Текст книги "Cathedral "

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

A moment later, he stood next to Ro’s table, scowling at Treir and gesturing accusingly at the drink in the statuesque green woman’s hand.

“Is thiswhat I’m paying you for?”

“Check the schedule again, Quark,” Treir said, nonchalantly sloshing what little remained of her warp core breach. “I’m off duty. And when I’m off duty, I sometimes moonlight as Lieutenant Ro’s bodyguard.” She threw Ro a wordless I-can-make-him-leave-you-aloneglance.

“Hello, Quark,” Ro said, involuntarily warming to his presence.

Quark’s rejoinder to Treir appeared to die before reaching his lips. “I hope we’re still on for tomorrow night,” he said to Ro with an anticipatory smile. “We’ll have Holosuite Three all to ourselves, starting at 2100 hours.”

Ro noticed Treir staring at her. No-really-I-can-makehim-go-away-if-you-say-the-word,she seemed to be saying.

Ro smiled back at Quark, and it felt like the first time she’d done anything other than scowl in weeks. “We’re still on, Quark. I haven’t forgotten.”

Shaking her head in incomprehension, Treir excused herself and departed, evidently having seen and heard quite enough. Let her think whatever she wants,Ro thought, amused.

“You know, I’m really beginning to look forward to this,” Ro said, more than a little surprised to discover that she actually meant it. “I think I could really use the diversion.”

Quark looked surprised for a moment, then quickly recovered his best tongoface. “You chose the program last time. So tomorrow night, Iget to pick, just like we agreed.”

“I remember,” she said. Then she let her smile collapse in order to make her next point with absolute crystal clarity. “Now you’dbetter remember: Don’t even think about running one of your Vulcan Love Slaveholonovels, or else it’s going to be an extremely short evening.”

He looked wounded, his hands raised in a don’t shoot!gesture. “I wouldn’t dreamof doing anything like that.”

“And no programs that require me to dress like Treir.” She’d had to do that once already, in the line of duty, and that was once too many.

Quark was making quite a show of agreeing with her. “That’s fine with me. That sort of apparel wouldn’t be appropriate for Las Vegas anyway.”

“Las Vegas?” She didn’t recognize the name. “Is that a Gamma Quadrant planet?”

“It’s a city on twentieth-century Earth,” Quark said, cheerfully baring his snaggly teeth. “Courtesy of Dr. Bashir. Full of bright lights, indescribable sounds, and inhaled carcinogenic vapors. Harmless holographiccarcinogenic vapors, of course.”

“Sounds like a Cardassian labor camp,” Ro said with a frown. “Except for the part about the holograms.”

“I suppose my description hasn’t done the place justice. Actually—”

Ro’s combadge chose that moment to speak up. “Kira to Ro. I’ve got a situation on my hands, Lieutenant.”

The sound of Kira’s voice neutralized the spring wine as authoritatively as a bucket of cold water. “Ro here, Colonel. Please tell me nobody’s hurt or dead this time.”

“It’s nothing quite that serious. At least, not yet. But I still need to see you in my office right away.”

“On my way.” Ro stood up and excused herself. “Tomorrow night, 2100 hours.”

“Wear a nice evening gown,” she heard Quark say as she walked quickly away from the booth. “Something semiformal and off the shoulder would be nice. With sequins!”

As she moved toward the bar on her way to the Promenade, she practically collided with Morn, who had chosen precisely the wrong moment to step down from his perch. Ro felt like an astronomer bearing witness to the formation of an antimatter quasar; the sight of Morn disconnected from his barstool had to be at least that rare.

Smiling politely, she picked her way quickly past the massive Lurian before he had a chance to draw her into yet another one of his interminable family anecdotes.

Moments later, she strode from the ops turbolift and into the station commander’s office.

Kira rose from behind her desk. “It’s Gul Macet,” she said in response to Ro’s unspoken question. “He’s asked for immediate departure clearance for his ship. And he won’t explain why, or when he intends to return.”

Ro frowned. “The Tragerwas supposed to stay at the station for at least the next few days. Macet told me he’d placed his ship at the disposal of the Cardassian delegates still on the station doing the low-echelon stuff.”

“Yes, the people who have diplomatic meetings about whether and when Bajor and Cardassia will havemore diplomatic meetings,” Kira said, nodding. “My instinct is to tell Macet to just sit tight and wait his turn.”

Ro mulled that over for a moment. With the current levels of station traffic, that would bump back the Trager’s departure by at least six hours. Why was Macet in such a hurry?

“Has he given you any reason to suspect anything other than an innocent internal scheduling mix-up?” Ro said.

Kira’s smile was small and rueful. “Besides his looking so much like Gul Dukat that it’s virtually impossible to think about him objectively?”

“Besides that.” Ro knew that Kira’s point, though made flippantly, was entirely valid. How could any Bajoran who’d endured the casual brutalities of the Cardassian Occupation keep a level head around a man who wore the face of Bajor’s most hated oppressor?

But Ro also knew that there were larger issues to consider, namely Bajor’s relationship with Cardassia during that world’s postwar reconstruction—and the Federation’s evaluation of the Bajoran government’s actions before formally accepting Bajor as a member.

An event that now loomed only days away.

Kira’s furrowed brow told Ro that the colonel was busy weighing those very same issues.

Ro followed Kira from the office and down the steps into ops, where Ensign Selzner stood beside a communications console. She was clearly awaiting Kira’s instructions as to how to handle Macet.

“Hail the Trager,Ensign,” Kira said before turning back to Ro. “Trust has to start somewhere. Even at the risk of misplacing it.”

Absurdly, Kira’s comment reminded Ro of her upcoming date with Quark.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Macet said, doing his best to smile in an ingratiating manner. “You’ve just made my life immeasurably easier. Macet out.”

Kira’s image vanished from the viewer on the Trager’s cramped bridge. Macet’s smile likewise disappeared.

Macet turned his command chair toward the Bajoran man who stood less than two meters away, just out of range of the viewer’s visual pickup. “I am loath to do anything that might serve to undermine Colonel Kira’s trust. You have no idea how difficult it was to gain whatever small measure of it I may have squandered just now.”

“I understand,” Vedek Yevir said. “Neither trust nor true faith comes easily to Colonel Kira.”

“Yet you still insist on the necessity of all this…subterfuge,” Macet said as he stroked the tufts of hair on both sides of his chin and considered what Yevir was asking of him.

“I assure you, it’s entirelynecessary.” Yevir’s face was overcome with a passionate intensity that Macet had rarely seen before. “I regret these deceptions every bit as much as you do. And I assure you, if our pilgrimage fails, I alone will assume the responsibility before your superiors as well as my own.”

Macet smiled, more than a little reassured. He’s a step away from the kaiship. He has more friends and influence in the Vedek Assembly than anyone else alive. Other than perhaps First Minister Shakaar, thereare no superiors he’s obliged to answer to.

“All right,” Macet said. “But there are considerations here that are far more important than either of our personal reputations. And I’m still not certain what I can do to assist, other than providing transportation.”

“Oh, there’s a great deal you can do, Gul Macet, with the right help. Things that politicians and diplomats won’t or can’t do. And when the politicians and diplomats fail to do the right thing, then we must seek the help we need from others.”

Macet could no longer hold back the obvious question: “Who?”

“Get the ship under way,” Yevir said, his smile growing even more beatific. “And I will explain everything during the voyage.”

8

Bashir gathered up Ezri’s limp form and carried her toward the medical bay at a full-out run. Bowers ran alongside, using his combadge to alert Ensign Richter to the emergency as they sprinted through the corridor and into the turbolift.

Moments later, Richter and Bowers were helping Bashir place Ezri’s feverish, perspiring body onto the table in the operating room adjacent to the main medical bay. Bashir dismissed Bowers with a curt nod. He was grateful for this room’s Earth-normal gravity as he unlimbered his medical tricorder and ran its scanner quickly across Ezri’s torso.

The readings were grim.

“What is it, Doctor?” said Krissten as she entered the chamber.

“Her isoboramine levels are falling steadily.”

As Krissten studied her own medical tricorder, apuzzled frown creased her face. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Is her symbiont in immediate danger?”

“It certainly will be in another hour or two, if nothing changes in the meantime.”

“What could have caused this?”

Afraid that he already knew the answer, Bashir chose to dodge the question for the moment. “Trill physiology can be tricky, Krissten. Run a full battery of deep-tissue scans. We’ll laser-biopsy as necessary.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, then calmly set about her tasks. If there was one thing Krissten Richter had proved repeatedly over the past four years, it was that he could rely on her to keep her wits about her during a crisis.

Ezri’s eyes opened and she let out a long, forlorn wail. The sound pierced Bashir’s soul to its core. Above the biobed, a monitor confirmed that she was experiencing intense neurological trauma. Her nervous system was on fire, and he had no clue yet as to why.

“Get me the delta wave inducer,” Bashir said. “I want her unconscious.”

He pressed the wafer-thin device against Ezri’s temple, and she immediately relaxed. Her eyes closed and she grew quiet.

Please come back to me, Ezri,he thought as he lifted an exoscalpel from the instrument tray. He found himself staring at it as though he’d never seen it before. His hand felt unsteady, and recollections of his earlier near disaster with the instrument did nothing to calm him.

Don’t blame yourself, Julian,she had told him long ago, on a similar occasion. Back when she had been Jadzia Dax, and Verad Kalon had forced him to remove the symbiont from her body. Jadzia’s voice, weak and fading, spoke from his private citadel of memory: Don’t blame yourself, Julian. You did everything you could.

He forced himself to place that unhappy memory back on the high mental shelf to which he normally relegated such thoughts. He concentrated instead on trying to recall the particulars of every disease agent that might cause a spontaneous separation of host and symbiont. If one of these turned out to be the cause of Ezri’s condition, then a cure might already exist.

Hope buoyed him as he quickly adjusted his tricorder to look for particular genera of viruses and retroviruses.

Bashir’s combadge chirped before he’d completed a single pass with the device. “This is Merimark in the transporter room, Doctor.”

Damn!“Can it wait, Ensign?”

“’Fraid not, sir. Incoming medical emergency on the alien ship. I’m beaming possible wounded parties directly to the medical bay.”

“Acknowledged. Who’s coming?”

“It’s Nog and Shar, sir.”

When it rains, it pours,Bashir thought as he watched a pair of figures shimmer into view in the main medical bay chamber.

Bashir glanced toward Nog, who was propping himself up on his elbows, trying to get comfortable on the biobed. From his position, he couldn’t see the nearby bed on which Ezri lay unconscious.

Just as well,Bashir thought.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Nog said, possibly for the hundredth time. He gritted his teeth as Lieutenant Candlewood checked the dressings on the stump of his left leg and made a quick tricorder scan of the rapidly healing—though still raw—wound that lay beneath.

Nog’s voice was flat and devoid of emotion. “I really can’t believe this is happening.”

Neither could Bashir. But the subject of Nog’s incredulity wasn’t his primary concern at the moment.

Ezri is.

She lay on the biobed between Nog’s and the one located in the medical bay’s farthest corner, on which the last of the convalescing aliens slumbered. Ezri’s breathing was ragged and shallow, and her pallor had increased hourly while she had drifted in an out of consciousness, confused and terrified during her few brief intervals of wakefulness. At least she was asleep at the moment, Bashir thought, without the need for the delta wave inducer. He was thankful for that one small mercy.

Krissten stood on the far side of Ezri’s biobed. “Dr. Bashir,” she whispered. “You’ve been… hoveringfor hours. Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll call you the next time she comes to.”

The medical bay doors hissed open before he could reply. Rubbing a weary eye with the palm of his hand, he turned toward the sound.

Commander Vaughn strode deliberately into the room, his craggy features solemn. Shar was at his side, his expression even more unreadable than usual, if that was possible.

Vaughn was first to speak. “Trying to communicate with the aliens has kept us a bit busy for the past few hours, Doctor. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to get down here before now.”

Bashir felt slightly muddled for a moment. Aliens? Then a glance at the long, spindly figure curled awkwardly on the third biobed brought him to alertness.

“Yes, of course, the aliens,” Bashir said at length. Now that he had released all of them except one, gravity in the medical bay had been adjusted back to its customary one gee, except for the immediate vicinity of the corner biobed. Krissten had made no secret of her delight at the return of Earth-normal gravity.

“Has anyone managed to translate their, uh, language yet?” Bashir asked.

Shar’s white dreadlocks, stark against his sky-blue skin, twirled slightly as he shook his head. “It’s hard to tell. But with Lieutenant Bowers and Crewmen T’rb and Cassini assisting me, I think we will manage it eventually. The alien text you downloaded may prove helpful in that regard after all.”

“Any change down here?” Vaughn said, looking in Ezri’s direction.

Bashir gazed at Nog and decided that any discussion of Ezri’s prognosis ought not to occur within range of the chief engineer’s sensitive ears. There was nothing to be gained by stressing him with bad news. Bashir gestured toward his office as Shar excused himself to speak with Nog.

“Give me the bad news first, Doctor,” Vaughn said, once the office door had closed discreetly behind him and Bashir.

“Ezri’s slipping away from us,” Bashir said. From me.He felt exhaustion suddenly gaining on him, with despair coming up hard on its heels. He sank heavily into the chair behind his desk.

“How?” Vaughn said, standing on the other side of the desk.

“There’s massive peritoneal inflammation in and around the symbiont pouch. As well as progressive neurotransmitter and endocrine imbalances, including toxic levels of thorocrine production.”

“Bottom line?”

“Ezri’s body is rejecting the symbiont. It’s happening very slowly, but there’s no denying it. And apparently no stopping it either. Her neurotransmitter production has fallen to critical levels, and her body is even rejecting direct isoboramine injections.”

“Isoboramine?” Vaughn said.

“It’s a neurotransmitter unique to Trills. Without a sufficient isoboramine concentration, the neural link between host and symbiont collapses, and the symbiont has to be removed in order to keep it alive.”

“Any clue as to what’s causing it?” Vaughn said, folding his arms.

Bashir shook his head. “All I can tell at this point is what’s probably notcausing it. I can find no trace of any unusual virus or prion anywhere in her body. I tried a course of metraprovoline, lethozine, and metrazene, which will knock certain retroviruses out cold, even if we’d failed to detect them. No response. And I got the same results with the full spectrum of general antirejection drugs, the sort we ordinarily use on organ transplant patients. Neurogenics, for stimulating neurotransmitter production and uptake, have also proved to be a dead end. I even tried bethanamine.”

“Another neurotransmitter?”

“An inhibitor, actually. Bethanamine is a little-known Trill drug set which has been used occasionally to safely separate symbiont from host. But it failed to work on Ezri, for no reason I can fathom. In fact, nothing I’ve tried as yet has made very much difference at all. It’s as though her body is a computer running a program that can’t be altered once it’s started.”

“Could the Sagan’s encounter with the alien artifact have anything to do with this?”

“I still can’t say for certain. All I know for sure is that Ezri’s isoboramine levels are still falling and the critical neuro-umbilical pathways between her and Dax are degrading. Net result: Her body is continuing to reject the symbiont. And I can’t stop it.” Bashir slammed his fist on the desk in frustration and then lapsed into silence.

From the back corridors of his memory, he heard the words of encouragement he had spoken to Jadzia after Verad had briefly taken possession of the Dax symbiont. You’re not going to die. Do you hear me? I’m not going to let you die.He tried not to dwell on his ultimate failure to deliver on his promise to Jadzia, a mere four years later. Or the fact that another such failure now appeared all but inevitable.

Vaughn’s impatient prodding brought him out of his reverie. “I said, ‘What’s next?’ Surely you’re not giving up, Doctor.”

Bashir shook his head, though he already felt utterly and completely defeated. “The symbiont appears to be exhibiting signs of incipient ischemic necrosis. As Ezri’s body continues to weaken, the symbiont is losing more and more of its vascular support. I’m afraid I’m running out of options.”

What I need is a miracle.

Vaughn seemed to turn that information over in his mind for several moments before speaking again. “How long does she have?”

“At the rate she’s producing rejection toxins, she might last a few more hours at the outside. That goes for the Dax symbiont, too, unless we remove it.”

Vaughn clearly was not ready to concede defeat. “All right. There are no other Trills on board, so transplanting the Dax symbiont is out of the question. Unless…”

“Sir?”

“What about placing her in stasis, symbiont and all?”

“A stasis field wouldn’t slow down the ongoing neural collapse. It might even hasten it.”

“All right.” Bashir could still hear a note of hope in Vaughn’s voice. “Trill symbionts have been implanted in humans from time to time, correct?”

Bashir nodded cautiously. “But only on a verytemporary basis. Even if we’d started heading for Trill yesterday at maximum warp, the journey would still take weeks too long. And no Trill–human symbiosis could last long enough to keep the symbiont alive long enough.”

“Couldn’t we transfer the symbiont briefly into a series of different human hosts?”

“The hosts could probably tolerate that. But there’s no way the symbiont could. A series of marginal transplants like that would place far too much strain on it, without allowing for a sufficient refractory period. If the Dax symbiont is going to have any chance at all, it has to be returned to the Caves of Mak’ala on Trill, or the nearest equivalent, within a few hours of its removal from the host.”

Vaughn appeared to grasp the ramifications immediately. “And if the symbiont continues to weaken, you’re going to have to remove it from Ezri sooner rather than later.”

Bashir nodded. He felt hollow inside.

“So regardless of whether or not the Dax symbiont survives…” Vaughn trailed off.

“Barring a miracle, Ezri is going to die.” Bashir felt detached from himself as he spoke the words. There. I’ve finally said it out loud.

“You mentioned ‘the equivalent’ of the Caves of Mak’ala,” Vaughn said, stroking his beard, plainly still considering every conceivable alternative.

“Merimark and Leishman are already busy constructing a portable symbiont pool like the one I rigged to carry the Dax symbiont after Jadzia’s death last year. But there are still no guarantees. The symbiont has already become dangerously weak.”

Vaughn looked somber. “So you have a decision to make.”

Bashir found that he was having trouble maintaining his train of thought. He took a moment to compose himself before speaking. Perhaps fatigue was catching up with him. How long had he been awake?

“I can hold out for a miraculous last-minute cure for both Ezri and Dax,” he said. “Or I can give the symbiont a fighting chance at having another life.”

A life I’ll probably play no part in.For the first time, Bashir understood at a gut level how hard the earliest days of his relationship with Ezri must have been on Worf, the late Jadzia’s husband.

“At the expense of Ezri’s life,” Vaughn said. But Bashir could detect no reproach in the commander’s tone. Vaughn’s vivid blue eyes took on a faraway aspect that spoke eloquently of other times, other deaths, other unwilling but unavoidable surrenders to decay and entropy.

Vaughn placed a gentle, fatherly hand on Bashir’s shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, Julian.”

“So am I.” His words sounded banal in his own ears, but he could think of nothing better to say.

“How is Nog?” Vaughn said after a moment’s silence.

The doctor managed to summon a weak smile, actually grateful for the change of topic. It was a relief to put aside, however briefly, the crushing weight of the decision he carried on his shoulders.

“Let me show you,” Bashir said, leading Vaughn back into the main medical bay chamber and to Nog’s biobed. Shar stood beside the young engineer, who was sitting up and reading something on a padd. Vaughn failed to completely conceal his surprise when he noticed what lay on the low table beside the bed.

It was Nog’s left leg, severed at the knee.

“Hello, Captain,” Nog said, making as though to rise from the bed, then evidently realizing that the maneuver hadn’t been one of his best-considered ones. He gestured with his head toward the orphaned limb on the table, at which Shar was staring abstractedly.

“Sorry about this, sir. Shar has just brought me up to date on the repairs still going on aboard the alien ship.”

Vaughn appeared to be trying hard not to stare at Nog’s disarticulated leg, but was not entirely successful. “Between Shar, Senkowski, and Permenter, everything’s well in hand over there. You’ve already done most of the heavy lifting yourself.”

Shar nodded affirmatively to Nog. “I expect the alien vessel to be ready to get under way within a day or so.”

“You just rest and do whatever Dr. Bashir tells you,” Vaughn said to Nog. “Got it, Lieutenant?”

Nog looked sheepish as he handed the padd to Shar. Bashir caught a glimpse of technical schematics on its display screen just before it disappeared behind Shar’s back.

Bashir pointed to the leg. “Nog, may I?”

“Go ahead, Doc. Just bring it back when you’re through with it. I find it sort of comforting to have the thing around, now that it looks like I might not be needing it again.”

Bashir held the limb before him to allow Vaughn to examine it. Vaughn took it and turned it over and over. He appeared puzzled. Shar, however, who had brought Nog and his severed leg to the medical bay, seemed to be taking this in stride.

“What happened?”

“Nog’s body has apparently rejected it,” Bashir said, then allowed his words to sink in for a moment. Vaughn’s raised eyebrow made it plain that he, too, understood that bodily rejection was emerging as a common theme here. “And that’s not the end of it, either.”

“Son,” Vaughn said, handing the leg back to Nog. “What did you mean when you said that you ‘might not be needing it again’?”

Nog grinned as he lifted the coverlet that had been draped across his lap and slowly unwound the dressing from the stump of his left leg. As the bandages fell neatly away, Bashir looked at both Vaughn and Shar to gauge their reactions. Shar’s eyes widened slightly, his antennae probing unsubtly forward. Vaughn’s jaw fell like a nickel-iron meteor.

Bashir quickly examined the tiny, perfectly formed leg sprouting from Nog’s stump. It had grown by several centimeters during just the last hour.

Bashir wasn’t certain how much time had passed before the nonplussed Vaughn finally found his words. “Can you…explain this, Doctor?”

“At the moment, I’m simply at a loss,” Bashir said, shaking his head. “Even his burned femoral motor nerves are regenerating.”

“I’d be sorely tempted to call thisa miracle,” Vaughn said, his gaze locking firmly with Bashir’s. “And wherever we find one miracle, we might do well to keep searching for others.” He was clearly talking about Ezri.

“I wish I could afford to believe in miracles, Captain,” Bashir said, biting his words off. “Unfortunately, I have to make do with the real world.”

The medical bay doors hissed open again. Merimark and Leishman entered, using antigravs to carry a meter-wide, half-meter-deep oblong container. The pair set the object down gently beside Ezri’s biobed.

“One medical transport pod suitable for a Trill symbiont,” Merimark said as she glanced uneasily at the unconscious Ezri. “Ready for activation when you give the order.” Bashir recalled that Kaitlin Merimark had become one of Ezri’s closest friends among the Defiant’s current crew complement. It couldn’t be easy for her to see Ezri in her current condition.

“Thank you, Ensign,” Bashir said, then turned to Vaughn. “I’ll make a thorough investigation into Nog’s condition as soon as possible. But at the moment I’m afraid I’ve more pressing matters to attend to.”

Vaughn looked grave. “I take it you’ve come to a decision.” About Ezriwent unsaid, though the words hung in the air like smoke over the Gettysburg battlefield.

“Yes. The only decision possible.”

“I understand,” Vaughn said. “Come on, Shar. Let’s get back to work.” Shar, his facial muscles suddenly unusually tense, nodded silently. Bashir wondered how much Shar knew about Ezri’s condition. He wished he had time to brief everyone beforehand about what was about to happen, and to allow Ezri to say her own farewells to one and all. But he no longer had that kind of time. He’d squandered that time with his repeated, fruitless attempts to save Ezri and the symbiont both.

Feeling miserable, Bashir watched Vaughn and Shar exit the medical bay.

He told himself that Ezri wouldn’t have wanted any maudlin good-byes. She’d have another life soon, once they returned Dax to the Trill homeworld after the conclusion of the Gamma Quadrant mission. She’d have plenty of time then to catch up with auld acquaintances, he thought.

“‘ ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world,’” Bashir said quietly to no one. Then he noticed Nog’s quizzical stare.

“What’s going on, Doc?”

Bashir realized that he had been protecting Nog from the truth about Ezri. He sighed, collected his thoughts, and said, “Nog, you deserve to know what’s really about to happen to Ezri.”

The only decision possible.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Bashir really, truly wished he were dead. “Ensign Richter,” he said. “Please prepare Ezri for surgery.” Then he turned back to Nog and started to explain, as gently as possible, that Ezri was going to die very soon.

The woman I love is going to die.

In preparation for the procedure, Ezri was moved back into the small surgical bay, where she slowly drifted back to consciousness. Her eyes opened and she smiled. Despite her pallor and fever, the smile made her as radiant as Bashir had ever seen her.

And it’s the last time. The last time I will ever see that smile.

His heart pounded, auricles and ventricles transformed to hammers and anvils. Doing his best to manage his roiling emotions, Bashir explained to her what was about to happen. She listened attentively and took the news with considerably more grace than Nog had. Or Merimark. Or even Krissten, for that matter.

But Ezri’s equanimity rattled him at first. He had to remind himself that Dax had already experienced host death eight times before.

“I understand, Julian. I love you. And I trust you to do whatever you have to do…to save Dax.”

Once again, he heard Jadzia’s voice, echoing up from a well six years deep: Don’t blame yourself, Julian. You did all you could.

He desperately wished he could believe those words.

“Julian.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be conscious when you…cut the cord. Not like Curzon. That was different.”

Bashir knew that Curzon’s symbiont had been surgically removed as well. But that had been done at the end of a very long, very satisfying life.

“I understand,” Bashir whispered, his words catching in his throat.

“I don’t want to be… emptied,like the time Verad took the symbiont…” She trailed off. Bashir noticed for the first time that her face was wet.

Julian,Jadzia confessed in the back corridors of his mind. I’m scared.

“I understand,” he repeated. He felt a single fat tear roll down his cheek. Another one jostled for position behind it. He squeezed her hand gently. She squeezed back, hard. He bent down and brushed his lips against hers, then straightened and released her hand.

“I’m ready, Julian,” she said at length.

Blinking away his tears, he donned his surgical mask and lifted an exoscalpel from the tray beside the operating table. At his nod, Krissten carefully attached the delta wave inducer to Ezri’s temple.

“Ensign Juarez is standing by to activate the artificial environment container,” Krissten said in a subdued voice. After learning about Ezri’s condition, Edgardo demanded to be allowed back on duty, insisting his leg had healed sufficiently.

Ezri mouthed a silent I love youto Bashir, then smiled.

“Good-bye, Ezri,” he said.

Her lips curled into a faint smile. Then oblivion took her.

Responding to Bashir’s nod, Krissten activated the sterile field. He gripped the exoscalpel tightly in his gloved hand, grateful that the instrument showed no signs of slipping this time. Krissten silently opened the front of Ezri’s surgical gown, exposing Ezri’s abdominal pouch. Very gently, he moved the exoscalpel’s tip across her abdomen, leaving a slender crimson line in the instrument’s wake. A moment later, the body of the symbiont began to emerge, its brown, lumpy skin glistening under the room’s bright lights.