"Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes,

In his wrath he darted upward,

Flashing leaped into the sunshine,

Opened his great jaws and swallowed,

Both canoe and Hiawatha."

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha.)

Why was it that no language he'd ever learnt had words enough to describe such pain? Searing. Burning. Red-hot agony. Nothing could possibly ever come close.

The energy beam pierced his left ankle, scorching bone and muscle and surging along abused, overheated nerves. Julian fell to the floor of the vent and curled into a tight ball, mouth open unbearably wide in a broken, soundless scream. He'd heard his own cry, or believed that he had, although it had sounded more like a distant, guttural animal call - nothing that could have possibly come from himself. Not even echoes remained to testify that he'd ever had a voice to scream with, except that now his throat was dry and raw.

As he shuffled past, Lawrence Appleton threaded a hand through Bashir's hair and lifted his head a little way from the floor. Eyes watering so badly that he could barely distinguish the line of his attacker's head and shoulders, Julian forced them open just enough to look upon the outline of a face.

"It's nothing personal, you understand," the pale olive shape assured him. "No hard feelings. But I really can't have you coming after me."

The soft hiss behind them increased in volume. Appleton reacted, jerking around to face the source, and swore. "And now I have to go." His breath was warm, and smelt like something had been rotting between his teeth for over a week. Finally releasing his wounded captive, he crawled away and then was gone.

You can fight it, Bashir's tangled mind cried out to him. Limbs shaking almost too badly to take his weight, he pushed himself up by the nearest wall and forced back another agonised cry. Escape. Find escape. Stop it from hurting. Instinctive, unavoidable thoughts. But he didn't have time to be thinking them.

The noise remained, sharp and constant in the echoing corridor. He could almost believe that it was nothing more than the ringing of his ears, except that he'd already seen Appleton's response. Panting heavily, struggling to focus, he rested his back against the tunnel and looked around to find its source. And there it was - a carpet of solid white smoke already creeping towards him like an advancing army. He guessed it must already have been ankle deep.

Gas, he thought. Anesthizine? Neurocine? Or something even more disturbing. It hardly mattered. If he allowed it to spread to the rest of the station, the resulting casualties would certainly be dire.

The key was to get to a message to Ops, to seal off the network of tunnels before the advancing cloud had a chance to escape. The nearest companel was less than five metres away, set in place especially for emergencies such as this one - and he could still push through the pain. There was nothing wrong with his head or stomach. Not yet, anyhow. It was all the weight on that one damned ankle.

The floor lurched every time he moved. Pain washed over him in waves, like the chill of a Winter surf. But he hauled himself forward before leaning against the wall to close his eyes. Rest. But only for a few seconds. There was still a job he had to do.

He reached as far as he could and slapped the controls, before his limbs finally gave way and he crashed back against the solid floor. The muscles in his arms were weak and useless, screaming for respite. But now at least the channel was open.

"Bashir to…" He coughed. "Bashir to Ops."

The voice that answered was sharp, immediate - Kira's. "Julian! Where the Hell are you?"

His head felt fuzzy. He was short of breath. But that couldn't be right. The smoke was not supposed to reach him for at least… at least…

He realised then that he was trembling, cold and numb. Shock. You're in shock.

"Nerys…" He struggled to speak through chattering teeth. "Conduit. Somewhere. You… You have to seal…"

Needed to gather his fractured thoughts. They weren't usually this vague.

"Julian, are you all right?"

He chuckled, a weak, breathy sound. "I've been better."

"Sit tight. We're going to get you out of there."

"No," he insisted, forcing himself a little more upright. "You have to seal… you have to seal it. There's gas."

Less than a minute and it would reach him. Another minute after that and it would be at the nearest opening. Onto the station. They mustn't - he mustn't - let that happen.

There was talk at the other end. He knew what they were saying even when he couldn't distinguish their words. Sensor readings. Options. Transport? Something about interference… Someone had set up a suppression field. Frustration bubbled inside him, the edge of the cloud already touching his senses. A tainted, smoky odour like burning plastic. Or was he merely imagining it?

They would never get to him on time. But what could he say to make them understand?

Remembering only at the last minute that it was easier to crawl through Jeffries' tubes with his disrupter tucked neatly into his belt than it was to drag it awkwardly beside him in one half-open hand, Lawrence Appleton made a final left hand turn. Here - directly below him - was the open space of the cargo bay. He congratulated himself for having the foresight to study the layout of the run-down Cardassian station before his arrival, at least as thoroughly as the scant opportunity had allowed.

How could anyone stand to live here? he questioned the coldly lit silence. The corridors were dark, their prevailing colour a dull, depressing shade of grey, and every angle was sharp and uninviting as if the very walls were looking for their earliest chance to stab somebody.

The hatch was jammed a little on his first attempt to prise it open, and Appleton released a silent curse. Still, he'd managed to outrun the encroaching cloud this far. Now wasn't the time for panic to catch up with him. Frowning quietly, he paused to reflect. His feet could exert far greater pressure than his arms, but then the panel would drop all the way from ceiling to floor. And that would mean noise.

It was a chance that he would have to take. Back pressed flat against the topmost wall, he levered as hard as he could with the soles of his boots. The ground shifted - just a few millimetres. He pushed again.

The noise of hard surfaces colliding and reverberating was loud enough to hurt his ears. Heart pounding, jaw clenched, he ducked momentarily back inside the vent. But there was nothing to be heard but the steady monotone of dying metallic echoes. No sharp cries, no running footsteps, no loud buzz of phasers charging.

Safe, thought Appleton. The opportunity had come to make his escape.

"There's no time." The voice on the comm was soft, but insistent. Kira stared at Sisko. Her heart was thundering - she could feel it in her chest. The captain had instantly emerged from his office, descending the stairs with a speed that would have tripped a less athletic man. Now, his brow was tense with worry. And conflict. The others watched, anxious, anticipating. Already dreading his answer.

"We'll have to set up forcefields," he concluded after a brief silence that seemed to last forever. "Dax, I want you to see what you can do to break through the interference. But assuming that fails, is there any way that we can shunt the remaining cloud out to space?"

"Captain…" Miles O'Brien spoke from behind the transporter controls. Every face in Ops was pale.

Sisko glared at the chief, who was duly silenced. "Is there any way?"

"Not without losing all air to the Jeffries' tube." It was clear from O'Brien's reply that he did not regard this as a preferable option. Sisko did not look any happier from where Kira stood. But there was resolution behind his dark eyes.

O'Brien noticed it too. "Sir, with respect, you can't seriously be considering…"

"As soon as it's done, we'll flood the whole compartment with atmosphere," the captain told them. "I'm not about to give up on anyone. But if half of what we've been told is true, there's unlikely to be much breathable air left in there anyway, and I'm not prepared to allow it on to the rest of the station either. Chief?"

The lines tightened around O'Brien's mouth, but he nodded. "Aye, Sir."

Bashir listened to the captain's careful explanation of what they had finally planned to do. Dead from poisoned air, he thought. Or dead from lack of it. Not how he'd anticipated ending his days. He was too tired even to calculate the odds. Or at least, to calculate them beyond the scope of Not Good.

His chest continued to rise and fall, lungs burning with every breath. There was some chance, perhaps, that the nearest escape hatch was not as far as he imagined. But it was nowhere that he could see. His arms and legs were too heavy to move. And besides, there would already be forcefields in place by now. He hoped there would be forcefields…

An image came to his mind. The ballerina, Palis Delon. How long since he'd thought about her? She was dancing, ivory skin gleaming in the spotlight. Every one of her movements was fluid, graceful, as perfect as she had been in his sweetest memories.

She was the swan, gliding sun-bright over the waters of the lake. And he was the awestruck prince who watched from the water's edge, and marvelled at how something so glorious could have ever come his way…

He wondered. What would his other life have been - the one he'd set aside so long ago for a career that had come to nothing? Or had he just been running all along?

"I suppose you all think I've got some kind of death wish." Words rasped in his throat and chest. It was a struggle, but he needed to speak, to know that there was life still in him, and hear the sound of a familiar voice.

An answer reached him over the comm. Kira, it was Kira who replied. "The thought did occur to us."

"Well," he barely whispered. In his imagination, the light was fading, Palis' perfect smile vanishing into darkness. He coughed, and forced another breath. But whatever he was taking in this time, it certainly wasn't oxygen.

For some reason, he found himself chuckling.

"I don't."