Strange New Worlds 8

by Dean Wesley Smith

  When they finished, she turned to me. “Want to spend the day with me in engineering?”

  I felt Daddy go still, waiting for me to answer her. He was almost as surprised as me when I said yes.

  I started shaking before we were halfway there, but I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want to disappoint her. My heart was starting to pound so hard all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears. I stumbled, and she grabbed me.

  “It’s okay, Beleena. We’re going to do this together.”

  She took my hand, and I gripped hers as tight as I could. The smells of engineering—the smell of warm wires, of the warp drive—got stronger and stronger, and I thought it would cut off my breath. But B’Elanna’s grip on my hand, which felt so much like Mommy’s, made me strong. Soon my heart didn’t beat so hard and all those smells made me feel happy instead of sad. Somehow Mommy felt closer instead of so far away.

  B’Elanna put me in the engineer’s chair and went right to work. I listened to her yell her orders, her voice sometimes sounding mad, but I could tell she really wasn’t. When the captain called her from the bridge and asked her advice on something, she answered right away and the captain said “okay.”

  It was just like Mommy was back.

  I fell asleep in her chair and didn’t wake up till she was carrying me home and we were almost there.

  “I thought you weren’t going to wake up at all.” Her voice was laughing. “I was afraid I had bored you to death.”

  I didn’t say anything. I wrapped my arms around her neck and hugged her. I thought I would explode with happiness when she hugged me back.

  Daddy got us all drinks, and he sat next to me on the sofa.

  “Did you have a good day?”

  I tried to tell him everything I could remember. I must have been funny because he and B’Elanna were laughing. Daddy picked me up to hold me in his lap and looked down at me. I could see all of the white in his mouth, and I knew how happy he was.

  He was as happy as me.

  And then B’Elanna said something that made everything change.

  “I can’t wait for you two to meet my husband, Tom.”

  Daddy went real still, the white on his face kind of freezing in place. When he talked, his voice sounded like it did when he tried to tell me about Mommy.

  “Great. We’ll look forward to it.”

  I said, “What’s a husband?”

  I felt Daddy’s arms tighten around me as he tried to explain. “Husband means that B’Elanna is committed to someone. Like I was to Mommy.”

  It felt like all the white in the room turned black. I remember touching Daddy’s face and saying, “I thought that you and B’Elanna were going to commit.” I turned toward B’Elanna. “I thought you were going to be my new mommy.”

  I can tell when you say something you shouldn’t. Adults get real quiet and the room goes kind of cold.

  I didn’t wait for anybody to say anything else. I got out of Daddy’s lap even though he didn’t want me to and ran to my room. I wanted them to come after me to tell me I was wrong.

  Daddy came in, but I wouldn’t talk to him. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep, hoping that I would wake up screaming with Daddy telling me that it was all just a dream.

  I stayed in my room for the next few days. I didn’t want to talk to B’Elanna even though she came to our living quarters and tried to talk to me through the door. I yelled at her to go away and leave me alone. Daddy must have been there because I heard whispering and then it got all quiet. I didn’t get up to go see if they were waiting for me or not.

  I didn’t want to see her at all. I just wanted for the engines to get fixed and all the humans to go away.

  Daddy finally brought me dinner and tried to talk me into eating. But I didn’t want anything so he took the food away.

  Before he closed the door, he said, “We’re running the final check on the engines tomorrow, Beleena. If everything goes okay, B’Elanna will be leaving. It would be nice if you said good-bye to her.”

  He stood in the door for the longest time, waiting for me to say something. I just pulled the covers over my head and covered up my ears.

  But I still heard when he left, just like I heard the hurt in his voice.

  I decided right then that I hated B’Elanna Torres, and I wished she had died instead of Mommy.

  I couldn’t stay in my bed the next day. I didn’t want to go out in case she was waiting on me, but I couldn’t sit still. Nothing made me happy and the day seemed to take forever to get over.

  I kept listening for the engines to work because it would mean that soon she would be gone for good, and it would just be me and Daddy again.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until my face was wet. I wiped my face dry and blew my nose. I was mad at myself for crying. I punched my pillow and then picked it up and threw it, my mad getting bigger. I grabbed the pillow and pulled it back behind my head to throw it again when I fell down.

  It took me a minute to realize I hadn’t really fallen down, but had been knocked down. I looked around to see who had pushed me when the floor fell out from under me again. I pushed both my hands against the floor and felt the ship shaking like it had a fever.

  Shiver. Stop. Shiver.

  Then I heard it.

  It was a groan in the deepest part of the ship. I remembered that sound. I remembered it from the day that Mommy died. It was the same sound I heard right before everything exploded.

  B’Elanna was in engineering. And I had wished B’Elanna had died.

  People were running everywhere. The ship’s alarms were sounding and I could tell that the emergency lights were flashing. I tried to run toward engineering, but hands pulled me along while voices yelled at me that everyone had to abandon ship.

  I somehow pulled away from the crowd and felt for the walls to figure out where I was. Daddy had put symbols on the walls to help me get around when my eyes first got hurt so I would know right where I was. I moved down the hall and found the engineering access tube. It only took me a second to get the tube opened. I got in and started crawling as fast as I could toward engineering.

  I pushed the tube door open and slid out all at the same time. It wasn’t until I tried to stand up that I smelled the smoke.

  It seemed like everything stopped. My body froze, and I felt myself wrapped up in fear. I was on my knees, and I couldn’t get my body to move at all. I felt the ship go all shivery again and I closed my eyes and screamed just before everything went bright around me, and I was knocked on my back.

  I felt the fire. It was everywhere all around me, and I felt my skin start to burn. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get my breath. Suddenly, I saw a shadow coming out of the flames.

  Mommy!

  Hands picked me up and strong arms wrapped around me and then we were in the middle of the fire and then we were out and then I heard a voice screaming.

  “Voyager! Medical emergency! Two to beam to sickbay!”

  The first thing I saw was a lot of white before a musiclike voice said, “Well, it’s about time you woke up, young lady. You had everyone here a little worried.” The white got bigger and I saw lips surrounding it and then big eyes looking at me all happy like. “But I told them you had the best doctor in the Delta Quadrant caring for you so they shouldn’t be worried.” He held out his hand. “Would you like to sit up?”

  I reached for his hand and then the strangest thing happened because someone else’s hand was in his hand, but it was like it was my hand because I could feel him pulling me up which couldn’t have been happening because he was holding somebody else’s hand. I was still looking at somebody else’s hand that I could feel in his when he used his free hand to pull up my head and turned it from side to side.

  “Do you hurt anywhere, Beleena?”

  I blinked hard because I could see his lips moving. I looked around the room and all of a sudden, I could see things.

  The man leaned close to me and talked rea
l soothing. “I’ve fixed your eyes, Beleena. You’ve got your eyesight back. It’s probably still a little fuzzy right now, but it will get better.” He held the hand in his and showed it to me. “I was also able to do quite a bit of reconstructive surgery.” He rubbed his fingers over the hand in his, and I felt it. “You still have some scars, but I don’t think that most people will notice.”

  I lifted my hand, and that strange hand came out of the man’s hand. I touched my fingers together, still not believing that those normal-looking hands were really mine.

  “I also fixed your face.”

  He was holding up a mirror and a face that looked sort of like Mommy’s looked back at me. I reached up with my hands to touch my new face and to touch my new hair.

  “I was able to repair your hair follicles.” The man chuckled like he was happy with himself. “I’ve had a little practice in that area, so I think you’ll be pleased with the result.”

  I couldn’t believe what had happened. I had to keep touching myself so I knew it was real and not a dream. I looked around the room, seeing all these things that I couldn’t understand and couldn’t figure out. It wasn’t until something moved that I realized that there was another person in the room.

  The man moved real fast to the other person. “Lieutenant? B’Elanna?”

  It was then that I remembered that shadow coming at me, fire all around it as it grabbed me and ran back into the fire with me all wrapped up in it to keep the fire from burning me more.

  I blinked again and again, everything getting sharper each time I did, and I finally saw her, lying on the same kind of bed that I was on. The man was waving something over her.

  “Hi, Beleena.” Her voice was whispery and all weak like. “I guess you’ve met the Doctor.”

  “We’ve been having a wonderful conversation.” He smiled at me. “She is most admiring of my work.”

  B’Elanna laughed. “Don’t admire it too much, Beleena. It will go to his head.” I could see her eyes as she looked at me. “How are you feeling?”

  “I thought I died. And that you died.”

  “Well, you both would have if I hadn’t—”

  B’Elanna put her hand on the Doctor’s arm and he quieted right away.

  “Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t I go make a few notes in my office? I’ll just leave you two to talk.”

  I didn’t see him walk away—I couldn’t look anywhere but at her.

  She got up from the bed, and I could tell that she was hurting. She walked over to me and sat down real slow the way Daddy did when he hurt his back. She told me that there had been a problem with the engines and there had been an explosion and that she had gotten everyone out of engineering and just before she ordered the doors to close she heard me scream. She said she tried to get Voyager to transport me out, but it couldn’t, so she had run right through the fire to get me. As she talked, I looked at her real close, and I could see that she was real red. I asked her if Klingon-humans were always red, and she laughed and told me that she was red because she had been burned, but that I shouldn’t worry because the Doctor was taking real good care of her, just like he had taken care of me.

  Then, she said the most amazing thing. She told me that I sure was a beautiful young lady, and that I looked a lot like my mother, and that she knew my mother would have been so proud of me for coming into engineering to save her.

  I put my new hands on my new face and cried. B’Elanna wrapped her arms around me and held me close to her, just like Mommy would have.

  It took two weeks for B’Elanna to get well enough so the Doctor would let her go to work again. I spent almost all of that time with her and Tom, who was really funny. We even spent some time in a place that wasn’t real but felt real, and Tom and I played a lot of games. He told me that if he and B’Elanna ever had a baby, he hoped it would be a little girl like me.

  And I learned that the Doctor wasn’t really real, but he seemed real, and I decided that he was as real as anybody else I met.

  But the best part was the look on Daddy’s face when he came into the Doctor’s sickbay after I woke up. He was the Daddy I knew before Mommy died. And Telnia was with him. If the Doctor hadn’t fixed my eyes, I wouldn’t have ever seen the way Telnia looks at Daddy. Maybe now that I’m all fixed up like new, he’ll be able to see the way Telnia looks at him, too.

  B’Elanna finally got the engines all fixed, and Voyager started for home again. Before she left, we spent an afternoon together in the engineering access tube and talked about all kinds of things. She gave me a stuffed targ and my own set of tools. She told me that if I was going to be a real engineer I should have the right tools.

  And she looked at me with that same proud look that Mommy used to, and I knew that one day I would be an engineer. Just like Mommy. And just like B’Elanna.

  This Drone

  M. C. DeMarco

  A rush of sound and light, the metallic taste of Borg technology, the acrid smell of unperfected organic life, a visual identification: “Captain Janeway.” Realizing that the Borg’s attempt to assimilate Voyager has failed, we ask her, “What have you—”

  Why is the light so bright? We perceive the hiss of the ventilators, the copper scent of the Vulcan, photons shimmering in the hologram—such insignificant data, gathered by drones every day, should have been discarded as irrelevant by the collective mind. Instead it lingers here in this drone’s subprocessors, dazzling it. We ignore the distraction to identify our location: cargo bay two, partly assimilated. We step out of the regeneration alcove. Over the interlink, we reach out for the collective.

  Silence. We listen for long, long milliseconds—listening for our own thoughts, but they never come.

  This drone has been disconnected from its vinculum and damaged. It gasps in its preassimilation native language, automatically, unthinkingly, “The others, I can’t hear the others…the voices…are gone.” This drone exhibits that random synaptic firing which gives unperfected life its illusion of sentience. Yet there are no other drones here to hear its primitive verbalizations—no one to repair it.

  Instead, there are unassimilated humanoids of Species 5618 and Species 3259, and a hologram—there is no one here to hear. We note this drone’s distress and its malfunctions; we bring its autonomous functions back under partial control. We must rejoin the collective; it is an imperative.

  “You will return this drone to the collective,” we say.

  Captain Janeway’s voice is loud and painful in our ears, the process of interpreting her words without the group mind is painfully slow. She speaks of her vandalism upon this drone. It is useless to attempt to understand the motives of unperfected life-forms; we judge her words irrelevant.

  “You will return this drone to the collective,” we order her once again.

  She produces more meaningless vocalizations in the Standard language, this time about danger to her ship. Organic languages hold no meaning; there is no logic or order to her words, no purpose, no hierarchy, no instruction, no calculation—it is not language as we know it. The pain of translating without the collective behind us to extract sense from the vague morass of Standard vocabulary is beginning to impair our function.

  With great effort, we pick a meaning out of her words—she wishes to avoid contact with the Borg. We have a solution to her quandary. “You will supply us with a subspace transmitter and leave us on the nearest planet,” we instruct her. “The Borg will come for us.” As they have come before.

  More pain, more words: Janeway claims this drone is malfunctioning. Of course it is malfunctioning—she has maimed it. What can she mean by stating the obvious? It takes us a thousand milliseconds, down a hundred paths of alternate connotations, to interpret her vocalizations; she means this drone requires her repair services. Disgusting primitive life! How proud they are, in their imperfection, and how foolish!

  “We need nothing from you!” we exclaim in our pain. “We are Borg. We—” A linguistic subprocessor mal
functions. They have restored the drone’s primitive autonomous functions; its body reacts by doubling over. We should have known—the drone should not have been experiencing pain.

  The hologram explains that another primitive biological system has attacked our linguistic subprocessor. He threatens to remove it.

  “You will suppress the human immune system!” Is it not obvious? How shall we speak to them without a linguistic subprocessor? Why are they so irrational? Who deemed them worthy of assimilation?

  The hologram refuses to take the necessary action. He claims he has damaged this drone too much already and that he cannot make the repairs; we are not surprised. Primitive vandal life-form!

  Pain…and processing, processing as swiftly as possible while this drone’s linguistic subprocessor is still partly functional. We understand their words at last; they intend to convert this drone back into the animal—the human being—it once was, Species 5618. There can be no other purpose to their erratic actions.

  “No!” we cry; a drone is designed to defend itself when necessary. We strike at them, but we are so damaged that they overwhelm us. “We are Borg!” we shout. “We are Borg!”

  We lose consciousness.

  This drone has been immobilized by an anesthetic for an unknown period of time. Our internal clock is malfunctioning. Nanoprobes are clearing the foreign chemicals from our bloodstream, and we have regained access to the drone’s auditory circuits.

  We hear the hum of the engines, farther away than before. The drone has been moved to a new location. Deck five, we approximate: sickbay. The primitive life-forms are still attempting to return this drone to an unaugmented state. Why? If they desire this drone’s Borg technology it would be far more efficient to deactivate it permanently and dissect it, as the Borg would do.

  Nor do they require additional drones. This vessel is amply stocked with members of Species 5618; the extraordinary medical efforts expended upon this drone outweigh any benefit they may obtain from it. If they desire our knowledge, it can be downloaded directly from this drone’s cortical node.