They had found the girl in the middle of the promenade. Her clothes were ragged and covered in a soot-like substance. She appeared disoriented and confused about her whereabouts.
Odo stopped writing. It was here that his security report became strange. Until this morning, Odo had been enjoying a rather relaxing time catching up of paperwork and reviewing security alerts. That was until he responded to a disturbance in the promenade.
The girl had been pacing, frantically calling out. Witnesses said it was as though she appeared out of thin air. The first people who saw her, said that she was curled up in a corner, as though she was sleeping. One of the Bajorans who ran a kiosk on the promenade said she thought it was the noise of the promenade that woke the girl.
It had taken two security officers to subdue the girl, despite her small size. Odo had been concerned that the girl would be injured, but his concerns appeared misplaced when she struck one of his security officers, giving him a bloody nose. Once they had brought the girl to the infirmary, the mystery deepened.
"I'll have to sedate her," Dr. Bashir said. "And I'll have my staff take a look at Ensign Leila's nose to make sure it's not broken."
Once they had the girl on the exam table (again it took two staff to restrain her while Dr. Bashir administered a dose of sedative), Dr. Bashir turned to Odo. "What do you know about her?"
"Nothing yet," Odo replied. "I was hoping that you could help. To my knowledge there was no one matching her description on one of today's transports. Apparently she materialized out of thin air, but our security reports don't show any unauthorized transports to the station."
Dr. Bashir began his scans. "She's Bajoran, approximately fourteen years of age, but it's hard to tell. She's severely malnourished. It's almost as though…" His voice trailed off as he took a closer look at her right wrist. "It appears as though her wrist has been broken, but it was never set. I don't think that she has seen a doctor in a very long time."
"Didn't the Federation send a delegation of doctors to Bajor following the occupation?" Odo asked gruffly.
"Yes," Dr. Bashir answered, "that's what's so confusing. Certainly they would have caught something like this. And the situation on Bajor is not so dire now that a child should be so malnourished."
"I'm going to see what I can find out about her. Call me if you find something else Doctor."
But Odo had found nothing. He didn't put much stock in the claims that the girl had simply appeared on the promenade, but he was beginning to think it might be the only available explanation. None of the passenger manifests from the past month had yielded any information about the girl's possible origins. There was no reason to believe that she had somehow managed eluded the security sensors and beam aboard, but Odo was waiting to hear from Chief O'Brien, who had promised that he would look into, once the replicators in the habitat ring had been fixed yet again.
With no more information to go on, Odo didn't know what he was going to do next.
"Bashir to Odo" The disembodied voice pierced through Odo's thinking.
"Odo here Doctor."
"Constable, the girl is waking up and is much calmer. We may be able to get our answers."
"On my way," said Odo, and left his office behind.