One by one, the men and women around her stopped working, looking toward the section’s entry, where the Cardassian “managers” usually lingered, close to the heat but out of the worst of the dust. Kira stood up, saw the tall, grim-looking Cardassian security officer coming her way, and realized that the wait was finally over. She’d thought it might be a relief, but she was wrong. She was terrified.

She had to fight the urge to turn and flee, in spite of there being no sanctuary; this was Dukat’s station, and she’d been stupid, stupid to think she could come and go as she pleased. One or two of the workers moved closer to her, and for a brief, hysterically hopeful second she allowed herself to think that she might be saved, but she also knew better. She made herself step forward, not wanting anyone else to be dragged away with her.

The Cardassian grabbed her by the upper arm, pulling her back toward the entry. The watching guards smirked, one of them shouting at the workers to return to their stations, his voice amplified to be heard over the turbines.

She had to half run to keep up with him, his viselike grip unyielding. He walked her quickly through the “clean” room, where sharp blasts of air took off the worst of the dirt—wouldn’t want the interrogator to get his hands dirty—then out into the relative coolness of processing’s main corridor, walking them toward the hub. The main hall clanged and thundered with the sound of heavy machinery, but it was infinitely quieter than in the channeling room.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

The security officer didn’t answer, just kept walking, giving her his profile. His insignia marked him as a dalin, and he was handsome, by Cardassian standards. They favored a wide head, a tall, muscular frame. She was a strong woman, she knew that, but he was so much bigger than her—her head barely came up to his chin—she couldn’t see how she could take him. She’d had some training, but learning how to throw and roll with a willing partner wasn’t the same as trying to toss a full-grown, armed Cardassian to the floor. It took a very well placed kick to take one of them down, a blow to one of the bony ridges on their face, but in the position she was currently in, he had too much the advantage. She’d have to free her arm from his grip and face him before she could get the drop on him, and she didn’t see it happening—not with so many of them swarming around.

Accept it, just accept it, she told herself, but she couldn’t stop trying. “Did Odo send you? I spoke with him, before…Are you taking me to see Odo?”

“Quiet,” the Cardassian snapped, and then they’d reached the end of the main hall. He nodded at a lower-ranked soldier standing near the lift—the garresh saluted promptly—then he dragged her inside.

When the door closed, shutting out the clamor, she felt that she could hear herself think again. The relief was physical, as if she’d been plucked out of a vast, rattling machine. The lift would let out at the Bajoran sector of the habitat ring. Maybe, if she could slip away, she could…

…I could what?she thought, looking up at the discreet camera in the lift’s ceiling panel. Sneak onto a shuttle? Tiptoe past the recognition software?

The lift came to a stop and she was pulled out, the dalin acting as though she was a package he was carrying. And a sudden horrible thought occurred to her, as they moved past the fenced wards, heading for the inner lifts. The ones that led up to operations. To Dukat’s office.

Comfort women. There were several on the station. She’d seen them—Bajoran women walking the Promenade in elegant clothing, their expressions dumb with sedatives or shame. Dukat was well known for his preferences—young, pretty, willing to provide. She’d rather die.

“If you’re taking me to be interrogated, you could at least tell me,” she said, grasping for some clue. “Is it Odo? Is he—”

His grip tightened, cutting off her words. “Quiet!”

The Bajorans they passed looked away, went about their business, plodding to or from some assigned destination. Kira felt ill, and as they neared the ops access lifts, she started to think she might actually vomit.

“I feel sick,” she said.

“That’s too bad,” he said, not looking at her as they passed the lifts, heading for the crossover bridge to the outer ring. The docking ring.

Were their interrogation rooms in the outer ring? She didn’t know…but the dalin was a security officer, Odo was head of security…

Kira kept her mouth shut, concentrating on keeping up. They walked to the access corridor, entered it. The hall’s design, like the rest of the station, was stark and cold, maybe to balance the dreadful heat, and they walked straight through two security checks, the soldiers saluting, the dalin nodding in turn.

He was going to let her go. Or, he was going to shove her out of an airlock. Either way, she was through with Terok Nor.

I’ll come back the day the last Cardassian leaves, she promised herself, latching on to the thought; it implied that she would survive this, somehow.

They turned a corner, and there was a small group of Bajoran men and women waiting at one of the station’s wide, rolling locks. None of them looked well. Kira recognized one of them from her ward, a woman who suffered respiratory problems associated with breathing heavily particulated air. Jaryn, something like that. Even with the nose filters, a lot of the workers suffered chronic conditions.

The officer shoved her into the line, just as a Cardassian pilot stepped out of the lock, his expression bored.

“Is she going to the hospital, too?” he asked, nodding at Kira.

“No. This one is to be released in the Dahkur Province. By order of Dukat.”

Dukat?

She looked at the dalin, back at the pilot. Were they exchanging some silent information? Was it a trick? The pilot nodded, started filing the other passengers in. As the dalin turned to leave, Kira stepped after him.

“What’s going on?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “Why are you—”

Before she could speak another word, he’d gripped her arm again, roughly turning her back toward the moving line. “There’s a two-minute delay on the security captures in this sector. Keep your back to the cameras.”

She nodded, recognizing that she was being given a tremendous gift. “I—thank you,” she said.

He hesitated, finally looking at her. “Thank the shape-shifter,” he said, and then walked away.

17

Thrax had been doing this sort of thing for a very long time, but somehow, his years of experience made it no easier for him. He was always fearful of getting caught, hence the elaborate tactics he took to avoid arousing the suspicion of Central Command—or worse, the Order. He didn’t have it in him to be comfortably sly; that sort of manner was better suited to the man he was about to make contact with.

He approached the Public Hall of Records, looking for his contact but knowing that Esad would not make his presence known until Thrax reached the agreed-upon point of encounter. He entered the great building and went to the third level, where copies of modern works of poetry were kept, along with recent literature. He removed an isolinear rod from a shelf in front of him and plugged it into his padd, perusing with feigned interest.

A voice behind him made him jump. “Is this any good?” a man asked.

Thrax turned, his breath hitching. He half expected to see a stranger, but instead he saw the thin, jagged features of Kutel Esad, the man who had served directly under Enabran Tain for the last nine years of Tain’s tenure as the head of the Obsidian Order. Esad was holding in his hand an isolinear recording, identical to those that were used here at the Hall of Records, but Thrax knew that this particular recording did not belong here.