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“Then show it. Help me to reach your people-your Great Link-and avoid this war.”

The Changeling shook its head sadly. “Again, you don’t understand, Picard. This is beyond your power or mine. This is inevitability.” The Changeling turned and looked at the model, as though seeing it for the first time. It reached out its hand and followed the curve between engineering hull and warp pylon. “Let me spare you and this beautiful ship from it for a while. That is all I can do for you.”

Picard looked scornful. “How? Mr. Hawk seems to think you have an interest in our shakedown logs, that with them you can neutralize our ship, and others like her, as a front-line threat in the coming war.”

She turned toward Hawk and smiled again. “Hawk is very perceptive. That would indeed be a very useful plum to send back to the Dominion. It would justify my spending more time away from the Great Link, and it would offer you some temporary measure of safety.” The false Troi looked at Picard and tilted her head. “You could make that so much easier. Simply turn over a copy of the logs to me. Take me out into open space and leave me. Or better yet, allow me a shuttlecraft.”

Picard laughed harshly. “Why do you expect I would do that?”

“Because it serves your interest, Picard.”

“I have a duty as a Starfleet officer. That is, first and foremost, my interest. I seek peace, but I will not shirk from war if it must be.”

The Changeling tilted its head. “Poor little solid. Then you will die.”

“In service to the safety and principles of the Federation, in service to freedom from tyranny, then gladly. And I will not be alone. The beings of over a thousand worlds stand with me.”

“Am I supposed to be intimidated, Picard? The Dominion knows all about your Federation, its worlds and its capabilities. If you seek to impress me with your resolve, determination, or courage, you should not bother. They are irrelevant.”

The Changeling shook its head, Troi’s dark tresses moving against her shoulders. “That is what you do not understand. You are tiny to us. Your Federation, your history, your short and fragile lives. If I were to aid you, it might delay the inevitable, a year, a decade, maybe more. But this is nothing to the Dominon. They are patient, and in time, they will crush your Federation. They will bring order to your worlds and your peoples, as they have to countless others. And I, with regret, will move on, looking for other untouched worlds where I can seek my destiny.”

“You say that if you delay things a year, a decade, it will mean nothing to the Dominion. But will it mean nothing to you? If you enjoy living among us so much, why not preserve that as long as you can? And if that delay is meaningless to the Dominion, then you would not even be betraying them, merely serving your individual interests.”

The false Troi blinked, then laughed musically. “Very clever, Picard. Your offer is almost intriguing. I haven’t seen Earth yet, and from what I have heard, it is a place I would like to linger and explore to the fullest. But Earth will be the last place to fall. There will be time enough before the end.”

Picard laughed. “To explore Earth, you will first need to leave this nebula, and I will never allow that under the present circumstances. It is to your advantage in every way to reach an accommodation with me. Aid us, or help us reach some agreement with the Dominion.”

The Changeling smiled. “You have me at a disadvantage, Picard, it is true. But while I might have something to gain here, the Dominion does not. You have nothing they want that they cannot take from you in due time. All you can offer, your one true hope, is unconditional surrender, and that I would gladly bring back to the Great Link.”

“Never.”

“Then we are at an impasse, Picard. Whatever my agenda, whatever my hopes or desires, to betray the Great Link is to betray myself.”

“Then I will quote to you from Shakespeare again. ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’”

This seemed