by S. D. Perry
The meeting limped to adjournment, and Kalem escorted his guests to the door as they hesitantly left for their own homes. Jaro Essa lingered behind, as he sometimes did, and as Kalem turned to him, he saw that the old major was sporting a slight smile. News about the resistance, perhaps? Jaro had never actually fought in the resistance himself—by the time a genuine resistance movement began to take shape, he felt that he was too aged to be of any use to the fighters—but he made it his business to keep up with what they were doing, and to pass word back and forth between cells when he could.
“I wanted to let you know,” Jaro told Kalem confidentially, “that I heard from a very reputable source that the resistance cell outside of where Korto used to be is still operational.”
Kalem nodded, his dark mood improving slightly. “The kai’s son is still alive?”
“Yes,” Jaro confirmed. His voice lowered even more. “I wanted to tell you before I announced it to the others. I wasn’t sure if we should spread word among the people, or if it was better to keep this news confidential.”
“Thank you,” Kalem said, and he heard himself sigh with some relief. “Let’s keep the spread of this information restricted to a few key individuals…”
Jaro nodded. A little bit of good news went a very long way, and the health of Kai Opaka’s son was better news that Kalem might have hoped for tonight. If Kai Opaka’s son were to be killed, it would be devastating for the morale of Bajor. It was bad enough that the legendary fighter Li Nalas was dead, along with scores of resistance cells scattered across the planet. If Opaka Fasil were to be killed, something inside of Kalem—and more than a few others, he suspected—would wither and die. Bajor desperately needed heroes right now, even if their deeds were symbolic rather than actual. In times as dark as these, any hero would do.
It was late, and Keral was exhausted, but he didn’t want to go to bed until he’d made some headway on Mora’s code. He’d spent the entire day in the fields, and now that the sun was down, he was crouched at the family’s dining table with a sputtering candle, struggling to work out some kind of plausible key for the cipher brought to him by the alien visitor.
The numbers were easy; it was the words that had him confounded. Did each letter stand in for a numeral? Were the words themselves relevant? They had to be, otherwise Keral wasn’t sure if the numbers made any sense. If he was right about the number parts, he had bits and pieces of what might be a message…or it might be gibberish. He clutched at the thinning hair on his head, wishing he could just somehow force himself to understand. Couldn’t you have made it any simpler, Pol?
Keral heard a rustling behind him, and turned to find his eleven-year-old daughter approaching, her steps light. Jaxa’s blond hair had come loose from her braid, tumbling about her shoulders and making her look very much as she had when she was a little girl. It put a lump in Keral’s throat to recognize how quickly his daughter was growing up, especially when faced with how impossibly clever she was becoming. Some of the things she came up with—Keral could scarcely believe she was his own child. She was more like the Mora side that way, Keral’s mother’s side. They were all a clever people, many of them learned. How Keral wished he could do more for Jaxa than this primitive village—she could have gone so far!
“Jaxa,” he whispered. “Why aren’t you in bed? It’s another early morning tomorrow.”
“I know, Pa. That’s why I’m up. You need to sleep, too. Could I help?”
Keral chuckled. “I doubt it, though I wish someone could. Of course…you might be better suited to figure this out than I am.”
Jaxa peered over his shoulder at the sheets of paper he’d spread across the chipped wooden table. “What is this stuff, Pa?”
“I’m not sure, honey,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s nothing. You know the funny man I brought to the harvest yesterday? It’s from him. He says he knows my cousin, a man you’ve never met—a very smart man.”
“Mora Pol—he’s a scientist,” Jaxa said, picking up one of the scraps of paper.
“That’s right,” Keral confirmed. “I’ve told you about him before.”
Jaxa traced a finger along one of the lines on the paper she was looking at. “‘Sensors towers,’” she read. “‘Aircraft?’ ‘Coded engine signature.’”
He smiled. “It’s a lot of gibberish, I know.”
“Mora made the detection grid?” She looked at him, frowning. “The towers…?”
Keral answered carefully. “He has to work with the Cardassians, honey. He has to do it in order to stay alive. It isn’t his fault…” Keral trailed off, thinking.
“Maybe he’s given you an override code,” Jaxa suggested.
Keral started to nod, feeling a surge of excitement. He shuffled through the pieces of paper, snatched up the one with the numbers that followed the reference to a traveler’s array. He read the sequence, remembering something Pol had once told him, about programming…
“It’s a backdoor password,” he said. “He always built them into his programs, in case he needed to get back in.”
His excitement faltered. “Except…how am I supposed to use something like that?”
Jaxa was still looking at the same sheet of paper. “Someone would have to take the code to the resistance,” she said.
“Mora remembered that I knew Kohn Biran,” Keral said. He felt like he had to catch his breath, suddenly. If it was true, if it was an override code of some sort, probably with instructions on how to approach…His cousin had passed a huge responsibility on to him. Could he do this? Crack the code, and get it to Kohn Biran? Keral had a rudimentary idea of where the Dahkur resistance had gone. They had taken to the mountains after the grid had gone online, the low range visible beyond the western forest. Of course, this was assuming they hadn’t all been killed.
He held out his hand for Jaxa to give him the scrap of paper. “You go to bed,” he instructed her gently. “And thank you for helping me. Right now, we both need some sleep.”
Even as he said it, he knew sleep would be impossible. His cousin, he realized, was counting on him to do this thing, which indicated that Pol believed Keral was capable. He hoped that Pol’s faith would be enough to see him through, for Keral wasn’t sure if he had any for himself.
Alone in her quarters, Natima’s voice trembled ever so slightly as she introduced herself, setting forth her credentials to the man on the screen. The channel was hardened, but if the station’s prefect learned her business, her intentions, she would be as good as dead. She chose her words carefully, using phrases she’d worked out with Russol as she presented herself to Tozhat’s newest exarch, a man named Yoriv Skyl. Skyl had recently come to replace Kotan Pa’Dar, the man who had been exarch when Natima had lived in the surface settlement, years before.
Natima had never been formally introduced to Kotan Pa’Dar, though she had seen him in those years when she was on Bajor, at the occasional press conference, and once she had passed him on the streets between the habitat domes of the settlement. She had also seen him on Cardassia Prime, since he had returned from Bajor. Pa’Dar’s wife and young son had been killed in a terrorist attack, and he had resigned from his post shortly afterward. There were many dissidents who were convinced that Pa’Dar was one of them, that he attended some of the off-planet meetings under an assumed identity, but it had never been confirmed. It was Natima’s understanding that Yoriv Skyl, the man who had replaced him here on Bajor, was a close acquaintance of Pa’Dar’s. She hoped that meant that Skyl could also be sympathetic to the cause, but his expression was giving her nothing.
Skyl was a heavyset man, slightly younger than Natima, but with close ties to the Detapa Council, Cardassia’s civilian government. Russol knew him in some capacity, though not well enough to be sure of his political leanings. Still, after speaking with Pa’Dar, Russol agreed with Natima that the evidence for Skyl’s receptiveness was strong enough that Natima should contact him.
“You say Glinn Russol sends his respects, thro
ugh you,” the exarch said. “He is an honorable man. I’ve met him many times, on Cardassia II. But I find it strange that he would fraternize with a member of the Information Service, let alone ask one to deliver a message.”
“My employment has no bearing on my allegiances,” Natima said. She took a breath, reminded herself that just because her job had taken her far from home, there were still things, however small, that she could do to help the movement. “I wish to speak to you as a citizen of Cardassia only.”
Skyl’s lips thinned. “I would prefer to speak to you in person.”
“That would be preferable to me as well,” Natima said quickly. “So, you’ll meet with me?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, time permitting. I will see you sometime next week, if that conforms with your schedule.”
“I can make it comform,” Natima said.
She signed off the transmission, and regarded another call that had been holding, one from within the station. Could it have been security, listening in and demanding to meet with her in regard to her business with Skyl? Even as she thought it, she knew better; security would not bother with the courtesy of a call. She considered letting the transmission go to her message system, but decided that she could use a distraction. In fact, the call came from Quark, the man who owned the bar.
“Miss Lang!” the Ferengi declared as he appeared on her screen. “I’m so glad I’ve caught you in. I was wondering…if you might have some time this evening, if you would care to have a drink with me, perhaps, or even a walk around the station? If you could use the company, that is.”
Natima hesitated. She could, indeed, use the company, and the idea of a walk was appealing. She spent most of her time reading feeds from Bajor, correcting copy, doing her job. She didn’t feel comfortable roaming the station in her free time, which both irritated and shamed her. She hadn’t expected to feel so intimidated by the constant stares of Cardassian men, as they silently assessed her status, but she’d come to feel quite isolated in the short time since her transfer. A tour of Terok Nor would be nice.
But with Quark? She wasn’t sure what to make of the Ferengi. She’d heard stories about them, of course, but had never personally known any. And she didn’t know him well enough to decide if he was trustworthy, or if he was as greedy as the stories made out. But he interested her, on some level; perhaps it was the reporter in her, curious about another culture, or perhaps it was just the invitation to be with someone from whom she didn’t have to fear exposure as a traitor. At least, she assumed not. Quark clearly had dealings with the Bajorans that were not looked upon kindly by the prefect.
“Maybe just one drink,” she said, and he nodded eagerly.
“I’ll see you in the bar, then,” he said. He grinned broadly, exposing his filed teeth. “I’m looking forward to spending some time with a beautiful lady.”
He promptly ended the transmission, and Natima sighed. Perhaps it was simply the flattery. Even from this odd little alien man, someone whom she did not find physically attractive in any way—but then, she had never been one to be tripped up by a man’s good looks. The few times in her life she had ever been drawn to a particular man, it had been the measure of his integrity that had called to her. And while she found it difficult to believe that a Ferengi bartender would have much of that, she supposed she could stand a night of listening to someone tell her she was youthful, attractive, whatever else he was going to say in trying to woo her; in truth, her ego could use it.
The Bajorans of this village had been kind to Odo, and he understood that they were appreciative of his assistance with their harvest. But he also wondered how much of their acceptance was a result of his remaining in his humanoid form, at least while anyone was present. Nobody had asked him to approximate the shape of anything else, nobody had instructed him to revert to his natural state, nobody had insisted that he hold still while they waved a tricorder around him or poked him with an electrified probe. He found it refreshing, though the children in the village made him ill at ease—they all tended to stare and whisper whenever he was around, something the adults at least refrained from doing.
He had been given leave to rest at an abandoned farmhouse, and offered meals at a communal table. Odo had no need for food, but he understood that it was a necessity and a social activity for Bajorans, and so he joined them as often as seemed appropriate. He still did not know what he meant to do, now that he had left the institute, but he was satisfied that he’d made the right choice in leaving. Doctor Mora had turned away from him, after giving him the message to carry, and had told him not to bother returning until he was ready to continue their work. Odo had grown used to Mora’s manipulations over the years, had come to understand that the doctor did not have many choices. Odo enjoyed having choices. He liked the variety of people he was meeting, and was beginning to understand that while he was quite different from the Bajorans in some ways, there were also distinct similarities. They spoke of their feelings with such freedom, smiled and laughed and cried with ease, embracing their lives…It was all foreign to him. He had amassed thousands of facts, of definitions, of data threads in his years at the institute, but had learned little of the ways of people, and found this new situation quite appealing. Doctor Mora had been comparatively quite subdued, and few of the Cardassians he’d met had ever bothered to speak to him of their personal lives.
On this day, the people of the town had continued their shelling of katterpod beans, their primary staple food. When the sun had risen, they had gathered at the enormous mill to work, as they had for the past two days; most sat outside in the cool, early light, shelling beans for various purposes, while a few worked inside, carrying some of the shelled beans to the millstones; they would be ground into flour that could be used to bake a type of flat bread called makapa.
Odo’s unsurpassed strength in operating the massive millstones seemed to be valued by the Bajorans, who tired much more quickly than Odo and required a longer rest between work periods. He was therefore working the mill, an apparatus that years before had been driven by water. For reasons that Odo did not entirely understand, the water no longer flowed with any regularity, and the equipment now had to be driven by brute strength. He was pleased that he could assist. Doctor Mora had often asked him to perform, but never to assist.
Two Bajorans who had accompanied him inside the old building were beginning to quarrel about their method of shelling the beans. “If you stack them like that, the beans on the bottom will be crushed,” said the first man.
The other man made a face. “They won’t be,” he insisted. “It’s much more efficient to do it this way. And anyway, the crushed beans can go into the flour bin. You have to account for a few crushed beans in the harvest.”
His companion shook his head. “We can’t justify the possibility of spoilage,” he said. “Crushed beans are twice as likely to mold if they’ve sat for more than a day.”
“They won’t sit,” his friend argued. “I’ll have all these shelled by this afternoon, at the latest.”
“You say that, but you don’t know your limits. I’ve been watching you, and your pile only disappears when you’ve got a helper with you. By yourself, you won’t be able to shell this entire heap by tomorrow. You have to lay them out to shell them.”
The other man was beginning to look angry. He started to reply, but first he looked up and caught Odo’s eye, and the shape-shifter realized he’d stopped turning the stones in order to stare at the men, a behavior he remembered Mora specifically instructing him not to do. He dropped his gaze.
“What is it?” one of the men asked, his tone unfriendly. “Do you have an opinion about katterpod stacking, Odo?”
Odo shook his head from side to side. “No,” he said. “But I do have an opinion about conflict in the face of hunger.”
The man narrowed his eyes, and his companion spoke up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Odo chose the words in his customary careful manner. “I only mean that t
he particulars of the food harvest shouldn’t be a matter of such dispute. What matters is only that it gets done, because your survival depends on it. Is that correct?”
The first man nodded slowly, and looked at the other. “I’ll help you shell this pile when I’m done with mine,” he said.
Odo went back to pushing the stones, happy that the unfriendly tone had gone out of the man’s voice. Several times since he’d come to Ikreimi, he’d witnessed unpleasant interactions, and he was coming to learn that a third party could sometimes redirect their intentions. He was as polite as he knew how to be, and often asked to be corrected if he was in error; and somehow, the things he said to them seemed to make them stop to reconsider their conflict. He couldn’t say why he did so, he only knew that he felt relief when the arguments ceased. It reminded him of the things Doctor Reyar had used to say to Doctor Mora—unkind things, things that had filled Odo with unwelcome tension.
The two men both turned their heads at once as another man entered the mill. It was Sito Keral, the man Odo had originally come to the village to see. He looked frantic.
“What’s with you, Sito?” one of the men asked him. “You were supposed to be here nearly an hour ago.”
Keral’s face was all downturned lines. “Ver, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do. Jaxa’s gone!”
Odo ceased to walk, loosening his arms, remembering the small girl with yellow hair. She had smiled at him the day before, at the midday meal.
“Gone! What do you mean, gone?” Ver asked.
“She’s run off toward the mountains, into the forest,” Keral said.
