“Because you have a background in artificial intelligence programming, Doctor Daul, I will be assigning you to begin work on an upgrade to a defective system that currently is in place at a nearby mining facility.”
“A mining facility?” Daul replied. “You mean-at a work camp?”
Mora flinched inside, but Yopal was unmoved, as always, her smile intact. “Yes, Doctor Daul, at Gallitep.”
Mora felt a shiver run through him at the mention of the facility. Every Bajoran knew about Gallitep. They knew it was a miserable, inescapable place, a place to be avoided at any cost.
Yopal went on. “The program is badly outdated, and… there was an incident, recently, that has warranted immediate attention.”
“Certainly,” Daul answered, his tone barely concealing the misery he must have been feeling.
Yopal nodded, tapped her chalky fingers against her upper arms. “Unfortunately, we no longer have many scientists on staff with this type of engineering in their repertoires. You’ll be working mostly alone. As for you, Mora…” She turned, and hesitated.
An anvil of fear settled in on Mora’s chest, his thoughts racing toward his deepest dread. He was about to disappear, like all the other Bajoran scientists who had once worked here, those whose expertise had become irrelevant in the sphere of what Cardassians considered to be useful research. He swallowed down a massive lump before he registered that Yopal had resumed speaking.
“…an unknown sample of organic material, brought in several years ago, by a friend of mine in the military after it was discovered adrift in the Denorios Belt. It doesn’t have any particular priority, but I just ran into her at a conference and I was quite embarrassed to have to confess that I’d not even taken a look at it yet. Just see what you can find out about it, and give me a report as soon as you’re ready.”
“Y-yes, Doctor Yopal.”
She nodded to him, the half smile twitching a little before she took her leave of them.
“Thank you,” he called after her. It seemed somewhat inappropriate to thank her, but he never missed an opportunity. Without Yopal’s continued goodwill, he would have no job. A single misstep, and he’d likely have no life at all.
He watched Daul as he concluded his report on their current research, tidying his house for the latest project-one that Mora knew amounted to collaboration with the Cardassians. But if it was collaboration that kept them alive, Mora was only too willing to comply, sick as it may have made him, and it was abundantly apparent that Daul felt very much the same way. What choice did they have?
Six months after the prefect had received the news about the outcome of his indiscretion with Tora Naprem, Basso Tromac was feeling hot with resentment. It was not a new sensation for him, nor was it one he liked much. He’d been Dukat’s Bajoran adjutant on this station for seven years now, and he wondered if there would ever be a time that he would be treated with respect. He doubted it. Dukat was thoroughly unpleasant even to Kubus Oak at times, and Kubus was a man of great prestige.
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Basso was fed up with having to deal with the Kira family. Taban was always surly to him, despite the fact that his visits meant extra food for his dirty-faced children, despite the fact that he brought medicine and goods that Taban was undoubtedly selling on the black market-despite it all, Kira Taban treated him like the enemy, and Basso was tired of it.
He was even more tired of being sent to deal with Meru, time and time again. Basso felt that Meru was a spoiled, inconsolable woman, and as she had gotten older, her demands and her tantrums had become increasingly unreasonable. She had far too much freedom on the station, which worried Basso from time to time. If she’d had the wherewithal, she could have made life very unpleasant for any number of people, especially Dukat. Basso had tried to delicately broach that topic with the prefect, but always met with dismissal; Dukat obviously thought Basso was merely put out at having to cater to his mistress, which did at least hold some measure of truth.
It disgusted Basso that Meru couldn’t simply appreciate how lucky she was to have avoided the mines, for that was exactly where he felt she deserved to be. She had been pretty once, to be sure, but she was far from young now, and though Dukat saw to it that she was regularly afforded the latest in cosmetic treatments to keep her countenance youthful, the ever-present grief in her eyes aged her more than mere time ever could. It gave her a haunted presence, something that never failed to unsettle Basso. He despised being sent to look after her. He would have been happy never to have to speak to her again.
He entered her quarters, where she was seated behind an easel, working on one of her tiresome pieces of iconography. Although Basso had long ago rejected the meanings behind the D’jarras, he still held those from the artist sect in mild contempt, for he had been mistreated by a girl from the Ih’valla D’jarra in his youth.
“Hello, Meru,” Basso said flatly. “I’ve been sent to see if you’ll be needing anything for tonight. The prefect regrets to inform you that he has business on the surface.”
The somber woman’s mouth pulled down in a frown. “Again?” she said, in her mournful way. “He never used to go to the surface. Now he’s down there all the time. I wonder what has changed recently?”
Basso knew exactly what had changed. He hesitated, considering the implications for only a fleeting moment before he said it. “Well, I suppose you weren’t aware that Naprem recently gave birth to a baby girl.”
“Naprem?” Meru leaned back very far in her seat as she regarded Basso with puzzlement. “Who… is Naprem?”
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“Why, Meru, I suppose I thought you already knew about Tora Naprem. She is another of Dukat’s… comfort-givers. She resides on the surface, however. I suppose Dukat felt it wouldn’t be decent to have you both on the station.”
Meru looked appropriately shocked, and Basso felt a cruel twist of amusement. Maybe now Meru would think twice about giving the prefect such a difficult time of it, if she understood how disposable she really was. “So, you’ll not be needing anything, then?”
Meru shook her head from side to side, slowly, as if in a complete daze. Basso bowed to her and walked backwards out of the room, letting the doors close behind him. He chuckled unpleasantly as he left the room, but then he considered. He would have to handle the aftermath of this carefully. It would not bode well for him if Dukat were to learn who had leaked the secret to his station mistress. Basso began immediately to formulate his next move, for he would have to be clever to keep his own skin safe.
It was worth it, though, he thought. The look on her face… Definitely worth it.
Dr. Mora ran through the security protocols for his computer, shutting down the laboratory for the night. It was late, and he was exhausted, but he considered himself lucky that he was even going home tonight-Doctor Daul had been spending many a night in the laboratory since he had been put on the artificial intelligence upgrade.
Mora considered the progress he had made with Yopal’s anomalous organic material, which had turned out to be a gelatinous substance with the ability to mimic various forms about the laboratory-even a vaguely humanoid form. The Cardassians were quite impressed with what Mora had heretofore done with it, but beyond party tricks, Mora wasn’t sure what further progress there was to be made with the “odo’ital,” as the Cardassians had begun to call it-the word for “unknown sample” in their native language.
Mora regarded the amber-hued liquid, the color of copal cider, stirring peacefully in a transparent container in the corner of the lab. He considered, with curious pride-as well as some measure of concern-that the liquid had increased in mass considerably since he began running his tests. He had enjoyed his work with the odo’ital, and would no doubt miss it once Doctor Yopal reassigned him to something else-for as soon as she discovered that his research was beginning to plateau, she would no doubt find a new project for Mora, possibly even something as unpleasant as Gallitep’s mining operation.
He sighed heavily as he dimmed the lights and turned to go, but a strangely familiar sound stopped him in his tracks. He turned, looking around the lab, empty of life. “Hello?” he said, a little uneasily.
He was met with silence. He checked himself, chuckling a little at his own tired jumpiness, and turned again. And then again, there it was. A sound that was distinctly… well, it was very much like… it was a sigh.
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Ever the scientist, Mora sighed again himself, louder this time. Sure enough, he was met with a response in kind, though he could not be sure where it was coming from. His face prickled as he considered the eeriness of it, but he had a strange hunch that he knew what was making the sound-for he had suspected for months now that the odo’ital was more than just a tank of glop. He’d been possessed of… a feeling, an idea. He believed the goo, unquestionably a new kind of life-form, was more than just some cellular broth. He begun to suspect it might actually be sentient.
Once more he sighed, and once more he heard a similar sound coming from the corner of the lab. He was sure of it now, it was coming from the tank, where the golden soup roiled and sloshed in its container, an approximation of Bajor’s seas during a brilliant storm. The life-form was trying to communicate with him. Mora knew it. And this was the breakthrough he needed right now, to save his tenuous placement at the institute. He ordered the computer to put the lights back up. He would not be going home tonight after all.
Ro Laren’s raider hung passively in space as she waited for a signal from Sadakita Rass, the pilot who was flying the scoutship. The Bram cell always stuck to the same formation when they left the Bajoran atmosphere, dodging the grids by staggering their signals in a particular fashion that confused the Cardassian patrol vessels. Laren tapped her sensor panel impatiently with her fingers before she got the chirp she was waiting for. She put on a burst of speed and quickly changed her direction.
It was not ten minutes later that she saw what her cell was after-the drifting wreckage of an alien freighter, first spied by Sadakita two days before. She had reported it back to Bram, who decided it was worth a second look. Laren had no means of confirming it, but Sadakita believed the vessel had belonged to the Ferengi, the alien merchants who sometimes dared venture into other star systems, even B’hava’el’s, if it meant a big enough profit.
Laren could already see that the freighter had sustained extensive damage to its port side. Probably the inhabitants had bailed out of it, but she was surprised the Cardassians hadn’t taken the ship yet. Maybe they had no use for it. Maybe they’d already stripped it. There was only one way to be sure.
Procedure was to wait for Sadakita to do another patrol sweep before they approached the ship, but Laren was tired of waiting. Though she had never docked on another ship before, she had a vague idea of how it was done, and she maneuvered her shuttle to the vessel’s open bay, taking her stealthy little craft into the derelict’s dark, gaping underbelly.
“Laren,” came a transmission; it was Bram, calling from his own raider. “Is that you I see docking? Wait up on that. It could be booby-trapped.”
Laren considered, and decided Bram was being overly cautious. She didn’t want to wait for him-he probably only wanted to be the first on the ship, anyway. She went ahead and docked, her tiny craft thumping crazily inside the bay of the hulking scow. It came to a rest inside a chamber flooded with blackness, and she put on her night visor. “My sensors say breathable atmosphere, and gravity,” she reported back. “There must still be some kind of auxiliary power system intact, because the drop ramp came up behind me, so-“
“Laren, do not-I repeat-do not exit your vessel! Stay inside it until I can get there. Sadakita’s coming around, and I have to cover her before I can get to you.”
Again, Laren scoffed at Bram’s typical stodginess. He was always telling her what to do, and his advice was often wrong, anyway. She pushed back the glacis plate of her ship and took a deep breath. Her lungs did not collapse; she did not immediately begin choking on poison gases. Bram was afraid to take risks.
She hopped out of the raider, the night visor providing only a scant glow. She produced a palmlight and began to wave it about the bay. She could see nothing that interested her, only the most alien construction techniques she had ever seen.
Laren found an airlock and worked its thick double portals to gain access to the rest of the ship. Passing into the adjoining corridor, she spotted a bizarrely configured control console next to the airlock. It powered up when she touched it, and though it was mostly indecipherable to her, she managed to find the proper key that reopened the cargo bay for Bram. With that accomplished, she continued down the corridor; Bram was only going to scold her, and she wasn’t in any hurry to listen to it.
She aimed her palmlight at a computer terminal she saw in one of the open rooms, and wondered if she might be able to hack into such an alien system. The challenge interested her, and she entered the room.
“What the kosst?” said a man’s voice from somewhere back the way she had come. Laren stopped, confused. The accent, the timbre of the voice-it did not belong to Bram. Someone else was here. Someone Bajoran, apparently, for the curse was not one that a Cardassian would ever use. Laren considered her options. Should she go back to the bay and investigate? Did this person mean to harm her? She drew her phaser, more excited than afraid.
“Who are you?” she shouted.
“Who am I?” the voice answered. “Who are you? This heap is mine-we claimed it over a week ago.”
A man emerged in the corridor then, a gray-haired Bajoran that Laren didn’t recognize.
She lifted her phaser. “Don’t make me ask again,” she said coolly.
He slitted his eyes at her, his heavily lined face crinkling with the expression. He looked worried for an instant, but then smiled. “My name is Darrah Mace,” he told her. “I’ve come here from Valo II. Now, how about you tell me who you are?”
“Valo II?” Laren repeated, shaking her head. “My cell found this ship two days ago,” she told him, her phaser still trained on the stranger. “I was here first.”
The man laughed. “Just how old are you? Twelve? You still haven’t told me your name, by the way.”
There was a low vibration beneath their feet, the sort Laren might expect from the closing of the cargo doors. Bram must have docked.
“I’m Ro,” she said firmly. “And that will be Bram, the leader of my cell. It’s two against one now, so you’d better shove off. This ship is ours.” Laren stood her ground, her phaser still pointed directly at Mace’s head.
“And just what do you propose to do with that?” The man smirked, folding his arms in a self-satisfied expression that infuriated her.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said shove off.” She indicated her phaser. “This thing’s stun setting is broken, but the rest of it works just fine.” Laren could hear Bram coming through the airlock. “Bram!” she shouted. “Draw your weapon! We’ve got company in here, and he’s trying to steal our ship!”
Bram appeared behind Darrah Mace, hand phaser raised. The stranger turned a little, and finally seemed to accept the seriousness of the situation; he raised his hands above his shoulders.
Twelve! She’d been fourteen for better than two months.
“Who are you?” Bram demanded.
“Call me Mace,” he said, his tone a bit more hesitant. “This ship is mine, and I’m going to take it. I’ve already been here three times, set up a signal scrambler so the Cardassians wouldn’t find her. Why do you think the patrol ships haven’t hauled her in yet?”
“Because the spoonheads don’t do salvage,” Bram said, but he sounded doubtful.
The other man scowled, though whether it was because of Bram’s use of the racial slur or his defiance, Laren wasn’t sure. “Look, you two. I’m taking this ship back to Valo II. I’ve already done some repairs on her-she’s got air and AG, doesn’t she? You think that’s just luck? I’m willing to guess that neither one of you has ever set foot on a vessel like this before, let alone flown one.”
Bram watched the man, his gaze scrutinizing. “We’ll see about that,” he muttered, and gestured Mace toward the bridge. Laren led the way with her palm beacon, looking back to Bram for an indication that she was going the right way. He nodded once, and made a point of loudly telling her that the “rest” of the cell members were standing by for his signal, still on their raiders outside. Laren nodded, pleased that Bram hadn’t given their numbers away.
They came upon the cramped bridge. Whoever designed this ship could not have been much taller than Laren, for both Bram and Mace had to duck through the doorways, which were thankfully jammed open. Ro managed to squeeze to the front, interested in spite of herself.
“Let’s see you get her online,” Bram said gruffly.
Mace emitted a short sigh, clearly exasperated, and gestured for Laren to highlight a particular panel with her palm beacon. The wide circle of light fell on his hands, and he threw back a couple of switches, dancing his fingers over the keypad. There was a flicker of light, and then a ragged thrumming noise. The ship’s power was back online, or at least, partially so-the lights behind Laren continued to flicker hypnotically, and the sound of the power core seemed an uneven chugging, like the throttle noise of a raider that was pushed into too low a gear for its speed.
“You can’t possibly get this thing going… can you?” Bram seemed a bit awestruck.
“Of course I can,” Mace said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. If you’d like to come along to Valo II, you can stay aboard, but otherwise, you might want to get into your raiders and get off my ship, because we’re going to have to go to warp.”
Bram kept the phaser pointed at Mace, apparently trying to decide what to do. Laren knew that Bram was not about to kill another Bajoran, and neither was she. There were collaborators, of course, but this man clearly did not fall into that category. Still, Bram and Laren had an advantage with the phasers, and they weren’t quite sure what to do with it. Order him to take it back to Bajor? Where would they dock such a thing, how would it behave in Bajor’s atmosphere? She had no idea, and she knew Bram didn’t, either. But warp ships were in notoriously short supply, and too badly needed to walk away from one-even a derelict.
“Oh, for fire’s sake,” Mace swore. “I knew this would happen.”
“What?” Laren asked fearfully, for Mace seemed genuinely afraid.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing to the alien ship’s sensor screen. “That’s a Cardassian patrol. The scrambler can’t mask the energy emissions of an active warp reactor. It’s time to go, now.”
“Wait,” Bram said, but then shook his head. “All right,” he agreed. He finally lowered his phaser, probably realizing how ridiculous it was to be squabbling with another Bajoran when the real enemy loomed within striking distance. He put a call in to Sadakita, ordering the pilot to return to Bajor.
Mace didn’t waste any time. He entered commands into the ship’s internal computer system with startling efficiency, and the ship was trembling from its warp engines in almost no time at all. Laren expected to feel a discernible whoosh, something to indicate that she was traveling at warp, but there was nothing except the vibrations in the soles of her feet.
“Will they catch us?” Laren wanted to know. She was not often afraid, not since she was a child, but the thought of being captured alive was something that particularly frightened her. She was not usually concerned about it, so long as she was driving her own ship, for she had the utmost confidence in her abilities to dodge even the fastest Cardassian vessels at sublight. But this Mace fellow-well, she hoped that if the Cardassians came after them, they would just blow them up. Being taken prisoner was a possibility she could not even bring herself to consider.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Mace assured her. “It’s possible they haven’t even spotted us yet. If they have, they won’t necessarily take an interest if we’re headed out of the system. It’s no crime for a Ferengi vessel to be in Cardassian-controlled space, if they have legitimate business. If worse comes to worst, we talk to them-pretend to be a damaged Ferengi ship on our way home.”
Laren nodded, but her throat still felt tight.
Mace smiled at her. “Cheer up,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to us.”
Laren nodded again, thinking that maybe Mace wasn’t such a bad person after all.
“You know, Ro,” he added, “I think you’re going to like Valo II.”
Chapter 15
Kubus Oak was in mid-sentence when the doors to Dukat’s office abruptly slid open. “…which certainly makes the best economic sense. As always, your wisdom is-” Kubus stopped short, turning to see the highlighted silhouette of Kira Meru, flanked by a frantic Basso Tromac.
“I tried to stop her, Gul Dukat,” Basso said. “But she wouldn’t-“
“Thank you, Basso, that will be all. Kubus, we will continue this conversation at another time.”
Kubus rose, barely acknowledging Meru as he swept from the room. Dukat gestured to his mistress. “Sit down, please.”
She remained standing for a moment before finally sinking down into the seat that faced him. Now that she was here, she was not quite sure how to begin. She looked around, considering that she had never been inside his office before. So this was where he spent most of his time-or had, anyway, before meeting his new mistress… what was her name? Meru couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t important. She decided to get straight to the point.
“Skrain… you… you… have been spending a great deal of time away from the station of late, and I thought… perhaps… you had no more use for me.” She took a breath, her gaze trained on the place where his heavy desk met the floor.
Dukat appeared shocked. “Meru! I can’t imagine what could possibly give you such an idea. I love you, and you ought to know that by now. It isn’t as though I think of you as a mere object, to be used and then discarded.”
He went on, but Meru was not listening. She wanted desperately to convey to him that if he meant to be done with her, it would not hurt her feelings in the least, but she wanted to do it delicately, for she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was eager to leave him. But in truth, she was eager. Since she had learned of his new mistress from Basso, she had finally begun to visit those forbidden thoughts that she had mostly learned to suppress many years ago-mostly. Sometimes she forgot herself, especially after a dream; dreams were a difficult matter, for she could not control them. Often, when she began to wake, she would feel as though she were desperately clawing her way back to her slumber, to go back to Taban and the children, even if it was not real.
But perhaps now she had a chance to do it in earnest. Much time had passed, and she wondered if her children would even recognize her, or she, them. Basso had stopped bringing isolinear recordings from the surface a very long time ago, and Meru’s heart ached even to try and imagine what her children looked like now. Nerys, with her huge, expressive eyes and her bright, coppery hair-she would be ten years old now. Reon and Pohl, little men, not the babies she had left behind. And Taban… perhaps Taban had even remarried. The idea of it filled her with a nearly unendurable sensation of sorrow, worse even than the idea that he might be dead. It was selfish of her, hypocritical-but the thought of him having found love with another woman was nearly too much to bear.
Would any of them accept her back? Most likely they believed her to be dead, for Taban had originally sent word that he felt it would be better if they didn’t know what her true fate had been. Could she tell the truth, and would they be willing to forgive her? She didn’t know, but she felt it was worth the risk, if only to see them again, if only to return to her homeworld.
Dukat had stopped speaking, and was waiting for her reply. She cleared her throat. “Skrain, I love you as well. I always will, and I will always appreciate all you have done for me. But if ever there comes a time when you feel you would prefer to… to move on from me… from our relationship…”
Dukat’s puzzlement looked different now, and Meru hoped that he had at last begun to understand what she was trying to say. He gave her a terse nod, and stood from his desk, reaching out for one of her hands. “You’ve given me much to consider,” he told her, his voice sounding oddly strained. “But perhaps this is not the most appropriate time for us to have this discussion. I will see you later this evening, if you will consent to have dinner with me.”
“Of course,” Meru answered. His question was a bit strange, as it had been many years since he had put on the pretense of “asking” her to dinner. Over time, he had dropped most of his formality when the two were together, speaking as plainly and honestly to her as Taban once had. Meru feared she had hurt him, and she squeezed his hand before she let it go. She would never deliberately hurt this man, but the idea of freedom-it was worth almost any price to her.
Doctor Yopal often insisted on observing Mora’s research sessions with Odo-as he had taken to calling the “unknown sample”-but the frequency of her visits did almost nothing to ease the discomfort that resulted from her presence. Mora set a wide display screen in front of the tank, and then plugged an isolinear recording into his computer port. The display lit up with an illuminated diagram of a Bajoran vocal configuration.
“You see, Odo?” Mora said to the tank. “You understand this, don’t you?”
Yopal snorted audibly, and Mora’s face burned. He took up an electrostatic device from his work surface, a long-handled object with a probe at one end. He inserted the probe into the tank and set the cytoplasmic charge on a medium setting. The liquid in the tank immediately began to quiver, and in a steady motion the substance swept and twisted itself into a humanoid form, standing oddly erect in the center of the transparent tank. Odo opened his “mouth” and began making sounds, a rough, guttural sort of noise, akin to a clearing of the throat.
“Ah!” Yopal said, clearly impressed. “So, you have taught it to make noises, have you?”
“Yes, I have, Doctor Yopal,” Mora said nervously. Odo had done better in the session last night, but increasing the charge actually had an adverse effect on his progress; he had to hold it steady at its current rate.
“M-m-m,” Mora said, trying to get Odo to imitate him, as he had done the night before. “Mora.”
“Uhmmmm,” Odo replied. “Memmm. Memdoooo…”
Mora smiled. “There, you see?”
Yopal nodded vigorously. “Very impressive, Mora. I must say, I always assumed from the creature’s… expression that it was indifferent to what we were trying to glean from it.”
“I made that mistake as well,” Mora admitted. “Though I knew his face was only an approximation of my own… it is hard to see past the impassivity written in his eyes.”
Yopal kept her ever-present smile, but her tone was less than commending. “I must say, I am surprised you never before considered the possibility that this substance could have some level of awareness.”
Mora was annoyed; in fact he had considered it, and had said as much. He imagined she was probably galled that he had inadvertently implied that she had made a “mistake.”
“This is a perfect example of why women are better suited to the sciences,” Yopal said. “Men simply don’t explore all the possibilities. They tend to become stalled on a single facet of an equation, never knowing quite when to move on and branch out.”
“Of course,” Mora said, nodding deferentially.
“Well, Mora, I’ll take my leave of you now. I look forward to reading your latest report on this matter.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, nodding to her as she left. He switched off the viewscreen. He reminded himself, as he put the electrostatic device away, that being condescended to by Yopal was still a welcome alternative to doing what Daul had been forced to do.
“Mmmm… memdo-mage,” Odo said.
“Yes, Odo, that’s quite enough,” Mora said, and obediently, the pale “person” turned into a shimmering, twisting mass of fluid. Mora watched as he did so, for though he had seen it happen hundreds of times, it never failed to fascinate him.
Laren stayed close to Bram as they followed their guide from the freighter’s resting place on an old landing field to the meager residences nearby. Mace explained that Valo II had once been a popular resort destination for many well-to-do Bajorans, but the colony quickly went into decline as more and more refugees fled here during the early years of the occupation. Now the primary continent-the only truly hospitable landmass on the planet-was dotted with slums, shantytowns, and nomadic encampments. They meandered through the outskirts of the village, strewn with a few tents and buildings constructed of transitory scrap, the dwellings becoming thicker and more numerous as they made their way into the heart of what passed for a city here. Laren was astonished; even Jo’kala proper was not so shabby as this. There were structures made of some kind of imported stone that looked to have come from Bajor, but the stone appeared too porous to bear up to the harsh winds of the current season; it was chipped and eroded on all the buildings that featured it. Most of the windows she saw were broken, with improvised covers of worn fabric or strips of old smartplastic, but some were simply left gaping open, the bits of jagged leftover glass coated with blowing dust. Everything smelled, like root broth and dirt and despair.