Damar had taken the news very hard, which Natima would have expected. According to Cardassian tradition, their enjoinment would be canceled. While it wasn’t unheard of for a barren woman to take a lover, it was very unlikely that she could ever be an acceptable wife. Damar was not the kind of man to overlook such an old and widespread tradition. Natima supposed she had never known a man who wouldhave overlooked it. She dreaded the time that Veja was lucid enough to be informed of her condition. Many women chose to take their own lives after sustaining such injuries. Natima didn’t think that Veja would do anything so drastic, but she feared for her friend nonetheless. It was a terrible blow.

Still, Damar had not left Veja’s side since she had been taken to the infirmary. Gul Dukat had demanded that he come back to Terok Nor to resume his duties and the gil had flatly refused, a response that Natima could not help but admire. It took someone of remarkable character to refuse an order from the prefect. As she headed down the hallway of the infirmary to pay her friend another visit, she wondered if she might have misjudged Damar.

Ask Seefa, see what he thinks.

Natima shook off the thought before it took hold. Seefa, their conversation, his death—it troubled her on so many levels, she didn’t know where to begin. As she had done since waking up at Tozhat, she pushed the issue aside.

She stepped into the sterile, warm blankness of Veja’s room. Damar was, as Natima expected, asleep in a chair next to Veja’s bed. There were no attendants present. Veja was still unconscious, or at least sleeping, and Natima decided she’d do better to come back later. But as she was backing out of the room, Damar opened his eyes.

“Miss Lang,” he said formally. He had been noticeably more polite to her since the incident, though Natima didn’t know if it was because his contempt of her had ebbed or if he was simply too sad to be bothered with his former opinion of her.

“Gil Damar. I apologize for disturbing you. I only came to check on her status.”

“It is kind of you,” he said, his voice distant. “She is the same.”

“Has…has her family been notified?” Natima asked. “Because I was thinking that I could…”

“I spoke to her father. He has been…supportive, although he is understandably very…disappointed.”

Natima remembered what Seefa had said about the Cardassian propensity toward euphemism, and she laughed, entirely unexpectedly. Damar gave her an odd look, one that contained a bit of the old contempt that she remembered so well from her encounters with him on Terok Nor.

“Forgive me,” she begged.

“I see nothing funny here,” Damar said icily.

“Of course not, Gil Damar. Except—”

She hesitated. She knew it wasn’t her place to suggest such things, but he obviously loved her so. Perhaps there was a way, after all.

“Don’t you find it somewhat queer that on our world, where children are valued so highly, we would cast away those children who have no parents? Children who could have found a home with women like Veja, who cannot now carry her own child, but longs to be a mother above all else? Hasn’t it occurred to you, after all this, that—”

Damar looked positively horrified, and Natima knew she had crossed the line. “Gil Damar, I fear my female gift for curiosity and observation has gotten the better of me. It is only that I am so grieved for my friend that I forget myself. Please…I will leave you.”

She turned and quickly left the room, practically running to get away. Her own apartment was quite close to the settlement hospital, and she broke into the cool outside air between the buildings feeling as though she’d forgotten how to breathe.

She felt embarrassed for herself, an unusual sensation, as she walked the short distance home. It had never been in her nature to avoid awkward topics just to preserve an air of comfortable formality. Still, she should have known better than to try and be philosophical with a man who was experiencing such suffering. And yet—

And yet, their lives together need not be destroyed.

It was not for her to say. She came to the gray building that housed her quarters and let herself inside, suddenly desperate for a long, dreamless nap. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired.

Before she’d even closed her door behind her, her console lit up with an incoming transmission from Information Service headquarters on Cardassia Prime. Undoubtedly Dalak, and she’d have to speak with him eventually. She reluctantly took the call.

“Miss Lang, I have been trying to reach you for some time. On behalf of all your colleagues here—and myself, of course—may I express sincerest regards for your health, after your unfortunate incident. I understand you’re to make a full recovery?”

His enthusiasm for her answer was markedly lacking, but she did her best to support the effort. He was her superior.

“Yes, Mister Dalak, although Miss Ketan was not so lucky. She has survived, but some of her injuries are permanent.”

“Indeed, Miss Lang. We’ve received the medical report. It is most regrettable. Still, I hear the two of you acted with outstanding bravery. It would make a good story, don’t you think?”

Natima was taken aback; this possibility had not occurred to her. “Oh! I suppose…”

“This is just the sort of thing that the people love to hear. Military heroes, clever reporters, a depraved rebel killed. I would like you to deliver the story by tomorrow evening, Cardassia City time.”

“Uh…certainly. I will get on it right away.”

“Thank you, Miss Lang. Send Miss Ketan my goodwill.”

“Yes, sir. I will do that—as soon as she wakes up.”

“She isn’t awake? Ah. Well then…anyway. Also, I understand Gul Dukat put several Bajorans to death the other day, going on a tip that you gave him—about balon? I think you should run a follow-up story to that. The weekend crew ran it, and the censor made a mess of it. I need you to handle it, if you’re feeling up to it, of course.”

Natima knew the story, and she knew that the censors had indeed made a mess of it—sometimes they were so overzealous that the stories barely made sense when they ran through. But she was feeling a bit harried right now, having just recovered from a very stressful ordeal. It wouldn’t have troubled her a bit to have taken it easy for a few days. “I…uh, actually…” she murmured.

Dalak interrupted smoothly. “Good. I will expect that story to run tomorrow morning, at the latest. I must go. Deadlines don’t rest for anyone, do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Natima said. She had never particularly liked her boss, but she couldn’t think of a time when she had liked him less than right now. She rubbed the short patch on her head again, tired, sick with worry, trying not to think about Seefa or her new, conflicting thoughts about the annexation, about Dukat, about her role in the Information Service.

That was when an idea occurred to her. The kind of idea that demands a decision, that one cannot easily turn away from once it enters the realm of possibility. It meant risking her job, her all-important work…But not so all-important in the way she’d always believed.

She felt her heart pounding as she began to type up her report for the homeworld comnet, the image of Seefa’s face finally coming clear into her mind as she crafted her words, polished her turns of phrase. The image of his face the moment that it had dawned on her that he was nothing like what she expected him to be.

The comnet would get its story about the Pullock V prisoners tomorrow, but maybe it wouldn’t be exactly the one that her boss had in mind.

Astraea kept her head down as she left the city. Her hair was loose, and she tried to use the long black tresses to shield her face. She’d debated using her shawl to cover her head, to guard her profile, but had finally decided that it might look suspicious. Even after she’d passed the last homes and buildings of the city’s outskirts, she’d felt herself almost trembling with fear that someone she knew would see her, or worse, that her image had been uploaded to the military’s facial-recognition system, and her brief ride on the city’s shuttle had doomed her. Were her crimes serious enough that people would be actively looking for her? It seemed unlikely, although she’d surely been entered into the system by now, marked as a criminal. She had checked into a boardinghouse under her new assumed name, and nobody had come rushing to put her under arrest. Yet.