KIRA HESITATED at the door of station detention. She was dreading this interview. She thought that maybe she ought to take a few moments to meditate before she went in to see the prisoner. But that would just be putting off the moment.
They finally had a suspect in the bombings.
Working for hours without sleep, Kira had gone through the computer profiles of every station resident, relying not only on the computer's files but her own memories of the resistance years. It had been a long, painful process, reviving that past, recalling so many names and faces that had been lost. Names of friends, faces of lovers: their dead, accusing eyes.
But finally, from the records, she'd assembled profiles of all the people on the station with a known or suspected connection to any of the resistance groups, including herself and four of the monks serving in the temple. While the computer worked to track the known whereabouts of each back to before the time of the first bomb incident, security officers had been busy questioning every one known to have been on the Promenade before the attack on Garak's shop. Someone had put that poster on the wall just before the bomb went off. That person might have been seen by the witnesses that Constable Odo had located in his search.
At the same time, Lieutenant Dax had been working with the poster itself, using a new, submolecular chromatography procedure capable of isolating and identifying the DNA markers from a sample smaller than a single cell. In the last few hours, their work had all come together. Two persons, both Bajoran females, had been identified by Dax as having contact with the poster. The same two persons had been recognized by the witnesses. Kira was one of them. The other was a cargo handler named Gelia Torly, whose whereabouts were unknown at the time of the bombings.
Now Gelia was in detention, and it was Kira'sjob to interrogate her. There was no use putting it off. It wasn't going to get any easier.
She hit the control pad and the door slid up. Deep Space Nine had been built by the Cardassians, which meant there were plenty of cells in detention. Most of them had been occupied throughout the station's history by Bajoran prisoners awaiting interrogation and execution by their oppressors, an irony that Kira felt acutely as she faced Gelia in her cell now. They had both been in the resistance, both fighting for the same goals. There was a bond between them that someone like Commander Sisko or even Odo could never share.
The Bajoran prisoner stood defiantly and shook back her long hair. She was wearing the wrinkled, grease-stained coveralls of a dockworker, and a simple silver clasp on her ear. "So. I should've known it'd be you. Major Kira Collaborator. Nice uniform you have on there."
Kira's lips pressed thinly together, but her only other reaction was a slight stiffening of her back. "Gelia Torly, this conversation is being monitored and recorded. You've been identified and placed under arrest in connection with the bombing of a clothing store owned by the Cardassian Garak. DNA tracing has linked you with an inflammatory poster left at the scene, and witnesses have placed you there, as well. Can you account for your whereabouts and activity at the time of the bombing?"
Gelia put her hands on her hips. "I was at work."
Kira shook her head. "According to computer records, you left your job three hours before your scheduled shift ended."
"Then maybe I was having a drink at Quark's."
"Maybe you were—a full hour before witnesses claim they saw a person resembling you put that poster up on Garak's wall. Do you have anything else to say?"
"What if I don't? Are you going to bring out the pain inducers? Or do you like to conduct your interrogations the old-fashioned way, with whips and thumbscrews? Maybe you picked up some tips from the Cardassians, did you?"
A flush of anger colored Kira's face, but her voice was controlled with an effort. "You don't have to say anything now. That's your legal right. On the other hand, you're a known associate of the Kohn Ma, and at the moment the only suspect connected with two terrorist attacks on this station. You know as well as I do that the provisional government has declared terrorism a crime, regardless of motive. The Kohn Ma is an illegal organization. Think about it, Gelia. Cooperate with us now, and save yourself a lot of trouble.
Gelia's face twisted in a look of contempt. There was a scar across one cheekbone, Kira noticed. An old scar, faded white by now. "Oh, I've already thought long and hard about it, Major. Just the way I thought ten years ago, when it was a Cardassian cell I was in." She paused in mock surprise and looked around her. "Oh, I forgot, this still is a Cardassian cell!" Then her voice went hard again as she snarled at Kira, "And I still don't betray my comrades! Some of us haven't forgotten the meaning of loyalty!"
Now Kira didn't care anymore. Her hard-won composure had evaporated. Her voice rose in pitch. "Loyalty to what? Not to Bajor! Not when you try to blow up a Bajoran station! Not when you try to ruin relations with the Federation—the only force that's keeping a Cardassian war fleet off our throats!"
But Gelia shouted back, "A Bajoran station? That Cardassian warship you're talking about is docked here right now! We've got Cardassians right on the Promenade! This isn't what I spent fifteen years fighting for! And what about you—is this what you call freedom? Independence? Oh, I know who you are, Major Kira! We both came from the camps. But now look at the two of us: there you stand outside the cell with the Feds and the Cardassians, and here I am. On this side of the cell. Where true Bajorans always stand."
"It wasn't the Cardassians who killed Bajoran babies this time. It was Bajorans who can't stop fighting even when the war's over."
"No babies got killed!"
"And I suppose you knew there wouldn't be any children in the way when you planted your bomb? Oh, but I forgot! Real freedom fighters can't let the lives of a few babies stand in the way of their cause! Real freedom fighters know we have to make these kind of sacrifices for the greater good!"
The two of them faced each other with open hostility, separated only by the invisible force field at the front of the cell. In the back of her mind, Kira kept thinking, She could be me. I could be her. If only …
But in the end, it was Gelia whose eyes broke contact first. "I was only following orders. You know how it is. You don't ask questions."
Kira tried to keep her voice even. "Then you had orders to plant the bomb. Orders from whom?"
But Gelia shook her head, slightly subdued. "No. I didn't plant it. I didn't have anything to do with a bomb, I didn't even know that's what it was about. I mean, I guessed, but—anyway, you know how this kind of thing works. I got a message. It had the right code phrase. It told me to make a poster and leave it in a certain place. I did that."
Kira nodded, all too well aware of the methods used by the resistance. Still, she had to ask. "Your orders told you to make this poster. The exact wording?"
"Right. 'Die, Cardassians!' And signed, Kohn Ma."
"What was the code phrase?"
"Whirlwind of the Prophets." Gelia shot Kira a challenging look. "Why, is that one familiar?"
Kira shook her head. It was a slogan, like so many others the freedom fighters used. Each code phrase was good only among the same three people. She'd used over a dozen, herself, but never that particular phrase, for which she was intensely grateful now. During the resistance, it could be dangerous to know the names and identities of the people you worked with. She'd been dreading the possibility that Gelia might have been one of her own operatives, or even a superior, unknown all this time.
"And the message? What did you do with it?"
"I flashed it. Of course."
Of course. Leaving no evidence. This was getting nowhere. "Are you a member of Kohn Ma?"
Gelia crossed her arms over her chest and laughed. "You don't think I'd admit it, if I were?"
Kira sighed. "You realize that so far, you're the only suspect in all of this. We have only your word that you had nothing to do with the bomb itself, just the poster."
"I stand by my statement. You can truth-test me if you want."
"Oh, don't worry. We will. And even so, there's still the conspiracy charge. Membership in a terrorist organization. You're in serious trouble, Gelia, facing a prison term. A little cooperation at this time could only help you."
But Gelia's arms folded even more tightly across her chest, and Kira recognized that expression on her face: Gelia was ready to become a martyr for her cause.
Martyrs were Bajor's most popular export, Kira thought ruefully. Sometimes I think it's about all we're good for.
But there was no use talking to Gelia any longer. She wasn't going to learn anything more from her. It was part of the code of the resistance: Better to die than to talk.
Odo was sitting at the monitor when Kira came back out from the cells. "I take it you believe her story?"
Kira nodded. "I'm afraid so. That's the way the resistance worked. You didn't know the name of the person you took your orders from so you couldn't spill it in case you were interrogated."
"So essentially, we're back to nothing."
"That's right. If Gelia didn't set the bomb, then we're still looking for whoever did, plus whoever sent her that order, if they aren't the same person."
She glanced down at the monitor, saw Gelia's image. The suspect was seated on the edge of her bunk in a posture of meditation. "You know, I've been thinking. This business with the poster is crude. Signing it Kohn Ma. It's too … obvious. I wonder if Gelia wasn't set up."
"I have to agree," said Odo. "It could well be the real terrorist trying to divert attention to a more obvious suspect. We'd be investigating the Kohn Ma connections anyway."
"Right." Kira deliberately looked away from the monitor. "But now look what everyone sees: random bombings. Hate-crimes against Cardassians. A known Bajoran terrorist captured on the station. I tell you, it's political! This whole conspiracy is aimed at sabotaging the negotiations. To keep Bajor out of the Federation. Odo, sometimes I think Bajorans are worse enemies to themselves than the Cardassians ever were."
To which he had no immediate reply.
She shook her head furiously, making her silver earring jingle. "In fact, if I hadn't just heard Gelia's confession, I'd almost suspect it was the Cardassians behind all this!" But then she remembered Garak on the Promenade deck, bleeding. No, maybe not.
"Is there any evidence from the bomb site?" she asked finally.
"Nothing. I'm going to have to reopen the Promenade. It's not an out-of-the-way docking pylon that we can keep shut down indefinitely."
"No," Kira agreed, sighing. "So, have you found your Cardassian deserter? Or at least any more suspicious anomalies?"
"According to Chief O'Brien, this entire station is an anomaly," Odo said glumly. "But, no, whoever our deserter is, he's hiding his tracks very well. Even with a reward out for him. I still don't like it, someone tampering with our security sensor grid that way."
"I don't suppose," Kira frowned, "that this deserter affair could be some kind of Cardassian trick? A way to infiltrate DS-Nine?"
"Infiltrate? Major, look at this." Odo turned to his monitor and brought up an image of part of the Promenade that hadn't been shut down. A Cardassian military policeman in his black uniform stood looking up and down the corridor while traffic detoured around him. A few meters farther down the corridor, a figure in the uniform of Starfleet security stood casually keeping an eye on the Cardassian.
"There are at least four more like that, all with liberty passes from the Swift Striker."
"Looking for the deserter?"
"It's Cardassians they're watching. Poor Garak has been stopped so many times he finally complained to Gul Marak. We're keeping close watch on them, as you can see. Officially, they're crewmen on liberty. And so far, they're staying out of the restricted areas of the station."
"And they're not armed."
"Not armed," Odo acknowledged. "I still don't like it. Our security is supposed to be handling the matter."
"I know. But it's the commander's orders. As long as they're not armed, as long as they don't cause any disturbance, they're free to come and go like any other visitors to the station. He doesn't want any provocations—on either side."
Kira heard the warning in Odo's voice. She glanced back at the monitor. "Sisko's crazy if he thinks this isn't going to lead to more trouble."
Once again, Odo had no comment.