Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 05:02:39 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson Title: Oswiecim Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: REP 29/42 Rating: [PG-13] (Violence) Codes: Chapter Twelve -- Continued "He's dead now," Szymon said. His tone was solemn betraying neither sympathy nor satisfaction. "I don't know, " Max replied. They had just returned from a long roll call and were sharing some cheese Max had smuggled back to the barracks. They had barely had time for anything else. "He's been gone like this before. He survived. I think Heiler doesn't want him dead. I don't know why he hates him so much." "He's a Jew," Szymon reasoned. "And Heiler's a German. That's all the reason he needs." "But he singles Bashir out," Max argued. "He doesn't treat everyone like he treats Bashir." Szymon looked up at him. "I've been here longer. I've seen this before. Sometimes the SS, they latch on to someone, like a toy or a pet. Sometimes they are nicer to that person. Sometimes they are worse. With Heiler it is worse. What I wonder is, now that Bashir is gone, who will be his next toy? You don't have to worry. You are not in his kommando." "You're sure he's gone?" "Ten minutes to lights out! Shut up!" Szymon ignored the *Blockalteste*'s warning. But he did begin to undress as he spoke. "How can he not be? You saw him after--" He stopped there and Max knew he was speaking of Piotr's death. "He didn't want to live anymore. He was finished. I'm really surprised he lasted this long." Max nodded. He had to agree. Bashir had been so withdrawn, and he had only eaten when Max had forced it on him. Bashir had grown more emaciated in the last four days than in the five weeks since they had arrived. His eyes, so expressive before, had been hollow and cold. He hadn't even seemed to notice his own pain anymore. He had paid little attention to anything going on around him. He had become one of the Muselmen, and they never lived very long. She came for him the next evening just after roll call. He hated to leave, though he knew it wasn't safe in the hospital. There would probably be another selection soon. But he had felt safe, as long as the German doctors hadn't come. Also, he had felt a piece of his life return to him there. He had only treated minor injuries, mostly providing a proper bandaging, but he still considered it practicing medicine. For some, his bandages might have meant the difference between being selected for work or for the gas. He had felt alive again helping them. He was careful not to show that when she came. He followed her silently and refused the food she offered him. She threatened him, with a beating, with a bullet to the head, but he didn't waver. And she didn't shoot. "Fine, starve!" she finally said. "Keep moving. If I get there before you, I'll kill someone." She shoved him forward so that he was in front of her. He was back in the barracks in time for lights out. The changeling thrust him through the door just as the *Stubenalteste* was going to lock it. "*Schnell!*" the *Stubenalteste* yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling him in. He pushed him deeper into the room. Bashir was unable to step around some of those on the floor, and he heard them groan and curse as he stepped on their feet or fingers. Max was still sitting when he climbed up to the bunk. Szymon sat up too, when he saw who it was. "*Du hattest recht,*" he said to Max. "*Er ist nicht tot.*" "*Frag ihn wo er gewesen ist,*" Max prodded. The men sleeping between them shushed him, but he waved them away. "*Morgen,*" Szymon answered obviously impatient. "*Es ist spat. Geh schlafen.*" Bashir understood that last word. He'd heard it enough now. Sleep. He heartily agreed. The work in the hospital hadn't been hard, not like the construction site, but it had gone on long after the other prisoners had stopped working, and it continued even after their roll call. He undressed as quickly as he could in the dark, removing his sling and then replacing it once his coat was off. Max noticed it. "*Krankenbau?*" he whispered, and Bashir had heard that word enough to know it, too. Hospital. He missed the straw mattress when he laid down. The wood was hard and gave him splinters. There were gaps where the boards didn't quite meet which allowed for drafts beneath the blanket he and Max shared. He never got warm when he slept there. And sleep never came deeply. He could always feel the prickly cold air, always hear the skittering of the rats, the groans of the men around him, even as he dreamed of home. His quarters back on the station seemed palatial to him now, not only because of his possessions and the replicator, but simply because he didn't have to share them with anyone. Even his quarters on the *Defiant,* as sparse as they were, were a luxury of privacy and cleanliness. Even on the tiny bunks there, he could stretch out to his full height and sleep on a mattress with a real pillow. In the morning, Heiler asked him once if he felt better. Then her period of kindness was over, and things went on as before. The crematoria they were building was nearing completion, but the German engineer that was overseeing construction still seemed unsatisfied. Whatever the problem was, it lessened the patience of the Nazi guards, even Heiler. She meted out punishment equally among the prisoners instead of concentrating all of her efforts on Bashir. The *kapo* didn't send him for the soup that day, either. No one went to retrieve it. This had happened before. They were being punished. Bashir wasn't exactly sure why, but he also knew there didn't have to be a reason. They would probably get the soup after roll call. It would be cold by then and taste even worse than before. Julian found that the work was easier now, though not by much. His muscles ached from the hours of toil. But he didn't feel as dizzy as before, and he didn't fall down unless he tripped on something. Two days in the hospital had done wonders, if not so much for his physical condition, then for his stamina and perhaps even his spirit. He had eaten breakfast in the morning without any prodding from Max for the first time since the incident, and he hadn't even looked at the fence all morning. It was an improvement. Major Kira stood at attention in the mess hall waiting for the away team to return. It was 2300 hours, 2100 on the particular section of Earth below them. And according to Thomas, all the prisoners would be in bed by then. Curfew. She remembered that from the Occupation. Such a simple thing. A time to be in. Lights out. Yet it never felt simple. It felt like a chain around one's neck, pulling tight at a certain time to remind the lowly of their place. Kira was almost glad she wasn't on the away team. She might have killed someone. The comm channel brought her out of her reverie. "Major, the away team is beaming up." "Thank you," Kira answered. "Have them meet me in the mess hall immediately." She already knew they hadn't found him. Someone would have called if they had. Of course, they might have found him, but been unable to find any privacy until now, but she thought that unlikely. "Kira to Sisko," she said, tapping her badge. She hated to wake him, but he had left strict orders. "The away team is returning, Captain." "I'll be right there," he answered, his voice still sounding groggy. Kira tried to force herself to relax, to loosen her stance. She couldn't sit down though, so she leaned against one of the tables. The door opened almost immediately and she jumped just a bit. She crossed her arms tightly, angry at herself for being startled. Then she sneezed. "Bless you," Ensign Salerno offered quietly before he slumped into a chair. Jordan entered behind him, and Kira had to resist the urge to sneeze again. When the two other members joined them, the smell became even stronger. But she didn't sneeze anymore. It made her nauseous. She remembered the smell and how it had hung on her clothes for days after Gallitep. She had beaten them against rocks and scrubbed them fiercely in the Galanda River. But still the stench had remained. By then she had realized though, the smell wasn't in the fabric so much as in her mind. After all these years, she'd finally managed to free herself of it. Until now. It had been the same yesterday afternoon, when the first away team had returned. She'd dreamt of Gallitep that night and every scene, every sound, was as vivid to her now as the day she had seen it for the first time. Captain Sisko was the last to enter, but when he did, he was fully dressed and wide awake. Only the bulges under his eyes hinted of his fatigue. But they were all used to that. Sisko stood in the doorway for a moment, preventing it from closing. He surveyed the room and then he sighed. He knew, too. He took a step forward, and the door swished shut behind him. "How much longer?" Jordan stood, pulling himself to attention. "One more day ought to do it, sir." He sounded tired when he said it. He didn't relax though. He looked as if he had more to say. He rolled his lips a moment, considering, before he spoke. "They killed ten men tonight at roll call. None of them were Bashir. But I couldn't help wondering who they were. It's so hard being down there, Captain, and not being able to help those people. I kept thinking, just the four of us," he fanned his arm around, indicating his team members, "with our phasers, we could have taken them all out before they even knew what hit them." He shrugged and gave a short, hysterical chuckle. Then he became quiet again. "But we couldn't do that." Salerno spoke up next, though he never raised his head. "There's a little road there, that leads to the gas chambers. It's paved with tombstones. You can still see the Hebrew letters on some of the pieces. Isn't it bad enough that they kill those people? How did we ever get to be so cruel?" Part of Kira's anger fell away. The people doing the killing were humans. She had met a lot of humans these last five years. If she had known then about this part of their past, she might have turned down the position on DS9 altogether, thinking them no different than the Cardassians. But she hadn't known, and she had stayed. And she knew that the Cardassians, barring a few special individuals, would never stop to consider their cruelty as these young officers were. They would never even recognize it. "I think," Captain Sisko began equally as quiet, "it's more important to remember that we grew out of that cruelty. That is not who we are. We are Starfleet officers. And if you didn't feel the way you do right now, after seeing what you've seen, I'd be much more worried than I am. Prepare a report for the morning's away team and senior staff. Then get some sleep." He left, but Kira stayed with the away team to help them write their report. Using the map of the camp, they marked off which areas had been searched and which remained to be investigated. Jordan had been right, one more day and they would have the camp covered, with the only exception being the dead. Those who were killed right away weren't registered in the camp, so Jordan would not have come across their names in the camp records. If Julian had died there, they would likely never know it. Still, the extermination area was the one large place they had left to search. And Kira fervently hoped they wouldn't find him there either. She didn't want to think of Julian being forced to participate in the killing of others. She was sure he would refuse anyway, and end up with the dead. In which case, they would never know about it. But, in some cases, not knowing was the lesser of two evils. Thomas was finding it hard to sleep. Images of the ghetto kept coming to her at night from her blocked memory, exaggerated by the effect of dreaming. The buildings seemed taller, thinner, darker, almost alive with misery. The dead on the streets called out to her by name. "Save us!" they cried. "Why didn't you save us?" "I trusted you," he said. She didn't know who he was, but his thin, bearded face was in all her dreams, always accusing her. "I trusted you with my life, with my family. I thought you were different." He felt familiar to her. He poked one finger at her as he spoke, touching her hard in the center of her chest. When she woke up, she could still feel the pain. In the morning, Novak took up where Jordan had left off, checking the records of all those who had been registered into the camp. Barker had drawn the unfortunate task of searching the extermination area. This time, the nurses had given him something for his stomach. They had also given him a cold. It was his own idea. If he had a cold, he wouldn't be able to smell anything, besides it would fit the weather down on the planet. It had been winter for months. He could also use it as an excuse for not yelling at anyone. He had narrowly escaped that the day before. He beamed down in the narrow passage between two buildings and was immediately assaulted by the noise. Despite the early hour, the gas chambers to the north were already being used. He looked left and right quickly, to be sure he wasn't seen. If the chambers behind him were being used, he might have been spotted by those being forced inside. But no one was there and that worry aside, Barker now had to deal with the sound. It was eerie, ghostly except that the people making the sound weren't ghosts . . . yet. They wailed and screamed, crying out as they died. He even imagined he could hear them on the other side of the wall, scratching, leaving trails of blood on the concrete as they struggled for air. He felt sick anyway. "You have a job to do, Ensign," he whispered to himself. He pushed himself away from the wall and toward the corner of the building. He looked carefully both ways before he stepped out into the open. When he finally did, he tried to walk as purposefully as he could. He could see the watchtower above him, just off to the left. The Ukrainian guard who manned the station would be watching the Jewish prisoners, but Barker knew he would also be watching the SS, though not for the same reason. The screams from inside the chamber were already beginning to die away as the life was extinguished from the room. Directly in front of him were the cremation pyres. He could still see the forms of skulls and appendages, even whole bodies, turned into ash. The faces he saw, with their lips curled back away from their teeth--if they still had skin at all--were all unrecognizable. And most bodies weren't even whole to check for height. Still, Barker wasn't there to look among the dead. He was to search the living, those who were burning the bodies, those who were condemned to leading the doomed to die. Some of those prisoners were stoking up the fires again, preparing for the next batch, those that were in the chambers now. Barker watched them as he approached. They moved slowly, lethargically, most of them, seemingly unaffected by the *kapo*'s whip. Their gaunt, ashen faces never looked up from the ground directly in front of them. Their shoulders hunched over their work. Even the SS seemed subdued here. The screaming had stopped and the doors were opened. Naked bodies tumbled out. The SS came to life, screaming and shoving, making the prisoners run. They carried the bodies one at a time to the pyre. More were laid to the side to wait their turn. The chamber had to be emptied. There were more people to put in. Barker kept his distance from the other SS, but worked his way slowly around the pyre, squinting his eyes from the smoke. He coughed and his throat felt raw. He wondered how much of that was from the cold. His eyes began to tear, and he wondered how much of that was from the smoke. A few of the men were tall enough, if one could tell from their stooped position, but none of them looked right on closer inspection. Barker moved away from the pyre and closer to the chamber. There were other prisoners guiding the new arrivals from the "tube," the little tombstone-paved road that led from the undressing area, into the chamber. He could hear them speaking. Some spoke in German or Yiddish which was translated by his new translator. "It's only a shower," they were saying. "Everything will be fine. You'll see. Hold your children tightly. Stay together so you can find each other after the delousing." Some of the voices spat out the lies, others spoke them kindly, soothingly, as if the lies were all they had to offer those people as they were herded into the darkened room. All the voices he heard in Standard had lacked any particular accent. Bashir's voice would have spoken with British inflections. And they knew from his records that he didn't speak Polish or German. He was not among them either. Bashir had changed since going to the hospital. He seemed alive again, at least a little, no more the Muselman. He ate now without being forced, though he still didn't try hard to get his place in line. He seemed so much more casual about it now. If he had food, he ate it. If he went without, he didn't complain. He didn't say anything at all. That much hadn't changed. Szymon had even tried to speak to him. He had asked about the hospital. Bashir only nodded in confirmation that he'd been there. Szymon had changed, too. From the night that Piotr had died, Szymon had grown quiet, less angry instead of more. But as they had watched Bashir deteriorate, Szymon had become more concerned, offering to translate if Max should try and speak with him, or trying on his own to get Bashir to speak. Max had even watched him push others out of the way as he dragged Bashir up the line with him for their morning rations. Max had asked him why once, the night that they believed Bashir was dead. Why was he caring about Bashir now, when he couldn't be bothered with the Englishman before? Szymon had said one sentence before turning his back to go to sleep. "Because they made him kill my brother." Max had never questioned again. He didn't understand. Szymon hadn't explained Piotr's death and, of course, Bashir hadn't spoken of it. But Max could see that he wasn't welcome to push. Szymon, like himself, had enough misery in Auschwitz. He didn't need Max to cause him more. Another thing that hadn't changed was Bashir's nightly vigil beside the barracks. Most nights there was nothing to see but the billows of one's own breath against the cold air, but he sat there anyway, staring upward at the sky or smoke. Only now, he made it in before the *Stubenalteste* locked the door. He always gave himself time to walk across the floor to the bunk slowly so that he wouldn't have to step on the unfortunates who still slept on the floor. Both of them, Szymon and Bashir, seemed to fall asleep quickly once they laid down. Max wasn't sure why it took him longer. He was exhausted too, though his work was different. It wore on his heart often more than that it did his shoulders. He longed for someone to talk to, to tell what he saw on the trains. Not about the bodies. All of them saw bodies everyday. They lay as common as stones on the ground every morning, noon, and night. But he wanted to share the memories, the little pieces of life that were left on the trains, the evidences of hope and of hardship. People brought the silliest things with them to this place. Of course, they didn't know what they were coming to. They were told a lie and they wanted to believe it more than anything. Because the truth was too unbelievable, too incredible, too horrible to be true. So they had brought their money with them, hoping to buy what they would need or perhaps better treatment. It had worked in the past. They brought razors with them, and hairbrushes and toothbrushes, little things for daily life. Surely they were necessary. They brought dolls with them and toys so that their children could play and not be so lonely. They brought photographs so they could remember what they had lost. Prayer shawls and umbrellas, pots and pans, winter coats and summer dresses. They didn't know just as Max hadn't known when he was coming. He had had all the same things in his bag, and little Hana had carried her favorite doll in her arms. Szymon and Bashir fell asleep from exhaustion. Max cried himself to sleep tearlessly every night seeing the faces of his friends and family and people he would never know. Sisko ordered the change of course at midnight. The eight men had searched Treblinka as thoroughly as they could without being conspicuous. Bashir was not among the prisoners there. O'Brien and the mostly female remaining crew had finished the *Defiant*'s emergency repairs. The warp drive was now functioning. The Chief promised that in two days, the drive would be able to get them around the sun and back to their own century where a fully-equipped starbase could finish the job. There was only one place left to look. Beyond that, Sisko knew he'd have to give up on Julian and take the rest of his people home. They would reach Auschwitz before daybreak. To Be Continued.... -- --Gabrielle I'd much rather be writing! http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/ The Edge of the Frontier http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/ This Side of the Nether Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? Mon Apr 19 23:34:47 2004 X-Persona: Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n49.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.67.37]) by vulture (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1bfLYR32U3NZFl50 for ; Mon, 19 Apr 2004 20:31:29 -0700 (PDT) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13427-1082431889-stephenbratliffasc=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yah