The symbiont sensed that a narrow passage lay in its path, seeming to beckon. The notion of entering such a restrictive space raised the wise apprehension of Audrid and Lela. But the inquisitive natures of Tobin and Jadzia immediately overruled this initial cautious impulse. Dax undulated forward, eager to encounter whatever lay ahead.

Entering the constricted passage, the symbiont began picking up speed, reacquainting itself with Emony’s love of kinesthetic motion. The narrow channel soon widened again, and Dax found itself delighting in the freedom of yet another large underground pool, this one seeming to stretch into infinity. Reaching out with its limited sensorium, Dax detected other shapes floating in the distance.

But they weren’t symbionts. Tobin’s fear rose as the shapes approached, but the battle-tempered courage of Curzon and Jadzia deftly parried it.

The shapes grew larger and more complex. While they weren’t limbless symbionts, neither were they razor-toothed predators. Feeling relieved, Dax quickly ascertained that they had arms and legs, heads and torsos. They were humanoids, all of them as naked as symbionts. There were nine of them, all swimming about him, and all apparently emotionally agitated, judging from their movements. The rhythmic flailing of their limbs set up chaotic, overlapping waves throughout the pool, vibrations that reminded Dax of the celestial music produced by the Oort cloud bodies near the alien artifact. Dax probed at the faces of each of the humanoids with gentle, bioelectrical fingers.

Moving from one face to the next, Dax recognized each and every one of the humanoids. Though it knew this was impossible, Dax also knew that their identities were unmistakable.

“You’ve known about what’s coming for the past century,” Audrid said, somehow speaking directly into the symbiont’s mind. She was obviously completely unmindful of the absurdity—no, the utterimpossibility —of her presence here.

“It’s more like the past century and a quarter,” Torias said, floating beside her.

“But it still hasn’t done anything about it.” This came from Lela.

“All those years,” Torias said. “All those lifetimes. And you spent most of them assing around the galaxy.”

“Why haven’t you at leasttried to warn anyone, Dax?” Emony said, her words dripping with bitter accusation.

Dax felt genuine confusion.I don’t know what any of you are talking about.

“Perhaps you don’t.” This voice belonged to Joran Belar, a man whose sense of aesthetics had been matched only by his psychotic bloodlust. Dax had been well rid of that joining, late in the previous century.

You’re the last person I’d expect to encounter, Dax said.Here or anywhere else.

“You see what you want to see, Dax,” Joran said. “You always were a master of repressing whatever parts of yourself you’d rather not face.”

“It’s pure denial,” Ezri said, using her best counselor-to-patient tones.

“Why have you been holding back?” Tobin said.

Holding back? Holding back what?

Jadzia spoke up. “Your nightmares, Dax.”

Dax recalled the post-Lela visions of slashing jaws, and the terror and the helplessness that had always accompanied them.

And it remembered something else as well. Something that Dax hadn’t considered since Audrid’s lifetime—something it never wanted to consider. The part of Dax that was Ezri wondered, just for a moment, if its persistent apprehension regarding the pools was indeed somehow bound up with the events of that horrible day so long ago. If it bore any relationship to the tenebrous, obscene nightmare that had swallowed poor Jayvin Vod whole and had riven Audrid’s life and family for so many years…

Then Verad’s cold rage welled up from deep within. How dare his old hosts dredge such things up?My nightmares are my own affair.

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Curzon said. “Soon, half the galaxy will beliving your nightmares.”

“Unless you rejoin with Ezri,” Audrid said. “And warn everyone.”

Why Ezri?

“Because we’re both aboard theDefiant,” Ezri said, her anger palpable. “Look, I don’t like this joining thing any better than you do. But we’re a long way from home. And we can’t afford to wait until a better match turns up.”

But your thoughts are so…jumbled. Disorganized. Unsubtle. I am better off without you.

“Ibid andop. cit. what I just said, slug,” Ezri said. “But I’m willing to take one for the team if you are.”

Tobin laughed, but without any evident humor. “‘Unsubtle thoughts’ ought to be an asset this time, Dax. It seems to me that too much subtlety is what created our mutual problem in the first place.”

“Or at least allowed it to remain hidden for so long,” added Curzon. “Perhaps past the point where it can ever be dealt with. But we gain nothing by waiting.”

“You know what you have to do, Dax,” Audrid said. And with that, all nine of them broke away, swimming in leisurely fashion back into the depths, dwindling and finally vanishing entirely from Dax’s sensorium.

Lost in troubled thought, Dax failed to notice the approach of a multitude of other shapes until they were very close. This time, there were dozens. More naked humanoids, none of whose faces Dax recognized. Among them were many Trills of both sexes, as well as members of various non-Trill species. From what little it could glean of their specific morphologies, Dax concluded that humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Rigelians, Orions, Ferengi, Romulans, Klingons, and even Vorta, and Jem’Hadar were among the bizarre press of flesh. There were also scores of others, from inside and outside the Federation. Members, allies, and enemies, as well as species Dax did not immediately recognize.

And all of them were dead, their bodies shredded and torn by forces Dax had seen on only one previous occasion, long ago. It could scarcely bear to think about it.

A body stirred among the corpses, then swam rapidly toward the symbiont. Dax wondered briefly if its predatory nightmare had finally returned for a day of reckoning.

Then he recognized the approaching being as Ezri Tigan. She had returned.

“So how about it, slug?” she said.

Acceding to the rational impulses of Curzon and Jadzia, Dax came to the decision that it knew could be put off no longer.The time for concealment is past. We will confront the old lies directly. Together.

Ezri’s answering smile was lost in a spray of bubbles as the universe suddenly turned inside out.

22

Ro Laren couldn’t recall a time when she’d been more tired and on edge, at least since she had left the Maquis. Just as in those days, sleep came in brief snatches, and the rest of her time in bed had been spent pondering her future, her evolving relationship with Quark, the religious schism on Bajor, the political rift between Bajor and Cardassia, the upcoming Federation signing, the health of Dizhei and Anichent, the whereabouts of the missing Jake Sisko, the flirtations of Hiziki Gard, and the effect she knew her announcement had had on Kira Nerys. Small wonder that slumber did not come easily.

Still, knowing that today’s proceedings were probably the most significant events she would ever witness, Ro found her body buzzing with energy. She made sure to press her back-up dress tunic, in case the one she was already wearing got stained or damaged. She even carefully styled her hair and applied a modicum of makeup, something she was generally loath to do.