Because I let myself get confused and distracted,Bashir raged at himself.
He shouldered his way into the room, brushing Lense aside, and made his way to a particular three-meter-high bookshelf cut from dark, tropical hardwood.
When he reached it, he was surprised to find the book spines in noticeable disarray. It looked as though many of the volumes had been taken out, rifled quickly, and then tossed haphazardly back onto the shelves. More than a few were out of order, misfiled slightly to the left or to the right of their correct locations. Many looked tatty and shopworn.
He started when he felt Lense’s hand on his shoulder. “Julian, please explain something to me,” she said. “Why did you bother to come all the way here just to look up the fact that ten cc’s of endomethalamine will counteract twenty cc’s of isoboramine inside a Trill symbiont’s vascular tract?”
Endomethalamine!He recognized the name of the correct counteragent as soon as he heard it. Of course!
“Doctor!” It was Krissten’s voice.
The memory cathedral vanished like so much smoke, and Bashir was once again conscious of nothing but the medical bay’s operating room, where Ezri lay, inert, barely breathing. Krissten and Juarez both stood staring at him, their faces portraits of worry.
Bashir felt the symbiont writhing and twitching in his hands.
“Doctor, are you all right?” Krissten said. The last time he’d heard her sound so fearful, the station had been under full-scale attack by the Jem’Hadar. “We need to get that counteragent into the symbiont.”
Bashir nodded, his full attention once again focused on the crisis at hand. “The counteragent is…” For a harrowing moment the knowledge faded, then just as quickly snapped back into place. “…endomethalamine.Please administer ten cc’s of endomethalamine, Krissten. Directly into the symbiont’s umbilical orifice.”
Bashir held the thrashing symbiont steady while Krissten performed the injection. A moment later, the symbiont grew quiescent. Krissten used her tricorder to check its vital signs. Then she took charge of the symbiont as Juarez helped her place it into the medical transport pod, securing the box’s seals and activating the biomonitors on its side. It took only a moment to ascertain that the symbiont was out of immediate danger.
No thanks to me.
Bashir suddenly recalled the question the fauxElizabeth Lense had asked him inside the memory cathedral. Why hadn’the simply asked the computer for the information he needed to save Dax? That clearly would have been the expedient solution. Perhaps he had become too used to his facile memory. Or had placed too much blind faith in it.
But he also wondered if something more fundamental was happening to him. If his judgment was failing along with his memory.
An even more alarming thought followed: What if my entire intellect is disintegrating?
With that fearful notion came a profound fatigue, rolling irresistibly over him like the fogs of Argelius II. And with that fatigue came a sad, certain knowledge. He now knew beyond all doubt that he hadn’t escaped the bizarre, unpredictable influence of the alien artifact. He, too, had been aboard the Saganwhen it had crossed the object’s transdimensional wake. Just like Nog. Just like Ezri.
Ezri.
He crossed to her biobed, where she lay like some moribund princess from a fairy tale. But he knew that no kiss would be potent enough to rouse her. He took her hand, placing it between both of his. It felt cool and moist. He checked her vital signs, which were weak but holding steady for the moment.
He bent down and gently gave her that fairy-tale kiss. “Good-bye, my love,” he whispered.
Her eyes fluttered open. She smiled at him.
“Ezri?”
Her voice was weak but steady. “Dax…is gone…”
He couldn’t believe it. So weak, so close to death, there was no way she could have regained consciousness. Bashir noticed that Krissten had run over to the other side of the biobed to check Ezri’s readings.
“Doctor, you have to look at this,” said Krissten, a stunned expression on her face.
Bashir glanced up at the biobed monitors. Every indicator, from neurological to metabolic to cardiovascular to pulmonary, was up significantly. Impossibly, Ezri was getting stronger. She was returning to normal, as though she’d never been joined to a symbiont in the first place.
“The symbiont,” Ezri said, her voice stronger, though her expression was desolate. “Julian, how is the symbiont?”
Bashir finally realized his mouth was hanging open. And his eyes were welling up with unshed tears. “The symbiont is fine,” he said, his voice cracking like an adolescent’s. “It’s safe in the artificial environment. But you…Ezri, I think we may find a way to get you through this after all.”
It’s impossible,he told himself. Joined Trill hosts simply didn’t recover after losing their symbionts.
She smiled up at him again, looking as tired as he felt. “This is the second time I’ve been at death’s door since we came to the Gamma Quadrant, Julian. I think I’ll wait until I’m strong enough to walk again before I actually step through it.” Then she drifted off to sleep once more, her smile lingering.
Perhaps I found Vaughn’s miracle after all,he thought, finally daring to believe it. After all, was Ezri’s survival of the loss of her symbiont any more miraculous than the regeneration of Nog’s leg? Or were such things really miracles? He found himself wondering abstractedly whether the alien artifact might really be a super-advanced medical facility, the product of brilliant, unfathomable alien minds.
Abruptly, his fatigue overtook him. He collapsed to the deck beside Ezri’s biobed, visions of the ancient spacebar artifact vying with Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia for the attention of his unconscious mind’s eye.
9
The passengers of the Bajoran ship-of-state Li Nalaswere barely jostled during the hookup to Deep Space 9’s docking ring. In the vessel’s control room, the two pilots checked and double-checked switches and panels, making sure that the airlock seals were correctly aligned. In the center of the ship, a pair of young Bajoran assistants arranged the traveling bags for easy disembarkation.
First Minister Shakaar Edon and Second Minister Asarem Wadeen sat astern. Until moments ago, they had been meditating. Asarem had asked for silence, making the excuse that she wanted to prepare her mind for the coming day’s events. Truthfully, she was still trying to figure out what Shakaar’s motives were for forcing her to stonewall the peace talks with Cardassia. She had not been able to bring herself to discuss the matter with anyone, including her closest aides; Shakaar’s reticence of late led her to believe that this was a political secret of which only the highest-ranking officials might be aware.
Asarem knew that Colonel Kira Nerys was aware of Shakaar’s actions, since they had already discussed the matter aboard Deep Space 9 a few weeks earlier. According to Kira, Shakaar had almost gloated about the impasse to which he had brought the negotiations, an uncharacteristic action for someone who desired secrecy. What was to stop the colonel from revealing his political subterfuge? Asarem could only assume that Shakaar’s power had kept Kira in check. The woman had already been cast out from the Bajoran faith—Attainted—and her military commission was the only power she had left. Shakaar could easily have that stripped from her as well, if she were to cross him, leaving her with nothing. Still, Kira was a deceptively strong woman. Her years in the Resistance, and the time she had spent fighting alongside Starfleet officers and Cardassian resistance fighters during the Dominion War had undoubtedly left her with more reserves of strength than Shakaar probably imagined.