Dukat threw back his head with a bitter bark of laughter. “What do you take me for, woman? Do I look like a simpleton to you? Please don’t insult my intelligence again. Save your lies for the Bajorans.” He bared his teeth. “I think everyone in this room understands what took place on the Lhemor.”

“You have a theory?” Ico said blandly. “Oh, please do enlighten us.”

Dukat’s hand balled into a fist, and he resisted the urge to backhand the insouciant smile off the woman’s face. “How many agents of the Obsidian Order have you inserted into Bajor since the first contact delegation, I wonder? Five, ten? Twenty? A hundred?” Dukat stabbed a finger at Kell. “More than he knows of, I would imagine.”

Ico’s insipid smile never faltered, not for one moment. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Dal. I have no knowledge of espionage. I’m only a scientist, a cultural ethnologist and observer.”

“Of course you are,” Dukat retorted. “A very well-informed, very well-connected scientist. And yet there seems to be precious little of your work in the public record, Professor Ico. When did you last publish? There was nothing current in Cardassia’s libraries that I could find before I left for Bajor.”

Her smile widened. “You wanted to learn more about me? Oh, I’m flattered.”

The woman wasn’t going to give him anything that easily, he could see it in her manner. He looked at Kell, seeking a softer target. “She told you what happened, didn’t she? That’s why she’s here.”

The jagul eyed him. “Contrary to what you might believe, Dukat, there are decisions made above your rank that you are not and will never be privy to.”

Dukat glared at Ico. “The Obsidian Order destroyed the Lhemor.It wasn’t the Tzenkethi. Even with the holes in the Bajoran security perimeter, the Tzenkethi would never have been allowed to do something like this. Wewould have stopped them first.”

Ico inclined her head and mused, as if Dukat were positing some mildly diverting conundrum for her to untangle. “An interesting supposition. Let’s consider that possibility, then, shall we? Purely as a hypothetical thought experiment, you understand?” She straightened in her chair. “Imagine that the Obsidian Order did indeed initiate the destruction of the freighter Lhemorand the resultant loss of life, both Oralian and Bajoran—”

“There were Union soldiers on that station as well,” Dukat grated.

The woman continued. “What motive might the Order have for such a deed?”

“Chaos and mayhem are your stock-in-trade,” he spat.

“You thrive on it. Keep others off balance while you plot and scheme.”

Ico chuckled. “I would imagine that chaos is far from the goal of the Obsidian Order. Such organizations seek stability, Dukat. Harmony for all Cardassia.” She shook her head. “No, I submit to you that, given the scenario you imagined, the net result of the Lhemor’s destruction will bring a staged change in Bajoran extraplanetary policy that will bring them closer to the Cardassian aegis—”

“You spineless fools.” He snarled the words, heavy with venom, and with such vehemence that for the first time Ico’s featureless mask of indifference slipped.

“Watch your tone!” Kell snorted. “I’ll have you cashiered.”

Dukat ignored the threat. “Thatis the endgame for your great plan? You’ve been here for five years and that is the best you can do?” He snorted derisively. “You don’t know anything about these people! Both of you, you sit cosseted inside your compound and your enclave, playing off against one another, living well while Cardassia continues to starve!” He was shouting now, anger roiling in the air like smoke, and he glared at the woman. “Obsidian is opaque, but you are transparent. Do you think that your desires are hidden from the rest of us?” He leaned forward. “I know what you want. I know all about the legends of the Orbs.”

When Ico spoke again, her voice was icy and he knew he had struck a nerve. “A metered progression is the best approach to any cultural intervention when direct military force is not an option.”

Dukat sneered. “I understand why I was sent here now. You’ve become comfortable and hidebound, like the Bajorans. What’s needed here is boldness.” He shot Kell a hard look. “Temerity,Jagul.”

Kell came to his feet. “You insubordinate whelp! How dare you stand before me and judge my orders! You will respect my rank and do as I command you!”

“No.” Ico stopped Kell dead with a single word. She wasn’t looking at them anymore. Instead, the woman’s eyes were unfocused, seeing inward. “He’s correct.”

“What?” Kell’s bluster faltered.

“He’s right. It has been five years, and still Bajor remains in a state of grace, outside the rule of Cardassia. We have been remiss. Too much effort spent on infrastructure and not enough on operational concerns…” She turned to face Dukat, and it was as if he were looking at a different person. The studied mien of Rhan Ico faded like mist and in its place there was a dissimilar woman. She looked at Dukat in the way that he would sight down the barrel of a weapon toward a target, nodding to herself. “Let me cut to the heart of your frustration, Dukat,” she told him.

“What angers you about the Lhemoris not that the ship was obliterated, that Bajorans and Oralians, even loyal Cardassian soldiers, died in honorable service to the needs of their nation…” Ico shook her head gently. “No, the root of your fury is that the military was kept in the dark. Youwere kept in the dark.”

Dukat’s jaw set hard, his skin stiffening with annoyance. If there had been any doubt still remaining in his mind that Ico was in the Obsidian Order’s service, it fled now in the face of her cool insight.

The edges of a cruel smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “But the time for that is over. Perhaps we can use your passion to a better end.” She studied him, looking him up and down. “What do you have to offer your Union, Dukat? Are you just an ordinary officer with pretensions above his station…or could you rise above your rank to become something more?”

“I will do what Cardassia requires of me.” He bit out the words. “Even if that means I must serve alongside you.”

Ico looked at Kell. “The dal has brought me some fresh perspective, Jagul. It’s time to move things along. We must work harder to isolate the Oralians and reinforce Cardassia’s influence over this planet.”

“And how do you propose we accomplish that?” Kell demanded.

“I can tell you how,” Dukat replied. “I understand these aliens. I’ve seen how they think, how they feel, and what they want.” Unbidden, memories surfaced in his thoughts. On the battlements of the Naghai Keep on the eve of the great feast. Dukat and the lawman, Darrah, talking as two men, nothing more; then again, in the corridors of the castle, as hate filled him and the need to take Hadlo’s life burned in his skin.The Bajoran’s words came back to in him a flash of insight. We’re a passionate people. We get so angry about things we lose focus on everything else.“The Bajorans hold grudges forever,” he told them.

“They nurture them like their children. All we need to do to blindside these people is to bring them to rage. You only made them afraid. We need to make them furious.”

“I refer you to my earlier statement.” Kell was sour.

Dukat leaned forward and picked up a padd from the jagul’s desk. On it was a report of two Bajoran warships that had recently departed the star system. The raw anger he had felt when he entered the room waned, replaced by a colder, more controlled resentment. They were forming a pact here, he realized. Without open words or accords, Dukat, Ico, and Kell were opening the way to the fall of an entire civilization. For the good of Cardassia. For Athra and my family.

“I know exactly how to do it,” he told them.