CHAPTER 14

JALIKA THREADED HER WAY over the stepping-stones bridging an underground stream. She found Julian, as she knew she would, under a spray of rock the shape and color of a willow's trailing curtain of branches.
"He is looking for you" she said.
Juian raised his head. His eyes were red and the marks of tears were still evident on his face. "Why didn't you bring him here with you?"
She settled herself beside him on a cold outcropping of stone. "This place is mine. I choose who shares it." She took his hand. "Are you prepared?"
"I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. Why must I prepare?"
"He will make terrible accusations against you."
A humorless smile curved Dr. Bashir's lips. "Is that necessary? Can't he simply order my execution?"
"Here such decisions of life or death must be made with the agreement of all. So the Prophets have taught us. Father leads by consent. He never tires of telling me that his powers of persuasion won him his place and keep it for him. It is true; I have seen it to be true. He has yet to ask something of our people that they have refused him." Her fingers dug into Dr. Bashir's flesh. "Julian, I am afraid for you."
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Don't be." He stood and stretched until his hands brushed the damp, shiny curve of pale green stone overhead. "Let's go."
Jalika conducted Dr. Bashir to a part of the caverns he had never seen before. Here there were higher, wider, more open spaces in the rock, huge chambers hollowed by the hand of nature from the living mountain. Cressets of oil burned in metal holders, but in some places the stone itself gave off an eerie glow that provided light enough for human sight. Dr. Bashir thought he could have gazed on so much beauty forever.
"Up here," Jalika said, turning aside from the great hall of stone yawning before them. She took him up a winding way where rocky inclines lay slippery underfoot in spite of scatterings of dirt laid down for traction. Where the water ran most heavily, the dirt quickly melted into mud, making the way even more treacherous than before. A pickax had bitten handholds out of the walls, and Dr. Bashir clung to them gratefully. Jalika's graceful form seemed to dance up the narrow ramp ahead of him, her tiny feet sure as if they moved over carpet instead of slick stone.
They emerged on a platform high above the floor of the huge cavern chamber. It was a natural balcony, though without railings or any barrier to keep an incautious visitor from missing a step and plummeting from the little lip of rock to the stone so far below. Dr. Bashir did not suffer from a fear of heights, but even he felt better standing with the wall to his back, as far from the edge of the precipice as he could get.
Borilak Selinn had no such need for security. The hill fighter chief stood between two of his burliest warriors, a pace from the edge. Jalika's father was no longer dressed in the utilitarian shirt and trousers he and all the cavern dwellers favored; now he wore robes, faded and old yet steeped in an air of grim formality. His escorts, too, were clad in ceremonial garb and the phasers at their sides were accompanied by swords. Such weapons would be useless in the confines of the cavern tunnels; their purpose was to impress, not defend. Looking at those three awaiting him, Dr. Bashir could not deny the gravity of his situation.
A low rumble came from the chamber beneath the stone balcony. Dr. Bashir took a few tentative steps nearer the brink and saw the hall filling with people. When the influx dwindled to a trickle, Borilak Selinn faced the massed crowd and raised both hands high for silence.
Dr. Bashir did not understand a word of the hill fighter chief's first speech to his followers. The intonation was Bajoran, but the words were alien. For the first time he regretted that he not longer wore his comm badge, with its accompanying translation capabilities.
"It is the old tongue," Jalika said softly. "Father was a scholar in the capitol, before the Cardassians killed his family. He too was supposed to have entered service in the Temple. Instead he joined the Resistance."
"Couldn't he have returned to his studies after the Cardassians were expelled?" Bashir asked, still listening to Borilak Selinn's oration. He was almost certain he could understand some of the antiquated words now. The Bajoran way of saying treachery had changed remarkably little between the old tongue and the new.
"He wanted to," Jalika said. "But when the provisional government was established, he felt betrayed. There are interests now represented in the council that dealt willingly with the Cardassians. He wants the government purified, for the sake of all those who died during the occupation."
"Your father is a man of ideals," Julian commented. "Someone should tell him that he'd accomplish more to advance his cause if he borrowed a little practicality. If he shuns the provisional government completely, he misses the chance to affect it. He hasn't enough followers to overthrow it directly and he knows it, or he wouldn't be lurking in the hills. If his knowledge and powers of persuasion are half as impressive as you say, he ought to bring them to the capitol and put them to work where they might do much good."
Jalika sighed. "He does not believe that his efforts can achieve anything indirectly."
"Ah." Julian felt a passing qualm—nothing he could put a reason behind. Before he could ponder it, Borilak Selinn finished his formal opening exhortation and returned to the common language.
"The healer Bashir is accused of the death of our brother, Borilak Belem," he said. The words broke over Bashir's head like a thunderclap.
"Borilak—?" he whispered to Jalika. "But Belem had no family name …"
"Father knew. He gave him ours when the boy joined us." Her hand stole into his. "He had no son, Julian."
Her father saw her take the doctor's hand. His scowl was terrifying and his tone grew even more fierce. "Who here does not know the trust and duty of a healer?" he demanded of his followers. "That his gifts be shared without prejudice or measure among all who come to him for aid. You have all witnessed the effects of this man's gifts. The fever of which we heard, the fever which we so feared sought us out in spite of our seclusion. Many of you burned with it, many of you would have died of it." He wheeled to point a finger at Dr. Bashir. "You know this man! You knew him long before he came among us. The same tales that came from the camps where our brethren suffer—the tales of the wasting fever without a cure—these tales soon changed from cries of despair to prayers of hope because of this man!"
"Whose case is your father pleading?" Julian whispered to Jalika. "He sounds like he's taken my side."
"Wait," Jalika said, miserable.

"How did Commander Sisko ever get talked into this?" Odo muttered as he and Major Kira climbed the mountain slope, scrambling to keep up with Cedra. "This is not the place for a child."
"Cedra disagreed," the liaison officer responded. "He can be very convincing when he wants to be. Commander Sisko started out against the boy coming with us; then before you knew it, he gave his approval. He had to: Cedra's plan for bringing Dr. Bashir back once we find him won't work without Cedra."
Odo snorted. "Why do we need any sort of plan in the first place? Once we find the doctor, you deliver Commander Sisko's orders for his return. Unless you think he'll disobey a direct command?"
"He's too good a Starfleet officer for that." Kira pushed her way through the bush. "And he's too good a doctor. When he hears we need him back aboard to save Talis Dejana's life, he'll come; that's not the problem. It's making sure he stays put once he's healed her."
"You don't expect him to do that?"
"No, to be honest, I don't. You've never seen a refugee camp, Odo. You've never seen the children who are forced to live there. Neither had Dr. Bashir. Lieutenant Dax told me all about how shocked he was, and how he threw himself into his work—one man trying to right the biggest injustice he'd ever seen. If that was you, would you be able to turn your back on a job that was less than half-finished?"
"Yet you say he would never disobey orders," Odo reminded her.
"Have you noticed, Odo? There's no order so direct, so specific, that a determined person can't reinterpret it to suit his own purposes." She gave him a meaningful look. Odo became uneasy. "That was—it was vital to solving the case. Besides, it was a single incident that happened long ago. I did not disobey—"
"Sure you didn't." Kira's smile was there and gone. "But you do see what I mean about Dr. Bashir." Odo grumped something unintelligible and continued to toil up the slope.
"Anyway," Kira went on, "it doesn't look like our doctor's in a situation where we can just walk in, give him his orders, and walk out again. There are reports of political splinter groups in this area—former Resistance fighters who don't support the provisional government. No one's exactly sure of their affiliations. The council treats them all as potential subversives."
"With a warm welcome like that waiting for them I'm surprised they don't come streaming out of the hills" was Odo's acerbic comment. "And where do they stand on the question of Bajor joining the Federation?"
"I don't know."
"Wonderful."
"Hurry up," Cedra hissed from above. "What's taking you two so long?" The boy clung to a small tree growing out of the mountainside at a crazy angle. "We haven't got time."
Major Kira caught hold of one of the tree's lower branches and hauled herself up behind the trunk to catch her breath. She turned to give a hand to Odo, but he was nowhere to be seen. The shapeshifter had come up with his own solution to the unfriendly terrain. A nimblefooted hyurin scurried past Major Kira and Cedra, leaving them to follow it through the trees into a small clearing slightly higher up the hillside. There it stopped and shot back into the familiar form of Odo.
"I don't know why I didn't think of doing that sooner," he remarked. To Major Kira he said, "Are we almost there?"
"Yes, we are," Cedra replied. Neitherone of the adults paid any attention to him.
Kira took a reading on her tricorder, sweeping the territory ahead. "There's an entrance to a series of caverns about a hundred meters in that direction. That's where the sensors picked up Dr. Bashir's life signs. No wonder Chief O'Brien said it looked like the man was under several layers of rock. All we have to do is locate Dr. Bashir inside the caverns, get a comm badge on him, and signal the runabout. The transporter aboard the Ganges is programmed to home in on the comm signals without having to use the long-range sensors to spot us."
"How simple. And all we have to do to reach Dr. Bashir is explain to any of the cavern residents that we mean them no harm, we've just come looking for a friend."
"Odo, you know that's where Cedra's plan comes in. Sometimes your cynical attitude gets a bit old," Kira said.
"I would like to get old, too," the shapeshifter replied.
Cedra made an impatient sound. The Bajoran boy had climbed one of the trees and was sitting on a branch, swinging his legs. "Nothing bad's going to happen. Didn't you listen when I explained it all to Commander Sisko?"
"I was too busy asking myself what possessed him to consent to this ludicrous arrangement," Odo said. "I suppose it didn't hurt to have his son take your side," he added grudgingly.
"It's a good plan and he would have approved it with or without Jake's support," Cedra snapped. He dropped lightly from the tree. "Commander Sisko wouldn't approve a plan—any plan—if he didn't think it would work. Not when something so important depends on it working. You know how he always thinks things through."
I do, Kira thought. But how do you? You've hardly known him a week. She itched with the same peculiar feeling she'd gotten when Talis Cedra explained how he'd located his sister by scent alone.
"More of that invaluable Starfleet training in action," Odo drawled.
"I like Starfleet," Cedra remarked casually. "Commander Sisko said I'd make a good recruit. Maybe I'll do that, join up, go to the Academy"—he gave Odo an arch look—"and come back to DS9 as your new commander."
"I can hardly wait," Odo said through his teeth.
"In the meantime, you do your part and I'll show you how well I do mine."
"All right. Sit down over there where there's some light." As Cedra obediently sat on a nearby boulder and Major Kira kept watch, Odo unpacked a small box from his belt.
"This must be a change for you," Kira said, glancing over Odo's shoulder as the shapeshifter deployed the assorted jars, tubes, and pencils of a makeup kit. "I hope you're as good at changing someone else's looks as you are your own," she joked.
"There have been many times during my tenure aboard the station when I needed more than one member of Security to work undercover," Odo replied testily. He gave Cedra's skin an unwholesome pallor, then darkened the circles under the boy's eyes and created deep hollows under his cheekbones. "All we require is for him to look ill. That's a simple transformation." He studied Cedra critically. "I've done my best. See that you can act as sick as you look."
Cedra grinned. "Don't worry about my acting talents, Constable."
"He looks awful," Kira said, impressed.
"Thank you," said Odo. As a last touch, he tucked a comm badge between the layers of the deliberately tattered and filthy clothes Cedra wore. "That one's yours. You remember what to do with it?"
Cedra made a face as if to say he'd remember long after Odo had forgotten. "Lose it and I get left behind. I'm ready."
Major Kira checked her tricorder. "There are four sentries, two in plain sight near the cave mouth, two on patrol." She and Odo set their phasers on stun, in case some mischance let the patrolling guards stumble upon them before they could use the sensor warnings to evade them. "That seems to be all. Funny … Most of the life-sign readings are coming from one central area inside the caverns. Dr. Bashir's there too." She shrugged. "We can use luck like that. Do you have the comm badge for Dr. Bashir, Cedra?"
The boy nodded; he showed her the glittering Starfleet insignia before hiding it under his rags. "One for him, one for me."
"Then good luck." She stooped and gave the child a hasty kiss.
"Don't smear the makeup," said Odo.

Dr. Bashir felt as if his legs had turned to jelly. Jalika was right—her father was an excellent orator. From an opening that seemed to do nothing but praise Dr. Bashir's medical triumphs among the hill fighters, he skillfully forged those same words of praise into a sword that was pointed right at Julian's heart.
"He has saved so many!" Borilak Selinn cried. "Why, then, could he not save one? One boy—little more than a child—a child who suffered from the same fever he cured so many times before!"
"But it wasn't the same fever," Julian muttered. "It would have responded to the vaccine if it were."
"My friends—" The Bajoran's tone softened from rant to purr."—I know what you ask now. You ask why he would do such a thing. To kill a child—! All we have heard before of this Federation healer speaks of his selflessness, his compassion, of the countless children who owe him their lives. Why does Borilak Belem owe him his death?"
A murmur of speculation rose from the cavern floor to meet the question. Borilak Selinn allowed it to die down before he went on.
"You might as well ask yourselves why you are here, dwelling in caves, undergoing hardship, living far from even the most basic comforts. Why have you made this choice? Because you are people of honor. Because you did not fight—your loved ones did not die at the hands of the Cardassians—to have everything you hold dear destroyed by the perfidious and subtle agents of the so-called provisional government!" This time a roar of approval went up from the crowd below.
"Who is this man, this healer?" Borilak Selinn demanded. "Who is he, really? He wears the uniform of Starfleet—the same Starfleet that woos and coddles the very leaders who are taking Bajor down the path of ruin. What do these Starfleet people care for true Bajorans? All that they want is to have guaranteed access to the wormhole, and they'll pact with whoever can give it to them. Justice can hang, righteousness can perish for all they care. The provisional government offers them the wormhole and in exchange they give the provisional government their souls."
"My God," Julian said, the muscles of his jaw tightening. "What a pack of lies." He started forward, but Jalika held him back.
"You may not speak yet. If you try, Father's attendants will stop you. If there is even the smallest show of a struggle, they will use it to their advantage and see that you fall to your death. To the others, it will look like an accident." She twined her arm through his. "Do not give him what he wants, Julian. Your turn to speak will come."
Dr. Bashir bit his lip and said nothing.
"Where did this healer come from?" Borilak Selinn continued. "From the same camp as Borilak Belem! You all know this is true: the boy spoke of his past freely. He had nothing to hide. Perhaps that was what this man feared—that Belem's honest nature would compel him to reveal the true reason for the healer Bashir's presence in our midst."
"This is too much! You brought me here by force, dammit!" Dr. Bashir exploded, despite Jalika's attempts to quiet him. "You're filling your followers' ears with fairy tales and the one person who can testify against you is dead!"
One of Borilak Selinn's men moved forward and backhanded Julian across the face so hard the doctor staggered dangerously near the lip of the rocky shelf. The man's smile was calculating as he raised his hand for a second blow, strong enough to finish matters.
"No!" Jalika cried, leaping between Bashir and her father's henchman. She seized Julian in her arms and brought him away from the edge, holding his assailant at bay with a ferocious glare.
"See that he shuts up, then," the man said, and returned to his post at Borilak Selinn's side.
"I warned you," Jalika whispered to Julian while he blinked away stars and examined his throbbing jaw gingerly.
Borilak Selinn was smiling as if someone had just given him a gift. "You see, my friends?" he told his people. "A man who fears the words of honest men, that is this healer. Who knows what poor Belem learned of the man's true purpose here? Much evil may be done under cover of good deeds. Perhaps the boy knew nothing—did he deserve to die for what the healer thought he knew? Perhaps he knew everything, but refused to believe it because he felt that he was in the healer's debt. His loyalty did not save him. Borilak Belem trusted the healer Bashir. To trust him was to trust Starfleet; to trust Starfleet was to trust the provisional government; to trust them was to die." He turned his back on the crowd, signaling that he had said all he needed to say, for the moment. The mob below cheered wildly.
Jalika nudged Julian. "Now it is your turn."
Still somewhat stunned, Dr. Bashir walked carefully to the edge of the stone shelf and gazed down. He saw hate and suspicion on every upturned face. No matter what I say, they won't believe me, he realized. Borilak Selinn has fixed it so they can't believe me. The only thing my speech will earn me is a few more minutes of life. He looked back at Jalika. She glimmered like a dream in the cavern light. I have to try.
"I did not kill Belem," he said. The simple declaration brought hoots and jeers from the chamber floor. "If I did want him dead, why would I do it so crudely? I could have healed him, been safely on my way, only to have him die through some—some—" He shrugged. "I don't know, some delayed release poison I'd left behind in his blood."
"How do we know that you didn't do that, too?" someone called from below.
"Yes, the injections he gave us!" someone else agreed. "How do we know what they'll really do to us, given time?"
Bad move, Julian, Dr. Bashir thought as the crowd seized on his words and warped them out of all recognition. Stupid move. Maybe I should just take one little step now and put an end to this before I put my foot in my mouth up to the knee. The thought of stepping off the ledge was not even half-serious, but judging from some of the things Borilak Selinn's followers were now shouting, he knew that taking that one small step might spare him a far longer, far more painful death.
"Let him speak!" Jalika's voice, normally so soft and gentle, rang out through the hall and stunned the mob to silence. "Is this how you honor our laws? He has the right to be heard." A few diehards muttered excuses for the outburst, but most of the people did not say another word.
Jalika stared hard at her father. "I ask for the right of testimony," she said. Her tone made it clear that she would not accept a negative reply. Her father sullenly waved her his consent.
She walked proudly to the brim of the precipice and took Julian's hand where all the people could see. "I have been your healer. I was trained as a healer in the holy Temple. There I was taught that the Prophets offer vision and revelation, but we must seek our own answers within them and within ourselves. Is there a certainty except that no certainty exists? We are not the Prophets. Our answers are sometimes flawed."
She squeezed Julian's hand. "When I was your sole healer, there were times when my patients died. Why did no one speak of my dark motives? When Borilak Belem fell ill, I did not know how to heal him. Why was I not accused of murder for the same crime as Dr. Bashir? He and I are both healers. Why can't you accept the simple fact that no healer can cure all the ills we must endure?"
"How do you compare yourself to him?" a strident voice piped up. At least one of Dr. Bashir's foes had regained the courage to interrupt. "You're one of us! He's an outsider, he's Starfleet, he's—"
"Healer!" The call echoed from the mouth of one of the tunnels that fed into the vast hall. A man came running in at a clumsy lope. He held the limp body of a child in his arms. "Healer, this boy came staggering out of the woods and collapsed at our feet. He looks like he's from one of the camps. He's moaning with pain and he's had convulsions at least three times on the way here."
"Bring him up," Borilak Selinn directed. "My daughter will heal him."
As the man sought the spiral passageway up to the ledge, Jalika said loudly enough for all to hear, "Are you sure I should, Father? What if he has the camp fever? You forbade me to care for Belem as soon as you suspected what his illness was. You were afraid I would catch it too."
"You can't catch it now," Borilak Selinn snapped. "You were inoculated by—" He stopped, but it was too late.
"—by the healer Bashir," Jalika concluded in triumph. "So you do trust his remedies enough to let me touch a fever victim?" The crowd below heard, and the murmuring began again just as the guard emerged onto the platform. He laid the child down at Jalika's feet. "No," she said. "I trust Dr. Bashir, too." She stepped aside and addressed the crowd: "May the Prophets show us this man's innocence through the life or death of this child."
Julian approached the body cautiously, reaching for his diagnostic instrument as he knelt to perform his examination. The child lay with one arm thrown across his face. Dr. Bashir moved it away and raised the silvery wand to begin his work.
"Boo!" shouted Cedra, bolting upright and slapping the comm badge onto Julian's chest. It tilted at a lopsided angle, but it clung securely. With a whoop of glee, Cedra touched his own hidden comm badge. "Now!"
Borilak Selinn's men almost ran over the edge of the stone gallery as they rushed forward to try seizing two quickly fading transporter-stolen phantoms.

 

CHAPTER 14

JALIKA THREADED HER WAY over the stepping-stones bridging an underground stream. She found Julian, as she knew she would, under a spray of rock the shape and color of a willow's trailing curtain of branches.
"He is looking for you" she said.
Juian raised his head. His eyes were red and the marks of tears were still evident on his face. "Why didn't you bring him here with you?"
She settled herself beside him on a cold outcropping of stone. "This place is mine. I choose who shares it." She took his hand. "Are you prepared?"
"I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. Why must I prepare?"
"He will make terrible accusations against you."
A humorless smile curved Dr. Bashir's lips. "Is that necessary? Can't he simply order my execution?"
"Here such decisions of life or death must be made with the agreement of all. So the Prophets have taught us. Father leads by consent. He never tires of telling me that his powers of persuasion won him his place and keep it for him. It is true; I have seen it to be true. He has yet to ask something of our people that they have refused him." Her fingers dug into Dr. Bashir's flesh. "Julian, I am afraid for you."
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Don't be." He stood and stretched until his hands brushed the damp, shiny curve of pale green stone overhead. "Let's go."
Jalika conducted Dr. Bashir to a part of the caverns he had never seen before. Here there were higher, wider, more open spaces in the rock, huge chambers hollowed by the hand of nature from the living mountain. Cressets of oil burned in metal holders, but in some places the stone itself gave off an eerie glow that provided light enough for human sight. Dr. Bashir thought he could have gazed on so much beauty forever.
"Up here," Jalika said, turning aside from the great hall of stone yawning before them. She took him up a winding way where rocky inclines lay slippery underfoot in spite of scatterings of dirt laid down for traction. Where the water ran most heavily, the dirt quickly melted into mud, making the way even more treacherous than before. A pickax had bitten handholds out of the walls, and Dr. Bashir clung to them gratefully. Jalika's graceful form seemed to dance up the narrow ramp ahead of him, her tiny feet sure as if they moved over carpet instead of slick stone.
They emerged on a platform high above the floor of the huge cavern chamber. It was a natural balcony, though without railings or any barrier to keep an incautious visitor from missing a step and plummeting from the little lip of rock to the stone so far below. Dr. Bashir did not suffer from a fear of heights, but even he felt better standing with the wall to his back, as far from the edge of the precipice as he could get.
Borilak Selinn had no such need for security. The hill fighter chief stood between two of his burliest warriors, a pace from the edge. Jalika's father was no longer dressed in the utilitarian shirt and trousers he and all the cavern dwellers favored; now he wore robes, faded and old yet steeped in an air of grim formality. His escorts, too, were clad in ceremonial garb and the phasers at their sides were accompanied by swords. Such weapons would be useless in the confines of the cavern tunnels; their purpose was to impress, not defend. Looking at those three awaiting him, Dr. Bashir could not deny the gravity of his situation.
A low rumble came from the chamber beneath the stone balcony. Dr. Bashir took a few tentative steps nearer the brink and saw the hall filling with people. When the influx dwindled to a trickle, Borilak Selinn faced the massed crowd and raised both hands high for silence.
Dr. Bashir did not understand a word of the hill fighter chief's first speech to his followers. The intonation was Bajoran, but the words were alien. For the first time he regretted that he not longer wore his comm badge, with its accompanying translation capabilities.
"It is the old tongue," Jalika said softly. "Father was a scholar in the capitol, before the Cardassians killed his family. He too was supposed to have entered service in the Temple. Instead he joined the Resistance."
"Couldn't he have returned to his studies after the Cardassians were expelled?" Bashir asked, still listening to Borilak Selinn's oration. He was almost certain he could understand some of the antiquated words now. The Bajoran way of saying treachery had changed remarkably little between the old tongue and the new.
"He wanted to," Jalika said. "But when the provisional government was established, he felt betrayed. There are interests now represented in the council that dealt willingly with the Cardassians. He wants the government purified, for the sake of all those who died during the occupation."
"Your father is a man of ideals," Julian commented. "Someone should tell him that he'd accomplish more to advance his cause if he borrowed a little practicality. If he shuns the provisional government completely, he misses the chance to affect it. He hasn't enough followers to overthrow it directly and he knows it, or he wouldn't be lurking in the hills. If his knowledge and powers of persuasion are half as impressive as you say, he ought to bring them to the capitol and put them to work where they might do much good."
Jalika sighed. "He does not believe that his efforts can achieve anything indirectly."
"Ah." Julian felt a passing qualm—nothing he could put a reason behind. Before he could ponder it, Borilak Selinn finished his formal opening exhortation and returned to the common language.
"The healer Bashir is accused of the death of our brother, Borilak Belem," he said. The words broke over Bashir's head like a thunderclap.
"Borilak—?" he whispered to Jalika. "But Belem had no family name …"
"Father knew. He gave him ours when the boy joined us." Her hand stole into his. "He had no son, Julian."
Her father saw her take the doctor's hand. His scowl was terrifying and his tone grew even more fierce. "Who here does not know the trust and duty of a healer?" he demanded of his followers. "That his gifts be shared without prejudice or measure among all who come to him for aid. You have all witnessed the effects of this man's gifts. The fever of which we heard, the fever which we so feared sought us out in spite of our seclusion. Many of you burned with it, many of you would have died of it." He wheeled to point a finger at Dr. Bashir. "You know this man! You knew him long before he came among us. The same tales that came from the camps where our brethren suffer—the tales of the wasting fever without a cure—these tales soon changed from cries of despair to prayers of hope because of this man!"
"Whose case is your father pleading?" Julian whispered to Jalika. "He sounds like he's taken my side."
"Wait," Jalika said, miserable.

"How did Commander Sisko ever get talked into this?" Odo muttered as he and Major Kira climbed the mountain slope, scrambling to keep up with Cedra. "This is not the place for a child."
"Cedra disagreed," the liaison officer responded. "He can be very convincing when he wants to be. Commander Sisko started out against the boy coming with us; then before you knew it, he gave his approval. He had to: Cedra's plan for bringing Dr. Bashir back once we find him won't work without Cedra."
Odo snorted. "Why do we need any sort of plan in the first place? Once we find the doctor, you deliver Commander Sisko's orders for his return. Unless you think he'll disobey a direct command?"
"He's too good a Starfleet officer for that." Kira pushed her way through the bush. "And he's too good a doctor. When he hears we need him back aboard to save Talis Dejana's life, he'll come; that's not the problem. It's making sure he stays put once he's healed her."
"You don't expect him to do that?"
"No, to be honest, I don't. You've never seen a refugee camp, Odo. You've never seen the children who are forced to live there. Neither had Dr. Bashir. Lieutenant Dax told me all about how shocked he was, and how he threw himself into his work—one man trying to right the biggest injustice he'd ever seen. If that was you, would you be able to turn your back on a job that was less than half-finished?"
"Yet you say he would never disobey orders," Odo reminded her.
"Have you noticed, Odo? There's no order so direct, so specific, that a determined person can't reinterpret it to suit his own purposes." She gave him a meaningful look. Odo became uneasy. "That was—it was vital to solving the case. Besides, it was a single incident that happened long ago. I did not disobey—"
"Sure you didn't." Kira's smile was there and gone. "But you do see what I mean about Dr. Bashir." Odo grumped something unintelligible and continued to toil up the slope.
"Anyway," Kira went on, "it doesn't look like our doctor's in a situation where we can just walk in, give him his orders, and walk out again. There are reports of political splinter groups in this area—former Resistance fighters who don't support the provisional government. No one's exactly sure of their affiliations. The council treats them all as potential subversives."
"With a warm welcome like that waiting for them I'm surprised they don't come streaming out of the hills" was Odo's acerbic comment. "And where do they stand on the question of Bajor joining the Federation?"
"I don't know."
"Wonderful."
"Hurry up," Cedra hissed from above. "What's taking you two so long?" The boy clung to a small tree growing out of the mountainside at a crazy angle. "We haven't got time."
Major Kira caught hold of one of the tree's lower branches and hauled herself up behind the trunk to catch her breath. She turned to give a hand to Odo, but he was nowhere to be seen. The shapeshifter had come up with his own solution to the unfriendly terrain. A nimblefooted hyurin scurried past Major Kira and Cedra, leaving them to follow it through the trees into a small clearing slightly higher up the hillside. There it stopped and shot back into the familiar form of Odo.
"I don't know why I didn't think of doing that sooner," he remarked. To Major Kira he said, "Are we almost there?"
"Yes, we are," Cedra replied. Neitherone of the adults paid any attention to him.
Kira took a reading on her tricorder, sweeping the territory ahead. "There's an entrance to a series of caverns about a hundred meters in that direction. That's where the sensors picked up Dr. Bashir's life signs. No wonder Chief O'Brien said it looked like the man was under several layers of rock. All we have to do is locate Dr. Bashir inside the caverns, get a comm badge on him, and signal the runabout. The transporter aboard the Ganges is programmed to home in on the comm signals without having to use the long-range sensors to spot us."
"How simple. And all we have to do to reach Dr. Bashir is explain to any of the cavern residents that we mean them no harm, we've just come looking for a friend."
"Odo, you know that's where Cedra's plan comes in. Sometimes your cynical attitude gets a bit old," Kira said.
"I would like to get old, too," the shapeshifter replied.
Cedra made an impatient sound. The Bajoran boy had climbed one of the trees and was sitting on a branch, swinging his legs. "Nothing bad's going to happen. Didn't you listen when I explained it all to Commander Sisko?"
"I was too busy asking myself what possessed him to consent to this ludicrous arrangement," Odo said. "I suppose it didn't hurt to have his son take your side," he added grudgingly.
"It's a good plan and he would have approved it with or without Jake's support," Cedra snapped. He dropped lightly from the tree. "Commander Sisko wouldn't approve a plan—any plan—if he didn't think it would work. Not when something so important depends on it working. You know how he always thinks things through."
I do, Kira thought. But how do you? You've hardly known him a week. She itched with the same peculiar feeling she'd gotten when Talis Cedra explained how he'd located his sister by scent alone.
"More of that invaluable Starfleet training in action," Odo drawled.
"I like Starfleet," Cedra remarked casually. "Commander Sisko said I'd make a good recruit. Maybe I'll do that, join up, go to the Academy"—he gave Odo an arch look—"and come back to DS9 as your new commander."
"I can hardly wait," Odo said through his teeth.
"In the meantime, you do your part and I'll show you how well I do mine."
"All right. Sit down over there where there's some light." As Cedra obediently sat on a nearby boulder and Major Kira kept watch, Odo unpacked a small box from his belt.
"This must be a change for you," Kira said, glancing over Odo's shoulder as the shapeshifter deployed the assorted jars, tubes, and pencils of a makeup kit. "I hope you're as good at changing someone else's looks as you are your own," she joked.
"There have been many times during my tenure aboard the station when I needed more than one member of Security to work undercover," Odo replied testily. He gave Cedra's skin an unwholesome pallor, then darkened the circles under the boy's eyes and created deep hollows under his cheekbones. "All we require is for him to look ill. That's a simple transformation." He studied Cedra critically. "I've done my best. See that you can act as sick as you look."
Cedra grinned. "Don't worry about my acting talents, Constable."
"He looks awful," Kira said, impressed.
"Thank you," said Odo. As a last touch, he tucked a comm badge between the layers of the deliberately tattered and filthy clothes Cedra wore. "That one's yours. You remember what to do with it?"
Cedra made a face as if to say he'd remember long after Odo had forgotten. "Lose it and I get left behind. I'm ready."
Major Kira checked her tricorder. "There are four sentries, two in plain sight near the cave mouth, two on patrol." She and Odo set their phasers on stun, in case some mischance let the patrolling guards stumble upon them before they could use the sensor warnings to evade them. "That seems to be all. Funny … Most of the life-sign readings are coming from one central area inside the caverns. Dr. Bashir's there too." She shrugged. "We can use luck like that. Do you have the comm badge for Dr. Bashir, Cedra?"
The boy nodded; he showed her the glittering Starfleet insignia before hiding it under his rags. "One for him, one for me."
"Then good luck." She stooped and gave the child a hasty kiss.
"Don't smear the makeup," said Odo.

Dr. Bashir felt as if his legs had turned to jelly. Jalika was right—her father was an excellent orator. From an opening that seemed to do nothing but praise Dr. Bashir's medical triumphs among the hill fighters, he skillfully forged those same words of praise into a sword that was pointed right at Julian's heart.
"He has saved so many!" Borilak Selinn cried. "Why, then, could he not save one? One boy—little more than a child—a child who suffered from the same fever he cured so many times before!"
"But it wasn't the same fever," Julian muttered. "It would have responded to the vaccine if it were."
"My friends—" The Bajoran's tone softened from rant to purr."—I know what you ask now. You ask why he would do such a thing. To kill a child—! All we have heard before of this Federation healer speaks of his selflessness, his compassion, of the countless children who owe him their lives. Why does Borilak Belem owe him his death?"
A murmur of speculation rose from the cavern floor to meet the question. Borilak Selinn allowed it to die down before he went on.
"You might as well ask yourselves why you are here, dwelling in caves, undergoing hardship, living far from even the most basic comforts. Why have you made this choice? Because you are people of honor. Because you did not fight—your loved ones did not die at the hands of the Cardassians—to have everything you hold dear destroyed by the perfidious and subtle agents of the so-called provisional government!" This time a roar of approval went up from the crowd below.
"Who is this man, this healer?" Borilak Selinn demanded. "Who is he, really? He wears the uniform of Starfleet—the same Starfleet that woos and coddles the very leaders who are taking Bajor down the path of ruin. What do these Starfleet people care for true Bajorans? All that they want is to have guaranteed access to the wormhole, and they'll pact with whoever can give it to them. Justice can hang, righteousness can perish for all they care. The provisional government offers them the wormhole and in exchange they give the provisional government their souls."
"My God," Julian said, the muscles of his jaw tightening. "What a pack of lies." He started forward, but Jalika held him back.
"You may not speak yet. If you try, Father's attendants will stop you. If there is even the smallest show of a struggle, they will use it to their advantage and see that you fall to your death. To the others, it will look like an accident." She twined her arm through his. "Do not give him what he wants, Julian. Your turn to speak will come."
Dr. Bashir bit his lip and said nothing.
"Where did this healer come from?" Borilak Selinn continued. "From the same camp as Borilak Belem! You all know this is true: the boy spoke of his past freely. He had nothing to hide. Perhaps that was what this man feared—that Belem's honest nature would compel him to reveal the true reason for the healer Bashir's presence in our midst."
"This is too much! You brought me here by force, dammit!" Dr. Bashir exploded, despite Jalika's attempts to quiet him. "You're filling your followers' ears with fairy tales and the one person who can testify against you is dead!"
One of Borilak Selinn's men moved forward and backhanded Julian across the face so hard the doctor staggered dangerously near the lip of the rocky shelf. The man's smile was calculating as he raised his hand for a second blow, strong enough to finish matters.
"No!" Jalika cried, leaping between Bashir and her father's henchman. She seized Julian in her arms and brought him away from the edge, holding his assailant at bay with a ferocious glare.
"See that he shuts up, then," the man said, and returned to his post at Borilak Selinn's side.
"I warned you," Jalika whispered to Julian while he blinked away stars and examined his throbbing jaw gingerly.
Borilak Selinn was smiling as if someone had just given him a gift. "You see, my friends?" he told his people. "A man who fears the words of honest men, that is this healer. Who knows what poor Belem learned of the man's true purpose here? Much evil may be done under cover of good deeds. Perhaps the boy knew nothing—did he deserve to die for what the healer thought he knew? Perhaps he knew everything, but refused to believe it because he felt that he was in the healer's debt. His loyalty did not save him. Borilak Belem trusted the healer Bashir. To trust him was to trust Starfleet; to trust Starfleet was to trust the provisional government; to trust them was to die." He turned his back on the crowd, signaling that he had said all he needed to say, for the moment. The mob below cheered wildly.
Jalika nudged Julian. "Now it is your turn."
Still somewhat stunned, Dr. Bashir walked carefully to the edge of the stone shelf and gazed down. He saw hate and suspicion on every upturned face. No matter what I say, they won't believe me, he realized. Borilak Selinn has fixed it so they can't believe me. The only thing my speech will earn me is a few more minutes of life. He looked back at Jalika. She glimmered like a dream in the cavern light. I have to try.
"I did not kill Belem," he said. The simple declaration brought hoots and jeers from the chamber floor. "If I did want him dead, why would I do it so crudely? I could have healed him, been safely on my way, only to have him die through some—some—" He shrugged. "I don't know, some delayed release poison I'd left behind in his blood."
"How do we know that you didn't do that, too?" someone called from below.
"Yes, the injections he gave us!" someone else agreed. "How do we know what they'll really do to us, given time?"
Bad move, Julian, Dr. Bashir thought as the crowd seized on his words and warped them out of all recognition. Stupid move. Maybe I should just take one little step now and put an end to this before I put my foot in my mouth up to the knee. The thought of stepping off the ledge was not even half-serious, but judging from some of the things Borilak Selinn's followers were now shouting, he knew that taking that one small step might spare him a far longer, far more painful death.
"Let him speak!" Jalika's voice, normally so soft and gentle, rang out through the hall and stunned the mob to silence. "Is this how you honor our laws? He has the right to be heard." A few diehards muttered excuses for the outburst, but most of the people did not say another word.
Jalika stared hard at her father. "I ask for the right of testimony," she said. Her tone made it clear that she would not accept a negative reply. Her father sullenly waved her his consent.
She walked proudly to the brim of the precipice and took Julian's hand where all the people could see. "I have been your healer. I was trained as a healer in the holy Temple. There I was taught that the Prophets offer vision and revelation, but we must seek our own answers within them and within ourselves. Is there a certainty except that no certainty exists? We are not the Prophets. Our answers are sometimes flawed."
She squeezed Julian's hand. "When I was your sole healer, there were times when my patients died. Why did no one speak of my dark motives? When Borilak Belem fell ill, I did not know how to heal him. Why was I not accused of murder for the same crime as Dr. Bashir? He and I are both healers. Why can't you accept the simple fact that no healer can cure all the ills we must endure?"
"How do you compare yourself to him?" a strident voice piped up. At least one of Dr. Bashir's foes had regained the courage to interrupt. "You're one of us! He's an outsider, he's Starfleet, he's—"
"Healer!" The call echoed from the mouth of one of the tunnels that fed into the vast hall. A man came running in at a clumsy lope. He held the limp body of a child in his arms. "Healer, this boy came staggering out of the woods and collapsed at our feet. He looks like he's from one of the camps. He's moaning with pain and he's had convulsions at least three times on the way here."
"Bring him up," Borilak Selinn directed. "My daughter will heal him."
As the man sought the spiral passageway up to the ledge, Jalika said loudly enough for all to hear, "Are you sure I should, Father? What if he has the camp fever? You forbade me to care for Belem as soon as you suspected what his illness was. You were afraid I would catch it too."
"You can't catch it now," Borilak Selinn snapped. "You were inoculated by—" He stopped, but it was too late.
"—by the healer Bashir," Jalika concluded in triumph. "So you do trust his remedies enough to let me touch a fever victim?" The crowd below heard, and the murmuring began again just as the guard emerged onto the platform. He laid the child down at Jalika's feet. "No," she said. "I trust Dr. Bashir, too." She stepped aside and addressed the crowd: "May the Prophets show us this man's innocence through the life or death of this child."
Julian approached the body cautiously, reaching for his diagnostic instrument as he knelt to perform his examination. The child lay with one arm thrown across his face. Dr. Bashir moved it away and raised the silvery wand to begin his work.
"Boo!" shouted Cedra, bolting upright and slapping the comm badge onto Julian's chest. It tilted at a lopsided angle, but it clung securely. With a whoop of glee, Cedra touched his own hidden comm badge. "Now!"
Borilak Selinn's men almost ran over the edge of the stone gallery as they rushed forward to try seizing two quickly fading transporter-stolen phantoms.