15

Kubus Oak was in mid-sentence when the doors to Dukat’s office abruptly slid open. “…which certainly makes the best economic sense. As always, your wisdom is—” Kubus stopped short, turning to see the highlighted silhouette of Kira Meru, flanked by a frantic Basso Tromac.

“I tried to stop her, Gul Dukat,” Basso said. “But she wouldn’t—”

“Thank you, Basso, that will be all. Kubus, we will continue this conversation at another time.”

Kubus rose, barely acknowledging Meru as he swept from the room. Dukat gestured to his mistress. “Sit down, please.”

She remained standing for a moment before finally sinking down into the seat that faced him. Now that she was here, she was not quite sure how to begin. She looked around, considering that she had never been inside his office before. So this was where he spent most of his time—or had, anyway, before meeting his new mistress…what was her name? Meru couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t important. She decided to get straight to the point.

“Skrain…you…you…have been spending a great deal of time away from the station of late, and I thought…perhaps…you had no more use for me.” She took a breath, her gaze trained on the place where his heavy desk met the floor.

Dukat appeared shocked. “Meru! I can’t imagine what could possibly give you such an idea. I love you, and you ought to know that by now. It isn’t as though I think of you as a mere object, to be used and then discarded.”

He went on, but Meru was not listening. She wanted desperately to convey to him that if he meant to be done with her, it would not hurt her feelings in the least, but she wanted to do it delicately, for she didn’t want to give him the impression that she was eager to leave him. But in truth, she waseager. Since she had learned of his new mistress from Basso, she had finally begun to visit those forbidden thoughts that she had mostly learned to suppress many years ago—mostly. Sometimes she forgot herself, especially after a dream; dreams were a difficult matter, for she could not control them. Often, when she began to wake, she would feel as though she were desperately clawing her way back to her slumber, to go back to Taban and the children, even if it was not real.

But perhaps now she had a chance to do it in earnest. Much time had passed, and she wondered if her children would even recognize her, or she, them. Basso had stopped bringing isolinear recordings from the surface a very long time ago, and Meru’s heart ached even to try and imagine what her children looked like now. Nerys, with her huge, expressive eyes and her bright, coppery hair—she would be ten years old now. Reon and Pohl, little men, not the babies she had left behind. And Taban…perhaps Taban had even remarried. The idea of it filled her with a nearly unendurable sensation of sorrow, worse even than the idea that he might be dead. It was selfish of her, hypocritical—but the thought of him having found love with another woman was nearly too much to bear.

Would any of them accept her back? Most likely they believed her to be dead, for Taban had originally sent word that he felt it would be better if they didn’t know what her true fate had been. Could she tell the truth, and would they be willing to forgive her? She didn’t know, but she felt it was worth the risk, if only to see them again, if only to return to her homeworld.

Dukat had stopped speaking, and was waiting for her reply. She cleared her throat. “Skrain, I love you as well. I always will, and I will always appreciate all you have done for me. But if ever there comes a time when you feel you would prefer to…to move on from me…from our relationship…”

Dukat’s puzzlement looked different now, and Meru hoped that he had at last begun to understand what she was trying to say. He gave her a terse nod, and stood from his desk, reaching out for one of her hands. “You’ve given me much to consider,” he told her, his voice sounding oddly strained. “But perhaps this is not the most appropriate time for us to have this discussion. I will see you later this evening, if you will consent to have dinner with me.”

“Of course,” Meru answered. His question was a bit strange, as it had been many years since he had put on the pretense of “asking” her to dinner. Over time, he had dropped most of his formality when the two were together, speaking as plainly and honestly to her as Taban once had. Meru feared she had hurt him, and she squeezed his hand before she let it go. She would never deliberately hurt this man, but the idea of freedom—it was worth almost any price to her.

Doctor Yopal often insisted on observing Mora’s research sessions with Odo—as he had taken to calling the “unknown sample”—but the frequency of her visits did almost nothing to ease the discomfort that resulted from her presence. Mora set a wide display screen in front of the tank, and then plugged an isolinear recording into his computer port. The display lit up with an illuminated diagram of a Bajoran vocal configuration.

“You see, Odo?” Mora said to the tank. “You understand this, don’t you?”

Yopal snorted audibly, and Mora’s face burned. He took up an electrostatic device from his work surface, a long-handled object with a probe at one end. He inserted the probe into the tank and set the cytoplasmic charge on a medium setting. The liquid in the tank immediately began to quiver, and in a steady motion the substance swept and twisted itself into a humanoid form, standing oddly erect in the center of the transparent tank. Odo opened his “mouth” and began making sounds, a rough, guttural sort of noise, akin to a clearing of the throat.

“Ah!” Yopal said, clearly impressed. “So, you have taught it to make noises, have you?”

“Yes, I have, Doctor Yopal,” Mora said nervously. Odo had done better in the session last night, but increasing the charge actually had an adverse effect on his progress; he had to hold it steady at its current rate.

“ M-m-m,”Mora said, trying to get Odo to imitate him, as he had done the night before. “Mora.”

“Uhmmmm,” Odo replied. “Memmm. Memdoooo…”

Mora smiled. “There, you see?”

Yopal nodded vigorously. “Very impressive, Mora. I must say, I always assumed from the creature’s…expression that it was indifferent to what we were trying to glean from it.”

“I made that mistake as well,” Mora admitted. “Though I knew his face was only an approximation of my own…it is hard to see past the impassivity written in his eyes.”

Yopal kept her ever-present smile, but her tone was less than commending. “I must say, I am surprised you never before considered the possibility that this substance could have some level of awareness.”

Mora was annoyed; in fact he hadconsidered it, and had said as much. He imagined she was probably galled that he had inadvertently implied that she had made a “mistake.”

“This is a perfect example of why women are better suited to the sciences,” Yopal said. “Men simply don’t explore all the possibilities. They tend to become stalled on a single facet of an equation, never knowing quite when to move on and branch out.”

“Of course,” Mora said, nodding deferentially.

“Well, Mora, I’ll take my leave of you now. I look forward to reading your latest report on this matter.”

“Indeed,” he murmured, nodding to her as she left. He switched off the viewscreen. He reminded himself, as he put the electrostatic device away, that being condescended to by Yopal was still a welcome alternative to doing what Daul had been forced to do.

“Mmmm…memdo-mage,” Odo said.

“Yes, Odo, that’s quite enough,” Mora said, and obediently, the pale “person” turned into a shimmering, twisting mass of fluid. Mora watched as he did so, for though he had seen it happen hundreds of times, it never failed to fascinate him.