was right... it was freezing. The rest of her body was comfortable in the insulated, electroheated suit, but she gasped at the coldness on her face and forgot to breathe for a moment. The water quickly filled the rest of the air pocket, and the runabout was entirely full of dark, turgid seawater. Without worrying about her buoyancy compensator vest, she joined Julian at the emergency door crank; he opened the door slowly. Dax felt her ears plug up again; she checked her depth gauge, and realized that they were actually sinking. Engines must've died, she understood. Then Julian tugged at her arm, and she followed him out the partially opened door into the darkly luminescent, alien ocean. The doctor reached across and pressed a button on Jadzia's chest; she seemed to shoot away from the runabout... but checking her gauge (which she could barely see, though it was lit) it was the other way around: she had come to a halt, while the Amazon H sank rapidly back toward the oblivion of the ocean floor. That's it, she thought; we're on our own, for good or ill. After several seconds, the lights from the runabout faded into the dark, murky depths. She cleared her ears again, twisting her neck to

stretch the Eustachian tubes. Then Bashir caught her attention and gave a thumbs-up--which in scuba signalling, she remembered, meant "Let's go up." Dax felt another wave of panic: they were fiftyfive meters deep. That was much deeper than even expert divers usually went, and Jadzia Dax was a rank amateur. She started to bolt for the surface, but Julian anticipated her misstep, and he caught her by the weight belt. She tried to kick him away, but she was hampered by the dry suit and the fluid water, and the doctor was a lithe and wily wrestler in any event. After several moments, she calmed down somewhat, though her pulse still pounded so loud, it shook her entire body with every beat. Julian held up three fingers: "Three," he seemed to say, "three seconds per meter when ascending... no faster." He started off in a thoroughly improbable direction-he was going the wrong way. Then Jadzia noticed the air bubbles expended from her regula tor with every strangled exhalation went the same direction as Dr. Bashir. Well, I might be confused, but I'm sure the damned bubbles know which way is up. She followed the doctor, laboring to make each flipper stroke slow and cautious. The darkness terrified her for some reason; she had never been afraid of the dark before. But this wasn't just the absence of light; it was palpable, it reached out and enveloped her. She saw flashes of bioluminescent fish (or plants; she couldn't quite tell), but that only made the surrounding darkness seem lonelier and more solid. Her buoyancy compensator (BC) vented air automatically to maintain neutral buoyancy. She continued to breathe, in and out. "If you hold your breath when you ascend," the good doctor had told her, "the compressed air can expand inside your lungs and force bubbles through your alveoli and capillaries into your bloodstream." Additionally, ascending too quickly caused the nitrogen gas in the diver's blood to come out of solution and form more bubbles. He went on to describe the symptoms of "the bends" (rather gleefully, thought Dax), and pointed out that the

only known cure--putting the victim in a hyperbaric pressure tank and taking him "down" to the point where the gas bubbles dissolve into the bloodstream again, would be impossible on the surface of Sierra-Bravo 112-1I (which did not, as far as they could tell, have any local hospital facilities). Dax watched both her chronometer and pressure gauge. After a minute, they were still thirty- five meters deep, but the light was growing steadily stronger. Things were looking up. Then something brushed her leg... something enormous. She didn't want to look down and see what it was, but the image drew her eyes against her will. She saw the dim outline of something vaguely turtlelike, but at least twenty meters long: there was a hard shell, and dozens of flipperlike legs sticking out along the sides. The monster swam into the darkness, and Jadzia gave a startled yelp into her regulator. She grabbed Bashir, pointing the direction it had vanished, but he evidently hadn't seen anything. He shook his head, pointing up. They began to ascend again, but Jadzia Dax kept looking in every direction, hoping to spot it before it was too late. So big deal, what good is that going to do? You don't want to be eaten without being instantly aware of it, eh? The monster turtle loomed out of the gloomy water directly in front of the pair, and this time there was no mistaking it by either party. The head suddenly filled Dax's entire field of view; or rather, heads--there were four of them, each with its own neck poking out from under the carapace. First one then another head pressed close, opened its mouth, and unrolled a snakelike tongue with its own eyeball and set of needle teeth at the end. The tongue-mouths prodded at Dax and Bashit, feeling them, probably tasting them. Neither officer dared move. A pair of tongues wrapped around Jadzia and began pulling her closer to the mouth. She reacted without thinking, reaching down to draw her dive knife and slashing at the only tongue she could reach. Julian saw what was happening and joined her, hacking at the same

tongue as she; he grabbed it and began sawing back and forth. Reacting sluggishly, the head the tongue was connected to finally uncoiled and jerked back; the head squirmed left and right, banging into the heads on either side: they appeared to forget their prey and turn on each other, and Dax immediately guessed that rather than being one monster turtle with four heads, she was looking at four turtles that shared the same shell. As soon as it--they--let go, she almost bolted toward the surface, but she maintained adamantine control. They continued their slow ascent, and the monster turtles swam away, still bickering among themselves. By the time they faded from view, Jadzia Dax was shaking like a Trill pacheepa rat that had just escaped an owl. A minute and a half later, the light suddenly got brighter and bluer; she saw the surface of the ocean above her head like a shimmering, undulating glass ceiling. Giant Sierra-Bravo kelp loomed in the distance to one side, and Dax guessed that was the direction of the ocean shelf they had mapped from the Defiant; after all, the kelp had to attach to something, and the trench into which the ship had settled was much too deep for such large plant life--not enough sunlight. It was harder than ever for Jadzia to restrain herself and not drive for the surface, glittering just fifteen meters above them; such a panicky dash could easily kill her in the absence of effective medical care. Gritting her teeth (and feeling phantom tongues nipping at her flippers), Jadzia ascended, if anything, even more slowly for the glass ceiling. Jadzia Dax spit out her regulator, letting it fall back down by her side, but before she could get the snorkel into her mouth, a swell washed over her head, choking her. She bit down hard on the snorkel and did all her coughing into the mouthpiece; after a few moments, she was breathing without obstruction... her heart pounded, and she made a mental note for the doctor to examine her for cyanide poisoning. Julian tapped her on the shoulder and removed his own snorkel for a moment. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, then shook her head, not wanting to talk. "Ready to head for shore? It's that direction." He pointed toward the kelp, now visible as thin stalks that looked almost like celery rising two meters out of the ocean. Dax nodded again. Julian unreeled a thin cord and connected them together; then he rolled onto his back, making sure Jadzia did the same, and activated the jets on their backpacks. They began to chug toward the shore at the stately pace of one kilometer per hour. Jadzia just kept breathing in and out, with deep, slow breaths, trying to dispel the last remnants of her anxiety. Julian hooked his arm in hers to keep them close enough not to snag the tether on the alien kelp. By the time she began to see lots of bright-blue, four- legged fish swirling around her wake, she felt a bump against her feet; then realized it was a rock near the shore. Within a few more seconds, her heels were dragging in the silt, and she cut her motor at the same time Julian cut his. "Well, Jadzia," he said brightly, "we seem to have arrived." She smiled weakly, stripping off the dry-suit and submitting to a medical exam; the hard part was over... now all they had to do was find Benjamin and the away team somewhere in hundreds of square kilometers of trackless wasteland. Julian Bashir hunched protectively o ver his friend, his comrade, his--professionalism, professionalism. Jadzia Dax was curled into a fetal ball, clenching her arms around her throbbing, aching belly. She had evidently swallowed a mouthful of the poisonous seawater at some point; probably while on the surface, thought the doctor, The seawater contained relatively high traces of cyanogene and radical cyanogens, which changed within the human (and Trill) body to a substance uncomfortably close to deadly cyanide. That she had only partially recovered from the battle wound she had recieved only days ago wouldn't help her condition.

Dax had evaded Cardassian ships and the planet's own automated defenses to plunge the Defiant deep into the deadly ocean waters. Communications with the away team were impossible through the electrolyte- laden water, and too dangerous to boot: if either Cardassian attackers or electronic planetary defenders intercepted the signal--well, it would take only a single concussion bomb to tip the balance, tear away the containment field, and allow the ship to be crushed beneath hundreds of atmospheres of pressure. It was Dax's idea to replicate a long wire and send old-fashioned radio waves to communicate, but of course, there was no way for the away team to know what was required. So Dax, accompanied by the obvious candidate, the dashingly brilliant and resourceful chief medical officer, made a break for the surface in a runabout. They barely made it alive--one more alive than the other, thought Dr. Bashir, looking sadly at his patient, wondering whether she would make it. Now, dressed in replicated clothing similar to that of the native "Natives," they sat on the surface, grounded, one struggling to live, the other struggling against despair at his own helplessness to help. From his emergency medikit, Bashir extracted his hypospray and reloaded another dose of the supposedly all-purpose antipoison supplied by the Federation--and modified slightly by Dr. Bashir back aboard Deep Space Nine. He injected the antipoison and another muscle relaxant near her lungs (biggest concern) and her stomach (where most of the pain came from), and Jadzia relaxed as her pain eased. She was still unconscious from the sedative he had given her earlier; there was no reason for her to be awake to fight this mild poisoning. "Correction," said the doctor aloud; "it's not Deep Space Nine any longer. It's..." What did the Kai say she was going to call it? Oh yes, Emissary's Sanctuary. Stupid name! But Bashir shrugged, trying to make the best of a life that always seemed balanced on one precipice or another. If he wasn't dreading possible exposure as a DNA-resequenced freak of unnature, he was being

uprooted and probably split from all his friends and colleagues and sent to some forsaken hellhole--possibly to serve as the doctor on a Rigelian penal colony, perhaps, or worse, as personal physician to some pompous, overstuffed admiral nearing retirement. What he really wanted, if he could no longer have his home on DS9-- Yes.t Deep Space Nine, by no other name.t--would be a berth on a Galaxyclass starship, like the Enterprise that Miles had left to join the station (and Worf, too, remembered Bashir with a touch of a grimace, looking down at Jadzia). "Modern medicine!" he derided; all he could do was ease her pain a bit and help her own body fight off the invasion of a toxic foreign substance. If she were going to survive--and he was now sure she would--it wouldn't be because of Dr. Julian Bashir, dashing lieutenant of Starfleet in the United Federation of Planets. Whether she lived or died had actually been determined however many years ago it was that Jadzia was conceived, when egg and sperm combined with a set of chromosomes that decided Jadzia's future resistance to infection, poison, and injury. Though come to think on it, the syrnbiont Dax might also be helping against the poison. Not even the Trill themselves knew everything about the complex interactions between host body and symbiont. Julian sighed. Modern medicine! Now he had much more precise and less invasive methods... so he could monitor his patient's own body desperately fighting off cyanide poisoning. Such progress! Wit h a full laboratory, he might actually have been able to do something But sitting on the sands of an alien seashore, staring at the deep, deadly ocean of violet waters full of poisons and four- headed monster turtles, lost on a planet already under inva sion by Cardassian- led forces, caught in the gaze of whoknew-how-many dangerous native life-forms, helpless in the shadow of technology so vast, it practically dwarfed the Federation--but so fragile, the Cardassians could turn it off like a light

panel on the Defiantre Julian Bashir felt like a child lost in a zoo in blackest night, knowing that all the cage doors were left open for the beasts to feed. CHAPTER 4 JULIAN BASHIR jerked awake, groping wildly for his medikit. He had been dreaming that Dax was convulsing herself to death, dreaming he was asleep and dreaming, but unable to rouse himself from the dream (in the dream) to save her. He finally shouted himself awake and grabbed his kit... but Jadzia was nowhere about. He stumbled this- and that-a-way, performing the "drunkard's walk" of a man just risen, thinking he had a terribly important task to perform but not remembering what. Gods, what I wouldn'tpay for a coffee just now, he thought through a bleary cerebrum. The first evidence of the missing lieutenant commander that Dr. Bashir found was a pair of boots that looked suspiciously like Dax's. Toiling up a nearby hilltop in the direction pointed by the shoes, dropped one then the other, he discovered her hooded robe. Shirt, pantaloons, and undergarments followed. "What now, O mighty one?" the doctor asked Jadzia. She shook her head. "The only obvious course is to head toward the original landing site. The away team doesn't have a vehicle, so they can't have got too far." She looked pensive. "Unless they commandeered something." "From the Natives?" "Natives? No, so far as we could tell, they'd never even heard of vehicles." Bashir stared skeptically at the landscape, impossibly rich-blue mountains, brittle clouds, chill, white sun struggling up a vermillion sky. "This whole planet smacks of..." "What?" The word wouldn't come for a moment, elusively dancing just out of reach of the doctor's cerebrum, like the sweet odor that enticed his nostrils, or the metallic taste of latinurn and other minerals and salts on his tongue. Suddenly, the word he sought

ventured too close, and he reached out and snared it. "Artificiality. The way you described it, they have massive amounts of technology but no underlying infrastructure, and no scientific understand ing whatsoever. Does that strike you as likely?" Julian was thinking of the implausibility of stone age humans with hyposprays and medical scanne rs but without even the germ theory of disease. "Well, I was thinking about that myself. If they're the degenerated descendants of an earlier, technological worldre" "Then there would be broken pieces of technological infrastructure all over the planet," finished Julian. "Roadways or launching ports or massive industrial structures. Not a bunch of high- tech stone huts and a random scattering of useful tools and weapons." Dax sat down, chin in hand; her neck spots were dark, almost iridescentmpossibly a sign of intense thought, figured Julian. "There would also be vehicles," said Dax, "either operative or crashed, and warp drivemyou knew that some of the toys we found used elements of warp field technology, didn't you?" "They did?" The doctor was surprised; he had been too busy with casualties to read all the reports the team sent up seemingly every few minutes. "Well, that's all the more reason the whole situation seems artificial!" Dax looked up. "You're right, Julian. I think these people were put here by someone... and the entire planetary ecology was transplanted to feed them. The keepers, whoever they were, sprinkled the rock with enough toys that the Natives could play whatever games they wanted, but not enough for them to leave... or even travel around their own planet much." "But there was never any struggle for survival," said Bashir quietly, finding the whole idea creepy to the point of being frightening, "and without that struggle..." "They never deve loped a culture, a civilization, or any consciousness of groups larger than those who lived in the villages." "The planned communities." Dax chuckled. "So does that mean the experi-

ment or whatever it was succeeded or failed?" Bashir felt a shiv er slowly crawl along his spine like a frozen centipede. "I wonder whether the Tiffnakis--is that what the villagers you met called themselves?--are even the same species as the rest of the Natives? Could they interbreed? Or have they been separated so long, they're no longer a single people?" The question seemed a natural to the doctor. She shrugged, dismissing the speculation before Bashit could finish chewing on it. "Well, no matter. That makes the case stronger: the only way the away team could have a skimmer is if they borrowed one from the Cardassians. And my friend, dear Doctor Bashit, that is exactly what we are going to have to do." Julian smirked--to hide his increasing nervousness, he realized. "You think they're going to be in a generous mood, our Cardassian friends? Or was one of your hosts a Drek'la and you remember the secret password?" "No, but I'm sure if we ask them correctly, they won't even miss it. Come on, Julian, start a slow, careful, long-range scan to find the nearest Cardassian military unit. rll scan for ion trails left by the skimmers. Let's see just how far we're going to have to walk." The sea monster--we're all calling it that now, thought Joson Wabak with a gulp--continued to approach the Defiant directly. There was now no question, as N'Kduk-Thag unemotionally informed him, that the monster had detected them somehow and was coming to investigate... or feed. Heedless of how it would look to his "troops," who after all, were barely less-senior ensigns than he himself, Joson paced in front of the command chair, feeling anxiety creep on kitty feet around his stomach. He hadn't fought in the Resistance; he was too young when the Cardassians pulled out, and his mother wouldn't even entertain the idea of him trucking with the freedom fighters before then. Joson was uncomfortably aware that he had never been tested; the swordsmith had never struck him against the anvil to see which broke.

Well, neither has any other officer herat he thought defiantly--a thought that didn't comfort him, the more he considered it. "Ten minutes to contact do you have any orders," reported and asked N'Kduk -Thag, "Ensign Nick," as the beautiful but hard Commander Dax had nicknamed the sexless Erd'k'teedak, only the fourth of its species to graduate from the Academy (and only barely; its academics were not exactly stellar). Well, Wabak, you'd better say something!"How's the containment shielding, Tina?" Her own voice was nearly as uninflected as Ensign Nick's, but in her case, it was probably because she had resigned herself to death, thought the Bajoran. "Shields down to thirty-four percent and not holding." "You diverted power from the enginesw" "From everything not necessary for life support," she reported gloomily. "We've got maybe thirty more minutes before we're crushed to death. So maybe we'll have time to be eaten alive by the sea monster first." "That will be enough of that talk, Ens ign Weymouth." Joson was pleased that he sounded more confident than he felt. "Prepare to launch from the ocean floor and head for the surface." Weymouth turned to stare at him. "Joson! The structural stress of movement will crush the ship immediately!" He stared back. "Better to die trying, Ensign Weymouth, than huddle here and wait for death to hunt us. "As he said the words, Joson Wabak felt an amazing sensation flood his senses: fear was stamped out like an old campfire; he felt the surge of excitement that his brother must have felt when he undertook his first mission for the Resistance... the one that got him captured by the Cardassians. But Jaras SURVIVED! shouted a triumphant voice in Joson's head, and the mission was a success, the entire Occupation Ministry of Justice was destroyed by three packed-photon bombs smuggled inside, and Jaras was one of the smugglers/The thrill of being a Bajoran who had lived under the Occupation and seen it thrown off by his own

people, the passion of knowing what he was doing was right, the certainty of command flooded the veins and arteries of Ensign Joson Wabak, and he knew then why he, not Tina and not N'Kduk -Thag, was chosen to command in Dax's absence. "Launch the Defiant, Ensign," he commanded calmly. "Let's meet our giant friend face to face. If we're going to die, we'll die like Starfleet officers, not like a shellclaw being cracked open by a sivass worm!" The command tone shocked Weymouth out of her torpor; shaking, she jumped to touch the lit squares on her panel and ramp the engines up to a hundred and four percent. The Defiant began to shudder as the landing pods shook loose from the silt into which they had sunk. "May I suggest dropping cloak and powering up the shields? Better to take the chance of being detected by the Cardassian ships and defend ourselves in case the sea monster launches an attack." "Excellent suggestion, Mr. N'Kduk-Thag." Joson waited, but the ensign didn't object to being called "mister," evidently not truly caring what gender was arbitrarily assigned. N'Kduk-Thag took the praise as authorization to proceed; the shields wouldn't protect against the horrendous pressure from the water, of course, but if the sea monster used electroma gnetic or other means of attack, or even tried to ram them, it might save their hides. Sure hope the spoon- heads have stopped looking for us, thought Joson; strangely, he felt more nervous about the Cardassians than about the more immediate dangers of sea pressure and the monster. He shrugged; tradition, I suppose. The Defiant rolled peculiarly as they cruised forward, and Ensign Weymouth expressed repeated frustration at her lack of full helm control. "We are in the water one should expect a certain loss of attitude control," remarked Nick; Tina didn't seem pleased at the unasked for lecture. "Can you search ahead with the sensors, N'Kduk-Thag?" asked Joson; "look for strong cur rents that might push us into an underwater mountain." "Aye, aye sir." "Tina, tie your helm viewer into Nick's sensors;

set it up so the currents are color-coded by intensity." When the junior ensigns carried out their task, the ship's motion smoothed out; Weymouth was able to dodge the strongest currents as if navigating down a bickett warren. Still, Joson Wabak felt a peculiar, hollow feeling in his stomach, and his mouth grew dry; it took him several moments to diagnose himself: Seasickness! I'm getting seasida How wonderful. He had known he was subject to the nausea and dizziness ever since he and his brother went out fishing in choppy waters one day, but it had never occurred to him that he would suffer from motion sickness in a modern-day starship. The inertial dampers were doing their job... Joson was being nauseated by the visuals through the forward viewer. "Creature constant bearing decreasing distance contact in three minutes," reported N'Kduk-Thag. The ensign helpfully called out every thirty seconds, then counted down the final thirty. "Is it stopping, Nick?" "No, sir. Should we halt engines?" "Not until it does? Tina gritted her teeth. "Oh m'God," she breathed, "we're playing chicken with a sea monster?" The Bajoran ensign had no idea why Weymouth was talking about chickens, so he ignored the question. "Hold your course and speed." "Thirty seconds twenty-nine eight seven six..." "Sir!" "Hold course." "Twenty nineteen eighteen--" "Joson, for God's sake.t" "Eleven ten nine..." Ensign Nick suddenly stopped speaking. "The creature has stopped contact in twenty-two seconds beep at current rate of closure." Twenty-two seconds aqorn the beep, I suppose. "Weymouth, wait ten seconds, then all stop." YES! Wabak grinned, pleased to have won the first round. But only the first round, warned a little voice in his head. The Defiant pulled to a stop, much more quickly than it would have in empty space, of course, because of water friction. The two entities faced each other: the Federation starship, fully armed but

crippled under the pressure of more than a thousand meters of water still above them--and the amoeboid sea monster two kilometers long with thousands of vicious-looking tentacles just waiting to scoop up the bite-sized morsel and shove it into the creature's mouth. "Let's get a good look at the thing, shall we?" said Joson, without the shakiness he actually felt. "N'Kduk-Thag, launch a probe across the monster's bow, have it circle around and get a good holo from every angle." "Aye aye sir." Nick reached across to the empty science officer's console and touched a few lit squares; in the main viewer, Wabak watched the tiny probe streak away from the ship. The hundreds of tentacles nearby rippled with the probe's bow wave, and the ripple passed along the creature's body as the probe circumnavigated it, but there was no other reaction from the monster, which continued to regard the Defiant motionlessly. The ripples created a gentle, pink current, which the viewer still obligingly displayed. "I don't think it can see something as small as the probe," ventured Ensign Wabak. Just as he finished the observation, and the probe rounded the back of the sea monster and headed back toward the ship, a pair of the tentacles uncoiled and lashed out, grabbing the probe as it streaked past. The force of the probe's momentum actually tore off one tentacle, but the other held fast, dragging the probe, despite its impulse engines, into the maw of the monster. Fascinated, the three officers and two security petty officers on the bridge stared at the probe's visual transmission: they watched in awe as the probe was caught by hundreds of thousands of headless serpents or worms; Joson realized with a shock that they were tongues, each the size of a tree trunk! The tongues acted like teeth, pulling the probe apart and forcing the pieces down the gullet. After three minutes of wormy mastication, one of the tongues got hold of some vital piece of electronics, and the probe ceased to transmit. "Tell me about the biology of the monster," said the ensign- in-command, trying to wrench every-

one's attention back to the crisis. "Oh, and Weymouth--how's the hull integrity holding out?" "Hull integrity not dropping as fast," said Tina, cutting off N'Kduk-Thag. "It's down to thirty percent, dropping one point every minute and a half, now that we're not so deep." Silence. "Defiant to Nick, hello?" asked Joson. "If you are ready to hear my report." "Yes, N'Kduk- Thag; we are ready to hear your report." For all that Erd'k'teedak insisted they experienced no emotions whatsoever, they were well known to get miffed now and then... in a distant, intellectual sort of way. Weymouth's report had been the more important, but Nick was still irritated that she had cut him off. "The probe sensors detected meter-thick muscle striations coiled with veins filled with latinurn--" "Latinum!" "--that would doubtless impede photon torpedo penetration and of course the heavy mineral and electrolyte concentration in the seawater would interfere with the phasers in my judgment we have little chance of damaging the sea monster in combat." "Thank you, Nick," said Tiny angrily, "that was worth waiting for." Joson abruptly stood again, but stopped himself from pacing. Think, think, think/What would Sisko do? "I need options, people. How about a tractor beam? Can we push it away? Or push ourselves away from it?" Nick played with his console. "No, sir. The seawater disrupts the beam as it would a phaser." "Joson--I mean, sir, why don't we start ascending very slowly? Maybe we can at least reduce the pressure on the ship so we don't drown while this thing is making up its mind whether to eat us." Damn/ I shouM have thought of that/ "Do it, Weymouth." The internal com-system chirped. "Engineering to bridge," said a disembodied voice that Joson vaguely recognized from the watches he had stood down there. "Wabak," he said absently. "Sir, Lieutenant Abdaba here. We finished replicating that floatable antenna the commander or-

dered. Deploy?" And may the Prophets ensure that neither the planetary sensors nor the spoon-heads will think to check the electromagnetic spectrum for low-tech radio broadcasts, breathed Joson Wabak silently. The ionized salts and heavy metals suspended in the deadly ocean waters would prevent sensors from picking up the Defiant, especially at such a depth, but the tip of the antenna would necessarily have to be "hot," and in a radio-source scan, would stand out like a magnesium flare in a midnight marsh. Licking his lips, the Bajoran ensign continued. "Nick, as soon as the antenna clears the shields, I want you to start transmitting on the radio frequencies of the EM spectrum--get me in contact with Commander Dax!" "Aye, aye, sir." "Sir, we're ascending at one meter per second; I'm hoping that's so slow we won't attract the monster's attention." "Excellent, Tina. Keep a weather eye peeled." It was one of the few human expressions he had learned, but he couldn't tell whether Weymouth understood it. Maybe she's from a different village on Earth, he thought. Three tense minutes ticked slowly by on the ship's chronometer; the Defiant had risen slightly less than two hundred meters, and now they were even with the center of the sea monster's squirming mass of tongues. Several flicked out to touchm taste?mthe ship, but didn't get through the shields. Then suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, more than thirty tentacles lashed out and wrapped themselves around the ship, wrenching it to a halt and hurling Wabak to his hands and knees before the gravitic stabilizers could adjust. "Damn it!" he blurted, then caught hold of himself and stood, lowering himself with dignity back into his command chair. "Damage report, Nick?" "There is no damage. We have been brought to a halt. All upward motion terminated. The impulse engines are unable to break us free of the creature's grip. I am still transmitting but there has been no response from the secondary away team." "Okay, this is it," said Joson, feeling a horrible

sense of peace and calm permeate his body. "If that thing pulls us toward its mouth, we open fire with everything, and to hell with latinum muscles and electrolytes in the barbarous water." Just then, Tina gasped. She half stood, staring down at her sensor display. "Joson!" "Ensign, what is it?" She stared wildly back and forth from Wabak to N'Kduk-Thag. "Nick's wrong, sir; there is a response to our transmission." "Dax? You have Commander Dax? Patch her through!" "No sir," said Ensign Weymouth, turning distinctly pale, "the response isn't from the commander." "Then who's responding?" asked Joson, feeling his preternatural calm vanish in a rush of adrenaline. He knew what her answer would be a fraction of a second before she said it. "She is," said Tina, pointing at the cavernous, serpent-toothed mouth that filled the entire forward viewer. "She wants to know where our mother is." I wouldn't mind knowing that myself, thought Joson at first; his next thought was, by the Prophets, I wonder how they're going to write THIS one up in my fitness report?

0 CHAPTER 5 WITH GREAT MISGIVINGS, Captain Benjamin Sisko had left the Tiffnakis four days behind. I want to stay and train them, train them some more, keep training them until they can overwhelm the invaders like fire ants pulling down a sunbathing lizard/But he knew it would be an unconscionable waste of his time: Asta- ha--the hereditary mayor who had misunderstood the military ranks that Worf had taught her and had dubbed herself "MayorGeneral"mwas capable all on her own of turning the remaining two hundred Tiffnak is into soldiers; she had the help of her commando squad, the

"Terrors of Tiffnaki," whom Sisko and his away team had finally shocked into recognizing reality... and into recovering their lost legacy of intelligence, creativity, and tactical thinking. She wouldn't do as good a job as the captain and Worf could, and it would take longer. But there was a more urgent task for the away team: they had to knock every power generator on the planet off- line. Only in this way could the rest of the Natives on Sierra-Bravo be forced to confront real life... life without the toys that had been their source for everything they needed. Otherwise, the invaders would continue moving from village to village, cutting the local power and overwhelming the Natives while they were still in shock from the loss of their entire, "new tech"-driven world. With one stroke, we can shatter their dream, thought the captain; they will wake up--because they HAVE TO wake up. By the time the Cardassians meet them, weeks will have passed for them to get used to life without the Power. Visions of bowand spear-armed Natives ambushing Cardassians, who shot back with disruptors and concussion bombs, polluted Sisko's thoughts; it was a horrible, ugly sight... but not as ugly as the vision he had seen in reality: Cardassians mowing down abruptly un-armed Tiffnakis like a farmer scything wheat. Sisko closed his eyes against the burning, orange sun: Please, he prayedmperhaps to the Prophets, since he was still the Emissary--please, this time, let me be right.t The other possibility, as Chief O'Brien had cheerfully pointed out, was that knocking all the power off- line would result in mass starvation, death by exposure, and a quick and craven surrender to the Cardassians by the few remaining survivors. Well, somebody has to find the dark lining, I suppose, and it always seemed to be the chief, for some reason. For four days, the away team had made excellent time. The toys that Sisko had forbidden to the Tiffnaki commandos and confiscated off their persons came in handy to smooth out the trail the Federation crew followed: the force beam flattened a path through scrub; the antigravs got them up and down cliffs; and the death rays worked wonders in cutting down small blue trees for bridges

across rushing, metal-sparkling rivers whose waters were deadly to anybody but the Natives. But in four days, despite the advantages, the team had made only sixty kilometers, a remarkable showing but not enough, not nearly fast enough! At the moment, they sat atop a bluff overlooking a deathly hot valley of bright, latinum- laced sand they would have to cross--all sixty klicks of it-and they were already running lower in com-rats than Sisko had estimated. O'Brien sat on the edge of the cliff, dangling his legs over and staring bleakly at the wasteland below. Quark paced round and round a circle, mumbling to himself something that sounded sus piciously like "latinum, latinurn everywhere, nor any strip to spend." If Coleridge were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave, thought the captain mirthlessly. Odo was a puddle, far away and secluded from the rest of the team; they had stopped ostensibly because the changeling had stayed too long in a solid state and was desperate to collapse and liquify. But Sisko knew the rest of the away team, himself included, were grateful for the chance to rest a complete day, sleeping as they could in the bright sunlight, readying themselves for the threenight trek across the desert. The captain himself sat cross- legged on the bluff, by choice too far from the edge to see the sands below, squinting against the sun as it crawled in the direction they had arbitrarily labeled west. "Worf," he said, his first word in an hour. The sleeping Klingon rose grunting, looking about to see who had called him from dreams of siege and liege. Sisko repeated the soft command, and Commander Worf struggled to his feet, joining the captain. "Yes, sir?" "Worf, we are still a hundred and forty kilometers from the Cardassian landing spot, and sixty of those kilometers are across that." Sisko nodded past O'Brien toward the cliff and the sands below. "Yes, I am aware of that fact, sir." "You are quartermaster. How many days rations do we have left?" Wolf worked his face, reluctant to answer. "Four days if we stretch it, Captain."

"And how long would you estimate it will take us to reach the launch facility?" Worf said nothing; Sisko continued the narrative himself, wishing he had another answer. "Three days across the desert, if we're lucky; then Kahless knows how long to cross that mountain range. At this rate, Commander, we're not going to make it, are we?" Worf stopped figiting. "No. We are not." "And the damned invaders are going to win." Worf didn't speak; Sisko waited a beat, then turned to his real purpose. "Worf, you know all the legends and histories of the ancient Klingon wars, don't you?" "I would not say all, sir; I do know a great many." "We need that expertise now, Worf. Think, think! How would Kahless have gotten us to the enemy before our food ran out?" Lieutenant Commander Worf stood, folding his arms sternly, staring at the horizon, the distant mountains they eventually would have to cross. "Even the Emperor Kahless had mechanized armor," mumbled the Klingon petulantly. "Then think back farther! Think of the age of heroes, before any of the technology we take so much for granted. How the he ll did they move armies around in those days?" Worf turned back to Captain Sisko. "We used pack animals, of course. Riding beasts, and beasts to carry the gear." Sisko nodded; it was the germ of a thought that had been scratching at his own forebrain for days... Worf had pulled it into the open so Sisko could finally examine it. "Yes... yes! That's it, that's what we're missing. If we were a cavalry unit, we might actually be able to make a hundred and twenty kilometers in four days... especially since we could feed and water the horses on native grass and native water!" O'Brien had turned around during the conversation; now he said in excitement, "Captain! I think I've seen creatures here that might make almost adequate horses!" "Which animals are you talking about?"

O'Brien stretched his arms to indicate great size. "They're huge beasties, they've got six legs and I think some kind of fur, unless it's needles. Their heads are kind of split down the middle, so they look like a double-barreled phaser?" "Those giant six- leggers?" asked the captain, picturing the terrifying beasts in his mind. "Can they be domesticated?" "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but do we have any choice?" The Ferengi abruptly ceased his pacing and stared back and forth among the other participants in the conversation. "Have you people lost your minds? You expect me to ride on top of some hideous, two-headed, six- legged monster for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers? You're insane! Forge t it!" His fear was so palpable that Sisko almost felt sorry for the little fellow. Almost. But there really was no other option. "Quark, you're just going to have to deal with it!" snapped O'Brien, saying essentially what the captain had been about to say--but a lot less diplomatically. Worf grinned wolfishly. "I am sure the captain would allow you to stay behind--and leave your combat rations to the rest of us." Quark snorted indignantly and turned his back on the Klingon... something he never would have done had the two of them been alone in a dark corner of the station. "Gentlemen," said Captain Sisko, "I believe we have a plan: Chief, you'd better get busy." "Me? Doing what?" "You've got a couple more hours before Odo rejoins us... and I want you to become an expert in lassoing wild monsters." The explosion from the chief was enough to keep the captain amused for more than half an hour, by the end of which O'Brien was furiously hurling a loop of rope from the surviva l packs the Defiant beamed down; he hurled the loop at a tree trunk that Worf held aloft with the antigravity device-the method the pair had settled upon for lassoing the local "horses." Next couple hours of training is going to be absolutely RIVETING, decided Benjamin Sisko.

qc ~ Kai Winn woke suddenly in the night. She sat bolt upright in bed, listening for the noise that had shaken her from her memories; but it was elusively absent. Her heart raced... at first, it was all she could concentrate upon, for the doctors had warned her that she very much needed to keep herself calm if she didn't want another "coronary incident," as they euphemistically put it. No, no~ she warned herself; that's not the way to do it! Instead, the Kai commenced a prayer to the Prophets, a child's exercise, actually; she recited the first syllable, then the first two, then the first three, and so forth, finally reciting the prayer song in its entirety on the thirty-third repetition... then repeated. It worked to slow her heart, but her nerves still jangled like an iron bell suspended in a stiff breeze. "Kai Winn to Major Kira," she said. "Kira--Kai, either come take command or leave me alone! We're in the middle of a fire fight here!" In the background, Winn heard the shout of orders, damage reports, too indistinct to make out over the com-link. She briefly considered rising, but she was dead tired... and if the station were in imminent danger of being lost, Kira would have awakened her. "Are we holding our own, child?" "Yes, damn it! I sent out the militia in pressure suits and it's hand to hand, Well, phaser to disrup tor between DS -Nine--I mean, Emissary ~ Sanctuary and the alien ships. We still don't know who they are. Now please, my Kai, clear the line so I can direct the fight!" "I trust you, child. Awaken me in two hours or immediately if there is a breach." "Aye, aye, Kai. Kira out." The major rudely cut the link herself, but Winn forgave her young protege; Nerys had much to learn... and she was learning even now. Calm patience was the priceless gift of the Prophets. The Kai rose, pushing her pudgy feet firmly into the slippers she had owned since--well, since she was a sister in service to her "master," Gul Ragat.

She walked to the shelf that used to contain a stack of Starfleet manuals on data clips when the Kai's quarters used to be the Emissary's office. Now the shelf had an infinitely higher purpose: it supported a large, nondescript box with a split front, a front the Kai touched reverently. I must never turn to Them for trivial or personal matters, she thought to herself, as if once again lecturing in a religious school, a task she had not performed for many, many years. This is not a personal matter, she told herself firmly, and this is no trivial question. The survival of Bajor may be at stake! Nervously, fearing that she may have everything all wrong and could be offending the Prophets, Kai Winn took a deep breath and opened the doors wide. The Orb was so brilliant, it burned right through her eyes, searing the back of her skull. She grimaced; she was, after all, a middle-aged woman-no longer in her physical prime, and not the Emissary. But she was the Kai; and the Prophets, though they burned and battered, had never failed their people. "Show me," she whispered against the light, "show me Your will. Show me what I must know!" Shocked, Winn found herself not looking into the minds or hearts of the enemies still attacking the station, not at the Federation or the Dominion, not even in her own time; she found herself back in the selfsame dream from which she had lately escaped by a panicked leap into consciousness. The Prophets wanted her to remember; the Prophets wanted her past. I will give it to Them, she yielded. It made no sense to Kai Winn. But then, did it need to?

CHAPTER 6 THIRTY YEARS AGO THE CARAVN of Gul Ragat assembled in the courtyard outside the keep of the palace that once belonged to the town of Shiistir and served as the

home of ex-Governor Riasha Lyas; now, the same building of light and color sheltered the conscience and the ears of Legate Migar from the lamentations of Sister Winn's people. What a shock, thought the priestess, that the stone walls of this bloody place don't tumble to the earth in horror at what they've seen! They looked as solid as ever, ready to stand for centuries of tyranny or freedom, uncaring, pink and cold as stone. The outer wall was retained, but it was largely ceremonial; the protective function was taken by a force shield the Cardassians had erected, since they (unlike poor Lyas) had much to fear from assassins and saboteurs. The interior wall was shaped like a pair of octagons connected by a wide, rectangular circus maximus used for the bloody sports of the current masters--blood games that remained barbaric, no matter how refined and decadent the rules. I cannot understand why the Prophets have not crushed this place/she screamed to herselfi Sister Winn was the only cleric among the Bajoran mass of Gul Ragat's household; she had no idea whether she had a religious counterpart among the Cardassians... in fact, she wasn't even sure whether they even had a religion beyond worship of the state. If there were a Cardassian holy man or woman, he had not seen fit to knock elbows with the Bajorans. Among the gul's Cardassian retinue were two majors and his captain of the guard (one Colonel Baek); sixteen sergeants and soldiers astride individual skimmers; Neemak Counselor, the gul's personal secretary and attorney; a brutish Cardassian valet, Gavak-Gavak Das, who oversaw the Bajoran servants (Sister Winn's immediate boss, except that Gul Ragat had taken a liking to her, and she generally reported directly to the gul himself); Ragat's skimmer pilot; and a pair of mechanics/secretaries operating under the command of Neemak Counselor. Gul Ragat also traveled with his household staff of Bajorans, numbering forty-two, including Sister Winn... who should have been considered the "slave overseer," since she was the nearest thing to an authority figure; but she eschewed the job, claiming a complete lack of "command presence," and Hersaaka Toos, a luckless impulse engine

repair-crew foreman was given the task. No command presence! The reality was that Sister Winn was already looking ahead to the days when Cardassia would be expelled from Bajor; she had seen the vision in her dreams, the coming of the Emissary, the intervention of the Prophets-and very frankly, she wanted a place guiding the destiny of her people when they were free. Politically, Sister Winn could never allow even a hint that she might have collaborated with the Cardassians; it would spell the death of her personal ambitions. Winn was supposed to report with the others at zero-eight hundred (Cardassians were enamored of military time), but she had a guess how long it would take old Gavak-Gavak and Hersaaka Toos to muster sixty-five people in some semblance of order to satisfy the farewell inspection by Legate Migar and Gul Dukat; she wandered onto the scene a half hour late and stepped into her place, and she was not the last. The contrast between the twenty- five Cardassians and the forty-two Bajorans was remarkable, though hardly worth remarking: Cardassians mustered at attention because they were a proud race of lordly conquerers who had yet to suffer any significant defeat in their drive to expand the Empire to Hell and back; the Bajorans stood glumly still in the cold wind because they didn't want to be lashed by Gavak-Gavak Das, who enjoyed his work all too thoroughly. Still, even when squat Gavak-Gavak expertly flicked his whip end to graze the priestess's cheek, stinging but not drawing blood this time, she found herself hating him far less than she hated and despised the kindly, thoughtful Gul Ragat! "At least Das is an honest racist," she had told a divinity student three years earlier, when he passed briefly through Ragat's household. "Das is a brutal beast and he expects us to hate him for it. But the gul wants not just our obedience but our love." "That's worse?" "He oppresses us, child, but he bears false witness against himself, absolving himself of the charge of slavery by being a nice old slavemaster! His is infinitely the greater evil in the eyes of the

Prophets." The student never quite got it; Sister Winn was saddened to hear that he was caught raiding the next year and was hanged. When Gul Ragat and sixty-five lesser mortals were finally mustered under the chilly, gray sky, Old Migar and cold -eyed Dukat inspected them. Migar cared only for the ritual; it was powerhungry Dukat, the master of Terok Nor, orbiting Bajor like the grim hand of contagion (for wherever its shadow fell was death), who pulled Cardassians and Bajorans alike out of line and set them to perform brutal physical exercise in the frozen, muddy courtyard for such heinous crimes as unpolished boots, misaligned buttons, or "a surly attitude." The gul had one eye on the prefecture of all Bajor and the other on the advancing age and retirement (or sudden death) of Legate Migar, which still left him the eyes in the back of his head to spot treacherous malingerers and slackers. Even Gul Dukat, however, passed lightly over Sister Winn; he knew her to be her "master's" favorite, and as the saying went, Rank Hath Its Privileges. Eventually, even Dukat was satisfied with the shininess of the glittering, silver filligree across the doublets of deepest military purple, with the velvet-red uniforms of the servants, and with the polish on the personal skimmers and armaments of the soldiery, little though they could shine on such a gloom day; and he passed in quick review one more time before vanishing back inside the house--to the banquet and open bar that Winn knew awaited him there. Migar sighed and followed Dukat, who technically outranked the governor, and at last, Gul Raga t could breathe in relief again and order Gavak-Gavak to get the splendid column moving--theoretically toward the village of Vir-Hakar in Belshakarri, their home... but in reality, on the road to Riis--where all threads of this tapestry shall join, thought Sister Winn. CHAPTER 7 WINN THOUGHT she knew the route that Gul Ragat would follow; there was one obvious road from the palace to the river and Riis: along Surface 92, as

the Cardassians called it. The Bajorans had a more colorful name: the Way of Wallows, because of the soft, marshy ground surrounding the road that in ancient times had been used to wallow tiraks being driven to the slaughter pens in Riis; there were slaughter pens no longer in peaceful Riis, but the road to the city founded three millennia ago by the holy man Kilikarri remained. Sister Winn had followed the road many times, though usually at many kilometers per hour skimming two or twenty meters above the ground, and she visualized the entire road in her mind, trying to figure the best place to desert. She knew her holos were much more important than a single action in Riis, a few cell leaders who could not betray the Resistance even if they wanted--and the Cardassians could, of course, make them want--because of the elaborate organization ofcutouts and false fronts; for all that, Winn found herself unable to condemn her fellow freedom fighters to capture, torture, and death, no matter what the cause. There were others, even other priests--Vedek Opaka sprang to mind--who were much more ruthless than she, and she knew, intellectually, it was a failing. But I just can't do it! she railed. She had to find a way to warn the Riis cell to call off the raid. Her best chance would come during the second half of the march; Surface 92, which the Cardassians had straightened, now ran directly over the wallows across a series of high, arched bridges, some rising fifty meters above the surface. But there were places where the drop was only ten meters into soft mud, and Sister Winn decided that even she, not the most athletic of women, could survive that. But then what? she pondered; getting off the road without being spotted was the easy part; traversing kilometers of slick, deep mud and swampy, stagnant lakes on foot would be the real test. She knew of a swamper, Velda Reeks, who was friendly to the Resistance; the woman had hidden fugitives before. But she lived four kilometers from the road... and those would be four kilometers of ghastly effort and terrible risk: if Gul Ragat missed her and thought to scan the surrounding swamp

before she made it to Velda's shielded cabin, he would spot her in an instant and send soldiers to pick her up. She would be searched, the holos found... and no t only would she be executed, but the cell at Riis would be thoroughly compromised, and perhaps even •elda Reeks to boot! Sister Winn would have to be over the wall, into the mud, and away for several hours before anyone noticed she was missing; that meant a night escape, of course... but where would the gul decide to camp? He was restricted to the foot speed of the Bajorans, since no Cardassian in his right mind would leave his servants behind and rush on ahead; thus, it would take three days to get to Riis, which waited like an open hand upon the Shakiristi and its tributaries. But would they camp near enough to Velda's cabin that Winn could make it, assuming everything else went well? She thought of one more stratagem: if she somehow could get into a skimmer, she might be able to program it to head out over the swamp in some other direction; then, when she turned up absent, the Cardassians would assume she had stolen the vehicle and would waste time following it. That might confuse them enough that they would never institute a thorough search that might uncover Velda's cabin. The road to Riis was painful; there was no grassy median, as had been the case when it was a small Bajoran road, because Cardassians never traveled by foot; Surface 92 was constructed of a specially hardened plastic that could withstand the wheeled and tracked vehicles the Cardassians used for trucking heavy military equipment where antigrays were unavailable or not powerful enough. Winn wore only household shoes, and her feet were rubbed raw within the first few kilometers. She had never walked so far without a rest. The gul was anxious to get to Riis before the uprising that only he knew about, and he drove his household mercilessly. Coming to the bulletin- tea was much easier; there was no rush, and they made only eight or nine kilometers per day, with plenty of time to sit and eat, sip refreshments, and otherwise "bathe their toes," as the saying went. Now, Gul Ragat pushed for twice that pace, and Sister

Winn grimaced with every step. Others were hardened to the pace, having lived rougher lives than the priestess; she didn't allow herself to complain, since she only suffered because she hadn't suffered as much as the others! But the blisters were real, and her pain was hard to bear. Only Winn's incessant prayers to the Prophets allowed her to endure that first day. In the first of the two nights they would spend on the road, she showed her feet to Hersaaka Toos, and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth; they did look ghastly. He sent her to the healer, Daana, who prescribed balms and a foot wrap that soothed much of the pain and allowed the priestess to walk relatively normally again. Already, however, the whole "survival-evasion-resistance-escape" scenario was smelling less exciting and more implausible. While the Bajorans set up the gul's camp, Sister Winn cased the field in the guise of hearing confessions and administering prayer and penance. Cardassian camps were uniform, and it was a matter of pride within Gul Ragat that his camp would break not the slightest letter of the law or breath of tradition. The night's camp centered around the manor of an unfortunate Bajoran farmer, who had stupidly chosen to live alongside a trade route and foolishly built up a successful farm: Mr. Farmer and his family were temporarily exiled to a small inn thirty kilometers away, driven in the gul's personal skimmer, while the entourage of Gul Ragat began pitching tents on one of the farmer's fields. In an effort to be nice about it, the gul ignorantly picked a field that looked empty, but in reality, it was newly planted, a fact not brought to Gul Ragat's attention for half an hour and the significance of which took him another half hour to understand. By the time he moved the camp, the newly planted seeds were trampled and scattered; if they grew at all, they would grow haphazardly, not in rows, and be almost impossible to weed and water properly. Winn spent the time wincing and desperately praying to the Prophets that the farmer wouldn't be completely ruined, as so many others had been.

Gul Ragat situated himself in the main house, of course, and his soldiers pitched tents in orderly rows upon a field that had been ploughed but not yet planted; it would have to be reploughed, but that was only a matter of a few extra days work for the owner. The Bajoran servants were a special concern of Gul Ragat's; he worried constantly that they, too, were well weeded and watered. In consequence, he ordered Gavak-Gavak Das to house the Bajorans in the livestock barns... which the overseer promptly did by turning out all the stock and chasing it away. "Ah, they'll come back, you whining priestess!" snarled Gavak-Gavak to Sister Winn when she protested. Winn stared after the departing rumps and hooves; true, the farmer would probably be able to get most of his dairy herd back again, but at what cost? It would probably take weeks to round them all up and truck them back to the farm! The farmer's land --Winn never did find out the man's name--was at the edge of the mud flats, the Wallows; for the next two days, Surface 92 traversed a causeway... and the cabin of Velda Reeks was just about halfway between the farmer's hold and Riis. Please, please, prayed the priestess fervently, let us stop tomorrow night near enough that I can at least try! Winn slept fitfully that night. Not only was she unused to camping out--she hadn't slept well on the road to Legate Migar's palace either--and not only could she not tolerate the dirty smell of animals, which permeated every cranny and crevice of the barn like a miasma, along with much animal by-product; but worst of all, she felt more strongly than usual the restless ghosts of Bajorans slain by evil Cardassians, by faceless bureaucracy, and especially by well-meaning apologists like Gul Ragat. She felt surrounded by the indifferent efficiency of the Cardassian soldiers, who joked about the inhumanity of the Bajorans without the least concern for the Bajorans at their backs, who outnumbered them almost three to one! And of course, no Bajoran servant dared even raise an angry glance at a Cardassian, lest he be made an example for the rest.

Hersaaka Toos, the Bajoran foreman, seemed the most oppressed by the burden of serving his planet's tyrants, and Sister Winn felt a terrible twinge of guilt that she had refused the job herself, thus forcing Hersaaka to be the hated emissary between Bajor and Cardassia, in the person of GavakGavak. The stink of collaboration was already starting to follow Hersaaka about as the odor of animals now adhered to the priestess... and it was entirely unjustified, since Hersaaka had no real choice in the matter. Winn prayed for guidance: ShouM I have accepted the stain upon myself and to blazes with the consequences for Bajor when we're finally free of the Cardassian blot? The Prophets enigmatically remained silent. Sister Winn had heard of the Orbs, of course; every priest knew of them. Perhaps someday, I'll look into one and let the light of the Prophets shine fully on me... and then I'll know, once and for all. "For all" was right: if the Prophets found the gazing eye wanting, they were rumored to burn it out, along with the brain of the unworthy owner. She shook her head, sweeping out the cobwebs of guilt and self-doubt; she couldn't afford those now! Sister Winn had a job, a job that would have been impossible were she as closely monitored as was poor Hersaaka Toos. On her peregrination, she paid especial attention to the movements of the sentries. Like virtually everything else Cardassian, the sentries had ritualized their task to the point of predictability: she watched for only a few minutes and was able to predict where every guard would be at any moment. In any task that became routine to that extent, there were gaps where nobody was looking in a particular direction at a precise moment; there were several, in fact. Winn knew the pattern would be repeated exactly at the next camp--they were Cardassians, after allmsubject only to the limitations of the terrain (no farmhouses in that section of Surface 92, for example; Gul Ragat would be in his own pavillion, which was still carefully stowed at the moment). By the time she finished her circuit of the camp, talking to each Bajoran, as was her primary duty,

Resistance or no Resistance, Sister Winn had constructed what she hoped was a good escape plan. Because Ragat was so "benevolent" a master by Cardassian standards, escapes from his plantation were quite rare; Bajorans knew the penalty for running away from Gul Ragat's honor farm was either execution, or if the slave escaped that fate, transportation up to Terok Nor... which might actually be worse: Gul Dukat's cruelty was legendary across all five points of the globe. But the consequence had lulled Gul Ragat's sentries to the point of somnambulation, and she hoped any slop in her plan would fall unnoticed. When she returned to her own tent, which she shared with two other women, she collapsed suddenly onto her sleeping mat, so exhausted she surprised even herself. As she lay on her back feeling her legs and especially feet throb with every beat of her pulse, she tried to understand her fatigue: she was always tired after a long march, but not this tired! And she had been fine a few moments before, circumnavigating the camp. It~fear, she realized at last; my body is starting to understand just how deadly a game I'm planning. But there was nothing she could do about that; a priestess could not allow fear of physical death to interfere with a duty of the soul--as she was convinced the fight for Bajor's independence truly was. I think I know how the holy martyrs felt, thought Winn bitterly, and she knew the thought was not even blasphemous. Sister Winn had one more duty that evening, to lead the Bajorans in their prayers over supper. She roused herself at the proper time and led the prayer, then forced her eyes to remain open long enough to eat some food and engage, somewhat incoherently, in a little light banter. She always believed in the necessity of keeping up appearances; appearances were more important than a lot of people admitted: morale was based almost entirely upon the most superficial aspects of one's spiritual leaders, for example. Then as soon as she could reasonably excuse herself, she stumbled back to her tent and fell instantly into a deep sleep, at least two hours before the others. She woke with a start, heart racing and breath

coming quick and heavy, an hour before dawn--a time she rarely saw on a normal day. She could hear only the Bajoran cooks stirring, banging pots, and of course the ever present, clockwork plodding of the Cardassian sentries. She rose too quickly and had to wait for a wash of dizziness to depart as her blood pressure increased. Then, for decency's sake, she wrapped a morning cloak about her already too warm body and walked into the middle of the camp to begin the morning prayers... rather earlier than was usual for her. One of the Cardassian sentries noticed; he was new, and his shift always ended before Sister Winn normally bestirred herself, so he had never seen her move through her rituals. He approached, scowling. "What d'you think you're doing?" "I think I'm praying, most gracious sir." "Why?" Winn looked up at the boy, no more than twenty, his face stamped with the permanent, ugly sneer of the bully. I'll bet you tried to join the Obsidian Order and were rejected because of a low IQ, she thought--then instantly apologized to the Prophets for the uncha rity. "Sir, I am praying because I am the sister, the priestess you would say, to all these Bajorans. It is my duty to pray to the Prophets at certain times of the day, morning being one of those times. Overseer Gavak-Gavak Das will vouch for my duties, most benevolent corporal." She waited politely a moment or two for response, but the boy was still thinking; she returned to her prayers, but he interrupted her once more. "All right, then... but get to it! Stop 1ollygagging, or I'll have you reassigned to hauling luggage." He could do no such thing, of course; Gul Ragat would never allow it. But Winn knew how to handle such bullies as this young corporal: she bowed deeply to the boy and thanked him profusely, promising to speed up the prayers if he so commanded. Then she took exactly as long as she always did, of course; how was he to know? The corporal of the guard stalked off, seemingly pleased that he had pushed around another Bajoran. Winn started to worry; if the same guard were on duty tomorrow night when she was to make her

escape, he might be especially alert; he was young and only recently transferred to the service of Gul Ragat from... from where? Sister Winn remembered with a sinking heart: the corporal was jus t transferred from the orbital station, Terok Nor; he had received his training in the security forces of Gul Dukat! Yes, this angry chiM is definitely one to avoid, she told herself. The second day's march was so much easier than the first that Sister Winn almost considered commencing an exercise program at the gymnasium at Gul Ragat's; I must be terribly out of shape! She had noticed a lot of her clothes getting rather tight in recent months, but she had assumed they were shrinking for some reason. Healer Daana's footwraps worked wonders. Winn's feet stopped hurting entirely after the first few kilometers, when the circulation really started reaching her toes; Daana had added pads to strategic points in the priestess's shoes as well as wraps to prevent her toes from sliding against each other. By the time Gul Ragat called a halt for the midday meal, Winn felt her excitement growing: I'm really going to do it/she nearly said aloud. The horizon seemed so close in the still, chilly air, she thought she might be able to reach out and touch its line. Surface 92 was so straight and level, it was virtually impossible not to become hypnotized by the steady tramping. The air was too cold for heat mirages, so Winn was denied even that slight solace of illusory motion. But she kept track of their progress by the distance markers. She spent some time mentally calculating where was the closest point to the cabin of Velda Reeks... she wasn't sure of the numbers--math was never the priestess's highest subjectrebut it didn't appear as though they would get quite that far before camping for the night. Sister Winn felt an expletive without even quite vocalizing it to herself, so well-trained was her mind. It meant quite a bit of extra travel through the thigh-deep mud, and more of a chance of misjudging the direction and missing the cabin entirely. It was shielded against Cardassian sensors, after all, so the best she could do was head in approximately the right direction while beaming a

tight, low-amplitude message saying who she was, hoping that Velda Reeks found her. IF, she thought, I can steal a sensorcommunicator from the Cardassians, that is. That made two overt acts before she could escape: break into a skimmer and send it along a false trail and liberate some communications gear. But with her feet feeling so good, Sister Winn was convinced she could do anything! An idea occurred to her; she increased her pace, passing several ranks of Bajorans and then the gul's Cardassian honor guard. No one moved to stop her; she was well-known among all the gul's intimates. "My Lord," she said, hurrying to catch up with Ragat's open-top skimmer limousine, "M'Lord, I must speak to you! It is urgent." Gul Ragat looked about in surprise; seeing Sister Winn walking beside his car, he automatically tapped the code to open the bird wing door. His bodyguard and Neemak Counselor each grabbed an arm and hoisted the priestess into the car with them. The guard was just another Cardassian soldier, one of the commissioned officers selected for the honor that day. But Neemak always made Winn's flesh creep: his face was too smooth for a Cardassian, for one point, and he had the faintest suggestion of nose rid ges, giving Winn the disturbing impression that he might actually be a cross between Cardassian and Bajoran. His eyes were set too far apart, and his mouth a slight bit too wide; Neemak Counselor had a tendency to look to the left of the person he was addressing, and when he wet his lips, which was frequently, his tongue darted in and out like a reptile. He didn't dress like a Cardassian, either; he wore a simple red smock with no markings, nothing even to indicate planet of origin. Winn had no idea how good an attorney he was, but he was reputed to "know everyone," which in Cardassian courts probably made him very successful indeed. Neemak stared to the left of Sister Winn while she addressed the gul... she knew he was watching her. "Now, now," said Gul Ragat, making calming

gestures as though she were a frightened child. "What is so important, Sister Winn? Come now, speak up!" "My Lord, I--" Well, smart-shoes, what IS so important? At once, Winn's mind went totally blank. She had thought of something, and it was such a good idea! "My Lord Gul," said Neemak, his mouth twitching as he stared out the window of the skimmer, "surely your benevolence toward these servants knows no bounds. For I am unaware of any other personage of your exalted rank who would take one of them into his own skimmer. Perhaps we should inquire whether another Bajoran's feet hurt?" "Yes, ah, yes," mumbled Gul Ragat, tugging at his collar, "I'm sure there's no need to discuss this with anyone... is there?" The sudden revelation that the gul was afraid of his counselor startled Sister Winn's memory back. "Winn!" snapped Ragat, "what is the urgent news you need to deliver to me? Quick, now! Then you must alight and continue on foot, as is proper." "My Lord, I have had a most disturbing vision regarding... ah, the matter we discussed earlier." She pointedly did not look at Neemak Counselor; Gul Ragat stiflened and licked his lips nervously. So he didn't even tell his personal secretary! That clinched the matter; Neemak was connected. Despite the hideous possibility that he was a crossbreed between Cardassian and Bajoran, somebody in the high command--probably either Legate Migar or Gul Dukat--was using Neemak as eyes and ears upon Gul Ragat... and Ragat knew it well. "What about the matter, Winn?" "I had infor... I mean, I had a vision that things might happen sooner than we thought; as soon as tomorrow morning." "Morning? You said morning?" "Yes, My Lord. Late morning. Or so said my-my vision." "Heh heh her heh," chuckled the gul, quite unconvincingly, "these superstitious, simple people and their visions!" He leaned close to Neemak and stage -whispered, "She seems to think my palace is going to burn down."

Neemak raised his brows and stared to the left of Gul Ragat. "Indeed, My Lord? Does she not know of the sprinkler system and the fire suppressors?" He turned his head to almost look at Winn. "I pity the poor Bajoran terrorist who might plot arson against a gul of the Cardassian Empire. So treasonous; so pathetically ineffective." "Actually," muttered Winn, "my vision was of a lightning strike, Lord Counselor." Neemak gazed placidly out the window at the bright blue sky; a single, small cumulus cloud drifted lazily across the dome like a seed pod blown from a Prophet's Breath flower. "I recommend," he said, "in my official capacity as my 1ord's counselor that we consider long and hard before replacing Cardassian meteorology with Bajoran visions of the supernatural, My Lord Gul." "Yes, quite. Quite so. Yes, quite so." Ragat nodded vigorously. He gestured at the door; without waiting to be ordered, Sister Winn opened it and stepped out, having to jog a bit as the gul's driver sped up slightly... probably on purpose, thought the priestess in annoyance; again, she quickly apologized to the Prophets for her uncharitable thought. She slowed to a walk and dropped back to her proper place in the processional, wondering whether the seed she had planted would germinate. I'll know soon enough, she thought; the sun was starting to sink, and ordinarily, the "kind hearted" Gul Ragat would call a halt early to give his servants on foot more time to rest. But this day, they continued on into the bone-chilly night. Four hours later, deep into a black-dark, moonless night, Gavak-Gavak Das finally stopped the column. The grumbling, footsore Bajorans sank in their tracks, massaging calves and wetting their aching, throbbing feet. Beneath the starry canopy of brilliant, pinprick jewels, most yellow white, but a few red giants or blue dwarfs among them, Sister Winn rubbed her own sore feet and tried not to feel guilty for putting her flock to such extra tramping. Sometimes it is necessary, she remembered, to sacrifice a finger to save the hand,' it was a saying attributed to the greatest of all the Prophets... but in reality, it could have been said by any doctor, freedom fighter, or tyrant on any planet in

the galaxy. The gul had bought her ruse; he was pushing to reach Riis by early to midmorning, rather than afternoon. In reality, Sister Winn was taking a terrible gamble: arriving earlier, the Cardassians had a greater chance to catch the Resistance cell unaware, if Winn weren't able to warn them in time. But the extra four hours put the night's camp much closer to the sensor-shielded shack of Velda Reeks, and actually gave Winn a fighting chance of finding the woman and alerting her, so she could communicate with the cell and call off the strike on the spaceport. It felt like a fifty- fifty proposition to Sister Winn, but it was the best she could do. All that remained were three impossible feats: liberating a communicator from the Cardassians, reprogramming one of the guard's skimmers, and escaping across four kilometers of foot- sucking mud to find an invisible cabin in a trackless wasteland. Sister Winn felt a great peace settle upon her; it's all in the hands of the Prophets now, she thought... but my faith wouM certainly be strengthened by a personal cloaking device. 0 CHAPTER 8 SISTER WINN'S greatest fear, she was ashamed to admit to anyone but Those she served, was that she would fall asleep for real and sleep right through her own escape. She had to feign sleep--closed eyes, rhythmic breath, inert body, sneaking not even a scratch of the side of her nose or wiping the thin trail of drool that trickled down her chin. Her roommates were several girls from the village and one, Mali, from the palace itself; and Winn suspected that at least one of the girls was a Cardassian informant: her cell leader, whose name she never heard, told her it was "SOP"--standard operating procedure--for the Cardassians to constantly monitor all Bajoran leaders... even down to the village mayor level. Surely a full, ordained sister priestess, one of the youngest ever invested,

would qualify for such surveillance! She kept awake by running through all seventyseven prayers of the Book of Amakira, a test she had passed as a young girl while studying for holy orders; each prayer comprised sixteen syllables, so it took quite some time to pass through the entire book, especially while fully comprehending the meaning of each verse: Sister Winn had great need for the heart-comforting revelations of Amakira. When she finished, the camp was silent, save for the omnipresent tramp of the guards; same rhythm as last night, thank the Prophets. Winn had made sure she took the sleeping mat closest to the tent flap. She rose so excruciatingly slowly and quietly, she was actually startled when her elbow joint cracked. Winn rolled to her knees, then pressed back to the balls of her feet. Technically, it was forbidden for a Bajoran to leave his tent during the night; but Gul Ragat, though terribly youngreno more than twenty-one years old!m was aware that many older folk had only half-anight bladders, and he never strictly enforced the rule, so long as the trek was straight to the relief station and straight back to the tent. If challenged, or even if spotted, Winn was prepared to abort her plans and head straight for the privy. She gingerly plucked her shoes from beneath the pile of other girls' footgear and ghosted through the tent flap before putting them on. Outside, she stepped into the shadow of the tent and surveyed the scene. She had picked a good night for an escape. The moon was new, and they were far enough along Surface 92 that no city lights illuminated the clear, star-spattered sky. The road itself occupied the central strip of the causeway; there was a parade ground or picnic area (Winn wasn't SUre why the Cardassians had built it) extending like an apron on either side of the actual road, widening every so often, and it was on the eastern side of the apron that GUl Ragat's entourage was encamped. The parade ground was paved with a plastic -polymer that was somewhat springy to the foot, and it was colored green... a creepy, Cardassian imitation of a grassy sward, Winn supposed. In any event, her soft shoes made no noise as she slid from one

end of the tent to the other, peeking around the edges at the guards. Her heart pounded so hard, her chest actually hurt. She stared hungrily at the parked skimmer cycles of the guards; probably have a communications wand on one of the skimmers, she told herself... though it was really just a guess. If the Prophets were with her, it was an educated one. Timing her movements to the disappearance of all three guards behind various tents, Winn hunched over and ran as quickly as she could manage to the cycles. She was already huffing and blowing by the time she covered the short distance, wishing she had paid more attention to such fleshy matters as her weight and physical conditioning. There's such a thing as being too spiritual, I guess, she decided. The cycles loomed much larger up close than they had when they hummed past her on the march; Cardassians tended to be larger than Bajorans--or taller, anywaymand Sister Winn was somewhat on the short side even for her sex and species. She stole in between the first two: If I'm caught now, she realized, there is no possible way to explain... nobody ~ going to believe I got lost on the way to the privy! The machines hulked black and menacing in the moonless dark, but the metal was actually shiny enough that if she raised her head and looked at the top of the stabilizer wings, she saw the constellations dimly reflected. She smelled ozone as the fuel cells recharged the batteries in preparation for another day of travel. She heard the tramp of boots; a sentry approached along his normal route. Winn couldn't move; it would only attract his attention. She wasn't fully in shadow, but she stilled her body and held her breath. The sentry strode into view; he was close enough that she could have hit him with a stone. If he turned his head just slightly to the right, he couldn't help seeing her! Winn looked down, superstitiously worrying about "catching his eye" by staring at him herself. She envisioned herself shrinking inside herself, like a snake swallowing its own tail until there was nothing left but a faint puff of displaced air.

The measured crunching of boot steps continued unwavering past the priestess and into the night. The sentry had passed her by unnoticed. She had several minutes before he returned, and Sister Winn had every intention of taking full advantage. She had seen the Cardassians using their communication wands, and it was an article of faith for the priestess that anything a Cardassian could learn to operate would be child's play for a Bajoran. But would they leave them on the cycles or take them inside their own tents? She found no wand on the first two cycles, though she was somewhat hampered in her search by not being able to rise up and lean over to look at the other side of the first skimmer; taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth, as if she were diving into the ocean, she slipped around cycle number two and explored its left side and the right side of cycle three. At last, the priestess struck a vein of pure ore: she found not one but two communication wands stuck into the left saddlebag of cycle number seven. But then she heard the tramp of the sentry, now coming in the opposite direction. Again, she didn't move, didn't breathe, and visualized herself shrinking to a dust mote, smaller and smaller to the vanishing point. Evidently, the sentry was either asleep on his feet or else he simply had no reason to look at the parked skimmer cycles; once again, he walked past her, almost close enough for Winn to reach out and untie his bootlaces (were he wearing any). When her heart returned to only a moderately fast beat, she slipped one of the com- wands into her voluminous sleeve pocket. Then, licking her dry lips, she commenced the second part of her adventure. The program controls on the cycles were easy to comprehend... assuming one understood Cardassia n. Winn had made a point of it when she studied for her holy orders; all official communications to the Cardassian High Command for anything or about anything had to be written in High Cardassianmand the only alternative to learning the language herself was to hire someone to translate every time she had some important request to

make, which was not only expensive but dangerous, considering her "night job." The seventh cycle was locked, but the eighth still had a key card in the active slot--a commo n enough lapse of security for which one of the Cardassian soldiers was going to pay dearly! She slid the card out and in again, and the console cover slid open with a noise that was probably tiny, but which sounded to the priestess's ears like a dozen pots and pans rattling down a chimney. She scanned the instructions on the inside of the cover, then programmed the cycle on a course that would take it due east for a while, then veer off course in several erratic directions, climbing and diving, finally (if all went well) burying itself in the mud at peak velocity hundreds of kilometers from Surface 92... followed, she hoped, by a parade of frantic Cardassians, desperate to stop the Amazing Escaping Priestess. In fact, the A.E.P. would be heading on foot the opposite direction, equally desperately trying to locate the Amazing Invisible Cabin of •elda Reeks. Winn had only to set the timer, then cut across the road without being run over by the occasional truck or troop transport, and jump off the western edge without killing herself in the fall. Simplicity itself, she thought, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering with fear. She calculated the distance across the eastern apron, the road--assuming she didn't become roadkill--and the opposite apron, then over the side to the mud, and came up with a ludicrous figure that sounded more like the time required by the Bajoran sprint champion. She doubled the time, then on second thought tripled it, and programmed it into the cycle's control panel. She was about to activate the timer when she realized she would run smack into the sentries if she didn't time the run exactly right. Winn waited, following the sentries' position by the sound of their boot heels on the springy surface of the parade ground... she wouldn't have heard them at all except for the metal heel-and-toe protectorsmCardassian soldiers disdained the idea of stealth, though the priestess was fairly sure the spies of the Obsidian Order didn't wear steel-shod

boots. When she judged they had reached about halfway between the nearest point (where she would have to run directly past them) and the farthest point (where they turned around and would be looking right at her as she fled), she punched the button and took off. Halfway to the edge of the apron, Winn realized she had severely underestimated the time it would take for her to run that distance! She felt her heart pound and she was gasping for air, so she slowed to a trot, too frightened even to appeal to the Prophets for assistance. When she passed the last row of tents and could see the backs of the two sentries receding, she panicked; spurred by terror, she stepped up the pace to a sprint again... but after only a dozen steps, she stumbled and fell to her face. The soft, springy surface prevented her from scraping herself or making much sound, but she landed on her belly and knocked the wind from her lungs. She tried to stagger to her feet, while he r bruised diaphragm fluttered, unable to expand to suck in a lungful of air. She felt dizzy, so she remained on hands and knees and crawled toward the center road section of Surface 92. Just as she reached it, she heard a roar; looking to her left, she saw the lights of an onrushing truck, skimming a mere hand's breadth above the road surface; it was almost as wide as the road itself. Winn mentally cursed her luck--if the truck were going south instead of north, it would have been traveling high enough to clear the northbound trucks, and the priestess could have run directly beneath it! Instead, she was delayed precious seconds while the truck lumbered past at half the speed of a passenger skimmer. Ironically, it had doubtless slowed down because the sensors detected the encampment, and the polite driver (who was probably Bajoran) didn't want to wake them up with loud engine noise. Winn waited, lying on her belly; though the delay surely meant the skimmer cycle would take off before she was off the opposite side, it did give her a chance to catch her breath. With the help of the Prophets, the sentries might not even notice the cycle launching. Sister Winn prayed earnestly for

just such a stroke of good fortune. Evidently, the Prophets were unmoved by her prayers. Just as the truck cleared her path, Winn heard an awful racket back at the camp: the cycle was taking off just as she programmed, with one slight addition: it had automatically activated its flashing lights and warning s iren. With a sinking heart, she realized she must have picked, by sheer bad luck, the lead cycle of the procession. Winn stared back in horror as the riderless cycle rose into the air, screaming bloody, blue murder like a hysterical child and lighting up the entire camp with its red-and-green strobe lights. Within seconds, every Cardassian soldier was stumbling out of his tent more or less dressed, each with a weapon in hand; the Bajorans rushed out, too, adding to the chaos. Everyone stared at the ghostly apparition... and that meant that no one would mistakenly believe Sister Winn had stolen the skimmer when she turned up missing. She hesitated at the edge of the road, not knowing what to do. Then, hoping that she wouldn't be missed for quite some time in the hullabaloo, she resumed course for the opposite side of Surface 92, this time walking quickly and keeping her heart rate down. She crossed the road and the western apron and stared over the opposite side; it was a drop of ten meters, a hard fall but not likely to permanently damage her, if she landed well. She felt no fear; she had totally drained whatever glandular secretion caused it. She turned about and lowered herself over the side, dangling by her hands. It was a posture she couldn't hold for more than a few seconds; she had only time enough to take one last look back at the cavorting, screaming mob. It was an unfortunate whim: just as she looked, one of the sentries, her old friend, the young, bullying corporal, turned on a whim of his own toward the priestess. Their eyes locked for a moment; before he could react, the strength gave out in Winn's hands, and she dropped heavily into the mud. Her only thought as she fell was, Oh dear, I really have made a mess of the whole thing. She landed on her back in the mud and again knocked the wind from her sails. She remained

perfectly still, waiting for the dizziness to stop and staring at the lip of the road above her, wondering whether she would be able to move before the demoted corporal peered over the edge and saw her. She was so shaken, the possibility of being seen again didn't rouse her to any greater effort. What shook her awake at last was the cry of a child--a child! Instinct took over, both as a woman and as a representative of the Prophets, and the priestess struggled up to her feet. She walked under the road, the mud sucking at her feet with every step, threatening to pull her under like tar; the child could be no more than a few years old, judging by the sound... but Winn could tell nothing more about it. She looked but saw nothing; there was one large support pillar big enough to hide a small person, and Winn headed for it. The child was crouching behind, the only place it could be. Mud was caked so heavily on its face that Winn couldn't even tell whether it was a boy or girl... not that it would have been easy in any event, since the child (like Gul Ragat's counselor) was another abomination: half Cardassian, half Bajoran. For some reason, however, this mixture aroused only pity in the priestess's soul, rather than the revulsion she usually experienced. Because it~ only a child, she thought to herself, but it was more, and she knew it. Unlike Neemak Counselor, this child's face showed only fear and shame, not the cynical cruelty stamped on the face of the other crossbreeds she had seen... a cruelty incubated by the way such mongrels were treated--by both sides, thought Winn with a very large thrust of guilt. "It's all right, honey, I've got you," she said soothingly. The child only cried the harder; slightly cleaner channels ran down its cheeks where streams of tears had partially washed away the mud. "You're going to be all right, child; I promise." Winn smiled. "I know ! don't look it, but under all this mud, I'm a sister, a voice of the Prophets. I'm not going to hurt you." "Going to turn me over," said the child... and Sister Winn decided it was probably a girl. "To whom, little one?" The gift looked away. Above, Winn heard shouts and the engines of several skimmers; the corporal

had obviously reported what he saw to the captain of the guard, and the Cardassians were coming over the edge of the road to hunt for her. "I won't lie to you, child. The Cardassians are about to come down here hunting for me, and they're going to use sensors, and they're going to find you, too. There's nothing either one of us can do about that. " "Why're they after you?" asked the little gift, eyes wide; she sniffled, but she seemed to have forgotten about crying. She could be no more than four years old. Winn shrugged, deciding on the truth--as much as the gift could handle. The Prophets obviously brought us together,' there must still be a task for me ahead. "I ran away, child. I'm a slave. I wanted to leave, and now they're going to bring me back." The little gift smiled sadly. "I guess they're going to send me back to father. But you're a nice lady." "Thank you." The girl looked at Winn; her eyes held the priestess in a gaze so intelligent, so intense, that Winn suddenly realized the Prophets themselves were about to speak through the child's lips. She had heard of such things but never seen it directly. All sound seemed to cease; she could hear nothing but the words from the little gift: "Tell them you heard me crying and jumped down here to help me, Mother Mud. Then you won't get in trouble. My father is very important." "Who is your father?" "He lives in the sky," she said, pointing upward. "He's very important, and they'll be happy you found me." Her face took on a look of urgency. "Tell them! Promise me you'll tell them you jumped down to help me!" Sister Winn bowed her head. "I promise, child." A moment later, the fist skimmer roared up to her, followed by three others. One was ridden by Gavak-Gavak Das himself, and Winn braced for a lashing with the electrowhip the overseer always carded. "I heard the cries of this child," said the priestess. "I jumped off the road and followed the cries to this little girl." "She found me," added the girl. "I want to go

home." Winn knew that both of them were liars, but perhaps it was in a good cause. Gavak-Gavak paused astride his cycle, his mouth open and his hand already having drawn the painful whip. Struck by sudden concern, he replaced the electrowhip and drew a scanner instead. Playing it across the girl, he gasped and spoke urgently but softly into his communications wand; Winn couldn't hear a word he said. Then the overseer grinned, and Winn recognized the expression: pure, unadulterated greed. There must be a reward out for the little girl, thought the priestess sadly. "Excellent work, Sister Winn!" said GavakGavak unexpectedly. "I'll see that you're commended to the gul for this!" "You'll tell Gul Ragat what happened?" "Ragat?" The overseer looked startled. "Oh! Yes, that's what I meant... I'll see that you're commended to Gul Ragat for your diligence in finding--ah, this little girl here. I'm sure her master is terribly anxious to get her back, ah, whoever he is." Nobody ever accused Sister Winn of mental sluggishness. She noticed the quick change of subject; Gavak-Gavak had originally meant another gul, but he preferred she think he was talking about her own. And she noticed another strange anomaly: Gavak-Gavak referred to the girl's master, but the girl said that her father was very important. We are not given to understand all the ways of the Prophets, thought the priestess; we are bound only to obey them. She said nothing else, only climbed aboard the back of one of the other skimmers to be carried back to servitude, back to the road to Riis.

CHAPTER 9 THE BLUFF from which O'Brien and the away team had looked out across the Desert of Death (as the chief had cheerfully named it) sloped backward a dozen kilometers to a grassy sward; the team had to backtrack several hours before Odo, flying above as a hawk, caught sight of a herd of the creatures...

split-heads, Chief O'Brien dubbed them. The constable circled overhead while the rest of the team caught up; Odo landed, and the away team remained behind an outcropping of blue black rocks to observe the nine split-heads. Two different families, guessed the chief; that is, if they followed the pattern of Earth horses, or the other horselike creatures O'Brien had read about. There were two larger split-heads with short, tubelike tails, and each was surrounded by three smaller monsters with no tails. One of the groups included what looked like a foal: tiny, with overly long, skinny legs that followed around one of the smaller split-heads. Captain Sisko began speaking of the larger as male and the smaller as female, and the nomenclature stuck, though they had no real idea about the beasties' gender traits. Their coats ranged from sky blue to teal, and they could bristle their spiney fur, possib ly for cooling or defense or both. O'Brien hadn't seen any of them jump, but he suspected they could deliver a vicious kick if you got behind one; he had once been kicked in a sensitive spot by an ordinarily placid mare back home, and he still squirmed when he remembered the experience. "Sir, are you sure this rope will hold those things?" he asked nervously. "Chief, you know the tensile strength of the polyfiber better than I! It could hoist a runabout without breaking." Captain Sisko seemed quite irritated... possibly because the chief had been hedging and hesitating for several minutes. The truth was, even the sight of the horrible beasties terrified him: Quark was right; the split down the center of their skulls really did make them look two-headed. And the six bowlegs that seemed to be as common on the planet as four (the Natives were four limbed, of course) still made the chief squirm; it looked a little too insectoid for his taste. "All right," said the chief, straining to keep his voice steady and his teeth from chattering, "let's do it. Commander?" Worf stared at the herd. "I recommend we try for the male with the dark hindquarters; it is smaller than the other." "Sure, whichever; go ahead, sir."

They had necessarily opted against using phasers because of the danger of being spotted by Cardassians in orbit. O'Brien fidgeted, fingering the lasso, while the Klingon waited until the target wandered away from the other split-heads; then Worf activated the antigray and levitated the great beast into the air. Miles O'Brien stood and jogged into the clearing, keeping an eye on the other creatures. He was just about to fling the loop of rope, when he stopped dead: he heard voices, and they seemed to come from the split- heads surrounding him: "Arrk fly!" "Fly! Fly in the air!" "Look at Arrk! He flies in the air!" With horror creeping along his skin like a fungus, Chief O'Brien realized that the universal translator was automatically translating what the animals were saying... and that meant they were talking. Arrk himself, from his position about three or four meters in the air, began screaming; the universal translator left most of it inarticulate, but did translate "help" and "get Arrk down." O'Brien backed slowly away from the herd, which totally ignored his presence, so focused were they on their compatriot's sudden levity. The chief finally stumbled backwards over a rock, falling onto his rear where the rest of the away team waited. "Well?" demanded Worf; "what is the problem?" Sisko was even more irritated. "Chief, you had better have a damned good explanation for this!" O'Brien turned to the captain. "They're intelligent! They were talking... words, not just growling or barking or somesuch!" Sisko tightened his lips and stroked his beard; everybody else stared at O'Brien as if he were addlepated. "Of all the idiotic excuses!" snapped Quark; "don't be afraid of them... just get out there and rope a few!" Nevertheless, the chief noted that Quark made no offer to do the job himself. "I'm telling you, those things are talking! They're out there screaming about how 'Arrk' is flying around in the sky. If you don't believe me," he added huffily, "just wander closer and you'll

hear them yourself." Sisko frowned. "This changes everything, Worf. Put the creature down." With a sigh of complete exasperation, Worf lowered Arrk to the ground. The bull split-head ran around in circles for a few minutes, followed by the others; then they all seemed to calm down and return to grazing... seeming to have forgotten the incident. If they are sentient, thought O'Brien, it's only just barely. "Wait here," said the captain; O'Brien was only too happy to oblige: the only thing worse than a two-headed, six- legged horse was one that talked. Sisko stepped forward, gesturing to Worf to follow. The pair crept closer to the herd; when they got within twenty meters, the split- heads looked up one by one. Then they returned to their grazing, paying no attention to the two Federation interlopers. The captain and Worf returned, the former pensive and the latter frowning. "Chief, I owe you an apology," said Captain Sisko. "I should have believed you, no matter how crazy it sounded." Worf merely grunted, but O'Brien took it as the closest to an apology he was likely to get from his Klingon colleague. "What did they say, sirs?" Worf took up the tale. "When we approached, they queried each other whether we were fourlegged or six-legged. After some discussion, they settled that we were four - legged; after that, they ignored us completely." "I would guess," chimed in Odo, "that all their natural predators have six legs, as they themselves do." "So," mused Quark, "not only can they talk -they can count..." His eyes rolled up, and O'Brien imagined he could see stacks of goldpressed latinurn whirling around, like the spin of a Dabo wheel. "I wonder," continued the Ferengi, "whether any of these split-heads has any interest in a small exhibition we might--" "Quark!" snarled the constable. "We have more important considerations at hand, if you don't mind!" "Exactly," said the captain, sitting on a rock in

plain view of the herd. "I'm afraid these creatures pass the threshhold of sentience... we cannot simply yoke them to a wagon and force them to carry us across the desert." "So now what?" asked the chief. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we only have three or four days of rations left? If we don't get to a Cardassian outpost by then, we can kiss both the mission and our own, lovely selves goodbye." It was a simple conclusion: as disgusting as it was, Cardassian food was the only thing on Sierra-Bravo 112-II that any of them could eat and remain alive. "Time," said Captain Sisko with a twinkle and a half smile, "to open negotiations." "Negotiations?" demanded both the chief and Commander Worf in astonishment. "And to send in our chief negotiator," concluded the captain. "Ambassador Quark, front and center!" "Ambassador Quark?" sputtered Constable Odo, with even greater astonishment. Sisko clapped the Ferengi on his shoulder. "You wanted to come along on this expedition," he said; "it's time you earned your keep: start bargaining, and don't come back without an agreement to convey us to that outpost!" Quark said nothing. His mouth opened as he stared at the monstrous creatures. Better thee than me, thought Chief O'Brien with a smile. The Ferengi had never felt tinier and more helpless as he crept toward the enormous, twoheaded monsters. Among Ferengi, Quark was actually rather on the tall side, and even among the giants on Deep Space Nine, under whatever name they chose to operate it, past or future, he always knew he was in control: the man at the helm of his own destiny never feels small! But these creatures, Quark was convinced, were too stupid to recognize their own self-interest... and they could very well trample him to death before he could even finish making his opening bid. Quark looked back at the sheltering rocks; the other members of the away team were gesturing him forward impatiently. Sure.t Of course... THEY'RE not the ones facing death by hoof

stomping.t He felt a faint movement from behind him and whipped his head back so quickly, his neckbones cracked, and he felt a sharp pain. The split-heads, as Chief O'Brien so quaintly called them, were staring directly at Quark. Centimeter by centimeter, the Ferengi snuck forward across the blue gray grass, feeling his legs weakening with every quasi step. He raised his hand, only belatedly worrying that the monsters might consider that an attack. So far, they hadn't said anything... if indeed they really did talk; he hadn't quite ruled out the possibility that the whole thing was an elaborate and pointless practical joke played upon him by the Federation goons. "How--how--how do you d-do?" The horriblelooking monsters stared uncomprehendingly at him. "I am Quark," he added, "I... come in peace." No response. "Shall we, ah, open negotiations?" Suddenly feeling utterly stupid, Quark realized he was, in essence, talking to a herd of barnyard animals. His face turned bright pink, and he began to yell. "Say something, damn it! I'm feeling like an idiot here!" One of the large split-heads, a male, Quark supposed, turned to the other. "It is Quark the Idiot!" "Yes~ yes," bleated the other male; "Quark the Idiot! What is an Idiot?" The females took up the refrain, repeating "Idiot! Idiot!" over and over. They seemed positively fascinated by the concept... if the universal translator were doing its job, it might be the first time the thought had ever occurred to them. "A small- head," suggested the first male, who seemed to be the leader. "That's what an Idiot is." "Yes, yes! An Idiot is a small-head! Look, it's head is small. Look how small its head is! And look, look... no hornst" The animals proceeded to make a series of gronklike noises that Quark rather stuffily took to be untranslated laughter. "Does it have four legs or does it have six legs?" asked the junior male. "I will count the legs," responded the alpha.

"One leg, two legs, three legs, four legs. It's a fourleg! A four- legged, small- headed Idiot called Quark." "Four legs," sighed the beta male that O'Brien claimed they had called Arrk; once he realized Quark had only four limbs, Arrk immediately lost interest. The steel-blue grass beckoned the rest of the split-heads; the alpha watched the Ferengi for a few moments, then joined the rest of the herd in grazing. One of the presumed females--who had a smaller head than the other monsters--began to trot round and round the herd, chanting, "Smallhead! Idiot! Small- head! Idiot!" The others ignored her. "Oh, this is going just perfectly," muttered Quark to himself. His annoyance battled against fear and won; he walked a little closer, but the splitheads still ignored him. "Listen!" commanded the Ferengi. One by one, the monsters stopped grazing and raised their heads to look down their split noses at Quark. "We want a deal," he enunciated clearly, wondering whether the word would even translate. Evidently not; the creatures all looked to the alpha, who stared at Quark in puzzlement. "We want to go... past the sand," said the Ferengi, pointing upslope. "It wants sand," said the alpha male to Arrk. "It eats sand," suggested the latter. The alpha said, "Yes, yes! It eats sand so its head is small! It should eat grass." "I don't eat sand!" shouted Quark, stamping his foot. That, he realized, was a bad move; the alpha lowered its head and snarled. "Challenging, challenging, challenging!" it said. "Small- head is challenging Ruut!" Uh-oh... Staring up at the huge, many-toothed, horned monster that looked as if it could tear his (tiny) head off in a single bite or crush his rib cage with a kick, Quark's Ferengi instincts took over: he dropped immediately into an approved cringe, almost a grovel, as if he stood naked before the Grand Nagus himself with a highly negative balance sheet. Quark did it quicker than conscious thought, but if he had had time to plan, it was

exactly what he would have done anyway. The posture worked; the alpha--Ruut-- instantly relaxed, muttering, "Small- head loses, Ruut wins." The female began to trot again, repeating her chant of "Small- head! Idiot!" "Small- head wants a favor from Ruut," said Quark, wrinkling his nose at the name he seemed to have acquired. "What does small- head want?" asked Ruut, surprised. Evidently, a favor was not unheard of--probably has to do with not killing an annoying female, thought Quark. But it seemed uncommon. "Small- head and, uh, small- head's herd want to get to the grass on the other side of the sand." "The grass is better?" asked Arrk; Ruut didn't seem put out by the interruption. "Well... it's bluer," improvised Quark. "The grass is bluer!" shouted Ruut. "Where? Where?" bleated the females; Arrk took up the chant, evidently not quite following the conversation as well as the alpha. "In the meadow on the other side of the big sand!" exclaimed Ruut. "Across the sand, bluer, tastier grass! Small- head knows!" "But small- head is an Idiot," objected Arrk. Ruut thought a moment, then extended his face until his mouth was pressed practically against Quark's nose. The Ferengi was too terrified to move or even speak; he smelled a sweet odor with a faint whiff of what he could swear was latinurn... and the trace braced him. "How does small-head know the blueness of the grass?" asked Ruut. "A wise question," said Quark, his voice shaking. "I--uh--I was--told about it," he finished, lamely. "Who told small- head about the grass?" persisted the ever suspicious Ruut. A brilliant idea whispered into the Ferengi's lobes. "I was told," he said, "b y a BIG-head! A great, big head... head the size of Ruut's whole body!" This information was suitably relayed by Ruut to the rest of the herd, who needed some explanation before they all got it. The trotting female changed

her chant to "Small- head! Big- head! Small-head! Big-head!" and Quark wasn't quite sure she understood the fine point he had made. But the others seemed satisfied. "But small- head has a problem," said the Ferengi. He waited, having learnt that one couldn't rush the monsters' sluggish brains. "Small- head wants to go to the grass on the other side of the Big Sands," said Ruut. "But small- head is too slow," said Quark, "and Ruut's herd is much faster. Small- head's herd wants to sit on Ruut's herd while Ruut's herd runs across the Big Sands." The complexity of the suggestion took many minutes to negotiate, but Quark was starting to catch the rhythm. Experimentally, Ruut allowed Quark to sit on Arrk's back while the split- head walked, then trotted, then ran around the meadow. Quark clutched the spiny fur on the monster's back, closed his eyes, and prayed to the Final Accountant not to kill the deal by letting Quark fall off and be trampled to death. The creature had a peculiar, rolling gait not unlike an Earth camel that Quark was once obliged to ride in a customer's holosuite program, but when it got up to speed, the wind whistled past the Ferengi's lobes... the split-heads were fast when they wanted. Ruut and Arrk had a long conversation afterward, the slow pace of which frustrated the Ferengi no end; he consoled himself by thinking, The riskier the road, the greater the profit, and other gems from the Rules of Acquisition. At last, Arrk convinced Ruut that he had barely felt the "smallhead" on his back, and there was no reason not to carry the small- head's herd across the Big Sands. Shaking with exhaustion and the remnants of fear, Quark concluded the deal. As he structured it in his mind, in exchange for the knowledge that there was much bluer grass across the desert, Ruut and his herd would carry Quark and his herd across said desert as quickly as possible. The only snag, of course, was that the grass might not be bluer on the other side; Quark shrugged... the thought that a customer might not be satisfied with his end of the bargain concerned a Ferengi not at all (in fact, it was Rule of Acquisition Number

Nineteen). Quark would let Captain Sisko deal with possible future customer complaints. Ruut figured they would start immed iately--did he even have the concept of time or waiting? --and Quark didn't want to tip the precarious deal; he assumed the split-heads' attention span was limited, and he was afraid that any delay would cause Ruut to forget everything. Quark frantically waved Sisko, O'Brien, Worf, and Odo to approach. A new problem erupted: Ruut and Arrk balked at allowing the away team to ride the females. Smallhead's herd huddled to solve the last- minute dilemma. Odo sighed. "I suppose I could change into one of these creatures myself," he suggested. "That eliminates one of us needing a ride." "Two of us," corrected Captain Sisko. "I hate to say it, Constable, but you'll have to carry one of us on your back." Odo shrugged. "I can do that... so long as it isn't him!" He glared at Quark. "Captain! I object to the continual calumnies and unfriendly insinuations cast by Odo against me!" He folded his arms and turned half away, making sure everyone saw how his feelings were wounded. "And after all I've done for this team, tOO." "You've 'done' at least four serious felonies on this expedition so far," snarled Odo, "and the mission has barely begun! I'm keeping an arrest report," concluded the constable, ominously pushing his malleable face close to Quark's. "Gentlemen, settle it later," said Sisko. "Quark, you'll double up with me on one of the males, while Worf, who weighs as much as the two of us combined, will ride the other male. That leaves O'Brien for Odo, and you two will be our guides: the chief with his tricorder, the constable by changing into a bird as necessary and finding the fastest route across the desert. Any questions?" Worf looked at Ruut, the alpha, and Quark would have sworn he saw nervousness in the Klingon's mouth; of course, the Ferengi said nothing-Klingons were generally not appreciative for haying such facts pointed out to them. "I have no

questions, Captain," said Worf in a tougher-thanusual voice. Good, thought Quark, at least I'm not the only one who's scared to death! O'Brien made no attempt to hide his relief at drawing Odo instead of Ruut or Arrk, but the captain was as enigmatic as usual. Quark was trembling as he climbed back aboard Arrk, and the addition of Captain Sisko seated behind him did not sweeten the deal: the Ferengi suspected it made the whole arrangement even more top- heavy and subject to collapse than when Quark alone had ridden the monster! Worf mounted Ruut. The constable wandered away behind a tree, then returned as a split-head; neither Ruut nor any of his herd seemed to care much or wonder at the transformation. O'Brien climbed aboard Odo, and the caravan set out. They traveled not up the bluff, of course, since that would have required leaping off a hundred-meter cliff, but around it to the left; Ruut seemed to know the way to the Big Sands. By the time the double herd reached a downward slope, where the grass became sparser and interspersed with sand and the occasional boulder, they were fairly flying; Quark forgot everything except hanging on for dear life and dearer profit. He stopped screaming when his voice became so hoarse, even his sensitive lobes couldn't hear it. The mob of monsters hit the desert sands and kept going, their monstrous, splay hooves barely sinking into the dunes. They ran tirelessly for hours, then stopped so abruptly, they almost unseated their riders. Odo ran on a few paces before realizing Ruut had called a rest stop. After a drink at a stream and a short rest, the caravan continued its break-your-neck pace across the sand dunes... and after many more hours, Quark discovered that when a Ferengi is exhausted enough, he can doze off anywhere.

CHAPTER lO

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Jadzia Dax was very, very, very tired of walking, but they still had a few more kilometers to go until they reached the spot where Bashir had detected a crossing of ion trails from Cardassian skimmers of vario us sizes. A crossing means a depot, Dax told herself... the wild promise being the only way she could will her exhausted feet to keep moving. Julian, of course, seemed as fresh as a teenaged boy on a prom date. The road they followed was obviously not built by the Cardassians; it wound around hills where the Cardassians would simply have burnt right through them with excavating tools. In places, the road was little more than a footpath, zigzagging steeply up a hill and dropping equally suddenly down the far slope. The up and down burned through Dax's energy far more than a simple, level path would have; she couldn't help a sidelong glance or two at the doctor. Oddly, the good doctor seemed much less fatigued than she would have expected from the hike. They were currently on a section of the road where the trail had virtually disappeared, visible only as a slightly trampled line of steel blue among the rest of the knee-high grass; but at least it was still heading roughly the right direction. Gnarled trees surrounded them, black in the gathering dusk; under the bright, noon sun, they had appeared more vermillion. The long shadows reached toward Dax and Bashir from behind, like clutching fingers; the commander shivered, wishing she hadn't thought of the image: they still had little idea what dangerous fauna (or even flora!) existed on Sierra-Bravo 112-I1. A large set of hills blocked their path, and Dax sighed audibly. They rested before beginning the climb. Bashir insisted, claiming he was "fatigued," but he didn't look it. Then she led the way, setting her sights grimly on the summit and trudging up the twenty-degree slope. As she neared the top, she slowed; they were close enough that if there were no intervening hills, they might be able to see the intersection... the "depot." At the peak of the trail, she found a grove of trees; slipping within them, she worked her way forward, Bashir at her elbow, until she looked out

across a plain crossed with natural orchards and watered by a sluggish, winding river. Most of the valley was already in shadows from the hill Dax and Bashir stood upon. Two strings of bright, artificial lights crossed near the center, lighting the darkness, and a contingent of four Cardassians stood guard at the crossroads: they had found their depot. "Any skimmers?" asked the doctor, trying to peer past Dax's head. "I see a couple, one single-seater and a large car, but there's a couple pairs ofgoons guarding them." Damn, she thought, I'd give a lot for a good, oldfashioned spyglass/ On a hunch, Dax pulled up her tricorder and performed a passive scan for broadcast power sources of the frequency used by the Natives. "Yep, I suspected as much," she announced. "They cut the power from the nearest two transmitters... none of the native technology will work anywhere within a dozen kilometers or more." "So they think they're totally secure," said Bashir, seeing the point at once. Dax looked back at him. "Would you say Cardassians are apt to be overconfident under any circumstances?" "I'd say," said the doctor with a smile, "that the guards are probably asleep on their feet from boredom." "How good a shot are you with your phaser, Julian?" "Using a sweep, I can pick off a Cardassian or a Drek'la at about two hundred meters, I would expect." "Two hundred? That's a little ambitious. Let's get a little closer than that," she decided. "We'll take them at a hundred. One clean sweep apiece, phasers on stun, nobody left standing." Dax considered for a moment. "But we have to make sure they don't wake up any time soon." That is, unless we leave our fingerprints somewhere--like here. Jadzia pondered for a moment; what would the Cardassian commander believe? "Maybe we can make it look like they got drunk and deserted? What have you got in that little black

bag of yours that might do the trick?" Julian thought for a moment. "I could inject them with a stasis sedative that will keep them out for about eight hours." "What will they remember?" "Nothing; microamnesia will almost certainly wipe out any memory they have of events for the last three or four hours before they're injected." "That'll be perfect. If we find any Cardassian ale in the depot storehouse, we'll pour it all over them; if we're lucky, they won't bother with a medical scan. Then we'll stick them in the big skimmer and program it to head out over the hills, landing about three hundred klicks away." Dax grinned at the thought. "Let's see them try to explain that to the CO!" The pair of double shots from a hundred meters required only coordination between Jadzia and Julian; Dax gave a countdown from five with her fingers, then depressed the trigger. She was wide by about a half meter--not bad, she thought--and she swept the phaser beam sideways to brush both her targets before either could draw a weapon or get off a communication to the planetary command. She made sure that she fired at a slight downward angle, striking the Cardassians about knee high... both to avoid the battle armor on their torsos and to make sure the phaser beam grounded into the dirt rather than flashed across the sky like a beacon. She didn't look over at Julian's targets until her own were down, so she didn't know how precise he had been, but all four Cardassians were stunned into unconsciousness. Jadzia cautiously led the doctor the last hundred meters; while she scanned for approaching enemies, Julian examined the Cardassians, gave medical treatment to one who had injured himself falling, and then injected all four with the stasis sedative. "Its purpose," he explained, as he worked the hypospray, "is to stabilize an injur ed patient for transport to a medical facility; I'm sure they'll be all right." His voice didn't sound as certain as his words, but frankly, Dax cared little about how safe the Cardassians might be: she had seen them mow down women, children, and old folks without a second thought in

the battle of Tiffnaki. Nobody showed up. Dax and the doctor bundled the Cardassians into the large skimmer, splashed liquor all over the soldiers and the interior of the vehicle, and sent it on a wild ride across the fruited plain at maximum speed, veering wildly and careening up and over hills and through passes. As the driverless car took off and accelerated, Jadzia Dax couldn't help throwing them a salute; the program was set to erase itself shortly before land ing... not a trace would remain of two Federation agents on Sierra-Bravo. They stocked up on Cardassian food, unpleasant tasting but edible, and hopped aboard the remaining skimmer, a cycle that normally seated only one. Dax insisted upon driving, with a dubious and nervous Julian hanging on behind. "Point me in the right direction and look out," she yelled, firing up the noisy engines. "I was born to ride!" Joson Wabak tried not to let it show, but his frustration was rising like a core breach; having a conversation by radio waves, of all the primitive things, with a sea monster was like... It's not like anything/he concluded; they never taught us anything about this sort of situation at the Academy. In a dark recess of his mind, Joson was already composing the strongly worded letter to the Chief of Starfleet Education and Training, Captain Bruchenheimer, about the need for more seamonster simulation training for upperclassmen. "Weymouth, give me a rundown." "Nothing's changed since last time, sir." "Just the rundown, Ensign--not an editorial aside? Tina cringed a little, but Joson was getting tired of her attitude. "The, ah, sea monster doesn't have a name; it thinks we're an egg from another like itself; it thinks we're about to hatch--something about the way we taste, from what little the not-souniversal translator can translate--and it wants to help us. We've convinced it to hold off, that cracking us open would prevent our character gro wth or something, and we're currently trying to make it understand that we need to get to the surface--but it doesn't get it."

"That is to be expected," said Ensign N'KdukThag. "If this creature were to ascend to the surface it probably could not survive the light and low pressure. Perhaps it thinks we are confused and wants to protect us." "Well, we'd better do something quick, Joson." Tina hunched over her console, staring at a gauge. "We're down to a containment- field strength of seventeen percent. The hull could rupture any moment--Below twenty percent, there's a measur able chance every minute of a sudden, catastrophic collapse of the containment field, the hull, and all the contents... what they kind of quaintly refer to as a 'phase-change singularity' in the manual." "The ensign is quite correct," confirmed Ensign Nick. "We must ascend immediately at least five hundred meters." "Open the channel again," said Joson, rubbing his tired eyes. At least it's an audio -only broadcast, he thought; I'm not sure she couM deal with creatures that look like us actually talking to her in her own language. Weymouth hissed to get his attention, then nodded; Joson Wabak began to speak. "Defiant, speaking to our friend. You must release us and allow us to continue toward the surface. We will not be harmed! Our... mother lives near the surface; it's where we come from." He waited, but the monster didn't respond; one of the frustating things about the conversation was the long lag time between their transmission and the response... evidently, the sheer size of the sea monster's nervous system made for slow, deep, sluggish thoughts. "Let us ascend," added Joson. "Our--shell is too fragile to survive at this depth. We need a lower pressure, or our shell will crack, um, prematurely." Great, I wonder whether she's getting ANY of this? It seemed unlikely; Joson wasn't an engineer and didn't exactly know how the universal translator worked, but he knew all it could do was form "word pictures" that would be translated by the receiver's own brain into language... assuming the two brains weren't too dissimilar. It was hard to imagine two more dissimilar brains than his own

and that of a two-kilometer-wide sea monster who lived a thousand meters deep in an inky-black ocean. The vast majority of concepts that a surface dweller such as himself took for granted--sunlight, color, the sky, air!--would be so utterly alien to her, how could she possibly understand a word he said? We might just be fooling ourselves. He caught Ensign Weymouth's eye and ran his finger across his throat; she closed the transmission channel... all they could do now was wait for the Old Girl to respond. And she was old, too. N'Kduk-Thag occupied himself scanning the creature, integrating the holo scan information from the abortive probe they had launched earlier. "I believe this creature is at least thirty thousand years old," he announced out of the blue. "Why?" asked Joson. "What makes you say that?" "I carbon-dated deposits found on the inside of the entity's intestines." "Maybe she ate some old rocks." "Joson," said Tina with a smile, "thirty thousand years would be incredibly young for a rock." "I believe the deposits were produced by organic material ingested by the creature. There are deposits of every age up to approximately thirty thousand years but none older than that age." Joson shrugged, watching the maw of the sea monster open and close on the forward viewer. "Well, no wonder she takes so long to answer." "Sir... Joson, we haven't got much time." He settled back, closing his eyes. "We haven't got much we can do, either, Tina." "A full barrage of photon torpedoes will at least get the creature's attention. It might be surprised into letting us go." "Or it might get mad and crush us! Nick, no torpedoes... not unless I order it." Ensign Joson Wabak, acting captain, opened his eyes and sat up straight again. "Look, Dax left me in charge, and unless things change drastically--" The ship lurched abruptly, knocking the enlisted security crew to the deck. The three officers man-

aged to keep their seats, but only barely. Weymouth grabbed the edge of her console to steady herself until the stabilizers could catch up with the unexpected movement. "Jesus, Joson! She's dragging us into her mouth.t" Ensign N'Kduk-Thag emotionlessly played his fingers across his own station. "Photon torpedoes armed and ready for your command, sir." "Belay those torpedoes!" hollered Wabak, staring at the forward viewer. Something was strange, different, something he couldn't quite... "The tongues!" he exclaimed. "Look at the tongues!" "What? What?" Tina sounded confused, panicky. "What about the tongues? They're not doing anything!" "Exactly... they're not doing anything!" Nobody responded; Ensigns Nick and Weymouth stared at him without comprehension. "Don't you get it, guys? It's swallowing us whole... it's not chewing us!" "This is your last opportunity to fire the torpedoes. After this point we shall be too close for safe operation." "Stand down the torpedoes, Nick. That's an order." Unemotional to the end, N'Kduk -Thag turned back to his weapons board and disarmed the torpedoes. The maw loomed closer, soon filling the entire viewer. Behind Joson, the enlisted man with the mustache started shouting: "Sir, do something! It~ swallowing us/" "Shut him up, now!" snapped Wabak; he heard the chief hushing her terrified third-class, then he tuned the pair of them out. "Tina! Hull integrity?' "Dropping, down to fifteen percent, but--" "Hull pressure?" Please, he begged the Prophets, hoping they could hear his prayer so far away, so deep beneath the waves, please let my hunch be right[ "Hull pressure is..." Ensign Weymouth faded into silence, then cleared her throat and continued. "Hull pressure is dropping," she said in a small voice, "down to sixty atmospheres... fifty- five." Ensign N'Kduk-Thag slid across to the science console and began a level-two scan. "The creature has closed its mouth and is expanding its alimen-

tary cavity. The increased volume is resulting in a drop in the atmospheric pressure on the hull." Joson breathed a sigh of relief. "She's not eating us. She's... carrying us." Ensign Wabak was struck by a sudden worry. "Nick, what's happening to the antenna?" "The antenna is trailing behind us but I ca nnot determine whether it extends outside the creature's mouth or has been severed. In any event it should still be usable though it may not be long enough to reach the surface of the ocean." "Can we still talk to her?" "The radio channel is still open," said Tina, seeming to have recovered her wits. "The carrier signal sounds the same; I suppose it still works." Weymouth continued to call the numbers; the atmospheric pressure of the seawater surrounding the Defiant continued to drop, finally leveling out at approximately fifteen atmospheres. The crew proceeded with emergency repairs to the containment field, which they were able to turn off: the hull itself could withstand that much pressure for a brief period without significant damage. "Sir, we appear to be ascending," said N'KdukThag, still seated at the panel usually occupied by Commander Dax, the science officer, when the ship had a full crew complement. "We have risen to a depth of seven hundred twenty meters we are ascendingapproximately twenty meters per minute." Suddenly, Joson Wabak felt a terrible fatigue. He collapsed back in the captain's chair, shivering from the suddenly chilly air on his sweat-drenched uniform. Ensign Weymouth interrupted his relief: "Joson, it's the sea monster. She's asking if we're feeling better--and asking where we want her to take us. At least, I think that's what she's saying... the translation isn't particularly clear." "Nick, can you track the runabout that Commander Dax and Doctor Bashir took up?" After a moment, N'Kduk-Thag responded. "The crushed debris from the runabout lie at the bottom of the ocean approximately ten kilometers on a bearing of two-thirteen. There is no evidence of human or Trill remains." Prophets guide them... I hope they made it safely! "They were heading toward the land mass.

Tina, open the channel." Joson waited for her nod. "Defiant to sea monster. Our health is improving. We are grateful to you. We wish to be placed near the shoreline, but if you cannot ascend that high, let us go at as shallow a depth as you can tolerate." He gestured, and Weymouth cut the jury-rigged radio transmitter. "We should remain somewhat underwater for cover," suggested Ensign Nick. Joson nodded, distracted by his own thoughtsrathe watery grave they had almost shared with the Amazon. There was no further communication from the sea monster. Twenty minutes later, she gently disgorged the "egg" at a depth of somewhat less than four hundred meters. The pressure increased slowly as she contracted her "stomach," rising to a high but manageable thirty-eight atmospheres of pressure. The patched containment field rode steadily at seventy- four percent, and the Defiant continued her climb up the underwater slope until she rested only seventy meters deep at the edge of the continental shelf, which towered above them to within ten meters of the surface. A runabout trip from their present position to the shore itself would be simple and safe... that is, thought the ensign, unless the Cardies catch us. "Extend what's left of the floating antenna, N'Kduk-Thag. We'll sit here and wait for the commander to call us. I don't want to take any chances with the spoon--with the Cardassians. In the meantime..." Joson gestured vaguely. "Go get some sleep, everyone. I'll be in the captain's ready room." Exhausted, the bridge crew stumbled toward the turbolift, while Joson Wabak wondered whether he would make it all the way to the bed before collapsing into a deep and dream-troubled sleep.

0 CHAPTER 11 MAJOR Ki~ NERYS walked unsteadily toward the

turbolift; the last sight she saw before the platform disappeared below the deck of the Ops level was Kai Winn on her "widow's walk" balco ny overlooking the prime-team of combat technicians. The middle-aged woman, far from looking haggard, was serene, as if she had taken a full night's sleep instead of the four hours of Kira's watch as CDO, Command Duty Officer. Then the turbolift picked up speed, rushing Kira down to the Promenade, then along one of the crossover tunnels to her own quarters. The aliens had shifted to a waiting game. Their ships still surrounded the Emissary's Sanctuary, what once had been called Deep Space Nine (and Terok Nor before that), but the shattered ruins of eight Bajoran cruisers testified to the inability of Bajor to come to the station's aid. Kai Winn had issued orders, with First Minister Shakar's concurrence, that the heavier ships still in dry dock be completed with all deliberate speed... but that would take at least two weeks, and Kira personally doubted the station could withstand a siege of that length. Sooner or later, the aliens-whoever they were--would find a weak point and burst inside. Maybe they'll run when they see the new Freedom-class starships, the major consoled herself, walking around the habitat ring to her door. Maybe they'll just get tired and go away. She smiled. Maybe the Prophets will put in an appearance and smite them with lightning from the wormhole. The possibilities seemed equally unlikely. Shaking from fatigue and too much watchfulness, Kira lay faceup on her rack, dimming the lights but not killing them entirely. Then she remembered the message she had gotten out... despite the Kai's orders, again seconded by Shakar (to Kira's dismay), not to ask the Federation for help, Kira had fired off a heavily encrypted subspace message to a Bajoran friend of hers in Starfleet, a former Resistance fighter in another cell she trusted utterly. Two days had passed, long enough for the fleet to receive the forwarded subspace message and reply. She rose painfully and limped to her computer

console. Working entirely by touch, saying nothing aloud--she wasn't sure why, but it seemed appropriatewKira found the incoming message and displayed it with the sound muted. She saw her friend, Bel Anar, and he looked terrible. Probably as bad as I looked, she thought grimly. He had clearly been in combat for several hours. His lips moved, and Kira read the subtitles supplied by the computer in the absence of audio. Got your message, Nerys. The Kai, may the Prophets bless her, has officially told the Council that she doesn't want any help. Hang on... don't let them kill you! FleetIntel says they're not Cardassians and nobody's ever seen that ship design--probably not Dominion, but who knows. Starfleet will be keeping an eye on the situation. Prophets bless you, my sister- in-arms. Good luck. With downcast eyes, Anar terminated the message. Shaking her head in frustration, Kira deleted the message using a security override that she was pretty sure the Kai couldn't break. Since her attempt at circumventing Kai Winn's isolationism had failed, she sure as hell didn't want the Kai to find out she had tried. Kira had just padded back to the bed and laid herself down to sleep when the door chirped. "Computer, who is it?" she asked. "Jake Sisko," said the melodious voice. "Come," she said, rising up to a seated position. She heard the door hiss open and footsteps enter; there was a bang, followed by soft cursing. "Lights three-quarters normal," said Kira belatedly. Blinking in the sudden illumination, Kira walked into the living room of her two-room suite. Jake was rubbing his shin and staring disgustedly at the Bajoran "primitive period" tea table. "Where did you get that stupid thing?" he demanded. "It was a gift from Shakar," said Kira, actually enjoying seeing the young man squirm in embarrassment. "Uh... sorry. It's, urn, really nice." "I'm trying to sleep, Jake." "Oh! I can come back in a couple of hours if

you'rew" "Just tell me what you want?' Jake stood as tall as his father, but probably carried only two thirds the muscle mass; Kira couldn't help seeing him as she had the first day they arrived at the station, newly liberated from the Cardassians: the superimposition of a young boy over a young man's figure was eerie. I'm just tired, she decided. "I..." Jake paused, collecting his thoughts. "I want to join the defense militia." Kira raised her eyebrows; for more than a year, Jake had been acting strangely~sometimes taking wild, unnecessary chances, then seemingly afraid of his own shadow. "So? Why come to me? Kai Winn organized the militia herself?' "That's just the point!" exclaimed Jake. "She's only allowing Bajorans to fight!" Ah, the sting of offering to help and being ignored. Get used to it, kid; welcome to the universe. "Jake, it's her station and her militia. Why do you want to join anyway? You're not a soldier." "They won't let Garak join, either!" "Hah! Well, what a shock. Kai Winn doesn't want a Cardassian in the Bajoran militia? Outrageous!" "Well, you don't ha ve to get sarcastic about it." Jake sat sullenly on Kira's couch. She felt bad; Jake, at least, seemed sincere in his desire to protect the station. (She was never so sure about Garak, tailor to the Obsidian Order.) "Look, I'm tired; I shouldn't have made fun. Jake, there are two problems here: first, like it or not, this is a Bajoran station now. The captain's not in charge anymore... and I don't have a lot of influence over the Kai, no matter that she seems to like me for some strange reason." "I just thought maybe you couldre" "And second, you are the Emissary's son! Even if Kai Winn were accepting nonBajorans, she'd probably invite Garak before she would invite you... you still don't realize what your father means to us! The Kai would never take the slightest chance of angering him by putting you in harm's way." "But--but how can I look Dad in the eye if I don't do my part?" His voice sounded hollow,

defeated, as if he saw a chance to prove, well, something slipping away like a spring deer into the woods. "How can I look at myself in the mirror?" "You can't look either of you in the eye if you're dead, Jake." Jake's face fell; it was finally sinking in that whatever he needed to prove to himself, he wasn't going to be given t he chance. Not this time. Jake rose and left with a mumbled goodbye. Kira felt terrible; she had been younger than Jake when she began fighting for the Resistance. She knew exactly what he felt... the burning need to do something, to stand up for what was right. But Bajor was desperate and needed anyone who could hold a gun or plant a bomb; at this point, thank the Prophets, Emissary's Sanctuary was still holding its own against the unknown raiders; traditional rules that were broken during the Occupation would be more rigidly enforced. Kira drifted back to her rack, wondering who would be next to disturb her five hours of alleged rest. It was, surprisingly, Garak the alleged tailor. This time, Kira had not so much as closed her eyes before the door chirped, sounding somehow polite and imperious at once. "Why not?" asked the major aloud; the computer did not recognize that as an answer and chirped again; this time, Major Kira said the customary. "Garak," she said through clenched teeth, "what do you want now?" "Now? My dear Major Kira, I have asked for nothing, nothing, during this entire dreadful siege!" The Cardassian tried to look blameless but succeeded only in a smug, condescending expression. "But you have something now. Right?" Kira was beyond weariness, painfully aware that Garak was allowed to remain on the Bajoran station only because there literally was nowhere else for him to go, but the Cardassian, not surprisingly, had been the target of countless curses, epithets, and even a few violent assaults since the turnover. He had some claim to victimhood... a LITTLE claim, she amended, thinking of who he had once been.

"I understand," said Garak with a smile, "that the tiny, inadequate Bajoran fleet floats in ruins near the station and that the Federation will not send aid so long as Kai Winn refuses to ask for it." Kira could not help staring. "How the hell did you know that?" Garak fluttered his hands, a dismissive gesture. "Oh, I like to keep in touch. The point is, the raiders haven't left... which means they, too, know that they are in no immediate danger." Kira said nothing, merely stared coldly, waiting for the former member of the Cardassian Obsidia n Order to get to the point. "And the fact that they've stopped their ineffectual shooting," he said, "implies that they're working on something more significant, a siege engine, to use an ancient term. Do you understand what I'm saying?" "You haven't said anything worth hearing yet." Garak shook his head. "So impatient. No wonder you were so easy to conquer." The major resisted the temptation to push her fist through Garak's smug teeth. "Major Kira, there comes a time when the best defense is to fold up one's tent and steal away." Kira was tired, but not too tired to catch the drift. "You're suggesting that we surrender the station to these scum?" "To these very enterprising scum who hold for the moment a decisive military advantage." "They're just sitting out there! They're not doing anything." "They are sitting out there... but I would be willing to bet my auto-hemmer that they are doing something. Major Kira, if we wait until their next attack, we may not be given the option of surrender. They have not made any attempt to communicate with you or respond to your own communications, is that not so?" "You seem unusually well informed about our secrets. You tell me." "I don't think it's because they can't hear you; it's far more likely they don't care to listen. But if you offer them something worthwhile to listen tO..." "Terms of surrender?"

Garak shrugged. "If you will. Perhaps that will catch their attention. You could evacuate the station, and all our lives would be spared." "You mean your life would be spared. I doubt you care much about the rest of us .... " "Kira! You malign me. Think instead of the Bajorans on the station. Have you thought, perhaps, that only your own stubbornness and pride are preventing you from saving all those Bajoran lives?" "And handing over the station to raiders from the Gamma Quadrant, for them to launch attacks on Bajor itselfl No thank you, Garak. Good night." The tailor spread his hands, shaking his head. "Major, Major, who but you and the Kai would be in a better position to sabotage every system on Deep Space Nine? Oh, I beg your pardon... Emissary's Sanctuary,' or is it back to being Terok Nor? I never can keep those names straight." "Sabotage the station?" "Bajor would lose the high ground, but at least these raiders would have nothing to show for their audacity. We should never think of rewarding criminal actions." Kira stood. "Good night, Garak. This station will never be surrendered." "You will at least discuss my suggestion with your superior?" "Good-bye!" Major Kira thumbed the door open and firmly pointed at the corridor beyond. Garak sighed deeply, as a man much misjudged and chivvied by the entire universe; then he skulked through the doorway and strode away, probably to plant more seeds of doubt in the minds of frightened, vulnerable Bajoran civilians. Well, he won't find us so easy to manipulate, she thought decisivelymwondering whether it were true or merely a salving boast. At last, she was left alone, but she could not fall asleep. One thing only that Garak had said stuck with her: no one currently on board knew as much about the station systems and subsystems as Kira Nerys... and if the worst came to pass, and the station lost the siege and was conquered (she did not think for a moment it would ever be surrendered), could she allow these faceless raiders to get

hold of such a powerful weapon? On the other hand, surely Kai Winn would never allow Kira to sabotage the station in advance! That would be seen as defeatist, and possibly undermining their defense. Kira made a decision: she would set in motion a series of computer programsmviruses, actually-that could be activated in a few minutes and would shut down everything that could be shut down... permanently. And she would not tell the Kai; it would be Kira's own little secret. But what if Kira herself died in the defense, as was likely? Better yet, she amended, the viruses will require a code word from me NOT to activate automatically. It was popularly called a "deadman switch"; unless Kira spoke her code word at regular intervals, the sabotage would proceed all by itself, and the raiders would never know what hit them. It was a dangerous move: if Kira died or became incapacitated before the station surrendered, the autosabotage would end any prayer the Emissary's Sanctuary had of surviving. But the alternative--quantum torpedoes raining down upon Bajoran cities--was too horrible to contemplate. Nervous, unable to stop her mind from racing, Kira rolled and thrashed on her bed, readjusting the temperature and calling for soothing music and ocean noises in a fruitless attempt to get some sleep. At some point, she drifted off into a nightmare- filled doze, but it was not restful. When the alarm sounded, alerting her to her next shift, she felt as if she had spent the night wrestling with a particularly slippery vole in the pay of the Obsidian Order. She wasn't sure which of them had won the match. "Good afternoon, child," said Kai Winn as her young protegee rose on the turbolift; Nerys looked haggard and bitter; is that how she looked during the Occupation? wondered the Kai. It's almost funny... one of my DUTIES was to look as fresh as the morning dew. My flock wanted to look at their Sister and see hope, not despair. The hardbitten Resistance fighters may never have realized how much easier a job they had than the secret

spies, the deep-cover operatives, who had no infrastructure, no weapons but their wits, no bolt - hole for flight if everything went wrong. And WE had to do it with a smile. Kai Winn smiled now, just as she had so many years ago, lending hope in an even more hopeless situation. It wouldn't be fair to deprive Major Kira of the security she so desperately needed, the reassurance that everything was going to be all right. She needs serenity; I must be serene, no matter what I feel. I must be the wings of peace enfolding her--and the rest of my flock on this station. "What's so good about it?" snapped Nerys, glowering all the harder at the Kai's smile; but Winn knew that deep inside, Nerys was grateful as a child reassured by her mother. "We are alive, child, and we still walk with the Prophets. What could be better?" "We may be about to die!" "Everyone dies, Nerys. Be thankful you've lived as long as you have and played such a role in the great events of history." Major Kira said nothing, he r mouth contorting in an effort to remain grumpy. She took a cup of ratageena from the replicator and hovered over the shoulders of the Kai's combat team, checking the situation (and obviously snubbing Winn upon her balcony). "I will retire now," said the Kai. Nerys looked up then, her face vulnerable, frightened for a moment; then she hardened into Major Kira again, nodding curtly. Kai Winn stepped inside her quarters, what once had been the Emissary's office--it still smelled of His Holiness; she stepped more lightly and gracefully than her heavy heart truly felt... perhaps a lie, but a necessary lie. She knew and dreaded what awaited her: for reasons known only to Themselves, the Prophets had chosen this mo ment for Kai Winn to relive her days under the Occupation in her dreams, and she could not deny those dreams. She must face them and try to learn from them what lessons the Prophets taught. She thought of delaying her sleep, returning to Ops and telling Nerys in detail everything that hadn't happened while the poor girl had been

trying to sleep, but it would just be an evasion of the inevitable. The major would read the log; she would note that the unknown raiders had crept slowly closer, perhaps believing their movement was not detected. Nerys was a good leader, even at such a tender age, on all such routine matters... though she knew nothing as yet of the subtle interplay between personality and policy that she would learn, over time, from the mentor she didn't even know she had. It will be a blessing on her to teach her the art of politics, thought Winn with a smile. How else will she hoM her own with her chosen, First Minister $hakar? Sighing, her heart already starting to pound and her forehead already damp, Winn lay on her rack and tried to wet her lips. She was afraid her old body might not cooperate, keeping her awake despite her resolve, but the Prophets knew what They wanted. She blinked twice, and found herself standing again on Surface 92, the long, straight, Cardassian road leading from one world to the next. The dream started again ....

CHAPTER 12 THIRTY YEARS AGO Rlis! thought Sister Winn, as the column crested the last rise of Surface 92 before descending into the river valley that held the town. Riis, the mighty "hand" on the rolling Shakiristi River, where four other tributaries joined and swelled the Shakiristi to a three-kilometers-wide forearm thrusting between the Granite Prayers and Lakastor mountain ranges to the Cold Sea. Riis extended its fingers up each of the four tributaries and the thick Shakiristi itself, and downstream an additional kilometer, the wrist of Riis. The Riis docks handled more cargo than any other city west of the Granite Prayers, its spaceport often called the Palm of Bajor. But for all that activity, it was still a quiet, quaint old city corn-

pared to other industrial giants. There were suburbs but no urban centers, not as Sister Winn understood the term; jobs were plentiful, and the crime rate was noticeably lower than in the wild mining cities near where Winn had grown up. By a trick of the weather, a gentle breeze blew often across Riis, not only cooling the city but blowing away (into nearby North Riis il) the inevitable byproducts of an industrial civilization: smog and soot. (Once every few months, there was instead a stiff back-breeze from the north, sending the pollutants back where they came from redoubled; natives of Riis called such a wind "Riisil's Revenge.") Riis, Winn remembered, was said to have been founded three thousand years earlier, when a holy man named Kilikarri went fishing in the Shakiristi, cast his net, and miraculously caught not only a hundred fish but the third Scroll of Prophecy, written in jet-black letters on a golden parchment. The scroll was supposed to be on display in the vault of the Temple of the Emissary Kilikarri, but a newly minted sister was not likely to be admitted by the temple preceptors or the father vedek. As Gul Ragat's household descended into Riis, the sun was newly risen, bathing the slumbering city in a golden red glow through the cloud cover. A permanent rainbow arced across the Palm of Bajor as a gentle mist rose from the rapids; the mist fell as a drizzle, and when the corner of water reached the column, Sister Winn said a grateful prayer to the Prophets for their cooling touch--which she chose to interpret as a sign that she wasn't straying from her duty, that all would work out well, that she wouldn't end up accidentally betraying the Resistance and getting a whole cell captured. Surface 92 led directly into the outskirts of Riis, but there it ended abruptly where the jurisdiction of the Cardassia n civil engineers had run into the military jurisdiction of the governor of the prefecture. The caravan had made excellent time; it was barely two hours past sunrisemand still many hours before the actual planned time of the strike at the spaceport, which would come at sundown, just before the changing of the Cardassian sentries. The Prophets, thought Sister Winn, I hope will forgive me my lie to Gul Ragat.

The Shakiristi River was so important to Riis (and Riis to the river) that the city extended itself right into the water; many "streets" in Riis were waterways, plied by motorboats and even a few that were rowed. "Sidewalks" floated upon the water, making a journey by foot perilous through parts of the city, especially for priestesses who had never spent time on boats or at sea. The Cardassians on their skimmers (one pair riding double) were unaffected by the rocking, heaving sidewalks, of course, and even Gul Ragat seemed oblivious to the difficulty his Bajoran servants had; the household had to trot briskly to keep up with the impatient gul, and a maid and a skimmer mechanic slipped on the supposedly nonskid surface of a floating sidewalk and took an unexpected swim together. Hersaaka Toos, the Bajoran overseer, fished them out; Winn made sure neither was hurt before hurrying after her "master." The Heavenward Prayer Spaceport--now charmingly renamed Collection Point Onemstood not in the center of Riis but on the outskirts, dating from a time when space travel was unfamiliar and frightening to many Bajorans and the farmers demanded that rocket-based ships not fly over their land. Gul Ragat decided his mob would lurk in the town until close to the moment of the expected raid, so they wouldn't scare the "rebels" away. He stopped his limousine skimmer and stepped out to speak to Sister Winn. "You said the attack would come this morning... late morning. Before noon, surely?" The eagerness shone from his eyes; Gul Ragat was dazzled by visions of his own glory, his ascension to the full governorship--the youngest governor on Bajor!--and perhaps an early promotion to legate. Young though Winn felt, she knew she was older than the gul, and not just chronologically. "I said it may come as early as this morning, My Lord. They could easily hold off until the afternoon if there were problems, or even until nightfall, to take best advantage of the darkness." In fact, the raid was meticulously planned. "But please, My Lord... are you sure I'm doing the right thing? I feel so very like a--a betrayer!"

She stared anxiously at Gul Ragat and allowed him to reassure her that ratting out her own people was in fact the very best thing she could do. Can't appear too eager, she warned herself. The gul didn't look at her as he spoke; he stared around him at the people walking across the huge, floating merchants' square, probably wondering which of them was an agent of the Resistance. Sister Winn wondered the same; she was not from Riis, had been to Riis only twice, and knew none of the cell members or protocols--of course! The whole point of a cell structure was to minimize the damage if one should turn or be captured and tortured: what you didn't know, you couldn't spill, no matter what the reason. Gul Ragat was a child in a sweetshop, staring at everything with big round eyes. He had never before involved himself in the counter-Resistance, never felt the quickening of his pulse, the dizziness of anxiety, wondering whether he would give himself away and frighten the rebels away... or even be assassinated. Winn watched him openly, since he was not looking at her; he shrank suddenly into the shadows, drawing his coat closer about his shoulders, though the day was heating up with the rising sun. Gul Ragat had abruptly realized how vulnerable he was... a young gul with only sixteen guards in a city admittedly crawling with Resistance fighters! Winn felt a malignant presence behind her; turning, she saw Neemak Counselor. He pushed past her without a glance and approached the gul, speaking in low tones that she could not hear. She didn't need to; she knew what he was saying: he grew suspicious at the gul's behavior; the counselor desperately wanted to figure out what Ragat planned so Neemak could report it to his true superior. But the gul knew the game, at least in theory, and would keep his own counsel, even from his counselor. In Gul Ragat's fantasy, when the smoke cleared, who was to say that he hadn't simply been in the right place at the right time and shown proper, Cardassian initiative to thwart a damaging rebel attack? Winn, however, had her own designs. She eyeballed the square, watching citizens step aboard,

conduct their business, and step off. She, the gul, and Neemak hovered in the shadow of a teahouse that also served food, and the smell was almost holy after two days of traveler's rations. But Ragat was much too excited to think of eating, and it was not Winn's place to suggest it. In any event, she was intent upon finding someone she recognized and getting a message out somehow; the smell and the sizzle of breakfast was just a distraction. The Prophets finally heard the priestess's prayer. A young man--still a boy, actually--stepped across the gap between the floating sidewalk and the merchants' square; she recognized him as Barada Vai, whose older sister, Barada Mirina, was a prospect for Winn's own Resistance cell some months back. "Prospect" was probably too lofty a term; the priestess's ears reddened at the thought that the gift was more than likely an "anybody's," passed around from man to man in the cell. In any event, Sister Winn had met the Barada family, and •ai might well remember her; a visit from a sister or brother was an important social event in a traditional Bajoran family. But how can I talk to him without Ragat panicking? She stared hungrily at the boy, aware that she had only a few moments before he finished purchasing whatever he came to buy and hopped across to the sidewalk again. Thinkfast./she commanded. There is your brother, within an easy shout or a couple of long steps... do something/ It was as if the Prophets Themselves suddenly whispered into Winn's ear, so swiftly did the plan form. She gasped with the wonder of it, and the gul heard her, but that was fine, it fit well with the scheme. "My Lord," she whispered, "this is... this is dreadful!" "What is? What's happened?" The gul was already jumpy; now he grew quite agitated, worried that his opportunity might slip through his fingers. "That boy there... he's my brother!" "Your brother? Your real brother?" "My half brother on my father's side," said the priestess in agony, "and--and he must be working at the spaceport!" "The spaceport? Wait, didn't you know?"

She turned to the gul, trying as hard as she could to blanch. "No, no! How could I have known? I haven't seen him for three years! But he wrote to my father and told him he had gotten a job at a spaceport, for he's always wanted to be a pilot... but I didn't know where. But if he's here, at Riis, then he's--My Lord, he'll be directly in the line of fire! He may be killed! Oh master, I beg of you, spare this boy's life--he's no Resistance fighteft" "Hush!" ordered Ragat, aghast at her indiscretion. "Keep your voice down, I order you!" He looked fearfully where Neemak had been but a moment before, but the shifty counselor had slithered away, as he often did without asking leave. This time, as with many others, the gul looked relieved rather than affronted. "Please, My Lord, let me warn the boy... let him be away from that place when your lordship springs his surprise." "Sister Winn, you can't warn him of my trap! What can you be thinking? He'll run straight to the rebels, whether he's in the Resistance or not." "He won't!" Gul Ragat rolled his eyes. "Any Bajoran boy would." He considered a long moment; he liked to think of himself as a compassionate man, and Sister Winn was one of his favorites. "This far will I let you: you may tell some plausible lie to keep him away from his job for today, but we will work it out now, and you will not deviate from the script." He lowered his brows and tried to look menacing, a task quite easy for a Cardassian; his scowl shook Winn and scared her. "I would not like to have to arrest you on a charge of aiding the rebellion against rightful authority." She inclined her head submissively. "My Lord," she agreed. "Shall I... tell him you need him tom take holos of some event you're sponsoring? A banquet, perhaps?" "Yes, that might--wait, a party; my birthday party." "Is it your birthday, My Lord?" "No, there's no birthday, but there's no party, either! A perfect match. Yes, that will do. Let's go to him and get it over with; I don't like standing in the middle of the square attracting attention."

Winn had hoped to get a chance to talk to the boy alone, but that was a silly thought. For all that Gul Ragat thought of himself as a kind, gentle master, he was still a Cardassian untroubled by the thought of owning slaves. With so much at stake, he would not allow one slave to conspire with another outside his hearing! The pair approached Barada •ai, and Sister Winn attempted to feel as serene as she looked; like all priests, she had learned to wear the mask: it was necessary when comforting the dying, for example. But sometimes, the mask crept inward, and this was one of those times. With ever y step, Winn's certainty increased that the lad would not blow the game. "Barada Vai," said Ragat, "you recognize this woman, do you not?" Vai looked at Winn's habit, recognizing its clerical significance but no more. "A sister," he said uncertainly. Winn smiled broadly. "Has it been so long, my brother? You were so much younger when I left home, but I'm your sister, Winn. Didn't mother tell you I was to take holy orders?" Barada Vai froze for a moment; then the natural guile of yo uth took over, and he fell very naturally into the game, swiftly aware that they were playing a joke on a hated Cardassian. "Sis!" he cried, his entire face suddenly breaking into a grin. "I didn't recognize you..." "Vai-lak, you may trust this fine lo rd completely. He is truly a prince among Cardassians, a natural master, and he treats well those of us marked by nature to be subservient. He has an important task for you." Winn worried she might be laying it on a bit thick, but Ragat was too busy preening to realize what any other Bajoran would understand, that Winn was really saying: "Don't believe a word the son of a bachelor says!" She was about to explain about the holos, but Gul Ragat seized control of the conversation. "Lad, I have an important task for you. Your sister says you are handy with a holocam; I need holos taken of my birthday celebration today. You will return home and get your holocam, then run to..." The gul

trailed off, evidently not familiar enough with the floating city of Riis to suggest a location. "To the Hall of the Legion of Prophets," supplied Sister Winn smoothly; every large Bajoran city had one. "I'm sorry," added Ragat, "but you can't go to the spaceport today." "The--spaceport?" asked Ba rada •ai, suddenly puzzled. Winn interjected smoothly, confident the Prophets would whisper into the boy's ear. "Your job there is important, I know, but you cannot be there today. There is something much more important to do: the holos are important; the holos are very, very important. Much more important than whatever trivial task you perform at your job at the spaceport." She snuck a glance at Ragat to see if he had noticed the special emphasis she placed on the holos; he seemed thoughtful, and she felt a tendril of fear. But she pressed on; a priestess could not allow fear to override duty. Ragat took control of the conversation again; his tone indicated some distress, perhaps the intimation that something had been passed... but he could not place his bony, Cardassian finger on it. "Be at the, ah, Hall of the Legion of Prophets within the hour, and wait there until I or my men arrive. Do you understand the order?" "Yes, My Lord," said Barada •ai, all earnest eyes and nodding chin. Dismissed, he sped away, carrying Sister Winn's hopes with him. She had confidence that he would figure out at least the overt part of the warning: Don't go to the spaceport/was clear enough. If the boy had maintained his connections to the Resistance, he would promptly report the unusual command, even if he had no knowledge of the raid. But will he comprehend the second, deeper message? wondered the priestess. The words that had fretted at Gul Ragat, "the holos are very, very important," were the heart of Winn's own mission... which indeed was more important than a trivial raid on a spaceport. Sister Winn's holos, still lodged semisecurely in her trick boot heel, contained the key to Cardassian military codes, plans, and bases that would

lend solid effectiveness to the Resistance for years to come, if used cautiously. And everything now rested in the capricious understanding of a child barely past puberty whose connection with the movement was less than savory. Gul Ragat stepped away from the publicity of the floating market square toward the landed portion of Riis, there to resume his vigil for intelligence of the raid. He did not even glance back to see that Winn followed... which she did meekly, never having given cause for Cardassian offense. He seemed to have left off pondering the weight of her words about the holos; her cover, she decided, was still intact. For how much longer? wondered the priestess, having the first, faint intimations that she might be on her last mission, even if successful. If the Obsidian Order ever realized how they had been compromised, an investigation would commence the likes of which had rarely been seen on Bajor. The legate would probably be withdrawn; and chance encounters, recalled, such as Winn's brush with the guard in the code room. The priestess would have little in her future but a tortuous trial and torturous detention on Terok Nor, in the loving ministration of Gul Dukat, assuming she were allowed to live that long. She swallowed, stumbling on the heaving sidewalk behind her "master." The consolation would be the utter ruin of the young Gul Ragat before her and of his smug acceptance of his own superiority... and this time, Sister Winn did not even apologize to the Prophets for her uncharity! She still reveled in the image. PRESENT DAY Eyes downcast, trying his best to look humbled and shaken, Benjamin Sisko shuffled forward behind the abrasive and abusing Cardassian lieutenant, who had Sisko and the others in tow on a long rope. Not the usual arrangement, to be sure; there were no handcuffs or strength-sapping cerebroclamps on their heads. But still, the Cardassian sergeants at the gate of the landing zone braced to attention as the unrecognized but thoroughly Cardassian officer

passed them by, returning their salutes with nothing but an imperious snort. The sergeants did not look too closely at the motley prisoners-- Thank fortune! thought Sisko; if they had, they would have wondered what two humans, a Klingon, and a Ferengi of all people were doing on Sierra-Bravo. But the bored sentries saw only a Cardassian lieutenant dragging behind him four prizes of war, clothed and hooded like many other Natives. Why shouM they be alarmed and alert? thought the captain, the Defiant must already have left orbit--there is no reason to suspect there is anyone here but the Natives... if indeed, they truly are native. Ahead of Sisko, Quark began to grumble. "Did you have to tie our hands so tight, you sadistic thug?" he snarled. Cardassian Odo turned his head back. "What makes you think I tied anyone else's hands as tightly as I did yours, Quark?" Sisko couldn't see through Quark's hood, but he was sure the Ferengi was flushing pink with anger. They were lucky with the clothing. The hoods had come with the scouting backpacks, attached to parkas in case of rain. Chief O'Brien--now directly behind the captain and grumbling quite convincingly--cut the hoods off at the shoulders. Added to the replicated homespun they had worn since first beaming down to the surface, the hoods looked no more bizarre than the costumes of many other Natives, and of course, they hid Klingon, Ferengi, and even human features from prying eyes. Odo himself had suggested the ruse: he had been practicing shapeshifting to a Cardassian since DS9 was Terok Nor. His facial features hidden behind a mask, he could pass cursory muster as a "generic Cardassian." So long as they moved fast and the sentries were not particularly alert, there should be no alarm, thought Sisko. "Are we alone?" he whispered behind him; the column paused while the chief, shielded by the other "prisoners," scanned with his tricorder. "Besides the two we just passed and the other, there are eleven Drek'la in this structure, and I'm picking up electromagnetic leakage of the frequen-

cy used by several models of Cardassian skimmers." O'Brien put away the tricorder and nodded appreciatively to the captain. "You were right, sir; I think it's a vehicle pool." The structure was one of nine hastily erected buildings ranging from a small Quonset hut with sleeping arrangements for four to a large building emitting a stench that clearly marked it as a Cardassian mess hall. Sisko found the structure that was most centrally located. He couldn't see any vehicles from the angle they viewed, poking their heads over the last rocks of the hilly range against which the split- heads had carried them, but the empty bays he could see looked like loading docks. Captain Sisko made the intuitive leap that they would find skimmers in this building if they found them anywhere. They left their mounts grazing excitedly on the near side of the hills, chattering among themselves: evidently, the grass really was bluer on the other side of the desert, or so the herd decided. Ruut and Arrk chomped happily while the females cavorted; within seconds, the entire herd had utterly forgotten the "small- head Idiot" Quark and his own herd ... which is just fine with me, thought Sisko. The split- heads did not exactly go silent. Creeping down from the hills and cutting around a quarter circle to appear to come from the road, Odo, disguised as the Cardassian lieutenant, led the rest of the away team as prisoners past the sentries, another guard, and now the garage. Sisko looked around in wary satisfaction; the first stage had gone well, and they were in the building without raising alarm. "So we're in," he ventured. "Anybody have a plan now for getting us out?"

CHAPTER 13 "WORF, ODO, secure the corridor," said the captain, worrying that at any moment, some Drek'la might take it into his head to check out a skimmer and go cruising. The Klingon and constable parted, each taking position at the closest intersection in each direction. Sisko stood still and quiet in the

center, absently stroking his beard--/desperately need a trim, he noted--and pondering the undetected removal of a large skimmer from the compound. "Sir," said Chief O'Brien, interrupting Sisko's thought processes, "wouldn't it be better to leave thievery to a professional?" "How dare you!" exclaimed Quark, putting on Innocent Look Number Five. "Must I continually be insulted, when I've done every task required of me? Risen above and beyond the call of profit, even!" O'Brien smirked. "But you instantly knew who I meant, Quark. If the shoe fits, and all that." Suddenly realizing his vulnerable position, the Ferengl made a sour face and lapsed into awkward silence. He broke it himself after only a few seconds. "Well, actually," he muttered, "I do have a thought. Not through any experience in-- in theft, but simply because Ferengi businessmen are eternally resourceful and not hampered by useless codes of altruism or chivalry." "Or honesty," added the chief. "There's nothing more dangerous than an honest businessman," quoted Quark loftily. "Rule of Acquisition Number Twenty-Seven," said the captain, startling both disputants. "Now be quiet, Chief, and let the man have his say." Sisko nodded at the Ferengi, who snorted in O'Brien's direction and continued. "It occurred to me," said Quark, with a bitter glare in the direction of Odo, still shapeshifted into a Cardassian visage, "that the Cardassians would never believe that the--the Natives would have the initiative to steal a skimmer. They've obviously figured out how passive the Natives are about their technology, which is why the Cardassians are doing what they're doing." "True enough," said the captain; so far, Quark's reasoning was sound. "So if a skimmer, one skimmer, suddenly turned up missing, they might think first to a Drek'law until they located them all. And then, somebody would remember the Defiant and jump to the obvious conclusion." "That we had managed to beam an away team

down before the ship left," said Sisko, seeing where the Ferengi was leading. '~1 skimmer?" asked O'Brien. "You said if a skimmer, one skimmer went missing." "Exactly!" Quark smiled benignly as if complimenting a child on his first bit of profit earned. "If a whole batch of skimmers disappeared simultane ously, they would first suspect a bizarre computer malfunction." Sisko grinned broadly, enjoying the image. "If we were to reprogram the routing computers here in the hangar to generate spurious requests for transport and send out all the vehicles, the Cardassians might well think their problem was faulty electronics, not sabotage." O'Brien seemed none too pleased that Quark had, in fact, thought of a brilliant plan before the chief did, but he had to admit it would be spectacular, if nothing else. Sisko collected Worf and Odo and called them into a huddle. "Worf, you are familiar with Cardassian military-outpost layouts, aren't you?" "Of course I am," said the Klingon, sounding faintly offended that the captain would even have to ask. "Being Cardassian, I'm sure they follow a preset and unwavering plan." "I must admit, the enemy is a model of efficiency and order that the Federation could do well to study." "Lead us to the main transportation computer, Commander. Chief, you'd better start figuring out exactly what glitch you're going to program while we're en route; we won't have much time between security sweeps." As was usual in a Cardassian military facility, the corridors were straight, poorly lit by human standards, and scrupulously clean, smelling of ozone and disinfectant from the automated cleaning robots that periodically scuttled past. In case of surveillance, Sisko had Constable Odo lead the way and the rest of the away team act the part of despondent prisoners of war. Worf was directly behind the "Cardassian lieutenant," quietly giving directions.

The Klingon was competent as always, and the crew came to an interior door with markings that read "Transportation Communications Only" in Cardassian. The door was, of course, locked, but the chief began immediately to poke at the touchpad next to it. The door was flimsier than a permanent structure would be, but it was not so weak that they could force their way through... everything depended on Chief O'Brien. Captain Sisko began to count silent seconds as O'Brien worked; there was no way they could explain why a supposed prisoner was being allowed to try to open a locked door! But the captain had barely reached sixteen when the door slid open. "I bypassed the security protocol, " said O'Brien casually. "Don't know why any of us even bother," muttered the chief, half to himself. "Everybody in the whole, bloody quadrant seems able to bypass security codes in half a minute or less." "It keeps out teenaged joyriders," Sisko couldn't help responding. The computer room had the best environmental controls of the entire temporary structure, since Cardassian technology (as Chief O'Brien so often reminded the captain) was extraordinarily finicky. The room was maintained at a constant temperature that felt comfortable to Captain Sisko, which meant their hosts would probably have found it chilly. The computers themselves looked far more modern than the systems on Deep Space Nine-which made sense, as the Cardassians had built the station many years earlier. Looking quickly around the room, Sisko saw no permanent sentries, a stroke of good fortune he had anticipated: there was no reason for the invaders to expect to be invaded in turn, and sentries wasted watching an empty room could better serve harrying the population (and grabbing for themselves whatever technology they could lay their hands on). But there might be an occasional roving watchman; best to hurry with their task. "Chief," said Sisko, gesturing at the nearest coilsole. "Wait, don't tell me," said O'Brien. "You want me to bypass the security protocols?"

"If you have half a minute." The internal security must have been more complex than the door entry code; it took Chief O'Brien close to four minutes to find a path around the fire walls. But eventually, he announced he was in and began to enter his virus program. "Six skimmers," he said. "Two of them are the big, tenperson troop transports; the rest are personal cycles." O'Brien continued to work, teasing information out of the console on the fly; Sisko watched in rapt fascination, barely following the blur of coded query, response, and instruction. The man knew his work, no question! "The years you've spent on the former Terok Nor seem to have paid off," said the captain admiringly. O'Brien did not respond. "Worf," O'Brien asked a few moments later, "do you know where the vehicles are housed?" "We saw none in the south loading dock," said the commander. "They must all be at the north." "Good, because we've got three minutes to get to our ride." The chief stood abruptly, absurdly smoothing his rumpled, homespun disguise. Worf wasted no time. "Back out the door and turn right," he said to Odo, who once more took the actual lead. The Klingon hesitated only twice, but each time, Sisko's heart leapt up his throat. If the three minutes passed, and the computer ordered every vehicle to shove off on mysterious errands before the away team could get to the loading dock, the Federation visitors would be in serious trouble indeed; they might still make it out in the confusion, but the camp would be aroused. Left, right, through a doorway... then there was a footfall ahead of them along a corridor, and the captain grabbed at the nearest door. They hustled inside, Sisko waiting to be last, and only then did he realize he was in the pantry. Ordinarily, he would have waited until the sentry passed, but they had no time: risking the light from torches, Sisko silently pointed to the food stores and indicated every man to stock up. It was a timely serendipity; they were down to their last rationed meal of the food they brought with them on the mission. No, don't stop! shrieked Sisko inside his skull, as

the idiot guard loitered outside the door to the larder. Then an even more worrisome thought occurred: What if he decides he's hungry and opens the door for an illicit snack? But the guard grunted, slapped his belly loudly, and moved on down the corridor. His footsteps had barely faded when the captain threw open the door. There was no one to see them, and they were down to seconds on the time clock. "No time for stealth," said Sisko. "Run for it! Worf, take point." "Aye, aye, sir," said the commander, and set off up the replicated-steel hallway at a pace halfway between a jog and a sprint. Odo brought up the rear, still maintaining his Cardassian form--just in case. They reached the north loading dock. "Damn," said the chief, looking at his tricorder, "we've only got fifteen seconds!" "Which skimmer did you program for manual control?" demanded Captain Sisko, staring at the parked vehicles. "All, I picked Troop Transport Six," said O'Brien, staring around. "The others are all set to random courses that--" "No time! Find it!" Even as the captain gave the command, he realized it was unnecessary; there were only two skimmers large enough to be troop transports, and one of them was unmarked... probably the personal property of the gul or legate who was in charge of the invasion, a household vehicle rather than military issue. They bolted for the one with military markings, and Chief O'Brien madly pecked at the touchplate. "Damn it--damn it--damn it!" he swore. "Suddenly, I can't bypass a bloody door lock!" Odo pressed past the captain and yanked O'Brien away from the pad, just as the running lights illuminated and the engines started. Sisko stared at the constable's hand: Odo had turned it into a slim rectangle of plastic with a hook at one end. "Let me try something," mumbled Odo, pushing his shapechanged hand into the door crack, sliding it up, and pulling back. The door opened with a hiss as the troop transport rose slightly from the dock and began to edge out the open end

toward the other buildings of the compound. The away team leapt inside the moving vehicle; again, Sisko insisted on being last... and he found himself running full tilt alongside the accelerating skimmer, making a final, desperate leap at the portal. Odo extended his arms like tendrils and caught the captain, reeling him in like a ship in a tractor beam. The transport picked up speed, and the roar of wind past the open door became deafening; O'Brien, up in the cockpit and swearing like a drunken Klingon, finally found the right command to close it. At last, they could breathe easy; in the rear viewscreen, Sisko watched half a dozen vehicles shoot off in as many directions, followed after a moment by shouting Cardassians on foot, waving their arms and running after the skimmers in a futile attempt to make them turn back. Quark was staring at Odo. "If I had known you would need a SlikPik," grumped the Ferengi, "I would have brought one." "Oh?" drawled the constable. "And just where would you get such burglar's tools?" "I use it when I lock myself out of the bar," said Quark austerely. "Worf," said the captain, cutting off further rejoinder by Constable Odo, "you're Pilot in Charge. Chief, I want you to get busy with the sensors and find us a central power plant. It's time to put phase two of this mission into effect... call it Operation Blackout." Major Kira Nerys was on duty when the demand came, the first verbal contact they had received from the elusive attackers. Kira stared at the cryp tic figures that danced across her threat board; until the computer deciphered them, they had no idea what the aliens were trying to say--or even who they were. Still, even an unintelligible message conveyed information... at the least, the aliens were no longer sure of being able to overcome the station before help arrived. The major slapped her combadge. "Kira to Kai Winn," she said. "Yes, child?" asked a sleepy voice from the ether; the Kai had just gone to sleep an hour ago.

"They just sent us a message, probably a demand of some sort." "I shall be right down. Make no response." Kira shrugged; without knowing what the attackers asked, how could she make any response? It took Kai Winn two minutes to appear in Captain Sisko's "crow's nest," as Chief O'Brien sometimes called it; probably struggling to put the "serenity" mask back on, thought the major. During that time, the message from the attackers repeated twice. Winn said nothing, merely stood behind Kira and looked at the symbols crawling across the screen. The universal translator struggled, swapping out pieces of the message for jumbles of nonsensical words. The computer took its time, but finally, after an additional six minutes, it had a translation. The words began as "idea sets" in small boxes here and there about the screen, then connector words, refinements, and corrections; abruptly, having gotten the hang of the alien language, the entire message flickered then disappeared, the complete translation replacing it. We are the Liberated... Survival is the universal right... You are overmatched and must surrender... You may ultimately keep the enclosed environment but you must pay for your liberty as we paid for ours... We require the Portable-FarSeeing-Anomaly as our price to restore your enclosed environment... You must respond within two hours fourteen minutes, thirty-eight point nine one nine one seconds. Why such a bizarre deadline? thought Kira, mo mentarily puzzled; she rolled her eyes in exasperation at herself when she realized it was obviously the computer's translation of some "round" number in the aliens' language, probably expressed as vibrations of a helium nucleus or some equally universal unit. "The Liberated," mused the Kai. "Liberated from what, I wonder?" "They... came from the Gamma Quadrant," suggested Kira.

"Liberated from the Dominion, child?" Kira shrugged. "They certainly have some Dominionlike technology, but they're significant for what they don't have: they haven't beamed anyone out through shields, and they're not using standard Dominion disruptors." Kira winced, eyes dry and painful from staring unblinking at the viewer; she rubbed them. "If they are escaped Dominion subjects who stole vessels, it makes sense that they might not be as well equipped as the Jem'Hadar warships... thank the Prophets!" "If they had come from one of the known Dominion fleets," the Kai pointed out, "they would have come past the Federation-Klingon force in the Gamma Quadrant." "Which still fits the theory, my Kai: escaped slaves would go out of their way to avoid the Jem'Hadar fleets. So what," she asked, turning to the practical, "what are they asking for? What is this 'Portable-Far-Seeing-Anomaly'?" "I have somewhat of an idea, my child," said Kai Winn softly, "but I dare not say anything until we know what they know, and what they only suspect from distant rumor." She fumbled for her combadge, then spoke sharply: "Computer! Begin recording response to the... the Liberated. "Blessed are you and all others before the Prophets," said Winn. "We are a peaceful people. We too are recently liberated from captors. We must understand further what you mean by the PortableFar-Seeing-Anomaly. Please clarify. We thank you for recognizing our right to survival, and we shall recognize yours. You may depart in peace. We look forward to better communications, understanding, and trade." The Kai nodded, and the computer responded that the message was recorded. "Trans late and send it to the ship," she ordered the computer. "That was clever," said Kira grudgingly, "turning around their line about survival. The 'enclosed environment' is obviously a reference to Deep--to Emissary's Sanctuary." "So I deduced, child. And I think I know what they want." The Portable-Far-Seeing-Anomaly? "You're wis er than I," she admitted.

"Of course," said Kai Winn offhandedly. "Nami, while we parley, the Liberated are going to try another assault on the station." "We shall be ready," said the captain of the strike team running Ops; a Resistance cell! realized Kira in amazement; the remnant of a cell that Kai Winn had operated during the Occupation? "Perhaps," said Winn, so quietly that only Kira may have heard her. She sat calmly, irritatingly, in the cha ir that still cried for Captain Sisko; Winn rested prim hands on proper knees and smiled serenely at the forward viewer, waiting for the reply from the Liberated. Kira felt like a fifth leg on a filipis mount. "Nami, is the package ready?" "Not yet, my Kai," said the tall, grim- faced gunner captain. "It will be brought to your quarters when it's finished." Winn nodded, understanding the conversation even if Kira hadn't a clue. "Major," said the Kai, startling the executive officer from her reverie, "shouldn't you take personal charge of the militia? That seems a fit task for my second- in-command." Major Kira brightened; roaming the station under arms would be a welcome distraction from the gears within gears of the Kai's ambassadorial intrigues. At least it was clean, and Kira knew just what to do! "At once, my Kai," she replied, and mounted the turbolift before Winn could change her mind. The village was a charnal house. Julian Bashir wanted to throw himself to the ground screaming, cover his eyes, and especially block out the stench from several hundred dead bodies left unburied under a hot, white sun... three hundred and fortyfour dead bodies, to be precise, he thought in gory detail. The medical tricorder shook in his hands, but he suppressed all other reactions; he was a doctor, and this was a medical situation. Sort of. Jadzia had no such rock to cling to; she wrapped her arms around herself and stared at mass homicide, face pale and neck-spots bone white. Gone was the easy banter; three hundred and forty- four massacred innocents shocked even her ancient memory. "They're all dead?" she asked, voice trembling slightly.

"By now, there are no survivors," he answered, professionally reassuring without even thinking about it. "By now? You mean ... there were survivors, but they starved or bled to death?" Julian didn't answer. Having found no higher life- forms, he searched for genetic scrapings of Cardassians and Drek'la, finding them in abundance. "Julian. Don't you see what this is? They're slaughtering the Natives all over the planet, just like the Tiffnaki village!" Her voice turned icy. "You forget. I watched this once." She stared so hard at Julian, he actually felt her eyes on his flushed cheeks; he was drawn to look at her even against his will. "'A time to kill,'" she quoted, "'and a time to heal.' It's time to fight back, Julian. For doctors as well as soldiers." He swallowed, recognizing the chime of truth. Still, Julian Bashir, man of adve nture, was still a man of medicine, and it took much, much to turn him into a man of war. "I have fought before," he said guardedly. Jadzia stared at him with a cold gaze he recognized with a shock as being more of Worf than Dax; he bit his lip painfully, then recalled that she was blood brother to several Klingon warriors of the old school when "she" was a he, Curzon Dax. Jadzia did not see that tie as dissolved, even a death and another life later; there was good reason that Commander Worf accepted her as his equal in matters Klingon. She spoke almost too softly for him to hear; she sounded reverent, as if she were in a temple instead of an abattoir. "Think of it as triage, Julian. The only way to stop the slaughter is to seize the Cardassians's attention. And I know only one way for sure to do that." The doctor closed his eyes, but the smell was even more powerful than the sight: the corpses had lain for some time in the sun with no stasis, no refrigeration. Triage; letting some die that others might live. It was always the most horrific part of being a doctor, especially a frontier doctor; it was a task he had flied many times, and he still had nightmares about it.

"All right, Jadzia; you win. You want to attack the Cardassians and get them searching for saboteurs instead of slaughtering Natives... you're right. I'll do it." He swallowed, feeling a lump where his gorge had risen. Dax smiled disturbingly and said something in Klingon, which Julian's universal translator implant rendered as, "We shall drink of his blood and sup on his brains." It sounded like a typical Klingon aphorism. "There's a weapon storage on the skimmer," she added. "I already checked. Four fully powered disrup tors. We'll head back toward the Tiffnaki village, then track the away team's scent using our tricorders. But the first Cardassian encampment we find..." She looked to the bodies at her feet, curling her lip in revulsion. "Aye, aye, sir," said Bashir coldly, leaving no doubt on whose head the responsibility would lie. 0 CHAPTER 14 CHIEF MILES EDWARD O'BRIEN shifted his attention between two types of Cardassian sensors, both tuned to detect power broadcasts across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, as well as any subspace transmissions below the communications spectrum. Neither sensor gave very accurate readings; they had already overflown two false alarms, and Worf was beginning to grumble about "incompetence." O'Brien wasn't quite sure whether the Klingon pilot meant Cardassian incompetence or O'Brien's. "Are you certain this time that you have located a power generator?" demanded the commander. "I do not wish to see yet another relay station." "No, Worf, I'm not certain! I didn't design this bloody planet, or these piles of rubbish the Cardassians use for sensors." Worf spoke through clenched teeth, manifestly refusing to look at the chief as he spoke. "Must I remind you that the longer we stay aloft hunting for the generators, the more chance we will be spotted and shot down."

"You don't have to remind me, sir. What do you want me to do, rebuild the bloody things?" NOW he turns to look at me/"Yes," said the Klingon, "that is an excellent idea." Sighing in exasperation, Chief O'Brien dropped to hands and knees and pried open the circuitsystem cover. The design was a mess, as usual, no better than the spaghetti wiring of Deep Space Ninerebut no worse, either. Given time, O'Brien decided he could probably rebuild the Cardassian sensor into something closer to the Federation standard. The question was mooted, however, when a deep voice behind the cockpit pair exclaimed, "There it is, gentlemen. I will stake my command that that is a full power generator." O'Brien looked back over his shoulder at the captain, then turned to see what Sisko was looking at; the chief saw a huge, domed structure lying low to the ground, flat blackmnot the black of paint or natural stone but the luminous abyss of a powerful force shield. O'Brien stared, open mouthed; the generator, if that's what it was, was ten times the size of the main Federation shipyards in Earth orbit! "We're not cutting through that," he breathed, watching the shield strength indicator slide off the scale. Then he brightened. "On the other hand, we may not have to... there are two-score power relays surrounding the central plant, and that means there might be power conduits connecting them." He pointed to a number of smaller structures, each boasting a monstrous, black antenna, each a microwave "hot point" beaming tight bursts of electromagnetic energy toward distant relays en route to blanketing some portion of Sierra-Bravo. "Captain," said Worf preemptorally, "where should we put down?" If Captain Sisko was about to answer, he never got the chance. Every instrument on the control panel lit up like a supernova, and before O'Brien could shout a warning, the skimmer screamed like a terrified child, the metal rending apart under assault from some terror weapon that behaved nothing like a clean disruptor or phaser! O'Brien felt the impact like a blow to the back of his neck, and he fell from his chair, stunned and

dizzy. Everyone else was thrown to the deck, yet somehow Worf managed to keep his seat. The chief's arms still buzzed with the angry bees of severe electrical shock, and he saw Worf's hands shaking violently... but the Klingon drew upon reserves deep within his case-hardened DNA to fight through floccillation for control of the ship. Worf howled like a savage, as if he had forgotten the use of speech--but not how to control a Cardassian skimmer! The commander shook and jerked spasmotically, and the ship rolled and yawed, dipping in sudden, nauseating drops, but it remained intact and crept ever closer to the ground. Thank God for lousy Cardassian technology! prayed the chiefi a so-sophisticated Federation runabout would probably have splintered into a hundred shards, the delicate electrocolloidal field systems melted into slag by the focused electromagnetic beam that (O'Brien was convinced) had just slugged the skimmer... must've just passed through one of the damned microwave power relays, he guessed--the analytic portion of his mind still working through the terror at the impending crash. "Grabmsomethingmsolid!" Worf managed to articulate; the chief tried to respond, but the words would not come; he could only moan in frustration and wrap his arms around a cargo net built into the bulkhead. Sick to his stomach, head spinning, he closed his eyes and just wished everything would be over, one way as good as another. Death was preferable to the way he felt at that moment! The shock of the "landing," if one could use the term for a partially controlled crash, was nearly as bad as the shock that had damaged their skimmer. Worf ploughed a long furrow in the dirt, kicking up twin rooster tails behind the vehicle as it skidded to a long-delayed halt against one of the power relay stations. Exhausted, Worf finally succumbed to the electrocution; he half rose, then fell to the deck, clutching his stomach. After an indeterminate time interval, someone helped the semiconscious chief to a sitting position, back against one bulkhead. It was Constable Odo, who had pulled himself together quicker than anyone else. O'Brien looked around the cabin,

blinking at the terrifically bright light that slowly dimmed as his dilated pupils contracted to their normal diameter. Quark was holding his ears and complaining volubly to no one, since no one was listening; Captain Sisko was sitting quietly, observing without speaking; and Worf was already climbing painfully to unsteady feet. Chief O'Brien was the last to recover speech, but thereafter he recovered quickly. "Here would be fine for a landing, Worf," said the captain dryly. The Klingon let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. "Is anybody injured?" asked Sisko. A small, terrified voice spoke up: "By thereby the Great Accountant... I've lost the will to turn a profit!" Quark's eyes were nearly as huge as his lobes. "Well," said Odo, "it seems even the darkest cloud has its latinum lining." "I'm serious? wailed the Ferengi; "I must have received a head injury... I feel overwhelmed by gratitude merely to be alive--I feel like giving away all my possessions to the nearest beggar in grateful thanksgiving!" "Feel his head," suggested Woff. "So our Ferengi felon has converted to a Bajoran saint," said the constable in disgust. "Do you expect us to believe that, Quark?" "I don't care what you believe," grumbled the Ferengi, struggling to his feet and massaging his lobes. "I'm seriously injured. I need medical attention," O'Brien stood, shaking each limb in succession; nothing felt broken. "I think I'm all right," he said. Captain Sisko nodded in a distracted fashion, which annoyed the chief. "If you don't mind," he said stiffly, "I'll pop out and check the damage on the skimmer." Sisko waved without looking round, still intent upon the navigational panels, which were sparking like a Bajoran fireworks show. O'Brien pressed the recessing door button, and the door ground slowly open, shrieking horribly but still working. He blinked in the brightness, shielding his eyes from the glare off the power relay; wishing he had polarizing lenses, he shaded his eyes and did a fast walk-around. The skimmer was

in better shape than he had imagin ed; the hull could take some repairs, but it looked like it would hold together... though a microscan with a tricorder was in order to look for stress fractures invisible to the naked eye. The nose array was snapped off, but Chief O'Brien found it a few meters away; it could be reattached. His biggest fret was the starboard engine, which had a split turbine; the turbine was not strictly necessary for operation, but without it, the engine would overheat. We'll have to be careful, not take too long a fiight; O'Brien made a mental note to move some of the heat sensors to the broken engine for constant monitoring. He returned to the cabin. "Overall, it's still flyable on the outside, sir," the chief reported. "Will you let me take a look at the forward panel, if you're all through playing with it?" "Do you smell something sweet?" asked Quark, sniffing and looking around the cabin. "The panel is nonoperational," rumbled Worf. "If you don't mind?" Not waiting for an answer, the chief pushed past the Klingon and stuck his head into the access port. He saw the problem immediately: the control transports had shorted against the fire wall on impact... it happened often enough on Deep Space Nine after minor shocks from weapons fire or even a hard docking. Gingerly, he pulled the metallic wires from the metal wall. "You just have to get used to the primitive circuitry," he explained, not sure whether anyone could even hear him. "The Cardassians don't always use fiberoptics... sometimes they use copper wiring. There, that should do it," he said, climbing back out from the hood. Nothing happened; the board remained dark. The stench of ozone filled O'Brien's nostrils. Frowning, he kicked the front panel sharply, and the navlights flickered once, then came back on. "There." "Impressive," said Sisko, leaning close; Odo and Worf stared at the operational control panel in puzzlement and annoyance, respectively. The chie f looked around. "Say, where's Quark got to?" That woke up the constable, who swiveled his head around like a bird, then darted out the open

door. "Miserable little miscreant always disa--!" "Leave the panel hot," said the captain. "Let's follow Quark and his keeper and see how, exactly, we can get inside this power plant." Outside, O'Brien squinted against the brightness, turning until he saw the silhouette of Constable Odo. Approaching, the chief saw Odo squatting down, yanking on some large object that appeared bolted or otherwise stuck to the ground. Nearer, he could hear the object bellowing with a Ferengi voice he knew far too well. "I can smell it! I can smell it! Can't you?" Quark had attached himself by hands and feet both to a metal trap in the earth; try as he might, the constable could not wrench him away. "Odo, Quark, please!" commanded Captain Sisko; Odo stood and shifted away, looking surly, though it could have been the glare in O'Brien's eyes. "Now, Quark," continued Sisko, "what are you doing down there?" Quark turned back to the rest of the team, insane, staring eyes burning like the top of the power relay tower. "There's LATINUM here!" he shouted, like a Bajoran enthusiast praying to the Prophets for deliverance from the world. "I can feel it." "Well," said Odo, "that heartfelt conversion didn't last long." "Glad to see you're feeling better," said the captain with a straight face. He turned to O'Brien. "Chief, am I mistaken? Or does latinum make a damned good insulator? I mean for am" "A power conduit," finished Chief O'Brien, grinning. "Yes, sir. I mean, no sir, you're not wrong. What say we pop the lid and see what our friend has been smelling?" The lid was a metallic grating, oval, solid, and very, very massive. None of the team could get a grip on it except Constable Odo, who turned his hands into suction cups; but even he couldn't lift it, not even with Worf tugging on one arm and Sisko and O'Brien on the other. They pondered the dilemma; the damned thing must weigh a couple of tonst calculated the chief. Then he rolled his eyes in exasperation at his

own stupidity. "Oh, for the love of... !" He dug into his pocket and extracted the small handful of toys that he had taken off the Terrors of Tiffnaki at the captain's orders; sifting through, he found the one he wanted and slid the rest back to their pocket. "Allow me," he said, and with a flourish, pointed the antigravity beam at the gigantic manhole. He raised it with ease, placing it gently onto the ground nearby... a much more satisfactory conclusion than the last time they had used antigray to levitate Arrk the split- head. Quark was first to the pit, folding himself double to stuff his head inside the tunnel. The Ferengi started shouting so excitedly and waving his arms that he toppled over the lip before anyone could grab him. The captain tilted his head at the open hole. "O'Brien," was all he said. The chief of operations sat on the hole, looked down, and lightly dropped inside. Quark was on his hands and knees, trembling like a young Irish lad peeping through the bedroom window of the colleen next door. The Ferengi spoke slowly and huskily: "The walls--and floor--and ceiling are lined--with pure latinurn." Quark turned to look back at O'Brien, and his beady, Ferengi eyes were glazed over. "Not gold -pressed latinum. Not latinurn plated. Pure--latinum contained in veinlike wires!" Then Quark giggled. Chief O'Brien unslung his tricorder and swept the long, tubelike corridor. "The power potential is off the scale," he called up to the captain. "If this were an EM field instead of a Pauli potential field, we'd both be fried to a crisp." He shut off the tricorder, nervous that the probing sensor beam might accidentally collapse a state vector and bring the potential field into incinerating reality. "I'd say we found what we were looking for, sir." Captain Sisko followed his two team members, then Constable Odo (unhappy at Quark being out of sight for even a moment), finally Worf bringing up rear guard. Everyone but the Ferengi had to crouch in the low conduit; Worf worked himself around so he was facing backwards, away from the main power plant, where the conduit extended an

additional fifty meters, for "kinetic-resonance echoing," according to O'Brien--whatever the hell THAT is! The Klingon would have to walk backward to keep up with them, but it allowed him to cover their exit. This whole thing is spooky, thought the captain as they scrunched along the conduit toward the heart of a reactor big enough, according to O'Brien's tricorder, to power six stations the size of Deep Space Nine... or Emissary's Sanctuary, as it was now, and probably would remain being, called. The cold echoes of boot steps on the latinum flooring did indeed resonate up and down the power conduit, rattling Sisko's skull and shaking loose stray thoughts and random memories: he felt a terrible pang of unexpected regret leaving the station behind; if--when!--the Defiant returned and the crew drove away the Cardassians from Sierra-Bravo, Benjamin Sisko would be taken back not to the station that had been his home for five years, but to a new command, a new assignment. Probably a ship tour, he thought, since the station counts as an out-of sequence shore tour. But that was only speculation; for all the captain knew, he could end up chief administrator of another starbase, or teaching classes at the Academy, or even serving four years in the hallowed halls of Starfleet Command, trailing after some old admiral, wiping the man's chin when he drooled. In the grand scheme of Starfleet, a low-seniority captain was not a very high rank at all. No one except Sisko's detailer would even ask his preference, and the "needs of the service" would take precedence anyway. As they did five years ago, after Jennifer died, he recalled; the only thing he had wanted after that Borg attack was to resign and spend the rest of his life in morbid self-pity. Trouble--Quark looked almost mesmerized by all the pure latinum surrounding him... though on Sierra-Bravo, latinurn was as commonplace as iron on Earth. But the greedy, little Ferengi was trembling like a fevered patient, plucking at the bulkheads, the overhead, a man caught in a dream that was rapidly turning nightmarish: there was nothing Quark could do! He had to close his eyes to profit like no Ferengi had ever seen and forget all

about Sierra-Bravo. Whatever he saw, whether raw resources or prime technology, belonged to the Natives... not to the Cardassians, the Federation, or to Quark. But every membrane in his lobes must have been screaming at him to plot, scheme, do anything to get his hands on that profit! Quark could be near to breaking; more than religion, the Ferengi pursuit of profit was close to a biological compulsion. Quark fought it with as much agony as Odo fighting to remain solid day after day: sooner or later, realized Sisko, he'll break again... as he had twice before on the mission. And Odo isn't helping, thought the captain, frowning; the constable was being particularly obtuse, riding Quark harder, if anything, than he did back on the station. Perhaps a candid talk was in order, but Captain Sisko did not look forward to that duty. The shapeshifter could be remarkably touchy and adamant in his administration of "justice." Sisko banged his head, only then noticing that the conduit was narrowing as they approached the reactor. "Worf, duck lower," he called back over his shoulder. The only light was the sharp, bluish glow from Quark's chemical glowtubes and the shaky beams from the hand torches carried by the rest of the team. Sisko felt a sudden, horrible sensation of claustrophobia; the walls were merely narrowing, but his mind insisted they were squeezing tight as he watched them! A clutching compulsion to turn around and claw madly back the way he had come swept through the captain; only the even stronger fear of humiliation and loss of command respect stopped him... that and the fact that he probably couldn't turn around now even if he wanted; the conduit was too narrow. The feeling subsided but didn't abate entirely. Captain Sisko gave no outward sign; if command had taught him one great lesson, it was that life imitates artifice: pretend courage and confidence, and soon you feel them for real. Past Quark and O'Brien, Sisko saw a grating that incorporated both latinum mesh and some sort of energy cobweb. "It's behind that," said the chief, nodding at the grate.

"And if we opened a hole in that mesh?" "It would be like opening up a window into the core of a star," was the crisp and very visual reply. CHAPTER 15 SISKO STARED for a long moment. One by one, though no command was given, the teammates turned off their lights, leaving only the cobalt blue of Quark's chemical light and the yellow glow of the latinurn energy mesh. Bizarre, curved lines of bright light played across the faces of the away team as Sisko looked at each one in turn: ionized plasma trails from subatomic particles fleeing the horrific maelstrom of creation-destruction within the power generator, Shiva and Krishna waltzing to quantum pipes. "If we blew a sudden hole," he mused, "I wonder whether they'd see the flare all the way to the Cardassian camp?" "I'd say," responded O'Brien, "it would light up the sky, for certain. A disruptor set to overload, do you think?" Sisko stared at the grating, visualizing what it held back on the other side. "Doubtful. A disruptor overload would be a drop in the proverbial bucket." "You're probably right, sir." O'Brien closed his eyes, thinking out loud. "The grating must convert actual energy to quantum potential; no physical cable or energy field could transport that much energy without melting. Then the relays convert it back to broadcast power, stepping it down enough that all those pretty toys can use it." "And were does all this analysis get us, Chief?" O'Brien shrugged, still at a loss. Quark softly cleared his throat; when the captain and operations chief fell silent to look at the greentinted Ferengi, he looked almost embarrassed. "I, ah, notice there's an access hatch in the center of the latinurn grating." "It can't be opened while the reactor is hot," explained O'Brien. "It was used when the reactor was designed--probably seven million years ago, assuming the planet was powered up when the buildings were built, if Commander Dax got it

right." "Why can't we open it?" Quark persisted. "Because it's designed that way!" snapped the chief. "There's no reason to open it then... unless you're planning to blow it up." He looked at Captain Sisko. "That is a proble m," admitted Sisko. "Ideally, we don't want to destroy it, just shut it down for a while." "Well, if we blow this reactor the power surge will trip the equivalent of circuit breakers throughout the planetary grid. We'd have to turn the power back on manually, but that's simple enough. Even the Natives could do it." "If you two are through interrupting," said Quark, "I do have an idea." Behind them, Odo snorted. "If Quark wants to contribute an idea, I'd recommend the rest of us sit on him until the feeling passes." "I'll ignore the comments from the small- head seats. Are you interested in blowing this reactor or not?" Sisko considered. "Well, let's hear your idea at least," he reluctantly decreed. Quark grinned, as if closin g a deal to bankrupt an enemy, and rubbed his hands gleefully; he appeared to be enjoying his new role as saboteur. His face looked almost demonic in the hellish, green glow from his chemical light. "They designed this panel to resist all the force and pressure on the other side. So it seems to me," he drawled, "that exerting a tremendous force on this side might blow the hatch inward." "We've already thought about a disruptor on overload, Quark," said the captain, wondering what the Ferengi was driving at. "It wouldn't be enough force." "No, probably not." Quark showed his needlesharp, uneven, snaggly teeth. "But how about the force beam projector? It was powerful enough to flatten a kilometer of swamp. If we braced it at the back of the tunnel there, pointing toward the hatch--" O'Brien interrupted derisively. "And are you volunteering to stay here and operate it while the reactor blows?"

"Captain Sisko, I'm sure the chief here can rig up a remote control to operate the thumbslide." Odo weighed in: "I hate to admit it, but this is basically an exercise in safecracking. Our felonious team member is in his element; he might have something here." Sisko thought for a long moment; he couldn't delude himself about the enormity of what he contemplated. But he had time; it would take O'Brien an hour or more to rig the remote control, even with Quark's help. Especially with Quark's interfering help, thought the captain gratefully. "Chief, begin to construct the trigger; Q uark, it's your idea... be the chiefs assistant." "But Captain!" protested both simultaneously; each paused and glared suspiciously at the other. "Go, both of you. I must meditate for a while. Odo, Commander, come with me." Sisko began to back away from the pair up front; looking back over his shoulder, he saw that Odo had contrived to turn aroundmeasier when one is a shapeshifter!m leaving the captain as the only person creeping backward toward the shaft leading up. There, the mouth widened, and Sisko was able to squirm around in the cramped, tomb-smelling tunnel. In the light from the open hole above them, they once again turned off their hand torches. The sun was sinking, and the giddy, copper glow painted all three an unpleasant, sickly yellow. Odo and Worf waited patiently for the captain to begin. "What we contemplate," commenced Sisko, "is nothing short of a complete abandonment of the Prime Directive." "Fighting the Cardassians is perfectly proper," countered Worf. "They don't belong here either." "But now we're talking about taking down the main power reactors for the entire planet? Odo said. Sisko held up his hand, and both men fell silent, recognizing that the captain would make the decision. There would be no vote; Benjamin Sisko wanted to hear both arguments framed, but he was the only judge. He, alone, would bear responsibility before a general court- martial, if it came to that; in a survival situation such as this, Starfleet would agree that the only course for his subordinates was

to obey orders without demur. A survival situation... A tiny candle flame of an idea flickered in Sisko's mind; he closed his eyes, tried to think of nothing, allowing it to catch and burn bright enough to be seen and felt. When there is no moral option, he thought, then there is no truly immoral choice. The spirit of the Prime Directire would be violated just as surely by doing nothing and allowing the Cardassians to take over; may as well be hanged for a cow as a sheep, thought the captain with a sardonic smile. And James Kirk had faced this choice many times in his career, and had done what was necessary. "We will continue and destroy the reactor," said Sisko. Odo said nothing; he looked as though he had expected the decision would go against his position. "I will stand and fight with you before the admiralty," pledged Worf without a hint of amusement. "I'm sure they'll be duly impressed, Commander." The captain allowed no trace of sarcasm to taint his own words. "But perhaps it will be better, when it comes to that, if you let me do my own talking." When Chief O'Brien had done with the remote switchmand a fine job it is, too, he thought to himself-- he backed up until he reached the shaft of light, turned around, and squeezed past the captain to the opposite end of the tunnel. There, O'Brien wedged the force beam projector into a shallow groove that would hold it steady. He turned it on, to the lowest setting. "Quark!" he called, "get back down the tunnel and plant yourself directly in front of the hatch." "What? Why?" The Ferengi sounded nervous... as well he might, considering what maelstrom was behind the mesh wall. "Just do it! I need to align this thing, or we won't get anything but a dented wall." "But why do I have to..." Quark's voice trailed off as light suddenly dawned in his devious, Ferengi brain. "You want to align it on me? You're insane! I won't do it!" "It's perfectly safe, Quark; it's on the lowest

setting. It's not going to blow the door prematurely." "I'm not standing next to that hatch while you point that thing at it!" O'Brien made the obvious point. "You really think you'd be any less dead if you stay where you are, and the hatch blows?" Quark scowled, considering the violence of the expected explosion. "I think I'll take a stroll topside, stretch my legs a bit." Odo had his own observation: "You might have a hard time getting past me, Quark, and if you did, you'd only have to get past Commander Worf, as well. Now why don't you do what you're told, for once in your life?" Sullenly, Quark hunched low and began to wriggle down the tunnel, grumbling every step of the way. The Ferengi reached the hatch; he turned and sat gingerly. He looked pale and greenish, but it might have been from the chemical glowtube he still carried, which was starting to dim as the reaction died down. "Tell me when you feel a force right on your chest," said the chief, turning the force beam projector agonizingly slowly. It took a solid ten minutes to get it set exactly where Chief O'Brien wanted it: directly over the keyhole latch, the weakest spot on the hatch. "I'm giving us fifteen minutes," said O'Brien dearly. He set the timer to nine hundred seconds and pressed the arm switch, then the activatecountdown thumb pad. He watched it count down to 899, 898, and 897, then rose and suggested, "Let's get the hell out of here, if you don't mind." Worf was nearest the ladder, and he climbed swiftly but without apparent haste. Odo went next, then Quark. Captain Sisko had stepped to the ladder to shout at Worf, so O'Brien pushed up behind him; the chief had won the honor of being last man out. Sisko scurried up the ladder, still too slow for the frantic Chief O'Brien. Fifteen minutes! Why not a half hour, or two hours? Odo spun his head around backward disconcert~ ingly. "Why did you set the timer for only fifteen minutes?" demanded the constable, eerily echoing

O'Brien's own thoughts. They bolted to the skimmer, where Worf yanked the door open so hard that O'Brien was momentarily worried the commander would rip it off its hinges. They piled in like a slapstick holoplay. The chief tried to push to the front to fire up the engines, but first Quark, then Odo, then Sisko himself got in the way. By the time O'Brien reached the front panel, he was swearing like a drunken Academy scrub on first liberty. The navigation and engine -start panel, which they had left hot, was off again. His running commentary of oaths dissolving into halfformulated slurs against Cardassians, O'Brien kicked it again; this time, there was no effect. A second, harder kick also failed to shake loose whatever short circuit had killed the power. "Perhaps I should try," said Worf with barely concealed animosity. "No, no!" shouted O'Brien, holding up his hands; the Klingon was still brooding about getting stuck and almost killing everyone. He'd probably kick a ragged hole right through the forward hul# A tiny shape pushed up beside the chief, ducking under O'Brien's groping arms like an annoying child. "Allow me, Chief," said Quark. He was probably trying to be soothing, but his Ferengi sarcasm dribbled through, and O'Brien felt a momentary urge to give Quark's gigantic, pink, hairless skull a left hook that would send the Ferengi reeling into an already furious Worf. The chief mastered his impulse. "Quark! Get out of there! What the hell do you know about Cardassian engineering or--" The navigation lights lit up all at once, the power-start switch blinking temptingly. Chief O'Brien fell silent, feeling his face flush with humiliation. "Nothing," said Quark, "but I do know somewhat about Cardassian security systems. They must have unscrambled the computer back at the depot and sent a general recall order to all the skimmers we stole." The Ferengi pulled a piece of equipment from under the hood of the console, where he'd been fiddling, and dropped it into O'Brien's outstretched hand; it was a logic circuit

with a receiver attached... the chief himself made use of the same devices on the station to manipulate control systems directly on the numerous occasions when the station's Cardassian autonomic computer would go off- line. "Since we had the parking brake set, the skimmer shut off instead." "Can we get started now, Chief O'Brien?" snapped Worf; he sounded somewhat mollified, now that Quark had taken the focus off of the Klingon. Irked and chagrined, O'Brien tapped rapidly on the console, initiating the electron flow and the positronic counterflow, adjusting the contour map, and finally starting the engines. The repairs they needed could certainly wait until they got away from Ground Zero. "It's all yours, sir," he said to Worf. Without a word, the Klingon boosted the power to maximum and lifted the shaky, hard-to-control skimmer a few meters off the ground and started it moving-slowly at first, so that O'Brien writhed in his chair, looking back over his shoulder as if his eyes could bore through the rear hull and watch the power plant (though it would be a terrible idea even if it were possible; anybody watching the plant with naked eyes from nearby when it exploded would be blinded, perhaps permanently). Now Odo crowded the nose of the skimmer, leaving only the captain back in the troop seats. "Commander, can't you get this thing any higher?" demanded the constable. "It is better to stay low," said Worf. "The blast will be directed primarily upward. Now please return to your seats, both of you! I am tired of having to compensate for your unbalanced weights in the hand controls." Reluctantly, they slithered away back to rejoin Captain Sisko. "Better strap yourselves in," warned O'Brien, glancing at his chronometer; we've got about twenty seconds before all hell busts loose." He reached across and buckled in the Klingon pilot, who needed both hands on the stick and collective; Worf did not object. O'Brien barely had time to slip into his own harness when every electronic instrument on the console flashed red, then dropped to zero. At the same time, the landscape forward of the

skimmer flared bright white, a searchlight on hardpacked snow. The chief shut his eyes tight, and still the light hurt; as he blinked them open painfully, he saw the afterimage of the veins in his own eyelids as ghostly, pulsating lines, rivers of phantom blood. Tears leaked down his cheeks, and he tried to blink his vision back. The shock wave struck almost twelve seconds later; O'Brien estimated that they had managed to make about four kilometers from Ground Zero. Judging from the force of the wave at that distance, if they had been any closer, they would have made a smoking crater in the dirt. The skimmer skewed fiercely, the stern yawing to the left nearly ninety degrees and sinking. Worfhad been right; the majority of the shock wave was propelled upward, missing the skimmer entirely. A second later, just as Worf got the ship back under control, they were struck from below by another invisible fist as the wave reflected off the ground; this one was not so severe. The sealed airlocks kept some of the noise out, but the low vibrations shook right through the hull and broadcast a low rumbling inside that was loud enough to make O'Brien shout in pain and clap his hands over his ears. Then the main shock was over; the electronics rebooted after the electromagnetic pulse, and the rear viewer showed an enormous mushroom cloud rising above the reactor explosion, as, of course, happened in every high- temperature detonation-chemical, thermonuclear, or matter-antimatter. The ringing in O'Brien's ears quieted, and he thought he heard his name called. Unbuckling shakily, he returned to the central cabin. Quark was unconscious, curled in a fetal position with his arms wrapped around his lobes; Odo was caught unguarded, staring with concern at the man he would never in a thousand years call his friend... but who was doubtless his closest companion on the station. The captain sat unperturbed on one of the seats, his legs crossed, the portrait of composure. "Chief O'Brien," he began. "Sir?" "Next time, let's give ourselves a good thirty minutes--relax a little." "Aye, aye, sir," said the chief, not entirely dis-

pleased. All in all, it had been a pretty full day, as such things went.

0 CHAPTER 16 FOUR UOURS INTO Major Kira Nerys's tour as commander of the militia, the doors of Hell opened wide, and the False Prophet of Hateful Lies burst through. The enemy had not been idle; while Kira and Kai Winn waited, watched, slept, the escaped captives (if that's what they truly were!) slithered across the abyss between their ships and the station. They used no boarding craft or shuttles or rockets; they jumped across, by ones and twos, softly touching the skin of Emissary's Sanctuary and sticking fast with some adhesive or suction tool. Their ships went undetected, their cloaking devices far advanced over the Federation's. The individual invaders were each too small to trigger the station's sensors. Before the first alarm sounded, there were more than a hundred and fifty soldiers crawling across the outer hull! Steering well clear of the airlock doors, the unsuspected assassins used handheld cutting torches to burn holes through the skin large enough for them to wiggle through in full battle array. The first inkling Kira had was a hastily shouted warning over the com- link, severed before the militiaman could even shout his location. "Computer!" demanded Kira. "Where did that last transmission come from?" "Level nineteen, sector thirty-eight," responded the cheerful, dumb-as-dirt contralto. "Damn it, we're scattered on those lower levels." Closing her eyes to think better, the major tapped her cornbadge again and summoned three companies to the breakthrough, but before they could reach the right level, beetle-armored invaders were bursting through the hull all over the station. She ran to her own nearest break and found

herself in an instant gun battle with black, featureless aliens shooting a rapid -fire energy pulse weapon that carved through bulkheads like a hot knife through frozen yogurt. She lost Willi and Fienda in the first volley and nearly lost the left side of her face as a bolt cut through the corner of the Klingon restaurant when she peeked around. "Fall back! Fall back!" The command wasn't quick enough, and her friend Gerti, who was a Dabo girl before Kai Winn took control, took a shot to her stomach; the gift crumbled into a still, white form, clearly dead before her face struck the deck. The militia retreated, firing back over their shoulders; a lucky shot from Kira took one of the invaders in his leg, bringing him down, but there were no other casualties on the aggressor's side. Their armor was good enough to require a direct and sustained phaser blast to do any damage. Four hours and twenty-three minutes into Kira's tour, she was a commander without a command, her militia army wracked and scattered, casualties high, walls and shielding chewed like a dog bone. The major was shell-shocked, ordering her steadily diminishing forces in a leaden voice, trying to turn a tide that relentlessly filled the station: the invaders were still swarming across the gap between their undetectable ships and the ruptured Emissary's Sanctuary. Ten more minutes of retreat, and Kira was desperate enough to call Winn and beg the Kai to get reinforcements from Bajor. "What could they do, child?" asked Kai Winn, serene as always. In Kira's present state of mind, the major wanted to reach through the com- link and throttle the old... the venerable, middle-aged Kai. Instead, she sagged against the corridor wall outside the hydroponics lab and breathed deeply. "They could distract the invaders while we-while were" "While we launch more futile attacks that stand no greater chance of success than we've had so far?" Kira closed her eyes, exhaustion wrapping her like a burial shroud. "My Kai, we must do something. We stand to lose the station if we don't!"

"Nerys, what makes you think sitting quietly is doing nothing?" While Kira pondered the seemingly nonsensical reply, Kai Winn added a peremptory order disbanding the militia and recalling the major to Ops, relieving her of an impossible command. Kira felt the burning shame of failure, despite knowing there was nothing anybody could have done. Sometimes the battle is over before it begins, sighed Shakar once, during the Resistance, when the cell had to abandon a perfect cave to the superior intel and lightning strike of the Cardassians. It made no difference: loss and failure burned her cheeks as they had back when she was a young girl testing herself for the first time. Wisdom; I pray for the wisdom to see that loss is as inevitable as gain, if you fight long enough. The last weren't the words of Shakar or any other Resistance leader; the quotation came from the first services Kai Winn led as Kai. The Emissary knows, Kira thought; Captain Sisko had gleefully told her once of a baseball pitcher who held the alltime record for strike outs... and at the very same time, the all-time record for walks, for games won, and for games lost! Not surprisingly, she also held the record for most number of games pitched, the real pillar that underlaid all Katsio Bando's other baseball records. "I am on my way," said Kira, striving to sound as calm and contained as her new commander; she achieved only the sound of weariness and regret. Sharply, Kira ordered her few remaining militia members to disperse and hide their weapons, a drill every Bajoran above a certain age knew all too well. The station was already lost; no sense losing all their lives into the bargain. The only hope now for Bajor was that the invaders would make good their offer to allow the station personnel to live. Kira had her own, private hope, however. Much as it would horrify the Kai, Major Kira still held out hopes that the mighty Federation would indulgently liberate the station, even if it meant another ten years before Bajor could again petition for sovereignty. The wormhole, where the Prophets dwelt, was far more important than the pride of Bajor--or so Kira told herself convincingly. She kept her own phaser rifle, for her uniform

already identified her as military, and ran with her two personal bodygnards back to the turbolift. The shaft was billowing smoke, and the lift was nowhere to be seen; they would have to climb many levels on the ladderways, a prospect Kira viewed with resignation. As her last task, the erstwhile commander of the militia forces decided to speak with the four bombardment shelters scattered on the Quark's Place side of the Promenade; her lieutenant, Maranu Vann, would be doing the same on the other side. She climbed up to the ninth level, rifle slung over her shoulder. Kira and her guards crept around the rim of the Promenade, scanning for invaders. They were swarming all over the station, their biological peculiarities easy to track, but they had largely abandoned the shattered Promenade with its broken shops and deserted walkway and catwalks. Kira slipped around the perimeter until she came to the first sealed vault. Then the major, slight as a will o'-the-wisp, slung the rifle back over her shoulder and strode through a security door toward the next shelter on her list. "At least, thank the Prophets, the captain and away team are safe and away from here." Nobody heard her grumble; nobody was meant to. The demolition squad had got it down to a science. Chief O'Brien had buried most of his qualms; so long as he had a great chain of commissioned officers up top, he didn't have to worry about covering the bottom. But he couldn't quite extinguish the moral reservations: after all, we're basically throwing these Natives back into the Stone Age.t All in a "good cause," as Quark kept saying. The Ferengi was the only team member who seemed completely at ease with what they were doing, nuking every power plant on the planet. When O'Brien planted the third modified force beam projector and watched the third generator detonate with an earth-shattering convulsion, he realized his hands were shaking so hard he almost couldn't operate the navigational controls. He felt nauseated. No, it's not nausea... it's a physical PAIN in my gut, like a big fist punched me

in the solar plexus. Worf was tense at the stick; years on the Enterprise with the Klingon gave O'Brien a read. And Sisko had said nothing for several hours, just absently stroked his beard and stared at the horizon. "Do you need me for anything?" asked Odo. Without waiting longer than two seconds for an answer, he liquified and poured himself up and over the lip of a luggage rack. "Well, Chief," said the ever smarmy Quark, "looks like it's just you and me. Have I ever told you about the time I played Tongo with Dax?" O'Brien tuned out the Ferengi as he droned on. At least, thank God, Keiko's warm and safe back on Bajor, he t hought; they're not living through this hell/ Thirty minutes later, Captain Sisko abruptly spoke, causing O'Brien to jump in his chair. "Commander Worf, set a course for the Tiffnaki village. I think it's about time we see how our commandos and their comrades are taking the sudden change in lifestyle." CHAPTER 17 TIlE STATELY Cardassian-Drek'la convoy crawled across the desert. Cardassians move swi~ly from Point A to Point B, thought Commander Jadzia Dax; they don't dawdle without a reason. In this case, she decided, they were out hunting... not hunting Natives; they wouldn't consider the defenseless, dazed Natives worth being pursued as game. More likely, she decided, the Cardassian column was out hunting the local cross between a horse and an ocant, which Julian had dubbed "cleft-heads" for the deep groove running down their faces from crown to nose. Observing the captured cleft-heads, Dax realized, to her shock, that they were semiintelligent; it was an open question whether they could talk, but it seemed likely. Evidently, the Cardassians had figured out that much as well: they had recently gone on several hunts in as many days, observed by herself and Julian Bashir. But so far, there had been no good opportunity for an ambush.

"Julian," she asked, speaking softly even though the column was more than a kilometer away, down in the desert valley below the hills where the Federation scouts crouched, "how many species on this planet do you suppose are intelligent?" "Define intelligent," countered the good doctor. "What about the blue, six- legged lizards?" Dax shuddered at the memory: a dozen of the reptilian beasts, almost a meter long each, were arrayed in a semicircle around a larger version, who was making a number of faint squeaks by expanding his throat and expelling air through gilllike slits on the back of his throat. It was too far away for the universal translators to make out any words--if there were any words--but the lizard audience dipped their heads in unison, as if responding to a lecture, or worse, an aria. "Jadzia," said Bashir, "we may have stumbled onto a planet where intelligence evolved early on, and virtually every creature advanced enough to be mobile developed some." "Alternatively," she ventured, "whoever put the Natives and the tech here also liked to play gruesome games with genetic engineering." Julian grunted, acknowledging the possibility. "In any case, changing the subject, I believe we've finally got a winner in the Target Lottery. All the signs are good: no two- headed snakes or fiery clouds on the horizon." "Aye, aye, ma'am." Somehow, the tragic figure managed to convey his deep regret and sorrowful acceptance of the cruel necessities in a mere three words. Bashir raised his disruptor rifle; Dax sited along hers, picking out the lead skimmer full of soldiers. "I've got the front; you take the second vehicle. The first shot has to be simultaneous, Julian, or they'll dive into cover; ready?" "In my sites." "Three, two, one, fire." She depressed the trigger button, and nothing happened. "Damn it!" she snarled, clicking off the safety and fingering the button again. Julian's disruptor shot first, of course, but Dax followed on quickly enough that the lead Cardassians weren't even aware yet that their comrades had been attacked. Bashir and Dax were too far away to hear any

immediate screams or explosions as the beams ignited power cells on the skimmers. About three seconds later, when the sound waves traversed the thousand meters from target to attacker, the Federation snipers heard the first, faint noise from the assault: a loud boom, followed by faint cries of agony from those singed but not killed outright by the beams. They returned fire, of course; their shots swept across the rock escarpment, but it was no difficulty for Dax and Bashir to duck back. The invaders had no chance: they couldn't even see where the ambush came from, and with every shot, the Federation insurgents whittled away at the Cardassian numbers. Dax heard a steady beep. "We're being scanned," she said offhandedly. Finally, a few soldiers got smart and tried to take cover behind the skimmers, but it was too little, and far too late: Dax and Bashit picked all but one of them off before they made cover, and the last lost his composure and stood in plain view for a last-chance shot... like he's committing suicide, thought Dax; or better, perhaps, hara-kiri. The smoke from the burning skimmers drifted skyward, bending to the right in the close breeze. The titanium frames finally caught fire, which meant there would be nothing left of the vehicles by the time the flames burned out, for virtually nothing could stop the incredibly exothermic burning of titanium. As Julian Bashit and Jadzia Dax approached, scanning the horizon with Dax's tricorder to watch for the enemy (who surely would come to investigate the battle), the commander thought she saw something moving. Squinting, she caught sight of a lone figure crawling away from the wreckage, behind which he had been hiding. It took the two away team members twenty- five minutes to reach the carnage, but in that time, the lone survivor hadn't gotten very far. He lay sprawled on the sandy, desert floor, his mouth stuffed with a gul's ransom of rare minerals, coughing up smoke and blood. Dax stood over the man, who was dressed as a high-ranking officer, though she couldn't see his

rank so long as he lay face down. She slowly raised her disruptor, her thumb on the trigger button. The Cardassian stiffened, evidently feeling her behind him, feeling the finger of death brush his heart. Instinctively, Dax pulled her scarf up to cover her mouth and nose and saw Julian do the same. Their hoods already obscured the rest of their faces, except for their eyes, and they were dressed in clothing that could well be Native styles. They held disruptors obviously taken from other Cardassians... there was nothing to tell the man--a gul, Dax noted--that they were anything but local resistance fighters. "Don'tmkillwme," he said, wheezing, his lungs bruised by breathing the smoke from the burning skimmers. "Worth money... worthwtrade." Dax said nothing in response, and Bashit followed her lead; there was no telling what the Cardassian equivalent of the universal- translator implant would tell him about the language it was translating; if it alerted him they were speaking Federation standard, they would lose the advantage that their presence was still unsuspected. But he knew what they waited for; beaten and sick, he offered what little he had left: his name. "Gul," he coughed; "Gul... Ragat. Ragat, them the Banished." The name meant nothing to Jadzia Dax, and she could think of no reason why it should. Kira climbed through the emergency trap into Ops, followed by her two lieutenants... now little more than personal bodyguards. Captain Virgat Maav and second Lieutenant Amo --Kira never knew the woman's given name--took station on either side of the turbolift shaft. The Kai's defense cell had already sealed the shaft by phaser-welding hull- material grillwork across it; the barrier would probably last two seconds after the beet le aliens turned their concentrated fire upon it, Kira decided. But it was a nice gesture. "All right, I'm here, my Kai," she said. Kai Winn stood in front of the Ops consoles staring at the forward viewer, which showed only the shadowy outlines of invader ships when they passed between the station and some known constellation. Even the

ships look like armored insects, thought Kira morbidly; she decided she had developed a morbid coleopterophobia lately. Kai Winn said nothing; she gazed at the viewer, and not coincidentally, at the wormhole... though nothing was to be seen unless a ship would come through. Kira shifted uncomfortably from one to the other foot, wishing she were anywhere but where she was, not for fear, but for embarrassment; the major couldn't decide whether she was shamed by the Kai, humiliated by the situation, or condemned by her own conscience. She had failed, the station fallen, her command obliterated, the dream of Bajoran independence torn away like the wings off a sparkle fly. No one couM have done better, she tried to tell herself. Her guilt answered, but none couM do any worse. "Kai Winn, what do we do now?" Kira jumped; for a moment, she thought she, herself, had asked the unaskable. But it was Captain Maav, a middle-aged middle manager who looked like what he had been before the turnover: an architect designing shrines and temples, the occasional secular public building. Before that, she recalled, he was a captain in the Freedom Brigade Reserves--hence the rank. And before that, Kira vaguely recalled meeting him at an all-cells gathering during the Resistance, a face partially obscured in the crowd who was introduced (no names, of course) as something-or-other critical to some cell she'd never heard of before. Captain Maav was not the man to sit stolidly doing his job and awaiting orders. He ran his own firm. He was used to giving orders and couldn't quite break the habit of bluntness even when speaking to the Kai. She turned and smiled sweetly at his question; Kira felt a twinge ofmProphets, could it be jealousy?--that the Kai had responded instantly to Virgat Maav but not at all to Kira Nerys. "Do? Is there anything else to do?" Kai Winn squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. "Computer, please broadcast this message station-wide." At first, Kira's eyes widened. Please? She's asking the computer g pardon? Then an inkling of what the

Kai must be about to say penetrated, and Major Kira felt tiny insects tumble inside her stomach. She shivered, feeling her knees weaken. I know what she's going to say.t screamed Kira's intuition. A moment of crystal precognition, premonitory trembling at what was to come momentarily. "Children of the Prophets," began the Kai reasonably enough, "followers of the Word, free citizens of Bajor"-Maybe she's going to exort us to fight to the last man.t wished Kira, but she could not wish away what she already knew. --"and visitors from beyond the realm of the Prophets, wha t you must call the wormhole. I bid you peace, welcome, and the blessings of the Prophets." Bile erupted up Kira's throat, singeing her esophagus. Her forehead began to drip. She felt a flicker of dizziness. "I sorrow that we have met in such inauspicious and unpleasant circumstances. But the meeting need not be disastrous, nor catastrophic. There need be no more shedding of blood or loss of life." Decades of Resistance... . only to sink to this! "We take you at your word that you have no designs upon the inhabitants of Emissary's Sanctuary. We grieve for your captive status, so recently alleviated. We share that bond; we, too, have recently purchased our own freedom from oppression with our blood, our sweat, and our faith." Kira could no longer stand. She fell heavily into the seat usually occupied by the sensor- intercept officer, a position the Kai had decided she didn't need. Not that it would have made any difference with these invaders, thought Kira; their cloaking devices were too good. The major slumped in her seat, feeling faint. None of the other warriors of the Kai's inner circle could look at their leader. Even the Kai's personal defense cell studied their consoles as if they would find the secret of the Final Prophecies written there, plain for all to see. "We have no wish," continued the Kai, unperturbed, "to prolong this mistaken struggle. Clearly, we have both of us failed to communicate with each other. We have no enemies in this quadrant,

and we are sure you want only to open diplomatic contact with us. And-- " The Kai paused dramatically; Kira held her breath. "And, perhaps to consult, however briefly, with what you call the Portable-Far-Seeing-Anomaly... what we Bajorans call the Orb." Kira closed her eyes, surprised to feel tears on her cheeks. She leaned back. The Orb. Of course. What else? Sure, just hand it over; give them our heart, my Kai.t "We wish no more conflict," said Kai Winn softly, chillingly. Each word was a pinprick in the back of Kira's tongue, where it joined with the throat. "We offer no more resistance. We will stand and fight no more." The Kai paused; Kira felt the woman's eyes upon her, and the major opened hers to confront Kai Winn, despair confronting acceptance. "On behalf of the united government of the system of Bajor, I, Kai Winn, hereby surrender this station, Emissary's Sanctuary. Unconditionally, and without secret reservation. Treat us kindly, even as you would be treated yourselves, when you come to the Prophets in the fullness of time." Kai Winn touched a console, and the computer ceased transmitting. "Lower all shields," she said. "Power down all weapons. Transporter room... lock onto all of us here in Ops and transport us to the Promenade. We will meet our fate with heads unbowed. Kira?" Kai Winn reached out and took her reluctant first officer's hand as they dematerialized. Lieutenant Commmander Worf stood on a small rise, what Captain Sisko had called a "pitcher's mound," evidently a reference to the ancient human game of baseball that obsessed the man. Worf tried not to allow his amazement to show as he surveyed the Terrors of Tiffnaki--the commando squad still commanded by "Mayor-General" Astaha. For a moment, Worf thought he was looking at a subbrigade of Klingon warriors that had somehow snuck onto the planet. Their faces were cold and hard, with a faint snarl as they anticipated the coming battle with the Cardassians. They stood in

a somewhat ragged line, but they stood proudly... both true of typical Klingon warrior groups, who were never known for discipline but rather for ferocity. "I am proud to serve as your commanding officer," said Worf. He had planned to say it anyway, even if they had turned out to be a ragtag batch of knee-quaking farmers; the Klingon was prepared to swallow his bile and put on "the face." But he was startled to realize that it came out entirely sincere. Worf's own battle lust began to tickle his stomach, and he clenched his fists in anticipation of the first clash, the brittle flicker of battle lines meeting in the red dance. "We are honored to serve under your command," said Tivva- ma, the young daughter of Astaha, who had been selected as the Mouth of Tiffnaki. Every soldier--there were now four hundred, and the mayor-general was away recruiting still more troops--carried a hunk of metal, a wooden club, a sharp stick... all the weapons that they had, now that the power grid was off- line across the entire hemisphere. But Worf beamed with pride that they had taken up the weapons themselves when their toys abruptly ceased working. "We thought it was the enemy coming," said Tivva- ma in her charming, brave- little-girl voice. "When all the stuff stopped working, it was just like when they came before, and the village was attacked, and all those people died, like my daddy. But this time we were gonna use sticks'n'stuff and hurt the bad Cardassians. And we all got the sticks and other stuff. And the Cardassians didn't come, so we came here, and Mommand Mayor-General Asta- ha started gathering all the other people, and... and..." She trailed off, as children w'fil when they run out of thoughts. She saluted, and Worf returned the salute. It was the Klingon salute he had taught them in the initial stages of training, but now the Tiffnakis had earned the privilege of using it. Though we shall have to adjust Asta-ha's rank downward, he appended. "It was not the enemy who turned off all the devices. We did that ourselves--so no more of your fellow defenders will be taken unaware by the Cardassian sabotage."

"We thank you for your, um, new tech of turning off all the tech. But you said there was, urn, some other kinds of things we can use to fight the Cardassians. Where are they?" Where had Jadzia and the Defiant gone? Now wouM be a good time for her to return, thought Worf; they could beam down a few thousand replicated disruptors with internal power supplies. For the moment, however, Chief O'Brien and the captain were trying to manufacture small cannon out of scrap metal, melting the materials with hand phasers that would not last long at the rate they were using them. "For now, we shall learn the art of fighting with sword and bat'telh and the manufacture of bows and the retching of arrows. We will learn to make spears and javelins." Worf looked over the heads of his audience, seeing not a small subbrigade but a vast army of the future that would defend the pla net against any invasion and, ultimately, bring the Natives back to the course of their own natural development. Would Worf of the House of Mogh be hailed as the father of their entire civilization? Worf foresaw a stockpile of preindustrial weapons for the immediate future, followed by replicated weapons or even manufactured guns, if need be; surely O'Brien could set up a machine shop. After all, in the mists of antiquity, pretechnological Klingon guerrilla warriors from mud hut villages had gunsmithed cheap knockoffs of the machine guns used by their more advanced neighbors during the Wars of First Expansion. The memory sparked another thought for Commander Worf. "We must begin designing and constructing spring traps and death pits against the invaders. Owena-da will work with O'Brien. You have already learned to forage food in the forests, is that correct?" "Yes, Commander Worf." Tivva - ma made a strange gesture that Worf thought must be a SierraBravo version of a reverence or curtsy. "Then you must learn now how to hunt, how to take fish from the rivers, how to grow grain in the fields. You must look not just to winning a battle or two but to winning the war." Remembering a line he had used before, he added, "You must feed the

army and also the civilians... our battle is to plant crops, and the enemy is time." Worf began to tremble; whether it was in anticipation of glorious victory or the heady awareness of his own growing political importance, he could not say. But Captain Sisko had silently joined the group and stood now gazing cryptically at the commander from a tree shadow on Worf's right flank. Worf made a mental note: O'Brien will have to develop a method of extracting the poisons from the planetary food; our own enemy is time as well, time until the Defiant returns to orbit and can beam down more supplies. "We fight for victory," said Worf, his voice growing naturally quieter. Though a Klingon, he knew his men needed to hear quiet confidence now, not loud boasts. "We fight for honor. We fight--for survival. We cannot go back to the old way of life. There will be no more tech, new or old, but what we make ourselves. There will be no attack or defense but what comes from our own sweat and takes from us our own blood. "But we shall survive... and not as children, but as men and women, warriors and growers, builders, not merely finders and players. We will make our lives. We will slaughter our enemies and pile their skulls to the sky for a memorial, but we will build upon that pyramid a world of civilization and progress. And we will touch the stars, my warriors. We will join with the stars." The silence beat at Worfs ears like a drum. Chief O'Brien, Quark, and Constable Odo had joined Captain Sisko in the shadows. Only Worf stood in the sunlight near the camouflaged Cardassian skimmer, addressing his troops with as much sense of history, he believed, as ever did the first Kahless. Feeling an unexpected shiver of premonition and hubris, Worf stepped down from the pitcher's mound and joined his comrades under the spreading, blue tree...

CHAPTER 1 MAJOR KIRA NERYS stood rigid, forcing her body not to tremble in suppressed anger and humiliation. It was all the Bajoran freedom fighter could do not to leap across the brief gap and throttle the black-clad, black-helmeted alien "dean" who now commanded Deep Space Nine... or EmissaryW Sanctuary, as Kai Winn had renamed it--the same Kai Winn who had just surrendered the station to the "Liberated," as the invaders had called themselves. The Liberated said little but the necessary. But that was a welcome change from the more loathsome, loquatious representatives of the Dominion, the Vorta--and from the harsh Jem'Hadar, who would already have slapped a restraining field on Kira, the Kai, and the other Bajorans. These unknowns were gentle, at least, now that they'd won the station. Have to change the name to Hot Potato, thought Kira with a curled lip, the way we're passing it around from hand to hand. Living among humans had taught her many old Earth expressions. "Courage, child," said the Kai in a monumentally condescending attempt at raising Kira's spirits. "The Prophets send tribulations to test us." "Did you say that during the Occupation, too?" The words were out before Kira could swallow them, but she was secretly glad she'd said it: too many people, herself included, tiptoed around the blind, stubborn Kai Winn as if she were a glacier, unturnable and irresistible. "Yes, child, I did." Winn turned to stare at Kira's face, bringing a flush of self-consciousness to the major's cheek. Kira kept her eyes on the invader dean, who was quietly ordering his troops into quite an effective occupation of all three Promenade levels. "And at last, we passed that test," said the Kai. Kira clenched her teeth so hard, she felt one of them crack. There was nothing she could do but obey the dean's last order to stand still and not move: Kai Winn, Kira's commanding officer and governor of the station, had surrendered to the Liberated, and the Bajoran frigates had backed far enough away not to be a factor. Not that they couM have done anything but die gallantly, she thought, tasting another lump of bile; we were outgunned, out fought, and out thought. Already, the ghosts of three hundred Bajoran souls haunted Kira Neryswthe number lost in the first naval wave sent by Bajor to reinforce the Emissary~ Sanctuary and its governor, the Kai. Kira snuck a glance to her right. The Kai wore a sweet smile, the vapid mask of "serenity" that Kira had learned hid a capable and determined middleaged woman, a true leader of her beleaguered people.

Kira fought the illusion that Kai Winn projected. The major struggled to remember that Winn could be as bloodthirsty and dangerous as any Resistance fighter, no matter how much or little she might have done during the Resistance. We fought in different ways, Kira caught herself thinking; now my way is futile... couM the Kai Winn route still be viable? The futility of fighting had been demonstrated to Kira a few scant minutes after she and the Kai met the alien dean on the Promenade three hours ago. Then, Kira had been her angry self, coldly confronting the dean and demanding, demanding... what? Everything: that the prisoners be treated gently, that the station integrity be respected, that the Liberated apologize, beg forgiveness, and get off Deep Space Nine/But Kai Winn passed on an opportunity to back up her executive officer, offering only that the name of the station was Emissary~ Sanctuary now. Furious, Kira turned on her Kai. "That's it? That's all you can say?" Winn smiled gently through the tirade, irritating Kira even further. "Child, the Way of the Prophets is not the child's blind resistance to authority. I'm sure our new masters will be kind to the Bajorans, who freely offer to share the Orb, the far-seeing anomaly." Kai Winn turned to the dean. "Won't you?" "Bajorans will not be harmed," said the universaltranslator implant in Kira's head, the clicking and buzzing of the alien's actual speech an annoying background noise. "And what about those who aren't Bajorans?" asked Kira, beginning to tremble as she held back a wall of rage. "Jake Sisko, and Nog, and--and Garak." Did I really just say that, fretting for the safety of that butcher? "And what about our freedom? Is that just another casualty of war?" She was shouting at the dean, but her fury was directed more at Kai Winn for her betrayal. Dropping her hands to her side, Kira's thumb brushed the combat knife she still carried. She had of course surrendered her phaser rifle and hand phaser, but she had conveniently forgotten about the largely ceremonial "kolba~ tooth" commando knife, which she had worn all through the Resistance. Then, though used only once to kill, it had come in handy a thousand times to open a food pack or cut a fishing line. Without thinking, her hand curled around the wooden haft. She slid it from the sheathe, silent as the grave, and concealed it up behind her forearm. Kira glanced at the Kai... but she could never turn her wrath on one annointed by the Prophets, no matter what the betrayal. Kai Winn will never get a knife in the back from me, whatever the provocation. At that moment the alien dean turned his back to order a complete search of all buildings on the Promenade. Kira had a single chance and took it.

She leapt the short distance, thrusting directly forward with the blade in a brutal and efficient lunge. Evidently the Liberated boasted significantly quicker reaction time than Bajorans. The dean barely glanced back over his shoulder as he hooked his foot up and slightly deflected Kira's lunge, which missed wide. Giving her a gentle push in the direction she was already moving, he flung Kira to the ground with disturbing ease. Then he picked up his conversation where he'd left off. Meanwhile, three other aliens dogpiled on Kira's back, wrenching the knife from her grasp and nearly breaking her wrist in the bargain. The black-clad invaders were anonymous, their heads in tight-fitting, opaque helmets, or so Kira originally thought. Close up, she saw there were no helmets. Their faces were featureless cyphers, and she felt her stomach turn despite long exposure to disgusting aliens. Sensory organs buried inside, she realized; built to withstand terrible punishment. Feeling the hardness of the bodies pinning her, she understood with revulsion that they wore no armor, as she first imagined: their outer skin was an insectlike carapace covered only with a layer of metallic clothing. They needed no suits or helmets, not even to cross the abyss of space between their ships and the station, nothing but what looked like some kind of foil, to protect them against the background cosmic radiation. Perfect killing machines. And they let her up. Her captors helped Kira to her feet and didn't even bother binding her hands. They even gave her back her knife. Burning with humiliation, Kira shuffled back to stand alongside her Kai... who throughout her attempt had never stopped negotiating diplomatically with the dean. I'm not the slightest threat to them, Major Kira realized. I'm a chiM with a toy sword. Hours later she still felt the dull ache of uselessness, the same claustrophobic feeling of horror that had driven her to join the Resistance at such a young age. Today, however, there was no outlet. Kira's shoulders slumped, and she could barely work up the energy for verbal defiance. One certainty echoed through her head: despite the Kai's seeming surrender, she knew that Winn had no intention of giving up either control of the station or hegemony in Bajor, that she would never voluntarily turn over so much power. Kai Winn must have a plan, some plan, some amazing, unexpected plan that would cast out the tide and reclaim the dry land! If Major Kira could only control her temper and work with Kai Winn, together they still had a chance--many chances--to unspill the water jug. ú.. Or at least, any other thought was intolerable to the major. Bajorans, and most especially Kira Nerys, could not live without hope. And the most

burning desire in Kira's stomach, she admitted to herself shamefully, was to live through the ordeal-to survive. Light-years away, on a strange and different world, Security Chief Odo sat rigidly on an overturned barrel, puzzling over the sheaf of documents Tivvama, daughter of hereditary Mayor Asta-ha, had just shoved into his hands. Odo pored over the pages she had scrawled on in her childish hand. At first, he humored her: he began a suitable period of study, to be followed by a pat on the head and some encouraging words. But as he read section after section, Odo became so enthralled he forgot even to simulate breath. What Tivva-ma had pushed into his indulgent hands was less a manifesto, as she had claimed, than a fully developed constitution for a complex trade republic; it included a declaration of rights and duties that balanced so nicely, Odo thought the United Federation of Planets might want to take a look. "Tivva-ma, where did you say you got this?" The girl put her hands over her eyes, shyly refusing to answer. "Did your mother work it out?" She grunted, meaning No. "Owena-da? One of the away--one of us officers?" "Uh-uh." Abruptly, the waif threw her arms wide, exposing a huge grin set against her pale blue hair and alabaster skin. "I did!" Odo slowly lowered the pages into his lap, restraining the pulse of excitement that whirled round his mind, which was his whole body. Easy, easy. Maybe she didn't understand the question. Maybe she g lying or mistaken. Choosing his most imperious schoolmaster tone, he began to question Tivvama about specifics and particulars. But at every query, he was satisfied: the tot knew the proposal backward and forward, at least. And in her squeaky, little-girl voice, she defended the provisions from all attack, whether the tricameral judicial legislature, the ceremonial and functional presidents, the selection and evaluation criteria for government officials, or the minimalist nature of state authority. After a quarter hour of discussion Odo was reeling from her observations, calling into question as they did everything he had ever believed anent the value of law in guiding good behavior. Odo rose, holding the pages carefully. He wanted to scan them into a computer and compare them to the constitutions of thousands of societies in the Federation memory banks... but a more important task loomed. "Child, what you have created is brilliant. You are a shining star. But we cannot set up a government until we have a society at least--a community!" Tivva-ma gasped; her eyes showed she had been

stunned by Odo's critique. "ThaFs what I forgot! I knew I forgot something, but I couldn't remember what it was." The girl turned and sped like a lightning discharge back toward the temporary camp. She paused, just before the scattered trees that hid the shelters. "I'11 be right back! Wait .... " Then she grinned sheepishly. "Actually, it might take a couple a days." She dashed away; if Odo had blinked, he would have missed her exit. Suddenly freed from the darkness of technoutopia, the Natives, as Commander Dax called them, had lit up as though suddenly electrified. They had been living their lives unchallenged, with nothing to tax the brain beyond a few peripatetic raids of one village by another, and the simple act of destroying the hemisphere's power grid had energized them like the spark of life. The socially infantile Natives flickered suddenly at the threshhold of intellectual puberty. How far will they go? wondered the constable, looking nervously back over his shoulder at the away team's own camp. How soon will the Tiffnaki surpass us?And what will they do then, when we're no longer useful to the them? He snorted, taking refuge in sensible cynicism. They were still the same Natives: Mayor-General Asta-ha had once again changed the name of her villagers, the third time in the ten days since Captain Sisko, Odo, and the rest of the away team had blown the power generators: from Tiffnaki to Tivvnaffi to Vanaffi, and now to Vanimastavvi. So what if their IQs were already cruising past 200 on their way up? Their personalities had hardly changed--and that was a better measure of who one was than raw brain power. Or so the constable and the rest of the away team had told themselves at every opportunity. He heard a terrible, hacking cough from Chief O'Brien. Odo felt a twinge of guilt that he alone of all the team members didn't experience the asthmatic agony produced by microscopic, poisonous algae in the atmosphere. Captain Sisko had concocted a slapdash antitoxin from his own emergency MediKit, but it couldn't compensate for the algae anywhere near as well as Dr. Bashir's original had. We must return to the Defiant, thought Odo. But the Defiant had disappeared from orbit and was not communicating. The constable heard a wild patter and someone screaming semicoherently. He leapt to his feet, already annoyed even before he recognized the owner of the bare feet pounding in the latinurn-laced mud toward the constable. But he was struck dumb at the sight of mad Quark, naked save for a large, palm-like frond wrapped around his midsection, dashing like a frog monster toward Odo's "courthouse stump." The Ferengi's eyes were wide and wild, his skin a livid pink-tinged orange under the ruddy sun.

"Do something--do something! You--you--just do something, by the Final Accountant! Or I'll..." The Ferengi heaved and panted, gripping his frond, simultaneously enraged and humiliated. "Oh dear, Quark. Mind snapped at last?" Odo tsktsked and turned back to Tivva-ma's astonishing constitution. "I've been robbed! By force!" Quark mumbled something under his breath. "What was that last part?" asked Odo, half-sure he knew what the Ferengi had said but wanting the pleasure of hearing it aloud. Quark closed his eyes, took a deep breath, facing up to the latest outrage against his Ferengi sensibilities. "I said, I've been robbed by force--of fraud." "Force of fraud? Is that what you call it?" Odo smirked, a talent he had perfected through long years of dealing with the Ferengi bartender. "In other words, your little Native friends, whom you've been swindling out of everything they owned before you came here--oh, I have notes!--and I'm going to file quite an interesting report when we get back to the station... your friends have now turned the tables on you, Quark, and beaten you out of every slip and strip. And from the look of things," Odo stretched his finger out to poke nastily at Quark's bare chest, "you've been kind enough to let them have the shirt off your back. How generous of you!" Quark paced up and down nervously, waving his arms in agitation; the mauve-colored palm frond slipped and almost fell. "You raise them, you try to help them, teach them everything you know--" "And they turn around and out-Ferengi the Ferengi. So you, too, are discovering the full mental abilities of our Native friends, eh, Quark? Now that we've kicked away the crutch of new tech." Odo threw the sheaf of papers down on the barrelhead. "Forget your petty losses for a moment. You see this formative document? It puts to shame the constitutions of every planet in the Federation and, not incidentally, all my own research on the ideal government. And it was drafted this afternoon by an eight-year-old child." The constable shook his head, speaking more to himself than his audience. "With all the changes around here, the Natives decided to put together a workable society to deal with the Cardassian/ Drek'la invasion and the sudden loss of their magical technology. I helped them a little with some sociological information and some organizing documents... and I get back this." Constable and Ferengi sighed in unexpected harmony, to Odo's chagrin. Quark sat gingerly, holding the frond carefully to prevent undue financial exposure. "I wonder how Commander Worf is doing?" After a beat, the Ferengi grinned wickedly. Only the iron will of Constable Odo prevented him from

doing the same. The image of Commander Worf trying to "instruct" a class full of inquisitive, socially inept military geniuses raised his spirits tenfold. Elsewhere on the planet, the Cardassian prisoner, Gul Ragat, walked in front of Julian Bashir like a man already dead whose legs had not yet gotten the message. Jadzia Dax followed somewhere far behind and to the side, so that she and Julian would not drift close enough to make a single target. I wish we could talk, thought the doctor. But speech would have informed the prisoner that they were Federation, and Dax wanted to hold that information in reserve. The Gul had recovered somewhat. The doctor quietly scanned him while he rested and determined that Ragat had no serious injuries--minor burns and abrasions, smoke inhalation, bruises, and other blunt-force trauma, but nothing life-threatening. The diagnosis was a relief. Had Gul Ragat required medical treatment, not all the wild splitheads on Sierra-Bravo 112-II could have stopped Bashir from doing his medical duty, and their cover as "Natives" would have been blown; Ragat would then realize that Starfleet officers had infiltrated the CardassiardDrek'la occupation. So what would that mean? wondered Julian; what's he going to do, publish it in a news clip? Still, the lovely Jadzia (who had insisted upon command prerogative) had gone to great lengths to guard that secret. The Cardassians and their Drek'la crew evidently believed that the Deftant had crashed and burned in the ocean--when in fact it lay submerged in shallow water, intact, under the command of Ensign Joson Wabak and a couple other junior officers, waiting to lift off when the Cardassians and Drek'la were cleansed from orbit. So long as no soldiers of the Empire knew that the Defiant still lived, they wouldn't waste time searching for her. So maybe Jadzia is right after all, Bashir tentatively concluded. Still it was a pain: they couldn't talk for fear the Gul's "universal translator," or whatever the Cardassians called their version, would warn Ragat that Julian and Dax were speaking a Federation, not Native, language. They couldn't show their faces--or even let Ragat look back at them for fear his sharp, Cardassian eyes would penetrate the disguise. But nothing stopped the Gul himself from talking, which he did without concern for their stony silence. "They couldn't take my title. The house was far too old for that. But they took everything else. Stripped of all rating. No command, no authority, no face. Do you know what it's like to enter a room and hear only silence? I knew Legate Migar and Gul Dukat personally. I was on the list--on the list, I say. I was to be legate, legate! Until... she came and dashed

the cup from my lips. She spilled it on the ground-my honor, my promotion, even my governorship. I was a governor, that's what I tell you. But there were those, those--don't think I didn't know who they were! Neemak, now he was the one to watch. He was the one who waited, any slip, a weakness. And she gave it to him in a silver chalice. She, she, she. Don't mind me--I'm an old man now, I run on. You know what it's like? It's entering a room and hearing all conversation cease, the music, dead silence. Do you know?" Julian Bashir continued to walk silently behind as they headed toward the hidden skimmer; there was only one left now, the other having long since run out of fuel and been abandoned. The ex-Gul rattled on, an old man with a new, fresh ear for the first time probably in decades. He told them more than they wanted to know about his pain and suffering, his banishment. He never mentioned the name of the woman who had done him wrong (a failed love affair?) save that she was his sister, or perhaps a friend close enough to be called Sister. Jadzia didn't so much as glance at the prisoner. The doctor felt pangs of guilt. Ragat had made some sort of terrible mistake long ago, something involving a woman, and had been stripped of all his positions and power. No wonder he had fled the Empire and tried to stake out a life far across the quadrant. To a Cardassian, losing face was infinitely worse than losing one's life. But Bashir and Dax's own problems were more pressing than understanding the enemy: they had to find Captain Sisko and link up. He didn't know that the Defiant was still on (actually under) the surface, or that they were waiting for his signal via oldfashioned radio waves, which neither the Cardassians nor the vicious, automatic planetary defenses were likely to monitor. Dax, Bashir, and the junior officers back on the ship needed to know what the captain intended, fight or flee; either an attack on the Cardassians and their Drek'la allies or abandonment of the mission would have to be coordinated between Sisko, Dax, and Wabak back on the Defiant. The day was hot and steamy, the ground broken, the sun reflected from brittle crystals in the latinumlaced soil. Gul Ragat fell to his knees without warning, palms loudly slapping the baked mud. The old man had had it for now. But they were near enough the hidden skimmer that they could stop for the night, and mount up and ride in the morning. If we're chummy enough, thought the doctor, I suppose it can carry the three of us. Commander Dax caught Julian's eye; she gestured at the ground, then formed a triangle with index fingers and thumbs. The doctor was puzzled for a moment, before he connected the gesture with the stylized image of a tent: they didn't have one, but the

idea was clear: camp here for the night. Julian sat down, surprised at how tired he felt. It took even more energy to remain lithe and graceful (as a genetic freak should, he added to himself) than merely to march in the bright, red sun. Jadzia, with no reputation to protect, had the easy job. Gul Ragat continued to talk. He spoke of the invasion of Sierra-Bravo, speaking with repugnance of the "aborigines," how primitive and savage they were, how disgusting, what a perversion of men. His bigotry was bright but blunted by impotence: there was nothing Gul Ragat would ever be able to do about the Natives again, and he knew it. He could curse them freely now, for he was himself free of responsibility: having surrendered to the two of them, he could at last also surrender to his bottledup rage, humiliation, and prejudice. After several early attempts by Ragat to turn and look at his captors, the Gul had got the message; he kept his back to the Starfleet officers as he lay on his side, breathing too deeply. Worried, Julian again scanned Ragat from behind. I'm not sure, he thought, but I think some internal bleeding may have started up. Julian decided that during the night, while Gul Ragat slept, his ghoulish doctor, like a reverse vampire, would slip some life into the old fellow. The ragged breathing provoked an empathy in Julian Bashir that burned beyond the Hippocratic oath. He gently laid a hand on the Gul's shoulder from behind, squeezing gently. Ragat cleared his throat. "Thank you," he said. "Good night, doctor." Alarmed, Julian stared at Dax; but the Trill frowned and shook her head. Probably just an honorific, Julian nodded, then lay back to look at the stars. Just before drifting into a troubled sleep, Gul Ragat raised his voice again to a throaty whisper, which was all he could still manage. "And good night to you too... Commander Dax." Julian grinned, unwilling to look the startled and probably stunned Jadzia Dax in the face. All that care, the silence, the face masks/And all along, the damned Cardassian had known exactly who his captors were. With a quiet chuckle, Julian, too, drifted into the shadowlands, too exhausted even to consider eating. CHAPTER 2 COMMANDER WORF had his hands full of mayor: he was holding the "mayor-general," Asta-ha, the mother of Tivva-ma, in a pressure hold from which she struggled desperately to escape.

The Klingon was surprised by the female's ingenuity: she independently invented several holdbreaking maneuvers that Worf had not even taught yet. A brilliant pupil! Unfortunately, her lithe but weak body was not up to the level of her tactical brain. Finally, Worf allowed his hold to be broken by Asta-ha's third attempt: creativity in combat must always be encouraged in a student. "You have progressed adequately," he praised; "but the weakness of your body holds you back. You must reapply yourself to a vigorous calisthenics program until your muscles respond." Owena-da, a constant irritant, stepped forward. Worf prepared to bellow the man into silence; but unexpectedly, the Native "tech-master" came to attention and saluted... a first for Owena-da. "Sir, request permission to speak freely." "Request denied. You will use all proper forms of address as you speak." Owena-da already took too many liberties, and Worf was not about to give him more. "Aye, aye, sir. Sir, this recruit recommends a change in the PT program." "Oh. You do? I am sure the Klingon Military Command Council will be eager to hear your suggestions." "Thank you, sir! This recruit has prepared an anatomical kinesthetic analysis of the physicaltraining regime, sir. Including suggestions for increasing the efficiency and speed of bodily responses through nondestructive hormone therapy." From nowhere, Owena-da pulled a sheaf of paper, which the villagers had lately invented. From where Worf stood, he could see that it was covered with a dense thicket of crabbed writing in the language used by Starfleet--a language the Natives had learned in five days. The Klingon sighed, accepting the pages and handwaving Owena-da back into the ranks. Worf did not look at the paper... not yet. "On your faces," he said quietly, but with absolute authority. The Natives dropped quickly to the standard push-up position. "Down, up," began Worf; "down, up, down, up, down, up ... halfway down." Worf held them halfway through a single push-up, waiting until he heard groans and saw them beginning to collapse before resuming the count. An hour later, safely ensconced in his makeshift bivouac tent, the Klingon read through Owena-da's analysis with mounting irritation and frustration. He keenly felt the slap to his authority--a raw recruit, telling Worf of House Mogh how to teach physical training! It was a deadly insult to his military bearing, his honor, and his house. And the most humiliating factor was that Worf would have to implement Owena-da's training recommendations immediately, because they were brilliant and in-

sightful and training time was horribly short. Worf brooded for too long after finishing the paper. Honor dictated that he would even have to submit the paper to the Federation journal for immediate adoption throughout Starfleet and the civilian milieu. And Worf's honorable role in defending SierraBravo against the Cardassian/Drek'la invasion would forever be subsumed under the Natives' miraculous tactical and training innovations. For generations, their genius had been blocked by instant access to all the "new tech" their hearts desired. Now, under the stress of having to fend for their own lives, the native intellectual capacity was bursting forth like the human war goddess Athena erupting from the head of Zeus in Worffs favorite human myth, taught him by his foster father. And who would draw the lesson for the Federation itself?. "And who was it who warned of this danger?" he asked aloud; the wind supplied no answer. Nobody would remember. Worf's honor had been snatched by Klingon thieves, won back at enormous cost... and now was about to be buried under the casual brilliance of a race of supergenius dilettantes. The situation was intolerable. But Worf was a Klingon, and had a duty to perform, so the intolerable would be tolerated. He rose; the squadron would have set up their spring traps by now, ready to be tested. The Klingon grimaced as he ducked through the tent flap, dreading the marvelous innovations in booby trapping he was about to see. Major Kira lay on the deck on Level Four, held prone by a heavy foot planted on her cervical vertibrae. She made no attempt to struggle; she already knew it would be useless. Of course, the whole damned thing is useless, isn't it? Through overlong familiarity, the thought barely bothered her anymore. She listened at the corner of her ear to the dean: "You are not worthy of trust. You must be restrained. You will wear the collar of slaves." The Kai's voice sounded offstage, faintly chastising without provoking. "As you were restrained by the Dominion?" A long silence. "Yes, as we were." "I see." Kai Winn's tone would have chilled a winter river. Kira, however, could hardly imagine caring less than she did at that moment. The station was lost. The brave Bajorans had accepted surrender. Even the vaunted Federation was stymied... there had been no further reaction to the seizure of Deep Space Nine. She was yanked to her feet and held immobile, while a binding plastic collar was locked onto her throat. Bitterness tasted sweet on her tongue. Kira stood

when they released her, not even glancing at the piece of catwalk railing she had battered over the dean's head, striking from ambush with every Newton of force she could gather. The power of the blow had knocked him to his knobby knees, but that was the only effect; when he stood up, he was unhurt. "You must receive a demonstration of the power of the collar of slaves," recited the dean, his curiously uninflected voice nevertheless conveying a subterranean river of emotion. He made no overt signal, but the collar tightened, cutting off Kira's windpipe. They had caught her after an exhalation. Within seconds, her lungs screamed for air. But she stood absolutely still, eyes closed, not letting herself gasp or double over and keeping her hands at her side. The collar tightened further, and Kira felt consciousness ebb. Cutting off blood to my brain, she thought dully. She felt a sharp pressure against her cheek, but it didn't seem important; the blackness welcomed her. Then her head ached, suddenly washed with agony. She was drowning in a lake, coughing up bittertasting water onto what must have been the seashore. But the beach felt too hard, too cold. She lay on the deck of maintenance tube 19, Level Four, while a pair of insectoid invaders sprayed bitter-tasting water on her face. "You now see the authority of the collar for slaves," buzzed the dean. "You must obey the rules for prisoners or the collar will be used to execute you. There is a limbic integrator. It senses violent impulses and acts automatically." The offstage voice again, surely the Kai's. She was speaking to someone, one of her special team. "How are you coming with the project I set for you, finding the Orb?" "We are nearly done, my Kai," said a man whom Kira vaguely recognized from Ops duty during the initial battle. "You will finish in time?" "We will." 'Ms I instructed, you will tell me when you find where the rebels hid the Orb, and I will send Kira to fetch it." It seemed odd for the Kai to emphasize the first three words, but Kira had other needs. Dimly, she sought the anxious figure of Kai Winn. How curiously motherlike she looks! "Was I--unconscious?" croaked Major Kira. "Yes, child. I think the collar cut off the flow of blood through the artery." The Kai leaned close, speaking for Kira's ears only--though Kira presumed that the insectoids heard every word, either using audio-amps or because they had exceptionally keen hearing. "There is a time when we who walk with the Prophets must learn that humility is an important virtue. Trust me, child. I surely know

what I'm speaking about. It seems the end of the world, but really, it's not: what you can tolerate, you can endure." The major's lips flickered for a momentary smile. The words fi'om the psalm: tolerate and endure. "I will struggle no longer," said Kira Nerys. "You will watch me become a model slave." She allowed herself to be led in purest docility back to the access corridor. A model slave... and astonished, Kira realized that she meant it. The insects had taken over the station, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. Not yet, she appended dully. Struggle was futile; she proved it to herself alone in her cabin, deliberately working herself into a fury, only to feel the collar tighten by itself as it had on the dean's command. "I'm just trying to lull them into a false security," she told herself; but it was hard to believe it. Many times over the next days, she "woke" to realize she had been serving the dean and the other invaders for several hours without noting a single, militarily useful weakness, nothing to use against the enemy. Do I slip so easily into a slave's role? she wondered, lying awake in terror half through the night. She caught the Kai watching her through lazily lidded eyes, a knowing smile on Winn's lips. Kira felt the seduction of acceptance, and the thrill it produced set her body to shivering. How deep into this "cover" can I go and still escape? "What will you do during this Resistance, child?" asked Kai Winn unexpectedly the next afternoon. "Resist," said Kira, hearing the echo of a previous conversation. But she meant she would resist temptation to succumb to her fate. Prophets, she prayed, it's so damned easy to make a big show and resist, defiant, like a teenage girl in Shakar~ cell during the Occupation. She bent, lowering her head as the dean approached; she waited for him to issue orders... they were never difficult or humiliating, which made it worse. But it's a hell of a lot harder to resist with bowed head and a soft voice. Help met Don't let me lose my temper or lose myselfl. If the Prophets answered, Kira couldn't hear Their words. Kira's duties were to run messages to the Kai and other Bajorans, demonstrate the use of station controls (the dean never asked Major Kira about weaponry), reprogram the replicators, and bring the ceremonial first and last meals to the dean (though he served himself, for which Kira thanked the Prophets). She was to finish each task and return to the dean, unless he contacted her over the comsystem to give further orders. But Kira perfected the art of dawdling, which she'd never mastered before, taking as long to complete each project as she could reasonably pretend to need. She walked slowly, in a stately manner, killing even more time: every ten

minutes slain was one fewer task before she could crawl into her rack. Kira Nerys shrank and shrank, until at last she found her irreducible core. Her spirits contracted into a sharp ice-blade that pricked her breast and irritated her stomach. After the rest of her pride, efficiency, courage, recklessness, and bravado had boiled away, Major Kira found at last the pure will that would finally drive away the new invaders. And she found a new respect for Kai Winn, whose own will must have been mighty indeed to sustain her through so many years of silent, hidden resistance-with a bowed head and a soft voice. Kira's eyes began to open. She began to see every crack and weakness, every overlooked line of attack in the invaders' profile. Their sleep was too sound, almost comatose. When eating, they neither talked nor looked around. They needed special suits outside the hull to withstand cosmic background radiation. The "insects" were too individualistic, tending to go wildsiding through the station, and the dean could hardly reel them in at times. They were nevertheless terrified to be alone and always roamed at least by threes. Kira easily accepted that they had been Dominion slaves, probably as completely dominated as the Jem'Hadar. But they had been used for other purposes, and Kira probed to discover what exactly they'd done for the Founders (while she bowed and answered, "Yes, most gracious dean; instantly, great one"). The Founders, Kira knew from personal experience and conversations with her friend Odo, liked specialization. They used the Jem'Hadar for war and the Vorta for diplomacy; what could the Liberated do for shapeshifters? One curious incident puzzled Kira, and she fretted endlessly about what it could mean. It occurred early in the occupation of--of Emissary's Sanctuary, two days after the dean and his crew seized control. At first, Kira made a point not even to mention Keiko, Jake, and the other children and civilians in the eight bombardment shelters around the main Promenade level. She still hoped, absurdly, that the occupation would be brief, and Keiko and the kids could come out after a few days. Keiko played her part well: she laid low, as she would have said, neither communicating nor trying to leave, doing nothing to reveal her presence. But after several hours, the dean stopped and "stared" at Kira. In fact, she had to infer the stare, since his face was a featureless mask. "There are beings not accounted for in the inventory," he said, his actual voice behind the universal translator sounding so disturbingly like the shellclickers of Bajor that Kira shuddered. "I don't know what you mean." She was still in

her sullen phase then, and in no mood to cooperate. "Our scans reveal there are 237 beings in this enclosed environment who are not listed on the prisoner manifest you gave us. You must find them and return them to their places." Kira said nothing. She was well aware that the aliens would swiftly locate the other "prisoners," but that didn't mean she had to help. But Kai Winn answered in Kira's place. "My friends, the rest of the personnel are in the shelters on this level." The Kai gestured around her; she was standing directly in front of the Klingon restaurant, which was across the circular hallway from one of those very shelters. Winn turned and pointed at it. "There are eight of these structures. The rest of the... the residents here are secured inside." Kira had a momentary urge to leap the distance and break Kai Winn's nose. But she pressed her lips together and said nothing, contenting herself with a look that should have frozen the marrow in the old woman's bones. "They are secured?" repeated the dean. "Yes, my most gracious host. They are safe." The dean turned away. Kira heard no words, but an alien moved to stand in front of Bombardment Shelter Six as if guarding it from attack. Looking along the Promenade in both directions, the major saw that guards were taking up positions in front of alternate shelters. But since they made no effort to enter, Kira slowly forgot about it. Keiko seemed safe--for the moment. Several more times, Kai Winn asked one lieutenant or another as the occupation progressed about the "special project," which evidently was to find the Orb. How odd, thought the major; how could she possibly not know where itg hidden? It was inconceivable that the Kai would not be able to put her finger-ends on the Orb at a moment's notice. But seemingly, those she sent to hide it had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imagination. Buying time? Does she still hope for rescue from the Federation? Two days passed, and Kira began to worry, however. The last time she had talked with the botanist, Keiko had promised to stay secured for two or three days. But how long could she wait? Clearly, the aliens were not leaving anytime soon. They continued their sentrylike marching up and down the Promenade, looking like military beetles on parade. Every time Kira shuffled through the Promenade, she felt a little more nervous about what would happen when somebody, Keiko or one of the other civilians in a shelter, decided to go stircrazy and break out. She didn't have long to wait. The first casualty of claustrophobia was not Keiko; it was Jounda Mar, an archeologist from the Riis Valley on Bajor. At last, Jounda couldn't take the isolation--she was in

a shelter with only twelve people counting herself-and she cracked the seal and yanked open the door. Major Kira, slave collar now in place, was attending the dean while he sampled food from a Bajoran noodle house. "Attending" in this case meant sitting next to him, eating whatever dish he ate first to make sure it wasn't poisoned. When the door to Shelter Two popped, hissed, and swung open, and Jounda stepped outside trembling, the dean's reaction was so startling that Kira dropped a plate full of malibon on the deck, where it shattered. The alien leapt to his feet with such alacrity that he knocked over the table, clenched his fist (which Kira had determined activated his com circuit), and began shouting "Emergency, emergency, breakout on Deck Nine!" The aliens swarmed the location, led by the dean himself, and they pulled the door all the way open and mobbed the shelter. Jounda screamed once, but then she fell bitterly silent. Kira rushed over to mediate, to prevent the aliens from panicking or the Bajoran civilians from putting up a futile resistance that would only get someone hurt. Prophets, she thought, I'm turning into Kai Winn.t Jounda's once-white jumper was stained with two days of grime and sweat, and the dozen of them smelled like they hadn't bathed, naturally enough. Kira was shocked to see how quickly the civilians fell right back into their "occupation daze," obeying the aliens' gestures and incomprehensible commands-for none of the civilians had a universal translator, of course. "My lord," said Kira, pushing herself in between the dean and Jounda; "don't let your anger get the better of your judgment. These people are civilians, not warriors--they pose no risk to you!" But the dean paid her no attention, merely pulling her aside gently. "Replace them," he said to his men, "quickly, lest we lose one or more than one." And while Kira stared, stupified, the aliens proceeded to return the civilians to the bombardment shelter. Jounda Mar's pleas were in vain, and neither would the dean listen to Kira. "You don't need to put them back!" shouted the major. "They won't attack you--they're as trustworthy as the rest of us." She was uncomfortably aware that that, actually, was saying a lot: when shove had come to tumble, the grand, independent, passionate Bajorans on Emissary~ Sanctuary had become as docile as a herd of curlbeasts. But it made no difference. Without even listening, the aliens returned Jounda Mar and the other eleven civilians to Bombardment Shelter Two and resealed it. And there they stayed. Over the next two days, there were similar "breakouts" from each of the other shelters. Jake's was next

to try to leave, followed by the other six: three the same day, then two more the next, then the last, Shelter Five, containing forty-one assorted civil servants brought up to the station by the Kai. The aliens' behavior was identical in every case: they treated the incidents like a prisoner breakout, swarming the "escapees" and returning them forcibly to their "cells." Kira understood why: somehow, the dean had got it into his carapace that the civilians hiding in the shelters were prisoners confined involuntarily to cells, and he chose, for whatever reason, to continue their sentences. But why? What had made him think that? Kira shook her head, still not understanding when the final secretary was pushed into the last shelter already full of Kai Winn's bureaucrats, a fate almost worse than death. A thought tickled Kira's hindbrain: for some reason, she knew that this was an important--even critical--piece of information, if she could only figure out the reason for the aberrant behavior. Why? Why would they make such an absurd mistake? But the Prophets, Who knew all, chose not to whisper in the major's ear, and she remained in ignorance. Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax was awake before the sun, pacing in the chilly predawn, developing a plan. When she glanced at Gul Ragat, she was startled to find him watching her, his black Cardassian eyes enigmatic but hard. Julian had not yet stirred. Ragat sat up, pulling his rough blanket around his frail body. His trapezius muscles, stretching from neck to shoulder tips--huge and powerful on most Cardassians--were instead thin and limp, sagging pathetically; the bony ridges surrounding his eye sockets were dark gray, and his dull eyes were sunken into deep flesh. "I didn't expect you to wake for another couple of hours," said Dax. The charade was over; Ragat knew who the both of them were, Bashir and Dax. "Old men don't sleep well," he said, shrugging. "Even those of us made old long before our time by betrayal and dishonor." "What tipped you?" At first, the Gul simply smiled, dark and mysterious, like Garak telling lunchroom tales to the doctor. Then Ragat slumped, letting his head sink. He tried a self-deprecating smile. "You swore when you couldn't shoot me. You said 'oh, hell.' The aborigines don't have any concept of heaven or hell. So you were Federation--Starfleet." "From that you knew our names?" Ragat looked up at her. "We knew only one Starfleet ship in orbit around this planet, the U.S.S. Defiant. With all the trouble our two peoples have had, you'd imagine we would make an effort to

memorize the crew manifests of ships we're likely to encounter. Wouldn't you?" Dax said nothing. "You are a high-ranking female. You certainly weren't Major Kira; I can smell Bajorans. So I took the chance that you were the Trill." Jadzia cocked her head at Bashir and raised an eyebrow. Ragat snorted, sounding almost like their own Constable Odo. "Who else but Julian Bashir would be sneaking behind me with a medical tricorder?" Dax nodded. "Anything else we should know?" She leaned dose. "Any reason I shouldn't kill you now, before Julian wakes up?" He blanched, turning his face away. "The best reason in the quadrant: I know something you need to know but don't." "That being?" "I know the story of the aborigines. How they got here, why they have such technology but are so primitive and uncivilized." "Why?" The Gul shook his head slowly, wincing at the pain. "Release me to my men and I'll tell you what you need to know." "Tell me what I want to know, and I won't release you from this life." For an instant, Dax was sure she saw terror flicker across the Gul's face. He's a man used to living in fear, she intuited. Then the Cardassian mask fell across it once more. "We, ah, appear to be at an impasse, Commander. Will you kill me before even finding out what information I hold?" She stood straight and contemplated the prostrate form for a beat. "No. I won't. Not yet, anyway." Bashit awoke. Gul Ragat struggled to his feet and picked up his pack in weary resignation. "Don't look so tortured," she said, feeling little pity but much repugnance. "You don't have to walk. We have transportation." The Gul relaxed visibly, and Dax was sorry she had told him so quickly. She stared at his back as he waited. He does know something, she concluded. At the least, he's found electronic or even paper records. If it's a main computer, then maybe we can reprogram the planetary defenses to let the Defiant pass! It was a charming thought--whose reality depended on nothing but the whim of an ancient Cardassian Gul, unusually cynical and manipulative even for that species. Or is he really that old, chronologically? She shrugged; he was ancient in mind if not in body. Jadzia Dax throttled back her racing thoughts and began scooping her belongings into a pack. At least, considering Gul Ragat's condition, he wouldn't be making any quick breaks for the border.

CHAPTER 3 CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO stayed unobtrusive, leaving day-to-day contacts between Federation and Natives to the other away-team members. He tried to perfect his own antitoxin, and it got better. Still, I don't know how much longer we can last, he thought, hypospraying himself with the latest experiment. Captain Sisko was particularly pleased at the progress Commander Worf was making on the military side and with Chief O'Brien's work with Owena-da to develop home-grown "new tech" to replace the fantastic devices the Natives had relied on for millenia, but that no longer worked. They don't work anymore because I stopped them, he thought for the thousandth time. No matter what the others imagined, Sisko was increasingly aware that making such a terrible decisionmcutting off all power to the northern hemisphere--didn't get easier with time. He still stewed over the dilemma, second-guessing everything he had done. He took a deep breath. Some of the ache was gone. The new serum did in fact work marginally better. "They are learning," he told O'Brien, injecting the chief; "but are they learning quickly enough? Will we be able to repulse the next Cardassian attack?" "I think it likely," said O'Brien, who continued to cough. Sisko couldn't tell yet whether he had improved. Of course, he'll say he has, regardless, realized the captain. "Spears and arrows against disruptors?" "People confuse not being state-of-the-art with being obsolete," said O'Brien; "especially us engineers. But you know, old-fashioned radio still works as good as subspace over short distances; and you can die just as easily from an arrow in the gut today as you could two thousand years ago, sir." Sisko stroked his chin, looking at the three woodplus-local-steel devices the chief had placed before him on a fallen, blue-gray log. Owena-da's first design was what O'Brien had called an "arbalest" but looked to Sisko like a crossbow, a "steel" archer's bow mounted on a shaft, with a trigger to loosen the string. The second, invented the next day during lunch by Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha (cut down from mayor-general) was a pair of miniature, hand-held, angled catapults, each of which fired a small, castmetal ball split in half, the two halves connected by a two-meter length of cable: after firing, the halves of each ball would separate, pulling the cable taut, and rotate at a high speed, wrapping around the legs and arms of anyone unlucky enough to be standing in the way. A two-shot, automatic bola pistol, thought Sisko, awed. The third device, also by Owena-da, was more

complex, a technological leap in two days that had taken humans a thousand years. The weapon resembled a tube with a trio of metal bulbs growing out the rear end. Cocking the device by operating a pump lever several times compressed the air in the bulbs; the compressed air then fired a needle-sharp poison dart that O'Brien estimated could pierce Cardassian battle armor in a square shot within twenty meters range. Owena-da dubbed it the "Viper's Kiss" (at least that's how the universal translator rendered the name). As Sisko gingerly fingered the Viper's Kiss, he heard a dull explosion outside and down the hillock to the east, in the area Worf and O'Brien had selected as a munitions proving ground. The colonel-mayor, her daughter Tivva-ma, and Owenada were experimenting with the Sierra-Bravo version of gunpowder, though they hadn't yet learned to control the gas expansion. The Captain shuddered slightly; have I built a Frankenstein's monster? On whom would the erstwhile Tiffnakis, now called Vanimastavvi, turn once they had rid their planet of its Cardassian infestation? As least O'Brien had stopped hacking, and his color looked better. The captain was encouraged. "Chief," he said, "could you ask the rest of the away team to step into my tent?" While O'Brien beetled away, Sisko paced, hands clasped behind his back, trying to frame his argument. "Gentlemen," he greeted the team when they arrived, injecting each man except Odo. "We are in a tricky situation here. All... this." Sisko gestured expansively, indicating the Vanimastavvi all around them. Everyone seemed to understand what he meant. "The Natives are progressing much faster than any of us expected," said Worf. "I told you about the constitution," said Constable Odo, visibly piqued. "If you ask me, they're moving too fast." "You're right. The question is what to do about them." "By the time they finish," bragged O'Brien with a wicked grin, "they'll have such weapons, the damned Cardassian bastards won't know what hit 'em!" "I want my clothes back," insisted Quark in a quiet, angry voice. He looked particularly oafish wearing animal skins and wooden clogs. "Gentlemen, we are in the fight of our lives here. The Defiant is gone, and who knows when it will return. Our food supplies are dwindling, and we still can't eat the native plants or animals." "Sir," interrupted Chief O'Brien, "maybe we can get the Tiffnakis, or whatever they're calling themselves now, maybe we can get them to invent a food reprocessor?" Odo snorted. "Oh be serious, Chief. They don't

even know the first thing about food chemistry. All the intelligence in the quadrant can't turn lead into latinurn!" "Why don't we let them read a Federation chemistry textbook?" "Did you happen to bring one along, Chief?. Captain, can you please continue?" Odo turned his back on the chief and folded his arms defiantly. Sisko had kept quiet during the exchange, using his lack of interest to make the point to O'Brien. "Thank you, Constable. We must raid the Cardassiaris again. They have the only food we can eat, the only water we can drink. I'm tempted to take the Vanimastavvi on the raid, or allow them to perform it themselves." "May I interrupt, Captain?" Without waiting for a response, Worf turned to face the entire group and continued. "I do not advise that we raid the Cardassians." "How are we supposed to eat?" demanded Chief O'Brien, who was beginning to look a little thin and stretched, thought Sisko. "Up until now," said the Klingon, "the Cardassians have been entirely or/the offensive. They may be aware that the power is offline, if they have attempted to use captured native technology. But they will not associate that with the passive, ah, Natives." Worf paused, waiting for response. Sisko nodded. "We're listening, Commander." "The Cardassians have attacked many Native villages. In every case, the Natives have responded with panic and ill-prepared and ineffective defenses, allowing themselves to be overwhelmed in a matter of moments." "Wolf," snapped O'Brien, holding his stomach, "we already know all that." "But as soon as the Natives go on the offensive, especially if they are effective, the Cardassians will be alerted to the changed situation. They will respond. Although they are not Klingons, they are still determined and clever warriors. We do not want merely to bloody their noses. If we are going to tip our hands, we must do so decisively." "Never do your enemy a small injury," quoted Sisko. "That is well said, sir. You raise his ire but do not cause him to fear you." "I take it you are suggesting, Mr. Worf, that instead of a small raid, we launch a war." "That is what I recommend as chief military advisor." "Does anybody disagree? Gentlemen?" Odo frowned, opened his mouth, but closed it again. O'Brien didn't respond. But Quark cleared his throat. "May I say something, Captain?" "We already know you want your clothing back,

Quark," said the constable. "Mr. Wolf, Mr. O'Brien," said the captain, "Begin preparing plans for a full-strength assault on the Cardassians. Odo, go aloft as a local bird and scout out where the biggest body of invaders lies. And Quark .... "Sisko hesitated, finally turning to look at his troops. The Ferengi was good at negotiationswbut tactical planning for a military operation? "Mr. Quark, why don't you go: bargain for your clothes back. Team dismissed; I have reports to begin drafting." And many dark and ~ightening thoughts to explore, he added to himself. Dax sat in the shade watching Gul Ragat, the beatup skimmer parked beneath a scrubby blue tree. He stood rigidly in the high sunlight, stiff as a board, hands clasped behind his back in a motion that would have looked regal on a fellow not wearing rags. "Gul Ragat," said Bashir, "get into some shade, for heaven's sake. We have water--Cardassian water." "I do not require water," said the Gul. "Thank you, Doctor." Dax smiled. She closed her eyes, resting. "Mad dogs and Cardassians go out in the midday sun," she said, more to herself than to Bashir. "Why does that sound familiar?" asked the doctor anyway. "I'm sure I've heard ...."He trailed off in silence, for Dax wasn't listening. She pondered Ragat's offer: information for freedom. Fundamentally, it was a good trade. The last thing in the world I want is to be dragging a prisoner around with me, especially a flail, young-old man. But there was the problem that Ragat knew who they were, which so far the rest of the Cardassians did not. She relied on that ignorance. If the Cardassians realized there was a Starfleet away team on Sierra Bravo, they would move mountains to hunt them down and kill or capture them all. We're their only natural predators, she said to herself. "Julian," she said in a voice almost too soft for him to hear, even sitting next to her. "If we can figure a way to keep Ragat off the board for the next week or so, I see no reason not to let him go." "I was just thinking the same," said Bashir. "If he's telling the truth about the information, that might be much more beneficial to us than a prisoner." "I doubt the Cardassians would trade much for his carcass. To hear him talk, there won't be too many statues erected to Gul Ragat on Cardassia Prime." "His troops seem loyal," said Bashir, but he sounded dubious even as he said it. "His troops are a bunch of renegade brigands. His XO would probably pop the cork on some expensive

Cardassian Champagnemif there is such a thing--if we told him Ragat was a prisoner." Bashir nodded. "Then let's accept his offer." "We can dump him in the wilderness," suggested Dax. "With water and provisions," said the doctor, giving Dax a hard look. "Of course. Enough for a couple of weeks... easily long enough to hike back to a Cardassian encampment, if he doesn't get lost." "As you say," said Bashir, still sounding as though he were trying to convince himself rather than Dax, "the information is more valuable than the man." "If," said Dax, "he's telling us the truth." Gul Ragat turned to stare directly at the pair. "Of course he's telling you the truth," said the Cardassian. "We came across a nodule that I believe is a terminal of some sort, connecting directly with the main planetary computers, wherever they are. We have been able to access part of it... the historical records." Dax fell silent in astonishment. Beside her, Bashir was likewise speechless. "You really have it?" she said, quite unable to keep the eagerness out of her voice. Ragat sighed, stepping into the shadows at last. He was sweating, Dax noticed, a strange, bluish perspiration, whether natural for a Cardassian or from the planet, she wasn't sure. "I will take you to my glorious imperial camp," he said with lip curled. "You will be able to query the computer yourself. We can also reprovision there. I want four weeks worth of rationsrain case I do get lost." "How many guards?" asked the Trill, warily. "But two," said Ragat. "Not recognizing your presence, I took all but two junior noncoms out on the Wild Hunt." The bitterness in his voice almost made Dax feel pity. Then she remembered the butchered village, and she pressed her lips together to hold back the fury. "Yes," continued Ragat, "we had just left the camp when you attacked us. It's no more than, um, four or five of your kilometers distant." Dax leapt to her feet, so eager to see this alien computer "nodule" that she couldn't bear to rest any longer. "Lead on," she commanded. Anticipation all but drove the rage from her mind... until later. Until it would be needed. Bashir groaned. "Jadzia, that's--" She held up her hand, stopping his objection. "Yes, Julian, I already know that's not the line from the play. Let's get across this damned gully and find that deserted encampment. We'll leave the skimmer here," she added as afterthought; "your engines are so damned noisy, it would be like calling ahead for an appointment." They set out across the sand,

trekking toward their rendezvous with an alien brain. Deserted the camp was indeed. In fact, Dax was quite astonished to discover the Gul had told the truth: there were only two Cardassian guards at home; one was relaxing out of sight, suggested Ragat. "Julian," said Dax, "take care of the sentry." Bashir took down the sentry with no muss, a single shot on stun laying him gently to the dirt. The three-man team approached silently, ghosting up to the fallen enemy. "What now, Jadzia?" asked the doctor. He frowned, starting to dig in his heels. "No need," said Dax, holding up her hand. "The liquor ruse again?" She shook her head. "Nobody would believe it a second time. But I have another brainstorm. Julian, can you inject something into his heel that will cause his foot to swell up and itch?" "Itch? How much?" "A lot." "And why? You don't think he's going to tell us anything in exchange for the antidote, do you?" Dax laughed. "Come on, what could a corporal possibly tell us? Do you think Gul Ragat confides in his noncoms?" The Gul affected not to hear the reference, and Dax continued. "But when he comes to and tries to figure out what happened, if he finds what looks like a weird bug-bite, don't you think he'll put two and two together?" Bashir smiled. "All right, Jadzia; one itchy beesting coming up." While the doctor mixed the potion, Dax scouted the compound with Gul Ragat in tow. "If you make a sound," she promised, "it will be your last. There's no Julian Bashir here now to get in the way." She looked significantly at the Gul, who swallowed and tried to look nonchalant. But she could see he was shaken. He knew, of course, how many lives she had livedrand that some of her incarnations had been rather more bloodthirsty than the typical Starfleet officer's. Gul Ragat said not a word as they crept up on the remaining guard. They caught him sleeping on a couch, a regs manual lying open on his chest. He snored lustily, obviously out for some time. Dax returned to Bashir, who had just finished anointing the unconscious guard's foot. She dragged the doctor into the library, where he hyposprayed the sleeping guard with a sedative that would keep him out for three hours or more. "He's already asleep," said Dax. "He'll just assume he was tired." Gul Ragat snorted, sounding almost like Constable Odo. "How clever you can be," he said, nodding approval. "I see your long contact with the Empire has rubbed off on you." "Computer," said Dax, all seriousness again. Try as she might, she couldn't get the image of the

Native massacre out of her brain. Nothing Ragat said seemed at all cute or witty when superimposed as voice-over to that internal video feed. The Cardassian curled his lip as if smelling something distasteful. "Of course. Let's get down to business." 0 CHAPTER 4 DAX MADE RAGAT walk in front along the corridor and kept a phaser trained on his back. She trusted that her own reactions would be faster than the old man's, even if he had a head start from plotting beforehand: he wouldn't elude them or sound any sort of alarm. Bashir searched all about them with his medical scanner, looking for life signs; Cardassian, Native, or anything else. But the Gul was in no mood to fight. Looking terribly bent over, like a question mark, as if he really were oldtbut he wasn't!--he padded through the prefabricated corridors that had been thrown up in a day by the Cardassian Corps of Engineers, and led them to a steel door secured by a complex lock. Dax examined it closely, saying, "Julian, I think even Chief O'Brien would have trouble bypassing this security protocol." She caught hold of Gul Ragat's arm and pulled him to the lock. "You'd better be able to open this, if you want to live to rejoin your friends." "Don't look at me for relief," said Bashir, as the Gul flicked his eyes at the doctor. "I'm not in command here." Julian doesn't look pleased, thought Dax. He doesn't like the whole hostage game. Well, hell--neither do I. But Gul Ragat at least understood the rules. With a great sigh, as if leaping a threshhold he never thought he would cross, he poked and beeped the touchpad until the door reluctantly ground open. Air hissed around the edges as the seal cracked. Dax sniffed as they entered: she smelled not only ozone but the curiously wet and fresh smell of cold nitrogen, quickly replaced by Sierra-Bravo's metallic atmosphere. Her eyes were immediately caught by the alien nodule... an apt description, she thought. It was a silvery ball, much smaller than she expected, no larger than her fist. It floated in an antigray field, or else it generated its own. The Cardassians had surrounded it with a dizzy collection of dish antennas and electronic probes-none actually touching the nodule, but arrayed around it in a meter-wide sphere. The Gul crossed to the nearest console and screen, ignoring the nodule itselfi He touched a single control, and the screen flickered to life.

It was filled from edge to edge by Cardassian block lettering. Bashir leaned close, reading as best he could, while Dax kept her eye on Ragat. Surrounded by as much equipment as was in that room, she was nervous lest he activate some sort of alarm, causing an entire regiment to beam into the compound from one of the ships in orbit. She glanced at Bashir: the doctor was so engrossed with what he was reading, he had completely forgotten everything else in the room. His mouth stood open in astonishment. At last, he came to some sort of end. He pressed the screen-down button several times, then stepped back, shaking his head and blinking moisture back into his irritated eyes. "Well," he said, his voice soft and shaken, "I guess that answers a few questions." "What is it, Julian?" Twice, Bashir started to respond, then closed his mouth again and thought. The third time, he made it. "Jadzia--Commander--you weren't too far off in some of your speculations." His lips were evidently too dry; he licked them, but it didn't seem to do much good. "Yes?" she said, revolving her hand as if to say speed it up/ "Jadzia... this entire planet is a gigantic socialscience experiment." An icy, invisible fist gripped at the commander's bowels. "Conducted by whom? To discover what?" Julian Bashir sat on a blue chair, stroking the console and thinking. "A long time ago--that sevenmillion-year timeline you calculated for the hut hit it on the head--the Natives' ancestors grew interested in the question of whether technology and society were inseparable. So they... God, this is so horrific. They found a planet amenable to their biology and terraformed it--I suppose they also genetically engineered the animals for consciousness and intelligence, but the scraps I read weren't clear on that point. Maybe that's natural for those animals on the Natives' home system, Native Prime I guess you can call it." Dax waited. "Julian, are you going to tell me? Or do I have to learn Cardassian and wait for the novel?" "All right. They sprinkled the planet surface with a random sample of their technology, which was far in advance of our own. Then they raised about a hundred million of their own children in complete isolation from any adults, any elements of culture or society, even from the language the Native Primes themselves spoke." Nobody said a word; a solid minute of silence passed, punctuated by the clicks and hisses of the Cardassian air recirculators. "God is the right word," said Dax at last. "That's exactly what the Native Primes were playing. And a bored and decadent God at that."

"Then they took these kids--" "I can guess the rest, Julian. The Native Primes took the kids, as soon as they could walk, and transported them down to the surface of SierraBravo, all alone--no mother, no father, no culture, no community, nothing but each other and a world filled with enough 'new tech' to allow some of the kids to survive. Julian, what was the death rate?" He shrugged. "Well, there were a hundred million to start, and today, seven million years later, the population appears stable at eleven million. I would guess that most of the deaths occurred within the first year." Dax felt nauseated. "That's a death rate of 89 percent of their own children. And they let the experiment continue!" "They surrounded the planet with defenses intended to keep everyone away. I suppose the Native Primes must have died out or lost interest millions of years ago, but they never terminated the experiment as long as they lived. The eleven million Natives left on Sierra-Bravo probably wouldn't be enough to be self-sustaining, except for the technology that provides food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, and everything else they need." "Julian, I hope you're wrong, dead wrong about that." "About what?" "That the Natives won't be self-sustaining, now that we've..." She didn't need to finish. She was sure Bashir understood the catastrophic, unlivable guilt they would all feel if a ham-fisted attempt to save the Natives ended up killing them all instead. Eleven million ghosts dragging me to my grave. CouM I ever live with myselj? She fought down existential terror. Even three centuries of life hadn't prepared her to shoulder such a weight of culpability. Bashir's face paled. "Here's to being dead wrong," he toasted, raising an imaginary glass. "Well," said Dax, still trembling, "I guess they proved one point." "They did?" "Civilization and technology are separable." She laughed, more from nervousness than mirth. The cold metal computer banks surrounding her looked so much like Deep Space Nine, she felt a great longing to get the hell off the planet and back home--a home she would probably never see again, now that Kai Winn had her clutches on it. "I guess Worf was right after all, all those warnings he gave about technology not being enough to sustain a society." Bashir shrugged; he didn't seem interested in Worf's philosophy of technology. "So now what?" he asked. "Well, it eliminates one worry." She paused. "At least we don't have to fret about violating the Prime

Directive. There is no natural evolution to disturb in this demonic social experiment." She stepped forward, taking Gut Ragat's arm. "Okay, you gave what you promised. Let's get on the hump. We've got some flying to do." Somehow, the bloody crimes of Gul Ragat didn't seem so significant to Dax at the moment, against this new landscape. Then they left, Ragat shutting and sealing the door behind them. They exited the way they had come, hiking the three klicks back to the remaining skimmer. Again, they sandwiched Gul Ragat between the two of them, Dax driving, and set off across the desert. The landscape below shimmered in the heatinduced turbulence. Dax was quiet for the moment, thinking about the Native Primes, the children, the experiment. At last she spoke. "I'm going to dump him off about a hundred and fifty kilometers from the nearest Cardassian base," she shouted over her shoulder. Bashir nodded, also distracted. Only Gul Ragat seemed unconcerned about the atrocity they had read about. Of course, he had had several days to think about it already. And of course, he's a Cardassian, thought Dax bitterly. At last, she veered away from her phaser-straight northeastern course when she saw a bluer glimmer on her right. It turned out to be a large saltwater lake. She landed, turned to Ragat, and said, "end of the line, partner." He startled as from a dream of long ago. "What? Here? There's nothing." Dax bared her teeth. "Take a hike. Way back to your compound is a century and a half that-a-way." She pointed back along the course they had come. If the GUl couldn't find his way back, she decided, that was his own problem. "Keep these mountains close on your left. You'll get there." Gul Ragat pulled a stiff upper lip, Cardassian to the end. Must be a noble house, she thought, understanding but unimpressed. He spoke, seemingly to no one, or to himselfi "Perhaps it's for the best. I have always had my Neemak Counselor." "What kind of counselor?" Ragat shook his head. "Now it's a changeling. One of those." He stared at her with intensity, speaking like a lost soul in an endless nightmare. "They spy on me," he explained, enunciating clearly, as if for a hidden microphone. "Now they take the form of Cardassians and infiltrate my organization. Was Neemak a spy, do you think?" "I don't have a clue to what you're talking about. And actually, I don't care." Ragat smiled knowingly at Dax, smiled and winked. He bowed with slight mockery but real courtliness. "It's not important to anyone but me."

She pulled a pack from the saddlebag, twentyeight days worth of Cardassian provisions, as demanded, lifted from the compound. "You'll pardon us if we don't wish you luck," she said. Then she started the engine, yanked the skimmer into the air, and took off, leaving the pathetic, hunched figure of a man standing by the lonely shore of the lake. He was looking, not the way they had come, the way he would return, but at the sinking sun--almost as if he saw his own life falling toward its horizon. Then he was gone, and Dax couldn't even see him in the rear-viewer. Bashir leaned close. "You drive for a while," he said, "then it's my turn. I don't want to stop for the night. Let's put some distance between us and .... " She nodded. I know exactly what you mean, my friend. Kai Winn settled painfully into the overly austere chair in the Emissary's former office, behind the tooplain, too-small desk overlooked by barren walls and unornamented ceiling. The Emissary was the elect of the Prophets, but he had much to learn about the majesty of office. Perhaps he would have made a good ran fin or monk, but he would have served very unwell as Kai. May the Prophets forgive me, she appended with half her heart. She let her head droop into her arms. There was nothing more tiring than wearing The Face, bowing and scraping to a "master" who must not under any circumstances understand how much one loathed him or that one sought any method at hand to end his plans, career, life. Winn smiled behind her arms; Nerys was surely discovering this very fact at exactly the same moment. The child, Kai Winn's secret protege (a status unknown even to the major herself), was finally beginning to grow toward adulthood: the major is attaining majority, O joyous day. And her secret mentor, Sister Winn, was nervously anticipating Gul Ragat's raid on the Riis spaceport, hoping that the young boy Barada Vai had understood Winn's cryptic message and warned the Resistance cell not to .... No, no, that was years agogdecades.t I am Kai now. Or am I still a vedek? Is Opalca still among us? No, I'm sure she is gone and I am Kag but I'm just too weary to get up and check. The memory-dreams were coming more frequently, striking Winn in her waking moments, not only at night. It's because this whole adventure has turned into a waking nightmare, she concluded. It was supposed to be so simple, so triumphant. Bajor, in the person of Kai Winn, was to assume control of the Cardassian eye that had orbited the planet for so long, watching every move of the Bajoran people. She would rename it to remove not only the stench of Cardassia but also the shame of Federation rescue

when Bajor could not free itself. Once Terok Nor, then Deep Space Nine--now the station was Emissary's Sanctuary, a Bajoran name for a little piece of Bajor--defacto as well as de jure now. That scheming little blasphemer Shakaar, having weaseled his way into appointment as First Minister, tried to add the title of Governor of Emissary~ Sanctuary to his plate. But Kai Winn made sure the Council considered all its options and choices; in the end, "it was decided" that the station would be better in the hands of a proven religious leader, already so favored by the Prophets as to have been elected Kai. "It was decided"--by me. And I must confess, I enjoyed that little exercise of authority. There really was nothing wrong with Shakaar. He was a good fellow, had been a loyal soldier during the Resistance. But the Prophets had had so few victories of late in the thoroughly secularized Bajoran government. It was good to win one for righteousness, for a change. Not every popular indulgence or every move toward tolerance was good for the people--even if, childlike, they enjoyed it. A child would enjoy candy for dinner, too, and a man might enjoy intimate time spent with that poor Bajoran Dabo girl in Quark's Place. But enjoyment didn't make gluttony or adultery acceptable. There was always duty. Duty called to everyone, from the farmer in the field to Kai in the Sky. Brothers and Sisters of faith had great duties laid upon them. Winn knew her duty; it had been writ clear from the moment the opportunity presented itselfi she had to get the holocam with its precious images to the cell, to any cell. The information was so urgently needed for .... There I go again, down the snakehole of old memories. Well, if the Prophets will hint so strongly, I must yield to their will. Consciously relaxing her face, her shoulders and thoughts, Kai Winn drifted into a dark, fretful temple where she was faced with four ways to fail: if she lacked the badge of valor, she could throw the holocam into the bushes and forget all about it; if she missed the stone of wisdom, she could confide in the wrong man and be denounced; if she lost the bowl of compassion, she could condemn another, such as Barada Vai, diverting suspicion from herself. And if Winn misplaced the needle of reason .... THIRTY YEARS AGO Heavenward Prayer Spaceport, the "Palm of Bajor," was a marvel of obsolescence in an age of modernity; Sister Winn loved it beyond all its fellows. Though the Cardassians had renamed it--with typical bureaucratic inventiveness--CoUection Point One, all the Bajorans still used the original name (and if the

truth be told, so did nine-tenths of the Cardassians. Tradition imbued every building, floating walkway, roadway, and launch pad in the place: the passenger terminal, for example, now used for large-scale Cardassian troop transportation as well as for ferrying Cardassian notables and Bajoran untouchables to Terok Nor, included not a single slidewalk. Instead, passengers shuffled along on foot past murals depicting the Nine Stages of the Prophet Amadan, the Beginning, the Apotheosis of Ramn, and the Gathering. That is, the Cardassian legionnaires and Bajoran prisoners walked; high-ranking Guls, legates, and other dignitaries simply "beamed" from the entry checkpoint directly to the VIP lounge, having little apparent interest in Bajoran religious artwork. Sister Winn, crouching in a muddy ditch on the outskirts of the landing field itself, squinted against the afternoon sun, which burned her eyes even through her polarized, UV-protection, "frog-eye" sunglasses. In her discomfort, she considered the Cardassian innovation of beaming, disassembling a body into molecules or atoms or subatomic particles or whatever, firing it through the ether at some unholy speed, and miraculously rebuilding it at another spot, and decided that she would rather suffer an eternity of foul-smelling mud and an endless supply of mud-chiggers than ever allow herself to be atomized like the bug-spray she used in her tiny garden. I will never, ever, ever voluntarily use that horrific method of transportation... surely it strips body from soul and leaves the latter behind She pinched to death another chigger that had happily begun to gnaw on her ear. Winn had only herself to blame for her discomfort: she had led Gul Ragat to this awful vantage point, whence he could "spring his ambush" on the unsuspecting Resistance raid. He expects to net an entire cell, thought Sister Winn grimly, and who ~ to say he won't be right? She prayed yet again to the Prophets that the young lad, Barada Vai, had understood her secret message and convinced the cell leaders of the lurking disaster; if prayerful repetition alone were sufficient to move the Prophets, then Winn had prayed enough to invoke Their physical presencemhigher than the tallest launch tower--on the landing field itself.

CHAPTER 5 HEAVENWARD PRAYER was the forefinger of the Palm of Bajor, laid against the Kimbila Stream, the largest tributary into the Shakiristi River. It lay nearly ten Bajoran kilometers from the city of Riis proper, which itself sat at the "wrist," where the swollen Shakiristi threw itself through the final pass in the foothills of the Lakastors into the Cold Sea. In the summer, the rolling hills would be brown, the moist hollows deepest green. Streams and rivulets collected from the Lakastor Mountains and from the sharp buttes of Granite Prayer, and chuckled down the hills, barely slowing across the valleys, until they flowed into the thundering Shakiristi. But now it was deep, cold winter. Riis never grew cold enough to snow, but the chill wind picked at Sister Winn's bones and made her joints ache. She pulled the priestess habit tightly around her ample flesh, wishing she had listened to her inner nag and worn long underwear. Gul Ragat appeared impervious to the weather. He was so intent on catching his rabbits he was practically salivating. The spaceport itself was laid out like a gigantic kami board: a circular causeway surrounded the landing field, raising it above the swampy lake of dark-green water on which the rest of Riis floated. High ramps, reinforced now for Cardassian heavytracked vehicles, drove like spokes from the "wheel" of the causeway to the field itself at the hub. An access road spiraled from ramp to ramp, tighter and tighter, closing on the center of the field like a spider web. The buildings were arched and porticoed, colored in muted greens and pastel pinks. They lay low, hugging the dry elevated land. Except for the tower, not a building rose higher than four storeys. The controlling tower was a pyramid that thrust skyward--heavenward--five times that height, dominating the landscape. From the top, where a revolving vegetarian restaurant was a customary tourist watering hole, Sister Winn discovered she could see all the way to Kimbilisti, forty kilometers away. At night, the lights topping buoys on the lake and dotting the surrounding countryside between the Thousand Rivers of Riis looked like nothing so much as a heaven full of stars reflected on land and water--hence the name Heavenward Prayer. "Where are they?" said Gul Ragat, so softly that Winn wasn't sure whether he was talking to her or himself. "Your pardon, my lord?" Ragat turned on Sister Winn the angriest face he'd ever shown her. "Where are they? Your little rebels... what are they waiting for?"

Winn tried to look nervous, which wasn't at all difficult. She licked her lips and discovered her tongue was just as dry. "I... uh... perhaps they're--delayed?" Her face flushed with the lie, and she hoped he would give the reaction a different interpretation. "Perhaps," said the Gul, "they're not coming at all. Perhaps they know not to come." "Give me--give them more time, my lord! They may yet come." She crouched away from the window of the inn Gul Ragat had taken over. Winn buried her face in her forearms and prayed. Her words were a flat lie: Sister Winn already knew there was no chance whatsoever that the rebels would show up and attack the spaceport. Jaras Shie was the most punctual man in the entire Resistance-that was almost the only thing Sister Winn knew about him. If Jaras missed an attack at dawn, it could only be because he had no intention of attacking at all. Winn's prayers were not a request of the Prophets--they were words of thanksgiving. But I do beseech the Prophets, she corrected herself. She was spared the horror of having collaborated with the Cardassians... but she still had a holocam full of pictures to deliver. If she failed to get the camera to Jaras's cell, then all the lives she had put at risk, including her own, would count for nothing. "Their eyes will see every part of you," said someone from--from inside Sister Winn's own head. She looked up, sucking in a sharp inhalation. She had never "heard voices" before! For a moment, the priestess felt dizzy; a senseless fear stole across her face. Am Igoing mad? she wondered. Then, just as quickly, she understood: Prophets, he~--they're about to search met Winn stood, mouth open. Gul Ragat had never searched her, not once in the four years she had (as he thought) served him. He rarely had anyone searched, violated--never a priestess. But she knew at that moment that Ragat was going to do the unprecedented... and he would find the holocam. He couldn't help it... her trick bootheel wasn't that clever. Whose voice was that? Flustered, she pushed her mind away from the contemplation of forbidden mysteries. Who could it have been but... Winn shook herself, rose, and walked with anguished stateliness to the comer farthest from the Gul and his personal bodyguards. She felt a pair of reptilian eyes tracking her movements. Turning, she beheld Counselor Neemak staring intently at a spot a little to Winn's left. Keep watching until your eyes fall out, she thought. IfI have nothing else, I have the patience to wait for my time. Winn perched herself precariously on a pile of Cardassian field packs. She folded her legs like a

knotted bow, resting each hand on the opposite boot. From this position, it would be but the work of a moment to twist her right bootheel and drop the holocam into her palm--and then what? Where in the world can I possibly hide such a suspicious object as a camera? Several minutes of thought failed to produce a plan, even a germ of one. Instead, she methodically attacked the problem from the opposite side. What, Winn asked herself, could the Cardassians find in a trick swinging heel that would not cause them instantly to execute her? That's easy, she thought. What else wouM an innocent Bajoran wish to conceal from prying eyes and clutchy hands but money? She nodded, humming to herself. Wherever she found to stash the holocam, she had to replace it with a thick wad of cash in her bootheel. Great. Now I have two miracles to pull off in place of one! She decided to work on the money problem first, hoping that her backbrain would continue mulling the primary puzzle of what to do with the holocam. Where, she pondered, would a Bajoran priestess get her hands Bajoran money, she thought; a Bajoran with a wallet full of Cardassian currency would doubtless be executed for robbery. Once again, inspiration stepped forward and introduced itselfi the only person in the Gul's entourage who would probably carry Bajoran bills was the half-Bajoran, half-Cardassian Neemak Counselor, who made a career of playing both sides against the middle and pocketing the squeeze. A brief smile flickered across Sister Winn's face, almost too quick even for her to catch it. Neemak had already lost interest in her, his own patience long since exhausted. It was time, decided the holy one, to put to good use some of the tricks a lonely, friendless seminary student had practiced while her fellow students were laughing and socializing and ignoring her. It's been a long time since I slickered anyone's pocket... if the Prophets love me as I love Them, let Them guide my hands now. "Winn!" shouted Gul Ragat. "Yes, lord?" said Winn, jumping to her feet. "Come here. Now." Winn never waited to be told twice. She rushed to the side of her Gul, who still stared out the window at the controlling tower, a quarter-kilometer from the inn. "I am here, M'lord Ragat, to be commanded." He turned to face her, looking for the first time like a real Cardassian. His jaw clenched like Legate Migar's. His trapezius muscles, absurdly prominent as on any Cardassian, were as rigid and hard as Gul Dukat's. His fist clenched like Colonel Akkat's had just before he had struck Winn in the face at the bulletin tea, four days and a thousand years ago.

Ragat had intervened on Winn's behalf then; now he looked as though he would cheer her hanging. "Barada Vai," whispered the Gul, as if not trusting his voice not to break. Winn said nothing, wearing the mask of serenity she had long ago developed; a professional facemexpectant, calm, but slightly puzzled. "Your brother. You do remember your brother, don't you?" "Yes, of course, m'lord. What about Vai? He's just a child." An evil presence loomed behind her. Without turning, Sister Winn knew the breath of Neemak. But Ragat seemed not to notice. "Even a child has a mouth," said the Gul, words winding about her neck like a squeeze-snake. "So I begin to think." "Oh, no, surely not, most gracious lord!" "But he could have talked," said Ragat in a perfectly horrid, quiet voice; "couldn't he have? If, that is, he somehow guessed that we planned a raid. What a lucky guess!" Neemak, irresistibly drawn by secrets and whispers, began to edge toward the pair, surely stretching both his ears. Winn carefully kept her eyes exclusively on Ragat, though she itched to see how close Neemak was going to getmand to begin a visual search for where the counselor kept his ill-gotten bribe-money. Best not to give the Gul any excuse to find me insubordinate. Ragat turned his back on Winn, but she knew she still had his full attention, even as he stared at the sleepy, unexploded controlling towermas untouched, as unattacked as it had been yesterday and would be tomorrow. It was the symbol of his humiliation, and possibly his ruin, if Neemak were but to put two threes together and get six. After a moment, Sister Winn bowed deeply, backing away with humility. And with half-lidded eyes expertly scanning the half-man to her left. Neemak did not notice; he was too busy trying to penetrate Gul Ragat's open-faced frustration. Winn was suddenly surprised to feel talents she had long since renounced flooding back through her brain and hands. She had immediately seen the pocket that bulged beneath Neemak's black, leather overcoat .... It had been a long time ago, back in the seminary. Winn was not the most well-liked religious student. In fact, she was held in disdain by the fashionably agnostic crowd. When she'd fallen sick with a nerve disorder, a few visited her dorm room out of a sense of duty, but nobody came in friendship. So Winn, in a perverse moment of her life (never since repeated), studied and practiced the simple art of removing a wallet from a pocket... more to restore manual dexterity than for any criminological

reasons. After several months of illness, Winn got quite expert at the obsolete talent... enough so that she could play a few practical jokes on her "friends," slipping valuables into a pocket that would fall out when the mark reached for his handkerchief. She knew she was good. But never before had she found occasion to slicker a pocket for real. It provoked a heavy feeling of stage fright, now that she was lightening the pockets of the counselor--evil incarnate. Neemak was no soldier, but he always wore his greatcoat unbuttoned for quick access to the pistol he kept in a back-draw holster. He was distracted. There was no better moment... certainly none before it would be too late for the priestess, so her inner certainty told her. Before Winn could think twice and perhaps talk herself out of it, she stretched out her hand as she continued to back past Neemak Counselor. Her left hand caught the edge of the thick, stiff greatcoat, drawing it back. She stepped behind him, placing her right hand near his right hip pocket, finger-ends lightly touching the billfold. Now all I need is a distraction, she thought... prayed. "Barada ai," said Ragat, definitely to himself this time. "Barada damned Vai!" "Barada Vai, M'Lord Gul?" repeated Neemak, probing. The reaction from Ragat took Winn's breath away. Never a granite-face, never one to wear the mask, the Gul whiffed to face his counselor-spy with an expression of guilty astonishment, a thief caught with his hand actually inside the lockbox. His face drained, and his mouth opened and closed. Prophets above, thought Winn, he had no idea the silent-footed Neemak was skulking behind him. No clue whatsoever/ And Neemak, no fool in the wiles of intrigue, knew he had struck a vein of purest ore: guilty secrets were lifeblood to Neemak. He smiled, stepping forward eagerly to confront Ragat inside his personal space with the terrible secret he had just learned. Winn stepped quickly, so he wouldn't feel a tug on his greatcoat. "Barada Vai," said Neemak, calculating, "the child you spoke to in the square. Where you waited... as if waiting for Barada himself." Ragat said nothing, but he slowly shook his head. "As we wait here now! How many times, m'lord, have you glanced out that window at the tower? As if you were... waiting for something to happen." Gul Ragat giggled like a schoolgirl. Neemak brought his hands together as if washing them. And holy Sister Winn clipped the folded bills between forefinger and middle finger and slickered them as smoothly as a carny. Heart pounding, she slowly let

the greatcoat close again, then stepped back farther into the opposite corner, sitting once more on the teetering pile of Cardassian field packs. The voices of Gul and counselor dropped to a whisper, and both glanced back at Sister Winn. She waited until Ragat began to sweat. He backed away from Neemak to restore his space, and the counselor stepped forward, "chasing" the Gul in slow motion around the room. How familiar that is, thought Winn to herself, smiling. She had been in Gul Ragat's very situation at a seminar once, slowly pursued by vedek Dasa, intent upon making some obscure philosophical point, until she was rescued by vedek Opaka and vedek Marinasa. The Cardassian-and-a-half had completely forgotten she was even there, so intent were they upon the dance of spider and fly. She fanned the bills... too much, far too much. No Bajoran would have as much money as Neemak carried. She quickly discarded all the biggest bills (and all the Cardassian money) into her palm, keeping only as much as a thrifty priestess might have saved over a few years. She glanced again at the pair of intriguers. Then she swallowed a lump of dust, crossed her legs again, and twisted her heel open. The holocam tumbled out, and she caught it, barely preventing it from thumping on the floor. Fumbling the bills into the secret compartment, all her dexterity suddenly vanished. She swung the heel closed again and breathed a sigh of relief. But a moment later, her heart jumped as she realized that now she held a camera full of classified holos in her hand, a hand that shook with palsy. She stared around the hotel room, desperate for another inspiration from the Prophets--anything!--telling her what to do next. Dresser. Liquor cabinet. Wardrobe. Wash basin. Sink. A bed for the rugged Gul while his legionnaires camped in the old grazing field. A comm screen, a writing desk. Her eyes were drawn back to the wardrobe, then to Gul Ragat's own field pack. Why, by the Prophets, does he carry that, when he sleeps in a luxurious spaceport hotel? He never even unpacks it. The words rustled through Winn's head like dried leaves along a concrete walk: He never even unpacks it.t Thought became deed in the wink of an eye. She rose, crossed to the walk-in closet, and dropped the holocam into a side pocket of the field pack. After a moment's thought, she gently pressed the pocketflap closed, where the fuzzy-hooks held it shut. Then, hearing the discussion slowing, she sat in the nearest seat, a hard, cold, "proper Cardassian chair." She sat at attention and once again put on the mask. Minutes later, as a grim-faced Gul led them out of

the hotel room and into his household's camp in the grassy field that once had been a grazing pasture, she found no difficulty casting away the excess currency that she was still palming, the large denominations and all the Cardassian bills, even with Neemak Counselor breathing down her neck like a wild beast. It never occurred to him that anyone would throw away money, and he did not notice what he could not see. Let the wind hide my deed, thought Sister Winn. Gul Ragat waited, quietly fuming, in the hotel lobby, accompanied by his increasingly worried personal priestess and his gloating counselor. The sun crawled across the sky, then began to walk, and finally sprinted through the last few hours. Sister Winn sat on a couch watching Cardassian news bulletins--nothing interesting, but she wasn't paying attention anyway--until she looked up and it was night. There was no attack; Heavenward Prayer Spaceport bustled as it always did, shouting with its usual cacophony, stuffed as full as ever with Bajorans and Cardassians from here to there and back to here. A moment later, Winn found herself with the unwanted but undivided attention of three Cardassian legionnaires and her own personal Gul. "Yes, my--my lord?" She allowed a note of fear and uncertainty to color her words. "I never thought it would be you," said Ragat. "Me?" Winn's voice sounded tiny and childlike, even to her own ears, and she didn't need to fake it. "To betray me!" Gtfi Ragat's face grew stony and gray, and he spoke through a jaw clenched tight. Winn saw every muscle in the young Gtfi's body flexed. Behind his Cardassian eyes, she saw obsidian. "I? Betray your grace? Prophets forbid I shotfid ever betray anyone to whom I owe my loyalty!" Winn squirmed off the couch and fell to her knees, prostrating herself before the furious Gul. "Please, I beg you--do not blame me, m'lord! I don't know what happened, why they didn't..." She let her voice trail away. Looking up, she stared between Gul Ragat and Neemak Counselor, between rage mingled with its own fear and a triumphant smirk shaken with a drop of nervous confusion: Neemak knew that he knew something, but he didn't yet know what he knew. But Gul Ragat, like Sister Winn, would know that once the half-breed got his yarpi-teeth into a dirty secret, he wouldn't let go until he had swallowed every drop. And Ragat knew it might ultimately prove his ruin... he had withheld information, and by his negligence (and his trusting of a Bajoran) missed the opportunity to capture one of the most effective cells of the Resistance. Cardassia Prime was not forgiving of stupidity. He mouthed a single word silently at her: Barada,

it was. Winn said nothing; what else could the Gul think? He doesn't even know how right he is, she thought with little satisfaction. "Take her," he said abruptly. "And if she resists or attempts to escape--kill her." Winn sighed, sitting back on her rump. She could see that the words tasted bitter to Ragat... yet still, he had forced them out. Congratulations, she thought, you have just ordered your first murder. You are now a fullfledged Cardassian. She rose quickly and went with the sergeant and the two private legionnaires, giving them no excuse whatsoever to carry out the Gul's conditional order, for some Cardassians were only too eager for redwork. She paused only long enough to look back at the young man, barely even twenty-one, and to allow a single tear to roll down her cheek. "M'lord," she said, "I thought you knew me better." Then the unsentimental soldiers yanked her toward the revolving doors and hustled her faster than she cared to walk toward the encampment. Winn stumbled twice on the cobblestones between the lobby door and the grassy pasture. As she was shoved through the camp, the Bajorans who had relied upon her for so much of their spiritual needs, their hope, their lives as anything but slaves, turned their faces away and pretended not to notice. They gave her no support. One young Bajoran boy yelled a rude rhyme at her implying she was a woman of small virtue, but a woman cuffed him and he shut up. They reached the tent that would be her designated prison. As the sergeant yanked open the tent flap, a Cardassian was blocking their way. With a gasp, Winn realized it was the same sadistic guard who had seen her drop off the edge of Surface 92. The corporal's own mouth fell open in shock... Winn was the Gul's favorite! How could she be in such trouble? But then he recovered. He spread his feet, hooked thumbs in his belt, and began to bray. "Well, well, well! Look what we have here! So it looks like I wuz right after all that, and you're a traitor just like I--" Without pausing or missing a step, the sergeant grabbed the bullying corporal by his breastplate and jerked him out of the way and onto his posterior. The sergeant shoved Sister Winn into the tent without a backward glance. The corporal sputtered and leapt to his feet, shouting slurs in Cardassian against the sergeant's manhood and loyalty, words that Winn barely knew--and would never admit to knowing. Only then did the sergeant turn. He stared silently at the bully, saying nothing, just looking. The corporal's voice faltered, then he struggled to silence. Without a word, the sergeant grimly drew his thumb across his own throat in a gesture as universal as it

was chilling. The corporal grew distinctly ashen, confirming what Winn had long thought about such sadistic thugs. Then, with a sick smile, he backed slowly away. Sister Winn prayed she would never see him again... but fretted that she would. The sergeant turned back to her. "Search her," he said without emotion. "Strip her clothes, her boots, her bag. and catalog everything. Then we will prepare for the interrogation." Winn offered no resistance. She had the patience to wait for her time. $ CHAPTER 6 Klic~ a'uE SLAVe watched quietly for her chance. From Kai Winn she was starting to learn the patience to wait for her time. At last, three days following the last "prisoner" roundup, the dean ordered her to the Promenade to talk to Garak: the aliens had decided that all the captives should wear uniform clothing, and they chose the tailor, naturally enough, to design and replicate it. It was a strange feeling for Kira, being so anxious to speak to a Cardassianmand in particular, this Cardassian. But Garak had been in the Obsidian Order, and much as he still turned Kira's stomach, she needed that expertise. "There is something completely wrong about the way they're acting," she whispered to Garak, in between conveying the dean's uniform-design instructions. She looked around nervously: with Kai Winn's inexplicable help, the aliens had reprogrammed the computer to eavesdrop on their captives throughout the station using hidden audio pickups. Garak instantly put his finger to his lips. He went around his shop, starting several cloth-cutting and attaching machines. Then he touched his ear and drew his finger across his throat. Kira interpreted Garak's signal as telling her the noise from the machines would interfere with the computer's ability to eavesdrop... in fact, thought Kira, I'll bet he designed them that way deliberately. A Cardassian, especially this Cardassian, trusts no one. But that was the very expertise she needed. "Which peculiarities have you noticed?" asked Garak, with the faint, I-know-more-than-you smile Kira despised more than anything else about him. "Well, they refer to us as prisoners--" "We are." "Instead of captives or hostages," she finished, glaring at Garak. "And then there's the episode with the civilians in the bombardment shelters." Garak

raised his brows questioningly, and Kira explained what had happened. Meanwhile, the Cardassian worked on a sketch of the proposed uniforms, and he and Kira pointed to various sections and reworked them, in case the aliens had installed spyeyes as well. "I would think they were soldiers," said Kira, "or even police officers. Except for what they call themselves." "Yes, few police renegades would call themselves 'the Liberated.'" Kira gave Garak a hard look, but she didn't bother asking how he had come by his knowledge. He would never tell her anyway. After a moment, Garak continued. "But our quasi-cops certainly appear to be driving police-style ships." Kira blinked. "They are?" "Well they're certainly not military vessels, or you would have them in your security database. Oh, I do beg your pardon," said Garak, bowing. "I should not have implied that I have access to your security database. I was only extrapolating from the fact that your do not seem to recognize the ships, yet I'm sure you consulted the database the moment they attacked the station." The major fumed. It was obvious that Garak did, in point of fact, mean to imply exactly that .... but did that mean he had or hadn't broken into the topsecurity Starfleet intelligence database? Was he just playing games, or did he really know? "They didn't have the kind of weaponry that has been used against us before," she said, thinking out loud, "these, what did you call them? Quasi-cops." "Or there would be little left of Terok--my apologies, of Emissary~ Sanctuary. But tell me, Major Kira .... "Garak hunched closer on the pretext of redrawing a section of the sleeve. "Why didn't you use those wonderful quantum torpedoes of yours, those that your Captain Sisko used so effectively in the recent unpleasantness involving Cardassia?" He smiled without guile, by which Kira knew he was full of it. "There were technical difficulties." I'll be damned if Fll tell him anything, she promised herself. "It's almost as if... as if you didn't have the authorization to fire them. Or some such problem. Why, can you be telling me that the vaunted Federa. tion doesn't trust you with the access codes? Tsk, tsk." He shook his head sadly. "They're getting more devious and suspicious with every passing day. I daresay, the Federation is almost starting to get Cardassian on us." Kira curled her lip, feeling an overwhelming urge to slam her fist into his Carassian face. But she knew any violent impulse would be detected by the slave collar she worewin fact, it was already beginning to tighten. Ten bars of latinum says the bastard knows all about the collar, too.

It was a bet she quickly won. "Well," said Garak, "at least I ought to be able to help you with that." His eyes flickered briefly to the torc, pressing into Kira's flesh. "Can youmdeactivate?" she said, gasping for a thin, reedy breath. The Cardassian nodded, smiling and studying the uniform design. "A small piece, a sliver in the right place, can short out the entire mechanism. We've used similar devices ourselves. I'll work on it and slip it to you when it's ready." She controlled her breath, calming herself. There was no alternative to working with Garak the Spy. "So we have police cruisers driven by quasi-cop aliens who call themselves the Liberated. And they're desperate for an Orb--don't tell me you didn't already know that." "Major!" Garak looked scandalized. "But why? What the hell do they want with it? Why would any non-Bajoran race want to speak to the Prophets?" The instant the words were out of her mouth, Kira gasped, not even remembering to hide the reaction from any lurking spy-cams. Garak smiled; the thought had already occurred to him, she was sure, but now she knew as well... and no need to risk being overheard by saying it aloud. Why would any race want to speak to the Prophets, the "wormhole aliens," as the captain used to call them before he became Emissary? Because the Prophets were a dangerous unknown. Kira didn't think it possible that the Prophets could be turned away from Bajor, but another race might not know that. Even the thought that the Prophets might abandon Bajor was blasphemous. But blasphemies have come to pass before, she thought cynically. That the aliens might succeed in subverting or perhaps even harming the Prophets was a chance she Could not take. Somehow, she had to warn Kai Winn. It was vital, desperately vital, that the alien dean not get his hands on an Orb under any circumstances. The fate not only of Bajor but of the entire Alpha Quadrant hung in the balance. But the Kai was surrounded and constantly watched by the aliens, as if they knew, like Kira, that Kai Winn was the key. Since the moment of the Kai's surrender of the station, the aliens had not allowed the two women to be alone together for a single moment. And how, wondered Kira, thinking of a Cardassian game of strategy she had studied as a young soldier, how to pass through a fortress of stone to whisper the word in the ear of the queen? But she wasn't to get the chance. Garak's door slid open without a preceding chirp, and two of the quasi-cops strode into the tailor's shop. "May I help you, gentlemen?" asked the Cardassian. "Have you

come about the uniforms? I have the preliminary designs right here. I've been working hard on them." Kira admired his smoothness. Her own heart was pounding in excitement. The bugs ignored Garak and walked straight to the major. "You will come," said one of them. "The dean requires your presence in the cell-block control center." "And where is the cell-block control center?" But the aliens did not answer, each taking one of Kira's arms and hustling her toward the door. They dragged her to the turbolift, entered, and said nothing. The lift moved on its own--up to Ops. The Kai, the dean, and several other Bajorans and aliens were arrayed in a parabola, waiting for her. The moment she entered, the dean made a flat statement that he meant as a question: "You work with members of the military unit called Starfleet." Kira uncomfortably noticed she was at the focus of the parabola. After a slow, shuffling moment, during which she pretended to have difficulty understanding the question (she had quickly relearned the traditional Bajoran game played against occupying forces), she nodded. "Yes, sir. I know some people in Starfleet." "Please observe the forward surveillance monitor," said the dean. Kira obediently turned and felt her stomach roll silently. Sitting dead in space relative to the station, but inverted, since it had its own gravity of course, was a Galaxy-class Federation starship, the U.S.S. Harriman. It was sending a hailing message to the current "owners" of Emissary~ Sanctuary... considering that possession, Kira remembered reading somewhere, was ninetenths of the law. "This is Admiral Taggart, captain of the Federation starship Harriman, speaking to the' Dominion force currently holding Deep Space Nine. We have received a plea from a former ranking officer of this station--" Kira winced, feeling the Kai's glare of betrayal burning the back of her neck--"that you be removed from the premises immediately. You have ten minutes to commence evacuation, or we declare an act of war and initiate counterforce to recover our possession." Major Kira shrank within her uniform at the words, as ill-chosen as they possibly could have been. Not only at the arrogance of this Admiral Taggart, proclaiming that Ernissary's Sanctuary was a "possession" of the Federation, but even more at his extraordinary inability to predict the most obvious response from a group of terrorists holding hostages on an occupied military base. What the hell does he think they're going to do? Kira heard no order to open a channel, but the dean began to speak a response. "I am dean of the Liberated. You have ten minutes by your time to depart from the range of these scanning instru-

ments. If you do not depart, we will execute one prisoner every five minutes. To show our resolve, we shall execute two prisoners immediately." Kira said nothing, her throat constricting so tight, she probably couldn't have spoken if she'd wanted. Kai Winn was likewise silent. Both leaders had been through such "displays" before... during the last occupation of Bajoran territory. They knew the drill. It was the hardest thing Kira had ever had to do in all her years in the Resistance: to stand still and watch friends and battlefield comrades murdered rather than yield and betray the rest. But she almost lost her fragile grip when the dean issued the command to his troops. "Take two female prisoners from cell-block Shelter Seven to the transporter chamber, execute them, and transport their bodies to the bridge of the vessel Harriman." "The problem with Cardassian skimmers," said Dax, shouting over Bashir's shoulder against a horrific wind, "is that they're Cardassian." The doctor said nothing, but he thought a few words and phrases he was too much a gentleman ever to say aloud, even to a centuries-old Trill. Speech was an annoyance: Bashir was too busy cranking and straining against the controls of the two-man cycle-like skimmer that had suddenly, two hours before, grown a mind of its own. It had wrenched itself off course and veered sharply to the right. "Julian! Get this thing under control!" "Perhaps you'd like to try it," he snapped. Notwithstanding what could have been considered an offer, Bashir continued tugging on the handlebars for the simple reason that he happened to be sitting in front. "What is this blasted thing doing?" "Julian, I think somebody whistled and it's going home." Dax sounded worried. "Um... Gul Ragat?" "Are you kidding? That old man can't be more than ten kilometers from where we left him, fifteen if he's highly motivated. And he doesn't have a communicatormI searched him myself." She was quiet a moment, then drew the same conclusion that Bashir had already drawn. "It must be a general recall... something has happened, and the Cardassians are retreating to regroup." Bashir pursed his lips. The obvious conclusion to leap to was that the "something" was Benjamin Sisko. But he hardly needed to suggest the possibility to Jadzia Dax, the captain's "old man." The doctor stopped trying to physically wrench it back on their previous course and settled back, panting. "Commander, if this skimmer is heading home, then it's heading..." "Straight into the arms of a Cardassian expeditionary force," she said, her voice barely audible against the whistle of the wind and the whine of a

siren that had started up when the skimmer made a sharp right turn. "Julian," she said, leaning over the side and staring downward, "how high would you estimate we are?" "I'm not a pilot, Jadzia. But I'd say were fifty meters?" "What would happen if we~" "Splattered across the desert like a pair of broken eggs." He sighed, staring at the console before him: the touchplates and buttons were all completely dead; he had already tried them. Whatever broadcast command had turned the sled, it had taken complete control. Dax was still leaning over, but now she started monkeying with the engine. "I wonder," she said. "Julian, do you have something long and thin, like a--like a..." "Probe?" "Yes, that's perfect. Hand it over, Doc." Balancing on the wobbly skimmer, Bashir fished in his medical pouch, extracting his oldest and least delicate plastic probe, ordinarily used to separate tissue from a wound for visual inspection. He handed it to the commander, who began poking at the high-speed, high-power turbine assembly. "Urn, Commander... if you jam a probe in those blades, assuming it doesn't yank your hand off, wouldn't it just--" With a Klingon war cry, Dax thrust the probe as if stabbing a d'k tahg knife into an enemy's innards. The scream of metal almost burst the doctor's eardrums, and the skimmer commenced bucking and sashaying. He wrapped both arms around the handlebars, and Dax grabbed his slim waist in a death-lock that forced all the air out of his lungs. The skimmer began to fly apart in mid-air. Shards of metal were ejected at high velocity, one of them slashing through Bashir's pants-leg and razoring his shin with a horribly painful cut to the bone. But he had neither time nor breath to shout, for as the skragged engine dropped from the frame the skimmer assumed the aerodynamic characteristics of a brick. On the plus side, he regained control of the nownearly-useless flight surfaces. The skimmer fluttered in a flat spin. There was one chance... if the spin acted like the blades of the ancient helicopter, which Bashir had flown in one of his spy-simulations with Garak, it might slow their fall enough for them to survive. The spin increased. Rather than fight it, he did everything he could to encourage it. After a moment, he realized he was dangling from the handlebars, near the axis of rotation, as if gravity were now directly behind them. He clenched his teeth against the acceleration, straining his abdominal muscles to keep the blood in his head from rushing to his feet. If I black out, he thought dizzily, I let go and we both

die. But straining made little difference. They were experiencing probably five Gs of acceleration, and without the anti-G suits worn by pilots back in the twentieth century, they hadn't a hope. Bashir felt Dax's arms suddenly go limp and knew she had just lost consciousness. He caught her with his legs, but he couldn't hold on long. If only they would hit the ground; then it would all be over, one way or another. Goodbye, cruel world, he thought--my last stupid joke. He felt something start to slip from his side--my medical bag! Letting go the handlebar with one hand, he grabbed the bag just as it was torn from his shoulder. Instead, he felt his other pouchmfull of useful survival equipment--fly away to be lost in the desert sands. But he knew his priorities: the principle of triage worked in many surprising places. But the single hand with which he held on was not strong enough for both his own and Dax's weight. The post was wrenched out of his hand. Dax disappeared; he couldn't even remember when she slipped out of his leg clamp. The world was a blackand-gray swirl, and Bashir's head spun so he had no clue as to which way was down. Somebody punched him hard in the stomach, cracking two ribs and leaving him gasping and struggling for oxygen. He couldn't see, couldn't even tell whether his eyes were open or closed... but luminous blackness filled his "vision," or his visual cortex, at least. Oh God, here comes the headache, he just had time to think before the pain struck. It was so intense, it forced an involuntary grunt out of him, and he knew he was alive and on the deck. Nausea overwhelmed Bashir, and he lost every undigested scrap he had eaten in the past twelve hours. When he finished, he blinked his eyes open. They were blurry, but his normal visual acuity soon returned. Shaking, tears and mucous dripping down his face, Bashir rose to his knees and looked for Dax. She was lying on her side about a hundred meters from his position. He tried to move, but the pain in his chest stabbed him, and he inhaled raggedly. Punctured lung, he realized. Gallantry told him to ignore it and walk, crawl, whatever it took to get to Dax's side. But the intelligence that had often frightened him as a child (after his "treatment") began to speak inside his head in calm, emotionless tones: you'll be a lot better help to her, it said, if you're in good health yourself. Repair your own injuries first. He hated the voice of reason, but as usual, he could find no fault with it. "Have you," he gasped to himself, "ever tried--to fix--your own broken-ribs and puncturedmlung?" The answer was no, but Bashir discovered to his surprise that it was possible. ~. assuming one were as flexible as a monkey. He played the tissue restorer across his chest a dozen

times before his breathing settled; it took longer to knit the bones, but he was finished with everything in less than three minutes. He pushed to his feet, ignoring the remaining tenderness, and stumbled across the pebbly sand to Dax. Trill luck had worked as advertised: Dax had fallen first, when they were still too high, but she had landed in a soft sandpit. She was unconscious but still breathing, rasping so loud that Bashit decided she had a fractured skull even before he used the medical tricorder. The skull fracture wasn't serious, but she had a compound fracture of her radius that required immediate treatment before she bled to death (and she already had a head start). After fifteen minutes of very basic emergency medicine, the commander moaned and shifted to a less uncomfortable position. Her eyes opened. She looked at the torn, bloody sleeve of her native costume, then at the exposed arm with the characteristic pink splotch of regenerated tissue. "Miracles of modmmodern medicine," she said, mumbled actually. Then she fell into a deep sleep... partly due to fatigue, partly the mild sedative Bashir had hyposprayed into her shoulder. He allowed her to sleep for two hours while he scavanged everything useful from the wreckage of the skimmer. He clawed his way into the onboard computer brain and found the transponder, smashing it to rubble so the Cardassians couldn't use it to locate the crash site. Then he returned to Dax, squatting over her. "You look so peaceful when you sleep," he said. "I toss and moan like a patient with a fever." Bashir sighed. Then, setting practical judgment above medical wisdom, he gently shook her awake. Dax sat bolt upright, gasping in terror, eyes like saucers. She gripped his wrists painfully hard, staring past him at the lengthening shadows of the desert of Sierra-Bravo. Then she blinked, coming fully awake. "What--whatmwhat a nightmare," she said, shuddering. "Nightmare? Don't Trills thrash around when they dream?" Dax shook her head, clearing cobwebs, not responding to the question. "All right, Julian. Now what?" "At least we're not headed for the last roundup with the Cardassian cowboys." She lowered her brows, studying him. "You say very strange things sometimes. How much time do you spend in Quark's holosuites, anyway?" Bashire smiled at the old Dax. "I'm a student of history. Come, let's start walking and find some shelter for the night. From the sand dunes, I'd guess we might get some wind when the sun sets." They charted a course for the nearest range of hills. But before they could reach them, the breeze

kicked up, as Bashix had prophesied. Soon the sand was blasting their faces, stinging like a swarm of angry bees. Through the painful, dangerous sandstorm, Bashix thought he saw a faint luminescence in the distance. "Lights!" he shouted. "Maybe it's a Native village!" "Where? I don't see anything." "Trust me, it's there," he said. The curse of seeing twenty-fifteen, he thought; nobody ever believes you. As they got closer, the light increased until even Dax could see it. Soon, Bashix could see clumps of houses and other buildings looming in the blackness, and they cut close to minimize the sand damage to their exposed flesh. But none of the buildings were lit, and they all looked deserted. The light he had seen from two kilometers distant was a tiny, starlight lightglobe at the top of a striped pole in the center of town. A hexagon of pavement surrounded the pole. Probably a bandstand of some sort, he decided. Near the bandstand was a garage-like building whose doors were not locked. Dax helped him wrestle the sliding door up--there was probably a button that would have raised it automatically, but they hadn't time to hunt for it. They ducked inside and began to shake out the sand. The doctor fished some facial cream from his MediKit, and he and Dax repaired the sand lacerations. "Do you have a light?" he asked. "I lost everything but the medical gear back on the skimmer." Dax fumbled in her jacket, checking all the internal pockets. "Damn," she said; "my hand torch is gone. Wait, I have something." From what Bashir could see in the starlight that filtered through a window in the ceiling, it was a tube a quarter-meter long, two centimeters in diameter. Dax took it in both hands and made as if she was trying to break it. Bashir heard a pop, and a faint green glowing mess swirled in the center of the tube. Dax shook it violently, and the entire tube glowed brilliant green, lighting the room. "One of Quark's," she said, smiling. "I filtched it from him during the first away-team mission." She held the glowtube aloft and gasped. "Oh, my," she said breathlessly. "What is it?" Bashir turned to look. He saw some peculiar object hulking in the deep shadows at the back of the building. "Oh, my!" "Dax, what is it?" He began to see the outlines of a large, rectangular compartment with seats, storage areas, and a pair of controls that looked like hospital exercise bars hooking over the front seats and dangling down about hand height. Bashir's mouth fell open. "Dax, it's..." "Julian, it's a--" The Native aircar taunted them with its nearness.

Even if they had fathorned its inner workings, there was no way they could take off and fly in the dark in such a storm. "Sleep well," said Bashir, more to the aircar than his companion. "I have a feeling it's back to basic pilot training in the morning." 0 CHAPTER

7

JADZIA DAX forced herself to lie down, she even closed her eyes, but she positively refused to listen to her inner worm and sleep. She lay more or less immobile for the five hours until morning, not wanting to wake Bashir (assuming the good doctor wasn't likewise feigning sleep to avoid bothering her). But the moment the sun east its first tentative rays through the still swirling dust, a natural searchlight illuminating the curious Native car, she was up and inspecting the bizarre piece of equipment. Bashir was at her side in an instant. "So you were faking it," she said. "Sleep?" said he. "What's that? I don't believe I've had a wink since we bubbled up from the Defiant." "Let's see," said Dax, ticking off her fingers. "We fought a sea monster, were ejected from a destroyed runabout, swallowed half the ocean--" "Well, you did, at any rate." "Stole a pair of skimmers and dumped one, took out an entire Cardassian strike team, kidnapped a Gul and dropped him in the middle of nowhere, crashed the other skimmer .... " "And found out where the Natives came from," said a quiet Bashir. Dax trailed into silence, abruptly uninterested in her own witty repartee. Remembering the ghastly experiment in which ninety million Native children had been allowed to die, just to see whether civilization would spring magically from technology, had sobered her mood. "Commander," said the doctor, "are we ready to get this--air-buggy moving?" Dax nodded, leading the way to the vehicle that was slowly becoming visible in the dawn light. The passenger compartment was enclosed by a roll-cage, but the seats were bare blue metal--the "exercise-bar" steering linkages were slightly stiff to Dax's touch. Any looser and they'd be impossible to hoM steady, she realized. There was no obvious engine. Storage boxesm trunks--occupied the entire space behind the seats. Other than the linkages, the boxes, and the seats, the rest of the air-buggy was empty space enclosed by bars. The contraption sat on landing skids instead of wheels; it clearly was intended never to move along

the ground. "Maybe we'd better climb inside, Jadzia," said the doctor. Dax was dubious about the missing engine, but there was nothing else to do except set her eyes on the horizon and start marching. "I really don't want to walk a few hundred kilometers," she said, provoking a puzzled glance from Bashir. She clambered inside, ducking her way through the cage bars and squirming into a seat that was just slightly disproportionate to the Trill frame. "So how do you make it go?" she asked; "or how would you make it go if there were an engine?" Experimentally, she took hold of the overhead crane-like steering link with both hands and pushed forward. The air-buggy leapt up a meter in altitude, then lurched forward like a runabout on maximum thrusters, hurling Dax back in her seat with bonecracking acceleration. With a horrible, metal-onmetal, wrenching sound that tore at Dax's ears, the buggy shattered the back of the garage, shredding bits of steel like tissue paper. Panicked, she let go of the link, and the air-buggy slowed to a stop. But it didn't settle back on the ground; it remained a long step in the air. There was no sound of turbine or fan or even the hum of Federation-style antigravity units. Whatever science held the buggy aloft, it was silent as the grave. "Jadzia! Are you all right?" Dax didn't answer. She was too busy scanning three hundred and sixty degrees around them, looking for an energy signature. "Commander? Did you find something?" "Julian, this car isn't running on broadcast power." "Is there an internal power source? I thought you said there was no engine or energy-storage cell. If it's not broadcast, then what?" "I said it wasn't broadcast power. Julian..." Dax looked up, silently analyzing the bizarre and contradictory tricorder readings. "Julian, it's running on broadcast potentia, not power. An uncollapsed state vector that is sent around the planet instantaneously, at infinite speed. Because it's not real, it's not bound by special relativity." "Broadcast potential energy? That's the most unheard-of thing I ever heard of." She barely remembered reading about broadcast potentia herself, and that was in a speculative engineering-fiction magazine, long ago. "Well, the buggy must convert the potentia into actual power somehow. Then it just--moves. In any case," she said, feeling practical, "we've got our wheels--well, so to speak." Bashir tried out the linkage, pushing it ever so slightly. His more-than-humanly delicate touch allowed the car to accelerate slowly. Twisting the

linkage left or right steered the buggy, and pulling back stopped it, or reversed it if it were already stopped. The simplest possible control, thought Dax. "And where does Madam wish to go?" asked Bashit, trying to sound like a butler in a old English holoplay. She smiled. "Believe it or not, I had time to analyze the path that Cardassian skimmer followed when it was summoned. If we're right that the Cardassians are regrouping--and that Benjamin is the causemthen I think I know where he must be, judging from the Cardies' position." "I don't understand how you get from A to B to D," said Bashir, sounding almost petulant. "Whatever happened to C, the relative position of the captain and the Cardassians?" "Look," said Dax, holding her hands like a fighter jock describing a low-level, impulse-engine dogfight, "if Ben's here, then the Cardassians would be here; so if they're here, then he must be there!" Bashir sighed and pondered the information. He didn't seem entirely to believe it. Well, thought Dax, he's right; half of her "analysis" was really a wildeyed guess. But three-hundred-year-old intuition was not to be dismissed out of hand. "All right," he said, frowning dubiously. "Ah, lead on, MacDuff." The doctor winked at her. "Julian, there's hope for you yet." She showed Bashit the course, and he set off across the plain, the air-buggy rising and falling to keep a steady altitude of one meter-plus off the deck. The Natives advanced behind the column of awayteam members. Sure, they're called Vanimastavvi now, thought Chief O'Brien, stepping nimbly, despite his bulk, over fallen logs, goopy quicksand, and ducking low branches. It was damnably hard keeping track of all the names Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha concocted every few days. Annoyed, O'Brien decided to stick with Natives, the most descriptive name. He followed Commander Worf, who followed Odo, who flapped on ahead as a local hawk, as he had before when scouting Cardassians. But the chief kept his eyes on the captain, looking for a special command. Finally, after nearly six hours of double-timing through the forest and marshland, Sisko caught the chief's eye and flicked his gaze rearward... the signal O'Brien had waited for. Nodding, the chief began to drift to the rear. He drifted farther and farther back along the column until he found himself walking rear-guard next to Quark. After another half hour, long enough not to arouse suspicion, Captain Sisko joined him, followed fifteen minutes later by Worf. "I instructed the colonel-mayor to continue fol-

lowing the riverbed," announced the war-worthy Klingon. "But perhaps I should remain at point and at least get them started correctly in battle." Sisko sadly shook his head. "You have your orders, Worf. Win or lose, the Natives must experience what real battle tastes like. They must hate and fear it, even as they accept its terrible necessity." Worf muttered something dark in Klingon, but O'Brien didn't catch itmand if the captain did, he ignored it. The chief remained close enough not to lose contact with the entire column of two hundred heavily armed Natives, each man and woman carrying a weapon designed and built entirely by Native ingenuity, technology, and sweat. The column stopped so abruptly that O'Brien, straining his eyes left and right for an ambush, ploughed into the back of a woman whose name he didn't even know. Minutes later, Tivva-ma, daughter of the colonelmayor, skipped gaily back to explain what was happening. "Mom thinks--I mean, Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha says this is the bestest place to put in some of the pratfalls Owena-da designed." "Pitfalls," corrected O'Brien absently, though he regretted it an instant later: kids said the cutest things, and there was plenty of time later for corrections. Tivva-ma nodded soberly. "She wants to know if Colonel-Captain Sisko and Colonel-Commander Worf think that's all right. Izzit?" The captain's mouth twitched, but he suppressed the smile that O'Brien could not. "The colonelmayor has command. There is no need to ask permission... we are along as observers, only." Tivva-ma disappeared without another word, racing back up the column to pass along the approval (or lack of disapproval). A quarter of the Natives ghosted into the woods, whence the chief heard sawing and banging and bizarre grinding noises. The rest of the column resumed its march, leaving the engineer-sappers behind as reserves. Clever, thought O'Brien. They've only read but one work on military tactics, something Worf was studying. As they approached the fine edge of the blue trees that marked the boundary between the forest and the wide pastureland surrounding three rivers, Odo came flapping back. The bird was ignored as he stepped behind a large bush. When the constable emerged, however, the Natives crowded around, wondering at the "new tech" that had brought him so far in the wink of an eye. Odo hurried to Captain Sisko and conferred. Then the captain called a general meeting. "Gentlemen," he said, "we are about to make contact with the enemy. The Cardassians appear to have scanned the approaching Natives, and they're mobilizing for

an assault." "Sir," said the chief, "are they sending anyone toward the nearest power relay station?" The chief was asking, in a roundabout way, whether the Cardassians had yet figured out that the power was already out. Sisko shook his head. "No, Chief, they're not; I believe we all understand the significance of that point." Worf nodded. "There will be no surprise among the enemy. They already know they will encounter a different breed of Native. But perhaps they do not know how different." "Let us hope," said the captain quietly. Let us pray, added O'Brien to himself. Asta-ha did not have a trioorder, of course. But she sent a pair of the Vipers of Vanimastavvimthe new name for the commando brigade, replacing the Terrors of Tiffnakimup tall trees, where they watched for the enemy approach. O'Brien had nothing to do but sit and wait, his least favorite activity. Sitting, thinking, fretting, his sang-froid melted like frost in the morning sun. Soon he was trembling, but whether with excitement or fear he couldn't tell. The Natives seemed unaffected by the long wait. Bastards probably don't even know enough to be scared, thought the chief ungenerously. God, but I wish I were back with Keiko and Molly. I wonder whether these damned latinurn-laced tree trunks will stop a Cardassian disruptor? He was about to find out, for at the very moment he was wondering about trees and distruptors, the lookouts whistled a warning--and the rest of the brigade promptly began the bizarre chorus of slithering whistles they used in place of applause. "Quiet! Quiet, damn you! This is an ambush, not a circus act!" Eventually, they settled down, lying in wait as they had along the road during the training exercise, as the Cardassians approached slowly. The trees will give partial cover for the numbers, calculated the chief, but the Cardies will definitely know something's up... especially since they have a Founder leading them. Unbeknownst to them, or so Odo had reported--and O'Brien had no reason to disbelieve. The Cardassians paused on the blue grass a hundred meters from the ambush to confer. From the disdainful looks they gave the forest every now and again, the chief decided they weren't too worried about the Native "wildlife" running berserk and attacking them. Then they formed a Cardassian Square: the front ranks dropped to their knees and aimed their disruptors, while the rear row aimed over their heads. "Fire!" shouted the obviously "Cardassian" leader, who doubtless was the changeling. And fire they

did. Sixty Cardassian energy weapons leaped the intervening distance like a spark jumping a gap, igniting explosions of splintered wood and sending flaming trees collapsing across the anticipated ambush, spraying dirt into Native faces--and directly killing nearly a dozen commandos whose cover was insufficient to protect them. When the barrage ceased, the Cardassians stood and smugly returned their disruptor rifles to portarms to inspect the damage. "Shoot back!" shouted Asta-ha... and the Natives remaining alive obeyed without hesitation. A dozen angry gasoline explosions assaulted O'Brien's eardrums from every direction. He squeezed as flat as he could, wrapping his hands across his head in a futile effort to protect himself from errant gas musketballs. The muskets used compressed gasoline vaporma slight modification of the compressed-air blowgun of three days and several centuries ago--to fling round metal balls across a hundred meters with deadly accuracy and bone-shattering kinetic energy. Simultaneously, a pair of flanks that had crept forward, forming a horseshoe-shaped line surrounding the Cardassians on three sides, opened fire with their own weapons. Tubes belched jellied gasoline, what used to be called napalm, at the uncomprehending Cardassians. Before the enemy could think of taking cover themselves, twenty had been slain, either cut in half by the twenty-five-milimeter musket balls or, even more hideously, burned to death by "Greek fire," as Sisko called it, that could neither be extinguished nor even scraped off the flesh. The Cardassians screamed with rage and anguish and started to panic. But the leaderrain the shape of a Cardassian colonelwshoved them forward instead of backward with a flurry of punches and well-aimed kicks. "Charge! Charge, you bloody fools, if you value your miserable lives!" Cardassian training reasserted itself, and the troops rallied and ran forward, firing their disruptors in wide, sweeping arcs as they came. O'Brien swore lustily as one of the beams sliced through the top of a rock behind which he was crouching. Now it was the Natives' turn to panic. They jumped up and bolted pell-mellwand the Cardassians cut down forty or fifty from behind, literally slicing them in half with full-power beams. With a last glance back over his shoulder, O'Brien leaped to his feet, yanked Quark by the elbow, and ran back the way they had come. But now a few of the Natives, probably the flankers, had turned and shot another volley at the charging Cardassians, mowing down another five to ten of them with the muskets... which were now empty, since they carried only two shots: the Natives had not invented autofeeding magazines quite yet. The troops around O'Brien flung their now useless

muskets aside in order to run faster. Which they proceeded to do, passing the chief and Quark on both sides. "Pump those legs, Quark, unless you want us to be in the very rear of a rearward advance!" The Ferengi didn't need to be told twice. O'Brien began to puff and wheeze, wishing he had spent more time in the gym and less time playing darts and fighting holosuite battles with Julian Bashir. My God, he thought, Tivva-ma/O'Brien pulled up, letting Quark run on ahead, and frantically searched for the little girl. Had she even survived? He felt such a physical blow in his stomach that he almost thought he might have been hit by some shrapnal. But then Owena-da dashed past, with Tivva-ma clinging to his back like a baby chimpanzee. Relieved, the chief resumed his tactical rearward advance, though now he was separated from everyone he knew. Quark had vanished into the forest as only a frightened Ferengi could. They pushed deeper into the forest, and the Cardassians began to have problems: they were heavy shock troops, built not for speed but first impact. They stumbled over obstacles, both natural ones and those thrown down by fleeing Natives to slow the Cardassians' progress. The heavy battle armor the enemy wore worked to his disadvantage now, dragging him down in the swampy marshes and exhausting him in the pursuit. O'Brien began to recognize a few landmarks. Suddenly remembering what the reserves had been doing, setting up deadly "pratfalls," he slowed to a walk, gasping for air and trying to spot anything that might be a trap. He was grabbed by one arm, and almost lashed out at his attacker, but then recognized her as Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha, Tivva-ma's mother and leader of the Vipers. "Come this way if you don't want to die," she said, matter-of-factly. Then she dragged him along an invisible ant-trail that she had no trouble following. "Wait here. Let's see what new tech the girls and boys came up with, yes?" The middle-aged woman winked and loudly clicked her tongue, human-like gestures performed without the context of human subtlety, so that they looked stagey and out of place. Grateful, O'Brien collapsed to his hands and knees, easily able to follow the Cardassians' progress by the bear-like thrashing through underbrush and low-hanging branches. Closer and closer they approached, to somebody's certain death... their own, or perhaps that of the Vipers of Vanimastavvi, or of five trivial Federation observers who very much hoped to live to observe another day. CHAPTER

8

As THE CARDASS1ANS CHARGED, they began to disappear, one by one, like doves at a human magic show. Quark watched dumbfounded for several seconds, before he caught sight of a Cardassian soldier falling into a hole, squawking and flapping in indignation. Indignation that soon turned to shock and terror: the ground erupted with Natives on all sides, popping up from covered trenches and opening fire with their firearms at point-blank range. Quark gagged and ducked, not wanting to see the results of a chemically propelled projectile striking a living (for the moment) body. "Rule of Acquisition Thirty-Five," he said to himself, "War is good for business." It didn't help; he was still terrified. But a very un-Ferengi-like curiosity got the better of his sense of profit. I've lived among the hu-mans too long, lamented Quark. He couldn't help peeking over the edge of the chopped-down log behind which he cowered. A huge tree-trunk swooped down from nowhere, dangling from a pair of cables. It swooshed over Quark's head--far over, but he ducked anyway-and smashed through the ranks of Cardassians, hurling dead and dying bodies fifteen meters through the air. There was a moment's awed silence; then the war resumed, and disruptor fire tore through a few defenders who had stopped to gawk at the carnage caused by one of their traps. With a howl of outrage, a passel of Cardassians broke through the knots of Native fighters and charged directly toward Quark's position. The Ferengi curled up into the tightest cringe he could manage, desperately hoping they would recognize his surrender before killing him. The scream of a blood-maddened Cardassian was enough to kick Quark into a hurried prayer to the Final Accountant... then the lead Cardassian broke through the brush and leapt over Quark's log--and directly over the small form huddled beneath it. One after another, five soldiers dove across the tog, not even one of them noticed the Ferengi. Astonished, Quark turned to watch them recede. They broke free and fled. They had no intention of renewing the fight, not this day! Back in the fray, a series of horrible shrieks riveted Quark's attention. It sounded like a demon or monster of some new variety, and indeed thak-like shapes flashed through the gloom of the forest, about waist high to a Cardassian. Whatever the foul monsters were, they cut through the troops like twisty, crackly lightning bolts. It was several seconds before the Ferengi caught on that they were nothing but metal cables that had been attached to trees, and the trees bent double, so when released, they'd snap the cables like whips through the ranks.

Quark wrapped his arms over his lobes, desperately trying to shut out the ghastly sound of a hundred dead and dying. This isn't what I signed up fort All I wanted was a little latinum, just a stake, a few hundred--I mean, a few thousand bars, just enough to show that bastard Brunt of the FCC that I'm a real Ferengi after all.... Just make it stop/Make it stop[ Quark slowly opened his eyes, unwrapping his arms. Profound silence filled the glade. Even the metallic croaking of the Sierra-Bravo birds had ceased. Late sunlight sliced through the torn overhead foliage, spotting the field of corpses with gold and blood-crimson, but nobody in all the clearing moved. Quark rose shaking to his feet. He was terrified at the thought of being all alone among so many who had tallied their accounts and balanced their books, maybe even more than he had been at the tumult of battle. But it was over... wherever enemy attackers and Native defenders had taken their grudges, it was out of Quark's hearing. "Did I pass out?" he asked aloud. It didn't seem to him that enough time had passed for them all to be so far. "Where is everyone?" "Well, I, for one, am right behind you," said a too familiar voice. Quark whirled to find himself confronted by an unruffled Constable Odo. "And no," said Odo, "you didn't pass out. You continued begging for mercy and cowering in true Ferengi fashion. The Grand Nagus would have been proud." Quark wasn't sure what to make of the constable's response. His words were paying Quark a compliment, but the voice held an edge of sarcasm. "Uh, thanks, Odo," said the Ferengi, uncertainly. "Quark," said Captain Sisko, pushing silently through the ferns and branches, "you did just fine. I certainly hope none of the away team actually participated in the battle. Did you?" From nowhere, Worf and O'Brien materialized, each denying that he had done anything but hide and observe. Catching the flow at once, Quark smoothed his vest and jacket and agreed. "Of course, Captain. I carefully refrained from any fighting. The Cardassians will report seeing only Natives... ah, assuming any are still alive to report anything." But his voice still hid an unacceptable tremor. As the away team moved around the glade, taking stock of the Native casualties, they slipped into and out of shadow, sometimes in direct sunlight, otherwise in blackness more complete because of the contrast. There were no Cardassian wounded or dead; they had taken all casualties with them when they retreated. Sisko frowned, shaking his head. "There is ample credit for us all. And enough blame to put us on a

prison colony for life. No, no," said the captain, waving his hands, "I am the only one at risk. None of you had a choice but to follow orders in time of war." "Captain," said Worf, snuffing the ground like an animal, "the Cardassians left a trail a blind man could follow, and the--the Vipers are in pursuit. Shall we follow?" Sisko was silent. Quark was surprised to see the imperturbable, immutable captain massaging his temples, wincing with pain. "No. Let them learn." Sisko looked up, staring along the trail. "We must leave soon--if the Defiant ever returns to orbit-and the Natives must look to their own defenses. "The plan worked. There are at least thirty fallen comrades here, and another ten or fifteen back on the plains. We have taken some twenty percent casualties, not counting the walking wounded." The intensity of Sisko's glare made Quark turn his head and shuffle his feet. "Then we have been successful," said Worf, nodding in satisfaction. He didn't appear to notice Captain Sisko's bitterness. "My God," said Chief O'Brien, staring at each tall, lean, twisted corpse. "My God, doesn't it ever end? How many damned wars do I have to fight?" He sat down on a severed tree stump. "Gentlemen," said the captain, gesturing them close. "Let us follow at a distance. When the Cardassians turn at bay and drive the Natives back, the survivors will flee into our arms, and we can doctor them as best we're able." "And debrief them," said Worf with a peculiar pride. "And help them understand that they have become true blooded warriors at last." He grinned, and Quark suffered the hallucination that the Klingon's teeth were all filed to points, not beetle-biters like a Ferengi's, but huge and savage, like a human cannibal's. The team pushed forward along the stomped and trampled underbrush and muddy swaths thick with bootprints. As Worf had said, even a Ferengi bartender could follow the path of pursuers and pursued-who would soon enough switch places yet again. Quark dropped back even with O'Brien. "You know, Chief, you have a point." O'Brien said nothing. "It never does seem to end," said Quark, sighing. They pushed on through dark mud, ducking from bright to dark. Somewhere at the back of the Ferengi's mind, he was vaguely aware that the very soil was thickly sprinkled with latinum. But--frighteningly--he no longer cared. The dean erupted from the parabola and stalked forward, catching Kira by her biceps and propelling

her to the turbolift shaft. They waited in silence until the turbolift returned, having disgorged its quasipolice passengers onto the Promenade. The dean and Kira entered, and without any words spoken, the turbolift dropped, then surged forward along one of the connecting tunnels from the core to one of the large transporter rooms. They rode in silence until the dean suddenly said, out of the blue, "No, do not take the ungrown prisoner. It may have been born in prison and never convicted." Kira gasped, realizing that the dean must have been responding to a private communicationmand she just happened to be standing close enough that her universal translator implant picked up the quiet response. He had just given Molly, at least, a reprieve; but what of Keiko? "Dean," said Kira quickly, "if you will save the ungrown one, you must also save the female she clings to. She's the child's mother." The dean turned his faceless head toward Kira, and the major felt a shudder that began in her bowels and finished in her heart. Then she heard a faint clicking, too soft for the universal translator to pick it up. Prophets, please don't let him choose her, Kira thought... then flushed with guilt, realizing that she had just inadvertently prayed for the deaths of two other Bajoran civilians. As the turbolift whispered to a halt, and they stepped through the sliding doors of a circular corridor across the way from the transporter room, the final puzzle piece fell into place. Convicted... he said Molly may never have been convicted. t With a flash of inspiration, every bizarre aspect of behavior of the "Liberated," every obscure reference, every incomprehensible misunderstanding became clear as cut dilithium. The Liberated were former Dominion prison guards. No wonder they fled, she thought, her mind racing. Knowing the Dominion's love of using certain races for specific tasks, they probably spent their entire lives in prison--though they'd never been convicted or sentenced--guarding those who had. Everything fit: Prison guards were very much quasi-cops, as Garak had put it. And the misunderstanding about the "prisoners" in the bombardment shelters--they must have thought they were in punishment cells. No wonder they put them back when they "escaped'7 And these ex-prison guards were holding the entire station hostage... aliens who had lived their entire lives behind bars with only murderers and other felons for company. The thought chilled Kira's skin and made her scalp crawl. She said nothing, only following the dean, her knees feeling weak, and dreading what horrors she would see in the trans-

porter room. When they entered, two women that Kira recognized from the "jailbreak" stood on the transporter platforms. One demanded what was going to happen to her. The other, more realistically, was sobbing uncontrollably, on her knees begging for mercy. Kira remembered one of the girls, both younger than she, as one of Quark's Dabo dealers, Dalba Sin; she was the one on her knees. The other wore the uniform of the hydroponics division that Kai Winn had set up to replace the replicators, deemed too decadent for proper Bajorans. But Kira didn't know the young lady's name. The executions occurred so fast Kira almost missed them. One of the prison guards reached down to the sobbing Dalba Sin as if picking her up. His hand briefly touched the back of the girl's head, and she pitched forward and lay unmoving. At the same time, another guard spun the demanding farmer around back to front, touched her cranium with a small, black-metal marble in his hand, and she, too, collapsed. It was that swift. Kira didn't even have time to draw breath before both girls were being laid onto the platform, their arms crossed behind their backs. No torture, no joy on the part of the Liberated--unless it was the joy of remorseless efficiency. In the wink of an eye, two young girls had been murdered almost at Kira's feet... and there was nothing the major could do--or could have done--about it. "But--but you..." Kira fell silent; nobody was listening anyway. A tide of hate such as she hadn't felt since the days of the Occupation seized her midbrain. She took a quick step toward the dean. "You son of--" It was as far as she got before the torc choked off her rage so strongly, she was certain her head was going to be sundered from her body. Just before losing consciousness, Major Kira saw the dead bodies dematerialize from the transporter platform. Now you know, she thought, not sure to whom. It took all ofKai Winn's self control or cry, or pick up a knife and attack the Faceless One, h la her young protege Kira Control the mind, she remembered, and the will follow. Where had she heard that?

not to shake, nearest Nerys. heart

Control the breath, and the mind will follow Control the mind, and the heart will follow Control the heart, and peace will come upon you. Come, breath. Come, peace. Something something beats in tandem, puffing across the face of Bajor. A song, a poem, she had once . . .

Winn forced open her own eyes, willing herself to witness the deaths in the transporter room: she owed at least that to her flock. She didn't know the two young women by sight--there were so many--but she owed them at least a witnessing. Then the bodies vanished, in that disconcerting way that Kai Winn still detested, though she had found occasion to violate the long-ago oath she'd sworn never to allow herself to be transported for fear she would leave her soul behind. The splitscreen viewer still showed the Harriman on the right and the transporter room on the left, though the ship had not moved in several minutes and there was no more activity on the pad... only another Faceless One picking up Kira's limp body and removing it from the video frame. Winn was certain her prot~g~ was still alive. Nevertheless, the Kai prayed to the Prophets to shield young Nerys from harm. Winn looked at the immobile Federation starship. Now you know, she thought without satisfaction. Well, perhaps a little. She watched the Harriman steadily, blinking so rarely that her eyes dried out and ached, then blurred, so she had to close them and wait for tears to moisten her vision back to clarity. She did not look round even when the dean returned to Ops to await response from Captain Taggart. The Kai had patience. Besides, she was quite certain she knew what the response would be. The man was, after all, not a Bajoran. He simply was unprepared to deal with the "facts on the table," as the unbeliever Shakaar so bluntly put it after the Occupation. The captain's face appeared so abruptly on the screen, so fast upon the heels of Kai Winn's own thoughts, that she inhaled sharply and took a step back. "This--this is an act of--of barbarous savagery," said the shaken captain. His face was distinctly pale, and sweat beaded his upper lip. Winn, like all grand negotiators and politicians, was an astute student of psychology; she would have counseled Captain Taggart to wait a few more minutes, mastering himself, before making his communication. Taggatt paused, but there was no response by the dean or any of the Liberated. The captain continued. "This is not over... not by a long shot. I protest in the strongest possible terms! This is unheard of, unconscionable. Have you, at last, no decency left? No regard for intelligent life? You call yourselves the Liberated, but you have no respect for anyone else's liberty. The entire quadrant is watching, and they will know you for beasts if you continue this--this murder. I demand an immediate end to these executions... don't you understand the first rules of negotiation?" "Your time has expired," said the dean of the dead

at last. "We shall now execute another pair of prisoners." Captain Taggart's transmission ended before the man could be seen reacting to the threat. Winn was not in the least surprised to see, a few instants later, the U.S.S. Harriman back hurridly away from the station. The ship dwindled until it was a gray dot, then a black point, then gone altogether, its gigantic hull too far away to be discerned by the viewer on normal magnification. Not in the least surprised, but angry: angry at a tenuous, vague, ambiguous Federation that spent more time dithering and wringing its hands than it spent pursuing comprehensible policy objectives. Angry at this arrogant man who had inserted himself into a delicate situation, grabbing hold of a fragile flower hard enough to crush it and then simply dropping it to the ground like a guilty child. Bitter at a duplicitous, quadrant-wide authority with no real hegemony, an authority that turned its back on its own agreements whenever they became inconvenient. Despairing of another year of peace for Bajor, and fearful that the Prophets were angered by all the secular wrangling of Shakar and his illmannered revolutionaries and by the diminished faith of the modern Bajoran. "The starship has departed," said the dean. With a wrench, Kai Winn realized he was talking to her. "Yes, m'lord. They have left." "We require only the portable, far-seeing anomaly. We have no desire to execute more prisoners." "Yes, m'lord. Your restraint buoys our spirits." "We have searched for the anomaly, what you call the Orb. We know it is on this station. Bring us the Orb, and we shall depart, and you shall once more enjoy liberty, as we do." "I have located it, m'lord. There are certain... political difficulties. But I..." Winn paused. Oh Beloved Prophets--dare I go through with it? She swallowed hard. "My lord, I would do anything to save my people, my flock. Anything. I will--" she forced the words through her throat--"I will bring you the portable, far-seeing anomaly, the Orb, within the day." May the Prophets forgive my lie. But what else can I say? She turned a furious visage to the dean. "Then you will leave. You will leave us alive and in peace. You will never return." Winn betrayed no particle of duplicity; but the dean would never, she vowed, get within touching distance of an Orb. The dean rotated his head in a circle. "We accept your terms. Bring us the anomaly, and we shall leave immediately." Feeling a wave of nausea--stress, she decided-Kai Winn left Ops for the turbolift. She had a desperate need to return to her stateroom... and her dark and desperate dreams: for the Prophets had

a story for Winn to hear, and she must not disappoint. 0 CHAPTER 9 THIRTY YEARS AGO BEING STRIP-SEARCHED was not high on Sister Winn's list of fun things to do of an evening. On the contrary--it was the most bitterly humiliating thing that had ever happened to her. The only thing that made it bearable was the sly knowledge that the Prophets had whispered prophecy in her ear, and she had already dumped the holocamera--into Gul Ragat's own backpack. As the Cardassian carried the pack (or had a noncommissioned officer carry it for him) merely for show, and never actually dug into it for anything, Winn was reasonably confident the camera would not be found. But if it were, it would mean her swift but painful deathmor else transportation up to the new orbital torture chamber, Terok Nor. She turned her gaze within, upon her own soul and her omnipresent Guides and Avatars, the Prophets; she was not even in attendance upon her naked and humiliated body. Two corporals of the guard and one private soldier, none of whom she knew, led the search, and of course they found the trick bootheel and the money she had stashed there. They made no comment, merely dropping the Bajoran bills into a plastic, self-sealing, evidence bag for subsequent interrogation. The rest of her clothing was free of any incriminating evidence. They returned her priestly robe, torn and stretched, and handed her back the jacket she wore, inside-out. They did not return her shoes. Without a word, she reassembled her garments and sat barefoot on the hard ground of the tent floor, trying to look miserable, waiting for "her Gul" to return and decide what to do. Looking wretched was not difficult in her present circumstance. But she held tight to the lifeline of memory: the holocam is safe, the pictures of the control room and military codes are well hidden. Exhaustion overwhelmed Sister Winn. She let her head fall upon her folded arms and dozed fitfully. Dreadful nightmares befouled her rest: she was a hunted hare, driven to the ends of the earth by longranged hounds with gigantic trapezius muscles. She awoke hours later to find herself lying on her side, curled into a foetal position, shivering with the cold. She had no blanket. The Cardassians had left the priestess unbound, but a guard stood outside the tent flap, and the material of the tent itself was some

artificial fabric that was breathable but uncuttablem even if she'd had a knife. Winn was puzzled for a moment. What awakened me? Then she heard the voice she most dreaded at that moment, speaking in Cardassian. "Wise if you'd just leave off and take another watch, Mata." "If I leave my post..." "I will take full responsibility. You're in my chain of command, so you have no choice" Winn sat up slowly, so as not to set her head spinning. She recognized the voice of the bullyguard, the corporal who had been humiliated by the sergeant--and one of the guards who had stripped her. Winn stood, dreading the worst. The tent flap opened, and a grinning goblin entered. The corporal was tall for a Cardassian; he had to hunch over to duck his head under the tent flap. His eyes were unintelligent, sadistic marbles of black. Winn could not even see the white around the pupils; they were solid, like a reptile's. He kept his hands low as he crouched, and his finger-ends dragged along the ground for a moment, leaving tracks. Winn backed away from the apparition, but her shoulders swiftly brushed against the tent wall. There was nowhere to go, no way out but through the ghostly guard. "I believe you know what happens next," he said, a peculiar grin on his lips that at first Winn didn't recognize. Then she realized that it was the same look a man gives a loose woman he's about to debauch. He ran a swollen, pink tongue across his lips, moistening them. Winn said nothing. Her mind was blank. A fist of fear squeezed her heart until her whole chest ached. Her own lips were dry as old bone. "If you scream or yell," added the corporal unnecessarily, "you will not enjoy the consequences." He clenched his fist so hard, the knuckles cracked. Winn tried to swallow, but she had no saliva. She noticed he had a knife, a ceremonial Dagger of Maqatat. He could not have earned it himself, not being a gentleman nor even a commissioned officer. It must be his father~ or grandfather2, she thought, wondering why the thought should be important when she was about to be beaten, violated, or worse. "The Gul won't like it if you damage me," she said. It sounded unconvincing even to her ears, but she persevered. "He's furious at me now. Thinks I betrayed him, but I didn't! When he comes to himself, I'll be his favorite again, and he won't like it that you, you, you hurt me, especially if you leave me dead!" The corporal laughed like brass knuckles against a mouth full of Bajoran teeth. "Dead? I would never

slay such a beauty as yourselfi" The corporal took two swift strides and caught Winn by the sleeve of her habit. He had a scar across his forehead, bisecting the spoon-shaped bone ridge that gave Cardassians their Bajoran epithet. Winn exerted all her will power not to flick her eyes downward at the Dagger of Maqatat; she knew where it was without looking. The Prophets guided Winn's hand. Feeling Their hands on hers, she deftly plucked the dagger from his belt-sheath, even more spritely than she had slicked Neemak Counselor's pocket. The corporal realized in a flash what she had done, and he leapt back almost too quickly for her to follow. Rapist he may have been, but he was a soldier first. "Well, I see you have a bite! But truly, what can you do with one little knife?" Winn's mind raced faster than ever it had before. She knew she could not possibly hope to best this brute in single combat. His bare knuckles and feet would disarm her in the moment she attacked, and he would truly hurt her then. So what was she to do? What was Their plan for her? The corporal edged forward, extending his left hand while keeping his right in reserve. He was reaching slowly, inexorably for the dagger. The priestess had but one moment to act, else she would be disarmed and at the mercy of a merciless, enraged pain machine. Then the rest of the plan popped into her head, fully formed, like Benetheas springing from the belly of her father, M'theo Niisil. SiSter Winn stepped away from the monster and pressed the blade sharpend first at her own breast, directly above her heart. "No, my lord," she answered, voice barely audible past the fear. "My plan is much darker. If you take one more step, if you don't leave this tent immediately, I'll kill myself." "What? What the--" "I'11 plunge this dagger into my heart. Everyone will recognize the Dagger of Maqatat. The private knows you were here. He'll tell Gul Ragat. The sergeant will remember what you said. No one will believe that you didn't do it." His mouth worked, but no words came out. He stared, dumbfounded, struggling to comprehend this damned peculiar turn of events. "You think you can simply pluck the dagger back and run from here. But they know you were here. They'll perform microscopic analysis on the wound and find traces of metal; the metal will perfectly match your dagger. You won't be able to escape, Corporal." "You--you--!" "Nothing to say? Then I'll say it for you. They'll say you murdered me, and the Gul will blame you for everything. He'll say your mindless homicide

prevented him from questioning me himself." Winn had regained control of her voice, but she lowered it nearly to a whisper, grabbing the corporal's attention as a shout would have lost it. She kept her eyes on her enemy, but his own gaze flickered uncontrolled from Winn to the tent flap and back to the dagger. "You know what they can do," she continued, smiling. "You've been to Terok Nor. You'll get to go back... but as one of us this time. Now get out of here." The corporal stared, doing nothing. He was frozen between consternation and fear for his own career, even his life. He had been up; he did know what "they" could do. Winn clenched her teeth and shoved the dagger into her own chest, just a touch, a mere finger's width. She gasped at a pain more savage than anything she had ever felt before. The agony should have stopped her, but the Prophets had seized control of her mind and hand. She was resolved. "I am not blurting," she said, choking. "If you don't get out this instant, in the next, I shall be dead with your bloody dagger in my breast." He started to back away toward the tent flap, but not fast enough to suit the priestess. "Go.t" she screamed, startling him out of his torpor. With an unintelligible stammer, he turned and fled. He was gone, and Sister Winn could collapse to the floor, pressing her hand over her bloody, bleeding chest. She held onto the dagger, but the corporal never returned. Jadzia Dax tried bitterly hard to keep a smile on her lips; behind it, her teeth were clenched so hard her jaw began to ache. She tried not to grip the sides of her seat too obviously. Surely, Bashir knew his own piloting abilities, but she marveled at the speed and dexterity he showed. I wonder what they're teaching in medical schools nowadays, she thought, as the doctor continued his ambitious maneuvers with the Native skimmer. Bashir seemed to relish putting the car onto the deck, foot-dragging distance off the dirt, and whipping right through shallow, winding canyons, leaving rooster-tails on the small rivers that carved them, and then, without slacking speed, sailing directly into sparse, gray-blue forests, sometimes even right under large tree branches... all at speeds that Dax insisted on imagining as half-impulse or even warp one, though they probably were no more than fifty or sixty meters per second. Fast enough! She thought twice that her heart was going to stop, if it ever dropped back down out of her throat. "Nice--nice--nice day for a leisurely strollmeh, Julian?" she said. "Don't distract the pilot when he's driving. I'm

sorry, what did you say?" Bashir turned his head to look fully at Dax. "The tree! Julian, look out.t" But Bashir swerved expertly around the tree, having already mapped it in his mind before pulling his little prank on her. Dax sighed deeply, resigning herself to being splattered to assuage the doctor's ego. "All right, Julian, I apologize for the A, B, D thing. It's just that I know Ben better than any of you, and as Curzon, I fought with my Klingon swordmates against the Cardassiarts more times than I can count, and I just know how they'll line up--I can't explain it any better than that!" "Oh, I know," said Bashir, again watching where he was going. "I'm not angry, Jadzia. I'm just nervous about the captain and the rest of the team." Bashir frowned, and for a moment Dax forgot to be frightened; something was truly worrying him. "I'm sure they can synthesize something or other to help against the cyanogens in the air," she said. "And they're not stupid enough to drink the local water or eat the food. They'll do the same thing we're doing, steal from the Cardassians." Bashir pressed his lips tightly together. An internal battle raged, and Dax had no idea what was going on behind those dark eyes. After a protracted period of silence, he spoke. "I never expected us to stay this long in the atmosphere of Sierra-Bravo, Jadzia. The--my compound--Dax, nothing the captain could whip up can fully protect from the cyano-mutagenic damage for very long. Nothing I could manufacture would do it, not without a full medical lab and a few years more research." "What are you saying? What's your diagnosis, Doctor?" "For us humans, Trill, and Klingons, there is a limit to the time we can spend on this planet--I'm sure Odo will be fine, and I don't know about Quark. After that limit is reached, irreversible pulmonarytissue damage begins. The lungs can be replaced... but within a short period, just a few hours, after the lungs start bleedingmallowing unmediated cyanogens into the bloodstream--cardiac and neural damage will occur." "You're saying we could be--brain-damaged?" "Loss of motor skills and nausea are the first symptoms. Eventually, vision becomes difficult, the patient sees flashes and auras. Cortical shutdown and memory loss, finally death... after a certain point, there is nothing modern medicine can do about it." Dax inhaled sharply. She could not stop herself from performing a mental "level-three diagnostic" on her own cortical functions, imagining the worst. She held her hand out, looking for trembling, and felt a wash of panic when she saw that she was unable to hold it steady.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," said Bashir angrily. "Don't you think I'd know if you were suffering from the breakdown yet?" She flushed guiltily. "Sorry, Julian. I can live with a lung or heart replacement, natural or artificial. But when you start talking about neural damage, my you-know-what clenches." Bashir took the skimmer up a little higher, risking detection by Cardassian scanner crews. "I'm sorry, Jadzia. This has been weighing on my mind for some days now. I'm .... "He looked at her again, but they were above the ground terrain, and Dax was more relaxed. "I'm not casting aspersions on the captain, but I don't think his jerry-rigged cyanogenprotecting compound is going to be as effective as mine. And that means the away team's time limit is closer than ours--they're farther along the destruction cycle, I just don't know how far." "And what is this time limit you keep talking about? How long do we have, how long do they have?" Bashir shook his head and turned back to his driving. He dropped back down, whipping into another snakey canyon, another gut-tightening series of twists and turns. He doesn't have a clue, Dax thought to herself; and if Julian doesn't know, nobody knows. "This neural damage," she said after a few moments; "how much warning do you get?" "If you spot the symptoms, a couple of days, maybe as many as four. But Captain Sisko doesn't even know what to look for." Dax nodded silently, no longer grudging Bashir his not-so-excessive speed. "Dax," he said, after his own long pause, "the other thing I wanted to mention was that--" The Native skimmer abruptly dropped from the sky. Dax screamed, while Bashir's face was frozen in shock at the sudden loss of power and imminent crash. The commander braced herself against the impact. It made no difference. They were skimming through a gorge, twenty meters off the ground, and when the power cut off, the craft veered precipitously, following a ballistic path into the mud alongside the sluggish river. Dax was thrown clear instantly, yanked out of her seat as if by a giant's hand. She struck the mud heavily, sliding for such a long distance on her belly that she actually had time to think she might be able to regain control. At that moment, something caught her arm and set her rolling. She lost count of how many complete revolutions her body made before finally sliding to a stop, feet first, against the wreckage of the Native skimmer. Bashir was still in his seat, pinned by the exercisebar motion controller. Even from her prone posi-

tion, lying on her back and looking up dazedly, she could tell that he had a fractured leg. A compound fracture, with a piece of white bone sticking right up through the fleshmthrough the cloth of his pseudonative costume--and smirking wickedly at her. Her head still spun, and only the fact that she was facing the sky told her which way was up. Dax tried closing her eyes, but that was worse: her head spun like a Dabo wheel, and she whimpered and opened her eyes again. Several seconds passed before she could stand. All the while an urgent voice shrieked in her head to hurry, hurry, Julian was bleeding to death! But when she finally struggled to her feet to examine him, he wasn't bleeding all that badly. His breathing was raspy, but he was conscious and holding his hand over the wound, exerting pressure. "Dax," he croaked; "Dax--are you--all right?" "Julian, I'm fine, I think. Wait .... "She twisted her head left and right, up and down, in a circle; then she probed her belly and sides with a stiff finger, hunting for a sharp pain that might indicate internal injuries. The mud-sliding had saved her: she was clean, but filthy. And filthy rich, if I never wash these clothes, she thought dazedly, remembering the latinum content of the soil. Gingerly, Dax took the doctor's hand away from the wound. It still didn't bleed heavily. The bone shard only stuck a centimeter and a half through the skin, and it looked relatively clean, no splinters. "Julian," she said, tiptoeing around the delicate subject, "I have to, ah, set this, don't IT' Bashir winced in pain, unable to speak. He nodded raggedly. "1 hate to tell you this, Julian, but you're going to have to talk me through it. I've done some doctoring in my time, mostly Klingon blood brothers who got a little rambunctious after hours, but I've never dealt with a compound fracture of the--the tibia?" "Femur," said the doctor through gritted teeth. "You haveinto grab belowmknee--pull. Hard. Really~really hard." "Are you, um, going to pass out?" "Probeprobably." "Then what?" "Makes it--easier. Keep pulling. Pull straight. Keep pressure--keep pulling--pressure. Oh God." Another spasm of pain tore across BashiFs face. Act fast, said the voice in Dax's brain, while he~ already hurting. Let him go out fast! Moving quickly but precisely, she took hold of the doctor's leg and with a swift but smooth pull, tugged it outward. Julian BasMr moaned, and as advertised, passed out from the agony. Dax continued to tug, taking advantage of the respite. She pulled with her right, while the fingers of her left hand pulled the torn flesh and cloth aside and pushed the bone back

through the wound. Her stomach clenched at the sight. She had dressed many a bat'telh slice, none of which had affected her much. But the sight of white bone sticking up through raw, red meat nauseated her so much that when Dax finally felt the bone rotate back into place, she leaned away and lost the undigested remnants of her last meal. She was thankful she had eaten only a light breakfast. After evacuating the contents of her stomach, Dax sat back and continued to pull on the leg, keeping the bone ends from grating against one another. The foul taste in her mouth nauseated her further, but she had nothing left to lose. After five sweat-soaked, sour-tasting minutes, Bashir finally limped back to consciousness. He raised his head, trying to see his leg. "It's still there," said Dax in a bitter humor; "I didn't have to amputate." "My bag," said the doctor. "Orthopedal stimulator. Looks like--saltshaker~teal." Dax scanned the ground with her eyes, finally spotting the doctor's shoulder bag. Stretching out her left arm while still holding tight with the right, she retrieved the open bag. There were only two medical instruments left; one was a hypospray, and the other did not look like a teal saltshaker. "Urn, Julian, I think we're in trouble. Will this thing help?" She held up the unknown item, which was a dark-blue thimble. Bashir squinted, then sighed, shaking his head. "What's in the hypospray?" she asked, hopeful. "Anti--viral, antibacterial--all purpose--antiseptic. Give one amp." Catching her tongue between her teeth, Dax sprayed the antiseptic directly into Bashir's leg, just above the wound. "All right, you're not going to get gangrene. Now what?" "Find the ortho--orthopedal stimulator." "Julian, there's wreckage scattered across a square kilometer of canyon! There's no way I can find it in less than a full day, and you need help right now. Come on, kiddo; think back. How did the ancient doctors fix broken legs in the premedical age?" Bashir said nothing for a solid minute, and Dax was afraid she'd lost him again. Then he grunted. "Splint," he said. "Get two sticks. Thick. Something to tie them with." Finding sticks wasn't difficult. There was plenty of kindling scattered among the trees at the bottom of the gorge. Dax gently lay the doctor's ieg down on the opposite seat of the skimmer, feeling a wash of guilt as Bashir hissed in pain. She scurried off, rustled up several likely candidates for the splint, and rushed back. At Bashir's instruction, Dax carefully laid the sticks on either side of his broken leg, the bottom

ends actually sticking down below his foot by six centimeters or so. Then she tied the splint tightly with cords pulled from her own Native-style cloak, one cord below the foot, the others at various places up the leg. By this time, Bashir was sitting up and helping, though it didn't take a Betazoid to feel the doctor's pain. Dax still winced every time she looked at the angry, red wound just above Bashir's knee. "What happened to the power?" asked the doctor, startling Dax out of her nauseated reverie. "Huh? Oh." Her tricorder had miraculously survived, probably because she had dissipated so much momentum by sliding along the slick mud. She set the pickups to detect power potential instead of actual power and scanned 360 degrees around. "Nothing... and nothing. There's no power potentia anywhere." Dax was silent for a moment, remembering the last time she had observed such a phenomenon. "Julian," she said at last, "you know this is exactly the typical Cardassian attack: first they kill the local power, then they strike against the helpless, dumbfounded Natives who can't figure out why all their new tech has suddenly stopped working." Bashir bit his lip, then mastered himself again. "Can you scan for Cardassians, Jadzia?" "Already recalibrating, even as we speak." She repeated the slow scan all about the compass, not liking what she saw. "Nothing. Nobody. Nowhere." She sat, thinking about being stranded, starving to death, her bones someday being found leaning back against a rock, the leg-bones crossed nonchalantly. "Well, Julian, what now?" "Find the--orthopedal stimulator." "One ortho-stim, coming up." But it didn't. Days passed, and Dax never did find the stimulator, or much of anything useful and undamaged except the Cardassian food and water still strapped to the remains of the passenger cage. Dax tried to keep track of the time, but she grew confused, unable to remember whether she had scratched a mark on the rock each morning or not. It's been at least ten days, she remembered thinking one evening. When all there was to do was talk, one day or one night seemed much like another. She wanted to move, to head toward Benjamin Sisko--or where she thought he might be--however many hundreds of kilometers that was. They had crashed in a direct line between the observed Cardassian spoor and where she extrapolated Sisko's position, so there was some hope that he might be coming closer to them, assuming the captain intended to take the battle to the enemy. She wanted to join up with Sisko before the battle, so they wouldn't be caught between hammer and anvil.

But Julian couldn't move, not yet. A few more days, she promised, keeping a nervous eye on the food, and especially the water. "Damn," she groused, "I wish I hadn't let you talk me into giving that bloody Gul four man-weeks of supplies." "Well, who knew we were going to run out of gas?" said the doctor. His spirits seemed up, and he was itching--literally--to try hobbling on a crutch. Then, on a day she had seriously considered taking Julian for his first practice stroll--his rawmeat wound looked much better, definitely uninfected-she chanced to stand on a rock and make another slow, 360-degree scan. "Whoops," she said, "company. Well, that was inevitable." "The Cardassians?" Dax nodded. "A couple of hundred or so. Thataway." She indicated by pointing. "And moving in our direction. Why now? Why not next week, when we wouldn't even be here?" Bashir rightly guessed it was a rhetorical question, and didn't answer. She continued. "Oh, and while we're at it..." She recalibrated once again and scanned for human/Ferengi/Klingon DNA. "Yes, of course, that figures! Looks like we finally found the captain and the away team, and a whole mess of Natives, about nine kilometers yonder"--she pointed in the opposite direction--"and heading in fast." Dax snapped off the tricorder and tucked it back in its padded case. "Good news, Julian: your leg is better. We were just going to leave, but instead we're about to be standing at ground zero of Armageddon between the forces of good and the forces of evil." She smiled brightly. "At least we're not going to be lonely." She sat heavily next to the doctor, chin in hands, wondering how she was going to manage this reunion without the pair of them becoming Cardassian trophies.

0 CHAPTER lO A FURTIVE MEETING. Darkness in the corridor... Major Kira brushed past the station tailor without so much as a sideways glance. She felt nothing. ShouM I have? But Garak coughed delicately after they passed, and Kira hoped and prayed. Darkness again, and solitude. The moment passed--and hours would pass before Kira could return to her stateroom (her "cell," as the dean would have it) to rest--rest and feel gently in her pocket to find what she hoped was the offspring of that furtive meeting in the dark, lonely corridor. Just a sliver, the merest speck of metal. But using a mirror, she fit it perfectly into the slight, hairline crack between the edges of the torc, the slave collar. She thought to test it, but thought a second time. Alarms, perhaps. A diagnostic message broadcast to the Liberated, the prison guards who controlled Emissary's Sanctuary, which Kira was already in her heart gloomily calling Deep Space Nine again. The sliver would remain untested, nestled inside the collar, waiting for the ultimate test. My life is in the hands of that bastard spoon-head spymaster, she thought. May the Prophets help us all/ The summons bell chirped in Kira's cell, rescuing her from a sleep so deep, a dream so dire, that she could remember nothing, despite being interrupted in the middle... nothing but the horrific sense of billions of kilos of water pressing upon her from all sides, crushing her young body like a bug between two palms. She swam awake, leaping to her feet with such alacrity that she shamed herself. "Kira," she said, coughing up saliva that went down the wrong way. "You will come to the central command center," said the dean without preamble. The transmission ceased. What explanations need be offered to a slave? When Kira rode the turbolift into Ops, she was shocked to see Kai Winn standing at the monster's left hand. The woman looked old, head bowed, lips pressed together in tight surrender, the peaked mitre on her head drooping, as if even the cloth itself were tired of resisting. Winn stared at the deck, not even glancing up when Kira stomped from the turbolift. She can't face me, realized the major in wonder. Oh Prophets, what have you done, my Kai? "The portable, far-seeing anomaly has been located," said the dean--this was more than was strictly necessary, but he had come to trust his slave. His black, featureless face looked at Kira, and a

shiver danced along her spine. "You will retrieve it. The chief of prisoners will tell you where." Kira edged closer, stepping from the platform, passing Chief O'Brien's engineering well, coming to rest just by the science console, her fingers lightly touching the cool plastic. "Kai?" she asked, voice trembling, "is this true?" "I have offered, my child. There are lives." "It's an Orb," said the major firmly, with finality. "It's a hundred lives, child. More." Bile exploded up Kira's throat. She swallowed, feeling herself so close to tears that she turned her own face away, lest they actually fall. Her mind refused to function. What was there to do? The offer had been made and accepted. If Kira didn't run fetch the Orb, another would... and to what avail? "May the Prophets forgive us," said someone-was it Kai Winn or Kira herself?. The major could not be sure. "Child--" "Where?" "Child .... " She wants to be forgiven, this Kai. Rot in hell before you gain sanction from me, traitor! "Where is it, Kai Winn?" Winn stood silent a long moment. The dean displayed infinite patience, perhaps realizing the depth of emotion that tore the two women. "Down," said the old woman at last. "Down as far as you can go. Among the engines and reactors--I don't understand the machinery, and I don't remember exactly where I was told it was hidden. But you will find it, child. You've seen it many times." "I have seen it in the temple, Kai." Kira stressed the word perhaps overmuch, but she meant it to burn. "Please bring it to me here in Ops. I will give it with my own hands to the dean. The Liberated will leave, restoring the station to Bajor and leaving us in peace." "You will leave now," commanded the dean. Kira was about to comply when the rage, long suppressed by the collar and the self-censorship it enforced, burst through the stopcock in Kira's throat. "You will die now," she said, matter-of-factly and without audible emotion. She spoke with the certainty of a Prophet. With no more ado, Major Kira reached across the science console to a ratageena mug that had lain Unregarded since the occupation began. She took it by the handle; as yet no one--not the dean, the Kai, or any of the guards--had parsed Kira's last prophecy. Kira held the cup firmly and punched it into the edge of the console. The breakproof plastic shattered nicely, leaving her holding a jagged shard attached to the handle. She stepped forward briskly, and at

last the assembly began to react. "Kira, child!" exclaimed Winn, stepping back in startled alarm. The guards lurched forward, caught off balance by the smoothness of the strike. Even reaction time half that of a Bajoran's couldn't protect against a complete surprise attack. The dean himself stumbled backwards, bumping into the communications console and raising his hands in obvious consternation. So they can be defeated, she thought dully, taken by surprise and scared. No one anticipated her attack. No one was close enough to respond on the fly. Before another breath could be drawn by any of the parties, Kira had pressed the sharp, jagged piece of plastic against the dean's throat, taking him by the breastplate to prevent escape. "You will die," she repeated, "if you touch this Orb. You will die if you do not release us. You will die if you do not get the hell off my station, this instant." Kira's heart was pounding like a tiny bickett with fear and rage... but the collar, she realized, was inert; Garak had done his job well. She could not be stopped. The dean must only now be realizing he had lost all control. If he was, he was also doing a good job of hiding that realization. The dean made no move, no attempt to wrestle the jerry-rigged knife from her grasp; nor did the two guards take more than a single step toward the pair before stopping, presumably at the dean's silent orders, and withdrawing to the periphery of Ops. "I'm not bluffing," said Kira, staring into the inky blackness of the dean's alleged face. Is it his face? Or is it a helmet after all? It looked too glassy to be flesh. "We anticipated this sign of independence and ingenuity," said the dean quietly, without emotion. "We have prepared escape insurance. Behold." Some force of certain knowledge made Kira turn her head, careful not to let the knife slip from its target. The turbolift had vanished. But a few tense moments later, it whispered back into Ops. The lift held five passengers: one guard, Jake Sisko, and three Bajorans. All prisoners but the last wore terrified expressions and a large, red nodule taped to their throats. Jake stood behind them all. "Please inform Major Kira what has been done," said the dean. Keiko looked too horrified to make a sound. Jake swallowed hard and spoke, his voice sounding a lot calmer than he must have felt, from what Kira could see. "These--these things are explosives," he said. "That's what the guards said. They say they'll blow our heads offif you don't do whatever they tell you." The last words created such a look of disgust and self-loathing on Jake's face that Kira's heart broke. What could the poor boy--the young man--do? He

was stymied. "We shall execute the prisoners if you do not disarm yourself and retrieve the far-seeing anomaly." Kira's hand began to shake, from inner tension and from the physical letdown. She had hungered for the final battle, only to have the chair yanked away when she sat at the victor's table. After a long, silent argument without words, Kira's arm fell limp. She dropped the makeshift knife to her side... then dropped it completely onto the floor. She did not let go of the dean's armor; indeed, she could not will her fingers to relax. But one of the guards strode forward and yanked her away. "There must be punishment," said the dean, "or other prisoners will riot." Then he stepped back, out of the way, while the two guards moved close to Kira. She knew what was coming. Still, the first blow was a surprise, a short jab to her solar plexus. It punched the wind right out of her lungs, spasming her diaphragm so she could not even draw a breath. Then the real beating began. Kira Nerys had been beaten before; nobody in the Occupation could have completely escaped physical torture at the hands of Gul Dukat and some (but not all) of the other Cardassians. But this brutal punishment was as professional as anything ever dished out by the Cardassian goons of Terok Nor. Kira tried to tense her muscles and cover her head and chest as best she could, but the Liberated were experts at finding the weak point, the unguarded spot, and driving their shell-hard fists into the woman's flesh. They did not allow her to lose consciousness, never striking where she would be knocked out or killed. A stomp from an armored boot broke most of the bones in Kira's left hand. She lost a tooth to a particularly vicious finger-strike. The pain was exquisite. Her eye was swollen shut, and she never did recover her breath. She resolved not to make a sound; but that pious hope was quickly dashed, and she heard herself whimpering like an animal, unable to stop the bleating: the alien prison guards knew exactly which buttons of humiliation to push to break her down farther than mere pain could have done. They didn't ask her a single question; but after a number of blows disoriented her, she started mumbling her name, rank, and province, alternately aware of where she was and believing herself to be back on Bajor during the Troubles. The Liberated paid her words no attention. They were interested not in information but in punishment. But at last it was over. Broken and sobbing, nose running, it took Major Kira ten minutes at least to pick herself up again, first to knees, then to her feet. She looked first to the hostages: Jake's face was

frozen in a mask of hatred so deep, he looked more like his father than did Sisko himself. Keiko's was turned away; she couldn't look. Molly had buried her face in her mother's side. I survived. I will survive. I am survival. Without asking again, Kira stumbled up the platform to the turbolift. "Lefel--lefel thir'y-fife." The very bottom, where six reactors squatted, three of them currently live. It was hard to talk around the missing tooth and the blood in her mouth. The turbolift dropped silently, uncaring, through the bowels of the station, heading for the three bound suns that ran Deep Space Nine and the heavily shielded room that contained them, where the bulkheads were so thick that even sensors could not penetrate to find the small box with a window to the Prophets. Winn was right. It had been the perfect hiding place. Too damn bad, thought Kira, holding onto the railing to keep from falling to the floor. Edging from the turbolift into the generator room, the throbbing from the hulking reactors shook Kira, an ogre grabbing a knee in each hand and yanking rhythmically twice a second. Her head pounded in unison, though the Liberated guards had mostly avoided it during their "extrajudicial punishment," striking her face only a few times, mostly by accident. Even her remaining teeth rattled with the whump, whump of the huge fusion generators. Dropping slowly to knees and one hand was a relief, justified by the need to find the Orb. She crawled along the floor, hampered by her broken left hand, eyes still tearing in reaction to the brutality, lips swollen and split, oozing blood. At last--too soon.t--she found the familiar box with the cabinet door. For several moments, lying on the floor and feeling the pulse of unimaginable power rock her and throw off the balance so fragilely regained, she contemplated the blessed Orb. She needed to rest; she needed time to think. There was no way out, no loophole by which she could fail to retrieve the Orb and prevent anyone else from bringing it back, even Kai Winn herself. I had my shot. I failed. Perhaps the Kai's way is best, after all. At last, Kira reverently gathered up the box in a one-armed hug of unbearable tenderness, feeling the twice-each-second vibration as the pulse of the Prophets. But as she rose, something tickled the back of her bruised brain, something not quite right. Something felt wrong. Even the box of Orb itself felt wrong; everything was wrong. But Kira was just too sick and tired to fight, fret, or fume about certain negligible differences in the Orb she had loved before. Rising unsteadily, Kira stumbled back aboard the turbolift and headed back up to Ops, cursing as every passing level brought the

holiest of holies closer to the hands of profane barbarians. Chief O'Brien, weariness personified, sighed deeply and rose from his perch atop a severed tree stump. "No Cardassians," he reported. The captain grunted in reply. "And the Natives went thataway." Worf snorted. The last was perfectly obvious without the scan, even to a confirmed non-Native nontracker like Miles Edward O'Brien. Undaunted, the chief continued his scan. On a whim, he turned the probe antenna straight upward and expanded the focus to search right up through the atmosphere. The energy readings flew right off the scale, forcing him to recallibrate. "Captain, I think I've got something here." Sisko ambled close, waiting silently until O'Brien could analyze what he was seeing. The energy was utterly unlike the fields of electromagnetic potentia that had earlier blanketed Sierra-Bravo... and they'd kicked them all offiine anyway, at least in this hemisphere. Instead, the readings looked more like-"Energy discharges," he concluded. He looked up to find himself the center of attention of four pairs of eyeballs. "Captain, there's a bloody war going on above our heads!" Sisko frowned, then hissed through his teeth. "A battle? Is the Defiant involved?" "Can't tell with this blasted thing," said O'Brien, frustrated. "Now, if I had access to a ship's sensor screen, I could tell you anything you wanted to know." "My God," muttered the captain, so softly that O'Brien felt like an eavesdropper. "What is happening? Where is my ship?" The chief scowled, noticing a faint modulated signal beneath the savage energy discharges. He fiddled with the built-in filters, trying to bring up the subspace transmissions. Listening for a moment, he thought he had caught the drift. "Sir," he said, feeling a nervous flutter, "I just picked out a message about the Defiant." "Well? What's happening?" Sisko shot forth a hand to grip the chief by the shoulder. "It's... mind, I'm not certain of this; it's just an inverted echo inside the general weapons fire. It's not all that clear." "Spit it out, man!" O'Brien pursed his lips. "They're saying--something about the Defiant, they know it by name, being shot down and... crashing into the ocean. Destroyed, they're claiming. Many days ago. But I've known them wrong plenty of times, sir." Despite the desperate need for military intelligence on the battlefield, the chief suddenly felt awash in guilt for relaying what was really little more

than a speculative reconstruction of message fragments. But what couM I do? What the hell couM I do? he demanded, finding no answer but the obvious. The captain massaged his forehead directly above the bridge of his nose. "Keep monitoring, Chief O'Brien. Alert me to any changes." Ensign Wabak sat in the command chair, resisting the temptation to fold his legs up; too much like a little kid, he told himself. He forced himself to sit like a Klingonmwith knees spread wide, clutching the armrests and scowling at the forward screen. "Joson," called Ensign Weymouth, her voice quavering. At Wabak's glare, she corrected herselfi "Sorry... sir, I think you should see this. Picked it up on a short-range scan into the upper atmosphere, about a thousand kilometers orbit." Wabak sat back, curious as to what was worrying Miss Weymouth now. The lines of force she was projecting onto the viewer made no sense to Wabak at all... something in a sensor scan? "Analyze, Ensign," he ordered, praying to the Prophets that he would understand her analysis and not be forced to ask for an explanation of the explanation. He needn't have worried. "Sir, it's a space battle. The Cardassians are taking a pounding from some~ body!" Abruptly, the cryptic swirls and colored surfaces on the viewer swam into focus as he realized what he was looking at: Weymouth was right; if anything she understated it--the Cardassians were suffering a right royal thumping. Already, three ships were damaged almost beyond repair, and the rest were withdrawing as fast as they could to a high orbit. But the offer was not accepted. The attack continued. "N'Kduk-Thag," he said, "what the hell is happening up there?" "It is my belief that the planetary defenses have finally concluded that the Cardassian ships are a threat. They no longer will allow the Cardassians to stay in any altitude orbit. The Cardassians are withdrawing--perhaps we can pick up some of their message traffic." Wabak sat on the edge of the chair, looking from Ensign Nick to the viewer and back to the utterly unemotional Erd'k'teedak science officer. Nick twisted his head to an impossible angle (for anyone but an Erd'k'teedak). Then at last, he was ready to report. "Sir, they are leaving orbit. Their ships are already leaving orbit and jumping to warp. They are abandoning whatever Cardassians remain alive on the planet surface. Correction, there has been one beamaboard." "A beaming?" demanded Weymouth; "from thirty thousand kilometers?" She sounded incredulous. "Nick, what about this beam-out? Who, the commander of the group?"

"Negative. Evidently he beamed himself out without help from the Cardassians. They are surprised by his appearance." There was only one possible explanation. "Hah, he was a Dominion agent, maybe even a changeling!" Wabak sat back, smirking. "My friends, I have just realized we're going to win this stupid war." "We are?" asked Weymouth. "How can you be so sure?" "Because, Ensign, no matter how much we may distrust the Klingons or even the Romulans, we're nowhere near the point of sending spies into our allies' ranks." Wabak wiped the grin from his face, struggling for sternness once more. "But what about the Gul-in-charge? What's happened to him?" For a long moment Ensign Nick did not appear to notice the question, but Wabak knew he was waiting until he had positively located the precise element of the traffic that would detail the GIC's fate. After a solid minute, Nick turned to face Wabak, seated in a chair that was becoming altogether too comfortable. "The Gul-in-charge has vanished, and none of the attackers seem particularly concerned that they're leaving him behind with the rest of the soldiers." "Ditching him? Yet another reason we're going to win." "They do not appear to like Gul Ragat very much." said Ensign Nick as sort of a summary appendix. "There is no sadness nor concern as to his fate. Sir, the last of the Cardassian ships has left orbit. Whoever is left on the surface is on his own now." Wabak couldn't resist another face-splitting smile. "Perfect, Nick. Just the sort of odds I like."

0 CHAPTER 11 DR. BASHIR LEANED BACK against the brine-dark canyon cliff, wishing the throbbing in his leg would cease, cursing the chap who invented the alleged analgesic in the hypospray, struggling not to frighten Dax by letting his inner grimace appear on his face, wondering how many charges were left in his Cardassian disruptor--and ignoring, as best he could, the savage, overpowering urge to cough... the early symptom of a very serious case of cyanogen poisoning, a small prelude of what was to come and a only tiny morsel of what the members of the away team must already be suffering. Ten meters downstream in the canyon, Dax lost a similar struggle. She began to cough, and it turned into a choking match that left her out of breath and red-faced. She regained her composure after a battle. But even from where he sat, unable to move because every shift sent a spasm of agony through his splinted femur, Bashir could see the trickle of blood down Dax's chin. The deadly, atmospheric toxins were taking their toll. And there's not a damned thing I can do about it. Isn't modern medicine wonderful? "They're coming," said Dax, her voice hoarse, nearly a whisper. She held up a hand with fingers spread wide. "Five minutes. Ready. Wait for my order." Bashir nodded, not trusting even his own enhanced will enough to speak aloud. He practiced extending his gun hand a few times, seeing if he still had the mobility and stability to shoot without burning the lovely Jadzia by accident. He realized to his amusement that he could take advantage of his infirmity: he could rest the muzzle of the disruptor against his splint to create a stable gun platform. Dry-lipped, he sweltered and waited. The latinurn-tinged soil of the canyon floor reflected the sunlight and intensified the heat--which gives the Cardassians rather the edge, he thought in grim resignation. Bashir, despite being raised in the desert, felt sweat beading on his forehead. The moisture would not evaporate; the humidity was much too high for such a blessing. This planet has the most insane weather patterns I can remember. The wild mood swings from cold to hot, dry to humid, high to low pressure reminded him of nothing so much as the myriad subcultures of the Natives, an anarchy of opposites. As Dax described them, the Tiffnaki, or whatever they called themselves now, were open-handed and generous, pacifistic, full of enthusiasm. But the aged Gul Ragat

had spoken bitterly of black-hearted, vicious predator~ villages, full of bloodthirsty Natives, that might have inspired Bram Stoker and other vampire writers of the Victorian Age. The five minutes passed as one. Dax silently counted them down with her fingers, but each seemed only a few seconds long. Bashir's sensitive ears began to hear the high-pitched yawn of Cardassian skimmers and the scrape of metal-shod boots on the rocky floor. He trained his disruptor on the agreed-upon target: a shatter of broken granite at the top of a narrow defile. Dax, presumably, aimed at another a few meters farther on. The first Cardassian scouts peeped into view. If they were using infrared, Bashir understood, he and Dax would be sitting ducks. But they relied upon the Cardassians' observed arrogance and evident disdain for their primative, ignorant enemies. The scouts rolled along, riding their skimmers with lazy ease, perfect indifference. "Julian," warned Dax. "Now? The doctor reacted as one would expect from his enhanced muscles and nerve clusters. But even so, Dax beat him to the punch. The pair fired into the respective shattered tops of the canyon walls. At first, the Caradassians stopped, staring in every direction with suspicion and betrayal. Disruptors! The troops were being attacked in the field by their own men! It took some seconds for the confusion to clear and for the Cardassians to begin returning fire. But the damage to the cliff face was irreparable and catastrophic. With a scream like dive-bombing harpies, the rocks tore themselves loose from the wall, caterwauling downhill and crashing into a heap directly athwart the Cardassians' attack. As a low rumble shook the ground, the doctor's leg jerked off the rock it was balanced on and thudded to the ground. An icepick rammed into his thigh, or so it felt. He dropped the disruptor pistol and leaned over to clutch at his splinted bone, tears dotting his eyes from the relentless pain. But after a few moments, the main bunch of Cardassians, trapped by the pair of avalanches, retreated to plink over the rocks toward Dax's and Bashir's position. The skimmers, of course, moved along smartly, rising up over the rockfall and swooping forward. If they weren't using sensors before, they surely are now, thought Bashir. He abandoned all hope of remaining unknown... as he had long ago accepted with equanamity that he would someday die--and what difference would that make to the world? He was not afraid of what would happen to him in the battle. This made him a deadly opponent indeed. Quickly thumbing the disruptor down the scale to

heavy stun, Bashir began to shoot the skimmers out of the sky. Dax was no match for his synthesized aim and manufactured speed; it was as easy as beating Chief O'Brien at darts. She herself only managed one hit, and that against an already stunned Cardassian in a skimmer that settling gently to ground, the pilot having ceased giving orders. When the last flying Cardassian had been blown out of the sky, Dax struggled to her feet and crept closer to the fallen bodies. Sheg making sure they're not feigning unconsciousness, he concluded. It was a wise precaution, but unnecessary: Bashir knew what he had bagged. She pulled the transponder-pack from each cycle, preventing the bulk of the Cardassian regiment from calling the skimmers back. Then the commander scurried back to the relative safety of the tiny natural caves, pursued by disruptor blasts. "0ooh rah!" she exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air. "Mission finished. We've got 'em boxed in for half a day at least. When it gets intolerable, we'll hijack one of those skimmers and get the hell out of here." The estimate proved optimistic. The Cardassians had no sooner parsed the loss of their skimmerscouts but they decided they needed intelligence-which Dax shouM have predicted, thought Bashir, considering what we all know about the Obsidian Order and the Cardassian obsession with spycraft. Bashir had, in fact, predicted the attempt. He whispered to Commander Dax: "Jadzia, they're going to try to penetrate at both ends of the rockfall simultaneously. They're also going to set some soldiers scaling the walls of the canyon to drop on us from above." The skimmer was always an option, but as long as they could keep the Cardassians pinned, Bashir was as reluctant as Dax to flee the scene. She nodded. Bashir was wrong on one count, as it happened: the Cardassians tried only one breakout around the rockpile, not both ends, as the doctor himself would have done. Bashir and Dax waited until the luckless vanguard was across the artificial ridge and part-way down before dropping them under heavy stun, so they would roll onto the Federation side of the avalanche. If they fell back among their comrades, they could be revived by a cortical stimulator. Bashir began to drag himself forward to make sure they hadn't sustained injury rolling down the jagged rocks. But Dax held him back. "Julian, don't." Her face was pinched, taut with suppressed emotion. "Jadzia, I'm a doctor. I have to tend the wounded." She shook her head. "Not during combat... not when we have no facility for stashing prisoners." Dax again got ahold of the tricorder. "I'm picking up a sensor echo of about half a dozen Cardassians skulking along the rim of the canyon." "About?"

She shrugged. "The minerals in the cliff face blocks a precise scan." The doctor swallowed and readied his stolen disruptor. Nine soldiers dropped into the ravine, relying on their natural Cardassian strength to land safely after a twelve-meter fall. They hit the ground on their feet but were momentarily stunned. Moments later, they were thoroughly stunned. "Now," said Bashir, "they will parlay." Dax nodded, agreeing with the assessment. Five minutes of silence elapsed while they waited to see who would win. At last, a magnified voice called across the rock wall--in Federation Standard. "Commander Dax, how nice to discover you have survived the crash of your ship. And the doctor, too! We are quite overjoyed at such good fortune." Dax poked at her tricorder for a moment. It was a simple trick to modify it into a bullhorn; even I could do it, he thought, little though I know about communications circuitry. But when she began to speak, it wasn't her own voice, but a booming, Godlike presence that rattled the remaining precariously balanced stones high above and echoed around the skull. "Cardassian prisoners, you will be treated well in a Federation war-prisoner colony. Do not fear for your lives. What you have been told about the Federation is a lie." The Cardassian voice laughed, a spritely elf. "Oh, come now, Commander! Do you not think we have scanned you and know there are but two, yourself and Doctor Bashir? We also know there is a mob of aborigines approaching with pitchforks and useless nonworking Native technology, and we are prepared to deal with them swiftly. Do not expect rescue." "And do you not think," said Dax with a grin, "that we don't know that your ships are gone, you have no reinforcements, and you have been abandoned to your fate by your cowardly comrades?" She monkeyed with the tricorder again. "Surrender," she concluded in her normal voice, "is your only option." Bashir lowered his thick, black brows, puzzled. How does she know the Cardassian ships have left? After a moment's thought, the answer leaped into his brain. Obviously, if their ships were still here, they couM have been beamed from the canyon right into our laps.t Ergo, they were alone, abandoned, completely cut off. After a long pause, the Cardassian voice resumed, now assuming a tone of let's-all-get-together-for-ourown-good. Cardassians are so predictable, thought the doctor. "We appear to be in the same phalanx, Commander. We are indeed marooned, as you have deduced. And you are two of how many survivors, stranded alone so very far from your Federation home? I

wonder which of our respective governments will return the quickest?" Bashir smiled, reaching for the tricorder. After a moment's raised eyebrow, Dax surrendered it to him. Bashir had his own deductions with which to impress the Cardassian, who was most likely nothing more than a lieutenant, one rank above high sergeant. "My good friend," he said, "I think we both know just how long it will be before a Cardassian ship comes to the rescue of Gul Ragat the Banished. Renegades, masterless men--who cares whether you live or die?" Bashir could almost hear the sigh in the Cardassian centurion's voice. "Well, it appears you know as much about us as we know about you. A pity we seem unable to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and face this harsh environment together--which may well turn out to be our home for the rest of our lives. Which may not be too long. You are aware of the cyanogens?" Bashir said nothing, and the centurion continued. "But of course you are, Dr. Bashir. However, we have something you do not, I suspect. We have a complete chemical roadmap for scrubbing the cyanogens from the food supply, using only native animal life. If we can solve the long-term food problem, Doctor, then together we can carve a life here." Dax took the tricorder megaphone back from Bashir. "But you are forgetting... that unlike you, we aren't renegades. The Federation knows where we are, and they will come looking for us. In fact, I'd venture to bet there will be a Federation ship on the ground here in just a day or two." She smiled and winked at Bashir. "So there is another alternative to stumbling around until we cough ourselves to death," she concluded. "You will surrender. You will throw your weapons over the rocks and we will destroy them. Walk out with your hands on your heads, fingers interlaced--and we will put in a good word for you when the ship arrives." "Ho! Then it appears," said the mystery voice, "that we have reached an impasse. Commander, Doctor, a good day to you both. Let's see who will crack first, and whether you choke on your own blood before that wonderful starship arrives!" Then both sides fell silent. "They're going to launch one more attack," said Bashir; Dax nodded agreement. "And then, perhaps, they may talk settlement... if we can convince them that a Federation ship is really here." If we can get word via radio that we need the Defiant. If she's ready to fiy. If we're willing to chance the planetary defense screen to intimidate a couple of hundred Cardassian troopers. If she2 not shot down halfway from the ocean to here--if if ifi.

"The Natives are only a few hours away," said Dax, studying her tricorder readings. "And I'm sure they know there's an enemy here and intend to engage, for they haven't deviated from their straightline course since I first spotted them." She smiled, sending all sorts of inappropriate feelings flooding through the good Doctor Julian Bashir. "Just keep your fingers crossed that the Cardassians don't decide to turn Klingon on us and launch an all-out assault to break out." He grunted in pain. It was nothing Dax had said... just the analgesic wearing off. Per the captain's instructions, Constable Odo flew high overhead playing "native hawk," keeping a topside view of the Native troops as they roved into battle. Natives... ridiculous name. So typical of Commander Dax to peg the natives with such a cognomen, lapped up with eager mirth by the away team. And then she disappears from orbit into the depths of the ocean without so much asm Odo cut the dreadful thought off at the pass. The last thing in Sierra-Bravo he wanted to think about was the rumored demise of Jadzia Dax, everyone's exasperating favorite. Her death, or Jadzia's death anyway, would come soon enough; it did for all solids. The captain would die, Doctor Bashir, Garak, Quark... well, every dark cloud has its latinurn lining. They would all die, everyone Odo had ever known. But he would still live on, alone and friendless. Even Major Kira would-"No!" With a wrenching effort, the constable forced his attention back to the ragged but steady progress made by the native prodigies across the trackless, roadless terrain. They had hastily thrown together a dozen rattletrap jalopies (to use an old Earth term Odo had picked up from centuries-old police blotters), and were puttering their way at forty kilometers per hour toward a rendezvous with the largest Cardassian force so far encountered. Chief O'Brien's tricorder readings pinpointed the enemy, and Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha was on fire to lead the charge personally. So Odo flew overhead to make sure the Natives' newly invented "strategic military imposture" didn't degenerate into an attempt to herd cats. Is she alive? Is she dead? Is there a ship to take us home, or are we stranded here until somebody in the Federation, remembers to go looking for us?And will that be before or after everyone but me dies of cynaogen poisoning? Try as he might, Odo couldn't keep his brain from returning to the overwhelming question: was Dax alive or smashed to small bits in the wreck of the Defiant? The hardest part, if the worst were true, would not be the grief and loss of losing a friend, nor even the impossible task of replacing Dax. It would be ex-

plaining to Nerys how he--Odo--had allowed her to die on his watch. That thought was frightening enough to make him momentarily lose his shape. Flapping far overhead, Odo made a number of modifications to his basic bird body--adding telescoping eyes, increasing his overall length for better gliding, and bumping up wingspan-to-mass ratio by thinning his wings. He peered below and zoomed in on various jalopies, packed to their ragtop roofs with a snowballing mob of Natives. With the power grid down and the Natives thrown upon their own resources, they had progressed so remarkably that the constable was frightened. Small clusters of Natives--under the ultimate direction of Owena-da and a new recruit, Ang-Nak Pungent Halflife Potato-Eater (the universal translator was having a field day)--were developing new secret weapons, even as the column crawled across the brittle living carpet of Sierra-Bravo fern. The carpet fared and scuttled out of the way as best it could (several of the plant species on Sierra-Bravo had developed mobility, the ability to step up out of the soil and march away to better times and dimes). Odo zoomed in to fifty power but was still unable to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the Natives' work. Having discussed with Worf a grand treatise from the last century on "black ops," the one by Snorri Thwackum, the Natives had gone crazy for secret projects, intelligence gathering, and encryption. The upshot was that nobody on the away team, not even the captain himself, knew what the Natives would unleash upon their enemies. Still, Odo knew his duty. He panned and zoomed and tried for different angles, hoping that one of them had made a mistake. None ever did, of course. The constable gave it up and decided instead to go high and higher, searching out the enemy to warn Captain Sisko--who, along with the rest of the team, was staying nearly a full kilometer back of the massed might of the colonel-mayor. Odo pumped his mighty wings, grabbing air and propelling himself so high that had he needed to breathe, he would have been in serious trouble. At this height, Odo again shifted his shape, voluminously expanding the wingspan and adding a natural pair of slats to extend and thicken the wings as necessary. He trained his eyes on a distant defile, so far below that even with the maximum magnification his eyes would allow (he had copied them from the Vib Sokorath of the Claudius colony) he still could barely make out anything with a "footprint" smaller than four square meters. But as he flapped his way closer, Constable Odo saw what he had anticipated with simultaneous eagerness and dread: an entire two-hundred-soldier battalion of the last remaining Cardassians, now stranded, as their ships had left, and without their

MIA leader, the local Gul. Dipping low, Odo saw that they had been stopped by a recent rockslide .... Sabotage? But there was no army on the other side of the rockwall. It would take the Native "cavalry" less than an hour to make contact with the enemy. And then we'll see how useful these so-called Doomsday weapons really are. Odo made a careful count, spied what he could of the Cardassian weaponry, and discovered several rows of dead or unconscious Cardassians on the other side of the rockslide, laid neatly into rows and columns by a considerate but invisible enemy. And then, on his third and final pass through the canyon, Constable Odo caught one last piece of intel that by itself would have made up for everything else being lost. On Odo's last pass below the cliffs that defined the defile, he caught sight of two evident Natives. And then, upon higher magnification, he realized that the pair were not natives, but two people that the constable knew well: Julian Bashir and Jadzia Dax! The former had his leg in a splint, but otherwise the two were unhurt. Wheeling about at breathtaking Gs (had he had any breath to take), Odo flashed away. For once in his life, he got to play bearer of good news. Dax was alive, Dax and Bashir! It would be cause for celebration among the oft unseemly and overly emotional "solids" of the away team. Even Constable Odo allowed himself a short moment of delicious relief. But all the emotionalism rather begged the main question, which the constable had been asking himself ever since seeing the two: how in the world did Dax and the doctor get offa crashing starship? Odo snorted, recognizing it was going to be a long, long time before he prised any answers out of those two.

0 CHAPTER 12 KAI WINN stood utterly still, rooted to her spot in Operations, staring at the dark stains on the floor where her protege had been assaulted. Standing still and silent, she thought, had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do in a lifetime of hardship. Winn hadn't realized until that moment just how much Kira Nerys meant to her... and to Bajor. She is the new Bajor, thought the Kai. I am not the future, I am the past. NeD,s is the future. If she dies, Bajor dies. Winn had no idea what Kira's connection to the planet and the Prophets was, but she knew it was real and deep. When at last the Kai could swallow without gagging and speak without screaming, when she had mastered herself, she glided across Ops and sat down in a chair by the science console. She could not keep all of the disgust out of her face, but that was all right: the dean would expect a certain loathing after she witnessed the punishment. The dean began to speak. "When the prisoner brings the far-seeing anomaly--" "Don't talk to me," said the Kai. "You will demonstrate its use to--" "Don't talk to me." The force of her simple imperative so caught the dean by surprise that he fell silent. Kai Winn closed her eyes, feeling in need of spiritual and physical cleansing... prayer and a bath. She blinked once, twice-THIRTY YEARS AGO --shaken awake by the emotionless sergeant to see her Gul standing over her, his gray face positively ashen. "By your own Prophets," whispered Gul Ragat huskily, "what have you done?" "My lord?" "I... did you .... "Ceasing his futile attempt to find words, Ragat handed Sister Winn an order pad. Dizzy and confused, she sat up inside the cold tent, took the pad, and touched the Cardassian logo in its center. The grisly visage of Legate Migar faded into existence in the center of the pad. He spoke in Cardassian, but Winn, who had the gift, spoke the language as well as the young Gul. "Gul Ragat, you will return instantly via transporter from the General Lyll Military Academy in North Riis. This morning, one of my guards was discovered drunk on duty. He has been disciplined. But before the punishment was administered, the traitorous wretch attempted to mitigate his sentence by telling us all a story about

a certain young priestess. "Mr. Kulakat told us that on the day of the bulletin tea he was walking his rounds near the alpha code room. He heard a strange noise and went to investigate. He found the door to the code room itself unlocked and unlatched, still open a crack. He found a Bajoran priestess in front of the door, where she told him she had, and I quote, 'pushed it open and looked inside.'" Migar frowned grimly on the recorded message. "That priestess was your servant Winn. She is now considered an enemy of the state and is wanted for questioning as a hostile witness. You have three hours, Gul Ragat." The message ended, and Sister Winn handed the pad back to her own Gul. She sat with resignation, waiting for the Prophets to speak into her ear again, as they had when the lustful corporal had threatened her. What do I do? How do I get the holocam to the Resistance?How do I live? What do I do? But nothing came to Winn, not even a whisper. She was alone. "Get up," said a voice from behind the Gul. Winn recognized it, but she bent to look around Ragat anyway. Neemak Counselor was grinning, staring to the left side of the priestess, and rubbing his hands as if washing them. "M'Lord Gul Ragat, I should be delighted to escort this prisoner back to the legate's headquarters. If you will permit?" "No," said Gul Ragat. "Then ! will happy to... what the hell do you mean, No?" Neemak stared beligerently at Ragat. He would never speak that way to a Gul unless he knew that Ragat was on his way out and down, thought Winn. "I mean No, "said the Gul, insisting. "She is mine. She has been with me for many years, serving loyally not only me but my father as well, before he died. I, not you, will take her to Legate Migar's villa." Neemak glowered. At last, the counselor executed a perfect and grace-filled bow that nevertheless spoke eloquently of his contempt and detestation of his nominal master. There had been persistent rumors, and Sister Winn knew them as well as any. They say Ragat~ uncle is the true head of the Obsidian order, she remembered, and the other Guls have resented Ragat his whole life for it. Whether he became a political pawn in the struggle between the Cardassian regular army--under Gul Dukat--and the spymasters, Gul Ragat's career had just ended. Never again would he be trusted, invited to the bulletin tea, never would he have the ear of a legate or a Gul as powerful as Dukat. By allowing his servant--his priestess--to dare so much, peeking into the holiest of Obsidian Order holies, the almighty code room, even if they never discovered her true treachery, Ragat had proven himself an embarrassment to his father and a disgrace to his house and the Empire. He will pay, by the Prophets, will he be made to pay.

And of course, she also knew that they would discover her ultimate treachery... for they would question her. Gul Dukat himself would question her--and when he was finished, there would be no "her" left to hold a secret. Not even a secret that was a certain death sentence. In fact, the Cardassians could be so unpleasant that she might scream out her confession early to stop the pain and end it all. But for the moment, there was no reason for Gul Ragat to know anything. So when he crouched down, looked Winn in the eye, and said, "Tell me what happened, Sister Winn," she looked him right back and lied through her teeth. "The door was open, my lord, and I did look inside. I was curious. I didn't even know what the room was... I didn't know it was a code room! There was no sign on the door, for the sake of the Prophets." She allowed a single tear to roll down her cheek. It dropped to the floor of the tent and made a tiny stain. Gul Ragat sighed deeply and shook his head. "Oh Winn, Winn, Winn. What can I do with you?" He appeared truly upset, saddened, in pain. But would he feel a thing if I were an anonymous Bajoran he didn't know? I doubt it. "My lord, I know what is going to happen. I know what they must do to me. My life will be forfeit--" "Winn! It should never come to that, if you're innocent of any mal intent." She smiled wanly. "I will be given to Gul Dukat, for he is the expert in these sorts of things. In his zeal to drag out of me secrets I don't possess, he will become over-enthusiastic. My Lord Gul, I'm not as young as I look, and I'm not in the best of health. My heart. I doubt I shall survive." Winn looked up at the young man--boy rather--who was pathetically convinced that she had served him loyally for years. There was, in fact, nothing whatever wrong with her heart (that she knew off). "Lord, I wish only to serve you myself on this final journey. You are.,. a good man, Gul Ragat." Playing the scene for all it was worth, Sister Winn lowered her head as if shamed. Queerly, she felt shame--illusory, but nonetheless painful. "I know how you feel about us. I know you have high hopes for Bajor's ultimate progress into full citizenship within the Empire." Neemak couldn't help snorting in amused disbelief, but whether at Ragat's peculiar beliefs about the future of Bajor or at Winn's preposterous loyalty to the Gul, who would be sending her to certain, painful death, she could not determine. "I'll listen to no more of this," said the counselor with a sneer. "I, at least, have work to do for the Empire." Winn and Ragat shared a glance. Both knew what that work was: Neemak Counselor reported back to some superior somewhere all that he saw and heard

in the Gul's household, and right now the oily snitchmwho could never meet a gaze full on--was scurrying off like a roach to do just that. "Let me dress and prepare you, my lord," she said when Neemak slapped the tent flap aside and stomped away. "Let me have that one last honor." Gul Ragat closed his eyes as if fatigued. He shook his head, but then nodded. "Fetch my breastplate then, and my First Class jacket, gloves, and knife." Winn nodded in resignation. "The baton," she added, "and the field pack. Your sash and ribbons of honor." "Yes, everything." He smiled with an attempt at ruefulness. "Indeed, you are not the only one to fear the meeting with the legate. Migar will have my head for breakfast." You arrogant, self-blinded egotist! she accused. Do you really compare your career setback with the torture and murder of your favorite Bajoran slave? Prophets save your soul, for no one else seems to care a whit about it, especially not you. Ragat waved the guards away when they tried to take her elbows. He shook his head, shooing them back to the rest of the camp. "Make ready," he said. "I shall need an honor guard after we reach the academy." They returned to the observation post where the Gul had left his pack, where Sister Winn had left her vital holocam. There was no trick to retrieving it: She picked up the pack, the gul turned his back, she removed the camera and restored it to her sleeve, and then put the pack on Gul Ragat's back. The autostraps locked into place. Simplicity itself, with no one watching. All right. Now what?There was no answer. But one virtue Sister Winn had learned, over many laborious years of Cardassian occupation, was the ability to wait endlessly for her moment. Despite outward resignation, Winn plotted furiously. The path to the General Lyll Military Academy was not long, skirting the floating section of Riis and winding basically northward, through the Street of Many-Voiced Vegetables (called "the Voice" by the residents), passing close on the Blue Order Lodge, the old farmers' exchange, three temples to the Prophets, the historic Barak Nai House (home of the First Minister of two centuries past), and the Hall of the Legion of Prophets (where Barada Vai had been sent, in Winn's elaborate ruse, to get him away from the putative bombing that never occurred), before at last crossing the Swiftswa spur that looped off the Shakiristi River and rejoined it after sliding over a waterfallwand leading to the Academy. General Lyll had led a small expeditionary force against a group of Anti-Prophets seventy-eight years ago. His victory was elusive and ambiguous, but he

either had a patron in the prefecture council or else a good PR man, for he ended up eponym to a military academy and several public squares. The Cardassians, in a show of "respect" for their conquered victims, had kept the old name while expelling all Bajorans and taking over the school for the scions of Cardassian captains, admirals, and generals. They installed transporters, mindful of the crowded schedules of dignitaries who needed to give commencement speeches... thus, it was the nearest Cardassian facility whence to transport back to Legate Migar's compound. Growing desperate, Winn visualized each of the major buildings en route to the Academy: they were generally smallmBajorans did not need palaces or fortresses, unlike the Cardassiansmand surrounded by open spaces filled with innocent civilians who would surely be hurt or killed as Winn broke for freedom and her guards opened fire. So intent was she that she didn't even notice when the Gul, his prisoner, and his honor guard actually set out, and her brain was so filled with imagined escapes that she had no room to be afraid. She shuffled along the cobbled street called "the Voice," seeing not where she was but where she would be in a few minutes. More and more, it appeared that she would have to make her break in the midst of a mob, and trust to the Prophets that no innocents were cut down by disruptor blasts. If it were only my own life, I wouM willingly sacrifice it rather than put others at risk, she told herself. But the holos are vital to the Resistance; they must survive.t She wondered whether it were true or just a damn good rationalization for cowardice. She hesitated at the first temple, a fine affair with colored-light murals, cushioned benches, and a laquered cabinet to hold the sacred texts. Winn attended services there the last time she was in Riis, as a recent graduate of Seminary. But something crouching inside her stomach warned her that the High Temple was not the place for her final act of worship. Just as she resumed walking again, the impatient sergeant behind her shoved her forward. Taking advantage of the momentum, Sister Winn hurried to Gul Ragat's side. "My lord," she said, trying for hopeful anxiety, an easy emotion to project, "the next temple is a particular favorite of ours. It is rude and classless, but not without charm. It was erected a thousand years ago by Kilikarri, the Emissary to the Prophets, after he founded Riis on the Shakiristi River where he had cast his net and caught exactly one hundred fish and the third Scroll of Prophecy." Ragat said nothing, trudging onward, his gaze fixed forward on his crumbling future. But Winn thought he turned his head slightly, stretching his

ears to what might be the last request she would make of him. "My lord, I should like to spend a moment worshipping in the Temple of Kilikarri before we continue over the river." Rather than answer her directly, Gul Ragat turned to his Captain of Foot. "Major Duko, what is the time?" "It is thirteen minutes past the thirteenth hour, Gul Ragat," said the laconic major. "My priestess has been with me for a long time, Major. We shall stop and refresh ourselves for five minutes at the Temple of Kilikarri." "As you command, sir." They passed the Blue Order Lodge, a square, solid, four-storey house done all in shades of blue. It lay open, as it always did to members of the journalistic order, but there was hardly anybody present at midday, the members mostly being at work. Just past the Lodge, Winn saw the unprepossessing wooden temple, only one storey tall with neither door in the doorframe norglass in the windows. The procession paused beside the wooden colonnade, Gul Ragat still not looking directly at Winn. But the wary eyes of the sergeant and his crew followed her intently as she stepped laboriously down the short stairway, careful not to slip and fall, her ample flesh working against her. Struck by an inspiration from the Prophets, though not yet aware of what They planned, Winn stopped at the bottom, clutched her chest with one hand and clung for dear life to the railing with the other. "Ohhh..." she breathed, feeling her face go white--either a magnificent acting job she didn't know was in her, or else the hand of the divine. "Winn," said Ragat, shocked out of his aloofness, "are you all right?" "I'll--be all right--in a--moment, my lord." She sat on the bottom step to recover from the nonexistent heart seizure. Then she stood, grim-visaged, and marched resolutely into the temple. The Cardassian guards followed her, not allowing Winn to vanish from their sight for even a heartbeat. She buried her hands in her sleeve-pockets and took hold of the holocam, she knew not why. She had never been inside the Kitikarri before. The interior of the temple was warm and soft, the umber-stained woods polished to a sheen, the benches unpadded but oddly comforting to the eye. As she walked down the center aisle, she could not help thinking, this may be the last temple I see... this couM be the last time I bow to the Prophets... this might be my last glimpse of the sacred texts. The thoughts were not only unworthy of a vessel of the Prophets, they interfered with scheming a way out. An old man was walking up and out as Winn trudged down and in. He was gnarled and bent, so that he looked at the ground as he placed his

sandaled feet carefully, lest he lose his footing. He didn't see her and walked right into Winn's midsection. She could have stepped out of the way--when the priestess wished, she could be remarkably agile, as she had proven at the long-ago bulletin tea that started all the nonsense. But a whisper at the back of her mind told her to let the old man bump her. "Clumsy Bajoran cattle!" she snarled--in Cardassian. The man smelled strongly of fish... as Kilikarri did? she wondered. Even her own guards were taken aback. She heard one of them gasp. The old man stopped cold, not moving, waiting, with a serenity Winn could only dream about, for whatever the Prophets had in store for him that afternoon. Sister Winn savagely yanked her hands out of the sleeves, grabbed the bent, old man's belt, and rudely shoved him out of her way. Her fingers were never surer. She found his coin purse, prised it open with two digits, and dropped the holocam in it from her palm. It could have hit the lip of the purse and clattered onto the floor, but it slipped in noiselessly. The ancient could have cried out when he felt the sudden weight, but he said nothing. The guards might have seen... but the first one was blocked by Winn's body, and the second was screened by the first. She could not close the purse in the instant she had, but no one chose to look inside. The shriveled fisherman groveled until she was past, then he resumed his ancient footsteps past the sergeant and out. A minute after he passes, not a single soul will remember he ever livedmexcept me. Winn bowed, made the opening salutations to Those, and prayed as she never had before. She prayed for wisdommnot her own, for she needed only boldness, but for the ancient fisher prince, that he might recognize what she had slipped into his pouch and understand its import... and that he might be old enough, yet not too old--old enough to remember Bajor before the Occupation, but not too old to remember how to contact the Riis cell. When she had said all the prayers she thought the Prophets could stand to hear at one sitting, she rose, exited the temple with bowed head and lethargic step, and rejoined the parade. Gul Ragat nodded, and they recommenced their stately, measured tread toward the crescent-moon bridge across the Swifts and the last, upward slope to the redstone walls of the General Lyll Military Academy. CHAPTER 13 JADZlA DnX eyed the rock wall uneasily. Something was wrong. She could feel it--somewhere. Some slight noise, below conscious hearing? A nagging,

illogical doubt. The knife-pain in her lungs twinged sharply. The pain was almost constant--the cyanogens in the air, Dax knew--and the only reason she wouldn't cry out was that she knew the doctor was suffering as much and more. Behind her, several meters away, lay the charming Julian Bashir. He preferred the solitude, since his pain-killer had worn off, and he couldn't quite hide the agony of his broken and engineer-mended femur. Dax hunched over, gripping her knees in a desperate hug. She felt guilty beyond beliefi I was in command--the crash wasn't my fault, but it~ my responsibility! I did the best I couM doctoring the doc. But my best wasn't good enough. My crewman, my friend, is suffering, and I damn well take it hard. She choked down her urge to scuttle across and hover solicitously over Bashir. But she wouldn't allow her own insecurities to strip the man of his dignity. As a doctor and Starfleet officer, he wouldn't see eyeball to eyeball with Dax's stubborn interpretation of command responsibility. But she had every right to hold herself accountable, nobody was going to take it away from her. Her stomach had begun to ache, and her joints, and she felt dizzy... in fact, she was exhibiting every symptom Bashir had told her she would feel (and every other symptom she had imagined) as the cyanogens slowly, inexorably destroyed her body's cellular structure. And there would be a point of no return, after which treatment could slow but not stop her final death. She had no idea how close she was to that point, if indeed she hadn't already crossed it. But at the moment there was nothing she could do about the situation, and she had other fish to scale. Wait, this time I heard--I thought I heard.... She closed her eyes and tilted her head, almost hearing a faint scrape at the base of the rockpile. Dax listened intently, crawling right up to the base of the slide and leaning against the dark, raw split of stone broken off by the disruptor beam. The razor-sharp shards of crystal sliced her palm, but she didn't even notice until her hand slipped in the leaking blood. Dax pressed her ear against the stone, and she heard, sure enough, a regular grinding noise, the sound of Worf sharpening his d'k tahg blade against an old-fashioned grinding wheel. Or the sound of ú . . Bashir groaned. Before she could even think, she whispered, "Quiet!" The grinding stopped. But it had been a grinding like-Dax leapt to her feet. "Julian, get the hell out of here... they just drilled a hole in the rocks and they're probably planting an explosive device!" Wincing, the doctor pulled himself to a kneeling position, his splinted leg sticking out in front of him.

Dax crossed the distance in two long-legged strides, grabbed Bashir under the arms, and jerked him onto his one good foot. "Go that way--now. I've got something to do!" "Jadzia," gasped Bashir, "the prisoners .... "But she was already gone, for that had been her second thought as well. The two of them had sent eleven Cardassians into the Land of Nod. Dax pelted to the "boneyard," as she had taken to calling the spot where they'd lain the sleeping souls, and skipped to a halt. She was very big for a woman, but the Drek'la troops were a hell of a lot bigger, and they wore battle armor. There's no way I can take more than one at a time, she concluded, with a detached rationality that surprised her, even after seven lifetimes. Oh well, war is hell. She grabbed the nearest snoring soldier, slid him across her shoulders in a paramedic's carry, and tottered off after Bashir. She had not gotten more than twenty meters when the sky fell on her, the earth rose up to kick her in the jaw, and the catacombs of the dead opened beneath her. By the time she got oriented again (ground is down, sky is up, canyon walls are--), the ringing in her ears had subsided enough that she could barely hear the screams behind her. She vaguely remembered toting a Cardassian somewhere for some reason, but he was gone. Turning to look behind her, a wave of dizziness knocked her to the ground again. But she saw the most peculiar sight: the rock wall, which she had reckoned would have blown inward on top of Bashir and herself, was instead kicked backward, dumping across the first few rows of legionaires. Why? Did their sappers screw up? An instant later, Dax's questions were answered, as a flaming ball arced across the sky, a miniature sun passing from dawn to dusk in six seconds. When it struck, long past the Drek'la soldiers, it exploded with fury, gouging a three-meter crater in the canyon floor and propelling dozens of Drek'la forward into the remnants of rockfall. It also wrecked the skimmers--their only means of escape from the bombardment. For an instant, she almost forgot the tearing pain in her lungs, so awed was she by the power of the ancient, primitive weapon. "Julian!" she shouted, "look at that!" She winced when she realized the absurdity of her command. As if he could hear her over the tumult--as if he'd been looking anywhere else! The world turned upside down. The fireball was followed by a dozen more, and Dax scuttled crablike backwards to Bashir, almost running over his bum leg in her haste. The pair cringed back against the rough granite wall of the defile. Dax plugged her ears with her thumbs while desperately trying to shield her eyes from the steady rain of dust shaken

loose above her by the concussions. The dust was filled with sharp grains of latinurn that could easily scratch a cornea if they got underneath an eyelid. The Drek'la soldiers hadn't stayed shell-shocked for long. Their Cardassian lieutenant shouted them into some semblance of cover beneath the landslide that Dax and Bashir had caused so long before. And after a few moments, whoever was lobbing balls of fire either got tired of the game or else ran out of ammunition. Heads began to peep over the edge of the cliffs twelve meters above. Hooded faces stared down into the canyon... and the quick-witted lieutenant bellowed the order to fire. One Native dropped screaming to the canyon floor, dead before striking ground. Instinctively, Dax grabbed for her tricorder before realizing it was gone, left behind somewhere during the confusion of the sudden battle. Damn, have to be sure to remember to retrieve it. Memories of Starfleet Academy and the infamous Iotian catastrophe washed her brain. She cautiously removed her thumbs from her ears, as the explosions had stopped. But then, without warning, the most horrific racket kicked up from the bluffs above, loud enough that she yelped and clapped her full palms over her ears, scrunching up even smaller against the cliff and Bashir. Puffs of dirt and chips of stone flew up from the section where the Cardassian lieutenant cowered, too rattled even to return fire. After a moment, Dax realized that the cacophony decomposed into chemical explosions, metallic pings, and the whistle of pellets cutting the air faster than the speed of sound. "Firearms!" she said, howling at the top of her voice for Bashir to hear; "they're shooting bullets at 'em!" What in the world had happened to her peaceful, cow-like Natives? The answer returned in a moment, in a single word: Sisko. "It's Benjamin! Julian, it's Benjamin and the away team--we're saved. t" "If the rescue doesn't kill us!" he shouted back, barely audible behind the gunfire. The battle between the activated Natives and the increasingly demoralized Cardassians lasted forever--that is, eight minutes by Dax's detached, objective count; and the pair of commanders had a ringside seat for the whole show. The Natives sprayed the Cardassians with more gunfire, and at last the soldiers shot back with disruptors... that is, until the Natives hurled a thin, uncoiling wire across the enemy defenders. It unrolled blackly against the bright sky, looking almost like oil droplets strung together into a lasso; but within the coil where it fell, disruptors shorted out and melted themselves into slag, taking a few Cardassian paws with them. The Natives began to drop into the ravine, their puffy, black clothes billowing out like mini-para-

chutes, slowing their fall just enough to enable them to land unstunned on their feet. They quickly organized into small, four-person Einsatzgruppen comprising two people with unwieldy blue-black crossbow-like weapons, one with a device that looked like a hand-held satellite dish with a speaking tube near his mouth, and a chap with a big flour sack in his arms. Dax stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the mopping-up procedure: the dishantenna man ran foward, whistling into the speaking tube; those Cardassians in the cone of his dish clapped hands over their ears and fell on the ground writhing. Then one of the crossbowmen stepped forward and fired from ten meters. A black glob streaked through the air, expanding into a fisherman's gill-net en route and falling across the soldiers, tripping them to the ground as they tried to escape. Finally, the fourth man ran right up to the struggling Cardassians, scooped a big handful of flour from the sack, and flung it across them. The struggles grew weaker and more lethargic, until at last the Cardassian legionaires lay still... whether dead or stunned, Dax couldn't tell. [ hope like hell it's the latter, she thought, dreading the image of Natives as bloodthirsty as Cardassians. In eight minutes, the battle ended. The only Cardassian left standing was the lieutenant, who raised his hands slowly, staring dumbly from one hooded Native face to another. Dax could read his bitter, astounded expression: this invader was desperately trying to understand how a mindless, gutless, decadent slave-race had leaped from helpless pets to ingenious masters of conflict in five weeks. Dax smiled, shaking her head. Yeah, I'd like to know that, too. Then her face turned hard again, as she remembered the massacred Native villages and the butchered old men, women, and children Then it was over, and the Cardassian taken into custody. Dax struggled to her feet. The pain in her innards, which she had entirely forgotten about in the heat of battle, returned with a vengeance. She was just helping Bashir to his foot when a rope snaked down the cliff. A familiar, stocky form appeared, sliding down the rope to land directly next to the pair. "Chief," said Dax, nodding calmly, "so what took you so long?" "Quark!" bellowed Constable Odo, ferreting out the Ferengi from where he was attempting to scoop some latinum-sparkling reptile eggs into several evidence bags he had borrowed without the constable's knowledge. Irked, Quark held back his response until it became obvious that the changeling had grown subtlely, peering down among the Natives until he found his man. "Yes, what is is now, Odo?"

"The captain wishes to see you. Immediately." As he pushed his way forward through the mob, the constable spoke loudly to his back: "Oh, and I will add a count of disturbing a planetary ecosystem to your staggering dossier for this trip alone. Have a nice day, Quark." By the time the Ferengi had reached Sisko, he had already located, in his brain, the ambiguous and vague Federation statutes he intended to rely upon in his defense. "May I direct your attention to Section 282-32 of the... I mean, may I help you, Captain?" With an obsequious grin, Quark rubbed away the sweat that had just formed on his lobes. Sisko said nothing for a moment, staring enigmatically, disconcertingly. "Quark," he began at last, "you will speak to the Cardassian prisoner about a method they have devised for scrubbing the cyanogens out of our systems." Quark looked closely at the captain and was shocked to realize just how terribly the minor poison had debilitated him. My profits, Ferengi children learn to tolerate much more active poisons than that in small-count school! It was just one more example of the frailty ofhu-mans... and evidently Klingons as well, he judged from a quick glance at a sick and coughing Commander Worf. "Um... why me?" Quark really had no objection; it was a pro-forma complaint. "Because you are the away team's ambassador-atlarge. Since the split-heads negotiation, where you argued so strenuously for that honor." The Ferengi scowled. He didn't recall the thrust of the conversation to be anything like the captain's version... but he is the captain, and that means he can tell Worf to pound me into the priceless soil up to my upper lobes. "All right, I'll do it. But I don't have to like it." The divine Ferengi right to kvetch having being defended, Quark toddled off to find the broken, demoralized Cardassian. The man sat comfortlessly on the broken shard of a boulder, leaning forward, his wedge-shaped trapezius muscles hanging limply from his neck. He stared at a patch of ground that didn't look any more interesting to Quark than all the others, subvocalizing an incessant diatribe about something. The only phrase Quark caught was "fission artillery," which almost sent him right back outside the mob to take his chances with Odo. "My, my," said the Ferengi, "you do seem to be in a bad position here. An unaccustomed position, having to beg a Starfleet hu-man to be allowed to live." The lieutenant jerked his head up to stare in cold fury at Quark. "I'd sooner hang than beg anyone for my life? Ignoring the response--all Quark had cared about was that he got one, not what it consisted of--he

continued. "Still, as the Ferengi say--it might end up a Rule of Acquisition if the FCA gets around to debating it--it's better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees." The Cardassian lowered his brows and stared, a gorilla trying to cypher out a balance sheet. "No, you've got it backwards. It's better to die on one's knees--" "And if you're going to live on your feet, you'd better think of something quick. Hurry! Something you can use to bargain with the humans. Much better to strike a deal than beg for charity." "I mean, to die on one's feet--" Quark nodded sagely, as if the Cardassian were saying something intelligible instead of gibbering. "Yes, yes, I understand your concern: you think, because you were captured alive when all your command chose instead to fight to the death, that you have nothing left to live for and nothing left to bargain with. None of that inconvenient honor, no men, no latinurn." In fact, half his command was alive, intact, and in custody, but Quark skipped lightly over the discrepancy. "But a saying of mine--which will surely someday join the enshrined Rules--says: when you have absolutely nothing, keep it in your pocket; you get a better deal for nothing sight-unseen." "I don't even know what you're talking about!" The Cardassian leaped to his feet, fists balled, attracting the attention of not a few Native soldiers in addition to Commander Worf, recovered from his coughing fit. Seeing how outnumbered he still was, the captive slowly settled back to his seat, hands raised to prove he was still unarmed. "But you do have something," said Quark, leaning forward in conspiracy like a lawyer with a mobster client. "And I happen to know the hu-mans will pay a pretty price for it... maybe even your life. They want to know how to synthesize that cyanogenblocker you told Dax about." The lieutenant froze in mid-rant. His eyes narrowed, and he smiled cruelly. "Oh, at last I understand! I finally detect the point of this pointless discussion. Well, my squat little Ferengi friend, I would rather die myself watching the rest of you croak away your last hours than tell you how to save your miserable lives." Well, this complicates things, thought Quark. But what kind of a profitless Ferengi wouM I be if I let a little setback bankrupt a deal? "I quite understand. I've made a study of Cardassians, you know. Operating a bar on... on Terok Nor gives a man plenty of opportunity to observe his neighbors. You're a proud soldier, and you wish you'd been killed in battle rather than captured by these disorderly, ragamuffin Natives." The lieutenant groaned and stared at Quark's

weskit. Encouraged, the newly minted ambassador continued. "But a deal is like a--a big sword: it cuts in both directions. You think hu-mans don't have secrets, things they don't want anyone to know? You have them bent over the beetle-snuff vat... they have to pay your price, whatever it is." The Cardassian prisoner looked much too old to be a mere lieutenant as his pendant indicated. A long-term noncorn who was kicked upstairs beyond his ability? The man glanced up, trying to parse what Quark had just said. "Any price?" "My friend, we've got them right where we want them. You struck latinum with that brainstorm, realizing that you could demand any price, any secret at all, in exchange for this one!" Quark couldn't help rubbing his hands with glee. Of course! He should have realized straight away that Cardassians, being a naturally secretive people, are fascinated, even obsessed, with otherpeople's secrets. The poor lieutenant, a natural sergeant booted beyond his ability, couldn't possibly resist the deal now. All Quark had to do was close, which meant finding some secret that the soldier desperately wanted to know before he died. "So let's not skimp on the price we get for our little secret. After all..." Quark looked back over his shoulder, then leaned close for the lieutenant's ears alone. "After all, our little piece of intelligence literally means life and death to the hu-mans. Now, if you could ask just one question, if you could summon up area question-answering spirit thing and ask it just one question only, one last thing you want to know, what would it be?" The old lieutenant closed his eyes and sighed. "The last thing I need to know is..." He took a deep breath, moving his lips silently. Then he opened his eyes to stare directly at Quark, cold as Brunt auditing a set of books. "I want to know what happened to Gul Ragat, the--the Gul in command of this whole expedition. Find that out, little man, and I will pay your price, giving you the means to prolong your worthless lives." The Cardassian grinned wickedly. "The technique will bring much joy to your Federation friends, if I know anything about them." "Uh..." Quark licked his lips. "I'11 be right back. Don't go anywhere." Scuttling hurriedly off, the Ferengi started for Captain Sisko, then thought better of it. Quark was absolutely sure they had not encountered the Gul, so the trip would be worthless. There was a slim possibility that Dax and Bashir had information about Gul Ragat. While he tried to find one of them on the off-chance that he actually knew, Quark began devising an elaborate tale of the Gul's heroic last stand, just in case.

Bashir was too busy to talk, trying to synthesize a slightly more potent version of his snake-oil hypospray. When Quark smelled the odor of the doctor's open jars and dishesrathe best he could do without a full-scale medical labsthe Ferengi's stomach did a slow roll and he almost lost his lunch. Small loss, he conceded; none of them had eaten anything but Cardassian emergency rations--"dire rations," as Quark called themmfor nine days. He backed away, trying to reassure himself that it was just the stench of Bashir's concoction, and not the cyanogens affecting his own titanium stomach lining. He knew instantly where to find Dax. As usual, she was deep in conference with the captain, Worf standing protectively by her side. "--By radio waves," she was saying. "They've replicated an antenna that can receive them, and they're standing by for your orders." "Radio waves?" demanded an incredulous Captain Sisko. "All right, I'm sure Chief O'Brien can jerry-rig something in a few minutes. Worf, start the ball rolling." "Aye, aye, sir," said the Klingon, stalking away with all the dignity of an operatic hero. Sisko finally noticed Quark's insistent handwaving and held up a single finger, meaning hurry up and wait. "Jadzia," said the captain, "was it your idea to plunge into the ocean and play dead?" She nodded slowly, frowning. "That," said Sisko, "was a plan worthy of the Emperor Kahless himself--the real one, I mean. I'm going to put you in for a commendation." Then he grinned. "Commendation, hell. I'm going to put you in for a medal!" Dax tried to hide her emotions, but the Ferengi could tell she was so proud, she almost burst her top. Too bad, thought Quark with regret. "Now, Quark," said Sisko, "what did you want to tell me?" "Nothing. I have to ask Commander Dax something." She barely even noticed Quark, still fixated as she was on a success that wiped out her supposed "failure" at the beginning of the mission. Quark had never felt quite so small and insignificant as he did just then, but he got over it quickly and back to his old self. "Jadzia," he said, appealing to the friend, not the commander, "the prisoner wants to know what happened to Gul--Gul--" "Ragat?" she asked. "Yes, that's it. How did you know?" Quark winked. "I think we can get the formula out of him for curing this cyanogen damage. Wouldn't that be a kick in the seat to Dr. Bashir?" Dax drew back a step. "He... wants to know what happened to Gul Ragat?" It's always a bad sign when you ask a question and they repeat it back to you, thought Quark nervously.

"You actually know this Gul?" "Well, in a manner of speaking." "What do you mean, in a manner of speaking?" "I mean Yes, I guess. I do know him, and I know what we did--what happened to him." "Uh-oh. Tell me he's not dead." "He's not dead." Quark sighed. "All right, then tell me what happened to him." She was hiding something. Quark noted the distance she had gotten between them, the way she rubbed her forefinger against her thumb, licked her lips, glanced away from Quark, as if lost in thought, but really unable to meet his gaze. "I, uh, don't think your lieutenant is going to be dancing for joy when you tell him what... what we did. What I did. What Julian and I did, but it's my responsibility." "Well, Old Man?" demanded the captain. "Are you going to tell us, or should we wait for the holoplay?" He was being humorous, but Quark had a suspicion there was also some real consternation. "We marooned him, Benjamin." "Marooned him where?" "In the desert. With some water and food. He can walk his way outtif he lives." Quark's jaw fell open. "Mar... mar-ooned? You left him all alone in the middle of a bunch of sand dunes, a thousand kilometers from the nearest water? And I'm supposed to trade this for a formula to save your miserable hides?" Angrily, shook both fists as her. "Commander, you just don't know how lucky you are that I'm a Ferengi businessman, because any other kind of ambassador would have thrown himself on a Native petard about now!" He crunched back toward the prisoner, feeling the fortune in latinurn squish past his boots. Why can't everyone else be as simple and easy to bribe as a Ferengi, he thought, instead of an incomprehensible joint account of insanity, honor, spite, and greedlesshess? 0 CHAPTER 14 Water was seeping up from somewhere. It conspired to send Quark sprawling, but he kept on his feet only by an economic miracle. It infiltrated his boots and infested his pants legs. The perfect metaphor for the mess he found himself mired in: persuading a sharp Cardassian lieutenant to swap the life-giving biochemical information he had for the horrible, horrible story Quark possessed~ When the Ferengi saw the prisoner, still stuck to his rocky stump as if glued, Quark had the inspiration to forget all about the marooned Gul and tell

instead his own brilliant concoction, the heroic last stand of Gul Ragat the Bold but Very Unlucky. But some nagging voice stopped him. Am I growing a conscience? Profits, what a handicap for a successful businessman! But fortune smiled, and Quark, upon deep reflection, decided it was the voice of skepticism, instead. What if the lieutenant, who was not exactly stupid, figured out that Quark was lying? There were so many details to get wrong, so many ways the mark-the customer--could realize he was being lied to by the vendor. There simply were too many uncertainties in the transaction for proper product placement. Visions of what an enraged Cardassian could do before being brought down by phaser fire made him swallow hard. Quark, feeling trapped and quite the fool, was forced to tell the truth--because anything else, no matter how plausible, was as likely to expose him as cover his backside. heavy-lobed The Ferengi opened fire on the Cardassian with all his ammunition of argument and dickering, setting the deal in concrete before revealing even one speck of actual information: the lieutenant was not going to be able to slither out of his end of the deal. Quark knew going in what he would gain and lose; if humans were unpredictable, Cardassians were all too predictable. In the end, by a tortuous path of negotiation, bargaining chips, covert hints, and overt threats, they ended at a straight-up swap, story for story... exactly as Quark had expected. And one final indignity: "But you go first," said the Cardassian, curling his lip and snorting like Odo... is that where the constable got it j~orn, all those Cardassians who raised him? "I would never trust an honorless Ferengi to keep his side of a bargain." Quark sighed. He had anticipated that, too. But he put on a show of beaten resignation. "Honorless! Was ever a people more put-upon than we?" Quark shook his head at the heavens, where the Cardassian ships had recently engaged in some terrible battle, if Chief O'Brien were right. "Odo, Sisko, Brunt, and now you! Does everyone in the quadrant have to impugn my integrity? Has it become the intragalactic sport? Fine. You may not trust me, but I, the most trusting man in the Alpha Quadrant, will even trust you, a Cardassian prisoner of war." Shaking his head at the folly of the universe, Quark told the sordid tale--the truthful one--the sad, wretched tale of the Gul who was sent packing. When he had finished, he took a step back, preparing to duck, dodge, and run like hell as the lieutenant digested the fate of his commander and reacted according to his conscience. At first the prisoner looked down at the ground. Then he caught himself and his low-class posture and straightened up, his

expression still unreadable. But by the time he turned to face Quark, the "neutral, haughty stare," as the Ferengi termed the default Cardassian face, was beginning to crack, the bright shimmer of a faint smile peeking through. Cold creeps coiled in Quark's stomach. It was insane, but... the Cardassian lieutenant was actually grinning like a loon at the ignominious end of his commander. The still-anonymous prisoner burst into loud guffaws. Desperately, he tried to stifle the unseemly display, but it was out of control. Before Quark could extract any information about the process, the prisoner was doubled over in hysterical but muzzled laughter. "Oh, I wish, I wish, I could have seen his face when you marooned him by the lake!" Putting on his bartender's cap, Quark joined in the joke, slapping the prisoner on the back and laughing his altruistic head off until the man calmed down. Then he started asking questions, sliding them in between laughs as loud and inarticulate as the yelps of the female split-heads when "Arrk fly." The Cardassian was generous, more than Quark would have expected from that normally tightlipped species. In fifteen minutes, Quark extracted the formula for protecting them, once and for all, against the deadly atmospheric contaminants. His only worry, as he licked sharp, pointed teeth and rubbed his hands together, was that the technique would so horrify Captain Sisko and the rest that they might just possibly not be able to bring themselves to implement it--though it made the Ferengi's mouth water and his wallet long for Ferenginar, visions of fresh Huyperian beetle-snuff dancing between his lobes. Chief O'Brien tried desperately not to think of the dilemma that faced them. He found as many bits and pieces of Dax's tricorder as he could--it had been blown to bits, along with the Cardassian skimmers, more the pity, when she left it behind as the Native shelling started. He helped Odo, Worf, and a detachment of Natives bury the Cardassian bodies... that, at least, O'Brien could do with a clear conscience and a song in his heart, after the horrors he had seen them commit: the invasion, the massacres, even the murder of children hardly older than Molly. Sure, I'll be having no nightmares tonight, he promised grimly. The sheep had turned tables, and nobody would weep for the wolves. But he had begun coughing up blood. His intestines burned with terrible gas pains that brought him to his knees twice during the burial. Even the cones in his retinas had ceased to function, as Bashir explained, restricting the chief's vision to an eerie world of dim black and white. It was harder to think, to concentrate; thoughts slithered around inside his

skull like leaves swirling in a windstorm, and he grabbed for them with both hands: I'm dying, was one such thought .... Another--they can save us... but a third came--we can't take one to save another. He grunted as a Native tried to push him out of the grave he was digging in the swampy, latinumthick soil. A group of them had taken a few minutes to invent a back-hoe, and they wanted him to step aside so they could dig the holes more efficiently. Through the midday gloom of his own eyeballs, O'Brien saw the Natives were already rolling the Drek'la corpses into the graves two or three at a time, with no more ceremony than one would give a fish buried for fertilizer. The prisoners sill alive showed no more concern for their own dead than did the Natives. He didn't object to the anonymous burials... these butchers deserved it. But he desperately needed the physical labor, to think through the moral morass: Should we grind up the blessed lizards and eat them? To a moral man like Miles Edward O'Brien, father and warrior, builder and destroyer, the idea that he could save his own life only by killing an innocent sentient being was abhorrent. But he was a father, and a husband, and a builder, and a warrior. People needed him. They relied upon him. Without me, he thought, blushing at such seeming egotism even within his own mind, there~ a lot of folk will die in this war that wouldn't be likely to if I'm there. His engineer's mind compelled him to speak the truth-even to himself. The news brought by the grinning Quark had stunned the entire away team. The only way discovered by the Cardassians to protect against further deterioration of their pulmonary and nervous systems-the dying of the cones in O'Brien's eyes was only the most "visible" sign of a deteriorating brainmwas to grind up the Praying Lizards, as the chief dubbed them, and extract a long-chain biopolymer that scrubbed the system of cyanogens, at least in the concentrations produced by breathing. ('It won't save your life if you eat the native food," added the Cardassian lieutenant cheerfully.) The problem, of course, was that the lizards, like every other form of semi-advanced life on SierraBravo, were sentient. According to Dax and Bashir, who had seen information ripped from a Cardassian tap into the planet's core computer system, intelligence and consciousness had been genetically engineered into the species for some horrific, Frankensteinian experiment. The whole damned planet is an experiment... another fluttering-leaf thought that the chief managed to catch and hold long enough to understand it. Actually, the biopolymer could be extracted from

any "animal" more advanced than those lizards... but they would be even more sentient--closer to full humanity than the Prayers. And all the less advanced creatures were just as susceptible to the cyanogens as were humans, Cardassians, and other invaders: they simply lived such a short time that most died of other causes long before the contaminants could kill them. Nonlaboratory rats rarely died of cancer either--because they didn't live long enough to contract it. Chief O'Brien looked around and discovered Captain Sisko in conference with Dax, Ode, and Worf. The chief blinked; he had no idea when the last two had left their grave-digging jobs. But straining his failing brain, he vaguely remembered the captain asking him to join the conference some time ago... a minute? A day? I said something about coming as soon asmas I finished--digging something. Something? A grave, as soon as I finished digging another Cardassian grave. Sighing, O'Brien stood and stretched his aching, stooped shoulders. He laid the folding shovel next to the hole and allowed Owena-da and the overly muscular Rimthe-de to pluck him from the hole. The back-hoe roared behind the chief, tearing a scream from his throat before he remembered that he had seen it before... just a few minutes ago, in fact. Oh, God... I am in bad shape. My mind is almost gone/Fear pricked at his spine, and made him pick up his feet and hustle to the conference. Quark was missing; he was rounding up as many Prayers as he could... in case they decided to use the Cardassian formula. Dax and Bashir were desperately trying to synthesize the biopolymer, using samples from the cackling, giggling prisoner. It was a hopeless task without a complete ship's medical lab, the nearest one being at the moment submerged on the Defiant, days of travel distant even by Native trucks. Bashir's best judgment was that they would not survivemnot even Worf, who was finally himself sucumbing to the cyanogen's cellular destructiveness. Only Quark, the prisoner, and of course Odo (who had no biology) would likely make it back to the ship. For some reason, the Ferengi anatomy was much less susceptible to poison or contaminants. Probably from thousands of years of practice, thought O'Brien. Too bad about the skimmers, he thought; they might're spared us the moral dilemma. When he staggered into the circle, Worf immediately grabbed him by the arm and injected him with some hypospray. After a few moments, O'Brien's head cleared somewhat--at the expense of his pulse and heartbeat racing, blood pressure soaring, and waves of anxiety and panic coursing through his veins: Worf had shot him full of epinephrine, caus-

ing a burst of adrenaline to flood his circulatory system. "People," said an equally shaky Captain Sisko, sounding not much like his old, confident self, "we have only a short time left to decide. Julian... Julian tells me that if the brain damage is extendinga extensive enough, it won't matter whether we get the bio--biopolymer. We'll be diminished per-ma-nently." The captain closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down his cheek. The thought that even Benjamin Sisko was deteriorating mentally and emotionally sent a fresh and stronger wave of terror through Chief O'Brien. God, if he goes, we're all bloody doomed/He knew that his own emotions were under siege. But far from reassuring him, that only made the panic worse. He fought it down, pushing harder with his own will than he ever had before. Sisko appeared to bear down on himself, regaining some control from his damaged neurons. "We must decide now, men. I have Bashir's and the Old Man's opinions, and I'm keeping them in my pocket until I hear what the rest of you say." O'Brien couldn't shake the absurd image of Jadzia Dax in one of the captain's pockets and the doctor in the other. It distracted him... but it was better than the artificial feeling of panic. "Sir," he said, speaking too quickly because of the epinepherine, "how do we know when we decide that we're not just letting dead brains and bodies full of adrenaline make the choice?" Worf snarled instead of speaking. The epinephrine brought out violence instead of fear in the warrior. "I will make no decision based on some chemical in my blood!" "Silence, Worf," said Sisko. Even in his condition, the command tone caught the Klingon's attention. "The chief raises a valid concern. But the time for guilt and worry is after we decide--not before." "Captain," said Constable Odo, "the first rule for any animal species is survival." "But we're not animals!" said O'Brien, feeling a surge of irrational fury at the changeling. "Or we're beyond animals, whatever you call it. This is an intelligent species we're talking about killing and eating." "Technically," said Odo, retreating into lecture mode, "we would not be eating the Praying Lizards. Bashir would terminate them, pulverize their bodies, and extract the biopolymer for injection via hypospray." The chief wrapped his arms around a head that suddenly burned, as if a red-hot bowl had just been slapped over his skull. "I don't know as I can eat an intelligent life-form to save myselfi" He realized he was screaming, and struggled to calm down. "Perhaps," said Odo, oddly sympathetic, "consid-

ering the moral implications, each person should choose for himself whether he is willing." "No," said Sisko, eyes closed. O'Brien held his breath. "I will make the decision for all. It is my responsibility." The captain doesn't want there to be any confusion at the inquest--and there will be one. He's going to take the medicine for us, every swallow. Dax squatted, wrapping her arms around herself. After the chief himself, she was the most affected, either because she had swallowed Sierra-Bravo seawater, or maybe because she was a female. Or maybe Trills are just more susceptible, thought O'Brien, his perforated mind wandering. Wonder why Ferengi are so little affected? Captain Sisko took a long look around at each of his team: Commander Worf, struggling to shrug off the effects, ignoring the pain, but unable to stop the shimmy in his hands, the trembling in his knees; Commander Dax, hurting, unable to stand, equally unable to complain or give in; "Ambassador" Quark, doubtless glad to be a Ferengi but looking worried, as if nervous about what bloody thoughts the rest of the team had for him--and about whether he, too, would soon begin to suffer the physical and mental deterioration of the cyanogens; his nemesis, Constable Odo, shuffling uncomfortably, surely fretting at seeing so many friends on the point of death or permanent brain damage, but already thinking, O'Brien was certain, of what he would have to do to rescue some or all of them if they collapsed on the way back to the Defiant; poor, apologetic Dr. Julian Bashir, the superior man rendered helpless, angry, distraught by a tiny molecule that eluded even his genetically enhanced brain, eye, and hand. "And poor, sick me," added Chief Miles Edward O'Brien, vocalizing half-aloud. The fighting man, the warrior, the strong man who is brought lower than any of the others, even Dax. Whatever shreds of masculine pride the poison had left O'Brien were blown away like pollen by his oversensitive reaction to it. "Quark," said Sisko, his voice the croak of a frog, "I've decided. We're going to--" "Hold on, Captain." Dr. Bashir put in. He was holding Chief O'Brien's tricorder. "I've run an analysis on the polymer that makes up the cyanogen scrubber. The Cardassians would have had no way of knowing this--and I'm a little surprised to find it out myself--but it's the same polymer some of the plants are made out of, at least in part." "You mean," Sisko said, "that all this time we've had the answer and didn't know it?" "Yes," the Doctor said. "That's what I'm saying. Funny how things work out sometimes, isn't it?" Quark said, "Just curious, but what decision had

you made? Was it us or the lizards?" "It must be the mental impairment," Sisko said, smiling, "but I'm afraid I can't recall." CHAPTER 15 THIRTY YEARS AGO CRESTING THE long, high, steep, slippery bridge across the Swifts, Sister Winn paused. Grand spires laughed in the shimmer, binding a red-peaked roof, except where missing tiles had been replaced by gray Cardassian preforms. Walls bulged outward, sagging beneath the weight of four centuries, next to a lawn half-dead but stubbornly maintained, the same losing battle fought when Raid Mirana ruled the roost as president of the General Lyll Military Academy, before Winn's grandmother was born. The Cardassians, out of respect for a soldier, had not renamed the school. The iron sky brought out the dark, precious-green trees--blue or azure would have drowned the muted color. How somber a tone, thought the sister, for a step-off into the arms of the Prophets. "My chest," she gasped, clutching herself. The vision of the pain was so vivid, she almost felt it. "Let me sit, my gracious lord." Not waiting for a response, she plumped down on the railing of the bridge. Gul Ragat said nothing, but he stopped and looked away from her. She watched him without being observed herself. Ragat was a youngster, barely into his twenties, trying hard to be a man older than his time. Grayness set about his skin like powder makeup, dusting his cheeks with pallor, his eyes with dimness, so they had no sparkle of life. He knows, he senses that his career is at an end, she thought--and she felt nothing, not a twinge of conscience. Gul Ragat was not a man well-liked by his fellow Cardassian generals. Migar tolerated him because the legate had grown up with "the old Gul," Ragat's father Ragat First. But Migar was an eggshell blown clean of its contents. Soon he would crumble in upon himself, and Gul Dukat, master of Terok Nor, the station of death that had proven itself so effective in the few years it had been in orbit, would step into Migar's place. Dukat despised Ragat. He despised Ragat's family, his easy grace, his youth, his class. Everyone had heard the rumors about Dukat and Bajoran women-even the Bajorans. There was even talk of a child somewhere, a mix, a half-breed... but Sister Winn found the thought so profoundly disturbing that she refused to credit it. Powerful though Dukat was--and he controlled the Cardassian army of

occupation the way Migar never had--he would never be accepted in a society that accepted Ragat. Ragat was Old School; Dukat was the New Cardassian. And I have just handed Dukat my lord~ head in a golden chalice, thought the priestess with a grim smile and not a shred of guilt. Having been caught at the open door of the code room, Winn would be executed--even if Dukat, by some bizarre twist of destiny, actually believed her lie that she had never looked inside. And as she had been Gul Ragat's closest Bajoran servant, her blood would leave an indelible stain on Ragat's career. Nothing so crass as a court-martial, just the low whisper in a stretched ear, the frown, the glance away, the toostiff, too-formal politeness in Ragat's presence, and the smirk behind the back of a hand... enough so that Ragat would be finished--and he knew it. He knows there~ nothing he can do about it. I wonder how bitter he feels? Enough, she thought, seeing the first ray of light, that he might give way to compassion? She sat on the wall of the crescent, now called the Colonel Gorak Mahak Bridge. Beneath her, the waters of the aptly named Swifts rushed and swirled, flying over rocks and rolling boulders by night. Chubby priestesses were not generally known for being excellent swimmers... but most hadn't grown up hard against the Shakiristi River, as Sister Winn had. A young Gul could be excused for making the mistake of underestimating her. So many others had. The thoughts may have come direct from the Prophets; certainly Sister Winn would forever say they had, assuming forever were longer than the time it took to drown. But the guts, she knew, were her own, a remnant from her wilder days as a child at the convent school, when she got into so much mischief that the Mother Superior, Sister Opaka before she made vedek, threatened to endow a special punishment chair in Winn's name. Clutching her chest and gasping in what must have seemed like astonished agony, Winn opened her eyes as wide as saucers and allowed her face to turn distinctly white. Gul Ragat turned--how could he not?mand asked, in some alarm, "Winn, Winn, what's wrong?" Slowly, Winn allowed her head to fall backward. She had never seen a person die from a heart attack, but she had an excellent imagination. She put it to good use. Before any of her guards could react, Sister Winn toppled backwards off the Colonel Gorak Mahak and into the Swifts. The river was cold, and for an instant, she thought the shock really would kill her! The rush dragged her under, catching her robes of office with ice-hands, wrapping snow-arms around

her ample circumferance, pulling her to the bottom of the flow with chains so cold they burned her flesh. She had caught a good breath, and she knew how long she could hold it--on solid ground at room temperature. Tumbling along the frigid bottom of the Swifts, she lost her lungfull in moments, but she refused to surface. Instead, damning modesty, she slithered out of the clothing that held her fast. Winn forced open her eyes; the river was not so deep that it became opaque, and she could see well enough for a few swim-strokes in every direction, despite clouds of sand whipped into a froth by the water's churn. She knew what to look for and soon found it: a stand of broomsticks growing along the bank, marching right into the water. Seeing stars flashing against the blackness of her vision, she pumped for the reeds. Drums beat and roared in her ears--my pulse? It sounded as if it would burst the sides of her head in a moment. The Swifts cooperated, throwing her into the broomstick stand with a vicious chuckle. She grabbed an armful, halting her tumble and nearly wrenching her arms from their sockets. Winn's lungs were heaving. It took every molecule of will not to open her mouth and suck in riverwater. With faltering strength, she tried to snap the largest reed off at its base. Forget it... don't be an ass/It ~' much too thick for you, even for a muscular young man. Never one to argue with reality, Winn, obedient to the voice, chose a much thinner reed and broke that one instead, clamping her hand quickly over the bottom to minimize the water she would have to swallow. Holding onto a small clump of broomsticks with her twined feet, she twisted face-up and wrestled the reed into place over her mouth, jamming it past her lips. It was a nightmare forcing herself to swallow the water inside before taking her first breath. But she had long experience suppressing her natural reactions. She was, after all was said, a spy for the Resistance. The first gasp of air tasted sweeter than cake. The second, third, tenth calmed her nerves. By the time a minute had elapsed, she was aware enough to wonder whether Gul Ragat's men would swiftly pluck her out of the flow and haul her, streaming water, to the transporters at the Academy. It would be no trick to find her. Even if none of the guards had a scanner, one could run to the Academy and be back in a few minutes. She waited, counting seconds as accurately as she could, until ten minutes passed. She was so chilled that her bones felt about to crack. Then she counted all over again. By that time, she understood: Ragat had let her go. He had allowed her to die in peace, in her own time, on her own planet, not by Gul Dukat's schedule on Terok Nor. Ragat gave her that much

respect... and had happily stolen the equivalent satisfaction from Gul Dukat. It was the single courageous, decent act she had ever seen her "master" perform... she almost regretted what he would suffer in her place. Almost. She stayed another five minutes, just to be sure. Then, holding her broomstick as high as she could, Sister Winn loosed her leg-grip and let the Swifts carry her along wherever the Prophets pleased, to cast her ashore some way downstream. When she beached up on a sandbar, Winn took it as a sign. She let her air tube float away on the current and stood, instantly regretting that she hadn't saved the reed for a walking stick. But she hardly needed it, for she heard Bajoran voices less than a hundred strides from the river. She followed the curses, never before having been so happy to hear oaths and blasphemies, and discovered three mechanics trying to repair a truck engine that had stalled. It took Sister Winn five weeks to hook up with the nearest Resistance cell, which was led by a man who called himself Jaras Shie. Five weeks of skulking through woods dark and deep, skirting all habitation, looking for the secret blazes, "random" rockfalls, and other signs of a nearby cell. She begged some men's clothing from the mechanics to hide her nakedness but had to walk on bare feet the whole time. By the time she found the spot to wait for (and be observed by) the cell scouts, her feet were toughened from rock and twig, and she had lost much of her fleshy excess baggage. She was blindfolded, searched, and led a tortuous path to the cell meeting, where she met "Jaras," whoever he really was. She began to tell her story-not her perilous escape, but the important information about the holocam and what she had seen in the code room--when a man in the circle surrounding her shouted as if the fire had suddenly burned his feet. He tore off his black hood and ran up to her, an old man who smelled of fish. Winn froze in amazement and beatific grace. The fisherman was the same she had seen in the temple in Riis, far up the road, into whose pack she had slipped the holocam. She recovered her aplomb quickly. "Indeed," she said, speaking very much like her old self, "the Prophets do move in mystery and humor." They threw her a feast, and she overdid and got sick. But every moment was precious to her that night, and for long years to come. The intelligence was used with care, and it was half a lifetime before it was all used up. The Cardassians never did discover what they had lost and what Bajor had won. Gul Ragat was recalled to Cardassia Prime, and Sister Winn never heard of him again. But by then, she was a busy woman, studying for her vedek

examinations; and she wasn't really listening anyway. Ops, Level One, slid into Kira's view evil-quick. She felt like an undead Bajoran ghost popping up out of the grave, clutching the death of Bajor in her one good arm. She limped off the turbolift platform carrying the portable, far-seeing anomaly, also known as the Orb, sealed in its latching cabinet. It felt wrong, but then everything felt wrong lately: Kira's entire life had gone awry, beginning the moment Captain Sisko and the Federation decided to hand over the station for a "trial run" of independence to a people they evidently thought of as too childish to be trusted. Wasn't there a human ghost who walked "With 'er 'cad tucked underneath 'er arm'7 It sounded familiar, but her mind was wandering. Squinting through her swollen eyes, Kira mustered what dignity she could to shuffle forward with the horrible ransom. Was it really worth a hundred lives? A thousand? It was hard for the major to believe it. To Kira, the Orbs were Bajor, and Bajor's population was numbered in the billions! But Kira herself had no stomach for the death-decision, either. She had proven that when she yielded to the blackmail of Jake, Keiko, Molly, and Kirayoshi--who were mercifully absent, having served their purpose. She was sure they were but a few levels away, ready to be hauled back if Kira or Winn were suddenly to grow a spine. "Here'sh your portable, far-sheeing...your damned Orb." Kira stretched her arm, offering the cabinet to the dean without even a glance at Kai Winn. But the Kai swept her hand out in a lightning thrust that made Kira blink. The old woman intercepted the handoff, holding the box to her bosom, a new mother nursing her child. "I will give it to the dean, Major," said Winn, softly but firmly. "It is my right as Kai, not yours, child." It was an ugly performance, and Kira felt dirtied by the Kai's obsequious eagerness to please. Kira let her hands fall limp. She was close to vomiting, but she swallowed it back down. She couldn't afford to be distracted by anything, certainly not nausea. "Show me," whispered the dean. His voice was hoarse with excitement... the first emotion Kira could recall hearing from him during the entire occupation. He literally trembled with anxious impatience, clutching greedily for the box. Kai Winn deftly evaded the dean's grasping hands. "I will show it to you, my friend. But it's too complex to go into now. Let's adjourn to my office." Winn nodded up toward what Kira would always think of as the captain's ready-room. "Let me see it now!"At the last word, the dean's voice rose to a piercing wail, sending Kira reeling

back a step in astonishment and disgust. Winn sighed. "As you wish." She carefully unlatched the doors of the box, opening them wide and flashing the dean with the innards. Kira stared like a starving beggar at a banquet, seeing the Orb, she imagined for the last time. Once they get their claws on it, she reckoned, they'll trade it to the Dominion for an end to their duties as prison guards--unconvicted '>risoners"-and that wouM give them access to the Prophets, for whatever deadly plan they had in mind. "You will come with us into the office," said the faceless dean, still admiring the Orb-box and its contents. "You will activate the portable, far-seeing anomaly yourself and demonstrate its use to contact the wormhole aliens." "It is not difficult," said the Kai. "You merely probe the Orb with a high-frequency burst of six GigaHertz electromagnetic radiation." Radiation? Burst? Kira was confused. She had never thought of the Orb as a microwave receiver before. What the bloody hell is she talking about? And then Kai Winn closed the box, but she turned it around to do so, giving Major Kira her first glimpse inside. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped; she sucked in a sharp gasp, which she passed off by instantly making the sign of the Prophets on her forehead and looking down in consternation... for the bright, shiny, silver sphere she had seen in the box in no way resembled the real Orb, not in the least. Kai Winn had slipped them a ringer. The shock almost sent Kira to the floor with dizziness. Her face whitened as she desperately tried to digest the new information: Everything I thought was wrong.t Every damned, blessed thing... I've had it all backwards, she's not--the Kai didn't-- But if the cabinet didn't contain an Orb, as clearly it did not, then what the hell was in that box? "You will activate the anomaly," insisted the dean. "If you make an attempt to damage it, you will be instantly killed. Then the second-ranking prisoner will operate the anomaly in your place. You will follow." "I will follow," agreed Winn instantly. One by one, the Liberated climbed to the upper part of the Ops level, heading toward the ready-room. Kai Winn lowered her face and began to pray silently, her lips moving as she intoned the well-known prayer for the ending. Kira heard an insistent ringing in her ears: something the Kai had said about a special project, something involving the Orb, looking for the Orb, something. At once, the twisted, tangled pattern sharpened into the spider-web lines of a crystal goblet: the "special project" was not to find the

Orb... with a gasp, Kira realized that Kai Winn had somehow managed to instruct her elite guard to construct a counterfeit Orb. Kira looked up, staring at the Kai with an intensity of emotion she had never before felt toward the woman. If the silver sphere were not an Orb, not a real one, then it could only, Kira reasoned, be one other thing. Anything else would be discovered quickly, and they would be right back to the porridge course of the feast of suffering of the Bajoran and Federation inhabitants. The silver sphere was a bomb. And Kai Winn was about to follow them up to the ready room and commit suicide to drain the deception to its bitter dregs. At last, Kira's mind jerked back onto the course it should have followed from the beginning of the occupation, and her feet finally became unstuck from the floor. At her feet lay still the broken handle of the ratageena mug with its jagged, sharp shard for stabbing... stabbing not to execute, not in response to betrayal, but to save a life, one among many. Kira swiftly stooped, ignoring the pain and the blurry vision, and caught the handle in her one good hand. "Die, you traitor/" Kira lunged forward, again catching by surprise the complacent aliens, who were used to dealing with demoralized convicted criminals who complied with their own captivity. The blade-like piece slid easily into the Kai's shoulder. She yelped in surprise, and then the pain struck, hurling her to the ground in agony. Kira felt not the slightest taste of remorse despite a hand coated with a thick sauce of blood. She bent low over the Kai's ear as the guards turned with their ultrafast reaction time and bolted back down the ladderway. "Kai, Kai," she said urgently in Winn's ear, "hang on: as a wise woman once said, what we can tolerate, we can endure. "Endure, my Kai. It will be over soon, I promise." Winn looked back at Kira with an odd light of intelligence. Then the blood-loss, the shock, and the pain conspired to put the Kai's lights out. An instant later, Kira was buried beneath a swarm of prison guards. Her last thought before the event was, I wonder whether a double-thick layer of the Liberated will shield me pom the blast? CHAPTER 16 Kn~ COULD S~ virtually nothing under the dogpfie. She could barely breathe. She already had at least one broken rib from the beating, and an agonizing ripping feeling in her chest indicated that the broken ends had lacerated her flesh. I wonder if they punc-

tured a lung? she thought dully, and wondered also why she no longer seemed to care much. Through a gap between the legs of one of the Liberated pried on top of her, Kira just caught a glimpse of a guard standing over Kai Winn. They both dematerialized--in the infirmary, please the Prophets/ Kira tried to resist being crushed, but she had no strength left, she had lost it all, to depression, to enforced servility, apathy, and now physical abuse. Slowly, she settled~ spreading a~oss the deck, heedless of both the searing pain in her chest and her inability to suck in enough air. Will Ipass out before being blown to bits? She heard the clanking of boots on the Cardassian metal ladderway, as the dean and his top lieutenants reclimbed back to the ready-room. If he issued orders about Kira or the Kai, he did so silently, as was his wont, for Kira heard nothing. But the guards piled atop her did not make a move, either to lift her up or execute her. She could only guess what the dean was planning... not that he would get much of a chance to execute his plan if the Kai were as competent at direct action as she was at political action. Major Kira of the Bajoran Defense Forces and the Federation, executive officer of Emissary's Sanctuary and Deep Space Nine, resistance fighter against Cardassian and Liberated, closed her eyes and offered what she assumed was her final prayer to the Prophets. Curiously, she felt no rush of religious certainty or ecstasy; her prayers were as detached and formalistic as they often were when she was stressed, angry, or doubt-ridden. She tried to review her life, but she couldn't think of any great accomplishments: all she could think was that she never had loved a man the way she had hoped to love, never been the hero she'd imagined in her girlhood, never served Bajor the intense way a Bajoran so desperately desired. If I loved at all, I loved Bajor. All else was mere physical desire, comfort, and custom. The thought repelled, when it should have exalted. She heard a muffled pop. It~ the fuse. The explosion will come any instant! What, she pondered, would she have done if she had another few years to do it? I would have gotten away from the damned station for a while. Mabye toured restored Bajor, rest on my laurels a bit. Oddly, even in this extreme circumstance, the idea was unappealing. Kira caught herself making a list of all the people she wished she could talk to before dying. A few she wanted to say goodbye to, to one or two she wished she could apologize. By far, the Prophets' share were people she wanted to punch in the nose or kick in the groin. How elevated/But, she sighed, that was the complex bundle of neuroses that was Kira Nerys.

In fact, the guards on her back were awfully still. Preternaturally so. Curious, Kira shifted herself, shifted her legs, just to see what would happen, but nothing did; there was no response whatsoever. She jerked, pulling one arm free. She pushed at one of the bodies above her, but it didn't react, didn't respond, made no attempt to recapture her arm. And at once, the certainty flooded Kira that everybody was dead. She lay beneath a heaping pile of dead bodies. Filled with a surge of panic and horror, Kira's body went into a convulsion, ignoring the fire in her chest. She screamed--twice. Long before she dug her way out, the panic subsided, but her determination intensified. Two or three minutes passed before she finally made free. She squirmed free and pulled herself erect, clinging to the comm panel as to a life preserver, and stared in stunned incomprehension at the tangle of corpses. "What the--?" The rest of her epithet would have turned her mother's ears bright red. Kira stared around Ops in complete confusion. Dead Liberated bodies lay everywhere in positions indicating they had died in an instant where they stood, collapsing to the floor in positions that indicated broken bones and even a split skull in one case, where the guard had fallen against the sharp, angry, Cardassian corner of O'Brien's engineering well. Maybe we shouM put ProtectiFoam on those edges, she thought, not even noticing the inanity. "Or are you dead?" She left the security of the communications panel and stumbled to a body that was not part of the mob atop her. She stooped, catching the floorplates to prevent falling as her dizziness overwhelmed her. She examined the body one-handedly. "Just as I thought... it's an alien. And I have no idea how to tell whether it's alive or dead." She shook off the vertigo and lethargy and moved as quickly as she could for the ladderway. She had to grit her teeth against the tearing in her chest, but at least she was breathing better. Kira decided she hadn't punctured a lung; it had just been the weight crushing her down. She felt a curious reluctance to enter the readyroom, as if she might not be worthy to enter Captain Sisko's most personal sanctorum. "Oh, come on, Kira, you've been in here a thousand times." But it was the first time since the occupation, and she was not entirely confident of her performance under that duress. But there would be time to examine herself and her actions... now she needed to know what had happened. Kira opened the door to a scene out of hell. No fewer than nine dead Liberated bodies surrounded the center of the room. The bodies were pushed against the wall and injured, as by a blast.

But clearly, to Kira's practiced eye, they were not slain by the force: the damage was too light. They were all, however, as dead as dead could be, and their facesmthey were definitely not helmets, she realized that at last--were gray. She touched one face and it crumbled inward like ash. Then she recovered her aplomb and examined the rest of the bodies--without touching. They all showed evidence of some sort of burning, but a burning without flames or scorching. Then she looked at the "Orb" in the center, on the captain's desk, and she understood. The "special project" item that the Kai's team had constructed--not found--was a bomb... but a very special kind. Kira had studied her own military history as well as that of Cardassia, the Federation, even the Klingon Empire. All had at one time or another come up with the clever idea of a bomb that killed people but left buildings and documents intact. Winn had ordered the construction of a neutron bomb with a microwave trigger. The dean had just solved his own problem of what to do with his life, as well as the problems of the rest of the occupied station. The station! Kira spun, darted out of the ready room, and slid down the ladderway like an ensign in a sailing-ship holoplay, falling at the end when she forgot and tried to grab with her left hand. But why didn't ! die, along with everyone else? The Kai had doubtless set the range of the neutron bomb to a small radius, a few meters. Surely she wouldn't kill the entire station! And that meant that the rest of the Liberated, scattered throughout Deep Space Nine, were still alive and armed, and probably wondering why their communicators had suddenly grown silent. Soon, after being unable to raise the dean, they would venture up to Ops to see for themselves what had happened. Kira had only a tiny window of vulnerability before they recaptured Ops and regained control. Because I was at the bottom of a pile of armored and shielded bodies. Their radiation shielding was insufficient, in one layer, to protect them from death. But several layers of it, as well as layers of bodies, were enough to protect Kira herself... though she doubtless must have some radiation damage Bashir or somebody would have to fix. At the moment, however, she was alive and mobile. She scrambled to the Security console; within ten seconds she had completely cut off the shields. She could have done it in an instant if the Liberated hadn't made their own minor improvements to the system. But with the shields down, there was nothing to stop the Harriman, nothing to stop Captain Taggart from beaming aboard a huge strike force. The leadedess, frightened, demoralized remnants of the prison-guard Liberated would be no match for a

full Federation combat team. She pounded on the subspace communicator relay. "Emissary~... I mean, Deep Space Nine to Captain Taggart, Deep Space Nine to Captain Taggart of the U.S.S. Harriman, urgent communication!" The reedy voice popped out of the air. "This is Rear Admiral Taggart of the Harriman. Whom am I addressing?" "This is Major Kira. Admiral, I lowered the shields, and the dean and top officers of the alien invaders are casualties." A long pause; too long. "Major Kiramif that is your name--I have no assurances that this is not a ruse to lure my ship within striking range and capture some more hostages. I'm afraid I will have to investigate the situation thoroughly before committing any more human resources to what is unarguably a deteriorating situation." At that moment the turbolift ghosted silently downward. If her eyes hadn't been opened by then and looking the right direction, she would have missed its departure. Kira watched the shaft intently... who would come up? Far below, she heard it coming. She was so intent on the shaft that when a meaty forefinger tapped her on the shoulder, she nearly jumped right out of her skin and danced around in her bones. She whirled to face a pale human face carrying a phaser rifle and wearing a Starfleet uniform. A voice spoke authoritatively behind her. "Major Kira of the Bajoran Defense Forces?" She whirled back, dizzy enough to grab the communications console for support. There was a triplet of black-clad soldiers in the turbolift, holding their rifles at port-arms. "Major Kira," she whispered, hardly daring to breathe. "Commander Vincent Fie, of the Harriman. Captain's apologies, but as he said, it was necessary to investigate further and confirm your identity. That investigation took a bit of doing, but I hereby confirm your identity and you'll be pleased to know this starbase has been secured." Kai Winn improved dramatically in the infirmary, after the Harriman sent its surgeon to seal up her back. K_ira's blow had been more precise than she had a right to demand, given the circumstances, and the major vowed to light incense and offer up thirty prayer-cycles to the Prophets in thanksgiving for Their timely guiding of her hand. The knife cut deeply into the Kai's shoulder, creating lots of realistic bleeding, but it missed all the innards and didn't even shatter the clavicle. Winn regained consciousness after the operation, and within a day was running the entire station again through the comlink, using her loyal fighting team as hands and eyes.

Kira waited to be summoned, either to be thanked (if the Kai understood why Kira had stabbed her) or informed in crystal terms that the major had made a deadly enemy. But the call never came. Kira fretted at the silence, but there was no one to ask about it except Garak... and I'm not that desperate, she vowed. Garak returned to his cutting and stitching, refusing to take a hand in the wrenching cleanup. But the O'Briens pitched in, and Jake too, anxious at last to be doing something. By the time the Defiant came strolling back, Emissary~ Sanctuary would be in fine condition for the farewell ceremonies for Captain (not Admiral) Benjamin Sisko and the rest of his Starfleet crew. Emissary's Sanctuary would truly, wholly, be Bajoran at last. So why don't I rejoice? Kira asked herself... but answer came there none, not even from the voice of the Prophets. If even They're confused, she thought miserably, what hope do I have to make sense of these warring feelings? Major Kira slowly swept up broken glass from the Promenade floor, shunning the automated systems that would do such menial cleaning for her. She looked forward with alternating dread and eagerness to that final moment when theymwhen Bajor-would truly spin in its own orbit. Maybe that's also what the Kai is waiting for, thought Kira, swallowing a lump of anxiety. She felt like a little kid in school who's been promised a beating by the class sadist, watching the clock tick inexorably toward recess, when she would be alone with him and there'd be no teachers around to intervene. But there was no Defiant, and no word. Kira, and even the Kai (or so she said through her proxies), began to wonder and worry. And whatever had happened to the Orb???

0 CHAPTER 17 CmEF O'BRIEN still felt a wee tad green about the gills, despite (or due to) having digested his fair share of an extract of the native plant life. There was a horrible taste he couldn't get rid of crawling up and down his gizzard like the creatures were back to life, skittering from stomach to throat and down again, rattling around inside his gullet. O'Brien felt nauseated, but he fought the feeling: it was a far piece from the near-death experience of the cyanogen poisoning, though Bashir still didn't know whether there was any permanent damage. And the lurching of the diesel jalopy wasn't helping O'Brien's stomach either. I got the worst of it, thought the chief. I was the weak link. I nearly brought us down. Even Quark fared better, though to be honest the Ferengi fared better than anyone except Odo, who didn't count. "I finally figured out why you were so little affected," said Odo to his nemesis, eerily echoing O'Brien's own thoughts. Quark was distracted, still staring at the ground receding behing them as if it were the Glory Road itself... which, considering the latinum content, it probably was to a Ferengi. Had Quark been paying attention, he never would have walked into the goo. "What? Why?" He seemed to realize he'd blundered into a verbal trap and tried to grab the words back, but Odo was too quick. "Because you're already so corrupt to the core that the cyanogens had no effect. They tried and tried, but you're so poisonous, they simply gave it up." "Oh, ho ho ho!" He must be exhausted, thought O'Brien, or he'd at least have responded. The lorry jerked, crashing over a fallen tree stump, nearly flinging the chief from his perch atop the giant gearbox. One of the wheels caught on the stump and tore off; another wheel fell from inside somewhere and dropped into place, picking up the load on the other side of the tree. The chief stared back in amazement at the lost wheel receding behind them, then at the new one, complete with flexible mechanical ankle, that had taken its place. The ignorant genius of the Natives terrified him. They were innocent of even the simplest engineering knowledge and busily reinventing the wheel--literally--at a pace of centuries per day. "Lord knows," muttered O'Brien, not intending to be overheard, "where they'll be same time next year."

"If we even recognize them," said Captain Sisko, staring fixedly into his box of Native toys, items of new tech that would expand the Federation technobase immeasurably... if O'Brien or some Earthbound engineer could figure out how they worked. "Beg pardon, sir?" O'Brien felt his face heat up. He really had been talking to himself. But Dax took up the conversational line. She sat on the hood itself, directly atop the engine, but didn't appear to be burning herself. "When we came here, we were worried that our technology might contaminate this culture, exposing them to devices they weren't prepared to handle .... " The chief looked as Sisko, a question in his eyes. "And?" Why don't the Native diesel engines get hot? he wondered. "I'm wondering if we should bring this box of gadgets home with us, or just leave them right here. I'd hate to contaminate our culture with technology we're not ready for." "Julian?" Dax asked suddenly, looking back to the passenger compartment, "are you still with us?" The doctor sat apart from the others, the only one to end up in an actual seat, next to the little girl Tivva-ma, who drove. (Since she was approximately the same age as Molly, O'Brien sweated rivers whenever he caught sight of her behind the navigation console.) Bashir responded only with a grunt. He cradled his chin on joined fists and stared at the horizon. He's probably got the plant-throat even worse than I, thought O'Brien. After all, the chief had merely "eaten" plant extract, while Bashir was the one who had actually manufactured it. He knew far better than the chief exactly what they had eaten. The shaking, belching, noxious diesel truck, with its regenerating wheels, perfect heat-exchanger, and (seemingly) no steering wheel, remained perfectly on course, according to Dax and her tricorder. The captain asked something, but had to repeat himself as Chief O'Brien was holding his throat, wondering whether the terrible aftertaste would ever go away. "Chief?. Are we close enough yet to use the radio transmitter?" "What? Oh, sorry, sir." They traveled through a forest of tall bluewoods that alternately blocked the sun and allowed it to shine full-force on the chief's modified com-badge, which he had opened in order to rewire the guts. He cupped his hand over it, squinting with aging eyes at the tiny, intricate circuits. He was looking for a carrier-wave response on the transceiver pack. It was just starting to glow tangerine orange. "Uh, looks like it's ready, Captain." O'Brien carefully handed the disassembled combadge to Sisko. "Don't, all, let these two pieces get more thanmthere, keep them close. Just hold the

relay shut and speak normally." "Sisko to Defiant," said the captain with no preamble, dramatic speech, or magic gestures. He spoke as a man who expected a response, nothing less. He got one. "Captain, you're alive!" shrieked the tinny, unrealistic-sounding voice. Damn, thought the perfectionist chief, not enough bandwidth even to sound recognizable. It could be anybody from Ensign Wabak to a refuse-maintenance technician, but Sisko seemed satisfied. "Whom am I speaking to?" "En--Ens--Ensign Weymouth, sir," she said, sounding shaken even over the narrow-banded radio carrier. "Yes, Ensign Weymouth, we all are alive," said the captain, "and we will be at the seashore near the ship in... Dax?" The Trill choked down a Cardassian rice-ball and spat her estimate around it. "Two days, if we don't stop for sightseeing." "In two days, Ensign Weymouth." Sisko grinned. "So slay the fatted calf. Prepare the ship for immediate launch to orbit once you've picked us up." The chief heard a terrible rumbling. Reacting as an old soldier, he flattened himself on the gearbox faceup and drew his phaser. Two large dots appeared at five o'clock position, from behind O'Brien's left boot, from his perspective. He watched them nervously for some time before realizing what they were. It was a flight of two Native airships, grinding their way across the sky with some sort of internalcombustion engine driving a series of screws at the back of each airship. The screws pushed the ships through the sky in a similar fashion to old Earth "propellers," except with a push instead of a pull. "My God," shouted the chief as the airships buzzed the lorry column, much to the delighted whooping of the Natives. "My God, five weeks ago they couldn't work a bloody lever and had never heard of rope." He shook his head in two parts disbelief, three parts terror, as the airships flashed past and disappeared over the eleven-o'clock horizon. Captain Sisko held his breath as the Defiant burst off the ground, now carrying her full crew complement, and lusted for high orbit. The back of his neck itched, and he could almost feel the big guns of Sierra-Bravo 112-I1 shredding his ship like a hammer into a stack of potato chips. The blow never came. Maybe we got out before they spotted us. Maybe the defenses recognized that we were leaving and chose not to hinder us. But for whatever reason, the Defiant rose swiftly and unhindered; ship and crew were, at long last, heading finally, inexorably, home. Home, after a brief stop to disgorge prisoners.

But to what? We have no home. A wave of sadness washed over Benjamin Sisko. Deep Space Nine, newly renamed, by now surely spiffed up according to Kai Winn inspection standards, would be only a way-station for him and his team--his family of the past four years--a transit zone to await diaspora to their new commands. Major Kira--and presumably Quark and Odo, who were not under Federation discipline--would stay. Everyone else, everyone, would leave. The circle is split And becomes A succession of lazy snakes leading Everywhere astray Of where my heart rang slowly Like a bell --An unknown Klingon, chronicling one of the riff's of the endless Klingon saga of conquest and exile. What next? "Whither then, we cannot say." "Could you please repeat that?" asked Worf, scowling back from the nearby weapons console. "No," said Captain Sisko, gently closing the subject. The gaps were calling, and he must obey. He leaned his head back, recalling their leavetaking from Sierra-Bravo 112-11. It warmed the heart considerably more than the abbreviated departure from what once had been Deep Space Nine, full of urgencies, recriminations, second thoughts, and the extraordinary condescension of Kai Winn, an awe-inspiring force unto herself. This time, Asta-ha had struggled against crying, while tiny Tivva-ma had clutched Odo in a deathgrip around his knees, ordering him not to depart-and following that with a frighteningly adult list of more than a dozen reasons, including that he was needed to "help develop and implement my newest judicial compact." Still, chillingly developed intelligence did not make her any less a little girl, and she offered to allow Chief O'Brien to take her invisible friend Datha-ma back to be a playmate for "Mollyma." That brought the chief to. What would happen to them? Was Bashir right, that a mere eleven million Natives were not viable without their new tech? Or was Dax correct, that the Natives--especially Colonel-Mayor Asta-ha and her Vanimastavvi--were more than capable? Another dilemma: should the Federation return or leave the Natives alone to solve their own problems? And what sort of homecoming shouM we expect? pondered the captain. The command chair, which should have fitted Sisko like a tight uniform, felt loose, broken, and creaky. "Chief O'Brien," he said,

"I think this seat needs maintenance." Sisko rose, took a last, last look at the star system, already nothing more than a faint dot, that was Sierra-Bravo and her dark sister Stirnis. It was receding. No, it was gone: the tiny speck of flame was an after-image in the rear viewer or perhaps his own retina. There would be no more Natives for Benjamin Sisko, not again. "They'll probably assign us together, Old Man," he said, not looking at Dax. "Probably. We work well together, and you have pull." Captain Sisko looked down at his command console, which O'Brien was already tearing apart per instructions. When he looked up again, Dax was just Dax, his Old Man. Nothing more. It was always the way. "I suspect the Kai will be more than happy to see us, Dax," he said. "So pleased," said she, "that she'll probably throw us a farewell banquet... in the launch bay, all the better not to delay our final departure." Somewhere behind Sisko, Odo gave his characteristic snort, and Worf was characteristically silent. Quark scurried past carrying a bucket and a mop.

After a private talk with the captain, Odo had relented and agreed not to formally charge the Ferengi with the dozen or so counts the constable had accumulated in his ledger--if Quark agreed to scrub the entire Defiant from stem to stern on the way back. Sisko shut his ears to the dreadful oaths and curses erupting from the Ferengi as he went about his cheerless task: the interplay between cop and crook was a force of nature, and Sisko made a habit of never interfering with the weather. He glanced at the woman he had spoken to on the radio, Ensign Weymouth. "Ensign, set a course for... ah, what's it called again?" "The station?" she asked, sounding suddenly unsure herself of the new name. Or maybe she's just afraid to show up the captain in front of the bridge crew. "Yes, that thing. Emissary's Sanctuary, that's it. Full steam ahead." The summons finally came, calling Major Kira before the Kai. She had dreaded the audience, but resented its delay. When she finally received the order to come to Ops immediately, Kira found she had flits in her stomach as bad as the first time she met the new Federation commander of Deep Space Nine, of Terok Nor. If he had been the Emissary too, back then, she thought, I probably wouM have run back to Bajor rather than face him/ Swallowing, Kira left the panel of the bombardment shelter dangling. There were maintenance techs better equipped than she to repair the circuitry, restoring the ability of occupants to open the door without requiring an electronic key from the outside. She brushed herself off, tugged her uniform vaguely straight, rejected the momentary thought of rushing back to her quarters to freshen up, and headed instead directly for the nearest turbolift. When she rose into Ops, the Kai's "cell group" was running the place, as usual, and Winn herself was up in her ready-room. She sure has mastered the art of delegating authority, thought the major uncharitably. Tugging at her collar as she climbed the ladderway and tonguing her new tooth, Kira offered a brief prayer and apology to the Prophets for the thought. She stepped forward to ring the twitter, but the unlocked door opened instead, leaving Kira with raised hand. "Do stop gaping, child, and sit down." Kai Winn barely glanced up at her until she did as instructed. Then Winn put away the report she had been reading, carefully turned off her desk viewer, and settled her hands together, smiling in her special way. "I received subspace communications from the

Emissary. He is on his way back." Kira's voice caught momentarily in her throat. Too many emotions. She took a deep breath. "Did he find any Cardassians or Jem'Hadar?" "Cardassians and Drek'la, but no Dominion forces. Not that he mentioned. It was a very terse message, child." "Any casualties?" "None. He was quite emphatic about that, insisting that I tell you personally." The Kai sounded peeved at being ordered to do anything by anybody, even the Emissary to the Prophets. She probably wouldn't like the Prophets themselves manifesting and ordering her out for tea things. "Yes, my Kai. Thank you. Anything else?" "We have retrieved the Orb safely." Kira hesitated. "May I be permitted to ask where you hid it?" Winn smiled, always pleased to be able to demonstrate her astuteness. "Why child, when the aliens invaded, I simply put the Orb into the garbage shoot and ejected it into space. I concluded the aifiessness wouldn't hurt it, and it would be easy enough to retrieve it when the invaders left... all of them," she added--signifying the recently departed Starfleet admiral. Kira was truly impressed. "I never would have thought of that! You are rightly Kai. Um, anything else? Involving me?" "Yes. Major, what is your assessment of the repairs? Are they progressing rapidly enough? I'm disturbed by how much of the station continues to show evidence of the recent unpleasantness." Kira paused a long time before speaking. "Kai, we really have to talk about it." "Yes, I think it's high time we talk about the progress of repairs." "Not that. We have to talk about what I--" "Repairs are vital if we are to greet the Emissary as he properly deserves, child. How about young Jake Sisko? Is he going to be, well, presentable?" "Presentable?" Kira again tried to interrupt the runaway dreadnought of the Kai's discourse, but she was thwarted once more. "I seem to recall a recent unpleasantness with him and a Dabo girl. I would be mortified on behalf of all Bajor, if the Emissary were to return and find his only son and heir in the arms of a young lady of loose character several years his senior." Kira stared, frustrated and astonished. "You're not going to talk about it. You're not going to talk about what happened during our own little Resistance, are you?" Winn shrugged, dismissing a trivial subject. "We resisted, child. Now please give me a full report on the progress of restoration." Kira waited a long moment, then smiled coldly

herself and gave a spontaneous but thorough analysis of the state of repairs. Just as she finished, the com-link chirped. "Kai," said the voice of one of her cell members, "the Cardassian tailor wishes to see you." "Send him right up," said the Kai blissfully. She leaned forward to whisper to Kira. "I truly can't stand the plotter, but what can I do? I am governor to all who live on this station... for however long they continue to do so." The door slid open and Garak entered, looking like the dog who swallowed the breakfast, if that is the expression. "Good morning, ladies. I didn't expect to find you here, Major Kira." Kira stiffened. She knew what he was implying by the raised brow, the slight tilt to his head, the curled lip. But there was nothing overtly wrong with what he had said, so she sat quietly and made no response. Some of the Kai ~ diplomacy must be rubbing off on me, she thought glumly. "Yes, Mr. Garak, may I be of assistance?" "Oh no, Governor, it is I who shall be your servant in this! I'm playing message carrier today, bringing you information from some of my close friends back on Bajor." Kira could not help making a noise, but neither conversant paid her any mind. "A message from Bajor? Odd," said the Kai, smiling as she had when speaking to the late dean, "I have heard nothing." "Ah, then it's a good thing I have." Garak restarted his interrupted progress to her desk and laid a data clip in front of her. "This is an intercepted communication between your friend and mine, Minister Shakaar--your friend too, Major!--and two of his erstwhile cellmates. Oh, I do beg your pardon. Of course, I meant cell members." Kai Winn glanced down at the clip but made no move to pick it up. "Was this a privileged communication? I would have thought our governmental encryption methods were hard enough to prevent a mere tailor from breaking them." "I? I am merely the passive receptacle. I haven't even read the communication. But I'm sure it's important." "Oh?" said Kira. "How would you know that?" "I suspect it has to do with the unannounced vote tomorrow in the Bajoran Council." A bickett chirping would have echoed in the totally silent ready room. Both Bajorans waited expectantly. "My word," said Garak, pretending surprise, "you haven't even heard?" "I have heard about no vote in the Council chambers tomorrow." The Cardassian spymaster tsk-tsked, shaking his head. "I understand it has to do with the future of Bajor. Specifically, who is to govern the planet

itself." "Why," said Winn dangerously, "we have all agreed that the Kai--in consultation with the minsters, of course--should set the course for--" "Now that the Kai is too busy as acting governor of Terok Nor to be bothered by the trivialities of dayto-day governance of Bajor itself." Kira rose. From Kai Winn's expression, it was evident that the meeting was over... and undoubtedly, that the Kai would very quickly be calling for her belongings to be shoveled into a runabout as she shrieked away toward the planet to rally her somnambulant troops and partisans, polywogs and hangers-on, groupies and agitators to start a belated and possibly futile campaign against the vote. "I have finished my report, Kai Winn," said the major. "May I leave?" Winn said nothing, staring at the data clip as if it were a dead lizard on her desk. "I should be going as well," said Garak; "I have cloth to cut, coats to sew, and such. Good day, Governor." He bowed and followed on Kira's heels out the door and down the ladderway, his own boots almost kicking the major in her forehead as they raced each other (in a dignified way) to the turbolift. As they dropped, Kira turned to the Cardassian.

"Now that's an interesting turn. You didn't like it much, her being here, did you?" Garak raised his brows yet again. "Why, Major. Whatever are you accusing me of?. Do you think a humble Cardassian would have the ear of certain dissident elements on Bajor? Could a tailor move the mighty Shakar to attempt a coup d'etat? In any event, I suspect Kai Winn will be too busy dealing with the political wildfires on Bajor to worry overmuch about the station reverting into Federation hands, as many in the Federation Council have wanted all along." Kira said nothing. But she smiled and didn't even care that Garak could see her appreciation. And why're you so happy? she accused herself. Bajor has been humiliated. When will Bajor~ finally be Bajor's? But she shrugged off the patriotic voice. Bajor had enough problems being Bajor without taking on the role of Master of Terok Nor as well, with all the emotional and psychological baggage it brought. All in all, she decided it was probably best that the station remain Deep Space Nine, with Benjamin Sisko, Emissary to the Prophets, in charge, rather than Kai Winn. For now, she added. At least for now. But with the Kai~ damned spy-eyes ripped out, she promised herself. "Computer," she said abruptly, as the doors opened on the Promenade and Garak exited. "Locate Jake Sisko." "Jake Sisko is in Quark's, third level." Kira stepped out of the turbolift, headed toward Quark's. She figured Jake (and whoever he might be with) would appreciate the heads-up that his old man was on the way back. Three Federation years after first contact was initiated with the natives of Sierra-Bravo 112-II ("the Natives," as the original contact team called them), the U.S.S. Malloc dropped out of warp at the proper coordinates. It was a small ship, fast and lightly armed, useful for scouting, diplomatic missions, and setting up a contact readvisory team on "contaminated" worlds. "Ensign," said Captain Mirok, a Vulcan admiral in the ambassadorial corps, "please initiate a geosynchronous orbit outside the reported range of the planetary defense systems. We will send down a cloaked shuttle to contact the Natives." Mirok's dignity was somewhat offended by the flippant name, which had unfortunately stuck. The first order of business would be to construct a better way to refer to the natives. "Sir?" asked Ensign Weymouth, newly transferred to his command. He already regretted her hesitation

and found her lapses of judgment troubling. "Put the ship into a high orbit, Ensign. Is there a problem?" "There's .... "She faded out, looking blank. "There's nothing to orbit around, sir." "Are these the correct coordinates, Lieutenant?" Lieutenant Pas, another Vulcan--for obvious reasons, the ship had a heavy Vulcan contingentrarechecked the navigation system. "Yes, sir. We are at the correct coordinates, and the star on the forward viewer is, in fact, Sierra-Bravo 112. Stirnis is in its correct place. But the ensign is correct: there is no second planet in the recorded orbit." Mirok raised an eyebrow. "Debris?" "None," said Pas. "Neither is there any echo of weaponry that could have destroyed the planet." The lieutenant rose from his science-console scope. "The planet is missing, and there is no explanation that I can think of. It is simply gone." Mirok raised the other eyebrow, then stood. "Initiate a search pattern. If we cannot find the planet or any evidence in three days, we must return to the Federation and make our report." "I suspect the diplomatic corps and the Council will not be pleased at the report," said Pas. "I suspect your prediction is correct," said the captain. "Nevertheless, there is no other logical course of action. Proceed." Captain Mirok stepped around the turbolift to return to his ready-room, already sketching in his orderly mind the diplomatic gymnastics he would have to perform to soothe the emotional humans who still ran the Federation Council as if by hereditary right. But he couldn't help wondering: what in the name of Surak had happened to an entire planet full of intellectually supercharged Natives? They could not have taken their planet and simply left. Or could they?