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“From what I understand of the situation, Admiral, why am I not surprised?”

“Most of them are recruited by the military. The Empire essentially uses them for cannon fodder for the most dangerous missions. The ruling families have always preferred to use colonials on the frontiers. Looks like they’ve refined it to a science.”

“Glad it’s Tuvok and not me who has to give Jarquin that information,” Sisko mused.

“Status report?” Uhura asked, bringing them back to the present.

“Tuvok and Selar have both infiltrated the enclosure and, judging from the readings, except for the occasional patrol, they’re the only thing moving down there. They’ve split up. I’m assuming Selar’s gathering specimens. Tuvok said something about wanting to find out anything he could about the stranger the citizens claim brought the disease.”

“And Zetha?”

“Aft, puttering in the lab, last time I checked.”

“Do you check often, Lieutenant?”

Tuvok moved like a shadow. The lock on the storehouse door proved too strong for him to break, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pick it. But the mechanism was sluggish with the cold, and it took him longer than he expected. He had timed the patrols outside the walls earlier in the day, and now could only hope to be inside the storehouse and out of range of their scanners before they happened by again. His life-signs would read normal, not feverish, and the guards might consider that worthy of investigation.

At last the lock yielded to his skills, the massive door opened inward and, mercifully, did not either scrape the floor or squeak, and he slipped inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, it took all of his Vulcan discipline not to react to what he saw.

He had expected the corpses, but not the rats. They swarmed everywhere, feeding on the dead, hissing and squealing but refusing to give ground at his approach, swarming with the mad purposefulness of a single entity. Wondering if a rat bite would breach the fabric of a hazmat suit, Tuvok moved stealthily so as not to rouse them further. He also wondered if there was some way to warn Subhar and those outside the wall to exterminate the rats.

An enclosure in one corner of the vast, high-raftered room-doubtless at one time an office of some sort-drew his attention. Perhaps there were records, lists of the dead, even information about the interloper who had purportedly brought the illness among them.

This door was not locked. While there were indeed some cursory lists of the dead, apparently abandoned when the numbers became overwhelming and, perhaps, the one compiling the list also fell ill, what Tuvok found most significant was the corpse thrown carelessly onto a table in a corner, doubtless the interloper himself, set apart from the others as if not to defile them by his presence. Ironically, his being exiled in death had spared him the defilement of the rats.

Judging from the wounds inflicted on the body, he had not died easily. His clothing was Quirinian and so, on superficial examination in this dim light, were his features. But Tuvok’s tricorder told a different tale.

“Evidence of cosmetic surgery to remove pronounced brow ridges,” he reported to Selar on discrete. “On empirical evidence, I believe this individual was Romulan.”

“Interesting,” was Selar’s muffled response. Tuvok assumed she was preoccupied with gathering evidence of her own, and ended the transmission. Then, using the techniques Selar had taught him, he took blood and skin samples from the late and unlamented stranger and, making his way gingerly among the rats, returned the way he had come.

Zetha was tidying and prepping the lab in preparation for Selar’s return. She could hear Sisko and Uhura discussing her, even at this distance. Sisko might dictate where she could go, but not what she could hear. Knowing when and how to listen had gotten her this far.

“You are wallpaper,” the Lord told her. “A potted plant, a desk ornament. They will speak freely in your presence, because they will not notice you are there.”

I am wallpaper, Zetha thought.