Infinity's Prism

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “You have a point,” he told Annika. “But we have to offer them some useful role to play, or you’re right, they could be dangerous.”

  “And Kilana?”

  He pondered. “I don’t know. She seems strictly middle management to me. Her people have a lot of knowledge, but these Founders apparently control it. I think she’s out of her depth, frankly.”

  Annika grew contemplative. “What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

  “I just wish I had a more useful role to play. All I do is cook and putter around in the garden. I’m a housewife.”

  “You play a valuable role for this crew. There’s nothing wrong with what you do.”

  “But I could be doing so much more. The Doctor says I have all this Borg knowledge locked in my head, but I can’t remember any of it! I can see when the captain looks at me—she thinks I could help fight the Scourge if I could remember what the Borg knew about them. And I’ve tried, I really have! But I can’t get at it.”

  He took her in his arms. “I consider that a blessing. Would you really want to remember the things that happened to you as a Borg? The things you—” He broke off.

  But she refused to be coddled. “The things I did? The lives I destroyed?”

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “Even so, is it right to hide from it? To go through life like it never happened?”

  “And would remembering it make any of it better?”

  “If I remembered, maybe I could do something to help stop the Scourge. Maybe that would make amends for some of it.”

  He stroked her long, golden hair. “Look…I’m not sure it’d help, anyway. The Borg are losing the war, badly. They hardly exist anymore. There may not be anything you know that could help.”

  She sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t convinced.

  But then she laughed self-deprecatingly, her smile brightening the room. “I guess I could use some cheering up,” she told him. “You have any ideas?”

  He smiled back. “I have a few.”

  9

  The Casciron shuttle swooped and slalomed through the mountains of Kovoran, hugging their crags so closely that it left the occasional smear of paint behind. In the passenger seats, Danros and Gerron were taut with fear. But their pilot was loving it. For B’Elanna Torres, the exhilaration of facing death and barely scraping free of its clutches was the only thing that made her feel alive.

  Sure, the goal was nominally to stay under the Kovoran sensor grid, to get close enough to the Vostigye research base to plant the charges that would bring it down. B’Elanna had been as angry as anyone else in the resistance upon learning of the biological experiments being conducted on the Casciron refugees on this planet. Apparently the Vostigye weren’t content to live in their spacegoing tin cans and let the Casciron find planets where they could live independently. No, they had to plant colonies so they could claim more territory and make excuses for keeping the Casciron from finding a home. And even once they’d stripped them of their stings, they couldn’t leave them alone; no, they had to use them in some sick medical experiment.

  Oh, no doubt they would excuse it as something to help the war effort against the Scourge. B’Elanna had to hand it to Kathryn Janeway and her lap dog Chakotay—they’d done wonders bringing the sensibilities of the Federation to the Delta Quadrant. Just like the Federation, their Delta Coalition spoke of peace and inclusion, then made deals with monsters and overlooked their abuses when it served their own interests. Back with the Maquis, B’Elanna had preferred to strike at Cardassian targets, doing her best not to harm Federation citizens, whom she held blameless for the mistakes of their leaders. Now, she no longer cared to hold back. The Vostigye were the real monsters, and their friendly face as they assimilated and exploited other cultures just made them all the worse.

  More, though, she just needed to feel something. Grieving and moving on hadn’t worked; how could she move on from losing everyone who’d ever mattered to her? The distraction of sex hadn’t worked; she’d indulged Gerron’s interest for an evening here and there, but when she tried to invest herself in it, she was reminded too much of the one man she strove not to think about—the man who had taken her capacity for love with him when he died. The only thing that fulfilled her was the fight—any fight. Anything that let her feel death’s fingers closing around her and then kick its teeth in one more time.

  And if death won the next round? Well, what difference would it make to anyone, really?

  But B’Elanna managed to stay just ahead of death’s clutches this time, bringing the shuttle down safely in range of the research facility. Half an hour later, she’d snuck her team past its security perimeter, their biosigns masked by her equipment, and Danros planted the charges around the administrative section, away from the labs and confinement areas where the Casciron subjects would be held. Gerron still looked uncertain. “Maybe we should wait until the building’s empty,” the young Bajoran said.

  “And how will that avenge our fallen?” Danros growled. By Casciron standards, being mutilated and experimented on was worse than being killed outright. But death was an adequate revenge for Danros’s purposes.

  “We don’t just want to take out the building,” B’Elanna added. “As long as the scientists are still around, we haven’t solved anything. And if our spies are right, there are some Coalition officials in there too—maybe the ones who approved these experiments in the first place. I say they’re getting what they deserve.”

  “Even if it brings down harsher reprisals?”

  Her answer was practically a snarl. “Bring it on.”

  They retreated to the woods next to the compound. The honor of setting off the charges fell to Danros, and B’Elanna almost envied him. She wasn’t nearly as eager to inflict death as to invite it, but she disliked the numbness that came over her when she didn’t have a dangerous or destructive task to get her adrenaline racing.

  Still, the explosion was loud and devastating and cathartic, and then would come the thrill of eluding pursuit as they raced back to the shuttle…

  But then she thought she heard a familiar voice from the wreckage.

  She turned back, ignoring the others’ calls. It couldn’t be. But as she jogged closer, halting just on the edge of the woods, she heard the cry again, a rough, throaty scream she’d recognize anywhere, calling a name she’d recognize anywhere:

  “Neelix!”

  B’Elanna raced forward, not caring what kind of security might be converging. She needed to see for herself. She came around the ruins of the outer wall and saw a familiar elfin figure, lithe and golden-haired, surrounded by rubble and flames and showing no sign of injury. There were bodies around her, both Vostigye and Casciron. No! There shouldn’t have been Casciron in this part of the complex! Pieces of debris were flying away as though recoiling from her gaze. And under some of that debris was an equally familiar figure, chubby and garishly attired, bleeding and gasping for breath. “Oh no!” Kes cried again, reaching his side and kneeling over him.

  Then Kes looked up at her, and B’Elanna realized that she’d been moving closer, stumbling through the rubble without even thinking about it. She didn’t know if she could form a thought right now, didn’t know if she wanted to. “Kes…” she began.

  Then orange light flared in those gray-green eyes, and B’Elanna’s head filled with agony, and she gave herself gladly to oblivion.

  It had all been going so well.

  Kes had spent months working on a medical solution to the Casciron problem where political solutions had failed. Finally, working with her staff on Moskelar Station, she had devised an inoculation that would protect Vostigye and other species from Casciron venom, hoping it would convince the Vostigye politicians to reverse their laws designating Casciron stingers as illicit lethal weapons. Under pressure from the Coalition, the Legislature had begun to draft such a reversal, though its passage was contingent upon the success of her trials here on Kovoran. S
he’d also devised an experimental treatment that would enable the Casciron settlers on Kovoran, who had consented to have their venom glands and stings removed as a precondition for settling here, to regrow the organs and be whole again in the eyes of their culture.

  She had chosen Kovoran for her tests because it was home to the most contentious conflict between Vostigye and Casciron. Despite that, both sides had shown a guarded willingness to cooperate, though suspicions were high. Kes had asked Neelix to accompany her, hoping the Ambassador at Large would use his acclaimed diplomatic skills to reassure both sides and facilitate their cooperation. It had been delightful to spend time with her old friend again, and it made her proud to see how important he’d become, how much good he’d done at bringing people together. And it had seemed that he was making good progress at persuading the two Kovoranese factions to cooperate on this project.

  But then the explosion had occurred and the conference room had collapsed around her, Neelix, and the representatives of both sides. Kes had instinctively raised a telekinetic shield around herself, but it had happened too quickly for her to do more, and Neelix had been across the room at the time.

  There were a few other survivors, all in serious medical need, but it had been Neelix she had rushed to. She had felt that he needed her the most, and she didn’t really care if it was a selfish impulse. She would not let anything happen to Neelix. It was as simple as that. The debris between them went away, and he was there, but he was choking, gasping, unable to breathe. “Oh no!”

  As she knelt by his side, she sensed a new presence moving through the rubble. “Kes…”

  And with that one word, Kes knew what B’Elanna Torres had done. It burned brightly on the surface of B’Elanna’s mind. A mind that was scarred, imbalanced, lost in what the doctor in Kes recognized as severe clinical depression.

  Kes didn’t care, though. The woman had hurt Neelix. So Kes put her down hard. She stopped short of doing permanent harm, but allowed herself satisfaction at the act.

  But then she put it aside and turned back to Neelix. “It’s all right, sweeting,” she told him, fury instantly replaced with tenderness. “You’ll be all right. Try to stay calm.” But sheer somatic instinct was driving him as he gasped for breath. Surveying him quickly with her eyes and mind, she saw no obvious injury that could account for it—

  Yes. Of course. She reached deeper, feeling the piece of herself that lived inside him: her own lung, donated when his lungs had been stolen by the Vidiians. It had been adapted to suit him using Vidiian techniques, but still, it was an Ocampa lung, an organ bred by nature for no more than a decade of use. And since Neelix was more massive than she, it had been carrying more than twice its intended load for nearly half that time. The trauma of the explosion and the dust Neelix had inhaled had overwhelmed the tired organ, and it was failing.

  What do I do? If the Doctor were here, he could fix it. He must have been aware of the risk, and he’d had years to improve his understanding of Talaxian physiology and devise a more permanent replacement. But none of his avatars was nearby, and the base’s medical facilities had been destroyed.

  None of that matters, she told herself. Neelix will not die.

  Laying her head upon his chest, she reached into him with her mind, feeling every cell of him, every particle. She saw what they were, and she told them what she needed them to become. They demanded energy to make the change, and she fed it to them, giving freely of herself. Take everything I have, she told them, told him. Share my life, as you always have. As you always will.

  We are one.

  “What do you mean, I have my lungs back?”

  Kes blushed, a response that thoroughly charmed Neelix. Even with all her power, her amazing accomplishments, she was still the most unassuming soul he’d ever known. “I…seem to have triggered a…regeneration. It’s happened before; with help from Tanis, I was able to accelerate the growth of plants. I’ve experimented with developing that ability since my powers were augmented, but I never dared to try it on an animal or a person.” She looked away guiltily.

  He took her hand. “Well, I’m very glad you took a chance on it this time. Obviously it worked.” He paused. “It did work, didn’t it? The lungs will…stay?”

  Kes nodded. “They’re as good as new, the doctors say.”

  He frowned. “What about…your old lung? Is it…still in there?”

  She grinned at the image. “Actually your body drew matter from it to grow the new lungs from. I can’t make matter appear from nowhere. Umm, the rest of the mass was drawn from elsewhere in your body, which is why you feel so hungry and dehydrated.”

  “Hm. I thought I looked a little thinner.” He took a deep breath, amazed at just how deep it was. “Oh, my. It hasn’t felt like that in a long time.” Kes giggled, which made his chest swell again.

  But something else she’d mentioned had begun to sink in. “What about B’Elanna?”

  Kes sat on the side of his bed, growing serious. “When I…came to after healing you…she was there, tending to the other wounded.” Guilt flitted across Kes’s face at her failure to treat the others. “She was very closed off. I couldn’t blame her—what she must be feeling right now would be very hard to confront.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I don’t feel a lot of sympathy for her. People died in that blast. I would’ve died too, if not for you. How could B’Elanna have let herself become such a thing?”

  “I think she’s begun asking herself the same thing. She could’ve escaped—I was too weak to stop her. But she stayed. She did what she could to help. And she turned herself over voluntarily for arrest.” She took Neelix’s hand. “Losing Tom, Joe, Vorik, and the others…it made her lose her way, worse than the rest of us. She was another casualty, Neelix. And we need to help her heal, if we can.”

  Neelix fidgeted. It shamed him that he couldn’t be as forgiving, as noble, as profoundly good as Kes was. And he didn’t dare say it without letting on about the profound adoration he felt for her right now. Without letting on that he’d never stopped loving her. Oh, he’d become her friend successfully enough, but only because it was what she had wanted and he would do anything for her. Now, after this, he loved her more intensely and devotedly than ever. And he would keep it to himself forever, so she would be free to achieve her true greatness.

  He realized she was smiling at him, her eyes glistening. “Wha-what is it, Kes?”

  “Neelix…when I healed you, we were joined more closely than we’ve ever been. I know everything you’re thinking. Without even trying.”

  His blood ran cold. “Oh. Oh dear. Kes…I…”

  “And do you know what I realized when we were joined? That it was right. When I saw you lying there, when I feared you would die, I knew that I simply could not let that happen. That I would have lost a part of myself if it did. And I don’t mean a lung.

  “Neelix, I realized that I never stopped loving you either.”

  He was stunned. After a while, he said, “Kes…I, I, I’m…touched that you feel that way right now, in the wake of a, a very intense experience. But we both know I’m not right for you. I was just an adolescent crush, and you needed to grow beyond me, stretch your wings.”

  “I have grown, Neelix. I’ve achieved so much, experienced so much more than I ever imagined I could. And at first, when I realized what I felt, I was afraid it would be going backward, retreating into old limits.

  “But then I thought about the man you’ve become—a statesman, a diplomat, a peacemaker respected across whole sectors. You’ve grown as much as I have. You wouldn’t hold me back at all.

  “Besides, what matters most is what we feel for each other, and that’s never truly changed. I pulled away from it for a while, when I needed the freedom to grow and find myself. But now I’ve discovered that a part of me was always with you. You’re not a limit to me, Neelix—you’re an anchor. No matter what’s happened between us, you’ve always been there for me. You’ve never wavered in your loyalty,
your commitment, your kindness. I know I can depend on you more than anything else in this universe.”

  Her glistening gaze held his. “And I don’t think there’s anything more important to have in a lifemate. Or a father.”

  It took a moment for what she was saying to sink in. “Ohh, Kes!”

  “I’m finally ready, Neelix. I’ve found the right man to start a family with. I want you to marry me and be the father of my children.”

  The only answer Neelix could give was a brief, high-pitched noise. But then he roared with glee and hugged her delicate frame against him, and then their lips met, and he reflected on the wisdom and insight of the English language, in which “kiss” sounded so much like “Kes.” When their kiss finally broke, he couldn’t stop giggling. “I just hope they take after you!”

  “Legislator Chakotay. Thank you for appearing before this ministry.”

  Chakotay gazed up at the portly, orange-scaled form of Minister Odala, the Voth Elder whose presence dominated the council chamber. There were other Elders present, but Odala clearly ruled the roost. And he remembered from hard experience that her honeyed, reasonable tones concealed a strict and unforgiving character.

  “I’m glad to be here, Minister,” he told her, though the truth was rather different. He didn’t have fond memories of his first encounter with Odala. Even aside from that, he would rather be back home on Kosnelye, for Voyager was due to return soon. Becoming Kathryn’s lover was the best thing that had ever happened to him, yet thanks to their respective responsibilities, they saw far less of each other now than they had as platonic friends and colleagues aboard Voyager. He cherished the all-too-brief opportunities he had to spend time with her, and was none too happy that the Ministry of Elders’ imperious summons had come when it did.