“Hello, Skrain,” she said, her voice hollow.

Dukat frowned. It was unusual for Meru to act this way. Even though Dukat knew she wasn’t always entirely happy, she almost always managed to put on a convincing smile for her lover—it was one of the reasons Dukat had kept her around this long.

Dukat sat down on the bed behind his mistress, touching the back of her bare neck. He nudged away the few tendrils of hair that grazed her skin, having worked themselves loose from the arrangement on top of her head—similar to how a Cardassian would wear her hair, but especially striking on the delicate-featured Bajoran. “Is something troubling you, my dear?”

She shook her head, but she continued to avoid his gaze, and Dukat began to feel annoyed. She was acting a bit like a petulant child. He would find no solace from his worries here.

“I must go,” he said irritably. “Gil Damar is not on the station. My duties will keep me busy for the next few days.”

Meru finally looked up, and Dukat saw that her eyes were quite red, the edges of her nose laced with pink. A strange effect that Bajorans often experienced when upset, it did not flatter her.

Dukat turned away in disgust. “I won’t be back tonight,” he announced, and left the room.

Rain had come to the Kendra Valley, and a heavy downpour was soaking the muddy terrain that surrounded the old cottage once occupied by the Opaka family, the cottage where Gar Osen now resided. The same cottage that had been built in the time of Kai Dava.

Opaka Fasil pulled his oilcloth cloak over the top of his head to keep the fine spray of misty rain from his head and shoulders. Despite his best efforts, rivulets of water ran down the tip of his nose, and his fingers were cold and slippery where they clutched at the little shovel he was using to poke around the foundation of the little stone house.

“Quiet,” whispered the older man who had come from his mother’s camp—the artist, Ketauna. “The vedek will hear you!”

“He won’t hear me,” Fasil assured him. “I lived in this cottage for most of my childhood. It’s very well insulated.”

“But you’re tapping the shovel right up against the house!”

“Let him work,” the other man said, the younger one with the phaser pistol. His name was Shev. “If you’re worried about it, go round to the front and watch the door. You can warn us if they come out.”

The older man did as he was told without a word. In the half a day it had taken them all to reach the sanctuary, Fasil had learned that Ketauna was unexpectedly stodgy, for an artist. Fasil thought his sour mood might have something to do with the news they’d heard earlier, on their brief journey.

Gul Dukat had issued a list of new edicts. It was all that anyone could talk about. Among other restrictions, all religious personnel were to register with the work office for identification numbers within the next week, just like any other Bajoran citizen. Dukat was also planning to raze several of the sanctuaries and to discontinue the practice of allowing religious counsel in the work camps. The people of the villages and camps they’d walked through were horrified by the news, as was Fasil’s mother, but it also gave her a legitimate reason to seek counsel with Vedek Gar, who apparently wouldn’t see just anyone anymore. Fasil supposed they should be thankful for that.

Fasil found the ground near the foundation of the house to be quite soft underneath the superficial layer of rotten needles and leaves. It would have made excellent compost, he thought, for the little garden tended by the members of his cell. Beneath that was a layer of humus that gave way to rich, soft soil that lifted away easily, even with the unwieldy little tool he was using.

He dug quickly and quietly, Shev keeping watch. When the hole was deep and wide enough that he could stand in it, almost up to his knees, his shovel began to hit much more solid ground, a layer of soil that differed in composition, blackened, as if it had been burned.

A trap door. To the cellar. This hadbeen wood, he could see by the splinters he was turning over with the sharp tip of the shovel. He was startled, though not terribly surprised, when the shovel chunkedthrough the soft wood and hit air a moment later. Dirt and pebbles rolled down into the crack he had just made, rattling thinly as they hit the ground somewhere below. He scrambled up out of the hole, wary of falling through what he was sure was an old hatch. It was a wonder it hadn’t caved in long ago, just from the weight of the soil.

Shev examined the hole from the edge, looking at the ovoid black spot in the center that seemed to open up into nothingness. “I have a palmlight,” he offered, and produced a torch that he waved down into the hole. From the flash that crossed the small opening, Fasil could see uneven ground—a set of steps? Both men reacted to the sight, and Fasil felt his heart begin to pound in a fashion that was unrivaled by even the sketchiest missions he had been involved in with the resistance. He knew, now, that his mother had been correct. He was about to find something precious here.

“There’s a cellar behind our house. There’s something there that belongs to us. Will you help me?”

Fasil turned to the other man. “Hold the light while I finish digging. I don’t want to fall through the hole.”

Shev nodded wordlessly, and Fasil carefully set his feet back in the ditch he had dug. He scraped away the dirt that covered the old cellar door, checking his footing periodically, then started widening the hole with the shovel. The wood had rotted, swelled by seasons of rain, and it was only a matter of minutes before the ragged opening was wide enough to admit him.

Fasil put one foot through the inky black square, testing his weight on the rest of the old trap door. He put the other foot through, his feet dangling above the broken stairs beneath him. Shev handed over the palm beacon, and Fasil placed it into the waistband of his pants. He wedged his hands up against the sides of the hole. He looked up at Shev, who nodded without a word. Taking a tremendous breath, he lowered himself down into empty space and let his body fall.

Natima could not tell if the palmlight was flickering or if her eyes had simply grown too tired to see clearly. She had no idea how much time had passed since they had been taken belowground, but she was certain that it must be long past sundown by now. Her hands were covered with tiny cuts, her knees and elbows bruised and scraped. She was exhausted and hungry and scared for Veja, but oddly, it was the unpleasant sensation of the dried clay, jammed underneath her fingernails, that seemed to annoy her the most. She thought it might be the very thing to send her over the edge of tolerable misery.

“Hey,” she said to the Bajoran. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she didn’t know his name. “Maybe we should take a rest. If we wear ourselves out, we’ll never get out of here.”

He shook his head and continued digging at the pile of dirt in front of him. “If we go to sleep, we may never wake up. I’d rather die trying to escape.”

Now Natima was certain it was the palm beacon that was flickering, as it had been earlier. Seefa had adjusted something or other, made the beam softer, but now that was beginning to go, too.

“If you aren’t going to sleep, you should make yourself useful with that communicator instead of just digging away in the dirt like a vole,” she said. “The light is going to go out before we ever make a dent in that heap, and you know it.”

The Bajoran finally stopped digging. “If we use it, I’m as good as dead,” he said quietly.

“That isn’t true! I promise I will tell them this was all an accident. I will tell them that you tried to save us. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I give you my word.” She sighed, annoyed with his silence. “And anyway, what other choice do you have?”