While exploring the Gamma Quadrant in the Defiant, Sisko, Dax, Bashir, and O'Brien are shocked when a planet appears where none existed before. They are contacted by a woman named Seltin, who invites them to join her people on their world for a meal. During the feast, Seltin explains that the planet, Meridian, shifts between this dimension and another, where they exist as pure consciousness. When they return to this dimension, it is as if no time has passed for them even though decades have gone by in reality. Dax is intrigued by a Meridian named Deral, who explains to her that the periods when his planet exists in this dimension are getting shorter -- this time, they will only be visible for twelve days, after which Meridian will shift back into its non-corporeal state for sixty years. Those intervals returning to Dax's dimension will soon be cut to a matter of minutes, after which the planet will become too unstable and simply cease to exist.
