As always, he found it difficult to wrap his mind around the alien notion that some sentient beings were valued more highly than others, merely because of their lengthy life spans and backlogs of memories. It was an idea antithetical to his way of thinking, his tolerant and egalitarian Starfleet training notwithstanding. Indeed, he was beginning to find the entire concept repellent, whatever societal necessities might underlie it.
Worst of all, he remained certain that a remedy of some sort existed—if not for the symbionts specifically targeted by the neurogenic weapons, then for the Trill humanoids who were dying because of their dissolving symbioses.
There was no question that a drug possessing the latter property had been developed. Based on what Benjamin Sisko and Jadzia Dax had told him four years earlier, a drug of this sort had been perfected by a now-deceased joined Trill scientist named Bethan Roa, and had in fact been used successfully by the late unjoined Trill malcontent Verad Kalon. Bethan Roa’s serum had enabled Verad to steal Trill Symbiosis Commissioner Duhan Vos’s symbiont without killing its host, and later enabled the removal of both the Roa and Vos symbionts from their respective unauthorized hosts, without bringing significant harm either to humanoid or symbiont.
Unfortunately, Bashir himself had never had an opportunity to make a firsthand appraisal of Bethan Roa’s pharmacological work. When Bashir had asked Dr. Torvin about it, the Trill physician not only had insisted that no such serum existed, but also was adamant that no such thing was even possible.
And if Bashir’s initial cursory search of the official Trill medical database was to be believed, Dr. Roa himself might as well never have existed.
Though Bashir had no way to prove it, he smelled yet another cover-up. Not for the first time, he wished Ezri were here to help him get to the bottom of it. After all, she knew the peculiarities of her own homeworld’s record-keeping systems far better than he did.
As had been his practice ever since the first wave of dying joined patients had arrived at the triage center, Bashir tried to avoid considering what had become of Ezri. Though he hadn’t heard from her—or succeeded in getting a signal through to her—since she had departed for Mak’ala, he had picked up some fragmentary reports of neurogenic blasts in other locales around Trill. Neurogenic attacks had even been reported near some of the symbiont spawning grounds.
Is Ezri even still alive?he wondered yet again before forcibly pushing the thought aside. He had other, more immediate things to consider.
Bashir and Torvin had just finished making the rounds of a cramped, makeshift “joined ward,” where more than sixty joined Trills lay dying, though their symbionts had yet to be extracted. The unconscious had been placed on cots, gurneys, improvised tables, or even the floor. Several of the stricken appeared to be awake, though their eyes were unfocused and staring, the smooth melding of symbiont and host that characterized a healthy joining utterly disrupted. A few issued intermittent but piercing shrieks.
Each of these incoherent madhouse cries made Bashir wonder whether the host or the symbiont was screaming.
“We’ve waited long enough,” Dr. Torvin was saying, shaking his balding head sadly as they moved through the crowded ward, surveying the hapless patients.
Bashir’s stomach went into free fall as he walked beside the tall, gangly Trill physician. “What are you saying, Doctor?”
Torvin scowled as he brought the peripatetic appraisal of the ward to a halt. “I think you know what I’m saying, Doctor Bashir. We have to begin the wholesale extraction of the symbionts carried by these hosts, immediately. If we wait much longer, it may be too late.”
“Doctor Torvin, if we remove the symbionts, these people will die, just like the others. We can’t go on sacrificing people this way.”
“We have no better options,” Torvin said, shaking his head. “You’ve seen that. Sometimes a host must be sacrificed so that a symbiont can live on.”
“But not if an alternative exists. If we could find some record of Bethan Roa’s work on nonlethal symbiosis dissolution, we could at least—”
“Roa again,” Torvin interrupted, his frown taking on more ferocity since the last time Bashir had tried to discuss this subject with him. “I thought we’d been through all this before, Doctor. I’ve already explained to you that no such thing exists.”
Bashir had finally had enough of Trill denial. “Yes. You have. And I don’t doubt that you’re right, at least as far as Roa’s files are concerned.”
“What are you saying?” Torvin asked guardedly.
“I’m saying that Roa’s work appears to have been the subject of yet another whitewash by the Trill Symbiosis Commission.”
Torvin’s frown gave way to an amalgam of pique and bewilderment. “Why would you say that?”
Bashir tried to tamp down his rising anger, with only limited success. “Because your society is at war with itself at this very moment, apparently as a direct result of your government’s rather checkered history with regard to such things. Because your world’s official database contains no references to Roa’s work—work whose results other Starfleet officers can verify independently. And because the Trill Symbiosis Commission’s joining registry does not reveal the current status of the Roa symbiont.
“Let me speak plainly, Doctor Torvin: I believe that the Commission doesn’t want anyone to interview Roa’s new host, assuming there is one, about Bethan Roa’s symbiosis dissolution serum.”
Torvin gestured broadly at the dozens of people who lay suffering all about the small, curtained-off section of the room. His expression took on a desperate cast. “A drug that would allow us to remove symbionts for radiation treatments without killing these people would be a great boon, I should think. We’re not monsters, Doctor Bashir. If such a thing really didexist, then why would anyone want to see it suppressed?”
Based on Torvin’s reaction, Bashir was now willing to bet that the Trill doctor wasn’t a direct participant in any Symbiosis Commission cover-up of the Roa formula. In Bashir’s eyes, Torvin genuinely did not seem to be a political animal.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have been duped and manipulated by others who were highly motivated to bury Roa’s work, and keep it buried.
Bashir held up a hand in a gesture of truce. “Doctor Torvin, imagine what might happen if it became known that symbiosis could be undertaken on a temporary basis. That the bond between symbiont and host could be established, then broken, then established again just as easily with a new host. The symbiont population is relatively small as it is, They would become a sought-after black-market commodity if Roa’s drug were to become common knowledge.”
Torvin looked horrified for a long moment, then began nodding slowly. He actually seemed to be considering alternatives to simply letting more hosts die, giving Bashir a surge of renewed hope.
Then the Trill physician sighed, looking downcast and shaking his silver-fringed head yet again. “Unfortunately, when the Commission decides to bury something, it tends to stay buried.”
Bashir thought bitterly of the unrest that had spilled onto the streets of Leran Manev and so many other Trill cities prior to the bombings. And the secrecy that had caused it all in the first place.
Then a sudden inspiration seized Bashir’s imagination. “Not always, Doctor Torvin.” He turned toward the main section of the triage center, intent on finding the nearest computer terminal.
More perplexed than ever, Torvin took a step toward him. “Doctor Bashir! Where are you going?”
Bashir paused at the curtain that separated the makeshift “joined ward” from the rest of the triage center. “Can you keep these hosts and their symbionts joined and alive for, say, another hour without endangering the symbionts?”