"Commander, I found a healthy young boy." Bashir gazed level into his superior officer's eyes. "Physically and mentally. There's no sign of either the synaptic degeneration or obsessive thought-patterning that we saw with Ahrmant Wyoss and the others. The only indication of negative functioning on your son's part is the apparent frequency increase in use of the altered holosuites—and we only know about that because of the data that Odo was able to extract from the holosuites themselves."
"But, as you say, your diagnostic techniques here are limited." He didn't want to give himself hopes that could be cruelly shattered. "There may be more sophisticated tests that would reveal things that you weren't able to detect."
Bashir spread his hands apart. "There's always that possibility, Commander. At one of the sector medical facilities, Jake could be scanned right down to the subatomic level, if anyone thought that it would yield results of any significance. But to undertake such a course is a decision that you'd have to make on your own. You have to weigh the diminishingly small chance of finding something wrong—anything at all—with the risk of producing an iatrogenic condition from the testing procedures. There are diagnostic techniques beyond what I've done here, but they can be very long and arduous—and they'd involve sending Jake away from the station. And away from his primary source of emotional support—that's you, Commander. In the absence of any discernible harm that Jake may have suffered from his exposure to these cortical-induction modules, I believe that the greatest therapeutic value would be gained from his staying in contact with his father."
Discernible harm . . . The overly precise words, the technical language into which the chief medical officer so readily lapsed, echo inside Sisko's head. He closed his eyes, trying to sort out the jumble of thoughts he'd carried into this room, that the doctor's advice had failed to disperse. It was so hard to know what to do . . . what would be the best, or only, thing he could decide upon and carry through. The dark meditations that came over him at the end of shifts welled up now—he couldn't stop them—and, with the slow, aching grief that had become so familiar, reminded him how essentially alone he was. Even here, in this brightly lit room surrounded by the corridors and chambers of Deep Space Nine, filled with living intelligences, human and nonhuman alike. Without Jake's mother, his wife, the woman he had loved . . . For a moment, a dizzying near-hallucination swept across him, that the voice and presence of the man standing beside him had vanished into emptiness and silence. That they had all vanished, every voice and gaze; leaving him in the station's hollow shell, enclosed in cold, unfeeling metal and the uninhabited reaches of the stars beyond. Alone in truth, as he'd often felt himself to be.
He drew in a deep breath, as though willing Dr. Bashir back into existence. And the rest: he could sense them again, all the lives aboard the station, moving through the corridors and walkways like the blood of a larger organism. That life, and the smaller ones—DS9's life—those were his responsibility. As long as there were so many depending upon him, he could resist the temptations to which he might otherwise have yielded.
Against all that, however, could be weighed a single small life. His own son.
The doctor hadn't mentioned a third possibility, one that allowed Jake to leave DS9 and go to any Starfleet medical facility that could perform further tests upon him and still remain in contact with his father. . . .
As simple as that, Sisko knew. He would just have to go with the boy. Turn over his command of the station, abandon these duties for the sake of another one—who would if he did that? There were others—weren't there?—who could administer DS9 as well as he could; perhaps better. But Jake only had one father. One parent.
"Commander—" Bashir laid a hand upon Sisko's shoulder. "I know what you're thinking."
He turned his brooding face toward the doctor. "Do you really?"
"If you thought it best to leave the station, to do whatever you thought was necessary for your son's welfare, I'd be the last to advise you not to. But consider this, Commander: Deep Space Nine is Jake's home. As much as it is yours now. He's been taken away from so many places, he's lost so many things and people in his short life—do you think it's wise to do that to him once again?"
A brief spark of anger flared inside Sisko. What do you know about loss, Doctor?—someone so young and inexperienced in the realities of life. He supposed that was something that had been taught to Bashir in medical schooclass="underline" that omniscient, caring tone, words read off a page from some grief-counseling textbook. . . .
He fought the anger down, letting his hands uncurl from fists, his pulse slowing. In another few seconds, he realized, he might have ripped the doctor's head off—verbally, at least. And pointlessly so; everything Bashir said had been well intentioned. And, even more chastening, it was all very likely true. But still . . .
"You've forgotten something, Doctor." Sisko could hear his voice as though it were coming from someone else, a creature temporarily bereft of emotions. "I've seen evidence my son's condition, that doesn't show up in all your scannings and tests. In that holosuite . . . I saw my own death. I saw my murdered corpse lying on the ground."
"An illusion, Commander."
"Oh?" Anger flared again inside him. "An illusion that couldn't exist at all, unless it reflected something true thing in Jake. That was his world in which I was around, Doctor. The CI module found something inside my son, some part of him that wanted his father dead . . . and granted him that wish."
He fell silent, pulse swelling up at the corners of his brow. He had spoken, put into words that which had been inscribed on his heart since the moment he had seen his own emptied eyes gazing back up at him. And beyond, to the harsh sun that lit a small, endless world, turning every leaf's shadow to a knife's edge.
"Commander . . ." The other's voice pried at the door of his thoughts. "When you were a child . . . when you were Jake's age . . . did you ever wish your own father dead? Even just in a little flash of anger?"
He turned a fierce glare toward Bashir. A deep breath before speaking allowed him to regain a measure of self-control. "Many times, Doctor. Every child does."
"Exactly. And what kept you from ever trying to actually kill your father?"
"I thought better of it," Sisko said dryly. "For most of the time I was a child, my father was considerably bigger than I was."
"Any other reason?"
"Only that I knew—once I got over being stupid and angry—that I loved him very much."
"Just as most children do, Commander. They conquer the murderers inside themselves—as you and I, as we all did. " Bashir pointed toward the computer screen, as if the numbers and graphs it displayed might have resolved into a human face. "Just as your own son Jake has—in this world. The real one. But what you saw in the holosuite, Commander, wasn't done by Jake. The illusory murder was committed by something that once might have been a part of Jake, but is no longer. The CI module appears to work that way: it finds the weakest part of someone's soul, for lack of a more scientific term, removes it and isolates it, nourishes it in the absence of the rest of what a thinking and feeling person can be. It takes that small killer that's inside all of us, and lets it run wild. But you'd be making a terrible mistake if you thought you had seen something that is inside Jake." Bashir's voice lowered in pitch. "Consider this, Commander: I did a memory probe upon your son, and I found no trace of him having done anything to cause your perceived death inside the holosuite. Jake doesn't remember that because he didn't do it. That other thing, that McHogue took from inside your son's mind, that McHogue changed into something that was no longer your son—that was your murderer."