“If they would only agree to send a new survey team!” Dukat had unfolded his arms, was gesturing with his hands in the air. “There are brilliant profits to be made, Odo!”

“Profits,” Odo repeated. He thought he knew what the word meant, though he couldn’t remember hearing of it from any of the Bajorans he had known.

“Yes,” Dukat said. “Profits. Monetary wealth.”

Odo nodded. “You can exchange these things for goods and services…”

“And power, yes.” Dukat nodded. “Ask the Ferengi if you need a better explanation.” A corner of his mouth curved upward as he said it, apparently amused. “You’ll make an excellent chief of security if you have no motivation for profit for yourself.”

Odo considered this. “Why?”

Dukat continued to smile. “Because profit is what drives men to immorality.”

“Immorality. So. The Bajorans…they fight your soldiers and steal from you—for profit?” Odo already knew that they did not. Although he was still not entirely certain why they did fight the Cardassians, he knew it was not for profit. He was curious to see what Dukat’s estimation of the Bajoran motive amounted to.

Dukat’s smile slipped away. “In a roundabout sort of way,” he said.

Odo noted the lie to himself. He no longer doubted that Dukat had a shifting sense of integrity. He had come to feel, lately, that his attraction to the Bajoran people had much to do with their general lack of facade. He believed them, when they spoke.

“It is topics just as this one that I fear will prevent me from performing my duties to your satisfaction,” he told the prefect. “Though I have lived among humanoids for some time…I still find your motivations to be puzzling on occasion.”

Dukat nodded. “You were, in a sense, raised by a Bajoran,” he observed, “but you are not a Bajoran, and you never will be.”

Odo said nothing, feeling an odd pang of something like regret, and Dukat smiled again.

“Well, Odo,” he said, “if you have questions, you’d do better to ask me than anyone else.”

“Yes,” Odo said, but he thought he’d probably be better off leaving his questions unanswered than to seek Dukat’s advice.

He waited to be dismissed, but the prefect wasn’t done with him, continuing to speak about political matters that held no interest for Odo. It was difficult to remain captive to Dukat’s speech when Odo didn’t understand half of it and couldn’t begin to imagine what would constitute an appropriate reply, but he realized, after a time, that Dukat wasn’t in the least bit interested in Odo’s opinion. He wanted an audience. In his own way, Odo decided, Dukat was just as lonely as he himself sometimes felt.

It took the prefect a long time to finish his diatribe, and when he finally seemed to run out of steam, Odo took his leave of the Cardassian, seeking out the Ferengi bartender. He found him where he expected him to be, tending to his establishment, making animated conversation with the people who frequented the place. Odo regarded the Ferengi with curiosity; here was a humanoid who looked quite distinctly different from the Bajorans or the Cardassians, and yet, Odo knew that Quark was more like the others than he was like Odo. There was nobody on the station even remotely like Odo—not even the Lurian.

“Can I interest you in an image capture?” The Ferengi spoke without quite looking at Odo, wiping glasses and lining them up behind the bar.

“No, thank you,” Odo replied automatically, without fully comprehending what the Ferengi had just asked him. “That is…What do you mean?”

“You’ve been staring at me such a long time, I thought you might like a permanent keepsake of my countenance.”

Odo frowned. He knew that he was supposed to be fostering an atmosphere of authority here, and it wouldn’t do to have this Ferengi speak to him this way, especially not in front of the Cardassian patrons. “I just wanted to let you know…that I’m watching you.” He did his best to sound menacing, though he wasn’t sure if his effort had any effect until the Ferengi responded.

Quark turned and smiled so wide it looked like it must be painful for him. “I invite you to watch away,” he said lightly, spreading his hands. “You’ll find that I’m a law-abiding resident of the station, as eager to maintain order as anyone else.”

Odo narrowed his eyes. “I doubt that very much,” he said, his voice hard. He studied the Ferengi’s expression, looking for indicators of dishonesty. He had watched the Bajorans so carefully that he was learning to distinguish among the subtle nuances of their facial repertoire. The Ferengi was different, but not by much. The alien’s grin quavered, almost imperceptibly, but Odo could see that he was frightened. He turned back to the rows of brightly colored glasses that framed the bar, suddenly very interested in rearranging them.

“I’ve come to ask some advice,” Odo said, hastily changing his tone. “Dukat suggested that you could elaborate something for me.”

“What might that be?” Quark asked him, turning back to face him again.

“Profit.”

This time, the Ferengi’s smile was genuine. “Well! You’ve come to the right place!” Quark insisted. “Have a seat—this could take me awhile.”

Odo didn’t need to sit, but he knew it would make the other man more comfortable, and so he sat, listening intently as Quark launched into a very detailed explanation of interest rates, investments, profit margins, and supply and demand.

“They say the market is driven by an invisible hand,” the Ferengi told Odo in a near whisper, as if he were about to share something very confidential. “But we Ferengi know better than that. The market is driven by greed, pure and simple! Greed is the original renewable resource, Constable—may I call you Constable? It is the thing that literally makes the universe expand.”

“The universe expand?”

“Whatever—it’s an expression,” Quark said. “All you need to remember is greed. Greed equals profits, in the long run. You see?”

“Yes,” Odo said, though he actually didn’t. Apparently, greed was the need to…acquire things. Things that humanoids used to…make themselves comfortable. Odo had little perception of the humanoid estimation of “comfort,” though he imagined it was something like what he felt when he was regenerating. Still, humanoids seemed to require a great many things to maintain their comfort. Odo wondered if perhaps Dukat was right about Odo’s own need—or lack of it—for profits. All that Odo required to be comfortable was a suitable vessel for regeneration—and perhaps, the company of at least one agreeable person. As the Ferengi continued to gabble about profits and acquisition and luxury items, Odo thought that it might take him a very long time to understand humaoid motivation, after all.

Kira noted that the Bajoran side of the station seemed a consolidation of the very worst effects of the occupation; the tightly-packed living quarters and strict regulations gave it the appearance of the worst ghettos in the cities planetside, only more desperate, somehow—probably because there was very little chance of escaping. Throngs of people drifted about the darkened Promenade, most of them with a gaunt and miserable set to their features. Kira wondered how long it would be before she started to look just like them—or maybe she already did.

Not much longer, thank the Prophets. A few more days and she’d be slipped onto a transport, and then she’d be home.

Many Bajorans were sitting, or even lying along the Promenade, some of them with rough blankets spread out offering food and wares for sale, some of them simply resting after a hard day’s work in the ore processors. Farther back, a few people had lit cooking fires in old shipping containers, for there were only a handful of replicators on this side of the station, and the mine workers were not allowed to have food in their sleeping quarters, since it was thought to provoke fights and encourage the voles that lived in the maintenance conduits. Kira sidestepped the idle bodies of young and old as she passed.