Turning back to M’Yeoh, Vaughn said, “If such an option ensures results, why didn’t we start with a shadow trader?” Why was it that at every turn in his dealings with the Yrythny, he found that they’d conveniently omitted information? Not enough to technically be considered a lie, but certainly less than all the facts.

“A shadow trader’s demands may be costly or risky,” M’Yeoh squeaked. “Outlawed technology. Slaves. Illegal goods. Weapons. You made it clear what you were willing to negotiate with. Your terms would be better accepted on the Exchange.”

Or you were too afraid to deal with anything but the known entities,Vaughn thought. He needed to remove M’Yeoh from the equation if he wanted to make a quick deal.

Loud, laughing revelers stumbling toward a casino careened toward their booth, drinks held high. They jumped out of their seats, missing a frothy soaking by seconds. Prynn and M’Yeoh stumbled into a cloth barrier that delineated the workspace of an odd-looking creature, sitting staring at the wall. Tools crashed; bins toppled, drizzling milky syrup on the floor gratings.

Startled by the invasion of his workspace, the creature glared glassy-eyed at Prynn, while one of his five hands scraped brownish wax off strands of hair with his fingernails. Once he’d collected a thumbnail full, he dropped it on his black tongue, smacked his lips and repeated the process. Prynn slowly backed away, but the creature hissed at her. She stopped.

Vaughn, no stranger to unusual life-forms, had never seen anything like it. A cross between a squid and a mantis might explain whatever it was. He looked to his Yrythny host for information, but M’Yeoh tiptoed around the basins and back toward the main walkway.

“Excuse me,” Prynn apologized, extracting her foot from a pan of goo. “I hope I didn’t ruin—”

The creature scrambled off his chair, thrusting his face as close to Prynn’s as he could without pressing their lips together. Vaughn’s hand inched toward his phaser…

“You,” the creature burbled rapturously.

“Huh?” Anxiously, Prynn’s eyes darted first to Vaughn, who shrugged, and then to flustered M’Yeoh whose lips flapped soundlessly.

“The one I search for. To finish my commission,” the creature clapped two of its hands together. “I sit day after day, hoping to find the one I need to finish my commission and I see nothing. I sense nothing. Until you.” Spittle flecked the matted hair around its mouth.

Taking a step away from him, Prynn smiled weakly. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else. We’re not from around here.”

Vaughn assumed a position at Prynn’s side. “We apologize for intruding on your space. If there’s something—”

“No, no!” the creature protested. “I don’t want apologies. I want—that one,” it said, jabbing a finger at Prynn.

With surprising courage, Minister M’Yeoh lifted up the goo-pan and sniffed the contents before dabbing a finger inside and wiping the goo on an adjoining wall. Gradually, the goo turned blood red.

Recognition registered on his face; M’Yeoh’s breathing steadied. “Commander, I don’t think you have reason to worry. I believe this is a sense artist.”

“Yes! Yes! I have a commission,” he said, throwing a canvas drape aside to reveal a three meter by two meter collage of multihued textures. “For the Cheka Master General. He is unhappy that I haven’t finished, but you will make it complete.”

“Sense artist?” Vaughn asked.

“This substance,” M’Yeoh indicated the goo-bucket. “When it comes in contact with living tissue, it takes a sensory impression based on body temperature, metabolic rate, body chemistry…” He dipped in his hand until it was covered with goo and then removed it to dry in the air, fanning it carefully. The clear sticky substance slowly assumed a creamy lemon tone. “Once the polymer dries,” M’Yeoh peeled from the wrist, carefully easing up the now rubbery impression of his hand until it slid off readily, “this is what results. Sense artists collect a multitude of impressions and then arrange them in sculpture, hanging mobiles, wall mountings—”

“My commission for the grand foyer of the Master General’s suite,” the creature said proudly. “I need the last element. I have waited for weeks. And now you are here!” His grin revealed a mouth of crooked, graying nubs Vaughn assumed were teeth.

Prynn combed her fingers through her spiked hair. “We’re only visitors and won’t be staying long.”

“Oh please oh please oh please change your mind. Oh please oh please oh please!” He threw himself prostrate before Prynn. “Only you!”

Taking Prynn by the elbow, Vaughn extracted her from the creature’s ardent attention to her feet. “Tell you what. If our business concludes and time allows it, we’ll come back and you can take your impressions.”

“Commander!” Prynn exclaimed, drawing back. Vaughn expected she might throw him a punch under different circumstances.

The creature knelt penitently and while its ratty hair failed to camouflage his despondent posture, Vaughn’s words mitigated his sadness somewhat. “Fazzle. Ask anywhere in the Core for Fazzle and you will find me.”

As they walked off, pushing their way through the thronging crowds clogging the Core’s central district, Vaughn couldn’t resist teasing his daughter, “Think of it as a new cultural odyssey: immortalizing yourself for posterity.”

She smirked at him. “I’ll stick to living fast, thanks.”

Waiting for the lifts back to Avaril’s platform, Vaughn approached the minister. In a low voice, he asked about making contact with a shadow trader.

“Word of the needy spreads quickly. The Exchange is watched. When the shadow traders figure out what you have, they will find you.”

“So we wait,” Vaughn said.

M’Yeoh nodded.

Vaughn closed his eyes, wishing circumstances could be different. From the first moments after the Defianthad triggered the Cheka weapon until now, Vaughn had felt he’d been standing at the helm of a rudderless craft. At every turn, he’d been compelled to accept whatever course circumstance had selected, whether it was the not-so-subtle attempt of the Yrythny government to engage Dax as a mediator, having to turn over bartering to a broker or this latest pronouncement of M’Yeoh’s. Vaughn didn’t like it. He understood that part of the hunt was patiently waiting in the tall grass for your prey to stroll into your sights, but some part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that he was the one doing the strolling, not the waiting.

“So how much fun are you having, Ensign ch’Thane?” Keren asked, taking a seat on the edge of Shar’s desk. They were alone in the government office Lieutenant Dax’s team had been provided.

“Work doesn’t need to be entertaining,” Shar said practically, dropping an unused data chip into a drawer.

“But your antennae…they’re drooping. You could borrow my headpiece to cover them up and then no one would be the wiser.”

“Oh.” Andorian antennae often conveyed emotional states. Any hope he’d had of getting to his genetic research today had vanished when Ezri had given him his daily orders. His antennae must be betraying his down mood.

Keren examined a statue of a naked Yrythny riding a whale-size sea animal—a gift from a well-meaning Assembly member courting favor with Ezri—now residing on Shar’s desk. Upon seeing this odd gift, Ensign Juarez had doubled over, convulsed with laughter. The Wanderer delegate appeared equally bemused. “Where’s Lieutenant Dax?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know. She went with Jeshoh and the Houseborn contingent for a planetside tour of one of the Houses.” Juarez, Candlewood, and McCallum had gone with her. Shar had—meetings. Ezri apologized profusely for asking him to act in her stead, but she felt the mission needed to proceed on two fronts.

“Ah. Probably House Tin-Mal. One of Jeshoh’s pet stories. I’ll be interested in her conclusions.”