Surrender Part 1b - Captivity 

                            Chapter 4

                               ***

The first few days of the new Infirmary were slow, half the time leaving me little at all to do.  But that was before the push started and the people they are forcing to work for them started to get hurt. 

We are Group 1, the first group they established.  But in the days after we were first moved there have been others.  The only difference is far fewer of them are in "important" positions. 

They want the station repaired as soon as they can, and they are pulling those with the skills they want from new prisoners, keeping them here in locked cages like ours.  All of them have families of some sort, hostages to their behavior.  But we are the best and brightest, the most important of their captives.  Our families get the easier jobs. 

The others are tearing apart the cargo holds below where we were held, little attention paid to safety.  I get plenty of cuts and gashes and bruises, even a few broken bones.  Most of them are sent home with days off.  I give them as much recovery time as I dare, aware the guards judgement always outranks mine. 

Such is the value I hold in their world.  My patients purpose is the serve the Dominion by doing manual labor.  My service is to keep them going, at least some of them.  Those badly injured are simply shot.  Those with very minor damage are sent home for an early rest. 

I'm sure they could do the work simpler with the technology they have.  But why bother when there are so many prisoners with nothing to do instead?  Miles tells me about the rumors of their victories and our losses.  He's the single most important of their "special" prisoners.  He gets to go places nobody else can, has contact with others that would be impossible in our absolutely controlled new lives.  He pays for it, though he won't talk about it.  At "home" the guilt is shared.  But outside some of the others regard him as a little too willing to cooperate.  He isn't like the man who married us, but hovers a little too close for comfort. 

They understand a little.  Every single one of the "special" has a family, even if it wasn't all that common in Starfleet.  Nobody talks about the ones without hostages that didn't get to stay.  They are all aware that their work will benefit the Dominion, and yet the children waiting at the gate make it easy to lie to themselves.  So Miles is only given a little distance. 

He's lucky.  They are a little more direct with me. 

It's late and there have been too many patients today.  My stomach is grumbling as the guards open the door.  I'm hoping it is to take me back.  But, instead, a girl limps inside, the door sliding shut behind her. 

I recognize her, though I don't remember her name.  I doubt she's even twelve.  Cautiously climbing up on my table, she holds out her foot. 

She doesn't look at me.  None of them do, and I've taken to concentrating on their wounds or injuries rather than faces.  I don't ask how it happened either.  I just treat them and let them go. 

She pulls off her boots, and her ankle is swollen and bruised.  "Move your foot up and down," I tell her in my most neutral voice. 

Observing the results, feeling the ankle as it moves, I'm relieved.  "It's probably a sprain.  I'll give you something for the swelling and bind it.  Take off the binding and rewrap it in the morning and evening until it stops hurting." 

She nods, but makes no eye contact.  I'm not sure where I stand in her world, her youth stolen so early.  After I give her a hypo of an anti-inflammatory drug, I ask her to lie down.  After the swelling disappears I can wrap her ankle and go eat. 

There were too many patients today, work running very late.  It was good that the last few have been minor injuries since I'm having trouble concentrating.  It has been a long time since breakfast. 

For them, too, I suppose.  I wonder if the hazards of working under Jem'Hadar guards help you forget how hungry you are by the afternoon.  Their short tempers and the dangerous conditions insure I have plenty to do. 

I don't think about the ones hurt so bad that I'll never see them.  I hardly think of the ones brought to me as people anymore.  They keep their eyes to themselves, and I keep as much distance as possible.  

It's easier for everybody.  After all, I'm just making it possible for the guards to make them work.  No wonder they don't want to look at me. 

She's fallen asleep by the time her foot can be bandaged, and I wake her gently, tapping her hand.  She pulls it away anyway and I almost feel guilty for fixing her ankle.  But if I couldn't she'd be shot or deported, so I'm probably saving her life. 

"Watch the way I do this," I instruct her. 

She concentrates on my hands and the wrap, this time without as much pain showing in her eyes.  

I just remembered her name, Lania.  I won't use it, won't invade her privacy.  But I wrap her ankle with more care than I might have a few minutes before. 

Having finished the procedure, she suffers me helping her down.  She carries her boots, still limping but with less trouble, as she disappears out the door. 

Very relieved, I don't hesitate when they gruffly order me out, as if it was some sort of punishment to be able to eat and see my family.  The walk back home seems very quick and I relax a little when the gate closes behind me. 

I'm locked in a cage, but it's our cage.  The guards stay on the other side of the gate. 

Ezri is sitting at one of the tables, Molly and Yoshi playing some game with another little girl.  My wife grasps my hand as I sit next to her, mostly seeing the bowl she's been saving for me. 

It's cold and lumpy, the greasy part separated from the rest, but I don't care what it tastes like tonight. 

"Miles and Keiko are busy," she says, flashing a small grin.  I nod, but don't interrupt my dinner to reply.  She pushes the book towards me.  "We did the reading already.  A lot of people were tired.  The page is marked for you to catch-up." 

I finish the last spoonful a little too soon, still wishing for more.  "I'll watch the children and read if you need to rest," I offer.  I need to hear them play right now.  I need to get the grim life Lania has been relegated to out of my mind. 

She nods, yawning.  A young woman approaches, the other child's mother.  "Tessie, time for bed."  Tessie pouts, but stops the game.  "Thanks for watching her." 

"No problem," says Ezri, softly.  "It was a pleasure, Cath," she adds.  But I can't take my eyes off of her.  She's reaching back, adjusting something that isn't there.  Then she stops and looks up at me, "We've got to do something about these long evenings.  I wasn't sure they were going to let me keep the bowl.  You almost had to go to bed hungry." 

It's an private little joke between us, and I know Ezri is there again. 

She stands, patting the little girl on the head.  I pick up the book, opening it to the page they'd started on, still watching Ezri as she and Catherine are talking.  She reminds me of when she first arrived at the station and every so often a word or gesture would be a painful reminder.  I keep thinking of why Jadzia died, how she'd been asking the Prophets for a child when Dukat killed her.  She pats the girl again, her hand lingering. 

Not that I want children in this place, but she knows we'll not likely have any of our own.  We don't discuss it, but I can't miss the way her glances linger on the little ones.  She smiles, a little wistful smile, and then sighs. 

It worries me, this interest in the children.  Ezri didn't want children.  Jadzia wanted one so badly she died for it. 

Molly distracts me.  "Yoshi's sleepy," she says. 

He's sitting on his blanket, eyes half-closed.  Catherine is leaving and Ezri leans over to pick him up.  "I'll put him to bed in our room for now."  

Ezri heads towards our rooms, Molly tagging along at first but coming back after a minute.  She sits next to me, taking my bowl and quietly cleaning the traces of mush and broth with her fingers.  

I pretend not to notice, reading tonight's pages to myself.  I'm a little disappointed, missing the way the images form in the mind when you can close your eyes and the shared suspense of hearing it together.  

I read the words over, aloud to myself when Archer is interviewing the blonde girl's mother, so far out of contact with her daughter's reality 

"She didn't move.  She was one of those dreaming blondes who couldn't bear to face a change in her life.  One of those waiting mothers who would sit forever beside the phone but didn't know what to say when it finally rang." 

Archer insists on disturbing the father. 

"As she passed me in the doorway I could feel the small chill in her fine body.  The same cold presence reflected itself in the room.  The chandelier for all its blaze was like a cluster of frozen tears.  The white marble mantle was tomblike.  The flowers in the vase were plastic, unsmellable, giving off a dull sense of artificial life." 

The words stop me.  I look around the grey walls, the gaunt furniture, the dull lighting.  How can this tomb be home?  Are we living in as much an unreality as the blonde girl's mother? 

I need to read this with someone else.  There are too many echos of lost hopes and dreams.  Maybe I'll be back in time to join the others tomorrow.  Maybe it will be a better day for everyone. 

Last night, when we were reading, the guards paused in their patrol and just watched.  We were standing with Archer as the fire descended down the hill, the trees suddenly bursting into flame.  We retreated from the inferno, the heat licking at our clothes, as the house is left to the flames.  We were with the woman as she sped away from all she owned, wishing we didn't understand so well.  

I looked up, the Jem'Hadar carefully listening, but obviously unmoved by the words.  I was actually a little sorry for them.  They are slaves, too, but their enslavement runs too deep for any liberation.  We can be locked up in cages and forced to do their bidding--but we can go to the hot, dry California summer and smell the drifting smoke of the fire, hurt with Archer as the boy is found, then lost again.  Even if our liberation is long delayed, we own our own minds.  When we are with Archer, we do not belong to them.  But the Jem'Hadar will never escape their captivity, wired too deeply into their being. 

Aside from repairing selected of their slaves our masters have left me alone, and it still makes no sense.  I'm different from the others.  They probably knew long before my parents unguarded remarks gave me away.  Before I woke at Internment Camp 371, I had been examined.  The memories of it are only brief, unpleasant flashes, but I'm sure of them.  I left that out when I was debriefed after our escape. 

Have I been spared to be an experimental animal?  Is a Vorta scientist somewhere devising a way to make a smarter, stronger, but involuntarily loyal version of the human species?  Am I here in the relative luxury of this cage so I'll be healthy when they are ready?  Or have they already begun?  Is there a half-twin out there now, waiting to be part of the new order of the universe?  Will I be allowed to live once they have taken what they want? 

Ezri has wandered back, Molly still working on the bowl, when there is a commotion of sorts and the gate is opened.  Two Jem'Hadar and their prisoner enter.  It is a woman, I think, her hands chained behind her back, stumbling along with them.  

I vaguely notice the red hair, trimmed short in a rather haphazard fashion.  The Jem'Hadar tower over her. She doesn't fight them.  She slumps forward a little while they unchain her, facing the gate.  Abruptly, her hands freed, she faints. 

I know I should try to help her.  But I don't have a medkit and the Jem'Hadar are with her.  And Molly is here, too close, looking up from the bowl.  I can't do anything for the woman yet, but put down the book and stand.  From here I can see her face. 

Stunned, I start carefully towards her. 

She was on Cardassia when it fell.  By all rights, she should be dead.  Maybe--just maybe--she would know something of the others.  

I stop, impatient for the guards to go.  She is unconscious.  I can't stand the thought of her being brought here just to die.  If Kira is alive maybe . . . possibly some of the others might be too. 

Finally, the guards retreat through the gate and it slams shut and is locked.  

I rush the last few paces, kneeling down to check her for injuries.  Not that I can do much here, but perhaps I could stabilize her until tomorrow. 

Molly nearly runs into me, but stops herself.  "Is Aunt Nerys Ok?" she asks in her scared childish voice. 

Kira looks thin and dirty, but is dressed as we are.  I can find no obvious injuries.  I guess that malnutrition and exhaustion are her chief problems.  

"I think so.  Come hold her hand, talk to her." 

Molly slides forward and gives her a kiss. 

The Jem'Hadar are still standing on their side of the gate. 

"Make room for her.  She is assigned to Group 1."  The guards stomp away. 

Molly freezes, ducking down between me and Kira until the Jem'Hadar go.  Then she takes Kira's hand and sits next to her, shaking her gently. 

Kira wakes, a little, slowly opening her eyes, trying to focus.  With visible effort, she lifts her head and faints again. 

I carefully pick her up, Molly trailing close behind, and sit at one of the benches. 

Kira stirs again.  "Julian?" she asks, confused, her voice weak.  "Where am I?" 

I understand too well.  I remember waking in the camp.  "Deep Space Nine.  They still call it that." 

She tries to sit up but can't, collapsing back in my arms.  Looking around the little compound that belongs to us as much as anything does anymore, her eyes are haunted.  "How long?" she asked quietly, her voice faint. 

She takes a deep breath, dragging her legs over the bench and sitting on her own, still using my arm for support.  Molly holds her hand, her head in Kira's lap. 

Ezri sits next to her, adding her arm to mine.  "Maybe a month or so.  We aren't sure.  We spent a lot of time in the cargo bays below." 

She looks at the gates.  There is no feeling in her voice at all.  "You'd almost think the Cardassians were back," she murmurs.  "But that's impossible.  They're all dead." 

I must know.  "What happened to Garak?" I say, almost wishing I hadn't asked. 

She sounds exhausted now, her eyes drooping much as Yoshi's had before.  "He was executed.  I was supposed to be, but they didn't shoot me.  Instead, they tossed me in with the prisoners cleaning up the bodies."  There is still a dullness to her tone that is more stunning than the news itself. 

How many of us did they keep on the station?  Miles has said there are other groups, but nobody knows how many.  The rest went to Cardassia, to the hell Kira has seen.  I never saw Jake once he was pushed ahead of Ezri that first day, was he there?  And Kassidy, she was pregnant.  They wouldn't know right away, but later? 

Kira doesn't have to describe it.  We can see it all from the look in her eyes, the complete lack of emotion.  I can't think of my friends now.  I can't think of what happened to them. 

And Garak . . . it isn't a surprise.  I expected him to be dead.  It's just hard to be so certain.  I've lost most of my friends, either here or at the end of that last ditch battle over Cardassia.  

"The ones captured over Cardassia?" someone asks--Scalman, I think. 

"And others.  They intend to leave it stripped bare and incapable of supporting life.  It would be kind of ironic if that wasn't there," she adds, looking at the gate.  "They should call it Terok Nor.  It looks like it."  She looks around, searching out familiar faces.  

Ezri asks the question I can't bring myself to.  "Did you see anyone else from here?" 

She just shakes her head, "They have thousands of people there right now.  Don't expect many of them to come back." 

A silence descends over the nearby crowd, slowly gathering as the news spreads.  Too many friends are there.  Too many of them will die there.  Nobody really wants to hear details, not right away. 

We have to live with these monsters.  But it's very hard when you know that most of your friends will die like that. 

She looks down at Molly, hugging whatever of Kira the little girl can reach.  She doesn't ask, but Ezri answers, "Miles and Keiko are having some private time.  They'll be so glad to see you." 

Ezri is smiling, just a little, a faint, wistful smile more like . . . Then her free hand reaches behind to adjust that pony tail she doesn't have again.  "You need to eat," she says to Kira, her show of strength fading fast. 

Kira smiles, just a ghost of a smile but it's a change.  "Sisko?" she asks. 

"He left," says a voice behind us, hard and bitter.  

"Left?" she asks, puzzled. 

"He had some kind of vision, from the way Worf described it.  Just before the Dominion fleet arrived, he took a runabout and when to Bajor," I inform her.  "Nobody knows why or what happened to him." 

She stares at me.  "The Captain wouldn't do that,"  her voice trails off.  "Unless, unless it was so important he had to go." 

"Maybe," I speculate.  "But I'll warn you, that wouldn't be a popular interpretation." 

"What about Worf?" she asks. 

Ezri answers, her tone gentle.  "He went to Stovakor fighting this time." 

For a moment, Kira and Ezri exchange a look.  Ezri fades back into herself a little and Kira sighs. 

She looks at me, sad and resigned.  But she knows it's realistic.  She's been through this kind of life before and Worf's choice was one she's familiar with.  And she knows what people would think of a commander who ran, even if he was called by some mysterious vision.  "Odo?" she asks. 

"I don't know," I reply, which is the truth.  

"He was very sick," she says.  "He hadn't died?" she asks in a guarded tone, the first hint of any emotion at all. 

"No," I say.  But I've heard about the sudden stoppages in the work teams, and the intense scanning that follows.  I shake my head a little, a hint not to ask, hoping she's aware enough to notice.  The last time she saw him he had perhaps two weeks to live, if that.  If I don't know what happened to him she must know he survived.  She looks up at me and there is a brief moment of understanding.  She takes a deep breath and nods.  "Most of the people here were shipped to Cardassia." 

"I know," she says, her voice flat.  Listening to her tone we decide to drop the subject.  We don't want to know.  

I think of Ezri and others being sent away when they ask me to save their gods and I can't do it.  I look away, tell myself that Kira is my first concern right now. 

"You can have this," says Catherine.  It is an almost full bowl of food.  "Tessie was feeling a little sick and didn't want it."  We sit the bowl in front of her, help her turn towards the table.  I hand her the spoon.  She looks at it, pausing only a second before she devourers it.  "Thank you," she says before she collapses. 

Catherine takes Molly's hand.  "I'll take her home," she offers, Molly tugging at her hand, trying to get loose. 

We pull Kira to her feet.  Ezri helps steady her.  Between us, we take her to the one extra bed, abandoned after the former tenant tried stealing from them a few days after our arrival here.  We never saw her or her husband again.  Kira collapses on the bed, falling asleep immediately.  

Ezri is in an odd mood, overly quiet and distant.  She hasn't said much at all today.  I know the guards are pushing them, but I don't think she's hurt.  But I remember she and Kira emerging from the holosuites in a series of costumes, laughing and talking, how close friends they were.  With Miles here I still hold a piece of my life, a friendship even this place can't destroy.  Perhaps finding Kira alive has given the same connection to Ezri, or at least a part of her.  

And then there was Tessie, the way Ezri looked at her, so longingly . . . 

"Let's get you to bed," I suggest, putting my arm around her.  "Kira will be fine.  She needs food and rest now." 

As if she'll get enough of either . . . I half expect Ezri to make a comment but she just nods. 

I push open our door and she sits on the bed, Yoshi nestled in a pile of blankets, stroking him tenderly.  "I missed Kira," she says.  She leans over him, picking up the child and cradling him in her arms. 

With a free hand she starts to push non-existent strands of hair out of her face.  Her eyes-half closed, I can almost see Jadzia. 

I love Ezri.  I don't want her to fade away.  

"I'll take him home," I offer.  Reluctantly, she gives him to me.  She's looking at me with a wistful half-smile so much like Jadzia wore when I told her she would soon be able to conceive. 

I tap gently on the O'Brien's door.  Miles opens it, taking his son.  He looks at me, pausing. 

"How is she?" he asks. 

I know he means Kira, but I can't get my mind off Ezri.  "Thin and weak, but I think she'll get better." 

He closes his eyes.  "I wanted to come out but I couldn't.  I didn't want to hear about Cardassia, knowing where . . ." 

I ask myself if I could cure the beings that sent so many of us to die.  

I need to say something.  "Look, you talk to Ezri.  Is she, do you notice anything different about her?" 

Miles disappears into the second room, returning a few minutes later without Yoshi.  "She's been real quiet," he says.  "Off, somehow.  A lot of the rest of them have been that way."  He sits down, looking away.  "It's not like it is for us.  They push them all the time."  He looks towards the other room where Keiko is telling Molly a story.  "I worry about her, all of them.  We're the most skilled group.  They get it relatively easy.  But even so,"  he says, shifting his weight, taking a deep breath.  "Even so sooner or later something is going to happen." 

I nod, thinking of the girl, all the others I'd treated today.  "They don't look at me when I treat them," I say. 

"I get some funny looks too, especially when I have to set up work teams.  But I can't stand the thought of Keiko . . . " he stops, looking forlornly towards his wife. 

I leave him to his own private hell while I go back to mine. 

Ezri is asleep, holding my pillow.  I am tired, exhausted by the emotional evening.  But I couldn't sleep.  I retrieve the book and sit on the chair, watching Ezri as she sleeps. 

There is just enough light to finish reading the nights selection.  For a few minutes, my own dilemma is forgotten.  Archer discovers an old magazine ad, a search Stanley Broadhurst had begun for a mysterious couple who disappeared about the time of his father.  But I run out of book too soon.  The mind drifts in the quiet.  Even if they have other reasons, they'll discover Odo's recovery soon enough.  When they ask me I must say no.  I can not save murders.  I could not live with myself if I did.  But if I refuse, I'll be condemning these people to death.  I don't know if I can live with that either, any more than Stanley Broadhurst could with his nightmares. 

There is another option, not living at all.  As long as I cooperate, there are drugs to make sleep into death. 

The long night drags on.  Crawling into bed, Ezri puts her arms around me and cuddles.  She's too tired to go to the beach, but I wish she was up to it.  I need to get away from here.  I listen to the little sounds of the sleepers.  I can't leave her behind to be deported to that hell once I am gone.  I hold her, wishing the night would last forever, and fearing the time that it does. 

                               *** 

There is already a certain normalcy to our days, as if we were not living inside a cage.  Each morning, the alarm wakes us and the lights get brighter.  Those that need to dress, necessities are taken care of, and we wait in line for breakfast.  Then the mush arrives and we eat.  Then all but a few go off to work for the day.  Everyone in each of these little groups works the same shift, so the place is deserted except for the smaller children and Cindy, her work to watch them during the day.  

We all leave together.  Ezri and the others, now numbering Kira among them, have a shorter shift.  But the work is a lot harder.  She usually takes a nap before I am released back to our place.  I don't feel different in the morning, but I'm escorted back alone, and walk through the door by myself.  

Those of us with "special" assignments are set apart in the evening.  I spend my day treating those injured by their work.  The others come back dirty and with the occasional bruise they will not explain.  I return hungry and tired, impatient to be away from the guards, but otherwise unharmed.  

My job isn't easy.  My patients have to settle for the very basic medicine I'm allowed to practice.  I've had to turn to methods abandoned centuries ago, since I'm not allowed the more advanced tools with technology that could be modified for sabotage, or used to contact others.  They have to put up with the pain of some procedures because I don't have enough pain killer to use on everyone.  But everybody has recovered, though I suspect anyone likely not to is just taken care of by the Jem'Hadar.  I still believe there is much more to this than what I'm doing.  But for now, I take refuge in being allowed to be a healer. 

Each day, when I walk past the gate, I breathe a sigh of relief that I was left alone once again. 

Ezri meets me at the gate.  We don't look back as they lock us in anymore.  We know how lucky we are to be here.  

We sit and eat our meal.  We're fed enough to stay healthy.  But not enough that it matters we have the same tasteless muck each time. 

Then comes the good time, the part that makes all the rest tolerable, when we read. 

Last night we finished the detective novel that doubled as classic tragedy.  I keep looking at the children and thinking of Stanley Broadhurst who never forgot his father.  And I think of his son, and how Archer wonders if the son will inherit his father's demons and share his nightmares.  Our own children have already been marred, and will pass that on to their own. 

If only we dared refuse to play our part in this play, but the dead look in Kira's eyes when Cardassia is mentioned is enough to remind us that we must not. 

Tonight, it is my turn to read.  Miles has gotten two new books, an adventure we haven't yet read, and a trip to the land of Oz.  He won't say how or where and we don't ask.  I'm sure, for Miles, it helps a little to make up for the guilt.  

We will begin our journey to Oz tonight. 

Everyone has gathered and I open the book.  One of the guards has paused, watching, and I wait until he leaves. 

"The Emerald City of Oz, Chapter 1, The Nome King Became Angry," I read.  I look up and everyone is watching, anticipating the story.  I begin. 

"The Nome King was in an angry mood, and at such times he was very disagreeable.  Every one kept away from him, even his Chief Steward Kaliko." 

"Therefore the King stormed and raved all by himself, walking up and down in his jewel-studded cavern and getting angrier all the time.  Then he remembered that it was no fun being angry unless he had some one to frighten and make miserable, and he rushed to his big gong and made it clatter as loud as he could." 

"In came the Chief Steward, trying not to show the Nome King how frightened he was." 

" 'Send the Chief Counselor here!' shouted the angry monarch." 

I pause, wondering if Weyoun ever shouts.  He certainly pushed Damar far enough to turn against him.  

Actually, it was amusing thinking of Weyoun storming and raving round the room. 

I read on, as the Chief Counselor tries to placate the angry king.  I enjoy the image of Weyoun scurrying to please the Founder. 

He doesn't succeed.  " 'Take this Chief Counselor and throw him away,'" orders the frustrated king.  The guards drag him away in chains. 

I wonder if I'm the only one who likes that image, with the Founder and Weyoun standing in for the Nomes. 

The new Chief Counselor tries even harder to please.  I envision the newly activated Weyoun, hoping for a longer run than his predecessor. 

I read on.  The General is called, and the King demands that Oz be taken and his stolen Magic Belt be recovered.  But Oz is a fairy country.  It won't be easy to do. 

I wish we were in a fairy country, where magic belts existed and magic was real. 

But even in Oz, the General finds a plan.  I tell myself it's a fantasy meant for children.  It can't have too much reality intertwined inside it. 

"But they, for their part, did not know they had such a dangerous enemy.  Indeed, Ozma and Dorothy had both almost forgotten that such a person as the Nome King yet lived under the mountains of the Land of Ev - which lay just across the deadly desert to the south of the Land of Oz." 

"An unsuspected enemy is doubly dangerous." 

I close the book, first studying the illustration of the shaggy, maddened king.  Are his eyes violet or amber-toned, I wonder? 

We only read one chapter a night.  The last book was finished too soon. 

The evening ends on a very quiet note.  

Sometimes even fantasy isn't enough.  Surely, the plan will fail.  Oz will be saved.  The Nome king will pay for his evil war. 

The changelings will pay for their deeds too.  But it won't bring back the dead. 

Ezri and I retire to bed.  This is the time we talk quietly about the day.  I don't go into any detail, and she keeps it very general, but we touch each other's lives a little. 

She is limping slightly.  "Ezri, can I check your leg?" I ask. 

She pulls away.  "It's nothing," she says, resigned.  "It will go away on its own." 

I should quit now.  But I'm worried about the way she's holding herself.  "Can't I at least look?" 

"Really, it will be alright."  There is panic in her voice, fear that I'll insist and force her into showing how bad the injuries are. 

I tell myself there is nothing I can do.  It will only make it harder on her if I push it.  "If you insist," I say. 

She eyes me, still uncertain.  But something's wrong.  I don't recognize her.  Her face is different in subtle ways.  Her voice carries different cadence.  Her whole body is held in an unfamiliar way.  I don't know who she is. 

She gets this way when pressured.  I assume it's one of her previous hosts, now risen to deal with the stress Ezri is incapable of alone.  But I don't know this one. 

She was just starting to integrate all her selves into one when we were captured.  I'm afraid she'd starting to split apart under the stress.  

I don't want to lose her.  I need her too much.  She needs me just as much. 

"We heard some things from the new people," she says, still a stranger.  They have expanded their captive workforce, and are converting the lower level, where we were held in the cargo bay, to smaller holding pens.  Some of the new people were captured only recently, and have more current information. 

It is never good.  The Romulans had more left after the failed invasion, and the Dominion targeted them first.  

"The Romulans are on the verge of surrender," she says. 

The Klingons, already badly hurt by the war and the previous one with the Federation, have turned to suicide missions to hold back the inevitable.  The Federation has drawn themselves back into the core of their territory, abandoning everything on the boarders, hoping to save a little of it.  But the Dominion and Breen are well supplied, ships slipping through the wormhole daily and there is an endless line of new Jem'Hadar to replace the ones that are killed. 

Time is running out.  The Dominion will win the war.  Maybe we will be sent back to an occupied Earth, where this place will be repeated over and again.  Perhaps we'll just stay here. 

Or maybe they'll ship us through the wormhole as they have already begun to do with others.  

Sharing the silence, I wonder what sort of hell Internment Camp 371 has become.  There were things I never told them when I was debriefed because I didn't want to remember them.  Now they have more of us to play with.  I shut it out of my mind. 

It didn't help the nightmares before.  I'll probably dream of it tonight.  Ezri is hurting too much for the beach.  Or maybe the self she's become doesn't like the ocean.  We have to stay here tonight. 

We don't try to guess what awaits us.  We just hang onto now, as the only certainty we have, and hope things don't change too much before it's all over. 

                               *** 

My stomach is grumbling and I'd like to go home.  If nobody else is brought in, I can leave early tonight.  It's been so busy today that I haven't had time to think about why I'm really here. 

But I'm starting to believe they have enough reasons for this clinic to justify my presence.  There are almost no concerns about safety.  I keep the less-injured ready to work.  I don't like the job.  I didn't like that most of the patients released during the war were sent back to the front.  But I manage the same way, by shutting it out of my mind. 

I tell myself if I wasn't here, they'd die of infections and complications.  Or the Jem'Hadar would simply shoot them.  But sometimes, privately, I wonder if I'm really helping them all that much.  Am I saving them from this accident or that guard so they can die the next time?  I wish I could ask them, know what they wanted, but they cooperate when I'm working and they are relaxed when I'm done.  Perhaps it's because I finished and will leave them alone.  But I'd like to think they are grateful too, even if they won't say it.  Now they get to have another chance to survive. 

Then the door opens, several people holding up someone else, her arm and head all bloody.  I haven't had this bad an injury yet.  I wish I had a nurse.  "Can one of them stay?" I ask the guard.  "I'll need help with the bleeding." 

He points at the woman supporting my patient.  "She may stay," he says.  

My patient is laid down carefully on one of the beds.  I cut back the soaked clothes, totally absorbed in the work.  I don't notice at first that I know her. 

Then I turn my attention to the head wound and realize it is Kira.  She has a gash in her upper arm, and a bad cut on her head.  I instruct my helper, who is unfamiliar to me, to press against the cut on her head while I work on the arm. 

Kira has fainted, I assume from the bleeding.  I force all the feeling away while I get the arm wound cleaned and closed.  It's a jagged cut, the skin ripped unevenly.  It's closed up well enough but it won't heal quickly. 

The head wound has stopped bleeding.  I gently clean it off, grateful that she's still out.  It's not as bad a cut as on the arm, but she has lost a lot of blood. 

Before she wakes I finish stitching the head wound, and check her overall condition.  She's weak, and should stay in bed the next day.  I decide to list my diagnosis in the records, though I know it won't mean anything. 

Cleaned up you can see the large bruise on her cheek, and it wasn't from the fall.  Finally, I ask, "How did this happen?" 

"She slipped," says the woman nervously.  "Lost her balance." 

"This have anything to do with it?" I asked, pointing at the bruise. 

She nods.  "She fell on some metal rods being installed.  That's where the cuts came from," she says carefully.  But not the bruise, I think.  She doesn't have to say it. 

Sometimes Kira is too stubborn for her own good.  I remember how I'd learned how to deal with the Jem'Hadar--and how not to. 

Weyoun lets me excuse patients from work.  This time, I have little doubt that he'll agree.  I know they won't let her die of an infection or start bleeding again.  She is too important to them.  I've heard about the searches.  It's satisfying that they can't find a changeling who doesn't want to be found either. 

The woman is sent back to her group.  I wait for Kira to wake up.  I'll take her with me when I know she is ready.  

I hope she wakes soon.  My stomach is grumbling louder. 

She stirs.  She should rest a little longer, but if we're too late we'll miss dinner.  There should still be time if we leave soon.  She touches her bruised cheek first. 

"Jem'Hadar," she whispers.  "I wouldn't move out of his way.  He knocked me down."  She winces.  "How bad?" 

"You lost a lot of blood, but you should heal.  A dermal regenerator would be nice."  I gaze at my basic instruments and wonder how many like Kira are left to bleed to death instead. 

"Louder.  You might get one."  She winces, but then grins.  "They wouldn't want the bait to die on them." 

I enter my log.  "Patient log, Dr. Julian Bashir," I begin.  I always use the word doctor.  "Patient Kira Nerys has several severe lacerations, which I was able to close.  However, due to weakness from loss of blood and the danger of infection she must rest until the cuts have substantially healed." 

We'll find out how well they are listening tomorrow. 

"I'm very tired," she says.  "I'd like to sleep," exhaustion and shock taking over. 

"Eat first.  I'm going to steady you on the way back."  I wrap a blanket around her ruined clothes.  She tries to sit and fails. 

All bravado gone, she says, "Just get me back."  

Nearly carrying her, I bring her home.  Ezri helps her into bed and gets her to eat before she falls asleep. 

Sitting, eating my own cold food, a guard stops by the gate and calls my name.  I hesitantly come forward, worried I'm to be taken somewhere.  But he simply stands in front of me.  

"Kira Neres has been excused from work until you allow her return," he gruffly informs me and leaves. 

Standing by the gate, I allow myself to feel a little important, though it's not much of a surprise.  If only the same standard applied to less important hostages then I might really be allowed to be a doctor. 

                               *** 

Yesterday, a Jem'Hadar was killed.  Someone ripped him open, tearing as if with the large claws of an animal, and left him to slowly bleed to death.  He died in a corridor of the highest security section of the station where only the most trusted of our masters are allowed, during the middle of the night when none of us were out of our cages.  Nonetheless, our morning meal was reduced by half for the day. 

Kira is standing by the gate, watching the people as they walk past along with their guards.  The light reflects off of her red hair and adds a splash of color in what is otherwise almost completely drab.  She is still off work, her arm with the jagged gash taking a long time to heal. 

The reduced diet won't help her, but she already knows about that.  She hasn't said a word, but I can see the worry in her tense body and grim face.  She's been in places like this, and knows how they react even if we aren't to blame. 

She knows Odo is alive and well, and has heard all the same rumors about an elusive saboteur on the station that they can't find.  She must know that Odo has taken special revenge for her alone. 

But we will pay.  It will be a very long day with breakfast so meager.  No one knows if dinner will be the same, if rations have been reduced for a few meals or indefinitely.  I am not very optimistic about the former.  At Internment Camp 371, Deyos cut rations every time there was trouble.  I have been there too. 

It must have been the same Jem'Hadar that hurt Kira.  They know Odo is out there.  He has just informed them that he won't allow her to be hurt. 

She's a pawn in the game.  It would be so easy for them to make her a special target and set a trap. 

And when they find him, what then?  The Jem'Hadar will not harm him.  Weyoun will probably listen to what he says.  He can't help it.  It's in his genes. 

But the other shapeshifters would not be so kind to a traitor.  They'll confirm, if they have any doubts, that he's been cured.  They'll go looking for his doctor. 

Several of our people in the group are ill.  Cassie Realand has a very bad cough, and while I can offer suggestions on what might ease it, there is little else I can do.  I could smuggle something out of the infirmary, risking being searched, but I don't really have much that would help.  They bring people to me who are injured, and I can treat that kind of emergency.  But I don't see the ones who just get sick, like Tain.  I haven't been provided with anything to treat them anyway. 

Some things haven't changed all that much. 

One of my patients died last night.  He wasn't badly hurt, and if he'd been left to rest he would have lived.  But he wasn't Kira.  He went back to work in the morning.  He stumbled while working and the guard killed him.  Not right away, of course.  He died in a holding cell all alone. 

I will not cure them.  No matter what they ask, I would rather see them dead.  What difference does it make to us if the Jem'Hadar kill us out of grief or as part of the job? 

                               *** 

"Chapter six, Guph Visited the Whimsies," says the reader, Carl Jackson, his voice a little hesitant as he adjusts himself on the chair. 

Kevin Realand has come to listen with his wife this time.  Cassie is lucky for she sounds a lot better.  Her daughter Marta follows as well, but avoids her parents, sitting with a fifteen year old boy she has been keeping close company with.  By the way they acting, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been to the beach a few times. 

Our dinner was as meager as our breakfast.  Nobody was in the mood for reading, but we look forward to it anyway.  Yesterday Dorothy became a princess.  Her aunt and uncle were getting acquainted with Oz, and we were allowed to dwell in a fairy tale world of pleasantly for a night. 

It was a reminder of home, before death and war and ruin had made its image a lie.  But it was very nice to go back there for a little while. 

Tonight, the Nome king and his dark plot to conquer Oz take the stage again.  I don't know what is harder, to be reminded of what was or how it is being destroyed. 

My image of the Nome king has become a being of amber eyes and flowing form, flaking a bit on the edges.  Several people applauded when he ordered his last general sliced to ribbons. 

Why bother?  There will always be a new general.  

But then, Weyoun would know better than to tell the king it can't be done. 

"The new General of the Nome King's army knew perfectly well that to fail in his plans meant death for him."  

I wonder to myself if the Vorta fear death, or if the greater fear is to fail the gods. 

"Yet Guph determined to be careful, and to lay his plans well, so as not to fail.  He argued that only careless people fail in what they attempt to do." 

Kira is sitting nearby, holding Molly on her lap.  Her arm is healing well.  I wonder what Odo plans next, if he is simply reacting or if there is any plan at all.  

Guph begins his mission to gain allies in the conquest of Oz, first visiting the Whimsies, who wear painted heads to cover their own. 

"They foolishly imagined that no one would suspect the little heads that were inside the imitation ones, not knowing that it is folly to try to appear otherwise than as nature has made us." 

I look around the room, with the drab walls and simple furniture.  Was Odo among us?  Was he a space of flooring, or a plank on the wall?  Did he stay near her, risking entrapment, or watch from afar as if he had a Magic Picture?  Is his true nature to be anything he dreams or to be a glob of goo? 

Guph promises the Whimsies fierce battle and much plunder, which pleases the brightly painted Chief, and upon victory and capture of Ozma's Magic Belt real heads as impressive as the ones they painted on cardboard. 

One lone Whimsie is not entirely convinced.  

"Suppose we fail to capture the Magic Belt?  What will happen then, and what good will all our fighting do?" 

Long ago, there must have been a few Cardassians who could see beyond the promises of glory fed them by the Dominion.  But nobody listens to doomsayers, not even in Oz.  They throw him in the river for his foolish question and ruin his painted head. 

The alliance is sealed.  Guph makes plans for his next conquest, and the promises they will hear. 

Readings are supposed to be an escape, not remind us of the journey that led to this room. 

It was a short chapter, and we have time for more.  Carl flips through the pages of the next one.  "It's about Aunt Em and her uncle, and they meet Dorothy's old friends.  Shall I read it too?" 

We nod enthusiastically.  It is much better to end the night with visions of Cowardly Lions and talking hens with broods all named Dorothy.  

Tomorrow, we vote to double up on the chapters again, ending the night with Dorothy rather than the General.  Who would have guessed there could be such painful reminders in a book written for children?  What sort of world would expect them to understand? 

Stomachs rumbling, we go to bed.  We try to hold onto the vision of a world where the magic was real, and nobody ever went hungry, but it was becoming as much a dream as Oz.  

                               *** 

                            Chapter 5

"So, who do you think?" asks Tina, watching as the children play a game with rules only they know.  Most of the younger children are playing, even Calla Jackson.  But her brother Jeffrey sits nearby, watching, never taking his eyes off his sister. 

"Oh, I think the Whimsies.  They want those new heads too much.  They'll try to make sure.  They'll find a way to be right there when they get the magic belt, then take it."  Cheryl is very sure of herself. 

"Naw," says Catherine, "I vote for the Phanfasms.  They think they can do it.  I mean, they fooled the General.  They must be sure they can fool the Nome king too." 

I sit and listen in, half-watching the children, especially Jeffrey, ready to defend his sister from anyone, Jem'Hadar to another little girl.  The conversation is extremely serious.  Everybody is guessing who will betray the Nomes first.  

Cheryl disagrees.  "No, the Phanfasms are a little *too* sure of themselves.  They'll continue to be sure they can grab what they want right up the moment somebody else does.  Then they'll slink off, maybe try to find the General and take it out on him again." 

Tina smiles a little.  "What do you think they'll do with him when they get him?" 

All three of them grin.  For the moment, I tune out the conversation before it turns vicious and detailed.  

Cindy sits next to me, her bowl almost empty.  She's cleaning it out with her fingers.  She'd been listening too.  "They're wrong, you know.  They'll all try, once they get close enough to Oz to get what they want.  Then the Nome king will let them take care of each other while he takes it all.  Maybe he'll throw in the General as a distraction to keep them busy." 

"What about Ozma?  Doesn't she have anything to say about this?" 

"Who gets her?  They'll let the Nome king have her.  All they really want is the belt."  Cindy shrugs. 

"No, about all this taking.  She's got pretty good magic too."  I can't allow myself to think of Ozma losing. 

"But he's got more.  All these allies of his will stick around until it's done.  Then they'll fight over the booty.  They're greedy, but not stupid."  She pauses, thoughtfully.  "Well, maybe Ozma would matter a little.  Like you said, she's got pretty good magic.  They'd probably offer her a deal to use it against the others." 

I wish Ezri would hurry up and get back.  I'd like to start the reading tonight and stop discussing the characters.  But I have to defend Ozma.  "She wouldn't do it." 

Cindy gives me a look.  "Sure she would.  Save Dorothy and family, maybe the Wizard, let she and her friends have some privileges the rest don't get.  Though I wouldn't count on the chickens lasting too long." 

"I'll concede the last part,"  I agree, "But I just don't think Ozma would do it.  She's too wise, too pure." 

"She's smart.  The smart survive,"  concludes Cindy. 

The others are still considering the fate of the General.  I decide to go and look for Ezri.  

I find her in our quarters, Marta Realand sitting next to her.  The girl is in tears. 

Ezri looks up, shaking her head.  I back off.  There had been an argument with her parents the day before, and she'd gone to stay with her boyfriend that night.  Ezri is playing counselor now, trying to help the girl through whatever crisis she's had.  It is a relief to find something "normal" after the assumption that Ozma will lose her kingdom and her dignity.  We have to have something to believe in. 

Marta is still there when Ezri asks me back.  She's lying on our bed, still crying.  I notice her clothes are pulled back from her shoulder, the blankets covering her.  Ezri pulls them back.  Her arm and what I can see of her back is purple. 

"Guards?" I ask, suspecting it isn't. 

"Her father," says Ezri.  "She's pregnant." 

She won't be alone.  There are no more monthly injections and you can tell by the noise at night that a lot of couples visit the beach often.  But she's barely fourteen.  

"Can you, ugh, do something about it?" asks Marta, tears still running down her face. 

"No, nothing I'd recommend."  Or risk, I add to myself.  That would mean smuggling something out of the infirmary.  

"Father said I was a tramp.  He won't have one in his family." 

I begin to suspect there is more to this than I want to know.  "Your boyfriend is the father?" 

She hesitates.  "Probably." 

Ezri sits next to her.  "Does it matter?" 

Marta starts crying again.  "To my father."  She takes a deep breath.  "The first few days after we came here, during work some men, not Jem'Hadar, took me to a room.  They had . . . things, fruit, food." 

She looks at us, expecting her fathers anger.  I stay back and let Ezri talk to her. 

"You slept with them," says Ezri, calmly. 

"Sort of," she says, collapsing into Ezri's arms.  "I wanted the food, so I thought, well,"  she says biting her lips.  "But then they got so rough.  I asked them to stop, but they didn't." 

She stares at the wall.  "Were you raped?" asks Ezri. 

"I don't know.  I just know what they did."  Then she slumps over, her voice low.  "The thing is, I went back.  I knew what they wanted, how they liked me to be, and I . . ."  She stares at the floor.  "I let them.  They'd tape my mouth so I couldn't scream.  I don't know that they were supposed to be doing it, like they might get into trouble." 

I remember the man who married us, how nicely he was dressed.  The girl is young, attractive, even beautiful by many standards.  Like the maiden in Cindy's story, they wouldn't worry if she agreed. 

"What are they, what species?" I ask. 

"Human and Bajoran.  They work for *them*."  She collapses on the bed.  "I went back because my mother was sick.  They gave me medicine.  It didn't matter to my father." 

I think of the conversation about the Nome General, the assumption that Ozma would do whatever it takes to survive, and somehow Marta's problem is hardly a surprise.  

"You're sure about the pregnancy?" I ask.  "It hasn't been all that long." 

"Pretty sure."  She crumples on the bed.  "It won't matter to my father.  I'm a tramp to him.  He said he *has* to fix the com system.  I'm not sure what's so different than what I did" 

There is a very uncomfortable silence in the room.  I wish I'd decided to listen to the conversation about Guph's dismemberment instead.  If the girl expects sympathy, I can't give it to her. 

"He has to," I finally say, "just like the others.  He's protecting you and your mother from them.  He doesn't want to.  He doesn't feel proud of what he's doing.  But he doesn't want to see you deported either." 

She's stopped crying.  She just looks at me, angry now.  "And my mother was *dying* and nothing you have could help her.  She needed better medicine.  I found a way to get it.  But what I did was be a whore.  What you do is save your family.  Liar.  What's the difference?" 

She's in dangerous territory.  But I can't quit now.  Everybody here is compromised.  None would appreciate the reminder.  "We weren't asked.  We all understand how this place works.  Your father doesn't need you going and selling yourself to remind him." 

She is about to reply, steaming now, when Ezri stands between us.  "Stop, both of you."  She stares me down, and snaps back at Marta when she starts to talk, "I said quiet." 

We stop, astonished by the woman who has materialized in Ezri's place. 

She points at the chair and I sit.  Marta is still sitting on the bed.  "Marta, your father didn't need to hit you.  But he didn't need to find out you'd gone behind his back and slept with a bunch of collaborators.  Julian is right, he has his reasons for doing what he does.  Maybe you do too, but you're so ashamed of it you sneak.  He's not hiding.  If you look close enough you'll see he isn't hiding the shame either."  She fixes Marta with a look.  "Now go find yourself a seat.  We should start our reading.  We'll find a place for you to sleep tonight." 

Marta dashes away, obviously relieved to escape.  I start to stand but she's not done.  "Not yet.  I'm ashamed of you.  She's a scared kid and you have to go and call her a whore." 

"I didn't say that," I say, trying to defend myself. 

"You said she sold herself.  That's close enough.  People will find out.  She's going to have a hard time here from now on." 

I have never met this woman standing before me, so strong and forceful.  I keep thinking of Worf, how he knew about this part of her.  But she's right, too.  I should not have argued.  We all compromise, all shut the truth from our minds, but deep down there is no difference. 

"I won't say anything."  I take her hand.  "We've got a book to read." 

Dorothy and party scare the Fuddles, who fall into pieces, and they have to put them back together.  And Guph tells the King of his successes, leaving out a few details that get in the way of a good story. 

Guph would certainly know how to deal with Weyoun.  But I watch Marta as she sits by herself, hurting from her father's beating, but even more from the stares.  Whoever told her father didn't keep it to themselves. 

We finish the nights reading, and Marta is still sitting there.  Kira is standing to the side, watching.  Ezri backs off as Kira sits next to her. 

"Was it worth it?" she asks. 

Marta looks away.  Her mother has followed her fathers lead and left without speaking to her.  But she watched as they walked past.  "I suppose.  My mother is still here to listen to books." 

"Then you did a good thing," demands Kira. 

Marta looks at the floor.  "They hurt me.  I wasn't having fun." 

Kira comes closer.  "I didn't say that.  Were you doing a good thing, even if the people who benefit wouldn't understand?" 

"What I had to," mumbles Marta. 

I think of Kira's mother, sleeping with Dukat, becoming his willing lover to help her family left on Bajor.  I think I see where she's leading. 

"Would it make a difference if it hadn't been rape, if it had been *fun*?" 

"It wasn't," insists Marta again.  "I mean not rape.  I said I would.  They are mean bastards but they kept their end of the deal." 

"So it was all right if you didn't like it, if they hurt you along the way?" Kira is very close to her, Marta nervously edging away. 

"It wasn't for fun," snaps Marta.  "It would never be fun, no matter how *nice* they decided to be.  I wanted the medicine and got it." 

"So you're a whore," says Kira. 

"If you say so."  Marta edges away.  "Can I go?" 

"Where?" asks Kira.  "They won't let you sleep here.  Your boyfriend won't come near.  Where?" 

Marta is tired and hungry and exhausted.  She surrenders.  "I don't know," she finally mutters to herself. 

"I have a floor," Kira offers.  "One condition.  You don't go near them again." 

Marta is scared and hurting.  She'll take whatever deal she can get now.  "What if they make me?" 

Kira's voice is softer now.  "They won't.  They broke the rules when they snatched you and they'll be dead for giving you the medicine." 

Marta stops, staring at Kira.  "Why are you doing this?" 

Kira's look is hard, but her eyes honest.  "I knew somebody who could have used a little help, and she got all used up." 

Marta follows her.  "I have to get my things." 

"I'll get them," says Kira. 

We watch as the two women leave and the lights dim.  It's time to get to bed.  Maybe Marta has a chance.  Perhaps Kira will find a way to banish some of the ghosts. 

Ezri arraigns our pillows, and starts to open my clothes.  "Twilight tonight, with a full moon?" 

"Half-moon, I think.  I like dawn." 

She kisses me, her hands inside my clothes, sliding them down my back.  "Whatever you want," she murmurs as she pulls my coveralls off my shoulders and the room disappears, the foam of the sea splashing me in the face, the scent of the flowers filling the air.  Ezri growls at me, and for a while all the rest is gone. 

                               *** 

We don't get days off.  I used to dream of one, but now I just want to go to my little infirmary and think about medicine.  I want to count my supplies, tidy the room, make sure I update my files.  I need something to get my mind off the reason for our unexpected freedom for the day. 

The Romulans have surrendered.  We already knew how the Dominion's plan to divide the three allies had succeeded, isolating the Romulans, cutting them off from the any support from others.  They had good defenses, but alone against an intense Dominion assault they didn't last very long.  

The Klingons will probably be next.  No one really expects the Federation to hold out long alone. 

Our side is losing the war, will lose the war.  We will not be the last to be made into slaves. 

For them, today is a celebration.  For us, it is a time of mourning. 

We eat our breakfast quietly, the third full one in a row, and most go back to their rooms to be alone.  Ezri and I sit with Miles and Kira, while Keiko takes the children out to play. 

You need old friends at a time like this.  Too many of them are gone and we cling desperately to the ones that are left. 

There has always been something to do.  Either we've been busy eating, working, or doing our nightly reading.  Readings are almost a ritual now.  Today there is nothing to distract us from the gloomy reality of life and we try to avoid the words we can't say. 

"We've got the station in shape again," says Miles, depressed.  "It was pretty much a wreck when we started."  He looks at us, then away.  "I had to do it.  I kept thinking of Keiko and Molly and Yoshi.  I didn't want them cleaning up dead Cardassians."  He shakes his head.  "But I don't want them to grow up like this, either." 

Kira puts her hand on his arm.  Miles finally looks up at her.  "You're giving up," she says quietly.  "Never give up." 

I realize that I understand, even if I can muster little enthusiasm for the idea.  I remember how bleak it had been at the camp.  Nobody even knew I was gone.  I expected to die there.  But then I'd discovered Tain's work, and everything changed.  "You're right," I say quietly.  "It's not over."  

But they are just words.  I don't know if I can believe them.  As long as I have busy days I can still pretend, but for how long? 

Miles mumbles, very quietly, "It's been over for a long time.  It was final when they got the wormhole again."  He shifts around, uncomfortable.  "I ... hear things," he says, at almost a whisper.  "And I see the fleet out there.  This place is as busy or more than when it was ours."  

I remember the masses of ships I'd seen before.  It must have taken a huge fleet to cut off the Romulans.  I look at the bare room, and see our future.  Or, perhaps, I *hope* this is our future. 

Even with Tain, we had to rescue ourselves.  It took the Bajorans fifty years before they won.  I don't want to wait that long. 

When the station was being taken, I barely missed being ripped open in an explosion.  It was one of those momentary little flashes of time lost in the desperation at the end.  I'd almost forgotten about it until today.  Maybe it would have been better that way.  Then Ezri takes my hand.  She is here because of me, and not shipped off to Cardassia. 

We knew, with Tain, that there was no real certainty that we'd succeed.  We knew the chances of rescue were small.  If they'd discovered what we were doing we'd have all been dead by the end of the day.  But we took the chance and believed it would work. 

Believing that it would lead to freedom made all the difference. 

"You're being realistic," I say, hating the words.  "Realistically, the Klingons will be forced to surrender in time, and the Federation will either go peacefully or in ruins.  Realistically, we don't have a future.  But it hasn't happened yet.  When that part comes we'll deal with it.  But not yet." 

Kira is looking up at me.  Miles is holding one of Molly's toys, staring at it so hard I wonder if he is even listening.  "Even then," she says, her voice filled with too many memories, "even then you can never give up or it really is over." 

"If you say so," says Miles, still fixed on the toy.  I think I understand.  Molly will grow up like Kira.  I glance at Kira, lost in her own thoughts.  I wonder who she would have been if she had had the kind of childhood we had. 

For a while we are silent.  I can't wait for tomorrow and more work, something, anything to get my mind off this. 

Finally, Ezri looks up.  She's said nothing all day, since the news.  I wonder, with all the experience in all her lives if it is helping her or making it harder.  I'm not entirely sure she's been Ezri all afternoon.  She asks slowly, "I'm supposed to read tonight.  Are we reading tonight?" 

We look at each other.  None of us are really in the mood.  But they'll notice if we don't.  It would be another victory for them. 

Miles looks up from the toy.  "G5 has a book to trade.  If we finish Oz tonight I can trade it tomorrow." 

We pass books onto the other groups when we finish them.  Miles usually makes the trades.  Oz could be finished today with the extra time. 

"I think I'm next," I say.  "We'll start early.  Maybe we can read one part before dinner and the rest after." 

I don't know if the others, hiding in their little rooms to grieve, will like the idea.  But they'll still come. 

Somehow, we'll hang on a little longer.  I put my arms around Ezri, and let her be my reason to go on. 

                               *** 

Dorothy and her family, the Wizard traveling along, have taken a trip.  They have encountered a good many curious little kingdoms.  Dorothy has been lost and found again.  Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were still not entirely comfortable, but felt very welcome.  Life was set to go on as it had forever in the fairy kingdom of Oz. 

But unsuspected by the dwellers in the kindly lands of Oz, the Nome king continues to monitor the progress of his high and wide tunnel, and the General continues to promise.  Eventually the Nomes will take it all for themselves, and the King will use the Magic Belt for whatever he pleases.  But greed is blind, and the General knows how to use it. 

We follow his progress with growing fascination and some worry.  This is Oz, a fairy land.  King Roquet the Red will not be permitted to take his prize and destroy the wonder.  Even then, children needed happy endings. 

I watch Cindy as she finds a place to sit near the back.  Her husband has been working very long hours and she disappears when he is here.  I wonder if she would really prefer that Oz fall to the Nomes, if that would make our own lives, and the one of the child she carries, a little easier. 

We need a happy ending, even if it's only to a book.  But then, the unthinkable was already in progress.  Our own fairy world was being battered by an enemy every bit as determined as the Nome king. 

We weren't going to have a happy ending. 

We are beginning chapter 24, and there is a hush when it is revealed that Ozma has seen the tunnel in her Magic Picture.  We are unexpectedly stunned when we learn that even all the inhabitants of Oz, gathered together, do not have the power to defeat the combined forces of the Nome King.  They will not fight back at all. 

The lovely land will be plundered and its fairy people enslaved.  Those that are not fairy's like Dorothy and her family, will be put to death. 

It is a little too easy for us to see it in our minds.  We barely make a sound while the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead decide to accompany Dorothy and her group back to the Emerald City and share the end with Ozma. 

Dinner comes and we eat it quickly.  We have to know the end.  We could not sleep for the suspense. 

Miles is reading next.  He sits uncomfortably in the chair and stares at the book.  Finally, after a deep breath, he begins to read. 

"Chapter 26," he says, pausing a second time, "Ozma Refuses to Fight for her Kingdom." 

Ozma doesn't seem concerned.  But then, a lot of us believed the Dominion could never win. 

Miles stumbles over the words when he reads about Dorothy's preparations for dinner. 

"So they went to their rooms and prepared for dinner, and Dorothy dressed herself in her prettiest gown and put on her coronet, for she thought that this might be the last time she would appear as a Princess of Oz." 

I remember the promise Ezri and I made to each other, that morning before the battle.  I remember the night before, and the joy of our first making love.  Now they are inexplicably intertwined, and I cannot think of one without the other. 

Their dinner is silent and uneasy, and Ozma looks into the Magic Picture at the assembled Whimsies, Growleywogs, Phanfasms, and of course the Nomes.  

Miles pauses again, his voice a little broken.  

" 'If we start at midnight,' replied the Nome King, 'we shall arrive at the Emerald City by daybreak.  Then, while all the Oz people are sleeping, we will capture them and make them our slaves.  After that we will destroy the city itself and march through the Land of Oz, burning and devastating as we go.' " 

" 'Good!' cried the First and Foremost.  'When we get through with Oz it will be a desert wilderness.  Ozma shall be my slave.'" 

Miles stops, gets up and hands the book to me. 

"I can't . . ." he says. 

Ralph Townsend, who once shared a little cell with us, slowly makes his way forward, taking the book from me and stands as he reads.  His voice is low, and he puts very little emphasis on anything.  His son died two weeks ago and he's hardly said a word since.  I'm surprised he's reading at all.  But his son's death was too slow, too painful, and Ralph suffered with him.  For the boy, death was a gift. 

He reads well, if without much inflection.  As the chapter goes on, he starts to come alive again.  The leaders of Roquet's armies argue over who gets to keep Ozma as a slave.  The king changes the subject. 

Dorothy and her friend desperately try to convince Ozma to resist them, even suggesting sending the inhabitants of Oz to Kansas with some Emeralds to support them. 

Ozma refuses them all.  " 'No one has the right to destroy any living creatures, however evil they may be, or to hurt them or make them unhappy.  I will not fight--even to save my kingdom.' "  Ralph delivers the line as if he believed it. 

Then the Scarecrow comes up with a plan.  

Dorothy could not sleep.  Nor could we.  It is late, and yet we vote to finish the last three chapters of the book. 

We have more volunteers to read than we need.  But Cheryl Jackson is an excellent reader.  " 'He's only a Scarecrow,' she said to herself, 'and I'm not sure that his mixed brains are as clever as he thinks they are.'" 

"But she knew that if the Scarecrow's plan failed they were all lost; so she tried to have faith in him." 

I look at Kira.  She's near the back, Marta standing behind everyone else.  Kira is lost in memories.  Miles merely stares at the wall.  I wish he could understand Kira's warning.  The children are sleepy, Yoshi asleep in his mother's arms, but Molly listening with great concentration. 

There is not a sound as Cheryl pauses, clears her throat, and begin's again with much more expression.  The Nome King sends his allies ahead to begin the invasion, and Guph suggests a plan to eliminate them after they've served their purpose, leaving Oz to the Nomes alone.  They march ahead, and the tunnel becomes more and more dusty as they go.  They hurry along so they may have a drink of water at the end. 

Ozma and her friends wait and watch while the invading armies choke and cough on the dust she sent there with her Magic Belt.  The good people of Oz wait for the invaders to break the crust of earth that is all that remains. 

Except for the voice of the reader, now an older woman, we sit in absolute, complete silence waiting for the end. 

The crust of earth gives way with a crash.  The armies of the Phanfasms poured out, first drinking from the waters of the Forbidden Fountain, and forgetting everything.  Then the Growleywogs and the Whimsies follow, each in turn forgetting why they had come to be in Oz.  Then, last, the Nomes drank as well. 

All the great warriors were reduced to little children.  The Nome King, pushed out of the way by the thirsty General, shouts at them but it does no good.  Tired of his raving, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman toss him in the water. 

The invasion done, Ozma sends them home.  

We have listened in silence, haunted by too many memories.  But something odd starts at the back of the room.  I look back, and Cindy is cheering.  Others have joined in, clapping and cheering and celebrating the safety of Oz.  In a minute everyone joins in the frenzied celebration. 

Drawn by the noise, the guards stop by the gate, watching.  We ignore them.  We cheer the rescue of Oz from evil, and the small hope of our own salvation it has granted. 

We don't have a Magic Belt.  We only have ourselves and our dreams.  But without that we would have nothing left at all. 

                               *** 

We pay for the day off.  My infirmary is so busy with careless injuries that I recruit a few of the less hurt to serve as help.  Work is being rushed and people are being pushed harder.  But that isn't the only reason.  Today, they don't care quite as much as the day before the news.  

It would be easy to give up, but I can't stop caring.  We cannot lose hope, especially if we stop caring what becomes of us.  If we allow that to happen we allow them to own us. 

It helps that I am so busy today. During the worse battles of the war, I shut it all out so I could work.  I do that now.  I don't think about how they got hurt, how I'm helping the Dominion by making them useful again, or any other consideration but my job.  It is the only way I know to manage. 

But sometimes, especially when for a little while things get quiet, I wish it was over.  Eventually they'll discover I cured Odo, though I'm sure they don't know yet.  The survival of their gods are far more important than us.  We can be replaced.  

But they are looking for Odo, their efforts even more determined since the Jem'Hadar was killed.  When they find him, discover he's quite healthy, they'll eventually discover they already have the man who can save them.  

Would Odo tell, I wonder?  Would he betray me to them if it might save Kira? 

In a small vial, hidden behind a stack of supplies, I still have the means of stopping them with the only way that is guaranteed to succeed.  There is enough for Ezri and I, for I would not leave her alive to be punished for my death.  But when I have days like this, when I have too many patients, I can't decide.  If I choose to die, how do I know the proper time?  Do I deny these people a chance to live?  Most of the injuries are minor, but here, untreated . . .  And if I wait too long there will be no chance.  Weyoun will have me watched too closely.  I'd be searched if they had any doubts.  What do I do?  Is suicide even a choice I can allow myself to make anymore?  Standing in my infirmary, as primitive and limited as it is, I am a healer.  I have already regained a little of myself.  Is that the reason I was granted this privileges, so I might be more willing to heal them too? 

It's been a long day.  Finally, the last of the patients are gone.  They have other doctors now, for the other shifts.  Sometime I'd like to meet them.  I wonder if they handle it better, what they tell themselves in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.  Would they just find another doctor to replace me, if . . .  

I'm allowed to leave.  When I get to our compound, the line for dinner is already long and I'm so tired.  But it's odd.  Ezri is not waiting and I am torn between dinner and checking on her.  There were too many injuries today.  I only saw the worst of them.  I glance at the cart and the food is getting low.  I decide to get in line.  She is probably tired.  I should let her sleep. 

Miles arrives a few minutes later.  Keiko is in their quarters as well.  Too many people are already in bed.  The rest are too quiet, too tense.  Most who have eaten have already left, but people usually sit and talk for a time before we have to go to bed.  Something is wrong.  Perhaps it is just the general depression that has settled over everyone, but I'm not so certain about that. 

We share a table and quickly finish our food before we talk.  We wander a little ways away.  He looks rather more grim than usual. 

He glances at the guards.  He looks at me curiously.  "You don't know," he says, watching me. 

"What happened?" I ask, moving away from the others, dreading the answer. 

"Ezri can give you the details.  She was there."  I hesitate, needing to know.  She might not want to talk about it. 

"I had a lot of patients," I say. 

We move into a more sheltered place.  Miles mumbles, slowly, "I only got it second hand, no names."  He looks around the room.  "You didn't get to see any of these.  There was an accident.  The guard decided it was deliberate.  Nobody was hurt very bad, but they took away some people and roughed up a lot more." 

He's too quiet, too edgy.  There is more he hasn't said.  Looking around the room, trying to find people, I ask with much hesitation, "Did we lose anyone?"  

There have been other accidents, others taken away.  But we've been lucky.  None of our people have disappeared or died that way. 

He hesitates.  "They took Catherine.  She fell during the accident." 

I keep thinking of Ezri playing with her daughter, how much this will touch her.  "Have they done anything with them, have you heard?" 

"I don't know.  All I know is they were dragged away." 

Stunned, I realize someone else is missing.  "Is Kira back?" I ask, suddenly suspicious. 

"I don't think so." 

We exchange a worried look.  They are looking for Odo.  If she's been detained and threatened, it might be a trap intended for him.  If she is hurt bad enough, he would take very particular revenge. 

When they take people away they don't come back.  Catherine will probably be deported, never see her child again.  If Odo chooses to take revenge we both hope it would be someone big, maybe even Weyoun.  Even if we have rations cut, it will be very satisfying. 

But I have to find out about Ezri and excuse myself.  I find her huddled on the bed, both blankets covering her as if she was hiding from someone.  I pull back the covers.  Her wrists are both bruised and roughened, as if she'd struggled while being tied.  She is asleep, but there is a bruise on her cheek.  The way she's curled up I suspect there are others as well. 

I don't wake her.  I don't want to bother her.  I just want to kill the guards who hurt her.  Eventually, I lay down carefully next to her, looking forward to Odo's revenge this time. 

                               *** 

Much later on, still before curfew in the silent evening, Kira is finally returned.  According to Miles, fetching me to look her over, she was shoved inside by two guards.  When I arrive she's sitting at a table, finishing a cold bowl of food.  I wait until she's done.  Others, sitting nearby, have become quiet as well, waiting to see. 

Ezri has been sleeping all evening, while I stared at the walls.  I'm careful not to touch her, but have examined her wrists.  The ropes were very tight.  The skin is not only badly bruised, but torn here and there as well.  I should at least clean it, should check on the others.  But the rage inside me is so much already.  There is no place for it to go.  There can be no satisfaction but Odo. 

Kira finished, I check her over.  She's limping, keeping weight off her leg, and there are a lot of bruises.  She stares straight ahead as I finish my examination.  She will recover. 

Miles and I put her to bed.  Marta is awake, worried, but has not ventured out.  We leave Kira to her care. 

"How's Ezri?" asks Miles.  

"As far as I can tell, bruises mostly.  Her wrists are torn up a little and I need to do something about that.  What about Keiko?" 

"Pretty much the same.  They used their cattle prods too, but not on everybody.  But this is a warning.  Next time . . . " he says.  Miles gets around more than we do.  He should know. 

"You're saying we're lucky?" I ask, angry and frustrated. 

"We haven't lost anybody yet."  He stares at the rooms where our women are resting after their batterings.  "They don't stop with bruises with the others." 

I take a deep breath, force back the explosion inside me that has nowhere to go.  "Would it help if I looked over the others?"  I ask, taking refuge in the only place I know. 

"You can't help the bruises," he says, lost.  "Just be glad we still have luck with us." 

He stumbles off to be with his family, and the rest of the compound slowly empties.  I go back to Ezri. 

She is awake, still lying on her side.  I kiss her gently on the forehead.  She cringes a little when I approach.  I accidently brush against her side, and she whimpers. 

"What did they do?" I ask. 

She doesn't look at me.  "It was the Breen," she says.  It isn't Ezri or Jadzia or Curzon or Torias, the only of her hosts I could identify.  At least it isn't Joran.  I also remember him. 

Whoever she becomes, I hope *he* stays inside her. 

"We were behind," she says, her voice dull and stunned.  "We were unloading this ship and a crate was dropped.  I don't know what was in it but I guess it was important."  She pauses, taking a deep breath and wincing a little.  "They took the ones who dropped it away right away.  Then they said we were all being careless.  We would be punished." 

She grows silent.  I gently touch her side and she jumps.  "Let me look at it." 

"They used their prods on us, nothing you can do but wait for the pain to stop."  Her tone is halting, still hurting a lot.  She hides her face from me.  "I remember.  I've been questioned by them before." 

"I should bandage your wrists at least.  The skin's broken." 

"Not . . . now," she says, forcing out the words as if lost in a nightmare. 

I want to insist, but know better.  I worry that she didn't mention Catherine.  But there is nothing I can do anyway.  "Can you sleep?" I ask. 

"It's a little better," she says.  "Just don't touch me." 

I arrange myself on the narrow bed as best I can, and keep away from her.  She falls asleep in a little while, probably from exhaustion, and after a time of staring into greyish light I do as well. 

                               *** 

It has been three days since the accident, and there have been no readings.  Nobody was in the mood to do more than get through the day and take care of their family.  Too many people had been hurt, or had someone to care for.  Too many people would miss the story. 

Very little has been said at all.  But everyone is waiting for the payoff.  

Kira is sitting next to me, both of us finishing our dinners.  "Starting to taste pretty good by now, I'll bet," she says. 

Kira doesn't start idle conversations unless she has a reason.  "I don't think I even notice the taste anymore," I reply, wondering what she has in mind. 

"I can walk on my foot again," she adds.  "I guess this means I go back out tomorrow." 

"I don't make the rules."  I've kept her foot wrapped and managed to excuse most of the others for a few days.  But I have only so much say in matters.  Weyoun is letting the warning sink in or they'd have been out there today.  Is he expecting someone else to fall, something worse to draw Odo out of hiding?  "Look, Be careful.  Please." 

I know it wasn't an accidental injury.  Kira hasn't said what they did, nor do I expect her too.  None of the women will say just how bad it was.  She was relatively untouched in comparison to the rest.  He was careful, worried about Odo taking too drastic a step.  But if Odo doesn't act soon, they'll give him more reason.  A real accident with Kira, quite possible given her foot, would do all he needed. 

Even the guards are waiting, my day much shorter and quieter.  But this glum quiet is starting to get to everyone.  

Kira ignores my comment.  It is as if she is picking up on my thoughts.  "We should read tonight," she says. 

"We already have the book.  You want to make the announcement?" 

She pauses, thinking.  "Why don't you.  I want to see if I can drag Marta out of the room tonight." 

I don't say anything.  I know she sees the girl as her mother, someone she's trying to redeem or make amends through, but she would be back in their beds at the drop of a hat without Kira.  Nobody talks to her.  Nobody wants her around.  Kira knows this, but if Marta is keeping her mind off Odo then she is serving some purpose. 

I make the announcement for the reading and people slowly dribble out of their rooms. 

Catherine's mother, an older woman who'd arrived with Realand and was part of his staff, comes alone, Tessie asleep.  It is the first time we've seen her except for meals and work since her daughter was taken. 

We don't have a lot of time, and intend a brief reading tonight, just the opening chapter of the adventure.  Miles traded for two books, one about an invasion of Earth.  We just aren't in the mood for that one. 

The adventure is a fairy tale, The Princess Bride, one the original author presumptiously subtitles a Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. 

It's not the whole book.  We can't quite decide if the author is really William Goldman or S. Morganstern did write a great tome of a novel that Mr. Goldman's grandfather edited into a good parts version.  But we are instantly pulled into the author's life, and the grey walls fade away at the comforting image of his Grandfather reading about, "Fencing, Fighting, True Love, Strong Hate, Harsh Revenge, A Few Giants, Lots of Bad Men, Lots of Good Men, Five or Six Beautiful Women, Beasties Monstrous and Gentle, Some Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles and a Little Sex." 

This is a story to lose one's self in, and all we've read is the introduction.  I don't particularly care who wrote it now.  I just want to go there. 

We should stop at the end of the introduction, since everyone is tired and we all need more rest.  But there are protests and we take a vote.  The guards are standing by the gate, watching while we vote, but we ignore them.  

It would be nice to think that they wanted to hear the story, but we know better than that. 

"One, the Bride".  The reader has a strong voice, and fills the words with expression.  We meet Buttercup, as she comes into her beauty.  She's the envy of all the other young maidens who's boyfriends can see only Buttercup.  But she can see none of them.  We laugh at her description of them as "beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunknobbed *boys*." 

We are enchanted by the words, as they spill into our imaginations and take us to a place far from here.  I have the unbidden thought that I wish I'd read this before.  Felix could have done wonders with it.  I want to read more, spend the whole night lost in the magic. 

But the lights flicker.  It is time for bed.  Like little Billy Goldman, we don't get to stay up past our bedtime. 

Tomorrow will pass more quickly.  We'll have the magic of the words to lose ourselves inside that evening.  The magic will keep us alive. 

We go to bed relaxed, unwilling to leave it behind.  There are no longer any holosuites.  But nobody can take away the ones inside our heads.  Ezri falls asleep quickly, and she's sleeping a little better.  But our reality is not so easily forgotten.  I accidently brush against her back and she jumps. 

She startles me.  She cringes a little from the pain, but when she says, "Julian, please," it was with Jadzia's voice. 

For a time, she was my Buttercup. 

I can cope with almost any of them but Joran.  But Jadzia is hard.  I loved her and watched her die.  The uncanny feeling that she is lying beside me is very disturbing. 

We're both asleep, in the middle of the night, when we are jarred awake by a loud boom.  The reverberations rattle our bed.  The lights go out and it's pitch black.  We stay where we are.  If they want us to move we'll go, but it's safer for now to stay put. 

Odo has struck again.  I can't wait to find out where.  Every time Ezri jumps I hope it's Weyoun. 

We wait in the dark, hearts pounding in anticipation. 

It is an immensely satisfying moment. 

The lights come on suddenly, at full brightness.  We shade our eyes as the alarm rings and I help her up.  We are told to wait by the gates by the voice on the speaker. 

A group of Jem'Hadar arrive in a few minutes and make sure we're all here.  Then they send us back to bed, and in a little while the lights go back to "night". 

If I don't hear them myself, Miles will find out all the details.  Rumors still spread very efficiently around here.  This time it was a bomb, and a powerful one at that.  Odo isn't playing anymore. 

I sure we'll be the first to pay, since they can't find Odo, but it feels so good right now that I don't mind.  Maybe tomorrow we'll regret it, but I'll remember the obvious worry in the Jem'Hadar's voice for a long time to come. 

                               *** 

                            Chapter 6 

By morning, still half asleep after our interrupted night, some of the satisfaction is wearing off.  Reality has started to intrude, especially as breakfast is only half as much as usual.  We aren't told how long we're on half rations-again. 

At Internment Camp 371, Deyos cut our rations whenever there was trouble.  I wonder if it is Dominion policy.  I suppose we'll find out. 

The guards arrive as usual.  Or almost as usual.  There are no Breen.  Ezri has been watching them nervously ever since the accident.  It's a relief she doesn't have to deal with them today. 

Last night there were no Breen either.  Every other patrol had been shared between the two.  Most curious. 

I follow the guards as I go to the infirmary, but they take a different route this time, skirting the official section of the habitat ring entirely.  There are a few corridors that are completely dark.  I pretend not to notice. 

The Breen hurt our people.  Had Odo directed his revenge against them this time? 

I'm let into my Infirmary, and once again have a relatively quiet day.  I'm looking forward to seeing Miles tonight, and comparing our news.  I hope dinner isn't as lean as breakfast.  I'm not making any assumptions. 

The day finally ends and I get to leave.  We take the same circuitous route back home.  The black corridors are still there, but the dark area is now blocked off.  There are repairs in progress.  It would be near our old quarters, the nicer ones the Dominion took over.  Or, perhaps, where they had lived.  I walk past it without looking, but it still feels good. 

People are sitting, watching the gate, when we arrive.  The children are playing, their high-pitched voices the only sound.  I guess the others are hungry, but there is something else too.  Ezri has been resting after work, and I hesitate to wake her.  I never hear news early, my job keeping me relatively isolated, but I can guess it is bad.  I decide to wait and ask Miles rather than break the spell of the children's noisy play. 

I notice Jackson and his family sitting together, finishing their mush.  Jeffrey is staring out at it, his eyes grim, watching the gate between bites.  Calla isn't playing, between her brother and mother.  Carl just looks lost, occasionally looking up at his children.  When they're done they'll drift back to their quarters, barricade themselves behind an illusion of safety.  Cheryl was hurt, but only a little.  She didn't even get a day off though I tried hard to think of a reason.  Neither of the children have come out to play since then.  I wonder what Carl would do if they made him an offer, took them away from here and the danger we live with.  I wonder what Jeffrey would do if he had a meaningful target, how long he'd last. 

It's a relief when they finish and leave.  I'd much rather see the children who still remember who they are than Jeffrey. 

Miles arrives late, a while after I do, and his mood is notably grim.  We talk quietly near the children, who despite everything play noisily like children. 

He is quiet, barely whispering.  He looks stunned.  "They executed four prisoners yesterday, for sabotage.  They claim confessions.  Rumor is the Breen got to question them." 

They'd take four of us after the accident.  "Is Catherine one of them?" I ask. 

He looks around, watching the children.  "Her and the other three."  Then he ads, slowly, "They've only heard the rumors.  I guess I get to tell them." 

I remember Catherine playing with her daughter.  Ezri knows about the Breen's methods.  I don't know what this will do to her. 

"Are you going to wait?  Is everyone here?" 

"No, but I want to talk to Catherine's mother first.  Maybe she'll feel a little better, at least knowing what happened to her.  You could tell Ezri." 

"Maybe that would be better.  She knows about the Breen."  Miles won't look at me. 

"They won't be questioning anyone else," he whispers, glancing at the guards by the gate, all Jem'Hadar. 

"I haven't seen any Breen since the explosion," I half-whisper. 

His look is half-worry and half-satisfaction.  "Rumor is they left the station after their quarters went boom and the Breen commander was killed." 

I nod.  It makes sense.  But it's time for dinner and we go to wake our wives.  I notice the cart is moving a little too fast. 

Rations are still cut.  Maybe it's standard policy.  Odo may have caused a big rift between the Dominion and the Breen, but we may have only begun to pay for it. 

                               *** 

We finished the adventure the day before yesterday.  I miss it.  I could get lost inside its visions of the beautiful if rather dense princess and the murderous prince.  I'm fascinated by the play of swords, and the mystery of the Fireswamp with its hungry quicksands and giant RAUSes.  I revel in the climax, and the vengeance of the Man in Black.  Some of them were disappointed, wanted to see the Prince with missing body parts shunned and ignored.  But I understand.  The Man in Black is the bright light of day.  If he destroyed the Prince in revenge he would be no better.  It is a perfect fantasy, balanced between dark and light, reality and dreams.  It twined its vivid world, let us escape in the fantasy it wove around us.  It took me away from here.  

It reminds me of Felix's best holoprograms, like Vic Fontane's club, where we could forget the war for a little while.  I remember how much fun it had been to be Julian Bashir, secret agent, before I shot Garak that day.  I had never played it again after Sloan made it real.  It was no longer a thing of fantasy. 

Our children may never see a holoprogram.  But we will do our best to teach them how to dream, and make their own inside their heads where they can't be taken away. 

Today, before dinner, we started a new book, War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.  A history expert among us claims the play, broadcast on radio, once set off a panic when listeners believed that Martians had destroyed the town of Grover's Mill with their heat ray.  On the eve of a war that would destroy millions of lives, and effect the entire planet, they ran away from the invading Martians before hearing the special announcement that it wasn't real. 

But the book does not begin in New Jersey.  It begins with the coming of a missile to the English countryside of my youth.  I can smell the flowers on the Woking Green and see little groups of pine trees.  I had stood there as a child, and see the cylinder as I might have then too, a mystery to be solved, an adventure to be had.  In my mind I watch as the scientists travel across the green to study the curious thing, in animated debate about the nature of the Thing which embedded itself in the Common. 

In my child mind, I'd like to follow them, stare at the pit and perhaps dare myself to go closer.  For me, it was like going home.  But for most it was a little dull, with the meanderings on science and philosophy that fill the first few chapters.  I'm caught up in memories of childhood when the first page of tonight's reading ignites our curiosity. 

The Martians are opening the cylinder, slowly unscrewing it from the inside.  The people scrambled from the pit in which it was buried and the crowd that had gathered backed up hastily. 

A Thing with tentacles crawls out.  The people run in panic, hiding behind trees and bushes.  A Deputation of men with a white flag comes forward, wishing to make a civilized greeting. 

I can see them retreat, caught between fear and curiosity, and even see the Deputation as it advances with its little white flag of truce. 

I can't forget that once we thought we could negotiate with the Dominion, even make deals.  We haven't changed that much in half a millennium. 

Then, a sudden flash of light, with a luminous green smoke darkens the sky.  The men on the green turn to flame, death leaping from man to man.  The trees burst into fire, and the deadly heatray sweeps the common. 

I can see them die, too, but not in my child mind.  I can feel the sudden shock of the fiery death as the child inside me burrows beneath a bush, too scared to move.  I can smell the scent of burned flesh, the heat of the fires. 

I shut out the image.  What if it was Jem'Hadar?  What if it was the Earth of today they were destroying, like they did Cardassia?  The child within me feels the heat and the smell and finds his legs, and just runs. 

I remember the way the Jem'Hadar rammed and destroyed the Oddysey.  It was hard to tell the families left on the station that fathers and mothers were gone.  But there was more, a dread and awareness that the men and women of the Oddysey were only the first. 

"The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all around me.  Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do.  Once I had turned, I did not dare look back." 

We did not allow ourselves to think on that desperate run from Cardassia to home--what was home.  We had simply run for our lives.  I do not recall any of the details of that day except a dread that it would end too soon, that we would be killed or captured before we saw home again. 

I am running with him, fleeing all the fears and terrors of the sudden attack, sharing with him the dread of the future such events might portend. 

Except for the reader's even, calm voice, there is not a sound. 

"I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was on the very verge of safety this mysterious death--as swift as the passage of light--would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder and strike me down." 

First blood has been drawn, and we listen with absolute silence as panic takes the survivors, and in the confusion a few of them were trampled by the crowd and left behind to die.  Drained and exhausted, our man collapses, remembering nothing of his flight.  He staggers home, haggard and drunken with his exhaustion. 

Those who did not see it find the Martians slow, and the tragedy sad but over.  How could such sluggish creatures do much harm? 

They say reliving a nightmare can be therapeutic.  Perhaps it is true.  We sit in rapt attention, listening as the words, in deep and evocative imagery, spin a vivid, bright, deadly picture of death and innocence.  Deep inside, we share a kinship with those people greeting the unknown with confident curiosity, only to be captured by the frightful panic of the unknown which swept them away. 

The reading done, we file out quietly, anxious to know where the monsters will go next.  We know there are monsters.  We have to live with them, are forced to work for them.  But it is easier to be drawn into Wells' nightmare, to wonder who will survive the Martians, than to ponder our own uncertain future. 

                               *** 

When I return from work, early for once, Ezri is sitting with Tessie curled asleep in her lap.  She's carefully cuddling the little girl, absently stroking her hair.  I would think it was Jadzia except for her expression, looking off to something distant and horrible. 

"They tortured them first, didn't they," she says softly as I sit next to her, careful not to disturb the child.  "That was the rumor, that the Breen did it." 

"That's what Miles said.  He should know."  I hadn't told her, just that Catherine was dead.  Miles had left it out as well. 

"I heard they all confessed too."  She is still, stroking the child, but absent-mindedly now.  In her eyes is a blazing rage that scares me. 

She slips out of Ezri now and then.  What if she should slip into Joran?  What would she do to pay them back? 

"Miles said that was a rumor."  I keep it at that. 

"Miles needs to quit keeping secrets," she spits out.  Then Tessie stirs and she has to hold her a little closer.  She sighs.  "Well, Odo paid them back but Catherine is still dead."  Gently, she kisses the child. 

People don't talk about Catherine.  Nobody knows what to say.  It was an accident.  She probably wouldn't have been hurt enough to miss a days work if they hadn't wanted to make a point about Odo.  Next time it could be anyone else, and they might make it worse, up the ante. 

I keep thinking that if we'd never cured him, he wouldn't be alive to take revenge, and we wouldn't have to worry so much.  Maybe Catherine and the others would still be alive.  His revenge felt so good a few days ago.  Now it's just an empty place where dinner should be. 

Of course, if he gives up or they find him, they'll *know* and I have to make the decision I simply cannot make, not yet.  Not when Ezri is holding the child of someone they murdered.  Can I be responsible for the rest of these people dying? 

Then the gate opens and the communications people return.  They look exhausted, the only ones left that still work long days.  Realand and his wife nod, and take their food.  Marta won't come out unless they have gone, and even then she's very cautious. 

Kira said she wasn't pregnant.  At least that's one good thing.  But she is still unwanted, too much a reminder of our own lives.  Especially since Catherine's death, she stays by herself. 

Tessie's grandmother is behind them.  She gets her food, sitting next to Ezri.  "How is she?" asks Elaine. 

"She's fine," says Ezri, but she's still too much on edge, still lost in an angry grief. 

"She misses her mother.  I wish she was old enough to understand."  Elaine pauses, looking at her food.  "Catherine loved her so much.  We lost her father just before the end.  We'd actually come out here to meet him since he hadn't gotten leave." 

"He was on DS9?" asks Ezri, still gloomy. 

"Near enough.  We had enough push to get him here for a little while.  He'd never seen Tessie." 

She was two, just old enough to have been born before just before the war.  Even audio communications were difficult, but she might have talked to him if he'd been alive when they arrived.  "Did she get to even talk to him?" I ask, noting Ezri troubled face. 

"Not even that.  The notification of his death met us when we arrived.  Catherine tried not to cry since it scared Tessie, but couldn't really tell her why she was crying.  Daddy didn't mean anything." 

"I think she's looking for her mother.  She kept saying 'mama' over and over."  Ezri is tired, and ready to collapse.  And perhaps say the wrong thing. 

Elaine takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.  "Catherine was so scared.  She had a trick knee.  She worried she'd fall some day, that they'd think she was being careless.  She made me promise to take care of Tessie, and if anything ever happened to me make sure someone else would." 

Ezri is rocking the sleeping child.  Elaine gazes gently at them.  Waking, Tessie yawns and smiles at her grandmother.  "She should probably get to bed," says Ezri. 

Elaine looks at Ezri, and then me.  "I don't know what's going to happen, but if something does go wrong, if I can't raise her, would you?" 

Ezri kisses the girl again.  "I'd be delighted to.  But your lucky.  You have a pass." 

Elaine looks at me, sharing a look.  "Now, but they want this finished soon.  I don't know how long they'll wait.  I don't know if I'd be any more able to handle that kind of work than Catherine." 

I understand something Ezri doesn't.  Elaine and the communications team are playing a dangerous game, but very carefully.  They are taking their time, dragging out the job as long as they can.  When the Dominion has the com system online they can do so much more damage with the range of the new system.  I almost wonder if they plan to sabotage it. 

Ezri stands, offering to put Tessie to bed.  Elaine nods, and she leaves.  Then Elaine grows very grim.  "Why didn't they just kill them?  Why did they have to torture them first, force some sort of confession first?  Catherine was terribly afraid of pain.  I can't sleep, thinking of the way she died, what they did before they killed her." 

I have no real answer.  "It was a trap.  Except they didn't catch him." 

But she almost looks smug.  "No, they didn't."  I'm almost sure the com system has been sabotaged.  I know why she's so worried about Tessie.  I wonder if they'll torture her when the sabotage is discovered, if she'll confess on her own.  It won't change the sentence.  But I have a feeling she'll be proud to die. 

Ezri returns, obviously tired.  "She's all settled," she says, troubled but peaceful too.  "Look, take care.  She needs her grandmother." 

"Are we going to read?" she asks the room.  Most everyone is here.  Dinner should come soon.  She looks as if she needs a nap more than anything else. 

"I'll get you up.  Get some rest," I tell her.  Even if she can't sleep, she needs some time alone. 

"Promise?" she says, trying to smile a little. 

"Come on, or do I have to carry you?" 

Ezri lets me guide her, and I watch as she half-collapses.  Before I go, she says quietly, "I knew about Worf to, and couldn't stop him either." 

Outside, Elaine is gone, but people are already waiting for the reading.  With everyone so tired, we keep them short.  We'll wait a little while, but Ezri will wake up for it.  Even Elaine will come back into public view. 

It's their disaster, their war.  We have tripods chasing us down.  But the heat ray and the smoke are all too plausible.  Still, for a time we get to retreat into someone else's nightmare, hoping it will not in the end be ours as well.  

                               *** 

In a few hours we will get breakfast, but right now I can't sleep.  My stomach is grumbling too much.  It's been over two weeks since the bomb and our rations are still only half of what we got before.  At least Odo hasn't tried anything else.  Ezri and the others are hostages to our good cooperation.  But all of us in all the groups are hostages to Odo and his revenge. 

To distract myself, I dwell on the book.  I debate with the author on the proper fate of the invaders.  Should they be killed, punishment for their massacre in Woking, or allowed to live?  How do we know that they would see the Deputation for what it was?  Could they have assumed the good men with their good intentions were intending to kill the Martians?  Would we do the same with our version of the heat ray if we were in their place, especially now that all our illusions have been shattered. 

I try to remember the wait, the simulations that proved we didn't have a chance, the stunning death of the Maquis, the questions. . . always more questions.  It was almost a relief to have the war start.  

I can see the first glimpse of the tripod along the road, the first proof that the Martians were not the weak, clumsy things they were said to be.  And I hide with the man as it passes, astonished at the Thing, horrified and fascinated at the same time. 

I stand with him, watching the fire that had been Surrey, holding onto memories as it inexorably moves toward his own home on Maybury hill.  The smoke stings my nose, and the shadows of its approaching doom dance on the ceiling. 

I keep thinking of Cardassia, reduced to a rotting pile of refuse.  I keep seeing the fires of Surrey as a portend of the same. 

I am one with the man and the soldier as they make their way towards London, warning of the death approaching the people.  But London is yet untouched, and it's a Sunday afternoon in the park. 

How many times had Sisko said Starfleet would be sending a few ships, what they could spare.  I'd been their prisoner.  I knew what they were.  Nobody wanted to listen to me either. 

There were more cylinders arriving, more death.  On the outskirts of London, the suburban villas were lined with men and guns.  I was born in London.  For the others this was just a story.  For me, it is too real.  But I am with them, those men lined up in the bushes, trying to hold off the cylinders with rifles, trying to save home. 

Too restless to sleep, I take out the book, searching for a passage we'd read several days before.  I'd borrowed it from Miles, and he gave it to me silently, knowing where I was from.  London was full of haggard refuges, and the army was setting up in the streets.  The smoke of distant battle filled the air, and the residents of London were being swept up in the fear. 

There is the dispatch from the army.  "The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapor by means of rockets.  They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbleton, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way.  It is impossible to stop them.  There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight." 

The population of London, en masse, run northward however they may do it.  In their panic they push through neighbors and friends, driving the unlucky or slow out of the way, all desperate to escape the Martians and their black, suffocating smoke. 

When the Jem'Hadar come, will there be a place to hide?  Surrey is perhaps 20 miles from London.  The Dominion destroyed more than that with one flash on Cardassia.  Or would they prefer the personal touch of individual murder done by swarms of Jem'Hadar?  From what we heard before we ran in panic ourselves, most of the Cardassians died that way. 

I read up to the part we've finished, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes.  The refugees reach the trains and cram them full, the rest still running on foot.  Hunger begins to tease at them.  The night is cold and there is nowhere to sleep.  And the fear of the Martians keeps driving them to run until there is nowhere else to go. 

We ran to the closest version of home we know, and they took it away.  These locked cages cannot be home.  But we are not on Cardassia, and we are not dead.  We are the lucky ones, the one's who made it to the trains, who were not running hungry and cold along the road.  I put the book down, lost somewhere between its world and my own. 

I'm careful not to waken Ezri, but then she is too tired to wake unless I touch her wrong.  They are finished with the remodeling, and all they do is load ships now.  But it's very tiring with our present diet.  We still do our readings, but before dinner.  After dinner everyone goes to sleep. 

If you can sleep.  When the Federation loses, when it's not Martians but Jem'Hadar, will they bring the same oblivion as the heat ray and the smoke?  Will our families be the charred or suffocated corpses left behind. 

I'm not getting enough to eat.  My half-empty stomach keeps me awake.  But so does the future, and the fear we will know the world the Martians are making. 

Sometimes I wonder if we should have just let Odo die.  It wouldn't have changed the end of the war.  But we might have more to eat. 

Funny how going to bed hungry every night can change one's perspective. 

Our masters aren't pushing us like they were.  I don't see that many injuries, though the ones inflicted by the Jem'Hadar are never sent to me.  But a lot more people are getting sick.  I don't know why I get them, since there isn't a lot I can do to help.  I can't raise rations back to what they were and that is what is needed. 

Odo's playing this game with them, and we are the game pieces.  Things, just like we are to the ones he's fighting.  I think about that every morning while I carefully scrape my plate for the last traces of my mush.  We saved him because he was different, because a wrong had been done to him.  Is this how we are paid back? 

If Sloan was here, would he be laughing at us?  Would he say it was payback for what Miles and I did to him?  I was going to torture him if that was what it took.  I didn't regret his death, though I hadn't planned on his suicide.  I would have willingly taken a life to save one.  

When we tied down Sloan and forced our way into his mind, he was nothing more than something to use.  Just like we are to them. 

Maybe that is what keeps me awake.  Maybe that is why I dread the moment they tell me to cure them so much. 

I planned to say no.  Just refuse.  I hate them for what they've done to us, for the ruin of our lives and futures and memories.  But now I realize it isn't so simple.  It's probably simple to Odo, hiding in a shadow somewhere.  He is focused on Kira.  We are just things in the way. 

When they order me to save their gods, I'll be Odo.  I can't refuse, can't tell them no.  If I do they won't hurt *me*, but make me watch as the rations go to nothing, as they tear away our families and send them away. 

I can't cure them.  But I can't refuse either.  What ... what do I do?  Either way I betray my own people. 

I keep dreaming about the explosion that I just barely escaped in the last battle.  Except in my dreams I die with the wounded.  If I was dead, they couldn't make me cure them.  If we'd left Odo to die, he couldn't make us pawns in his game. 

Sometimes there are worse things than dying. 

I remember the classes I took on ethics.  It sounded so simple then.  We are doctors, we said.  We do not harm.  We would not use the healing arts to destroy. 

But then, I hadn't had the woman who has grown to be a part of me flinch when I try to hold her.  I hadn't watched when she and the others are forced to go each day, even if they're sick.  I hadn't worried that she'd come back even more hurt or afraid.  Or maybe not come back at all. 

Ethics is simple when it's only in a book. 

She's stirring, crying in her sleep.  I try to hold her and she whimpers.  Ethics is simple when you don't want to kill them. 

Ethics is easy when all you really want is to get revenge.  The only complication is how to do that without the cost being so high. 

Maybe that's what's keeping me awake.  Maybe I'll be able to sleep then, when I figure out how to do that. 

                               *** 

I usually get back later than the rest, though seldom very late anymore since they have other doctors.  But most of the others have already returned.  During the day, I am isolated from them by a silence neither side is willing to break.  I speak to my patients as little as necessary and they only ask the required questions.  I never look at them and they avoid me.  I never know if the news will be bad when I get home, or if it has been what passes as a normal day in this new version of Terok Nor. 

But since the bombing, there are more and more stories of deaths and injuries that get hauled away to die in holding cells.  It helps during the day, knowing that I'm able to keep a few out of the deadly places.  But coming back each night, passing through the gate, I look around with apprehension.  Life is growing steadily harder.  The Breen are gone, but the Jem'Hadar more than make up for it. 

They still have the prods, but like to use their fists better.  Or the butts of their rifles.  I don't get to treat the victims.  Either they get up and out of the way or get shot. 

Now they have plenty of us to replace the ones they shoot.  The new holds below are full of them.  Need an engineer?  They can find a new one.  Need a doctor?  I wonder.  Maybe I should make trouble.  They'll probably kill me if what I'm beginning to suspect is true and they don't know.  Then, when they find out, it will be too late.  Nobody can cure them.  

It would be particularly good if Weyoun had ordered my execution.  Then the Founder would have him to blame.  His guilt would be a good legacy.  But they wouldn't need Ezri as a hostage anymore.  Would she already be gone by then, or waiting locked below in the dark? 

She actually let me hold her last night.  She was even my Ezri, with that little shrug of hers.  She was scared, knowing I wouldn't hurt her but unable to stop the fear.  After a time of gentle cuddles, she finally relaxed in my arms.  We both slept well for once.  If only today doesn't just make things worse again. 

But it's obvious that something is wrong as soon as I walk inside, too many people just sitting, everyone too silent.  I get my food first, the cart still there, as has become habit and locate Ezri.  She's sitting next to Scalman with a small knot of friends nearby, all silent.  He's holding his children, but Tina isn't there, and there are tears running down his cheeks. 

Ezri is sitting close, talking quietly to him.  For the first time since we were locked up, she's acting like a counselor. 

But Tina should be back.  She is always back by now.  I take a deep breath and look at Kira, standing nearby. 

"What . . . " I say, not sure how to ask. 

"Tina slipped and had a crate fall on her.  The Jem'Hadar shot her."  Kira is watching from a little distance away.  I start moving nearer and she stops me.  "Leave them be.  Ezri was a good friend of hers.  Let them say good bye." 

I realize that while I *know* these people, I don't know them all that well.  I don't spend the day with them under the Jem'Hadar's constant watch.  I sit with Miles at night.  I'm insulated from the life they've been forced into. 

Kira and I sit.  "Was it really an accident?" I ask. 

"The crate?  Sure, she slipped on a wet floor.  I don't know if you'd have been able to do anything anyway.  Of course, I wasn't there when it happened.  They'll be more times like this," she says, almost nonchalant about it. 

How bad had things been on Cardassia?  Or was she remembering when the Cardassians had been the guards? 

The little knot around Scalman moves back and I can see how he's sitting slumped forward, still in shock.  Little Nicki, still too young to understand, keeps calling for his Mama.  Trisha, near Molly's age, is crying. 

Scalman stands, the crowd breaking up, and Ezri stays with them.  She picks up Nicki and carries him into the family quarters after his father and sister. 

Miles comes up behind me.  "It was just a matter of time," he mumbles, looking towards Keiko.  

Kira agrees.  "They're getting careless now.  You're close to done and can be replaced.  And there's plenty of bodies to choose from." 

"That bad?" I ask, feeling left out of the grapevine. 

Miles speaks very quietly.  "Some of the groups are just labor.  They didn't worry too much about families.  They're getting in a lot of prisoners who go through below.  They get put on ships and sent out of here.  Not Cardassia, but somewhere.  Maybe through the wormhole.  Just hope we hold on to this place as long as we can." 

Kira is watching a small confrontation in the corner.  Marta has tried to make her way back to her floor, but several men have cornered her. 

I can hear the voices, the sort of suggestions they are making.  Kira appears undecided about weather to intervene.  But Jackson steps forward, pulling them away.  

His voice is loud, hurting.  "Get away from her.  I don't care what she did.  You want this to be your memorial to Tina?" 

Marta skidders away, hurrying back to safety.  The others wander off, mumbling to themselves.  I can't take my eyes of Jackson.  I remember when Tina took the blanket from his hands, wrapped it around him and kept him going in the last cell.  He must be devastated.  He must be thinking of his family, of Cheryl. 

Kira and Miles have gone, and I wait for Ezri.  She emerges from the room looking a little dazed.  There is blood on her clothes.  She finds me and takes my hand, leading us back to our quarters. 

Only then does she speak, with anger and more of the deep seeded hatred that grows daily.  "She didn't die from the crate.  Or maybe she did, but she had time to get out of the way.  She slipped on the wet floor, was almost up when they jerked the line and she fell, then the crate fell on her.  They deliberately murdered her."  She takes a deep breath, looking at me, not seeing me.  "She always did the work like we were told.  But she liked to glare at them.  Maybe she didn't see that they noticed." 

Then she collapses on our bed, just staring.  "Could I have done anything?" I ask, almost hoping that there was nothing. 

Her voice is flat, without any expression.  I wish it was dark, so I don't have to see the dull look that fills her eyes.  I remember when they sparkled.  "They kicked the crate off her, and she had blood everywhere.  I think her ribs were crushed.  Then the head guard just walked up and shot her in the head.  At least it was over quick.  I helped move her out of the way." 

"Nothing, then . . . " I mumble, the death still not real. 

Ezri looks down at her clothes, and the blood.  "I guess I have to put up with this," she says, resigned.  

We haven't had showers the last two weeks, and they didn't give us the clean clothes we were promised either.  

Not really surprising. 

I need to get away.  Maybe Ezri could use a little time by herself.  "I'm going to see how things are going," I tell her, but she doesn't notice. 

Miles is sitting by himself in an empty room.  I sit next to him uninvited.  Most of the rest have gone home.  "Ezri told me what happened, what really happened." 

He stares at the water in front of him, taking a sip.  "Keiko didn't see it, but she saw the body."  He gets quiet.  "I'll never walk back here without worrying again," he adds.  "Even with Catherine, it was different.  They were setting a trap.  This wasn't that, just everyday stuff." 

He goes back to staring.  I don't look at his eyes, don't want to see what's inside.  He has children.  How will Scalman explain to a three year old that mommy is dead, that mommy was murdered?  How will he keep them from growing up with rage inside?  I am just profoundly grateful that I have no children, that I won't have to explain that mommy is gone. 

Miles finishes his water.  "I guess we won't read tonight.  It's probably too late anyway."  He stores the cup in the holder next to the barrel.  "I'd like to be with my family right now," he says, lost in some deep place. 

I'm not ready to sleep.  Ezri didn't even see me go.  She'll probably ignore me for hours.  Alone in the room, I take in the silence. 

The changelings are dying.  Sooner or later, the trap will work and they'll catch Odo, discover his secret.  Then they'll come for me. 

I want them to die.  But what of the Jem'Hadar?  I've been so lost in my own dilemma I've missed the obvious danger, one 31 didn't plan on.  We were supposed to win the war, and be far away when the Founders died.  When they pass, what do the Jem'Hadar do?  They are already acting like vicious animals.  Will any of us survive if they go on a rampage? 

But then, is this any better?  Right now, the pall of mourning in the air, I'm not so sure anymore. 

Tomorrow, in a few hours, it all repeats over again like it does every other morning and I realize I no longer know if its worth it. 

                               *** 

Scalman went with the work crew today.  He couldn't concentrate on his Ops duties.  It's been three days and he hasn't said a word to anyone.  The children hold onto him all the time.  Even the boy knows what happened to mommy now. 

Ezri has hardly said a word.  She spends a lot of time with Scalman and his children, rocking little Nicky to sleep for his nap.  Yesterday the three of them were all sleeping together in our bed. 

She used to watch them for Tina.  They're used to her.  Maybe they help each other. 

I keep busy.  I shut out everything but my job.  I delivered a baby today.  That was the hardest thing, welcoming a new life to this hell.  The various injuries are becoming so commonplace that I hardly notice them.  I don't look at faces anymore.  It's too hard to pretend that way. 

The Jem'Hadar take me back.  We eat our brief meal.  We've moved readings back to after meals again.  We are nearly done with War of the Worlds.  

Earth belongs to the Martians now, their black smoke destroying what the heat ray has spared, poisoning the land it touches, the red weed everywhere.  Those that survive search desperately for food among the devastation.  Our man, telling his story, has found an abandoned house with a comfortable bed to sleep in this day. 

Keiko is reading.  Her calm, expressive voice reminds us of better days, of the school she taught when our children had an education. 

"Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of the curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of my wife." 

Men reach out for their families, and some hold their wives very close, as if that might keep them safe. 

"And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate body, I face the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife.  For the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, unhappy, I could for the latter.  And suddenly that night became terrible.  I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark.  I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her being." 

Keiko stops.  Scalman has moved forward, his children still clutching at his hands.  He had stayed away from readings since his wife's death.  He sits, pulling the children near, and nods to resume the story. 

Nervously, she continues.  It is a long chapter.  We always finish the chapter.  In this space, with our books, we make our own rules, and that is one of them. 

Our man meets an artillery man and is taken in by the vision of a secret resistance, saving the little of humanity that is left.  But the artillery man is only a dreamer.  They party while the world dies a little more.  He cannot make the dream a reality, and our man leaves, needing to know what has become of the world he lost.  He determines he will go next to London. 

I push away the image of a dead London.  I hold Ezri tight, fearful she will be the next that doesn't return.  I have lost so much.  I can't lose anymore. 

The Martians suck the living fluids from the humans they catch, a terrible death.  Our masters tear apart parents from children and deport them to convict gangs where death can be a greater gift than life.  

If I don't cure their gods, they will send Ezri there.  I don't want to let go, to hold her forever so she might be safe. 

Quietly, we disappear into our little rooms to attempt to sleep. 

Ezri is exhausted and falls asleep immediately.  I am emotionally spent and fall into a heavy sleep as well.  Then the bell rings, and we come out for breakfast. 

But Scalman doesn't.  Neither do his children.  Miles goes to check, and I fumble with my pass, hating its touch.  

"Julian, come here," he says, motioning for me to follow. 

Inside, I see the bed with the three of them entwined together.  None of them are moving.  I check.  None of them have a pulse.  The bodies are cold and stiff.  He and the children are dead.  

It was drugs or poison.  I wonder where he found it.  

Miles brings me a quick breakfast, and I eat it as I wait outside their quarters, allowing Miles tell the rest.  He waits until after breakfast is done, though it is eaten in a curious silence.  The guards have the bodies carried out before G1 goes to work. 

Miles is waiting by me when they are gone.  "He thanked me," says Miles, quietly.  "I asked him to wait six months.  It hasn't been that long." 

"He had that.  He probably wouldn't have without you."  I don't know what else to say. 

"Trishi was one of Molly's best friends.  After I explained about Catherine and then Tina, why her friends couldn't play . . .  How do I explain this?" 

I remember Jeffrey, that first night after we were sent here, how little like a child he was.  He's never changed, never come out of his nightmare.  Nobody even knows what it is.  For a time, our children have been spared.  How long will that last?  How many will end up like him in the end? 

"You probably won't have to," I say, watching as the others line up to go, each saying some sort of good bye, just in case.  I already said mine to Ezri.  She was too stunned by the suicide to say anything and there wasn't time to dawdle. 

The children sit near Cindy, talking quietly.  Miles watches, picking out Molly and her brother from the others.  "Maybe she can do a better job.  I don't know what to say." 

He's called to go and I wander closer, hoping to hear a little.  One of the little girls is telling a story about Nicki, how she liked this song.  Some of them are crying. 

The guard calls for me and I shut everything but medicine out for the day. 

When I return, Ezri is sitting by herself.  She has my bowl already, Tessie sitting nearby playing, her grandmother not yet back.  "Murderer," she says. 

"Something happen?" I ask cautiously. 

"No, him," she says.  "Michael, their father." 

She's talking about Scalman.  The children were only three and six.  I suppose he didn't ask them if they wanted to die too. 

"He couldn't cope," I say, not trying to disagree. 

"He was a coward.  Her grandmother is still here," she says, looking at Tessie.  "She didn't give up.  Not only a coward but a murdered, child killer."  She pats the little girl who is showing her a toy.  "I would have taken them and he knew it.  But he had to execute them, just like the guards.  If he wanted to be a coward, just *die*, then let him.  But he didn't own them.  He's no better than the guard that killed his wife." 

I can't think of anything to say.  Six months ago this was our home.  Now we're just part of the machinery, and I wonder how long it will be before we can't feel anything at all. 

                               *** 

End, Part 1b