But Ra-Havreii had instead reverted to type. More than reverted-this disruption of Jaza’s work was tantamount to the engineer’s throwing down a gauntlet. Weeks of recalibration, of code writing, of direct probing and observation could have been wiped clean because of an impatient chief engineer. It would be several hours before Jaza would know if the current sensor maps had to be scrapped. Pazlar, Dakal, and the others were poring over the data, looking for signs of corruption. Before they delivered their verdict, it was very possible that the brilliant and famous Dr. Xin Ra-Havreii’s next entry into the record books would read, First Efrosian in history to be strangled by a Bajoran.

  “I know you’re in there, Commander,” Jaza said. “Now open up or, by the Prophets, I’ll have the transporter chief beam me in.” After the engineer had seen fit to ignore the door chime, Jaza had resorted to pounding on the door.

  “You’re wasting your time,” said a soft feminine voice passing behind him. The words were accompanied by the rush of displaced air tinged with the barest hint of something like hyacinth. He turned to see who had spoken and was treated to the rear view of a familiar humanoid female in black Starfleet exercise uni, jogging toward the other end of the corridor. Without looking back, she added, “He’s with Ensign Evesh right now.”

  Then she disappeared around the far corner, her long golden braids bouncing in time with her easy gait. Jaza stood there for a moment, feeling the same strange tightness in his chest as before, the same chill in his skin. And for a moment, his thoughts of confronting the Efrosian engineer completely vanished.

  By the time Jaza arrived at Ensign Evesh’s quarters, Ra-Havreii had gone from there as well. The ensign, a muscular little Tellarite, was just heading off to her duty shift. Jaza noticed that the thick hair that formed a sort of mane around her head was still a bit damp, as if she’d just come from a shower.

  “He left ten minutes ago, sir,” she said with more than a trace of ruefulness. “Apparently, he isn’t one to linger.”

  It seemed, in addition to his other eccentricities, Ra-Havreii made a habit of removing his combadge whenever he felt like it, effectively defeating the computer’s ability to easily track him. The man could be anywhere on the ship at this point, and Jaza, his frustration having finally squelched his anger, accepted defeat.

  He sighed, leaning heavily against the corridor wall, and considered just exactly how he was going to convince the captain that Titanwould need another month to properly map Occultus Ora.

  “It’s not particle bleed,” said Hsuuri, her syrupy voice now rife with concern. Her ears and whiskers twitched nervously. “Not random field distortion.”

  The lights were up to full in the sensor pod, and the team had gathered around the various collation nodes to sift through their mountains of raw data.

  “Of course it’s not random distortion,” said Klace Polan, a little too aggressively to Dakal’s mind. The Catullan ensign had a habit of starting conversations with an attack of some sort. “The core has been on dampers for weeks now.”

  There were murmurs of agreement from the others, each of whom was deeply focused on some particular facet of the results of their scans.

   “I’m sure Commander Jaza will be triple pleased to hear what it is not,”said aMershik, tentacles from his upper cluster dancing across several consoles at once as his segmented eyes pored over multiple data streams. His combadge made him sound as if he were speaking through a mouthful of suet, but his tone was unmistakably sarcastic, as usual. Thymerae were like that-always looking for the gloom in a bright sky. “But it would be agreeable if he could be told what itis as well.”

  “About half of the gravimetric readings check out so far,” said Fell, a bit too brightly. It was clear she didn’t want aMershik’s dour demeanor to infect the others. “The initial baseline scans look sound.”

   “How many times must this one inform you, Peya Fell,”said aMershik. “Optimism without facts is-”

  “ ‘Wasted intellect,’ ” said the others in chorus. Berias let out a good-natured chuckle, his gray skin darkening with pleasure.

  After a month working so closely, all of Jaza’s team were well used to the Fell and aMershik Traveling Festival of Sarcasm. Deltans and Thymerae were polar opposites as far as species ethos went. Rumor had it these two had been rankling each other since their first Academy days.

  Dakal, his participation neither requested nor required for this sensitive work, sat on a chair under the lowermost tier, listening to the others grouse.

  He wasn’t fooled by their banter. They were as nervous about the outcome of their investigations as he. That much work, that much time wasted due to the irresponsibility of a single engineer-it was hard for Dakal’s mind to fathom.

  On Cardassia people like Dr. Ra-Havreii-iconoclasts, individualists-used to disappear after their first public misstep. Where they went or what happened to them there was a mystery that failed to interest most of the citizenry. It was enough that the irritant was gone with minimal disruption to the flow of normal life. Those ways were done, certainly, but one couldn’t dismiss the level of efficiency achieved by the old state.

  “Hey, Dakal,” said Roakn, his great dark drum of a head peering down from the upper tier. “Quit moping and make yourself useful.”

  “How can I assist you, Lieutenant?” said the young cadet, instantly snapping to.

  “You’re Cardassian, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Dakal with practiced regulation decorum. He’d gotten used to nonhumanoids having difficulty distinguishing him from a Vulcan or a Trill. From their point of view a humanoid was a humanoid was a humanoid, at least when it came to appearance.

  “Cardassians are good at pattern recognition, right?” Roakn’s people had never had any direct dealings with Dakal’s, but that didn’t mean some of the more popular stereotypes hadn’t trickled down.

  The Cardassian government had proven itself adept at code-making and clandestine operations so, obviously, to Roakn at least, that meant every individual Cardassian had the gift. Lovely.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s an actual genetic trait, sir,” said Dakal, being careful not to imply his superior was expressing a racial slur. “More of a cultural-”

  “Whatever,” boomed Roakn, waving Dakal’s remarks aside as if they were a swarm of gnats. “Take a look at the time-lapse record of the visual EM translations. And play back at triple speed or you’ll be at it another month.”

  “What am I looking for, sir?” said Dakal.

  “Anything anomalous, Cadet,” said the wide stony face. “Just like the rest of us.”

  Were Roakn not a lieutenant, Dakal would have argued that the visual translations were, at best, approximations of what the sensors were actually seeing. The lapsed-time recording, in particular, was almost completely useless for providing anything forensically meaningful.

  Dakal might have pointed these things out and he might have gone further to say that, as a member of a species that was little more than a collection of animated boulders, Roakn ought to be a bit more reluctant to assign work based on racial stereotype.

  Besides, Dakal knew what was truly at work here. The reason he’d been assigned the useless duty was to impress upon the young Cardassian how insufficient his skills were to the team effort. Cadet Dunsel, some of his younger crewmates called him. It was Starfleet slang, a term Dakal had been forced to look up the first time he heard it.

   “Dunsel: a part that serves no useful purpose,”the linguistic database had informed him. Roakn had changed Dakal to Dunsel as some sort of joke. How amusing.