Chapter 1

Kira Nerys couldn't help a sense of satisfaction as she visually scanned the cargo bay. It looked like every freight handler and technician on the station was busy there - as they should be. With the war over, commerce through the quadrant was picking up, and a lot of it was coming through Deep Space Nine. It was a welcome change from the flow of refugees, and signaled something of a return to normalcy. Today's shipment was from a Klingon ship, which was one reason she was in the bay - Klingons tended to get a little rambunctious when they were in port, and weren't always as careful as they could be when they were looking forward to shore leave rather than concentrating on unloading cargo. She hoped her visible presence would remind the Klingon captain to keep an eye on his men.

In any event, it was a good excuse to get out of Ops for a few minutes.

"Hello, Colonel. Something going on I should know about?"

Surprised, she looked over her shoulder to see Quark approaching. "Hello, Quark. Not really. What are you doing away from your bar at this time of day? Customers figure out how much you water your drinks and run you off the Promenade?"

"Ha-ha. But if you must know," he came back a little smugly, "I'm expecting a shipment from the Klingon freighter."

"Real blood wine and raktajino?"

"Among other things." He craned his neck to watch the unloading from the Kloth'nol.

"Oh? Nothing illegal, I hope," she asked pointedly.

"Now, Colonel," he gushed, "would I do anything like that?"

"Yes, you would."

They were interrupted by the sound of something dropping heavily, following by a string of Klingon curses in a loud, belligerent voice.

"Hey! Don't crush that container! I paid good latinum for what's in it, and if you damage it I'm going to file a complaint...."

As Quark hurried away to check on his cargo, Kira couldn't help shaking her head and trying to conceal a smirk. There were some things a person could count on.

Chirp.

She hit her combadge. "Kira here."

"Colonel, we have a ship requesting assistance, reporting a medical emergency."

"What kind of medical emergency, Kaoron?"

"They won't say, sir - they insist on speaking to you or to Dr. Bashir. No one else."

"Who are they?"

"Their appearance suggests they are Cin'tisali."

"Cin'tisali...? The same Cin'tisali that were part of the Dominion?"

"So it would appear."

"On my way."

Kira made it back to Ops in record time. Her mind was racing even faster.

The Cin'tisali. From what she recalled, Starfleet didn't know much about the Cin'tisali. They were humanoid in appearance, on the same scale as Humans, Bajorans, and many other races. They came from a planet somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, believed to be called Shaldo'cin'tis. They were part of the Dominion. They served the Founders, but it was unknown if they had specific functions, like the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta, or were simply another conquered race. None of them had ever been seen anywhere but among Dominion forces or on Dominion-occupied worlds. They never interacted with other races beyond what was necessary for Dominion business. It wasn't even known if their civilization had developed space travel on their own, or only from their masters. If they had their own ships, no one from Starfleet had publicly admitted to seeing one.

What were they doing at Deep Space Nine?

She arrived at Ops in time to hear Lt. Kaoron say, "I assure you, I am neither attempting to stall nor to deceive you. Colonel Kira is on her way-" He paused. "He's gone."

"I'm here." Kira stared at the blank screen, then glanced back at Kaoron.

"Apparently he was not interested in talking to me, nor in waiting for you," the science officer stated wryly, a glint in his eye.

"I see. Well, he can wait a minute then. Are they Cin'tisali?"

"Affirmative. The individual from that ship who established contact with us is a Cin'tisal, from his appearance. The ship matches nothing in our data banks, and could actually be one of their own - a first, in my understanding. It has taken position approximately five thousand twelve meters off the station. The shielding is Dominion, and we are unable to scan them sufficiently to determine any other information about its crew or its specifications." Kaoron actually appeared a little bit excited, for him, and fascinated with its possibilities. "A Cin'tisali ship, here, alone, without other Dominion forces, is ... singular."

She was too focused to notice he'd just made a joke. "Where did they come from? Did we have any word from the sentry ship?"

"Negative. There is no indication this ship came through the Wormhole. It has been in our quadrant."

"Did they say what they want?"

"They began by stating they had a medical emergency, then demanding to speak with Dr. Bashir and you. They have refused to provide any other information or details."

"All right." She took a deep breath. "Let's see what we can find out. Open a channel."

"Channel open," Kuhlman reported

"This is Colonel Kira Nerys," she announced. "Welcome to Deep Space Nine. How can we help you?"

After a momentary pause, an image formed on the screen. Her gaze flicked to Kaoron, who confirmed with a single nod that it was a Cin'tisal, and the same one he'd spoken with before. A half-shrug and sideways glance suggested caution.

The entity was ashen-toned, with eyes of deep gray streaked with an odd shade of blue. His face was smooth and narrow, fringed with glossy dark hair, almost black. Four long braids framed each side of the face, ornamented with strings of small bright beads and irregular metallic shapes woven through the hair. What Kira could see of his clothing was loose-fitting, in green and gray with black trim.

Kaoron obviously noted the same. "I wonder if their world is as gray as its people, or if they experience light differently. Something to ponder, with time...." she heard him mutter under his breath.

The Cin'tisal studied Kira for a moment, probably as thoroughly as she studied him, then said, "I am Dalik'javin. This is the Kalep'tyrink. Colonel Kira, we have a medical emergency. We require the assistance of Dr. Julian Bashir."

She glanced at Kaoron, who stated precisely, "I have informed him of the situation with respect to Dr. Bashir's absence."

She turned back to the screen. "As Lt. Kaoron has informed you, Dr. Bashir is not on the station at this time. However, we have an excellent staff of doctors and nurses, and access to the complete data banks of the Federation and Bajor. What is your emergency?"

Dalik'javin turned his gaze to the side, his expression questioning. Then he looked back. "Dr. Bashir is not here?"

She couldn't help another reflexive glance at Kaoron, who responded with a sardonically raised eyebrow.

"No." For at least the third time. Why don't they believe it?

"When will he return?"

"I don't know. He is on a medical mission."

The Cin'tisal turned away again for a second. "Where is he?"

Ten kinds of mental alarms were going off in Kira's thoughts. A shielded ship, of an unknown type, insisting on one particular person.... She hedged, "At the moment, I'm not ... exactly sure. But as I said before, we have other doctors-"

"You cannot summon him back?"

She stared for a few seconds. "Not even if I wanted to. And I have no reason to want to, unless you stop holding back, and tell me what the problem is."

Dalik'javin glanced to the side once more, almost visibly deflating. Then, with a respectful nod, he moved out of their view.

Kira heard Kaoron giving a quick, low order to one of the personnel. "Continue to scan the chamber behind him thoroughly, we may learn something from it." She knew he would be scanning as well.

A second later, another person stepped into view.

This being was humanoid, but he wasn't Cin'tisali. He looked old and tattered. The hairless skull was etched by deep cracks; so was the face, what she could see of it. What looked like strips of flayed skin hung from parts of the face, while other parts appeared bruised or thickened with chancres. A hand rubbed reflexively at one of those spots; the fingers appeared as decrepit as the rest of the body; something seemed to ooze between the digits every few seconds, as though the body was automatically trying to reshape itself, but failing.

The cracked shape lifted its head defiantly to stare back at Kira. A sudden shiver wrecked the image the being was trying to project.

"Laas-!" she blurted, appalled at his condition.

"Kira...." Dislike was evident in his voice.

"The Founders' disease," she said, comprehending.

Another shudder. "Yes."

"From Odo, when you were here, before we knew he was infected."

He nodded.

"So you came here."

"Yes."

"On your way to the Founders' world."

"Never!" he shot back with the fiery contempt she remembered.

"Then why come- Of course. Dr. Bashir. The man who found the cure. But he's not here."

"Then we will die." Another shudder, more massive than the previous two. It seemed to shake his entire body like a vole fallen prey to a hara cat.

We? "We?" she repeated the thought aloud. "You found some of the others?"

The ill Founder studied her for a long moment, but said nothing. She realized that he was glancing past her, and must be wondering who was all in Ops to be hearing and recording everything that was said, and where that information might go.

"If you ... wish to speak without concern for ... who might be listening, you are welcome to come aboard and we can speak privately," she said a little reluctantly.

"My guards and I will come-"

"Guards? Excuse me, Laas," she interrupted and held up a hand. "I am not inviting armed strangers aboard this station."

"I will not come alone."

"You will not be allowed aboard with an armed guard."

Indecision and anger were obvious, even in his current ravaged features. He finally nodded reluctantly. "I will be there shortly. But I will bring Dalik'javin, the ... captain of this ship. And be warned, if anything happens to me, you will answer to my people."

"Your captain is welcome - but no weapons."

Kira heard a voice in the background start to object.

"The war is over. What are you afraid of?" she asked, deliberately raising her voice to make sure the speaker heard.

Laas held up a crabbed and shaking hand to silence the other.

"The two of us will beam over to your infirmary."

"We'll prepare-"

The screen went dark before she'd finished.

"Colonel," Kaoron remarked, "is it wise, considering their self-proclaimed state of medical emergency, to invite a being onto the station who is obviously quite ill, and may not be giving us accurate or complete information?"

She gave him a wry look. "I never heard of any ... solid, contracting the Founders' disease. I doubt we'll have to worry about it today."

"Considering Dominion technology, we might have to be more concerned about that ship's capabilities," Nog commented from his engineering station. He sounded concerned. "Maybe we should keep our weapons trained on it, just in case."

"No, I don't think so." Kira shook her head. "If this Dalik'javin is their captain, we're probably safer with him here than over on that ship, Nog. And we don't want to appear ... aggressive. But keep an eye on them, and keep our shields up and our phaser banks on standby. Just in case."

"Yes, sir." He nodded briskly.

Kira glanced back at the now-empty screen. Laas looked bad, she thought. Worse than Odo had looked, at the end. Maybe farther along in the disease progression, as hard as that was to imagine.

Laas. Like Odo, he had been one of a hundred Founders sent out by their people, so long ago, sent to learn about the universe and bring their knowledge home. They had been mere infants of their kind, without knowledge of their own origin and home, so they could reveal nothing of their people if they fell into enemy hands; children with an instinct to someday seek out their own.

He had come here as a being alone, not even knowing what he was searching for, feeling completely apart from the universe of the solids, yearning for belonging. But when Odo told him about the Founders, about the reason why ones like the two of them had been sent out, Laas had refused to go back to them. His anger and bitterness had sent him off alone again - he had felt cast out from many a world and people, and now felt cast out and betrayed by his own - though he had begged Odo to join him.

Odo had stayed, for her.

Laas had despised Kira Nerys, along with every other person he'd met on the station. He'd considered her a hindrance in Odo's becoming fully Founder, a mere solid who distracted Odo from experiencing all that he could be and do and become - someone who tried to turn Odo into what pleased her, rather than letting him experiment with what pleased himself. Laas had believed their relationship was doomed.

Maybe he was right. Odo had left her, after all, following what he felt was his duty and perhaps, truthfully, his heart.

"Kuhlman, call the infirmary. Let Girani know they'll have guests and patients probably within the minute. Have the constable get some of her people there too. And tell them I'm on my way."

By the time Kira reached the infirmary, Laas and Dalik'javin had arrived. Fortunately, Kuhlman has passed along word of what to expect, and Girani and Monrow were rushing around trying to get things in order for their patient, working around the forbidding-looking, gray-toned Cin'tisali captain.

Emyn and one of her security officers were practically at her heels.

Laas looked at them, then glared accusingly at Kira. "I trusted your word - is this how you make guests welcome? Or am I your enemy and a prisoner after all?"

She gestured the two officers back to the door.

"Are you sure, Colonel?" Emyn asked

"I don't foresee any problems for the moment, and you'll be close enough to hear if there's any disturbance," she said quietly.

Emyn nodded; the security team moved outside.

Dalik'javin surreptitiously moved to take a stance between the guards at the door and the changeling, his solid-looking body poised to move in any direction.

Monrow reappeared from wherever she'd gone. "Nurse Jabara will get you settled, private ward, for security as well as comfort," she told the Founder. "Jennel, can I see you for a moment?" she called to Dr. Girani, then disappeared again. Girani followed.

Laas turned his suspicious gaze back on Kira.

"Would you rather we put you in Quark's bar for everyone to place bets on your condition?" she asked bluntly.

"As we are being honest, I would rather not have had to come here at all," he replied, then suddenly hunched over as a massive shudder wracked his body. He straightened again almost immediately, his expression challenging her to show pity or to gloat. Jabara had reflexively stepped forward to catch his arm, but Laas ignored the nurse, staying focused on Kira. "If we had not believed Dr. Bashir to be here, we would not have come."

Monrow reappeared, looking disconcerted. "Colonel? Could we speak with you?"

"Of course. I'll be right back," she told Laas, then stepped into the side office. "What is it?"

The two doctors exchanged glances. Girani was sitting at Bashir's desk; Monrow was standing at her shoulder.

"Colonel," Girani began, one finger tapping on the console. "We can't find the cure for the Founders' disease."

Kira blinked. That made no sense. "What do you mean?"

The human picked up the explanation, starting to pace. "A computer search on the Founders' disease in the medical database comes up with ... nothing."

A beat.

"Nothing? But that's impossible. We have all kinds of records on the Founders' disease. And Bashir came up with the cure - his files should be ... exhaustive, from his research and his theories and his experiments and ... and the cure, when he found it."

"It should be - but it isn't."

Remembering his discovery that Section 31 had created the disease, and the precautions Julian had begun using to protect his work, she suggested, "Maybe it's coded, under lock somewhere - because of the war, maybe it's classified. Or in his personal records."

"Maybe, but...." Girani shook her head and rose from the chair. "The historical banks contain what's generally known about the disease, its appearance and that the cure was ultimately the price for peace. But there's nothing on the efforts to find that cure - not even a denial of access or statement that the information sought is confidential or needs a security clearance. It's just not there. None of Julian's work is in the file. Even his medical logs from that time appear to have been edited to remove any mention of it." She sighed unhappily, pushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but...."

Impossible, she thought. Unless somebody with sufficient clearance accessed the computer ... but the command staff are the only ones with that kind of clearance, and none of us would have done such a thing.

Kira remembered something else. "How about his diaries?" she asked, grasping at straws as she glanced from one to the other of the doctors. It would be a serious violation of his personal privacy, but hopefully he'd understand-

"We ... already checked," Monrow admitted, unable to meet Kira's gaze with her usual frankness. "We planned to get your permission to do an indexing scan only, but ... we can't find them either. They're gone. His personal records, the medical logs, the database information, all missing."

Oh, Prophets.... He must have hidden it, Kira thought. He must have moved that information someplace safe, for some reason, or encoded it in some way they can't locate. Concern for Section 31, fear of it falling into the wrong hands, some other reason.

That, or somebody at Starfleet or Section already got to it. But I can't mention Section - from everything Julian ever told us, Girani and Monrow will be a lot safer if they don't know anything about it - and I'll feel better...

. "Can we contact Julian directly on Cardassia?" Girani asked.

"Doubtful," Monrow replied before Kira could. "Starfleet military protocols. Even if we could reach him - and we've been following the medical updates, they've been having a lot of communication problems. That kind of information can't be sent over subspace, even coded, with a Dominion ship in orbit here." She made a face. "Because of the war, it would be considered a 'security clearance' matter."

Kira raised her eyebrows.

The human doctor shrugged, looking apologetic. "We had a briefing a couple months ago at medical HQ."

Girani sighed and looked at Kira again, shaking her head. "So the information's gone, and we can't contact the one man we know could give it to us directly."

"What information is gone?" Laas interrupted.

The three of them jumped guiltily. They'd been so intent, none of them had heard him shuffle through the doorway.

"The cure," Girani replied, immediately stepping in as acting CMO. "The cure is gone."

For a second, the look Laas turned on Kira was thick with rage and betrayal. Then it vanished into emptiness. He turned as if to leave.

"Wait!" Kira all but shouted. He paused; she glanced at the Girani and Monroe. "Excuse us, please, I need to talk to Laas."

The doctors glanced at each other, then, with obvious reluctance, left.

Laas didn't say anything until the medical staff was gone and it was only himself and Kira left in the office.

"We are doomed; what's the point?" he asked fatalistically, still not looking at her, one crabbed hand clinging to the doorframe.

"Not necessarily. The flight to the Founders' World is less than a day, at maximum warp."

"No. We will return to our own world and die, away from the gloating eyes of the solids who hate us."

"There's another option," Kira said quickly.

He finally turned to look at her.

"Odo."

"He chose to stay with you."

"He also chose to go back to the Founders, to heal them, to help them understand everything he'd learned about living among us ... among solids."

Laas gestured shakily. "Then he is part of the Great Link, and lost to us."

Kira spoke softly. "He went to them to heal them and to teach them. I think it's very possible he may come back for the same reason - to heal you, and to teach you about your own people."

He shook his head, his mouth tight with determination. "We have no interest in learning about them. They have shown us quite clearly that we are of no consequence to them."

"Whatever you may believe about the Great Link, I can tell you for a fact you are wrong about Odo. He will come when he knows you're here." She hesitated, then chose to share a secret. "Odo told me once, when he first admitted to me that he was ill, that he was afraid he had transmitted the disease to you as well as to the others. He felt guilty."

She couldn't read the expression on Laas's face.

"He said if he had any idea where you had gone, he would have looked for you, to tell you, and to bring you back here where there might be a cure."

"You're lying."

"I have no reason to lie to you."

"I am a Founder, you are a solid - that's reason enough, in my experience."

"I gave Odo the chance to go with you - I helped you leave here, remember? And I told him where to find you. I honestly believed that he would never come back, that he would go with you. If I had wanted to lie to you, or deceive you in any way, or keep him from you, I would have done it then."

Laas seemed to shrink into himself. Her muscles tensed for her to move to catch him, but the second of weakness passed, and his body firmed again.

"How do we know he will come now, when he has been with them for this long?"

"He will come. I know he will." The moment stretched into long silence. "I'll go myself. I'll remind him what he said. He won't turn his back on you."

"You will go?"

"Yes."

Laas seemed to consider it, then finally collapsed against the wall, seeming to barely catch himself. As if that moment's weakness was some final proof, he capitulated. "We have no choice."

Chapter Two

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