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A long pause. “I’ll make the necessary preparations.”

“See that you do.” He stabbed a golden-hued finger down and terminated the conversation.

He had planned everything out meticulously. It ought to have gone without a hitch. Instead, everything was unraveling at a shocking speed.

But there was still time to escape. He’d have to destroy the lab, of course, and Moset would yelp over that. Frankly, he regretted the necessity of it as well. At least he and the scientist would be able to take the prime test subjects and one or two of the creatures with them, along with all the information on the years of Moset’s research.

They could start over. It was something the Changeling was used to by now.

“You heard him,” said Chakotay quietly. There was no need to bully the Cardassian now. He had almost completely capitulated, and now the Changeling himself had provided the last piece of proof.

“I heard him,” said Moset quietly. He turned away from the two prisoners, so Chakotay couldn’t see his face. “He said, ‘Take my creatures.’ Not ‘your creatures’ or even ‘our creatures.’ ” Slowly he turned, and there was commingled pain and anger in his haughty face. “You were right, Chakotay. He doesn’t intend for me to keep them. And I’m beginning to think he never did.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Chakotay asked.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Abruptly he rose and stalked out of the room.

“What do you think he’ll do?” Sekaya whispered.

“I’ve no idea,” said Chakotay, “but it might somehow involve our release.”

Moset was trembling as he went to the beings he had made. Had designed, created, with the same exquisite care and craftsmanship as an artist would employ to execute a painting, or an engineer would design a ship. He had analyzed them, blended their DNA with that of the Sky Spirits, changed direction to follow up on any and every new, startling development. The hours he had spent on them! The devotion. And yes, he named it: the love.

He was not a fool. He knew how the rest of the quadrant viewed him and his experiments. The “Butcher of Bajor,” they had nicknamed him. They classified him with Kodos the Executioner, Colonel Green, Kesla, Beratis, T’sart, and Hent Tevren, and though he always responded with a cheerful shrug, he knew that this was how history was going to depict him.

But those who dared to judge him so mercilessly were wrong. They couldn’t see the larger scope, couldn’t understand the profundity of what he was doing. With the Sky Spirit creatures he had created from ordinary lumps of human flesh, he was going to prove them wrong. He was going to wrest his reputation away from those who would condemn so quickly, show them the heights to which a being could rise through the magnificence of so brilliant a mind as his.

But Ellis—Katal—the Changeling—he was going to take them away. Oh, Moset knew what the exiled Founder would do with such spectacular beings. He’d make his own little Dominion out of them; make them scrape and obey and mindlessly follow him and only him the way the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar had followed their creators. But at least the Founders had had the luxury of seeing the worship in the eyes of the things they had made. Moset would only stand by and watch his creations worship another; another who had no hand in their making.

If, he thought bitterly, he would even be alive to stand by and watch.

Moset regarded the ape-like creatures whose telepathic skills were beyond his imagining groom one another. He felt a deep, aching pain that was due to nothing physical.

He would do anything to keep these creatures; they were his rehabilitation in the eyes of the future.

And as far as he could reason it, there was only one way to do so.

When Moset returned to the lab, he found Ellis—looking like Lieutenant Kim—tossing the body of a Trill onto another bed. The Changeling glanced up as Moset entered.

“There you are,” he said brusquely. “Help me with him.”

Moset stared for a moment, and then moved to assist the Changeling. “Who is this and why have you brought him here?