“Yes” was all she said now, mesmerized by the view on the forward screen.

“I’ve never met a Romulan before. I don’t think most humans have. What’s your story?”

“Truth is always easier than a lie,” the Lord had drummed into them at drills, usually during combat training. “Why?”

Zetha watched the others watching each other, none of them wanting to speak first, in case they might be wrong. Apparently it was the reaction he expected, for it made him smirk.

“Truth is consistent!” he barked to be heard above the grunting and huffing and straining in the cold, high-ceilinged room as his ghilik,as he called them—the word meant “mongrel”—went through their daily exercises and he stood off to one side, hands clasped behind his back, alternately berating and lecturing them. “If you must lie, remember what you’ve told to whom, in case you’re asked to repeat your story later.”

The less intelligent among them, even those who’d survived by lies, had raised their hands during the break, asking questions. Zetha said nothing, but when he challenged her, she was ready.

“Truth is also dangerous,” he barked, gimlet eyes focusing on Zetha, annoyed that she didn’t flinch the way some of the others did still. “Why?”

She hadn’t hesitated. “Because to tell the same truth too consistently makes it seem like a lie.”

He hadn’t smiled, hadn’t even acknowledged what she’d said. He’d merely narrowed his eyes at her, and she knew she’d won.

“So essentially we’re on this mission because of you,” Sisko said thoughtfully when she’d told him the most recent version of the truth.

Zetha shrugged to hide a sudden lurch in her heart rate. Carefully!“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“How do we know you’re not a spy?”

“Tuvok doesn’t seem to think so.”

“You’re not speaking with Tuvok at the moment,” Sisko said, tweaking the environmental controls, which were still sluggish regardless of the work he’d done. His tone was not unkind, but it was incisive. “I’m in command of this ship.”

Zetha shrugged again. She understood that her role here was no different than what it has always been—to be silent, invisible, to speak when spoken to, watch and listen. She had followed Tuvok onto Albatross,dutifully stowed the clothing Uhura had provided her in the wardrobe she shared with Selar in the sleeping quarters, and sat on the edge of her cot awaiting instructions. When Tuvok told her she was free to move about the living quarters and the cargo bay, she had masked her surprise and gone exploring before venturing forward to the control cabin, in hopes Sisko would allow her to watch the stars on the forward screen.

He’d been running a diagnostic prior to departure, the pilot’s seat swung 180 degrees around from the controls so he could check all systems when he saw her in the hatch-way. He’d crooked a finger at her and pointed her toward the copilot’s seat.

“Sit if you want. But don’t touch anything.”

She had done just that, and watched silently as Albatrossrumbled out of dock and made half-impulse until she was clear of the Sol system, then lurched into warp. She’d won points from Sisko for being quiet and enjoying the view, but now he seemed torn between curiosity and mistrust. Unfortunately, it was the mistrust that came through in his words.

“Tuvok knows where to find me,” Zetha said now, studying the human out of the corner of her eye. Distrust was straightforward; she could deal with it.

“Three things,” Sisko said. “First, you’re allowed forward only when I’m here and on my say-so, and when you’re here, you sit where I tell you to sit and you don’t touch anything. Second, you stay out of the engine room.”

“And third?”

The lieutenant’s expression softened somewhat. “Tell me about Romulan cooking. You’re not vegetarian like Vulcans, are you?”

“Vegetarian?” Zetha didn’t recognize the word.

“You don’t just eat plants. You eat meat, fish, things like that.”

“When we can find it, yes.”

“You like spicy food?”

The recollection of the meal she and Tahir had pilfered from the refuse bins outside The Orchid, discarded no doubt because some centurion’s wife found it not to her liking, tingled for a moment on her memory’s taste-buds.

Remember the food,she told herself. Don’t think about Tahir. Either he escaped that afternoon or he didn’t, and if he did, you’ve long been replaced in his affections by another…

“Sometimes,” she said carefully.

Sisko’s smile appeared genuine. “This mission might not be so bad after all!”

How important is it,Zetha wondered, to make this human accept me? More to the point, why is it necessary when the others have?

Uhura accepted me almost too readily, because she believed I was sent by Cretak. Tuvok needed to ask his questions but, once satisfied with the answers, he no longer questions me. As for Selar, her passion—and yes, I know, Vulcans are reportedly lacking in passion, but as the distant brothers, we know better—Selar’s passion is medicine, her focus narrow, and if whenever we are planetside I play to the cover story that we are kin, and emulate her behaviors, and if when we are on the ship I make myself useful by volunteering to do small, unskilled chores in her lab, she in her quiet way will accept me.

As for the other humans, the flame-haired one and her son all but apologized for being human in my presence, something I still don’t understand…

“Jolan tru,”Wesley greeted her when his mother, her hand proprietarily on Zetha’s shoulder, introduced them. At only eleven, he was already taller than Zetha. “I hope I’m pronouncing that right.”

“You are.” Zetha said. He is a child,she reminded herself, shaking his proffered hand as she had observed other humans do. Do not judge him.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Beverly said, heading for the kitchen.

It was after he’d shown his guest around and she had repressed her reaction to the sheer wealth of thingsthat one child could possess that Wesley, running out of small talk, suddenly blurted:

“I’m glad you’re here. I’ve never met a Romulan before. I get to meet new people a lot, but never a Romulan. My mom’s always bringing home stray kittens and people with nowhere else to go…”

“Very nice, young man!” came Beverly’s voice from the kitchen, though Wesley seemed to know he’d blundered as soon as he’d spoken.

“Oops. I didn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Zetha said without inflection, and Wesley had excused himself as if to find a hole big enough to crawl into, even though she hadn’t seemed to be offended. If anything, she had wanted to laugh at his ingenuousness. But then it made her angry, that he should have the freedom to be so ingenuous, when even at his age she—

Not his fault,she reminded herself, her sharp ears picking up the heated discussion in the room beyond.

“But, Mom, I didn’t mean it that way—!”

“Well, what exactly did you mean? Because from what I could hear, it sounded like—”

“I mean—I don’t know—maybe because she’s like a kitten? She’s small, and she seems gentle, but I bet if she got mad, she’d have claws, that’s all.”

“That’s very glib, Wes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Is this because of me?Zetha wondered, marveling. She could hear Beverly sigh.

“I’m not the one you should apologize to, but if Zetha has the good grace not to be offended, I’ll let you off the hook. But try to think before you open your mouth from now on, please? Remember the one about walking in someone else’s shoes?”

The boy didn’t say anything then; perhaps he merely nodded. Zetha treated him with caution for the rest of the evening.

At the dinner table, she watched how they used their utensils and emulated them, and waited to be asked if she wanted seconds, because she was beginning to understand that humans, at least these humans, always had more than enough food. She thought of Aemetha’s foundlings fighting over the last scrap, the last drops of soup in the pot, thought of the House and the rows of refectory tables, the bowls full of the same gray slop whatever the meal, and, having guessed that Dr. Crusher’s medical instruments would assess her past as readily as the Tal Shiar healer’s had, ate with gusto, but slowly, knowing she was watched.