Bashir felt his knees grow weak, but he locked them so he wouldn't fall. This was not how things were supposed to go. Section 31 was supposed to take him, give him some mission that he would refuse and then decide he wasn't worth all the trouble. Sloan had insinuated they would have killed him before. If he could push them far enough, they'd do it now. They had taken him. But they hadn't offered him a mission, and they hadn't given him any chance to refuse.

Then Riker ordered the surrender. Bashir knew, logically, there was no choice, but he still found himself shaking his head. The walls were spinning again. Several of the crew had gasped at the order. Bormann was visibly shaken. "Sir?"

"Do it," Riker ordered. Then he turned to Bashir and held out the uniform. "I really think you should put this on."

Bashir looked at the familiar material in Riker's hand. Part of him still wanted it. But the part of him that was tired of the fight and the pain won out. "I'm not in Starfleet anymore."

Riker shook his head in obvious exasperation. "As a Starfleet officer, you'll be a prisoner of war. If they see you as a civilian, they might just shoot you for sport."

Neither option offered any comfort or advantage. A familiar tightness gripped his chest. He had wanted to die, to disappear and leave this life and all the trouble with it. But as he looked out the forward viewscreen at the beetle-shaped vessel that held position there, he knew he didn't want them to end his life. Not them. "What makes you think they abide by any such rules?" he found himself asking Riker.

"They're preparing to board," Simmons called, his voice a little shaky. "Should I lower shields?"

"We don't have time for this," Riker huffed. He looked back over his shoulder to Simmons. "Stall them." Then he pulled his phaser and pointed it at Bashir's chest. "If you don't put it on now, I'll stun you and we'll put it on you. Either way, you're getting into this uniform. You can't just give up."

Bashir's faced flushed in anger. He wasn't afraid of the phaser, but he knew Riker would do what he said. "Why not?" he asked, keeping his voice low so that maybe only Riker would hear. He snatched the uniform and began to change, not because he wanted to, but because he didn't have a choice.

"Because we need you," Riker answered. "Our mission is to find Pfenner. Section 31 knew that. That's why they led us here, because the Dominion has Pfenner. You discovered their experiments, the K-Layer."

Bashir shook his head. He was tired of being treated like a science project when it was convenient. He was still human, if not as naturally so as the day he was born. "We did!" he countered. "Garak, Dax, O'Brien and I. Why aren't they here?" But he knew the answer. "Because they aren't genetically-enhanced."

The phaser had lowered when he'd started to change. "I wouldn't have brought you at all," Riker admitted. "But that's probably why Section 31 put you here. We've got to stop the Dominion, Doctor. We need to stop Pfenner, if he's helping them. Out of those of us that are here, you're the right one for the job."

Bashir zipped the jacket and faced Riker straight on. "You should have brought Data. He's smarter than I am."

Riker tilted his head toward the ship behind him. "They'd take him apart."

"They'll take me apart!" he threw back. Riker's brows furrowed and Bashir grew impatient. Riker just didn't understand. He'd never been their prisoner before. But he'd seen, hadn't he? The bodies on Carello Neru should have been some kind of clue. "Don't you understand? I escaped!" He pointed to the phaser. "I'd be better off if you'd set that to something higher than stun." His anger began to give way to the underlying fear as he remembered his time in Camp 371. No one had escaped from there--until he and the others had--but the imagination could suffice to tell him reprisals would not be pleasant. He eyed the phaser in Riker's hand, and his mind instantly began running scenarios. He would grab the phaser, raise its settings and do what he should have done back on the station, what he hadn't been strong enough to do.

"Sir?" Simmons interrupted. "I don't think I can stall them any longer. We've got five seconds until they fire."

"Lower shields," Riker ordered. He laid his hand on Bashir's shoulder. "Then you can escape again. We'll find a way. Or maybe they mean to get you out again. Just don't give up."

Bashir didn't have time to ponder that, or even to move. His whole body began to tingle.

"I thought they were boarding us," Garulos commented just before the runabout faded from view.

It still shocked her a bit sometimes. The influx of memories that we not her own--and yet they were. She was with Benjamin discussing the Romulans.

"Okay, let's say I'm the Romulan Proconsol," Jadzia said. "From where I'm sitting, the Dominion isn't a threat to me. I have a pact of nonagression with them. They're my allies."

"You're not going to put your faith in some piece of paper are you?" Benjamin replied, playing along.

"Not at all," Jadzia returned. "I've been watching them very closely since the beginning of the war. And so far, they've kept their part of the bargain."

Benjamin's tone got stronger. He was passionate about this from the start. "They're violating your territory almost every day. What kind of ally is that?"

Jadzia felt herself flush, but she stayed calm, calculating . . . Romulan. "So they're crossing through my backyard to give the Federation a bloody nose. I can't say that makes me very sad."

"You can't be naive enough to think the Dominion will stop with the Federation?" he said, then he pointed down at her. "When they're finished with us, they'll be coming after you."

"That's speculation," she replied, still calm.

"The Founders," Benjamin went on, "see it as their sacred duty to bring order to the galaxy. Their order." He waved his hands to fit his words. "Do you think they'll sit idly by and let you keep your chaotic empire next to their perfect order? No. If you watch us go under, what you're really doing is writing your own death warrant."

"You're asking me to start a war based on theories."

"They're not theories," Benjamin countered. "They're facts!"

But the burden of proof was on him. "Prove it," she said.

And he did. Part of her realized that Jadzia Dax had suspected something all along, something she suppressed inside herself. She hadn't thought about how ironic it was that just weeks after her role-playing with the captain, the Romulan Senator was killed, the Dominion plot was found, and the Romulans joined the war. Ezri remembered the party after the announcement. Actually, she remembered two. One aboard the station and one on the Destiny. She was happy for the turning point in the war, the hope it gave her and everyone around her to know they had another ally, one who wasn't already taking a beating. Jadzia Dax hadn't wanted to think of the irony. She didn't want to know.

And Ezri Dax understood why. Her captain, her friend through three hosts, a man she admired and looked up to as the most stubborn, stalwart man of principle she'd ever met--besides Julian--had crossed the line. He had participated in the forging of evidence to make the Romulans think the Dominion was going to attack, and in doing so, he had become an accessory to the murder of a Romulan senator, his entourage, and the forger. Ezri knew who had accomplished those murders. Benjamin had practically admitted it that very first day. He knew 'someone who specialized in gaining access to places he wasn't welcome.' With Garak's help, Benjamin achieved his purpose. The Romulans took the bait and joined the war.

She wasn't sure if she was angry or disappointed or shocked. Or guilty. Wasn't it Jadzia that had said it was good sometimes to be the bad guy? Still, he must have known she wouldn't have approved. Otherwise he would have told her before this.

"What did this have to do with Julian?" O'Brien asked. His voice was steady, but forced, and he couldn't seem to lift his eyes from the table.

"You mean besides the fact that they told him?" Benjamin asked and then he took a deep breath. "To get a genuine Cardassian data rod, we had to barter something. Something that only Julian could release. He didn't know why. He protested it, warned me of the dangers."

"Bio-memetic gel!" Ezri said, finally seeing the pieces fall together. Section 31 had tried to frame Julian on the Enterprise for illegally releasing eighty-five liters of bio-memetic gel. Sisko had cleared him, but he never did tell them the details. "It was the gel."

"Bio-memetic--" O'Brien stammered. "He nearly died keeping that Lethian from the stuff! And you ordered him to just release it to some unsavory person with a data rod?"

Sisko nodded. "Yes. I was bent on my objective, Chief. I needed to get the Romulans into the war, and I needed the rod to do that. I needed the gel to get the rod. I didn't think about Julian, and I tried not to think what would happen to the gel after it left the station. I was focussed on the objective. Nothing else mattered."

Kira hadn't said anything yet, Dax realized, and as she looked at her now she decided the Colonel was ill. While Benjamin had been friends with a Dax for most of his adult life, he was an icon to Kira. The Emissary. She knew him better than most other Bajorans and was able to take him as a man and a commander as well, but she never forgot that he was the Emissary. Then again, she'd also lived to see Vedek Winn become the Kai. She would get through this. They all had to, because Benjamin was right. If any of this got to the Romulans, the alliance would end. Or another war would start.

More guilt. If Sisko had a piece of what drove Julian into the shuttle, she had a piece, too. This was what he couldn't tell. He had begged her, pleaded with her, not to take the one thing he still had--the Infirmary--away from him. And she had, because she needed him to talk. But he knew he couldn't talk, because he couldn't endanger the rest of the quadrant with what he knew. He couldn't make her an accessory, as Benjamin had put it. They were all accessories now because they knew and they were going to cover it up. So she was guilty for Benjamin, for her part in his fall, for Julian, for pushing him over the edge, and for herself, for covering up a war crime against an ally.

"So what now?" she asked, hoping that someone would pull a miracle out of their pocket and give her an answer that could ease her conscience.

But the door had opened just as she spoke, and new faces appeared. "We do our duty, Lieutenant," Admiral Ross answered. "I'm sorry to learn that Doctor Bashir has left, but we have larger concerns than just one man." Martok and Parnal, the Romulan representative, stepped in behind him. Ezri was glad, now, for the three-hundred-year-old slug in her gut. Dax helped her to drain the guilt from her face, leaving only her concern for Julian. And when she looked around the table, she noted the others had done the same, without the benefit of a symbiont.

"He didn't just leave, Admiral," Kira corrected. She held her head up now, and her eyes filled with fire. O'Brien gave her an approving look. She was the only one with the luxury to speak up to Ross that way without being insubordinate. "He was abducted."

Ross sighed, then straightened his shoulders. "From this station?"

Kira hesitated, but it was clear Ross already knew the answer. "No," Kira finally admitted.

"Any reason to think his disappearance will have a detrimental effect on the war effort?" Ross looked to Sisko for that answer, but Dax did not like what he was implying.

"No!" Kira replied before the captain could speak, "not unless you mean that we will no longer have the benefit of his intelligence and insight."

"We wouldn't have discovered the Dominion's plot without him," Sisko added.

Ross nodded and sat down at the other end of the table. "I realize you want to drop everything and look for him." Martok and Parnal took their seats as well, but all attention was on Ross now. "And if the fate of the entire Alpha Quadrant wasn't at stake, I'd be glad to let you. But just because we solved the puzzle doesn't mean we've won the prize. We may know what they are working on, but we still have to stop them from succeeding at it. Julian Bashir may matter little if the Dominon perfects K-Layer Subspace Concealment."

Dax hated that Ross was right. She had been a commander once, too. Sometimes the success of a mission meant leaving someone behind.

"Two days ago," Ross went on, "Starfleet Intelligence had a possible sighting of Doctor Wilhelm Pfenner in the Faeros system. The runabout Dnieper was sent from the Enterprise to investigate while the Enterprise was ordered to join the offensive at D'Nexi. Approximately six and a half hours ago, Enterprise lost all contact with her runabout."

Ross touched the console in front of him, and an image appeared on the viewscreen behind him. "Pfenner may still be out there, and the disappearance of the Dnieper is troublesome. These are the long range sensor readings from Faeros VII's remote sensor base."

Dax forced her attention to the screen, which showed a single small blip just inside the furthest range of the sensors. It moved slowly forward then turned sharply before disappearing.

Ross continued, "As you can see, the Dnieper abruptly changed course then vanished altogether. Our runabouts are not equipped with cloaking devices. There were no other ships in the vicinity, and there is no debris large enough to register on sensors."

The readings played again, and Dax watched closely, looking for any sign that the runabout had been destroyed. There was no flash, no erratic behavior, no decrease in speed. The blip was just no longer there.

"Pfenner may or may not be there," the admiral said, "but something is. Something happened to that runabout. And, since we know it was sent to investigate Pfenner, we have reason to suspect the Dominion may already have perfected K-Layer Subspace Concealment. We still need to find Pfenner and learn what happened out there. If they are able to hide in the K-Layer, the Defiant's cloak may be the only way to conceal ourselves from them."

If the Dominion did have the K-Layer, the whole quadrant was in danger. They had just sacrificed their innocence for the sake of the Federation. Now they would have to sacrifice their friend.

"We'll be ready to go within the hour," Benjamin said.

They had been beamed aboard the Jem'Hadar vessel one at a time. Their weapons were confiscated by the Twelve Jem'Hadar had surrounded them. Riker's first thought had been for his crew, but he could only see two others: Bashir and Formenos. He hoped the other three were on the other ship. He'd waited for one of the Jem'Hadar to speak, but they simply stood and glared. Hours passed and Riker realized this was the first time he'd ever gotten a really close look at the Dominion soldiers. The Founders had obviously designed them to intimidate, and Riker decided that they had succeeded. The shortest one was still taller than he was, and he was taller than either Bashir or Formenos. Their skin was mottled with scales that seemed more like pebbles, and rows of bone protruded from their skulls. But Riker found the eyes the most disturbing. Each carried a look of fierce hunger in its eyes, like a soulless predator, driven to kill but held back by some greater force.

Formenos shifted her footing again, only slightly, but as it was the only movement in this room, it stood out. Riker wanted to shift, too. His feet and knees ached from standing too long in one spot. He tried to keep his mind focussed somewhere else to keep from tensing up.

Suddenly, the two Jem'Hadar in front of Riker stepped back. A woman in a beige shift brushed forward. Her hair was short and of a nondescript color, but Riker recognized her immediately for what she was. Her face was smooth but unfinished, without proper contours.

One of the Jem'Hadar spoke, confirming Riker's guess. "Founder."

So this is a changeling, Riker thought. Despite the face, the woman before him seemed solid enough. Her flesh looked like flesh, her eyes, though placed in those awkward sockets, looked like eyes. She had a haggard look about her.

"Which one is he?" she barked to someone behind her.

A Vorta, also a woman, pushed foward and Riker expected to be pointed out now. He had been spending the last three hours preparing himself for this. Name, rank, and serial number. A time-honored tradition among prisoners of war.

"The dark one, there in the back," the Vorta said, and Riker found himself pulled out of the way by one of the Jem'Hadar that was still standing near him.

Bashir, who hadn't so much as twitched in all this time, closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. He didn't meet the gaze of the shapeshifter or the Vorta. Riker tried to decide their reasoning for singling the doctor out. Section 31 had set up the runabout's capture. Had they also told the Dominion whom to expect? Or was it, as Bashir had implied, that they remembered him as one of the escapees?

"See that it doesn't happen again," the Founder said before turning and walking away.

"Yes, Founder," the Vorta replied. She handed a PADD to the soldier nearest her and then removed a slender device from a pocket in her dress. "Hold him," she ordered, and Bashir's eyes closed again.

He was grabbed on either side by a Jem'Hadar and pushed to his knees. A third pushed his head forward, exposing the back of his neck. The Vorta moved toward him and pressed one end of the device to the base of his skull. Riker heard a small "thump" followed quickly by a sharp intake of breath by the doctor. The Vorta removed the device and stepped back. The Jem'Hadar handed her PADD back and she checked it, nodding as if satisfied. "Release him." Then she, too, turned and walked away. The circle closed again and Bashir slowly stood again. Riker took a step to help him but was held back by a strong, heavy grip on his shoulder. Bashir glanced up once, and Riker saw defeat in his eyes. Then the doctor dropped his gaze to the floor and stood unmoving again.

Riker wondered what the Vorta had done to him, but he didn't have a lot of time to consider it. He felt a tingle at the top of his head and the bottom of his feet which travelled quickly inward, meeting at his stomach. His molecules dissipated and then reformed again, leaving him more dizzy than with Federation transporters.

Riker was suprised to find they were in a well-lit room with no Jem'Hadar. The walls were white, which seemed out of place in a Dominion facility, though Riker supposed this could have been a structure that the Dominion seized rather than built. There was one door on the left wall and no windows, but Riker thought it was too big to be a cell for just three prisoners.

Riker turned to ask Bashir how he was, but he was interrupted by the whine of another transport. Bormann, Simmons, and Garulos appeared beside them, again without any accompanying Jem'Hadar guards.

"Is everyone alright?" Riker asked as soon as they had solidified.

They each nodded, except Bashir who was fingering the back of his neck. "What did they do?" Formenos asked him.

Bashir shook his head. "I don't know. Some kind of implant. Probably to keep track of me, judging by what that changeling said."

"Because you escaped before?" This time it was Simmons. "How'd you do that?"

"I don't think they'd allow the same circumstances a second time," Bashir replied, "so I don't think it matters."

Garulos nodded at that. "You saw a changeling? We didn't see anyone but our guards. About a dozen of them. No Vorta, no questions, no anything."

"Same here," Riker told him, "except that the good doctor here drew some attention." Riker put his hand on Bashir's shoulder. "I'm sorry about this. I know you didn't volunteer for this."

Bashir just nodded slightly. He was staring at the wall. Riker looked to see what had caught his attention. Hooks. There were three odd hooks on the wall, a little less than two meters off the ground. They were the only adornment on any of the walls.

"Should we try the door, sir?" Bormann asked.

Bashir had felt his stomach lurch when the transport deposited them in the room. The gravity was heavier here, wherever they were. He could feel it in his legs and arms, and the thing they put in the back of his head. He reached up to touch it, and it reminded him of Sloan's monitoring device the first time they had met. It hummed slightly, which caused the hairs there to tingle.

The air smelled different, too, though he couldn't determine why. There was a draft in the room, but he could see no openings or windows. Nothing but the one door. They were on a planet though, of that he was certain.

The mostly bare white walls brought back unwanted memories, and, in a moment of panic, he couldn't help looking up to see if there were shower heads on the ceiling. There weren't and he breathed a little easier. Only a little. They had just been captured. There had to be something beyond this room, something unpleasant.

The transporter signal so near to them sent a shock through the implant, and for a second, he couldn't see Riker or Formenos. But when his sight returned, the other three from the runabout had joined them. Riker asked about the implant and Bashir answered, but his attention moved away from the conversation, even though he answered the lieutenant's question. He felt Riker's hand on his shoulder, and he nodded at whatever the commander said. But he was looking intently at the hooks on one of the walls. They were more in the shape of an upturned L than a true J-like hook, and the points were barbed. He thought he could detect a hint of red on the black metal, and in thinking that, he began to see a shadow of it on the wall behind each of the three hooks, as if something had been painted over.

"Should we try the door, sir?"

Before Riker could answer the door burst open. Bright light spread into the doorway from outside, obscurring the identities of those entering, but Bashir could tell they were Jem'Hadar from the height and build of the distorted silhouettes he could see. But there was someone with them, someone shorter. A Vorta perhaps.

Not a Vorta. The smaller person was thrown into the room and the door closed again. As soon as the glaring light was gone, Bashir could see it was a woman with thin arms and legs in a sack-like striped dress. He had a momentary flash of another woman in a striped dress delivering a tray of food to a table between two Gestapo agents. But her pointed ears didn't fit that memory. She looked up and he recognized her immediately.

"V'dara!" he cried out as he pushed past the runabout crew to her. Her hand was trembling and her grip was weak when he pulled her from the floor.

"You know her?" Riker asked, but Bashir ignored him. He hadn't seen V'dara since their escape from Internment Camp 371, and he very much regretted finding her here and so unwell. He kept her hand in his.

She stood before him and took in a sharp breath in surprise. In the month he'd known her in the camp, she'd always been stoic, almost Vulcan in her expressions. But now her eyebrows dipped in sadness and concern. She touched his face with her other hand. "The others?" she asked, with urgency and hope.

"They are free," he told her, knowing just who she meant: Garak, Worf and Martok. "And giving the Dominion hell."

That brought a little of her spirit back to her eyes. She smirked and dropped her hand. "Good." But her other hand remained in his. "You must remain strong," she told him, squeezing her grip. "This isn't like 371. My years there are a fond memory compared to this place. You must not let them break you!"

A hum began at the wall opposite the hooks, and the seemingly solid wall there began to rise, flooding the floor with a glaring yellow light. The top of the wall slid under the ceiling, slowly revealing hundreds of legs, some in tall boots but most, further back, in stripes. Bashir released V'dara's hand and watched as a tall, thin Vorta ducked under the last edge of the wall, which continued its ascent until the whole of complex was visible beyond the glare. Rows upon rows of prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder, the men in striped trousers and the women in sack-like dresses like V'dara wore. The material glinted a bit, reflecting the sunlight, but the similarity was not lost on Bashir. For the merest of seconds, Bashir saw Nazi SS guards positioned around the myriad prisoners. He blinked and they were Jem'Hadar again.

"Ah, another wayward one returns to us," crooned the Vorta, and Bashir recognized the voice. As his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, he saw the Vorta more clearly, standing with his hands behind his back.

"Deyos?" he whispered to V'dara and she nodded.

"Such a sweet reunion!" Deyos continued, smiling. "So nice of you to join us again, Doctor. I trust we won't have a repeat?" He raised his eyebrows and touched the back of his own neck softly, indicating the implant in Bashir.

Again, Bashir looked to V'dara. She nodded. "It's only a transponder," V'dara whispered quickly, touching the base of her skull to show that she had one, too. "Nothing more."

A familiar fear pushed itself to the forefront of Bashir's mind. Was V'dara a changeling? Would she say that to take him off his guard, hoping he'd talk--about what, he wasn't sure--so that the implant could transmit all he and the others said?

"However," Deyos went on, dropping the smarmy tone, "only one is needed to make an example." He motioned a hand forward and two Jem'Hadar entered the room. Each grabbed V'dara by an arm, and they pulled her toward the back wall and the waiting hooks.

Bashir felt as if he'd been hit in the stomach. The hooks. V'dara cried out, "Be strong!" as she was lifted off the floor and pressed onto one of the hooks. She screamed as the barb pierced her back and blood squirted onto the wall behind her. The Jem'Hadar released her and she fell a few inches, pulled onto the hook by the power of gravity. She kicked against the wall, instinctively trying to raise herself and lessen the pain. Blood ran down the wall in rivulets and pooled on the floor beneath her.

He was frozen. He couldn't move or breathe. His chest hurt and he wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn't open. His eyes wouldn't close; his head wouldn't turn away. V'dara died slowly, crying, and biting her lip in an effort not to scream. At the last moment, she held out her hand to him, but Bashir couldn't go to her. Her hand fell and she went limp.

"There will be no escape!" Deyos's voice caused him to flinch, but he still couldn't turn away. The Vorta had yelled, so that the entire assemblage of prisoners could hear. "There are no such things as heroes! Here, only work and dedication to the Founders can set you free." His last words were quieter. "Process them."

One of the many prisoners watched with anxious trepidation as the roll call ended and the wall was raised. But instead of the usual lottery--as the prisoners had come to call it--he saw someone familiar standing with V'dara, along with five other new prisoners. Bashir. So now there were two--two of the Five.

It was not a happy thought. V'dara was singled out for punishment because she was one of the five who had escaped from a Dominion prison camp. She received only enough food to keep her alive and on her feet. She was routinely beaten without even a fabricated infraction of the rules. And the most dubious punishment was that she was not included in the hated lottery. In doing this Deyos had hoped to break the reverence the prisoners had for her, but this prisoner was proud to know that only a few had turned against her because of their jealousy. The greater majority held her in high esteem for her previous escape, but also because Deyos did not want them to.

But this time was different. Deyos had kept V'dara as an example. Now there were two examples, and that didn't bode well for V'dara. Deyos could have a new example now, and he could be rid of the prisoners' hero.

But the new example troubled this prisoner as well. While many would think it a blessing to see a familiar face, he wouldn't wish this place on anyone, especially Bashir. Few knew the details, but Bashir had barely survived being trapped in the inspiration for this camp. Auschwitz. Striped uniforms, slave labor, starvation diets, excrutiating roll calls . . . and the lottery. Given, there were no gas chambers here, but there was death and suffering and fear. The Dominion had learned from that place, and the prisoner feared what effect that would have on the doctor.

His fears for V'dara came true in short order as she was "hooked" by the Jem'Hadar. Bashir stood frozen, presumably in horror, but the prisoners did something dangerous. They saluted. Deyos glared and shouted his usual "no escape" speech. He ordered the new prisoners to be processed and then waved off the roll call. It took the prisoners a few moments to realize what had just happened so that the guards had to prod them to return to their barracks. This prisoner, too, was shocked. He was saddened by the loss of V'dara and the capture of Bashir, but grateful for the cancellation of the lottery and amazed that there would be no punishment for their collective show of defiance. He turned with the others, already planning how he would sneak into Bashir's barracks--as soon as he figured out where they were.

If he were being completely honest with himself, Captain Sisko would have had to admit that he was grateful for the diversion offered by the Enterprise's missing runabout. For an hour and a half, he had had no room to think of Bashir. The crew had performed even better than he had estimated, and the Defiant had departed the station in just under fifty minutes. Status reports and strategy-planning filled another forty minutes after departure as the Defiant streaked toward the runabout's last known location.

But now the course was laid, the ship was underway, and each crewmember was busy with his assigned duties--and Faeros was still an hour out. Sisko had little to do but watch the main viewscreen, and now the guilt over that relief he had felt was catching up to him. He had pushed Julian away just as Julian had said he would.

Only this time wasn't like before. He didn't want this assignment any more than Dax or Kira or O'Brien. He wanted to point the Defiant in a different direction and find his missing doctor, but he didn't even know where to start. And he was still a captain in Starfleet, still fighting a war for the survival of the Alpha Quadrant. Orders were orders, and Julian was just one man.

Bashir had been abducted again, and it stung to think that the doctor had wanted it that way. Sisko tried to imagine what it would be like to live with the kind of uncertainty Bashir had lived with for the last couple of years. How many times had he been taken in his sleep by either the Dominion or Section 31? It was no wonder he had become unstable, not when one factored in the isolation of the cave and Sisko's own callous behavior. With O'Brien's revelation of Bashir's desire to die, Sisko finally understood when Bashir had said he had no faith left. He had lost his foundation. And Benjamin Sisko silently vowed that if he ever got the chance, he would help to rebuild it.

But at the moment, his ship was headed a different way and his own foundation was shaky. The others had done well to hide their feelings from the rest of the crew. There were no glares and the horrified shock had left their faces. But they were crisp and formal when delivering their reports, just like Bashir had been. Dax hurt the worst. He had known her for so long, shared so many memories. Curzon had been his mentor, Jadzia his closest friend. Ezri was new to him, but still Dax, and to see her face, with no smile, no twinkle in her eye. . . . Dax had never been so formal with him. She didn't tease him or make any jokes. That could be explained by the sadness of losing Bashir. There was nothing to suggest that she knew of Sisko's crimes in her demeanor. But there was nothing of his friend either.

"We are picking up the runabout's trace," O'Brien called from his station. "Heading toward Faeros, just as they should."

"Keep on it, Lieutenant," Sisko ordered the helm. "Engage cloak."

Commander Will Riker leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. For the last ninety minutes, all thought of Pfenner and the mission had been driven from his head. Now, though, he tried to turn his attention to the mission as a way of focussing on something besides the fear and worry.

The fear for himself and his crew. There had been no interrogation, but he was sure they would all be questioned sometime soon. And since he was the commanding officer, the brunt of the interrogation would likely fall on him. He would accept that gladly if it spared his crew, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't scared.

He wanted to ask Bashir what to expect, but Bashir was why he worried. While the doctor hadn't been in a healthy state of mind before, he was nearly catatonic now. He hadn't said a word since the Romulan woman was killed in front of him. He had a haunted look in his eyes, which were wide and staring in horrified recognition.

Riker could guess from the Vorta's words and Bashir's actions that the woman was Subcommander V'dara, one of the five escapees who warned the Federation of the impending Dominion invasion. Worf, General Martok, and the Cardassian, Garak, were the other three. Riker and the others were horrified by her execution, but it was worse for Bashir. The Jem'Hadar had had to drag him away to be "processed." He decided to give the doctor a little time before he brought her up. Right now, he wanted a better look at their surroundings.

He stood, putting his left arm down to steady himself. He regretted it. The tattoo the Jem'Hadar had none-too-gently put there ached with the movement. He looked at it, turning it into one of the shafts of light that slipped in between the slats of their barracks. The markings were foreign to him, but he recognized their origin. Dominion, most likely numbers. Only Bashir had been spared the tattoo. He already had one. And it was now another way for him to stand out as he was numbered in Standard. No wonder the man is paranoid, Riker thought.

He stepped closer to a fairly large crack and pressed his face to it. He had to squint against the bright light, but he could see other square, wooden buildings arranged in neat rows. He counted eight rows before he lost sight to the glare of the sun. He turned his gaze a bit toward the direction they'd come. He could see the building they were transported into, with the Romulan's body still hanging limply on the hook. Really, it was just a blur in the distance, but he recognized the shape, the height of the body off the floor.

They were taken from that building to the one just on the right of it. There they were forced to undress. The men, without even discussing it, pushed Formenos to the rear of the group, so that none of their eyes would be on her as she removed her uniform. They couldn't keep the Jem'Hadar from watching, but Riker was glad they could offer her at least that bit of dignity. She stayed to the back of the line as they were led out of that building. Riker had kept Bashir in the middle of the group, hoping that he'd draw less attention there. But then, their next destination had been the tattooing. Formenos was made to move forward, to take the needle first. Riker tried to look away, but the Jem'Hadar nearest him, forcibly turned his head back. So he did the best he could and kept his eyes firmly on her face. After the tattoo, they shaved her and took her away. Riker was next, but they didn't shave him and when he was taken to the next building, Formenos wasn't there. The others of his crew joined him one by one, with Bashir and Simmons arriving at the same time. Bashir did not hold his aching arm as the others did, and Riker could now clearly see the numbers he wore.

Once all the runabout's males were together, they were given striped uniforms with no regard to size. The pants Riker got were long enough, but quite snug at the waste. The hem of Bormann's pants hit him midway down his shin, and Simmons's were so loose he had to hold them to keep them from falling off. Bashir, strangely, got a uniform that fit him fairly well, though, of course, he didn't seem to notice. All of the shirts had stitches in the back where a hole had been mended. Riker didn't want to think about what had made the holes. They were each given a badge with markings that matched their tattoos. Each except Bashir, that is. He was left without.

Three buildings in succession from the undressing to the dressing. Riker counted the buildings he could see from the crack. He thought he could make out four more between the last of the three and the building they were in now. He turned again, taking in as much of the camp as he could from that small vantage point. The buildings all looked the same. There was no way to tell if one of them housed Dr. Pfenner or a project of the likes of K-Layer Subspace Concealment. The buildings all looked much too small and primitive.

As he surveyed his surroundings, the bright outdoor light had begun to dim. A breeze kicked up dust from the ground and blew it in through the cracks. Someone coughed behind him and he turned to the group.

It was just the five of them, Formenos having been separated. The three other Enterprise crewmembers sat together on the dirt floor, a fair distance away from Bashir, who sat huddled in the corner. They didn't know him, of course, and he was acting strange. Riker could understand their distance, but he didn't like it. It wouldn't help Bashir and it would only serve their captors if they didn't present a united front. Still, he would not bother with it tonight. Enough had happened today.

He sat down between his crew and the doctor, bridging the gap with his own body. The others were quiet, and they watched him carefully. Riker just shrugged. "Might as well try and get comfortable," he told them. "We might have a busy day tomorrow. Keep your eyes open. We may still find what we were looking for."

"What happens if we do?" Simmons asked, though Riker could see that they all wanted the answer.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he told them. They still watched him and he felt uneasy with their gazes. He couldn't give them anything more yet. "Dismissed."

They shuffled away a bit, finding places on the floor as there was no furniture at all in the room. Riker turned his attention to Bashir and almost wished Troi was there. Almost. He wouldn't wish her to this place for anyone. "Who was she?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"Barracks six," Bashir replied after a moment and without turning his head at all. "We escaped."

Riker nodded. "I thought so. I'm sorry she's gone. Was it like this?" he asked. "The other camp?"

"Was it like this?" Riker asked. "The other camp?"

Bashir was staring forward at the wall across from him and as the light faded even more, the shadows began to move in his vision. Three-tiered bunks wavered in and out of his sight. "Which camp?"

"The Dominion camp," Riker replied, a worried tone in his voice. "The one you escaped from. Was it like this?"

Voices twittered in the breeze and Bashir found it hard to hear Riker's words, but he made them out. "371? No, not like this." A rat scurried across the floor beside his bare foot. He drew it back quickly and held his legs close to his chest.

"More like the other one?" Riker's voice was nearly lost. The other voices were louder now. Some in German, some Polish. He thought he might have heard Yiddish, but he wasn't sure. He flinched when the Blockälteste called for lights out.

Riker took that flinch as a 'yes.' Something was going on in Bashir's head, and he could only guess what it was. Auschwitz. Why had they chosen Auschwitz? he wondered. They couldn't have known Bashir would come here, at least not until a couple of days ago. But none of what he'd seen so far looked new. The dust on the floor, the cracks in the walls, the worn faces of the prisoners. This camp had been here awhile, but as far as he knew, Bashir was the only person still living who had first-hand memories of Auschwitz. Why do it if it wasn't done especially for him?

Suddenly, there was a sound of wood creaking, in the far corner. But the shadows there were too dark to see anything. Riker stiffened and the other men crowded closer.

"Of all the people they had to go and catch," a new voice sounded from the corner. "I certainly didn't want to see him here."

"Who are you?" Riker demanded, standing, blocking Bashir with his legs. He knew the voice was talking about the doctor.

"My name's Jordan," the voice replied, from higher up. The wood creaked again. "Lt. Joseph Jordan--the second. I used to be stationed with Doctor Bashir on DS Nine and the Defiant." He stepped forward and a stay beam of thin light lit his face for a moment. He was young, but haggard, with dark hair and sunken cheeks. A prisoner, like them, but one who had been there for much longer. Like them, he wore no shoes.

Riker glanced back at Bashir, who hadn't moved at all. He was still staring at the wall, only his eyes were perhaps wider now and his face even paler. "Doctor, do you know this man?" Riker asked him. Bashir didn't even look up. Riker stepped in front of him and crouched down. Bashir looked right through him. Riker grabbed his shoulders. "Doctor! Look at me. There's someone here. I need to know if you know him. Look at him and think."

Bashir blinked rapidly a few times and then turned his head slowly. "Jordan?" he whispered. "It was you."

"No, sir. It was a clone," Jordan said, coming closer and crouching down himself. Simmons and Bormann stepped between them though, and Riker was glad to see that bit of solidarity when Bashir wasn't technically a part of their team.

"They cloned me," Jordan went on. "I don't know what they were going to do with the clone, but I'm guessing it wasn't something very nice. What did he do?"

Riker studied the man's face and found himself believing him. Jordan looked sincerely sorrowful, with his eybrows hitched up over the bridge of his nose but pulled down on the sides, and yet resigned. Bashir flinched again but Riker wondered if he had lost his concentration again, but the doctor answered. "He tried to take my mind. He did, but we got it back."

Jordan's brows furrowed. "Why you?" he asked, shaking his head.

"A test," Bashir answered, shrugging off Riker's hold. He turned to face Jordan and Simmons backed up out of the way. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Jordan admitted. "They didn't give me a tour when I arrived. This isn't my first camp though, I'm a transferree. Lucky me, huh? I was in a place like this for one day and it's just too familiar. Don't let it get to you, Doc. This isn't Auschwitz and they're not Nazis. Keep your head."

Riker might have been insulted if those words had been spoken to him, but Bashir just nodded slightly, still with that haunted look on his face. "It looks so. . . ." They must have been close, Riker guessed, friends.

"It looks," Jordan told him, "but it isn't. You gotta remember that."

"Why?" Riker asked, blurting out the question that had bothered him since before Jordan showed up. "Why'd they do this. How'd they know he'd show up?"

Jordan shrugged. "I don't think they did." He looked over at Riker. "I do know that his previous time in a Dominion camp wasn't anything like this. Mine wasn't either. It's like they looked back in our history and decided they could learn a few things. And what is the most terrifying prison camp we've ever had in our history?"

Riker nodded. "Auschwitz."

Jordan shifted his legs until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. "If you think like them, it's perfect. Gets the prisoners in a psychological state, not just a physical prison, you know. Still, there are differences." He turned his attention back to Bashir and repeated, "There are differences." Then he was addressing them all again. "There's not much to the work kommandos, just barrack-building, maintenance, and food detail. Some are sent to work at the plant."

Riker cut him off. "What plant?"

Jordan shrugged again. "Big metalic structure on a hill aways south. At least I think it's south. To the right of the sunrise, anyway."

Riker was already thinking of Pfenner. Maybe he could get on the team--kommando--that went to the plant. "What do they do there?"

"Don't know," Jordan said, shaking his head. "They cut out those prisoners' tongues so they can't tell anyone. They don't have to participate in the lottery though. Hard to say which is better."

"Lottery?" Garulos asked from behind the others.

"Not what it sounds like," Jordan replied, sighing. "That's another difference. There are no gassings here, no mass shootings. Just the lottery. Once per roll call. Fifteen are chosen at random and hung on those hooks like V'dara. Three at a time. The others have to wait and watch, knowing their turn is coming. We got a break from it today, because of your arrival. Or rather, because of his." He inclined his head to Bashir. "V'dara was the only one."

Simmons dropped to the ground and let his head fall forward onto his knees. Riker put a hand on his shoulders, offering what little support he could. He shuddered himself, thinking what being impaled on that hook had felt like. "We had another in our crew. A woman. Where'd she go?"

"They keep the women separate," Jordan replied. "That's no different. They don't do anything to them though, not like what you might think. Jem'Hadar don't have any such longings. They treat the women same as the men, no better, no worse. There's one to watch out for. The Third. He's occasionally rougher than most. He wears a knife on his left boot. Got it off a Klingon. My turn for some questions?"

Riker hesitated. The man could be just who he said he was, a prisoner like them, and a veteran by the looks of him. Or he could be a plant, a changeling, or a clone, as he'd already mentioned before.

"He said you were dead." Bashir surprised them with that. He had seemed to have lost the conversation, but he was apparently still congizant of at least some of what was going on around him. "The clone. He said he'd killed you."

Now Jordan flinched, but he shook it off like a chill had passed through him. "I'm not suprised. Ties up loose ends that way, doesn't it. No one need bother looking for me." He took a shaky breath and rubbed his neck. "I know it was silly, but I wondered why no one did. I mean, I know they couldn't really find me. We couldn't find you when you were taken. Heck, we didn't even know you'd been taken until you escaped. So why would anyone come looking for me if there was a clone running around with my face?" He chuckled at that, but it wasn't a sign of amusement. Riker frowned in sympathy. "Still, I wanted to hope, you know?"

Bashir nodded and then turned back to the wall.

"What did you want to know?" Riker asked him. He'd listen to the question first, before he decided to trust the man with the answers.

"Are we winning out there?" Jordan asked. "I mean, I take it we got some help if V'dara was here. The Romulans are on our side. The Klingons, too, right? So how are we doing?"

Riker decided that was fair enough. If he was a plant, he wasn't asking for anything specific, like troop movements or supply dumps. "We took it hard at first," he answered. "They took Betazed, lots of other systems. But we had the Klingons. And then the Romulans found out they were the next target--" He paused when Bashir flinched again, but when the doctor didn't say anything he went on "--and joined us. Of course, they went and signed on the Breen, but we're pushing them back now."

Jordan sighed and nodded, smiling just a little. "Well, it's something. Maybe we've got reason to hope, huh?" He didn't wait for an answer, but stood and straightened. "I need to be getting back. I'll see if we can't get you all into my barracks. No guarantees though. They'll assign you to a kommando tomorrow. Try not to draw attention to yourselves. That's the same, too, huh, Doc? The best thing is to not be noticed." He motioned Riker to follow him as he retreated back to the corner.

Riker followed, holding his hand out to tell the others to stay. Jordan stopped in the shadows of the dark corner where the creaking sounds had come from. "They're going to single him out. Bashir is one of the Five. The Five escaped and that hurt the Dominion's ego. Deyos's especially, as he was in charge of their internment camp. He doesn't like that he's been dumped here. He took it out on V'dara, but now she's gone. He only needs one example, like he said. He doesn't look too good already. Damn it!"

Riker wasn't sure why he was so shook up over the doctor, but Jordan didn't wait for him to ask. "I went down there," he whispered, "into that hell. I dressed as a prisoner while the others went as SS. I crawled through barracks after barracks and one day, I even got caught and had to go on the kommando, but I found him that night. After weeks in that place, he was alive and I found him." He stopped there and brushed his hands through his hair. "Now he's here. I might have been to be happy to see a familiar face, but not his. We sacrificed a lot so he could live. I sacrificed. He shouldn't be here."

Riker didn't respond. He didn't know what to say. He watched Jordan leave, as well as he could with what little light there was now, and then returned to the others. "Morning is sure to come quick," he told them, not bothering to share Jordan's last comments about Bashir. "We'd best get some sleep." He watched the doctor while he said that, but Bashir didn't seem to pay any attention. He was staring at the wall again, and it didn't look like he'd be sleeping soon. Riker remembered that he hadn't slept at all in the Enterprise's brig. That, alone, should maybe have tipped Troi off.

Doctor Bashir pressed himself into the corner, ignoring the staring eyes of all the other men in the barracks. He didn't care about them, couldn't care about them. He was on the floor. He had to worry about himself. There were rats on the floor. Or there would be. And he had no shoes. He used to have wooden shoes. They were uncomfortable but they were good for beating the rats away, when he wasn't too tired to lift them. But one of those rats could be her. She could be one of the men. She could be the wall. Nothing was safe and there was no one to trust. There was no way out this time. No gas chambers, Jordan had said so. There was no way to transport him without the count being off. And if the count were off, the others would die.

Riker lay down on the floor beside him, and Bashir wondered why he didn't take one of the bunks. He was a Commander. He had rank.

"Try and sleep," Riker told him. "Consider it an order."

Bashir nodded and Riker closed his eyes. But Bashir couldn't. He wasn't tired. And he had to keep his eyes open. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to see the danger before it hit.