Sisko waited inside the transporter room with Chief O'Brien. The door opened and the first away team entered. Novak stepped onto the pad first. He checked his data PADD once more and then straightened the jacket of his uniform. He was the only one who wouldn't be carrying one of the modified communicators. He could speak the language himself, and his comm badge wouldn't translate anything. He glanced over to Thomas, who had entered with the other away team members. "Worse than the ghetto?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.

Thomas was standing in at-ease position, with her hands behind her back. "Much worse."

Sisko took a step toward him, searching for the appropriate encouraging words. He couldn't find any. "Good luck, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, sir." He turned his head toward O'Brien who was now working the transporter controls. "Ready when you are, Chief."

"They all seem to be still at roll call," O'Brien reported, checking the sensors. "All in a group."

"Good," commented Thomas, "we can watch them as they disperse." Turning to Novak she reminded him not to get too close to the assembly grounds. "You'd be too conspicuous. Hang back and let them pass you. And remember," she said for the whole away team, "he probably won't look the same. It's been five weeks. He'll be hard to recognize. His head was probably shaved when he arrived. He'll be thin. His height would be a good giveaway, as would his accent."

Novak nodded and got the okay signal from O'Brien. He checked his phaser's charge, pocketed it and said, "Energize." He dematerialized and then Lieutenant Barker stepped up to take his place. The next two officers prepared themselves. It was 0830, 0630 on the surface below.

It was the smell that woke him, more than anything else. It was awful, like the latrines only worse. Mixed with the smell of excrement and waste was one of sickness and death. It was overpowering. And it was directly under his nose. He was laying on his stomach on something soft—"soft" being a relative term. It was a mattress of straw. Wisps of it poked him in the chest. Still, it was better than bare wood. For that, he didn't mind the cold. Only a light blanket covered his back. He could see the new, nearly white bandage that bound his left shoulder. He couldn't move his arm. He felt the wood beneath it though. His wrist was tied to it, leaving his hand facing palm-up. It ached, but only in a dull way, not sharp as it was when he had to work. Light was beginning to filter into the building, and he started to remember where he was.

The hospital. Despite the smell, he felt relieved. It was apparently already morning, but he hadn't been awakened for roll call. The room around him was quiet, with the exception of the moans and delusions of the sick. No one was yelling, no one was beating anyone else. From his position, he could only see another set of beds, stacked one on top of the other, and the patients they contained. He tried to sit up, but found he didn't have the strength. It had been getting harder to move every day since the incident. His clinical sense told him it was because he wasn't eating enough. But then, he would argue, no one can eat enough here. Better to let someone who might survive have the food.

"Widzę, że pan się obudził." It was a loud voice near his ear but behind him. It almost sounded cheerful. A body moved toward him. It bent down so that the face was visible. "Wyleczylismy twoją infekcje tak jak on nam powiedział. Obawiam się, że tylko mogliśmy oczyścić pana obrażenia i je obandarzować."

Bashir tried to speak, but his voice didn't work. "I don't understand," he whispered.

The doctor looked surprised and backed away a few inches. "Czy on mowił po Angielsku?" He said it with some amusement. It was obvious that he knew the answer. Someone replied anyway, though Julian could not see who it was.

"Moze on mowił po Holendersku."

The doctor chuckled. "Nie, nie po Holendersku,"he said. Then his tone became more even. "On jest Anglikiem. Czy ktoś tu mówi po Angielsku?"

There was a murmur in the room, and Bashir became aware of more voices beyond the moaning patients. The doctor moved back into his direct line of sight. "Sprechen Sie deutsch?"

Bashir wished people would stop asking him that. He did not speak German. "No," he whispered. He didn't feel like answering questions. He felt like sleeping, now that he could. He hoped the doctor didn't speak French.

"Przynieś mu coś do jedzenia," the doctor said. He shook his head and moved away.

Bashir closed his eyes again, hoping for sleep, but it didn't come. Now that he was aware of it, the noise in the room was just too loud, the smell too awful. Another man approached the bed. He had a small crust of bread with him. Julian didn't move to take it. He couldn't. His position was too awkward, and there was someone else beside him, crowding him on the small bed.

The new person, perhaps another doctor or only an orderly of sorts, untied Bashir's hand and helped him to turn. He was careful to keep Bashir's left arm perfectly still despite the movement. Once he was on his side, Bashir surprised the man by sitting up on his own. The man smiled and handed the bread to Bashir. Julian looked at it numbly for a minute or so, but when the man didn't give up and move away, he took the bread. It wasn't as good as the bread that Max brought back to the barracks occasionally, but he hadn't eaten since the watery midday meal the day before. His stomach was glad for it.

The man moved on to other patients, and Bashir sat quietly eating his bread and watching the room around him. The doctors—there were several that he could see—were busy. It was a long building he was in, filled with beds. Each bed held two men, most of them in very bad health. Bashir thought he knew why. Everyone was afraid of the hospital. The selections were too frequent. No one came unless they were desperate. The man beside him groaned, and Bashir looked back at him. His eyes were open and he stared, unseeing, at the bunk above him. His jaw was clenched tight as were his fists which tugged spasmodically at the thin blanket that had covered them both. His lips mumbled something incomprehensible. He shivered, but when Bashir touched his forehead, it was hot.

Bashir folded the blanket back over the man and tucked it around his arms and legs to keep him warm. The man's shivering became less violent, but little else changed. Bashir took his pulse, trying not to lose count. It wasn't easy. His mind was still cloudy, and the man kept tensing up. He didn't seem to be aware of the intrusion though. His pulse was high, too high, and Bashir felt that he would die soon. He tried to imagine the correct diagnosis, but there were so many things that could have caused the fever. Cold, exhaustion, exposure, malnutrition, lice, rats, something in their rations. It could be anything. But without the proper medicines, the proper sanitation, the man would die. And if he didn't, the SS doctors would probably load him on the truck the next time they came.

Julian closed his eyes and tried to imagine his Infirmary back on the station. He was surprised by how distant it seemed, like something buried in the past. But slowly the image became clear to him. The colored displays on black surfaces, the gray upholstery of the biobeds, his shelves with row upon row of medicines, cabinets with instruments. He could remember every name, every use for each of them. And he thought about how much he could do here with just an emergency medical kit.

Bashir began to shiver himself, from the cold in the room. He was wearing pants, but he didn't know where his shirt and coat had been taken. Still, he felt the other man needed the blanket more so he left it where it was. There was nothing else he could do for the man. There was nothing else to give him. Two bunks down, a young man, younger than Bashir would have thought possible in this place, was trying to wrap a bandage around his own foot. With effort, Julian stood and, using the bunks to support him, he went to the boy. "I can help," he whispered, not caring that the boy wouldn't understand.

The boy stopped his wrapping and looked up at Bashir. He seemed confused but he moved back toward the head of the bed so that Bashir could sit down. Julian took hold of the boy's ankle and gently set it on his own thigh. He used his left hand to unwrap what the boy had done, gripping the flimsy cloth weakly between two of his crooked fingers while he lifted the foot with his other hand.

The boy's foot was bad, swollen and colored red and black. It had been rubbed raw by the wooden clogs he had been forced to wear, and his toes were white. Julian placed it back on his thigh and pointed to the boy's toes. Then he wiggled his fingers. The boy nodded, scowling from the pain. But only his big toe moved. The others were frozen. The thin bandage wouldn't do much good, but at least it would add a little insulation. Julian turned further toward the boy, until his knee rested beneath the boy's calf. His foot was raised then and didn't need to be held. Julian used his good hand to wrap the cloth around the swollen foot.

The man who had given him bread came around toward the bunk again and stopped when he saw Bashir sitting with the boy. He called the doctor over. "Zobaczcie, co on robi."

The doctor paused and watched for a few moments. Bashir felt his stare but ignored it. He focused his attention on the boy and the bandage. "On jest lekarzem," the doctor stated quietly behind him, "albo pielęgniarem." The doctor waited for him to finish with the boy and then touched his shoulder.

Bashir finished tying off the bandage, using one side of his left hand to hold it in place. He set the boy's foot back on the bed and turned to look at the doctor.

"Sind Sie Ärzt?" the doctor asked, speaking slowly in German.

Bashir was still tired and didn't want to try and understand.

The other man tried again. "Doktor?"

Bashir nodded slightly. "I was a doctor," he whispered.

The doctor nodded and walked away. When he returned, he was carrying Bashir's shirt and striped coat. He helped Bashir to stand and carefully slipped the shirt's sleeve around Bashir's arm. Bashir started to button the shirt, but the doctor did it for him. He did the same with his coat. Then he left again, returning with a wad of cloth. He unwound it, tied two ends together and slipped the loop over Bashir's head. Then he spread the rest of the cloth out and placed Bashir's hand inside it. He made a motion with his hand that Bashir should follow him.

Bashir was still weak, but he followed the doctor. He was glad to have his clothes again even though he could feel the lice that infested them. He was almost warm with the coat. And for the first time in weeks he was able to relax the muscles in his left arm, cradled as it was by the sling. The doctor led him outside and to another building. There was water there and he washed Bashir's good hand. Then he took him to another room. There was a line waiting there. At least twenty men, each with minor wounds, stood or sat against the wall. The doctor set up two chairs and told the first man to come and sit. He put Bashir in the second chair.

There was one other person in the room, uninjured, and Bashir surmised that he was part of the staff. "Pomórz mu," the doctor said, pointing to Bashir. "On jest lekarzem, ale ma tylko jedną rękę." The other man nodded and the doctor left the room. He stopped just outside the door. "I nie mówi po Polsku."

Novak emerged from the empty building and gazed around. He wrinkled his nose, resisting the urge to cover his face with the handkerchief that was in one of his pockets. The ghetto had been bad, foul-smelling for lack of sanitation. This place had a sickeningly sweet smell, and the sky was filled with smoke. Novak knew what was burning, and he knew Bashir could be a part of it. More likely, he was killed weeks ago and burned in the ovens then. He put that out of his mind and took up a place near the electrified gate. The roll call was breaking up, and the inmates were coming to work. One of the Ukrainian guards saw him and waved. Novak forced a wave back and stood his ground.

A group of perhaps thirty men, all with gaunt faces, were being herded quickly in his direction. Some were pulling a small cart full of axes. Novak tried to get a good look at each of the men's faces as they passed. Most did not bother to meet his gaze. A courageous few did, lifting their hate-filled eyes for a few seconds to show their defiance. He looked for height. The doctor was around two meters tall. A few of the men reached nearly that height, but their faces were wrong, their eyes not the right color. The SS guard looked at him askance, but Novak turned his face toward the forest that lay beyond the gate. The whole group passed him, and he turned back into the camp. Bashir wasn't with them.

Barker waited until the other SS officer left and then entered the building. A few of the workers looked up from the mounds of clothing and luggage they were sorting. "Back to work!" he yelled, trying to sound forceful. His stomach was still lurching from the stench of the smoke that hung over the camp like a blanket. He could even smell it inside. Next time, if there was a next time, he'd ask the nurses for something to calm his stomach. Breathing people just didn't seem to sit well.

The workers went back to their work as ordered, though he did notice a few sideways glances and shrugging shoulders. He walked slowly, starting down one side of the room, discounting the women and looking closely at the men. Each one stiffened as he walked past. He rested his hand on his gun just for good measure. If they were afraid of him, they wouldn't ask questions.

He was amazed by the piles. There seemed to be an endless supply of clothes, toothbrushes, scissors, shoes, photographs, and other things. Barker thought that each shirt or dress must have been a person, gone now into that smoke. His stomach lurched again, garnering him a few more looks and a smirk or two. He ignored them, moving on. He had crossed half of the room, and none of the workers looked familiar.

"He's dead now," Szymon said. His tone was solemn, betraying neither sympathy nor satisfaction.

"I don't know," Max replied. They had just returned from a long roll call and were sharing some cheese Max had smuggled back to the barracks. They had barely had time for anything else. "He's been gone like this before. He survived. I think Heiler doesn't want him dead. I don't know why he hates him so much."

"He's a Jew," Szymon reasoned. "And Heiler's a German. That's all the reason he needs."

"But he singles Bashir out," Max argued. "He doesn't treat everyone like he treats Bashir."

Szymon looked up at him. "I've been here longer. I've seen this before. Sometimes the SS, they latch on to someone, like a toy or a pet. Sometimes they are nicer to that person. Sometimes they are worse. With Heiler, it is worse. What I wonder is, now that Bashir is gone, who will be his next toy? You don't have to worry. You are not in his kommando."

"You're sure he's gone?"

"Ten minutes to lights out! Shut up!"

Szymon ignored the Blockälteste's warning. But he did begin to undress as he spoke. "How can he not be? You saw him after—" He stopped there and Max knew he was speaking of Piotr's death. "He didn't want to live anymore. He was finished. I'm really surprised he lasted this long."

Max nodded. He had to agree. Bashir had been so withdrawn, and he had only eaten when Max had forced it on him. Bashir had grown more emaciated in the last four days than in the five weeks since they had arrived. His eyes, so expressive before, had been hollow and cold. He hadn't even seemed to notice his own pain anymore. He had paid little attention to anything going on around him. He had become one of the Muselmen, and they never lived very long.

She came for him the next evening just after roll call. He hated to leave, though he knew it wasn't safe in the hospital. There would probably be another selection soon. But he had felt safe, as long as the German doctors hadn't come. Also, he had felt a piece of his life return to him there. He had only treated minor injuries, mostly providing a proper bandaging, but he still considered it practicing medicine. For some, his bandages might have meant the difference between being selected for work or for the gas. He had felt alive again helping them.

He was careful not to show that when she came. He followed her silently and refused the food she offered him. She threatened him, with a beating, with a bullet to the head, but he didn't waver. And she didn't shoot. "Fine, starve!" she finally said. "Keep moving. If I get there before you, I'll kill someone." She shoved him forward so that he was in front of her.

He was back in the barracks in time for lights out. The changeling thrust him through the door just as the Stubenälteste was going to lock it. "Schnell!" the Stubenälteste yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling him in. He pushed him deeper into the room. Bashir was unable to step around some of those on the floor, and he heard them groan and curse as he stepped on their feet or fingers. Max was still sitting when he climbed up to the bunk.

Szymon sat up too, when he saw who it was. "Du hattest recht," he said to Max. "Er ist nicht tot."

"Frag ihn wo er gewesen ist," Max prodded. The men sleeping between them shushed him, but he waved them away.

"Morgen," Szymon answered obviously impatient. "Es ist spät. Geh schlafen."

Bashir understood that last word. He'd heard it enough now. Sleep. He heartily agreed. The work in the hospital hadn't been hard, not like the construction site, but it had gone on long after the other prisoners had stopped working, and it continued even after their roll call. He undressed as quickly as he could in the dark, removing his sling and then replacing it once his coat was off. Max noticed it. "Krankenbau?" he whispered, and Bashir had heard that word enough to know it, too. Hospital.

He missed the straw mattress when he laid down. The wood was hard and gave him splinters. There were gaps where the boards didn't quite meet which allowed for drafts beneath the blanket he and Max shared. He never got warm when he slept there. And sleep never came deeply. He could always feel the prickly, cold air, always hear the skittering of the rats, the groans of the men around him, even as he dreamed of home. His quarters back on the station seemed palatial to him now, not only because of his possessions and the replicator, but simply because he didn't have to share them with anyone. Even his quarters on the Defiant, as sparse as they were, were a luxury of privacy and cleanliness. Even on the tiny bunks there, he could stretch out to his full height and sleep on a mattress with a real pillow.

In the morning, Heiler asked him once if he felt better. Then her period of kindness was over, and things went on as before. The crematoria they were building was nearing completion, but the German engineer that was overseeing construction still seemed unsatisfied. Whatever the problem was, it lessened the patience of the Nazi guards, even Heiler. She meted out punishment equally among the prisoners instead of concentrating all of her efforts on Bashir.

The kapo didn't send him for the soup that day, either. No one went to retrieve it. This had happened before. They were being punished. Bashir wasn't exactly sure why, but he also knew there didn't have to be a reason. They would probably get the soup after roll call. It would be cold by then and taste even worse than before.

Julian found that the work was easier now, though not by much. His muscles ached from the hours of toil. But he didn't feel as dizzy as before, and he didn't fall down unless he tripped on something. Two days in the hospital had done wonders, if not so much for his physical condition, then for his stamina and perhaps even his spirit. He had eaten breakfast in the morning without any prodding from Max for the first time since the incident, and he hadn't even looked at the fence all morning. It was an improvement.

Major Kira stood at attention in the mess hall waiting for the away team to return. It was 2300 hours, 2100 on the particular section of Earth below them. And according to Thomas, all the prisoners would be in bed by then. Curfew. She remembered that from the Occupation. Such a simple thing. A time to be in. Lights out. Yet it never felt simple. It felt like a chain around one's neck, pulling tight at a certain time to remind the lowly of their place. Kira was almost glad she wasn't on the away team. She might have killed someone.

The comm channel brought her out of her reverie. "Major, the away team is beaming up."

"Thank you," Kira answered. "Have them meet me in the mess hall immediately." She already knew they hadn't found him. Someone would have called if they had. Of course, they might have found him, but been unable to find any privacy until now, but she thought that unlikely.

"Kira to Sisko," she said, tapping her badge. She hated to wake him, but he had left strict orders. "The away team is returning, Captain."

"I'll be right there," he answered, his voice still sounding groggy.

Kira tried to force herself to relax, to loosen her stance. She couldn't sit down though, so she leaned against one of the tables. The door opened almost immediately and she jumped just a bit. She crossed her arms tightly, angry at herself for being startled. Then she sneezed.

"Bless you," Ensign Salerno offered quietly before he slumped into a chair. Jordan entered behind him, and Kira had to resist the urge to sneeze again. When the two other members joined them, the smell became even stronger. But she didn't sneeze anymore. It made her nauseous. She remembered the smell and how it had hung on her clothes for days after Gallitep. She had beaten them against rocks and scrubbed them fiercely in the Galanda River. But still the stench had remained. By then she had realized though, the smell wasn't in the fabric so much as in her mind. After all these years, she'd finally managed to free herself of it. Until now.

It had been the same yesterday afternoon, when the first away team had returned. She'd dreamt of Gallitep that night and every scene, every sound, was as vivid to her now as the day she had seen it for the first time.

Captain Sisko was the last to enter, but when he did, he was fully dressed and wide awake. Only the bulges under his eyes hinted of his fatigue. But they were all used to that. Sisko stood in the doorway for a moment, preventing it from closing. He surveyed the room and then he sighed. He knew, too. He took a step forward, and the door swished shut behind him. "How much longer?"

Jordan stood, pulling himself to attention. "One more day ought to do it, sir." He sounded tired when he said it. He didn't relax though. He looked as if he had more to say. He rolled his lips a moment, considering, before he spoke. "They killed ten men tonight at roll call. None of them were Bashir. But I couldn't help wondering who they were. It's so hard being down there, Captain, and not being able to help those people. I kept thinking, just the four of us"—he fanned his arm around, indicating his team members—"with our phasers, we could have taken them all out before they even knew what hit them." He shrugged and gave a short, hysterical chuckle. Then he became quiet again. "But we couldn't do that."

Salerno spoke up next, though he never raised his head. "There's a little road there, that leads to the gas chambers. It's paved with tombstones. You can still see the Hebrew letters on some of the pieces. Isn't it bad enough that they kill those people? How did we ever get to be so cruel?"

Part of Kira's anger fell away. The people doing the killing were humans. She had met a lot of humans these last five years. If she had known then about this part of their past, she might have turned down the position on DS9 altogether, thinking them no different than the Cardassians. But she hadn't known, and she had stayed. And she knew that the Cardassians, barring a few special individuals, would never stop to consider their cruelty as these young officers were. They would never even recognize it.

"I think," Captain Sisko began equally as quiet, "it's more important to remember that we grew out of that cruelty. That is not who we are. We are Starfleet officers. And if you didn't feel the way you do right now, after seeing what you've seen, I'd be much more worried than I am. Prepare a report for the morning's away team and senior staff. Then get some sleep."

He left, but Kira stayed with the away team to help them write their report. Using the map of the camp, they marked off which areas had been searched and which remained to be investigated. Jordan had been right, one more day and they would have the camp covered, with the only exception being the dead. Those who were killed right away weren't registered in the camp, so Jordan would not have come across their names in the camp records. If Julian had died there, they would likely never know it.

Still, the extermination area was the one large place they had left to search. And Kira fervently hoped they wouldn't find him there either. She didn't want to think of Julian being forced to participate in the killing of others. She was sure he would refuse anyway, and end up with the dead. In which case, they would never know about it. But, in some cases, not knowing was the lesser of two evils.

Thomas was finding it hard to sleep. Images of the ghetto kept coming to her at night from her blocked memory, exaggerated by the effect of dreaming. The buildings seemed taller, thinner, darker, almost alive with misery. The dead on the streets called out to her by name. "Save us!" they cried. "Why didn't you save us?"

"I trusted you," he said. She didn't know who he was, but his thin, bearded face was in all her dreams, always accusing her. "I trusted you with my life, with my family. I thought you were different." He felt familiar to her. He poked one finger at her as he spoke, touching her hard in the center of her chest. When she woke up, she could still feel the pain.

In the morning, Novak took up where Jordan had left off, checking the records of all those who had been registered into the camp. Barker had drawn the unfortunate task of searching the extermination area. This time, the nurses had given him something for his stomach. They had also given him a cold. It was his own idea. If he had a cold, he wouldn't be able to smell anything, besides it would fit the weather down on the planet. It had been winter for months. He could also use it as an excuse for not yelling at anyone. He had narrowly escaped that the day before.

He beamed down in the narrow passage between two buildings and was immediately assaulted by the noise. Despite the early hour, the gas chambers to the north were already being used. He looked left and right quickly, to be sure he wasn't seen. If the chambers behind him were being used, he might have been spotted by those being forced inside. But no one was there and that worry aside, Barker now had to deal with the sound. It was eerie, ghostly except that the people making the sound weren't ghosts . . . yet. They wailed and screamed, crying out as they died. He even imagined he could hear them on the other side of the wall, scratching, leaving trails of blood on the concrete as they struggled for air. He felt sick anyway.

"You have a job to do, Ensign," he whispered to himself. He pushed himself away from the wall and toward the corner of the building. He looked carefully both ways before he stepped out into the open. When he finally did, he tried to walk as purposefully as he could. He could see the watchtower above him, just off to the left. The Ukrainian guard who manned the station would be watching the Jewish prisoners, but Barker knew he would also be watching the SS, though not for the same reason.

The screams from inside the chamber were already beginning to die away as the life was extinguished from the room. Directly in front of him were the cremation pyres. He could still see the forms of skulls and appendages, even whole bodies, turned into ash. The faces he saw, with their lips curled back away from their teeth—if they still had skin at all—were all unrecognizable. And most bodies weren't even whole to check for height. Still, Barker wasn't there to look among the dead. He was to search the living, those who were burning the bodies, those who were condemned to leading the doomed to die.

Some of those prisoners were stoking up the fires again, preparing for the next batch, those that were in the chambers now. Barker watched them as he approached. They moved slowly, lethargically, most of them, seemingly unaffected by the kapo's whip. Their gaunt, ashen faces never looked up from the ground directly in front of them. Their shoulders hunched over their work. Even the SS seemed subdued here.

The screaming had stopped and the doors were opened. Naked bodies tumbled out. The SS came to life, screaming and shoving, making the prisoners run. They carried the bodies one at a time to the pyre. More were laid to the side to wait their turn. The chamber had to be emptied. There were more people to put in.

Barker kept his distance from the other SS, but worked his way slowly around the pyre, squinting his eyes from the smoke. He coughed and his throat felt raw. He wondered how much of that was from the cold. His eyes began to tear, and he wondered how much of that was from the smoke.

A few of the men were tall enough, if one could tell from their stooped position, but none of them looked right on closer inspection. Barker moved away from the pyre and closer to the chamber. There were other prisoners guiding the new arrivals from the "tube," the little tombstone-paved road that led from the undressing area, into the chamber. He could hear them speaking. Some spoke in German or Yiddish which was translated by his new translator. "It's only a shower," they were saying. "Everything will be fine. You'll see. Hold your children tightly. Stay together so you can find each other after the delousing." Some of the voices spat out the lies, others spoke them kindly, soothingly, as if the lies were all they had to offer those people as they were herded into the darkened room. All the voices he heard in Standard had lacked any particular accent. Bashir's voice would have spoken with British inflections. And they knew from his records that he didn't speak Polish or German. He was not among them either.

Bashir had changed since going to the hospital. He seemed alive again, at least a little, no more the Muselman. He ate now without being forced, though he still didn't try hard to get his place in line. He seemed so much more casual about it now. If he had food, he ate it. If he went without, he didn't complain. He didn't say anything at all. That much hadn't changed. Szymon had even tried to speak to him. He had asked about the hospital. Bashir only nodded in confirmation that he'd been there.

Szymon had changed, too. From the night that Piotr had died, Szymon had grown quiet, less angry instead of more. But as they had watched Bashir deteriorate, Szymon had become more concerned, offering to translate if Max should try and speak with him, or trying on his own to get Bashir to speak. Max had even watched him push others out of the way as he dragged Bashir up the line with him for their morning rations.

Max had asked him why once, the night that they believed Bashir was dead. Why was he caring about Bashir now, when he couldn't be bothered with the Englishman before? Szymon had said one sentence before turning his back to go to sleep. "Because they made him kill my brother." Max had never questioned again. He didn't understand. Szymon hadn't explained Piotr's death and, of course, Bashir hadn't spoken of it. But Max could see that he wasn't welcome to push. Szymon, like himself, had enough misery in Auschwitz. He didn't need Max to cause him more.

Another thing that hadn't changed was Bashir's nightly vigil beside the barracks. Most nights there was nothing to see but the billows of one's own breath against the cold air, but he sat there anyway, staring upward at the sky or smoke. Only now, he made it in before the Stubenälteste locked the door. He always gave himself time to walk across the floor to the bunk slowly so that he wouldn't have to step on the unfortunates who still slept on the floor.

Both of them, Szymon and Bashir, seemed to fall asleep quickly once they laid down. Max wasn't sure why it took him longer. He was exhausted, too, though his work was different. It wore on his heart often more than that it did his shoulders. He longed for someone to talk to, to tell what he saw on the trains. Not about the bodies. All of them saw bodies every day. They lay as common as stones on the ground every morning, noon, and night. But he wanted to share the memories, the little pieces of life that were left on the trains, the evidences of hope and of hardship.

People brought the silliest things with them to this place. Of course, they didn't know what they were coming to. They were told a lie and they wanted to believe it more than anything. Because the truth was too unbelievable, too incredible, too horrible to be true. So they had brought their money with them, hoping to buy what they would need or perhaps better treatment. It had worked in the past. They brought razors with them, and hairbrushes and toothbrushes, little things for daily life. Surely they were necessary. They brought dolls with them and toys so that their children could play and not be so lonely. They brought photographs so they could remember what they had lost. Prayer shawls and umbrellas, pots and pans, winter coats and summer dresses. They didn't know just as Max hadn't known when he was coming. He had had all the same things in his bag, and little Hana had carried her favorite doll in her arms.

Szymon and Bashir fell asleep from exhaustion. Max cried himself to sleep tearlessly every night, seeing the faces of his friends and family and people he would never know.

Sisko ordered the change of course at midnight. The eight men had searched Treblinka as thoroughly as they could without being conspicuous. Bashir was not among the prisoners there. O'Brien and the mostly female remaining crew had finished the Defiant's emergency repairs. The warp drive was now functioning. The Chief promised that in two days, the drive would be able to get them around the sun and back to their own century where a fully-equipped starbase could finish the job.

There was only one place left to look. Beyond that, Sisko knew he'd have to give up on Julian and take the rest of his people home. They would reach Auschwitz before daybreak.