There was a knock at the door, the sound of bare knuckles on wood. The rapping echoed in the court. Asarem tossed the racquet into the compartment—it rattled between the wall of the compartment and the helmet, sending the helmet teetering back and forth—then took a step over to the entryway and pulled open the door. She expected to see the tall figure of Shakaar, but instead she found herself eye-to-eye with Enkar Sirsy, his assistant.

“Minister,” Sirsy said, looking in from the corridor that joined to the changing room and the other two springball courts in the building. Cooler, fresher air drifted in through the entry, a noticeable counterpoint to the heavy, faintly sour atmosphere around Asarem. “First Minister Shakaar asked me to come by.”

“To play in his stead?” Asarem teased. “That doesn’t appear to be a springball uniform.” Sirsy wore a conservative but elegant dark blue sheath, belted at the waist, beneath a charcoal cloak. The outfit contrasted dramatically with Asarem’s formfitting scarlet habiliments.

Sirsy glanced down at her clothes and smiled, several strands of her long, straight red hair falling forward over her face. She looked back up, brushing her hair back into place with one hand. “I suppose not,” she said, then became serious again as she returned to the reason for her visit. “The first minister sends his apologies for missing your meeting. He wanted to know if you’d like to reschedule it.”

Surprised in the first place by Shakaar’s tardiness, Asarem was now disappointed at the suggestion of having to postpone their appointment. Had some of the other ministers done this—almost anyof the other ministers, she amended—she would have ascribed political motives to them, but that did not follow with Shakaar. Since he had been elected first minister, carried into office on the strength of his renowned assaults against the Cardassians during the Occupation, he had certainly been a political force, but that force had always operated in the open, without resorting to deceit or covert manipulation.

But if he was not motivated by politics, then what was happening with Shakaar? For a man who had conducted his incumbency with the punctuality of a general executing precisely coordinated tactics, this third incidence of his lateness was noteworthy. Asarem wondered if he might finally be losing tolerance for his position.

She had become convinced through the years that Shakaar actually loathed holding elective office, that he would rather have withdrawn from public attention to a quiet, secluded life of farming back in his native Dahkur Province. She had come to believe that when the mantle of governmental leadership had been thrust upon him during the uncertain period following the death of the previous first minister, he had accepted it only because he felt an obligation to the Bajoran population to do so. Perhaps now, Asarem speculated, he had finally tired of living his life for other people.

“Sirsy,” she said, “what’s going on here?” She rested her hands on her hips, elbows out. “Is there something I need to know?” The muted sounds of another springball game—the slap of the ball against walls and racquets, the various rings of the scoring bells—floated through the corridor.

“No, Minister Asarem,” Sirsy answered. “The first minister is just running behind today.” Asarem wanted to believe that. Although she differed politically with Shakaar on numerous issues—opponents liked to characterize her as a hardliner, severe and immovable, a description she declined to refute—she also respected him and thought that he had served Bajor admirably.

As certain as she was that Shakaar detested being first minister, it was not as the result of anything he had ever made apparent to anybody; he had carried his burden close to him, far from the perceptions of others. But Asarem had served as second minister for as long as Shakaar had been in office, and while they had experienced difficulties working with each other during the first couple of years of his tenure, they had since developed a strong and fruitful professional relationship. He had never complained about the onerous weight of his position, but there had been times when circumstances and demands for action had combined to allow her to see through the cracks in his armor.

And yet, for all of that, Asarem remained convinced that when Shakaar’s six-year term ended next year, he would seek reelection. Such was his sense of responsibility to the people of Bajor. And as much as she disagreed with some of his views, she would still support him. He was a vigorous, forthright man, dedicated and practical, open to the positions of others, and who had done much to push Bajor away from the painful past of the Occupation and into the promise of the future.

No,Asarem decided. Shakaar is not surrendering. Just late.She smiled, both at Sirsy and at herself. The first minister might not like his job, but she certainly loved hers. She had a talent for detecting the political maneuvering of others, but she also sometimes found herself chasing specters instead of substance. Like now.

“All right,” she told Sirsy. Feeling suddenly matronly, standing with her hands on her hips like a mother questioning a child, she dropped her arms to her sides. “I’ll check my schedule and see when we can set up a new meeting.”

“Thank you, Minister.” The young woman turned to go, but Asarem stopped her.

“Just a moment, Sirsy.” She moved around the door and collected her helmet and racquet from the storage area. She closed the compartment—the hinges creaked again—then left the court, pulling the door shut behind her. Sirsy stepped back to let her out. “Does the first minister have any other commitments this morning?” Asarem asked. She did not want to have to postpone this meeting. She began walking down the corridor, and Sirsy fell in step beside her.

“Um, not this morning,” Sirsy answered, looking up toward the ceiling, as though she might see Shakaar’s schedule printed there. “He has two appointments early this afternoon.” Sirsy’s heels clacked along the stone tiles of the corridor; Asarem’s rubber-soled shoes made barely any noise at all. “But I know that the first minister has several tasks he wanted to complete this morning.”

“What about at the top of the hour?” Asarem asked. “After our springball game would have ended? Is he available then?”

“I’m not sure,” Sirsy said. “I’d have to check with the first minister.”

They reached the far end of the corridor, and Asarem stopped beside the door to the changing room. “Please do,” she said. “I’ll be at his office in three-quarters of an hour. I’m hopeful that he will be able to see me then.”

“Yes, Minister.”

“Thank you, Sirsy,” she said, and headed into the changing room.

Asarem made it to the first minister’s office in half the time she had estimated it would take her. She rushed through a shower, tied her shoulder-length, dark brown hair back behind her head, and changed into a simple brown shift and a rust-colored macramé overshirt, rather than the more formal suit she had intended to wear. With the situation with the Federation approaching a resolution of some kind, she was eager for an update from the first minister, and anxious to review their preparations for the imminent arrival of the Starfleet admiral.

Sirsy greeted her with a smile in the anteroom to Shakaar’s office. The room, narrow but long, divided itself by function into two areas. Near the outer door, half a dozen chairs sat arrayed around a low, round table, interspersed with a couple of end tables equipped with companels. Further into the room, beyond the waiting area, Sirsy’s large desk stretched in a wide arc beside the entrance to the first minister’s office. Behind the desk, in the left-hand wall, stood a closed door that Asarem had always assumed led to a storage and supply area.