Excuse me. You're Dr Bashir, aren't you?
- That's right. - l'm Leeta.
l've been meaning to come by the infirmary to see you.
Oh, dear. How long have you had that cough?
A few days now.
May l?
Cough for me.
ls it serious, Doctor?
No, but we need to start your treatment immediately.
Bring me a Fanalian toddy, very hot.
Make that two. l'm feeling a cough coming on myself.
l'm sorry to hear that, Doctor.
No, please. Call me...
- Julian. - Hi.
- l'm Jadzia. - Leeta.
Before l forget...
here's that immunological data you asked for.
How nice of you to put it together for me so quickly.
l think l'll go over it right now.
Oh, by the way, l hear the Lexington's docking here for a few days.
The Lexington?
Excuse me for just one second.
Stay there.
Jadzia.
Do you know when the Lexington is coming in?
Three weeks. Don't you have a friend aboard?
- Do l? - The medical officer.
- Elizabeth Lense? - Elizabeth Lense...
She may have been in my class at Starfleet Medical.
- Wasn't she valedictorian? - That's right.
- And you were salutatorian? - Second in my class.
lf l hadn't mistaken that pre-ganglionic fibre...
For a post-ganglionic nerve. l know.
l would've been valedictorian.
You must be looking forward to seeing her.
l can hardly wait.
- Hey, Jake. - Hey, Dad.
Hey!
- What is this? - l thought it was time for a change.
- What do you think? - l like it.
- How was Bajor? - You should have come with me.
The re-opening of a library isn't my idea of a good time.
Not just a library. We're talking about the most extensive collection
of Bajoran antiquities.
l saw manuscripts that dated back to before the fall of the First Republic.
- Great. - Here.
- Look at this. - What is it? Some kind of ship?
The ancient Bajorans used ships like these to explore their star system
800 years ago.
When humans were sailing the oceans, Bajorans were going to other planets?
Some say they made it all the way to Cardassia.
That seems hard to believe. What are these?
Solar sails. These ships were propelled by light pressure.
- Like a sailboat catching the wind. - Exactly.
l wonder if a ship like that could really fly?
l don't know.
That's why l'm going to build one.
l'm expecting a lumber shipment from Bajor this afternoon.
Which reminds me. l'll need a sabre saw.
You know, to cut wood.
Why not use a laser cutter?
l want to use the same types of tools the Bajorans had.
As soon as these containers are out of the way, l'll start construction.
l've looked over the specifications you brought back from Bajor.
l'm not sure this design is spaceworthy.
A ship like this could never have made it
- from Bajor to Cardassia. - Why?
At sublight speeds, the trip would have taken years.
One unexpected ion storm would have torn the sails to pieces.
Maybe they were lucky and didn't go into any storms.
l don't see how this ship could have made the trip.
There's only room for a few weeks' air supply.
Maybe they recycled it,
used some kind of photosynthetic plant.
Maybe.
You sound just like a Cardassian.
They have denied the possibility of ancient contact for decades.
They cannot accept that Bajor had interstellar flight before them.
You're beginning to sound like a Romulan.
There's no technology they don't claim they invented first.
l don't plan to spend the next few years sailing to Cardassia.
All l want is to build one ship and prove that it's spaceworthy.
A computer model could do that. Why go to all that trouble?
Why? Because it'll be fun.
Oh, yes.
l've been thinking. According to the star charts,
the most difficult part of the trip between Bajor and Cardassia
is getting through the Denorios Belt.
After that, it would be smooth sailing the rest of the way.
Making that part of the trip would demonstrate
that the Bajorans could have made the journey to Cardassia.
Seems reasonable.
lt should only take about four, five days.
- That's not so long. - So?
- What? - Come with me.
We'll have a great time. The ship will be ready in a week.
That's when Leanne gets back from Bajor.
l really want to see her.
Oh, well. lf you can't do it, you can't do it.
l'd like to, but it's just not good timing, you know?
Sure. l understand.
Hi!
- Hello, Jadzia. - l brought you something to eat.
Let me just finish this welding and l'll take a break.
l can't believe the work you've put into this.
l'm just following the blueprints.
You didn't need detail like this to prove that the ship is spaceworthy.
l suppose not, but l want everything to be just right.
lt's an exact replica, except for the gravity net in the floor.
Weightlessness makes me queasy.
l haven't seen you like this for a long time -
so caught up in something, so excited.
Not since... Not since you and Jennifer decided to have a baby.
The nursery.
No one's ever put such effort into making a room for their child.
lt turned out pretty well.
Especially the starscape on the ceiling.
Jake loved that ceiling. When we moved out,
he couldn't understand why we couldn't bring it with us.
You're disappointed he's not going with you.
He has other things he'd rather be doing,
friends he'd rather be with.
lt's funny. A year or two ago,
nothing would have stopped him from coming on an adventure like this.
l guess l waited too long.
You'll have other adventures, Benjamin.
They'll just be different.
l know. l've been a father a couple of times myself.
- l could tell you stories. - You already have.
That's right. l have, haven't l? Then you know l'm right.
Computer, are there any messages for me?
One. From Wellington, New Zealand.
Display it on screen.
- Hello. - Welcome aboard, sir.
- So, what do you think? - lt's wonderful.
Maybe a bit small for two people, but l could get used to it.
That is, if you still want me along.
A Survey of Cygnian Respiratory Diseases? Fascinating.
l'm reading everything l can.
l don't want to be caught flat-footed by Dr Lense.
She's probably discovered the cure to ageing by now.
The two of you are competitive?
Absolutely. We were neck and neck until the final exam.
Then l blew it. That's how she wound up on the Lexington,
a post everyone in our class was hoping for.
lncluding you?
No, this is the assignment l wanted.
- Then what does it matter? - Don't you see?
She could have taken this post from me.
No matter what l accomplish here,
that'll always make me feel second best.
l understand you're planning a trip.
Word gets around.
l can't believe that you would take stock
in Bajoran fairy tales about ancient contact.
You thought the Celestial Temple was a Bajoran fairy tale
until we discovered the wormhole.
l suggest you reconsider your plans.
Solar vessels are very fragile
and it's a long way to the Denorios Belt at sublight speeds.
l'll have emergency equipment. lf something goes wrong,
Major Kira can have a runabout to me within an hour.
An hour can be a very long time,
especially if you encounter something unexpected.
- Like what? - A Maquis ship, perhaps.
Why would the Maquis have any quarrel
with an unarmed ship sailing toward the Denorios Belt?
They have nothing at stake here, nothing to prove.
Or should l say disprove?
Commander, l contacted you out of concern for your safety,
but you seem to be intimating that l've made some sort of threat.
Then l'm glad l was wrong.
l thought that you had been put in charge
of the Cardassian Ministry for the Refutation of Bajoran Fairy Tales.
Since l don't seem to be able to dissuade you
from undertaking this voyage, l'll wish you luck instead.
Let's hope you don't need it.
First we have to deploy the mainsails. Take that winch there.
Release brakes.
When l give you the word, crank it with all you've got.
And now.
- That's as far as they'll go. - Lock it off.
Let's work on the spritsails.
- lt's just... - Oh.
- Now get your back into it. - All right.
That's right. We'll make a sailor out of you yet.
These will trim the spritsails.
- Now l get it. - What?
- Why you wanted to build this ship. - lt is beautiful, isn't it?
Jake, trim the starboard sprit about six degrees.
- How's that? - That should do it.
We'll pick up speed as the pressure on the sails builds.
- Dad, where do we sleep? - We have hammocks.
- ls this the bathroom? - Yes.
lt was designed for a zero-gravity environment.
- How are you supposed to...? - You'll get the hang of it.
We'll tack against the light most of the way.
We'll run like this for 90 minutes or so, then come about
and l'll calculate the next leg of our trip.
- How about something to drink? - Yeah, sure.
Don't tell me we only have zero-gravity rations.
That's all the ancient Bajorans had.
Listen.
- l don't hear anything. - Exactly.
Not even the hum of an engine.
lt's almost like being on the deck of an old sailing ship,
except the stars are not just up in the sky.
They're all around us.
lmagine how the ancient Bajorans must have felt,
heading into space in a ship like this one,
not knowing what they would find or who they would meet.
Jake, l know that you really didn't want to come on this trip.
l just want to say l'm glad you're here.
There's something l need to talk to you about.
What is it?
First you should read this.
- lt's a story l wrote. - A story?
That's why you put this away every time l walked into the room.
lf you keep an eye on the rigging, l'll read it now.
Deal.
lt looked better where it was.
You might want to know the Lexington docked a few minutes ago.
Already? l thought it wasn't coming for another day or two.
She's in Quark's.
OK.
- Are you going to talk to her? - She's busy.
You never mentioned she was beautiful.
l never mentioned her to you at all.
Morn gave me 3-1 odds that you'll exchange pleasantries
then say goodbye.
l'm betting that your charm will take you further.
OK, then.
She's getting up.
See you there. Bye.
So what do you think?
- l liked it. - You're not just saying that?
No, no. lt's good.
What about the part where Jared thinks he's been betrayed?
l don't think that he would confront him with it, not right away.
He could wait until he gets back from the Demilitarised Zone.
That would make it more believable.
- You really think it was good? - lt shows a lot of promise.
What?
Promise?
ln a few places you write about things you haven't experienced.
l hope you haven't experienced.
Unless you've joined the Maquis without telling me.
l can't talk about it.
l had you going there.
l really am impressed. You should keep writing.
- l'm thinking about it. - Don't think about it, just do it.
What l mean is...
l got a communication from the Pennington School in New Zealand.
They offered me a writing fellowship.
Jake, that's terrific.
- l didn't realise you had applied. - l didn't really.
l showed a story l wrote to Mrs O'Brien.
She showed it to a friend who knows someone at this school...
The starboard sprit is fouling one of the mainsails.
Can we fix it?
We have to jettison the sprit.
Lock that down and give me a hand.
One more turn.
Lock it. Good work.
l'm going to jettison the sprit.
That's better, but we're still getting a lot of spill off the sails.
We won't be able to make much headway with each tack.
l don't think we'll get to the Denorios Belt like this.
The Bajorans probably ran into these problems.
l suppose they did.
Did they give up and go home?
We're here to prove that they didn't.
What are we waiting for?
Let's get to work. Lay out the port sprit.
Coming about.
{y:i}Bring me my chariots of fire
{y:i}l will not cease from mental fight
{y:i}Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
{y:i}Till we have built Jerusalem
{y:i}ln England's green and pleasant land
That was really beautiful, Chief. You know what we should do?
We should go to Quark's and sing it for everybody.
l think we should switch to synthale.
No, this isn't...a synthale kind of night.
She walked right past me, Chief.
Acted like l wasn't even there.
- Do you know what l think? - What?
l think she's in love with you.
- l don't think so. - lt's the only explanation.
Unless...
Unless she really ignored you because she can't stand you.
lsn't there some explanation in between?
Well, you're not an in-between kind of guy.
- What do you mean? - People either love you or hate you.
Really?
l hated you when we first met.
l remember.
But now...
And now?
Well...now l don't.
That means a lot to me, Chief. lt really does.
Really. Now...
that is from the heart.
l really do...
not hate you any more.
Hey. Do you know what l think?
lf you want to know why she ignored you,
you have got to confront her.
You're right.
l'm going to go right up to her...
and ask her flat out
where she gets off walking past me like that.
- Better wait until tomorrow. - Why?
Why not right now?
Because you can barely stand up right now.
Good point. Good point. Good point.
{y:i}And did those feet in ancient time
{y:i}Walk upon England's mountains...
Lock it. Coming about.
Now.
Good. Solid job. Let's take a break.
String up the hammock.
- Hammock time. - Yo.
Hop in.
Phew. Oh, man.
Nice.
- l'm OK. - Comfortable, isn't it?
We'll make a sailor of you yet.
Congratulations are in order. Pennington is a good school.
Before you say anything. l'm turning down the Fellowship.
- Turning it down? Why? - l'm just not ready to go.
An opportunity like this doesn't come along every day.
l can defer admission for a year.
Fine, but why will things be different in a year?
They just might be, that's all.
l remember, Jake. l wasn't much older than you
when l left to go to Starfleet Academy.
For the first few days l was so homesick
that l'd go back to my house in New Orleans every night for dinner.
l'd materialise in my living room at 6:30 every night
and take my seat at the table just like l had come down the stairs.
You must have used up a month's worth of transporter credits.
My parents never said anything about it.
Just, ''How you doing, son? How was school today?''
They knew that l would get over being homesick.
After the fifth, sixth day, you couldn't pry me from that campus.
lf you go to Pennington, you won't be able to beam back to the station
to have dinner with the old man.
After a week or so, you'll get over it.
lt's not me l'm worried about.
lt's you. lf l go, you'll be all alone.
l appreciate you thinking about me,
but please don't turn down this opportunity on my account.
l can always eat dinner with Dax, Dr Bashir or...
even Quark.
l guess, but l'd feel a lot better if you had someone.
Someone special, like a girlfriend.
l see.
lt's been over a year since your last date. A year!
You've got to make time for these things.
l cannot believe that l'm getting advice about women from my son.
Don't think of me as your son.
Just think of me as another guy,
another guy who knows a very attractive lady who wants to meet you.
You are trying to set me up?
Why not?
What was that?
Whatever hit us almost tore off the port mainsail.
- We're moving at warp. - How can that be?
l don't know.
What happened?
That's a good question.
There's no record of spatial anomalies in this region.
- What are these? - Tachyon eddies.
Could we have got caught in one?
Tachyons don't have enough mass to affect a ship of...
This isn't an ordinary ship.
lt has more surface area relative to its mass.
- Because of the sails. - Since tachyons travel faster than light,
it could be that their impact on the sails
accelerated us to warp speeds.
We could be light years off course.
The question is, where did we end up?
You check the rigging. l'll try to figure that out.
We lost the jib and port mainsail.
- Damn! - What?
lt's useless.
Now we can't figure out where we are or where we're going.
We have to contact the station, let them know they have to get us.
We were so close.
Another day and we would have made it to the Denorios Belt.
We did pretty well getting as far as we did.
- ls something wrong? - The station's not responding.
- ls the com unit damaged? - Not as far as l can see.
Maybe they haven't received our message yet.
Could we have been carried that far away?
l suppose it's possible.
They'll find us eventually, right?
Sure.
- Excuse me. - Yes?
We were at medical school together.
- Julian Bashir. - You're Bashir?
- You sound surprised. - l thought you were Andorian.
Andorian?
Someone pointed out an Andorian at a party
and said that was Julian Bashir.
lt was New Year's Eve at Bruce Lucier's, four years ago.
l did go to that party. May l?
Yes.
With my friend, Erit. He's Andorian. No, thank you.
All these years, l thought you were someone else.
Didn't you see my speech at graduation?
No, l was waiting to give my speech.
l was so nervous l almost passed out.
l know the feeling.
You gave me quite a run for my money.
lf it hadn't been for that pre-ganglionic fibre...
You know about that.
lf you hadn't got that wrong, you would be valedictorian.
l never got a chance to congratulate you.
Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?
Not so long.
So you got the Lexington. You must have had quite an adventure,
meeting fascinating new species with fascinating new diseases.
lt ended up being more of a charting expedition.
Sometimes it would be months between planetary systems.
l'd get so excited if we actually found something living,
even if it was just moss under a rock.
Don't take this the wrong way,
but there were times when l regretted not taking your assignment.
l read your paper on the project you've been doing on Bajor.
- lt was brilliant. - Thank you.
l envy the opportunity you have to work on that kind of long-term project.
On the Lexington, it was collect your samples and then move on.
- l suppose l was lucky. - What's happening on Bajor?
Were you able to get the T-cell anomalies under control?
lf you're really that interested, l can show you my latest results.
l'd love it.
Morn, about that bet. l believe the odds were 3-1 .
We're not going to run out of air or anything, are we?
Somebody will find us before that happens.
Tell me about this woman you want me to meet.
Well...she's a freighter captain.
A freighter captain?
Dad, trust me. You'll like her.
l'll agree to meet her on one condition.
What?
You don't base your decision about Pennington on how our date turns out.
Don't worry. l won't.
l've already decided to wait a year.
- Why? - Well...
l've heard that you can only write about what you've experienced.
And Deep Space 9 is a pretty good place to get experience.
Dad.
lt appears we've got company.
What do you think they want?
Looks like we're about to find out.
What can l do for you, Dukat?
l wanted to be the first one to congratulate you.
Congratulate me?
On managing to make it all the way here.
- All the way where? - Don't you know?
You've just entered the Cardassian system.
The tachyon eddy must have taken us past the Denorios Belt.
The same thing must have happened to the ancient Bajorans.
We did it! We proved the trip was possible.
l hate to interrupt your celebration,
but l have a message from the Cardassian Government.
''Your voyage is a testament to the spirit of the Bajorans
''who first ventured into space. lt could not be more appropriate
''that your arrival coincides with the discovery here on Cardassia
''of an ancient crash site believed to contain the remnants
''of one of the Bajoran vessels whose journey you have just recreated.''
- What an amazing coincidence. - Yes. lsn't it?
Welcome.

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