But Odo and Garak did spend more than 78 hours away while they were caught by the romulan-cardassian ships. So did Bashir go into Garak's room to search for the "joke" isolinear rod. Like did he have the doubt "what if he wasn't joking and I actually have to destroy some important spy business". Did he find a rod. Did he check what was on the rod instead of eating it. Did the rod contain the star trek equivalent of Never Gonna Give You Up