Basso knew exactly what had changed. He hesitated, considering the implications for only a fleeting moment before he said it. “Well, I suppose you weren’t aware that Naprem recently gave birth to a baby girl.”

“Naprem?” Meru leaned back very far in her seat as she regarded Basso with puzzlement. “Who…is Naprem?”

“Why, Meru, I suppose I thought you already knew about Tora Naprem. She is another of Dukat’s…comfort-givers. She resides on the surface, however. I suppose Dukat felt it wouldn’t be decent to have you both on the station.”

Meru looked appropriately shocked, and Basso felt a cruel twist of amusement. Maybe now Meru would think twice about giving the prefect such a difficult time of it, if she understood how disposable she really was. “So, you’ll not be needing anything, then?”

Meru shook her head from side to side, slowly, as if in a complete daze. Basso bowed to her and walked backwards out of the room, letting the doors close behind him. He chuckled unpleasantly as he left the room, but then he considered. He would have to handle the aftermath of this carefully. It would not bode well for him if Dukat were to learn who had leaked the secret to his station mistress. Basso began immediately to formulate his next move, for he would have to be clever to keep his own skin safe.

It was worth it, though,he thought. The look on her face…Definitely worth it.

Dr. Mora ran through the security protocols for his computer, shutting down the laboratory for the night. It was late, and he was exhausted, but he considered himself lucky that he was even going home tonight—Doctor Daul had been spending many a night in the laboratory since he had been put on the artificial intelligence upgrade.

Mora considered the progress he had made with Yopal’s anomalous organic material, which had turned out to be a gelatinous substance with the ability to mimic various forms about the laboratory—even a vaguely humanoid form. The Cardassians were quite impressed with what Mora had heretofore done with it, but beyond party tricks, Mora wasn’t sure what further progress there was to be made with the “odo’ital,”as the Cardassians had begun to call it—the word for “unknown sample” in their native language.

Mora regarded the amber-hued liquid, the color of copalcider, stirring peacefully in a transparent container in the corner of the lab. He considered, with curious pride—as well as some measure of concern—that the liquid had increased in mass considerably since he began running his tests. He had enjoyed his work with the odo’ital,and would no doubt miss it once Doctor Yopal reassigned him to something else—for as soon as she discovered that his research was beginning to plateau, she would no doubt find a new project for Mora, possibly even something as unpleasant as Gallitep’s mining operation.

He sighed heavily as he dimmed the lights and turned to go, but a strangely familiar sound stopped him in his tracks. He turned, looking around the lab, empty of life. “Hello?” he said, a little uneasily.

He was met with silence. He checked himself, chuckling a little at his own tired jumpiness, and turned again. And then again, there it was. A sound that was distinctly…well, it was very much like…it was a sigh.

Ever the scientist, Mora sighed again himself, louder this time. Sure enough, he was met with a response in kind, though he could not be sure where it was coming from. His face prickled as he considered the eeriness of it, but he had a strange hunch that he knew what was making the sound—for he had suspected for months now that the odo’italwas more than just a tank of glop. He’d been possessed of…a feeling, an idea. He believed the goo, unquestionably a new kind of life-form, was more than just some cellular broth. He begun to suspect it might actually be sentient.

Once more he sighed, and once more he heard a similar sound coming from the corner of the lab. He was sure of it now, it was coming from the tank, where the golden soup roiled and sloshed in its container, an approximation of Bajor’s seas during a brilliant storm. The life-form was trying to communicate with him. Mora knew it. And this was the breakthrough he needed right now, to save his tenuous placement at the institute. He ordered the computer to put the lights back up. He would not be going home tonight after all.

Ro Laren’s raider hung passively in space as she waited for a signal from Sadakita Rass, the pilot who was flying the scoutship. The Bram cell always stuck to the same formation when they left the Bajoran atmosphere, dodging the grids by staggering their signals in a particular fashion that confused the Cardassian patrol vessels. Laren tapped her sensor panel impatiently with her fingers before she got the chirp she was waiting for. She put on a burst of speed and quickly changed her direction.

It was not ten minutes later that she saw what her cell was after—the drifting wreckage of an alien freighter, first spied by Sadakita two days before. She had reported it back to Bram, who decided it was worth a second look. Laren had no means of confirming it, but Sadakita believed the vessel had belonged to the Ferengi, the alien merchants who sometimes dared venture into other star systems, even B’hava’el’s, if it meant a big enough profit.

Laren could already see that the freighter had sustained extensive damage to its port side. Probably the inhabitants had bailed out of it, but she was surprised the Cardassians hadn’t taken the ship yet. Maybe they had no use for it. Maybe they’d already stripped it. There was only one way to be sure.

Procedure was to wait for Sadakita to do another patrol sweep before they approached the ship, but Laren was tired of waiting. Though she had never docked on another ship before, she had a vague idea of how it was done, and she maneuvered her shuttle to the vessel’s open bay, taking her stealthy little craft into the derelict’s dark, gaping underbelly.

“Laren,”came a transmission; it was Bram, calling from his own raider. “Is that you I see docking? Wait up on that. It could be booby-trapped.”

Laren considered, and decided Bram was being overly cautious. She didn’t want to wait for him—he probably only wanted to be the first on the ship, anyway. She went ahead and docked, her tiny craft thumping crazily inside the bay of the hulking scow. It came to a rest inside a chamber flooded with blackness, and she put on her night visor. “My sensors say breathable atmosphere, and gravity,” she reported back. “There must still be some kind of auxiliary power system intact, because the drop ramp came up behind me, so—”

“Laren, do not—I repeat—do not exit your vessel! Stay inside it until I can get there. Sadakita’s coming around, and I have to cover her before I can get to you.”

Again, Laren scoffed at Bram’s typical stodginess. He was always telling her what to do, and his advice was often wrong, anyway. She pushed back the glacis plate of her ship and took a deep breath. Her lungs did not collapse; she did not immediately begin choking on poison gases. Bram was afraid to take risks.

She hopped out of the raider, the night visor providing only a scant glow. She produced a palmlight and began to wave it about the bay. She could see nothing that interested her, only the most alien construction techniques she had ever seen.

Laren found an airlock and worked its thick double portals to gain access to the rest of the ship. Passing into the adjoining corridor, she spotted a bizarrely configured control console next to the airlock. It powered up when she touched it, and though it was mostly indecipherable to her, she managed to find the proper key that reopened the cargo bay for Bram. With that accomplished, she continued down the corridor; Bram was only going to scold her, and she wasn’t in any hurry to listen to it.