“This is a mission,” Ro said. “I’ll be working with another outfit from Valo II, that’s all.” In truth she had no idea why Bis wanted to meet with her, but that didn’t matter.

“You’re not taking the raider.”

“Really?” Ro said. “So, you wouldn’t be willing to part with a ship for a day or so just to have me out of camp during that time? I mean, it’s possible I’ll never come back, Tokiah. Just think about that.”

The cell leader frowned. “You’ll dance on all our graves,” he said. “You’ve got more lives than a hara,Laren.”

“I’m taking a raider, Tokiah, whether you agree to it, or I have to steal one. I’d rather you made it easy for me.”

Tokiah said nothing for a moment. “Maybe you shouldn’t come back,” he finally said, his voice soft.

Ro shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. She’d been a part of this cell for long enough that her memory of her life before it was hazy, existing only in pictures that might not have even had any basis in fact. This cell was the only life she really knew. She swallowed. “Fine,” she said, her voice quavering before she cleared her throat. “Maybe I won’t.”

“Just don’t take the Trakor,”Tokiah said. “That one’s my favorite.”

“The Trakorpulls to the port side,” Ro said, her voice low. “I wouldn’t want it anyway.” She turned and left Tokiah, intending to take a walk by herself. Whatever Bis wanted her for, it had to be better than this. He’d deliberately sought her out; for some reason, he needed her, enough to risk a subspace transmission for it. And that was more than she’d ever gotten from any member of her cell, even Bram—and Bram was dead.

Dukat was on the Bajoran side of the station when he was called to ops to answer a transmission from Gul Darhe’el. He turned from the Bajoran shopkeeper who had been spewing out empty flattery in an attempt to distract Dukat from the fact that he was most likely selling black-market items to some of the wretches in ore processing. Dukat didn’t care enough about it to pursue it further—at least, not immediately. He walked away from the shop without further acknowledging the merchant, the swarm of dirty Bajorans parting to allow their prefect to pass.

He accepted the call a few minutes later, apologizing to Darhe’el for making him wait, both of them aware that he did not mean it. Gallitep’s overseer didn’t bother with any pleasantries, announcing the reason for his call without ceremony.

“It’s over,”Darhe’el said. “The main vein is played out, and the secondaries aren’t worth the cost of running the AI. Besides which, I’ve had to continue treating the workers for Kalla-Nohra, at considerable expense. I’ll need that Bajoran scientist to come to the camp, to shut down the AI…. And I’ll need your approval for the rest of it.”

Dukat felt his body tense. The news wasn’t unexpected, but he hadn’t thought it would come quite so soon. Gallitep had finally outlived its usefulness to Cardassia.

“The rest of it,” he murmured, thinking of what Kell would say. Dukat had long believed that it would be a worthy venture to drill deeper below the surface, but Kell had consistently refused to supplement Dukat’s resources with the personnel and equipment that would be necessary to delve that far. Dukat could only hope that the retirement of such a productive facility as Gallitep might persuade Kell to rethink his decision.

“The workers,”Darhe’el sneered. “Unless you want them on your station. I’m sure they’d appreciate dying in the very lap of luxury.”

Dukat sighed. “I see no great wrong in treating them with basic civility, Gul.”

“Which is why the filthy creatures continue to run over our ground troops, doing as they please,”Darhe’el said. “If I were prefect—”

“Oh, but you’re not, are you,” Dukat said, enjoying the darkness that swept across Darhe’el’s heavy face. “You’ve done an excellent job at Gallitep overall, I’ll give you that. And I’m sure that Central Command will find further use for you, perhaps heading a prison facility, or leading a squadron at the front lines, for one of the colonies. But Iam prefect of Bajor, and that means that for the time being, you still answer to me.”

If looks could kill. Dukat smiled, easing back. “I’ll see to it that the necessary technician is sent promptly to deal with the AI. As to the management of the facility’s closure, I’ll leave that to your discretion. Send me your reports, I’ll sign off on whatever choice you make, assuming it’s not unreasonable.”

Dukat nodded and ended the transmission, wondering if Kell would rethink his position, now that Bajor’s most productive uridium mine had played out. Wondering, indeed, what he could do to rework the numbers, to keep Bajor’s output level within the Union’s very high expectations.

Still, he reflected, he should not overlook the bright side to this turn of events: the end of Gallitep also meant the end of Darhe’el, at least as far as Dukat was concerned. Without the option to elevate him to a higher post on Bajor, Kell would have no choice but to recall Darhe’el to Prime.

“Doctor Mora,” Odo said, from where he was sitting in the corner of the lab. Mora waved him off.

“Not now, Odo,” he told him, clicking away at his keypad. “Can’t you regenerate for a while?”

“My composition only requires me to regenerate every seventeen hours,” Odo replied. His pronunciation was flawless, and he’d even begun to learn to put inflection into his voice, though he exaggerated it sometimes.

“Well, maybe you could practice being an insect or something.”

“Doctor Mora, are you nervous?” Odo asked.

Mora looked up at the shape-shifter, whose “face” was appropriately inquisitive. “Yes, Odo, I am nervous. A very important man is coming to the laboratory soon, and I’ve got to be sure that everything is…” He trailed off. He didn’t know what to do for Dukat, exactly, other than have Odo perform for him. He had to figure out a way to make the prefect understand that his research with Odo was important, but he wasn’t sure how to do it without making it seem like a sideshow of some kind.

Yopal had insisted that Dukat would have no interest in what Mora was doing, that he only wanted to speak to Daul about something, and that he wanted to discuss something about weapons with a few of the others. But Mora remained unconvinced. He feared that as soon as Dukat was introduced to him, the prefect would begin asking a thousand questions that Mora wouldn’t know how to answer, and he would find himself in a labor camp before he knew it. And then what would happen to Odo? Mora looked sideways at the shape-shifter, who watched him with his unique non-expression. It always managed to convey sadness, even if Mora couldn’t be sure that the shape-shifter was capable of actually feeling it.

Mora’s computer chirped, indicating that Doctor Yopal was requesting his presence in her office. He headed down the hallway, absentmindedly smoothing his hair back with his hand. Yopal was not alone in her office.

“Yes, what is it, Doctor?”

“We have a new colleague here at the institute. This is Doctor Kalisi Reyar.”

Given leave to do so, Mora turned to regard the other Cardassian woman in the office, a little shorter in stature than Yopal, possibly a little younger, a little more vain; the spoon-shaped concavity in the center of her forehead was filled in with a bit of decorative blue pigment. Other than that, she was nearly indistinguishable from the other women who worked at the institute. They all wore their hair in those peculiarly arranged plaits and bundles, they all had the same wide-open alertness in their eyes. Mora expected to forget her name almost immediately, for he rarely conversed with anyone but Yopal anymore. He extended his hand, and Doctor Reyar looked at it.

“Some Bajorans greet one another by clasping their forearms together,” Yopal told the other woman.