The woman could speak to him only via voice transmission, but Odo still felt quite certain that it was really her. It had been the sound of Kira’s voice that had finally brought her identity back to him those few years ago.

“So, will you help me, Constable?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I still don’t understand why you’ve come to me.”

“Because I trusted you once before, Odo, and I want to trust you now. I believe that ultimately—despite your position, I mean—you are on our side.”

“I’m on nobody’s side,” Odo said firmly.

“If that’s true, then why did you help me before? Why not just arrest me?”

“Because,” he said, not immediately sure how to follow it up. “I…suppose I regarded you as an individual, in need of help. It wasn’t your cause that provoked my sympathy—it was just…it was just…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Odo said. He really didn’t know. It was true that he had helped her once, and it was therefore true that he had helped the Bajoran resistance movement once, too. But he’d been much less experienced then—he had been reacting to his immediate circumstances without thinking through the consequences.

“You’re lying,” the woman said. “You knew the Cardassians were wrong then, and you know it now.”

“Do I?” Odo said, trying to sound threatening, but it fell flat.

“Yes, you do. You’re not one of them, Odo. You’re one of us.”