“No, we don’t want a drink with you,” said the older woman. What was she called? Al-something? Ally? Alo?

“Alla,” said the hetman, recalling her name. “I wouldn’t dream of it. No, it’s just that I was wondering about something.” He glanced at the dark-haired one. Her name is Wenna, isn’t it?“The thing is, most of the Bajorans I deal with are trying to get away from their home planet these days, what with the Cardassians and the unrest and all. But you two came all the way back here from a perfectly nice colony on Draygo. Why is that?”

“Our aunt is sick,” said Wenna abruptly. “We’re going to Relliketh to look after her.”

“Oh.” Foroe wasn’t convinced, but he had other prospects to pursue at the other end of the port. His contact would be waiting for him, and if he didn’t get there in time, the load he expected to be smuggling to Prophet’s Landing would be gone. “Well, I hope she gets well soon. And if you ever need a ride back to Draygo—”

Alla cut him off with a withering glare. “Oh, we’ll call you, count on it.”

As soon as the Xepolite was out of earshot, the older woman turned and shot her companion a look. “What have I told you?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

She frowned and flicked straw-colored hair from her eyes. “Don’t volunteer information. It’s a sure sign of an amateur working from a prepared legend. He didn’t need to know we were going to Relliketh. The bit about the aunt was enough.”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant—”

She shoved the other woman up against the wall of a hangar. “What did you just say?” she hissed. “Did you just call me Lieutenant?”She mimed the shape of a pistol at her head. “Zap.You just got us both killed. If someone heard you slip like that, we’re blown, the mission is over.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” said the dark-haired woman, and she rubbed at the ridges on her nose. “This is all new to me. It’s not what I expected. I’m just an analyst—”

The blond woman slapped the hand away. “Stop that,” she said, and stepped back. “Look. You’re here for two reasons. First, because you’re the best available expert in xeno-anthropology and Bajoran cultural studies, and second, because that cute Welsh accent of yours is, by some quirk of interplanetary linguistics, not too dissimilar to the way they speak down in the southeastern provinces. While you are here, you are Jonor Wenna,you understand me? Because Lieutenant Junior Grade Gwen Jones doesn’t exist right now. She’ll stay that way until we’re done here.”

“Yes,” said Gwen, gathering herself. “Hello. My name’s Wenna. I’m from Relliketh—” She stopped. “Right. Sorry. Don’t volunteer information.”

“Better.”

The dark-haired girl studied the other woman. “And what about Lieutenant Alynna Nechayev of Starfleet Intelligence? Where is she?”

“My name is Alla,” said Alynna. “I don’t know this Nechayev woman you’re talking about.” There was a weariness in her words. “She must be some kind of ghost.”

From the ramp of his ship in the neighboring hangar, Syjin watched the two women walk off and cocked his head, wondering. The shorter one is pretty, in a rural kind of way. The other one, though, too much like hard work. I know the type.

The loading chief, a large dark man named Wule, crossed over to him, wiping grease from his fingers. “Ho,” he called. “That’s the last one off. You’re clear to lift once Traffic Control gives you the go.”

Syjin nodded. “Thanks. I just hope the Cardassians don’t decide to stop and search me again. That’s why I hardly ever come back here these days…” He shook his head. “Every time I return to Bajor it’s like…like I’m visiting a sick old friend, and he’s closer to death each time.”

“It’s what things have come to,” Wule agreed. “Not like the old days. I can’t remember the last time I saw you lift empty.”

“Not empty for long,” Syjin insisted. “I got a gig. I’m picking up some cargo.”

“Coming back here with it?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.” He smiled briefly. “Don’t sweat it, I’ve got a little something for you, if you smooth the way with customs for me.”

“What?” Wule eyed him.

“Agnamloaf. I know you love it.”

The dock chief nodded eagerly. “Say no more. Just don’t get jumped by the spoonheads when you come back, though. They catch you with proscribed goods on board and you’ll be disappeared…”

“It’s food, not particle cannons,” mocked the pilot.

“Hardly worth spacing me over.”

Wule gave him a grave look. “Don’t be so sure, my friend, don’t be so sure.” He paused at the threshold. “Where’s the rendezvous? You know the Cardies have upped their patrols out past Pullock.”

Syjin nodded, running through his preflight checks. “I heard. That’s why I’m going to be nowhere near the Badlands.” Wule threw him a salute, and the hatch slammed closed behind him.

The destination for the rendezvous with his Ferengi contact had been chosen at random and transmitted on an encrypted channel. Grek, the lop-eared little troll, had a cargo of some of the best rare edibles this side of the Orion sector, and Syjin had buyers all over Bajor ready to purchase them. Although it was bad for everything else, at least in this case the Cardassian presence was good for making such trades scarce, and therefore more lucrative.

He glanced at the navigator matrix and punched in the coordinates. Grek would be waiting for him in orbit around a gas giant, in some nondescript, uninhabited system called Ajir.

They walked for a while, out of the port and into the city proper beyond. Gwen Jones had to rein herself in, stop herself from gawking like a sightseer. Outwardly, she played the part of a Bajoran girl from the south with somewhere to go, something to do. Inside, Jones wanted to stop and look at everything. She had been studying the Bajoran culture for some time, and it fascinated her. Not in a million years had she expected to be plucked from her predictable work at the Office of Cultural Analysis and thrown directly into a covert surveillance mission, with only a taciturn field operative like Nechayev for company.

But now she was here, on Bajor, seeing in the flesh all the things that she had read about in reports and purloined pieces of alien literature. She wanted to stop, to take a tram to the bantacaor visit a temple, to try real hasperator go to the parks and see the mirror lakes…

“Eyes front,” said Nechayev quietly. “Quit staring. This isn’t a field trip.”

Jones nodded. It was anything but that. From what her briefing had told her, the Federation had been conducting clandestine cultural observation of Bajor for many years, dating back to just before the outbreak of border skirmishes between the UFP and the Cardassian Union. It was only in recent times, with the shift in the political axis between independent Bajor and the expansionist Union, that the Federation Security Council had decided to take a closer look at what was taking place in the B’hava’el system. More Cardassian ships meant it was harder to insert passive probes to monitor the circumstances there. What was needed was “human intelligence,” or, as Nechayev had described it, “eyes on the ground.” Jones didn’t know the full extent of things—her clearance level wasn’t that high—but she’d picked up a few hints from her mission orders. She knew that Bajoran exiles on Valo II and other colonies were agitating for intervention on Bajor, and that Starfleet had to be giving the idea serious consideration or else she and Nechayev would not have been here; but the interstellar political climate was complex, and as time went on, there seemed less and less chance that the Federation would become openly involved.

Nechayev halted at an empty tram stop and made a show of looking at the timetable. “We’re not being followed,” she told her. “And three Cardassian skimmers passed us on the way without even giving us a look. I think we’re clean.”