As the evening’s final service concluded, Opaka bid good-bye to the Bajoran worshipers as they filed out of the sanctuary, and then gathered together the ceremonial items to be put away in the reliquary. She turned to acknowledge her fifteen-year-old son Fasil, who waited for her in the pews, amusing himself by whittling on a bit of kindling he had picked out of the firewood. Opaka was exhausted—she had stayed awake too late the night before, studying prophecy—and she looked forward to joining her son for dinner in their small cottage, but her persistent unease remained. She had considered speaking to the kai about her concerns, but something held her back. She did not want him to perceive her questions as an accusation in any way, and she knew she must think carefully about how to approach him.

Someone spoke behind her. “Vedek Opaka, you seem troubled.”

She turned, still holding chimes and braziers. It was Gar Osen, an elder vedek who served as close counsel to the kai. She liked him well enough, though he had always seemed a bit reclusive to her. It was typical of him to ask after another’s concerns, but rare for him to share his own feelings.

“Thank you, Vedek Gar. I suppose I was just considering…” She hesitated, but Gar’s expression was so effectively compassionate that she decided to unburden herself of her thoughts. “In regard to the kai’s sermon today, I…confess I often wonder at the efficacy of the D’jarras in today’s world. I don’t mean to say that they should be abandoned, of course, but—” She paused, but Gar’s expression hadn’t changed, and she felt encouraged to continue.

“Perhaps the Prophets don’t always mean for us to passively wait for answers to fall to us,” she said. “Perhaps the Prophets expect us to find conviction within ourselves when things become difficult, to call upon our own individual strengths and weaknesses, and…perhaps a redefinition of the D’jarras isin order, considering the circumstances. I say this only because it seems that so many of the castes have become irrelevant in this new climate, and they serve to divide us, at a time when unity is so…imperative…”

She trailed off, fearing that she had said too much. Gar’s silence had finally unnerved her, and she waited for him to weigh in with an opinion of his own.

“Vedek Opaka, it seems you have given a lot of thought to this matter. Would you like it if I were to speak to the kai on your behalf?”

“Yes,” she told him, flooded with hope and relief. “You understand—I only want to open a dialogue. Perhaps the kai has something to say that will help me to better understand his approach.”

Vedek Gar nodded. “Perhaps he does, at that.”

He took Opaka’s left ear between his thumb and forefinger, and she closed her eyes as the energy of her paghwas revealed to him.

“Your paghreflects deep sincerity, Vedek Opaka.” He bowed slightly, and left her.

Opaka bowed in turn, and went to put away the ceremonial items, pleased that she’d spoken after all.

The man’s name was Thill, Thill Revi, and he was as coarse and unappealing as most Bajorans. Natima could have interviewed him for the story over her office’s secure line, but there was also going to be a minor “summit” at the base where Thill was in protective custody, a conference of all the base commanders in the Rakantha province; the Information Service needed a representative there. Her supervisor hadn’t wanted to send her—the military base and the small Cardassian community it protected were near a heavily forested area in Rakantha, not a secure area in spite of the heavy concentration of soldiers there—but most of his male reporters were on assignment, and she was one of his best filters, fast and clean. He’d assigned her a recorder and a travel permit and told her not to linger.

As though I’m on vacation,she thought, looking into the narrow, damp face of Thill Revi as he studied her press badge. They sat in one of the base’s small meeting rooms, thankfully heated but otherwise unpleasant, bare, and ill-lit. Her “escort,” a base garresh, leaned against the far wall looking entirely bored. She was glad to be covering the conference; it would stream as a lead piece, worth the price of the last-minute travel, a cramped transport full of leering soldiers, a tight deadline…But another interview with one of themtook some of the shine off.

Thill handed back her hardcopy pass, his expression too alien to understand. Suspicion? Anger? The Bajoran had graying hair and thin lines around his nose and mouth. When he spoke, his voice was sharp and nasal.

“You say you want to know about Mesto?” Thill asked. “Write a story about it?”

Natima nodded, and spoke with a patience she didn’t feel. “Produce it, actually. As I said when I contacted you last week. I’m doing a piece about the Bajoran approval of Union annexation, focusing on men and women—like yourself—who’ve accepted our presence here, and have chosen to help us, in spite of the risks from Bajoran insurgents.”

Thill’s narrow face grew narrower. “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. “All I did was tell our town liaison about Mesto Drade. He told the commander here, and they arrested him.”

Natima checked the recorder, adjusted the angle slightly. “He’s your neighbor, is that correct?”

“Farm next to my outfit,” Thill said. His tone was sullen. “Don’t know that that makes him a neighbor.”

“Tell me how you found out what Mesto was doing,” Natima said. Usually such an open-ended invitation started them talking. Most of the Bajorans she’d interviewed were only too eager to explain themselves, to convince anyone who might listen that they weren’t really like the others, the collaborators.

Thill folded his arms. “You hear things. Drade, he thinks—he thought he was better than me. Farmer’s no better than craftsman, though, no matter what anyone says. We’re the same on the wheel.”

D’jarras, she thought. The caste system. She stifled her distaste at the ignorance of his beliefs, reminding herself that he’d been raised into his cultural superstitions; it wasn’t his fault. “Mesto was hiding the parts of a nearly complete warp reactor in his barn, along with stockpiles of chemical explosives. Your decision to turn him in probably saved lives.”

Thill looked sour. “Ruined mine, though, didn’t it? It’s not just the rebels, you know. None of them—my ‘neighbors’—none of them ever treated me real good. My family D’jarra, Ke’lora,is low on the wheel, see? I’m a tanner, come from a long line of tanners. It’s a respectable position, you know, working the skins. ‘And as the tradesman plies his wares, so the tanner scrapes the hides, so the ranjen studies the Word.’ That’s a direct quote from the Book of Seasons, isn’t it? But all those high-caste types, they don’t want to shake hands with someone like me. Same with my da, an’ his da before him. Good men, treated poor.”

His expression darkened. “Since I told about Mesto, though, no one will even lookat me. I went to the market day after the soldiers came, and they wouldn’t even sell me a drink of water. I should have expected as much. They say they believe the Word, but when Drade stopped farming, when he openly shunned his Fate, they all looked the other way. Someone had to stop him, that’s all. “

His mouth pinched even tighter. “Never thought they’d do what they did to me, though.”

Natima nodded along, trying to appear empathetic. It was a common story. Even after all this time, the Bajorans ostracized, harassed, even threatened “collaborators.” Thill was at the military base because a week after he’d informed on Mesto, someone had tried to burn his house down, with him inside of it. He’d come to the base for protection. Usually informants weren’t offered any kind of shelter, but the station commander had personally benefited from the seizure of the warp reactor and explosives; he’d granted Thill a temporary sanctuary.