“That’s him. You know the man?”

The priest nodded. “He’s the reason I’m here. His father is a patron of the monastery, and we’ve been counseling the son about his, uh, relationship issues.”

“Personal counseling?” Darrah repeated. “That’s what hefty donations to the clergy get you, huh? Maybe I’ll stick a little more in the collection box next time I visit.”

“My door’s always open, Mace, you know that.” said Gar, with a rueful smile. “You stopped Tikka Rillio from beating me up when we were at school. The least I can do is watch over your spiritual well-being now that we’re older.”

“Tikka Rillio. Whatever happened to her?” The constable chewed his lip.

“She got herself a colonist husband and went off to Prophet’s Landing, had a whole pack of children, I believe.” He nodded to himself. “Easier to make something of yourself out there, where you don’t have to pick and choose because of your caste.”

Darrah smirked. “You should be glad you took to the church. She’d have carried you off with her given half the chance.”

Gar returned a wan grin. “Yes. She was a big girl.” He shook off the thought. “Anyway. Vedek Cotor asked me to come down and see about providing some spiritual comfort to our mutual friend in the cells.” The priest’s face fell as a thought occurred to him. “He didn’t injure anyone, did he?”

Darrah shrugged. “He roughed up Syjin a little bit. Nobody of consequence.”

“Now who’s being uncharitable?”

“Hey, you know Syjin. He’s never needed anybody’s help attracting trouble.”

Gar nodded. Darrah was right, as usual. Even when the three of them were boys at the temple school, it was Syjin who had demonstrated a knack for getting himself into all kinds of scrapes. Like Darrah, Gar’s parents had both been around when he was a youth, but the pilot had been orphaned at an early age, and that manifested itself in a disorderly streak a mile wide. “You’ll keep an eye on him?” said Gar.

“Don’t I always?” Darrah replied. “Hey, he gave me something. You like methrineggs?” The police officer motioned to a black box on his desk and then paused as a tall and athletic woman emerged through the doors from the precinct’s upper levels.

“Don’t the Militia codes prohibit serving law enforcers from accepting gifts from citizens?” she said, arching an eyebrow at the box’s contents.

Gar felt a grin form on his face. “Hello, Tomo. You’re looking well.”

The minister’s adjutant bobbed her head, her close-cut hair catching the light. “Thank you, Prylar.”

Darrah was frowning as he turned the box to face Lonnic. “Okay then. Take what you want. Just save me some of the agnamloaf.”

She waved him away. “Keep it, Mace. I’m not down here to hassle you.”

Darrah shot the priest an arch look. “Huh. That’s a rarity.”

“Seriously,” she continued, and she said the word in a tone that made both men pause. The easy air of friendship between them fell away. It was immediately clear to Darrah and Gar that Lonnic wasn’t interested in their usual banter. “I’ve just been speaking to Colonel Coldri. He told me I should bring you in on this, seeing as the keep falls inside your patrol pattern.”

“In on what?” Darrah demanded. For his part, Gar was already certain of what the next thing out of Lonnic’s mouth would be.

“What do you know about the Cardassians?” she asked him.

Darrah shrugged. “Same as everyone else, I suppose. Ugly and pasty-looking, no sense of humor, eat a lot of fish.”

“That’s not too far off the beam.” She smiled without mirth. “They’re coming here.”

Gar saw Darrah go tense. “What, all of them?”

“It’s a diplomatic mission,” Gar offered. “A single ship, a formal first contact, that sort of thing.”

Darrah shot him a look. “You knew about this?”

He nodded. “Just before I left the monastery, Vedek Cotor told me. The Kai is going to be part of the group that greets them, and I’ll be serving as one of her pages.”

“Meressa’s going to meet the Cardassians?” The constable blinked. “Is that wise?”

“And not just her. Minister Jas is assembling a whole group of high-caste nobles to be at the keep when they land. Which brings me back to my original point.”

Darrah’s brow furrowed. “Why would aliens come to Korto? The capital’s only just over the mountains, why not go there, or to Dahkur?”

Lonnic explained quickly about the conversation she’d been witness to that morning, and Gar took it in, filling in the gaps in the terse briefing that Cotor had given him.

His old friend’s expression soured with each passing word. “Why am I always the last to hear about this sort of thing?” Darrah frowned. “Tomo, this is going to mean a lot more work for the both of us. I’m going to have to bring in more men to cover the additional security requirements, get Coldri to sign off on reinforcements…”

Lonnic handed him a padd. “Already done. The minister asked me who I’d recommend to handle the arrangements, and I told him you could do it.” She eyed him. “You canhandle it, Mace, can’t you?”

Gar turned to the woman. “I think he was hoping to take some leave, spend some time at home…”

“Oh,” said Lonnic, and she reached for the padd. “If that’s the case, I’ll pass it to someone else. Proka Migdal, or one of the other district watch leaders.”

Darrah shook his head and held the device away from her. “No.No, I’ll deal with it. Nobody else knows Korto as well as I do. I’m the best person for the job.”

Lonnic and Gar exchanged looks, and the priest saw a flicker of understanding on her face. “Mace, if you’re due some downtime, take it. The precinct can run without you, you know.”

He watched the other man study the padd. “I can take a retreat some other time, the kids won’t mind. This is important. As much as I trust Proka, he’s not up to managing something like this.”

Lonnic nodded. “All right, then. The Cardassians will be here in two days, so I need a protocol for the arrival arrangements from you by tonight.”

Gar frowned. “Couldn’t you make it tomorrow? The Gratitude Festival starts tonight, at least let him have the evening off before you put a yoke on him.”

“Very well. Tomorrow morning. You can start thinking about it on the way to the docks.” She glanced at the chronograph display on her thumb-ring.

“Why am I going to the docks?” Darrah said warily.

Lonnic leaned over and tapped a panel on the padd, revealing a page of information. “The aliens have an on-planet liaison they’ve sent along as an advance representative. Minister Jas wants you to escort him up to the keep for a meeting at five-bells.”

The constable’s frown deepened, and he reached down to snap on his duty belt. “And I was kinda hoping today would be a slow day.”

“Seems like the Prophets have other ideas,” Gar offered.

“Isn’t that always the way?” Darrah threw the comment over his shoulder as he made for the stairs leading to the basement parking garage.

Darrah made good time from the precinct to the riverside docks, getting there just a little slower than he would have if he’d been coming in with a flyer instead of one of the Korto City Watch’s courier sedans. The skimmer wasn’t as fast as a flyer, that much was true, but it was a lot more well-appointed. There was a media suite and a wet bar in the back, so he understood, and the magnetodynamic suspension rode very smoothly. Darrah had never actually sat anywhere else but the driver’s seat, though. He had a way to go before he got to a rank that came with this kind of benefit as standard.

Securing the car on the dock apron, he brushed a speck of lint off his tunic and looked up in time to see the sleek hydrofoil settling in to the pier on a stream of white breakers. The boat had come from the city of Janir in the north, racing down the old canals to reach the naturally cut channel of the River Tecyr. Korto sat on a bend in the Tecyr where it turned westward toward the ocean, the wide green waterway flowing fast and strong down from the Perikian Mountains. In Kendra Province and other parts of Bajor, people still used the rivers for travel and shipping cargo, and it was a common sight to see skiffs and packets rolling quietly along under solar-charged fansails; by contrast, the hydrofoil was a brash, noisy conveyance, all speed and angry buzzing aquajets. The boat bumped to a halt and settled into a wallow as crewmen scrambled to the pier to moor it securely.