“Ah, you are Curzon Dax?” Qaolin said.

“Indeed I am, Captain.”

Qaolin gave a small bow. “I am honored. I served with Captain Koloth, and he spoke highly of you.”

“Koloth speaks highly of few save Koloth in my experience, Captain, so the fact that he spoke highly of another in your presence is flattery indeed.” He held up his warnog,which was among the worst replicated beverages he’d ever had. I knew I should have had some shipped in from Qo’noS.“To Koloth.” After choking down the drink, he asked, “How is the mad old razorbeast?”

Laughing, Qaolin said, “Mad and old as ever. He won’t die, though.”

After sipping her own drink—bourbon, from the smell of it—Garrett asked, “Has anyone tried to aid him in that process?” She smiled knowingly.

“Oh, many have tried to send his soul to Sto-Vo-Kor,Commander, believe me. None have lived to make a second attempt. It is perhaps less accurate to say that he won’t die—more that no one has been worthy of performing the deed.”

“Most definitely,” Dax said with a grin.

The captain regarded Dax. “I am glad that it is you who leads this negotiation, Ambassador. You understand the Klingon mind—and the Klingon heart.” He put a hand on Dax’s shoulder. “I know that you will return Ch’gran to its rightful place.”

“What I will do, my friend, is preserve the peace. But you can be assured that I will not do so at the expense of Klingon honor.”

Qaolin smiled. “I can ask no more. Qapla’,Dax.”

With that, the captain excused himself to talk to one of the other Klingons.

“I thought for sure he was gonna head-butt you,” Garrett said with a grin. Dax noted that Garrett had an unusually wide smile for her face, and the grin completely changed the structure of her visage. Among other things, it changed her eyes from intelligent to mischievious.

“It was a risk,” Dax said with mock gravity.

Garrett swallowed the rest of her bourbon, then shook her head. “Next time, I use my own sour mash.”

Dax let out a laugh at that. “It couldn’t be any worse than the warnog.I’m wondering if perhaps we’d have been better off not replicating everything.”

“Perhaps. Do you really think you can do this?”

Blinking, Dax said, “Do what?”

Garrett gestured at the Cardassian legate and then at the Klingon general. “This. What you told Qaolin you could do. The Cardassians have a legitimate claim, and the only reason the Klingons even know about it is because they were spying.”

“True, and if it were just a simple case of finding a wreck, I’d agree with you. What you must understand, my dear, is that Ch’gran is one of the sacred stories of the Emp—”

“I’m fully aware of the spiritual significance the Klingons put on this lost colony, Ambassador.” Garrett spoke snappishly, and Dax realized that he perhaps should not have put on his patronizing tone when speaking to a commander whose service record included more than one trip to Qo’noS. “Gul Monor found the functional equivalent of an old burial ground. Even so, there are such things as salvage rights.”

“There’s also such a thing as prior claim.” Dax let out a sigh that was probably unnecessarily theatrical. “It’s a bit of a legal hair that needs to be split, not aided by the fact that there are no treaties between Cardassia and the Empire—nor, for that matter, between Cardassia and the Federation. Whatever gets decided on this ship may well have an impact for generations to come.”

“And you get to shape it. How nice for you.”

Garrett spoke in the most pleasant of tones, but Dax could hardly miss the snide undercurrent. “It ismy job, Commander Garrett. Both the Cardassians and the Klingons are approaching this situation with caution, but for all the wrong reasons.”

“What do you mean?”

Now Garrett sounded like she was genuinely curious. Good,Dax thought, perhaps now I can get back in her good graces.He knew, of course, that the commander was a married woman, but that didn’t make her any less pleasant company, and Dax didn’t like the idea of an attractive woman not finding his own company as pleasant as he found hers. “Because of that very legal hair, cautious heads need to prevail—we tread over ground that is fraught with a veritable minefield of procedural dangers.” In a sweeping gesture, he pointed at both the Klingons and the Cardassians, each standing near their own table of food. “But that’s not why they’re being cautious. They’re concerned about the distances involved, and whether or not they can afford to commit to a prolonged conflict.”

Garrett shook her head and started walking toward the Federation food table. “Who would have thought forty years ago that the Klingons would be holding back from a war for economic reasons?”

Dax laughed. “My dear, you cannot possibly be old enough to remember anything from forty years ago.”

“No,” Garrett said as she grabbed some vegetables and placed her empty glass on the table. “In fact, I was born the year afterKhitomer.”

“Then you are fortunate, my dear,” Dax said as Garrett took a bite of some irrel.“You’ve never been alive during a time of conflict between the Federation and the Empire. As lamentable as the destruction of Praxis was, I have to say that it was the best thing ever to happen to either of our nations.” He poured himself some allirapunch. “Can I interest you in a glass?”

“God no,” Garrett said emphatically, “I can’t stand that stuff. My husband tried to ply me with it on our first date, and it almost prevented the second date.”

“Lucky for him, you got over it, then.”

“Mmm.”

Dax frowned. Trouble in paradise, perhaps?Still, he knew better than to query someone about their marriage difficulties. One of only two results was possible: she would go on for hours about those difficulties, which was the last thing Dax wanted to hear, or she would clam up and lose her charm as a conversational companion.

He turned his gaze over toward one of the tables, where Vaughn and young Mr. Troi were now sitting, having as animated a conversation as someone with Elias Vaughn’s utter lack of social skills could have. “Tell me, Commander, you wouldn’t happen to know whose ridiculous idea it was to send himalong, do you?”

“You mean Lieutenant Vaughn?” Garrett asked as she poured herself a skahtchansohde.“I’m honestly not sure. All I know is that our orders were to pick up the lieutenant along with you and your staff at Starbase 47 and bring you all here. Then we were to host the negotiations.”

Dax shook his head. “Probably some admiral insisted on it. Unfortunately, he’s as likely to make a mess of things as help. He’s an even bigger impediment to the process than the general and the legate.”

Garrett smiled. “He’s just here to observe, Ambassador. I doubt he’ll even be that heavily involved in the process.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Dax said gravely. “I’ve known far too many intelligence types, and there are two universal truths about them. One is that they are constitutionally incapable of not being heavily involved in the process, even when they’re not supposed to be.”

“And the other?”

Taking a bite of a celery stick, Dax said, “Their heads are so firmly lodged in their hindquarters that they have no sense of reality. It’s the sort of thing that can get us all killed if we’re not careful.”

At the sound of the doors parting, Dax turned to see the imposing figure of Vance Haden finally putting in his appearance. Large, dark-skinned, with a full head of hair that the captain kept cut close to his scalp, and wide, round eyes that appeared to see everything, Haden had earned a reputation as a hardass, but not an unreasonable one.

He headed straight for Garrett and Dax. “Number One. Ambassador. Good to see you both.” Haden had a deep, rich voice that Dax frankly envied. “How’s the reception going?”