He should normally have returned to the wardroom, but he had no desire to continue the meeting with the Alphans; something about them unnerved him, as if he had suddenly become psychic and could sense bad vibes coming from the two humans. The truth, as he himself had the lucidity to recognise, was that Nerys' reaction to Verdeschi at the airlock had upset him. She had returned the man's frank, appraising stare with a smile, and the sort of look she used to give Shakaar or Bareil -- the constable had been fighting an urge to physically assault Verdeschi ever since. (2)

Odo liked to think he wasn't a jealous man. He wasn't a man, for one thing, he was a Changeling and jealousy was the sort of irrational, disorderly feeling he shouldn't be letting himself experience. It would cloud his judgement and make him unreasonable. But in spite of his rational determination not to jump to the wrong conclusions, Odo was very, very jealous of anyone Kira showed interest in.

He was intelligent enough to realise this was due to his insecurity where Kira was concerned. Even though they were now lovers, some part of Odo still couldn't accept the idea that she might indeed share his feelings. After all, he had loved her for years and she had never loved him then. He had known from the very moment he met her that he loved her, and that he would never love anyone else as intensely, as completely as he did her. But she hadn't felt the same way, and over the years, he had become convinced that she never would. He had even accepted the idea, going so far as to become her confidant when she had love troubles of her own.

But then, one day, Nerys had discovered how he felt about her. She said that had changed her opinion of him. She said that over the next year, she had come to realise that she loved him too, until, recently, she had accepted him as a lover. Odo wanted desperately to believe that she did love him. But he didn't. He wasn't sure. Maybe she was just pretending because she was lonely, because he made her feel safe, because she was feeling old and needed someone, anyone. Maybe she wasn't pretending; maybe she really believed what she said she felt. But maybe it wasn't true.

For Odo, love was a unique and uncompromising feeling. He loved Kira. He had always loved Kira. He knew that if he lost her, he would never love another the way he loved her. He couldn't 'learn' to love someone; he either loved or he didn't. There was no middle ground for him, no grey area where friendship could turn into true love. From the moment Kira was first pointed out to him, a bedraggled Bajoran queuing up for some gruel on the Cardassian-occupied station, Odo had felt total, absolute love for her. Deep in his liquid insides, Odo believed that, if Kira loved him as much as he loved her, she would have known straight away. He wouldn't have had to wait so many years. (3)

Whether she was pretending or not, Odo did enjoy Kira's attention; even if she didn't love him, being with her was better than nothing. He was quite willing to accept anything she gave him; friendship, affection, whatever was on offer made him happy. But he lived in fear: if Kira didn't love him, there was always the possibility she would meet someone she really did love. Odo was sure that some day some worthless humanoid like Verdeschi would come sauntering into her life and take her away from him. All it would take was a glance like the one he had seen her exchange with the Alphan, and he would lose her forever. It made him angry that life could be so cruel.

He was in the midst of these mournful thoughts when his commbadge chimed and one of his deputies called him. "Sir, we've found a Shapeshifter on the Promenade, outside Quark's."

Pausing only to call Sisko and pass on this information, Odo ran out and joined the deputy at the bar. "What happened?"

"I saw this Terran mouse running along the wall," explained the Bajoran. "You told us to keep an eye out for any unusual animals, so N'Dar and I tried to catch it and it transformed into some kind of bird and flew away... There it is!"

Odo looked to where the man was pointing. The bird -- a Terran dove, from what Odo could see -- was flying over the second level, near the windows which looked out onto the Moon. As he watched, a soldier from the Bajoran Militia ran towards the bird; the animal changed course and flew out above the opening that dropped to the lower level of the Promenade. The soldier drew his disrupter and fired.

The creature fell to the ground with a dull thud and a sickening crack of bones. The Promenade was filled with people come to repair the damage caused when the station's stabilisers had failed, and it wasn't long before a crowd had gathered around to stare at the injured Shapeshifter. Odo ordered his deputies to disperse the crowd and pushed forward through the throng to reach the creature.

It was lying on the ground, still shaped like a dove, albeit a heavily injured one, but as Odo watched, its shape began to change. By Starfleet orders, all weapons carried on the station were to be set to stun, not kill, so Odo suspected that the Shapeshifter had merely been rendered unconscious before its fall. The consequences of the fall, however, were more difficult to assess; a Changeling dropping from that height would have suffered no injuries, thanks to its liquid constitution. But this creature looked quite badly hurt.

As the creature stirred, one of the deputies pulled out his disrupter, ready to shoot the Shapeshifter again, but Odo halted him with a wave of the hand. Instead of morphing seamlessly into its new shape, as a Changeling would have done, the creature dissolved briefly into a haze which slowly expanded until it was the size of a humanoid. The haze gradually became focused again, as if the creature's molecules were coalescing back into solid form.

The form that appeared was that of a young humanoid woman with pale skin and long red hair. Her features were unfamiliar to Odo; instead of the hairy eyebrows of most humanoids species, she had a series of what looked like moles growing above her eyes. Her cheekbones were underlined by a streak of brown skin on either side of her face. In spite of her recent transformation, she appeared to be unconscious. Her face was bruised and scratched, but there was no consistent pattern to the injuries, as if she had been poked at random.

Odo heard Quark's familiar voice behind him. "Who is she? Is that the Changeling you were all shouting about?"

Odo gave the Ferengi a contemptuous glare and then knelt down beside the alien. Automatically responding to her humanoid form, he felt for a pulse on her wrist. To his surprise, he found one.

"Well, whatever she is, she's definitely not a Changeling," said Odo. Letting go of the creature's hand, he tapped his commbadge. "Odo to Infirmary. Please send a medical team to the Promenade."

Quark crouched down beside Odo. "Hmm. She's quite pretty. I wonder where she came from."

"I think it's pretty obvious," answered the constable, looking up at the grey asteroid visible through the upper windows.

The alien was wearing a uniform similar to the Alphans'; she had the same tunic as Verdeschi, beige with scarlet highlights, although she wore no jacket. The bottom part of her uniform was a skirt -- an unusual feature in modern clothing -- and her beige boots reached almost to her knees. Odo noticed that she also had the same tiny screen device on her belt; it bore the inscription MAYA, which Odo assumed was the alien's name. There could be no doubt that the Alphans had used this woman to spy on the people on Deep Space Nine. To a certain extent, Odo was pleased by the discovery: it gave him a legitimate reason to distrust the Alphans, other than his irrational jealousy about Verdeschi and Kira.

"She's coming round," said Quark, pointing at her. "Maybe she can tell us who she is now. I'd certainly like to make her acquaintance."

The woman was beginning to stir, her breathing becoming irregular as she regained consciousness. In spite of his suspicions concerning her mission on the station, Odo observed her with interest. The Federation had encountered one or two shapeshifting species other than the Founders, but Odo himself had never met any that did not come from his own people. He was curious to find out how a solid humanoid could change shape as easily as a Changeling.

As he watched her, the alien opened her eyes and blinked a few times, bringing her hand up to her forehead as she winced with pain.

"What happened to me?" she asked in a groggy voice.

"You were stunned," explained Odo.

"Oh? I thought that was the effect I usually had on people," she murmured weakly, closing her eyes again.

Odo was completely baffled by this statement, but he heard Quark mutter, "Yeah, I'll bet."

"What do you bet?" asked Odo.

"Come on, Odo. I know you're with Major Kira now, but you have to admit this girl is pretty." Odo looked down at the woman's pointed nose and high cheekbones and failed to see what Quark was talking about. Perhaps realising that the Changeling was missing the point, Quark continued, "And she has a sense of humour, too! I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know her better when she wakes up," he concluded, absently rubbing one of his sizeable ears.

Odo growled impatiently and turned his attention back to the woman, who seemed to have slipped into unconsciousness again. "If she wakes up..."

"Aw, come on, Odo, I'm sure she'll be fine. Doctor Bashir will patch her up in no time. In fact, here he is now!"

Having checked that the woman's pulse was still stable, Odo looked up and saw Captain Sisko coming towards them, followed by Doctor Bashir. As soon as they had made their way through the crowd -- which had reformed in spite of the Militia's efforts -- Bashir knelt down beside the alien to scan her.

"This isn't a Changeling," he declared, evidently puzzled by the readings on his tricorder. "In fact, I'm unable to identify her species. Where did she come from?"

Odo stood up and crossed his arms, thoughtfully observing the Moon. The distant light from the Bajoran sun cast dark shadows on the pockmarked asteroid as it loomed ominously above the station.

"I don't know," he answered, "but I have a feeling the Alphans do."

"She's wearing clothing similar to theirs," agreed Sisko. "I left the Alphans with Dax and Kira, but I have a feeling I'll be having another little conversation with Messrs Koenig and Verdeschi very soon."

"I'm not surprised to find they were spying on us," said Odo succinctly. Sisko looked dubious, but said nothing.

Bashir had finished scanning the alien. "She's had a bad fall as well as being stunned; I have to take her to the Infirmary. Computer," he called out. "Medical emergency. Two to beam to Infirmary."

Where was Tony when she needed him? Maya felt herself regaining consciousness and immediately remembered what had happened. She couldn't recall exactly how she had fallen to the ground, though she could imagine she had been shot down; but she knew she had talked to an alien with a very smooth face who had told her she had been stunned... Another brilliant idea gone wrong.

Now that she was conscious again, Maya set about the task of assessing her physical state. Every area of her body seemed to be experiencing some pain; Maya determined that virtually all the molecules she had used to create the shape of a dove had been damaged by her fall. Now that they were back in their natural position in her body, the massive wounds the "dove" had suffered were translated into numerous bruises and pinpoints of pain, as well as severe back and head injuries in Maya's humanoid form. If she had been awake when she turned back into her natural shape, she could have concentrated the injuries in one part of her body, but as her transformation had been unconscious, the molecules had been disseminated throughout her system.

Maya knew she needed to concentrate on repositioning the random damage to move the injured molecules into one area of her body which could then be treated by medical means. Although she had never quite mastered the technique to the point of being able to transform all the affected molecules into blood or pus that could be drained away, Maya was skilful enough to eliminate the pain in at least some areas of her body. Her current plan was to try and move as much of the damage away from her head as possible before she lost consciousness again.

She was about to start the process when she felt something on her face. It was as if some external force was reconstituting the broken cells of her skin. Still keeping her eyes closed to rest her damaged brain, Maya worked to make sense of what was happening to her. Her hearing was fuzzy, but she could smell that she was still on the Deep Space Nine station, though not on the Promenade. There was no smell of food and perfumes here, and none of the noise of people cleaning up damage. The scent was clean, perhaps a little clinical. They must have brought me to their medical centre, she thought. It must be a medical device.

"How do you feel?"

The voice was soft and as far as Maya could tell with her impaired hearing, the man speaking sounded concerned. I suppose even they would have caring doctors. Maya tried to pick up his scent; she could smell that he was human, but her olfactory senses were not developed enough for her to make out much more than that.

"Are you a doctor?" she asked hoarsely.

"Yes. I'm Doctor Bashir," said the soft voice. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Maya."

"Don't worry, Maya, you'll be fine."

"My brain is damaged. I need to clear it."

"I know. I'm going to run a regenerative scan on you; it'll repair as much of the internal damage as possible."

Against her better judgement, Maya opened her eyes and winced as the sudden influx of electrical impulses flooded her brain. "No! What does your regenerator do?"

The doctor who was leaning over her was a young brown-skinned human with a narrow face and soft dark eyes. Maya could tell he was surprised by her question.

"It automatically repairs ruptured tissues, dissolves blood clots, resets bones... It works by realigning and repairing damaged cells." He spoke in a calm, gentle voice with an accent similar to Tony's.

The thought of having her cells realigned by an unknown machine panicked Maya. For all she knew, it might fix them in place and stop her from morphing. "How will it know what's normal for me? Have you ever met people from my species?"

Bashir looked contrite. "No," he admitted. "But the scanner is calibrated to read your DNA and reconfigure its settings according to your own molecular structure. It's especially effective when treating humanoids."

"But I..." Maya instinctively hesitated before revealing her metamorphic skills, but then remembered that quite a crowd had seen her transform into a dove and then back to herself. "I can change my molecular structure at will; what if the machine modifies it? I might not be able to change again if it makes a mistake."

"I understand," said Bashir with a nod. "I don't want to impose any treatment on you that you don't want. You'll have to tell me what you need."

Maya smiled weakly. "Time to regenerate is what I need."

"Regenerate?" For some reason, her mention of the word made his eyes widen in renewed surprise, though he recovered quickly. "Is there a doctor on the Moon who could help you?"

So they know I'm from Alpha, she thought. I suppose it's pretty obvious. I wonder where Tony is.

"Doctor Helena Russell is the chief medical officer on Alpha," she said out loud.

Bashir said he would arrange for Helena to come over. In the meantime, he turned off the regenerator at Maya's request, and promised not to apply any of his other instruments to her until Helena was there. Closing her eyes, Maya began the painful and lengthy process of regenerating her body.

"She said she was regenerating," explained Bashir as he came back into his office. Odo was waiting for him there, and the doctor couldn't help wondering just how similar Maya and Odo might be. Now that he had her on a biobed, Bashir was looking forward to analysing Maya, not of course to satisfy his curiosity, but so that he would know enough about her to help her convalescence. Though he could possibly write an interesting paper about her abilities...

"I heard her," said Odo. "Why did you suggest running the regenerator on her? You know it doesn't work on me."

"You have a fluctuating molecular structure with a lot of non-specialised cells," said Bashir as he observed Maya's monitors. "Whereas this Maya is completely humanoid when she isn't transforming. Look at her readouts. She could be from any number of species." He pointed at the outline of her bones on the image scan, assuming that those were the elements Odo was most likely to recognise. "Mind you, I don't see how the regenerator would affect her if beaming her into the Infirmary didn't."

"What's that?" asked Odo, indicating a bright patch on the scan of Maya's skull.

Bashir magnified the area and asked the computer for an analysis. He wasn't particularly surprised by the results, though it was fascinating to watch. "She's moving her damaged cells from her brain to another part of her body. So that's how she can heal herself..."

"I can't do that!" Odo seemed outraged that Maya might have a skill that he didn't master.

"You don't need to," Bashir told him. "You wouldn't fracture your skull if you fell from that height. You would--"

"Just go 'splat'?"

"Pardon?"

"Oh nothing, it was something Quark said," explained Odo with a wry smile. "But I suppose you're right; being a liquid makes me more resilient in some respects."

"Yes, it does. But this young lady is quite fascinating. Her brain stem is rather unusual," said Bashir, peering at the scan. The brain stem was unlike that of any humanoid he had encountered so far. Maybe that was the key to her ability to transform. "Fascinating..."

His musings were interrupted when he heard the Infirmary door open. Bashir turned to see Sisko enter in the company of two men the doctor did not recognise, though he assumed they were Commander Koenig and his first officer. Odo had already given him a brief description of the 'Alphans' as they called themselves.

"How is your patient doing, Doctor?" asked Sisko as he approached.

"She's regenerating," said Bashir. "She refused to let me use the regeneration scan, and said she could do it on her own."

The younger Alphan, whose name was Verdeschi as Bashir recalled, was standing in the doorway to the ward, watching Maya. "Yeah, sounds like Maya..."

"Doctor, this is Commander Koenig and his first officer, Mr. Verdeschi, of Moonbase Alpha," said Sisko, indicating the two men. "I've explained what happened."

"I take it this young lady is a member of your crew," said Odo, crossing his arms on his chest and regarding the two Alphans suspiciously.

Koenig fixed his blue eyes on Odo. "Maya is our science officer. She's a Metamorph from the planet Psychon," he explained coldly. "I understand you shot her down while she was flying. Captain Sisko said she was severely injured."

"Fortunately, her injuries aren't life-threatening," said Bashir gently, "and her regeneration process seems very effective. She did ask for your chief medical officer... a Doctor Helena Russell? I think it would help if she could come aboard."

"We sent our Eagle back to get her as soon as we heard about Maya," Koenig informed him. "She should be here within an hour. Now, Constable, Captain Sisko has explained to me that you're at war with an empire run by Metamorphs, but perhaps you can explain why you shot Maya without first checking what species she was from?"

The commander's voice was filled with barely concealed anger, and Bashir noticed that his hands were clenched. The doctor tensed up instinctively, bracing himself for the confrontation that would doubtless ensue.

"She was only supposed to be stunned: her injuries were an unfortunate accident," said Odo, narrowing his eyes. "Perhaps you can explain why she was spying on us in the first place."

Verdeschi approached, his expression menacing. "Precisely so that we could find out if you were the kind of people to shoot first and ask questions later -- I guess now we know!"

"Wait a minute," intervened Bashir, raising his hands. "It was an accident. Unfortunately, people do make mistakes in times of war."

"Doctor Bashir is right," enunciated Sisko, "I know the war is no excuse, and all I can do is apologise on behalf of the station for what happened to your officer." He gave Odo a quick glance as if to encourage him to apologise too, but the Shapeshifter did not seem inclined to do so.

"You must have known the risks she was running," growled the constable. "Even without the war, if we had turned out to be hostile, she could just as easily have been killed. You can't blame us if your mistake nearly cost her her life."

Verdeschi moved up until he was only a meter away from Odo. "And you can't blame us for taking some precautions," he declared. "We don't have any fancy sensors and the only way to know what's going on somewhere is to go and have a look."

"I take it this great plan was your idea?" sneered Odo.

Bashir was appalled at the constable's reaction, but it was Sisko who stepped in first to try and stop the argument. "Constable!"

"Yeah, it was as it happens," said Verdeschi forcefully, ignoring Sisko's intervention. "My job is to protect Alpha and I happen to take it very seriously. I need to take every opportunity I can to obtain what could be vital information about possible threats to our base."

Koenig grasped Verdeschi's arm as if to pull him back from his confrontation with Odo. The commander had apparently calmed down enough to realise that an argument would not be productive. "Tony, this isn't helping..."

"Including endangering the life of one of your crewmen, I see," retorted Odo as if nobody else but Verdeschi were in the room. Bashir was amazed to see the constable so hostile; he wondered what the Alphans had said or done to get Odo so angry.

"Believe me, if I could do what she does, I'd do it myself," spat out Verdeschi ruefully.

"Oh, so you often send your science officer on dangerous undercover missions, do you?"

"How dare you--?" started the Alphan, taking a step closer. If his commander's hand hadn't still been on his arm, Bashir was sure Verdeschi would have taken a swing at Odo.

Their voices were gradually becoming louder, and the doctor started to worry that they might wake Maya. "Gentlemen!" he intervened. "I suggest you go and have your argument somewhere else. This really isn't the place and my patient--"

"Tony."

It was the weak call from the next room which interrupted the argument far more effectively than Bashir's demand for calm. Verdeschi and Koenig both rushed into the ward, though the commander stopped at the foot of Maya's bed while his colleague went closer, taking her hand in his.

John Koenig was shocked to see the state Maya was in. Her beautiful features were covered in scratches, as if she had been dragged through a patch of brambles, and he could tell from her frown and the way she kept her eyes closed that she was in a great deal of pain. The sight disgusted him; it made him want to punish whoever had done this, or lash out at Bashir for his inadequate care, just do anything rather than stand, helpless, at the foot of her bed.

Looking at his first officer, John could imagine Tony was going through hell. Even though he and Maya were not 'going out', or so Tony said at least, they were very close, and John knew his friend had had some misgivings about taking Maya to Deep Space Nine in the first place.

"It's all right, Maya," said Tony gently, still holding her hand. "I'm here."

"Hmm... That's a great comfort," she said ironically, though John could see she was smiling.

Tony let go of her hand, his expression comically indignant. "Well, in that case, why did you call me?"

"To tell you to stop shouting!" she declared, her eyes still closed. "I'm regenerating, I need calm." Her hand reached out blindly, evidently searching for Tony's. He caught it and clasped it in his hands.

"Oh, we'll leave you to it, then, and go back to Alpha, shall we?" he teased with a half-smile. Although he was joking, his eyes never left her scratched face.

She ignored his comment and simply murmured, "At least my hearing is better... Commander? Is Helena coming?"

John approached and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Yes, Maya. Alan has gone to fetch her. Helena will be here soon." He only hoped Helena would know what to do; Bashir evidently had no idea, or he wouldn't have left Maya in such pain. Whatever universe they had come to, medical care didn't seem to be its forte.

"Good, we can have an Alphan reunion right here on Deep Space... Nine," said Maya drowsily. "Now I have some work to do..."

She winced, her skin folding into a deep line between the series of ridges she had in place of eyebrows. John gently brushed a strand of auburn hair off her forehead. Tony seemed too stricken to do anything but hold her hand.

"She needs to rest," said Bashir in his gentle English accent.

John reached across the bed to touch Tony's arm. "Come on, Tony; she'll be all right."

Tony nodded, his countenance completely devoid of its usual cheerfulness. They joined Bashir at the entrance. Despite his misgivings about the man's medical talent, John could tell that the doctor was sincerely concerned about Maya, and indeed about the two of them.

"Your commander is right," said Bashir, placing a friendly hand on Tony's arm. "She'll pull through. In fact, I'm sure she'll be better by tomorrow."

Tony seemed to clench his teeth as he looked away. "Yeah, thanks," he said shortly, his tone almost sarcastic. He took in a breath as if to say something else, but then caught John's eye and put on a wan smile. "Thanks," he repeated more politely.

"I'm sure you're doing what you can, Doctor," said John diplomatically, though he didn't get that feeling. Surely there had to be some kind of painkiller in this high-tech Infirmary.

"I'll be able to do even more when your Doctor Russell arrives," promised Bashir.

Doctor Helena Russell entered the Infirmary, and Bashir fell hopelessly in love.

She was beautiful. Clear grey-blue eyes, neat blonde hair, regular features that looked as though they might have come from the pen of an artist. She was probably a good ten years older than him, and she was also much shorter, but to Bashir, she was a vision of loveliness. He forgot all about his colleagues and the other two Alphans who were still there, and just stared at Russell.

Having been so rapidly infatuated, his heart was almost immediately broken when he saw the wedding ring on her finger. It didn't take him long to guess who she was married to.

"John!" she exclaimed as soon as she saw Koenig. "What happened? Alan said--"

"Maya was injured. She's regenerating herself, but we need you to keep an eye on her progress." Koenig put his hand on her shoulder, no doubt an involuntary gesture of possessiveness, and indicated Bashir.

The doctor felt his heart beat faster as Koenig introduced him. "This is Doctor Bashir, the station's chief medical officer. He has been monitoring Maya's status so far."

"Doctor Bashir," she said, directing a graceful smile at the love-struck doctor. She had a North-American accent, but all the poise and elegance of a British Lady -- not that Bashir had ever met a real Lady, but he had seen some in holoprograms.

"Please, call me Julian," he said a little too eagerly.

Bashir could sense Odo's quizzical blue gaze on him and felt a red wave of embarrassment light up his face. Not for the first time in his life, he was grateful that he had dark skin; if it had been as white as Kira's, for instance, he would have been walking around with a permanently red face. Why do I always behave like a complete prat? he asked himself desperately. The genetic engineering his parents had had performed on him when he was a child had evidently done nothing to improve his social graces.

Whatever she might be thinking of him, Russell didn't show any emotion on her impassive face. "Julian," she repeated. "Perhaps you can tell me more about Maya's condition?"

"I, ah, yes, of course. If you'll come with me..."

Talking to Doctor Russell as one professional to another was a lot easier, and Bashir began to relax and act less like an 'eager puppy', as Dax called him. He had to explain to Russell what most of the technology was, but once he had taught her how the monitor worked she set about reading it. After a moment, she shook her head.

"She's quite dehydrated; you need to apply a saline solution."

"Pardon?"

Russell was puzzled by his interruption. "Well, whatever you would use to rehydrate a person."

"Oh right," said Bashir, a little embarrassed that he hadn't been able to at least guess what she talking about. He hadn't been paying proper attention. "I wondered about putting her on the hydrator, but she refused any intervention on the grounds that I wouldn't know what she needs."

"Her needs aren't that special," said Russell with a smile. "You can rehydrate her the same way as you would any human her size."

"Understood." Bashir pressed the appropriate control; the biobed would automatically beam in the required moisture. Maya twitched momentarily, but then became still again. "She's very sensitive to any kind of treatment, isn't she?" remarked Bashir. "She could even feel the regenerator... that's one of our devices. Humanoids don't usually feel anything when I use it, but she did."

He turned to Russell and found her staring at the console he was using. Realising he was watching her, she looked up at him with a start. "Hmm? Oh yes, she has a complete awareness of every particle in her body. That's how she can metamorphose into different shapes, by visualising her individual molecules and then rearranging them to create the new form. Obviously, if you add or remove any part of her, she feels it."

Bashir was about to ask more about this, when Odo joined their conversation. "So she uses her mind to shapeshift from one solid form to another? That's interesting. I don't have to concentrate at all. I just change shape when I want to."

"You can change shape too?" asked Russell. "You don't look like a Psychon, but they're the only humanoids we've encountered who could do this. And Maya is the last of her species in our universe."

"I'm not a humanoid," said Odo shortly. For some reason, he looked at Verdeschi, as if daring him to say anything, but the Alphan simply looked away and remained silent.

Sensing that the Changeling was unwilling to discuss the subject any further, Bashir clapped his hands together rather noisily. "Now... I don't know if you realise this, but it's actually our evening now. Since Maya will have to stay in the Infirmary until she has recovered, I suggest you stay over here on the station. Now would be an ideal opportunity to get you some guest quarters, don't you think, Odo?"

It was a spur of the moment suggestion, but given how concerned the Alphans seemed for the well-being of their crewmate, he had a feeling they wouldn't want to leave her alone on the station anyway.

The Alphans were visibly surprised by the proposal, which Odo immediately backed up. "We can have some quarters prepared for you within half an hour," said the Changeling. "Including for your pilot, if he wants to leave his ship..."

Russell smiled at Odo and then looked at Koenig. "Mr. Odo was very surprised to find Alan was going to stay on the Eagle while I came here."

Koenig acknowledged her remark with a smile, but then glanced at Verdeschi and said, "I appreciate the offer, but I think it would be best if I returned to Alpha for the night. I feel I should be with the rest of my crew, and I need to update them on our situation over here. Helena, you can stay here with Tony and monitor Maya overnight. Alan and I will come back tomorrow. In the meantime, I think we're still within range to use our commlocks. You can call us if we're needed."

Russell immediately unclipped the device she wore on her belt and looked down at its tiny screen. "Yes, I'm still receiving Alpha's signal."

"You can always use one of our communicators," offered Bashir. "In case there was some interference... or something." It struck him as he made the offer that it would just sound like a lame excuse to make himself look good in Russell's eyes... which it was, he realised.

"Thank you," said Russell with a kind smile. She looked down at the device she was holding and then raised her eyes to Bashir again. "There was something else, Doctor... Julian. I was looking at your instruments, and I was wondering if you could perhaps clear something up for me." Bashir nodded. "It may seem like a stupid question... but what's the date today?"

Bashir was caught completely off-guard. "Ah... Well, it's stardate 51877.1..." Russell exchanged a puzzled glance with Koenig; realising they didn't understand the stardate, the doctor did some mental arithmetic and added, "...which makes it the evening of October 16, 2374."

The Alphans didn't seem particularly surprised. "The twenty-fourth century," said Russell, looking around at Bashir's instruments. "That makes sense."

"Why? What century do you come from?" asked Bashir.

"The twentieth," answered Russell. "The last time we saw our Earth was in 1999."