With only the briefest of glances over his shoulder, the tall, willowy Adigeon strode fluently to a previously unnoticed door at the very back of the room. Light from a distant corner cast his body in diffuse shadows, where this exit had been more than half concealed behind two other waist-high desks. "Now," he said. "The time will come for us to part company. We must go."

"Go?" Bashir stood precariously with his hand connected to the nearest available surface. But he held himself back to watch the taller man, with a mildly suspicious air.

Naron, too, was quiet for long enough to see that his other visitors were equally dubious. "At the end of this corridor is an open turbo lift," he explained. "It isn't far, and my authority should be high enough to get you to the entrance to the old hospital. This will be very much faster than if you attempt to walk the distance. Assuming that I programme it to the correct internal co-ordinates, you can be there in under two minutes - certainly within the time that you would need. Am I correct?"

"I hope so," muttered Bashir.

Three distinct segments of corridor had joined together like elongated vertebrae, connecting the room's back exit to a second row of darkly painted doors. It was to the smallest of these that Naron was starting to direct his guests in the seconds after leaving his office behind. Even the most basic calculations were enough to render this a certainty.

Bashir soon discovered that the navy blue lines at the border of each dividing section were turning quickly to milestones, as his legs struggled with determination to cover the distance. He kept to the corridor's edge, moving forward in cautious silence while the others had all strode far ahead.

Naron looked back, finding that Julian had started to lag behind. "Are you quite well?" he asked in his soft, indecipherably level voice. "Perhaps it is better, if you were to stop until tomorrow,"

But if I stop now, I might never keep going, thought Bashir. He shook his head. "It's fine." There wasn't time to dwell upon the truth. Already his voice was fringed with shallow gasps.

"You - you said so, yourself. It isn't far."

Emotions were still as difficult to detect in the Adigeon's eyes, but it was equally hard not to catch the swift but doubtful glances on the faces of the other Humans. "Very well," conceded Naron. "You will come to the end of your journey - just as long as you remember my instructions."

With a sharp, outward sigh through his teeth, Julian was grateful to find a rail extending around the turbolift interior and less than twenty centimetres below the level of his waist. "It's all right," he muttered - an exhausted, voiceless whisper - but half fell against the wall, grunting softly as hard metal collided with his hip. He discovered with some surprise that his throat had let forth an ironic, near-silent chuckle.

It had taken all his energy while in Naron's office to maintain some pretence at normalcy - and even now the strength of his hands was all that kept him from falling back again. But it had worked, he insisted to himself. Finally. There was some hope for him. There had to be.

Sarina stood at Julian's side, dark eyes quiet and questioning. And yet, he concentrated again to regain his veneer of stubborn-edged tenacity. The time had not yet come to let himself relax, no matter how sorely he wished that it would. Surrendering himself to the motion of their speeding capsule, he barely held back a flush of anticipation. However weary he felt at that moment - however close to some undetermined point of no return - this road they had taken did have an end.

Even the mildly claustrophobic presence of his companions gave some relief to what would otherwise have been an exhaustingly solitary journey. Distantly, he wondered again why they still accompanied him. Perhaps this would be his chance to ask, with Naron gone and with no immediate need to force his own steps forward. But something in his throat kept back the query. Nobody was affording him any particular notice. Even whatever responses he could yield were unlikely to be entirely truthful, and he lacked the energy to concern himself with possible answers. In any case, he was secretly glad not to be travelling alone.

Correction, he reminded himself. He would not have come this far at all without their help.

Jack's harsh voice was first to cut through this tacit impasse. "No - no. This isn't right. It can't have been so easy."

"Strangely enough," said Bashir. "I agree."

Reflected light from beyond their moving chamber lent an even sharper quality to the manic irritation in the other man's brown eyes. A moment of hostility flared behind them to solidify into an acutely piercing scowl.

"Not used to having no-one to argue with, are you Jack?" Lauren teased.

Julian hardly noticed as the pale young man redirected his accusatory gaze. It was Sarina's expression that drew him away from the Jack and Lauren's mutual challenge. She was not looking directly at any part of the almost featureless walls, nor at the others standing so close by, but even her silence held an undertone of curious intensity. As if to demand answers to some unasked question, that could only be found in the depths of her eyes.

"What is it, Sarina?" Julian found that he was asking, almost as softly.

"She wants to be sure that you've considered what else this Naron might have been thinking," Lauren translated, glancing sidelong at the smaller young woman. "And why you believe his claims." Julian was struck once more by the intuition that nothing escaped the perceptive glances of those quiet, dark eyes. "And what plans we have made for if his promises all turn out to be false."

"Is Sarina the one asking those questions, or is it you?" muttered Bashir.

Jack rounded on him. "She can hear you, you know."

Feeling heavier than even the moment of sudden regret could explain, Bashir secretly fingered the hypo in his jacket - the same that contained the Adigeons' security codes. He clenched his other hand even more tightly around the supporting rail. "Sorry," he whispered, discovering as he did that his apology was sincere although he doubted that anything he said would ever have surprised his present companions. "The truth is, I… I don't know."

Strange, to have admitted it aloud. He frowned again through a rising headache, and rubbed the skin of his brow. His hand was numb, and tingled at the fingertips as though from a loss of circulating blood.

"You know he's planning to contact his friends," Jack persisted. "Could see it in his eyes, couldn't you? All those glances he was stealing at that computer of his."

"But he did help us get this far." It was a feeble assertion. And there was still another nagging thought that had still gone unexpressed. Naron had been told that Bashir and the others would be coming to Adigeon. He had been told…

But I'm taking his word, for the same reason that I've followed all of you this way. He's given us no reason not to trust him. At least, not yet…

No. There had to be a simpler explanation. And certainly, his true incentives were not as objective as Julian wished he could believe. With effort, he pushed his voice forth, forced his lips to shape themselves around still-recognisable words. "You always had another choice," he confessed. "But I don't see any for myself. Do you?"

Now as he spoke, he sensed a change in the rhythm of the turbolift. It was slowing, steadily rocking the bodies of those within as their ride came to a gradual halt.

Bashir surveyed the stronghold before him, feeling a knot twist deep inside his stomach. His ears still sensed the after-effects of movement even after stepping away from the turbolift and onto a solid floor. He winced at the sight of a smooth, high wall, where not even colours differentiated it from the narrow indentation which was all to suggest a forbiddingly impassable barrier across this entrance. There were no borders of alternate panels, no levers, comm-screens, or even a scratch upon the smooth, blank plane.

"Perhaps they're all too busy to know that we're here," he suggested, more than half to himself - although with little real conviction for anyone beside him to challenge.

The complex had seemed a lot bigger when he was a child, the upper half of this doorway almost entirely beyond the level of his eyes. They must have already opened, allowing the six year old Julian's father to lead him straight through without any trouble at all. But the doctors had been expecting new arrivals, back when Jules Bashir was a much younger boy. Now a grown man, he touched the hard barrier with the palm of one hand, and followed the corridor for two and a half metres, listening hard for the fainter signs of occupation. The doors gave no more response to his efforts at contact than they had to anybody else's.

"Where's that toy that Naron gave you?" Lauren spoke confidently, suggestively, turning to smile in his direction. Bashir found that he had been startled by her voice, residual shock taking several long moments to settle.

Of course.

"My pocket…" Tucking his fingers inside, he curled them around the black and silver hypo. For a moment, he stared at the patterns along its surface, realising quickly that he was having to concentrate to keep it from slipping through his fingers. Any associated danger, he felt, still ought to be his to take. There had been no suggestion of anything dangerous floating inside the thick, clear fluid at its centre. But he had no wish to risk the good health of anybody else.

"Well?" demanded Jack. "What are you waiting for - hm, hm?"

Focus, Bashir commanded his trembling right hand. He brought the substance closer to his upper arm, easily locating where his veins had dilated slightly with the heat of day. He felt the mild chill as it connected with his skin, heard the hiss of chemicals, but sensed no immediate rise in pain levels, or difficulty breathing. And no more trouble maintaining his balance than he had already felt for days.

Some of the wary tension - he noticed - had even been released from his knotted muscles, as doubts were relieved that he had scarcely realised he still carried.

The light of the security scanner was warm across his skin, coming from where a section of the wall had turned transparent, enough to reveal a single mechanical eye. He was still a little uneasy, bothered that nobody had answered the initial chime. But once they were inside, there might be a greater chance of attracting someone's attention. Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps they were all busy…

And if he could not, at least Jack did not appear to be as easy to ignore.

Something clicked beyond their sight, and a second later, the doors were open. One arm extended to encompass the width of the entrance, Lauren matched the line of her body to that of its arching frame. "No doctors here," she commented with an air of finality.

She and Bashir were last to step inside behind the remainder of their group. They had come to no more than another silent, empty corridor. "Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Patrick, nervously.

"What else would it be?" Jack snapped over his shoulder.

But Julian said nothing, his throat too tight to allow him even the first tiny semblance of a voice, his stomach turned leaden as it sank towards the ground. Lauren was right, he was quick to realise. The corridor before them was dusty and abandoned, equipment covered with old sheets like a child's impression of a ghost on Halloween.

Was this what had held him back all along? Not any limits that Athena Nikos had imposed. Not even the obstacles presented by the Adigeons' security measures. But the thought that arriving here might finally extinguish the last remaining hope that he possessed.