Текст книги "Twilight "

Автор книги: David George

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Part Two

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

–ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,

“ULYSSES”

7

The universe is filled with unimagined wonders.

Elias Vaughn stood in the aft section of Defiant’s bridge, thinking this as the clatter of refit and repair work surrounded him. Several of his alpha-shift command crew—Bowers, ch’Thane, and Prynn—worked at their respective stations, confirming the modifications and repairs to their equipment. Half a dozen other technicians from Nog’s engineering team sat, stood, and lay all around the bridge, their hands buried inside the ship’s infrastructure. Nog himself was not present, though Vaughn occasionally heard his voice over the comm system as he called up from engineering, coordinating efforts with his personnel on the bridge. The electronic squeals and quavers of diagnostic sequences filled the room like an atonal symphony, with the thuds and clanks of equipment being moved, along with the many voices, providing accompaniment.

Vaughn studied a monitor in the aft bulkhead of the bridge. He watched as a bright green line drew a rough ellipse on the black screen, weaving through white pinpoints that represented stars, and beginning and ending at a blue disk designated BAJORAN WORMHOLE/GAMMA QUADRANT TERMINUS. This marked the course Defiantwould take on its three-month mission. Vaughn had spent hours plotting various routes through unexplored sectors, attempting to maximize the number of civilizations and interesting celestial objects the crew might encounter, while keeping the ship as far from Dominion space as possible. He had solicited feedback from Colonel Kira, as well as from Science Officer ch’Thane. He had even spoken with Quark—in general terms, and without providing any of the proposed courses to him—about what he had heard regarding the various sectors under consideration. Quark had professed to being delighted to help the station’s new executive officer, but had also managed to elicit a promise from Vaughn to bring him back something “worthy” in return.

All told, little was known about the areas Defiantwould be traveling. Before contact with the Dominion had made such voyages impossible, explorers from the Alpha Quadrant had managed to chart only a relatively small volume of the Gamma Quadrant. Federation astronomers had carried out some rudimentary star charting, of course, and several reports and rumors about various trading factions had come to light, but not much more than that. In the end, Vaughn had decided on a course that would take Defiantthrough areas with both a large number of main-sequence stars and some identified celestial rarities—a dual binary system here, a cluster of brown dwarf stars there.

The port door to the bridge whispered open, and Vaughn looked over to see Ensign Roness enter. The tall, svelte blonde carried a padd in one hand and a spanner—a blue, two-pronged tool with an elongated handle—in the other. She paced over to the flight-control console, where she conferred with Prynn. Roness would function as the beta-shift conn officer during the voyage. Right now, Vaughn had assigned her the task of collating the refit and repair data for Defiant.

Vaughn tapped a control below the display, and a series of red arcs appeared at intervals along Defiant’s course. The arcs, looping away in both directions from the green ellipse at various points, symbolized the paths of the probes the crew would launch throughout the mission, a supplement to the readings taken from the ship. As best he could, Vaughn would see to it that he and his crew learned as much as possible during their expedition. With luck, they would discover marvels.

From the time he had been a boy, gazing up at the night sky on Berengaria VII, Vaughn had apprehended the vastness of space. And with the enthusiasm and credulousness of youth, he had readily envisioned himself traveling the great expanses in search of wondrous beings and places. He had learned all he could about Earth’s eminent explorers—Leif Eriksson, Ferdinand Magellan, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Neil Armstrong, Jonathan Archer, and so many others—and dreamed about the days when he would join their ranks. Back then, he could not have known that circumstance and a talent for intelligence would long deny him the opportunity to explore.

Now, a year past his centenary birthday, Vaughn recalled the aspirations of his childhood. It amazed and gratified him that they had somehow endured, despite his casual disregard of them through the decades. He looked at the representation of the path Defiantwould take beginning six days from now—at the path hewould take—and renewed his belief that the universe would never exhaust its treasures.

“Sir?” a woman’s voice said behind him. Vaughn turned to Ensign Roness. She no longer carried the spanner, but she still held the padd in one hand.

“Yes, Ensign?” Vaughn said. He tried to remember the officer’s first name—he was still getting to know the crew—and thought Tildaand Gretabefore recalling that it was Gerda.

“You wanted the latest status reports on the ship, sir,” Roness said, offering the padd to Vaughn. From the tone of her voice, it did not sound as though she particularly enjoyed making this delivery.

“Something wrong, Ensign?” he asked. He reached out and took the padd from her, but did not look at it.

“It’s just, well, I don’t think you’ll be completely pleased about the progress the crew has made,” she explained.

“So far,” Vaughn told her, glancing down at the padd but not actually reading it, “I am delighted by the progress we’ve made. Not to worry.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “Where should I report next?”

Vaughn took a half-step to the side and looked past Roness to the conn. “Ensign Tenmei,” he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard above the noise of the work being done.

Prynn turned immediately in her seat to face him across Defiant’s bridge. “Yes, sir?” she said.

Vaughn hesitated an instant, the sight of his daughter at the conn still evoking the painful memory of the moment he thought her life had been lost. On the heels of that emotion, though, came hope: Prynn had addressed him without the slightest trace of animus, either in her voice or on her face. He had to give her credit; since their discussion two weeks ago, she had been the model officer, giving him no reason to have to revisit the issue. It pleased him tremendously that she had something in her life—her work—that allowed her to face down her troubles, even if he was one of them. At the same time, he knew that while thought and emotion drove behavior, so too could behavior influence thought and emotion; if Prynn’s professional relationship with him continued in a positive way, it could potentially impact her personal feelings about him.

“Can Ensign Roness assist you at the conn?” he asked her.

“No, sir,” Prynn told him. “I’ll be done in here in just a few minutes, but I’ll be going down to help Lieutenant Candlewood with the computer core. He said he could use some extra bodies for some of the work.”

“Thank you, Ensign” Vaughn said, and looked back at Roness. “Report to Lieutenant Candlewood and give him whatever assistance he needs.”

“Aye, sir.” Roness turned and left the bridge.

Vaughn examined the padd. The words DEFIANT REFIT/REPAIR STATUS marched across the display. Vaughn touched a control and brought up a list of categories into which the work on the ship had been divided. Color-coded progress bars beneath each category indicated how much work had been completed, ranging from red—zero percent—through orange and yellow to green—one hundred percent. Most of the tasks that would augment Defiantfor exploration—Shuttlepod Removal and Pod Bay Reconfiguration, Biochem Lab Installation, Stellar Cartography Lab Installation, Sensor Recalibration, and the like—had been finished a month ago, though final diagnostic testing and any required adjustments had yet to be concluded. The only major refit modification left partially done was the expansion of the library computer system from a purely military mission profile to a military/sciences hybrid. The bulk of the work that remained involved repairs to the ship—hull breaches, damage to the port thruster package, ablative-armor replacement—a result of clashes Defianthad been engaged in during the past three weeks, including the one at Torona IV.

One by one, Vaughn toggled between the list of categories and detailed descriptions of the work completed and the work remaining. Considering the major modifications to Defiant,as well as the unanticipated repairs and the narrow time frame, the crew had done an extraordinary job. Still, not everything added up quite the way Vaughn had hoped. He thumbed through the list a second time, searching for any time that could be made up within the next week. Then he looked a third time.

We’re behind schedule,he finally allowed himself to think. And no matter how many times he studied the status reports, he chided himself, that was not going to change. Which meant that he could either try to push the crew harder, try to obtain additional resources, or push the launch back. Uncomfortable as it was for him to recognize the problem, it was actually easy for him to arrive at a solution. The crew had already pushed themselves, and Vaughn had no intention of using crew downtime to make up the deficit in the schedule; time away from duty, he well knew, played a vital role in productivity, and beyond that, the crew had earned it. And the addition of more personnel—in short supply in Starfleet these days anyway—would be mitigated by travel time to the station. Clearly, Vaughn would have to set the beginning of the mission back by at least a day.

A heavy thump to Vaughn’s right pulled his attention away from the padd. He turned to see Lieutenant Bowers and Ensign Merimark struggling with one of the library computer interface modules. The two had it perched on the side of a console, and Vaughn could not tell whether they had dropped it there after removing it or during an attempt to install it.

“Mr. Bowers,” Vaughn said, selecting the senior of the two officers to address. “Get an antigrav up here for that.”

“Yes, sir,” Bowers said, the expression on his face showing his obvious annoyance with himself that he had not used an antigrav in the first place. He left Merimark holding the module in place on the edge of the console—it did not appear to be a strain for her—and then headed out through the starboard door.

Under normal conditions, a decision to delay the mission would hardly cause any concerns for Starfleet Command, simply by virtue of its necessity. In this case, though, it might be problematic. Not all of the admiralty agreed that the time had come for renewed exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Any attempt to delay the launch date would allow those opposed to the mission another occasion to voice their disapproval. And whenever that happened, minds could be changed.

Vaughn personally knew several admirals who believed the end of the war was still too close for the Federation to be intruding anywhere near Dominion territory, even despite Odo’s invitation for the resumption of peaceful exploration. Odo, they argued, composed but one small piece of the Great Link, and it remained to be seen whether his influence could forge a lasting peace between the Dominion and the civilizations of the Alpha Quadrant. Because a lot had been lost during the war, Vaughn understood and respected that position, even as he disagreed with it.

He blanked the display of the padd, then made a note to himself to confer with Colonel Kira about the needed delay to the start of the mission. After that, he would inform Starfleet Command of the necessary change in plan, and he considered which admiral would be best to contact first. Not Nechayev, and not Jellico,he concluded immediately. Admiral Walter,he decided. Walter was a proponent of exploration, considered a reasonable man, and a strong figure within the admiralty. He would, Vaughn thought, help preserve the prevailing sentiment that venturing into the Gamma Quadrant need not wait. And if some of the admirals did consider withdrawing their support for the mission, well, then Vaughn would just have to bring his particular brand of persuasion to bear. Despite being “only” a commander—his rank had always served his aims—Vaughn’s tenure in Starfleet had lasted longer than the careers of most of the Command admirals, and his influence had a corresponding reach.

Vaughn checked the time on the padd. His next meeting, he saw, was only a minute away. As though caused by his realization, the bridge’s port door slid open to admit Taran’atar. It did not surprise Vaughn to find Jem’Hadar—or at least this one—as punctual as Tholians.

“Taran’atar,” he said. The Jem’Hadar stepped over to Vaughn.

“Colonel Kira told me to meet you here, at this time,” Taran’atar said.

“Yes,” Vaughn acknowledged. “Thank you for coming. Let’s go to my ready room. There are some things I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Very well,” Taran’atar said.

Vaughn led the way off the bridge, anxious to consult with somebody who had already traveled the Gamma Quadrant.

“Please, sit.” Vaughn stood behind his desk, gesturing across to a chair there. Taran’atar regarded it with a look that bordered on contempt, and then sat down stiffly. Vaughn sat too, and then operated the computer interface on his desk. He brought up a chart, then swiveled the display around so that both he and Taran’atar could see it. “I wanted to confer with you about this region of space.” The wormhole’s Gamma terminus sat squarely in the middle of the diagram. Dominion space spread above it, the blur of the Omarion Nebula, the former home of the Founders, distinctively contained within its borders. Defiant’s course emerged and returned to the wormhole, stretching down and to the left on the plot. Vaughn tapped on the screen, pointing to the area through which Defiantwould be traveling. “We intend to explore this region. Are you familiar with it?”

As Taran’atar examined the display, Vaughn was struck by a sense of déjà vu. Or perhaps what he experienced owed less to a feeling that he had lived this exact scene before, and more to his long memory of the planning of uncounted missions. Vaughn had never sought assistance from a Jem’Hadar soldier like this, nor had he ever plotted a course for exploration, but this was how he had always operated: seeking as much information as possible, from different sources and different viewpoints, allowing him to paint as complete a picture as he could of whatever situation he would be entering, and to plan his actions accordingly. Vaughn did not like to be surprised.

“I am familiar in part with this area of space,” Taran’atar said. “Can you provide a more detailed view?”

Vaughn worked the controls again, and the chart he had been studying earlier returned to the screen. The green path marking Defiant’scourse looped out from the blue disk of the wormhole. Taran’atar looked at the display, then reached up and cut an arc across it with his fingertip. “Here,” he said. “I know something within this area.” Vaughn keyed in a command, and the neighborhood of space immediately bordering the wormhole, including the area Taran’atar had indicated, grew to fill the screen.

“Would you be more specific?” Vaughn asked.

“I have visited these systems,” Taran’atar said, pointing to the two stars closest to the wormhole along Defiant’s course. “And I have knowledge about these,” he went on, running a finger around the next three stars.

“Nothing beyond that?” Vaughn asked.

“To my knowledge,” Taran’atar explained, “the Dominion has never traveled beyond these systems.”

“I see,” Vaughn said. He should have been disappointed—the five stars Taran’atar had identified had already been mapped and surveyed by Federation vessels—but he found that he was not. “Do you know of any life in these systems?” he asked. “Or of any unusual or rare phenomena?”

“The systems are lifeless,” Taran’atar pronounced, “and entirely ordinary.” That matched the information that the Federation had collected.

Vaughn touched a control and blanked the display. “I’d like to ask you something else,” he told Taran’atar. “Do you think that the Dominion will try to thwart our attempt to explore the Gamma Quadrant?” Vaughn himself felt sure that the Dominion would pose no threat, believing—and with solid intelligence to back up his belief—that the Founders and their minions would remain in their own territory for some time to come. What interested him right now, though, was how Taran’atar viewed the situation.

“You watched the message I delivered from the Founder,” Taran’atar said. “He told you that the Dominion would not interfere with your peaceful exploration of the Gamma Quadrant, as long as you leave them alone.”

“Yes,” Vaughn said, “I did see that message. But I wasn’t asking you to repeat it for me; I was asking what your opinion was.”

“My opinion?”Taran’atar said, as though the concept did not extend to Jem’Hadar. “My opinion is not necessary. Noopinion is necessary. The Founder said it, therefore it is so.”

“I see,” Vaughn said. “Well, thank you for your time and assistance.” He stood up, and Taran’atar stood up as well, quickly, almost as though preparing to fend off an attack. “That’s all I needed.”

Taran’atar did not acknowledge the end of the meeting with a word or even a nod, but immediately headed for the door. But before he exited, he turned back toward Vaughn. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“You mean exploring the Gamma Quadrant?”

“Yes.” Taran’atar took a step back toward the desk. “You apparently know nothing about where you are going, and you worry about being attacked by the Dominion.”

“The point of exploration is the unknown,” Vaughn said. “We wouldn’t really be exploring if we traveled to a familiar place.” He smiled, but the humor seemed to make no impact on Taran’atar. “And I’m not worried about the Dominion.”

“There are other dangers,” Taran’atar said, his words and tone almost threatening. “So why do this?”

“Because it is our nature,” Vaughn said. “Humans and many other races find meaning for their lives in extending the knowledge of themselves and their people. The yearning to explore drives us.”

Taran’atar appeared to consider this, and then said, “It is a weakness.”

Vaughn smiled and sat back down. “What isn’t?” he said. “Thank you again.” Taran’atar looked at him for a moment, then turned and left.

Vaughn swung the display back toward his side of the desk, then brought up the display of Defiant’s full course once more. A small, yellow rectangle now enclosed the stars Taran’atar had referenced. The area was small, and Defiantwould sail beyond it in a day or two, traveling into the unknown. Vaughn realized that, for the first time in a very long time—perhaps for the first time in his career—he would be heading out on a mission with virtually no idea of what he would encounter.

Strangely enough, that suited him.

8

Kira stood back from the outer bulkhead in her office and took in the painting she had just had hung. A plain, gilded frame bordered the large canvas, a meter tall and half again as wide. In the lower right foreground, the greenish white form of Bajor sat nestled in the blackness of space, the land and oceans discernible beneath the wisps of cloud circling the globe. A sliver of Endalla, the first and largest of the five moons, peeked out from the middle left of the painting. Derna and Jeraddo and the other moons, smaller but still recognizable, danced with Endalla about Bajor.

Though Kira had an appreciation for art, never had any work captured her attention as this one had. Prior to the evacuation of Europa Nova, the Promenade Merchants’ Association had held an art festival, and Kira, ambling through the show as a sign of support, but with no intention of purchasing anything, had been taken with this piece. Done in short, narrow strokes, the painting—entitled Bajor at Peace—had been done by a woman named Acto Viri, from the province of Wyntara Mas. Kira had not found the rest of Acto’s displayed work very impressive, but she had returned again and again to Bajor at Peace.

On one of her later visits during the show, Kira had been stunned to discover something in the painting she had not noticed in her previous viewings: in the upper left corner, a hint of blue, slightly larger than the white lights of the stars, looked out on Bajor and her children. It almost seemed like a mistake, like an accidental brushstroke, but Kira knew that it was not. Though not visible to the unaided eye from Bajor, this was the Celestial Temple.

Kira had not purchased Bajor at Peacethen, but sometime after she had returned to the station through the Iconian gateway, she had contacted Acto Viri and asked if the painting was still available. It had arrived on a transport this morning. Now Kira stood back and appreciated anew this wonderful depiction of Bajor in its place in the universe.

Even the stars are right,Kira thought, automatically clustering them into the constellations she had known since childhood. She spotted the Forest, the Runners, and her favorite, the Temple. She looked for others and found the Flames—

Kira’s eyes locked on the triangular formation of stars. One of the lower stars in the configuration, she knew, was Sol. Earth’s star. Benjamin’s star.The thought of the Emissary usually brought a smile to her face, but now she also thought about Captain Sisko’s son. No one had seen or heard from Jake in two months, not since he had left DS9 to visit his grandfather on Earth. His disappearance had not been established until two weeks after that, when Kasidy Yates had spoken with Joseph Sisko and learned that, not only had he not heard from Jake, but he knew nothing at all about an impending visit from his grandson.

While Federation authorities had looked for Jake on and around Earth, the DS9 crew had actively searched for him throughout the Bajoran sector. Kira had also questioned Quark at length; the unscrupulous Ferengi had sold Jake the shuttle in which the young man had intended to travel to Earth. She had been ready to tear off Quark’s ears if she had found out that he had given Jake a defective ship, but Nog had told her that he had checked it himself, and that it had indeed been spaceworthy. And the crew had never discovered any debris or other indications of a destroyed shuttle anywhere in the sector.

The search for Jake had been suspended during the Iconian gateways crisis, with so many ships needed to evacuate Europa Nova. During the past three weeks, Kira had reinstituted the hunt for the younger Sisko, but as the crew’s responsibilities shifted to other tasks, and no sign of Jake appeared, those efforts had necessarily waned.

Kira tried to shake off her melancholy. She took one last appreciative look at the painting, then returned to her desk, and to the work she had not yet completed tonight. On her desktop computer interface, she brought up the list of ships still circling the station, which had begun to thin this afternoon. In the next four or five days, she knew, they would all be gone, leaving Deep Space 9 alone at the threshold of the Celestial Temple once more.

Well, not alone,she corrected herself. Defiantwould not be departing to the Gamma Quadrant for another six days– Seven,she amended, taking into account the one-day delay—and Captain Mello would be arriving shortly with Gryphon.Kira recalled that Mjolnirhad originally been slated for the three-month tour at DS9, and a swell of annoyance grew within her. She liked Captain Mello, but she had not seen Captain Hoku in quite some time—not since before the war with the Dominion—and she had been looking forward to spending some time with her old friend.

It’s more than that,Kira thought as she studied the departure schedule for the next week. She knew that she would catch up with Kalena soon enough, and that as a stand-in for Defiant,the Akira-class Gryphonwas better suited to the task than the Norway-class Mjolnir.What bothered her was the way Starfleet had informed her of the change in plan– Mjolnir’s early arrival three weeks ago had been a surprise—and more than that, the demeanor of Admiral Akaar. She had not cared for him much, and she was pleased that he had remained at the station only long enough to speak with her and collect Councillor zh’Thane. Now he was the first minister’s problem.

On the display, Kira saw that many of the vessels at the station would be voyaging to Bajor tomorrow. As the Europani resettlement got under way, they would transport the refugees aboard and then ferry them back to their world. Whatever few difficulties Kira had with Starfleet—mostly the administrative matters they burdened her with, as well as the occasional troublesome admiral—she thought highly of their Corps of Engineers. She had received word earlier that day that the specialized technical arm of Starfleet had managed to completely decontaminate the radiation-scarred world of Europa Nova; remarkably, they had taken less than a month to do so. Concerns that the population of three million Europani might overburden Bajor’s available resources had now been rendered moot, though Kira was happy that, despite the risk, her people had immediately offered refuge when the crisis had arisen. She still remembered with bitterness and guilt the incident, six years ago, when she and her people had turned away the Skrreea in their time of need.

“Ops to Colonel Kira.”The voice belonged to Ensign Selzner. Kira tapped her combadge, which chirped to life.

“This is Kira,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“Colonel, we’re being hailed by a ship requesting clearance to dock,”Selzner explained. “I thought you would want to know: it’s theTrager.”

Macet,Kira thought. What’s he up to?This marked the third time that he and his warship had been to Deep Space 9 within the last month. On the previous two occasions, the ship had docked after assisting with the Europani. After the gul had helped evacuate Europa Nova—and before Kira had returned to the station—Commander Vaughn had authorized repairs to Tragerat DS9. And after Macet’s aid at Torona IV, Vaughn had convinced Kira to allow additional repair work to the ship.

Could that be why he’s been assisting us?she thought. Somehow, Macet trading his help for free starship maintenance didn’t seem quite right. That sounded more like Ferengi behavior.

“Put Gul Macet through to me, Ensign,” Kira said.

“Aye, sir,”Selzner replied.

A faint electronic signal accompanied the appearance on the display of Gul Macet.

“Colonel Kira,”he said, smiling. “How nice to see you.”

“Gul Macet,” Kira said. She returned the smile, wondering if it looked as false as it felt. She had learned since the Occupation not to judge Cardassians as a species, but to see them for who they were as individuals. But what confronted her now consisted of more than simply a Cardassian face; this was the face of the unholy Dukat, a likeness to which she had still not grown accustomed. “I’d like to know the purpose of your visit to Deep Space 9 before I authorize you to dock.”

“Ah…of course, Colonel,”he said, hesitating a bit as he spoke, as though he had not expected to have to justify his arrival in Bajoran space.

The arrogance,Kira thought. Perhaps Macet was not, after all, quite as different from his cousin as he professed to be. “Is there a problem, Macet?” she said. “Don’t you have a good reason for visiting the station?”

“Yes, of course, Colonel, of course,”he said, and though the tone of his voice differed from Dukat’s, his selection of words seemed very recognizable. “It’s simply that…well, I thought you would already have been apprised of our arrival. We’re here to help transport the Europani back to Europa Nova.”

Kira reached a hand up and tugged idly at her right earlobe for a moment. She suddenly felt foolish, distrustful as she had been in view of this offer– anotheroffer—of assistance from Macet. Still—

“How do youknow about the Europani returning to their planet?” Kira had only been informed this afternoon by the SCE that the decontamination had been completed.

“I was contacted by Admiral Akaar.”

“Admiral—” Kira started. “I see.” Suddenly, her caution with Macet seemed entirely misdirected. She regarded the gul, concentrating on the tufts of hair fanning out from the corners of his mouth down to his jaw, the most distinctive variance between his appearance and that of Dukat. Another question occurred to her—why was Tragercoming to the station rather than to Bajor, where the majority of the refugees were located?—but the answer came to her right away: the thousands of Europani on DS9 could be taken back to their world in one trip, together, aboard what would be, by far, the largest vessel in the task force. And sending all of the Europani on the station onto one ship would significantly ease coordination of boarding procedures for Kira’s crew. “I’m sorry, Gul Macet,” she said, realizing that she could not deny the value of his aid or the apparent quality of his intentions. “You have my authorization to dock.” Then, trying to spare them both an awkward moment, she added, “I’m just a little tired this evening.”

“Not at all, Colonel,”Macet said, graciously not making an issue of Kira’s initially adversarial manner. “My crew and I are at your disposal. We’ll wait until your people are prepared for the Europani to boardTrager.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s night here, so it’ll probably be eight to ten hours before we can begin.”

“I look forward to hearing from you,”Macet said. “And Colonel…my crew will remain aboard ship while we’re at Deep Space 9.”

Neither of the times that Tragerhad docked here before had Macet or any of his crew come aboard the station, and considering how much the gul resembled his infamous cousin, Kira realized what a wise decision that had been. She wanted to tell Macet now that such a restriction was not necessary, that he and his crew were welcome on DS9. But even if Kira welcomed these Cardassians aboard, would the same be true of the Bajoran civilians on the station? In particular, what would be the reaction to a Cardassian gul who so resembled the justifiably reviled Skrain Dukat?