1

Eleven years earlier

60,053 (Kurillian Calendar)

Ca. AD 348 (Terran Calendar)

"Who is she?"

"Who?"

Weyoun swiveled in his chair to face Deimos again, who was sipping his too-hot mug of kava. The look of careful disinterest on his friend's face was too transparent. "That beautiful woman that just walked by. I've never known you to not be aware of one of those if she's in the immediate vicinity, so tell me: who is she?"

Deimos made a great show of craning his neck to get a glance at the woman as she ambled past the canteen. "Oh, her." He took another sip of kava while Weyoun resisted the urge to turn around again. "Miss Arethoi, you mean."

"Yes, I suppose I do."

Finally giving up on the kava, Deimos set it down on the table. Steam poured from it, wafting towards the doors in the draft from the re-circulated air vents they were sitting beneath. "Eris Arethoi. She's the new anthropology consultant on the Hellad hearing."

This piece of information temporarily distracted Weyoun. "New consultant? What happened to Felgron?"

Shrugging, Deimos replied, "His work was unsatisfactory."

Weyoun went back to his breakfast, the typical greasy collection of vegetables that was the Capitol Complex canteen's standard fare. It seemed greasier than normal this morning, as though the kitchen staff had run out of vegetables and supplemented the meal with extra oil. "It was, though I wasn't complaining. We were going to win with him speaking for your noble cause."

Deimos smiled wickedly. "And now you're going to lose. Miss Arethoi is far superior to Felgron."

Weyoun risked a glance over his shoulder at the spot he'd last seen her. The young Vorta woman had worn her hair in the masculine style that was becoming increasingly popular among Tira City women—short, and allowed to curl into a pile atop her head—and beneath it her features had been delicate and pointed. Of course she was long gone by now. "She's quite young," Weyoun remarked.

"Yes, which is why you'll lose. She's quite young and quite brilliant; she's supervising the excavation in the Hellad district where you want to build your shopping center."

Weyoun pushed a dulma leaf around on his plate with his fork, sopping up grease, hiding his surprise by studying his food. "You managed to get the supervisor for the entire excavation to sit in the hearing? Every day for the foreseeable future? What did you offer her?"

The steam from the mug of kava had slowed from a torrent to a trickle, and Deimos picked it up and took another swallow of it. "Nothing. She just seems, for some reason, to feel quite strongly that a shopping center shouldn't be built on an archaeological site. Anyway, they can't excavate during the monsoon. All they can do is cover everything up and wait for next year's dry season."

"Hm. How fortunate for you." His mind whirred for a moment; had Soltoi been aware of this development, or had the senator been surprised with the news this morning when she'd arrived at her offices? She surely knew now, or Deimos wouldn't be telling him any of this—as Senator Soltoi's senior aide, Weyoun should have known and informed her already. But Deimos's office had done a good job of keeping the thing under wraps. "And it isn't my shopping center."

"No, you're only fighting to have it built."

Weyoun pushed his plate away and bolted down half a glass of water, washing some of the grease down. "I get quite enough of this argument during the hearing, thanks. Can't we find something else to discuss?"

"Like Miss Arethoi," Deimos suggested in an innocent tone.

With a snort of laughter, Weyoun got to his feet. "Yes, speaking of, I need to see Soltoi about that. You could've given me a day's warning, at least."

Deimos leaned back in his chair, looking smug. "Oh, no—we wanted to pull the rug right out from underneath Senator Soltoi."

"I could lose my job," Weyoun mused.

Waving a dismissive hand, Deimos replied, "Soltoi couldn't function without you."

"No, I'm her favorite scapegoat," Weyoun said, knowing that he wouldn't have been able to say it with such fond amusement if Deimos hadn't been right. He finished the rest of his glass of water and grabbed his plate from the table. "See you this afternoon at the hearing."

Weyoun Uldron, twenty-seven, born and raised in Kurill's capital, Tira City, was the most ambitious young political aide in the Capitol Complex. His career was not the most important thing to him—it was the only thing, the reason that he spent upwards of seventeen hours a day in the Complex, the reason his fifteenth storey, city center flat was still only half-furnished after years of living there. He wasn't alone in the long hours. The canteen served twenty-five hours a day to accommodate all the other aides and lower-level politicians putting in long days. But none of his peers had risen as far and as fast as he had—most of his classmates from university that had taken the political path were still toiling as runners, while he was in the upper echelons of Council administration.

Senator Ara Soltoi, recognizing his ambition, had hand-picked him and made him one of the best political aides in the Complex, as well—because she tolerated nothing less than that. She was one of the most eminent senators in the Council; Tira City's senior senator, a six-termer who controlled more of Tira Exarchate than the governor himself; and she was currently glowering over a padd as it scrolled through Arethoi's credentials.

"I didn't find out they'd brought her on until I got here this morning," Soltoi scowled, her eyes scanning the padd. Her gray hair sat stiffly on her shoulders in rolls and her eyebrows were drawn together. She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Normally I'd be extremely displeased with you, but I didn't even get word of this from my friends in other offices."

Weyoun tried to read the scrolling text upside down, though he really had no hope. "Public opinion is turning against our position, Senator. Your friends may not have wanted to pick the losing side."

"You think we're the losing side, do you?"

Shrugging, he replied, "I don't currently think so. But I also don't think it's out of the question."

Soltoi steepled her fingers on her gleaming desk. "I read their tapping of Arethoi as an indication that they think they are losing."

With a small, mirthless smile, he replied, "They were, with Felgron. But I think Arethoi will be both more convincing and more sympathetic."

"Do you find her sympathetic, Mr. Uldron?"

Soltoi was giving him that beady look that demanded the right answer—not the truth, but the response that would buy her aides another day in her good graces. "I haven't spoken to her," Weyoun answered honestly. "She's young; that could work against her."

"She's the youngest anthropologist to ever have led an excavation at such a major site," Soltoi informed him. "She was top of her class at Mikrath University. She's got published works in all of the leading anthropological and archaeological journals and she's received several very prestigious fellowships."

"Then perhaps it won't."

"It's possible that it will," Soltoi allowed, "but I believe it's more likely that with the combination of her youth and her accomplishments, we run the risk of turning her into a martyr figure. And we mustn't forget that the majority of the Council voting body is male." She fixed him with that beady look again. "I certainly hope that I don't notice a difference along gender lines in the way my own aides handle this change of personnel."

"Your point is well taken," Weyoun murmured.

Soltoi scrolled to the bottom of the padd with a tap of her fingers, then looked up at him. "Did you get a sense from your friend Deimos about whether or not Arethoi will be ready to present today?"

"Not particularly. I would suspect she is. Deimos is fully aware of what he's up against and I doubt he'd allow her to go into the hearing without being fully prepared." He paused, then added, "Besides, it sounds as though poise isn't something she worries much about."

"Well, it isn't something we worry very much about in this office, either." Soltoi put down the padd with a crisp click. "Study them today. I want you to pay attention to how Arethoi's presence affects their case. And we'll need a way to limit her effect on the hearing."

Weyoun bowed his head and then got to his feet. The opening of the day's proceedings was only a few hours away and he had plenty to prepare.

If Deimos and the science lobby, by some odd lapse in judgment, had thought they'd have time to ease their new anthropology consultant into the hearings, they were wrong. Arethoi was targeted immediately. One of Soltoi's other aides, a woman who'd been in the office several years longer than Weyoun, took the bulk of the examination, with Soltoi herself standing up towards the end of the session to hammer home their points.

Weyoun just watched. Arethoi didn't blink, not in the face of repetitive, circular questioning, not in the face of Soltoi, who could, and would, ruin the careers of those who crossed her. At the end of the session, as the gloomy monsoon light deepened to true night, as media approached Arethoi and the science lobby circled around her, he could only draw one conclusion: Deimos was right, and Soltoi was going to lose this hearing.

He slept in his office for the next week, and then only when he was near collapse. Clothes could be laundered in the lavatory sinks, and he kept extras in his desk, anyway. No one was in a good mood—it was abysmally obvious that the tide had turned, and Weyoun's prediction that public opinion would fall to Arethoi seemed to be playing out, as more and more protesters began gathering inside the Capitol Complex atrium every day in support of the science lobby.

Hellad was one of the oldest of Tira City's districts, settled, as academic opinion went, some four thousand years ago by ancient tribes. It and its twin, Tir, just across the river that flowed through Tira City, formed the historic heart of the capital, around which the rest of the city had grown up. Construction work and sporadic excavations had turned up ample evidence that the area had been settled long before the city's traditional founding date.

It was survey work on the Hellad Metro Center, a massive, multi-use structure to be built on slum neighborhoods recently reclaimed by Yelar Industries, that turned up the impetus for the entire hearing—a stone projectile. An arrowhead. Of course the university student working construction through the dry season had no idea what it was, but through a few simple twists of fate it ended up in the hands of a professor of anthropology at Tira University. There, it was discovered that this particular projectile had no known antecedents, and through thermoluminescence dating it was further determined that the projectile was old—far older than anything else anyone had ever seen. Sixty-thousand years old, to be as precise as the dating method allowed.

In other words, it was from the time that the Founders, their gods, had come to Kurill.

Survey work was halted, construction indefinitely postponed, and the site became a huge excavation run by Tira University. It was supposed to take a year. It had been going on for three. Yelar Industries, becoming increasingly impatient as it waited to construct Hellad Metro Center, had filed an order to cease excavation. Tira University had refused and had the Capitol science lobby on their side. Senator Ara Soltoi's political campaigns, and office, heavily funded by Yelar Industries, had become involved.

Vorta were religious people who knew their own origins well and didn't need to sift through layers of rotting vegetation, mud, and clay to find them. They were, to say the least, not anthropologically minded—one reason that Soltoi's office had been handily winning the hearing, because it was so difficult to find an anthropologist who knew Hellad. Working there was a bureaucratic nightmare, and so most in the field chose other sites. Felgron, Arethoi's predecessor, had been one of those people who had sporadically excavated in Tira City, more from personal interest than any deep desire to further the scholarship. Arethoi, on the other hand, did have that desire, and apparently she didn't care about the difficulties of working there.

Watching her, Weyoun wondered if she didn't relish them instead. She'd been made supervisor of the entire excavation six months previously. And she knew everything that there was to know about the site. She walked the perfect line between detachment and passion that Felgron had so struggled with. She obviously was brilliant. And Weyoun was completely infatuated with her.

He had never been shy, but the simple ability to walk up to her and say hello eluded him. And so he did the humiliating thing—he went to Deimos.

"Introduce me to her," Weyoun said as they sat down to breakfast.

It had been eight days, almost two weeks, since Arethoi's introduction into the hearing, though four of them had been spent in recess. For a moment, Deimos stared at him, looking as though his birthday had come early. Then, evidently seeing something on Weyoun's face—probably the unabashed and mildly pathetic helplessness at the idea of speaking to a beautiful, intelligent woman who was cropping up in his mind with alarming regularity—Deimos planted his elbows on the table and looked at Weyoun seriously. "Are you sure? She doesn't think highly of Senator Soltoi."

"I'm not the senator."

"I apologize for my lack of precision. She doesn't think highly of Senator Soltoi, her staff, or their roles in this hearing."

"Or Tira natives or men who live in fifteenth storey flats, I'm sure," Weyoun replied sarcastically. "Deimos, you can have, and have had, any woman you want who walks through the Capitol doors."

"And any man, for that matter."

"Yes, exactly my point. Let me have a chance with this one, would you?"

"I had no idea you felt so threatened by me."

"I don't. But I know how persistent you are, and you're spending every day with her, after all."

Deimos appraised him, looking amused. "You know she's too good for you."

"I know. I've read Soltoi's briefing on her."

Nodding, Deimos said sympathetically, "She's too good for all of us, really. But if you want to make a fool out of yourself, I'm always happy to facilitate that."

Weyoun clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew I could count on your sadism, if nothing else."

"It's not sadism, it's just my delightful sense of humor," Deimos replied. "I'll detain her after the hearing. Tell her my charming friend would desperately like to make her acquaintance."

"Don't tell her I'm charming," Weyoun said warningly. "You'll only set me up for failure."

Deimos snorted. "Why Weyoun, you're selling yourself short. You're utterly charming. Brilliantly charming."

"Tell her I'm slightly dull, that way I can't do anything but impress her."

"Unless she likes dull men." After swallowing a mouthful of kava, Deimos remarked, "Not that it's any of my business, but I doubt Soltoi would think much of you lusting after the enemy."

Weyoun raised an eyebrow. "Deimos, I don't know what you're talking about. I simply want to get a better sense of a political opponent by speaking with her personally."

With a grin, Deimos responded, "I'd believe that myself, you know—if I hadn't seen the way you watch her."

"I'm not that obvious, am I?"

"No. I've just known you for a long time."

It had, in fact, been over ten years that they'd known each other, from their very first day as first years at Tira University. Though their temperaments were very different, they had remained, through the years, one another's closest friends. Despite his facetiousness, Deimos understood: sometimes there was a woman that was impossibly out of one's league—and it didn't matter.

That day was the first since Arethoi's arrival that Soltoi's team came out ahead in the hearing, and as a result, the hearing chamber cleared faster than it normally would have. Everyone was eager to get back to work. Weyoun took his time gathering his notes and various padds until all of his colleagues had disappeared back upstairs or to the canteen. As he descended from the balcony and made his way towards the chamber doors, Deimos caught his eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. Hoping he didn't look too much as though he'd been living in his office, Weyoun approached his friend and the slender woman with whom he was conversing.

"Ah, Weyoun, there's someone I'd like you to meet," Deimos proclaimed in an overly effusive tone. Arethoi looked around and met Weyoun's eyes as he stopped between them, and Deimos went on, "I'm sure the two of you are at least aware of each other, of course. Eris, this is my dear friend Weyoun Uldron. Weyoun, Eris Arethoi."

Weyoun offered her his hand but for a moment, she just stared at him. "You work for Soltoi," Arethoi said, her tone cool. Nevertheless, after another moment, she gave him her hand in the brief clasp of polite greeting.

"Yes," he replied. In certain situations it would have been advantageous to mention how closely he worked with the senator, but every social cue here blared at him to do the opposite.

Arethoi was studying him. "You sit at her right side. You must be very important."

"Weyoun is Soltoi's senior aide," Deimos broke in, perhaps sensing Weyoun's hesitation.

Arethoi wasn't being exactly openly hostile, but she certainly wasn't being friendly, and Weyoun didn't appreciate the unsolicited assistance. Resisting the urge to glare at his friend, he said, "I suppose that puts us at professional opposition to one another."

That brought a sardonic smile to her face. "That is a very politic way of putting it. You're responsible for the entire case. Or does Senator Soltoi's office function differently than the others in this building?"

"No," he admitted, "I'm the one responsible for most of our case."

There was a slightly imperious tilt to her chin. "I imagine it must be very difficult stringing together enough dissonant arguments to convince others that an important anthropological site should be destroyed in the name of commercial and political interests."

Despite the chill in her tone, Weyoun couldn't help liking her even more than he'd already been inclined to. "Actually no," he replied. "One doesn't get to my position without being something of an expert on dissonance."

"Hm. At least you admit it."

"All political discourse is an exercise in balancing conflicting viewpoints, Miss Arethoi." Weyoun raised an eyebrow at her. "You'll do it yourself if you haven't already in this hearing."

"Is that what you think I'm participating in, Mr. Uldron? Political discourse?"

He shrugged. "You have a certain skill for saying the most effective thing, regardless of whether or not it's the full truth of a matter."

Arethoi rocked back on her heels and tilted her head again. Neither of them said anything for a moment and the corridor gradually emptied. Her eyes were a lavender shot through with blue that made his stomach flip a little. "You seem very young to have been put in such a powerful position," she remarked after a moment, her eyes scanning his face.

"Likewise," he replied, trying to distill something from her study of him. "Though having read your credentials, I must say it seems deserved."

"You'll forgive me if I haven't read yours."

"Of course; I don't imagine you have the time to read the résumé of every aide you'll encounter during this hearing."

"No." She looked mildly intrigued now, which was certainly better than her cool hostility. Her eyes found his, and the only emotion he could read there was an arch amusement. Raising her eyebrows, she said, "But maybe I'll need to make the time to read yours." She bowed her head slightly—maybe a bit ironically, and Weyoun returned the gesture. "It was a pleasure meeting you."

"The pleasure was entirely mine," he replied, which earned him a brief, probing look from her before she turned and departed.

When she was out of earshot, Deimos made a noise in his throat. Weyoun had almost forgotten he was there. "Well," his friend remarked, "whether she likes you or hates you, she certainly knows who you are now."

The hearing dragged on for weeks. Some in the Capitol Complex, particularly Soltoi's allies, had dared to hope that it was coming to an end, but with Arethoi, the science lobby re-animated their case, dragged old arguments back into the light, and more often than not, won them. Hearings were enjoyable when they lasted two to three weeks, even four, but Tira City/Hellad District-3a was coming up on seven, with no end in sight. It may have been more fun for the science lobby as they were, after all, winning, but even they appeared worn down by the process.

One day, the Adjudicator was unexpectedly called away, cancelling the day's proceedings. Weyoun, unable to stare at the same padd any longer, made his way to the canteen for lunch. Once there, he found Deimos and Arethoi seated together, deep in conversation. He hesitated for a moment but then approached the table.

Deimos spotted him before he got there and pushed a chair out for him. "I wondered when you'd get here."

"I'm not as governed by my appetite as you are," Weyoun replied as he sat down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arethoi smile slightly. Turning to her, he said, "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Inclining her head, she said, "No. In fact, I can leave if the two of you would prefer to eat lunch without an interloper."

"That's all right," Deimos said mildly. "I'm sure Weyoun would be delighted to make your acquaintance better. He doesn't have the pleasure of your company every day."

Arethoi watched as he settled himself and he tried not to look directly at her. "Though Mr. Uldron doesn't mention that himself," she said.

Weyoun gave her a sardonic smile. "Deimos is speaking for others? That's a shock."

"Are you agreeing or disagreeing with him?"

"Agreeing, of course, Miss Arethoi."

Her lips curved upwards. "The feeling's mutual, if I may say so. You're very…thorough in your preparations for the hearing. It's impressive. I've been meaning to speak further with you for several weeks now."

Deimos took a drink of kava, raising his eyebrows. "You're lucky, Weyoun; you've obviously piqued her interest far more than I have."

Arethoi rested her elbows on the table and arched one eyebrow. "Oh, Deimos, you just try too hard."

"If I was really trying, you wouldn't look twice at him."

"And you eat with him every day?" Arethoi asked Weyoun, smiling a little slyly at him.

Weyoun leaned towards her. "Generally only one meal."

She laughed and Deimos rolled his eyes good-naturedly. After a moment, Arethoi said, "I'm curious about something, Mr. Uldron."

"Yes?"

She sighed and put down her fork. "You obviously put a great deal of time and effort into your work. Presumably it means something to you." She paused, then asked with an intensity that he hadn't seen from her before, "I understand how a person like Soltoi could fight for something like Hellad Metro Center—she directly gains from helping Yelar Industries. But the benefits are much less tangible for you. So how can you possibly think that a shopping center is more important than the early history of our people?"

Weyoun let the pause after this question lengthen, mostly for the effect, but partly because he wanted to say the right thing—and not just the right thing for a man in his position, but the right thing for him to say to Arethoi. "What I personally think doesn't matter," he replied, knowing that this would strike a chord within her, as it would any Vorta. Climb high enough in the professional world and your personal opinion mattered—but to anyone else, loyalty to one's employer—one's benefactor—was tantamount.

All the passion in her tone abruptly receded, and she tilted her head at him. He didn't think it was his imagination—she seemed to be looking at him differently. "I suppose you have a point," she said, then, after a hesitation, added, "And I don't suppose there's any chance of you telling me what you personally think."

"None at all," he replied pleasantly. He glanced at Deimos, who was sitting back, just watching the two of them. When he looked back to Arethoi, she was studying him intently, and there was definitely something he'd never seen before in her eyes—some kind of…surprise, or interest, which she quickly shrouded behind the lavender penumbra of her irises.

"I apologize," she said, bowing her head slightly. "I didn't mean to commandeer your lunch with this."

He nearly assured her that it wasn't a problem—that he didn't see it as commandeering at all, when he realized that she was excusing herself gracefully; a realization that was backed up by Deimos's silence on the subject. "See you later," Deimos said to her as she got to her feet. "We'll go over that soil core evidence when I'm finished."

She nodded, then flicked her eyes towards Weyoun. "It was nice speaking with you again, Mr. Uldron."

He inclined his head and watched her as she walked away, dumping her plate and glass in the cleaning bin as she left. In the doorway to the canteen, she hesitated and seemed to start to glance over her shoulder towards them, but then she stopped herself, set her shoulders, and continued on her way.

Deimos hadn't changed positions during any of this, except to cross his arms over his chest. "Weyoun," he said seriously, "I think she likes you."

Weyoun scoffed. "And how, exactly, did you come to that conclusion based on that brief and fairly adversarial conversation?"

With a shrug, Deimos replied, "Because she's genuinely interested in your misguided opinion."

"Maybe she was just making conversation."

"Eris doesn't 'make conversation'. She has better things to do."

"The two of you seem to get along," Weyoun observed.

Deimos gestured dismissively. "Animal magnetism. Everyone gets along with me." Weyoun snorted and Deimos went on, "If she wanted to make conversation she'd make it about anything else. As you've noted yourself, she's an accomplished politician for an anthropologist. Anyway, don't you want her to like you?"

Weyoun didn't answer as he stared at the open doorway through which Arethoi had disappeared. "Do you think," he said instead, slowly, "that she'd laugh if I asked her to have a drink with me?"

"Only if you catch her in a good mood," Deimos said with a crooked grin. When Weyoun deadpanned a laugh, he asked, "You're not seriously thinking of doing that while you're both involved in this hearing?"

"Of course not." Weyoun folded his hands in front of him on the table. "But when the hearing's over—despite all the current evidence to the contrary, I have to believe that it will end one day—what do you think?"

"I think if you don't manage to alienate her before the hearing's over, she'll say yes," Deimos said, as though this was painfully obvious. "And if you take her out and make her laugh, she might even be interested in seeing you further."

"Well, one thing at a time. As you say, I need to get through the hearing without alienating her, first."

"You ate lunch with Arethoi yesterday."

Weyoun, surprised by the voice, looked up from the padd on his desk towards the door. It was late at night and he'd thought he was the only one still in the office, but Soltoi was standing there, her arms crossed over her chest. Lowering the padd, he replied, "You could call it that, I suppose. She was eating with Deimos Ekron. I just joined them."

Soltoi nodded and stepped inside, closing the door after herself and making a slow circuit of Weyoun's small office, bedecked with curios and mementos from the various hearings he'd worked on. "I find myself curious as to the subject of your conversation."

He furrowed his brow slightly as he watched her, and then he shrugged. "Nothing. We were making small-talk. Fairly vacuous small-talk, at that." He considered it nothing of the sort, but he hadn't needed Deimos's warning to know that sharing the fact that he had any kind of interest in Arethoi with Soltoi wouldn't be good for his job security. The anthropologist was firmly considered an enemy by Soltoi's staff, as her sole purpose in the Complex was to defeat them.

"Yeroi's impression must have been mistaken. She told me the two of you seemed very intent on your conversation."

"It wouldn't be the first time Yeroi's had a mistaken impression," Weyoun replied dryly. "Anyway, Senator, I believe the phrase 'know thy enemy' applies here."

Soltoi turned her typical hard smile on him. "Mr. Uldron, I know what a good liar you are, and I suspect you're lying now because of it."

He raised his eyebrows. "What reason do I have to lie?"

Her smile didn't falter. "None, I hope."

Weyoun didn't make a habit of lying to Soltoi, but when the need arose, he had no problem in deploying a well-crafted falsehood. Having been a practiced liar since childhood, the only way for her—or anyone—to tell was by judging the plausibility of what he was saying. "If you're concerned about how it looks, of course, I can limit my interactions with Arethoi," he said solicitously.

At that, Soltoi laughed. "You're going to make a fine senator someday, Weyoun. You have all the right qualities."

Without waiting for him to respond, she departed, and Weyoun sat back in his chair, the padd still held loosely in his hands. She'd never come right out and pinned his ambitions on him, and nor had she complimented him quite so highly. There was part of him that knew that what she'd said was a little bit back-handed compliment, but he didn't care. Yes, he would make a fine senator someday, and if he needed to stop speaking to Eris Arethoi for the duration of this hearing, that was a small price to pay.

He kept his distance from Arethoi for several days, limiting himself to a polite nod in her direction if they passed each other in the corridors. Though it suddenly seemed that they passed each other in the corridors a lot, and that her eyes were on him when he was trying to look elsewhere.

So it was when he passed her one evening as he was returning to his office and she was clearly on her way home. She glanced his way and smiled briefly as she pulled on a jacket, and he returned the smile, actively cursing in his mind, now, that this hearing was continuing to drag on. Arguments and evidence were getting repetitive, and that left aides on both sides of the case scrambling to find whatever it was that the Council voting body was looking for before they made a decision. But the longer it went on, the harder it was to stare at the same economic spreadsheets and scholarly articles.

"Mr. Uldron!"

The shout stopped him, startling him out of his thoughts, and he turned around, surprised to see Arethoi hurrying back towards him. When she reached his side, she stood there for a moment, appraising him. Then, she said, sounding unwilling, "You were right."

"I'm sorry?"

"You were right about the dates of those ice cores."

"Oh." He wracked his brain and remembered—three days ago he'd presented some kind of tangential evidence during the hearing. Arethoi had taken issue with it; brought up a set of ice cores, which he'd just happened, by a chance reading, to know she was quoting the incorrect dating of. The Adjudicator had allowed them to snap citations back and forth at each other for five minutes before putting a stop to it. Afterwards he'd thought nothing of it. He had more important things to think about than the dates of ice cores that didn't ultimately matter. But Arethoi…had thought more of it? "Yes, that's right. Well, I'm sure it will be the only time I better you on the subject."

The words could easily have antagonized her. After all, she was freely admitting error, and no one liked to have their error dangled in their faces during an apology, but she only smiled slightly and shrugged. "Probably. Still, I hated to think of you laboring under a false impression of inaccuracy."

"You're too kind, Miss Arethoi."

"Not at all."

That was the moment that he should have bid her good-night and walked away; instead he continued to stand there, and then something possessed him to say banally, with a nod towards her jacket, "Going home?"

Arethoi smiled, apparently unbothered by this show of idiocy. "Yes, actually. And you're not, if the direction you were walking is any indication. Working late?"

He shrugged. "I always work late. Habit, I'm afraid."

"Is that because there's nothing to make you go home or because you enjoy your work so much?"

"Both."

"Somehow I had a feeling you'd say that."

He smiled, chuckled, and bowed his head ironically. "I'm this predictable and you barely know me. I get the sense that you might find that very boring in a person."

"Actually, I don't find you predictable at all."

This statement brought a slight halt to the conversation, until Weyoun realized that, by design or not, she'd presented him with an opening to ask about her romantic status. The vagueness of the question would depend entirely on if it had been by design or not. In the end, he decided to split the difference, remarking, "Your ability to balance work with the rest of your life is a bit of a foreign concept to all of us."

Arethoi snorted. "I'm afraid I've never really been very good at that balance; I leave here when I do because I can only take the political barrage for so long each day."

"So, does that mean there's nothing to make you go home, either?"

"Just the promise of my own cooking, which isn't much incentive. But at least it's better than your canteen fare."

"The canteen is sadly deficient in a number of areas, the food being only one of them." Weyoun eyed her, knowing she was being circumventive, and knowing that he had been just as much so. It came naturally, he supposed. But maybe the right thing to do here was to try directness. The fact that he wasn't supposed to be having this conversation reared up in his mind just then, but there was something about her—her eyes, or the shape of her lips, or the edge of sardonic amusement in her voice, that kept him rooted to the spot. "If you're asking me whether I'm…involved…or not, the answer is no."

She raised an eyebrow and smiled, a sly glint in her eyes. "What a coincidence. Neither am I."

Keeping the wide grin off his face was a lot more difficult than he'd thought it was going to be. As it was, he thought she probably saw the beginnings of it before he dampened it to something more mild, if the way her eyes searched his face for a moment was any indication. He stopped himself from remarking that it was serendipitous and asking her out right there. "Very coincidental."

Arethoi twitched her jacket straight. "Well, Mr. Uldron, I won't keep you from your work any longer."

"No, not at all; I'm sorry for detaining you. You must have a train to catch."

With a shrug, she replied, "The trains will still be running in ten minutes. But I never know when the next time I'll see you will be. Besides across a hearing chamber, that is."

Any time you want to, he wanted to say. "Well," he said, inflecting his tone with the right amount of humor, "as I said, I appreciate your thoughtfulness in confirming your error to me." He paused while she smiled. "I'll see you at the hearing tomorrow, Miss Arethoi. Have a nice night."

"You too," she said, her eyes lingering on his for a split second longer than they needed to.

The following day opened with a discussion that was, somehow, new to the proceedings—Hellad's significance as a religious site. Weyoun steepled his hands on the desk in front of him and called out the science lobby's senior aide for grandstanding—religion was too easy, too transparent.

Most Vorta—Weyoun would even hazard to guess all Vorta, to some extent or another, believed that their gods, the shapeshifting Founders, had come to their world millennia earlier. A wounded Founder had been chased by a group of Vanta (an earlier, Vorta-like species which had since gone extinct), but a primitive Vorta and his family took the Founder in and hid him, after which the Founder promised he would one day return and make the Vorta great. Legend passed down the name of that patriarch as Kurill, giving the name to their planet.

This story was the cornerstone of their faith-—in many ways, a planet-wide culture—and it was laughably easy to play off people's emotions and beliefs. As far as Weyoun was concerned, the science lobby had reached that point, as its senior lobbyist began suggesting that Hellad should be preserved in perpetuity as a cult site. Dating of site materials put it in line with the date of the legend, and the legend itself spoke of the Founder fleeing through a vast forest, which Tira Exarchate had once been blanketed by.

In his opinion, this was a pretty weak hook to hang a case on, but he still wanted to dismantle it before they were able to take it too far. "I'd like to speak with Miss Arethoi about this, please," he announced. There was shifting over on the other balcony and then Arethoi stood and faced him. Weyoun let the noise die down in the chamber before he asked, "Miss Arethoi, are your colleagues really trying to suggest that the Founders' first contact with our ancestors happened in Hellad? That you've found Kurill's home?"

She looked delighted that he'd posed this question to her and he knew instantly that he'd made a mistake. "Of course I'm not, Mr. Uldron," she replied smoothly. "We're not zealots at Hellad, we're anthropologists. We're not trying to prove what we can't. But the discoveries that we have made should be enough to protect the site. Post-holes, hearths, middens, even graves—this site is showing us how our ancestors lived and died. We may never find the site where the Founder made his promise to Kurill, but nonetheless, these are the people that he made that promise to, and it would be something approaching blasphemy to pave over it with a collection of holo-arcades and the same shops that any of us can visit at a hundred other locations."

The Council voting body signaled suddenly to the Adjudicator and Weyoun felt a momentary iciness grip his heart. That signal meant that they were ready to adjourn and discuss their votes. Sometimes they wanted to hear closing arguments, but sometimes they simply cut hearings off at the knees. Soltoi would murder him if the latter was the case now and that was the last exchange had in this hearing.

Fortunately, the Adjudicator allowed closing statements to be made—not, Weyoun thought, that it was going to matter all that much. Soltoi gave theirs, obviously, and though the effort was admirable, the entire staff knew it was a lost cause. As they began filing down the stairs and out of the chamber, Soltoi gripped his shoulder and said to him in a low tone, "I want you doing damage control. You're best at it."

As they emerged from the chamber, the dull roar of the crowd swelled. Between the moment that the chamber doors first opened, not more than a minute earlier, and now, everyone in it seemed to be aware that the voting body had adjourned and was casting their votes. Soltoi hissed at some of the other staff to smile, an injunction that Weyoun didn't need to be given, as he'd been through this enough times to be giving the instructions himself. Damage control was easy; it was all about distracting the reporters enough with pleasantness that they forgot to get a real story, about twisting actual events around so that what appeared to be a negative thing was actually positive. He was good at it. And it was the only part of losing that could really be enjoyed.

Before he began, though, there was something he wanted to do. Weyoun excused himself from Soltoi's side and shouldered his way through the press of media, aides, runners, and protesters outside the chamber to the other end of the atrium. There, Arethoi was turning away from a 'coder, having given her statement on the hearing's proceedings for the day. Wisely, she was leaving already, letting the science lobby do the bulk of the speaking, though he thought, as she politely looked downwards, that he caught a flicker of triumph in her eyes.

He reached her side as she entered the corridor and she stopped, appraising him coolly. He didn't let her expression deter him. He'd gotten a rather distinct feeling over the past several weeks that, beneath the show that she put on for the benefit of those around them, she liked him. So he held out a hand. "Congratulations, Miss Arethoi."

"We haven't won yet," she replied, and this time the triumph in her eyes was unmistakable. She took his hand, though, the smooth clasp of her palm on his leaving his fingers tingling.

"I think you have," he replied. "Whatever's left of this hearing is a formality."

Her cool expression flickered, revealing it for the façade that it was. "You continue to surprise me, Mr. Uldron. For one of Soltoi's lackeys, you're really quite civilized."

At that, he couldn't help smiling. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"I meant it as one," she replied, sly humor coloring her tone.

For a second, he stared at her eyes, bluer than those of the natives of Tira Exarchate. "You're from the north, aren't you?" he blurted out.

She blinked, taken by surprise, but answered, "Yes, actually. Pegrill. How did you know?"

"Your…" He gestured vaguely, found that he couldn't tell the truth, and finished, "…accent."

"Ah."

Weyoun wouldn't have blamed her for turning and leaving at that point; they had said all that needed to be said to each other. He'd been the gracious loser and she'd been gracious enough to deny her victory, despite its inevitability.

Instead, she tilted her head at him slightly and asked, "You're from here? Tira?"

He caught her gaze. "How did you know?"

She smiled. "Your accent."

And then there was Deimos, his hand on Arethoi's shoulder as he said, "Eris, Channel One wants video for tomorrow's telecast. Hearing chamber three—they wanted something grander than two. Weyoun—" He grinned. "I'll buy you a drink later for losing so gracefully."

Weyoun snorted. "I'm looking forward to it. The expensive place at the top of S-Tech Tower!" he called to Deimos's retreating back.

Deimos waved a hand dismissively as he hurried off, but Weyoun knew that in his ebullience, it probably was the bar he'd have chosen anyway. Arethoi, to his surprise, lingered. Her poise, for a brief moment, looked lost, but she quickly recovered it and said, "I've enjoyed meeting you, Mr. Uldron. And working against you. You've been…" She stopped and smiled slightly, then finished, "You've been a worthy opponent."

"Likewise." In seconds, Weyoun knew, she was going to walk away. "Er, Miss Arethoi?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

Standing in front of the fully assembled Council and inventing a speech on the spot wouldn't have been as nerve-wracking as simply asking this woman if she'd see him socially. "Miss Arethoi," he repeated, "I was wondering…er, that is, I'd wondered if you might like to have a drink with me? Sometime?"

The smile that crept onto her face felt like it was bright enough to cut through the monsoon outside. It cut straight through him, at least. "I'd like that very much."

Today should not have been a good day. Weyoun, career-minded and ambitious, had just played a major role in losing an important and influential hearing. He'd probably set back any advancement by months, possibly years. Soltoi might even demote him to a lesser position in her office. Somehow, though, it seemed to him that the victory that was important was this one now; the fact that Eris Arethoi was handing him a card with her home interface line scribbled on the back of it.

"I look forward to hearing from you," she said, then nodded to him briskly and turned around. "Oh, and Mr. Uldron," she said, wheeling to face him again. He raised his eyebrows. "If you're going to take me out for a drink, then I insist that you call me Eris."

He smiled at her, her card clasped tightly in his fingers. "Then call me Weyoun."

"Weyoun," she said softly, as though she was testing the way it felt on her lips. "Yes, I can do that."

He made himself not watch her go as she strode off to the victorious media telecast, and he turned back to the media still gathered outside the chamber doors. On his way, he forced himself to wipe the stupid grin off his face, as 'damage control' required an appropriately bland expression.

Propriety would insist that he wait at least a day before using the number that Miss Arethoi—Eris—had given him. He knew he'd go home early and call her tonight.