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While experimenting with a
keyboard, the musically untrained Dax inexplicably plays a
melody she seems to remember from somewhere, then suddenly
develops a short temper toward her fellow crew members. She soon
wanders onto the Promenade, where everyone mysteriously
vanishes. A robed, masked figure stands above her, then a longer
version of the melody begins to play. Dax is gripped with fear
as the figure appears again, blocks her path, then removes the
mask, only to reveal another. She then backs into Quark, at
which point the Promenade is bustling with life again — and the
masked figure is gone.
Concerned about the
hallucination, Dax has Bashir examine her. He discovers that her
levels of isoboramine, a neurotransmitter that mediates synaptic
functions between Jadzia and the Dax symbiont, are dangerously
low. Aboard the Defiant, Sisko and Bashir go with Dax to the
Trill homeworld, where the Symbiosis Commission's Dr. Renhol
administers a drug to bring up Dax's isoboramine levels. But Dax
later has another hallucination in which two men from the
Commission, dressed in uniforms dated about a hundred years
earlier, attempt to capture her.
Dax meets with Timor, one of the Guardians, who are unjoined
Trill dedicated to caring for symbionts. He says Jadzia is
really experiencing memories from one of Dax's previous hosts.
Later, the Defiant's computer identifies the mysterious music as
a piece composed over 80 years before by a Trill named Joran
Belar. When Dax is shown a picture of him, she suddenly
experiences another hallucination in which the masked figure
kills a Trill doctor and is revealed to be Joran. Dax then has a
seizure and goes into neural shock.
Dr. Renhol says that if Dax's isoboramine levels don't improve
in forty-eight hours, the Dax symbiont will have to be removed
and Jadzia's life sacrificed. Desperate to save their friend,
Sisko and Bashir turn to Timor, but he becomes nervous and
evasive, leading them to believe he is hiding something. They
access Joran's file, and find it has been purged. Sisko and
Bashir then contact Joran's brother, Yolad, who says his sibling
was killed after murdering the doctor who felt Joran was not
suitable for being joined with a symbiont. Then, Yolad confides
that he believes his brother actually was joined, despite claims
in the official records to the contrary. Sisko and Bashir
realize then that the symbiont was probably Dax.
Sisko and Bashir confront Dr. Renhol just as she is preparing to
remove the Dax symbiont from Jadzia, then reveal that they have
discovered the cover-up. Dax was once mistakenly joined with
Joran, and this knowledge was blocked from Dax's memory — but
now the memory block is deteriorating. They also know that
Joran's experience contradicts claims that only one out of a
thousand people is suitable for joining. In reality, almost half
the population can be joined, a fact that would cause chaos as
everyone fought to possess the few prized symbionts. When Sisko
and Bashir threaten to reveal this secret, Dr. Renhol allows
them to try and save Jadzia. They return to Timor, who has Dax
enter the pool of symbionts, where the memories of Joran are
safely re-integrated with her other memories. She emerges ready
to deal with this painful, secret past — a whole new lifetime of
thoughts.
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