He gestured to the woman’s flat belly. “More about their reproductive systems, for one thing.”

“To what purpose?”

He smiled again, what she thought of as his teacher smile. “Ultimately, our work here is about finding ways to improve the health of the Bajoran labor force. To maintain optimal productivity. Gestation and child-rearing generally hinders the productivity of the parents.”

Kalisi shook her head. “You’re devising ways to sterilize them?”

His smile took on an edge of excitement. “Think. For the Union, there’s no need for another generation of Bajorans—and really, it does them a kindness. Spares them from having to watch their children starve to death, once we’re gone. And, it means a more effective work force while we’re still here.”

He leaned over the woman and made a swift, deep incision across her lower belly. Blood pulsed and pooled, slid over her bare hips to the table beneath. He lifted the flap of tissue, gestured at the wet red inside the bleeding gash, as though Kalisi would recognize the dying woman’s womb.

“That’s the problem,” he said, nodding once. “They breed like voles, pregnancies one right after another, with rapid gestation periods. An effective sterilizing agent solves it. Getting it to them would be a simple matter—we add it to one of the Fostossia boosters; they’re all required to have them. The issue is isolating the right component. I’ve already tried several formulas. There were promising results in the viral carrier, but those subjects all developed tumorous cysts. Obviously, we want to treat these people as humanely as possible.”

The body on the narrow table between them convulsed sleepily and gave a ragged, guttural exhalation—the last sound it would make. The blood ceased to pump, the woman’s thin, alien face relaxing.

“Horrible,” Kalisi said, unable to help herself.

“This one stayed unconscious, at least,” Crell said, with no emotion save for the affable tint that usually colored his voice. “Your reaction strikes me as slightly hypocritical, darling. You’ve devoted your entire adult life to designing weapons that target and kill them.”

Kalisi stared at him. “Since my detection grid was installed, combat deaths of both Bajorans and Cardassians have been reduced exponentially. My work has preventedunnecessary suffering.”

Her lover nodded. “As will mine,” he said evenly. After a moment, he leaned in and resumed cutting, and Kalisi left him.

The ground unfolded beneath him, broad and green and thick with shadows. Odo was tired—he’d had so little time to regenerate—but decided it was for the best that he just approach these resistance people now and be done with his task. In the short time since he’d left Mora’s care, things had happened so quickly, the environments and faces and rules constantly changing. He wished for time to assimilate his new experiences, to draw conclusions, but away from the laboratory, he’d discovered that time moved differently; it seemed that there was not always opportunity to stop and think.

A final stretch of his wings, and he landed in the mountain pass that Sito Keral had told him of, hopping across a fallen tree, fluttering for balance. He became a small tyrfoxthat could amble effectively over the rocky ground.

It was exhilarating to fly, but being a bird was not easy. Flying was new to him, and tiring—not to mention a little frightening. Odo had never been exposed to such great vistas of height before, nor the perpetual biting wind that came with it. His experience until recently had been limited to what the laboratory had been able to provide. The possibilities of what he could do, what he could be—it was more to consider, more to process. The sooner he had finished his errand, a favor that he felt he owed the kind villagers, the better.

It took him only a short time to find the small opening in the rock, concealed by thick brush, but he could see that the brush had been pushed aside sometime recently. Someone had come through here, though it surprised him that a humanoid would clamber through such a tight passage. He transformed into a vole and entered the chamber, which immediately plunged into dense blackness. He adjusted his eyesight and made his legs longer, guessing that the distance to the resistance fighters within was considerable.

He traversed the tunnels for a long while, noting that there was more than one passage to go through. He heard many things—water and insects, other small, warm-blooded bodies moving through the dark. Finally, he heard voices, melodic whispers on the dusty air, and he followed the sounds. When he’d found the tunnel that seemed to definitively lead to the source of the conversation, he morphed back into a humanoid.

He hesitated, listening for just a moment. The voices were raised in argument, he was sure.

“Kohn Biran?” He called out into the tunnel. There was an abrupt silence, and then a lone voice responded, strained and careful.

“Who’s there?”

“I come from Ikreimi village, to deliver a message from Sito Keral.”

Another beat of silence. “I know you, friend?”

Odo was not sure how to respond. “We have not met,” he said finally.

“Perhaps you should introduce yourself,” the voice said.

“I must warn you,” Odo called before entering the passage, “my appearance is…unusual.”

The man said nothing else, so Odo entered the tunnel, which was larger now, so that he could expand to his usual height as a humanoid, and made his way to a much larger grotto; dimly lit with a few rudimentary torches. Its furnishings were plain and rough. A table—piled high with wooden dishes and the components of mismatched computer systems—some stools, heaps of bedrolls along the uneven walls. Two men were in the room, standing next to rough wooden benches, their posture tense—whether because they did not expect a visitor or because they had been quarreling, Odo could not say.

“I come with important news,” he said, the words he had memorized.

“And what might that be?” one of the men asked, and Odo recognized his voice as the one that had called to him from the tunnel. This must be Kohn Biran, the cell’s leader. Odo deduced that he was older than the other man, his heavy beard and thick, wild hair streaked with silver. The other man was no less unkempt, but appeared slightly younger.

“The anti-aircraft component of the detection grid. There is a way to reprogram it.”

“Go on,” Kohn Biran coaxed, looking at his companion.

“A code sequence may be entered to override the program’s diagnostic,” Odo continued. “It will alert the system to recognize Bajoran flyers in the same category as Cardassian craft, allowing raiders to leave the atmosphere unharmed. This is a procedure that would have to be performed on each tower individually; it will not be effective for the system as a whole.”

The two men began to speak excitedly. “The comm relays—we can finally send people out to repair the comm relays—”

“We can regain contact with the others—”

“…And if it works, the towers in other provinces—other continents—can be disconnected—”

Kohn turned back to Odo. “What about the biosensors?”

“I have no information about how to disable that aspect of the detection grid.”

“But you have the code sequence for the flight sensors?”

“I have it memorized,” Odo told him, and began to recite the code he had carefully remembered. The Bajoran asked him to repeat himself once, and Odo complied willingly. “If there is any doubt about my integrity or ability, someone may be sent to Ikreimi to confer with Keral for himself,” he suggested.

Kohn studied him for a long moment, his eyes clear and sharp, then shook his head.

“That won’t be necessary, Mr….”

“Odo,” he said. He felt that something more was required, so he added, “And I appreciate your trust in me.”

“Well, the resistance functions on trust,” the man told him, extending his hand. Odo clasped his arm.