Odo is accused of murder when a man he despised turns up dead.
Odo recognises Ibudan, a man who profited from smuggling during the occupation and whom Odo believes committed murder, and orders him off the station. When Ibudan is later found dead in a holosuite, suspicion falls on Odo, and Sisko has to relieve him of duty as station residents form a mob against the shapeshifter.
Bashir finds that Ibudan had been growing a strange tissue sample in his quarters, which turns out to be a clone of himself. The dead man was another clone, killed by Ibudan to frame Odo, and the real Ibudan is caught and arrested. In a parallel story Keiko O'Brien starts a school on the station, with Jake Sisko and Nog among her pupils.