The Bajoran’s isolinear chip got them through the entry grid and onto the port grounds. The sliver of plastic had a glyph on it, and Nechayev nudged Jones from her daze, waving it under her nose. “What does this say?” she demanded.

“Kaska,” she replied. “It’s a girl’s name.”

“Or a ship’s?”

“Sure,” Jones slurred. “Why not? Can we sit down? The medication is wearing off.”

Nechayev pulled her toward a hangar. “Soon.” Inside there was a dart-shaped vessel crouching on spindly landing skids. The same glyph was painted on the side, and it looked ready to throw itself into the air at a moment’s notice. “Soon,” she repeated, leaving Jones at the foot of the boarding ramp as she crept aboard, her phaser drawn.

Nechayev was halfway across the compact cockpit of the Kaskawhen she realized she wasn’t alone. She whirled to find a Bajoran man in a dark brown overcoat holding a weapon on her.

“Korto City Watch,” he explained. “Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head. You’re under arrest.”

22

The last of the containers shimmered into solidity inside the cramped cargo bay. Syjin levered the top off the battered drum and ran a sensor wand over the sealed packets inside.

“Well?”Grek’s pinched voice grated from the communicator bead in his ear. “The unlock code, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Just a moment,” insisted the Bajoran. “I’d like to check my merchandise first.”

“You don’t trust me?”The Ferengi sounded genuinely hurt. “After all the goodwill between us, after every deal we’ve done and all the profit we have made throughout our lucrative relationship?”

“Yeah,” Syjin said, “and mostly because of what you did on Quatal III.”

Grek gave a nasal snarl. “How long are you going to keep beating me with that? I told you it wasn’t my fault those Mantickian olives were spoiled! I was as much a victim as you.”

“But it didn’t stop you taking my money, did it? Now shut up and let me finish checking the load.” The Ferengi reduced his grumbling to a background mumble, and Syjin completed the sweep. He frowned at the results. “I thought you said this agnamloaf was vintage?”

Grek let out another explosive noise of exasperation. “Oh, are you going to give me a hard time overthis cargo now?”

“This is two years old. I wanted five years, the proper mature stuff.”

There was a moment of silence from the other end of the channel. Syjin glanced out of the viewport in the hull to where a crab-shaped transport drifted alongside his vessel in close orbit over Ajir IX. “It’s just as good,”Grek insisted. “There’s been a shortage of the fungal cultures used in the dough due to an infestation ofgree worms, and—”

“All right, all right.” Syjin shook his head. “I’ll take it.” He drew a padd from his pocket and keyed in a code string. “There. Funds have been transferred.”

The inevitable blast of invective came seconds later. “You deal-breaking wretch! You’ve cheated me! This is a quarter less than what we agreed upon!”

“You deliver what you promised, you get paid the full amount. I’m taking a discount.”He loved using that word in Grek’s company; the reflexive reaction of disgust it created in the alien always amused him.

But Grek’s usual spitting and frothing was strangely absent. Syjin went to the window again and saw his vessel shifting, puffs of reaction mass jetting from the maneuvering thrusters as it turned toward one of the gas giant’s moons.

“Fine,”came the reply. “A chore doing business with you, as always. Grek out.”

Syjin’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t like the Ferengi at all, to simply roll over and agree without even trying to haggle; and he sounded distracted, as if something else had caught his attention. The Bajoran bounded up to the cockpit of his ship and toggled his sensors up to maximum, afraid that the Ferengi was about to cut and run, perhaps that there were privateers in the area that Grek’s larger and more powerful scanners had detected. But they were alone in the Ajir system.

As he watched, Grek’s vessel drifted away, closing on one of the moons of the gas giant. “What are you doing, you ugly little swindler?” Syjin asked aloud. He narrowed the focus of his sensors to sweep the barren moon, and the display flickered with a constellation of bright returns. Duranium alloy fragments were scattered across the surface of the satellite. “Wreckage,” he realized. The Ferengi’s crew must have spotted the debris while the deal was taking place. That would explain Grek’s sudden loss of interest in his trade; he could smell salvage.

Syjin shot a look at his full cargo compartment, and then back at the sensor display. It was definitely starship-grade metals, probably with enough scrap value alone to double the latinum he’d get from the exotic foods. The Bajoran reached for the gear locker that contained his environmental suit. “No harm in taking a look, I suppose,” he said to the air.

Darrah used contact strips from his belt dispenser to secure the two women to seats in the Kaska’s cockpit and then went to the courier’s emergency kit, sifting through it for some pain medication for the dark-haired one.

“If you take us in, we’ll be killed,” said the blond woman. “You realize that?”

Darrah gave her friend a dose from the hypospray, and the woman’s color returned. She mumbled a thank-you.

“How did you know we were going to be here?” she tried again. The older one had a tone to her words that made it clear she was used to being in control of situations like this.

He leaned against the control console and folded his arms. “Nechen Alla and Jonor Wenna. From Hedrikspool.” He shook his head slowly. “The duty commander from the Jalanda City Watch is a friend of mine. Do you want to know what he said to me when I asked him to look up those names in his citizen registry?” He let the question hang. “Yes, in answer to your question, yes, I know what will happen to you if I take you in. The thing is, I figured out where you were going and pretty soon the Cardassians will figure it out too. I put a couple of things in place to slow them down, but they’ll be here, and I’ll turn over two terrorists to them, and you’ll never be seen again. Unless you give me a reason not to do that.”

Something shifted behind the eyes of the one who called herself Alla. She was measuring her circumstances, he could see the to-and-fro of it in her face. Weighing her options. I’d do the same in her place.

But it was the other one who spoke. “We’re not terrorists,” she said. “We’re here to help you.”

Darrah wanted to keep a rein on himself, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. “Like you helped Jekko Tybe?” He tossed the padd with a flick of his wrist and it landed in her lap. Jekko’s death-pale face stared back up at her, and she flinched. “Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Is that what you did?” His voice rose. “Did you force him to get you into the enclave and then throw him to the Cardassians when your plan fell apart?”

“No!” she insisted. “It was his idea—”

“Shut up!” spat the other woman. “Don’t say another damn word!”

Darrah crossed the room in two quick steps and grabbed the blond woman by the chin. “Then you talk to me!” he growled. “He was my friend. One of the few men I’d be willing to put my life on the line for. Tonight I find out he’s dead and you were there with him. So you’re going to tell me what happened, or we are going to sit here until the Cardassians arrive.”

The dark-haired one was staring at the rank sigils on his collar. “You’re the chief inspector,” she said. “Jekko’s friend. His source inside the Korto police.”