“I see how hard you work,” he said, his voice low in his throat. “I appreciate it.”

She turned to him then, letting her anger carry her. “I’m a weapons engineer, Doctor. I designed and implemented the detection grid that has made Bajor safe for us, that has finally halted the insurgency. And because of a single mistake I made, years ago, the Ministry of Science has given me no credit for my work, for my research. My reward for getting the systems up and running is to be sent here, to fix biobeds for you.”

She’d stepped over the line, but she didn’t care, and the doctor’s heat was coming back at her, his bright eyes flashing with it.

“You think I want to be here? My specialty—my passion—is nonhumanoid exobiology. I had just begun to establish myself at home and the ministry tells me I’m needed here, running research projects on an inferior species, giving inoculations and treating diseases as though I’m some, some medic. At least you get to go out in the field. I’m here every night, every single night, all alone—”

He was suddenly so close to her that she could smell him, the astringent scent of sterilizing hand cleanser, an expensive hair oil. His gaze was brilliant, piercing, and focused entirely on her. His hand slipped around her lower back and he pulled her roughly closer.

She fought him for a just a moment and then allowed herself to be kissed, to feel the crush of his narrow mouth against hers. He was a brilliant man. She would work at his side, find a way not to be forgotten. He pushed his hand into her skirt, and then her only thoughts were of the flesh.

7

Although the occasional alien pilot came through Quark’s bar, as well as the odd half-breed from regions unknown, the vast majority of his clientele looked identical to him: dark, slicked-back hair, uniformly gray skin, and indistinguishable shiny gray military uniforms. Sometimes, if one of the Cardassian regulars struck up a conversation with him, Quark had to engage in a moment of panicky brain-wracking in order to place the man—was it someone he’d talked to before? It took time to recognize a particular Cardassian, and even then, Quark didn’t go much by faces; a man’s voice, his mannerisms, the verbal expressions he frequently used—that was the way to tell, in an ocean of bland gray people.

Women were a different matter. Quark came up from the cellar after the lunch rush one fine, lucrative day to find that there was a new face in his establishment, a female face. He’d seen Cardassian women before, but they were always either uniformed or accompanied by a male. This woman was neither. She was dressed in a long, green gown—not a scientist or a soldier, and apparently nobody’s wife, either. The dimple in her forehead was painted bright blue, something that Quark was reasonably certain indicated that she was not married. The other men in the bar had taken notice, too, a group of noncoms and a couple of glinns at the bar all stealing looks.

Quark saw that his brother was headed toward the woman’s table. Quickly he elbowed his way ahead of Rom and approached the lone Cardassian female.

“Hey,” Rom protested, but Quark ignored him. He flashed his best sales smile at the woman.

“What will you be having, then, miss?”

The woman lifted her face to him, her throat long and graceful, accentuated by the ridges that ran down either side of it. The neckline of her dress dipped down low enough that Quark could see the alien peculiarities of her pectoral bone structure; a scoop, identical to the one on her forehead, was plainly visible just above her breasts. Quark swallowed, noting to himself that he had never seen quite so much of the Cardassian anatomy before; he found this woman’s to be surprisingly agreeable.

“A Samarian Sunset, please,” she said, her voice cool.

“Right away,” he said, and dashed back to the bar.

“Brother,” Rom said. “Your elbows are sharp.” He rubbed his side.

“Sharper than your wit,” Quark grumbled, mixing the drink. “Can’t you see there are a half-dozen customers who haven’t been waited on?”

“I was trying to see to that woman back there—”

“I’ll handle her, Rom. You take care of those soldiers in the corner.”

“Oh. Okay, brother.”

On his way back to the woman’s table, Quark nearly tripped over one of his Bajoran day laborers, a scrawny man who had gone blind in one eye. The man looked up from where he had been scrubbing the floor, his ruined eye disarmingly cloudy and dead-seeming, and Quark scowled at the sight of him. “Out of my way,” he barked, shoving the crouched old man with his knees.

“Forgive me, Quark,” the man said huskily.

Quark felt a little nauseous, regarding this poor creature. Since that conversation with Gaila, he’d gone out of his way to show the Bajorans no mercy. He had his reputation to consider; for a businessman, “soft” was like a curse.

“Ferengi do not forgive,” he said sharply. “I can’t have my customers stumbling over a bag of bones on their way to the tables. Do your job, or it’s back to the mines.”

“Of course,” the man replied, following it up with a coughing fit.

“And try to control your coughing! This is a place of relaxation—we don’t need to be confronted with the specter of your various…maladies!”

Quark stepped over the Bajoran and set the drink down in front of the pretty woman, smiling broadly. He tapped the side of her glass with a fingernail, and the clarity of the glass was suddenly overtaken by a reddish cloud that dissipated into a soft, orange glow.

“One Samarian Sunset,” he announced with a flourish.

“Thank you,” she said, eyeing the Bajoran man on the floor. She seemed troubled, but Quark could not be sure, going by her mysterious expression alone. Maybe she didn’t like Bajorans. He could not take his eyes off her. Her skin wasn’t so much gray as the pale, metallic hue of the Ferengi sky on a spring morning. Her eyes sparkled like gems.

Quark put his hands together and watched her as she took her first sip. “Is it to your liking?” he asked eagerly.

She smiled, and cleared her throat. “It’s fine, thank you, Mister…”

“Quark, the proprietor of this humble tavern.” He spread his hands.

“Well, Mister Quark. I’m Natima. Natima Lang. It’s a fine place, your establishment. The last time I was here, I remember thinking that the station was sorely lacking a nice place for…food and drink.”

“The last time you were here?” Quark cocked his head.

She took another sip. “When I was a much younger woman than I am now.” She laughed softly.

“You look plenty young to me,” Quark said honestly. Cardassians hid their ages well.

She snorted a ladylike snort. “Thank you, Mister Quark, but…I doubt the Cardassians in here would agree with you. You might have noticed they can’t stop staring at me.”

“Because you’re so attractive,” Quark said, again in earnest.

She laughed again, louder this time. “It’s because they can’t figure out what a female civilian my age is doing in a place like this, without a male escort.”

Quark slid into the seat opposite hers. “I’ll admit that very question occurred to me, as well.”

She set down her drink, stared at it. “I’m with the Cardassian Information Service. I’ve been sent to report on the state of the annexation. I was on the surface of Bajor, years ago, and now…I’ve been sent back, though I’ll be staying on the station this time.”

Quark nodded. “So I can look forward to seeing you again?”

She smiled, meeting his gaze evenly. “Yes, I suppose you can.” She gestured to the soldiers that surrounded them. “If they will tolerate it.”

Quark shrugged. “Who cares what they think?”

“Women have their roles within my society,” she said, and sounded rueful, though Quark couldn’t imagine why.

“Isn’t it that way in every society?” he asked. “I mean, besides those Bajorans—they’ve got nothing in the way of civilized societal structure. Their women just run around, willy-nilly, doing any old thing the men do—”