Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves by S.D. Perry

acknowledge it or not. You can make no mistake about that.”
    “I know you will be,” Damar replied earnestly.
    Dukat’s expression grew more relaxed. “Will I see you in the reception room, Damar?”
    “Oh.” Damar was taken aback. “I thought it was reserved for attending officers.”
    “I don’t see why we can’t bend the rules a little, considering that I’m the one who makes them.”
    Damar was pleased, but in truth he preferred not to attend. Earlier today he had seen Basso Tromac with a group of scrawny and bedraggled Bajoran women, a group that he later saw being herded into the conference room after they had been cleaned up and dressed in tawdry gowns. He quickly deduced that they were meant to attend the reception, and the thought of mingling with the Bajoran females made him uncomfortable on several levels. “I am honored that you would extend the invitation to me, Gul, but I’m unusually exhausted this evening.”
    “Of course. No doubt you’re eager to get to your quarters so you can place a communication to your beloved on the surface.”
    Damar smiled, thinking of Veja. “If you could see her, you would agree that I can’t be blamed for my impatience.”
    “I don’t doubt it, Damar. Still, it might do you well to come and socialize with the officers. You could learn a thing or two.”
    Damar spoke with unbridled honesty. “The only officer I wish to learn from is standing here with me right now.”

    It was not prudent to travel by foot for a few days after Lenaris’s arrival at the settlement outside Tilar, for the spring rains had made it too wet to be practical. But when a dry day finally arrived, Lenaris joined Lac and Taryl as they picked their way through tessipate s upon tessipate s of unproductive land, some barren, some choked with noxious weeds. Without irrigation, these fields would doubtless wither into a dry tinderbox in the late summer, and Lac confirmed that wildfires were common.
    Lenaris stopped along the way to pick wild alva fruits, which grew in abundance along the old hedgerows that had once marked the boundaries between farms. Lenaris had learned that dried alva s were a mainstay of the Ornathia diet, since they were plentiful and provided enough nutrition to ward off many serious infections. Lenaris popped the fruits in his mouth, savoring the burst of fresh flavor that was severely diminished once the fruits had been dried for preservation.
    Lac had insisted that they walk. Though he was confident that the Cardassians could not trace the balon signature of his raider, he did not want to take any chances that the derelict warp vessel would be discovered, and so it was that the three had set out on foot to have a look at the craft.
    “This was all productive farmland when I was a boy,” Lac said, gesturing to the knee-high weeds that surrounded them. “We had the most reliable irrigation system on all of Bajor. It was built millennia ago, but it never needed to be restructured. The network of ditches, conduits, and underground canals was incredibly elaborate. I was always warned as a child not to go into the tunnels. They had never been mapped, so it was near-certain that you would get lost—if you didn’t drown first.”
    “So, what happened to the waterways?” Lenaris asked him, though of course he already knew. It was the same story everywhere on Bajor.
    “The Cardassians,” Taryl answered simply. Lenaris nodded.
    Lac continued where Taryl had left off. “They dug up the main canals and diverted all the water to a point about thirty kellipate s inland, for a mining operation that they abandoned less than five years later.”
    “What a waste,” Lenaris said.
    “Yes, it’s their way. They’re a very irresponsible people.”
    Lenaris laughed at the understatement.
    Taryl broke in. “But really, we’re fortunate that they stripped out the minerals they wanted so quickly. When they deserted that mine, they left us to go back to farming as we had before.