The other minister, the one named Jas, was speaking to Gul Kell as they walked. “Ladies and gentlemen, now that the sober matter of the Eledahas been concluded, I would like to extend to our guests from Cardassia Prime an invitation to remain and dine with us. I have had my staff prepare a meal.” The minister threw a nod at one of his functionaries, a dark-skinned female with a shorn skull, and she in turn signaled two guardsmen to open another door, revealing a wide hall beyond. “The hospitality of the Naghai Keep and the Jas clan are yours,” he smiled.

Dukat crossed over the threshold of the room, and his senses were assaulted by a hundred different odors of cooked foods, of spices and mulled wines, fruits and vegetables in a panoply of colors and shapes. He tasted the scent of something that had to be roasted fish on his tongue and, despite himself, felt his mouth flood with saliva. Weeks of passable rokatfillets and that barely palatable teflabroth from the Kornaire’s food stores were suddenly like a bad dream. All around a wide, ring-shaped table in the center of the hall there were heaped serving trays of Bajoran dishes, alongside metal drums of steaming herbal infusions and heated wines.

It was more food in one place than Dukat had ever seen in his life.

Pa’Dar blinked at his tricorder. “This…feast is compatible with our biology,” he announced, clearly sharing a degree of Dukat’s amazement.

“Of course,” insisted Kubus, a note of affront in his tone.

“I provided the keep’s cooks with a complete dietary guide for your species.” He chuckled self-consciously. “You may not find it as appealing as taspareggs or fine seafruits, but I promise you, you will be intrigued by our native dishes.” He gestured to a plate. “Try the hasperat.It’s some of Bajor’s most popular fare.”

They took their seats, but Dukat felt a tightness in his chest that he couldn’t readily explain. The scents of the food washed over him; he hadn’t realized that he was hungry, but the smells were mouthwatering, and a wave of greed tingled in the tips of his fingers. Part of him wanted to take all he could and gorge on it. He glanced around, watching Kell and Ico, Hadlo and the Oralians, all of them following the lead of the Bajorans and helping themselves to brimming glasses of drink and plates piled with edibles. Dukat wanted to do the same, but something stopped him—and for a moment he was the young boy from Lakat all over again, growing up hungry, the table at his home always spartan. His lips thinned.

It wasn’t as if he had been born into poverty—far from it. The Dukat family was relatively well-off in the scheme of things, a middle-tier clan with good holdings and a respectable income. Many lived in far worse conditions. But life in Lakat, life all across Cardassia Prime, was one of austerity. Shortages were a matter of fact on a world where meager farmlands might produce only a few barrels of grain each season.

And now he was here, on this world of verdant green fields and wide oceans, surrounded by these plump-faced people with their smooth skins and rich clothes, and before him they had laid out enough food to feed an entire Cardassian family for a year. Dukat recalled the poor level of sustenance that his lower-ranked subordinates were forced to live on, and the obscenity of the moment settled on him. The Bajorans ate and talked, and they were wasteful with it, some of them leaving half a course on their plates before moving on to something else, letting their servants take the serving dishes away. He wondered if the leavings would go to feed the staff, or if they would simply be discarded. The idea of such ostentatious, thoughtless wastage set his teeth on edge, and he fought down a surge of resentment. What right do these aliens have to live so well when my people must fight for every mouthful?

“Dalin Dukat?” He turned to see Kubus Oak studying him. The Bajoran offered him a glass of purple-hued fluid.

“Try this, it’s a vintage springwine from the vineyards in the hill provinces. I’ve found my Cardassian associates enjoy it.”

Dukat took the proffered glass stiffly and sampled a little. It was rich and potent. “You have had many dealings with the Union,” he noted. He remembered the man’s name from one of Kell’s briefings; the Obsidian Order had characterized the merchant minister as an opportunist with grand plans for himself and a somewhat mercenary attitude. Dukat knew the type well.

Kubus nodded. “That I have. I’ve always found your people to be most scrupulous. It’s a pleasure to see that relationship grow stronger.” He smiled. “You’re not eating. Is there nothing here that is to your liking?”

Dukat returned a cold, humorless smile. “I don’t wish to seem ungrateful. It is just that…you have so very much. It’s hard to know where to start.”

The minister smiled back at him, turning away as someone else took his attention. “Take what you want, Dalin. There’s more than enough.”

“Indeed,” the Cardassian said quietly. He took another sip of the springwine and let his eyes range around the room, finding Bennek grinning over a plate piled high with some sort of pastry. The cleric was talking to a Bajoran woman, one of the servant girls, and for a brief instant Dukat imagined he saw the glint of a different kind of hunger in the young man’s eyes.

Dukat stared into his goblet, seeing the swirling sapphire liquid within as if it were the resentment that burned inside him. These Bajorans knew none of the hardships that his people did, and it angered him. How could Hadlo and Bennek speak of the blessings of beneficent guardian powers that watched over Cardassia, and then come to a place like this and realize how much their people were forced to go without? The scales of the universe were unbalanced if lean and vital Cardassia had to live hungry while Bajor, with its static and inward-looking culture, feasted every day. Dukat held up his glass and looked through it, at the food and the people and the vast walls of the hall beyond; and once again, the flare of raw greed rose in him.

Take what you want.Kubus’s words echoed in Dukat’s thoughts. “We will,” he whispered to himself, raising the glass to his lips.

As the evening drew in and the meal moved to a conclusion, Jas Holza found the moment of definition that had been eluding him all day. As a statesman, he had learned from his father that the key to understanding his enemies and allies was to find the nature of them at the first meeting; that impression, the visceral and immediate truth of it, would never fail to be the correct one. All Jas had to do was listen to himself, and heed it.

As he watched Gul Kell polish off a leg of porlifowl, the definition suddenly came to him. The Cardassians are like grass vipers. Watchful and measured about everything they do, but always ravenous.He smiled slightly, self-amused. The gray skin made the comparison complete, and Jas recalled the dry, reptilian texture of the gul’s flesh when they had shaken hands. But what do they see when they look at us?He hoped it wasn’t porlifowl.

Kell dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “Ministers,” he began, glancing at Jas and Verin. “I hope you will forgive my bluntness on this matter, but I would like to speak to you of the future.”

“Oh?” Verin leaned forward. “In what fashion, Gul Kell?” Jas wondered if the aliens registered the faint disdain in the old man’s voice.

The Cardassian summoned a server to pour him more wine. “The friendship of the Union has much to reward those who accept it. The Detapa Council believes that a strong society is one in partnership with its neighbors.”

“Quite so.” Kubus threw the comment in from down the table, catching the edge of the conversation. From the corner of his eye, Jas noticed that the elderly Cardassian cleric was listening in as well.