In the end, both parties had been willing to give a little. Proctor had come to understand that exploration need not endanger a society’s domestic production and tranquility. Caster had acknowledged that every opened door affected a house, and that each new step outward should be approached with some deliberation. And both had come to agree that it worked both ways. The true importance of the Federation’s Prime Directive, known to the Cytherians from Enterprise-D’s visit, became relevant for them. Whatever the Cytherians did in the future, remotely or in person, they would need to carefully consider the potential impact their visits had on the indigenous species.
Finally, after an understanding had been reached, Riker assured the Cytherians he would send for a first-contact team well versed in their culture. He said his good-byes, then, and Picard had touched the control on the mobile emitter, terminating the holo-Riker’s presence on the Far Embassy.
Minutes later, the Enterprise captain materialized on holodeck one, in front of the interlink chair and the motionless admiral. Dax’s senior officers were there along with La Forge and a group of medical professionals, preparing in case something went wrong following Riker’s impending removal from Cytherian influence.
“YOU’LL BE PLEASED TO KNOW THAT THE ROMULAN, NERLA, HAS BEEN STABILIZED,” Riker said, his voice echoing through the chamber. “SHE SHOULD RECOVER.”
“Excellent,” Picard said, acknowledging those around him. “It seems her shipmates left without her.”
“They all did,” Dax said. “We picked up a lot of strange chatter from the other ships while they were here—but I’m guessing the original crews all retook control. They were in no hurry to sit around telling us about it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Picard said. He looked to Riker. “I left the mobile emitter with the Cytherians, Admiral, as you instructed.”
“I KNOW YOU’RE DISAPPOINTED, GEORDI,” Riker said. “BUT IT’S NOT OURS TO UNDERSTAND YET. CONVINCING THE CYTHERIANS TO ADOPT THEIR OWN VARIATION ON THE PRIME DIRECTIVE MEANT I HAD TO BEGIN WITH US.”
“A shame,” La Forge said. “Still, we’ll be meeting and talking with them more often now. I guess as we show we’re ready for things, we’ll learn more.”
“THERE’S ONE EXCEPTION, OF COURSE,” Riker said. “THEY INSISTED ON HELPING REPAIR THE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS DAMAGED BY THEIR ATTACKS. I EXPECT THEY’LL THROW IN A LITTLE DASH OF HIGH-TECH TO MAKE SOME OF THE PAIN GO AWAY.”
Dax nodded. “There will be some embarrassed diplomats after this.”
“Save one,” Picard said, gesturing to the admiral in the chair. “The one who did the right thing.”
The admiral turned over the compliment in his mind. It was heartening to hear. But seeing Aventine’s staff, he remembered the things he’d been forced to do—and he saw the multitude of possible futures that lay ahead of him. And he knew that the next few days wouldn’t be simple for William T. Riker at all. Or good.
But it didn’t take super intelligence to know there was no sense in trying to put them off.
“RIKER TO THE FAR EMBASSY. CASTER, PROCTOR—I’M READY. PULL THE PLUG.”
FINAL STAGE:
LOCKDOWN
* * *
“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies;
but we do not read that we ought
to forgive our friends.”
—Cosimo de’ Medici
Forty-nine
THE PRESENT
Riker opened his eyes.
Simus sat in the seat across from him, watching intently, as the admiral sat in the Cytherian interlink chair. Riker flexed his fingers first and then moved his head. His neck was stiff, but the powerful gravity he’d felt keeping him in the elaborate armchair earlier was gone.
He stood. Simus watched him as he stretched. “You don’t believe that chair is where you belong?”
“Hell, no. That’s worse than the rowing machine.” Riker looked back at the thing. “I should have generated a seat cushion.”
Simus’s face brightened. “I think that’s enough,” the old man said, forcing himself to stand. He touched a button on his wrist control device, and the office around them disappeared, to be replaced by the glowing holodeck gridwork. All that remained were the two men and Simus’s cane, resting on the floor nearby. He gestured to it. “Can you get that for me?”
Riker walked over to it, glad to be moving. It felt as though his blood was pumping again. He picked up the old man’s cane. “Simus, what happened here?”
“It was necessary to walk you through the entire experience,” Simus said, accepting the cane.
“To restore my memories?”
“Among other reasons.”
Riker looked behind him. The holodeck arch had reappeared. “So where am I, really? Aventine’s holodeck, still?”
“No. What is the last thing you remember?”
Riker concentrated. “I’d been freed from the Cytherian interlink. They’d taken their powers back. I’d been reunited with Deanna aboard Titan. We were bound for Betazed—Betazed Station 4, for some kind of service issue.”
“This is Betazed Station 4. And the service issue, if you will pardon my using the expression, is you.”
Riker chuckled. “Granted.” But the details didn’t make sense. “I don’t remember getting here. Did I black out?”
“Something like it. Your body was greatly taxed by the experience. How long did you sleep last night, before encountering me?”
“Sixteen hours, I think.”
“It was actually sixty-four.”
Riker shook his head.
“Your medical team helped with some of the nutrients you’d lost, but this was something else—neither sleep nor coma.”
“I don’t get it,” Riker said. “Barclay didn’t get burnt out like this.”
“You have a few more duties as an admiral than Reginald Barclay had. You were already fighting exhaustion when the Cytherians touched you.”
Riker thought it was an odd turn of phrase, but it worked.
“And the Cytherians held you longer and caused you to do quite a few more things. A sleepless mind, constantly active, is stressful on the system.”
“But why did I have such trouble remembering in the beginning? Barclay was fine immediately after the Cytherians withdrew their influence. And so was I—until . . . I collapsed aboard Titan.”
Simus gestured toward the archway, and the two began walking toward it. “I think the difference is that unlike Barclay, you fought back against the Cytherian suggestion. What Barclay was asked to do was beyond the bounds of his authority as crewman, but he had no expectation that people would be put in physical jeopardy. Meanwhile, you were prodded to do things that endangered people—and your submerged personality fought and clawed the entire way.”
“I don’t know if I can take credit for that,” Riker said. “Proctor didn’t really want anyone harmed. The attacks we were sent on were chosen to maximize chaos but to minimize actual casualties.”
“You should give yourself more credit,” Simus said. “You were suffering from ‘diminished capacity,’ as the JAG has already determined. And yet you alone among all the Cytherian pawns left no injuries in your wake. None at all.” Simus touched the arch controls, and the huge doors opened, revealing a bright white hallway beyond. “The difference between minimal casualties and zero was William Riker—and his sense of responsibility. You were a marionette who pulled against the strings just enough when you had to.”
Riker looked into the hallway and took a breath of cool fresh air. His companion hobbled ahead of him.
“Who are you?”
“I am Simus.” The man seemed willing to leave it at that, for a moment, before turning. He smiled and offered his hand. “Doctor Simus, Starfleet Medical.”
Riker shook Simus’s hand. A smiling Vulcan. He’d seen everything now. “I take it that your practice is evaluating those who’ve been controlled by alien entities.”
“There is much work to do in that line
,” Simus said, resuming his walk.
“Been doing that for a while?”
“Oh, yes. For more than a hundred years, in fact. My first assignment was someone who traveled aboard another Enterprise: Mira Romaine.”
Riker goggled. “She was on James T. Kirk’s crew.” He thought back to his history lessons. “She was possessed by . . . the Zetarians?”
“I dislike the term ‘possessed.’ Rather, a guest consciousness took residence in her corporeal form. A hundred members of a lost race, in her case.”
Riker whistled. “I guess I had it easy.”
Simus made for an opening up ahead, and Riker followed. “When the Zetarians left Mira, she was judged fit to begin her duties on Memory Alpha. All the tests of the day—the Steinman analysis, her hyperencephalograms—said she was the person she was before. But even then, Starfleet was uncomfortable, worrying that she might still carry some artifact of the experience.”
“Understandable,” Riker said. “The Zetarians were powerful.”
“I was young then, a doctor about to serve my first tour aboard Memory Alpha—when I was asked to keep a special watch over Mira. It sounded important to me: a clandestine mission of galactic importance.”
Riker thought Simus looked almost wistful as he described those days.
“In fact, I became both counselor and friend to her. Over time, I learned a lot about what she’d experienced and what questions to ask those who faced a similar predicament. It has become the foundation for all my work since.”
They rounded a corner into a large tree-filled atrium. This was the source of the breeze Riker had felt earlier: a large domed arboretum, lit from above by growlights. Paths wound between the foliage, and Riker could see towering viewports on either side showing outer space beyond. Betazed was down there, warm and blue. Here and there, the admiral saw others wandering the parklike setting in contemplation.
Simus led him toward a picturesque wooden bridge spanning a creek. “I have a feeling this place is more than just Betazed Station 4,” Riker said.
“It is the Mira Romaine Center for Rehabilitation and Reintegration.”
Riker laughed. “So they were sending me away for R-and-R. Just not the kind I had in mind.” He looked to his host. “No offense to you, Simus. You’ve been good company.”
“Once you knew I wasn’t a Romulan interrogator,” the old man said, stepping off the bridge. He turned, walking alongside the rivulet.
“You’re a therapist, then.”
“Of a sort. I suppose my manner is somewhat surprising—I have strayed more than a bit from Surak’s teachings. But I have always felt that a more approachable personality is, in fact, the most logical choice for success at what I do here.” He stopped and gestured to some of the other figures roaming the area. “We don’t have a lot of guests, but we try to make things comfortable for those we do have.”
Riker looked from face to faraway face. “How long do people stay here?”
“For some, the stay is brief,” Simus said. “A lucky few might only return for an hour’s talk now and again, when they feel they need it.” He looked out the other large window, to the stars beyond. “For others, more deeply affected, the Romaine Center provides a safe haven for the rest of their lives.”
“Why haven’t I heard about this place?”
“You should know, Admiral, that many of the encounters of this nature are classified. Many people remember little of their episodes, but others remember quite a lot—and it’s important that no one takes advantage of them and what they know.”
“Who else is here?”
“Above your clearance, sir.” Simus clasped his hands together thoughtfully. “There is another advantage to anonymity. Shared-body experiences are an occupational hazard, but they’ve been known to impact careers. It’s important to me that anyone who needs to return to the Romaine Center for any reason be able to do so without fear. Physiological changes, phantom memories, or just the need to talk to someone: you will always be able to return here, as needed, no questions asked.”
“That suggests I can leave.”
“That is up to you . . . now.” Simus turned and started to walk again.
Riker blinked as he puzzled over the old man’s last statement. Was there a time when it wasn’t up to me? He wondered how many of the people here were present by choice.
“Wait a second,” the admiral said. His eyes narrowed, and he stalked after Simus. Clutching at the Vulcan’s arm, he turned Simus around to face him. “What was the business with tricking me into thinking I was aboard Titan, earlier? You were trying to make me think that my wife and child were in danger. What was that about?”
Simus was about to respond when someone called out from the wooden structure they’d crossed earlier. “I can answer that.”
Riker turned to see Jean-Luc Picard standing above him, looking down from across the railing. “Join me, on the—er, bridge . . .”
Fifty
Simus had declined to follow Riker up to meet Picard, choosing instead to step away and speak to a Bolian patient seated in a nearby rock grotto. Picard smiled broadly as Riker scaled the curved bridge. “You seem better rested.”
“Someone forgot to wake me up.” He glared down at Simus, who cast only a casual glance back. “This is a strange place, Jean-Luc. The doctor says this is a halfway house for alien abductees—and yet I woke up this morning to a fake crisis, where Deanna and Natasha were in danger.”
Picard nodded, knowingly. “Staged on a holodeck.”
“Were you watching it?”
“No. But I have taken such a test myself.”
“Test?”
Picard looked away apologetically. “I’m very sorry for all this, Will. But it’s necessary, for one who’s undergone your experience.” After a moment, he returned his gaze to Riker. “You were immersed in what you were led to believe was a real-life experience, where you would have been motivated to do anything in your power to avert a disaster. Is that correct?”
Riker nodded.
“And in it, you were confronted with a technical problem that was far beyond your natural ability to solve.”
The admiral slapped the railing, suddenly remembering. “The shield calculations that Tuvok was working on. I had to step in to do them—even though I couldn’t have figured that out in a million years.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
Riker’s eyes went wide with realization—and then he silently cursed himself for not getting it earlier. “They were trying to see if I had retained any of the intellectual abilities from my time as a puppet.”
Picard nodded. “I don’t know if Deanna ever told you. But she noticed an improvement in Reginald Barclay’s social abilities in the days after the Cytherians left his consciousness. It was enough that when Starfleet followed up on Reg’s condition, they recommended he visit the center here, and he agreed. Simus worked with him to develop a testing regimen, to determine whether such post-possession changes were a natural result of having gained experience.”
“Or whether you’ve retained remnant talents, that someone might need to be concerned about.”
“Or not. Every experience is different.”
“Something like this almost certainly has a name.”
Picard chuckled. “It is known as the Barclay Battery.”
“The Barclay Battery.” Riker smirked. “I’m sure Reg loves being immortalized.”
“I’m not so sure how I would feel about it myself. But it sounds better than ‘Psyche Separation Analytics Package,’ ” Picard said.
Riker scratched his beard. “I guess I’m lucky I only had the one test.”
“Don’t be so sure there was only one,” Picard said, looking covertly over at the Vulcan. “Simus was most certainly evaluating your ethical and moral decision-making during the entire time you talked.”
“Wait. You said you took the test yourself.” Of course, Riker thought. “But I don’t recall your coming to Betazed after wha
t happened to you. And Reg’s experience took place after that.”
“Oh, I didn’t pay a visit until much later. An invitation to meet with Simus was extended after I was freed from Borg control, but I declined it.” The captain shook his head. “Pure hubris. I had been deemed fit for duty. I had checked out perfectly on all the medical scans and passed the conventional psychological tests. It didn’t strike me as wise to call any more attention to my experience than necessary by coming here—even to a secret installation.”
Riker nodded. “I guess the higher-ups would know.”
“I thought it would be a handicap. But it turned out that exactly the opposite was the case. I found that certain doors were closed to me in Starfleet. Some people felt that I was responsible for what had happened. Many suspected that I might still be compromised.”
Riker nodded. He knew that a grieving Benjamin Sisko had given Picard a difficult time about the role Locutus, the captain’s Borg identity, played in the death of his wife. During the Borg queen’s attack on Earth, Starfleet had purposefully ordered Enterprise to avoid the fray because Picard had once been under the Borg’s control.
“As we’ve seen in our careers, episodes of explorers being . . . misappropriated for use by alien intelligences are quite common,” Picard continued. “Starfleet knows full well that it’s an occupational hazard, especially when it comes to dealing with creatures that may have no other way to communicate. It’s important to Starfleet—and to the Federation—that talented individuals not be lost to service because of incidents like these.”
Picard looked again to the Vulcan, who was now patiently watching them from a distance. “Admiral Akaar knows of Simus’s work here—as does the Federation president. The Simus seal of approval carries extraordinary weight. When I did finally visit, following the Borg queen episode, I found a lot of the road blocks had vanished.”
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