“Hi,” she called out, as she came close enough to ensure that it was really him. “What’re you doing?”

“I came to tell you something,” Bis said, his green eyes immediately shifting away from her face. “My pa says to tell you that you can join us for breakfast in the morning.”

Laren fell in step with Bis as she came closer to him, and began to deliberately walk in the opposite direction from Bram’s camp. “How old are you?” she asked him.

“I’m sixteen just last month,” he said, and cleared his throat.

“I’m fifteen,” she said, before remembering that she’d already told Keeve she was really only fourteen. Bis didn’t point out the discrepancy. “Do you ever fly those warp ships?” she asked him.

Bis looked ashamed. “I…have flown them with my father,” he said. “Not by myself.”

“Are you coming along, on this mission?”

Bis’s mouth twisted. “I don’t know,” he said. “I want to, but…” His voice trailed off.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

They continued walking in silence.

“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” Bis suddenly blurted out. They stopped walking.

Laren felt a flush of excitement. “I’ve never met anyone like you, either,” she told him. She took a step closer to him; perhaps now she would find out what all the fuss was about with kissing and the like, but just as she thought it might be about to happen, Bram’s angry voice blared out from behind them.

“Laren! I don’t appreciate your just walking off like that. Prophets’ sake, I thought a wild animal had carried you off! If you’re going to go wandering, you might want to give me a heads-up. Now, come back to camp, I need your help digging a latrine.”

Laren wrinkled her nose with embarrassment and looked to Bis with apology. “I have to be getting back, anyway,” he mumbled, and scurried off in the opposite direction while Bram herded Laren back to their miserable camp.

“What did I tell you about that boy?” he admonished, but Laren wasn’t really listening. She dragged her feet on the way back, considering the possibility of sneaking out later on, but rejecting the idea on the basis of Bram’s confounded twitchy sleeping habits. The man tended to wake up at the slightest sound; a useful trait in the resistance, but pretty infuriating for a pair of curious teenagers.

Mora’s eyes grew heavy as he blundered through his notes; he knew Yopal would trouble him about the grammatical errors, but he couldn’t be bothered with it now; he was tired, though excited. He’d managed a few conversations lately with Odo wherein the shape-shifter had demonstrated inarguable reciprocity; there was simply no longer any doubt that the being was self-aware.

“Doc-tor More-ah,” Odo said from behind him, his newfound voice rough and guttural. Mora started. He’d been under the impression that Odo was “sleeping.”

“What is it, Odo?”

“Doctor More-ah, Doctor Yopal. He is…not the same…as you are. He looks…not the same.”

“She,” Mora corrected Odo. “Doctor Yopal is a woman, Odo. There is a distinction between humanoid men and women, remember?”

“Yes,” the shape-shifter said. “Woman. She. Doctor Yopal is a woman.”

“That is correct.”

“And men. Don’t make good scientists.”

Mora smiled reservedly. Odo had never stopped delivering this refrain from time to time. Perhaps it comforted him, as the first intelligible phrase he’d come up with on his own, but Mora failed to be quite as amused by it as he had been the first few times.

“So says Doctor Yopal, Odo.”

The shape-shifter cocked his head, an affectation he had picked up somewhere. “Women look not the same as men.”

“Well, it isn’t only that she is a woman and I am a man, Odo. Doctor Yopal and I…we come from different worlds. Our features are dissimilar because we are of different races. There are many different varieties of humanoids in the galaxy, Odo, and they all have distinguishing features.”

“Different. Doctor Yopal is different from Doctor Mora.”

“Yes. That’s correct. She is a Cardassian, and I am a Bajoran.”

Odo said nothing for a moment, then he gestured to himself. “And Odo. Odo is not a Bajoran. Odo is not a Cardassian.”

There was nothing in the creature’s expression or inflection of voice to suggest it, but Mora had a distinct impression of sadness. “No,” he answered. “Odo is a shape-shifter.”

Odo said nothing, and Mora decided that he wanted to change the subject. “You have learned to speak so quickly, Odo. Did you understand what I was saying, before I began my attempts to coax you to speak on your own?”

Again, Odo’s face did not change much; though the shape-shifter had been experimenting with expression, he was revealing nothing now. “Understand. Odo did not always…understand. But some sounds…some words, began learned.”

“Why then, did you not try to speak?”

The shape-shifter tried a smile, an effect that never failed to unsettle Mora. “Odo did not know if Mora wanted it.”

“You mean, you didn’t think I wanted to hear you speak?”

The shape-shifter nodded jerkily.

“Well, there was plenty you could have said!” Mora exclaimed, but Odo only continued to stare, his strange, barren expression continuing to reflect absolutely nothing to suggest what might have been going on in his brain, as though “brain” even applied.

Mora cleared his throat. “I’ve got to finish my notes, Odo. Why don’t you go back to your tank.”

Odo said nothing, just obeyed. As always, Mora was left with the hunger to know more, though he had no choice but to follow a certain protocol. Had he been left to his own devices to study the shape-shifter, he would have carried out the process much differently, but it was imperative that he perform in the manner laid out by the Cardassians, for there was no telling what would happen to Odo if Mora were pulled off this project. Indeed, Mora had come to regard the shape-shifter as more than just a “project,” for he saw Odo more often than he saw his own parents. With as much time as he spent with the shape-shifter, teaching him, testing him, he almost felt that Odo was part of his family, now.

Dukat had called Kubus Oak to his office to harangue the man about his failure to deliver more workers to Gallitep in a timely manner, for the mines were still operating at far below capacity since the accident, now six months gone. Kubus was full of excuses, as usual. He claimed that Dukat had warned him never to pull his workforce from Dahkur province, which was utter nonsense—Dukat had never said anything of the sort. He advised the so-called “secretary” to tell his men to pick up any stragglers found outside the proscribed boundaries and bring them to Gallitep at once, for Darhe’el had been contacting Dukat on the matter with annoying frequency.

Kubus was just leaving to go back to his quarters and do whatever it was he did in there, when a breathless Basso Tromac arrived in his office, unusually late to the briefing.

“My apologies, Gul,” Basso said. “There was a mechanical problem at the docking ring that needed to be resolved. It could not be helped.”

“Well, you’ve missed the conference,” he told the Bajoran. “Kubus is just leaving, and I’ve no reason to repeat our conversation. Although…I do have a question or two for you, Basso, if Kubus will excuse us.”

The Bajoran official took his leave, and Dukat immediately set to interrogating his aide. “Have you come from the hospital?”

“Yes, sir. I took the last shuttle back, but as I said, there was a problem at the docking ring and all passengers were briefly detained while the engineers—”

“I’m not interested,” Dukat said tensely. “I want to know of Meru’s condition. Is it—”

“Terminal, yes, sir. Doctor Moset confirmed that it is a particularly virile strain of the Fostossa virus. She is not expected to make it through the week.”

Dukat’s chin dropped on his chest. “Such a tragedy for one so young,” he said softly. “I suppose I will have to go look in on her in the next few days…” He felt a genuine regret as he said it. A hard ache persisted in his chest, thinking of her, frail and nearly lifeless in the clinical isolation of the hospital—yes, he’d better go to her, soon. He owed it to her to make her final moments as comfortable as possible. Although perhaps she would prefer to see her Bajoran husband…