Darrah opened the box and inside he saw a few seal-packs of exotic alien foodstuffs. Agnamloaf and methrineggs, a bottle of tranyaand some hydronic mushies, the kind that Nell loved. “Where’d you get this? Is this a bribe?”

“No!” Syjin said hotly. “Can’t a man give his old friend a gift? You’re so suspicious!”

“Suspicion is what makes me a policeman. And, let’s be honest, you have always had a rather elastic relationship with the law.”

The pilot folded his arms. “It is the Gratitude Festival this week, isn’t it? I thought I’d give you a small something to be grateful for. The Prophets smile on men who share their good fortune, right?”

Darrah felt slightly chagrined by his initial reaction. “Oh. Thank you.” He looked up as a police flyer drifted in over the tops of the hangars and angled to land nearby. “As you’re on-planet, are you going to come to the house? The kids would love to see you.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Syjin. “You know Karys thinks I’m a bad influence on them.” His expression turned more serious. “Besides, I think the little ones would rather spend the holiday with their mother and father than silly Uncle Syjin.”

A frown crossed Darrah’s face. “Festivals don’t police themselves,” he said defensively. “I have to keep on top of it. Besides, a wife, a home, and two growing cubs…Constable’s pay can only go so far. I need the extra duties.” He nodded as Proka, one of the duty watchmen, climbed out of the flyer.

“There are other ways to earn latinum,” said the pilot airily as Darrah walked away.

“That’s true,” Darrah said over his shoulder, “and if I catch you doing one of them, I’ll put you in the blocks and grind up that tub of rust for spares.”

“Thank you very little,” Syjin snorted, and went back into his vessel.

The Kornaire’s hangar bay was one of the few areas on board the starship where the ceiling didn’t hang low over the crew’s heads. It was a peculiarity of this variety of vessel; unlike the newer Galor-class ships, the Selek-class heavy cruiser appeared to have been designed by a man of shorter stature. Dukat had heard the enlisted men making jokes when they thought he couldn’t hear them, that Gul Kell kept his flag on the Kornairenot because he’d commanded the ship for so many years, but because striding the vessel’s corridors made him feel taller. Dukat felt fairly indifferent about the ship himself; Kell’s vessel had too many memories attached to it for the dalin, too many recollections of incidents and tours of duty that didn’t sit well with him. Not for the first time, Dukat considered what kind of vessel he would take when his promotion to gul finally came. Something more impressive than this old hulk,he told himself.

Crossing behind one of the Kornaire’s space-to-surface cutters, he found Kotan Pa’Dar waving a tricorder over the drum-shaped shuttle on the tertiary pad. The tan-colored ship was a sorry sight, most of the forward quarter a mess of compacted metal and broken fuselage. The drop-ramp hatch at the rear was open, and inside Dukat could see the bodies wrapped in thick white cloths, piled against the bulkhead like stacked firewood.

Pa’Dar nodded to him. “Skrain,” he said, by way of greeting. “Do you require something of me?”

Dukat shook his head. “Just making my rounds,” he explained. The dalin gestured at the wreck. “All is well?”

The scientist peered at the tricorder’s readout. “We made sure the drive cores were pulled before the craft was brought on board. There’s no residual radiation or isolytic leakage, but it never hurts to check.” He shrugged. “It is alien technology, after all. We can’t be certain we’ve accounted for everything.”

The officer walked to the hull of the ship and placed a hand on it. “Bajorans breathe the same sort of air as us. They have the same sort of gravity, eat compatible foodstuffs…It’s no surprise their ships are not that different from ours.” His fingers found a fitting on the fuselage, a bolt and pinion connection that had been sheared off. Dukat frowned, unable to identify it.

“A servo-mast for the solar sails,” said Pa’Dar, seeing the question before Dukat asked it. “Some of their smaller vessels appear to carry them as a redundant emergency propulsion system, in case impulse engines fail.”

Dukat looked at his fingers and found a patina of grime there. He brushed the dust from his hands with quick, economical motions. “Quite primitive, really.” He moved around to study the damaged section.

“That’s one way to consider it,” Pa’Dar conceded. “It does strike me as strange that the ship’s systems are less advanced than our own.”

“How so?”

“Their warp drive, their sensors, and other mechanisms, all of them are at least a century behind Cardassian technologies. I doubt this scout was even capable of making transluminal velocities beyond factor two, three at best. When one considers that the Bajorans are such an old culture, one would assume they would possess at least comparable if not superior technology.”

Dukat gave a dry chuckle. “The age of the Bajoran civilization is a matter for debate, so I have been led to understand. After all, we have only their word that they are such an ancient and venerable species…” He glanced at the scientist. “And even if it is true, then what does this tell us?” He tap-tapped on the hull of the Bajoran ship. “They may be hundreds of thousands of years old, but they lag behind the rest of the galaxy, behind younger and more vital cultures like ours. Do you know what that tells me, Kotan?” Pa’Dar shook his head, and Dukat stepped on to the drop-ramp, peering inside. “They’re stagnant. They lack the drive that Cardassia has in ample supply.” He grinned to himself. “By the time the Union’s a hundred thousand years old, we’ll be the lords of the galaxy.”

“Perhaps so,” said the other man, although Dukat could tell he didn’t share his confidence. “The ship’s interior is off-limits,” added Pa’Dar, as Dukat balanced on the edge of the ramp. “On Professor Ico’s orders.”

“I’m only taking an interest,” Dukat replied. Inside, beyond the compartment where the corpses lay, he could see part of the command deck and the mess of shattered consoles up there. There was nothing recognizable as a helm or a navigation station; the impact that had killed the crew had ruined the vessel’s internals completely.

“Do you know how the ship was damaged?” said Pa’Dar. “The data templates I was provided with are rather sparse. It looks like the result of a ground collision, or perhaps a partial failure of structural integrity fields…”

Dukat’s smile thinned. “It’s my understanding it was…an unlucky accident. Fortunate this craft was so near to a Union shipping channel. If not, these poor fools might have drifted about in the void for millennia. Their world would never have known their fate.”

“The lost dead are never truly at rest,” said a new voice, and the two men turned to see a robed figure approaching across the deck. He rolled back his hood, and Dukat found himself looking into an earnest, intense face. “It is a thing of great sadness.”

“Bennek, isn’t it?” Dukat said. “We have not met. I am Dalin Skrain Dukat, first officer of the Kornaire.This is Kotan Pa’Dar, of the Ministry of Science.”

The priest gave them a shallow bow. “If you will pardon me, I have a duty to perform here.”

Pa’Dar pocketed his tricorder, his expression taking on an irritable cast. “Duty? What duty?”

From a large drawstring pouch at his hip the young cleric removed an intricately carved mask of green wood studded with chips of white mica and flat blue stones. “A recitation.” He nodded at the wreck and the corpses aboard it. “For the dead.”

“I don’t understand,” said Dukat. “There are only Bajorans aboard that scoutship. No Cardassians.”