“Miss Vara, I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

“Not at all, Professor. I’m delighted to hear from you.”

“Miss Vara, I think you will be further delighted when you hear what I have to tell you. I know you’ve been hoping to acquire a soil sample from Bajor, and I’ve thought of a means by which you might be able to do that without having to wait for a transport to bring one back from the planet.”

“Really?” Miras was instantly hopeful.

“Yes. I just remembered, the Ministry of Science came into possession of a Bajoran artifact some years back. The artifact itself may not interest you much, but what I remember most about it is that when we opened the shipping crate, we were appalled at how filthy the container was. The artifact was caked with dirt. Of course, we cleaned it up when we made the initial inventory report, but I’m confident there is enough left in that container for you to get a viable soil sample.”

“Oh, Professor, what a good idea! Thank you so much!”

“Our window of time is quite short, however. I’ve arranged to have the artifact sent up to a laboratory for a few hours. Can you meet me on campus at the east facility within the hour?”

“Yes, Professor Mendar, I’ll be right there.” Miras switched the comm over to contact Kalisi, who was slow to answer, her eyes bleary.

“Wake up!” she teased her friend. “Professor Mendar found a way for me to get a soil sample. She’s sending a Bajoran artifact over to the lab right now, and I’m going to brush the soil off it for analysis.”

“What kind of artifact?”Kalisi, who had undoubtedly been dozing over a textbook, rubbed her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Miras told her. “But if you want to see it, you should come along.”

Kalisi shrugged. “I guess I could use a break,”she said. “I’ll meet you outside the transport in five minutes.”

Miras and Kalisi arrived at the east facility in time to see Professor Mendar speaking with someone who apparently worked in the ministry’s storage facility. She was affixing her thumbprint to an inventory padd when she saw the girls approaching, and her usually saturnine features turned to a pleasant smile. “Hello, Miss Vara, Miss Reyar. The container will be transported up to the main laboratory on floor two.” She offered the padd to Miras. “If you put your thumbscan here, you will be able to open the shipping container.” Miras did as she was told.

Kalisi was excited. “Where did it come from? How did the ministry come to have it?”

Professor Mendar bent forward as if she were telling a secret, an uncharacteristically girlish expression suddenly coming over her face. “I was told that the ministry acquired it at an auction of repossessed goods,” she confided, “but there was a rumor—and of course, it’s only a rumor—that the item was on loan from none other than the Obsidian Order.” She stood back and waited for the girls’ reaction.

“The Obsidian Order!” Kalisi exclaimed. “That can’t be. They don’t loan out their inventory.” She said these things with an authoritative air, and Miras wondered how her friend even came to have an opinion on the matter. Miras had an inkling that Kalisi’s father was involved in some confidential faction of the government, but so were a lot of people.

“As I said,” Professor Mendar replied, “it’s only a rumor. I had understood that the Order underwent some sort of political upheaval over a decade ago, and certain…priorities changed. The ministry acquired the object not long afterward.”

Kalisi said nothing more until the professor had excused herself, leaving them to find the laboratory on their own. “She’s talking about Enabran Tain,” she finally told Miras in confidential tones. “When he took over the Order, a lot of things changed.”

Miras could only nod, wondering if her friend really knew what she was talking about. It was interesting in the context of the object they were about to look at, but Miras had never been one to concern herself with the potboiler gossip that often surrounded the Order.

Miras and Kalisi took the lift to the upper level and found the main lab. The cylindrical shipping container, sitting atop a stainless metal work surface, was quite a bit larger than what Miras had expected. It was as wide as the breadth of a man’s shoulders, and half as tall as Miras herself. She put her thumbscan on the shipping container’s security panel, and peered inside as the side of the container flipped open. It was indeed full of dirt—reddish Bajoran soil that was as fine as ash. Miras quickly set about capturing several samples in a vial, and calibrated a handheld scanner to break down the soil’s composition.

“Let’s see the artifact,” Kalisi suggested as Miras tapped out the results. Absently, Miras stepped back so her friend could look inside the container.

“I can’t really see it,” Kalisi complained. “Let’s take it out and have a better look.”

Miras balked. “It’s enormous,” she pointed out, though it wasn’t so much big as cumbersome.

“Come on, aren’t you interested in history?”

“What does a Bajoran artifact have to do with history?”

Kalisi laughed. “We aren’t the only civilization in the universe, you know. Here, help me. I like looking at old things.”

Miras helped her friend heft the artifact from the container, and the two managed to remove a four-sided object with exotic designs incised on each section. There were numerous polished stones set into the panels, hidden beneath the dirt.

Kalisi ran her fingers over the raised design on one panel, and then inspected the ruddy dust left behind on her pale fingertips. “The dirt isn’t really embedded in it. This must not have been buried. Maybe it was windy when they put it in the container.” She brushed her hands together. “Is there a database with ancient Bajoran characters in it?”

Miras shrugged. “I’m sure this thing has already been catalogued and examined,” she said. “If you look in the university database, they’re sure to have some information on it.”

Kalisi was already tapping away at her padd, connecting to the university mainframe. “I don’t see anything here,” she said. “Maybe they just inventoried it and then never scanned it. How long ago did Professor Mendar say it had come in?”

“Over a decade, I thought she said.”

Kalisi continued to run her fingers over the surfaces of the object. “Hmm. Look at this corner. It looks to me like it’s meant to open up. Maybe this is really just a case for something.” She knocked on it with a closed fist, and it answered with a dull clang. “I think it’s hollow!”

Miras was doubtful. “I don’t see how this thing could open,” she muttered, and slipped her finger along the edge. She was a bit surprised to find something like a seam there. The object was not comprised of a single piece of…whatever it was made of—wood, apparently, though there was no indication of how it was held together. Miras tried to insert her fingers in the crack, and Kalisi joined in, prying at the edges, but it would not budge.

“Maybe you’re right,” Kalisi said, and glanced up at the clock. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten all day. I’m going to find a replicator.”

“I’m not hungry,” Miras told her. “I think I’m going to scan this thing and see if I can’t find out anything about these characters.”

“So! You’re interested in history after all!” Kalisi walked away on a note of triumph.

Miras smiled after her. “Linguistics, actually,” she called, as Kalisi left the room. Miras used her own padd to record the object’s written characters. She flipped on a nearby viewscreen while she downloaded the scan to the computer’s database. The machine made a barely audible whirring sound as the processors worked to recognize the writing, but nothing came up. Miras turned once again to the artifact, touched the corner where Kalisi had been so sure that she felt a seam. She ran her fingers down the side. This time there was a clicking noise, and the crack on the corner of the object widened noticeably.