“My purpose here is to repair, the best I can, the damage the other Exiles have done.”
“How convenient that you can manipulate Lia to accomplish those objectives. You know physically she’s been compromised within an inch of her life, but what does another menial life matter—”
Balim drew up to his full height, towering over the Doctor. How dare you!
The power of Balim’s voice in his mind sent tremors coursing throughout the Doctor’s body. He shrank away, anticipating the forthcoming assault.
I could kill you with a thought. He glanced at a towering evergreen behind them and narrowed his eyes. The tree shriveled into a desiccated corpse of singed limbs and browned needles.
“That you haven’t accidentally slipped off this ledge,” he nodded at the overlook, “should tell you all you need to understand about my intentions.” Balim angled his face to reveal a deadly calm visage, the operative word being “deadly.” “But what about you, man of light? Call Vivia. Tell her you’ve found the Light. I will not stop you.” He removed a coil of rope from his utility belt and tossed it at the Doctor’s feet. “Here. Bind me. I won’t resist.”
His mind racing, the Doctor’s eyes flickered between Balim and the coil of rope. He’s trying to trick me. This is my chance. Voyager needs me! Another voice argued for prudence. Wait. Hear him out. Indecision gripped him. The coil of rope lay untouched at his feet. He kicked it aside.
“I thought as much. You have honor.” Balim said huskily.
“I care about Lia,” the Doctor said.
“As do I.”
“Prove it.”
Turning away from the Doctor, Balim strode toward the ledge.
The Doctor, nervous about Balim’s motives, followed a few cautious paces behind. He breathed easier when he observed a natural shelf eroded in the side of the outlook that he believed was Balim’s intended destination. The view from the shelf would allow them both to keep watch over the encampment while they talked.
Dropping down onto the ground, Balim rested his back against the rock behind him and extended his long legs out in front of him, his feet nearly dangling over the edge. The Doctor sat cross-legged beside him.
“I joined the Exiles in their fight against Vivia and those like her because I believed that my kind deserved more than slavery. I don’t believe the strings need us—they existed before us and they will exist after us. What they need is to be left alone instead of slavishly attended to.” Balim picked at and sorted the pebbles on the ground beside him. “The truths that would liberate my people, I believed, would be found Outside.”
“Have you found the truths that would persuade Vivia to relent?”
“I am on the path—I spent time in the Q Continuum and was taught a great deal. My fellow Exiles, however, have been useless. Over time they have become self-indulgent, loving only the pursuit of pleasure and the exercise of their powers. Look around you, man of Light”—he held his arm out in front of him, indicating the land spreading out below—“and witness the handiwork of the Nacene.”
Balim’s sharp sarcasm prompted the Doctor to wince. “So this isn’t your doing?”
“My purpose in coming to Ocampa was to repair the damage done by my kind,” Balim said, gesticulating with his hands. “Instead—”
The Doctor anticipated Balim’s explanation—the immemorial story. “Boy meets girl. You found Lia.”
With a deep sigh, Balim nodded. “Lia has powers, man of light. Exceptional powers. You’ve seen what the Ocampa are capable of in your time. Lia is like the one in your memories.” He raked his long fingers through his dark hair. “I focus her abilities, but I don’t give her more than what is already there. I fear, however, that I may have unleashed capacities in her that she will have a difficult time controlling.” The sculpted, angular lines of his face imbued him with sternness; the moonlight shadowed and grayed his features. “Her best hope of surviving this war is with me by her side. Guiding her. Preventing her from further damaging herself.”
“How do I know you have Lia’s best interests at heart?” the Doctor said, feeling cornered. “Perhaps sending you away would be the best way to help Lia. Why should I believe anything you say?”
Balim shrugged. “Believe me. Don’t believe me. But know this: you are disposable to Vivia. Even if you give her what she wants—me—she’ll toss you aside. The strings are all that matter to her. Forget about returning to your ship.”
As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, Balim’s words had a ring of truth to the Doctor. He had witnessed Vivia’s single-minded devotion—even fanaticism—toward her duty. If Balim was correct about Vivia, the Doctor may have thrown his lot in with the wrong Nacene. He said nothing; instead, he chose to hear Balim out.
“My goal is Lia’s goal: to save her people. To that end, whatever needs to be done will be done.” Balim’s voice rose a note in pitch. “Displaying her powers before Baron Var nearly killed her! Until that time I had aided her from afar, but circumstances forced me to intervene directly to save her life.” He clenched one hand into a fist and punched it into the opposite palm, then again and again until the Doctor wondered if the metacarpals would break. “As it is, I know the war is lost. Ocampa will die and Lia…” His voice trailed off and he exhaled heavily. Balim’s shoulders drooped and he climbed to his feet, heading back onto the bluff. Stopping in front of a mature mountain birch, he rested his hand on the trunk and faced the dark forest.
The Doctor watched Balim for a long moment, listening to the choruses of chirping insects, the faraway gurgle of a streamlet meandering toward the lake. He tried reconciling what he believed to be true, based on Vivia’s representation of the facts, with what Balim had told him and came up with only one conclusion. He approached Balim and said to his back, “I can’t say for certain whether I believe you or Vivia—the Nacene are nothing if not Machiavellian—but what I know is Lia. Or at least I think I do. She knows her own mind. I don’t believe she is easily deceived—even by a Nacene. I choose to believe and trust her love for you.”
Balim looked back over his shoulder, his cheeks wet with tears.
The Doctor’s eyes widened with surprise. “You love her.”
“I didn’t plan to. It was a complication that I neither wanted nor sought. As much as I fought my feelings, my efforts came to nothing.”
“That tends to be the way love works,” the Doctor said wryly.
“Her willingness to die for her people, her selfless devotion to freedom—to their cause—taught me more about what I needed to do if I were to help my people than any experience in tens of thousands of years.” He turned toward the Doctor. “I would do anything for her. Anything.”
Balim had a misty, faraway look that a well-schooled romantic like the Doctor recognized. Well, this is a problem, the Doctor thought. How can I turn Balim over to Vivia’s custody when his primary motives are not only altruistic, but compelled by love? I cannot betray love!
Of all the evolutions and enhancements in the Doctor’s programming in the past four years, few had left greater impact on his matrix than an increased understanding of love and relationships did. Hadn’t he experienced what it was like to love and to lose love? To disregard that life lesson and turn Balim over to Vivia would make him a traitor to his deeply held conviction that true love should be protected and defended. The problem in his time facing Vivia (and the universe, for that matter) would have to be solved another way. “If Vivia wants you, she will have to find you herself,” the Doctor said at last.
Balim’s lips parted, as if he was about to speak, but he paused. His eyes narrowed, abruptly shifting toward a place over the Doctor’s shoulder.
The Doctor twisted around to see what had captured Balim’s attention.
The forest surrounding the basin was aflame!
“Mestof?”
“His troops are here, but they did not torch the trees.” Balim shook his head. “Lia did. I—”
“Stop her!” the Doctor said, u
rging Balim on. “You must save her!”
Balim vanished. A gust of wind rushed out of the forest and into the basin.
“Tom, wake up.”
Deep inside a delightful dream about B’Elanna, Tom ignored the annoying voice. He wished the voice would shut up and let him enjoy himself. Hadn’t he earned the right to luxuriate in a little fantasy? After all, he’d won the spore race. Wow. Node racing was amazing, he mused in his half-awake state. Granted, things became a little gross at the end when he’d hurled the contents of his stomach into the gel and the hair ball…Tom didn’t want to think about the hair ball.
It occurred to him that the whole race and pan-universal party central must have been inside the tabby cat’s body. I must have been DNA sized, he thought. What a radical twist on the usual party. Shrink to the size of a chromosome and come hang out inside an animal’s insides, maybe take a spin through the circulatory system. The topography made more sense: capillaries, cells, chunks of food, plasma. Better than any science class he’d had.
While it lasted, it was the ultimate rush. He could die tomorrow and say, with confidence, that he’d likely seen it all.
Inside the warm, floaty place he was drifting in, the rational Tom recalled, Oh yeah I won the race so I could get the information about Kol. How’d that work out anyway?
The call of real life was too strong to ignore.
Cautiously, he raised one eyelid—very slowly, then the other. The bright overhead lights didn’t hurt too much. Two blurry faces hovered over him. One was a stranger, but he recognized Harry from the floppy lock of black hair drooping over his forehead. The scabby crust over his mouth was gone because his lips were flapping about finding out where Kol was and—
Finding out where Kol was. Tom sat straight up and instantly regretted it.
“Take this,” the stranger said in a tone that indicated that Tom would be wise not to argue.
“This” was a frosted glass filled to the brim with a foamy lime green liquid. The voice was familiar…where have I heard it before…? Tom complied, instantly puckering and shuddering at the bitter taste. The almost immediate analgesic effect, however, removed all of his apprehensions. He gulped down the rest. “Where’s Kol again?” Tom said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“Pem helped him buy his way into a Trinity game at Fortis.”
Now Tom realized where he knew that voice from. Whether he should be relieved or terrified, he wasn’t sure. He turned to Q, who was smiling at Tom.
“Congratulations, Tommy. You set a new record! Who knew a human had it in him?”
Nearby, Tom saw q still clad in her school attire, and wondered aloud what the hell they were still doing here in Kol’s dorm room at Q U. Felix yowled and coughed up another hair ball.
“You think you won that node race solo, flyboy?” she said, her mouth twisted into her patented sarcastic half-smile.
Tom protested, “I’m a damn good—”
“Pilot. I know. You’ve been babbling about that in your sleep for the past few minutes,” q said, snapping her fingers. A clean outfit, at least as showy as the one Q had given him before the node race, appeared between her fingers. She thrust it into his lap.
Tom looked at the suit questioningly.
“Change,” she ordered. “No way either of you will go to a high-class place like Fortis in those clothes. Q thinks he has an eye for high fashion, but he doesn’t.”
“I’m insulted, q,” Q said.
“The whole Continuum knows it’s your favorite delusion,” she said.
The issue of the race still bothered Tom. Dammit, he’d worked hard! “I won that race.”
“I’ll grant you, for a human, you’re competent,” Q said. “But there’s no way you could have raced a Lazi and survived without a little help from a Q.”
He peeled off the stained suit jacket and undershirt and cast them aside. “I was in that capsule alone,” Tom said.
Sitting back on her haunches, q rested her hands on her thighs and gave him a look that told Tom she thought he was the most dense creature in the universe. “Not in the capsule, flyboy, in the node.” Her gaze flickered up and down his bare torso a few times, her smoldering violet eyes resting on his face. “Q tells me you’re with some half-Klingon hellcat. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Tom said, holding his cast-off undershirt against his chest.
“Does she share?” q asked.
Sitting there half-clothed, Tom suddenly felt violated and vulnerable. Ignoring her last comment, he said, “I’m not changing with you in here.”
“Fine.” Rolling her eyes, q snapped her fingers and disappeared.
Tom stood to remove his pants. “That—that—q,” he said, perturbed.
“She’s a pill, that’s for sure,” Q said.
“So do I tell B’Elanna that q made a pass at you?” said Harry, who was gathering up Tom’s soiled clothing.
“Harry—” Tom hated it when he received female attention that his friend had been seeking. In their early days on Voyager, more than a few of Harry’s crushes had flirted with Tom. Out of loyalty, Tom had never reciprocated, though it rarely stopped the women from trying.
“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said. “I’m used to it by now. But I’m confident that once she sees past your superficial hotshot pilot charm, she’ll fall for my superior intellect.”
Q put a hand to his mouth, stifling laughter.
Tom ignored him. “Do I need to point out that she’s a q? That’s hardly a relationship that can last, Harry.”
“Isn’t she amazing? Turns out she came of her own volition. Q didn’t send her.”
“Harry,” Tom said, most softly this time.
“I’m not stupid, Tom,” Harry said. “I know I’m being an idiot; there’s no realistic way I’m going to get involved with q. But I rather enjoy being an idiot where women are involved.”
“In love with love?”
Harry paused, considering for a moment, then said, “Maybe.”
“Okay then,” Tom said. “I’ll stop harassing you. You know I’m just looking out for your best interests, right?”
Harry smiled in reply.
q’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. “Are you decent yet?”
“No, but he’s dressed,” Q said before Tom could answer.
She reappeared in a flash.
“I know what’s in it for him,” Tom said, nodding toward Q. “But what’s in it for you, q?” He fastened the frogs on his tapestry jacket.
“Kol is my friend. I want him found and out of danger as much as anyone.” q produced a mirror from an unseen pocket and held it in front of Tom.
“Very snappy, Mr. Paris,” Q said.
Tom smoothed his jacket, straightened his lapels. “So what’s next?”
“We go to Fortis,” Harry said. “According to q, it’s the ultimate interdimensional community for games of chance.”
“A casino,” Tom said.
“Yep,” Harry said. “And Q’s not coming.”
“Why not? We can probably use all the help we can get.”
“You don’t get to question my decisions, Mr. Paris. I have other pressing concerns requiring my attention.” Q rose from his spot on the carpet, making a show of brushing dust from his clothes. “See you soon, boys!” He snapped his fingers.
Once Q was gone, Harry looked cautiously from side to side, then said, “Q can’t help us anyway.”
“How is that even possible?” Tom said, disbelieving. He was, after all, a Q.
“Q got himself banned from Fortis because he cheats,” q explained.
“I heard that,” boomed a familiar voice. “Allegedly cheats. They never proved anything.”
q turned a sour face toward the ceiling.
“So once we get to Fortis—is this gonna be another one of the Continuum’s tests?” Tom asked q. “You going to toss us into a backroom game? Or better yet, use us as collateral?”
q snorted. “There’s no way you’ll get i
n without me there. Dirts—corporeals—like you two don’t even qualify for the help. Before you get any ideas, flyboy, I’m running the show from here on out. You ready to play some games, boys?”
Tom still wasn’t certain if this was the wisest move. He looked over at Harry, hoping to find solidarity, and discovered that his friend glowed like a warp core. The entranced expression indicated that Harry was deep in the throes of infatuation. q had Harry on a leash—no question. If Tom argued with q—which would be pointless anyway—he would do it alone. Having spent much of the past four years in the company of strong women, Tom recognized when it was futile to argue with them. “Okay then. Point the way.”
q arched an eyebrow and snapped her fingers.
The fire had been extinguished by the time the Doctor reached the basin. A steady line of soldiers carried the enemy’s dead to the south end of the basin, far away from the encampment, and piled them up. He’d nearly covered the full distance when the last corpse was tossed atop the heap and the bodies torched. The wind shifted northward, wafting the crematorium stench in his direction. In his lifetime aboard Voyager, the Doctor believed he had to have experienced worse than this, but what it was he couldn’t recall at the moment. Those of his comrades who remained in camp hunched over campfires, leaning against the shoulders of their fellow fighters, ash smeared faces etched with exhaustion. He saw far too many bodies bearing the lily crest on makeshift biers, awaiting some semblance of a death rite. Many pairs of eyes followed him as he walked. A few called his name. He longed to tend their wounds and offer them comfort. He hated forcing them to wait. They had already sacrificed much.
When the Doctor approached Lia’s tent, he discovered that an acolyte had set up several braziers piled with smoldering pungent incense and surrounded the tent with torches whose flames formed a pathway of dancing light. She circled the premises chanting the incantations that would allow Lia to enter the passages to the DeadLands. Inside, he found Lia unconscious on her cot, hair streaming out behind her as if she were a princess on a chaise. Balim, sober-faced, sat by her side and held her hand. The tent reeked of sweat and scorch.
String Theory, Book 3: Evolution Page 23