Bashir looked across the room to where Nurses Richter and Juarez sat at neighboring consoles. During Ezri’s contact with the object, Richter would monitor the condition of the Dax symbiont, and Juarez Ezri’s condition, both backing up Bashir’s own observations.
“Well, then,” Bashir said. “Let’s get started.” He reached to a shelf beside the bed and retrieved a tricorder. “I’m lowering the containment field.” On the other side of the bed stood the portable stand, and atop it sat the mysterious object. After the attempt to transport the object had failed, Nog had devised a means of physically moving it via a magnetic containment field. The operation had been delicate work, but an engineering team had managed to remove the object from the Jefferies tube and load it onto the stand.
Bashir worked the tricorder, which Nog had configured as a control interface for the containment field. Around the object, a curtain of blue pinpoints flashed into view, accompanied by a low buzz. In a second, the pinpoints and the hum had gone, as had the containment field.
He looked back down at Ezri. He felt a sudden urge to stop her from doing this, but he fought the impulse. Last time, Ezri’s contact with the object had been accidental and unexpected. This time, he would be with her from the very beginning, and that and his careful preparations would see to it that she made it through the experience.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said, and smiled.
“You bet you will,” he responded, forcing his lips into a thin smile of his own. He thought to say something more, but phrases such as Pleasant journeyand Bon voyageseemed insufficient. Instead, he simply said, “Good luck.”
Ezri reached up, found his hand, and squeezed. He squeezed back, and then she let go. She took a deep breath, lifted her other hand, and reached out above the portable stand and the object. She glanced up once more at Bashir, then lowered her hand. Although the dark substance appeared liquid, no movement rippled across its surface as Ezri’s hand came to rest within it.
Immediately, a rush of air escaped Ezri in a grunt, her eyes fell shut, and her head lolled to the side. Bashir looked up at the diagnostic panel. As he watched, Ezri’s heart rate decreased and her respiration slowed, and her neural activity started to ebb. Juarez called out the changes from his console.
“I see,” Bashir said, more to himself than to Juarez. I see, and I’m ready.He set the tricorder back down on the shelf, exchanging it for a hypospray he had previously prepared. Out of habit, he checked the drug in the ampule—delactovine, a systemic stimulant, since cordrazine had not been completely effective last time—as well as the dosage setting. Then he turned his gaze back to the diagnostic panel, set to act once Ezri’s readings had fallen beneath a certain threshold. But that did not happen. Both her heart rate and her respiration reached a plateau, leveling off well above where they had during Ezri’s first contact with the object. Again, Juarez reported the changes.
Bashir watched the readings remain stable for a few more minutes, then set down the hypo. He checked Dax’s readings, and saw that they remained within a normal range. Bashir’s preventive measures appeared to be working. He would have to keep an eye on Ezri’s neural activity, but at the moment, neither host nor symbiont seemed to be in any danger.
Bashir inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly, releasing some of the tension in his body. He peered down at Ezri’s inert form, at the shallow rise and fall of her chest, and wished that he could do something more for her. But for now, all he could do was wait.
Bashir paced. He moved back and forth past the foot of Ezri’s bed, his gaze shuttling between her face and the diagnostic panel. During the past hour, her vital signs had begun to slip again, though not yet in a way that threatened her health. The most significant changes had been in her neural activity and isoboramine levels. Bashir had worked to keep both from diminishing too much, employing a cortical stimulator and a round of benzocyatizine injections. The measures had succeeded in slowing, but not stopping, Ezri’s decline. Soon, if the decreases continued, he would put an end to this.
He stopped, then walked forward until he stood beside the head of the bed. He picked up the tricorder from the shelf, then peered down at Ezri’s soft face. Her skin had paled, he saw, leaving the ribbon of spots down the sides of her face and neck contrasting starkly with her pallor. The cortical stimulator sat affixed to her forehead, the blinking green and red lights of the small device indicating its functional status.
“Neural activity down another tenth of a percent,” Juarez reported from across the medical bay.
Bashir glanced up at the diagnostic panel and confirmed the reading. “Acknowledged,” he said, and looked back down at Ezri.
He hated seeing her like this. Even though it had been her choice to take this action, it troubled him. He understood that if her interpretation of events had been correct regarding her first contact with the object, then Ezri’s declining neural processes and isoboramine levels coincided with Dax’s mental contact with—
With what?Bashir asked himself in a burst of anger. With a pool of unimpressive slime that somehow extended into other dimensions? He felt his jaw clench and his hands tense. How could she have done this?he thought. How could she have so obviously risked her life—and her life with him—for this speculation?
Bashir squeezed his eyes closed, suddenly furious with Ezri. And with himself, he realized. Why had he agreed to this? For Ezri? For the Vahni? The Vahni would not be served by the unnecessary and avoidable death of Ezri Dax.
Pain coursed through his palm. He looked down and saw his hand gripped so tightly about the tricorder that his flesh had gone white. He opened his hand and dropped the device back onto the shelf, where it rattled among other equipment. A hypospray skittered off and fell to the floor.
He stared at his hand. Indentations decorated the fleshy part of his palm, tinged red now as blood flowed back to the areas. He tried to bring his anger under control, but instead, his ire rose, and he imagined sweeping his arm across the shelf in front of him, knocking everything to the floor. No, not the shelf,he thought, and looked over at the stand, and at the bizarre object resting upon it. He saw himself pulling Ezri’s hand from the substance, and then upending the stand…aiming a phaser…
Bashir raised a hand to his face, wiping it across his eyes. He felt pressure in his temples, and a wave of exhaustion washed over him. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to sleep. If he could just—
“Doctor,” Juarez called, and Bashir recognized the note of concern in the lieutenant’s voice even before the alarm sounded. Bashir dropped his hand and opened his eyes. He looked up at the diagnostic panel, the source of the warning tones, and saw that Ezri’s neural activity had dropped precipitously, her other vital signs following it down. He acted at once, almost without thought, a product of his training and abilities. He reached for the hypospray of delactovine, but could not locate it on the shelf. He quickly crouched and looked on the floor, recalling the hypo that had fallen, but he did not see it.
“Edgardo,” he called, standing back up, “prepare a delactovine injection.” As Juarez acknowledged the order, Bashir pulled the tricorder from the shelf. He did not even realize the decision he had made until he reached across the bed and pulled Ezri’s hand from the object. He lowered her arm down beside her body, then worked the tricorder. The haze of blue dots that indicated the activation of the containment field buzzed on around the object.
Juarez raced over, a hypo held up in his hand. Bashir took it, verified the drug, and set the dosage. Quickly, he applied the nozzle end of the hypo to Ezri’s neck. The short hiss of air was a welcome sound. He peered up at the diagnostic panel, waiting for the changes that would come. And they did come: heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and numerous other readings. And still her neural activity remained dangerously low, so low that her autonomic functions could be endangered. If her brain ceased to function above a certain minimal level, Ezri’s body would no longer sustain itself: her heart would cease to beat on its own, her blood would cease to flow through her veins, her lungs would no longer expand and contract.