by S. D. Perry
“What would make her do such a thing?” the other man cried out. “Isn’t she old enough to know better by now?”
“It’s my fault,” Keral said miserably. “My cousin sent me a message that indicated she could…she could…But now—” The man had run out of breath.
“Your cousin, the collaborator?” Ver said.
The fear and panic in Keral’s eyes gave over to rage. “My cousin is a good man!” he shouted. “The message was for the resistance. That is why Jaxa has gone—she is trying to help!”
“For the resistance!” Ver exclaimed. “She’ll never get to where they are hiding by herself!”
“Someone must go after her,” Keral said, pleading. “Ver, your uncle has papers. Couldn’t you ask him to…” He trailed off.
The other two men looked at each other, an unspoken note of impassive defeat passing between them. It was clear enough, even to Odo, that Ver did not want to ask his uncle to perform this favor.
Again, there was conflict here, and Odo thought he knew how best to solve it. He stepped forward. “The detection grid will ignore me,” he said. “I’ll go.”
“Go where?” Keral asked, looking a little surprised. He seemed not to have been aware that Odo was even present.
“To get Jaxa,” Odo replied promptly. “I’ll look for her and bring her back.”
Keral had water running over the lines in his face—tears, of course—but he had a look in his eyes of hope. Odo recognized it as he recognized it within himself. Hope, the feeling that what is desired is also possible; that events may turn out for the best. He’d long known the definition; to see it was compelling, to say the least.
Odo left the mill at once, without looking back, and without waiting for a reply from the others, for it seemed to him a matter of some urgency. Children were important to the Bajorans, and ill-equipped to be alone. He was pleased that he could be of further assistance to these kind people.
9
Natima liked the look of Quark’s smile as he gazed at her across the bar. It was at once friendly and lascivious, and she felt that the look on her own face probably mirrored his. She remembered, with slightly embarrassed pleasure, the holosuite experience from the night before—and what had come after the holosuite, in Quark’s quarters.
It was late, the establishment mostly empty. He leaned across the polished surface, over the remains of the two Samarian Sunsets in front of her. Quark refused to charge her for her drinks, a matter that seemed to entirely astound his brother Rom and the Bajorans who worked there. Apparently, Quark didn’t have a reputation for generosity. Natima knew better.
“Will you have another drink?” Quark asked her.
Natima smiled. “I don’t think I can handle any more this evening,” she told him. “I feel lightheaded.”
“I do, too,” Quark said, “and I haven’t had a drop.”
Natima’s smile grew broader, probably more foolish. Quark glanced over her shoulder then, looking toward the door, and his eyes went wide, his smile disappearing.
“I didn’t do anything!” he cried out. She turned around and saw that Thrax, the station’s chief of security, had just entered the bar and was making a beeline for where she sat. She shifted nervously. Had Quark made a mistake in his black-market transactions? Or was it Natima he was after? She wasn’t sure which option would be more unhappy for her.
She got her answer quickly enough as the tall man stopped by her chair. “Miss Lang,” he said coolly. “I’d like it if you’d come with me to the security office.”
Natima cleared her throat. “May I ask what this regards?”
Quark was gaping. “What do you want with her, Thrax?”
Thrax’s already menacing expression grew even more so. “Mind your business, Ferengi.”
“I am minding my business,” Quark said. “The lady’s business is my business.”
Thrax’s forehead creased with mocking curiosity. “Is that so?”
“It’s not true,” Natima said quickly, rising to go. “He has nothing to do with me.” She wouldn’t be responsible for getting Quark in trouble—Cardassian politics were not his concern.
“Natima!” Quark said, clearly hurt.
“It’s all right, Quark. I’ll see you later this evening.”
“You will?”
“Yes.” She said it with firm finality, trying to convey to him not to get involved, but he continued to look concerned, and she hoped very much that he would stay out of this, whatever “this” amounted to.
She followed Thrax across the Promenade to the security station, and took a seat in his cramped office. She drew a deep breath, reminding herself to be careful, not to let him intimidate her. But his manner of interviewing her was not threatening at all. In fact, he was oddly pleasant, a tack Natima presumed was meant to disarm her.
“Miss Lang,” he said. “It’s come to my attention that you have contacted the exarch at the Tozhat settlement.”
“That’s correct,” she told him, thinking there was nothing suspicious about it. “On Information Service business,” she added.
“Oh?” Thrax said. “But that isn’t what you told him. You said that you spoke to him as a citizen of Cardassia only.”
Natima felt her face darken with alarm, to hear him recite the exact words she had spoken to Yoriv Skyl. Had he been listening to the entire transmission? To all her transmissions?
He smiled. “There is nothing that goes on here that escapes my attention, Miss Lang,”
“What is this about?” she demanded. If he meant to arrest her, she’d rather he just get on with it. She had no interest in playing shadow games.
“I’m only satisfying my curiosity,” he told her. “I’m a man who likes to stay on top of people’s intentions. I’m especially curious to know something. You mentioned a name that is familiar to me. Glinn Russol.”
Natima sat frozen, terrified at the prospect of incriminating her friend.
“Is this the same Russol who bears the first name of Gaten?”
Natima didn’t know what to do. “I…I…”
Thrax nodded. “I thought so,” he said. “Well. That is all I’ll be needing to know from you, Miss Lang. You may go now.”
Natima stood up on shaky legs, confused.
“Oh, and, Miss Lang?”
She turned back to him, tried not to look as though all she wanted to do was get away from Thrax and his stifling office. “Yes?”
“I’d appreciate your discretion about this meeting. In return, I will happily keep the contents of your transmissions to myself.” He paused. “You’ll do best to avoid discussing your business with your new Ferengi friend. I know what he’s up to. He thinks he’s clever, but he makes plenty of mistakes. Mistakes that could easily come to the attention of Dukat, if he isn’t more careful.”
Was this a threat? “Th—thank you,” she replied, and left the security office, her heart hammering.
Doctor Seia Trant led this day’s trip to another work camp, another Fostossa vaccination for another tired line of grubby, sullen workers. It was the third time Kalisi had been sent along on one of the excursions to manage the equipment, to set hyposprays, and to see that the camp medical systems were compatible with Crell’s. This camp was a few hours from Moset’s hospital; it had some local name she’d already forgotten. She disliked the trips, disliked looking at the sickly workers, disliked Trant’s knowing smirk whenever Moset was discussed, but she didn’t see that she had a choice. Someone had to assist, and Moset had been locked in his lab for days, finishing up some radiation study for the science ministry.
Today, there had been little for Kalisi to do. The camp’s system was already compatible with the hospital’s—they were both obsolete—and medical files had been downloaded, backed up, sent off. She could either wait in the shuttle or assist Trant with the inoculations, which would at least get her back to the warmth of the facility that much faster. She sat at the counter behind the generally glum-faced Trant, refilling h
yposprays, ignoring the smell of unwashed flesh and sour breath as the Bajorans filed into the room, ten at a time, staring around themselves like dumb cattle. A handful of soldiers stood by, most of them looking over the two female doctors with smirks of their own.
Kalisi watched another thin old man step up to Trant’s table, as weak and tired looking as the rest of them. He slouched on the low stool, took his injection without comment, stood, and was motioned back out again by a soldier with a rifle. It was galling, how little these people appreciated what was being done on their behalf. Crell Moset had spent years studying Fostossa, had found a vaccine for a disease that had killed thousands of these people in the early years of the annexation. She had yet to hear a single appreciative word.
A worker sat down, a female with dead eyes. Hypo, stand, next. A man with a scar. Hypo, stand, next. A young woman with a babe at one pallid breast; neither looked well. Kalisi looked away, unhappy with the pity that welled up in her. At least at the institute, the only Bajoran she’d had to see was Mora Pol. Fumbling, frightened Doctor Mora, with his pet plastic man and his pedestrian mind. For him, she’d felt contempt. For these dirty, sorrowful people she couldn’t help but feel pity, in spite of what they’d done to the Union, what they’d done to her life…
“How many more are there?” Kalisi asked.
Trant shot her a glance. “Eager to get back to the facility, Doctor Reyar?”
The looks, the smiles, that was one thing; with that insinuating tone, Seia Trant had overstepped her bounds, and Kalisi was no novice to professional malice.
“Are you implying something about my relationship with Doctor Moset?” Kalisi asked, loudly, brightly, and was rewarded for her candor. Trant looked away, her face darkening.
“If I’ve offended you—” Trant started, but was interrupted by a wild-faced man a few people back in the line, dirty and greasy-haired, his teeth bad. He had stepped out of line, was staring at the two doctors with an expression of disbelief.
“Crell Moset? You work for Crell Moset?”
One of the soldiers stepped forward, a hard-faced glinn with a scarred temple ridge. “Back in line.”
“Moset the butcher? Is that who sent you here?”
The glinn raised his rifle. “Back in line, now.”
The Bajoran lunged past him, grabbed at one of the hyposprays on the table, his expression crazed. Kalisi and Trant both stood and backed away as the other soldiers came running. The Bajorans scattered.
“What’s in these?” the man shouted. “Another infection? Poison?”
He shook the hypospray in Kalisi’s face, and then the soldiers were on him, knocking him down with their rifles, holding him down while Trant stepped forward and injected him with a hypo she’d pulled from somewhere, something that instantly halted his struggle, calming him into a glassy-eyed stupor.
Two of the soldiers carried the mumbling madman out while the glinn barked instructions to the workers, shuffling them back into line, calling off work code numbers.
Kalisi looked to Trant, who was calmly stepping back to her place, checking the tray of vaccinations.
“Seems like there’s one at every camp,” Trant said, sighing. “Doctor Crell Moset, evil scientist.”
“What? Why?”
Trant shook her head. “They’re superstitious and ignorant, these people. They don’t understand how advances in medicine are made. How advances in anything are made.”
Kalisi nodded, remembering Mora’s puffy, stupid face. “I’ve noticed that,” she said. As they went back to their work, she tried to picture it—Crell Moset, the work-obsessed, silently passionate man who fancied that he had a good sense of humor, as some kind of mad genius…
Bajorans, she thought, and refilled a new hypospray.
When she’d left home that morning, it had seemed like a grand adventure, a daring, heroic journey that would end with hugs and jumja cake, rewards for bravery…And Sito Jaxa had managed to hold on to that fantasy while the sun was still in the sky, imagining the surprised faces of the dashing resistance fighters when they realized a little girl had saved them, imagining the ride home in one of their flyers, the stories she’d be able to tell her friends at school…She’d darted and hidden, pretending that there were enemy soldiers after her, and for a while she’d walked by a stream that had small fish in it, and she’d stopped twice to eat the snacks that she’d packed for herself—all the while dreaming and pretending, acting like a little girl, doing all the things she had imagined she would do if she ever got to explore the forest on her own.
Jaxa had longed to go back into the forest for what seemed like an eternity. When she had been very small, children of the village could run into the forest and play together whenever they liked, and Jaxa thought she remembered going into the forest all the time, though it was a very long time ago in her short memory. Jaxa wasn’t sure exactly how old she had been when the rules had abruptly changed, when children were suddenly kept close to their parents at all times, when punishment for wandering off suddenly became severe and frightening—frightening because the children understood immediately that there was serious danger waiting for the entire village if they ever disobeyed. Fences had been built, warning signs erected. None dared challenge them—until today, when Jaxa had been so sure she was setting off on an auspicious adventure, one with the happiest of endings.
Now the sun was setting, and it was much colder than Jaxa had thought it was going to be. Even though the early fall days had been hot lately, the forest night was chilly, and too cold for sleep—as if Jaxa could have slept anyway, with the fears and regrets that were reeling in her head. What had she been thinking, sneaking away like this? Well, her pa always said she was rash. She’d made a foolish decision, a childish decision, and now she was likely going to freeze to death for it.
She huddled miserably in the dark, hiding beneath the exposed roots of a rubberwood pine, thinking to herself that she should have reached the mountains by now, anyway. She thought it would be so easy to find them—the tips of the tallest peaks were clearly visible from Ikreimi village, but here, with the trees so close overhead, she could only catch glimpses of them, and even then it appeared that they were moving farther away, not closer. She had most likely been walking in circles. Now she only wanted to go back home, but she didn’t know which direction that was, either. She had badly misjudged her own abilities, her own sense of direction. Well, how could she have known? She had scarcely ever been out of the village, not since she was a little girl, going to the city with her mother and father before the grid went up. It had seemed so easy, then, but what had she known at that age?
Jaxa was alone, frightfully alone. The old road she’d roughly paralleled all day had badly deteriorated until it finally gave way to tangled forest. Jaxa had seen no footprints; the branches and weeds grown across the path were undisturbed. It especially surprised her, considering her assumption that the alien visitor, Odo, had traveled this road. She supposed he must have come by another route. The forest appeared entirely devoid of humanoid activity, now and for a very long time past.
But with that thought, she heard something. A rustle in the low branches. Something moving toward her, something big. She froze, her eyes open wide in the darkness. She tried with all her might to see what was making the noise, but she could only see the dark gray shadows of the trees around her, and the brilliant, cold stars wheeling overhead.
Another, nearer rustle, and she thought she saw one of the shadows moving, thought she heard the sound of padding feet. A soldier? She tried her best not to breathe, holding herself in a small, tight ball, knowing it would do no good. If a soldier had come, he would have equipment that would tell him exactly where she was. She heard a sound, then, that she could not at first identify. A low, rhythmic grumbling.
It’s a hara cat.
The fear changed. The animal didn’t need sensors, it could smell her plainly. She could only hope that it had already eaten, that it hadn’t been stalking her, a
s haras had been known to do when food was scarce. Jaxa’s breathing grew tight with quickly mounting dread. Would it hurt when the hara pounced and dragged her from beneath the tree? Or would she simply go into shock, numb to the animal’s inevitable attack? The animal growled, and Jaxa froze in fear.
But now she heard another sound. Something was running, crashing through the underbrush. Something very, very large, larger definitely than the hara. Jaxa began to cry, and then she screamed when she heard the terrible sound of the hara as it howled in furious pain. Something was attacking it. A cadge lupus? She could hear the thrashing of the foliage around her as the animals struggled, and she covered her face with her hands. The sounds were coming closer, close enough that she could see them now, two shadowy forms locked together in the moonlight.
A violent shift of shadow, and the hara let out a strangled, plaintive caterwaul, disengaging from the attacker. The other animal allowed it to run off, its crash through the brush quickly fading.
Jaxa stared at the watching shadow, frightened. She didn’t know what it was. It was massive, somewhat doglike, but it was not a cadge lupus and certainly not a tyrfox, unless it was the biggest tyrfox Jaxa had ever seen—and she had seen plenty of them around the porli pens back at Ikreimi.
The unknown animal slowly approached, and she pulled her legs as tightly to her chest as she possibly could, but she knew it was no use. It was heading straight for her, a big shadow that seemed to be…
Changing? Jaxa rubbed her eyes. Probably it was just the starlight, but suddenly there was no animal before her. There was a person. A man.
“Jaxa,” the man said, and she thought she recognized the strange pitch and quality of that voice. He came closer, and she confirmed it. The alien visitor. The man who had brought her father the code.
“Odo!” She exclaimed, so grateful to see him that she scrambled out from under the tree, leaping to her feet and throwing her arms around his neck. “How did you find me?”
He pulled away, seeming to recoil from her, as though he was slightly afraid of the physical contact. She held him tight anyway, and he finally let her.