She looked at Shar, frustrated by the fact that she knew his intentions had been honorable. During the war, she recalled, even Benjamin had been willing to forgive her theft and loss of a runabout—not to mention subsequent capture by the Dominion—because not only had she managed to rescue Worf, she’d also returned with the knowledge that Damar sought the Federation’s help against the Dominion. That information became the turning point of the war.

Sometimes, she knew, the only difference between poor judgment and a calculated risk was the outcome. In Shar’s case, the jury was still out. But she couldn’t ignore what he’d learned through his actions.

“You can conduct your research,” she said finally, “but you can’t use the underground to collect Houseborn data. If the Houseborn in the Upper Assembly agree to provide you with DNA samples, I’ll authorize you to proceed. On your own time.”

Dubious, he furrowed his brow. “Sir, I thought we agreed that the Houseborn will never willingly provide—”

“You think that any research performed with secretly obtained samples can be taken seriously?” Dax shouted. She’d spent enough of her 358 years as a scientist that she knew the rules of that game. “You’ll be accused of using doctored samples. If you want your results to be legitimate, you have to start conducting yourselflegitimately.” Ezri could see from Shar’s reaction that she was finally getting through to him.

“May I ask for official cooperation during our meetings tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’ll present your proposal. If it’s rejected, that’ll be the end of it. Understood, Ensign?”

“Yes, sir.”

Before she let him return to his quarters, she wanted to address—and bring to an end—the ongoing situation where Shar picked what rules he wanted to keep. “And Shar, I am repeating and reinstating Commander Vaughn’s original order: you’re not to have unauthorized contact with the Yrythny. In the course of your work, I know you’ll deal with them, but you aren’t to be sneaking out to underground meetings or taking trips planetside without first clearing it with me. And I want reports of any interaction you have with Delegate Keren. Until I feel more comfortable with her status, we need to assume she’s hostile to our goals. Is that understood?”

Shar nodded. “I’m supposed to meet with her later so she can give me the datafiles on the Wanderer genome. In all the confusion of the rescue, she mistakenly kept them when we dropped her off.”

“Fine. And Ensign? I don’t need an answer to this question, but I think you’d be wise to think about it.”

“Sir?”

“Having a desire to answer the Yrythny’s request for help is, by itself, an honorable motive for what you’re doing, but is it possible that there’s a deeper reason?” she said gently. “Maybe a personal one? Because the risks you’re taking are extraordinary. I think whatever you believe you stand to gain from taking these risks ought to be worth the price.”

Ezri waited for him to raise his eyes from the floor and for a moment their gazes tangled. Shar rarely unveiled his emotions in any circumstance, but she caught a glimpse of a ferocious intensity that might have frightened her, had she been his enemy. “Dismissed,” she said. And when he had vanished into the corridor, she collapsed into her chair, feeling grateful to be alone.

14

His uncanny knack for bringing out the absolute worst in Kira notwithstanding, Quark ought to have been rewarded for his triumph at the reception. His heroic efforts had impressed all the guests. Sentients of every stripe, rank and affiliation continued to rave about the exquisite presentation, the excellent food and the unparalleled service. He’d assumed that going out with Laren would be the sauce on the slugsteak. The capstone of this exceptional week.

Quark pulled the brightly printed blanket tighter around his shoulders, hoping to stave off the chilly night breezes. But being wet made warmth difficult to come by. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand wet; growing up on Ferenginar meant he understood every nuance and permutation of wet. Perpetual wetness had a consistency that one could reasonably acclimate to. When wet was juxtaposed with dry, an uncomfortable state known as “cold” followed.

Quark hatedcold.

Would he ever feel his ears again, was the question. He had spent a late afternoon hurtling across the water from crest to crest, white foam spitting around his feet, clinging to a skimpy sail and balanced on a board even Nog would find small, only to lose sensation in his lobes. No female was worth this.

Never mind that, in the aftermath of that ordeal, staying warm necessitated wrapping himself in a blanket, because he’d stupidly refused Laren’s offer to modify the program just to make him more comfortable. What kind of an idiot was his infatuation with her turning him into? He should have at least let her delete the targ-size salmon that kept smacking against the rudder of his windsurfing board. Vile creatures. What kind of animal willingly takes the path of most resistance and swims upstreamto spawn? Clearly those monsters with fins had compromised survival instinct because any sensible creature would have hailed a hovercraft and called it good.

Like me with Laren. Always swimming upstream because I can’t seem to help myself.

Crouched down beside the flickering pile of sticks Ro seemed to think qualified as a fire, she placed a spit loaded with bird carcasses over the coals. She dabbed sauce into the meat’s crevices; dripping off the sides into the heat, it sizzled and smoked sending up clouds of ash. “Dinner should be ready in a half hour or so. I added a little kick to the fire in the holoprogramming,” she said by way of explanation. “Temperature’s a little hotter than it would be in real life.”

Sounded better than waiting for that primitive stick heap to make the replicated bird edible, Quark thought ruefully. “Can’t wait. I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” he said aloud.

Leaving the birds to roast, Ro circled behind the logs surrounding the fire pit to her backpack, which was filled with all the things one allegedly needed to survive in the outdoors. She rifled around inside, removing a wristlight, what looked like a wicked permutation of a knife, another fire starter, several field ration bars, an ax, and two long sticks with handles at the ends. “Aha. Here we are,” she pulled out a clear container filled with dark, roundish objects.

Hoping she’d answer “tube grubs,” Quark asked, “And those would be…?”

“Chestnuts,” she answered, dumping them into a metal foil pouch and securing the opening. “Roasted like this, they’re really good.”

He sighed. If he was lucky, she’d thrown a couple of Slug-O-Colas in that backpack so he could wash down the charcoal-covered bird with something palatable.

“The windsurfing wasn’t that bad,” Ro said, tossing the foil pouch into the flames. She took a pair of tongs, fished coals from the graying embers and placed them on top of the chestnuts.

“No, not at all…. If plunging headfirst into water is your idea of fun. I’m thinking next time we ought to pull out Worf’s old Road to Kal’hyaHprogram and really have a party,” Quark groused. Even his wilderness sojourn with Sisko and the boys a few years back hadn’t made him thisuncomfortable, not even after they’d been captured by the Jem’Hadar. Of course, single-handedly dragging a wounded, belligerent Odo up the side of mountain on the freezing surface of a class-L planet had proven, once and for all, that Ferengi were made of sterner stuff than most people gave them credit for, but that didn’t mean he relished such experiences, unlike somepeople he could name…