But this isn't good enough for Rao's pursuer, Ty Kajada. She's been pursuing Rao for twenty years, and she wants every test under the sun done to make sure he's dead as a doornail. Bashir obliges.
Turns out her paranoia is well placed. Rao has perfected a method of cheating death, as revealed when he contacts Quark in a new body. With a group of mercenaries, Quark himself is masterminding a theft of valuable deuridium, which is used by Kobliads to prolong their life. Ty eavesdrops on Quark and his crew but gets pushed off a high balcony, winding up in sickbay.
The time of the theft comes, and Rao's new vessel is revealed to be Julian, who was possessed at the episode's start when he grabbed him by the throat.
After he and his men kill the crew shipping the deuridium, they prepare to make off with it and attempt to knock the power out to allow them to escape. Starfleet security officer Lt. Primmin manages to stop them.
After a quick back and forth bantering with Sisko, Jadzia sends a disabling pulse through the tractor beam. Julian beams back aboard, but his act doesn't fool anyone. Sisko quickly stuns him, and wheels him off to sickbay, where the last of Rao's cells are removed and contained. Bashir then is woken up by Dax, no worse for wear. He does admit feeling humiliated but Kajada, Sisko, and Dax reassure him what happened was not his fault.
Ty thanks them for their assistance and asks if Rao has been transferred into her custody. When confirmed, she vaporizes the containment unit, ending Rao's existence for good, before taking her leave.
This episode provides examples of:
- Body Surf: Vantika's ability.
- Break the Haughty: During the Cold Open, Bashir delivers a breathtakingly egotistical monologue to Kira about his innate gifts as a healer. Subsequent events in the episode (which are at least partially caused by Bashir's refusal to listen to Kajada's warnings) serve him a very large slice of humble pie.
- Call-Back: Bashir mentions that Vantika's body is definitely not a clone while investigating whether he's faked his death, referencing a couple episodes ago in "A Man Alone" where a criminal faked their death using a cloned corpse.
- Cold Ham: While controlling Bashir, Rao is even-toned and calm, but manages to be astoundingly hammy in his speech patterns.
- Continuity Nod: When talking about ways Rao could have escaped, Bashir mentions and dismisses "synaptic pattern displacement ", because no non-Vulcan has ever managed it.
- Crazy-Prepared: According to Kajada, Vantika has faked his death innumerable times in the past, which is why she is so skeptical that he really died on her ship. Considering that he invented a portable brain uploader that he could hide under his fingernail as an emergency escape route, it's not hard to believe.
- Deadpan Snarker: After listening to Bashir bragging about how fate has made him such an awesome doctor, Kira has this to say: "I feel privileged to be in your presence."
- Evil Is Hammy: Rao Vantika takes a big bite of Cold Ham when he hijacks Bashir.
- Fair Cop: Ty Kajada.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: As Rao releases Quark, you can just catch a glimpse of Bashir's face.
- Grand Theft Me: A criminal takes over Bashir's body.
- I Know You Know I Know: Sisko explains to Primmin that this is one of Odo's standard tactics, especially with Quark.
- Immortality Seeker: Vantika will do anything to keep himself alive, no matter how insane or destructive to others.
- Jerkass: Primmin comes across as rather arrogant and dismissive of Odo early on, though he does try to make peace with him.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Odo bristles at Starfleet Security officer Primmin's attempt to take over the investigation, and considers resigning. Sisko gives him a Rousing Speech about how no one can do the things Odo can do, that Sisko needs Odo, and states that in joint operations like this, Odo is actually in charge. This mollifies Odo. They do eventually develop a degree of respect for one another — it helps that Primmin manages to locate a device Vantika was planning to use to shut down the station, because he listened to and followed up on a line of reasoning Odo gave earlier — though, as we will see in the next episode, this doesn't end the friction between them.
- Mad Scientist: Kajada admits some begrudging respect for Vantika's keen scientific mind. Unfortunately, he is also a psychotic murderer who has committed many evils in his obsessive pursuit of immortality.
- Mistaken Death Confirmation: Kira and Bashir have a discussion about tricorders. For some reason (in this episode and no others) you can't 100% trust a tricorder reading that says that a person is dead. Accuracy isn't as good for dead people. Kira saw a person declared dead "come back to life." One wonders what the point of this exchange is, as you'd think the question "is the patient alive or dead" would be one the inventors of the tricorder would want answerable correctly all the time.
- Never the Obvious Suspect: When the protagonists start to realise Vantika has transferred his consciousness, Kajada becomes their main suspect, because she would have been the most obvious target for the transfer, and because of a couple of suspicious things she does. But it turns out Dr. Bashir is actually the one Vantika resides in. It's Bashir who first mentions her as a suspect.
- 90% of Your Brain: Dr. Bashir, who really should know better, repeats the old saw that "sentient beings only use a small portion of their brain" as a reason why there's "plenty of room" for Vantika to hide.
- Properly Paranoid: Kajada's paranoia that Vantika is still alive is well justified. Particularly since, as she points out, Vantika was the one who started the fire that "killed" him, and he's not the type to do something like that without a plan.
- Red Herring: There is some evidence that causes the crew to initially suspect Rao has taken over Ty. Towards the end of the episode, Primmin is also presented as a potential suspect.
- The Sociopath: Vantika cares only about his own survival, and will do anything to anyone to ensure that he survives anything. He also has no qualms about committing mass murder.
- Technobabble:Jadzia: I've been asking myself: Why would anyone induct a bioelectrical charge into a glial cell?
Sisko: A question I have always wondered about. - Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Ty vaporizes the container holding Rao's essence, to ensure that he can't Body Surf anymore.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Averted. The crew is understandably skeptical of Kajada's claim that Vantika is somehow alive, with his body sitting in their morgue, but she convinces Sisko to keep investigating anyway.
- You're Insane!: Vantika's helmsman says this when he's ordered to go to warp with a Tractor Beam on them, which would tear the ship apart. Vantika responds by shooting him.
