“You!” the figure called out, just loudly enough. Behind him, on either side of the hovercar’s open hatch, two helmed figures waited with stun batons held across their chests, more deadly weapons no doubt at the ready in those heavy belts.

As if they’d rehearsed it, she and Tahir broke apart, backs to the cemetery wall, guilty lovers caught in the act. The lone figure was not impressed. He focused on Tahir, ignoring Zetha, who wondered how fast she could climb the broken stones of the cemetery wall before the stun batons took her down.

“You do not exist,” the figure informed Tahir, flicking a dismissive finger at him. The voice was almost mechanical, with that inescapably nasal upper-class accent. “Therefore I do not see you. Disappear before I assist you in doing so.”

Needing no further prompting, Tahir allowed Zetha one last horrified glance that said simultaneously I’m sorry/I can’t/I love you!before he bolted in the direction of the ’car; there was nowhere else to go. To the helmed guards he might have been a dung-fly; they ignored him. He literally leapt over the front of the ’car—there was no other way out of the alley—and was gone.

Hyperfocused, Zetha watched, at the same time assessing what was really happening here. The aristocrat was studying her as if she were a butterfly pinned to a dissection table, wings still fluttering. She drew herself up and studied him in return.

Weak-chinned, beady-eyed, the eyes half-hidden under a brow ridge so pronounced there was no telling their color. Whip-thin except for a lazy man’s paunch, studied in his gestures, and, from the cold smile playing at the corners of his downturned mouth, he knew exactly who she was and had been tracking her specifically.

Only one entity tracked the mongrels. Tal Shiar.

“Name,” he barked at her.

“As if you don’t already know,” she snapped back, thinking, Kill me and get it over with, whether it’s for robbing the apothecary or simply for breathing air that might otherwise go to a more deserving true Romulan, but you will not toy with me!

“Name,” he said again.

She sighed, as if it were a great imposition. She was shaking so hard she could barely stand. “Zetha. Nonperson. But you know that.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, aside from the common wisdom that we half-breeds don’t look Romulan enough, you’ve sought me out deliberately.” She jerked her chin toward a small device blinking and chittering on his belt. “You have my codes in that little comm unit you carry around as if it were just a wallet.”

“Do I?” The trace of a smile continued to play at the corners of his mouth.

“Of course,” Zetha said, smirking. “You positively reek of Tal Shiar.” Now that,she thought, was too far,regretting it the instant it was out of her mouth.

The blow came swiftly, a stinging slap across her cheek that knocked her to the ground. She scrambled to her feet without so much as touching her face. Her eyes were dry.

“I reekof Tal Shiar? What makes you say that?” he demanded.

“You mean aside from the ’car and the guards and the marks against the fabric where you’ve removed your rank pips?” Zetha said brazenly.

She was feeling her teeth with her tongue to see if he’d chipped any; he hadn’t. She all but laughed aloud as he touched his collar absently, even though the other half of his brain knew he was wearing civilian clothes, not his uniform, and there were no marks. She was toying with him. The inquisitor was being inquisited. He liked this not at all.

“I’m joking. But your ilk wears his skin like a uniform. It’s the haughtiness. You look down your nose at people, you have that superior tone to your voice. You couldn’t hide that even if you stuttered like a colonial.”

He watched her silently for a protracted moment, his eyes narrowed. “My mentors said the same thing of me,” he said, then seemed to catch himself. “So noted. I will not make that mistake again. You have helped me become a stronger enemy. You should be afraid of me. Why aren’t you?”

Zetha shrugged. “When you’re told every day of your life that you don’t deserve to live, you find there’s very little to fear. If you’d wanted to kill me, you would have by now. Instead, you have some reason to keep me alive.”

“It’s not you I’m interested in,” he said indifferently. “There is an old woman in the N’emoth District. Some call her Godmother. I’m told she shelters the likes of you. Dozens of you. Teaches you to steal, trades in forged documents, illicit substances, even flesh peddling.”

“That’s not true!” Zetha shouted. Too late, she saw the trap. Foiled by a lifetime’s conditioning, she had assumed he wouldn’t be interested in the likes of her, but would use her to go after Aemetha. Now she saw the hidden edge of the sword. Rather, he would use Aemetha to get at her. If she didn’t do what he wished, whatever that might be, Aemetha would disappear. The villa would be razed, the foundlings scattered.

So!Zetha thought, reading it in his too-small eyes. I am more important than I know. But why? If everything I know must be abandoned for a moment’s bad timing, I will know why. Whatever he wants, I must do it. Or at least let him think I will, for Aemetha’s sake.

“My life for hers,” she said, drawing her insubstantial person up to her full insignificant height.

He did laugh then, a small chuckle in the back of his throat.

“You consider that an equal trade? Aemetha is of good family. You are nothing.”

“True.” Zetha shrugged. “But you can’t do math without a zero.”

His eyes narrowed again, this time with appreciation. He crooked a finger at her. “Come with me.”

She followed him to the hovercar. As she stepped between the guards and climbed through the hatch into the comfortable rear seat, she noticed that the windows were blacked out. She thought she knew where he was taking her, but she would never be sure.

Every night, she dreamed it. Dreamed she was back in the barracks with the other ghilik,rows and rows of them, all training for the same purpose—to be the Tal Shiar’s cannon fodder, the ones sent on suicide missions, their lives post-training often measured in days. Infiltrators, agitators, saboteurs, poisoners, assassins. Every day lived was a triumph, but every day lived only brought one closer to the day when one would have to kill, and then most likely be killed.

And every night that she dreamed it there was the risk, for all her training, that she would cry out in her sleep and reveal it.

If she’d cried out on the merchant ship on the way across the Zone, no one paid her any heed. None of them spoke Romulan, and she was bunked in one of the remoter areas of the ship. She had woken with a start as usual in the containment room at SI, no doubt with Tuvok watching through the mirror wall, and again at the Crushers’ residence, and again last night, her first night on Albatross,but no sound had escaped her lips. This second night, the sound of her own voice woke her.

To find Sisko watching her in the dark.

She had the upper bunk on one side, he the lower on the other. He couldn’t see as well in the dark as she could, and didn’t realize she knew he was watching her. Tuvok was taking a turn at the helm; Selar was asleep in the other upper bunk across from her, unperturbed by any exterior noise, her breathing so soft and so regular she might not have been there at all. But Sisko’s deep brown human eyes, all but unblinking, were looking right into Zetha’s.

She stirred to let him know she was awake. We’ll see,she thought, if he will say anything.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Did I wake you?” she answered without answering.

“You must have been having a nightmare,” he said. “You were shouting.”