Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles (15 page)

“Not here,” Odo said. “In private.”

“All right,” Keral agreed, though to his thinking the issue was moot, since the town was nearly deserted. Everyone was harvesting. He gestured back in the direction of his house, not entirely comfortable with the prospect of inviting this strange person inside, but unable to think of an alternative.

Odo looked at everything as they walked, as though studying each tree, signpost, and cobblestone for an answer to a particular question.

“How is Pol?” Keral asked, striving to be polite.

“He is…well,” the man answered, though he did not pause in his ongoing scrutiny, moving in a jerky and almost birdlike fashion. “Doctor Mora is a very intelligent man.”

“Yes,” Keral agreed. “He was always bright. He and I…we both came up together, studied together in the same levels at school, but Mora had much more of a natural inclination toward science and mathematics than I did. It was within the realm of his
D’jarra
, of course, to be a scholar, but nobody expected anyone from this family to go so far.”

Odo had no answer for him. He seemed to be startled by everything he saw, as though this was his first encounter with a Bajoran town. Keral’s curiosity grew.

“How did you know him?” Keral asked. “Did you work together?”

“Doctor Mora worked with me,” the man said, but did not elaborate further. Keral decided to forgo any more questions until this man could deliver the message he had promised.

They reached the farmhouse, Odo standing stiffly aside as Keral opened the door. Keral gestured him inside, and the alien awkwardly ducked his head in acknowledgment, stepping past him. A stranger, indeed…although Keral sensed no malice about the creature, and Pol had apparently trusted Odo at least enough to send him to his family. These were strange times; Keral would reserve judgment for now.

Once they were inside, and Odo had looked around for a moment, he began to speak, clearly reciting something he had carefully memorized. “Mora is functioning reasonably well, but he has limitations. His mother and father might like to know that he is thinking of his grandfather today, it being the thirteenth night of the seventeenth moon.”

“The seventeenth moon?” Keral interrupted, confused. These words held no significance for him.

Odo went on. “At the time of the twenty-third Gratitude Festival, Mora was inclined to compensate for the thirty-second rule of the oracle of twelve…”

Keral was dumbfounded, listening to the alien rattle off strings of meaningless names, dates, and places, references to long-dead relatives. Odo was almost finished with his litany before Keral understood what was going on—his cousin had sent a message in code.

“Odo,” Keral said carefully, “Did Pol explain to you the significance of this message?”

The alien man, whom Keral was beginning to find oddly naïve, shook his head from side to side.

“Do you think you can repeat this message?” Keral asked. He walked to his desk, found paper and a graphite stylus.

The alien stared at his rudimentary tools before continuing. “Certainly. Mora is functioning reasonably well, but he has limitations…”

Keral listened more carefully this time, dredging up some long-buried memory, the number code that he and his cousin had made up as children. Of course, it was mostly Pol’s doing, for he had always been the smarter of the two, but Keral thought he might be able to remember just enough of it…He asked the alien to slow down, to repeat the longer sequences, and carefully transcribed them. When Odo had finished, Keral asked him if he could repeat it once more.

As Odo recited the string of words and numbers a third time, it occurred to Keral what it was exactly that was most unusual about this man. He didn’t blink, at least not in a way that seemed to come naturally to him. The third recitation concluded, Keral stared at the strange man for a moment.

“I thank you, for delivering Pol’s—Doctor Mora’s—message to me,” he said, setting the scrap of paper on a nearby table. “I wish you well on your travels.”

The alien stood, unmoving, still staring at the stylus in Keral’s hand.

Keral didn’t mean to be rude, but perhaps Odo needed clearer direction. “You may go now.”

Keral wasn’t sure if the man understood, until he spoke. “I have nowhere to go,” he said in his gravelly voice.

Keral was disarmed. “Well,” he said. “You, ah…you might be able to stay in the village. I could try to find you lodgings. I have to get to the harvest today—perhaps you could help.”

“The harvest,” Odo repeated. “I would like to help.”

Keral supposed there wasn’t any harm in it—an extra pair of hands was always welcome at harvest time. He glanced again at the piece of paper, knowing that he had no time to pore over it now—the harvest would not wait. “Well, then. I will take you to the fields. Come with me.”

The alien obeyed him without another word.

Quark was in a foul temper already when the emaciated Bajoran man, with his one clouded eye, stumbled with a tray of dirty glasses, those left behind by the table of customers who had just departed—the bar’s only patrons this morning. There was nobody in the bar to witness it, and the man managed to catch himself before he lost control of what he carried, but Quark was not feeling like an optimist. He had yet to make profit on drink sales today.

“That’s it!” Quark snapped. “It’s back to the mines with you.”

Rom began to jabber from behind the bar. “He didn’t break anything, brother. It was my fault he stumbled. I didn’t finish cleaning up where Gil Rike’la spilled his synthale.”

“Gil who?” Quark grumbled, before deciding it wasn’t important. “Listen, you,” he said to the old Bajoran, whose name had escaped him, “I’ve given you more than enough chances. I realize you’re old and…and…decrepit…and all that, but I can’t have you stumbling around my bar.”

The man’s voice was little more than a croak. “I’m sorry…I…”

Quark couldn’t stand the sound of it. “Enough!” he yelled. “I don’t want to hear it. Just…get out of here. Go back to the mines!”

“Can I…”

“Get out!” Quark screamed, and the man scuttled off.

Quark’s chest was still heaving when someone behind him spoke up. “That man is too old to work in the mines.”

“And what would you know about it?” Quark sneered, before he could catch himself, before he realized it was a woman’s voice. “Natima,” he said, turning and smiling. It could only be the Cardassian beauty; no other female had spoken to him in…in quite a while. “Miss Lang! How lovely to see you. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “The atmosphere in here today—it’s a little heated for me.”

“No, no, not heated, not heated. This is a calming place, a place to unwind,” Quark insisted. “Please, first drink’s on the house. What would you like?”

The graceful Cardassian hesitated for a moment before taking a seat at a nearby table. “I’d like a Samarian Sunset,” she said.

“Of course, of course,” Quark said, snapping his fingers at his brother. “Did you hear the lady?” he shouted, and Rom nodded from where he stood, fumbling at bottles and glassware.

Quark sat down next to Natima. “So, tell me, Natima—may I call you Natima?”

She drew in a breath. “I don’t see why not,” she said, guarded, but not too wary. That was good, Quark thought, or at least he hoped it was.

“Tell me, Natima. Most Cardassians I’ve encountered think I’m too soft on the Bajorans. You seem to have another opinion.”

She looked uncomfortable, and he decided he’d better change the subject. “Forget that,” he said. “Let’s talk about you.”

“Me?” she said. “What would you want to know about me?” Still guarded, though she didn’t look ready to bolt quite yet. Rom arrived with her drink, and Quark took it from him, wanting to ensure that he would be the one to produce the drink’s famous effect. He tapped the glass with a resounding
ping
and presented it to her.

“You just strike me as someone with a story to tell,” Quark said. “I can spot those types, being in the business I’m in.”

Natima half smiled. “Restaurateur?”

“No, no, the business of people. I’m a people person, you see.”

Her expression went unmistakably sour. “Ah. It would seem that the
Bajoran
people in here might think otherwise.”

There it was again, that odd sympathy for the people her own kind had disfranchised. “It’s not like that,” Quark insisted. “That man—he’s an employee, and I expect a certain level of competence in those who work for me. The Bajorans in general, well, some people would say I’ve been quite…benevolent toward them. Compared to the treatment they receive in the mines…”

Natima shrugged. “It wouldn’t be difficult to improve upon those conditions,” she said, as though she didn’t care, but Quark felt certain he could read genuine compassion in her tone. It was an in, and he ran with it.

“It’s just a show,” he said, lowering his voice slightly. “I mean, when I’m cruel to them like that. You don’t think—” He grinned in disbelief, sat back, shaking his head. “It’s merely a scare tactic. I’ll be sending my brother out to tell him he’ll be back tomorrow. You’re right, he is too old to work in the mines. I think it’s terrible, sending the aged to work in that place. I imagine Dukat tries to be fair with his policy, but…”

“It’s a shame any Bajoran has to work there,” Natima said.

“You’re right,” he said quickly. “I agree with you completely. I’ve said it all along, in fact.”

She turned to him, her expression careful…and hopeful? “Have you?”

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, when I first came to this station, I noticed immediately how hungry the Bajorans looked, and…and…” He trailed off, remembering his boast to Gaila. Someone had been listening; perhaps this lovely woman had been sent here to trick him into confessing. He took a breath, feeling as if he’d just sidestepped an audit.

“And what?” she asked.

“And…I said…those people ought to…eat more.”

“Oh,” she said, dropping her gaze and quickly finishing her drink.

Quark cleared his throat, watching her as she looked into her empty glass. He sorely wanted to be wrong about her, but probably she was just one of Thrax’s minions. If it was true, it was a terrible shame. He stood from the table, excusing himself abruptly and going off to wipe down the bar.

“Brother,” Rom said to him, “did you mean what you said—about the old Bajoran? Do you want me to…”

“No,” Quark snapped, and then looked up at the doorway, where Natima was just leaving, her gait so poised she seemed to float. “Yes,” he said, scarcely recognizing his own voice. “Yes, go and tell him.”

Rom gaped, confused.

“Go!” Quark shouted, and his brother scrambled to attention.

Rom left the bar, and Quark, wiping the spot he’d wiped twice already, let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

T
he numbers of people who came out to these meetings at Vekobet were dwindling. Kalem Apren headed up the meeting, as he always did, which was held in the basement of his own house, as it always was. This house had belonged to his wife’s father, who was from the influential Lees clan, members of whom had held powerful positions in Kendra government for generations. These days, there were only a few people of Kendra who still believed in trying to maintain leadership, only a few who harbored the most fragmentary sense that hope could still be alive, though it had grown increasingly dim these past three years, the years since the detection grid had gone up. The resistance had very nearly ceased to be, further lowering spirits.

The grid had put great constraints on the lives of ordinary people. It didn’t always deliver immediate results, and in the first few months of their implementation, some people chose to take the risk of traveling through unauthorized territory to see family, friends, or lovers from whom they had been separated. Some of these had been fortunate enough to discover flaws in the system—gaps in the detection grid that opened up at measurable intervals as the sweeps cycled. But more often than not, Cardassian skimmers and flyers appeared immediately, and the offending wanderer was caught and taken away before he could entirely register that he had been discovered. Nowadays, nearly everyone treated the system with healthy respect; some people were afraid to travel even within its boundaries. At first, nobody was entirely sure which areas were considered “safe” zones, and the Cardassians had no mercy or forgiveness for anyone who accidentally found themselves in a region that had been deemed off-limits. Now the boundaries were often marked with improvised indicators, to remind people to stay within the demarcated zones—or expect to wind up in the ore processors at Terok Nor. Children were kept close at hand, for there were many stories regarding little ones who had wandered off, their frightened and desperate parents going after them, despite the danger, never to be seen or heard from again.

Kalem was among the few who could afford a Cardassian travel permit. Many people with access to permits preferred not to use them, for the Cardassians often still came when the grid was tripped; the soldiers took great pleasure in harassing citizens, even those bearing permit receipts and proper documentation. But Kalem still traveled often, used his freedom on behalf of as many people as he could. He delivered food, messages, gifts, payments, and vicarious love for anyone who asked him. It was exhausting, but he felt it was his civic responsibility, and he acted without complaint. He had earned the respect and gratitude of many, but his efforts to organize a more effective body of self-government had gone more unrealized than ever before, with many honest people frightened into complete submission.

The basement of his house currently held twelve people, including Jaro Essa and himself. All that was left of what had once been a much larger society of self-proclaimed leaders who represented various aspects of Kendra society. Kalem tried to draw strength from the twelve tired, weathered faces he saw in the low light; none of them were ready to give up, despite growing evidence that the Cardassians’ grip was only tightening. They stood together in the candlelight, relying on the long-held assumption that the windowless basement would keep them safe from Cardassian scrutiny. It was illegal for unauthorized Bajorans to assemble publicly, which was why the meeting had to be conducted at a residence, but Kalem had no doubt that the Cardassians would cheerfully ignore the details of their own rules in order to prosecute Bajorans suspected of trying to govern themselves.

“Minister,” an elderly woman addressed him. She had long been trying to organize a more communal method of distributing rations, with very limited success. The collaborators in the town were opposed to her efforts, all of them accusing her of trying to put them out of work, and she lived in fear of being turned in. She began to inquire after his own support of her proposed methodology, and Kalem felt a sudden stab of despair. He looked to Jaro Essa, who stood next to him in front of the small throng of people. Jaro’s face was downturned, his somber dark eyes deeply pensive. Kalem knew that the other man’s attitude had always been more pessimistic than his own, that he couldn’t rely on Jaro to assuage his own creeping despondence regarding the seeming futility of what they were trying to do. He felt disconnected from the words he spoke, as if he were hearing someone else’s voice.

“My thoughts on the matter are that if anyone is willing to participate in a genuine effort to conserve rations, then those people are all entitled to a portion of the inventory, no matter how many family members or how much space they devote to food storage. We have to rank food consumption on an individual basis, rather than household…”

She nodded along, took up speaking again, but he couldn’t focus on her words. Just a few years ago, this basement would have been packed with people, bursting with ideas that could have genuinely contributed to the cause. Now it was all about basic survival, any thoughts of driving off the Cardassians kept to themselves.

Kalem had not heard from anyone in the Valo system in a very long time. It was rumored that the communications tower on Derna had malfunctioned, and because no unauthorized Bajoran ships were allowed to leave the atmosphere, there was no way for the resistance to get to the towers and repair them. Kalem’s hopes of somehow persuading Jas Holza to help bring in the Federation were growing dimmer by the day. His plan to reach Keeve Falor was even more distant now. For all Kalem knew, neither man was still alive.

The meeting limped to adjournment, and Kalem escorted his guests to the door as they hesitantly left for their own homes. Jaro Essa lingered behind, as he sometimes did, and as Kalem turned to him, he saw that the old major was sporting a slight smile. News about the resistance, perhaps? Jaro had never actually fought in the resistance himself—by the time a genuine resistance movement began to take shape, he felt that he was too aged to be of any use to the fighters—but he made it his business to keep up with what they were doing, and to pass word back and forth between cells when he could.

“I wanted to let you know,” Jaro told Kalem confidentially, “that I heard from a very reputable source that the resistance cell outside of where Korto used to be is still operational.”

Kalem nodded, his dark mood improving slightly. “The kai’s son is still alive?”

“Yes,” Jaro confirmed. His voice lowered even more. “I wanted to tell you before I announced it to the others. I wasn’t sure if we should spread word among the people, or if it was better to keep this news confidential.”

“Thank you,” Kalem said, and he heard himself sigh with some relief. “Let’s keep the spread of this information restricted to a few key individuals…”

Jaro nodded. A little bit of good news went a very long way, and the health of Kai Opaka’s son was better news that Kalem might have hoped for tonight. If Kai Opaka’s son were to be killed, it would be devastating for the morale of Bajor. It was bad enough that the legendary fighter Li Nalas was dead, along with scores of resistance cells scattered across the planet. If Opaka Fasil were to be killed, something inside of Kalem—and more than a few others, he suspected—would wither and die. Bajor desperately needed heroes right now, even if their deeds were symbolic rather than actual. In times as dark as these, any hero would do.

It was late, and Keral was exhausted, but he didn’t want to go to bed until he’d made some headway on Mora’s code. He’d spent the entire day in the fields, and now that the sun was down, he was crouched at the family’s dining table with a sputtering candle, struggling to work out some kind of plausible key for the cipher brought to him by the alien visitor.

The numbers were easy; it was the words that had him confounded. Did each letter stand in for a numeral? Were the words themselves relevant? They had to be, otherwise Keral wasn’t sure if the numbers made any sense. If he was right about the number parts, he had bits and pieces of what
might
be a message…or it might be gibberish. He clutched at the thinning hair on his head, wishing he could just somehow force himself to understand.
Couldn’t you have made it any simpler, Pol?

Keral heard a rustling behind him, and turned to find his eleven-year-old daughter approaching, her steps light. Jaxa’s blond hair had come loose from her braid, tumbling about her shoulders and making her look very much as she had when she was a little girl. It put a lump in Keral’s throat to recognize how quickly his daughter was growing up, especially when faced with how impossibly clever she was becoming. Some of the things she came up with—Keral could scarcely believe she was his own child. She was more like the Mora side that way, Keral’s mother’s side. They were all a clever people, many of them learned. How Keral wished he could do more for Jaxa than this primitive village—she could have gone so far!

“Jaxa,” he whispered. “Why aren’t you in bed? It’s another early morning tomorrow.”

“I know, Pa. That’s why I’m up. You need to sleep, too. Could I help?”

Keral chuckled. “I doubt it, though I wish someone could. Of course…you might be better suited to figure this out than I am.”

Jaxa peered over his shoulder at the sheets of paper he’d spread across the chipped wooden table. “What is this stuff, Pa?”

“I’m not sure, honey,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s nothing. You know the funny man I brought to the harvest yesterday? It’s from him. He says he knows my cousin, a man you’ve never met—a very smart man.”

“Mora Pol—he’s a scientist,” Jaxa said, picking up one of the scraps of paper.

“That’s right,” Keral confirmed. “I’ve told you about him before.”

Jaxa traced a finger along one of the lines on the paper she was looking at. “‘Sensors towers,’” she read. “‘Aircraft?’ ‘Coded engine signature.’”

He smiled. “It’s a lot of gibberish, I know.”

“Mora made the detection grid?” She looked at him, frowning. “The towers…?”

Keral answered carefully. “He has to work with the Cardassians, honey. He has to do it in order to stay alive. It isn’t his fault…” Keral trailed off, thinking.

“Maybe he’s given you an override code,” Jaxa suggested.

Keral started to nod, feeling a surge of excitement. He shuffled through the pieces of paper, snatched up the one with the numbers that followed the reference to a traveler’s array. He read the sequence, remembering something Pol had once told him, about programming…

“It’s a backdoor password,” he said. “He always built them into his programs, in case he needed to get back in.”

His excitement faltered. “Except…how am I supposed to use something like that?”

Jaxa was still looking at the same sheet of paper. “Someone would have to take the code to the resistance,” she said.

“Mora remembered that I knew Kohn Biran,” Keral said. He felt like he had to catch his breath, suddenly. If it was true, if it was an override code of some sort, probably with instructions on how to approach…His cousin had passed a huge responsibility on to him. Could he do this? Crack the code, and get it to Kohn Biran? Keral had a rudimentary idea of where the Dahkur resistance had gone. They had taken to the mountains after the grid had gone online, the low range visible beyond the western forest. Of course, this was assuming they hadn’t all been killed.

He held out his hand for Jaxa to give him the scrap of paper. “You go to bed,” he instructed her gently. “And thank you for helping me. Right now, we both need some sleep.”

Even as he said it, he knew sleep would be impossible. His cousin, he realized, was counting on him to do this thing, which indicated that Pol believed Keral was capable. He hoped that Pol’s faith would be enough to see him through, for Keral wasn’t sure if he had any for himself.

Alone in her quarters, Natima’s voice trembled ever so slightly as she introduced herself, setting forth her credentials to the man on the screen. The channel was hardened, but if the station’s prefect learned her business, her intentions, she would be as good as dead. She chose her words carefully, using phrases she’d worked out with Russol as she presented herself to Tozhat’s newest exarch, a man named Yoriv Skyl. Skyl had recently come to replace Kotan Pa’Dar, the man who had been exarch when Natima had lived in the surface settlement, years before.

Natima had never been formally introduced to Kotan Pa’Dar, though she had seen him in those years when she was on Bajor, at the occasional press conference, and once she had passed him on the streets between the habitat domes of the settlement. She had also seen him on Cardassia Prime, since he had returned from Bajor. Pa’Dar’s wife and young son had been killed in a terrorist attack, and he had resigned from his post shortly afterward. There were many dissidents who were convinced that Pa’Dar was one of them, that he attended some of the off-planet meetings under an assumed identity, but it had never been confirmed. It was Natima’s understanding that Yoriv Skyl, the man who had replaced him here on Bajor, was a close acquaintance of Pa’Dar’s. She hoped that meant that Skyl could also be sympathetic to the cause, but his expression was giving her nothing.

Skyl was a heavyset man, slightly younger than Natima, but with close ties to the Detapa Council, Cardassia’s civilian government. Russol knew him in some capacity, though not well enough to be sure of his political leanings. Still, after speaking with Pa’Dar, Russol agreed with Natima that the evidence for Skyl’s receptiveness was strong enough that Natima should contact him.