Zetha shrugged. She had grasped immediately what was going on. But if Sisko felt it necessary to exert his authority, she would humor him.

“You begrudge me the knowledge that Tuvok and Selar intend to infiltrate the enclosed areas,” she observed when they were alone in the control cabin, where he had assigned her a seat far away from the instruments. “Why?”

“I begrudge you any detailed knowledge of this mission,” Sisko said honestly, frowning at one of the readings. The environmental control adaptor had been hinky since departure, but since when had it refused to respond? “I think the less you know, the better. There’s no guarantee you won’t run to the first Romulan you see with the information you already have—”

“No guarantee except Lieutenant Tuvok, who can no doubt outrun me,” Zetha said, too low for Sisko to hear.

“—and no idea what disposition SI’s going to make of you once this mission is over—”

“I assumed I would be sacrificed.”

She also said this so quietly Sisko almost didn’t hear it, but he did.

“Sacrificed? What are you talking about?”

Zetha shrugged. “I am still learning your language. ‘Executed’ might be a more accurate word, ‘eliminated’ easier on your sensibilities. But killed, in so many words.”

Sisko stopped fidgeting with the controls and gave her his full attention. “Run that by me again? You honestly believe Starfleet will have you executed once this mission is over?”

“It is what the Tal Shiar would do,” Zetha said.

“Then why in God’s name are you going along with it?”

Does he not see?Zetha wondered. No, of course he doesn’t. His life to this point has been far too soft. When he speaks so fondly of a dead mother who loved him, a father who taught him to cook, his wife, his son—a family, a place to belong, in so many words—how can he possibly know?

“Perhaps I don’t understand,” she said ingenuously, watching him out of the corners of her green eyes. “Is not the purpose of this mission to trace the origins of this disease, apprehend whoever has created it, and save the lives of those who might be afflicted by it?”

“Ideally, yes, but—”

“Then that is why I am ‘going along with it,’ as you say. When ‘it’ is over, so is my usefulness. You cannot imagine I will be allowed to return to your Federation knowing what I know?”

“That’s exactly what—” Sisko started to say, but stopped himself. “You can’t tell me you’re just here to help us. We’re strangers to you. Enemies, as far as your conditioning has taught you. There’s got to be another motive.”

Zetha shook her head, almost pitying him, as she had almost pitied the elites on her own world whom she had spent a lifetime mocking, eluding, pilfering from. He really did not understand.

“Every day I live is a day I live, human,” she said with a coldness no one so young should possess. “It is one day more snatched from the jaws of death. Understand that, and you understand me.”

At last Selar got the joke. Anyone who thought Vulcans had no sense of humor need only study her face. Her eyebrows threatening to disappear into her hairline, she did not trust herself to speak, but allowed the two trained operatives to have the floor.

“Well!” Uhura said at last, as if a decision had been reached. “My log entry will show that Albatrossintends to remain in Quirinian space while you complete your cover mission with a visit to the village of Sawar, which is badly in need of replicator parts. I’ll expect your follow-up report by this time tomorrow.”

“Affirmative,” Tuvok said, ending the transmission.

Selar allowed him a moment’s silence before she asked: “Lieutenant, am I to assume we will have need of those hazmat suits after all?”

At least the weather favored them. Quirinus offered the landing party one of its rare sunlit days. Citizens Leval, Vesak, and Zetha wore UV goggles to keep from going snowblind as they made their way on their short skis through an untouched alpine landscape beneath a cloudless lavender sky. The air was warm enough for Zetha to lower the hood of her parka and turn her face like a flower to the sun. Emulating her—if they were truly Romulan rather than Vulcan, they would be more adaptable to the cold—Tuvok and Selar did likewise.

It was hard to believe that only a few kilometers distant from this pristine beauty a wall sealed healthy citizens off from those suffering an agonizing death.

Tuvok and Selar wore their hazmat suits beneath their parkas, the face masks stored in rucksacks that also contained samples of the merchandise they had ostensibly come to Quirinus to sell. Zetha carried only a sample case in her rucksack, and wore no hazmat suit.

“We will require your talents as we mingle with the citizens on the ‘safe’ side of the quarantine enclosure,” Tuvok instructed her. “Obviously we will be forbidden access to that enclosure. We will appear to acquiesce, as long as it is daylight. After dark, Dr. Selar and I will infiltrate while you return to the ship.”

Their arrival in Sawar, a village sheltered in a valley surrounded by high mountains, was greeted with some curiosity and not a little suspicion. The curiosity they had expected. Offworld visitors seldom ventured beyond the major cities, and rumor had run ahead of them that they were selling not only genuine Romulan replicator parts (someday, Tuvok thought, he must ask Admiral Uhura where she acquired those) but Tholian silks, noted for their durability as well as the brilliance of their colors. Safe and warm inside their thick-walled houses, where they could remove the multiple layers of utilitarian clothing necessary to survive the climate, Quirinians often dressed quite resplendently. Orders for the silks were expected to be plentiful.

But why the suspicion?Tuvok wondered. The trio had permits from Citizen Jarquin, worn prominently displayed on their parkas. Had the effects of the plague in their village made the citizens distrust even that?

“You sense it, too?” Selar asked softly.

“Indeed,” Tuvok said. “And I believe we are about to learn something of its source.”

A group of citizens who had been milling about an outdoor information kiosk reading the day’s news had broken away and was heading toward them. The trio had perfected a response to just such an approach by now. Tuvok would speak first, Selar only if addressed directly, and Zetha only if the conversation ventured into an area, such as Romulan butterflies, whose nuances the other two might not be conversant in.

“You are Citizen Leval,” the group’s apparent spokesperson, a rawboned angry-eyed female almost as tall as Tuvok addressed him from behind a breather mask.

The entire crowd wore breather masks, not against the cold, but against the possibility of infection by outsiders. Illogical,was Tuvok’s first thought, since there is no concrete evidence that the disease is airborne.As the crowd moved toward them, a stout elderly man with what looked like a bulky antiquated medscanner in his hand was obviously reading them for signs of infection. One could only hope the scanner was too antiquated to distinguish Vulcans from Romulans.

“Correct,” Tuvok replied with a touch of arrogance, wearing his Romulan persona like a second skin by now.

He noted that even with the supposed security of the masks and the scanner, the woman still stood back at some distance. Quirinians, like Romulans, Tuvok had noted in their visit to Jarquin, only seemed to trust each other when they stood closer than arm’s length, a throwback, no doubt, to the age of swords when they had needed more room to safely draw arms. This woman and her constituents stood at a distance, the distance one might consider safe from casual contagion transmitted by a cough or sneeze.

“We were notified that your party would arrive today. You’ll have to wear these to go among us.” The woman thrust three face masks into his hand. Tuvok noted that she also wore surgical gloves, which she removed after her hand had made contact with his, and threw into a nearby disposal painted with a bright green sign signifying hazardous waste. “We can’t be too careful of strangers after what happened.”