Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.

Synopsis: "The Passenger"

Episode Number: 9
Air Date: 2/20/93

	As the show opens, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir are returning
from an unspecified location in the Runabout *Rio Grande*. 
Some sort of medical emergency had occurred during the 
trip, and Bashir had saved the life of a woman Kira had 
thought to be beyond saving. Kira rather grudgingly 
compliments the doctor on his work; Bashir, never one for 
false modesty, also compliments himself copiously, which 
annoys Kira. Just as she is about to tell him in no 
uncertain terms what she thinks of his attitude, the 
Runabout receives a distress signal from a nearby ship in 
serious trouble.
	The two officers beam aboard the endangered ship, finding
the interior in flames and the ship's oxygen supply being 
rapidly consumed by the blaze. Only about ten minutes' 
worth of air still remains. Kira heads off to try check out 
the ship while Bashir looks for the ship's inhabitants. He 
finds an unconscious woman on the floor in a nearby 
corridor and revives her, asking her if there is anyone 
else aboard the ship in need of evacuating. As she coughs 
and tells him that the pilot is dead, Bashir scans the ship 
and locates another life reading coming from the room just 
off the corridor in which he is standing. The woman tells 
him he must not break the seals on the door and enter, as 
the fire on the ship was started deliberately by the 
prisoner contained therein in order to enable him to 
escape. Bashir, however, can tell from his tricorder that 
the person in the room is dying; he pulls the manual 
override, and enters, over the woman's loud protests.
	Bashir makes his way through the flames to the side of the
injured man within, as the woman pulls herself up and 
follows him, still protesting. The doctor announces that 
the man is in no condition to pose a threat to anyone, and 
begins to tend to him as Kira enters with a fire 
extinguisher and goes to work on putting out the blaze. 
Bashir tells her that the man is in very bad shape and 
needs to be beamed aboard the Runabout immediately, and 
Kira begins to tell the *Rio Grande's* computer to 
transport the four of them out. Before she can finish, 
however, the injured man revives and promptly reaches out 
to seize Bashir by the throat in a crushing grip. As Kira 
begins to struggle with the man, trying to free the 
strangling doctor, the man on the floor pulls Bashir close 
and gasps, "Make...me...live!". He then collapses, 
releasing Bashir. Bashir scans the man and announces that 
he is dead: "This one I can't bring back."
	Back on the station, in the infirmary, Bashir is tending to
the woman they found on the ship. She awakens, and Bashir 
introduces himself and tells her she's on the station DS9. 
She tells him her name is Ty Kajada, of Kobliad Security, 
and then says, "DS9? That's where *he* was going. Where is 
he?" Bashir correctly deduces that she is asking about the 
prisoner she was transporting, and tells her that the man, 
whom she refers to as "Vantika", is dead. She demands to 
see the body, and in spite of Bashir's protestations about 
her condition, gets him to let her view the corpse. In 
spite of the man's obviously deceased state, Kajada seems 
convinced that Vantika is still, somehow, alive, and 
questions Bashir closely about what steps he has taken to 
ascertain that the criminal is in fact dead. She 
passionately tells Bashir what an evil man Vantika was, and 
speaks of atrocities he committed on their homeworld in his 
attempts to prolong his own life; this is why Kajada has 
been relentlessly been pursuing him for nearly twenty 
years. Bashir assures her that, regardless of that, the man 
is now *dead*, at which point Kajada picks up a large knife 
and viciously stabs the corpse, to Bashir's dismay. Kajada 
requests a DNA scan of the corpse to make sure that it is, 
in fact, Vantika's corpse, and also asks that her ship be 
scanned for any biological anomalies. It has become clear 
that she is completely obsessed with the fate of Vantika.
	Down in Quark's, Quark gets Lt. Dax a drink, and makes an
unsubtle pass at her, which she ignores. Quark tells Odo 
that he thinks Dax is infatuated with Quark himself, to 
which Odo replies, "You're deluding yourself." Quark 
responds, "There's nothing wrong with a good delusion; I 
sell them upstairs to dozens of people every day." Odo and 
Quark discuss, in their usual adversarial fashion, Dax's 
apparent affinity for being a loner; Odo comments that he 
understands her desire for privacy perfectly and respects 
it, and thinks others should do likewise. Quark replies 
that Odo just thinks everyone should be as lonely and 
miserable as Odo himself is. The conversation shifts 
slightly, over to the topic of wanting things one can't 
have, and Odo tells Quark that one such thing that Quark 
can't have is the shipment of deuridium that is being 
brought to the station from Gamma Quadrant. At the mention 
of deuridium, a man in a gold Starfleet-DS9 uniform who is 
sitting nearby looks up and begins to pay attention to the 
conversation. Quark professes ignorance of any shipment of 
deuridium, then heads over to where Dax is sitting to 
engage her in conversation.
	The eavesdropper in the Starfleet uniform approaches Odo,
and rather curtly tells Odo that he does not approve of 
Odo's style of security, which includes telling the head of 
the local black market about a confidential shipment of 
deuridium. Odo is affronted by the man's criticism and 
expresses his displeasure in no uncertain terms, at which 
point the man identifies himself as Lt. George Primmin of 
Starfleet Security. Primmin wants to discuss the security 
arrangements for the deuridium shipment; Odo isn't 
interested in having the Starfleet man's input. They 
exchange terse words, and Odo reluctantly agrees to meet 
with Primmin in his office, later in the day.
	Back in Ops, a staff conference is underway. Bashir reports
that he has found nothing unusual in his autopsy of 
Vantika, and does not think that he managed to cheat death 
this time, in spite of Kajada's suspicions. It seems 
apparent that Vantika's interest in DS9 centered around the 
incoming deuridium shipment, which is needed on Kobliad; 
the Kobliad race requires it in order to live out their 
full lifespan, but it is in very short supply, and there is 
not enough to go around. The Federation has been trying to 
assist the Kobliad by shipping in deuridium from the Gamma 
Quadrant, but even with the extra shipments there still 
isn't enough deuridium, and a thriving underground trade in 
the substance has sprung up. Vantika's plan was almost 
certainly to hijack the deuridium shipment. Kajada and her 
obsession with the criminal are discussed, and Sisko 
decides that he sees no reason not to comply with her 
requests as long as they do not become excessive. He orders 
Dax to scan Kajada's ship as Kajada requested. Sisko's 
primary concern, however, is not (the very likely dead) 
Vantika himself, but rather any accomplices he might have 
had working with him on the station.
	Lt. Primmin arrives at Ops and he and Sisko go off to
confer. Kira offers to call Odo and have him join their 
conference, but Primmin rather pointedly declines, saying 
he sees no need to have Odo there. Kira is taken aback, but 
refrains from calling Odo.
	Primmin and Sisko discuss the current security situation;
Primmin is not at all impressed with Odo's idea of 
"security" and tells Sisko so. Sisko defends Odo's approach 
as appropriate given the station's social environment, and 
tells Primmin that the two of them, as Starfleet officers, 
are *guests* of the Bajoran government on the station, and 
that it is impolite of them to throw their Starfleet 
expertise in the faces of the Bajorans. He suggests that 
Primmin could possibly learn something from Odo's approach, 
and informs the lieutenant that he expects Primmin and Odo 
to work together to deal with the matter of the potential 
Kobliad plot to hijack the deuridium. He also suggests that 
Primmin and Odo might work with Ty Kajada on this matter.
	Primmin goes to meet Odo and extends a fairly gracious
apology to the constable, which Odo accepts, although the 
lieutenant's manner still retains a slight air of 
condescension. The two of them attempt to go over Odo's 
security arrangements for the deuridium shipment, but Odo 
is unable to call them up on his console; the computer 
can't seem to summon the files. Odo calls Ops and finds out 
from Kira that the entire active memory of the station has 
been accessed and flushed. Kajada arrives at Odo's office 
at this point and states that this sort of trick is exactly 
Vantika's style.
	Another conference takes place in Ops, on the subject of
Vantika, this time with Kajada present. Kajada is 
insistent that she has insights into the criminal's mind 
gained from pursuing him for twenty years that no one else 
can possibly have, and she very firmly believes that 
Vantika is still alive, and on the station, and actively 
working to further his plans. Primmin is puzzled by 
Vantika's computer sabotage, until Odo points out that by 
breaking into the system as a whole rather than 
specifically trying to access the files on the deuridium 
shipment, Vantika could avoid all the special security 
lockouts Odo had placed directly around the key files.
	Dax asks Kajada how Vantika would have gone about gaining
access to the system, and is told that he tends to use a 
device known as subspace shunt to obtain access through 
some normally unsecured station system. Dax checks her 
console and locates just such an unauthorized tap on a 
temperature control panel. Both Primmin and Odo try to 
simultaneously summon security, and break off to stare 
resentfully at each other. There is a tense moment, then 
Odo completes the order while giving Primmin a baleful 
look. Kajada warns them to have their security people be 
careful as the shunt device is probably booby-trapped.
	Sisko becomes impatient with Kajada's obsession, and Kajada
becomes angered by what she sees as his patronizing 
attitude toward her. Sisko believes that what Kajada 
interprets as Vantika's actions can be more easily 
explained by the activities of one or more accomplices of 
Vantika's on the station. Kajada, naturally, is 
unconvinced; she restates her conviction that Vantika is 
completely obsessed with prolonging his own life, and 
recites a litany of the atrocities that Vantika has 
committed in pursuit of his goal. He would not have started 
the fire on her ship if he did not have some plan for 
surviving it. She does not know what his plan might have 
been, but she is sure that somehow, it succeeded.
	Sisko enquires about the DNA scan which was done to
identify Vantika, and is told that the confirmation from 
Kobliad won't be in for another twelve hours. He then 
states that until that time, the staff should operate under 
the assumption that Vantika is in fact alive and active on 
the station somewhere. Kajada appears relieved. Odo then 
requests a private word with Sisko.
	Odo and Sisko have a very tense face-to-face meeting,
wherein Odo threatens to resign his position on the 
station unless Sisko assures him that his jurisdiction will 
remain supreme in security matters, whether there is 
Starfleet Security involvement or not. Sisko soft-soaps 
Odo, telling him how much he likes Odo for his 
straightforward manner, and how much he needs him on the 
station to do the job that no one else could do nearly so 
well as he can. He promises Odo that Odo will have the 
final word in any on-station security matters, and states 
that he wants Odo and Primmin to find a way to work 
together successfully. Odo snaps that Sisko should tell 
Primmin that, and Sisko says that he already has. Odo seems 
satisfied.
	Sisko goes to see how Dax's investigation into the matter
of Vantika is going. She reports that she didn't find any 
biological anomalies on Kajada's ship, but that she did 
find that during the time the ship has been docked at DS9, 
someone had attempted to break into the ship's cargo hold. 
Sisko wants to know what the thief or thieves might have 
been after, and Dax presents him with a computer chip that 
she found in Vantika's personal belongings. The chip 
contains information on humanoid brain structure.
	Down in Quark's place, Quark and his assistants are
cleaning up after closing. Quark berates his assistants 
for their carelessness and then shoos them out of the 
restaurant. Not more than a few moments later, he is seized 
from behind by a gloved attacker and placed in an effective 
headlock. In a menacing whisper, the unseen attacker asks 
Quark why he hasn't made the agreed-upon preparations, such 
as the hiring of mercenaries; Quark replies that he had in 
fact done so, but that when he heard that the individual 
for whom he had agreed to make the arrangements had been 
killed, he had not thought it would be necessary to 
proceed. Quark says, "I was told you were dead." The 
mysterious figure whispers back, "Almost...but not quite". 
Quark is released with a shove, and before he turns around 
his attacker is gone.
	Down in the infirmary, Kajada enters, saying that Bashir
asked to see her. Bashir tells her that the results from 
the DNA scan on Vantika have come in; he attempted to call 
her the night before to let her know, but she didn't 
answer. Kajada appears taken aback, and comments that she 
has been having trouble sleeping and has been using an 
alpha-wave inducer to help her rest; his comment that she 
should be careful of such things is cut off by her demand 
to know what his results are. Bashir tells her that 
Vantika's body was positively identified as his, and not an 
impostor or a clone. He says that every conceivable test 
has been done to confirm Vantika's death, but Kajada still 
does not seem convinced.
	A call from Dax comes in, asking Bashir to come to her lab
to confer with her. He heads down there, where Dax is 
examining the computer chip she got from Kajada's ship. Dax 
suggests to Bashir that perhaps what has happened to 
Vantika is that his body died while his consciousness lived 
on. Bashir is incredulous, stating that while he has seen 
synaptic pattern displacement done by Vulcans, he's never 
seen it done by anyone else. Dax is convinced that Vantika 
was working on something similar; the computer chip 
contains over seventy computer simulations on methods to 
potentially save neuronal patterns in the unused portions 
of another humanoid brain. Bashir concedes that it is 
theoretically possible that Vantika's mind could be 
inhabiting someone else's brain, and suggests a likely 
candidate -- Ty Kajada. Dax concurs, as both are Kobliad 
and it would be a strategically sound move for Vantika to 
hide within the mind of his most determined enemy.
	Dax and Bashir present their theory to Sisko, Odo, and
Primmin in Sisko's office. Sisko is dubious, commenting 
that Kajada has done everything possible to convince the 
staff that Vantika is alive, which would not be a 
reasonable action for her to take if she were, in fact, 
Vantika. Dax and Bashir respond that it may not be as 
simple as that, as Kajada could be completely unaware that 
she harbors Vantika's consciousness within her own. Sisko 
asks if a medical exam of Kajada would prove anything, but 
Dax and Bashir are not convinced that they can find 
anything when they have no real idea what to look for yet. 
In particular, they have no idea what the method of 
transfer of this process might be. Odo wants to set 
personnel to following Kajada around, just in case; Primmin 
objects that they are short-handed enough as it is, and 
should simply let the computer do the tracking. But Odo and 
Primmin both agree that Kajada should be left out of their 
security conferences from that point on.
	Kajada realizes very quickly that she is being excluded,
and goes to confront Odo about the change in her status. 
She asks Odo what's being done about Quark. Odo asks why, 
exactly, does she think something should be done about 
Quark? She replies that Quark is exactly the sort of person 
that Vantika would be working with if he were here, and 
leaves angrily.
	That night in Quark's, after closing hours, Quark is
discussing the matter of the deuridium shipment with the 
mercenary "help" he has hired for the job. As they talk 
about the identity of their mysterious employer and the 
question of their payment, Ty Kajada skulks around on the 
second level of Quark's, attempting to eavesdrop on the 
conversation. The attention of Quark and his companions is 
drawn by a loud cry from above; they look up to see Kajada 
hanging from the balcony rail by one hand. As they watch, 
she falls, lands hard, and lies still.
	In the infirmary afterward, Bashir is tending to Kajada,
who was badly hurt by the fall. She regains consciousness 
only long enough to mutter, "...Pushed...Vantika...". Sisko 
asks Quark if he saw anything; he replies that he was alone 
in the restaurant at the time and saw nothing. Quark 
questions Kajada's reasons for being on the balcony in the 
first place; Odo says, "She had an odd feeling you were 
helping someone to hijack the deuridium shipment." Replies 
Quark, "I resent that inference." Snaps Odo: "It's not an 
inference, it's a definite suspicion." Sisko asks Bashir if 
he thinks Kajada was suicidal, and Bashir is doubtful, but 
comments that he doesn't really know what the effects of 
having someone else in your brain might be. Sisko asks if 
Bashir has found a way to confirm that hypothesis yet, and 
Bashir says he hasn't, and he can't start doing brainscans 
on Kajada until her condition has improved. And besides, 
they still haven't figured out the transfer method.
	Sisko goes to check in with Dax, who is in the morgue,
checking under the corpse's fingernails. She makes oblique 
comments about bioelectric fields being induced in glial 
cells, and tells Sisko that she has an hypothesis about how 
the neural pattern transfer might have been accomplished. 
The method would require that the transfer medium get under 
the target's skin, however, and since there were no 
hyposprays or needles anywhere on Kajada's ship, she thinks 
it possible that Vantika might have used his fingernails to 
do it. Upon examining the residue she obtained from the 
corpse, she discovers a microscopic generator, and 
concludes that she has found the means by which Vantika 
might have transferred his mind to someone else's brain. 
She suggests that he encoded his neural patterns in glial 
cells and placed the generator device under his fingernails 
months ago, as a last-ditch attempt to escape death if he 
should ever need to use it. Dax concludes by saying that a 
glial scan should be sufficient to determine if there has 
been any tampering with the hypothetical victim.
	Kira and Odo are putting the final touches on the security
preparations for the deuridium freighter. They realize 
that they haven't seen Lt. Primmin all morning, and Odo 
goes to look for him.
	Quark and his three hired thugs are walking down a corridor
discussing their plans to take the freighter. Quark, who 
is only a middleman, will not be going along. One of the 
mercenaries asks how Quark managed to get a Runabout, and 
Quark tells them that that was the doing of their employer, 
not him. This mysterious employer will be meeting them at 
the Runabout. When they reach the ship, Quark enters, but 
is taken aback to discover Dr. Bashir inside. Quark begins 
to stammer apologies and excuses for his presence, but 
Bashir, who for some reason is not wearing his comm badge, 
merely stares at him levelly for a moment and comments, 
"Not at all, gentlemen. I've been expecting you."
	Back in the infirmary, Dax goes looking for Bashir to tell
him what she's learned, but he is nowhere to be found. She 
asks the computer to locate him; the computer says he's in 
the infirmary. Puzzled, she looks around, and discovers 
Bashir's discarded comm badge.
	Odo locates Lt. Primmin in some place other than the
location to which he was assigned, and enquires sternly 
where Primmin has been and what he has been doing. Primmin 
tells Odo that he decided to take his cue from Odo's 
earlier logic about Vantika's actions, and decided to look 
for threats to security in general rather than specific 
threats to the incoming freighter. By so doing, he located 
another subspace shunt device attached to the backup 
security on the waste reclamation system which was 
designed, when triggered, to feed back to the stations 
primary security systems and completely derail them. Odo 
comments that had the device been used, it would have shut 
down the entire security grid for nearly an hour -- plenty 
of time for Vantika to take over the freighter and fly it 
away from the station at warp speed.
	The wormhole opens, and the freighter comes through. Up in
Ops, security is being prepared for the ship's arrival, 
when Kira notices that a Runabout is approaching the 
freighter, without authorization. Just then, Dax enters Ops 
and tells Sisko that she found Bashir's comm badge 
abandoned in the infirmary but that Bashir himself is 
nowhere to be found. Sisko asks the computer who authorized 
the access to the Rio Grande and finds out that it was 
Bashir.
	The Runabout docks with the freighter, and the three
mercenaries beam aboard. They violently and efficiently 
deal with the freighter's bridge crew, then signal back to 
the Runabout that the bridge has been cleared. Bashir -- 
who is now in truth Vantika -- beams over, and orders the 
shields up and the ship secured, and says that if any of 
the crew resist, they are to be killed. As they are 
preparing to leave the system, the ship shudders, and the 
mercenary at the helm reports that the station has grabbed 
the ship with a tractor beam. Vantika expresses disbelief, 
commenting that the station's systems should be completely 
disabled by this time. He orders the impulse engines 
engaged; the mercenary doesn't see the point of that, but 
is told that it will keep the ship from being towed back to 
the station.
	Sisko hails the freighter from the station, and Bashir
answers, introducing himself as "Rao Vantika", to Sisko's 
dismay. Sisko asks what has become of Bashir and Vantika 
says that he's unconscious for the moment, but that Vantika 
might consider releasing him if Sisko released the tractor 
beam. Sisko refuses. Vantika threatens to take the ship to 
warp, which Sisko points out will simply tear the ship 
apart and kill everyone on board. Vantika replies that that 
includes Julian Bashir, and gives Sisko one minute to make 
a decision.
	Sisko asks if they can lock onto Bashir and beam him out,
but Primmin says the freighter's shields are up, so that 
won't work. Kira suggests an attack on the freighter 
itself, but Sisko vetoes that on the grounds that if the 
freighter is destroyed it will spread deuridium all over 
the system and force the evacuation of all the population 
in the area. Sisko asks Dax if there is any way to disrupt 
Vantika's hold over Bashir and let Julian take control back 
from Vantika; Dax says she might be able to design an 
electromagnetic pulse that would disrupt Vantika's neural 
patterns and give Julian a chance to emerge, but she 
doesn't know how to get it to the ship. Sisko suggests 
using the tractor beam as a carrier wave, which Dax thinks 
will work, but she needs time to figure out how exactly to 
do it. Sisko says he'll try and stall.
	Vantika hails the station, asking for Sisko's decision.
Sisko asks what guarantee he has that Vantika will release 
Bashir if Sisko does as Vantika asks. Vantika is not fooled 
by Sisko's attempts to stall and accuses Sisko of insulting 
his intelligence by engaging him in conversation while they 
try to come up with a rescue plan. He tells his pilot to 
prepare to go to warp. Sisko says that he doesn't believe 
Vantika will actually do it, as Vantika has spent too much 
time and effort in trying to cheat death to commit suicide 
now. Vantika admits that that is true, but adds that he 
doesn't think Sisko is willing to risk having deuridium 
spread all over the system, either.
	Sisko looks at Dax, who shakes her head frantically.
Vantika once more orders the warp engines engaged. The 
mercenary helmsman refuses, and Vantika promptly kills him, 
then tells Sisko his time is up. Sisko looks at Dax again; 
she nods. Sisko tells Vantika that they are getting ready 
to release the tractor beam, and Dax activates her 
electromagnetic pulse.
	The pulse strikes the ship, causing a fireworks display
outside. Inside, Bashir/Vantika clutches his head in 
agony. Sisko hails the ship, telling Bashir to lower the 
shields; Bashir, apparently Julian again now, slumps in his 
chair in absolute confusion, and asks Sisko where he is and 
what's going on. Again, Sisko urgently tells him to lower 
the shields. Bashir reaches to do so, but just before 
reaching it, grimaces and pulls back. There is a brief 
struggle for control between Julian and Vantika, which ends 
as Bashir hits the switch to lower the shields and Sisko 
instantly has him beamed out of the freighter.
	Bashir materializes in Ops, and Sisko draws his phaser and
points it at the doctor. Bashir starts to say that he 
himself again, but before he can finish, he is taken by 
another struggle for control. Sisko stuns him, and he 
collapses.
	In the infirmary, Dax has come up with a plan to free
Julian from Vantika's control by utilizing the transporter 
to screen out Vantika's glial cells from Julian's own. They 
try it, beaming the foreign cells into a disc-shaped 
containment device, and Dax checks Bashir and declares that 
he is clear of Vantika's influence. She revives him and he 
complains of having a terrible headache.
	Sometime later, Bashir, Dax, Sisko, and Kajada are in the
infirmary discussing events. Kajada apologizes to Bashir 
for the trouble; looking downcast, he replies that they 
should have listened to her from the start. She tries to 
reassure him that he's not responsible for what Vantika did 
while he was in control, but Bashir doesn't remember what 
happened, although he does feel humiliated by the whole 
thing. Sisko reaffirms that the mess wasn't Bashir's fault, 
and he's not being blamed for it. Kajada requests that she 
be given custody of the remains of the prisoner, and Sisko 
agrees. Kajada immediately pulls out her weapon and 
vaporizes the containment device.

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go 
overboard.


First Impressions Reviews: "The Passenger"

One-line opinion summary: Stop that. It's *SILLY*!

Rating: 5 out of 10. I've seen worse (though not from DS9).
I've also seen a lot better.

There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned.

Ye who enter here, all hope abandon of remaining 
unspoiled.

"He's not very dead. He's just mostly dead. I've seen
worse." (William Goldman, *The Princess Bride.*)

Normally, I have a pretty good tolerance for Trek
technobabble. However, this episode hit my limit at about 
the time Dax began to talk about glial cells as if they 
were infectious entities. Then we had the miracle EM pulse 
whipped up in about thirty seconds, and finally, the 
patented Magic Transporter (tm) which can fix any medical 
problem as long as the plot calls for it, but is never used 
at any other time (including for the mundane purposes of 
transporting trapped people out of airlocks and shuttles!)

Enough already!

This episode pulled on my suspenders of disbelief so hard
that they snapped completely. This is the first DS9 
episode where my intelligence has felt deeply insulted by 
the script. There have been TNG episodes that have been 
worse, but we're not talking TNG here; the DS9 producers 
have gone on record (in OMNI) as saying that they are 
trying to make DS9 more scientifically sound than your 
average Trek, and therefore I feel justified in holding 
them to a higher standard. They can do better than this. 
They had *better* do better than this!

All right, enough ranting about the technobabble for the
moment, thought I'll get back to it (in marginally calmer 
fashion) later on in the review. A couple of general 
comments first, before I get into details.

In my opinion, this episode was a fine example of how a
good strong theme can be completely undercut by a horrible 
plot and slipshod execution. The theme that I thought I saw 
trying bravely to make itself seen through all the rubbish 
piled on top of it was one of the inevitability of death, 
and an exploration of the lengths to which it is possible 
to go to try and avoid it, and what that struggle to 
prolong or avoid the inevitable does to the person who 
engages in it. Such a struggle can be ennobling or 
degrading, depending on the circumstances and the person 
involved; just look at the world around you if you require 
examples. But in any case it is certainly one of the most 
universal of themes, and in the hands of a skilled writer 
can be the foundation of some very thoughtful and moving 
fiction.

"The Passenger" wasn't it. And I won't accept arguments
that this is "only Trek" and we shouldn't expect it to be 
either thoughtful or moving; Trek has shown that it can be 
*both*. Unfortunately in this episode someone just wasn't 
trying. The theme was simply buried under a plot that was 
trite, overcomplicated, nearly incoherent at times, and 
loaded down with enough lame technobabble to choke a whole 
team of horses. Characterization was nearly non-existent 
(with a few minor exceptions), and even the script was 
noticeably weaker than usual, lacking much of the sharp, 
witty dialogue that spiced up many of the earlier episodes.


Let's examine the plot first. "Alien force takes over the
mind of a crewmember and wreaks havoc before crewmember is 
freed." How many episodes of TOS and TNG does that 
describe? Try counting them. There are quite a few. So many 
that if you're going to use this plot device again, you had 
darn well better have it be for a very good reason, and 
have it be supported by a strong script. "The Passenger" 
didn't have either. Why exactly did Vantika want that 
shipment of deuridium so badly anyway? Just for the money? 
To keep it all for his personal use? We're never told. The 
Kobliad race is dying -- why? Did they exhaust their 
natural supply of deuridium? or what? The fact that they 
are a dying race is just thrown into the script to no good 
purpose whatsoever. Why did Vantika, who was obsessed with 
living, set a fire nearly certain to kill him? If Kajada 
had been hunting him twenty years, surely he knew better 
than to think she'd enter the stateroom to save him. Lucky 
for him the Runabout was nearby and that they had a doctor 
who could revive him long enough for him to trigger his 
safety backup; what if he'd never regained consciousness? 
This is a *stupid* plan, and a stupid plot. It depends on 
far too many fortuitous coincidences to make it work. Now, 
if *Kajada* had decided to turn the ship into Vantika's 
funeral pyre, and was willing to die herself (and kill the 
pilot) so that she would be sure Vantika were dead, the 
events would have made a lot more sense -- and been in 
character, too, for someone as obsessed as Kajada. But 
that's not what we're told happened.

And about this deuridium -- it's vital to the Kobliad
people, a necessary component of their diet (or 
something...it's never said exactly what they use the stuff 
for), and yet it's poisonous enough that if the freighter 
breaks open everyone in the system will have to be 
evacuated? That simply isn't plausible (possible, maybe, 
but just not plausible.)

Then Vantika, working through Bashir, starts sabotaging the
station. Where did he get the subspace shunt devices? He 
*failed* to break into Kajada's ship, and he didn't get 
them from Quark's black market, and I find it highly 
unlikely that they were just laying around the station. So 
where did they come from? And right about now, Bashir must 
have started to have blackouts from Vantika taking him over 
for the sabotage attempts-- why didn't he notice that 
something was wrong? He's a doctor, surely he would have 
clued in to the fact that something unpleasant was 
happening to him, and tried to do something about it.

Then Bashir and Dax confer about the information Dax got
from Vantika's computer chip. Although they remember that 
Vulcans are capable of doing some types of mind 
transferral, which was good, it strikes me as really 
strange that they don't seem to know about all of the other 
countless times that Starfleet personnel have encountered 
beings capable of taking over the consciousness of other 
lifeforms. Think of the number of times the Enterprise (TOS 
and TNG) has run into this sort of thing, and then multiply 
by all of the ships in the fleet -- I would think that by 
now they'd have an official Starfleet policy for how to 
deal with crewmembers being possessed by alien lifeforms, 
it's happened so many times. At the very least I would have 
expected Dax and Bashir to have a better idea of what was 
possible and maybe be able to reference some of the 
solutions that have worked in the past. The continuity 
would have been nice to see.

Next we have Sisko going to talk to Dax, and here's where
the plot really starts to become preposterous. Okay, so 
Vantika had his neural patterns imprinted on glial cells 
(?!!) which he could then use to somehow imprint his own 
neural patterns on a victim. He put this escape plan into 
motion several months ago, Dax hypothesizes. That should 
mean that the neural patterns in the replicator are several 
months old -- so how is it that Vantika-as-Bashir knows 
what all of Vantika's current plans are, his arrangements 
with Quark and so forth? Shouldn't the implanted 
Vantika-mind be ignorant about the real Vantika's recent 
plans?

WARNING: BIOLOGY RANT NUMBER ONE FOLLOWS. If you're not
interested in hearing me rant about some very shoddy 
pseudo-biology, skip to the paragraph below the following 
one.

Let me get this straight. Vantika uses his fingernails to
get his Kobliad glial cells under his victim's skin. The 
glial cells are then supposed to migrate to the victim's 
brain and set up Vantika's own neural patterns there. Well, 
first of all, getting glial cells under the victim's skin 
shouldn't do any good whatsoever. There's this thing called 
the "blood-brain barrier" which keeps most foreign 
molecules away from the human central nervous system (lucky 
for us.) The larger the molecule, the less chance it can 
get through from the bloodstream to the actual brain cells. 
Getting an entire *cell* through this barrier is flat-out 
impossible. Cells are *huge*, in molecular terms. And then 
there's the matter of the human immune system, which, 
assuming it hasn't been broken, exists for the purpose of 
keeping foreign matter recognized as "non-self" from 
becoming a problem by attacking it and breaking it down -- 
and the immune system is really very efficient at this. 
Given that the Kobliad cells aren't even *human* cells, 
they should have been attacked and killed almost instantly 
by Bashir's own immune system. I could go on like this for 
a while, but even *I'm* tired of it by now, so I won't. 
I'll just finish by saying that if they are going to do 
this sort of plot, I would much, MUCH prefer that they 
stick to the good old "happy fun ball of energy" routine 
than go with this really awful, nonsensical biological 
crap.

Okay, if you skipped that, it's safe to come back now. I'm
finished (for the moment.)

Getting back to the more obvious plot problems, the next
thing that happens is Vantika-as-Bashir tries to kill 
Kajada by pushing her off the balcony at Quark's. Pretty 
inefficient, given the level of medical technology the 
Federation has. If he got that much of a drop on her, he 
would have been smarter to strangle her, break her neck, or 
simply phaser her (note that Vantika-as-Bashir clearly had 
access to a phaser as he had one later in the show.)

Next, Dax establishes that Vantika probably used his
fingernails to transmit the cells, because there aren't 
any needles or hyposprays aboard the ship. (*No* 
hyposprays? Didn't that ship even have a first aid kit?) 
That's a very large leap of logic, there. If all that's 
required is that the cells get under the skin, he could 
have used *anything* sharp. But, given that Dax is shown to 
be right, what does Sisko do? Does he do the obvious and 
immediately have his security people round up anyone who 
might have come into physical contact with Vantika -- 
namely, Kajada, Kira, and Bashir? Nope. In fact, he doesn't 
seem to do anything with this knowledge at all. He doesn't 
even share it with Kira, his First Officer. If he had, they 
would have *immediately* figured out that Bashir had been 
taken, given what Kira saw happen on the ship. But that 
would have been too easy, I guess.

So Vantika-as-Bashir gets up to the freighter and takes
over, but is stopped by the station's tractor beam. He 
then threatens to destroy the ship, and Bashir with it, 
unless Sisko lets him go. That's not a very reasonable 
bluff for a man who is obsessed with living forever to 
make. I will give them credit for having Sisko clue into 
this later on, but I don't think that Vantika would have 
even tried this. He'd have started right off by threatening 
to blow the freighter's hatches wide open and poison the 
entire system unless Sisko let him go, and that would be a 
much more reasonable threat, as he could do it and not 
automatically get killed himself. Of course, then Sisko 
would have had no choice but to give in immediately and 
Vantika would have won, so Vantika has to be stupid so that 
Sisko and company have time to figure out how to defeat 
him. This is the exact antithesis of the situation with 
Tandro in "Dax" -- the station staff won not because they 
were clever but because their opponent was stupid. 
(Although the bit with them defusing his security trap 
before hand *was* a valid clever move on their part; but 
I'll get to the stuff I *liked* later.)

In any case, Vantika gives the staff enough time to figure
out a way to cause him problems. He can perhaps be 
forgiven for not thinking that they'd be able to do it in 
under two minutes, as I find that fact more than a little 
difficult to swallow myself. I hate instantaneous miracle 
fixes (like the one in "Babel" which I've complained about 
previously.) Why couldn't this have been something Dax had 
been working on for a while, with the idea of using it on 
Kajada, whom they thought was the victim? Heck, why 
couldn't she and Bashir (as himself) have put this thing 
together before Vantika went for the freighter, and simply 
not have been able to try it out on Kajada up to that point 
because she wasn't strong enough? That would have been a 
nice touch, to have had the real Bashir have a hand in 
defeating Vantika -- but, no. Instead Dax puts it together 
in two minutes. And naturally, it works. Right.

So they transport Bashir off the ship and into Ops. (Great
place to transport a homicidal psychotic, right into the 
operations center...). Why didn't Sisko stun Bashir right 
off the bat? Bashir was *armed* and Vantika had already 
used the weapon once with no problems. If Vantika had been 
a bit quicker he probably could have gotten at least one 
shot off before Sisko took him down.

And then we get to the crowning glory (or something) of the
plot: the Magic Transporter (tm). At this point the 
silliness of the whole thing overwhelmed me completely. You 
can use the transporter to beam the very neurons out of 
someone's head??? (Glial cells are a type of neuron.) Gimme 
a *break*!

WARNING: BIOLOGY RANT NUMBER TWO FOLLOWS. Same disclaimer
as before; if you're not interested in this, skip to the 
paragraph after.

 Neurons do not exist as separate entities; they are all
interconnected into a huge, vastly complicated 
three-dimensional network. If Vantika's glial cells had 
become a part of that network, removing them suddenly would 
be likely to truly mess up the electrochemical balance of 
Bashir's brain. This does *not* sound like a good idea! And 
she's distinguishing between Vantika's and Julian's cells 
by the neuronal patterns? What about just getting rid of 
anything that's Kobliad?? (How can a *single cell* have a 
neuronal pattern, anyway? That is a nonsensical statement.) 
For that matter, *I* can think of a better way to just kill 
off Kobliad cells without having to use the transporter. 
It's almost realistic, even. Kobliad cells, being nonhuman, 
must have very different surface antigens than human cells. 
(Antigens are the cellular "markers" by which one type of 
cell can be told from another; for example, blood type is 
determined by which antigens exist on the surface of a 
person's blood cells. This isn't exactly a precise 
definition, I know, but I'm sure hardly anyone out there 
wants a more accurate one -- if there are any other 
biologists out there, please don't get on my case.) WIth 
Trek technology it should be simplicity itself to whip up a 
monoclonal antibody specific to Kobliad cells that would 
kill them and leave human cells completely alone. (Of 
course you'd still have to get it past the blood-brain 
barrier, but I'm sure they could manage that.) But then 
they wouldn't be able to use the spiffy transporter 
animation effects, of course.

Okay, I'm done again. You can come out now.

Having vented my spleen about the absurdities of the plot,
I will now turn to the characterization shown in the 
episode. It wasn't *completely* terrible, but I was rather 
sharply disappointed, especially in the lack of development 
of the character of Dr. Bashir. We have had good shows 
delving into Sisko, Kira, and O'Brien; we have had 
moderately good shows dealing with Odo and Dax. I was 
hoping for a good episode with Bashir as the central 
character. I didn't get it. Oh, Bashir was fairly central 
to the action, but we didn't get to see very much more of 
who the character was than we already knew, as most of the 
time he was on screen he wasn't Bashir, he was Rao Vantika. 
It was similar in a way to what happened with Jadzia Dax in 
"Dax" -- namely, that although the character was important 
in the plot, because of the way the story was set up, the 
character's prominence in the plot does not help show us 
much about the character. Dax, though, at least benefited 
from a decent script and the fact that she got to remain 
herself throughout the whole episode, while Bashir must 
have gotten the short stick when they were drawing lots to 
see which character on DS9 would be the first to have his 
or her mind taken over by a hostile alien force. (I wonder 
who will be next? It's only a matter of time...)

Aside from the Rao Vantika scenes, the rest of the show had
Bashir doing the same things he's done all along -- 
alternating between being an extremely capable doctor and 
being an arrogant twit. I am more than a little bit 
disgruntled with whomever is responsible for scripting the 
"I am so brilliant I even amaze myself sometimes" lines for 
Bashir because they are such awful, unrealistic dialogue. I 
just can't imagine *anyone* saying those sorts of things 
and being serious (and I've known some pretty arrogant 
people, too.) It would be far more appropriate, and far 
better dramatically, for the writers to try for some 
subtlety about this part of Bashir's character. As an 
example of how to do it *right* they could reference the 
way the character was portrayed while on the witness stand 
in "Dax" -- *that* was both subtle and effective, and rang 
far truer than any of this blatant speechmaking they 
persist in showing. When he makes speeches like the one in 
the opener of this episode, Bashir slips over the line from 
character to caricature, which I feel is definitely a 
mistake on the writers' part.

About the only positive development the character got came
while he was on Kajada's burning ship. We did get to see 
him exhibit dedication, determination, and courage in his 
attempts to save Rao Vantika's life, even if it did wind up 
getting him into serious trouble later on. That small bit I 
enjoyed; it's pleasant to think that Bashir might actually 
have the qualities it takes to be the sort of heroic figure 
he dreams of being, if the character is ever allowed to 
grow into his potential (which I'm not taking bets on, as 
Trek has been notoriously bad about actually allowing 
characters to change in meaningful ways. Bashir will 
probably be stuck being an arrogant puppy for years to 
come.)

The other characters came out relatively unscathed, and
with minor development. Kira gets to be active, though I'm 
beginning to think that it is the fate of all first 
officers whose names are not Spock to be limited to "being 
competent" while on-screen, without doing anything more 
interesting or revealing. We get some decent scenes with 
Dax, first in the bar with Odo and Quark commenting on her 
habit of being a loner (though I wonder whether or not we 
will see this change in the aftermath of "Dax"?) and later 
as she does her job on the station. I admit to being a bit 
uneasy about how Dax was portrayed while doing her job in 
this episode, however, since she was shown as being 
essentially a "miracle worker", which when put in combination with Bashir's medical wunderkind status, seems to leave 
the door open for a lot of "presto, it's fixed!" endings of 
the sort that I loathe. It was good to see her on the job, 
though, as up to this point she hasn't had much to do on 
the station. Also, she may be warming up to Bashir just a 
trifle; she seemed really worried about him at the end (and 
in the tag, she put her hand on his shoulder; Bashir, 
however, was too busy being depressed to take advantage of 
this fact...) Sisko was fine, except for that blunder in 
not having everyone who had come into contact with Vantika 
in custody once they had a clue about what he had done (and 
not immediately stunning Bashir when they transported him 
aboard.) He seemed genuinely concerned about the fate of 
his junior officer, which was good to see. He also got some 
truly quality screen time when dealing with the conflict 
between his security people, which I'll discuss in a 
minute. Quark got to actually be a criminal for a change; 
very good to see him being involved in something truly 
underhanded. O'Brien still isn't back, apparently, and 
neither are Keiko, Molly, Jake, or Nog.

Which leaves Odo. The Odo subplot is the reason that this
episode rates as high as a 5 on my scale; without it, the 
episode would be around a 3 or so. Although we don't really 
get to learn anything new about Odo, his character as we 
know it is put to excellent use in the conflict with Lt. 
George Primmin. This is something I've been wanting to see 
-- some differences of opinion between Bajorans and 
Starfleet people. And it was handled extremely well, too, 
with an intelligent conflict set up, and the characters 
behaving like I would expect intelligent adults with strong 
differences of opinion to behave in that sort of situation. 
The simultaneous calling of Security by Odo and Lt. Primmin 
was a priceless bit, beautifully handled by both actors. A 
lot of the effectiveness of these scenes came from the 
high-quality acting by Auberjonois, Brooks, and guest star 
James Lashly as Lt. George Primmin. Lt. Primmin came across 
very much as a believable Starfleet officer; rather 
ordinary looking, but sharp, capable, adaptable, and a 
basically likeable person. He also apologizes well :-)

One particularly effective piece of characterization of
Sisko can be gleaned by the viewer when his approaches to 
dealing with Lt. Primmin and Odo are compared. To Primmin 
he is very much a superior officer, and he plays on that, 
while with Odo he tries very hard to give the impression of 
being more of a team coordinator, giving suggestions and 
compliments instead of orders, and asking for help. And he 
does manage to get them working together successfully (not 
with absolute smoothness, but that wouldn't be reasonable.)


It struck me that Primmin's attitude toward Odo has a lot
in common with Bashir's attitude, except that Sisko gave 
Primmin a talking-to and Primmin straightened up. I think 
that a similar talk between Sisko and Bashir is long 
overdue. (Unless it's already happened offstage, and Bashir 
paid no attention, which is possible, though it would speak 
poorly of him to be less adaptable than the security man.)

And, having thoroughly trashed the plot up to this point, I
should mention one thing that was done *right*. For once, 
the red herring with Kajada was believable; I did in fact 
think it was her up until the point where the staff started 
believing it too, at which point I went looking for other 
possibilities and came up with Bashir (after briefly 
wondering if it might be Lt. Primmin, or if Lt. Primmin 
might be Vantika's on-station accomplice.) This is the 
first time I ever recall being even vaguely surprised by a 
Trek mystery. This is probably due to the fact that it 
looks like the folks at Paramount did, in fact, take out 
and shoot their old promo-people and put in new ones who 
had a clue; the promos for "The Passenger" were very 
cleverly intercut so as to give several completely wrong 
impressions about the episode, instead of pulling the usual 
trick of giving away the ending.

Short Takes

-- One thematic point they could and should have addressed 
but completely ignored was: Was what "Vantika" was 
experiencing when he took over Bashir really "life"? Had he 
in fact escaped death, or had he only succeeded in 
inflicting a temporary psychosis on another person? Was 
Vantika *there* in any real sense? I realized quite early 
on in the show that such issues weren't going to even be 
mentioned, let alone addressed, but I still wish they had 
been. I think it would have been a stronger show.

-- There is a dialogue exchange between Odo and Quark which
goes:
	Quark: I resent that inference.
	Odo: It's not an inference; it's a definite suspicion.

Odo's response should have been: "It's not an inference;
it's an *implication*." Not only would it have been 
funnier, it would have been true. The speaker implies; the 
listener infers. Where did the scriptwriters take their 
English courses anyway?

-- Two flashovers I got during the episode: First, when Dax
was digging under the fingernails of the corpse, I kept 
expecting her to come up with a letter on a tiny piece of 
paper; and second, when Vantika basically takes himself 
hostage on the freighter, I kept think that I had seen this 
before -- in "Blazing Saddles."

-- Oh, nearly forgot to mention that Caitlin Brown also did
a good job as Ty Kajada of Kobliad Security; unlike James 
Lashly, though, she was stuck in the worse half of the 
plot, not the better one, so she didn't get to shine the 
way he did.

-- And on the topic of acting, I unfortunately didn't find
Siddig El Fadil particularly convincing as the psychotic 
heavy. I'm not sure why; I think it had a lot to do with 
the delivery of the lines, which came out sounding awkward 
and flat a great deal. I don't know why that was, but it 
just didn't work. (What we have here is the exact opposite 
of Marina Sirtis, who shines when she's the heavy and it 
rather flat when she's being her usual character.)

Next week: A rerun of the first part of "The Emissary."
Reruns so soon? Drat.

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved, 
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.
