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He had, as she’d predicted, been drinking blood wine with Thought Admiral Klaad all evening, but while Klaad was drowsing in a corner and the reception was winding down, Curzon managed to look as if he’d been imbibing nothing but Altair water and was ready to start a new day.

Maybe that’s the secret, Uhura thought. You don’t have to outshout a Klingon, just outdrink him.

“Well?” he greeted her. “Any luck in talking my hard-headed young protégé into joining your mission?”

“I gave him twenty-four hours to think about it,” was all Uhura would say.

“I warned you it wouldn’t be easy.”

“So you did,” she acknowledged. “But one way or the other, I did want to thank you.”

“You can do that better in private,” Curzon suggested. “I’m staying in my usual suite on Embassy Row. I have an unopened bottle of a rare aperitif from Izar that will spoil you for anything else, and some recordings of Hamalki 3D string music you’ll never see or hear anywhere else. The composer is a dear friend who wrote several pieces just for me. We could…”

At her wry look, he stopped. They danced the same waltz every time they met.

“Just as friends,” he suggested. “Two intelligent people who share the same tastes in the finer things. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. I know you need to keep your mind occupied now that you’ve set this thing in motion.”

Uhura glanced at him sharply. She didn’t know how much he picked up through diplomatic channels, how much just on hearsay. If he asked her anything further, security clearance or no, there was only so much she could tell him. But he was right. Very soon, depending on the cooperation of the assistant engineer from the Okinawa, she would send a team on a very dangerous mission inside the Neutral Zone that, whether it succeeded or not, officially never happened. After that, there was nothing she could do but monitor the situation and wait. Shuffle documents on her desk, teach her class, give the occasional press conference, field the crisis or crises du jour, and wait. Go home at night to an empty house built into a hillside overlooking the Muir Woods, and wait.

Or spend at least one evening in good company while she waited.

“Spend the rest of the evening with me,” Curzon asked again. “I promise not to ask you anything more about the mission. Just two friends having a little private visit. Anything else is up to you.”

It wasn’t as if Uhura hadn’t considered other things. Curzon Dax was urbane, witty, and charming, and if he had been anything other than a Trill, she might not have been able to resist him all these years. But it was the thought that, however brief or extended their relationship might be, he or at least his symbiont would carry the memory-and no doubt the urge to gossip; she knew Trills-into subsequent lives, possibly forever, that put her off.

“Just as friends,” she agreed finally. “After all, I do owe you a favor.”

“Oh, you mean talking Captain Leyton into lending you young Benjamin Sisko?” Curzon waved it off. “That might not prove to be much of a favor. He can be incredibly stubborn. The lieutenant has a natural command ability, but anything beyond the theoretical scares him. He really has no idea who or what he is, so he loses himself in diagnostics and hypotheticals. But once you bring him around, he’ll give you the best he’s got.”

“I understand humans have an expression about ‘hiding your light under a bushel,’ ” was how Dax broached the subject with Benjamin Sisko once he knew Sisko had gotten Uhura’s summons. “One of these days, Benjamin, you’re going to take your head out of your technical manuals and notice the universe at large.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben Sisko remarked by reflex. At the time he’d had his head inside a reflux manifold making an adjustment. It was cramped and hot and airless, and he was feeling light-headed and not a little claustrophobic. “Whatever that means, sir.”

“It means, among other things, that you can drop the ‘sir,’ ” Dax said dryly. “This is us, Benjamin. There’s no one else down here