Hours. If felt like they had been up there for hours, and his eyes were becoming tired from staring at the relentless sweep of the blank bio-scanner screen. When he glanced over at Darrah, he saw the man’s fixed expression of concentration, watching him fight the flyer’s controls every second of the flight. The inspector gripped the steering yoke with a dogged resolve that was almost Cardassian in nature. The man is driven,Pa’Dar told himself; and on the heels of that came the question that had been plaguing him since the moment he had volunteered. What drives me?

At first it had been difficult to frame an answer. Kotan Pa’Dar was a rational thinker, a scientist with a reductionist mind-set. He was used to problems where the parameters were clearly deduced, where he could apply his knowledge and come to an empirical conclusion; but what was happening around him on Bajor did not lend itself to the same process.

There are connections.He was certain of it. Part of Pa’Dar knew that to be Cardassian was to live in a world where there were always machinations beneath the surface, but he was so close to this, so enmeshed in it that his inquisitive mind could not easily let it go. Rhan Ico’s shadowy behavior. The bombing of the Lhemor.The wall of silence thrown up around the aftermath of the incident at Cemba Station. Skrain Dukat’s manner, the chasm that had opened up in their friendship. All these elements preyed on Pa’Dar’s mind, wheeling and turning like the pieces in a child’s logic puzzle, never quite fitting into place.

And now this: two priests, one Cardassian, one Bajoran, lost in the tempest. Another fragment to be woven into the whole?He wondered what the puzzle would look like when— if—it was complete. Was it even something that he wanted to know? Was it better for him to step away and remain ignorant of it all?

A stutter of contact on the sensor panel illuminated for a brief moment, then vanished. Pa’Dar peered at the display, frowning. “Inspector?” he ventured. “There’s a lake…” He pointed. “In that direction.”

“Yeah.” Fatigue underlined the pilot’s voice. “It’s on the edge of the search pattern.”

“Can you circle over it?”

Darrah did as he asked, turning the flyer. “You have something?”

The contact returned. “I do,” he replied, the lines on his face deepening. “Metal fragments. A single life sign. But the signal is confused. I can’t get a clear reading.”

“Which one of them is it?” demanded the Bajoran. “Gar or Pasir?”

“I don’t know.”

Darrah programmed a quick and dirty macro into the police flyer’s autopilot and jumped from his chair as the aircraft fell into a wallowing hover over the storm-tossed surface of the water. Darrah knew where they were; the lake was a deep one, a natural formation that fed the Yolja River. He’d gone fishing there in his youth, and he still remembered the stories about it. If Gar’s craft had gone down here, it was beyond recovery. The sheer size of the inland sea and the kelbonite in the local rock would mean that tracking the flyer would be next to impossible. It was probably dumb luck that the Cardassian had managed to pick up a reading.

The hatch opened and a fist of wind punched Darrah back into the compartment. He pushed back, securing a rescue vest and descent tether around him. On the hull of the flyer a spotlight snapped on, turning to aim where the sensors told it the life sign was. Mace glimpsed a shape, the arch of a back covered in robes, facedown in the lake.

“Inspector?” said Pa’Dar.

Without a transporter on board, they were going to have to do this the hard way. “Get a medkit ready!” Darrah didn’t bother to explain himself. He took a breath of damp air and dropped feetfirst from the open hatch, the tether singing out behind him.

He struck the lake, and a heavy darkness enveloped him. The shock of the icy water threatened to press the air from his lungs, but he resisted, pushing hard back toward the surface and the halo of white light.

Heavy wrappings of cloth swaddled the floating body, water soaking them, making it difficult to handle. Darrah spat out a mouthful of fluid and looped his tether over the drifting shape, pulling hard to bind them together. His hand found the control unit on the rescue vest and he slapped it hard. With a jerk, the duranium-carbide cable pulled taut and the two men were dragged out of the lake, reeled in to the waiting hatch.

Pa’Dar was there, gray hands grabbing at Darrah’s shoulders, pulling him inside. In turn, Darrah held firmly on to his charge, dragging the waterlogged form onto the deck of the police flyer. “Medkit!” he shouted.

He tore at the robes, yanking them back to get at the man inside the folds of the priest’s vestments. A face was revealed, heavy with scratches and contusions.

“Osen!” Darrah grabbed the Bajoran’s head. “Can you hear me?”

Pa’Dar handed him a stimulant hypospray, and Darrah shot the contents into cleric’s neck. Gar coughed hard and spat out a stream of blood-laced liquid.

“Where’s Pasir?” Darrah shouted over the rumble of the wind through the open hatch. “Where’s the Cardassian?”

Gar coughed again and shook his head. “Nuh.” He tried to speak. “Dead. Dead!”His eyes widened with shock as a flash of lightning illuminated the interior of the flyer and he saw Pa’Dar looming over him. “No! No! Get away!”

“Osen!” Darrah grabbed him. “It’s okay. He’s here to help.”

Gar pushed himself back to the bulkhead. “No,” he said weakly.

Darrah turned to the Cardassian. “Any trace of other life signs?”

Pa’Dar shook his head grimly. “Not at all. If Pasir was down there, then he perished.”

Darrah sighed. “All right. Mark this location and then get us up above the storm. You can do that?”

He got a nod in return. “Of course.”

The Cardassian went to the front of the compartment, leaving the two Bajorans alone. Sealing the hatch, Darrah paused to snatch a tricorder from the medkit case and swept the sensor over his friend.

Gar was breathing heavily. “Darrah…Darrah Mace.” His voice was thick with pain and effort, husky and rough. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” he replied. “No broken bones. No organ damage. I think. I’m not an expert with these things.”

Gar pushed the tricorder away, leaning closer. “I’m fine. But…” He shot a terrified look at the Cardassian. “Don’t let him near me.”

“He helped to rescue you, Gar.”

“They tried to murder me!” spat the priest. “Pasir! He was insane! He said that it was an abomination…”

“What do you mean?”

“The…alliance between Cardassia and Bajor. Between our two faiths. He swore that Oralius was not going to be polluted by corrupt Bajoran dogma.”

“He was some sort of fundamentalist?”

“He was a murderer! He pulled a weapon on me.” Gar’s hands reached out, and his fingers clutched at Darrah’s sleeve. “May the Prophets forgive me…There was a struggle and the flyer went down in the lake. I had to…I had to…”

A chill washed through Darrah’s bones as he read the truth in the other man’s eyes. “You killed him.”

“I had to!” husked the priest. “I had no choice!”

“All right,” Darrah said, after a moment. “We’ll get you back to the hospital in Korto.”

“No.” Gar’s grip tightened. “There are Cardassians in the city. I can’t be safe there! Kendra!” He straightened. “Please, Mace. Take me to the monastery at Kendra.”

Darrah’s disquiet chilled him more than the lingering cold from the lake; in all the years they had known one another, he had never seen such an expression of naked terror on his friend’s face. “All right. When you’re healed, we’ll talk more about this. Until then, you mention nothing about what happened. Pasir died in the crash. That’s what we’ll say.”

Gar seemed to shrink in on himself, his fingers moving up to probe at the flesh of his face. “Yes. Thank you. You’re a good friend.”