BLOODLETTER
by
K. W. JETER

CHAPTER 1

A CRY RANG through the engineering bay.

"Lousy piece of Cardassian crap!'' More words followed, in a vocabulary
colorful enough to draw expressions of distaste from a Bajomn work crew
nearby.  Dressed in the drab gray of one of their planet's more
puritanical sects, they hadn't yet become used to the rougher edges of
station life.

Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien, still cursing, emerged from a
thrust-device compartment's access port.  Blood threaded from the corner
of his brow, gashed on one of the gantry chains running taut to the
vessel's exposed innards.  It was only slightly redder than his sweating
face.

"Is there some difficulty you have encountered?"  O'Brien's Cardassian
counterpart inquired with mock solicitude.  Behind him, curved panels of
ship's armor hung in the bay's depths like brutalist stage scenery.

"If you will recall, I warned you that working on our equipment was a
matter best left to experts--"

"No difficulty; nothing that I can't handle, that is."  He looked at the
blood smeared on the rag he'd taken from his pocket.  The wound was
minor enough; a typical machine-shop accident that he could safely
ignore for the time being.  It was much harder to ignore the thin smile
on the Cardassian engineer's face.  y lizards could grin-a major effort
of self control was required to keep from decking this one.  "I just
need the right tools."  He turned and headed toward the bay's heavy
equipment locker, ducking beneath the power cables looping overhead.

A satisfying expression of alarm showed in the Cardassian engineer's
eyes when O'Brien came back.  "What .  . . what do you think you're
doing .  . ."

It was his turn to smile.  He pressed the joystick on the control box in
his hands; behind him, the ponderous articulated device that had
followed him out of the locker clumped forward, the steel deck clanging
at each step.  "I've been here long enough to be plenty familiar with
the quality of Cardassian construction."  He deliberately steered the
jacksledge so that the uplifted striking weight clipped one of the bay's
structural girders; the resulting shock wave came close to knocking the
Cardassian off his feet.  "And if there's one thing I've learned, it's
that your stuff responds to an old Earthly engineering principle--If it
doesn't it, use a bigger hammer."

"You've gone mad--" The Cardassian scrambled out of the way as the
device swung toward the drydocked vessel.  "This ... this is
impossible...."

Hammers didn't come any bigger than the jack sledge.  O'Brien and the
rest of the DS9 tech crew had cobbled it together for smashing through
whatever interior sections of the station had collapsed so badly that
only brute force could clear a path.  The striking weight was loaded
with enough depleted fission mate rial to punch a humanoid-sized hole
between one deck and the next.

Now, it followed O'Brien like a puppy on a leash as he clambered inside
the open thrust device compartment.  The jacksledge's servo-mechs
allowed it to delicately pick its way into the space, the massive legs
settling between the thrust chamber and the surrounding bulkhead.

The Cardassian engineer's face appeared at the rim of the access port.

He had recovered enough to begin blustering.  "The use of this device is
totally uncalled for--" His voice echoed off the chamber's wall towering
above O'Brien's head.  "This is a complete violation of the operational
protocols agreed to by the administration of this station .

. . it cannot be done--"

"Bet me."  O'Brien thumbed the trigger button on the control box, and
the striking weight swung through an arc close enough that he heard the
rush through the air.  The last he heard was the jacksledge hitting the
bulkhead like the clapper of a monstrous bell.  When the diaphragms
inside his protective ear inserts opened up again, he could hear the
ringing of the dented metal, and cutting through that, the ululating
wail of the vessel's security alarms going off.

He eye-balled the effect the hammer blow had made upon the bulkhead.

If anything, the freight hauler wasn't crap, but rather, overengineered
for the re search purposes to which it had been converted.  It would
take another dozen blows, at least, to bend the metal for enough
clearance; then the buffer shields could finally be lowered into place.

The alarms didn't shut off, but grew louder instead, shrieking from the
violated core of the vessel.  Before readying the jacksledge for another
swing, O'Brien glanced out the access port and saw the Cardassian
engineer running for the loading doors--whether from terror or to summon
help, he couldn't tell.  The Bajorans looked up from the eyepieces of
the assembly bench.  They weren't so puritanical, he noted, as to be
able to resist smiling at the Cardassian's discomfiture.

"Let's get a few more in."  He patted the closest of the jacksledge's
legs.  "Before anybody comes to stop us."

After the DS9 security team had taken away the chief engineer--the head
of security himself had snapped the hand restraints on--the Bajorans
glanced around at each other.  Events did not usually get so dramatic in
the engineering bay.

"He seems a decent enough man."  One laid down the delicate tools and
flexed his cramped fingers.  "This O'Brien--he has not been ungracious
toward us."

A few of the others nodded in agreement.  They had all expected the
chief engineer to have greeted them with hostility, to have impeded
their being made part of the station's construction and retrofitting
operations; O'Brien had been forced to take them on as part of an
agreement hammered out between the station's commander and the
government authorities down on the surface of Bajor.  But if O'Brien had
not been exactly overjoyed by their arrival, he had at least been fair
to them since.

Another of the crew pushed aside his magnifying optic.  "I will admit
that, when the great time comes, I may even miss him.  A bit .  . ."

The sympathetic comments were more than the group's leader could take.

None but the other Bajorans knew that he was in charge of their
spiritual and moral welfare, charged with shielding them from the
temptations to be found among the heathens.  He bore no mark that would
have indicated his hidden rank to the Starfleet officers.  It was just
one more thing of which they were unenlightened.

"Perhaps," he said coldly, "in your devotions you could strive to
remember why we're here; the purpose behind our coming to this place."

The leader cast a stern gaze around the assembly bench.

The others, suitably chastened, looked down at the glittering components
of their labors.

"I only meant--" The first who had spoken, the youngest of the group,
now made an attempt to defend himself.  "Just that there's surely no
harm in being on good terms with the man.  That's all."

"Ah .  . . harm.  "The leader nodded, making a show of mulling over the
word.  "As if our people hadn't suffered enough of that, already.  From
just such creatures as this chief engineer of whom you seem so fond."

His own words lashed out, before the other could protest.  "It doesn't
matter that he's not a Cardassian.  He, as well as all the rest of them,
is still an outsider.  They are not Bajoran."

Silence wrapped itself around the group.  None of them could raise his
eyes to meet the harsh gaze of the leader.

"From now on--/' He spoke softly, having vanquished all opposition.

"Keep company only with your brethren, and you will be shielded from
falling into error."

No one spoke.  One by one, they picked up their delicate tools and
resumed their work.

He could hear them coming up the corridor outside his office--even with
the door closed.  For Benjamin Sisko, that was one of the unforeseen
advantages of the Deep Space Nine station's ramshackle state of
construction.  Aboard the Enterprise, or any of the other Starfleet
vessels, acoustic isolation between one sector and another, between the
public spaces and the private compartments, was total; you didn't know
who might be at your door until they announced their presence.  Here,
however, the ringing of footsteps on bare metal, the echoing of raised
voices against the walls--all came clearly to him.  Which gave him time,
if only a few seconds, to put on his game face, the mask of calm
authority that everyone expected from the station's commander.

". . . sabotage .  . . blatant sabotage.  On my world, that is a capital
offense...."  One voice had the grating tones of a Cardassian officer,
the combination of overweening arrogance and innate hostility, with out
which all of them seemed unable to even order a drink in one of the
station's lounges.  From the sound of it, this one seemed to have been
pushed from mere annoyance to vibrating rage.  "We shall see what kind
of justice can be expected from your Federation superiors...."

Another voice muttered something in reply, too low for Sisko to make out
the words, though he recognized his chief engineer's accent.  He had a
vague idea of what this was all about; the station's head of security
had been able to give him a rushed comm call, with an indication of the
mess that was about to land on his desk.

The desk .  . . that was the other advantage of a bit of warning.

These days, any interruption seemed to come while he was chin-deep in
the intricacies of Bajoran diplomacy.  Spread before him were things not
meant for the prying, advantage-seeking eyes of a Cardassian officer. As
the voices and footsteps approached, Sisko blanked the computer screen.

"Enter."  He settled back in his chair, expression composed so as not to
show that he'd just painfully nicked his shin on the drawers corner.

Every damned thing the Cardassians had built seemed to have sharp edges
sticking out of it, waiting to draw blood; that seemed the way they
liked things to be.

Worse luck--there were two Cardassian officers.  One he recognized as
the chief engineer for the vessel currently being retrofitted in the
drydock bay; the other--he suppressed a sigh of aggrieved annoyance
--was Gul Tahgla, the vessel's captain.  Tahgla, in his brief time
aboard DSg, had already proved himself to be an apt pupil in the arts of
obstruction and connivance practiced by his crony and superior, Gul
Dukat.  Sisko sometimes wondered if Dukat had sharpened the metal edges
before vacating the desk at which he now sat; he wouldn't put it past
him.

"For the love of--" Behind the Cardassians, Chief Engineer O'Brien
whispered to Odo, loud enough for Sisko to hear, then grimaced as he
held up the restraints binding his wrists.  "Did you have to put 'em on
so tight?  If you're just trying to show these jokers you're serious--"
The security chief glared back at him.  "I do nothing for show."

The Cardassian captain nodded stiffly toward Sisko.  "I believe we have
a small .  . . problem, Commander."  A relishing smile lurked on his
face as he spoke the word.  "Or perhaps not so small.  A certain matter
of deliberate and unprovoked sabotage on the part of one of your senior
crew members--"

"Bull."  O'Brien snorted in disgust.  "I've been plenty provoked, thank
you."

Sisko listened to the Cardassian engineer's account of what had happened
in drydock.  Now, he had to work to suppress his own smile; he would
have liked to have been there when O'Brien had fired off the jacksledge,
just to have seen the Cardassian scurry for the bay's exit.

"I'm sure the commander will appreciate the ramifications of this
incident."  Gul Tahgla's voice grew more icily formal.  "The agreement
with the Federation, by which your technicians are given access to some
of the most crucial areas of our ships, was accepted by our council
under duress.  In your guise of protectors of the hapless Bajorans, you
have obtained control of the stable wormhole, access to which is
permitted only to those who meet your conditions."  The formal tone was
displaced by a sneer.  "Odd, isn't it, how such deep altruism just
happens to give the Federation the keys to the entire Gamma Quadrant."

"Please.  There's no call to--"

"Hear me out, Commander."  The Cardassian leaned threateningly over the
desk.  "It has been long in suspected by our council that the
Federation's requirements for travel through the wormhole are a pretext
by which spies could be given free run of our vessels, in the guise of
workmen installing these ridiculous, nonfunctioning devices--"

"Believe me, if they were nonfunctioning, they wouldn't be so
expensive."  The Cardassian had hit a sore point with Sisko.  A major
portion of the station's budget, the Federation resources devoted to
keeping DS9 up and running, had gone into the on-site construction of
the impulse energy buffers.  Although no vessel, Federation or
Cardassian or any other, would be allowed into the wormhole without the
buffers in place, the reimbursement schedule that Starfleet had mandated
covered only a fraction of their actual cost--at least until the next
appropriations review.

In the meantime, DS9's operations were being squeezed tight by the need
to get craft such as the Cardassian research vessel ready for
intra-wormhole travel.  It had been less than twenty-four hours ago that
Major Kira had stormed into this office with the figures of the expected
shortfall, rows of numbers on the screen of her data padd, as much as
demanding that he immediately order a halt to any further retrofit work.

Why should we go in the hole for the sake of Cardassians?--those had
been her words.  Kira had little experience with the subtleties of the
Federation bureaucracy; he'd had a difficult time convincing her that
running a deficit was the best way of persuading Starfleet to increase
their budget.

As for doing things for the sake of Cardassians .  . . he had his
reasons for that, as well.  And, for the time being, he was telling no
one.

"--and you'd better get it straight, nothing leaves that drydock till I
say so!  You can be a friggin' admiral for all I care--" The sound of
his chief engineer's shouting brought Sisko up from the deep workings of
his thoughts.  "Please, gentlemen."  He held up a hand for quiet, then
gestured to Odo.  "You can go ahead and take the restraints off.

I hardly think they're necessary."

Tahgla's expression soured even further.  "Sabotage is treated so
lightly by you?"

"I very much doubt that there was any criminal intent here; perhaps just
a simple misunderstanding, that's all.  Mister O'Brien, if you could
give us your interpretation?"

The engineer left off glaring at Odo and rubbing his chafed wrists.

"It's simple enough, Commander.  We've gone back and forth with this
bunch.  We must've had twenty communiques, at least--I could call up the
archive from the data bank and show you--concerning the dimensions of
the impulse energy buffers that were going to be installed on their
vessel."  Teethgritting frustration showed in O'Brien's face.  "It's
just a matter of how much clearance they'd have to leave us so we could
fit the damn things in around their engines.  We finally get it worked
out--or so I thought--and then they show up in our drydock, and their
engine compartments are almost a meter too narrow."  He shrugged.  "So I
fired up the jacksledge and went to make myself a little working room."

"The dimensions of those chambers are exactly as you stipulated."

ahgla jabbed a finger at O'Brien.  "Our technicians are not given to the
sort of errors you seem to expect from your own--"

Sisko angled the computer panel toward his chief engineer.  "Let's just
take a look, shall we?"

An interlocking display of construction diagrams appeared, with the
boards SECURity restrictions blinking in red at the top of the screen.

O'Brien lifted his hands from the keyboard and pointed to the
specifications.  "There--that's what they're supposed to be."

His counterpart leaned past him, the sharp ridge of his finger tapping
the Cardassian numerals.  "And that's what they are."  He glared as
fiercely as Gul Tahgla, like an attack dog straining against its leash.

"Just as you specified!"

Before Sisko could say anything, his security chief interrupted.

"Excuse me; I don't wish to parade my own expertise here--" Standing
behind the quarreling engineers, Odo had craned his neck to see what was
on the computer panel.  "But I think I may be able to clear this up for
everyone."  He glanced toward Sisko.  "You see, Commander, I've lived
among the Cardassians; so I'm a little more conscious of the
stratifications in their society.  The various sectors have different
systems of mathematical notation--the numbers are the same, but the
bases used for dividing and multiplying into units of measurement are
not."  His fingertip drew a line across the numerals as he turned his
level gaze toward the Cardassian engineer.  "I believe that if you
recalculate and use damur, the mercantile base, the results will come
closer to what our chief engineer wanted."

Sisko leaned back in his chair, watching the others assembled around his
desk.  He could see a smile tugging at the corners of O'Brien's mouth as
the Cardassian engineer squinted at the panel, a furious computation
almost visible behind his scaly brow.

Though less emotion showed on the other Cardassian's face, Sisko kept a
closer eye on him.  Gul Tahgla had watched Odo the whole time the
security chief had been giving his short lecture, as though waiting for
some particular word or phrase to come out of Odo's mouth.  Evidently,
it hadn't; Tahgla had kept his own silence, the suspicion that had
narrowed his gaze finally dissipating.

"Well, yes.  . ."  The Cardassian engineer straightened up, his voice
stiff with sullen anger and embarrassment.  He managed a nod toward Odo.

"Your point is well taken.  Perhaps .  . . perhaps the confusion arose
during your chief engineer's initial communications with us...."

A snort of disgust came from O'Brien.

Sisko went on observing.  Especially Odo; the shapeshifter's usual
expressionless mask had betrayed no inner emotions.  But he had picked
up an unintended sign, anyway: a slight curling of Odo's fingers, as
though he were grasping, seizing hold of something.  A clue, something
that explained or revealed .  . .

"It is not important to assign blame now."  Tahgla knew when he had been
beaten.  "Our own technicians will make the necessary adjustments, and
then the installation of the impulse buffers can proceed as originally
agreed upon."  The tone of insinuating politeness colored his words
again.  "I trust our scheduled departure date will still be met!  "I'm
sure Mister O'Brien will make every effort.  In fact, that's an order."

"Glad to."  The words sooner the better didn't need to be spoken.  As
O'Brien turned away, he leaned close to Odo's ear.

"And next time, not so damn tight!"

Odo stayed behind when all the rest had left.  "I wouldn't like to be in
the shoes of Tahgla's chief engineer right now."  He gazed down the
corridor before palming the office's door closed.  "A Cardassian gul
doesn't enjoy being caught out in an underling's mistake."

"Rather an interesting mistake, actually."  The diagram and specs were
still on Sisko's computer panel.  "I remember learning at the Academy
that the Cardassians had these differing math systems.  But-" He smiled.

"I don't recall much more than that.  Was there something else you
wanted to tell me about them?"

"Just this, Commander."  Odo looked behind him self, a show of habitual,
if needless, caution.  "The Cardassian numerical bases have their origin
in the various economic classes; the damur that's used for scientific
computations comes from the base devised by their ancient merchants and
traders; the unit of linear measurement is based upon the size of a seed
grain common on their home planet, I understand.  The notation--" He
pointed to the numbers on the screen.  "That's the numbering base that
originated with the warrior caste."

"Ah."  Sisko knew what Odo was about to tell him.

"Somewhere along the line, the Cardassians translated the specifications
sent by O'Brien, but into umur rather than damur."

Odo's hand clenched tight.  "That's not an unarmed research vessel
sitting in drydock.  It's a Cardassian military ship in disguise."

CHAPTER 2

HE WALKED right into the ambush.  He should have known that she would be
looking for him.  Gunning for me, thought Sisko, ruefully.  That'd be
the right expression.

"I've been doing some more thinking."  Major Kira swung into stride next
to him, almost as soon as he had entered the station's main corridor.

"About our previous conversation."

She had come straight toward him, the crowd parting before her, as much
due to her well-known temper as her rank.  Plowing through them with a
head-lowered determination, she was like an icebreaker navigating the
frozen seas of some intemperate planet.

What he needed right now--after a long shift of studying classified
Federation position papers and transcripts of the bickering provisional
government down on the surface of Bajor--was dinner and a talk with his
son Jake about the boy's schoolwork.  Followed by a hot bath and a
spinal adjustment, and a seat along Wrigley Field's first-base line,
where he could contemplate the holosuite's re-creation of a solid home
run going in a perfect heart-lifting arc over the left-field wall.  He
didn't need Major Kira bending his ear any further than it already had
been.

Sisko kept on walking, not even looking around at her.  "I don't suppose
it would make any difference," he said, "if I told you the matter was
closed."  He kept his voice low, to avoid being overheard too easily.

Faces, familiar and unrecognized, permanent and transient, humanoid and
otherwise, thronged the corridor.

"You know me better than that."  Eira made a joke of it--or nonjoke,
similar to the thin nonsmile that marked her grudging tolerance of all
fools that she hadn't been empowered to toss out of the station's
airlock.  At least, not yet.  "I don't give up very easily."

"Indeed."  At the mouth to one of the corridor's unused branches, a
Gameran peddler had set up his quick-folding table, and was doing a
brisk business in what appeared to be mildly stimulative transdermal
patches.  Though it would have been faster to take a turbolift from his
office to his living quarters, he'd made it his habit to physically walk
some sector of the station every shift, to see for himself what might be
going on in this strange, small world he supposedly commanded.

He made a mental note to have Odo move the patch peddler on, then just
as quickly canceled it; for all he knew, the Gameran was part of the
security spies network of snoops and petty informants.

"l feel it's imperative to remind you that--"

"Major Kira."  He stopped and turned toward her.  The soft bulk of a
Buhlmeri cargo-tech bumped against his shoulder, muttered an apology,
then went on.  The standing population had increased markedly over the
last several shifts; when he'd first been posted here, the station's
public areas had been sparsely l occupied ruins.  "I'll be frank with
you: I'm tired.  I've I been working hard the last few shifts, and I'm
not in the mood to rehash a subject that I've made abundantly clear to
you is no longer open for discussion.  Now, if you'll excuse me--"

"But that's exactly my point."

Kira spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes flashing twin laser-points of
anger.  "And you're only fooling yourself if you think it's something
recent.  You're swamped up to your eyeballs in diplomatic affairs,
enough to fill every second of every watch, and you're still trying to
manage all the particulars of DS Nine's operations--"

"You forget, Major; that's my duty.  My first duty."

"Wrong.  Your duty is to see that it gets done."  She made no attempt to
keep her voice down; faces along the corridor turned their way.

"It's not going to do you or the station any good for you to keel over
in .  your tracks from exhaustion.  As long as the Federation expects
you to oversee negotiations with the planetside government, you're going
to have to learn to delegate some of these things."

Sisko felt a blood vessel at the corner of his brow begin to throb.

Kira was far out of line.  It would have been difficult enough for him
to check his own temper, on receiving a warning like that from a
superior.

The officer, to hear- it from his nominal second-in command was
aggravating beyond endurance.

"I've delegated quite enough, Major."  He started walking again, to burn
off the adrenaline that had welled up inside him.  "Especially to you."

He swung a narrowed glance at her.  "Perhaps more than I would have, if
your position here had been a matter of choice for me."

She ignored the last comment, as she matched his stride.  "Oh, you've
certainly delegated."  Sarcasm seeped between her words.

"Minutiae, the smallest things, those you think anyone else is capable
of handling."  She grabbed his arm to halt him.  "I'm talking about
policy decisions, Commander.  This station is Bajoran property--in
actuality, not just as some technical legalism.  The time is coming when
all of DS Nine's operations are to be turned over to my people.

That's by your own Federation's edict.  And your commission here
includes preparing for that time.  As the senior Bajoran officer aboard,
I should be given the greatest possible authority to--"

"My commission, Major, is to suitably prepare for the transfer of DS
Nine's control.  To Bajorans who are ready to assume the
responsibilities for it."

Kira's lowered voice spoke of anger hotter than any shouting could
express.  "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

He glanced along the corridor.  The other pedestrians had slowed down,
trying as subtly as possible to stay within earshot.  "Come with me."

They were only steps away from Quark's number one lounge.  Inside, Sisko
signaled over the heads of the patrons stacked up at the bar.

"Give us a private booth.  And if you switch on any of your bugs, you'll
wind up eating them."

The Ferengi displayed his sharp-toothed smile.  "Commander, I would
never .  . . " In fact, he probably wouldn't; such discretion was part
of the understanding by which Quark was allowed to keep his various
enterprises running.

With the booth sealed shut, Sisko and Major Kira were encased in a
soundproof bubble.  He leaned across the narrow table.  '-Perhaps I
didn't make myself clear before.  Or perhaps you think I've forgot ten
about some of the decisions you have been allowed to make--and their
consequences."

"If this is about that group of Redemptorists I let come aboard--" He
cut her off.  "What else would it be about?  Correction: it's not just
about whether you showed a lack of judgment in granting them entry to
the station.  It's a question of the underlying sympathies that might
have prompted that decision."

The Redemptorists, a team of six microassembly specialists currently
assigned to O'Brien's drydock bay, had been brought up from Bajor enough
shifts ago that the issues raised by the group's presence should have
begun to lose some of their sharp edges.  Major Kira had been in charge
of their security clearance--she still was, for any other Bajorans that
had come aboard in the future; he hadn't relieved her of the
assignment--and she had personally signed their entry and residence
chits.  All of which Sisko had been able to verify for himself when Odo
had first told him of the irregularities in the new workers' back
grounds.

Odo's worries were justified, given the reputation of the Redemptorists
as one of the most intractable elements in the overheated stew of
Bajoran politics.  They were more of a religious movement, a
fundamentalist group opposed to the conciliatory main stream faith
headed by Kai Opaka Fanaticism had inevitably progressed, as it seemed
to on any world, to violence; several Redemptorists had been involved in
terrorist activities directed against other Bajorans who didn't follow
their particular annihilating creed.  In the murderous infighting that
characterized the Bajoran splinter groups--the ever-shifting coalitions
and temporary alliances and eventual drawing of daggers--the
Redemptorists were notable for the ruthlessness by which they dealt with
long-standing enemies and onetime friends alike.

"Those men are not murderers, Commander.  They're all followers of the
Redemptorists' political defense wing.  Their group even has members
sitting in the Bajoran parliament--"

"I'm well aware of the fine shadings that afflict Bajoran politics.

As you noted, I seem to spend a great deal of my time lately on
precisely that.  I'm also aware--perhaps more than you are, Major-of the
difficulties that the Redemptorist movement has presented to the
provisional government.  In fact, your government has contacted me
directly, to see if there's anything that can be done from aboard the
station to jam the pirate broadcasts by which the Redemptorists recruit
other Bajorans to their cause."

"That doesn't alter the status of the ones I allowed on board.

They're legal--" He and Kira had gone over this before.  "Legal'

seems to be a very flexible concept with you, Major.  I dos't make quite
the same distinction that you do between those who murder and those who
condone murder.  And what the Bajoran government needs to do--the
elements it has to bring inside itself to stay alive--is not going to be
the guideline for how this station is operated."

"This Bajoran station, Commander."  Kira's anger leapt another notch.

"You keep forgetting that this is Bajoran property--"

"Currently administered by Starfleet--and that responsibility is mine."

He spread his hands flat on the table.  "And it will be that way as long
as the situation on Bajor's surface remains the mess that it is right
now."

"But how is that ever going to change?"  The words took on a desperate
edge.  "Those groups have to be brought into the center of things.

They have tremendous energy and capabilities--"

"Oh yes, they've demonstrated that, all right."

She pushed past his sarcasm.  "If the Redemptorists and the others are
left out on the fringe, unable to achieve any measure of legitimate
power, what other choice are they going to have?"

"Besides violence?"  Sisko shook his head before replying.  "How about
patience?"

"After what the Cardassians did to us, Commander, patience is not a word
of which the Bajorans are very fond."

"It may not be a word that's to your liking, Major.  But it's one you're
going to learn the meaning of.  There was a time not too long ago when I
felt assured of your loyalty to- this station; that it was of at least
equal weight with your devotion to your people.  But now, I've begun to
wonder.  This incident, combined with other things you've said and done,
raises grave concerns in my mind as to whether an underlying sympathy
with the aims of these terrorist groups-- and your own impatience--has
gained the upper hand in your thoughts.

Until I'm convinced once more that the survival of DS Nine is your top
priority, the question of your being given greater authority here is, as
I said before, not open for discussion."  He stood up and reached for
the door control, then stopped and looked back at Kira.  "I'm
disappointed, Major.  I would have thought that you of all people, with
your own experiences back on Bajor, would remember what damage these
people can do."  He saw that the reference to the incidents in her past,
before she had been posted as military attache to the station, was
equivalent to a slap across her face.

She glared back at him in silence.

The booth's door slid open, revealing Quark right outside.

"Refreshments?"  He smiled and raised a tray with two synthales.  "On
the house."

Sisko got past him without mishap, but Kira didn't.  Quark looked at the
major's back as she pushed her way ut into the crowded corridor, then
glanced down at the puddle and overturned mugs at his feet.  "I guess
not...."

"When you say 'liquid state,' what do you mean?  How much--a liter?

Ten liters?"  A malicious grin sliced across the Cardassian security
officer's face.  "A pint?"

Odo looked away from him in annoyance.  "I find your interest in my
bodily functions to be distasteful.  You can be confident that I have no
interest in yours."

He continued walking, his visual scan moving across the maze of pipes
and expansed wiring that lined the station's lower decks.

These areas were little trafficked--at least by anyone who had a
legitimate reason for being here--and were far down on the list for
eventual upgrading and being brought back into service.  he deep
shadows--some sectors were almost completely unlit--and even deeper
niches were consequently perfect for all those with illegitimate
reasons.  By hi own calculations, he estimated that he had discovered
and confiscated perhaps only 10 percent of the contraband moving on,
through, and off DS9; the damage that the Cardassians had wrought upon
the station's exosystems had left it a smuggler's paradise.  Until the
new security perimeters were phased in, al} his vigilance was needed to
keep the station from becoming an open thoroughfare for illicit goods.

By contrast, his counterpart from the Cardassian research vessel sitting
in drydock--inside his head, he put quotation marks around the word
research-- kept his gaze locked on Odo.  That annoyed him, as well.  Of
course, he knew that was the reason for the Cardassian's constant
presence: to keep an eye on him--the watcher watched.

"Isn't it pretty close to that time for you?"  Gri Rafod peered at him
in amusement.  "I'd hate for you to melt into a puddle just because you
were giving me the grand tour."

"I'm not giving you anything."  Odo clipped the words short.  "You
wished to accompany me on my rounds; you do so against my wishes.

However, I am bound by the terms of the agreement worked out between
your superiors and Commander Sisko.  You persist in this fiction that
you are preparing a report to the Cardassian council on recent
improvements to the station's security; fine.  As you wish."  He stopped
and turned his severest gaze on the other.  "But you're not fooling me."

"How your harsh speech wounds me."  The Cardassian should have been an
actor, he laid a hand dramatically upon his chest.  "When I spoke to Gul
Dukat, he told me that you were given to such groundless suspicions of
others' motives.  I didn't want to believe it, but .

. ."  He shook his head.  "I suppose it's an inevitable result of the
jobs you and I have been given.  We see the worst sides of sentient
creatures, don't we?"

Odo kept silent.  He had already lied to the Cardassian, a small but
necessary violation of his own inner code.  He wasn't bound by any
ludicrous agreement; if the maintenance of the station's security
required actions that weren't officially approved of, the commander
didn't need to know of them--or could at least pretend not to know.

Unfortunately, if he were to elude this Gri Rafod's obnoxious
surveillance--easy enough for a shapeshifter to do-- it would play right
into the hands of the Cardassian security officer's superiors.

The Cardassians were looking for any excuse to break the hard-negotiated
pact by which all vessels, including their own, were brought into the
DS9 drydock to have the impulse energy buffers mounted around their
engines before being allowed access to the stable wormhole.  The fact
was that the buffers enabled vessels to pass through the wormhole
without harming its inhabitants seemed to bear no weight with the
Cardassians.

They cared little enough for the welfare of creatures that they could
actually observe and touch, let alone the seemingly nonmaterial ones
inside the wormhole.

If he were to slip away from the Cardassian security officer, then Gul
Tahgla, the vessel's captain, would immediately cry that the duplicitous
Starfleet officers manning the station had unleashed their resident
shapeshifter to spy out all the secrets and classified information that
might be aboard the ship.  The Cardassian council would howl that the
installation of buffers was just a ruse to get their vessels into
Starfleet's prying hands.  The proverbial hell would break loose, the
pact between the Federation and the Cardassians would collapse, the
Cardassians would press for whatever advantage they could derive from
the resulting chaos.

Of course, none of that altered the fact that Odo had already decided to
leave Gri Rafod hanging, and sneak undetected into the vessel sitting in
drydock.  He had determined his course of action even before the
Cardassians' unconscious error had revealed the vessel's military
nature.

"I hope you don't feel that this time we're sharing together is wasted."

Rafod smiled as he strolled beside Odo.  "I assure you that I'm learning
a great deal from you."

More than you realize, thought Odo.  If his own face had been capable of
it, he would have smiled back.  The Cardassian wouldn't even realize how
much he'd learned, until it was too late.

Their route led them to the active--officially so-- sectors of the
station.  To the drydock itself.  Odo detected Gri Rafod's attention
going up a notch, a tensing of the spine into full alertness.  As they
walked through a shower of sparks from a bank of welding torches, the
dull gray shape of the Cardassian vessel loomed before them, its flanks
crossed with scaffolding and the heavy cables of the overhead cranes.

Chief Engineer O'Brien stood before a shop computer panel, head lowered
as he punched up progressively more detailed layers of schematics on the
screen.  "Some kind of problem, gents?"

"No, of course not.  Merely routine."  Odo stood with hands clasped
behind his back, gazing across the drydock's bustling activity.

Shouting voices and the clash of metal against metal assaulted his
senses.  While in the empty spaces below decks, he had tuned his hearing
for maximum sensitivity, to pick up the slightest sound; now, he simply
flowed an extra layer of molecules across the tympanum inside each ear,
to block the loudest noises hammering through the air.

"Busy, I take it?"

Gri Rafod wasn't as fortunate; without filter plugs such as those
O'Brien and his crew wore, the drydock's noise level made it difficult
for him to follow even a shouted conversation.  Still, it was wise to
remain cautious in front of him; Odo could see the Cardassian watching
from the corner of his eye, as though an attempt to penetrate the
vessel's mysteries might happen at any moment.

"We're about back up to speed."  O'Brien shrugged.  "Now that we got
that little, uh, miscommunication sorted out."  The chief engineer had
left the jacksledge sitting in the middle of the drydock, a squat and
silent totem of power and a warning to the Cardassians against any
further interference.

"Have you had a chance to work on anything else around the station?

I know that there was a small plumbing problem the commander was
concerned about--" A sheet of meter-thick plate slipped and fell, its
edge striking the drydock's floor with an impact that Odo could feel
through the soles of his boots.  Beside him, Gri Rafod winced in pain.

The accident had distracted O'Brien's attention; when he turned back
after looking to see that no one had been injured, his expression was
puzzled.  "What plumbing problem?"

He'd been keeping his speech gruff, as though to indicate he was still
annoyed at having been arrested and taken in hand restraints to Sisko's
office.  Odo glanced quickly at Gri Rafod, to see if the Cardassian had
picked up on this lapse.

Before Odo could say anything, O'Brien caught himself.  "Oh, you mean
the hydraulics system."  The security chief nodded.  "That was no
problem.  You can tell the commander it's all been taken care of.

Ready to go."

"Fine.  I'll tell him when I see him."  He turned to Rafod.  "I'm afraid
I'll have to cut our little tour short.  As you so considerately
observed a while ago--it's about that time for me."

As they headed for the station's Promenade and the security office, Gri
Rafod shook his head, as though his auditory organs were still ringing.

"It's a pleasure to be out of that place."

Odo said nothing, but gazed with satisfaction at him.  The Cardassian
didn't suspect a thing.

She almost didn't see him until she bumped right into him.

Preoccupied with her thoughts, the deep brooding in which the commander
had left her, Major Kira stepped into her quarters as the door slid
open.  She looked up and saw the station's head medical officer standing
there, holding a book in his hands.

"What are you doing in here?"  The invasion of privacy would have
offended her, even if she had been in a better mood.

Julian Bashir smiled as ingratiatingly as possible under the
circumstances and placed the book back on the shelf.  "Don't you
remember?  You coded me one-time access, so I could give you the results
of your medical tests."  He picked up his data padd from the corner of
the desk set into the bulkhead and turned its small screen toward her.

"I think you might recall that you wanted to keep it, um .. .

private."

"Right."  She rubbed her forehead.  "Okay, I'm sorry--I didn't mean to
tear your head off."  Kira sat down heavily on the corner of the bed.

"So, what's the verdict?"

It had taken some resolve on her part to ask a favor of Bashir.  For
some time now, she had found him, of all the DS9 crew members, to be the
most personally irritating--completely at odds with her style of doing
things, her notions of how to conduct oneself.  She had long ago bolted
herself into the direct approach, to put her foot down and pile right
into any problem, any confrontation with another person.  That was so
she could endure, and even admire, Benjamin Sisko, even when she was 180
degrees opposed to him; she was never in doubt as to what the
commander's feelings were.  But Bashir relied too much on charm--or at
least what he must've thought was charm--and an easy, flattering manner,
none of which she trusted.  Stop tying to be friends with the universe,
she wanted to tell him.  And get on with your job.

"Nothing."  Bashir shrugged and tossed the data padd back onto the desk.

"There's nothing at all wrong with you.  All the test results are within
normal ranges.  Perhaps a little dehydrated on some of the electrolytes,
but nothing I'd worry about.  You're probably just tired."  His would-be
ingratiating smile appeared again.  "From overwork."

She didn't know if she was relieved or not.  She'd asked him to run the
tests and draw a blood sample after-hours, when the only medical unit
staff on duty would all have been over in the emergency facilities.

He'd assured her of confidentiality, that no one else-- particularly
Commander Sisko--would know that she'd been there; that was part of his
duty as a physician.  So now, if she didn't need to be concerned about
that, and the tests had all come out clear, then she only had to worry
about what had prompted her request in the first place.

"It's no secret how hard you push yourself."  Bashir gazed up at the
ceiling as he musingly rubbed his chin.  "Now, if I were
yourpersonalphysician--if you'd put yourself under my care
exclusively--I'd prescribe a long course of relaxation.  A rest shift
with no thoughts of duty or work .  . . a fine dinner, a bottle of wine,
pleasant company .  . ."  He brightened.  "Say, with me.  How does that
sound?"

Kira groaned inside herself.  That was another reason she had taken a
dislike to him.  The same thing about which she had commiserated with
Dax and every other humanoid female aboard the station.  You couldn't
say hello to him without it leading to a come-on--a serious
overestimation of his own appeal.

"It sounds like a bad idea."  She laid her head back against the pillow,
not even caring what ideas might be zipping through Bashir's head now.

"As you said, I'm probably tired.  Too tired."  He didn't seem to get
the message.  Or did, but chose to ignore it.  He went on scanning
across the items on her shelves, the few books, the various little
remembrance-enhancers of her past--there weren't many of those, either.

That was a result of her own war on whatever scraps of sentimentality
might still be left inside her, and the fact that a childhood spent in
refugee camps didn't give one much to fondly look back on.

"Really, Kira, you can do better than this."  Bashir's voice became
mock-chiding as he examined the small, portable chip-player sitting
between its minuscule speakers.  He shook his head.  "This is
pathetic-barely adequate."

"It works; that's all I care about.  And I got a good price on it from
Quark--something about it having fallen off the back of an interstellar
transport."  Her problem was getting into moral debt with Bashir-- he'd
done her a favor, having run her tests at a time when he knew that she
knew he was already swamped with getting the station's quarantine module
up and running.  So now, she supposed she had to have a semblance of
conversation with him, when all she really wanted to do was boot him out
of her quarters.  "I suppose you think I should have something totally
modern and up-to-date."

"Oh no; by no means.  You should have something classic."  He didn't
appear to be joking around.  His face lit with enthusiasm.  "Right now,
I'm restoring a vintage Earthside music-playback system.  Talk about
old-fashioned: you wouldn't believe the size of the media it uses.  The
discs are nearly the size of your hand."  He held up his own to
demonstrate.  "But the Theta decoding algorithms are just pure gold--the
last great Sinclair-Moffett design breakthrough.

They were supposedly up for some kind of Nobel prize before they
died...."

"I had no idea."  She gazed up at the ceiling, struggling to conceal her
boredom.

"When I've got it up and running, it's magic.  The walls just fall away,
and you're in the Concertgebouw in old Amsterdam, or the pre-restoration
Carnegie.  Better than a holosuite--at least as long as you keep your
eyes closed."  His voice dropped a few tones in pitch.

"You should come by my quarters sometime and listen to it."

Another come-on.  The man was relentless.  Now, she could put him out
the door with no guilt feelings.  She was about to tell him so when she
heard another voice speaking.  It took her a moment to realize that
Bashir had pushed the start button on the chip-player.

She was off the bed and had shoved her way past him before he knew what
was happening.  She punched ejector and pulled the chip out of the
machine.

"What's wrong?"  Bashir stared at her in puzzlement.

"Nothing--" She grasped the chip firmly in her hand.  "But you don't
want to hear this.  It's just some, uh, Bajoran folk music.  Really
monotonous."  That had been a screwup on her part, leaving the chip
where anyone could come across it; she'd have to be more careful in the
future.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind.  I have very .  . . wide-ranging tastes."

Yeah, I bet.  "Some other time.  Right now, I think I'm getting a
headache."  The old lines were still the best ones.

After he had left--finally--and she was alone, Kira pulled the bed's
mattress away from the bulkhead, enough to reveal the small hiding place
she had created.  She pried up the corner of the wall panel, and was
about to drop the recorded chip in with the others, when she stayed her
hand.  She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing deep, and trying to control
the pounding of her heart.

Maybe Bashir was right.  Maybe she needed a rest, a long one, during
which she could somehow find a way to stop thinking about the things
that shouted inside her head.  Stop thinking, and stop remembering .

.

.

Or perhaps it was Commander Sisko who was right.  It was something
different that caused her errors in judgment; she couldn't even decide
if it had been a mistake to approve letting the Redemptorists come
aboard the station.  Not fatigue, but something much more fundamental,
the division that cleaved her soul.  Between what she was trying to
become, was pretending to be .  . . and what she could never stop being.

She drew her hand back, still holding the chip.  She got up and put it
back in the machine, then hit the PLAYBUTTON.  She turned down the
volume so there wasn't the slightest chance of anyone outside the door
over hearing, then lay back down on the bed.

Eyes closed, she listened to the stern, compelling voice.  It was the
same as that on all the other chips in the hiding place, recordings of
the illicit broadcasts of the Redemptorist leader on Bajor.

The man's voice spoke- of blood and fire, the need for the great
cleansing of their planet, the driving away of all intruders from beyond
the stars.  In shame, mingled with a fierce, irrational pride, Major
Kira Nerys clenched her teeth and listened.  A single tear welled up and
traced a line across her cheek.

CHAPTER 3

THE HIDING PLACE had been changed several times already; to prevent the
station's security chief from finding it and exposing the unauthorized
guest it held--the most important person to the future of Bajor.  He was
aboard DS9, and only a select few knew of his presence.  The youngest of
the Redemptorist microassembly crew hurried through the darkened
passageway, head ducked to avoid the pipes above.  He kept the parcel in
his arms clutched tight to his chest, mindful of the awesome
responsibilities he bore.

"Unauthorized" was--as he had been instructed and as he had to keep
telling himself--a relative term.  At the end of the passage, he
stealthily raised a little-used access hatch and began clambering down a
set of metal rungs to the even darker level below.  If he felt
uncomfortable about breaking the regulations of the station's
administrators--these strangers who, s from Chief Engineer O'Brien on
up, had treated him and the rest of the devout with unexpected
fairness-- then he had to remind himself that their laws were as nothing
compared to the dawning of Bajor's glory and liberation.  To remember
that at all times was a test of his own faith.

He came to the last rung, his next step dangling into unlit space.

This sector was one of the most heavily damaged aboard the station, the
narrow passages and shafts torn apart by the fire set by the departing
Cardassians.  The station's autonomic defenses had managed to extinguish
the blaze, but only after the local power grid and sensors had been
charred to a nonfunctioning state.  The smell of blackened filaments
lodged tight in his throat.

Drawing in as much of the stifling air as he could, he forced the hand
clutching one of the rungs to let go.  The drop into darkness was less
than two meters, just enough for a spark of panic to flare inside his
chest, the fear that he would go on falling forever.

He rolled off a mound of singed insulation material and got to his
knees.  The impact had jarred the parcel loose from his grasp, and he
fumbled about for it with a growing desperation.  At last he found it,
right on top of the wire marking the rest of the way to the hiding
place.  He crawled forward, holding the parcel even closer to himself.

"Arten .  . . how good to see you."  In the dim light, a smile rose on
the face of the most important man on Bajor--or off the planet, since he
had been smuggled aboard DS9.  "I thought perhaps you had forgotten
about me."

Though the words were obviously said in jest, they still made Arten's
gut feel hollow.  "Of course not--" His own words rushed out.  "How .

. . how could .  . ."

"Never mind."  Horen Rygis, the leader of the Redemptorist movement,
unwrapped the parcel that had been set before him.  "Of course, your
services are greatly appreciated.  By all the faithful."

Still on his knees--the hiding place was too small for anyone to stand
upright--Arten turned and made sure that the flexible panel had sealed
shut behind him, preventing any light or sound from leaking out.

Though Horen spoke in a low, even soothing, voice in this enclosed
space, Arten couldn't help hearing that other voice, the one from the
broadcasts that went out to the Redemptorists scattered across the
surface of Bajor.  It must be a miracle, a sign of their cause's
righteousness, that the source of those hammering, apocalyptic sermons,
with their calls to revolution and a burning purity, hadn't yet been
detected here in the bowels of the station.

Horen set aside the flasks of water and the food containers.  At the
bottom of the parcel were its most important contents.  He held up the
blank recording chips, turning them between his thumb and forefinger so
they sparkled in the portable lantern's glow.

"Through such simple things," he mused aloud.  "Thus is that day
hastened, that all true Bajorans will rejoice to see.  By virtue of the
simple .  . ."  He turned a sharp glance toward Arten.  "You would do
well to remember that."

"Yes .  . ."  He nodded, wondering just what Horen had meant.  Some
words of wisdom seemed to be no more than those that he already knew,
homilies with which even the nonbelievers would have agreed.

Others, he had realized bit by bit .  . . the other words could mean
things much deeper.  And darker .  . .

"In truth, however, you needn't have worried about me."  Horen opened a
flask and took a drink.  "I had a visit last cycle from one of your
companions."  He spoke casually, as though of a neighbor he had welcomed
into a sunlit house.

Arten felt his spine stiffen.  "Oh?"  It was his appointed task to carry
supplies to the hiding place, to bring the blank recording chips, and to
carry away those with the fiery words locked inside.

"Who was that?"  He had wanted to ask why, but had held his tongue.

"Your group's leader.  Deyreth Elt.  He brought me a few things."

Horen pointed to the items on a ledge that had been improvised on the
space's rounded wall.  "Nothing much."

"And was that .  . ."  He couldn't restrain his growing anxiety.

"Was that the only reason he came to see you?"

"By no means."  Horen picked through an opened container, looking for a
choice morsel.  His long fingered, almost delicate hands were at odds
with the broad-shouldered bulk that seemed to push against the hiding
place's confines.  Arten felt, as he had before in the man's presence,
that all the available space was somehow being absorbed, leaving only a
thin margin in which to exist, bringing the harsh angles of that face
right up against his own.  Horen licked a dab of sauce from a fingertip.

"Deyreth and I had a most intriguing conversation."  The angles sorted
themselves into what might have been a kindly smile on another's face.

"About you, as a matter of fact."

His heart stopped for a moment, then raced to catch up with the shallow
breathing he tried to conceal.  He couldn't speak.

"Calm yourself.  You have nothing to be afraid of."  Horen's voice
lowered even further from that on the recording chips.  "Self-doubt is
not a characteristic of those wearing the armor of faith."  The smile
vanished.  "Do you doubt yourself, Arten?"

"I .  . . I don't think so .  . ."

Horen sighed.  "You'll have to work on that.  In the meantime, bear in
mind that Deyreth is one of the oldest Redemptorists, one of the first
to have accepted the revelation of struggle, back when we were a ragged
band hunted by the Cardassian oppressors and Bajoran collaborators
alike.  Deyreth is worthy of your respect, a man of great devoutness,
confirmed in the truth of his beliefs.  Perhaps a little too
confirmed--do you follow what I'm trying to tell you?"

A small light appeared, that didn't come from the lantern.  "Perhaps .

. . "

"It would be wrong to expect someone like Deyreth, as virtuous as he is,
to adapt his ways to changing conditions, to the new opportunities that
even I have been slow to recognize.  The new rulers of this station,
these representatives of the Federation-they're different from the
Cardassians, aren't they?  In many ways."

Arten nodded.  "That's what I was trying to tell Deyreth and the
others."

"Ah.  So, what Deyreth came here to report to me--the remarks you are
said to have made, expressing some admiration for this Chief Engineer
O'Brien who supervises your work--those things are all true?  You did
say them?"

He hesitated, his pulse lodged high in his throat.

"Come, come; you can speak openly with me."  Horen lowered his head, to
bring his gaze level with Arten's.  "As I have tried to teach you: the
simplest, the least among us, can be of the most value.

You see things differently from Deyreth; that is to be expected.

But you dared to speak to him the truth you perceived in your
heart--that is commendable."

A stone seemed to dissolve inside Arten's chest.  An influx of breath
dizzied him.  "It is true."  How much easier to say that, than to carry
the weight of shame through these dark corridors!  His words tumbled
forth now.  "The chief engineer--and the ones above him--they know what
we are; they have no reason to treat us as well as they have.  But they
are different, they're--" Horen laid his hand on Arten's forearm.

"There is no need to explain.  I understand."  He drew back, his gaze
turning inward.  "I understand .  . . every thing...."

No need to say any more.  Arten dosed his eyes, feeling the knots of his
spine loosen.  Everything would be fine now.  Now, they would
all--Deyreth and the others--they would all see how different things
were here.

In darkness, buried in the station's hidden recesses, the voice of blood
and fire spoke, in a slow whisper.  "I understand ... just what needs to
be done...."

"Well, this certainly looks comfortable."  Gri Rafod looked over the
edge of the basin.  His reflection wavered up from the depths of the
polished brass.  "That is, comfortable for some people."

Odo found the Cardassian's presence no less irksome, and the attempts at
banter no more clever, than before.  "It serves its purpose."  He didn't
look up, but continued sorting through the arrest reports on his data
padd.  He'd retreated to his private quarters, from the outer security
office.  With the door sealed, the glare and noise of the Promenade
beyond were shut away.

"It doesn't need to do any more than that."

"I suppose not."  Rafod stretched his legs out from the chair, looking
bored and impatient.  "Is it going to be much longer?  Before it .  .

.

happens?"

He glanced up.  "My actions are bound by the agreement between your
superiors and Commander Sisko."  He kept his voice level, to avoid
giving Rafod the pleasure of knowing how irritated he'd become.

"But my statements are not.  You see fit to invade my privacy for no
good reason--fine.  I obey my orders.  But I would like to point out to
you that what 'happens,' as you put it, is simply a matter of my
physiology.  I must periodically revert to and remain in a liquid state;
it's as simple as that.  It's not a sideshow act for your amusement."

"Yes, yes; of course.  Whatever you say."  Gri Rafod looked around at
the cluttered walls.  "Though it's rather a pity .  . ."

Odo sighed wearily.  "What is-"

"That it's not a sideshow act.  I imagine it would be rather a good one.

Perhaps you should talk to your friend Quark, see what he could set up
for you."

More loudly than he'd intended to, Odo dropped the data padd into his
desk drawer and slammed it shut.  The display device's security codes
were unbreakable, but on general principle he didn't want the Cardassian
handling it while he waited here.

He stood up and came round to the front of the desk.  "If it will make
you any happier--or perhaps more pleasant to be with--you should know
that the time is at last here.  Your unseemly interest in other
creatures' biological functions will be satisfied."

He stepped into the basin.  "For a while, at least."

Rafod ignored the dig.  "Rather like getting into a bathtub, isn't it?"

He leaned forward to watch.

- "I had thought that might be a novelty for you and your people.

Now, my suspicions have been confirmed."

"Very amusing&" The Cardassian smiled sourly.  He nodded.  "Yes, very
much like an old-fashioned bathtub .  . . though, of course, without any
plumbing attached."

Odo rested his hands on the basin's edge.  "I hope you've brought
something with which to amuse your self for the next couple of hours.

As fascinating as our conversations have been, I will have neither the
capability nor the inclination to indulge in them."

"I anticipated that."  Rafod unfastened one of his uniform's pockets and
extracted a folded pouch and a small implement of hand carved wood.

"Speaking of Quark .  . . he sold me all this, at what I'm sure was an
extortionate price."

The sharp scent of the pouch's contents caught at Odo's nostrils.

"That's tobacco."

"Yes.  Quark told me it'd come all the way from Earth.  Seems to have
rather a mild narcotic effect.  Pleasant, but not soporific."

"I would prefer that you not indulge while you are here in my quarters."

Rafod busily fussed with the paraphernalia of lighter and tamping tool.

"Yes, well, we'll talk about that when you get back.  To your proper
form, that is."  He started filling the pipe with the shredded organic
matter There was nothing Odo could do about it now.  Or that he wanted
to; if Rafod was preoccupied with this new toy, it would help to keep
him from noticing anything going amiss, right beneath his scaly nose.

"Then, if you'll excuse me .  . ."

The Cardassian had managed to get the pipe litHe leaned back in the
chair, exhaling a cloud of smoke.  "It strikes me that you're well
advised to keep your doors so tightly locked here.  With the number of
enemies that a chief of security garners aboard a station such as this,
or even just those bent on mischief and petty vandalism .  . ."  Rafod
suppressed a cough, then nodded.  "If someone like that managed to get
in here, while you were in your, ah, defenseless liquid state .  . ."

He shook his head.  "Someone could dump just anything into the
receptacle there with you.  Trash, old scrap metal..."  He smiled around
the pipe.  "Ashes, perhaps."

Odo had been on the verge of letting himself sink into the basin,
letting the individual atoms of his existence loosen from the
constraints of solid matter.  He stopped and drew himself erect.

"If someone were to do that, it would be very foolish of someone.

" Odo leaned over the basin's edge and through the tobacco fumes.

"Let me tell you a little story, Gri Rafod.  First, you have to
understand that while I'm in my liquid state, I may be defenseless, but
I'm not unconscious; in that sense, this periodic claim that my nature
makes upon me is not exactly similar to the sleep that most other
creatures require.  I am awake, and aware of everything that happens
around me.

"Now, here's the story: once, someone did come in here, and he did just
as you said; he tossed something into the basin while I was in my liquid
state.  And I was very, very annoyed by that."

Rafod looked uneasy, as though realizing that he had pushed the
shapeshifter too far.

"And when I came back from my little rest, I tracked that someone down.

And do you know what I did to him?"

The Cardassian shook his head.

"Without his seeing, I turned myself into a morsel of food upon his
plate, something so small that he would gulp it down without even
chewing--the way I've seen you and your people eat.  And then, once I
was inside him, I stopped being quite so small, and I reached up through
his throat, all the way into his head, and pushed his eyeballs out from
the inside."  Odo wished he had mastered forming an unpleasant smile; it
would have been perfect now.  "It must have been quite an unsettling
experience.  I understand that even after having artificial optics
grafted into his sockets, this someone remains under heavy sedation in a
psychiatric ward on his home planet."

Rafod took the pipe from his mouth.  "You never did any such thing.

It would be against the law."

"You're right," said Odo.  "I didn't do that-- because I just now
thought of it.  But I would love to do it sometime."  He moved back to
the center of the basin.  "Do we understand each other now, Gri Rafod?

Good.  Enjoy yourself."

After he had become liquid, with his level below the rim of the basin,
he formed a light-sensitive patch and rudimentary lens at his surface.

Just enough to watch the Cardassian security officer, without him
noticing.

Rafod scowled and muttered something to himself as he poked at the
smoldering contents of his pipe, but he made no move away from his
chair.

Good, thought Odo.  The fool suspects nothing He let the primitive eye
dissolve and set himself to the tasks before him.

The temptation to remain a simple liquid was strong--the time when that
change would become necessary was close at hand, and he could feel the
ease it would bring to every particle of his being.  But he could put it
off a while longer, despite what he had told Rafod.

There would be just enough time to do what was needed.

At the bottom of the basin, he emitted a discharge Of ions sufficient to
trigger the microelectronic switch the clever O'Brien had finished
installing.  The metallic membrane covering the basin's floor contracted
slightly, revealing the tiny slits around the edge.  Even if Gri Rafod
had closely examined the basin, he wouldn't have been able to detect the
openings.

Distilled water, colored with a slight gold tint to match that of Odo's
liquid state, seeped into the basin.  He carefully adjusted his own
specific gravity, so that the water floated above him as he let his
matter slowly drain into the receptacle chamber hidden be low his
quarters.  The exchange had been carefully timed, so that not even the
slightest ripple showed at the surface of the basin.

When the last of his atoms had flowed through the drainage tube, Odo
solidified a finger and reached up to press the switch at the top of the
receptacle.  The membrane expanded again, sealing the basin.

O'Brien's "hydraulic system" had worked perfectly.

In a corridor of the access level beneath the Promenade and the security
office, Odo glanced around to make sure no one had spotted him.

Having slipped away from Gri Rafod's constant surveillance, he would
just as soon continue about his business in secret.  He gave himself the
face and uniform of an engineering crew member, and hurried toward the
drydock sector.

- A few minutes later, Chief Engineer O'Brien stepped into a bcker and
found a reel of singled comm line out of place.  He smiled, d-p the
reel, and carried it out to where the i research vessel was being worked
on.

Odo appreciated the personal touch, that O'Brien had kept all their
confidential arrangements to him self.

The next thing he knew, O'Brien had dropped the reel onto the hard metal
flooring.  The impact jarred Odo's thoughts from their tracks.

"Sorry," whispered O'Brien as he bent down to scoop up the reel.  "I
guess my hands are still a little, uh, numb from those restraints...."

Odo supposed that he and O'Brien were even now.  Or at least, he hoped
they were.

In the vessel's engine compartment, after O'Brien and the rest of the
work crew had left, a length of comm line slid, snakelike, off the reel
and twined itself into the other wires and cables running along the
bulkheads.  Unnoticed beneath the bored gaze of the Cardassian guards,
the line vanished into the heart of the ship and its secrets.

When Arten had retraced his way to the torn access shaft, he saw a
glimmer of light, no bigger than the palm of his hand, playing against
the fire-scorched metal.  He looked over his shoulder, down the length
of the narrow spaces through which he had just crawled, and saw the
source of the glow.  In the distance, the flexible panel that concealed
the hiding place of Horen Rygis had caught one of its corners on a
sharp-edged scrap peeled away from the bulkhead.  Just enough to let the
faint glow from the portable lantern leak out.  Just enough to give away
the hiding place to any nonbeliever who might come snooping through this
sector.

He inched back toward the hiding place, even more carefully and quietly
than before.  After the revelation that Horen had come to see things his
way, that the Starfleet officers aboard the DS9 station could be
honorable and accommodating, it would be a shame to endanger that new
level of understanding by his own carelessness.  To have Horen
discovered by the security chief before the time was right for him to
step forward, or to have Horen himself find the gap in the hiding
place's camouflage .  . . either would be tragic.  As comforting as
Horen had sounded when talking to him, Arten had still been aware that
the flashing force of the great man's wrath lay just beneath the
surface.

As he came within arm's reach of the panel and the chink of telltale
light, he thought of how much was at stake.  Not just his own
relationship with Horen and the others but the whole future of the
Redemptorist movement.  Perhaps this was the turning point, a change of
heart in the man who represented the essence of their faith.  If Horen
could see a non Bajoran as someone worthy of respect, perhaps even
friendship .  . . then, the day might not be far off when all the
Redemptorists might step into that greater light, reconciled with the
Bajorans who followed the teachings of the Kai Opaka.  It could happen .
. . and, in his own simple way, Arten might have helped bring it about.

He reached for the corner of the panel, to set it as it should have been
left.  As he did so, he heard the voice.

Horen's voice--not the low, soothing one with which he had spoken to
Arten.  But the old one, the voice of fire and blood, the voice that
lashed both apostates and the strangers who had come from beyond the
stars.  A voice of dire prophecy that could make a planet tremble, to
its dark, molten core .  . .

Arten realized what was happening.  On the blank chips that he had
brought, Horen had already begun recording another broadcast, which like
the others before it, would be smuggled down to the surface of Bajor and
scattered to the waiting ears of the following.  Those who also believed
in the sanctity of fire and blood.

He felt his heart tremble inside his chest.  It would have been too much
to expect all the change to happen in a matter of moments.

There was still much left to be done....

It dismayed him to hear that voice speak of the Bajorans whose deaths
would be required to purify their sullied world.  Heretics,
collaborators, traitors .  . . all those who by word or deed had
offended the righteous.

The list seemed to get longer with each recording.  Horen repeated one
of the names, and then again, slowly, as though he were already savoring
the satis faction that he would receive from that particular
assassination.

". . . she with the blood of the faithful upon her hands .  . . Kira
Nerys .  . . she knows not, how soon justice will embrace her.  . . and
crush the life from her foul body .  . ."

Arten's heart fell--into a darkness greater than that which surrounded
him.

"Kira .  . ."

He set the corner of the panel into position, turned, and hurried away
from the hiding place.

CHAPTER 4

THE PROOF WAS on the computer screen.  Everything he had suspected, felt
deep in his bones .  . . every time Gul Tahgla or any of the other
Cardassians had opened a mouth to speak, as though for creatures such as
they, the simple ritual of greeting was only the prelude to another
scheming lie....

"Is there any point that requires elaboration, Commander?"  On the other
side of the desk?  Security Chief Odo stood waiting.

"No--" Sisko shook his head.  "It's all pretty much as I thought it
would be."  He sat forward in the chair, his chin propped against his
fist.

The bleak feeling that the ancients of Earth might have termed
melancholia had overtaken him for a moment, as he had read through Odo's
report on the Cardassians' so-called research vessel.

They lie to us, he thought, and in turn we send a spy into their midst.

It demonstrated how deception led to deception, turnabout and turn
again, a snake with its own tail grasped in its jaws.

He found it even less cheering to ponder that the cycle of deception had
only just started.  His own lies--or, if he felt inclined to be
charitable with himself, the concealing of the truth--would go on.

He'd already decided as much.  All that remained was to order his
security chief to stay silent about what he'd discovered.

"This report"--Sisko reached out and tapped the computer screen-"is to
be placed under total access restriction.  For the time being, no one is
to see it but me.  Understood?"

"As you wish, Commander."?

"'No one' includes my first officer, Major Kira, on down--got it?

And I'll have a word with Chief Engineer O'Brien myself.  I don't want
it even talked about that you entered the Cardassian vessel."

Odo drew himself to his humanoid form's full height.  "You can rely upon
my discretion, Commander."  His tone indicated that his professional
pride had been nicked.

"Yes, of course; I didn't mean to imply otherwise."  With a few taps on
the keyboard, Sisko blanked the screen, sending the report to a local
memory node rather than to the station's main data banks.  "I merely
wished to stress the gravity of the situation."

"I understand."  Odo seemed mollified--though, as always, it was hard to
tell.  "That's why I took the initiative of ordering the disembarkation
procedures for the Cardassian vessel to be put on indefinite hold.  The
exit crews have been so instructed."

"What--" Sisko sat bolt upright.  "That's not with in your authority!"

"But, Commander--" Odo had been taken aback by the other's reaction.

"I thought it the prudent thing to do, given the fact that the
installation of the impulse buffers has been completed; the vessel has
already been transferred from the engineering bay to one of the docking
pylons.  Its scheduled departure time was within the next hour--" Sisko
ignored the security chief's information, as he quickly punched through
a priority comm line to the pylon.  "This is Commander Sisko.  The hold
order on the Cardassian vessel is hereby countermanded.  Re commence all
appropriate departure procedures.

The vessel's original schedule is to be complied with."

No sooner had he gotten a confirmation of his order and had
disconnected, than another call came through.  Gul Tahgla's face
appeared on the view screen.

"Commander Sisko."  Tahgla's image nodded to him.  "Is there a problem?

Your exit crew informs me--" 'It's been taken care of," replied Sisko.

"I trust you'll accept our apologies for any delay.  Please bear in mind
that yours is one of the first non-Federation ships to be cleared for
travel through the wormhole.  We're still fine-tuning our procedures."

"Nothing more than that.?"  The Cardassian gurs eyes peered out from the
screen.  "I was concerned that there might be some second thoughts on
your part.  About letting us proceed on our mission.  Perhaps you never
anticipated that we would cooperate as fully as we did with your
invasive technical requirements."

"My only concern, Gul Tahgla, was for the safety of the wormhole's
inhabitants.  We have an agreement with them, as well.  Now that the
impulse buffers are in place around your engines, you're free to go."

"Thank you.  As I've mentioned before, I find your concern for these
immaterial creatures to be... amusing."  He reached for the comm switch
on the panel before him.  "It might be some time before I return this
way.  Perhaps we can resume our conversation then.  That is, if you're
still here."  The screen went blank.

"Are there any further instructions, Commander?"  During the exchange
with Tahgla, Odo had stayed discreetly out of range of the comm lens.

"No .  . ."  Sisko shook his head.  He knew that Odo was wondering,
after the report he'd received about the true nature of the Cardassian
research vessel, whether he had lost his mind; whether the nonstop
pressure and mounting responsibilities of both running the station and
overseeing the Federation's diplomatic relations with Bajor had deranged
his rational faculties.  The time would come--and soon, he hoped --when
he would be able to explain to Odo and the others the reasons for the
decisions he'd made.  The gamble he'd taken.  But until then..."Proceed
as I've indicated.  Until further notice."

When he was alone again in the office, he set the viewscreen to a remote
scanner on the station's exterior, opposite the currently engaged
docking pylon.  Gul Tahgla's vessel was in the process of casting off,
the arcs of the securing mandibles and the transfer umbilical cord
slowly retracting from the ungainly Cardassian shape.

The quick, bright flares of the maneuvering jets turned the vessel's
main thruster ports away from the station.  The screen darkened against
the engines?  sudden pulse.  In only a few more minutes, the vessel had
disappeared beyond the scanners highest magnification.

From the position of DS9 in the Bajoran system's asteroid belt, there
would be no visual check of the Cardassian vessel's entry into the
wormhole.  Other, mo sensitive tracking devices would record that
moment.  And as to what happened after that, on the other side .  . .

Commander Sisko gazed at the blank screen, as though it could show him
his own brooding thoughts.

"Any luck?"

Sisko looked over his shoulder at the voice that had come from behind
him.  Framed by dangling wires and the thicker cables of atmospheric
life-support systems, Chief Engineer O'Brien stood in the quarantine
module's doorway.

For a moment, he wasn't sure what O'Brien was asking about.  Over
synthales in Quark's establishment on the Promenade--perhaps a few too
many synthales--he had divulged some of his more person al plans to the
engineer.  Most of them--all, actually --had dealt with getting closer
to some of the station's female crew members.  O'Brien had listened to
the various schemes and machinations with the tolerant nostalgia of the
happily married.  Easy enough for him to take that attitude, Bashir had
thought glumly.  He goes back to his quarters with Keiko at the end of
every shift.

"Pardon me--"

"I mean, with that diagnostic contraption you've been wrestling."

O'Brien pointed to the blood analysis unit perched precariously at the
limits of Bashir's outstretched fingertips; the device threatened to
come crashing to the module's floor at any moment.  "Need a hand?"

"Well, yes, actually."  As with every other working and living space
aboard DS9, the quarantine module was a hodgepodge of components
finessed or brute forced into working together.  Or hopefully so; the QM
was still a long way from going on line.  As confusing as the interior
layout was, its improvised nature was even more readily apparent from
the outside, as it rested in one of O'Brien's largest engineering bays.

A heavy-ore transport that the Cardassians had abandoned now formed the
linear spine of the QM; a turbolift would have been handy to get from
one end to the other, though Bashir knew there was no chance of an
equipment request like that being granted.  Along the transport's
windowless sides, O'Brien had mounted every sealable living and working
space that he could scrounge from DS9's innards, linking them with a
branching network of corridors; the ungainly result looked like a cubist
grape cluster, rendered on a gigantic scale.

Something sleeker would have better suited Bashir's aesthetic
preferences, but for the moment he was only concerned about not dropping
the blood analyzer onto his head.  "It should fit in here all right, but
.  . ."

O'Brien stood on tiptoe and peered into the over head niche in which the
unit was wedged partway.  "Looks like your clearance is just a smidgen
too tight.  Tell you what--down in the drydock bay, I've got a
jacksledge that'll clear this problem up in no time."  He smiled.

"I've had a lot of success with it lately."

"So I've heard."  The account of the chief engineer's run-in with the
Cardassians and its eventual outcome had already circulated around the
station, adding considerably to the stock of anecdotes about O'Brien's
creative temper displays.

"The difference here is, however, that this piece of equipment belongs
to us.  So I'm a little more concerned about keeping it in one piece."

"Suit yourself."

Between the two of them, they managed to get the unit in place, after
O'Brien had stripped away some of the casing insulation that he judged
to be superfluous.

Bashir sat with his back against the module's bulk head and tried to
regain his breath, as he watched O'Brien wrench down the retaining
bolts.

"There, that should hold it."  O'Brien tossed the wrench in with the
rest of the tools that had accumulated in one corner.  "I'll get the
shop to dummy up a face panel so it doesn't look quite so ragged."

"I take it you have more time for this project now?"  Bashir had been
working single-handed on the quarantine module- for the last several
shifts.  "The Cardassians must have finally left--"

"Sure enough.  And I was never so glad to see the backs of anyone as I
was that lot."

O'Brien shook his head.  "Sneaky bastards, too."

"What do you mean by that?"  The comment, and the vehemence with which
it had been spoken, took Bashir by surprise.  The crew of the Cardassian
re search vessel had been unusually unobtrusive by their standards,
confining themselves to either their ship board quarters or the DS9
guest area that had been set aside for them.

Generally, when Cardassians were aboard the station, a standing order
went into effect, based upon the ancient Earth military slogan "Loose
lips sink ships."  It hadn't seemed to be necessary this time.

"Never mind."  O'Brien's expression darkened.  "You'll probably find out
about it soon enough."  He looked into the farther reaches of the QM,
unlit except for the temporary work lanterns secured to the ceiling.

"So, what've we got left to do here?  I don't want to spend the rest of
my life fiddling with this setup."

The quarantine module had been the chief engineer's main project before
the arrival of the Cardassian research vessel.  And a high-priority
project, as well, given the limited resources with which they had to
contend.  O'Brien and his technicians were proving themselves masters at
the art of improvisation, converting the station's odds and ends into
functioning medical equipment.

Pressure to complete the QM was mounting.  Before DS9 could be
considered an operational transit point, capable of handling the amount
of anticipated traffic for the stable wormhole, the means of handling
shipborne contagions would have to be in place.  It was a problem as old
as the art of navigation itself; in pursuit of a specialization in
interstellar medicine, Bashir had studied the old approaches of seaports
on several ocean-dominated planets, Earth included.  Plague carried
ashore by the fleas on a rat climbing down a wharf line could decimate a
population with no immunity to foreign diseases; a feverish sailor
coughing up red-tinged phlegm in a waterfront tavern could infect the
crews of every ship tied up in the harbor.  Diagnostic procedures and
treatment had improved since the days of towing a plague ship out to
open water and setting it afire, but in an uncharted universe, the
dangers were still close to infinite--even more so, now that the
wormhole had opened up the entire Gamma Quadrant for exploration.  That
was the reason Bashir had pushed for this assignment; this was the edge
of medicine, a place where careers and reputations were forged.

Now, he responded to O'Brien, "Most of the environment chambers still
need to be sealed."  He kept a running checklist inside his head, on
what still needed to be done.  "I'll have to be able to maintain
hyperbaric atmosphere pressures with some gases that are fairly tricky
to work with."  The QM was designed to treat nonoxygen breathers, as
well as the range of humanoid life-forms.

"There are the rest of the monitors, of course--I should be getting a
cargo shipment from Procurement any time now."  Bashir started ticking
off the items on his fingers.

"Alarm systems, comm lines .  . ."

"Small stuff," said O'Brien.  "We'll be able to knock all that out
pretty quick.

The hard part's going to be getting the extrusion gantry working.

Any time you go poking things out beyond the perimeter shields, you
start running into problems."

Bashir knew how much work the chief engineer had already put into the
QM's positioning abilities.  The necessity for the module to be able to
move outside the station had dictated its placement near one of the main
cargo bays, so it could access the massive airlock doors opening onto
empty space.  In the event of a disease outbreak aboard a vessel
approaching DS9, depending upon the nature of the infection, the
stricken individuals could be brought aboard the station in
hermetic-containment gurneys and placed directly into the QM; if the
virus or other pathogenic agent was considered too dangerous, however,
the QM with its medical team aboard could be extruded through the cargo
bay doors on its segmented gantry arm.  The only contact with the plague
ship would be through the trailing umbilical cord providing an outward
flow of life-support systems to the QM and the vessel to which it had
attached itself.

Until the crisis had passed, the sufferers had been treated, the
infection banished .  . .

Or not.

"I got the ordinance from the ordnance master."  O'Brien's voice
lowered; he was aware that there were some details of a quarantine
module's construction that a chief medical officer wouldn't want a
casual passerby to hear of.

"The explosive charges are being constructed in the station armory right
now.  Soon as they're ready, I'll set 'em in place myself, and then we
can get the last of the bulkhead panels finished up.  You'll have to go
down and code the fuses."

Bashir nodded.  It was a secret shared between him and the chief
engineer, and otherwise known only by the station's highest officers;
the final necessary element of the module's construction.  An image from
a med school lecture came unbidden to his mind, of an ancient sailing
ship set afire in open water.  He could imagine how it would have
looked, the flames leaping up through the rigging, the billowing black
smoke ciouds woven with sparks, the faces of the pale dead, the dying
consumed by an even greater fever....

Some diseases couldn't be cured.  They could only be stopped; the
infection kept from spreading any further.  A cleansing fire, and then
the vacuum as cold and final as the first uncharted depths that man had
sailed upon.

That was what the explosive charges were for, why they would be buried
right in the fabric of the quarantine module.  Better that, to
annihilate the QM and the diseased ship, and the medics and crew
together, than risk the spread of an untreatable contagion.

The few would be sacrificed for the many.  That was sound medical
practice, a decision a doctor would have to make.

And that was why the coding for the fuses, the explosives' trigger
commands, would be known only to the station's chief medical officer.

Bashir felt his blood temperature drop a notch as he thought about it,
as he had so many times already.

A situation unique in Starfleet regulations, a destruct sequence that
could not be initiated or countermanded by any other officer, including
the station's commander--in this and any other deep space posting, the
quarantine module was the inviolable territory of medicine, with its
fate and the lives of its crew solely in the hands of the doctor in
charge.  On DS9, that would be Bashir; he had already decided--as other
chief medical officers before him had--that if the moment should come,
he would be aboard the QM when the explosives were triggered.

It was an unwritten regulation that ensured the destruct sequence would
be undertaken only in the gravest of circumstances.

As Bashir stood in the center of the uncompleted module, it was as
though he were finally seeing the reality of his ambitions gathering
around him-everything that had brought him to DS9.  This is what you
wanted, he told himself; the edge of medicine, a place where reputations
could be made .  . .

even if the cost was his own life.

"Ah, cheer up."  O'Brien had read his dark thoughts.  He clapped Bashir
on the shoulder.  "How often does a man get a chance to blow himself up
in such style?

Kind of a shame, actually, that it hardly ever happens.  Tell you what,
though--I'll see if I can get the charges doubled in strength, so if you
have to, at least you'll go out with a proper, fine show."

Bashir laughed.  "Thanks.  I appreciate your concern."

Though later, after O'Brien had left him alone once more in the module,
he had to admire the chief engineer's poker face.  As he walked through
the area, switching off the work lights, he realized that he couldn't be
sure whether O'Brien had been joking or not.

He crawled forward in darkness, as he had before, until he reached the
hiding place.  Arten turned the panel aside and entered the glow of the
portable lantern.

As dim as it was, he still had to squint and blink until his eyes had
adjusted.

"How good of you to come once more."  The voice spoke from the blurred
silhouette in front of him.  Horen's voice.  "So much is made possible
by the labor of the faithful."

"I was told it was important."  He had brought nothing with him; the
supplies he'd carried last time were sufficient for several days more.

"I came as soon as I could get away."

With his shoulders scraping the close metal struts, he watched as Horen
rummaged through the objects spread along the wall.  The Redemptorist
leader's muscled bulk turned awkwardly in the space, like a plowbeast
caught in a pen too small for it.

The longing in Arten's breast grew sharper--the day when this man would
stand upright in the open, an equal with other spokesmen for the
Bajorans, couldn't arrive too soon.

"Take this."  Horen set a pair of recording chips in Arten's hand.

"They must be smuggled down to Bajor as soon as pQssille.  A message to
all believers .  . . our future...

His heart leapt.  Perhaps these were the words, the treasure hidden in
the black, square objects barely larger than his thumbnail, that would
bring about the dawn.  "Yes ... of course...."  Arten hurriedly tucked
them inside his jacket.

"A freight shipment is scheduled to leave at the end of the shift.

These will be at their destination tomorrow...."

"Good."  Before Arten could back toward the hiding place's exit, Horen
leaned forward and clasped an arm around his shoulder.  "You have done
much already.  For this you will be rewarded."

The other's face was so close to Arten's that their breaths mingled.

He felt his soul mirrored in the eyes, fierce yet also inexpressibly
sad.

"There .  . .

there's no need...."

"But you will have your reward," said Horen.  "In this world--and the
next."  He gathered Arten toward him, as though to bestow a kiss of
peace upon the younger member of the brethren's forehead.

Arten saw then, at the limit of his vision, a flash of bright metal as
the other drew his hand from inside his jacket.  Suddenly, the air
seemed to rush from Arten's lungs, leaving him unable even to gasp, as a
widening circle of pain radiated from his gut.

Horen let go of him, and he was unable to keep his balance, collapsing
onto the hiding place's floor.  His hands scrabbled futilely at the
dagger that had torn open his abdomen.

"That is the reward you have earned...."

The voice came out of the darkness that had engulfed the close space.

"By the treachery of your heart .  . . that would love your people's
enemies...."

He could barely hear the last few words.  In the widening pool of his
blood, he curled around the metal that had become the gravitational
center of a collapsing universe.  He managed to raise his head and could
just make out Horen gazing down at him, and beyond, the figure of
Deyreth Elt emerging from the shadows, a look of triumph on his narrow,
wizened face.

That was the last he saw.  Except inside himself, where he fell toward a
dawn whose light erased every world and pain.

CHAPTER 5

"PEOPLE, WE HAVE a small problem before us."  Sisko leaned forward,
hands clasped atop his desk.  In a semicircle before him sat his chiefs
of security and engineering, his first officer, and his chief medical
officer.  "It's also an opportunity for us."

None of the others spoke.  The low, somber tone of his voice indicated
the gravity of the situation he was about to present to them.

"You will recall that some ten shifts ago, we were hosts once more to
our old friends the Cardassians."  He spread his hands apart.  "Whether
we like it or not, that's the nature of our job here.  DS Nine's
function as a transit point, the doorway to the Gamma Quadrant, is just
beginning; we're going to be seeing a lot more traffic coming and going
at our docking pylons.  We need to prepare for that-"

"Commander."  In one of the center chairs, Major

Kira stirred restlessly.  "You're not telling us anything we don't know
already.

If this is just some sort of pep talk, there are a lot of other, more
important things back at Ops I should be taking care of."

Sisko turned his unsmiling gaze straight toward her.  "I can assure you
that I'm not wasting your time.  As you will see."  He leaned back in
his own chair.  "The point I'm trying to make to you all is that, at the
present time, under the orders we have received from the Starfleet high
command, we are not at liberty to pick and choose among those seeking to
travel through the wormhole.  The Federation wishes to achieve a greater
rapprochement with the Cardassian empire; allowing them access to the
wormhole, and to the Gamma Quadrant beyond it, is seen as the primary
means of accomplishing that.  Of course, this is the age-old conflict
between diplomatic intentions at headquarters and security concerns on
the line.  There are undoubtedly some things we would do differently
here if we had a completely free hand."

Chief Engineer O'Brien smiled wryly.  "Like telling the Cardassians to
take the long way around if they want to get to the Gamma Quadrant?"

"More or less.  Frankly, I share the opinion of some of you, that if the
Cardassians were never to set foot aboard this station again, it would
be too soon.  But that's not the case--at least for now."

Kira's expression had become progressively more irritated.

"Commander.  . .

please.  As you've said before, there's a lot we still have to get ready
here.  So, if you could just .  . ."  She made a rolling, speed-it-up
gesture.

Instilling patience in his second-in-command was going to be a long
process, he knew; losing his own patience with her wouldn't help.  "I
bring these points up for a reason, Major.  I want it understood that I
consider the present situation--the reason for our meeting now--to have
been unavoidable.  There t should be no guilt feelings or pointing of
fingers at other officers.  Do I make myself clear?"

- She had provoked him into speaking more forceful- than when he had
begun; he could see in her eyes that she had started wondering just what
the problem could be.  Behind Kira's back, Odo and O'Brien exchanged
glances; they had the advantage of having been in on it from the early
stages.

"Take a look at this."  From the desk drawer, Sisko extracted his data
padd.  "Our security chief managed to find a way aboard the Cardassian
vessel before it left the station.  Here's his report on what he found."

Sisko watched as Kira scanned through the display, O'Brien and Dr.
Bashir looking over her shoulders.

"As you'll recall, the vessel in question was represented to us as being
for the purposes of scientific research--the Cardassians supposedly were
initiating a sector-wide survey of the Gamma Quadrant, with an
orientation toward joint commercial development with the Federation.

That's the main reason why their application for access to the wormhole
was granted so quickly.  When their vessel arrived here at the station,
we certainly had no reason to doubt their stated intentions--"

"True enough," said O'Brien, nodding.  "We've seen the same sort of
craft before--basically nothing more than converted longhaul freight
carriers--in a lot of the other systems that the Cardassians have
trading protocols with.  They strip out all the light armament and
substitute a bunch of different sensor arrays.  If they're going into a
sector where hostilities could be expected, they'll convoy with a
cruiser or two and some advance scouts."  A shrug.  "And that's
certainly what this one looked like from the outside."

"We certainly had little way of knowing otherwise.  The agreement
between the Federation and the Cardassians stipulated that no search of
the vessel would be permitted while it was being worked on here.

Technically, we're already in violation of that agreement--"

"What does that matter?"  Kira struck the back of her hand across the
data padd with mounting anger.  "'Research vessel'--they were lying to
us from the beginning!  It's stuffed with weaponry--"

"I've read Odo's report," said Sisko dryly.  "I'm aware of what he found
inside the vessel."

Odo leaned toward her.  "If you'll look at the last few screens, you'll
see the details of the shielding with which they had surrounded the
arms.

Even if we had done a scan of the vessel, we probably wouldn't have been
able to detect what they had aboard."

"And now, they're on the other side of the worm hole."  Kira shook her
head in disgust.  "Gul Tahgla and the rest are probably laughing
themselves sick, over how they sneaked this right past us.  Just before
they head off to attack some defenseless system in the Gamma Quadrant--"

"There's very little chance of that, actually."  Odo pointed to the data
padd.  "My analysis of the vessel's armament--and I believe the
commander concurs with me on this--is that it is essentially defensive
in nature.  The vessel lacks the speed and maneuverability with which to
mount an offensive campaign; where as its perimeter shields are several
times more powerful than those of a regulation Cardassian cruiser."  He
was enjoying the display of his expertise.

"The other significant finding I made is the degree to which the vessel
has been modified for longterm stasis under deep space conditions.  The
crew quarters, the life support systems, food and atmosphere
replication-- everything has been set up so that the vessel can operate
indefinitely without the need for planet fall."

Kira scowled in puzzlement.  "What's the point of that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"  O'Brien had looked up from the report.

"Wherever they're going, they're planning on a long stay.  And they're
prepared to fight off anybody who tries to move them."

Bashir had stayed silent through the discussion, but now spoke up.

"Do we have any idea of where that's going to be?"

"That is the problem, people."  Sisko looked across their faces.

"Now that the Cardassian vessel is on the other side of the wormhole,
we've been able to trace its position with our remote monitoring
devices-- plus, unknown to them, and thanks to the efforts of our chief
engineer and security officer, they're carrying aboard a couple of
miniaturized activity trackers.  We not only know where they are, but
also have a pretty good idea of what they're up to.

At this moment, the engines of Gul Tahgla's vessel have been placed in
standby mode; it's no longer in motion-- after having been traveling
continuously since it exited into the Gamma Quadrant.  It now has
apparently rendezvoused with a group of other Cardassian vessels that
had previously gone through the wormhole.

Our sensors indicate that a large volume of equipment A

and supplies is being transferred to Gul Tahgla's vessel, as well as
additional crew members; there's some pretty extensive structural work
being done, too.  They obviously wanted to do all their retrofitting at
what they thought would be a distance sufficient to keep their
activities from being detected by us.  The probability is high that the
vessel is in the process of being converted to operational efficiency as
a self sufficient outpost base.  Once the Cardassians are done,
though--and that shouldn't be too much longer --by our best estimates of
the vessel's engine capacities, it would take them at least ten shifts
to return to the vicinity of the wormhole."

"Wait a minute."  Kira set the data padd down on the corner of the desk,
and reached across to turn the /computer screen toward her.  She called
up a navigation chart.

"There's nothing out there--that's totally empty space."

"Precisely.  So we have to assume that the intentions of Gul Tahgla and
his crew, once they've completed the modifications to the vessel, are to
return to the zone surrounding the wormhole's exit point.  That's the
only thing of value in which the Cardassian empire could be interested."

"But sovereignty over the wormhole has already been established--it
belongs to Baor--"

"Correction, Major.  Sovereignty over this end of the wormhole has been
established.  As this is the first stable wormhole to have been
discovered, there are points of interstellar law regarding it that have
yet to be determined--and the Cardassians appear to be placing
themselves in a compelling legal position.

There's an old Earth maxim that possession is nine points of the
law--that's undoubtedly what the

Cardassians will argue, as well.  DS Nine was moved to its current
orbital position to validate Bajor's claim on the wormhole and to fend
off any attempt by the Cardassians to seize control of it.  But the
wormhole's exit point in the Gamma Quadrant is light-years away from any
inhabited system.

There's no intelligent species on the other side for whom a similar
claim of sovereignty could be made."  Sisko swiveled his chair, turning
back toward the others.  "Now, the Cardassians have seized this
opportunity, to gun back at least some of what they inadvertently let go
when they abandoned Bajor and this station."

"It is," said Odo, "the sort of thing they might've been expected to do.

As a species--and I state this from experience--they are addicted to
legal maneuvers, exploitation of loopholes, and the like.  For all their
military swaggering, they are at their heart a race of lawyers."

He shrugged.  "That may account for their persistent .  . . public
relations problems."

Bashir nodded thoughtfully, as though having been presented with a
particularly interesting diagnosis.  "It's rather like a rope with two
ends, isn't it?  We've got hold of one end, and now the Cardassians are
reaching for the other.  If they get it .  . . then, who really owns the
rope?"  He gazed up at the ceiling.  "Or like one of those ancient,
land-based transportation systems--what were they called?--a toll
highway.  We can control who goes into the wormhole, and under what
conditions, but if the Cardassians' claim to the sector around the
wormhole's other end were upheld, they'd control who'd be able to exit
from the hole and travel on into the Gamma Quadrant."  He stroked his
chin.

"Very clever .  . ."

"Will you just shut up?"  Kira glared fiercely at the doctor.  "This
isn't a problem in one of your medical textbooks, that you'll get an A
for solving.  The whole future of my people is jeopardized by this--"
"Exactly, Major.  As you see, I have not been wasting your time."

Sisko could almost read the thoughts tumbling one after another behind
her eyes.  "Without effective control over the wormhole, BaJor would
become once again a backwater of the universe, a dead planet with
nothing of value to sell.

Essentially would be another charity case for the Federation, Membership
in the Federation for Bajor would become a matter of low priority; the
DS Nine station /itself would be cut back to minimal functioning or even
deactivated.  It's simple economics, actually."

"If that's how the Federation would feel about ' Bajor--if that's how
you feel, Commander--then we'd find a way of getting by without you."

Kira's gaze narrowed.  "We survived the Cardassians' rape of our planet;
we could survive the Federation's neglect.  And perhaps it would be
better that way."

"Perhaps."  He knew he had evoked the fanatical streak in her beliefs,
the sympathy with the Bajoran extremists that lay buried just beneath
the surface.

It was so tightly interwoven with the anger that constantly simmered
inside her, that to produce one was to face the other.  "But perhaps it
might not be necessary.  I suggest that instead of giving way to these
emotional displays, we might more profitably turn our attention to
finding a way of circumventing the Cardassians' plans."

"What would you suggest?"  Her glare didn't soften.  "If we had some
sort of armed vessel of our own, maybe we could go out through the
wormhole and knock them out of commission--"

"That would be an act of war, Major.  An unprovoked act.  The fact that
we perceive the Cardassians' actions as being contrary to our interests
doesn't give us the right to do that.  No, I suggest that we beat them
at their own game.  Even if they knew that we were aware of their
intentions, they're still limited as to how quickly they can return to
the sector around the wormhole's exit.  That provides us with our window
of opportunity.  If we can get a substation in position there, the
Federation can legitimately press a claim for sovereignty over the
sector--before the Cardassians can do anything about it.

That's why I asked our chief engineer to sit in on this meeting."

Sisko swiveled toward O'Brien.  "Well?  What do you think--is there
anything we can put together, and fast, that we can get out through the
wormhole to establish a presence with?"

The engineer shrugged.  "We've got small craft, runabouts and the like,
that we could send--"

"That won't do.  The Cardassians would be able to dislodge our claim,
based on precedents in interstellar case law.  A ship or smaller craft
doesn't indicate a serious intention to set up a permanent base."

Sisko shook his head.  "No, we need something that we can represent, if
even just on a temporary basis, as an actual substation.  Later, if need
be, we can get some thing larger out there."

"I don't know .  . ."  O'Brien clenched his hand into a fist.  "If we
had more time .  . . if we had the man power and the materials .  . .

we could build you what ever you wanted.  But if you're talking about an
enclosed, self-sustaining unit with living quarters, supply replicators,
everything a substation would have..  ."  The fist squeezed harder.  "To
put together something like that from scratch .

. . there's just no way."  His gaze shifted away, as though catching
sight of something beyond the commander's office.

"Unless .  . .

unless we used something we already had on hand...."

"What would that be?"

"The quarantine module."  Excitement cleared the engineer's previous
expression.

"It's perfect!  It's already designed to operate outside the station.

Long term living quarters, all the facilities--it's certainly big enough
to qualify as a permanent base--"

"Wait a minute."  A look of alarm moved across Bashiis face.  "I've been
waiting for that module to come on line for months!  It's already go a
designated function."

"Which will be of little use to anyone, Doctor, if the Cardassians gain
control of the other end of the wormhole.  If that happens, DS Nine
won't be the major transit point we've been anticipating; the
Cardassians will be just as happy to shut down all movement through it,
if they can't have exclusive access."  Sisko held up his palm against
any further protest.  "I'm sorry, Doctor, but the circumstances force me
to overrule you on this matter."  He turned back to O'Brien.  "How soon
can you get the quarantine module ready?"

"It's already close to being finished.  Now, we'll have to detach it
from the extension gantry, sever the umbilical connections, move the
atmospheric and other life-support systems out of the cargo bay and into
the module.  . . . . . ."  O'Brien nodded slowly.

"We'll have to rig towing mounts on both it and one of the larger
utility craft, get some buffers in place .  .

." He shrugged.  "Five or six shifts, and we'll have it ready to go."

"Make it four.  Gul Tahgla isn't going to wait around for us.  Major
Kira--" He turned back to her.  "You're so concerned about protecting
Bajor's economic interests in the wormhole--fine.  This mission is
yours.  I can't spare you more than anyone else aboard the station, but
the presence of a Bajoran native on our impromptu substation will
probably help legitimize our claim to sovereignty over this additional
sector.  Major--" She looked up from the computer panel.  He could see
that she had called up some additional data on it, but she blanked the
screen before he could tell what it had been.  For a moment, her level
gaze burned into his, then she nodded once.

"I'll have full operational command?"

"You'll have to--it'll be strictly a one-person operation.  We're
already critically understaffed here.  One of our freight shuttles will
be rigged so you can use it as a pusher vehicle.  You'll take the
retrofitted module out through the wormhole, transfer to it once it's in
position, and represent yourself to all approaching vessels--namely, he
Cardassians--as having established authority over the sector.  It
shouldn't be too long before we can rotate a skeleton crew out there to
relieve you."

"Very well."

"Let's get to work, people."  Sisko pushed back his chair to signal that
the meeting was over.

Bashir remained seated after the other officers had left.

"Is there something on your mind, Doctor?

"You could say that."  The chief medical officer spoke slowly, like
someone taking a first cautious step into unknown territory.  "I think
you've overlooked a critical factor in your plans, Commander."

"Oh?"

"You don't have the authority to order that the quarantine module be
used for anything other than medical purposes."

Sisko waited a moment before replying.  "You seem to forget, Doctor,
that I'm the commander of this station."

"I'm well aware of that."  Bashir's voice rose in pitch and volume.

"But the quarantine module, like all medical equipment aboard DS Nine,
is completely under my authority.  That's by Starfleet regulation,
Commander.  Those rules were put into effect precisely to keep officers
from diverting medical facilities and supplies from their intended use.

The only person who can make decisions in that regard is the chief
medical officer.  I can order O'Brien to not even lay a finger on that
module."

"I see."  Sisko leaned back, studying the younger man before him.

"Doctor Bashir-I would advise you not to press your authority on this.

I'm faced with a crisis that threatens the continued operation of this
station.  If need be, I'll have you thrown in the brig.  You won't be
discharging much of your responsibilities as chief medical officer
there."

Beads of sweat had risen on Bashir's forehead, and his hands trembled.

"You could certainly do that, Commander.  But then you're going to have
to consider how it's going to look to the provisional government on
Bajor, when word reaches them that you've stripped their S Nine station
of its first line of defense against epidemic diseases.  And not just
the station.  Since all interstellar traffic to Bajor passes through
here, without the quarantine module in place, the likelihood of
spreading contagion on the planet's surface is multiplied well beyond
tolerable limits.

That's a lot to ask of them, just to help repair the damage caused by
your decision to let the Cardassian vessel go through the wormhole."

"And I suppose you'd be the one to tell the provisional government all
this?"

"How could you prevent me?"  The look in Bashir's eyes was like that of
a gambler at one of Quark's dabo tables, who had suddenly realized how
far over his head he'd gotten.  Only by throwing everything in on one
desperate play was there a chance of saving himself.  "Throwing me in
the brig--that would mean a court-martial before I could be removed from
my post on the station.  The Bajorans would naturally be interested in
something like that--they'd likely send a team of observers to the
trial.  And when I'm in open court, I'll say whatever I damn well feel
like."

"Ah."  Sisko pressed his fingertips together and studied Bashir through
the cage they formed.  "You realize, of course, that to go up against
your commanding officer--and by extension, all of Starfleet-- is
undoubtedly the surest way of scuttling your career in this service?

Even if the court-martial were to rule in your favor."

Bashir's neck and jaw muscles were tensed rigid.  "And what would your
career be like after that?"  His voice could barely squeeze through as a
whisper.  "Or is that not really a matter of concern to you any more?"

So it's gotten out this far, thought Sisko.  He knew what the doctor was
referring to.  That Bashir could speak of it--the resistance he'd put up
against taking over the command of DS9, the request he'd made to Picard,
and then retracted, for an Earthside transfer --only proved there were
few secrets on the station.

"My personal feelings don't enter into this."  Sisko's index fingers
tapped against each other.  "What would make you feel better about this
mission for which the quarantine module is required?  As chief medical
officer, that is."

Bashir took a deep breath before replying.  "You spoke of it as a
one-person operation.  I'd like to change that.  There's more than
enough room--the module's set up for dozens of occupants--for me to go
along with Major Kira."

She'll have something to say about that.  He kept the comment to
himself.

"Why would you want to?"

"Commander Sisko, I've been pushing for access to the wormhole since it
was discovered.  Since you reported the existence of the creatures
inside it.  These are life-forms whose nature and habitat have no equal
in the galaxy--they should be studied.  They possess capabilities that
we have no understanding of--they created a stable wormhole!  The future
of the universe's exploration may rest with them...."

"Of course.  And since you're the chief medical officer in this sector,
you'd naturally be the one to go into the wormhole and read their
temperature and take their pulse."

"Well .  . ."

"And you would be the one to achieve galactic renown for your
groundbreaking studies of the worm hole's inhabitants.  I'm sure the
number of journal articles you'd get out of it would advance your
career."

"Yes, but .  . ."

"Perhaps you could even go on the lecture circuit."  Sisko smiled.

"Doctor Bashir, I think we understand each other very well."  He pulled
open the bottom desk drawer and took something from it.  "Here, catch."

Bashir looked down in bewilderment at the spheroid of stitched leather
his hands had reflexively trapped against his chest.  "What's this?"

"I thought you might be aware of my love for the ancient Earth sport of
baseball-" - "Oh.  Yes, of course; you have a library of the old players
in the holosuites .  . ."

"That," said Sisko, pointing, "is what hardball is played with.

Perhaps you'd like to keep it as a little souvenir of our discussion
today."  He leaned back, his smile growing wider.  "I can tell when I've
been outgunned.  It's a two-person mission now.  You'll be aboard the
retrofitted quarantine module strictly as a scientific observer--you're
not to interfere with Major Kira's operations in the slightest degree. I
don't think I need to warn you that if you do get in her way, she's
likely to make pretty short work of you.

Understood?"

Bashir collapsed back in his chair, his entire body suffused with an
attitude of relief.  "Perfectly, Commander."  His upper uniform was
soaked with sweat.

What Sisko didn't tell him--and he wasn't about to, either--was that
he'd been prepared to grant the doctor's request from the beginning.

But now, Bashir had learned to fight for what he believed in; now, he
was that much closer to being an officer as well as a doctor.

The commander decided Bashir had had enough for one shift.  "I'll run
interference for you with Major Kira, and tell her about the change in
plans.

Maybe you'd better get hold of the chief engineer and let him know."

There was no delay in finding Kira; she was waiting right outside.

A drained-looking Bashir slipped past as she strode into the office.

"Commander--" She planted her hands flat on the desk and leaned forward,
her eyes pieces of heated steel.  "There's something--"

"Let me guess.

Something you found in the computer files that didn't sit well with you.

What would that be?"

"Just this."  She grabbed the edge of the panel and turned it so that
they both could see the data she called up.  "You removed the restricted
access code on Odo's report."  Her nail tapped the screen.

"And there's the date you logged the original file into your private
memory node.  And that date is before the Cardassian vessel left for the
wormhole!"  She blanked the screen and stood erect.

"Commander, you knew beforehand what Gul Tahgla was up to.  You
deliberately let the Cardassians go--you even countermanded a hold order
that Odo had already placed on their vessel--and thus jeopardized the
success of DS Nine's mission here."

He sighed, eyes half-closed in weariness.  Facing his first officer's
anger was like leaning into a storm wind.  "This seems to be my shift
for being an educator.

Sit down, and I'll give you a small but important lesson."

"I'm only interested in an explanation--"

"Sit down, Major."  The thunder in his voice brought an even harder
glare from Kira.  But she sat.  "You may not believe so, but DS Nine's
success is my top priority.  To ensure that, I've had to do some things
that are not in the Starfleet operational manuals.  I've been aware of
the flaw in our control over the worm hole since practically the first
shift we moved the station to this sector--only a fool wouldn't have
been.  And I've been in constant communication with the Federation
authorities, urging them to allocate us the funds and material necessary
for placing a substation at the wormhole's other end, before anyone else
could do the same.  Since you're not as experienced in dealing with the
Federation bureaucracy as I am, it may come as a surprise to you that my
request is tied up in committee meetings.  I know that the only way to
get the Federation to act is to manufacture a crisis that it can't
ignore.

Gul Tahgla's little ploy is exactly what I needed.  The threat of the
Cardassians gaining any control at all over the wormhole will be enough
to force the Federation to provide the means of establishing a permanent
substation at the other end."  He shrugged.  "If I'd known of another
way of getting action--other than allowing this situation to go right to
the brink--I would have taken it.  But there isn't any other way."

"You've thought this all through .  . . haven't you?"  Kira's anger had
been replaced by a look of grudging admiration.  "It's something you've
been planning for a while."

"I knew we wouldn't have to wait long.  The Cardassians' council has the
virtue of being more ruthlessly organized than the Federation's decision
making body.

They seize opportunities quickly.

That's why it's up to officers on the line, such as ourselves, to
anticipate their moves."  Sisko leaned across the desk.  "And now, I'll
tell you something else I've been planning.  And that's my putting you
in charge of this operation.

Even before you allowed that group of Redemptorists aboard a few months
ago, I've had my concerns about this division in your loyalties--a
division that seems more important to you than to anyone else.  You seem
to feel there's some kind of conflict between performing your duties as
a Starfleet officer and being a Bajoran patriot.  I don't see that
conflict, Major, as far as I'm concerned, you best serve your people by
ensuring the success of this station's mission."

Kira began to say something, then forced herself silent.

"Consider this operation as something of a test."  Sisko began sorting
through the papers on his desk.  "Your attitude toward it is, in some
ways, as important to the Nine's future as actually getting the
substation in place.  Think about that."

He looked up from the papers.  "Dismissed."

Her hands squeezed the arms of the chair, words forming at her tongue,
before she got up and strode for the door.

He watched her go.  When the door had slid shut, he closed his eyes and
laid his head back.

ODO knelt DOWN and turned the corpse onto its back.  The body was
relatively undamaged, despite having been found inside the massive gears
that opened and closed the cargo bay doors.  That alone indicated to him
a murder that was the work of an amateur, or at least somebody
unfamiliar with the operations of DS9.

A professional--and he'd admit there were some aboard the station--would
have known that sensors activated by the chemical traces of complex L
organic matter were built into the gear teeth, to prevent crushing
accidents to the dock's crew.  The machinery could never provide a means
of disguising a violent cause of death.

"I suppose we'll need an autopsy."  Major Kira leaned over his shoulder.

She had been called, as well, to the scene by the cargo bay's foreman.

"Maybe Bashir will have to be pulled off the substation mission to
perform it."

He detected a hopeful note in her voice.  "I hardly think one is
necessary."

Kira's sour relations with the chief medical officer were no concern of
his; he wasn't about to help her out on that score.  "This man's death
is obviously due to multiple stab wounds."  Odo placed his hand over the
bloodied abdomen and let it flow inside; a second later, he extracted
the probe.  "From the size and shape of the blade, I'd say a personal
weapon."  Taking a handkerchief from his uniform's pocket, he re-formed
his hand and wiped it clean.  From the corner of his eye, he noted--with
some satisfaction--a wince of dishste from Kira.

That'll teach her to butt in on police work.  "Male Bajoran, early
twenties .  . ."  He spoke into his comm badge, the dehils being logged
into his data base back at the Promenade security office.

"You recognize him?"

"Not by name."  He glanced up at Kira.  "Or not yet.  But I know he was
one of that group of Redemptorists, the ones doing microassembly over in
the engineering bay."  He caught another change of expression, a slight
tautening of the corners of her mouth, that told him she had known that
much, as well.

He completed the description, then called for a gurney to take the body
to the medical unit's morgue.  Still kneeling, he made a quick search
through the corpse's pockets.

"Find anything?"

Odo stood up.  Two small silver squares glittered on his palm.  "Just
these."  He held the recording chips closer to his eye.  "The seal's
been broken on them.

They've been used."

"Oh."  Kira squinted at them.  "Clues."

"Yes," he said patiently.  "That's what they're called."

After the body had been wheeled away, Kira followed him back to the
Promenade.

He wanted to ask her if she didn't have anything more productive to do,
but refrained.  She was probably tensed up about the substation mission,
he knew, anxious to get through the wormhole and out to the Gamma
Quadrant.

The last time he had encountered O'Brien in Quark's bar, the chief
engineer had complained of her incessant pushing to get the quarantine
module ready for travel.  O'Brien finally had threatened to have her
barred from the engineering bay, so he and his crew could work in peace.

As Odo pushed his way through the nonstop crowds on the Promenade, with
Kira in his wake, he pondered the difficulties with humanoid emotions.

He hadn't gone to great lengths to cultivate them inside himself, except
for the ones useful in his job, such as suspicion and distrust; like the
human appearance he bore on the exterior of his form, emotional traits
would have been carefully acquired.  The advantage to his essentially
liquid-based nature, he'd often thought, was that few of the small
things that troubled someone such as Kira had the same effect on him. He
could let them sink without a trace, like stones dropped into an ocean.

"What's that smell?"  Kira scowled as she looked around the security
office.  "It's like somebody had set fire to their old socks and then--"
She used a Bajoran vulgarism that Odo knew meant to extinguish by
urination.

The memory of Gri Rafod and the cheap tobacco that Quark had unloaded on
him did manage to irritate Odo.  "Trust me," he told Kira, "there were
aspects to our last batch of Cardassian visitors that were worse than
you can imagine."

The smell had yet to completely fade.

He sat down at his desk and loaded first one chip, then the other, into
a player.

Neither produced sound.  "These were never recorded on."  He studied the
chip player's small readout screen.

"How can you tell?"

"The type of recording device used with these first lays down an index
of tracks.

Even if the material is later erased, the index matrix remains.

These chips don't have anything like that."

Kira leaned over the desk to look at them.  "Not much good as clues,
then, are they?"

"That, Major, is why I'm chief of security and you're not."  Odo leaned
back, holding up a chip between his thumb and forefinger.  "Consider.

A young Bajoran of known Redemptorist sympathies is found murdered, and
in his possession are two recording chips, seals broken but not yet
recorded upon."  The chip made a small noise when he dropped it onto the
desktop.  "Perhaps someone wanted him to believe they contained
recordings."  He nodded slowly.  "I'll have to think about this."

Kira made no move toward the office door.  After a moment, Odo brought
his gaze back round to her.  "Is there something further I can do for
you, Major?"

She shook her head, as though his voice had woken her.  "No .  . .

nothing .  . ."

When she had left, and the door had slid shut behind her, Odo watched
his forefinger push one of the chips around the surface of the desk.

It wouldn't have taken any great skill at detection to see that
something else had been on Kira's mind.

"What are you going to use for electromagnetic scanning?"

Lieutenant Jadzia Dax, the station's chief science officer, looked up at
the blueprints on the engineering bay's wall.  The thin membrane, some
ten meters square, was connected to the DS9 data bases and could call up
any magnified schematic within seconds.

"I don't see any of the usual data routes--"

"We've taken over the perimeter sensors and reconfigured them."

Beside her, Dr. Bashir pointed to a section depicting the exterior of
the quarantine module.

"They were really needed only for docking maneuvers, but they have a
pretty wide spectrum built into them--more than enough for what we need.

Computer, give me the control layout."  The images blurred and shifted
on the membrane, then drew solid.  "You see?"  He leaned closer than
necessary to Dax, reaching around her shoulder to indicate the new set
of prints.  "There's a lot of carrying capacity for the diagnostic and
treatment equipment that we're not going to be using now.

We just shunt those aside and use the circuits for whatever we need.

Clever, really."

"Very."  She ignored his arm--it wasn't actually touching her--and
turned her self-possessed Trill smile toward him.  "Your idea?"

"Well, no .  . ."  Bashir followed her toward the QM.  "O'Brien's, as a
matter of fact.  But my approval was needed for it," he hurriedly added.

"All these retrofits first have to get by me...."

The chief engineer stood inside the module, sparks raining around him as
he prodded a welding torch inside an open ceiling panel.  Beyond him,
the metal on-metal sounds of his crew's labors boomed out of the QM's
farther recesses.

Black power cables snaked around his feet.

"Haven't used one of these since I was an apprentice."  Through the
noise, O'Brien had heard their approach.  He switched off the torch's
plasma flow, and the eerie ionic glow that had masked his face vanished.

He pushed up his darkened goggles.  "So, what's the verdict?"

"Well, I've really only seen the plans," said Dax.  "But it seems like a
lot to get done.  Do you really think you can make your departure date?"

"This pup is going out the door as scheduled, even if I'm still riding
on its back with a socket wrench."  O'Brien flicked on the torch again.

"Now, if you'll excuse me .  . ."

"Give me a call at Ops when you have the chance, Doctor."  Dax began
picking her way out through the QM's clutter.  "I've got some ideas on
ancillary stat probes you might find interesting."

"How about right now?"  Bashir moved to catch up with her, just before
O'Brien brought his thickly gloved hand down from the ceiling panel and
snagged him by the arm.  "I'm not--"

"Not so fast."  O'Brien held onto him.  "I need you here.  We've got
some decisions to make."  He signaled goodbye to Dax with the welding
torch.  "I'll send him up to you when he's finished his home work."

Bashir followed the chief engineer to the front exterior of the
quarantine module.  "So, what exactly is it that's so important?"  His
words sounded sulky even to himself.

"More important than your hormone level?  Practically everything."

O'Brien stood beside the intricate mandibles of the towing link that had
been grafted onto one end of the QM.  A passage large enough for a
humanoid to crawl through ran along the center of the four C-shaped
locking arms.  "Actually, this isn't anything you have to make a
decision on--I've already set it up, and I'm not changing it.  You and
Kira just need to know about it."  He pointed to a set of black ovoids
around the central channel's rim.  "See those?  I pulled some of the
explosives from the interior walls and formed them into shaped thrust
charges.  That's because there isn't time to rig up fancy maneuvering
jets with enough force to disengage the module from the cargo shuttle
we're rigging up as a pusher vessel.

Once you and Kira get through the wormhole and into range of your target
position, and she transfers over to the substation, one of you will have
to calculate your firing angle and let 'er rip."  He picked up a cable
with bare metal showing at its tip.

"The trigger line'll be wired right into the pusher's control panel."

The egg-shaped bomblets seemed less than impressive.  Bashir shrugged.

"So?"

"I forget--you're a doctor, not a physicist.  Well, this'll give you a
chance to brush up on your Newton.  When these go off, there's going to
be a kick.  You'd better have yourselves and everything else battened
down before you punch the button."

Bashir turned and began to walk away, then halted.  He looked over his
shoulder.

"Wait a minute.  You said

R

you took out some of the explosives.  Where's the rest?"

"Where do you think?"  O'Brien went on checking the cable's branching
connections to the bomblets.  "They're still inside the QM, right where
I put them soon as they were delivered from ordnance.  If you think I'm
going to rip them out, try to seal the walls back up in time to get this
thing on its way, and then put the charges back in when we want to use
this for its original purpose .  . ."  He glanced over at Bashir, then
shook his head.  "Life's too short."

"Right--" Bashir looked at him in incredulity.  "And I imagine it could
get even shorter, what with riding all the way out to the Gamma Quadrant
in a craft loaded with high explosives."

"What are you worried about?"  O'Brien looped the cable over one of the
locking arms and out of the way.  "You're the only one who knows the
fuse codes.  Don't tell them to anyone, and then the charges might as
well be cement bricks for all the damage they could do."  He clapped
Bashir on the shoulder.

"Come on.  I need a break.  And you look like you need a drink."

As they headed for the engineering bay's exit, they passed the
microassembly work benches.  A couple of the faces bent over the
intricate work lifted and looked at Bashir and O'Brien, then turned back
to the circuits beneath the lenses.

"Are those men working on the QM?"  Bashir had seen that all the group
were Bajorans.

"Of course.  We've got everybody in the bay on this one."

"But I heard they're all Redemptorists .  . ."

"They can be whatever they want, as long as they get the job done."

O'Brien pushed him toward the door.  "Let's go."

The voice--mocking, raging, compelling--filed the space.  Even if the
volume on the chip-player were turned all the way down, so that the
words became hardly more than a whisper, they still dominated, hammering
at one's ear.

Blood and fire .  . . the voice of Horen Rygis spoke of those things,
and the death of nonbelievers.  Blood was the thin, degenerate stuff
that flowed in the veins of the faithless;.fire was the coming day of
cleansing, of scouring away the elements that had polluted Bajor's holy
soil.  A fire that consumed life as its fuel and left the ashes of death
behind, corpses facedown on the floors of the temples and council
chambers.

"And beyond," cried the voice of the Redemptorists' leader.  "The
contagion has spread beyond the sky--it hovers above us, rising like the
stench from a murderer's hands.  Orbiting in empty space, hiding aboard
the strangers' machinery of oppression--but even that is far enough to
evade our wrath, our justice.  She conspires with them, she sups at the
table of the wicked, her goblet a martyr's skull, the wine spilling down
her chin the blood of innocents.  It is a holy act, a sacrament, to rid
Bajor of such evil...."

In his office, with the only light that from the stars the voice would
pull down from the heavens, Commander Sisko listened.  He knew the words
that would come next.

"The continued existence of such a person is a sickness."  The voice
lowered to a mockery of reasoned discourse.  "A sickness that infects
the spiritual life of all Bajor.  To suffer traitors, to endure the
beating of their hearts, is to leave a poisoned thorn in our own flesh.

It must be plucked out...."

He had listened to the recording twice already.  A transcription of the
latest broadcast from the Redemptorists' hidden radio transmitters--the
security forces of the provisional government had sent it to him on a
subspace linkup.  He could reach out and switch the chip-player off,
plunge the darkened office into a silence that would be as soothing as
his wife's touch upon his knotted shoulder muscles once had been--but an
almost mesmeric fascination stayed his hand.

Whatever else might have been said of Horen Rygis, he could be
truthfully described as a spellbinder.  In historical terms, less of a
king and more of a Hitlerian type--the fires of which he spoke burned
but did not illuminate..  . . and the worst arefilled with a passionate
intensity; Sisko's brooding thoughts pushed the hammering voice away for
a moment.  The ancient poet had gotten that one right.  Things hadn't
changed in all the centuries before or since.

A name brought his attention back--a name that the voice spoke, tongue
curling as though the syllables were drops of acid upon it.

"Kira Nerys .  . ."

The first time he had listened to the chip, a chill had contracted
Sisko's spine.

That didn't change--it was as if the voice had already killed her and
laid the body before him.

"When the blood is tainted, it must be let.  That is how disease is
cured...."

He roused himself and reached for the player.

"Blood must flow--" With a tap of his finger, the voice was stilled.

For now.

She knew she was dreaming, but that didn't help.

Worse than dreaming.  Remembering.

The bed might as well have been on fire, for all the ease that Kira
could find there.  She writhed in fever, as though the flames she saw
had burst from within her veins.

"I'm sorry..."  she whispered through cracked lips.  If there had been
anyone else in her quarters, they might have heard.

"Oh, it's much too late for that."' The face of the dead, lit a
flickering orange, turned toward her.  "It was always too late."

Her fists trembled against the sweat-soaked covers.  "I didn't mean to .

. . I didn't know it would happen like this...."

"You should have thought of that sooner."  The burning temple, its walls
cracked by explosions, vomited black clouds up to the night sky.

The dead's shadow fell across her where she lay, both on the bed in the
safety of DS9's encircling steel, and on the barren ground where the
impact of the blast had flung her.  "But you didn't."

"I'm sorry .  . . I'm sorry .  . ."

"Too late."  The ground was littered with corpses now.  Some of them
were disfigured by fire, others she could still recognize.  All the dead
fixed their unforgiving gaze upon her.  "Better if you had been with us,
inside.  You should have been one of us...."

The dream pounded on, its shrinking world battered by new, unseen blows.

Kira felt the fabric of the pillow against her cheek, but still couldn't
escape.  "I know," she said aloud.

"But I am one of you."

"No--" The dead stepped back, shadows merging with night.  "Not yet.

But you will be."

Her eyes opened, sudden as the turning of a metal key inside a lock.

She saw her quarters around her, bulkheads and shelves and cabinets, the
few simple things they held, pieces of her life aboard the DS9 station
that were almost as familiar and real as the past--the past that claimed
her in dreams and memory.

She drew in her breath, trying to make her heart slow.  For a moment, it
seemed as if the dream hadn't completely faded away, that the sounds of
it still gripped her.  Muffled explosions, their impact eroded by
falling distance .

. .

Someone was knocking with a fist upon the door of her quarters.

Nothing more than that; a sense of relief loosened her clenched muscles.

The dreaming, and the past, was over, at least for another interval of
present time.

"Are you all right, Major?"  Commander Sisko stood on the other side of
the door.

He pointed to the tiny comm panel on the corridor's wall.  "I buzzed
you, but there wasn't any answer--"

"I'm fine."  She moved away, letting him follow her inside.  One hand
tried to brush her disordered hair into place as she sat down on the
edge of the bed.

"Nothing wrong--I was just asleep, that's all."

Sisko watched her with concern.  "Must have been sleeping pretty
heavily.  Usually, you're up like a shot."

"Doctor Bashir told me I've been working too hard."  Kira shook her
head, as though to clear away the last clinging fragments.  She managed
a faint smile.

"Seems to be an occupational hazard around here."

"I wonder.  . ."  He turned the chair around from the desk and straddled
it, arms folded across the top.  "Sometimes people overwork for .  . .

different reasons.

To escape things they don't want to think about."  His gaze shifted
inward for a moment.  "Or remember."

The commander's words tensed Kira's spine.  "Perhaps so."  She couldn't
remove a cold edge from her voice.  "But those are personal matters."

"They become significantly less personal, Major, when they impact upon
the performance of an officer's duties."  Sisko's attention focused hard
upon her, the touch of his own past shoved aside.  "Or say, upon that
officer's life.  Or her death, to be more accurate."

"What are you talking about?"

Sisko took a glittering silver square, a recording chip, from his
uniform pocket and held it up.  "Perhaps you are aware that there have
been threats made against you."

"Just like the overwork, Commander--it comes with the territory."

She kept a calm exterior, though her heart ticked faster again.  "Not
everybody on Bajor agrees with what we're doing up here.  You know that.

Some of the more extreme elements would like to blow us out of the sky."

She shrugged.  "But we don't have to be universally popular to do our
job."

"These threats are different.  They're directed at you in particular."

The chip sparkled between Sisko's thumb and forefinger.  "I have to take
them seriously.

These are people who are capable of following up on their promises.

And their leader speaks of you with a vehemence that certainly indicates
your murder would be a top priority."

Kira sighed.  "If you're speaking of the Redemptorists, Commander, then
I'm aware of the same things you are."  She leaned back and pulled the
mattress away from the bulkhead, enough that she could pry open her
hiding place.  She dropped the handful of chips onto the bed beside her.

"You could listen to these, and you'd find that my name comes up at
least a couple of times.  I've been on the Redemptorist hit list since
before I was posted to DS Nine."

With a raised eyebrow, Sisko looked at the chips.  "I take it these are
all transcriptions of Horen Rygis's broadcasts?"

"Of course.  As the Bajoran military attache aboard this station, I feel
it's my duty to stay current with planetside developments."

"So why keep them hidden?"

She shrugged.  "Technically, under the emergency regulations that are
still in effect, it's illegal for a Bajoran citizen to be in possession
of material like this."

"You could be exempted from that prohibition."

"It's just easier to do what I need to, and keep quiet about it.

Why should I risk other people not under standing?"

Suspicion lingered in Sisko's eyes.  "So you're aware of Horen Rygis's
long-standing animosity toward you .  . . and you still approved that
group of Redemptorists coming aboard."

Her gaze met his head-on.  "And I'd do it again, Commander.  For the
exact same reasons I gave you before.  As long as they're Bajorans,
they're my brothers."

"Hm."  Sisko rubbed his thumb across the chip in his hand.  "Perhaps
your familial sentiments would be a little less tender if you heard
Horen's most recent tirade against you."

"How do you know I haven't?"

- "Because this one was never broadcast.  The provisional government's
security forces finally managed to track down the floating radio
transmitter from which all the others picked up their signals.  They
raided it and confiscated everything, including this."  He held the chip
higher.  "The index date on it shows that it was recorded sometime
within the last few shifts.  And let's just say that Horen speaks of you
at greater length than he's ever done before."

"And was he--"

"Caught?"  Sisko shook his head.  "No, unfortunately.

The Redemptorist underground is, to say the least, secretive.  Wherever
Horen Rygis is on the surface of Bajor, he continues to elude capture.

And, I imagine, as soon as the Redemptorists rebuild their transmitting
network, he'll go on spewing his venom into the ears of his followers."

His voice lowered.  "And continue urging them to kill you."

"I don't think I have much to worry about from a crew of Bajoran
microassemblers-"

"Probably not.  It's the Redemptorists we don't know about, the ones
whose identities Odo doesn't have logged into his data base, who concern
me.  What I'd like to know is why Horen wants you dead."

"Commander--I wish I could say it was a long story."  Kira felt a
weariness, from more than the rigors of her dreaming, weigh upon her
bones.  "But q it's not.  Before my posting to DS Nine, I had a tour of
duty in the provisional government's security forces --it's still a
branch of what little military Bajor possesses.  I thought I could do
the most good there.  When the Cardassians abandoned our planet, we were
overjoyed, ecstatic, to see them go."

She pushed her hair back from her brow.  "What we didn't anticipate was
the chaos that would follow their departure.  If nothing else, the
Cardassians provided order... things like the distribution of food, or
the simple knowing from one day to the next what would happen.  When
that all fell apart, the resistance groups, the ones that had been
fighting the Cardassians all along, started scrambling for power.  That
meant fighting each other."  She shook her head.  "So much for
brotherhood, right?"

Sisko's expression didn't change.  "That's why the Federation came here.

We've seen it before."

"Well, I hadn't.  I didn't know...."  Kira took a deep breath.  "The
Redemptorists got squeezed out of the front organization that eventually
formed the provisional government.  Horen Rygis was already their leader
then.  They took over one of the temples by armed force, barricaded
themselves inside with nearly a hundred non-Redemptorist hostages. There
was a list of demands .  . . I don't even remember what most of them
were.  But Horen and his followers said they would throw one corpse out
the temple gate every hour, until the demands were met.  And they
did-one of them was a twelve-year-old boy.  That's how Horen's mind
works."

"And- you were in charge of doing something about the situation."

She nodded.  "And I blew it.  Or else I didn't blow it;

I don't know anymore.  I directed the whole operation; my security team
stormed the gate, we got inside, we pulled out all but a half-dozen of
the hostages still alive..."  She fell silent for a moment.  "And the
Redemptorists got what they really wanted.  They became martyrs.  They
had enough explosives in there to turn the whole sky red."  The words
were flat, dead things in her mouth.

"That wasn't any fault of yours.  You did what you had to."

She could have closed her eyes and seen the flames, the dreams and
memories without end.  "Their bodies lay on the ground .  . . some of
them were still alive, at least for a little while.  I recognized some
of them.  From the camps, when we had been only children, or later, when
we had fought side by side .  . . when all those things had seemed so
much simpler.  . ."  She dosed her eyes, unable now to bear anyone's
watching gaze.  "I stood there, and I felt my hands and my face
withering from the heat .  . . I stood there and looked down at them,
and they saw me and knew who I was .  . . they all must have, before
they died .

. ."  She pressed her fists against her legs to stop their trembling.

"They were all my brothers.  They died for what they believed in.

Maybe I should have, too."

Sisko touched her wrist, and she opened her eyes.

"You can be as hard on yourself as you want, Major.  And I wish I could
tell you it would help.  But I know it doesn't."

Talking about these things had done no good, either, she felt hollowed,
as if each word had taken a piece from inside.  "Horen survived, of
course; he wasn't even in the temple when we broke in.  Long gone .

.

. and already talking about the glorious deaths...."  Kira looked down
at her whitened knuckles, as if they were small stones, no part of her.

"So, of course, the Redemptorist movement became even !larger than it
was before.  That's what always happens, isn't it?

Martyrs.  The only other thing you need is a target, someone to focus
all that righteous hatred against...."

"And is that all it is for Horen?  Names on a list?"

"No--" Kira brought her gaze up to Sisko's.  "That's not how .  . .

how his soul works.  He couldn't be as powerful as he is--his voice
couldn't be that powerful-if he didn't really hate.  As much as he loved
those who died."

Sisko's face was set, grim.  "He could find better ways of honoring
them."

It's too late for that .  . .

"What did you say, Major?"

She realized that she had spoken aloud, the words the dead had spoken to
her.

"I ... I don't know...."

Concern showed in the commander's furrowed brow.  "Perhaps the doctor is
right.

Perhaps you do need a rest."

Kira shook her head.  "That'd be the worst thing I could do.  Then .

. . then, all I'd do would be to remember."

A distance fell between them, as if for a moment he saw something
else--or someone--before him.  He nodded.  "Very well."  He pushed
himself up from the chair.

"The extra security measure I'll be discussing with Odo won't interfere
with your preparations for the substation mission."  He started toward
the door, then turned and scooped up the recording chips she had dropped
on the bedcovers.  "I don't think you need these anymore."

She could hear the chips scraping against each other, as though he were
grinding them to dust inside his fist.  "No--" She almost managed to
smile grate fully.  "No, I don't."

mn

SOME Things Had changed that didn't matter--such as the location of the
hiding place.

Other things had changed for the better--he could tell that by the faces
assembled around him.  Horen nodded to himself in satisfaction.

Much had been accomplished with one simple death.  Another--at least, of
one of his followers-wouldn't be necessary.

"Are we all here?"  He looked around the circle.  This space was so much
larger than the last hole into which he'd been crammed.  That one had
been hardly big enough for him to turn around in, let alone stand
upright; the small of his back and his shoulder muscles still ached from
their long confinement.

Here, the bulkheads and ceiling were so far away that the glow from the
portable lantern was quickly swallowed up.  "I asked for everyone to
come--" Beside him, Deyreth Elt leaned forward.  "As you were
instructed--they're here."  Deyreth sat at Horen's right hand, as though
at a position of honor he'd newly earned.  That, plus the use of the
word "they" to indicate the others, indicated his self-appointed status.

Whatever Deyreth thought of himself was inconsequential to Horen.

So many things were coming close to fulfillment--these lesser and
expendable elements had begun to fade in his sight, like candle flames
held against a blazing dawn.  He strove to remind himself that they
would have their uses for a while longer.

"My heart is gladdened by your presence."  Horen let his gaze rest upon
each shadowed face in turn.  "The communion of the faithful gives us all
strength."  He sat back upon the cushion of a folded blanket.  "How do
your labors progress?  And theirs?"

None of them spoke.  The reforged somberness held them fast.

Deyreth broke the silence.  "The quarantine module --or the substation,
as they have begun calling it--is nearly ready for its voyage.  The
chief engineer O'Brien and his technicians have finished installing the
life-support systems and the various sensors and other equipment for the
use of the doctor.

Indeed, most of the technical crews have been pulled out in order to
complete the preparation of the cargo shuttle that will be used to take
the substation through the wormhole."

"And that leaves .  . . what?  Your work, I take it?"

A conspirator's smile rose on Deyreth's sharp angled face.  "Our true
work.  There were some, shall we say, unexpected problems with the
circuitry on which we worked.  Microcomponents that did not perform up
to specification, or failed under test loads.

Our team has had to go into the substation itself in order to rectify
these matters.  O'Brien and the others are already stretched too far,
for any of them to spend much time supervising us.  We've been able to
accomplish a great deal-without being observed."

"That's true--" One of the other faces dared to speak.  "They don't know
at all what we're doing inside the substation.  And we've installed
bypass circuits on top of everything, so anytime O'Brien runs a
diagnostic test, the results all check out the way they should.

Nothing can be detected, unless he were to rip out all the interior
panels--and there isn't time for that."

Horen let the man go rattling on, though these technical details were of
little interest to him.  All that mattered were the results, the
creation of the next hiding place--the last one--which would bring him
within striking distance of the one whose death would be a sweet
justice.

He closed his eyes; the follower was speaking of something else, just as
unimportant.  Horen listened instead to the memory of his own voice, the
words he'd recorded to be broadcast across the surface of Bajor to the
faithful.  The letting of blood .  . . this is how disease is cured. The
mere remembered sounds of the words were sweet.  Even more pleasurable
were the images they aroused within him, the ancient medical skill of
venesection transformed into a holy rite.

There would be more than one doctor on the substation's mission.

But his would be the hand that bore the scalpel, the cure for the
sickness that had infected his heart as well, that could be purged only
with the release of another's blood-her blood .  . .

"Does that meet with your approval?"

Of course....

Horen opened his eyes and saw Deyreth, and the others beyond, watching
him.  He nodded.  "Your labors are pleasing to all the eyes of the
faithful."

He smiled.

"I know that you will have everything ready for me."

The slow working of his plans, the coming of that great day .  . .

that had been the main reason for the change in hiding places.  Away
from the distant bowels of the station, and closer to, almost inside,
the engineering bay.

DS9's overefficient security chief was prowling every centimeter of the
dark, empty spaces; the principle that had enabled him to evade capture
so far, to lodge himself inside the strangers' nest, had been taken to
its next logical step.  If they knew how close he was to them--to her .

. . but, of course, they didn't.

The shield of his faith protected him from the strangers' eyes.

"Horen ... I am concerned...."

The few timid words sparked anger inside him.  "Oh?"  He glared at the
one who had spoken.  "What troubles you?"  He peered more closely at the
crouching figure.  "Do you find doubts in your heart?"

"No--" The other quickly shook his head.  "Of course not.  I'm just .

.

."

"What?"

"I'm concerned about you, Horen."  He looked as if he were about to pray
to be understood.  "You're so important--not just to us, but to all the
believers-- what would happen to our cause, to our faith, if something
happened .  .

. if something happened to you?  What would keep the Redemptorists
together?  It just seems .  .

. not foolish, I don't mean that, but .  . . risky.  That you should
undertake this task."

"I see."  Anger was not called for now.  "And what would you suggest?

That you do it?"

"I don't know--" The follower seemed mired in his own confusion.

"But perhaps .

. . if what is desired is Kira Nerys's death .  . . we can accomplish
that now.

So much more easily--and without endangering you.  Even if we were to
let them go on with their mission-- there are hundreds of ways to make
sure that she would never come back from it--"

"Ah."  Horen nodded.

"Your worries for me .  . . are very touching."

He let his voice soften, become tender as a parent's to a beloved child.

"And you are correct: I risk much--I risk everything--by going ahead
with what we have planned together, what you have labored to bring
about."  His gaze moved across the group of men.  "But you mustn't
forget .  . . that my death would mean nothing.  To rid the soul of
Bajor of this pollution, a small thing is asked of me.

And a great thing would be given unto me.  The honor of death, to die as
our brothers have died .  . ."  He smiled sadly.  "Perhaps I am being
selfish, to want that for myself.  Would you deny it to me?"

"It's just that .  . ."  The other's hands tightened into fists.  "Is
she worth your life?"

"Of course not.  Kira Nerys is an insect compared to the least of us,
even to that one whose sympathy for the strangers led him into error.

But there's more at stake than simply eliminating her pestilential
existence.  We have it within our power to transform her death--and
mine, if need be--into the salvation of Bajor said His voice faded to a
whisper, which drew the others even closer to him.

"The mysteries that our most ancient devotions seek to understand, the
gifts that the Bajorans have been chosen to receive, of all the universe
.  . . the orbs .  . ."  The whisper turned bitter.

"The strangers come here and call the source of our faith a
wormhole--and we mock our own beliefs when we use that word.  That is
how the infection spreads.  And now, they would make of that sacred
mystery a road for their boots to trample on as they carry their wares
back and forth to market."  The bitterness twisted upon itself.  "Shall
we not let them make our temples into brothels then?

Surely that would bring them money, as well.  They might even let us
have a few coins of it."

heir heads were bent, even Deyreth's, as though to receive the lash of
his words upon their backs.

"Their mere presence here is an abomination."  He relented, voice soft
again.  "But give yourselves this comfort--soon that shall come to an
end."

He closed his eyes, knowing that his silence would tell them to leave
him.  So that he could be alone once more, in the darkness of his
meditations.

Soon.  Where even his voice, and the words that burned in it, would
cease.

Silence at last.  He turned off the player and leaned back in his chair,
his thoughts deepening inside him.

It had taken some doing to find the right chip, the one that had been
confiscated in the raid on the Redemptorist transmitter down on Bajor.

Odo realized that not everyone had the same respect for physical clues
that, out of necessity, he had developed --but he'd still had to bite
his tongue when Commander Sisko had come back to the security office
with a fistful of recording chips, the important one mixed in with them.

The problem of searching through the chips had been compounded by Horen

Rygis's voice being on all of them, transcriptions of his ranting
diatribes-something that Odo found personally offensive.  Sentient
creatures seemed to already show enough ingenuity at finding crimes to
commit--why should they be exhorted to murder in addition?

He scooped up the other chips and sealed them into an evidence bag
before extending his arm to drop them in the file cabinet on the other
side of the office.  Now that he'd found the one he'd been looking for,
he wasn't going to risk losing it again.  It had been a violation of his
own procedural rules to let the commander take away the chip in the
first place, but he'd been able to tell that Sisko had had some
compelling use for it.  His own suspicions about what that might have
been were confirmed when Sisko had come back with the handful, and had
told him that they had been in Major Kira's possession.

Unfortunately, the commander hadn't seemed to feel any need for sharing
what he'd learned from Kira.  Inside himself, Odo felt a familiar
irritation uncoiling.

Like most humanoids, Benjamin Sisko had an obstinate respect for the
privacy of others--and at the same time, he wanted his chief of security
to snoop out every secret that might threaten the continued functioning
of DS9.  Odo would have appreciated a little help along that line.

Still, if cooperation wasn't forthcoming from Sisko and the others,
there were still inanimate objects to be questioned--they could be much
more eloquent.  He extracted the chip from the player and held it up to
his eye to study it, then laid it back down.  He had already taken it
over to Dax's lab to glean the information he needed from it.  The chief
science officer had run it through the subphoto microscope and
downloaded the resulting images.  Taking out his data padd, he called
the file onto the screen.

At the highest magnification, the smooth surface of the recording chip
looked as pitted as the surface of an airless moon.  Odo scrolled the
image to the manufacturer's data inscribed in one corner.

Well, well.  Without looking away, Odo punched the long stream of digits
into the computer panel.  How interesting.  The chip had spoken, in its
own way, with truths far more revealing than the voice of Horen Rygis.

On the larger desktop display was the batch number of the chip that had
been found in the raid on the Redemptorist transmitter.  He already knew
what he'd find as he called up the file on the Bajoran microassembler
whose murdered body had been dumped in the engineering bay.  And the
chip that had been found in the corpse's pocket....

The batch numbers were the same.

Odo leaned back, gazing with satisfaction at the two parallel strings of
numbers.

He'd previously scanned the corpse's chip, but the one from the
transmitter raid had been taken away by Commander Sisko before he'd had
a chance to scan it.  In the meantime, he'd searched through a massive
data base of shipping invoices, and had found another puzzle piece: all
the recording chips in that batch had been received and sold by one of
the small gadget merchants doing business from an akhibara cubicle on
the Promenade.  Naturally, the merchant--an unusually obtuse
Rhaessian--had had no record of his various customers; that would have
been too much to ask for.

But even so .  . . just those few scraps of information, the silent
words from the recording chips, gave him a lot to think about, to piece
together, to make sense of.

Inside Odo's head was a world as intricate, and filled with both light
and dark corners, as DS9 itself.  His pleasure came from working his way
through the corridors in both worlds, and finding out the secrets of
every thing and person alike.

He set the revealing chip down precisely in the center of the desktop.

Soon, he would have enough to make a report to the commander.

"You were warned, I take it?"

Doctor Bashir looked up from the display panel before him.  The
substation's remote sensors were running through their last circuit
checks.

"Pardon me?"  He glanced over his shoulder to the doorway of the cargo
shuttle's pilot area.

"Warned " Kira stood there, arms folded across her breast, her habitual
scowl in full force.  "Now's not a good time to play around with me,
Doctor--we'll be disengaging from the pylon in fifteen minutes.  I know
Commander Sisko spoke to you.  About our... working relationship."

He sighed.  The length of time it would take to complete the
mission--from going through the wormhole and out to the Gamma Quadrant,
to bringing the cargo shuttle back to the station by himself-- had
originally seemed far too short for all he wanted to accomplish.  Now,
as it had become increasingly clear how much Kira resented his presence
on the mission, he had begun to think it might be a long voyage indeed.

"Since you're aware of my conversations with the commander, why do you
bother to ask?"  His own temper had started to fray a bit, from the
shifts of nonstop work with O'Brien in getting the scientific equipment
installed and running before the departure date.

As little as an hour ago, Bashir had been inside the cargo shuttle's
cramped one-person augmented personnel module, awkwardly adjusting the
last few sensors on the substation's exterior.

It had been a relief to stow the APM back in its holding bay and step
out into the relatively less claustrophobic space of the shuttle's
parking area--at least until Kira had started in on him.  "And I don't
think that was quite the word Sisko used--advised would be more like
it."

"Whatever."  Kira stood right behind him.  "If he didn't warn you, then
I will.

This mission has great strategic importance, for both the station and
Bajor.  My job is to make sure that everything happens the way it's
supposed to.  Your job, as far as I'm concerned, is to stay out of my
way."  She glared at the lights on the display panel, as though they had
some how affronted her as well.  "There's still time for you to decide
to do that the best way possible."

"And that would be...?"  He already knew her answer.

"Don't come along.  Your assistance is not required."

"Major Kira."  He swiveled the seat around and looked up at her.  The
time when he had thought there might be a chance of cordial relations
between them had passed long ago.  She had been ready enough to ask a
favor of him when she'd needed it-apparently that had been no indication
of her true feelings.  "You might as well reconcile yourself to these
arrangements.  Technically, you may be in charge of this mission, but
you should try to remember that, once you transfer to the substation,
you'll be on my territory.

My agreeing to let the quarantine module be used as a substation is the
only thing making this trip possible."  He had already faced down
Commander Sisko about this; he found it comparatively easier to put the
major in her place.  "I could abort the entire mission right now, and
there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it."

She radiated a venomous silence toward him.  For a moment, Bashir
wondered if her hostility had crossed the line into derangement.

Kira had been missing for a couple of shifts, staying in her quarters
--her absence from the engineering bay had enabled him and O'Brien to
get a lot more work done--with rumors of a depressive episode floating
around the crew on Ops.  If that had been the case, she had bounced back
from it with a vengeance.

"You'd be surprised, Doctor," she spoke grimly, "at just what I -could
do about it."

He turned away from her and leaned over the lights flashing on the
panel.  A very long voyage .  . .

"Now--" Horen Rygis stepped to the fore of the group of men.  Beside
him, Deyreth looked at the readout of the crudely patched together metal
box in his hand.  It was designed to indicate the status of the final
preparations aboard the cargo shuttle.

"They've sealed the pressure locks."  Another red dot blinked on the
box's surface.  "Perimeter checks under way: Let's go."

They were all dressed in the coveralls that were standard issue in the
engineering bay.  The work on the substation's microcircuitry had
continued right up to the last minute--a few well-devised component
failures had seen to that.

That had ensured that no one would question the microassembly team being
on the staging area of the main docking pylon.

Horen felt an unshakable calm settle around his heart.  It was at times
like this he felt the sure machinery of fate.  His followers had done
their tasks well; the rest was up to him.

He started walking, shielded by the others.  The distance across the
pylon's loading ramp had to be traversed, with none of the strangers
noticing him.  From the corner of his eye, he saw Deyreth
surreptitiously press a switch on the box he held by his side.

With a mechanized hiss, the massive docking arms moved a fraction of a
meter apart, loosening the connection between the substation and the
cargo shuttle that had been modified for its transport.

"What the--" On the other side of the bay, the chief engineer looked in
perplexity at the diagnostic cabinet.  A bundled set of cables ran from
it to a hatch in the machinery mounted on the cargo shuttle's
foresection.

"We're getting some flaky control feed back here."  The rest of the
engineering crew- looked over his shoulders at the cabinet's gauge
panels.

Their voices faded as Horen and the other Redemptorists used the
distraction to slip around the substation's distant side.

"Quick--" At Deyreth's order, the largest of the men bent down, cupping
his hands to give Horen a boost.  Another switch on the box opened one
of the substation's curved exterior panels, enough for Horen to pry the
gap wide enough for his shoulders to squeeze through.  In a few seconds,
he had scrambled inside, turning around to grab an improvised handle and
pull the panel shut behind himself.  The metal grew warm as a low-level
fission charge around the panel's edge welded it tight, sealing him in
darkness.

He reached up to his ear to activate the tiny comm link there.  This
close, it was easy to pick up the transmission from Kira Nerys and the
doctor in the shuttle connected to the substation.

"Anything wrong?"

That was Kira's voice; he could imagine her up in the pilot area,
impatient with the break in the departure procedure.

The chief engineer's reply crackled with static.  ". . . looked for a
moment like we were having some problem with the mounting arms .  . .

seems to have cleared up .  . ."

Within seconds, a fine vibration moved through the structural beams
close around him.  There wasn't time to waste--he crawled quickly ahead,
shoving aside a panel of lighter weight, then dropping from the ceiling
to the substation's interior.

Horen scrambled to his feet and reached up to the ceiling; the dislodged
panel was just out of reach of his fingertips.  He'd have to take care
of it later; he nearly fell as the substation shifted position.

"What are you doing over there .  . ."  In his ear, he could hear the
exit crew's voices.  "Come on, clear the area..."  That must've been
addressed to Deyreth and the rest of his group; it didn't sound as if
they had aroused any suspicions.

He hurried toward one of the substation's farther sections, with a
familiarity born of memorizing the plans Deyreth had provided him.

He'd be able to brace himself inside a sickbed unit, secure against the
cargo shuttle's acceleration as it left the docking pylon.

Then it would just be a matter of waiting .  .

CHAPTER 6

"WE'RE DEAD.

He spoke aloud, aware of the figure standing behind him in the doorway
of the pilot area.  Bashir leaned back from the shuttle's instrument
panel and looked over his shoulder.  "Completely."

"What are you talking about?"  Kira had gone aft to do a visual scan of
the connectors for the locking arms; the momentary glitch before they
had left DS9 had continued to be a source of worry.  If it had been up
to Bashir, he would have delayed until it had been thoroughly checked
out--but that had been Kira's decision to make.  Now, she slipped into
the other seat.  She quickly looked across the display.  "What's going
on--"

"As I indicated, we're dead.  In the water, so to speak."  He pointed.

"We've come to a complete halt."

She muttered a few Bajoran swear words, as her controls.  None of the
instruments registered any change.

She turned and glared at him.  "If this is something you've pulled, just
so we'd wind up spending more time here in the wormhole, I'll--" "Major
Kira."  He tried to control his own temper.  "If I'd known beforehand
that you were susceptible to paranoid fantasies, I would've prescribed
psychiatric treatment for you.  I'm getting all the data I need, thank
you."

The latter was true; since the cargo shuttle, with the substation
mounted before it, had entered the worm hole, the sensors had been
operating at full capacity.

The various pieces of equipment he and Dax had installed were running
perfectly; he had checked the portable data banks and had found the
information flow to be running at I I O percent of predicted levels.

Commander Sisko himself had instructed Bashir to allow for the
additional storage.

"They're smart," Sisko had told him.  The commander had been giving him
an additional briefing about the wormhole's inhabitants.  "They can
figure out the purpose of anything that comes into their domain."

Sisko had, since his encounter with the creatures, developed a
propensity for speaking of them as if they were material, even human.

"They can figure out what you're doing there.

If they decide to, they can pour out information like a mild rain
storm."

Perhaps that had already started happening.  The wormhole's interior had
turned out to be a treasure chest of electromagnetic radiation, dense to
either extreme of the sensors' bandwidth, frequencies over lapping and
intermingled.  A full analysis would have to wait until he got the data
banks back to DS9 and could begin going over them with Dax, but his
first glance at some of the monitor screens showed indications of order,
not just chaotic, random bursts and background noise.  If that held up
on further investigation, the hypothesis of the wormhole being an
artifact produced by its inhabitants, and not just a naturally occurring
phenomenon, would be substantiated.  And if the underlying structure
could be induced from the data .  . . then the possibilities were wide
open--for accomplishments far beyond the fields of multispecies
medicine.  Bashir almost had to control his hands from twitching, as
though they might otherwise tear right into the secrets filling the
banks.

Now, if only the wormhole's inhabitants were to touch his mind, as they
had the commander's... then he was sure all the doors would open .  .

.

"I suppose it's just a convenient accident, then?"

In the meantime, he looked at Kira beside him.  "Major, perhaps you
should lighten up a bit.  I've had enough of her suspicions.  "You're
well aware of the quality of materials with which O'Brien has had to
make do.  Probably nothing more than a loose connection somewhere.

Here, watch--" He balled up his fist and, as he'd seen the chief
engineer do often enough, slammed it into the least fragile-seeming
panel in front of him.

Nothing happened, except for a throb of pain that traveled from
his-knuckles to his elbow.  He wasn't about to reveal that to Kira.

"Very impressive," she said dryly.  "Now, maybe we'd better try to fix
things, and get on our way.  If we were able to communicate with DS Nine
from this far inside the wormhole, we could've asked O'Brien for some
engineering advice.  But since we can't--" She stood up.

"Come on.  Let's check out the engine compartment."

"What do you need me for?"  Bashir had already shifted his attention
back to the sensor readouts.

"Not much, except to hold the flashlight.  Now come on."  She strode
past him.

As soon as they unsealed the access hatch, the burnt smell struck their
nostrils.  Not from a fire--the alarm systems would have kicked in if
there had been one--but from overloaded circuitry and charred wire.

Bashir leaned over, peering into the opening.  "This doesn't look good."

"Thanks for the diagnosis."  Kira had already started clambering down
the metal rungs into the compartment.  "It looks even worse down here."

He breathed through a hand clamped over his mouth and nose as he stood
beside her in the narrow space.  "What do you think happened?"

He watched as she opened a panel on the side of one of the massive
cylinders and started the engines' self-test mode.

"Well, it's not the impulse units--they check out fine."  More numbers
skittered across the readout.  "Something to do with the bypass .  .

.

no, it's the buffers."  She ran her hand across the surface of the
meter-thick shielding that had been placed around the engines, then
looked at the sooty ash coating her palm.  "They overloaded--something
went wrong with the absorb-and-release algorithms."

"What does that mean?"

Kira closed the diagnostic panel.  "These buffers are built up from a
programmable crystalline matrix.  Like an intelligent capacitor-they
take in the engines'

thrust impulses and modulate them to a sine wave.  The propulsive effect
is virtually the same, and it doesn't disrupt the wormhole's ionic
field.  So- our little friends out there don't suffer the effects,
basically.  But something went wrong here; it looks like the buffers
were taking in 100 percent of the impulse power but passing on only 90
percent of it.  With the additional mass of the substation we're
carrying, it's not likely we would've noticed the drop in effective
power.  At least not until the whole system burned out."

"So, we're stuck here without engines?"  Bashir looked across the
compartment's silent forms.

"No--" She shook her head.  "We can pull out the buffer circuitry easily
enough.  That would just be putting things back in their original
design.  The problem is, what happens if we fire these things up--while
we're still inside the wormhole--and the buffers aren't working?"

He had to admit it was a good question.  Passage through the wormhole
was predicated on the under standing that Commander Sisko had reached
with the mysterious creatures that were its inhabitants.  Creatures for
whom the effects of an unbuffered impulse engine were potentially deadly
.  . .

"Let's get back to the pilot area."  Kira started up the rungs to the
access hatch above.  "We're really going to have to think about this
one."

While he waited, he was careful to touch none of the items in the
sparsely furnished living quarters.  It would have been easy enough for
Odo to examine everything the Redemptorist possessed--there wasn't much,
clothes and a few sets of microassembly tools

--and to do it undetected.  He could have hidden himself as a thin,
transparent membrane on the ceiling, and watched whatever the man did
when he thought he was alone.  But this was a time, Odo had calculated,
when a more direct approach was called for.

The door slid open, and the Redemptorist named Deyreth Elt entered.

Lost in thought, or just tired--he had let the door close behind him
before he saw Odo sitting on the chair pulled over from the desk.

"What's the meaning of this?"  Deyreth's reaction was immediately
hostile.  "What are you doing in here?"

"You needn't be alarmed."  Odo kept his own voice level.  "I apologize
for this intrusion on your privacy.  But I thought perhaps you would
prefer that any discussions between us were done as discreetly as
possible.  You know who I am, don't you?"

Deyreth nodded slowly.  "The chief of security .  . ."  He kept his back
close to the door, as though he might attempt to flee at any moment.

"It's been my observation," said Odo, "that, for a group whose religious
devotions are paramount in their lives, you and your fellow
Redemptorists are remarkably well informed about the reality of DS
Nine's operations; the personnel in charge, and so forth.

Almost as if you'd made it a point of study.  At least, that's the
impression I've gotten whenever I've talked to the others."

"Why have you been talking to them?"  Deyreth's eyes narrowed in
suspicion.

Odo observed the change with satisfaction.  It always helped to plant a
seed that could grow large enough to split conspiracies apart.  "It's my
job, isn't it?  To investigate .  . . to talk to people.  I would have
hoped that you would welcome my attentions, in that it's the murder of
one of your own that's being looked into."

Deyreth's expression grew even harder.  "Arten was a fool."

"Oh?  Do fools deserve to die, then?"

"That .  . . that's not a concern of mine."  His face showed that he'd
spoken too rashly.  "But Arten fell among bad
companions-nonbelievers--when he came to this place.  It was a mistake
to bring him with us; he was too young; he didn't have the shield of a
confirmed faith to protect him from his errors."

"I see.  And those errors were .  . .?"

"That is of no concern to you.  Investigate his death, if you choose, I
have no say about it.  But these doctrinal matters are beyond your
sphere of authority."

"Very well."  Odo leaned forward.  "Let's talk of your compatriot's
death.  I find it .  . . interesting to hear you tell of these 'bad
companions' Arten found here.  Especially when my investigations among
those who would fit that description--and I know all who are aboard the
station--show that none of them had the slightest contact with him.  He
seemed to lead the same type of reclusive existence here as do you and
the rest of the Redemptorists."

A shrug.  "I can't answer for all of his comings and goings."

Odo let his gaze wander around the quarters.  "Do you like music?  Of
any kind?"  He looked back to Deyreth.

The question seemed to puzzle him.  "Such things are frivolities .

. ."

"I expected that reaction from you.  That's why I'm not surprised to see
that there's no chip-player in your quarters.  There wasn't one in
Arten's, either.  Which, of course, made it intriguing that I found a
couple of blank chips on his corpse.  But then .  . . there are other
uses for them besides recording music."

Deyreth remained silent, his spine visibly stiffening.

"What use would yot have for them?"

"I don't know what -you're talking about...."

"That statement might have been believable at one time."  Odo carefully
watched the shift of expressions across the other's face.

"But not now--thanks to the services of a certain Ferengi barkeeper.

Quark is probably the worst possible 'companion' on the station, but he
doesn't mind doing a few little services for me, now and then--it keeps
him in my good graces for whatever malfeasances he may commit later on."

A corner of Deyreth's mouth curled in distaste.  "What does that sort of
creature have to do with me?"

"Quark is in the habit of surreptitiously video recording everything
that happens inside his establishment, and most of what happens just
outside on the Promenade; the entryway is studded with some cleverly
concealed entrances.  He is, as one might expect, alert to chances for
blackmail."

"I've never patronized such a place."

"No.  But quite a few shifts ago, not long after you and the rest of
your microassembly team came up here from Bajor, you went into the booth
of a Rhaessian gadget merchant just across the Promenade from Quark's
place--you show up quite identified ably on the video that he let me
have.  There you purchased two cartons of recording chips, paying for
them with cash scrip issued by the Bajoran provision al government--the
Rhaessian cheated you on the exchange rate.  At high magnification, the
details of the transaction are evident.  The manufacturer's batch number
of the recording chips you bought is the same as of those that were
found on the murdered Arten.  Of course, that's not really too
significant--you might have given them to him for some obscure purpose
that's not really any of my business."

Deyreth had stepped back, right against the door.

"What is significant," continued Odo, "is that the same batch number is
on the chips that were found during a raid on an illicit transmitting
station on the surface of Bajor--" In a split second, Deyreth had palmed
the doois control and darted out to the corridor beyond.

Odo had been readying himself, altering the muscle mass of his legs into
a peak glycogen conversion rate.  He was up from the chair like a coiled
spring, and pinning Deyreth to the floor within a couple of strides.

"Go about your business," he told the few startled faces in the
corridor.  With a knee against Deyreth's spine, he jerked the other's
wrists back and snapped on a set of hand restraints.

"Nothing to see here."  He pulled Deyreth upright and pushed him toward
the nearest turbolift.

"Any luck?"  She knelt down to see how the work was coming along Bashir
lay on his back, his head and upper torso wedged into a narrow opening
beneath the pilot area's controls.

"Wait a minute--" He wriggled out, his tools and light in his hands.

"Not bad," he said, leaning his shoulders against the panel.

"But it's going to take a while."

He had surprised her by devising a plan for modifying the comm
link--Kira had thought that medicine was his only practical field of
knowledge.  In this case, his leisure activity of restoring ancient
audio equipment had proved to be of value: he had done a rough analysis
of the electromagnetic spectra surrounding them in the wormhole, and had
found a narrow band that seemed to reflect along the limits of the worm
hole's curved space.  If he shorted out the transmitter's signal on
everything but those frequencies, they might be able to hail the Ops
deck back on DS9.  The drop-off in the signal's strength would occur at
a steep exponential rate, but it was still worth a shot.

"Take a break."  She almost regretted jumping down his throat the way
she had before.  "We've got to figure out some strategy here."?

Bashir followed her to the pilot seats.  While he bandaged the knuckles
he had scraped underneath the communicator panel, she ran through her
analysis of their situation.

"It's pretty obvious we were sabotaged."  Kira squeezed the seat's arm
in her fist.  "O'Brien put in those impulse buffers himself, and when he
checked them out they were functioning perfectly.  If they hadn't been,
he wouldn't have cleared this shuttle for the mission.

So, somebody must've gotten to the buffers afterward."  She had her own
suspicions about who it might have been, but she didn't want to voice
them now.  The changes in the buffers' circuitry could have been
accomplished only by someone with advanced microassembly skills.

"Maybe that somebody doesn't want us to get out to the Gamma Quadrant."

Bashir closed the lid on the first aid kit.  "If Odo were here, he'd
probably remind us of that old Earth maxim, Qui bono?

Who benefits?  The only ones I can think of would be the Cardassians."

He rubbed his thumb across the bandage on his index finger.  "But Gul
Tahgla and his crew had already left when the buffers were being
installed around our engines .  . . so, they must have someone else
working for them, someone still aboard the station."

His line of thought had diverged light-years away from hers; that was
fine, as far as she was concerned.  "Right now, it doesn't matter who
did it, or why.  What we need to figure out is what to do about it.

And fast--we've got to get the substation in place before the
Cardassians can reach the wormhole's exit sector and claim it for
themselves."

"I don't know..."  Bashir shook his head.  "It doesn't do us much good
that the engines are still operable.  If we fire them up without the
buffers, they'll send a shock wave through me ionic field--we can't be
sure what the wormhole's inhabitants will do to defend themselves.  But
when it happened before, with Commander Sisko out here, they collapsed
the worm hole's connection with the outside universe.  Until they opened
it back up, it was as if the wormhole didn't exist anymore.  We might
not even be able to get out of here using those unbuffered engines."

The same point had been worrying her.  She had a vivid memory of the way
the wormhole's swirling entrance, a maelstrom of energies, had blinked
out of existence, trapping Sisko inside.  The same thing could happen to
them now, with even less chance of a resurrection from a tomb sealed
with the empty space between stars.

"And beyond that," said Bashir, "there's a certain moral question.

Even if we could use the unbuffered engines to get out to the Gamma
Quadrant, and if we weren't bound by the understanding Sisko reached
with the wormhole's inhabitants--we're still aware of the lethal effect
the impulse energy has on them.  Do we have the right to hurt them that
way?"

"Spoken like a doctor."

"It's still the decision we'd have to make."

She knew he was right.  And there were practical concerns beyond the
present one: if they did manage to get out and set the substation in the
Gamma Quadrant, it wouldn't accomplish much good if the wormhole's
inhabitants collapsed it out of existence.  Bajor would wind up with
sovereignty over nothing but an empty sector of space.

Her fingertips tried to rub away the ache that swelled behind her brow.

If there were time to think, if the Cardassians weren't on their way to
claim the wormhole's exit sector .  . . if she and Bashir were still in
touch with DS9, and they could consult with Sisko and the others about a
plan of action .  . .

There wasn't time.  Whatever she decided, even if it were the wrong
thing, it would have to be soon.

"All right."  She drew in a deep breath, then leaned over and touched
Bashiis arm.  "Here's what we're going to do."

- "This is all very clever of you."  The Redemptorist had managed to
regain his composure, enough to snarl at Odo as he was pushed toward the
security office.  "I imagine your heart is filled with pride over your
accomplishment."

"No more than usual."  Odo kept a tight grip on his suspect's upper arm.

The crowds on the Promenade parted for them, displaying only a mild
curiosity; it was a familiar enough sight for them.  "I can assure you
that it's merely a matter of routine."

Deyreth twisted his neck to look back at him.  "Be satisfied with what
you can, heathen."  The Bajoran's sharp-edged face held a look of
maniacal triumph.  "What happens to me is less than nothing.  A dawn
approaches that none of you can forestall--"

"Yes, of course; keep moving."  He found religious fanatics to be
particularly annoying.

There was no complexity to their minds, just a single glaring light that
consumed everything else inside their skulls.  No challenge to them;
this one had already as much as confessed to the other's murder.

"Why don't you wait until I can take down a statement from you?"

"Do you need one?  Surely, in your cleverness, you have figured out
everything you need to know."  Spittle flecked Deyreth's lip.  "I
purchased the chips here, those that the vermin of the provisional
government's security forces found in their raid upon our
transmitter--what does that mean?  Tell me!"

"It means," said Odo, "that your leader, Horen Rygis, is somewhere
aboard the station.  He's been recording his broadcasts here and having
them smuggled back down to Bajor."  He hustled Deyreth toward the
security office.  "That's what you and I are going to talk about.  And
then you're going to take me to him."

Deyreth laughed, eyes wide with delight.  "You're too late!  He's gone,
you cannot touch him!"  The Bajoran contorted his body even further.

"You can't stop that which is ordained--" For a moment, Odo had to turn
his gaze away as he keyed the code upon the door.  That inattention was
enough; he heard the metal of the hand restraints strike the floor,
followed by the delicate micro assembly tools that Deyreth had
stealthily managed to take from his pocket and use upon the hand
restraints .  His grip was torn loose from Deyreth's arm as he was
shoved against the wall.

"Stop!"  Odo regained his balance, seeing Deyreth push through the
crowd.  No one laid a hand upon him.  "Get out of my way--" In his blind
rush, Deyreth collided with the rail overlooking the deck below.

The impact knocked the breath from him; dazed, he clung to the metal
bar, his torso bent over the empty space.

Odo was still a couple of meters away, battering against the wall of
humanoid and other bodies--there wasn't time to assume another shape
that would have gotten him past them any more quickly--when he saw
Deyreth turn an agonized glance back toward him.  Deyreth scrambled over
the rail just as Odo reached out to grab him.

Gravity caught him first.  Deyreth's grasp of the rail slipped loose,
and he toppled, centimeters away from Odo's outstretched hand.

The crowd gathered at Odo's back as he looked down at the body crumpled
upon a grid below.  Blood had already begun to seep through the small
holes and dot the pipes and wiring underneath.

Odo turned and bulled his way through the gawkers.  Someone else would
have to gather up the Redemptorist's body.  Right now, he had to get to
Ops and talk to Commander Sisko.

CHAPTER 7

SHE WALKED THROUGH the dark spaces.  In silence; the bulkhead panels
curved around her, like the flowing walls of the crypts beneath a
Bajoran temple.  The passage through what had been the quarantine module
, and was now the substation that would secure her people's claim to the
stable wormhole, evoked memories in her.  Of helping to carry the
shrouded body of an uncle, the wounds of the beating he'd received from
the Cardassian camp guards still seeping through the thin wrappings,
carrying it and laying it down among the sacred bones of their
ancestors.  She'd hardly been more than ten years old then, and already
she'd been pressed into the service of the rituals; there had been so
few of her clan left.

Kira stopped for a moment, leaning a hand against a bulkhead to steady
herself, and squeezing her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the painful
remembrances.

She could recall--she couldn't stop herself--how light her uncle's
corpse had seemed; it hadn't been until later that she had realized he
had been starving himself, dividing his rations among her and the other
children.  When the time came, the guards had broken him like a dry
stick.

Forget, she told herself.  You've got work to do.  Through sheer force
of will, she put the memory, and all the others like it, back inside the
chamber she carried inside her head, a chamber as large as Bajor itself,
as small as the tear of a girl still weeping as she lay curled on a
barracks' dirty straw mat.

The interior of the substation brightened.  Aboard the cargo shuttle,
Bashir must have managed to switch on the auxiliary power.

The central corridor ran ahead of her, branching on either side into the
various sections and compartments.  In the dim glow of the radiant
panels--they wouldn't come to full brightness until the substation's own
power source was activated--the substation looked less tomblike, and
doser to a regulation Starfleet sickbay.  Space was tighter, though,
than on either DS9 or an Enterprise class ship; the narrow corridors
folded in upon them selves like a maze.  When she had inspected the
substation during its retrofitting in O'Brien's engineering bay, she had
memorized only the routes through it and the areas that she would
require on the mission; the other sections she was content to leave
sealed off.

"Major Kira--" Bashir's voice crackled from a speaker over her head.

"Are you at the control room yet?"

"I'm on my way."  The bad memories had snared her, just when there was
no time to waste.  Perhaps it had been the substation's empty chambers
on either side of her, surrounded by the wormhole's darkness, that had
triggered deepening thoughts.  A wordless feeling had remained, chilling
the skin across her arms and shoulders.  She pushed it back, and headed
for the substation's nerve center.

He wondered why she had stopped.  For a moment, as he had crouched
silent behind a scrub room door, his hands almost within reach of her
throat, he thought that she might have detected his presence.

That might have been why she had closed her eyes, head bowed in
concentration, her nostrils catching the scent of someone else aboard
the substation .  . .

She knows, Horen had thought.  If that were so, then his careful plans
would have to be changed.  But the woman's death would still be the
final result.

If she had opened her eyes and turned to look toward him, her gaze
taking in the miniature lens of the view panel by the door--he had
short-circuited the diode that showed it had been activated, but he knew
the motions of the phase-sensitive iris inside could still be seen--then
that death would have had to be immediate.  But she had moved away at
last, striding quickly down the central corridor.

Kira stopped again, craning her neck to look at the ceiling above her.

He rolled a fingertip across the screen's controls, altering the lens
angle.  In the corridor's ceiling, he could see now, was the gap he had
dropped through when he'd sneaked inside the substation.  Still visible
at the corner of the opening was the thin metal plate he'd shoved aside.

"What's keeping you?"  The microphone inside the view panel was
sensitive enough to pick up the voice of Kira's confederate aboard the
cargo shutle.

"Just admiring the quality of the construction around here."  She shook
her head, then continued on her way.

Horen let his tensed muscles relax.  He was certain that she suspected
nothing.  Kira Nerys would proceed with her clever plans-he had expected
no less of her, finding it within himself to admire her ingenuity as he
had listened over the bug that had been placed in the shuttle's pilot
area.  He could almost regret that her mind, and the determination that
pressed it forward, could never serve a righteous cause.

He had his own plans, as well.  Soon enough, they would intersect with
hers, and she would be shown the errors of her soul.  If, in that last
moment, her eyes were to widen in sudden understanding .

. . then death might encompass some small measure of salvation for her.

It wasn't likely.  He knew too well the depth of corruption in the
nonbelievers.  He switched off the screen and turned away, hurrying to
make ready.

He listened to the report.  And was not pleased.

"I regret the death of the Redemptorist Deyreth Elt."  Odo stood before
him in Ops, hands clasped behind his back.  "If only for the information
that further questioning of him might have provided.  As it is, my
analysis of his statements awaits confirmation."

Commander Sisko rested his chin upon a fist.  He'd almost expected
another voice to chime in from the seat beside his own, Major Kira
expressing her view of the situation.  If she sometimes had spoken too
hastily, at least one had never had to wait long to know what she
thought.

Without her there, the silence seemed to stretch on toward infinity.

Unfortunately, the matter being discussed was Kira's life, along with
that of Doctor Bashir.  The problem of the cargo shuttle having been
detected at a standstill in the wormhole had been compounded by what his
chief of security had just told him.

"You're sure of this?"  He knew the answer in advance--Odo was not given
to low-probability speculations--but he wanted to give himself more time
to think.  "There's no other interpretation of what he meant?"

"I don't see one, Commander.  If we had no corroborating evidence, I
might have ascribed his words to just lunatic raving--this Deyreth Elt
was seriously disturbed, in my estimation.  Whether he was so before, or
whether his growing political and religious fanaticism had further
impaired his reason .  . . it'd be hard to determine now, of course.  I
haven't had time to thoroughly question the other Redemptorists, but a
couple of them have indicated that Horen Rygis was aboard the station.

I managed to locate what might have been one of his hiding places; the
ventilation was naturally poor there, so the air sample I took might
give us some sweat traces that we can DNA-type and match with Horen's
records from the Bajoran security forces...."

"We don't have time for all that, Constable."

"Exactly."  Odo gave a quick, acknowledging nod.  "That is why I feel
it's best if we operate on the assumption that Horen Rygis has stowed
away some where aboard the substation.  I'm confident that that is the
meaning of what Deyreth Elt said before he died.

We've tightened up security considerably on all vessels docking at or
leaving DS Nine, so it's virtually impossible Horen could have gotten
off the station by those means.  The cargo shuttle is simply too small
for him to have concealed himself there for very long.

That really leaves only the substation as a possibility."

"I'm afraid you're right."  Sisko turned toward Chief Engineer O'Brien.

"How much access did this group of Redemptorists have to the
substation?"

O'Brien slowly shook his head.  "I'm sorry, sir, but they pretty much
had total access to it.  They were our best team of
microassemblers--there was no way we would've been able to get it ready
in time without them."  His expression darkened, as though brooding over
a personal affront.  "The big question now is what else they might have
done to it while they had the chance."

"The explosives built into the structure naturally concern me--"

"Those would be the least of our worries, Commander.  Those are all
inert as old bricks; the fuse codes are set into them right at the
molecular level.  Doctor Bashir's the only person who could set them
off."

O'Brien scowled as his thoughts moved through their oourses.

"No, I'm more worried about what other little tricks these jokers might
have wired in.  And not just on the substation--the monitoring signal we
got before we lost contact made it pretty clear that the impulse buffers
on the shuttle had been tampered with, as well."

"Very well."  Sisko looked behind him to the Ops crew.  "Have a runabout
prepared for immediate departure."  He turned back to the chief security
and engineering officers.  "If we can't communicate with them from here,
we'll just have to go out there to get them.

O'Brien, I want you to come along with me; maybe there'll be something
you can do to repair those impulse buffers so we can get the substation
on its way again.  I'm not ready yet to scrub this mission."

"I'll need some time to load up some equipment--"

"Do it."  Sisko pushed himself up from the seat.  "Constable, I want you
to sweat whatever else you can out of those other Redemptorists.

The more we know about what we're up against, the better."  He strode
toward the doorway.  "Let's go, gentlemen."

"You ready for this?"

She heard Bashir's voice over the commander's speaker.  Kira pulled
tighter the fastenings of the seat's harness.  "More than ready," she
called.  Her voice echoed in the silence contained within the
substation.

As she pressed her head back against the padding, she could imagine
Bashir in the shuttle's pilot area, making the final adjustments on the
controls.  The two had double-checked their calculations together,
crunching the velocity and angle figures on the computer.  The numbers
had to be perfect: they were going to get only one shot at this.

"All right."  Bashiis voice held an edge of tension.  "Now, O'Brien
warned me that the impact would be pretty sharp--"

"I bet."  She made a stab at lightening the mood.  "Are you one of those
doctors who always warns people about how much something's going to
hurt?"

A laugh came over the speaker.  "No, I usually try to sneak up on
people.  Okay, here we go.  Locking arms disengaged; separation sequence
initiated.  Brace yourself--" She had felt a mechanical shiver run
through the substation's frame as the massive C-shaped arms had spread
open and the atmospheric seals had snapped into place.  That would have
been warning enough; a second later, the sudden acceleration from the
ring of explosives slammed her back into the seat.  The impact knocked
the air from her lungs; for a moment, the substation's lights dimmed
into spots of darkness swirling before her eyes.  She fought to keep
them from coalescing, pushing her into unconsciousness.

The pressure eased, and she was able to draw in enough breath to speak.

"Bashir--how're we doing?"

After a few more seconds, the doctor answered.  "Looks good.  The
tracking instruments and my own visual check indicate that you're right
on target.  You're not breaking any speed records, but you don't have
that far to go.  Shouldn't be much longer before you're out of the
wormhole and into the Gamma Quadrant."

Kira relaxed in the seat, feeling a subconsciously held tension drain
out of her spine.  The plan she had devised seemed to be working.  The
cargo shuttle's maneuvering and docking jets didn't require any energy
from the impulse engines, so they could be safely used even with the
buffers out of commission.  Once the correct attitude had been
determined, it was only a matter of "aiming" the shuttle like an old
fashioned gunpowder weapon, with the substation as its cannonball.  The
force of the bomblets built into the coupling's disengage mechanism was
enough to send the cargo shuttle and the substation in opposite
directions, the shuttle farther back into the wormhole, the substation
forward to its exit point.  The wormhole was its own linear pocket
universe, so the relative motions couldn't go too far astray; the trick
had been to make sure that the substation continued down the center of
the wormhole without getting mired in the gravitational field around the
edges and losing its precious momentum.

She unstrapped the harness, and let it retract into the sides of the
seat.  Another stricture seemed to have been loosened from her.

For the first time in a great while, she felt that things were working
out as they should.  As she wanted them to.  Even with these delays, the
substation would reach the wormhole's exit sector well before Gul
Tahgla's retrofitted vessel could return to it; the Federation's claim
would be established, and Bajor's future protected.  The other details,
the source of the sabotage .  . . that could all be cleaned up when she
eventually made her way back to DS9.

"Julian--" It was the first time she had addressed him by his first
name.  "Will you be all right?"

"You needn't worry about me .  . ."  His voice faded for a moment, then
came back as the transmitter compensated for the increasing distance.

"All the sensors are up and running, and I've got giwuads of data to
start rummaging through."  She could imagine him smiling.

"You were quite right when you suspected that I wanted to spend more
time in here.  Though I don't know how much longer it'll be-the station
probably sent out a runabout as soon as our communications broke down."

"Enjoy yourself while you can, then."

"Maybe when we're all back at the station, we can have a celebratory
drink together at Quark's--"

"Don't push it."  She reached out and switched o the comm link.

It had been worth a shot.  He told himself that, as he told himself
after any rejection.  Or striking out, as one of Commander Sisko's
ancient ballplayers might have termed it.  The fact that the substation,
with Kira aboard, was on its way to its destination reaffirmed that
persistence had its eventual rewards.  He'd have to try to remember
that.

Bashir stood up and stretched, working out the kink that had settled
between his shoulder blades.  The sensors and their rapidly accumulating
data would have to wait; after this much work, he felt more like a nap,
after a perusal of whatever had been coded into the shuttle's food
replicator.

There wasn't time for that.  No sooner had Bashir checked the tracking
monitor--it showed the substation just approaching the wormhole's
exit--than he was thrown from his feet by a sudden surge of power.  He
landed on his hands and knees, feeling the vibration coming up through
the pilot area's floor.

Below him, in the bowels of the cargo shuttle, the impulse engines had
come to life.

"What the--" He grabbed a corner of the control panel to lift himself
up; he barely managed to hold onto it as the-cargo shuttle was shaken by
an even stronger force, caught by a shock wave that dwarfed the
bomblets' explosion.  The instrument readouts of the exterior sensors
peaked, then were overloaded by the fury of electromagnetic radiation
pouring into them.  A blinding red light sliced through the visual
ports.

It's them--Bashir's thoughts slammed against the confines of his skull.

Out there.  . . they felt the engines-Impossible to stand; he crawled,
fingers clawing at the seams of metal, as the keening of the shuttle's
alarms mounted.  He reached desperately for the access panel that would
take him down to the lower compartments, as the blow of an invisible
hammer twisted a darkening cage around him.

"Julian!"

She had cried out his name, as she had seen the fabric of stars tear
open.  At the mouth of the worm hole, the open space of the Gamma
Quadrant just beyond, as though her goal could be gathered by reaching
out her arm .  . .

The shock wave hit, a shuddering convulsion, the wormhole itself turned
into a living thing.  The substation had tumbled crazily, sending Kira
shoulder-first into the corner of a bulkhead and the ceiling, then
sliding across the command centers operations panel.

She clung to it with one hand, bringing her other fist down upon the
comm buttons.

"Julian .  . . what happened .  . ."  No reply came over the speaker.

As the tremors died, she scanned through the transmitter's frequencies;
all of them were dead.

One by one, the lights came back up on the panel, as the computer ran
its autodiagnostics and reestablished its core functions.  Kira felt
blood trickling down from her temple, but ignored it as she called up a
visual scan.

Behind the substation, the vast, churning image of the wormhole blotted
out uncountable worlds.  She had seen it before, from its terminus close
to DS9: a thing of radiance and terrible beauty, a pouring forth of
wonders, a thunder that was not sound but the trembling fibers of one's
being, atoms become suns....

Now, the wormhole screamed.

She sensed rather than heard it, as though the spine inside her shivered
at the same mute pitch.  A living thing--its pain struck her once more.

No light--the wormhole drew darkness into itself, a writhing contraction
of space itself.

Kira leaned over the viewscreen; a drop of blood spattered between her
hand and the glass.

He's in there.  The thoughts inside her head had contracted to one
alone.  Inside .  . . somewhere .  . .

They both saw it.  And then saw nothing That was what dismayed Commander
Sisko and Chief Engineer O'Brien.

For a moment, as they had come within the final approach to the
wormhole, they had been enveloped in light.  Different than ever before:
a light that blinded in its fury, a rage that shouted the length of
their optic nerves, that, even as they raised their arms to shield
themselves, sank into the night of dead worlds.

"It's gone."  O'Brien looked down at the instruments readouts.

"The wormhole--it's collapsed."  He turned toward the commander.

"It's gone--" Sisko gazed at the silent, mocking stars.  A hollow space
had opened beneath his breastbone.

"God help them."  He shook his head slowly.  "We can't."

He tore at the circuits, the deep throb of the engines rubbing his bones
against each other, as though they might grind to pieces and fly apart.
Wires thin as human hair tangled between his fingers, the sharp edges of
the microcomponents bit into his palms; the compartment bucked around
him again and he fell, squeezing his hands into fists, the guts of the
controls stretching taut, then snapping.  The ends stung across his face
like quick hornets.

With a groan, the impulse engines halted.  Bashir lay panting against
the bulkhead.  He opened his eyes when he realized that his own ragged
breath was the only sound he heard.

Outside the cargo shuttle, the wormhole had stilled itself.

Silence.

And then she heard something.

In the empty spaces of the substation, the branching corridors, the
sealed rooms, where nothing moved.

Nothing but her pulse, stepping from one beat to the next.  Kira turned
away from the control panel, and listened.

A voice .  . .

She had heard it before, long ago.  In another world, her life before
this moment, this place light-years away from anyone else.

It spoke her name.

"Kira .  . ."

Then she knew.

She wasn't alone.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 8

IT DIDN'T matter if she were dreaming or not.  All that mattered was the
firepower in her hands.

More than Kira had ever known before--if she closed her eyes, the
weapon's weight drew her to the center of Bajor, as though her world's
heart had been -given to her to bear.  The metal sweated in her palms, a
living thing with its own desires.  Her desires--the killing machine she
held had read the fire in her soul, the part of her that had consumed
the rest, that wanted revenge and the bestowing of pain equal to her
own.  Now, the fire was locked inside the weapon, ready to be released
with the slightest motion of her finger.

"Sure you can handle that thing?"  The assault team's oldest member, a
grizzled veteran of anti Cardassian campaigns, watched her.  He sat with
his back to the wall of the drainage ditch, his face and arms smeared so
that he looked as though he were made of the same mud and wet stone.

Kira knew that the man had been going on raids against occupation
facilities while she had been a hollow-ribbed child in the refugee
camps--but it hadn't been that long ago.  "We could maybe equip you with
something a little more .  . . suited to you."  He turned his head,
drawing in the scent of the predawn air and whatever it could tell him.

"I can handle it."  She knew she was being tested.  There was no room in
the assault team for weaklings.  She had already packed the shoulder
cannon and a brace of its shells enough kilometers to leave her legs
trembling from exhaustion.  A patch of skin on the small of her back had
been worn raw by the weapon's metal stock.  It was antique military
tech, heavy and loud, and coated in the same dirty grease as every thing
else the Bajoran resistance carried; worse, it was completely outclassed
by the Cardassian guards' armaments.  Well-aimed, though, it could do an
impressive--and soul-satisfying--amount of dam age.  The one time she'd
fired it-the resistance didn't have enough shells to waste any on target
practice-- the power transfer link for one of the largest strip mining
complexes on the planet had been reduced to glowing scrap.

"I've done it this far."  Kira shifted the cannon's bulk, making sure
that its delicate electronic sights were shielded from the drizzling
mist.

"Here they come."  The team's scout ducked his head back below the
wall's top ridge.  "Six of 'em."

Kira saw the older man, the team's de facto leader, stiffen.  "We were
told five," he said.

"You go up and count them, then."  The scout handed over his binoculars.

The sniper fire from the

Cardassians' perimeter pickets had taken out the team's fourth member,
and had made them all jumpy.

She watched as the leader, standing with his head hunched low, adjusted
the binocs' tracking range.  A faint green light shaded the rims of his
eye sockets.  After a few seconds, he dropped back down and crouched
between Kira and the scout.

"All right--the five I recognize.  I've been on operations with all of
them before.  The sixth one I don't know, but he appears to be unarmed."

"Bajoran?"  Kira looked up to the ridge.  "A prisoner, maybe?"  The
Cardassians had a wide range of techniques for pressuring the
weak-willed into becoming collaborators.  Some didn't need to be
convinced.

The leader shook his head.  "I don't think so.  We'll just have to wait
and see."

When the larger group came within a few meters distance, the scout
signaled to them with a flashlight shuttered to a single radiant point.

A minute later, they had all scrambled into the ditch.

"Who's this?"  Kira's leader nodded toward the sixth man.

"Political officer."  The point man for the larger group propped his
rifle against the stones.  "Sent out from headquarters."

"That's all we need."  He looked in disgust at the black-clad figure.

"Perhaps it is."  The political officer spoke in a low voice, a surface
calm darkened by-a brooding judgment.  His unsmiling gaze measured his
critic.  "There have been reports .  . . of dissension among those who
seek to overthrow the oppressor.  A failure of unity in our purpose.

Such things are wounds, brother, by which Bajor itself is bled.  That
dawn is coming when the oppressor's vanities will be trampled in the
dust; we must purge our own hearts and make of them vessels of light, to
be worthy of that which shall be granted to us."

Talk and fine words .  . . Kira crouched with the shoulder cannon,
listening and mocking inside herself the overly dramatic words.

They seemed so pointless to her.  Hearing them made her feel like a
child again, listening in on the elders' endless debates and theological
discussions in the camps' barracks, tired old men splitting infinitely
finer hairs and formulating political agendas that would never come to
pass.  That, as much as her hatred of the Cardassians, had finally
pushed her into picking up the gun and joining the resistance.  It had
been a good thing for her that she'd been starved skinny and breastless;
she had barely been able to crawl beneath the last camp's barbed wire,
the metal thorns tearing the thin fabric of her shirt and leaving a set
of bleeding stripes down her back, stripes that she'd worn as a badge of
honor until they healed and faded.

Words .  . . and at the same time, this man's voice.  The part of her
that mocked fell into silence inside herself.  And listened.  The way
that his companions listened, a leaning forward, as though every sense
must gather in what he said.

Her team's leader was the only one who didn't partake of this communion.
His gaze flicked across the other men and then, eyes narrowing, came
back to the political officer.  "You can save your little inquisition
for later.  Right now, the rest of us have work to do.  If you're not
toting weight, the best you can do is stay out of our way."

"As you wish."  The political officer, broader across the chest and a
head taller than the team's leader, nodded once.

"Let the righteousness of your faith be the shield that protects you in
your endeavors."

The team's leader grumbled something under his a breath as he turned
away.  "All right, let's move out."

Kira lifted the shoulder cannon....

And then, for a moment that stretched to the night's horizon, her hands
were empty.  She squeezed her eyes shut in confusion, wondering if she
were dreaming now or at the edge of waking.  She didn't seem to be
standing in a muddy ditch with the familiar stars of Bajor overhead; she
crouched in a narrow metal chamber, its low ceiling pressing against her
back.  ,, And she herself was different: not a skinny teenager, hair
beginning to grow out after being shaved for lice in the camp from which
she'd fled; and not in the dirt-colored field gear of the resistance,
but in a uniform with an emblem that she could almost recognize....

The dreaming or the waking, whichever it was, faded away.  She clambered
out of the ditch, the shoulder cannon's harness tugging her back into
the ground, and hurried to catch up with the others.

Then, things didn't go well.

I remember that, she murmured to herself.  She pressed her hands against
the metal walls binding her, as though they were the weight of memories
pressing the breath from her lungs.  I remember .  . .

but you're dead....

The metallurgical installation went up in a fireball that resembled a
new sun, straining against the hot leash rooted in the blackened towers.

It had serviced the largest of the Cardassian construction yards based
on Bajor--the alloys and massive framing girders going from its forges
into the starships and heavy cargo freighters hauling away the rest of
the planet's wealth.  The plant's tailings and chemical wastes seeped
into the ground water, and into the lungs of the Bajorans unlucky enough
to work there, a forced assignment that was little more than a
five-year-long death sentence To see a cancer like that erased from
Bajoran soil .  . . Kira had felt the flames leap up in her heart as
well, as she had taken her eye away from the cannon's sight.  Two of the
shells she had gotten off, as she had knelt beneath her comrades'
covering fire, had torn open the plant's central power source, the
overload surge igniting the rest of the facility.

That part had gone all right--the dead had the comfort of knowing they
had succeeded in their task.

It had been a suicide mission all along; Kira had known that and
accepted it without a second thought.  What surprised her was how
quickly it changed,-from the near-sexual glow of triumph inside herself,
to the sudden adrenaline rush of fear that blocked out all except the
animal desire to survive.

"They're behind us--" She didn't know which one of the assault team had
spoken; she turned her head and saw the dark shapes ranged along the
crest of the hill, and knew that they were a unit of the Cardassian
defense forces that had managed to circle them undetected.  The hot
barrel of the cannon burned her hands as she scrambled to swing it
around.

She didn't make it.

The first impact lifted her off her feet and into a tumbling flight
surrounded by shattered rock.  If it had been a direct hit, she would
have been torn to bleeding pieces as quickly as her comrades at one
side.

More luck: she landed in a bank of soil that crumbled beneath her, her
half-conscious form sliding into a ravine a few meters deep, the water
at its base tangled with exposed tree roots.  The wet dirt covered her
face and torso, shutting off her breath.  Her hands pawed feebly at her
mouth and nose, but were too weak to clear them.

Just before she passed out from lack of oxygen, she felt another's hand
grasp her by the arm.  The figure-- she saw only a silhouette outlined
by stars--pulled, drawing her up onto her feet, legs trembling beneath
her.

"Kira--" The political officer kept her from collapsing with an arm
clasped around her shoulders.  She didn't wonder then how he knew her
name; later, she realized it had been part of his duties.

"Can you walk?"

She nodded, coughing to clear the mud from her throat.  His voice, even
though no more than a whisper, seemed to impart its strength, evoking
her own.  The sound of heavy military machinery drew her gaze.

Adrenaline sped her pulse as she spotted the Cardassian defense forces
prowling the ridge above.

The political officer drew her back into the shadows.  "They're sweeping
the area."  He turned his face toward hers.  "We'll have a better chance
if we split up.  At least one of us should make it, then."  He pointed
along the ravine's course.  "Head north.  There's a resistance
encampment in the Tohrmah hills."

Crouching low to avoid being seen, Kira moved off.  Behind her, she
heard only a few softly spoken words, telling her to remember that her
faith was a shield.  When she was several meters away, she glanced back
and saw the man's silhouette as he watched for his chance; then he broke
out of the ditch's shelter.  In a second, he had vanished into the
darkness.  She turned and continued on her own silent way, expecting
fire to roll over her back at any moment.

She never saw him again.  But she knew of him, and realized who the
political officer had been--the name linked to the powerful voice-when,
only a few years later, she first heard the broadcasts of the man who
had become the leader of the Redemptorist wing of the resistance.

That voice had spoken her name OnGe, in a crevice soaked with rain and
blood.  And then later, when both she and the man had become different
from what they once had been And yet the same.  The voice spoke her name
differently then, in a thunder of wrath and vengeance.

And then a whisper again, close to her as her own heartbeat.

ira .  . .

A whisper that promised death.

Her eyes snapped open, and she knew where she was.

Not dreaming, or lost in memory.  Her hands pressed against the tight
confines of the space where she had managed to hide herself, deep inside
the substation's maze of corridors and rooms.  Beyond, she knew, were
the empty reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, its ranks of stars cold needles
of light.

And inside the substation, with her.  . . he was there.  The voice that
had spoken her name.  She turned her head, listening through the
enclosing silence for a footstep, or a breath that wasn't her own.

Nothing--but she could still feel his presence.

She had run from the substation's command center, losing herself in the
branching network of doorways and compartments.  All she had known was
that she had to find somewhere safe, if only for a little while, just
!long enough to think.  To plan, to find a way of surviving.

Exhaustion had felled her, more quickly than what ever weapon was in the
hand of Horen Rygis.  Curled inside a remote storage locker, its hatch
pulled tight, she had panted for air, feeling herself falling, as if the
metal at her back had parted beneath the weight of the memories she
bore.

They had claimed her.  As though she had never been able to escape them.

Forget, she commanded herself, as she had done so many times before.

She knew it was impossible.  But still .  . .

Kira drew in a deep breath, feeling her muscles tense in readiness.

For now--she willed the dark, unforgiving thoughts back into the chamber
from which they had escaped.  Just until you've done what you must.  To
survive.

She reached out her hand and pushed open the locker's hatch, then leaned
forward and peered into the waiting shadows.

CHAPTER 9

HE LEANED across the desk toward the station's chief officers.  They had
gathered in Ops and then, for security reasons, relocated their meeting
to the private office.  "All right," said Commander Sisko.

"Status report on the substation mission."

"There have been some developments."  Jadzia Dax, DS9's chief science
officer, had taken on some of the duties that would ordinarily have been
performed by Major Kira.  "We've picked up a monitoring signal that
indicates the substation actually managed to exit the wormhole.

It's relatively close to the position in the Gamma Quadrant that had
been its original destination."

"Any communications?"

Dax shook her head.  "Negative.  Our own diagnostic signals show
evidence that the transmitting and receiving equipment aboard the
substation was either damaged during the convulsive event inside the
wormhole, or had been tampered with before leaving the station--possibly
with some sort of delay trigger, to keep the sabotage from being
detected until it was too late for us to do anything about it."

"What about the cargo shuttle?  Any sign of it?"

"That will be a much more difficult question to answer, Commander.

As far as I've been able to determine, the stable wormhole has
transmuted from a bipolar to a unipolar state, anchored in the Gamma
Quadrant.  This is an entirely different cosmological anomaly.

In a very real way, for us, the wormhole no longer exists.  At least,
not as we had begun to under stand it.  If the cargo shuttle is still
inside what might be termed a cul-de-sac or pocket universe, we
presently have no way of determining its status.  I'm sorry."

Sisko swiveled toward his chief engineer.  "What do you think?  Is there
anybody still aboard the cargo shuttle?"

"There would have to be, Commander."  O'Brien's expression was grim.

"The only way they could've gotten the substation out of the wormhole
was to fire off the disengagement bomblets--use that force like the
propulsive element in a cannon shell.  I was wondering if they'd figure
that out.  Evidently they did; but, for it to work, one of them would
have to stay aboard the shuttle, to initiate the trigger sequence.  My
guess would be that it was Doctor Bashir."

"Undoubtedly."  Sisko nodded.  "It's Kira's mission --she'd want to see
it all the way through.  And there would've been no way for her to know
what was about to happen with the wormhole."

Dax spoke more softly.  "It's still possible that Bashir is alive.

Before our end of the wormhole collapsed, sensors seemed to indicate
that the shut the's impulse engines had been activated--without the
buffers being on line.  It's a reasonable assumption that that was the
cause of the convulsion; essentially, a defensive reaction on the part
of the wormhole's inhabitants to a potentially lethal shock.  If Bashir
was able to shut down the engines, soon after we lost contact, then the
shuttle might not have been destroyed.  At this point, we just don't
know."

"Yes .  . ."  For a moment, Sisko's gaze drifted from the faces arrayed
before him.  Inside himself, he saw images shift and merge together, a
kaleidoscope of memory.  He knew more about the wormhole's inhabitants
than any other sentient creature, and they remained enigmatic to him.

They had spoken to him r through the masks of his own history; the dead
had spoken to him.  Even his wife, the emptiness he carried beneath his
breastbone, an emptiness with a name that he murmured aloud in sleepless
dark hours.  What had the wormhole's inhabitants learned of the human
mind and soul by studying him?  That there was violence and grieving in
the outside universe.  Better if a saint la dfound his way in there--the
words he'd told himself before mocked him again.  Perhaps a saint would
have been wise enough not to make promises that would wind up being
broken.  And now, Bashir - might be the one who would have to pay for
that.

"It is possible that he shut down the impulse engines in time--" Dax's
voice tugged at his awareness, bringing him back to those around him.

"There are indications that the wormhole, in its altered state, still
exists in the Gamma Quadrant; our monitor beacons in that sector are
still picking up several band segments of the wormhole's signature
energy emissions.  The cargo shuttle could be simply drifting inside the
wormhole, with Bashir aboard."

"He's still alive."  Sisko saw no value in analyzing the situation in
anything except the harshest possible light.  He turned to the security
officer.  "What have you been able to get out of the other
Redemptorists?"

"Not much."  Odo shook his head.  "We have enough evidence to hold them
indefinitely, on suspicion of complicity in the sabotage of the
substation mission and the murder of their fellow group member.  And the
smuggling aboard of a known terrorist leader wanted by the Bajoran
security forces.  If you were to order it as my top priority, I could
almost certainly assemble airtight cases against them.  But as far as
getting information out of them, at least in time to do us any good..."

He shrugged.  "They're a closemouthed bunch.  Fanatics.  Their ideology
is more religious than political in nature, and they're certainly
willing to die for as well as kill for it."  A certain self-satisfaction
could almost be seen in the security chief's face.

"As I've indicated before, it was an error to ever have allowed such
types aboard the station in the first place."

"We'll deal with those regrets later.  Have you managed to confirm that
Horen Rygis is aboard the substation?"

Odo gave a curt nod.  "That is something on which the Redemptorists are
not keeping silent.  They're rather boastful about it, actually."

"You'll have to keep the pressure on them.  Any useful information we
can get--"

"May I remind you, Commander, that my interrogation of these men is not
unhindered by other considerations?  Word has gone through the whole
station that I've taken them into custody; the news is bound to reach
Bajor soon, if it hasn't already.  You're aware of how volatile the
provisional government is right now; when the legitimate political wing
of the Redemptorists hears about these men being held, it's going to
demand either a complete explanation or their immediate release--"
"Those are not concerns of yours, Constable."  Sisko's voice grew stern.
"I'll deal with the political situation on Bajor.  Your is security, and
right now the security of this station and its personnel depends upon
the outcome of the substation mission.

That's why we need you to get those Redemptorists to open up."

Odo betrayed no sign of emotion.  "As you wish, Commander."

One of Sisko's hands rubbed at the ache that pulsed behind his forehead.
"All right, then Keep pushing for establishing communication with Major
Kira.  By this point, I don't think we need to warn her about
Horen--she's almost certain to be aware of his presence.  But we still
might be able to assist her some how."  He pushed his chair back and
stood up.  "I'll be in contact with all of you, so I can be given
updates on any developments."

Dax regarded him with a raised eyebrow.  "Where are you going,
Commander?"

"To Bajor."  Sisko stepped behind her and the other officers as they
headed for the door.  "There's someone else I need to talk to."

"Now," he said, "we are going to have a little conversation."  His words
bounced off the barren metal walls.  The other cells along the corridor
outside were empty.  "You have much to tell me, and I'm sure that I'll
find all of it of interest."

On the other side of the table, the four Bajoran microassemblers-once
there had been six of them aboard the station--shifted uneasily.  Odo
had entered the cell without using a key, flowing between the close-set
bars and then reassembling his humanoid form on the other side.  He
assumed that the Redemptorists had been aware of the shape shifting
abilities of DS9's security chief, but he had found in the past that a
demonstration often worked to unnerve suspects and make them more
receptive to his pressure techniques.

Once someone began to doubt the true nature of the physical objects
around him, and began wondering whether the chair on which he sat might
not be listening to every word he said, then disorientation and
helplessness could seep in.

Sometimes, in moments of quiet reflection, savoring an accomplished
investigation--his greatest pleasure--he found himself admiring his self
sufficiency.  In other places, other times, the police had had to
conduct interrogations in pairs, "good cop" and "bad cop."  If he worked
it right, he could be both.

"We have nothing to say to you."  One of the Redemptorists kept his arms
folded across his chest.  "Leave us in peace."

So this is their new spokesman, thought Odo.  He had observed the
others' glances from the corners of their eyes, waiting for the one in
the middle to answer.  A definite intellectual cut below the late
Deyreth Elt, who at least had had a measure of intensity, a second or
third-generation copy of the Redemptorist movement's leader.

The survivors of the group that had come aboard the station all had a
sullen obstinacy about them, as though most of their brainpower had been
devoted to their intricate craft, with the iron dictates of their faith
filling in their inadequate personalities.  Such types, he knew from
experience, were often more difficult to crack than a superior mind--
they could always lapse into a defensive silence, whereas a genius
wouldn't be able to resist proving how much cleverer he was than a mere
security chief.  As long as they kept talking, Odo would eventually find
out what he needed to know.

"I thought we might talk about Horen Rygis."  For one of his physiology,
all sitting positions were equally comfortable; now, he assumed one that
clearly signaled a relaxed, even casual attitude.

"Surely that's a subject that you don't tire of."

A smug expression rose on the spokesman's face.  "Didn't you hear enough
of him before?  We told you where he is."

"Yes, of course.  I was just wondering what he might be doing out there,
so far away from his devoted little flock."

"He .  . ."  The smugness changed to caution.  "He performs the
obligations laid upon him by our faith."

A canned phrase; Odo nodded slowly.  "I see.  You mean murder."

All the Redemptorists glared at him sullenly.  "Such acts," said the
spokesman, "are not murder.  They're justice."

"Ah.  Like what happened to your compatriot Arten."

Silence.

"The problem," said Odo, "is that you're going to be tried as
accessories to that 'justice."  Others might not take such a .  . .

complex view of these things.  They might simply regard murder as
murder."

"So?"  The spokesman shrugged.  "A glorious martyrdom is welcomed by the
faithful."

"Yes, it usually is.  Which is a good thing for you, since Horen
certainly set you up for it."  He let the remark sink in for a moment
before continuing.  'That is, of course, if it actually was Horen .

.

."

The spokesman stiffened in his chair, as the others glanced nervously
toward him.  "What do you mean?"

Odo knew that the simplest deception would never have worked on the
Redemptorists.  These were men who had spent years in close contact with
each other, and with Horen Rygis; small conspiratorial units, the smells
of their own blood and sweat locked into their subconscious memories.
There were a thousand little clues that even he, with his shape shifting
abilities, could never have gotten right.  If he had disguised himself,
taken on Horen's face and body structure, and come walking into the
cell, ordering his followers to confess all to their captors--they would
have seen right through him.  Their contempt would have been justified.

But to do it in front of them, the way he had come through the bars .

.

. to plant the tiniest of seeds in their minds .  . . that would burrow
deeper and deeper, and do its slow damage to the sureness of their
beliefs....

The body was easy enough; Odo had studied the photographs and the few
available tapes of the

Redemptorists' leader, and had memorized Horen's distinctive
broad-shouldered form.  He could even manage a reasonable approximation
of Horen's face, one that could pass muster for a few seconds, as long
as the light silhouetted him from behind, shining into the
Redemptorists' eyes.

The voice had taken more effort: he'd had to experiment in private,
sculpting inside himself the thickness of the larynx's cords, the
dimensions of the thoracic cavity, and the smaller, more intricate
chambers of the sinuses, all that gave the voice on the recording chips
its resonance.  Even when he'd judged his mimicry a success, he knew
that there was still some irreducible element, a power not in the
material form, that he wouldn't be able to reproduce.

But he was still close enough.

Across the table from the team of Bajoran microassemblers, the form and
image of Horen Rygis leaned toward their startled gazes.  The face of
Horen Rygis smiled thinly, then his voice spoke.

"Your faith should be a shield.  To guard you during the great task of
cutting this pollution away from the soul of your world."

They were all shocked into a dismayed silence.  They stared at him as he
resumed his usual appearance.  He remembered the old entertainers' maxim
that it was best to hit one's audience and then get offstage before they
could pick the act apart.

Odo now tried to make himself sound as kind as possible.  "The problem
is, gentlemen, that you don?t know how much I know .  . .

how much of what you may have said before wasn't spoken to your grand
and glorious leader .  . . but to m "

He pushed the chair back and stood up.  It didn't matter how messy the
logic of what he'd told them might be; in some ways, it was better like
that.  It gave their brains more to be puzzled about, to endlessly twist
and turn in their thoughts.  Just as long as the elements of doubt and
suspicion were there.

"I'll leave you now."  He stood with his back against the bars; a moment
later, he was on the other side of them.  The Redemptorists flinched.
"I'm sure you have a lot to discuss with each other."  He turned and
walked down the corridor between the cells, feeling satisfied with his
work.

It would have been comforting to have someone to talk to.  Humans were
by nature social creatures, and he perhaps more than most.

Julian Bashir wouldn't have become a doctor, otherwise.

He let such musings roll around the back part of his head as he
continued working on the circuitry of the cargo shuttle's engines.

His forebrain was preoccupied with repairing the damage he'd caused in
his desperate haste to shut down the unbuffered impulse energy pouring
out, before the wormhole's convulsions had thrashed the shuttle to
pieces.

"Damn .  . ."  Another sharp corner of metal had bit his fingertips.

Clearances were tight inside the panels, and he lacked most of the
appropriate tools.  Open heart surgery on an exoskeletoned Thallasinite
with a butter knife would have been easier.  He sucked the blood from
under his nail and leaned forward to peer into the electronic innards.

Besides conversation, it would have been handy to have Kira here--so she
.  could hold the flashlight.

Fortunately, the cargo shuttle's engines had been equipped with a
modular repair kit, updated by DS9's Chief Engineer O'Brien, with most
of the circuitry duplicated on plug-in cards.  The control schematics
could be scrolled through on a small readout screen; with that and a
miniaturized logic probe, Bashir had been able to trace and reconnect
most of the thin-filament wires he'd pulled loose before.

In doing so, he had also located parts that didn't belong there at all.

He had tugged them free and examined them on the palm of his hand.

Some he could recognize, enough to be sure that they were what had
caused the unexpected firing of the engines.  A few override modules, a
short-range remote trigger, some kind of delay device--nothing that
O'Brien would have had any reason to install.

They would have to have been wired in place back on DS9 by someone
else--probably that group of Redemptorist microassemblers--at the same
time the impulse buffers had been tampered with.  But set off from close
by; given the shuttle's close quarters, the only possibility was that it
had been done from aboard the substation while it had still been
attached.  The setting on the in-line delay circuit had given just
enough time for the disengagement sequence to have been completed and
for the substation to have reached the worrnhole's exit before
activating the engines.  The saboteur--Horen Rygis, of course; who else
could it have been?--would not have anticipated that a way would have
been found to get the substation out of the worrnhole; Bashir figured
that the Redemptorists had planned only to collapse the entrance to the
wormhole, to prevent any outside assistance from reaching him and Kira.

Once the triggering device had been set off, the delay circuit would
have been needed for Horen to scramble back to whatever hiding place he
had had in the far reaches of the substation.  It was just a turn of bad
luck that things had worked out even better for Horen, with Kira in the
substation with him, while Bashir remained stuck in the worm hole.

That thought--that there was someone else on the substation besides
Kira, now drifting somewhere out in the Gamma Quadrant, someone with
apparently a wealth of bad intentions--kept him working long after his
eyes burned with the fatigue of squinting into the dimly lit space.

Before he'd found the trigger and delay, he'd only wanted to ensure that
the engines wouldn't come on again unexpectedly; otherwise, he would
have gone on fine-tuning the shuttle's transmission and reception
equipment, trying to establish a communication link with Kira.  To warn
her, if nothing else.

From this close to the wormhole's exit, there was a chance of a signal
reaching the sub station.

He straightened his knotted back and rubbed the sweat away from his
eyes.  As far as he could tell, he'd gotten the controls for one of the
engines back in working order--he wasn't sure if there were enough cards
in the repair kit to get the others back on line.  The shuttle would be
able to proceed on one engine, although at a reduced velocity.

He'd have to run the autodiagnostics first, then go back in and patch up
anything he hadn't gotten close enough to spec.  It was a simple matter
of closing the hatch and pushing a few buttons....

"Well done, Doctor," he said aloud.  His voice boomed hollow in the
space.  An old med school joke surfaced unbidden in his mind: The
operation was a success.  Too bad the patient died He realized he didn't
have the least idea of what he should do next.

If he had managed to get the engine operational--a big if--then what?

There had been some vague notion floating around inside his head, that
he could come charging to her rescue.  But if he fired up the engine,
got as much thrust as he could from it, what would the chances be of
getting the cargo shuttle all the way out of the wormhole in one piece?

Or if he did, would the wormhole then collapse completely out of
existence behind him?  Without the wormhole's shortcut, the Gamma
Quadrant was sixty years' travel from the edge of the Federation's
inhabited worlds, even at maximum warp speeds.  He and Kira would have a
long uninterrupted time to get to know each other.

Another i If she were still alive.

Bashir closed the panel and punched in the code to initiate the
autodiagnostic tests.  Despite the darkness of his thoughts, he was
pleasantly surprised when the small readout indicated that the impulse
engine was functional within 70 percent of its rated load capacity.

Eyes shut, he leaned his forehead against the panel.  The temptation to
get the shuttle moving was strengthened by the dread of staying frozen
in this spot, inert, cut off from all the rest of the universe .  . .

"I should just do it," he said aloud.  "Just go--" Is that what you wish
to do?

He heard her voice behind him.

Slowly, he looked over his shoulder.  He saw Kira watching him from the
shadows at the far end of the engine chamber.

But not Kira.  He saw that her eyes were empty, holding nothing but
black space and scattered stars.

CHAPTER 10

WHEN SURROUNDED BY METAL, bound by the energy fields that keep an
artificial world intact, a constant vibration settles into the fibers of
one's being, so small as to signal only the rubbing of one molecule
against another.  He had forgotten about that--it became buried in the
subconscious for all aboard a Star fleet vessel or a station such as
DS9, and was remembered only when one stepped onto the surface of a
planet.

The reverberations of DS9, from the metal-on metal clashes that shook
the drydock bay, to the motion of subatomic particles inside the
computers' circuitry, was the sound of a machine, essentially a dead
thing.  The silence of Bajor was of something Iiving.

Sisko stood in the central garden of the Kai's temple.  The high,
enfolded walls shut out the distant street noises of the Bajoran
capital.  Here, the only sound was the ripple of water, the touch of a
sheltered breeze on the courtyard's small, shallow pool.

"Your thoughts are much disturbed, Benjamin."

He turned and saw her.  Kai Opaka's attendants withdrew discreetly back
into the temple's cloistered halls, leaving them alone.  The Kai's calm,
meditative appearance.  Sisko knew, was like the surface of the pool
they stood beside; hidden beneath, as had been revealed to him more than
once, were quiet depths, chambers of secrets and truths.

One of his eyebrows raised.  "Are they really so obvious to you?"

Kai Opaka smiled.  "They would be obvious to anyone.  Particularly"-the
smile widened a bit--"if one stayed informed about developments here on
Bajor, and- on your station."

"I see."  He wished, not for the first time, that there were time.

Not the stuff of hours and minutes racing by, the continuing round of
crises writhing like a basketful of snakes, missions and lives hanging
in the balance of his decisions--but the endless dimension contained
within the temple's walls.  If he had that sort of time, he could spend
it in the presence of the Eai, if only to absorb the slightest measure
of her wisdom....

But he didn't.  "I regret," he said, "that I can be here for but a brief
moment.  To consult with you."

She sat down, her robes settling over the tiled edge of the pool.

Her plump hands folded across each other.  "I understand, Benjamin.

More than you think.  You mistake the nature of my contemplations here
if you believe I have no awareness of the outside world's urgencies."

Sisko sat beside her.  "Perhaps it's not what I ''r believe.  But what
I'd like to believe."  At the back of his thoughts, the digits of a
clock's readout sped faster and faster.

"You must beware the temptations of mysticism.  Though you are not as
other men--the things that you have seen, that no one else has, changed
and are still changing you--yet you are inextricably linked to the
physical universe.  There are others besides your son who depend upon
you."  She touched his hand.  "I depend upon you, Benjamin.  I am not
such a foolish old woman as not to be grateful for the protection you .

represent for our order."

r' Changed .  . . he knew what she referred to.  A body , of secret
knowledge shared between them.  Some things that he knew, and others
that were the Kai's alone.  The infinitely slow revelation of the
wormhole's mysteries .  . .

The clock's numbers raced into a blur.

He shook his head.  "We'll have to talk of these matters on another
occasion.  Right now, I've got the lives of two of my officers to worry
about."

"Of course, Benjamin.  Your esteemed doctor and our Major Kira.  My
thoughts dwell upon them also."

Someday, he would have to find out whether Kai Opaka received her
surprising amount of information about the station's affairs from leaks
among the DS9 staff, or through some arcane ability of her own.  "What
do you know of them?"

Kai Opaka didn't waste time telling him things he already knew.

"The doctor .  . . his fate is unknown to me.  Or perhaps unknowable
would be the better word.  I cannot see.  The inhabitants of what you
call the wormhole have suffered a grievous injury; how they will connect
that trauma to another outsider-- another human being--in their midst,
is a question only they can answer.  Much will depend upon the doctor's
wisdom; what he chooses to do or not do, to extricate himself from his
plight.  And much will depend upon your wisdom, Benjamin."

"How do you mean?"

"Their understanding of the universe beyond their little one, and their
understanding of any entity other than their own, is derived from what
they know of you.  You are the one whose mind and soul they examined so
minutely; you are the one who was judged by them.

Or to put it more accurately, all of us were judged through you.

Thus, you became an intercessor, pleading the universe's case; that
great responsibility was thrust upon one who was unprepared for it."

He nodded slowly.  "I know .  . ."

"What they found in your heart, Benjamin, they have placed in their
store of knowledge."

The Kai's words weighed heavy upon him.  If he could have switched
places with Bashir, he would have.  Let the fire fall upon me.  He had
gone into the wormhole with rage and loss darkening his soul.

They still did; to think of them poisoning a formless world, whose
inhabitants had never known pain because they had never known time
itself .  . . it was almost more than he could bear.

He might as well have spoken aloud; the Kai's hand rested gently upon
his.  "You must remember," she said, "that you bore light in there, as
well.  As much as any that ever emerged from them.  You just haven't
seen it vet."

"Perhaps I will, someday."  Sisko drew in his breath as he straightened
his spine.  "Very well.  What about Kira?"

Kai Opaka looked away from him.  "I do see her."  The Kai spoke in
hushed tones.  "More than I wish.  Kira is surrounded by darkness.

There is one who has sealed her fate inside his fist, as though he could
crush her like an insect--though an insect's life would mean more to
him."

"You speak of Horen Rygis .  . ."

"Yes.  The enmity he bears her, among others, is well known."

"Tell me about him.  Anything might be of use to me."

Her expression grew sadder.  "Benjamin.  You are looking for answers
where there are none.  There is nothing to tell of him.  H)ren no longer
exists.  There is a thing that wears his form and speaks with his voice,
and carries within the flames of hatred that he ignited.

But the rest is ashes.  It has been consumed, burned away by his anger.

Just as your anger, your loss, your pain would have consumed you if you
had let them."

He knew she spoke truth, as always.  "Then tell me what I can do.  To
help Kira"

"You can do nothing."  An iron thread tightened in Kai Opaka's throat.
"You understand that already, and you do not understand it.

You could do nothing before, when you lost someone--someone closer to
you than Kira could ever be--and you can do nothing now.  That is why
some part of you is still at war with both the universe and your own
heart, as though they were one and the same, and equally guilty."

He said nothing, letting her words fall through him like stones into the
pool's still water.

"That remains the hardest thing for you to do, Benjamin.  To do
nothing."

"Of course."  He looked up at her, even managing a thin smile.  "As you
said, I'm linked to the world outside my skin.  I can't yet allow myself
to be as wise as you."

"Ah.  But you didn't come here for wisdom.  You came here hoping that I
had some kind of magic, a wave of my hand that would bring your doctor
and Kira back from their fates."  Kai Opaka shook her head.

"But I don't.  Not the way you think."

"I suppose you're right."  Sisko stood up.  "I should go back to the
station and .  . . do nothing."

"But you won't."  Her smile chided him.  "That is something we both
know."

Without any signal from the Kai, her attendants had appeared to escort
Sisko from the temple.  "Until another time."  The clock inside his
skull had resumed its relentless progress.

"The same time, Benjamin.  It's always the same."

He nodded, then turned and left her presence.

As close to her as her breath, her heartbeat; as if he walked behind
like her shadow, turning when she did, stopping when she paused to
listen to the silence held by the dark spaces.  He watched her, feeling
inside himself a glow of satisfaction, even of pleasure, that came from
the power of observing without being observed in turn.

Horen crouched beside a doorway, studying the display screen he held.

A pair of wires mounted with fusion-weld tips ran into the corner of the
security panel that he had pried open.  His prey showed on the screen as
a simple red- dot, alternately moving or stopping in a scrolling chart
of the substation's maze.  His followers had done well in adapting the
corridors' web of sensors and communication lines for this new purpose.
The expanded visual aspect was something he generated inside himself: on
his mind's screen he could picture Kira's face as she gazed anxiously
around herself, her body coiled with apprehension as she took a step
into a sector where anything could be waiting for her.

He closed his eyes, savoring that vision.  This moment had been so long
in coming, from the first dark seed that had been planted in his soul, a
seed of fire as he had watched the temple torn open by explosion and had
known that his Redemptorist brethren, his children, were things of
charished and shattered bone, their corpses lying before the boots of
traitors.  The dead he had been able to forget--they had all known that
sacrifices would be necessary to achieve the sanctification of
Bajor--but not the face and name of their murderer.

One whom he had saved before from fire and the crushing grip of the
Cardassians--that memory was gall on his tongue.

If he had been as wise then as he had become .  . . if he could have
foreseen the evil that would grow in Kira Nerys's heart, as the desire
for justice had grown inside his .  . . he would have let her die,
breath choked by the soil of the world she would betray.

Better if he had.  But instead, that seed, the image of her laughing and
triumphant, had been nurtured inside him, carefully tended, flourishing
where he had uprooted every soft and tender part of himself.  Thus, he
had transformed her crime into his righteousness; the burning of that
fire, a red flower that would never extinguish itself in his memory, had
made steel of his will, sharper than before.

Every Redemptorist had been touched by that new metal, the movement made
stronger, the weak cut away, blood purged to holiness.

And now, the time had come for the final blossoming of that seed, the
unfolding of intermingled fire and steel.  If the price of taking her
life was his own, he was more than prepared.  All his labor, and the
work of his followers, had gone to bring about this moment.  When there
would be no one but himself and Kira, no one to stand in the way of his
uplifted blade, no one to shield her from the justice that now descended
upon her.  That had been the function of the various devices that the
faithful, the small group of microassemblers aboard the strangers'
station, had so cleverly wired into the circuitry of the cargo shuttle.
First, to cripple the vessel and leave it stranded in the midst of the
wormhole, and then to separate Kira from her partner on the mission. All
that had been done, to greater effect than he could have wished for.

Horen opened his eyes, gathering his strength inside himself.  So much
more was about to be accomplished: not just Kira's death, but the
banishment of the strangers, the lying Federation and all its servants,
from the skies of Bajor.  The only reason that the DS9 station's
commander and the others stayed was to exploit the wealth they thought
could be obtained from defiling the wormhole, the source of Bajor's most
precious mysteries.  And there were certainly enough traitorous factions
in the provisional government, who maintained their ruling coalition by
debasing themselves for the scraps of wealth dealt out by their
off-world masters.  All that would change now, or already had been
changed; he had felt the shock wave that had hit the substation, as the
unbuffered engines aboard the cargo shuttle had inflicted their wound
upon the wormhole's inhabitants.  The triggering device, with its
corresponding delay circuit, that Deyreth Elt had built for him had done
its job.  A regretful necessity--but how else could the Federation's
hold on Bajor be broken?  Perhaps someday, when the faithful prevailed
in righteousness, and Bajor had returned to the purity of isolation,
then the worm hole might open onto its chosen world again, be stowing
the crystalline gift that indicated its sanctity....

He didn't know if he would live to see that day.  It was enough that he
could help usher in its dawn.

The red dot on the display screen moved.  Horen watched it, quickly
calculating that she was heading for the substation's control center,
from which she had fled before.  He smiled to himself.

It would be a pleasure to speak to Kira Nerys once more.  Nearly as
pleasant as what would come after ward.

She stood before him.  "Kira--" He reached out his hand, hesitating, as
though he wanted to, yet was afraid to touch her.

The image regarded him with its gaze filled with the bright points of
stars.  "Who are you?"  Its voice was flat and hollow, with not even a
pretense of human emotion.  "You are not the same.  You are not the one
who is here .  . ."  The voice drifted silent, as though the creature
behind the image were searching for a word, a concept.

"Before," said Doctor Bashir.  He knew he was addressing one--or
more--of the wormhole's inhabitants.  This was how Sisko had reported
their manifestation to him, the incorporeal entities taking on faces and
bodies from the perceivers' memory, like empty clothing dangling in a
forgotten closet.  "That was another human being.  Another man."

"'Was' .  . ."  The stars showed in the Kira image's mouth when it
spoke.  Without substance, the image hung suspended in front of Bashir,
unable to cast a shadow among the others in the shuttle's engine
chamber.  "That is the language of time.  In that you are the same."

"Yes."  He nodded slowly.  More of his self possession, and the
scientist's intent that had brought him here, had returned.  He felt
like a biological field researcher, carefully approaching a member of an
undiscovered species, a rara avis perched on a tree limb, that might
flutter away and be lost if startled by any sudden move.

"The same .  . . but different."

"How can that be?"  The image's voice altered slightly, into an almost
hostile, demanding tone.  "You change in time.  You are not the same in
one time as another.  And yet you are also different at the same time.

Explain."

It would be impossible, he knew.  The wormhole's inhabitants were of a
different order of existence from himself; the pocket universe in which
they dwelt was bound inside the larger one's spatial dimensions, but
transcended it in all considerations of past, present, and future.  A
metaphysician would be required then, to determine if in time, the
universe that held all the galaxies was itself contained within the
wormhole.

There might have been an occasion when Bashir would have been interested
in puzzling these matters out; the doctor in him could already see the
implications of a temporal continuum where the onset, progress,
diagnosis, and cure of a disease were simultaneous; where death itself
was equivalent to birth, both of them gems on the same necklace.

But not now.  Not when Kira's and his own life might still be at stake.

"The one to whom you showed yourself before-- the one named Benjamin
Sisko--he and I are both men, but we're not the same man."  Bashir
struggled to find means of communicating with the entities that shuffled
in and out of the image before him.  "We're both the same kind of
creature, but not the same individual."

The Kira image frowned.  "Your kind speaks in riddles, just as .  .

. before.

You change from point to point in this time; yet you claim to be the
same creature.  How can you know that?"

"Well..."  He started feeling desperate.  "That's the function of
memory.  Part of us is a record of the changes we go through in time."

That sounded right to him; he decided to go with it.  "It could be
maintained that all we are--all that creatures such as myself are--is
the sum of those changes."

"Then you might change, in time, into the one called Sisko."

"I don't think that's very likely."

A pensive expression formed on the image's face.  "We do not change.

We are .

. . eternal.  That is your word."

He saw an opening.  "But the universe outside us--the small one, that my
kind calls the wormhole --that's part of your kind, isn't it?"

"Yes .  . ."  Kira's image nodded.  "Our kind and the wormhole--we are
the same .

. ."  Its eyelids closed for a moment, hiding the empty space of stars
behind.

"The sameJesh.  That is what you would say."

"Maybe 'substance' would be better.  But it doesn't matter."  Bashir
resisted the urge to step closer, to touch the image's hand, to feel
whatever energy it was composed of.  "The wormhole changed, though,
didn't it?  Because of what happened-" The stars changed to blazing
suns, bright in the engine compartment's dim space; he winced at their
sudden fury.

"Yes!"  The image's other voice thundered from it.  "The hurt--the
wounding!  As before, when one of your kind came among us.  That one,
the one named Sisko--he made a promise to us.  He made time a thing to
be bound, to be held in his hands; he said never.  Never would the
wounding happen, never would your kind come amongst us and hurt us--"
The image of Kira seemed to swell with rage, as though absorbing the
physical dimensions of the compartment.  Bashir found himself looking up
into its black gaze.  His hands, in a reflexive panic, clawed for the
rungs at his back.

"Never is a thing of time--so he told us!"  The image's voice mounted.

So you told us!  Your kind!

But it is not so--it is a lie.  There is no such thing as never--you
come here and hurt us again.  And always--" His courage wavered for a
moment, long enough for him to turn without thinking and scramble up the
ladder.  He pulled himself out of the access hatch and collapsed onto
the deck above.

She was already there, waiting.  For a moment, he thought it actually
was Kira, kneeling down beside him.  Until he rolled, exhausted, onto
his shoulder and could see the blackness and the starry points inside
the image's eye sockets.

Its first voice spoke, gentler if only because it betrayed no emotion.

"There is no need to speak in your defense.  We know the nature of your
kind; we have listened to, and gone deep inside, one who is both
different and the same as you.

What decision we make depends not on your words."

The momentary panic had drained away from Bashir, he could faintly see
his line of attack again, the way he had been trying to shape this
strange discussion's course.  "'Decision'..."  He hoisted himself into a
sitting posture against the bulkhead.  "Don't you see?  That word alone
implies an operation in time.  Your kind will decide, and that will make
things different now from what they were."

The Kira image nodded, almost sadly.  "Yes .  . . our kind has already
been changed by this time you have brought us.  We are not as we were.

To exist as your kind does .  . . we do not know yet if this is a good
thing.  We look inside you and see that you are something called a
doctor, as the other one is a commander.  Know then, Doctor Bashir, that
time and change and all the other aspects of your peculiar existence may
be only a disease.  And one for which you possess no cure."

"That may be."  Another thought came to his mind, unbidden.

The image peered more closely at him, as though seeing through the bone
shell of his brow.  'That is true, Doctor.  As you speak inside
yourself: The cure for time is death.  We know that."

"It's not a cure that my kind accepts."

"Pity."  The Kira image regarded him with no change in expression.

"See how much more suffering and pain you cause by not doing so."

Anger, born of the entity's incomprehension and his own failure, flared
inside Bashir.  "There is another one of my kind, whose semblance you
have taken on--"

"Yes.  That one's exterior appearance was upper most in your thoughts."

"She's in danger.  I need to speak with her."

Lines appeared on the image's brow, as though the entity beyond it were
puzzled.

"That one is in no danger from us.  That one no longer exists here."

"Nevertheless.  . ."  He made an effort to contain his frayed temper.

"She exists elsewhere."

The image shrugged.  "Speak with her, then."

"I can't.  The electromagnetic radiation .  . . certain aspects of your
nature make it impossible for me."

Eyes closed, the image was silent, as though in deliberation or
conference.  Then its gaze settled upon him again.  "That has been
changed, as your kind would say."  It pointed down the passageway to the
shuttle's pilot area.  "Go to that material object that enables you to
speak with nonexistent ones.  You will find it functions as you wish."

As Bashir got to his feet, he saw the kneeling image begin to made,
bands of darkness rising through the visible form.  Kira's face, with
its eyes of stars, looked up at him.

"We will speak again, Doctor.  It is--also as you would say--simply a
matter of time."

He thought he saw its face evolve to a trace of a smile, before it was
gone.  When he was alone once more, he turned and hurried to the pilot
area.

SHE HERD HIS VOICE, even as she inched forward in the corridor's
shadows.

"Kira .  . . come on, answer .  . ."

Static crackled through the words, the background noise of a barely
maintained comm connection.  The source of the transmission was in some
sense not far away at all, and in another, a universe away.  It didn't
matter; the touch of that voice at her ear was as welcome as a rope
tossed to one who was drowning.

"Kira.  . ."  An anxious edge filtered into Bashir's voice, detectable
even through the haze of electronics.  "Are you there .  . ."

The initial impulse that Kira felt was to push herself away from the
bulkhead and sprint the last twenty or so meters to the substation's
command center.  She fought that urge back; she had made her way as
stealthily as possible through the substation; she was now completing
the circuit that she had begun when another--and closer--voice had
spoken her name The voice of Horen Rygis had come from the substation's
internal comm system, one of the concealed overhead speakers being
activated by a remote circuit whose other end could have been anywhere
aboard.  It had been an unreasoning animal response to have fled the
command center, as though the voice had been an armed Horen suddenly
revealed standing behind her.  In actuality, she might have been running
straight toward him; the hiding place she had found in one of the
storage lockers could have been separated from the blade of his weapon
by no more than a few centimeters of reinforced metal.

Stupid, she had told herself.  She hadn't survived a childhood in the
refugee camps, and then her years in the Bajoran resistance, by giving
in to panic like that.  Her own instincts, and the military training
she'd been given on top of them, were sharper, the only explanation she
could give herself was that here in the Gamma Quadrant was the farthest
she'd ever been from the soil on which she'd been born.  -Bajor was no
longer even a pinprick of light in the field of stars ranged in DS9's
observation ports.  A thread had been broken for her, through which she
had received some unknowable strength .  . .

"Come on, Major--" Bashir's voice broke into her wordless thoughts.

"I know you're there .  . . you have to be there...."

She had to reach the command center and respond to Bashir's transmission
before he gave up and broke the link.  At the same time, she knew that
the stowaway Horen had detected her presence in this area before, and
would logically assume that she would return to it at some point.  Being
at the farthest extension of one of the substation's sectors, the
command center formed a perfect cul-de-sac, a trap with no exit.  To
step into it, no matter how urgent the reason, might be the same as
stepping into the center of Horen's lethal plans.

Carefully, she crouched and peered around the next corner of the
passageway.  For what must have been the thousandth time since she had
first heard her name spoken aloud, she reached down to the belt at her
uniform's waist, for the personal armament that would be holstered there
.  . . and found nothing.  The weapon had been left behind at her DS9
quarters, part of a decision she had fully concurred with at the time.
The substation was supposed to represent a permanent settlement, not a
milihry expedition; it would be easier to maintain that position in a
court of interstellar law if the substation was effectively unarmed,
down to the lowest possible level.  The only hostilities that might have
been expected would have come from the Cardassian vessel under Gul
Tahgla's command, and he would be smart enough to realize that any
warlike action would automatically invalidate any claim he might make on
the sector surrounding the wormhole's exit.

There were times when, paradoxically, defenseless ness was the best
strategy; unfortunately, the present situation--or what it had become
for Kira--wasn't one of them.  She would have given a great deal to have
a fully charged phaser filling her hand right now.

The command center's doorway was open.  She couldn't remember if her
fist had hit the retract lock switch on the inside control panel, or if
she had heard the door slide back into position after she had bolted
through it.  Light spilled down the corridor from the center's overhead
panels.

Keeping her back close to the bulkhead, she could see most of the
interior, the control stations curving around the sides, the two empty
operations seats .  . .

And no sign of another living being.

Minutes had passed since she had last heard Bashir's voice over the
command centers speaker.  She prayed that he was still on the comm link,
waiting for a reply or fine-tuning the cargo shuttle's transmitter.

You've come this far, she told herself.  You might as well go for it.

She shoved herself away from the metal beside her and ran for the
doorway.

Within seconds, she had dived inside, twisted, and rolled onto her feet,
coming up with hands readied in an elementary defense posture.  A quick
visual scan showed that the center was empty-, she slapped the doorway's
control panel and let her tensed spine relax only a fraction as the
metal slid into place.  She felt no safer than before, but a small
measure of power had been reestablished.

"Bashir--" She leaned over the command center's transmitter, one
fingertip jabbing the respond switch.  "This is Kira--"

"Great .  . . I was just about to give up on this," Bashir's voice
answered her.

"Are you all right?"

"For the moment."  Kira looked over her shoulder, keeping an eye on the
doorway.

"I was afraid you might've gotten banged up, when everything went
crazy."

"Negative on that; I came through fine."  She assumed, since Bashir had
gotten the transmitter working, that he was in working condition, as
well.  "Now, listen; I need--"

"There's something important I have to tell you, Kira."  His words broke
through hers.  "You're not alone out there.  Someone else is aboard the
substation with you--"

"I'm well aware of that.  He's already revealed his presence to me.

It's Horen Rygis."

"The Redemptorist," Bashir said, nodding.  "I guessed as much."

"He's been making broadcasts for months about how I should be killed.

I don't imagine he came along now just to talk politics with me."

Bashir nodded again.  Kira was simply confirming what he'd already
surmised.  "Then he had some way of firing off the cargo shuttle's
engines.  It was his bunch that installed the devices I found...."

"Good guess."  She found that it was easier to turn her back to the comm
panel, her hand behind her on its switches, and keep watch on the closed
doorway.

"What's your current situation?  Are you in communi cation with DS
Nine?"

"No--and there's no way I can be, either.  At least, not for the time
being.  When the shuttle engines activated without their buffers, the
wormhole went through some major changes.  The convulsion you felt was
the least of it.

The wormhole's inhabitants collapsed the other end by the station.  It
was a purely defensive reaction, to keep out anything else that might
harm them.

Unfortunately, it means that as far as DS Nine's concerned, the wormhole
doesn't even really exist.

Whether I'm stuck inside it or not."

"You've had contact with the wormhole's inhabitants?"

"With mixed results."  Bashir sounded annoyed with himself.  "They
allowed me to get in touch with you.  That's about it for now."

Kira nodded as she processed the new data.  "You'll have to keep working
with them.  Somehow, you've got to persuade them to open up the wormhole
again.  The comm equipment has either been damaged or tampered with, so
I can't get in touch with DS Nine.  And even if I could, without the
wormhole, there's no way for Sisko to send any assistance out here to
me--"

"There is another way.  To get assistance to you, I mean."  Bashir's
voice grew excited.  "I did manage to get one of the cargo shuttle's
engines operational; the diagnostics all check out on it.  I could
activate it and rendezvous with your position pretty quickly.  We
wouldn't even have to do anything about Horen; you could be waiting by
one of the hatches, we could get you transferred onto the shuttle in no
time, and he could rot aboard the substation for all we care."

"Are you out of your mind?"  Kira took her gaze away from the door and
stared at the comm panel.  "The engines firing without their buffers is
how things got screwed up in the first place.  That was all part of
Horen's plan.

If you activate them again, there's no telling what the wormhole's
inhabitants will do."

"Maybe that's a chance we' have to take.  If I gave it all the thrust
it's capable of bearing, I might be able to get the shuttle to the
wormhole's exit and get it outside before the inhabitants could do
anything.  Or they might expel the shuttle, like an immune system
rejecting a foreign object--"

"Right, or they could crush it like an egg and spit out the pieces.

Or dissolve it--and you--into sub atomic particles.  There's no way of
knowing what they're capable of."  She shook her head in exasperation,
leaning her weight on the panel.  "And what if you did manage to get
out?  They've already shut down one end of the wormhole; why wouldn't
they shut down this one as well?  Then we'd be stuck out here in the
Gamma Quadrant--without the wormhole, that's a sixty-year voyage at
maximum warp velocity--with nobody in this sector except for a shipful
of pissed-off Cardassians.  Horen Rygis wouldn't have to kill me; he
could just watch us die of old age."

She didn't speak of what else the disappearance of the wormhole would
mean: the complete triumph of the Redemptorists' plans for Bajor--to
render the planet valueless to the Federation and isolate it from all
the other developed worlds.

If her death was necessary to keep that from happening, she was ready.

Bashir wouldn't be deterred, though.  "Then what would you have me do
instead?

Your life's in danger from that maniac.  Do you expect me to sit here
and do nothing?"

"That's exactly what I expect you to do.  More than that--I'm ordering
you to do nothing.  I'm still the commanding officer for this mission;
its success matters more than either of us.  As far as I'm concerned, my
arrival at this sector at least gives the Federation a chance of making
a claim of sovereignty over it--"

"That claim's going to be pretty shaky if you're dead."

"A court of law would have to determine that.  Look, I know you're
right, Doctor; if the Cardassians reach this sector and find nothing but
a murdered Starfleet officer and a homicidal lunatic running around the
substation, then they're going to be in a strong position.  The
Cardassians could blow away the substation, assert their own claim, and
justify it all with a legal defense of necessity.  Maybe it would stand
up, maybe it wouldn't.  But it's not going to happen that way."' Kira
leaned closer to the comm panel.  "I can handle Horen; he's a known
quantity to me.  I understand how his mind works.  He's already lost the
element of surprise; if he was planning on sneaking up on me, there's no
way he can do that now.  This isn't your area of expertise--but I spent
years fighting on different kinds of terrain.

This substation is just one more.  And I've got the advantage; the
defense always does.  Especially if I just have to hold out until we do
come up with a way of getting some assistance to me."

It was all a lot of big talk, she knew, designed to convince Bashir; she
wouldn't have bought it herself.  She didn't know what other
surprises--booby traps --Horen and his followers might have wired into
the substation.  Or what weapons he might be carrying-- if she were
going to arm herself, she would have to cobble together something from
the medical equipment aboard.  If she had the time, and the means of
getting to it before Horen intercepted her.  It wasn't a matter of
defensive strategy at all; it was more like walking naked through a
forest of knives.

"I don't know .  . ."  Bashir sounded unconvinced.  "It still strikes me
as risky."

The real risk, Kira knew, was in Bashir's emotional, impulsive nature.

She played her final card.  "There's something else to consider, Doctor;
something that I heard you talk about, before we ever left the station.
We can't do anything that would harm the wormhole's inhabitants--not any
more than we've already done.  We don't have the right to do that."

His lack of response over the comm link indicated that her words had hit
their target.

"All right."  Bashir's voice finally came through the speaker.  "If
that's what you think is best.  But I still don't like it."

She wanted to tell him that she didn't like it, either, but stopped
herself.

Already she had spent far more time than she had intended, convincing
him of the need for inaction on his part.  Horen and an army of
Redemptorists could have marched on her by now.

I'II stay in touch with you," she said.  "As much as I can.  But don't
worry--I've got everything under control."

She broke the link before he could make any reply.  With that connection
gone, and with it the human touch of his voice, the substation's silence
folded around her.

He leaned back in his seat, looking at the shuttle's comm panel.  A
blinking light told him that the link between him and Major Kira had
been terminated-- for the time being--on her command.

'Great," said Bashir disgustedly.  He laced his fingers behind the back
of his head and stretched out his cramped shoulder muscles.  He still
felt the effects of spending several hours in a tight space, hunched
over as he had worked to get one of the shuttle's engines back on line.

A fat lot of good he had accomplished by doing so; the shuttle now had
the motive power to possibly get out of the wormhole and come to Kira's
rescue--a not inconsiderable goal in his mind, for several reasons--but
he didn't have the authority to fire the engine up and do it.  His hands
clenched tighter together in frustration.

And the worst of it, the logical and emotionless part of his brain had
to admit, was that Kira was almost certainly right.  He had to admire
anew her sangfroid in going through her list of reasons justifying his
inaction; all the while some demented religious maniac might have been
creeping up on her.  The angry-at the-universe attitude that she had
always carried around herself like a shield, back at the station, had
concealed a mind fitted with precision-cut steel gears.

Yet, one that could also factor human elements into the equations; the
business about not harming the wormhole's inhabitants had been almost
perfectly calculated to evoke the maximum desired reaction from him.

She's the one who should've been a doctor, thought Bashir.  The control
of patients--really a form of benign psychological manipulation--had
been a topic at medical schools for centuries.  Plus, Kira wouldn't be
one o shrink from using a scalpel, if necessary.

Bashir slumped forward, hands in lap, then glanced over his shoulder at
another section of the pilot area's control panels.  The readouts showed
that the external sensors that had been installed in the cargo shuttle
were still operating at peak capacity, soaking up every fluctuation in
the wormhole's complicated soup of electromagnetic radiation.  There
would be some interesting data, once he got it all back to DS9, where he
and Chief Science Officer Dax could start breaking it down.  The data
would have been significant enough, if this had turned out to be a
routine voyage through the wormhole.  Now--with the convulsion triggered
by the firing of the unbuffered shuttle engines, the manifestation of
the wormhole's inhabitants inside the shuttle, and the changes in the
bands of radiation to allow the comm link to function--the accumulated
information could be the basis for not just a ground breaking but a
definitive study of the wormhole's fundamental nature.  A ticket to the
Federation's highest scientific awards might just as well have been
tucked inside the data collectors.

There was a certain temptation, he had to admit, to blank out the rest
of the universe and its problems, Kira's included, and just concentrate
on the input from the sensors, monitoring the data stream to make sure
that it was coming in as pure and unhindered as possible.  He had
already been ordered to do as much by the mission's commanding officer.

No one could blame him for following those instructions to the
letter....

No one but himself.

"Even worse than that--" He nodded slowly.  "I've started talking to
myself."  The isolation of being stranded in the middle of this pocket
universe was no doubt affecting his sanity.  That was his clinical self
diagnosis.  Now would be a good time for the floating committee of the
wormhole's inhabitants to make a reappearance.  He could use someone to
talk to.  Whether it, or they.

wore Kira's face or not no loner mattered to him.

"Hello?"  He raised his voice as he swiveled the chair around toward the
center of the pilot area.  "Anybody home?"

Silence.  They were probably listening to him, and laughing.  If they
could laugh; that hadn't been established yet.  Bashir had to ruefully
congratulate himself for providing the focus point for yet another
investigation into the physiology of nonmaterial entities.

He glanced once more at the panel showing the activities of the
shuttle's external sensors.  That, he knew, was what he should be doing,
giving over his entire attention to that scientific process.

Instead, he remained seated, the point of his chin pressed against his
doubled fists.  His thoughts had already exited the wormhole, and now
moved through their persistent calculations out beyond, in the Gamma
Quadrant.

She didn't know what he was thinking.  That was the problem.

The layout of the substation was becoming more familiar to Kira, from
her having already traversed it more than once.  It was too late to kick
herself for not having memorized the chart of the branching corridors
and rooms before leaving DS9; there had been no reason to expect that
she would ever need to be familiar with more than a few different
sectors around the substation's command center.

Now, however, a functional map was slowly being ingrained at a sub
conscious level, a system of passageways and enclosed areas that she
could almost recognize from the trace of her own sweat that had touched
the bulkheads.

Kira crouched down in a dark intersection of the shuttle's main
corridor.  The problem with the map inside her head was that it didn't
show the most important element: where Horen was.  For all of her
confident talk to Bashir, the Redemptorist leader's thought processes
remained cloudy to her.  She could reason out some things, based on her
own past experiences with him and what she had learned from others'
encounters, but that still left out a crucial emotional component.  It
would be as much an over simplification to characterize Horen Rygis as
completely insane--no matter how demented-sounding his broadcast
diatribes against her had become--as it would be to view him as coldly
rational in his calculations.  That he was obsessed with her--and with
her death--there was no question; what form that obsession might take
was still a mystery.

In the corridor's silence, Kira let her thoughts roll on as she gathered
her breath.  The big question was how Horen viewed his own death.

Always, in his broadcasts to his fellow Redemptorists, there had been
talk of the need for all of them to make the ultimate sacrifice that
would bring about Bajor's purification.  The cross between political and
religious fanaticism always produced that kind of obligation on its
followers, with the assumption that it held equally true for the
movement's leaders.  Historically, it didn't always work out that way:
the pasts of any number of planets were littered with accounts of holy
men sending the faithful off to die in battle, while they stayed safe
inside their temples.  She was convinced that wasn't the case with
Horen; he'd already put himself on the line by smuggling himself aboard
the substation.

But if Horen was prepared for his own death, how glorious did he want it
to be?

After that one contact, the speaking aloud of her name over the internal
comm system, he had as much as disappeared.  He could be taking his time
stalking her .  . . or he could be preparing another surprise, on a far
grander scale.  It still worried her--putting it mildly, she thought--
that the substation was constructed with high explosives throughout its
framework.  Both Bashir and Chief Engineer O'Brien had assured her that
the explosives were as inert as clay without the fuse codes being read
into them--but the Redemptorists had already proved themselves clever at
rewiring the sub station's functions.  Could they also have figured out
some kind of a bypass, a way of igniting the explosives without the
codes?  If so, that would give Horen the ability to destroy himself as
well as her, in a fiery cataclysm whose impact would be felt,
symbolically at least, all the way back on Bajor.

That thought nagged at her, as well as the simple suspicion that all
Horen wanted to do was move soundlessly upon her from behind,
unexpected, snare he, and draw a sharpened blade across her throat.

All that talk of blood.... Deep inside herself, she felt that the words,
the thundering way he had spoken them, had to be more than empty
verbiage.  There was a physical longing expressed in them, the desire
for a consummation that couldn't be satisfied through cleansing fire,
but only by the yielding of one body to another.  A yielding where her
blood would flow over his wrists, gathering in a shining pool at their
feet, until he let her go, and whatever was left of her fell, broken.

Stop.  Negative on that--her own voice inside her head short-circuited
those images.  That was a violation of all training and the survival
instinct beneath; indulging one's fears, letting them fester and grow
along one's spine, was a sure way of programming them to come true.

Horen Rygis was as human as she, despite the voice of a wrathful god
that he had summoned out of himself.  He could be defeated, neutralized
. . . killed, if necessary.

Kira saw nothing moving down the length of the central corridor.

She stepped out of the shadows and along the bulkhead to the next
sector.  Her quick strides left the silence unbroken.

She had already decided that, whatever Horen's plans might be, hers had
to go on the offensive.  He was obviously giving himself the luxury of
time, the savoring of his prey's trapped and cornered condition.  That
could come to an end all too quickly if Bashir, back aboard the cargo
shuttle, found a way to persuade the wormhole's inhabitants to
reestablish its entrance zone.  If that happened, Sisko would have an
armed runabout from the DS9 station through the wormhole and out to the
Gamma Quadrant in virtually no time .  . . and that would be all it
would take to push Horen over the edge.  Whatever plans he had would go
immediately to their climax; if he had a way of blowing up the
substation, that would be when he'd push the button.  If, on the other
hand, Kira figured, all he wanted was to plunge a knife into her heart,
he'd cut short this sadistic foreplay and move in on her before he could
be stopped from the outside.

Either way, she needed to locate Horen and render him inoperative-that
had been the usual Resistance phrase for all violent actions, up to and
including murder--before he could carry out his plans.

A shape suddenly loomed in front of her.  She quickly snapped back
against the bulkhead, spine flattened against the metal.  Holding her
breath, she listened for the slightest noise, the least motion in the
substation's still air.  A closed door was within reach behind her; she
raised her hand toward its small control panel, ready to punch it, and
dart through the opening, if necessary.

She heard nothing.  Carefully, she leaned forward, straining to see a
few meters farther on.  The silhouette of her head and one corner of her
shoulder slid along the flooring's grid.  The faint luminescence from an
overhead panel had cast her shadow ahead of her, that was the only enemy
within striking distance.

She relaxed--only a fraction, still maintaining her scanning
alertness--and moved on.

There was another reason behind her actions, that she could acknowledge
only to herself.  Inaction was something she could order Bashir into,
but she would never be able to endure it for herself.

Even if that had been the best strategy, to find a sector of the
substation that she could barricade and defend, holding out until help
came--she would have gone crazy, passively waiting for Horen's attack.

Anything would be better .  . . to find him and fly straight at him,
whatever weapon she'd been able to improvise raised in her hand .  .

.

no matter what the outcome of that final, long delayed encounter might
be.

That was the emotion burning in her gut.  The force of it was just
barely controlled by her brain.  She would have to act in a precise,
logical method, not just wander aimlessly around the substation.

Already, as she had made her way from the command center, she had been
planning how she would use the rough map forming in her head to make a
systematic sweep of the substation's corridors and sectors, how she
could move through every space one by one, driving the hunter turned
prey before her.

She had a dim memory, from when she had re gained consciousness, of
seeing something she might be able to use, in the dark hiding place
she'd found herself in.  A fusion welding rig, just barely compact
enough to sling onto her shoulders and carry with her--it must have been
equipment left behind by one of O'Brien's work crews, or part of the
substation's own emergency gear.  With that, she could seal off sectors
as she cleared them, and bit by bit render a growing area of the
substation out of bounds to Horen.  Even if she could cut off just some
of the routes through the substation that he must have mapped out for
himself, that would still be a lessening of the advantage with which
he'd started.

Now, her brain was working the way it was supposed to.  She could
already visualize everything happening the way she wanted, the
methodical process by which Horen would be caught in his own trap.

The best result would be if she could take him alive, corner him and
seal him into a section where he would be rendered harmless, unable to
get back at her.  Then she would be happy to sit down and wait for
assistance to arrive.  It would be a crushing blow to the Redemptorist
movement on Bajor to have its leader brought back in such humiliation,
captured by the very woman he had launched such a holy war to destroy.

She could see it all .  . . and there was enough malice in her heart to
relish the prospect.

That was still in the future, though.  It was a satisfying enough vision
to hang in front of her like a gauzy curtain, almost obscuring the
length of the final branching corridor that led to the storage locker
where she had hidden before.  Kira put her head down and hurried toward
the hatchway and the welding gear beyond it.

The future obscured the present.  Enough for her to forget, to let her
senses grow dull for a second-And that was enough.

She felt a change in air pressure before she heard anything.  Then
above, something was dropping to ward her.  She turned, raising her arm
to defend herself, but it was already too late.  She was knocked
sprawling onto the corridor's flooring.

The human form's knees pressed against her abdomen, pinning her flat.

A hand grabbed the collar of her uniform, pulling her head forward.

Dazed, she felt something thin and cold at her throat.

"Kira .  . ."

The voice spoke her name again.  A whisper, almost loving in its
softness.  But this time she saw him.  Horen Rygis lifted the knife
blade under her throat, and smiled.

CHAPTER 11

HE NEEDED TO KNOW everything that had happened.  That was why he called
his remaining officers into his private office.

The image of Kai Opaka was still uppermost in Commander Sisko's mind.

Not just from this last visit to her temple, but from the cumulative
effect her contact had upon him.  In some ways, he didn't know what had
changed him more, his brain-dazzling experiences when he had first
entered the wormhole, or the slow, stilled--and on the surface, much
less dramatic--working of the Kai's influence upon him.  One had been a
thunderbolt, cracking open a stone to reveal its hidden interior, the
other, carefully measured and patient drops of water, one by one,
accomplishing the same revelations.

"Let's have an update," he ordered as he swiveled his chair around to
face the DS9 crew members.  He almost shook his head, as though that
would clear away anything obstructing his concentration on the job at
hand.  But he knew it was pointless; the touch of Kai Opaka was locked
into a level deeper than his conscious brain.  His soul, perhaps.

He focused his gaze on the station's security chief.  "Any luck with our
little band of Redemptorists"

"Some."  Odo gave a noncommittal shrug.  "I used on them a certain
psychological ploy that I've found valuable in the past.  It yielded a
few .  . .

interesting results."

"Anything we can use now?"

"That's always the question, Commander.  I've certainly been able to dig
out a great deal of background information on Horen Rygis.  If we're
successful in bringing him back here to DS Nine, it'll be a toss-up as
to what sort of legal procedure we should initiate against him--a
criminal trial or a clinical determination of his sanity."  Odo gazed up
at the ceiling for a moment.  "Of course, you're probably aware of my
own preference in such matters.

I am of the school of thought that defenses based upon the perpetrator's
alleged mental condition are inevitably fraudulent.  I would rather
simply, as the old police phrase goes, 'nail the bastard.""

"In this case, so would I, Constable.  But we're not at that point yet.
If there's something you've found out that we can use to get a handle on
Horen Rygis, open him up--"

"Given enough time, Commander, we could do all that; we could
psychoanalyze him in absentia until we were familiar with every facet of
his mind.  We already know, from what was in the records of the Bajoran
security forces and from what Major Kira herself told you, most of the
root causes of Horen's murderous obsession.  The Redemptorists that I've
been interrogating have filled me in on some of the past details of
which we had been unaware--apparently there was some contact between
Horen and Kira some years preceding the raid she led on the hostage
situation.  And there will undoubtedly be other things the Redemptorists
will tell us, and perhaps soon; once the first cracks appear in their
psychological defenses, the total disintegration of that armor follows
shortly thereafter.  At least, that's been my experience."  Odo's gaze
sharpened as he addressed the figure on the other side of the desk.

"What must be answered, Commander, is what good the information I can
extract from these men will be, if we can neither act upon it ourselves,
nor relay it to Kira so she can use it."

Sisko knew that his security chief was right.  He turned toward Chief
Engineer O'rien.  "What about it, then?  Any progress on establishing
communications with Bashir or Kirar' "Negative, sir."  O'Brien shook his
head.  He nodded toward the chief science officer standing next to him.
"Dax and I both have been working flat out on that one.  There's just no
way--" Dax spoke up.  "We're running into some hard physical realities,
Commander.  The intermittent bending effect we've detected before in the
subspatial matrix actually seems to have been heightened by the
wormhole's change to a unipolar condition; as long as that persists,
communications with the Gamma Quadrant are considerably accelerated. The
problem is that the mission's only subspace equipment is on the cargo
shuttle with Bashir.  The wormhole is still nonexistent for us here;
until its entrance reappears, there's no one to whom we can even send a
subspace transmission."

"There is one possibility--" O'Brien's words were accompanied by a
doubting grimace.  "We thought of it but .  . . I don't know .  . . it
might not be something you'd want to consider."

"By now, I'm willing to consider anything."  Sisko leaned forward across
the desk.

"What is it?"

"Well, technically speaking, the substation is not completely alone out
there.

There is someone else approaching that sector of the Gamma Quadrant.

And that's Gul Tahgla."  O'Brien shrugged.  "And the Cardasian vessel
does have subspace transmission and reception gear aboard."

Sisko gazed at his chief engineer in astonishment.  His initial reaction
had been to tell O'Brien that he was out of his mind.

"You see," said Dax, "it would be possible for us to make a request of
Gul Tahgla, that he relay an encoded message to the substation.  There
are precedents for such actions, between parties that are not officially
in a state of war with each other.  Maintaining reciprocal
confidentiality has been an element of diplomatic relations for
centuries."

"I'm not sure Gul Tahgla would see this matter in such an enlightened
way."  Sisko rubbed the corner of his brow.  "In fact, I'm sure of it.

If he's aware of our substation being in that sector, he's bound to have
figured out that we sent it there to frustrate the Cardassian empire's
claim of sovereignty over the wormhole's exit.  Why should he cooperate
in the process of defeating himself Especially, when he would know that
he didn't have to--by asking him to relay a message, we'd be as much as
telling him that the mission had gone wrong somehow, that the sub
station might as well be disabled."

"That was exactly our analysis, Commander."  The calm tone of Dax's
voice remained steady.  "However, we cannot be sure of how Gul Tahgla
would analyze the situation.  He might assume that our claim of
sovereignty had already been established and, after the subterfuge he
committed to get his vessel through the wormhole, that it would be
prudent for him to reestablish a cordial relationship with us.  Also, he
could be reminded that he and his crew now have no way of returning from
the Gamma Quadrant, unless we here at DS Nine find a means of opening up
the wormhole again."

"If Cardassians were reasonable creatures, Gul Tahgla might assume those
things."

Sisko tapped a finger against the desktop.  "The reasonableness of
Cardassians, however, has rarely been demonstrated."

"True.  I would not estimate our chances of success along these lines as
very high.  But--given our lack of other options and what's at stake--it
might be worth a try."

Beside Dax, O'Brien's scowl deepened.  "I just have an aversion to
asking Cardassians to do anything except kiss my posterior."

"As do we all.  However .  . ."  Sisko drew in a deep breath.  "Let's
give it a shot.

Have the communications officer initiate contact with Gul Tahgla's
vessel."  He turned to his security chief.  "Prepare a synopsis of
everything you've gotten out of the Redemptorists-- anything that Kira
might be able to use."

Outside the private office, he took his seat in Ops.  "Screen."  His
officers stood behind.

The Cardassian's image wavered before him.  At this distance, with the
signal shuttled through a string of relay beacons, visual static crawled
erratically across Gul Tahgla's face.  A delay factor of several seconds
had to be dealt with; a moment passed before the image nodded with a
self-satisfied smile.

"Ah, Commander Sisko.  Always a pleasure.  I wouldn't have thought we
would be communicating again .  . . so soon."

Sisko pressed his palms against the seat's arms.  "I wouldn't have
troubled you if it weren't a matter of some urgency."  The overly polite
diplomatic language stuck in his throat like a sharp-edged stone.  "I
know that your own mission demands your full attention.  But I have a
request to make of you.

Your assistance will be greatly appreciated by all of Starfleet, and by
me in particular."

"Indeed."  A higher level of interest appeared in Gul Tahgla's eyes.

"Then proceed, Commander Sisko.  Consider me to be .  . . at your
service."

"We're having difficulties communicating with a unit of ours that is
currently in the Gamma Quadrant, just outside the wormhole's exit.  It
should be within normal comm range for your vessel, however.  We'd like
you to relay an encoded message to the unit."

"Encoded?"  The Cardassian feigned surprise.  "What is the necessity for
that?"

"Come, Gul Tahgla."  He held his palms spread out before him.  "It
indicates no degree of distrust between us.  It's simply a matter of.

. .

standard operating procedure.  Surely it would be the same for
communications between vessels of your fleet."

"I see."  Gul Tahgla leaned forward, his image growing larger on the
screen.  His smile vanished, as though it had been part of a mask now
discarded.  "Let me say, Commander, that you display a remarkable degree
of presumption.  To ask this of me .  .

." The Cardassian's gaze grew harder.  "Perhaps you would like me to
thrust a dagger into my own heart as well?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."  But he did know.

The smile returned, but as a much crueler thing than before.  "What is
that old Earth word that I've heard our mutual friend Quark use on
occasion?

Chutzpah-that's it.  For sheer nerve, you carry away the baked goods, as
I believe the Ferengi would also say."

Sisko stiffened in the chair.  "You seem to display some unusual
linguistic interests."

"I'm making a study of exotic languages, Commander.  I expect they will
come in handy very soon .  . . when I'm overseeing the passage of all
the developed worlds' ships out of the wormhole and into the Gamma
Quadrant.  I have time for these studies, as well; my crew and I are
having quite a leisurely voyage back to the sector surrounding the
wormhole's exit.  Where nothing--not all your little schemes,
Commander--will prevent us from establishing sovereignty over that
sector for the Cardassian empire."

"Gul Tahgla .  . . this isn't what you--"

"Don't indulge in these pretenses with me, Sisko."  The smile twisted
into a sneer.  "I'm well aware of your reasons for positioning that unit
right where it is.  My only regret is that you were able to figure out
my intentions in time to make this abortive attempt at frustrating them.
But your own haste has foiled you.  And now, you expect me to help you
repair whatever has gone wrong?  Really, Commander."

"u have my assurances--"

"Ah.  Assurances from a Federation officer."

Gul Tahgla's image wavered through another burst of static, then formed
again.  "I leave it to you to imagine what those assurances mean to us.

Especially after having trusted your previous guarantees that the
privacy of my vessel would be observed while-in the DS Nine drydock.

Obviously, those assurances meant nothing, or you would never have
discerned what mission I had been sent upon."

Sisko felt a twinge of revulsion in his gut, both at the gurs
self-indicting logic and at the awareness that in his own dealings with
the Cardassians, his words and actions had begun to mirror theirs.

He made one more attempt.  "There are lives at risk aboard that unit."

"I hardly think so, Commander.  You see, we have already been trying to
communicate with it--and we have received no response to our signals.

Please accept my sincerest condolences regarding whatever members of
your crew were lost in your foolhardy attempt to circumvent the
legitimate aims of the Cardassian empire.  These are the hazards of
command, are they not?"

Gul Tahgla's expression mocked sympathy.  "When we reach the sector, we
will make some attempt to retrieve whatever bodies may be aboard the
unit, so they can be sent back to yJo'u for whatever religious
observances you may consider to be appropriate--of course, only if we
can do so safely.  You have made many public comments about the shoddy
materials and construction of the station you took over from the
Cardassians; I doubt if anyone will blame us if we find ourselves
compelled to...

eliminate in as forthright a manner as possible this piece of DS Nine
you sent out here.  It is, after all, adrift right in the middle of what
will be the traffic conduit into and out of the Gamma Quadrant.

We would be performing a service to the developed worlds by disposing of
this menace to navigation."

Sisko perceived an opening.  "Then, since you acknowledge that the unit
presents no threat to you or your plans, you would naturally have no
objection to relaying--or at least attempting to--our encoded message to
it?"

"That would need to be determined, Commander.  Feel free to send us the
encoded message, and once my cryptographic analysis officers have broken
it, read it, and made sure that its contents cannot compromise
Cardassian interests--we might send it on."

"Gul Tahgla--you're aware of the degrees of Stareet message security.

It would take your computers years to decode the message."

"Well, then."  The Cardassian shrugged.  "Simplify matters for all of
us--send the message unencoded."

"That's absolutely not possible."

"I expected as much.  For the sake of your crew members--if any of them
are still alive--I hope the message you wished to get to them was
nothing too urgent.

Request denied.  End of transmission."

Sisko gazed up at the blanked screen.  "Well," he said.  "That could
have gone better."

She looked at the face before her.  The knife blade had been drawn back
a few centimeters, the edge still cold against her throat, but allowing
her to breathe.

Kira worked at keeping her pulse steady, her muscles tensed for the
smallest opportunity that might be presented to her.

How many years, Kira?"  Over the gleam of light on the weapon, Horen
regarded her.

"Since we were in each other's presence .  . . not that many, really.

Not when you think about it.  It's just that .  . . so much has happened
since we were together."

Her hands braced flat against the deck.  "What do you want?"

"Why do you waste the little time you have left?  Asking stupid
questions--" His fist remained locked tight around the knife's handle.

"Surely I've made my desires--the desires of many people--clear to you
by now.  But then .  . . you feel you have the luxury of time, don't
you?"  Horen tilted his head, peering into the eyes of his captured
prey.  "And you do--much more than the ones you murdered had.

Those brethren's deaths were in fire and pain, though merci fully brief.
They also died in the righteousness of their faith.  That is a comfort
I'm afraid will be denied to you."

She felt the blade scrape across her throat as she arched her neck.

"You know-I'm not really used to discussing theological issues when I'm
flat on my back, with a knife drawn on me.  Maybe we could go on talking
under some slightly different conditions?"

"We could go on talking forever, Kira.  But we won't.  Time is not
infinite for us, though the consequences of our actions outlive our
days.  Your betrayal of your fellow Bjorans--not just the ones who died
at the temple, but all of your race-that was but the blink of an eye, a
moment come and gone.  No doubt you little expected how long others'
memories would be, how that moment would eventually come full circle."

Horen leaned forward, closer above her.  The knife blade pressed down,
almost breaking the skin.  "This is where the circle closes, Kira."

His gaze narrowed, as though the eyes were glittering steel within slits
of thin flesh.  "And time ends--for you."

There had been no chance of him letting her up, dragging her up against
the bulkhead with the knife still readied underneath her jaw--she had
known that.

Whatever depths Horen's insanity had reached, he remained smart enough
not to let the situation go on too much longer.  An egotist who wanted
to savor his triumph and the sound of his own words, but not a fool.

Or at least not a total one.

She closed her eyes and gasped, as though fear had gripped her breath.

"I .  . .

I can't hear you .  . ."  The whisper barely emerged on her lips.

His face came closer to hers, his words almost a kiss touching her ear.

"You don't need to--" That was what she needed, a trick to take him off
balance.

Literally; his weight had shifted forward, poised awkwardly for a
second.  But that was enough --the sudden thrust of her bent legs
against the deck, and her doubled fists striking beneath his ribs,
toppled him over her.  Just as quickly, she twisted her head to one
side, feeling the knife graze a centimeter away from the corner of her
brow.

She heard Horen's weight hit the bulkhead, as she followed through on
her own shoulder-first roll.  Scrambling to her feet, she dived forward,
hands outstretched.  Her vaulting arc was broken when she felt her ankle
snared from behind.  She managed to contort enough to land braced
against her forearm, protecting her ribs from the jarring impact.

Horen's grasp tightened.  He grunted with the effort of tugging her back
toward him, his torso rearing up from where he knelt.  The knife sparked
in his raised hand.

Kira didn't resist, but pushed instead against the deck, doubling the
force of Horen's pull.  The heel of one boot struck him in the chest;
his eyes widened from the unexpected blow.  A split second later, as her
fingertips clawed into the deck and twisted her onto her other shoulder,
a scissors kick caught him on the angle of his jaw.  His head snapped
back, and the knife flew from his hand, disappearing into the darkness
behind him.

He recovered faster than she expected.  Panting for breath, Kira saw him
grabbing for the knife, his hand falling instinctively upon its handle.
His gaze broke from her, long enough for her to pull herself upright.

She turned and ran, shoulder colliding with an angle of the bulkhead as
she pushed through a hatch way into one of the branching corridors.

She didn't hear running footsteps at her back.  But laughter.

"Is that what you wish to do?"

He heard the voice behind him.  Turning his head, he looked over his
shoulder and saw the image standing there.  He had already opened the
access hatch leading down to the engine compartment; he sat at its rim,
legs reaching down to the rungs.

"I don't know," said Bashir.  "But I knew you were watching me--all of
you.  I couldn't think of any other way to make you show yourselves."

A different voice, the angry one, came from the Kira image.  "You see?"

The image tilted its head back, the star-filled gaze directed toward an
invisible audience.  "So lightly this one threatens us!  Our existence
means nothing to such a creature!"

"That's not true.  I would never have come here among you if.  . . if I
didn't think you mattered a great deal.  Like all living creatures."

He craned his neck, trying to peer into the blackness of the image's
eyes, as if he might see all the wormhole's inhabitants mingled in that
small universe.  "I wanted to under stand you; that's all.  Curiosity is
in the nature of my kind."

"That comes from being in time."  The softer voice spoke once again.

"You are blind things, attempting to see.  If you were outside time, you
would know."

Bashir shook his head, sensing the gulf opening up between him and these
bodiless entities.  He could wander in that space for ages, trying to
make himself understood by them in turn.  "That may be.  But we don't
have a choice about it."

"That is not truth.  There is one of your kind who exists both in time
and not in time."

The statement puzzled him.  "Do you mean Sisko?"

"Not that one.  He is still of the same nature as you.  But there is
another--do you not know?"

The riddles had started to make his head spin.  "I don't know .  . .

and I guess right now I don't care, either.  You can talk metaphysics
all you want, but you'll have to do it without me.  I've still got to
figure out what to do about Kira."

Looking down at itself, the image studied the human form it had taken.

"This one-" It laid a hand upon its breast.  "That exists in your
mind--that part you call memory--but not here."

"Yes.  She exists somewhere else, though.  Outside the wormhole."  He
gestured toward the bulkhead and the space beyond the cargo shuttle.

"Outside where you exist."

"The fate of this one concerns you.  You are troubled that this one
might cease to exist in time.  Would this one still not exist in
memory?"

He took a deep breath.  "Yes .  . . she would.  But it's not the same
thing.  Memory isn't alive.  . . not the way I am, and she is.  Memory
is like your kind.  It doesn't change."

"Perhaps then it is a better way to exist.  Changeless and eternal."

His shoulders slumped.  "I'm not going to argue with you about that.

Maybe our kind is wrong, and you're right.  But it's just in our nature.
To prefer the living, and the changing, to what we think of as being
dead."  The irony of the situation weighed upon him: before he had left
DS9, this would have been the making real of dreams beyond his most
grandiose ambitions.  To have not only established contact with the
wormhole's inhabitants, but to go even further than Sisko had in
understanding their nature....

But there was no time for that.  Not now.  The wormhole's inhabitants
were right; his kind did exist in another way, one where the illusions
of eternity slowly faded, to reveal the cruel steel gears of the
universe.

The image regarded him with a frown.  "Your nature makes you suffer.

You exist in pain."

"That is what's sometimes called the human condition."  Bashir almost
felt like laughing, a humorless noise collecting inside his throat.

His immediate diagnosis would have indicated the cumulative effects of
fatigue.  "That's why I keep thinking about activating the engine--even
without the impulse buffers, and with the effects it would have on your
kind--and heading out there.

To see if I could do anything to help her."

A shake of the image's head.  "That cannot be allowed.  You have already
brought pain and wounding to our kind.  There are those among us who
would cause your existence to cease, in order to defend us."

"Still .  . . you can't expect me to just forget about a friend.  And
what's going to happen to her."

"You see that one in memory--but it is not enough.  Perhaps if you could
see that one in that other place--that place that is not here.

Then your suffering would cease."

He raised his head.  "What're you talking about?  Can you do that?"

The expression on the image's face remained placid.  "It is close
enough.  What we can perceive can be shown to you."

Bashir swung his legs out of the hatchway and scrambled to his feet.

"Then show me.  Now--" The Kira image stepped toward him, bringing its
face close to his.

If there had been any substance behind the surface phenomenon, it could
have brought its lips to his for a kiss.  Instead, he found himself
gazing into the blackness of its eyes and the stars swimming there.

"Look.  If that is what you wish."

He saw a brighter spot of light, and knew it was the substation drifting
just outside the mouth of the wormhole.  It grew larger, the stars
disappearing behind it.  Then it vanished, as he felt himself falling
toward it.

Another dark space, its walls curving around him.

He could almost sense them pressing against his shoulders, and at the
same time he knew he was still aboard the cargo shuttle, gazing into the
empty eyes before him.

He saw her then--Kira, the real one.  Running before him, into the
corridor's distance.  His hand reached out involuntarily, as though he
could stop her.  She looked over her shoulder, but her gaze went through
him, toward another point.

He called her name, but she didn't hear, she ran without stopping.

Then he saw the other, the silhouette of a man, looming up before him,
blocking out everything else.  The man took a few steps forward, and
Bashir saw the broad shoulders, the heavy arms dangling at his sides.

In one of the man's fists, a star glittered, a bright flare of light.

But not a star.  The man continued on his relentless path, and in the
corridor's shadows, the object in his hand resolved into a sharpbladed
knife.

"What is wrong?"

Bashir had stepped backward, away from the image before him.  His own
hand came up, shielding his eyes from the vision it had presented him.

"Did you not see this one?"  A puzzled tone came into the image's voice.
"Does this one not exist out there, in time?"

He couldn't answer.  His fists trembled as he turned away, his gaze
falling to the open hatchway and the engines in the dark space below.

CHAPTER 12

HE BROUGHT OUT the good stuff.  From a locked cabinet by the welding
equipment lockers; the deactivated jacksledge, hunkered down on its
pile-driver feet, seemed to stand guard as he pulled out the bottle of
Powers.

"All the way from Earth itself."  O'Brien broke the seal with his
thumbnail and poured two fingers of Irish whisky into each of the
glasses he'd set out on the workbench.  "I've been saving it for special
occasions."  He shrugged, shaking his head wearily.  "Though we
certainly don't have much to celebrate.

Your health."

Sisko matched the toast and knocked back a mouthful.  It tasted like a
rain-drenched peat bog on his tongue and felt like fire sliding down his
throat.

"Thanks."  He could understand why the chief engineer was fond of the
stuff, though he also knew it wasn't going to do any good for either of
them; they would get just about as inebriated by upending the bottle and
pouring its contents out on the engineering bay's deck.

It was the sentiment that mattered, however.  Far better to have been
invited here, amid the smells of raw metal and spent fuel--the bay
always reminded him of one of the programmed modules in the holo suites,
a re-creation of a nineteenth century black smith's shop, complete with
eye-stinging black smoke and iron heated to a glowing red--than to be
living in a booth in Quark's lounge, an untouched synthale in front of
him.  If nonaction was the prescription he'd have to take whether he
liked it or not--Kai Opaka's words still weighed heavy in Sisko's
memory--it was best practiced in congenial, if cruder, surroundings.

"You can't beat yourself up over these things, Commander."  O'Brien had
drained his glass; he re filled it and topped up Sisko's.  "There's a
limit to what you can do."

He managed a smile.  "It seems to be my curse to be surrounded by people
wiser than I am."

"I don't know about that.  To be frank, I'm still puzzled about what
happened up there in Ops."  O'Brien leaned over his arms folded on the
bench.

"When you had Gul Tahgla on the screen--why didn't you give him an
unencoded message to relay to Kira on the substation?  Hell, he already
knew we were in trouble with it."

"Perhaps he did."  Sisko rolled a drop of the whisky around on his
tongue.  "And perhaps Gul Tahgla didn't.  The problem is, we can't be
sure.  Tahgla might've just been fishing for confirmation of his
suspicions--a confirmation that we would have handed over to him on a
plate if we had given him an unencoded message.  And, as long as there's
any doubt in his mind, he's going to proceed that much more cautiously.
When the Cardassians' vessel gets within range of the substation, he's
going to stop and sniff around it, looking for any sign of a trap,
anything that we could possibly spring on him."  He took another
swallow.  "That's Gul Tahgla's problem--and it's one he shares with most
Cardassian officers.  They're so constitutionally devious that they
can't imagine any one else not being the same way.

They can all waste shift upon shift, first creating suspicions inside
their own heads, then chasing them down.  Endlessly; even when they get
proof that nothing underhanded is going on, they still won't believe
it."  The alcohol hadn't cheered him up any, but had loosened his
tongue; that was more of a lecture than he had intended to give.

"Hm."  The chief engineer had made significant progress on the bottle's
contents.

The potential loss of Major Kira and Doctor Bashir had set him off.

"Is that a good enough reason not to do it, though?"  His tone was
almost belligerent as he hunched over his glass.  "Because you were the
one who decided to contact Gul Tahgla in the first place.  You said that
helping our officers was more important than any reservations we might
have about dealing with the Darcass .  . .

Cardassians."

"True.  Up to a point."  Sisko tapped a finger against his own glass.

"And that point is reached when we do anything that might negatively
affect Kira's successful completion of her mission.  She might have a oe
her that much.  When I gave her ;c _on, I indicated my trust that she'd
be able to carry it out.  I can't second guess her now.

Because of circumstances that we were unable to predict, Kira is
operating on her own, cut off from any communication with us."  He
raised his hands, palms outward.

"Fine--that's what we'll have to accept.  But until we have hard
evidence that she is in fact dead, we also have to assume that she's
continuing on the mission.  If we could have gotten potentially useful
information ; to her, we would have; but to do so at the cost of
jeopardizing the mission itself would be cutting the ground out from
beneath her feet."

Sisko shook his head.  "I can't treat a subordinate officer that way."

"Not even if she might wind up dying?  Because you didn't?"

It took a few seconds before he could reply, seconds in which a hollow
space seemed to open inside him.  "Kira assumed a certain responsibility
when she accepted the mission.  And I assumed it when I gave it to her."
The words, though true, echoed bleakly through the emptiness.  "That's
the nature of our job here.  This is not a settled territory, where
someone might reasonably expect a degree of safety.

Things can go wrong very quickly.  And then we have to deal with them,
as best we can.  That's all."

O'Brien contemplated the dregs in his glass.  "I guess that's why I'm
glad you're the commander here, and I'm not."

"I wish I were glad about it."  He pushed his chair back.  "Take it easy
on that stuff, will you?  You're still on duty until this crisis is
over."

Deliberately, the chiefengineer picked up the bottle --it was still more
than half-full--held it out at arm's length, and let it drop.  It
shattered on the deck, the brown liquid spattering across his boots.

"I wasn't thirsty, anyway."  O'Brien kicked away a wet shard of glass.

"At least, not right now."

She leaned her back against the metal.  As soon as she had gotten
through the doorway, she had hit its control panel with her fist.  The
door had slid shut, cutting off the passageway.  Panting for breath,
Kira pressed her palms behind her, as though she could keep the door
locked that way.

Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light.  The fartber from the central
corridor, the more the substation was set in darkness.  By the faint
bluish glow from an instrument panel, she saw the outlines of a row of
pedestaled biobeds, most with surgical support frames hanging above. The
frames were larger than the ones in the sickbays set aside for oxygen
breathing organisms, the clamshell forms capable of extending sealed
atmospheric chambers around the beds.  When the substation was still
being designed for use as a quarantine module, the area would have been
employed for the benefit of some of DS9's more exotic visitors.

Its original function didn't matter now.  Kira pushed herself away from
the door and ran to the rows of medical equipment drawers.  She yanked
them open, each gleaming metal tray clattering to the end of its track.

All of them were empty.

"Damn--" She flung the last one closed in frustration.  She had hoped to
find something that could be used as a weapon.  Even a simple manual
scalpel would be better than her bare hands.  Obviously, Bashir's
progress in fitting out the QM had been l interrupted by it being
commandeered for its new mission.  There were probably crates full of
implements that she could have used--surgical instruments were
fundamentally variations on cutting edges, no matter how advanced the
technology for making the incisions might be--and all of them were
sitting in a storage locker back on DS9.

In her flight through the substation's maze, she had come across a few
cartons of simple bandages and other soft materials.  Wonderful, she had
thought grimly.  Maybe I could wad them up and shove them down Horen's
throat-if could just get him to say "Ah."  She clambered onto one of the
biobeds and looked up at the overhead surgical frame.

The curved lens of its focused-beam spotlight glinted a transparent
green.

She stood on her toes and struck the lens with her fist.  A shard of
glass--a big one with an end wrapped in a bandage for a handle--could
draw blood as well as sharpened steel.  She ground her teeth together as
the thick lens shivered with each blow, but didn't break.

"Kira--" The voice didn't startle her, she had been expecting it at any
moment.  She quickly crouched down on the bed's padded surface, scanning
across the area's darkness, ready to spring from it and run again.

Silence.

Carefully, she stepped down from the bed's pedestal.  Nothing moved in
the darkened space.  The voice had come from an overhead speaker--Horen
could be at any point in the substation.

She called out.  "Where are you?"

"I'm everywhere, Kira."  The whisper was overamplified, but still
recognizable as Horen's.

"That's why you can't escape me.  You never could.  Because I'm in your
heart, as well."

"That's a lovely thought."  Looking over her shoulder, she calculated
the distance to the doorway.  The impulse to dash for it, into the
corridor beyond, was almost overpowering.  "Sometime, you'll have to
show me the rest of your poetry."

"Yes..."  Horen's voice betrayed no anger.  "We should talk, Kira.  I
admit I made an error in judgment.  I underestimated how well you could
resist your own guilty conscience.  If we sat down and talked .

. . perhaps that part of you that still acknowledges righteousness would
accept that which comes with it.

That is, justice."

She heard something beyond the voice coming from the speaker above her.

From another direction, and doser.

"You mean my death."  Kira kept her head motion less, looking out the
corner of her eye.

"Such a harsh word.  Don't torment yourself with it."

"Right, I forgot; that's your job."  How had he traced her to this area
of the substation?  She had thought she had lost him all the way back at
the storage lockers.  And he couldn't be talking through the entire comm
system--there was another overhead speaker in the passageway beyond, and
she would have heard the voice filtering through the door, if that had
been the case.

It was a question that would have to wait for her to figure out the
answer.  She heard the other sound again, the slight disturbance in the
still air.  Behind her.

somewhere down the row of beds.

'-A the necessity, Kira."  The voice oozed from the speaker.

"A movement such as the Redemptorists is fueled by the passions of its
followers.  Anger against a traitor is an effective spark for those
emotions.  I serve my followers by evoking it in them."

"How noble of you."  She realized what the sound was.  Someone's breath,
one bed closer to her now.  "I wonder .  . . if there's something else
that fuels your anger."

"Oh?  And what would that be?"

Slowly, Kira reached behind her, bracing her hands against the edge of
the bed.

"Guilt."  She listened to the area's silence.  "Not mine, but yours."

The other sound, the careful inhalation and release, halted for a
moment.  "What do you mean by that?"  The voice from the speaker above
tightened a fraction.

"You survived, Horen.  And they didn't."  She flexed her knees slightly,
rising a centimeter onto her toes.  "The ones back at the temple, all
those years ago.  They died .  . . your faithful brethren.

I remember standing there, looking down at some of them.  . . with the
flames at my back...."  She raised her voice, so it echoed from the
corners of the space.  "It wasn't pretty.  Some of them lived just long
enough to maybe wonder.  . . where you were, Horen.  And why you didn?t
die with them."

The breathing sound grew louder; she could picture the nostrils flaring,
the cords tightening in the neck.  She knew it came from only a few beds
down the row.

"Really quite a common reaction, Horen."  Kira felt her palms sweating
in anticipation.  "Survivor's guilt.

Because in your heart, you don't believe that I'm the traitor.

You're the one who betrayed them--" A cry rang from both above and
behind her.  She sprang to one side, pushing the corner of the bed so
that it rotated on the axis of the pedestal.

The other end caught Horen across his abdomen, toppling him forward.

Kira ducked beneath the arc of his knife; for a moment she saw plainly
the contact microphone taped to his throat, which had picked up and
magnified his almost inaudible whispering.

A wire ran from the black dot of the microphone to a short-range
transmitter clipped to his belt.  She rammed the butt of her palm into
the side of his head, but this momenTum carried him on to of her.

The knife swung again, closer, and she felt a streak of fire along one
arm.  She thrust herself upright, her hands against Horen's waist and
shoulders, and heard him land heavy against the angle of the bulkhead
and the floor.

Blood streamed down to her elbow; she was unable to draw her left hand
into a fist.  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Horen on his knees,
pushing himself upright with one hand, his other arm dangling as though
broken.

Rage contorted his face.

She made it to the doorway before he could launch himself toward her.

A quick stab at the control panel and she had stumbled out to the
passageway, the door sliding shut behind.  The narrow space tilted
dizzily around her.

Horen's footsteps pounded closer, only slightly muffled by the door.

Reaching up with her good hand, she grabbed the edge of the metal
surrounding the luminescent panel above her.  It came free as she drew
her legs up, her weight bracing the seal.  A thin strip peeled loose, a
liV md ollg, &Xillg iD her grip.  She jabbed the nd into the doorway's
sliding track, just as Hbren struck the control on the other side.  The
door ground to a halt as the metal strip, its other end still fastened
to the ceiling, bowed to the snapping point.  Through a gap of a few
centimeters, she could hear Horen cursing incoherently.

Kira turned and staggered into a run.  She clutched her wounded arm
tight against her breast, the blood soaking into her uniform.

He heard her even before she spoke.  Before she responded to the signal
transmitted from within the wormhole--her ragged breathing spoke of
exhaustion close to collapse.

"Kira--are you all right?"  Bashir pressed his hand flat upon the comm
panel's switches.  He had been trying to hail the substation for over an
hour.  "What's wrong?"

"Under .  . . under control."  Her voice broke into a crude simulation
of a laugh.

"I can't believe it.  I thought this was supposed to be some kind of a
hospital unit, and I can't even find a damn first aid kit .  . ."

The comment worried him even more.  "What happened?"

"Let's just say .  . . I made contact with Horen.  It wasn't fun."

"How badly are you hurt?"

"Like I said .  . . under control."  The sound of her breathing
steadied.  "Surface wound from a knife; lots of blood, no major tissue
damage.  I was able to pull an insulation sheet loose from one of the
control panel modules and bind it up with that.  I seem to be getting
function back in my hand--anyway, that's the least of my worries right
now."

"What about Horen?"

"That is what I'm worried about."  Kira's voice grew tense.  "He's still
out there, roaming around the substation.  That's the worst of it--I
don't know where he is, but somehow he's able to track me.

Somehow .  . . somehow, he's able to pinpoint my location, no matter
where I go.  He was waiting for me; that's how I got nicked by him."

Her voice paused for a moment.  "You weren't still going to try to get
out here, were you?  With that engine unbuffered--"

"I couldn't, even if I made the attempt."  Bashir's fingertip whitened
from pressing against the switch.  "Our friends here in the wormhole
made it clear to me that they wouldn't allow it.  Remember what you said
about them crushing the shuttle like an egg?  It'd be something like
that--I'd never reach the exit zone."

"That's one decision you don't have to worry about making, then.  If I
could just figure out how he's tracking me .  . . then maybe I could lay
a trap for him...."

The answer struck him.  "The thermal sensors.  That must be how he's
doing it."

"What're you talking about?"

"In the control panels for the doorways--" The explanation came rushing
out.  "The whole substation's wired with them; it was supposed to be a
way of monitoring patient movement through the quarantine module.

There's a microscanner right beside the door release switch on all the
panels--Horen must have some way of tapping into the data grid they feed
into.  Me just sets the readout sensitivity for your body temperature,
and he can tell when you move from one sector to the next.

It's the only possible way he could do it."

"Great--is there any way of shutting down the system?"

; Bashir shook his head, though he knew she couldn't see him.  "Not from
the command center.  The data line's bonded to the structural members;
you'd have to practically disassemble the whole substation to get rid of
it."  His thoughts raced ahead; they were the only way of reaching out
to help her.  "But you can fool the system.  Now, listen carefully--he
knows where you are right now, so you don't have much time.

You're going to need some things; there's a group of supply cabinets a
couple of sectors over .  . ."

At first, he had thought he would have to do something about his arm.

He had heard the crack of bone when he had landed, his full weight
impacting against his own flesh.  Now, the arm dangled uselessly at his
side, the wrist curled outward.

A net of loose wiring that he had torn from the control of one of the
biobeds would have served as a makeshift sling, but he had at last
balled it up and thrown it away from him.  The pain served a better
purpose, the grating of the splintered ends against each other with each
step he took; it honed his anger to a brighter, sharper edge.  It had
been sharp enough to kill before; now Horen felt as if he could slash
the metal of the substation apart if need be, to reach through and grip
her throat in his good hand.

-r

He leaned his shoulder against a bulkhead, close to a doorway, fumbling
with the buttons of the small tracking device.  It had taken some effort
to wedge open the control panel and get the device's wires into place.
Effort, and time--Kira had already gotten away from him, more than once,
and he blamed his own slow delight in her trapped situation.

A weakness, for which he now bitterly lashed himself.

Vengeance, the justice of the Redemptorist faith, was to have been a
sword, quick and irrevocable, and he had almost dropped it.  No more.

The grid showing the substation's layout came up on the device's small
display.

Horen thumbed the button below it, scrolling through sector after
sector, until a red dot blinked on.  Somewhere close to the command
center; that made sense.  He knew that Kira had been using the comm
equipment there, to link up with the other Federation officer, who had
been left behind in the wormhole.  Not that it would do her any good.

He was about to pull the wires free and stow the device in his pocket,
where the knife lay waiting, when another red dot appeared.  The grip of
his good hand tightened convulsively on the tracking device as he stared
at it.

At a point that would be a few meters away from the first, the thermal
sensors had picked up another source of body heat.

It can't be--He jabbed at the buttons, but the red dots remained,
blinking steadily.  There couldn't be another person on the substation;
he would have felt through the frame the shudder of the docking hooks
grappling onto any vessel that had approached.  Unless the person had
been able to beam aboard the q substation--but the cargo shuttle, even
if it had been able to exit the wormhole, lacked personnel transporter
equipment.  And there were no other vessels in the area....

A third dot appeared on the display.  Then a fourth, and a few seconds
later, a fifth.

An army, a dozen or more, showed by the time a wordless cry of anger
escaped from Horen's lips.  He smashed the lying device against the
bulkhead, the display going blank as the microcomponents fell out of the
broken case and onto the deck.

Horen struck the control panel and rushed through the door before it had
slid halfway open.  With his head lowered, he drew out the knife and
headed down the corridor.

She pulled the silvery blanket closer around her, careful to keep her
head covered by it.  Bashir had told her that shielding her arms and
legs wasn't so important--the main sources of body heat radiation, that
the doorway sensors were set to pick up, were her torso and head.  A
chill leaked from the thermonic blanket, raising gooseflesh across her
shoulders.  Its medical purpose was for the treatment of fever patients,
its activated thermal-exchange circuits the equivalent of an
old-fashioned ice bath, but more controllable.

Now, for Kira, it served as an even more effective form of camouflage.

The blanket's hem trailed behind her as she hurried toward the next
doorway.  From within the hooded folds, she took one of the blanket's
counterparts, a catalytic heating patch.  Squeezing the patch's edge,
she initiated the chemical reaction inside--she could feel it begin to
warm in her palm--and set the processor-controlled temperature to match
her own.  She peeled away the tape guards and slapped the patch onto the
doorway panel beside her.  Down the length of the corridor, and into
several of its branches, similar patches had already been stuck across
all the sensors.

She heard him approaching.  The sound of footsteps ringing through the
enclosed spaces--that was a good sign.  It showed that she had managed
to push him even farther over the edge.  Horen's mounting anger was
washing away before it all his stealth and hunter's cunning.  The
substation had been a psychological extension of his own body, both a
substance and an environment that he had controlled.  The fight in the
other sector, when he had used the diversion of the throat-mounted
microphone to sneak up on her, had been the first blow to that armored
self-image.  What ever physical harm he had suffered wasn't as important
as the eroding of his self-command.  And now, to effectively blind him,
rendering useless the sensors by which he had as much as seen into every
corner of the substation .  . . This ought to be good, thought Kira, as
she rushed to get one more thermal patch up.

She ducked into the shadows of the nearest corridor branch, pulling the
bottom of the silver blanket in behind her.  The branch's angle gave her
a clear line of vision down the main corridor.

Horen appeared, knife in hand, his other arm hanging at his side.

His shoulders hunched bull-like, chest laboring from exertion.  He
stepped forward, his glaring eyes scanning across the bulkheads.

Holding her breath, Kira watched as he stopped beside one of the
doorways.  He reached up, using the knife to poke at what he had spotted
on the control panel.

The blade slipped under the patch and lifted it away.  Horen knelt down
and rubbed the back of his fist across the patch lying on the deck, the
heat still seeping from it.  His face tautened as realization set in;
the knife suddenly rose, then slashed the patch open, the chemicals
spurting out.

That was what she had wanted.  Horen strode down the corridor, teeth
clenched in anger at the sight of the thermal patches fastened onto each
doorway panel.  He ripped one loose and hung it down, then the next.

As he came closer, Kira silently pulled the blanket from around her
shoulders and held it ready before her.  When her target crossed in
front of the branch's opening, she leapt forward, the blanket lifted
like a net.  Her momentum toppled Horen from his feet; she fell with
him, the blanket's folds billowing between them.

Even with just one arm, his strength surprised her.  The knife point
tore through the blanket, nearly grazing her ribs.  She was thrown clear
as Horen reared up.

He tossed the blanket aside with another sweeping motion of his arm.

Kira scrambled to her feet, crouching with hands forward in combat
position.

Instead of coming at her, Hdren scooped up the blanket and tossed it at
her face.

In the few seconds it took her to duck and push it away, Hdren had
turned and vanished into the opposite reaches of the corridor.  She
heard his footsteps dwindling away in the darkness.

She breathed deep, gathering her strength around her racing pulse.

She had hoped for better, but still .  . .

From this point on, it would be closer to a fair fight.  She could deal
with that.

come here because it makes a convenient vantage point for the comings
and goings on the Promenade."

CHAPTER 13

HE ACCEPTED another DRINK, though he had already altered his metabolism
so that it, and the ones preceding, would have no effect on him.  The
fresh synthale was set down in front of him, and the empty mug taken
away.

Quark slid into the seat across the table from him.  "Your health,
Constable."  The Ferengi had picked up the term from hearing Commander
Sisko use h.

"You know your patronage is always most welcome in my humble
establishment."

"Is it, indeed?"  The other's sharp-toothed smile grated on Odo's
sensibilities to a greater degree than usual.  His brooding about the
situation on Ops, with everyone tensely waiting for any communication
from the wormhole or the Gamma Quadrant, was not lightened by Quark's
impersonation of a charming host.  "Don't get ideas about what it means.
I only

"You're too kind."  Nothing fazed Quark.  "I seek to provide every
amenity for my customers."  He leaned forward, the smile replaced by an
expression of heartfelt solicitude.  "Really too bad, isn't it, about
Major Kira and Doctor Bashir?  I'd like to be counted among the many
friends who are concerned about them."

"What do you know about that?"

"My dear Odo.  One hears things.  As you yourself just indicated--this
is a wonderful location for keeping an eye on things."  Quark gestured
toward the other booths and tables, and the multi-species clientele
lined up at the bar.

"Really .  . . it's like the heart of DS Nine, don't you agree?"

He made no reply.  Once again, he was reluctantly impressed by the
Ferengi's network of informants, gossips, and other data conduits--a
network that rivaled his own.  A total security clampdown had been put
in effect on the mission to the Gamma Quadrant, even before things had
gone wrong.  And here was Quark, making it a point to show that he was
aware of the details.  I should deputize him--the thought had occurred
to Odo before.  If I could trust him.  At least, Quark wouldn't be privy
to any more sensitive material than he already was.

Odo took a drink and set the mug back down.  "I hope I can rely on your
discretion."

"Oh, but of course."  Quark made a little bow where he sat.  "And more
than that, Constable.  I want to help."

"You'll help by keeping your mouth shut."  He looked around to see if
anyone else in the bar could overhear their conversation.

A sigh came from Quark.  "I always encounter such hostility from you .

. . and I don't know why.  Oh, well-- He started to slide from the
booth.  "Perhaps you're just not interested...."

Odo grabbed the Ferengi's wrist and drew him back.  "Do you think you
have something to tell me that I don't already know?"

"Your problem is that you think you know every thing."  Quark adjusted
his cuff.  "Just because you can pass yourself off as a fly on the wall,
if you want to.  But you can't be everywhere at once, can you?

You certainly weren't here on the Promenade when that Redemptorist
Deyreth Elt was purchasing certain interesting items."

"Those recording chips?"  Odo shook his head in disgust; Quark was
obviously beginning to slip.  "You already gave me that tape."

"Not the chips--anyone can buy those legally.  I'm referring to a
transaction that occurred right here in my bar, between Deyreth Elt and
a pair of tech smugglers."  I "I see."  Odo's interest had been aroused.
"And were these smugglers friends of yours?"

"Well, they weren't Ferengi, but they were certainly smart enough to
make a little extra money by telling me what the Redemptorist had bought
from them."  A smug expression settled on Quark's face.

"Most intriguing; lots of possibilities."

"And these items were .  . . ?"

"Constable.  We're both men of the universe."  Quark looked across the
bar, then turned back to Odo.  "If I satisfy your curiositY-what's in it
for me?"

"I thought you were so concerned about Kira and Bashir."

"Oh, I am.  Nearly as much as I am about myself."

"Very well, then."  Odo shrugged.  "You could expect a measure of
forbearance on my part when it comes time to relicense your
establishment.  I'd be willing to overlook certain problems that have
come to my attention, concerning the adulteration of beverages and
irregularities in the operation of your dabo tables."

"Thank you.  I like a security chief I can do business with."  Quark
drew a set of folded papers from inside his jacket.  "Here's the
complete technical data on the items Deyreth Elt purchased.  I don't
mean to insult you, but the information is somewhat specialized; it may
be a little bit outside your realm of expertise.  I suggest you consult
with Chief Engineer O'Brien on this matter."

He glanced through the sheets before refolding them.  The Ferengi was
right.  "That's exactly what I'll do."  He drained the last of the
synthale and stood up, then leaned over Quark.  "If nothing else, he'll
be able to tell me whether or not you just pushed some worthless trash
on me."

"Constable!"  Quark feigned shock.  "I would neer--"

"I know.  Not unless there was a profit to be made from it."  Odo turned
and headed for the exit.

"Have you changed your minds?"

The image regarded him with its eyes of blackness and stars.  "That is
not the correct word of your language.  Our kind does not have minds as
you would know them.  It is something different."

Whatever.  Sisko resisted the temptation of getting into another
protracted metaphysical discussion with the entity.  It would have been
so easy to do that, to forget all about matters of life and death in the
universe outside.... He shook his head, as though struggling for a
moment to stay focused, and laid his hands flat upon the arms of the
pilot area's seat.  "Perhaps I should have asked if you had come to
another decision."

"We have not.  The concern you feel for this other one of your kind, the
one who exists here no more-- we are intrigued by that.  Your kind seeks
to mold time, to make it different from what it is or will be; that is
strange to us.  But as you say, it is in your nature."  The image of
Kira closed its eyes for a moment, silent, as it communed with the
unseen others behind it.  "Nevertheless, we cannot permit you to go to
that other one.  That which moves you from point to point, in space
rather than time--this engine, as you call it--it wounds us ternbly.

We had not even known what pain and not-pain were, until such a thing
came upon us.  Now, we even know what death is; that is how severe the
engine's effects are upon our kind.  All these things of time were
brought to us by the one called Benjamin Sisko--but he also promised us
that it would not be that way again.  We accept that it was not your
intent to harm us.  But we cannot allow it to happen again."

Bashir clenched his jaw in frustration.  There was no telling what was
going on with Kira, out in the Gamma Quadrant--he had reached the limit
of how much good he could do her at this distance.  He had received no
communication from her in the last few hours; she could already be dead,
for all he knew.

Horen could have caught her as she was fetching the thermal patches and
blanket from the storage cabinets.  Caught her with an arm around her
neck, and the knife rising up in his other hand-- He pushed the image
out of his head.  "If only .  . ."

He shook his head.  There was no way to explain to them.

There was no need to.  The Kira image's gaze penetrated his thoughts.

"You do not believe us.  In your mind and in your soul, you think we
tell you something that is not truth."

After a moment, Bashir nodded.  "You're right.  That is what I think.

There must be some way that I can activate the engine, and not have it
hurt you.  Or .  . . or maybe it wouldn't be as bad as you think; maybe
you're just afraid of it, because of the pain.  It would be for only a
little while, and then I would be out of the wormhole--"

"You see?"

The harsh, angry voice came from the image again, its expression
changing to a scowl.  Bashir knew it wasn't addressing him, but the rest
of the wormhole's inhabitants instead.  "This also is in the nature of
these creatures!  The pain and death of others is not real to them--thus
they find it easy to kill all not of their kind!"

"No ... it's not like that...."

"These words are such clumsy things."  The gentler voice returned to
Kira's image.  "Even for your own kind.  It was the same with the one
called Sisko--there were things he would not believe until he could see
them himself Perhaps it is the same for you.  We should show you that of
which we speak."

"What do you mean?"

"This is not the only time that exists."  The image

. raised a hand toward the shuttle's bulkheads.  "All of what you
see--both in this universe and the one outside it--that is but one time
of many.  There are others, different from this."

He leaned forward in the seat.  "You mean parallel realities?

Something like that?"

"Words--your kind is so fond of them.  You name things and believe you
know them."  A smile played on the image's face.  "Yes, if it pleases
you to call them such."

"All right.  What is it you would show me, then?"  He felt like a
character in an old Earth story, talking to the ghosts who had visited
him.  "I'm ready."

' More than ghostlike; a phantom of suffering.  Suddenly, the image of
Kira threw its head back, the cords of its neck tautening, mouth
grimacing in pain.  The image grew translucent; for a moment, the stars
filled its outline, twined with bones of glass.  Then it was gone.

He was alone in the cargo shuttle.  More so than ever before; he
realized that even when the image had chosen not to show itself to him,
the wormhole's inhabitants had always been there with him, watching.

Their presence had filled the shuttle like oxygen.  He could breathe,
but the stuff inside his lungs was something colder and thinner, a
bitter metallic taste formed on his tongue.

"Where are you?"  Bashir called aloud, then slid down from the seat.

He stood in the middle of the pilot area, looking slowly around the
empty space.

Something else had stopped that had almost be come as much a part of him
as his pulse.  He looked toward the panel that held the instruments for
the external sensors.  All the readouts had pegged down to zero, the
same blank red numeral showing on all the gauges.  He stepped toward the
panel and laid his hand on it.  The equipment was still working; a faint
electronic hum seeped through the skin of his palm.

The data storage units continued to operate, absorbing the flat output
of the wormhole's dead universe.

Appalled, Bashir stepped back from the readouts.  He spun to face the
pilot area's center.  "Where are you?"  A cry now, as much of anger as
fright.

We are not kere.  Not now.  A soundless voice spoke at his ear.  This is
the place where we are not.  Because of what you would do to us.

We can look into this other time, and ouch you in it, but we cannot Joe
here.

He went to the front of the area, and leaned over the control panel, to
gaze out the observation ports.  The swirling play, the visible bands of
the wormhole's electromagnetic radiation, had vanished.  Darkness
without stars surrounded the shuttle.

"This .  . ."  He touched the cold inner surface of the port.  "This is
what the engines would do?"

Without that which you call the buers .  . . yes.  The wounding it
causes, the hurt to us .  . . the death.  You would kill us with the
engines.  And when we die, the wormhole becomes a dead thing, as well.

Its flesh is our flesh; we are the same as it.  It would not happen at
once, but slowly in your time.  Whenever the engines come upon us, a
little more death.  Until there is no more.

There was something else they weren't telling him; he sensed it, out
beyond the fragile skin of the shuttle, beyond the limits of the
wormhole itself.

"What about the rest?  Out there?"  He pointed to where the stars had
once been, cold light swarming at the point where this small universe
opened onto the larger one.  "What happens there?"

We know not.  The voice seemed to come from a place almost as distant.

That is not our concern.

An idea had already formed inside him; all he needed to do was speak it
aloud.  Even though he was afraid to.

"Leave me here, then."  Bashir looked over his shoulder, half hoping to
see the Kira image standing behind him.  "In this time, in this place."

This is the time of the dead.

"I know.  But I can do you no more harm here.  Your kind exists in
another time, apart from this.  I can activate the engine without
causing any more suffering, any more death, to you.  We're all beyond
that, here, in this time.  There would be no more wounding, yet I could
go to the aid of the other one of my kind.  That's all that matters to
me now."

, The voice was silent for a long moment.  Then it came again.  You do
this at peril to yourself.  We cannot tell you what lies beyond this
place, this time, our flesh.

E We are not out there, where you wish to go.  You will cease to exist
for us, as the other one did You will have E no way of speaking to us
again.

He nodded slowly.  "But there's no other way."

You will be lost.

"I'll have to take that chance.  But like everything else out there-it
won't be your concern anymore."  He shrugged.  "Maybe you won't even
remember me."

Too late.  Now, you exist in memory, as welL L. AIl right."  Bashir
pushed himself away from- the panel and stood in the center of the pilot
area.  "Let's do it."

út is done already.  The voice was barely perceptible.  Goodbye .  .

.

He was truly alone.  The instrument gauges stared at him like empty eye
sockets.  He walked past them, heading for the hatchway that led down to
the engine compartment.

A few minutes later--if time could have been measured in this
universe--he came back up and settled himself in the pilot area's chair.
He reached out and pressed the main thrust control.  Below him, he felt
the surge of power emitted by the unbuffered engine.

Gathering speed, the cargo shuttle moved toward the wormhole's exit.

"I've brought someone with me this time."  He pulled another chair
toward the table in the center of the cell.  "I think you know our Chief
Engineer O'Brien."

Odo watched as the Redemptorists, sitting in a row on the other side of
the table, nodded toward their former boss.  They all looked puzzled as
to why he had come.

"The chief engineer and I have been having an interesting conversation."
Odo unfolded the papers that Quark had given him and spread them out on
the table.  "Much the same as you and I have had.

Only concerning things that I wasn't quite aware of before."

The Redemptorists shifted in their chairs, appearing nervous and
uncomfortable.  He had observed this condition in interrogation subjects
before, especially after they had had time to reflect upon various
psychological ploys he might have used upon them.  This bunch now
radiated an uneasy fear when confronted by him, undoubtedly worrying--if
only subconsciously--about what he might turn to next.

"It seems certain devices were purchased by your late comrade Deyreth
Elt."  Odo looked down at the sheets of paper.  "Devices that the chief
engineer informs me are called parasitic echo reays."  He looked up at
his audience.  "Ring any bells with you?"

The Redemptorists glanced from the corners of their eyes at one another,
but remained silent.

"These devices have some striking properties.  It was an education,
hearing about them.  It seems that these echo relays can be placed in
parallel with circuits that might have a coded signal sent along
them--the input circuits, let us say, for a chain of high explosives
that requires a fuse code in order to be triggered."  Odo looked at
O'Brien sitting next to him.  He sensed the hot-tempered human's
impatience with what must have seemed like a roundabout mode of
questioning.  The engineer would have been much more likely to have
reached across the table and banged a couple of heads together to get
them talking.  Even if he hadn't gotten any answers that way, he would
have felt better.  "These echo relays don't require the code signal;
they can pick it up from the circuits they've been placed on, and hold
it for a variable length of time before allowing it to pass on to the
next stage of the circuit.

Now, does that sound familiar?"

They were trembling, right at the verge of cracking; Odo saw one of the
Redemptorists open his mouth, as though he were about to speak.

Sweat dotted all their brows.  The softening up he had done before was
about to pay off.  To confront them now, with a spiel of information
that they had thought was known only to themselves, was the final step
in the process.

"Come on," growled O'Brien.  "There's people's lives at stake--" The
Redemptorists didn't even seem to hear the chief engineer.  They were
still staring at Odo, like small animals hypnotized by a venomous
reptile.

"You know you want to tell me."  He pitched his voice low, almost
soothing.  "Think how good it will make you feel.  Why not now?"

"It's so they won't all go off at once--" The one in the center of the
row broke his silence, his words blurting out, propelled by the pressure
inside him.  "And that way--"

"That's right," another one quickly added.  "So the force isn't
cumulative, it's dispersed--" They all began talking at once, their
voices tumbling over each other.

Odo turned toward O'Brien.  "Are you getting all this?"

She swiveled her chair toward him.  "There have been some highly unusual
developments in that sector, Commander."

Sisko stood behind Dax on the Ops deck, looking at the panel display she
had called him to see.  "Exactly what's going on?"

Dax ran a fingertip across the glowing numerals.  "I've been keeping a
monitoring scan on the sector where the entrance to the wormhole was
before it collapsed out of existence.  Look at this."  The numbers she
pointed to were rows of zeros.  "There's been a near-total drop in the
background electro magnetic activity.  Virtually nothing is happening in
that sector.  I've never seen anything like that before."

He lifted his brow in puzzlement.  "What do you think it means?"

"Hard to tell, Commander."  She studied the readouts.  "It's as if that
sector has shifted in time somehow--to a point approaching the
theoretical end of the universe itself.  This flattening out of the EM
distribution is a kind of death on a cosmological scale.  It's what we
would anticipate seeing--if there were anyone still around to see
it--when the universe begins collapsing in upon itself.  It's just that
here it's confined to this one relatively small area."

"Something must be going on in there.  Inside the wormhole."

Dax nodded.  "That sector of space and the worm hole must somehow still
be connected--just as if the wormhole left a gap in the outside
universe's fabric when it disappeared.  And now we're seeing some kind
of resonance effect between them."

"It's Bashir."  One of Sisko's fists struck the panel.  "He must have
done something.  He must have figured out some way of dealing with the
wormhole's inhabitants."

"Perhaps.  But then, the wormhole's entrance hasn't reappeared."

"Commander--" A voice called from the Ops doorway.  He looked up and saw
Odo and O'Brien striding toward him.

"What is it, gentlemen?"

"My interrogation of the Redemptorists has yielded some results at
last."  Odo appeared pleased with himself.  "We've come up with some
information that F may be of considerable value."

"It's just as we thought," said O'Brien.  "They've wired some additional
surprises into the substation."

Sisko led them back to his office.  He leaned forward across his desk,
chin braced against his fists, and listened to the chief engineer's
explanation.

"--and that's what they've cooked up."  O'Brien had finished the
technical details.  "These parasitic echo relays turn the autodestruct
function of the original quarantine module into something almost
completely different.  The original destruct sequence was set for all
the explosives to go off simultaneously, as soon as the fuse codes were
transmitted to them.  That way, the QM would have been completely
destroyed; there wouldn't have been any pieces bigger than your hand
floating around afterward.  Now, with these echo delays wired into the
circuits aboard the substation, they will go off one after another, with
several seconds between charges.  The cumulative effect won't be
present; all the substation's atmospheric seals will be blown out, but
the structural framework and most of the exterior shielding will still
be intact."

"Apparently, the plan was something devised by Deyreth Elt and Horen
Rygis."  Odo turned his gaze toward the commander.  "They anticipated
that once we discovered Horen was aboard the subseation-- particularly
if we also found out that he had been successful in murdering Major
Kira--we would initiate the autodestruct sequence as the quickest means
of eradicating him, so that he couldn't be brought to trial on Bajor.

He couldn't eliminate the explosives and their circuitry on the
substation, but with the echo relays they could be sufficiently altered
so that he would stand a reasonable chance of survival.  With one of the
portable emergency life-support systems aboard, he could hold out for
some time.  Long enough for the Bajoran provisional government to become
aware of the situation and press for him to be brought back to the
planet's surface.  Any trial would become a show for gathering even more
support for the Redemptorist cause.  Horen would come out of it an even
bigger hero than before."

; "Indeed."  Sisko leaned back.  "Now that we have this information,
gentlemen, what do we do with it?"

- "If we could get this information to Major Kira, she could use it
against Horen."  Odo's voice remained dispassionately logical.  "We know
that the other end of the wormhole is still in existence; it's also
reasonable to assume that the cargo shuttle is still close to the
wormhole's exit.  Though the internal curvature of the wormhole normally
renders impossible any transmissions to or from vessels that have
traveled significant distances inside, the cargo shuttle might be within
effective comm range.  If so, there's a chance that Kira is in contact
with Doctor Bashir.  He could transmit to her the fuse codes for the
explosives.  As soon as she had acquired a portable life-support system
for her- self, she could initiate the autodestruct sequence and blow
Horen into space.  An entirely appropriate conclusion to him, I would
maintain."

"The problem is in getting the information to her."  Sisko rubbed his
chin.  "I think we need to have another little discussion with Gul
Tahgla...."

He used the augmented personnel module to transfer from the cargo
shuttle to the substation.  The APM, stowed in its own bay just off the
shuttle's freight hold, was almost a complete small spacecraft in its
own right, nearly two meters across at its widest point and close to
four meters from the base of its propulsion unit to the sinal lights and
sensors mounted above the multiwindowed head.  The six utility arms
positioned around the APM's elongated trapezoidal form were equipped
with a variety of tools, from heavy duty grappling pincers to fusion
weld cutters.

Bashir didn't know what it would take to get inside the substation, but
he wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

The safety of the cargo shuttle dwindled behind as he steered the APM
toward the substation's docking port, where it had once been connected
to the vessel taking it through the wormhole.  In all directions lay the
field of stars, the coldness of their scattered light prickling Bashir's
skin.  The memory of the Kira image's eyes haunted him; that, and the
dead pocket universe, the wormhole wounded by the unbuffered engines,
from which he had finally piloted the shuttle.

Around the docking port were the black scorch marks from the bomblets
that had originally cannoned the substation out here to the Gamma
Quadrant.  Inside the APM, Bashir rotated a control on the small panel
before him, playing an exterior work light across the massive C-shaped
arms splayed out from the port.  Reaching behind him in the APM's
cramped space, he found the glovelike hand-piece that operated the
smaller grappling arm.  The APM turned on its axis as the arm extended
and seized hold of the port's emergency release bolts.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the bolts gave way, the grappling arm
slowly twisting them to their unlocked position.  The explosive force of
the bomblets hadn't damaged the entry system.  He had been worried about
the possible need to cut his way in with the fusion torch, and
compromise the substation's atmospheric seals.

Backing the APM off a few meters, he watched the hexagonal door of the
port swing open.  Within minutes, he had guided the APM inside; using
one of the grappling arms, he struck the red manual-activate switch
protruding from the side of the airlock.  Through the APM's sensors, he
could hear the hissing sound grow louder as oxygen flooded the chamber.

As soon as the pressure-match light came on on the panel, he unsealed
the APM--a vertical slit appeared between two of the segmented windows,
widening as the metal edges retracted from each other, down to the APM's
base.  Bashir quickly stepped out and hurried to the doorway leading to
the interior of the substation.

In the central corridor, with the door sliding shut behind him, caution
suddenly held him back.  There was no telling where Horen might be--the
Redemptorist would undoubtedly have been able to tell that someone new
had come aboard.  Bashir resisted the impulse to call out Kira's name,
and instead, tried to make as little noise as possible as he headed for
the command center.

He found he needn't have worried.

When the command center's door slid back, he spotted the two corpses
lying on the deck.  Or what had been corpses; slow centuries had reduced
them to skeletons, the soft tissues reduced to a thin, wrinkled leather.

The larger one he assumed had been Horen; the other, he was able to
recognize as Kira from the few faded scraps of her uniform, the white
fingers of her ribs visible through the gaps.  The skull's eye sockets
held nothing as they gazed up at the ceiling.

He knelt down and touched what had been her head.  The small bones
crumbled to dust with the slightest pressure.

Cold, deeper than that between the stars, seemed to radiate from inside
him.  He quickly stepped to the control panels; the instrument lights
came up, slowly and dimly, beneath his fingertips.  "DS Nine--this is
the substation mission calling Deep Space Nine.  Do you read me?"  He
could hear his own voice tautening, as dread seized hold of his throat
and breath.  "Is there anyone there?  Anyone .  . ."

Silence answered him.  Silence that he knew now was the wordless speech
of the dead, an emptiness large enough to swallow galaxies, small enough
to be held inside jaws of whitening bone.  He stepped back from the
panel and turned toward the dead, who still had remnants of faces.

"They have been here a long time.  Just like this.  Waiting for you."

Somehow, the unexpected voice failed to startle him.  He looked over his
shoulder and saw a woman standing behind him.  She was dressed in the
enfolding robes of a Bajoran priestess.

"There is no blame to be ascribed to you."  The woman's expression was
one of gentle forgiveness.  "As I told your commander, Benjamin Sisko,
there are limits to human effort.  One must learn to accept what one can
and cannot do."

He recognized her then.  He had never met the Kai Opaka in the
flesh--though she seemed real enough now, standing with placid calm in
the substation's command center--but had seen photos and tapes of her,
millennia ago back on DS9.  Her soft voice confirmed her identity.

Slowly, Bashir stood up and turned toward her.

After so much that had happened, his capacity for being surprised had
been erased.  But not the questions inside his head.  "What is this
place?"

"This?"  Kai Opaka lifted her small hand and gestured toward the
substation's bulkheads, then to ward the observation ports to indicate
the stars beyond.  "This is everything, Doctor Bashir.

This is the universe, the one to which the inhabitants of the wormhole
brought you--at your request, remember.  The universe you remember--the
universe of living things--exists, and doesn't exist, somewhere else.

You have left all that behind."

"Are we .  . ."

She read his thought.  "We are the only living things here.  And
everywhere.  This is the universe of the dead."  She pointed to the
observation ports.  "Go and see for yourself, Doctor."

He stepped toward the ports and looked out.  At the stars and the worlds
hidden in the darkness between them.  His skin felt cold, as though the
hollow in his gut was a piece of the same vacuum.

"Do you not sense it?"  The Kai's voice came from behind him.  "Or
rather, you do not sense it.  That which was as familiar to you as your
breath, so much a part of you that it could be forgotten.  The sense of
being surrounded by a living organism, the universe itself.  That is
what you miss now."

"Yes...."  He nodded slowly.  "That ... that's all gone.

Everything...."  He turned away from the empty vision.  "It was the
wounding, wasn't it?  That did this.  They told me .  . . about the
suffering, and the death...."

"Of course.  Are you not a doctor?  Did you not know that one part of a
living thing is connected to all other parts?

Even the wormhole, as separate as it is, still is of that greater
substance.  By wounding it, by its death, the death of all was brought
about.  It could not be otherwise."

He had known the answer even before she had spoken.  The weight of the
dead universe seemed to crush the breath from his lungs, as though he
were being buried in a lightless grave.

"I know how I got here .  . ."  Bashir spoke, hoping to keep the human
presence of the Kai near him for a while longer.  "But what about you?"

She smiled.  "I am only, as you might say, a little bit in this place.

Though I exist in the universe of the living, the one from which you
came, my meditations long ago brought me to this one, as well.  On your
world, as well as Bajor, the highest wisdom is to be as mindful of death
as one is of life.  These are not empty words; if you were to devote
yourself to the raising of one's inner powers as I have, you would also
be able to exist in both universes at once.  Thus it is that the
prophets see the future as clearly as the present, and the sages know
that all things happen in timelessness as well as in time."  Kai Opaka
stretched her palm toward him, as though in blessing.  "I saw that you
had come to this place, by virtue of your concern for another.

What you lack in wisdom--what you have not within you yet--is equaled by
that sacrifice.  I could not let you suffer alone."

A spark of hope moved inside Bashir.  "Can you .  . . can you take me
back?  To the living?"

"That is not within my abilities.  But those who are more powerful than
I am, those who were created of timelessness--the ones who brought you
here--they can do that.  And they will.  You chose not to harm them, and
they are grateful for that."

He closed his eyes, feeling the weariness drain away from him.  "But
when .  . ."

I have already communicated with them.  It is as much as done.

The Kai's voice hadn't spoken aloud but inside him.  As he opened his
eyes, he turned toward the observation ports.

And saw the stars.  And felt, resonating with his own pulse and breath,
the living worlds turning beneath every sun....

He looked over his shoulder and saw that Kai Opaka had gone.  But he
wasn't alone.

There was only one form lying on the command center's deck.  And she was
alive.

He stepped toward Kira and reached down, taking her by the arm and
pulling her to her feet.  She blinked in confusion, as though she were
still mired in the troubled dreams into which she had fallen.

CHAPTER 14

"ARE YOU SURE that's all you require, Commander?"  The Cardassian's face
peered from the Ops screen.  "I expected something rather more .

.

. elaborate from you."

Sisko gave a brief nod, a simulation of courtesy.  "As I've tried to
explain to you, Gul Tahgla, it's really a very simple matter.  And while
I admit a degree of embarrassment about the glitch that's interrupted
our communications with our substation, I suppose I should also be
grateful that your services are available to help us out."

Behind his chair, his chief officers stood and watched, listening to the
interchange between their commander and his counterpart out in the Gamma
Quadrant.  A brief conference between him and the others had been enough
to formulate their strategy.  Now, all he had to do was get Gul Tahgla
to fall for it.

"I'm not quite sure about this...."  Suspicion clouded Gul Tahgla's
face.  He studied the panel before him, drawing a finger along the words
that one of his adjutants had written down for him.  "Let me see if I
have this correct.  The text of the message you would like me to relay
to your substation is 'That which would have been simultaneous will now
be sequential."" He glanced up.  "And that's it?"

"That's all of it."  Sisko smiled pleasantly.  "I tried to be brief; I
didn't want to put you and your crew to any more trouble than absolutely
necessary."

"It sounds rather like a--what is that amusement of words?--a riddle."

Gul Tahla tilted his head, as though he could better puzzle out the
meaning by viewing the message at a different angle.

"Are you sure the ones aboard your substation--if there are any alive,
of course--will understand such compression?  Perhaps you would like to
. . . expand on it just a bit?"  He looked up, as though hoping for a
clue.

"No, it's quite adequate the way it is."  Sisko hoped it was.  The
wording was of his own devising, intended to be just enough to serve as
a key for Kira and Bashir, so that they would be able to figure out the
rest on their own.  And at the same time, it had to remain impenetrable
to Gul Tahgla, hiding the status of the substation.  "My crew members
will know what it means."

"Commander Sisko."  The expression on Tahgla's face had hardened, his
eyes narrowing.  "I must tell you that I find this artful simplicity to
be most dubious.  I sense not just mockery here but a very real threat.

The mistrust your request evokes is grave.  My officers and I will have
to study this intended message, to make certain it's harmless."

"Now that is disappointing.  I expected better of you, Gul Tahgla.

Are you telling me that a Cardassian gul can't make a decision on his
own, over something as simple as this?  You might want to be concerned
about the damage that will be done to the reputation of yourself and all
the Cardassian officer corps, when the story gets out that you were
frightened by some thing that's hardly more than a fragment from a
children's game.  Entities across the known galaxies might speculate as
to whether the warriors of the great Cardassian empire worry about their
own shadows creeping up on them."  Sisko could see that his comments
were hitting home, from the smoldering look that creased Gul Tahgla's
brow.  "And then, there are the political repercussions to consider,
when it's determined that my message was in fact harmless to Cardassian
interests--and you personally refused to honor traditional standards of
conduct between nonwarring parties.  I'm sure many planets with whom you
have alliances could begin to wonder what your empire's true
relationship with them might be.  That's the kind of suspicion that
would set back your diplomatic efforts a great deal."  Sisko shrugged.
"Of course, you might not be concerned about what your superiors on the
council would say about your placing them in such an awkward position .
. . all over a simple little riddle .  . ."

"Very well."  Gul Tahgla's mouth twisted into a snarl.  "Your message
will be transmitted to your substation unit; we will continue to repeat
until such time as you are satisfied that we have made every effort to
accommodate you.  But I warn you, Sisko: this changes nothing.  I will
sweep your abandoned unit out of the sector surrounding the wormhole's
exit."

He nodded in his own mockery of civility.  "Perhaps I will find the
answer to your inane riddle in the pieces that are left when I'm done."

The screen went blank, the subspace link with the Cardassian vessel
broken.

. Sisko looked over his shoulder at his chief officers.  "He bought it."

A fire burst the bounds of his heart, swarming upward into the chambers
that had once held rational thought.  That had all been torn away by the
rage that both consumed and left him whole.

Stronger and purer than before; that was what pain and anger had done
for him.  There had been weakness before in his physical body, the frail
bone and flesh that held his spirit.  But his own poisoned blood had
been let, and now he felt himself glorified, a wrathful spirit of
justice.

Horen moved through the corridors of the substation, the vibration of
each step sending a jagged spear up into his shoulder.  His broken arm
dangled at his side, its angle twisted even sharper than at first.

That was good; the crying of the nerves within kept him alert, his
senses scanning at a fevered pitch across the .  darkness.

,. His other hand gripped the knife, tight enough that .  it had become
an extension of his thought and will.  Its

E glittering edge turned radiant inside his skull; he could picture the
thin metal sinking through flesh as easily as through air itself.  As
though his prey were a ghost, a dead thing already.  For so it had been
ordained.  His own voice howled wordlessly inside him, a prophecy that
he carried in his fist....

The gridded deck rose unevenly beneath him, and he stumbled.  He found
himself on his knees and one hand, his knuckles scraped raw between the
knife's handle and the floor.  The darkness swam up toward his face, as
though it were a pool that he could ease his burning face into and drink
deep.

Part of him, the weak and diseased part, wanted to curl onto his side
and find sleep, let dreams roll over him, let the darkness become an
ocean swaying him in its slow tides.  He could have wept in frustration,
in the bitterness of knowing that the blood always returned, that he had
to let more and more of it out.  To sanctify himself.

"It's her fault," he whispered.  It always had been.  The fire had
blossomed inside the temple; the lucky ones who had been confirmed in
their holiness had lain on the blackened ground, alive just long enough
to taste the sweetness of their perfected state.  He should have been
there with them; he would have been, if she hadn't cheated him of that
moment of grace.  A timeless moment, eternal, all weakness purged.

Then, perhaps they would have forgiven, and blessed him.

He pushed himself up from the deck, sitting back on his haunches.

His strength began to return as he concentrated on taking one breath
after another.  The pain from his broken arm dulled a fraction, as
though it were a partner in his great task and had recognized how much
farther they had to go.

Carefully, Horen got to his feet, resting his shoulder for a moment
against the bulkhead.  The strength grew in him, the purifying flames
leaping even higher.  He raised his good arm, looked at his haggard face
in the knife blade above.

Soon.  That was the vow he sealed upon his heart.  It was time to bring
everything to an end.

He stepped from the bulkhead, moving on his ordained course.

Toward her.

She had been so angry that she had almost torn his head off.  When she
regained full consciousness and understood that it wasn't a
hallucination generated by fatigue, but the actual physical form of
Julian Bashir standing in the substation's command center, she pulled
her arm away as he was examining the blood soaked dressing.

"I ordered you!"  The words had snapped from Kira's mouth.  "You were
absolutely forbidden to activate any unbuffered engine and cause any
further damage to the wormhole--"

"You know, I really expected a more cordial welcome than this.  It
wasn't easy getting here."

Bashir had had to show her, by a visual check through the observation
ports and the readouts from the monitoring instruments, that the
wormhole was still in existence.  "This end of it, at least."  He had
tapped his finger against one of the gauges.  "Until we get back on
board the cargo shuttle and establish a subspace comm link with DS Nine,
there's no telling what's going on back there."

She studied him with equal measures of puzzlement and mistrust.

"So, exactly how did you get here?"

"Those minor details will be in my report."  He smiled.  "They have
somewhat more to do with my area of expertise than yours, I'm afraid."

He paused, listening to the substation's silence for a moment before
turning back to her.  "What about Horen?  Is he still-" Kira nodded.

"He's still out there .  . . somewhere."  She gestured toward the
command center's doorway.

"He could be just outside in the corridor, listening to us, for all we
know."

"And he's still intent on killing you?"

"He's somewhat persistent," she said dryly.  "Let's just say I've had a
few encounters with him.  That'll all be in my report."

"Then, what we need to do is transfer back to the cargo shuttle-right
now.  Where he can't get at either one of us."  Bashir glanced at the
doorway.  "We can use the augmented personnel module--it can hold two
people if necessary.  It'll be tight, but then, we don't have far to
go."

"Negative on that."  She shook her head.  "You can go back to the
shuttle if you want.  But I'm not leaving the substation.  Not until
he's taken care of."

"Are you joking?"  Bashir stared at her.  "Why take the risk?"  He
pointed to her bandaged arm and bloodstained uniform.  "You've already
barely survived your 'encounters' with this maniac.  In the shuttle, we
could just wait him out.  Or at least, we'd have time to rest and think
about what we're going to do."  He tilted his head back, realization
dawning on him.  "Perhaps you don't want to leave the substation because
you've become as obsessed as he is.  Some of Horen's madness has rubbed
off on you.  So, now you're locked into this .  .

.

this dance with him."

"It's not a matter of obsession."  Kira's voice remained controlled.

"I was sent out here to the Gamma Quadrant on a specific mission, to
claim sovereignty over this sector surrounding the worm hole's exit.

Before the Cardassians are able to.  This substation has to represent
the legal basis for that claim.  If Gul Tahgla gets here and discovers
there's no one aboard except some homicidal lunatic roaming the
corridors with a knife, he'll be able to lock down a claim for
Cardassian sovereignty even tighter."  She pushed her disordered hair
back from her brow.  "There's too much at stake--not just for the
Federation but for Bajor--for me to let that happen."

"The claim of sovereignty won't hold up if Gul Tahgla finds nothing but
corpses here, yours in included."

"All right, then."  Kira shrugged.  "As I said, I'm going to stay here
and take care of Horen"

"Kill him, you mean."

"If I have to."

Bashir gazed up at the ceiling.  The exasperation he felt over her
stubbornness was made worse by his knowing that she was right.

"You're in charge, Major."  He knew when he was beaten.  "Except for one
thing."

"What's that?"

"I intend to disobey any order you might give for me to return to the
shuttle.  Until we're done here.  Between the two of us, we should be
able to handle Horen."

One side of Kira's mouth lifted in a smile.  At the same time, from the
corner of his eye, Bashir saw a light appear on one of the command
center's panels.

"We've got a transmission coming in."  He studied the words scrolling on
the comm link's readout.  "It's from Gul Tahgla's vessel."

He switched the link onto the overhead speaker.  A monotone Cardassian
voice sounded.

"This message is relayed by us from the Deep Space Nine station, its
point of origin.  Your commander, Benjamin Sisko, wishes to advise you,
verbatim."

quote: That which would have been simultaneous will now be sequential.

End of transmission.  Do you acknowledge?"

Bashir pressed another of the switches.  "Receipt acknowledged."  The
lights on the panel died as the comm link was broken.  "What the hell do
you think that was supposed to mean?"

"If Sisko wanted us to hear, it has to mean some thing."  Kira stood
beside him.  "Especially if he went to the effort of convincing Gul
Tahgla to relay it to us."  She turned toward Bashir.  "My guess would
be that it refers to some operating mode of the substation.

Think--is there any onboard function that was originally designed to
operate simultaneously?"

"Well, there are the standard life-support systems .  . . but those are
ongoing."  He rubbed his chin.  "The message seemed to indicate
something that hasn't started up yet.  . . something that would have to
be triggered--" His eyes widened.  "The autodestruct devices!  Of
course--the charges are set to explode all at the same time, when the
fuse codes are programmed into them, so that the combined force would be
enough to tear the substation apart."

"So if they went off in a delayed sequence instead .  . ."

"It must have been something those Redemptorists wired in, when they
were working to convert the quarantine module.  If O'Brien were here, he
could probably explain how they did it."

"What would the effect be?"

Bashir shrugged.  "The damage would still be pretty severe.  The
interior of the substation would be essentially gutted, the atmospheric
seals would be blown out.  Structurally, it would remain intact; most of
the explosive force would be directed inward, so the exterior would
still be in decent enough shape."

"Total loss of life aboard?"

"Sure--for anybody who wasn't protected.  The decompression alone would
be sufficiently lethal."

"Then that's it."  Kira squeezed her hand into a fist.  "That's what
Sisko wanted us to know.  It's the perfect means of taking care of
Horen."

"It's still chancy.  He'd have to be lured to a sector of the substation
that doesn't have any emergency life support systems stocked in it.  The
only section like that is the anterior storage lockers."

Bashir drew in a long breath through his teeth.  "And that's the end of
the explosives chain--that's exactly where the charges would start going
off, once the codes had been given from here."

"Don't worry about it."  Kira wiped her palms on the trousers of her
uniform.  "That's my job...."

He saw her.  In some ways, it was easier now that he wasn't relying on
the doorway sensors and the tracking device.  Horen could tell where she
was, her movements through the substation's corridors, just by sniffing
the trapped air.  His senses had grown sharpe, the purifying anger
strengthening him.

A shadow in darkness, a footstep that rang upon metal .  . . that was
enough.  His prey was moving toward the farther reaches of the
substation, away from the command center.  He had thought he would be
able to trap her there, but she had bolted from that false security.

Panic must have set in, a desperate hunt for some kind of hiding place.

He had survived her trap, clever as it had been; perhaps she had
realized at last that there would be no stopping him, that he would keep
coming toward her, implacable.  There would be no hiding places where he
could not find her.  And at the end, she would be caught in some corner,
a narrow angle of bulkheads and ceiling.  Then his shadow would fall
upon her, a darkness broken only by the shining of justice in his
upraised hand.

He moved through the corridors that had become as familiar to him as his
own body.  All around, he felt the sureness of time embrace him, the
fulfillment of prophecy.

'Horen!"

Her shout rang through the dimly lit spaces, echoing from the banks of
storage lockers surrounding her.

A silhouette, its shoulders made even more massive by the lowering of
his head, appeared in the doorway.  One arm dangled, twisted and
useless, at the figure's side.  The knife glittered in the other hand.

"I've been waiting for this, Kira."  He stepped forward, a trace of
light revealing the hollows of his face.  "For centuries .  . ."

"I know you have."  She moved sideways, slowly, along the bulkhead
behind her.  Even in his madness, which had stripped away so much of
him, there was still something of the Redemptorist leader remaining.

His voice, the thundering pronouncements of blood and fire.  She had
counted on that.  "It was ordained, wasn't it?"

"Now is not the time to mock me.  You blaspheme in addition to all your
other sins.  Better that you should repent and seek forgiveness.  ,' She
glanced from the corner of her eye at the narrowing space to one side.
"Would that change anything?"  There was another doorway leading out of
the area, a few meters away; almost as close to her as Horen.

"Of course not."  His eyes glinted like sparks of the same radiance that
ran along the knife blade.  "There are sins that lie upon your heart,
that are beyond forgiving.  They can only be purged, like a sickness in
your veins."  He raised the bright metal.  "That is why you should
welcome this release from your life of defilement."

She said nothing.  For a moment, she braced her hands flat against the
bulkhead.  He had come near enough for her to smell the acrid sweat that
had seeped through his skin.

Close enough to smell her own blood staining the blade .  . .

Kira leapt shoulder-first as the knife swung toward her, ducking beneath
its arc.  Diving for the open doorway, she landed on her side, then
reached up to hit the control panel.  As Horen loomed in the shrinking
gap, the thrust of her kick caught him in the abdomen, staggering him
backward.  The door's edge sealed shut.

"Bashir--" She slapped her comm badge.  "Initiate explosives sequence
now!"

His voice came through an overhead speaker.  "Are you sure?"

"Goddamn it Of course I'm sure--do it!"  She scrambled to her feet and
headed toward the passage way's end.

She heard the door sliding open behind her, and Horen's footsteps.

As she glanced over her shoulder, another sound erupted, a deep rumble.

The shock wave from the explosion hit, the corridor shaking on all
sides, throwing her from her feet.  She grabbed hold of a doorway frame
and pulled herself upright, bracing herself against the bulkhead.

Behind her, she saw Horen on his knees, raising himself with the knife
still in his hand.

Another explosion; the air began to stream past her face.  She pushed
herself away from the door and ran, as the deck jarred and buckled
beneath her.

He heard the sounds, the low bass notes vibrating through the
substation's frame.  Immediately, the alarms went off on the command
center's panels, signaling the loss of perimeter integrity.  Bashir
punched the controls to dump the reserve oxygen storage and bring
on-line the emergency atmospheric generators.  His ears popped with the
fall in pressure, partly muting the alarm sirens as he opened the
doorway into the central corridor.

There was no time now to worry about Kira; he could only follow his part
in what they had planned together.  In a few minutes, he had reached the
airlock and climbed into the augmented personnel module.

The opening narrowed into a thin slit, then disappeared as the metal
edges locked into each other.

With the maneuvering jets set at low thrust, Bashir inched the APM
forward.  The doorway to the interior of the substation was meters too
small for the APM to pass through.  He activated the fusion weld torch,
the tip of the articulated metal arm turning into a glowing white point
of energy.  With the largest of the grappling arms, he grabbed hold of
the doorway frame, bending it free as the torch cut through the
structural member behind.

He could feel the heat through the segmented windows; that and the
seconds ticking past brought sweat trickling down into his eyes.  The
walls of the airlock shook as another explosion went off, closer this
time.  He pulled back on the grappling arm's control, the metal tearing
like heavy paper.

The explosions, the blasts that had surged louder and louder, the
impacts throwing her against the bulkheads, had confused her.  She had
had her route to the airlock figured out and memorized, but it had been
knocked from her skull.

Kira stopped, her lungs straining in the thin atmosphere.  The draft had
grown stronger, rushing past her ears as more oxygen poured out from the
substation's ruptured seals.  The wailing alarm sirens seemed to come
from kilometers away.

She looked toward the end of the corridor and saw a dead end.  No, she
told herself.  To the left at the last branch, not right ...

you're almost there....

Turning, she could see past the junction of the main corridor, to the
airlock's doorway.  Metal glowed and screeched, as the APM beyond
battered its way through the jagged opening.  Bashir's face was just
visible inside the machine.

Go....

She staggered toward the airlock.  The deck rose up and twisted,
slamming her shoulder against the bulk head.  She managed to keep her
balance, but thought for a moment that the impact had blinded her.  She
couldn't see the airlock's opening anymore; a wave of darkness had risen
above her.

Then she saw the light cut through, the gleam of metal.  And knew that
he had found her.

"Kira .  . ."

Horen could manage no more than a ragged gasp, his own chest heaving as
his arm grasped round her shoulders, drawing her to him.

The knife came up under her jaw, forcing her head back.

"I've waited..."  She could barely hear him through the roaring wind.

"For so long .  . ."

The sound of metal ripping apart, distant as another world; she looked
past Horen and saw the APM burst into the passageway, the jagged tooth
of the broken doorway frame scraping a line down the armored shape.

The jets at the APM's base flared brighter as it moved through the
clearance between the bulkheads.

Another explosion, from what seemed only a few meters away; the air was
pulled from Kira's mouth as she fell.  The blow had torn Horen's grasp
away; he toppled beside her.

A shape loomed over her.  The metal carapace of the APM split open,
revealing Bashir at its controls.  He reached down and grabbed the
collar of her uniform, dragging her onto her feet and toward him.

He shouted something, but she couldn't hear what words came from his
mouth.

With his other hand, Bashir pushed against another control; the APM
rolled a few degrees, enough to lift Kira and let her fall inside.

She landed heavily against Bashir's chest.

"Now, we're getting out of here--" He punched one of the switches, and
the opening's metal edges moved toward each other.

Weariness claimed her; she felt herself collapsing, only the confines of
the narrow space keeping her upright.  She twisted about, watching the
gap slide shut.  The opening suddenly seemed to disappear, filled by
darkness.  And a face with maddened eyes.

His face.

A hand reached through and caught the front of her uniform, gathering
the torn fabric into its fist, dragging her toward him.

The edges closed on Horen's wrist as she braced her hands against the
metal.

Light flared from the end of the corridor, in sync with the force that
surged through the substation's frame.  A silent torrent pulled taut the
muscles of Horen's face as the last of the oxygen rushed out, the
tatters of cloth around his chest and arms streaming into ragged
pennants.

A warning light blinked on the APM's panel, as its air supply was sucked
keening through the broken seal of the opening.  Bashir brought up the
thrust of the forward maneuvering jets, backing the APM toward the
airlock.

Horen's fist stayed locked upon Kira, the white knuckled fingers curving
into claws, the nails sinking through and into the palm.

The streaming air drew the rivulets of blood along the tendons of his
forearm.

She grabbed the inside brace of the opening, her fingers catching at a
thin metal ridge.  Gasping for breath, she added the last reserves of
her strength to that of the machine.

Bone cracked and splintered through flesh.  The metal edges ground
through the last shreds of tissue.  The opening sealed shut as a wet
thing loosed its grasp and slid away.

She had only a last glimpse of Horen, his face contorted beyond rage.

With his broken arm hooked around a jet nozzle, he clung to the exterior
of the

APM, his bloodied stump raised to batter against one of the windows.

The last explosion hit.  The corridor erupted around the machine.

Bashir had already worked the APM through the torn entrance of the
airlock; the impact of the explosion tumbled it through the chamber .

.

.

And out.

To silence.

They drifted, the substation slowly turning and growing smaller against
the stars.

The curved space of the APM fit tightly around its two occupants.

She couldn't have pressed any closer to Bashir if she'd wanted to.

"I know it will be difficult--" He didn't turn his face toward her, but
kept watching as he maneuvered the APM toward the shuttle.  "But if you
try not to get too excited, I think we have just enough oxygen left to
get there."

CHAPTER 15

A susrANllAL INCREASE in communications traffic was noted.

The pitch and volume of Gul Tahgla's shouted words alone would have
required an expanded band width.  As his voice came out of the overhead
speaker, Bashir wished that it would have been possible to view him, as
well.

"What is the meaning of this--" Kira handled the comm chores; it was
obviously something she had been looking forward to.  "I repeat: this is
Gamma Quadrant Remote Station, advising that you have entered a sector
under Federation control.  Please observe all appropriate navigational
procedures.

I'm sure you're familiar with them."

"Impossible!"  The Cardassian's voice went up an other level.  "You can
make no claim of sovereignty here .  . . your substation unit is out of
commission...."

"We seem to be doing all right."  Kira leaned back in her chair.  "As
you can tell, the minor technical problems we were having with our
communications systems have been repaired.  I assure you that we have
met all the requirements for establishing a claim to this sector.  This
end of the stable wormhole will be administered by Starfleet, for the
shared benefit of all the developed worlds.  You are certainly free, as
are all other vessels, to make arrangements to travel through.  And just
to show there are no hard feelings--" She let a smile come into her
voice.  "We'll drop any investigation into certain misleading statements
of purpose that were made by you prior to leaving DS Nine.

After all, we can't really blame you for trying, can we?"  The smile
grew even more malicious.

"This will go to the tribunal!"  Gul Tahgla sounded as if he were about
to explode from sheer frustrated wrath.  "This is an outrage!

You have no right--" She hit one of the comm panel switches, cutting him

"What do you think their chances are?"  Bashir stood at the other side
of the shuttle's pilot area, tinkering with the external sensor
readouts.

"Legally?"  Kira shrugged.  "They could make a case, depending upon how
much they find out about what we've done here.  But politically .  .

."

She shook her head.  "The Cardassians aren't too popular, even with
their allies.  Any vote would go against them, just so most of the world
would still have the access to the wormhole that the Federation has
guaranteed."

"I wish we could get a look at Gul Tahgla's vessel right now."  He knew
there was no way of accomplishing that, not without revealing their
ruse.  They had piloted the cargo shuttle in back of the empty
substation, hiding themselves from view by the approaching Cardassians.

The direction of their comm signal gave the indication that the
substation was on-line and inhabited.  "I bet it's really shaking--what
with Tahgla bouncing off the walls."

She turned her smile toward Bashir.  "Maybe we should turn the comm link
back on.  So we could listen."

- He had left the others behind, back on the DS9 station.  This way,
piloting the runabout with no other crew, he had a precious moment of
time to himself.  It was when he had been alone before that things had
happened.  Mysteries beyond all comprehension.

While still on DS9, he had used the station's subspace link to
communicate to Kira and Bashir aboard the cargo shuttle.  "I have some
news for you," their commander had spoken from the Ops deck.

- "The wormhole's entrance has reappeared in this sector.

Preliminary monitoring indicates that it has resumed its previous
stability.  A relief vessel will reach you shortly."

Kira had answered him.  "That's what we were hoping for.  About the
wormhole, I mean."

"I'll expect a full report on my desk as soon as possible.  From both
you and Doctor Bashir."  He had allowed himself to make one small
comment of praise before breaking the link.  "Good work, Major."  He
knew that was all that would be necessary.

Inside the wormhole, he cut the buffered impulse engines to minimum
forward thrust.  And waited.

A voice moved inside his head.

It is the one called Benjamin Sisko.  We recognize you.

He spoke aloud.  "I'm flattered."

The other one, to whom we showed ourselves .  . . he ú exists somewhere
else now?

"Yes.  He and the one who was with him; they're both safe now."

That one was not of time as you are, Benjamin Sisko.  Not as wise.

But he tried not to harm us.  For that, we have made this universe, our
flesh, that which you may enter again.

He nodded.  "I suspected as much.  You still have my promise about that,
about the engines being buffered.  You won't be hurt again."

That is a thing of time.  The voice spoke gently.  You do not know, and
we do not know.  It slowly began to fade.  Go to the ones of your kind,
who wait for you.

For a moment longer, he sat in silence.  Then he reached out and brought
the engines to full power.

He had recognized the voice, a memory that the wormhole's inhabitants
had taken and used as their mask.

His wife's voice .  . .

Eyes closed, he laid his head back against the seat.  He wished they had
shown her to him, as well.

She had cleaned herself up and changed into a fresh uniform.

Exhaustion rolled through her muscles.  She'd have to do some thinking
when she got back to her quarters.  There would be time for that now.

Time to let the blood slow within her veins, to sleep and let dreams
come.  Instead of memories.  The sickness, the _ from _ even oren.  She
would getbat much, as well.

As Bashir fastened a new bandage on the wound below her rolled-up
sleeve, Kira watched him.

"You know," she said, "when we get back to DS Nine_ He looked up at her.
"What?"

"We can have that drink together then."