Ico decided to press upon the sore spot, just for the sake of alleviating her own boredom. “I wonder. Have your recitations drawn the attendance of any members of the Kornaire’s crew?”

Bennek answered for his superior. “We have seen some new faces, Professor, yes. Admittedly, less than I had hoped.”

Kell colored. “I’ll have the names of any of my men who shirk their duties to hear you talk about phantom deities,” he growled.

Hadlo chuckled dryly. “My esteemed Gul Danig Kell, you remind me of Tethen, the proud man from the fourth codex of the Recitations. Like you, he refused to open his eyes, even when the Faces of the Fates spoke directly to him—”

“Spare me,” Kell broke in. “I thought we agreed last time that you would leave your holy scrolls at the door.”

“Just as you agreed not to mock our faith,” Bennek said hotly.

Kell eyed the youth. “Have a care, boy. Remember whose starship you’re standing on. Remember whose air you’re breathing.”

Ico put down her glass with an audible clack.“This is the Union’s starship, is it not?” She took a deep breath. “And this is the Union’s air as well. As much the property of the Cardassian people as it is that of the Central Command.” The woman nodded to Hadlo and Bennek. “And these men, as much as you or I might take issue with their beliefs, are still Cardassian.”

“Correct, as ever, Rhan,” Kell allowed silkily. “Sometimes it escapes me that we all have a function to perform in this endeavor.”

“We would not be here if our presence was not vital to this delegation,” Bennek continued, unwilling to be mollified. He took a terse sip of rokassa.“The Detapa Council asked us to attend this mission in order to open a dialogue with the Bajorans. I find it difficult to understand why they agreed to let a commander who so clearly finds our presence distasteful direct this formal contact!”

Ico studied the youth; he had fire, that was evident, but he was untrained, and he lacked the ability to focus his passion that Kell or his mentor possessed. She imagined that he would learn that lesson soon, or else he would find himself facing men who were less inclined to suffer his foolishness. “Gul Kell is one of the Second Order’s most highly decorated officers,” Ico offered. “I’m sure he would never let even the smallest of personal prejudices affect the performance of his duties.”

“Quite so,” Hadlo added, making an attempt to derail any further argument before it moved forward. He gestured to himself, then to Ico and Kell in order. “The Oralian Way, the Ministry of Science, and Central Command have all entrusted us with this important formal contact. Together, we will meet Bajor and show them the face of a unified Cardassia.”

“Unified?” The youth wasn’t willing to let the matter drop; and indeed, Ico could see a small quirk of pleasure on Kell’s lips as well. The gul was in the mood to argue, she could see it in the tension around his eye ridges. “What unity is there in Cardassia these days, beyond the unity of suffering?” Bennek put down his glass and stared at Ico. “Have you seen the datastreams from the homeworld, Professor? The reports of the famine and the dissent among our people?”

“Ourpeople?” Kell said quietly. “Some would say it is yourpeople who have brought those things to pass, Oralian.”

Bennek ignored the other man, his watery gaze still on the scientist. “The planets of our species are pushed ever closer to the edge of poverty, the forced austerity imposed by the military stretching our civilization to its limits. And for what? So that we can engage in pointless, unresolved conflicts with the Federation, and petty skirmishes with the Talarians?”

“I am not a soldier,” Ico ventured in a mild tone, “but even as an academic I recognize the threat the Talarians pose to our borders, Bennek. Do you not agree that they are a warlike race, expansionist and violent? Have you not seen the records of the raids they made on our fringe colonies?”

The young priest swallowed. He had clearly expected Ico to support him in the face of Kell’s bellicose manner, and now that she had not done so, he was floundering. “I…I have,” he returned. “But I question the need for us to commit so much matériel and men to fighting them. We’ve warned them off. If they keep out of our space, shouldn’t that be enough? Why do we have to invade their republic again and again when the effort of that war could sustain lives at home?”

Kell grunted with laughter. “Military doctrine by way of a priest. I never thought I’d see the like.” The gul leaned forward. “Boy, all you have done is show your ignorance. For the record, the conflict with those Talarian savages is not a war. They don’t deserve the honor of such a thing. It is a punitive engagement.” He made loops in the air with his free hand. “They’re like voles. Small, sharp teeth, quick, and numerous. Kept down, you understand, they are nothing but a minor impediment. But allow them to breed too much and you’ll soon find an infestation on your doorstep. The Talarians dared to come into our space, the voles into our house.” He grinned at his own analogy. “So we drove them out. And now we must cull their numbers. For their own good.”

“And what about Cardassia’s good?”

Ico sighed inwardly. The priest did not know when to be silent. Ignoring Hadlo’s hand on his arm, he turned to face Kell, his cheeks darkening with anger. A more seasoned man might have known that this conversation was on a downward spiral, but Bennek was not a seasoned man. Ico knew that there was only one way this meal would end now, and it would not be quietly.

“Instead of sending ships to blockade Talaria, why not use the taxes paid to build them to construct hospitals and fabricators instead?” Bennek continued. “Then there would be no hungry millions, Gul Kell. If there were no great Cardassian war machine, there would be no need for the poor to starve! There would be no need for this mission, for us to seek aid from worlds like Bajor!”

“We do not seek aid from Bajor,” Hadlo broke in, “only a partnership in kind that will—”

Kell glared over his glass at the young man, ignoring the old cleric’s words. “Oh yes, there would be such peace and riches if only the Central Command did not squander our Union’s scarcity of wealth on warships,” he said in an arch voice. “How many times have I heard that from the lips of fools who have never left the homeworld, fools with their noses buried in scrolls full of dusty old legends!” He put down his drink hard and aimed a finger at the priest. “Oh, there would be such peace, Bennek, such peace indeed, and food aplenty for even the lowest commoner to gorge upon! Perhaps your utopia might last a week, a month at the most, before our worlds were crushed under the boot heels of invaders! Tholians, Breen, Tzenkethi, whichever ones got there first…And the people would ask you ‘Where are our defenders, Bennek? Where are our swords and shields?’ And you would have to tell them that you traded their safety for a few full stomachs!” He drew himself up, his dark duty armor glinting dully in the dining chamber’s muted orange lights. “You are right about one thing, boy. Cardassia islean and hungry, and it must remain that way. A fat, content animal is a slow one, a victim in waiting. A hungry animal is a predator, feared by the herd.”

Ico kept her face neutral, but beneath her placid expression she wanted to laugh at the man’s retort. Kell’s armor did only a passing job of hiding a well-fed girth that showed the gul’s leanings toward indulgence and excess.

“You mistakenly believe that your participation in this mission allows you a degree of leeway, of input.” Kell glared at Bennek and his master. “It does not. You Oralians, with your chanting and your ridiculous masks, you think your rituals have great majesty and import, but they are meaningless to me. You are aboard the Kornaireon my sufferance, because I have been ordered to take you to Bajor.”