The process of herding everyone into the tunnel was slow and painstaking, and many people continued to resist, trying to move in the opposite direction and holding up progress, but Kira had help from others who apparently felt that the chance to get out, no matter how slim, trumped their fear of some kind of trick. By the time Kira entered the black, sweltering tunnel behind the enormous crowd of people, she began to have second thoughts. Not only was it hot and dark in here, but the smoke had made it almost impossible to breathe. By the time everyone could get to the tunnel, many of them might suffocate.

But there was no time to reformulate the plan; there were a hundred things or more that could go wrong. Kira still had no idea what had happened to Shakaar and Lupaza, nor any of the others who had been transported after her, although she thought she could hear phaser fire above her. She saw no guards, and feared they might have all been transported into the offices above, only to come back at any moment—or worse, bring in reinforcements to put a stop to the escape. Worse yet, there was the possibility that Mobara and Furel, who were back at the Institute of Science, had been caught at the industrial transporter. Then they would all be trapped here with no other means of getting out.

People in the back of the tunnel were coughing and crying. “I can’t breathe!” shouted a woman. “Get us out of here, please!”

Standing at the mouth of the tunnel, Kira recognized Lupaza coming closer with more people. “Lupaza!” Kira cried out. “We have to get these people out of here, quickly! It’s going to take too much time to get everyone together, we’ll have to begin transporting them now!”

Lupaza turned to regard the long rope of people still advancing toward the tunnel through the thinning smoke, listened to those at the back of the cavern who cried out in the claustrophobic darkness, and gave a quick nod. She pressed her comm device.

“Mobara, it’s Lupaza! I’m here with Nerys—we have to start transporting people out right away.”

“How many would you estimate are with you?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “Can’t you just lock on to our signals and get as many out as you can?”

“I think so,”he said. “I hope so,”he added. “I don’t know the first thing about what this transporter beam is capable of, but I’ll widen it to its full distance capacity and see where that gets us.”

Kira shut her eyes tightly and felt a distinctive pins-and-needles sensation in her limbs and torso. When she opened her eyes, she was somewhere else; somewhere in the Dahkur woods—and she was surrounded by dozens of bewildered-looking people, malnourished, injured, coughing, and crying—and then muttering and exclaiming their amazement over what had just happened.

“Wait!” someone standing near Kira cried out. “Where’s Tynara?”

“Tynara will be here!” Kira shouted. “Please, remain calm, everyone. Just stay here with me, the rest will be here soon.” She hoped it was true.

Many people had now fallen to their knees, shouting with joy, others were crying, though Kira couldn’t tell if it was from fear or jubilation. Some still appeared to be in a daze, rubbing their faces in confusion or simply staring up at the trees as if they’d forgotten what trees looked like. Many were calling out for missing family and friends, searching for people who were not here yet—and who might not ever come, Kira thought, for even if Shakaar and the others made it with the rest of the survivors, plenty of Bajorans must have died today, either as a result of the accident that had caused the fire, or from having been too close to fleeing Cardassian guards who haunted the upper reaches of the mine.

After what seemed like a very long time, Gantt and Shakaar arrived with a smaller group of people.

“Did we get everyone out?” Kira pressed Shakaar.

“As many as we could see,” he told her, his tone hasty and dismissive, looking among the faces for the rest of his cell. Kira recognized others from the Shakaar cell in the growing, noisy crowd, Dakahna and Ornak and the young couple from outside Tamulna who had just joined the cell, but two were still missing, and Shakaar was trying to get clear word from Mobara regarding what had happened to them.

“Edon,” Lupaza prompted him, “we need to get these people to safety.”

Kira interrupted. “The scientist,” she said. “What about him? Mobara is supposed to…”

“Nerys,” Lupaza said gently, “the scientist is gone. He was in the structure when it fell from the suspension bridge above us.”

Kira shook her head. “But…” she said, “you can’t be sure…”

Gantt put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s gone,” he told her. “Now, we’ve got to get these people out of here. We’d better let Mobara know to get him and Furel back to the camp, and we’ve got to get these people somewhere safe.”

Swallowing hard, Kira nodded.

Valo II had grown dark, the people in the tents and rotted wood huts and eroding brick houses all gone to sleep. Ro knew that somewhere, Bis was probably looking for her by now.

Ro made her way to the landing field on Valo II, where the Ferengi freighter lay scattered in pieces. But she knew the comm was still functional, the comm that Bis and his friends had used to formulate their careful plan—the plan that she was now about to sabotage.

She managed to contact DaiMon Gart quite easily; Ro still recalled the comm code she’d seen on his bar tab. His face appeared on the tiny screen alongside the aural device. “DaiMon Gart,” she shouted, hoping the universal translator was still working.

“Who are you?”the Ferengi DaiMon said gruffly.

“I’m a…terrorist, DaiMon Gart. I wanted to let you know that…I put a bomb on your ship.”

The Ferengi’s eyes suddenly went wide with fear, and he began to shriek. “What?”he cried. “Why would you have done such a thing? I’m an honest man! Is this about the ion coil assemblies? Because they were in perfectly good shape when I sold them, I assure you!”

“No…it’s not…it’s…look, DaiMon Gart, you have to eject your cargo, now, or it’s going to react with the bomb and you’ll never see another…ion coil assembly…or anything else…ever again!”

The man stopped screaming, and looked suspicious. “Eject my cargo? Are you mad? Do you have any idea how much latinum I’m going to be making with this run?”

“Which is more important to you, DaiMon—latinum, or your life?”

The Ferengi considered for what Ro thought was an absurdly long time before finally making his decision. “My life,”he said grudgingly.

“Then you’re going to have to eject your cargo, DaiMon. I’m sorry. If you don’t believe me, you can send someone back there to confirm that there’s a device in the bay, but I’m not sure I’d advise tampering with it. The men who built it were a bit on the amateur side.”

The DaiMon appeared to consider this for a moment. “I believe you,”he said. “You’ve got an…honest face.”He said the last part with clear revulsion. He muttered to himself for a moment, looking over his control panel. “Yes,”he said, “you’re telling the truth, aren’t you? My scans show an object of unidentified origin and composition in the cargo bay…”He looked positively miserable. “Why would you do this to me?”he cried.

“Hey, I’m saving your life right now!” Ro pointed out, but it seemed of little consolation to the Ferengi.

“Fine,”he practically sobbed, and began to mutter to himself again, though it sounded quite distinctly mournful this time. With an exaggerated and deliberate gesture, he stabbed at a control panel on his sensor array. Ro sighed with relief, and left the comm without so much as a good-bye to the Ferengi.

She wandered away from the landing field and walked aimlessly around the perimeter of the village, finding the copse of trees where she had once taken a little walk with Bis, to hide from Bram. She remembered hoping that he would kiss her. It was so foolish, she recognized now, not just the thoughts she’d had as a younger girl, but that she’d been so easily convinced to take part in such a dangerous and costly plan by the promise of…what? Love? She almost laughed out loud at it now. Even after all she’d shared with him, all of herself that she’d given him, Bis had just been expecting her to go back to Jeraddo, go back to Jo’kala, without a second thought of him.