It was the consistency of these images that gave the doctor pause. They might be meaningless. There was no way to know how much data the proctors could hold or how much might need to be purged in order for new data to be accepted.
But Sharak had a unique understanding of the ways in which a complex creature might organize data. If all the proctors working to restore the planet had access to the same information as the others—if the data from the original scans of Voyager and Demeter had been immediately shared by the proctor that had completed it with the others—there could be a purpose in the data they were now discharging.
This night, Doctor Sharak’s work was briefly interrupted by the arrival of Miss Seven and Captain Chakotay. He had listened while Miss Seven recounted her new experiences while sleeping. He dispensed an analgesic and light sedative and coded a neural inhibitor to limit her mind’s ability to access her dreams. There was no way to stop someone from dreaming; as dreams were a necessary component of restorative sleep, it was unwise to even attempt. But there were many ways to limit the brain’s ability to access those dreams, or interpret them in any meaningful way.
He had requested that she spend the remainder of the evening in sickbay so that he might observe her. Once she had fallen into a light sleep, Sharak had confided his concerns about this course of action to Captain Chakotay.
“If, as Miss Seven believes, these are not true dreams, but images from a telepathic link made possible by her catoms, it is likely that our efforts to diminish them will be unsuccessful,” Sharak said.
“We can’t do anything to disconnect Seven from her catoms,” Chakotay noted.
“We don’t even know which cells, or portions of cells, of her body are catomic in nature,” Sharak pointed out. “And it is clear that the functions they perform are crucial to her existence.”
“We’ll know more in the morning,” Chakotay said.
“I will advise you immediately if there is cause for concern,” Sharak assured him.
Once the captain departed, Sharak kept a watchful eye on Miss Seven’s readings, but resumed his study of the proctor’s discharges. He had almost completed an examination of this day’s data when a series of images caught his attention. He replayed them several times as an intuitive sense of understanding filled him.
The images he isolated were familiar: a number of stout herbivores had been relocated to a distant plain on a new continent. That plain had recently been seeded with a new form of grass for their consumption. As one of the creatures found a small tuft of grass and began to eat hungrily, an image of the “mother” of the Children of the Storm releasing thousands of bright white new life-forms from her atmosphere exploded on the screen before him. This image was followed by several other herbivores finding a food source, and again followed by repeated versions of the “mother’s” moment of comprehension.
Doctor Sharak worked hard to speak Standard, the language of the Federation. But often during times of emotional intensity, he found their language insufficient. This was one of those times.
“Sokath, his eyes uncovered,” Doctor Sharak said softly.
Tom Paris wasn’t sure what had awakened him. His quarters were dark, and he was pleasantly warm under the bedcovers. Miral was sprawled across her own small bed in a nook off their bedroom, sleeping soundly in a tangle of blankets partially thrown off. Perhaps it was her absence that had pulled him from sleep. Usually by this time, Miral had squirreled her way between him and B’Elanna to finish out the night. In truth, he struggled with this. Miral was not the most accommodating co-sleeper. Her arrival usually included several swift gut kicks and theft of pillows. Errant arms were thoughtlessly flung over his face. But he also lived for the feel of that small little body snuggling into his own. These nights would pass too quickly; perhaps they were already drawing to a close. He would miss them. Of course when the new baby came, there wouldn’t be room for another between him and B’Elanna. . . .
Where’s B’Elanna?
Rambling half-conscious thoughts gave way to full alertness as Paris pulled himself up in bed and verified that B’Elanna’s side of the bed was empty.
“B’Elanna?” he called softly.
When there was no answer, he girded himself for whatever fresh pregnancy hell this night had devised for him. At least nothing was on fire. That was a step in the right direction. A quick search of the fresher and their living room confirmed B’Elanna’s absence. With no other obvious recourse, Paris asked, “Computer, locate Commander Torres.”
“Commander Torres is not in her quarters.”
Paris paused, wondering if he had heard that right. Obviously she wasn’t in her quarters. That wasn’t what he had asked.
“Computer . . .” he began again.
“Go back to sleep, Tom,” the computer advised. “B’Elanna is fine and does not wish to be disturbed at the moment. Good night.”
Paris laughed lightly. He loved that his wife’s engineering skills were without equal. He loved that she could reprogram the main computer to deliver the response she would have given if she’d been there. But damn it, now he had to know where she was.
Tempting as it was to just go back to bed, a gauntlet had just been thrown down. He quickly donned a pair of uniform pants, activated Kula to watch over Miral, and left their quarters to find his wife.
A search of main engineering, the astrometrics lab, the bridge, and the mess hall came up empty. The holodeck was his next stop. Holosuite two was running, with one of his old programs no less, and he was certain he’d found her. Though what would ever tempt her to enter Sandrine’s was beyond him.
Stepping inside, he found himself in a re-creation of a bar he had frequented in Marseilles. He had programmed it to include a number of characters he remembered or half-remembered, but none of those characters was present now. A solitary figure sat at the bar, topping off a short glass, setting ice cubes tinkling as he did so.
“Counselor?” Paris asked when he recognized the figure.
Cambridge turned to him with hard eyes.
“The doctor is out, Commander,” he replied and punctuated it with a sip of something dark, and if the smell was any indication, not synthehol.
“What are you doing here?” Paris asked.
“I refuse to believe that even to someone of your limited insight that it is not blatantly obvious,” Cambridge replied.
Paris shrugged. They weren’t close. Paris didn’t really like the man’s manner or methods. But he had developed a grudging respect for the counselor’s abilities, and Cambridge had served the crew well. As first officer, however, the well-being of the entire crew, including the curmudgeonly Cambridge, was Paris’s responsibility. If this was going to be a long-term solution to whatever Cambridge was facing, Paris needed to know—if only to advise the captain that their ship’s only counselor was not going to be functioning at peak efficiency.
More to the point, Paris knew what drowning one’s sorrows looked like. He also knew it was a temporary reprieve at best. “Care to share?” Paris asked.
Cambridge turned to him in utter shock.
“Whatever you’re drinking?” Paris clarified.
“Oh,” Cambridge said. He considered the bottle, which was more than half full, and replied by reaching under the bar for another small glass and pouring Paris two fingers.
Bracing himself, Paris tried to prepare for the heat that scalded his esophagus as the whiskey went down. A few loud coughs cleared his throat as the effect reached his head and gave him an instant warm buzz. “Where did that come from?” Paris asked when he could speak again.
Cambridge smiled. “My private stock.”
Paris coughed again. “Pretty good. Also probably useful if you need to scrub conduits.”
Cambridge chuckled and finished off his own glass with none of Paris’s apparent discomfort. As he started to pour himself another, Paris slid his glass next to Cambridge’s.
“You’re sure you can take it?” Cambridge asked.
Ignoring the insult and forgoing a recitation of the years he’d lost to worse than what Cambridge was drinking, Paris said, “You shouldn’t drink alone in the middle of the night, Counselor. People always find out and it looks bad. Besides, most people come to bars because they want to share their misery.”
“I came to this one to be alone.”
“Where are the regulars?” Paris asked.
“They were obnoxious in the extreme. I deleted them.”
Paris raised his glass and said, “To old friends, you will be missed.” He took a generous swallow. This one went down much easier.
He turned to the counselor who was studiously avoiding eye contact. Paris felt a brief surge of pity for the man. It wasn’t hard to guess what had brought him here. You didn’t spend as much time in bars as Paris had without acquiring a keen eye for the sorrows people had come to drown. Everything about the counselor screamed “Trouble at home.” Paris was well aware, along with the rest of the crew, that home these days for Cambridge was with Seven.
The first officer was surprised. He had his doubts about the counselor but didn’t figure Seven for a casual fling. When he’d learned of their budding relationship, he’d hoped for the best, if only for Seven. But obviously, Cambridge wasn’t up to it.
“Well, thanks for the drink, Counselor,” Paris said, shuffling off the barstool and polishing off what remained in his glass.
“Commander.” Cambridge nodded his dismissal.
Paris stopped just before the holodeck arch and turning, he asked, “You’re sure this is how you want to handle this? You’re just going to give up?”
The look Cambridge shot him was equal parts confusion and warning.
Paris retraced his steps. “I don’t know what you did, or if it’s even fixable at this point, but there isn’t a man who has ever laid eyes on Seven, let alone gotten to know her even a little, that wouldn’t toss his mother out an airlock to be in your shoes right now.”
“My personal life, Commander . . .” Cambridge began.
“Please,” Paris cut him off, “there are a hundred and forty-seven people on this ship. It’s too small for secrets. And it’s not like you and Seven have gone to great lengths to hide your relationship. I thought the Doctor was going to suffer a catastrophic cascade failure right before my eyes when he asked me if I was aware.” Stepping closer, Paris continued, “When the universe offers you someone like Seven, you don’t let go. You fight like hell to keep her.”
“Perhaps you do,” Cambridge retorted sharply.
“I do,” Paris replied. “My marriage is far and away the best thing I haven’t yet found a way to screw up. But I earn it, every day. If I’d let any of our early miscommunications end things between me and B’Elanna, I wouldn’t have found you here tonight. You’d have found me.”
“Despite what you might think, Commander, this is not my doing,” Cambridge said.
“The part where you’re sitting here drinking instead of facing whatever this is head-on sure is,” Paris shot back.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t beg mine. Beg hers.”
“I can’t fight a ghost, Commander,” Cambridge blurted out and clearly immediately wished it unsaid.
“A what?” Paris asked, wondering where the hell that had come from.
“Never mind,” Cambridge said, turning away.
“There hasn’t been anyone else,” Paris insisted. “I know the Doctor did his damnedest, but that never came to anything. Unless she met someone on Earth . . .” Paris trailed off.
Cambridge simply shook his head slowly.
“Well the Borg don’t . . .” Paris said, but caught himself. “Wait . . . what was his name?” Paris asked softly.
Cambridge turned to him, his face stone.
“Actel . . . Axel . . . Ax . . . something . . .” Paris said, trying to force a little clarity into his pleasantly sluggish brain. “That place we liberated . . .”
Cambridge turned away and Paris got the picture.
“You know what?” Paris said. “You’re right. Stay here. If you can’t handle a memory, I don’t know how your fragile ego will endure spending the rest of this mission, let alone your life, with a woman like Seven. She’s never going to lack for willing suitors.”
“That’s enough, Commander,” Cambridge said.
“Axel . . . Axum!” Paris said, finally finding the name. “Axum is long gone. He’s probably in Caeliar heaven right now along with the rest of them.”
“Were you absent the day we discovered an entire group of former Borg who remained outside outside the gestalt by choice?”
Paris hadn’t remotely considered the possibility that Cambridge’s “ghost” might actually exist. But the counselor was right. And Paris would bet anything that if Axum was alive, the first person he’d come looking for was Seven.
“I retract my earlier advice,” Paris said seriously.
“As well you should.”
“The second part . . . not the first. Axum might have been her first love. He might have part of her heart forever. But she’s a different woman now, and that woman chose you. You’ve got the upper hand because you’re here. If you still want her, fight for her. If you’re not willing to do that, you don’t deserve her.”
Using the counselor’s methods on him felt good, but Paris suspected that was the whiskey talking. Paris wasn’t looking for payback. He needed to keep his crew happy. The pain of losing Seven could last a long time. Paris figured that could be avoided if Cambridge stepped up.
Cambridge rose from his barstool and crossed to him. Paris braced himself for a punch.
“You’re right,” Cambridge said softly.
When Paris returned to his quarters, B’Elanna was snoring softly on her side of the bed. Had he not been so concerned that she needed her sleep, Paris would have roused her and demanded an explanation for her absence. As it was, he simply laid down beside her, allowing the heat of her body to quiet him and the whiskey to lull him back to a deep sleep.
When Hugh Cambridge found Seven’s quarters empty the following morning, he was concerned. That concern turned to outright terror when the computer advised him she was in sickbay. He entered to find her awake but under the doctor’s care. Sharak was willing to fill him in on her medical details; as ship’s counselor it was his purview. However, Cambridge wanted to learn what had brought her here from Seven’s lips. Politely asking the doctor to excuse them, he settled himself on a stool beside her biobed.
“Before you say anything, I need to tell you something,” Cambridge began.
“Proceed.”
“I will always care about your happiness. Whether you find that happiness with me or elsewhere is immaterial. Please forgive me if I have given you any other impression.”
Seven searched his face then reached for his hand. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to resist the urge to bring it to his lips. Instead, he squeezed it gently.
“Is it your intention to end our romantic relationship?” Seven asked.
“No,” he replied. “But if it is yours, I will accept it.”
“It is not,” Seven assured him. “But as you must suspect, matters have grown considerably more complicated.”
“Tell me.”
“Axum is alive. He has been communicating with me through our catoms. I don’t understand how that is possible. What I do know, is that he is in danger.”
“Then we must help him,” Cambridge replied.
Seven nodded, smiling faintly.
That smile eased Cambridge’s heart, even as it sliced it cleanly in half.
Chapter Twenty
SAN FRANCISCO
When Kathryn Janeway arrived in Admiral Montgomery’s office, the room’s temperature was decidedly chilly. This morning, Decan had made his first contact in a month. The Vulcan had advised her that Montgomery had asked to see her at fifteen hundred, local time.
Despite this, Janeway had enjoyed a pleasant lunch with
her mother and helped her get things under way for dinner. They were expecting guests that evening. Initially she had been unwilling to allow anyone to trespass on her newfound happiness. As time wore on, she found herself looking forward to reconnecting with a few old friends. Tonight, she would see Mark Johnson and his wife for the first time since her return to Earth.
Now, she belived that Ken Montgomery would tell her that she had been assigned to a desk at Starfleet Command. She expected the dinner would help her accept the disappointment this meeting was sure to hold. She was ready to hear it. Janeway knew that all she had gained, in the last few weeks, would not be lost. She knew that Chakotay would look after their people as well as she would have. The pain of Command’s choice would have been impossible to take six weeks ago, but no longer.
She was ready to accept it.
“Good afternoon, Admiral,” Montgomery greeted her. He did not rise from his desk or offer his hand. He simply stared at her solemnly.
“Admiral,” Janeway said.
Coming right to the point, Montgomery said, “I completed my review of your evaluations yesterday and passed along my recommendation regarding your permanent assignment to Admiral Akaar. He concurred with my findings.”
Janeway could tell he expected her to ask what those were. But she was in no hurry to hear them.
“It is the opinion of your counselors that dying and being resurrected has done no permanent mental damage to you. Some went so far as to suggest that it might have been the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Janeway smiled at that. It sounded like Austen. “I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, sir.”
“No,” Montgomery agreed and continued, “but as it stands now, there is nothing preventing you from returning to active duty.”
“I see.”
“The issue at hand is what that duty should be.”
Star Trek: Voyager - 042 - Protectors Page 28