The Doctor found himself smiling again.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Reg clearly hadn’t been acting alone when he summoned the EMH to Jupiter Station, though he knew full well Zimmerman would argue himself hoarse before he would admit it.
“Then why am I here?” the Doctor asked.
“You’re here because if left to your own devices you will run completely amok.”
“I beg your pardon,” the Doctor retorted.
“You disagree? All right, let’s take a little stroll through your memory buffers. For seven years your program was forced to evolve and adapt beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. And the minute you get home, instead of charting a course which would continue to challenge your limits, you settled for babysitting.”
“I was helping a friend,” the Doctor interjected hastily. “Interpersonal relationships—”
“Are important, I agree,” Zimmerman went on. “But I must admit, after the alterations you made to your physical parameters in the Delta quadrant, I didn’t expect you to content yourself with mere platonic friendships. They are not the only arena in which you must continue to expand, especially if you don’t want it to shrivel up and fall off.”
As the Doctor considered the impossibility of this disturbing image, Zimmerman continued.
“Then, you run off and join the egghead brigade—”
“The Institute contains some of the finest minds—”
“I’ve met most of them,” Zimmerman countered, “and a bigger pack of blowhards I never hope to meet again.”
As the EMH agreed, at least in principle, he found it difficult to come up with an instantaneous retort.
“They’re about theory,” Zimmerman continued. “They’ll think a thing to death and then suck on its bones. What they do isn’t living, and if you’re going to continue to advance, you need to start living again.”
The Doctor found himself silenced by the admonishment, primarily because it had not occurred to him that he had not been living until this moment. What had occurred to him, numerous times in the last several months, was the fact that he wasn’t nearly as happy as he used to be. The Doctor associated this sense with the loss of daily interaction with his friends aboard Voyager, and realized that he had actually felt at his best and most useful when he was working by their sides to aid B’Elanna and Miral.
When he used to imagine his life in the Alpha quadrant, should Voyager ever make it that far, his dreams had been varied, but had included every aspect of his personality he had begun to develop while on Voyager: continuing his medical work, to be sure, but also the occasional musical recital, completing an exhibit of his holovid record of Voyager’s journey, and certainly, the hope that at some point he might meet someone with whom he could continue to explore a deep interpersonal relationship.
It shocked him to realize that he had done none of these things, and though he might have more time than organic life-forms, it was still too precious a commodity to squander.
“You’re right,” the Doctor said dolefully.
“Of course I’m right,” Zimmerman replied. “Now what are you going to do about it?”
The Doctor didn’t have a ready answer.
“While your subroutines are twisting themselves into cascade failure, do you mind if I make a suggestion?” Zimmerman asked.
The Doctor nodded. “Please.”
By the end of the afternoon the Doctor had submitted a letter to the Federation Research Institute indicating that for the foreseeable future, he would be working in a full-time capacity with Doctor Zimmerman. He would, of course, continue to make himself available to the Institute on a project-by-project basis, should the need arise. When this was done, the Doctor went to work composing a lengthy letter to the only person who he expected to be even a little dismayed by his choice: Seven. Once he had heard the broad strokes of Zimmerman’s new research and considered the practical applications, his imagination and enthusiasm had been fired in a way he could never remember experiencing. The Doctor had already suggested to Zimmerman that Seven would be an invaluable addition to their team, and though his creator hadn’t argued the fact, he had encouraged the Doctor not to get his hopes up when it came to Seven of Nine.
Experience had already taught the Doctor that lesson all too well. He extended the invitation nonetheless, but wasn’t surprised a few days later when he received her brisk refusal.
As Captain Eden had expected, she had been among the very last to learn of Willem’s plans.
After finally spending the better part of a week interviewing Admiral Janeway, an experience that left Eden with a profound respect for the challenges Janeway had endured and in awe of her devotion to duty, the captain had finally completed her analysis and forwarded it to Admiral Montgomery. She had expected to hear from Willem within a few hours of transmitting it, but instead there was frustrating silence.
Determined to put it out of her mind, Eden had decided to spend the weekend in Paris, where the Louvre was featuring a spectacular new exhibit of several newly discovered paintings by D’Mack of Vulcan. While staring at the most impressive rendering of a sandstorm she’d ever seen, she’d run into Admiral Upton, who was touring the museum with his wife and young daughter. He’d been gracious enough to compliment Eden on her work and her report, though he admitted he hadn’t had a chance to study it as deeply as he intended. He’d then proceeded to inquire as to how Batiste was taking Command’s denial of his proposal regarding Voyager. She’d been forced to admit that she had no idea, and was further humiliated when she’d had to remind Upton that she and Willem were no longer married.
The admiral had seemed appropriately mortified by his gaffe and apologized profusely. She’d met Upton only a handful of times and wasn’t terribly surprised that he wasn’t current on the state of her personal life.
As Willem had apparently used her analysis in support of his argument, Upton had assumed that Eden was fully briefed on the proposal. He suggested that if she and Batiste were serious about making better use of Voyager’s unique resources, they might start by looking a little closer to home. By silently pretending to know much more than she did, Eden had managed to get the gist of Willem’s plan out of Upton before excusing herself politely and hurrying from the exhibit. Propriety suggested it was a good idea not to allow one’s head to explode in front of a superior officer in a public place.
Eden had returned to San Francisco determined to confront Willem at once. He lived only three kilometers from her apartment, and she debated walking the brief distance in the cool moonlit air to clear her head and take the edge off the heat her anger was generating. Finally, she decided that Willem had earned that anger honestly and should be spared none of it.
She rang his door chime three times before the doors slid open and she heard a muffled, “Come in,” from the direction of Willem’s bedroom.
This was the apartment they had shared when they’d been married. Willem had offered to allow her to continue living there when they’d separated, but Eden had found the notion unimaginable. Entering the living room and noting that the honeymoon picture of the two of them sunbathing on one of Delgara’s most exclusive private beaches no longer hung over the mantel was enough to stir up dozens of less pleasant memories of their last weeks together.
“Give me just a minute,” Willem called from behind the closed bedroom door.
Eden assumed he knew it was her. She couldn’t imagine that he opened his front door willingly to strangers.
Then again, he always has been a cocky son of a bitch.
Briefly she wondered if he was alone. Ultimately it didn’t matter. She was here on business and she honestly didn’t care who heard what she had to say to him.
Eden planted herself, arms crossed, before the large screen that had replaced their honeymoon photo. A quick scan of the rest of the visible living spaces told her that Willem’s housekeeping had gone to seed since they’d separated. Unruly stacks of padds littered the coffee
table amid several tall glasses, some still half filled with tea. The bookshelf on the far wall was overflowing with dozens of old tomes. Willem was one of the few people she knew who actually liked to read for pleasure from bound manuscripts rather than padds. Isolinear chips were scattered haphazardly about.
The dining table was filled with more used dishes. It looked as if he’d just finished throwing a party, but Eden knew he had not. She could count on one hand the times he had grudgingly agreed to entertain their friends while they’d been married.
A pile of dirty rags and a pungent metallic odor suggested he’d recently cleaned the golf clubs that had been placed in a corner of the dining area; they were arranged fastidiously in their bag. The things he chose to care about never ceased to amaze her.
Not that any of this is my concern any longer, she reminded herself. If Willem wanted to live like a wildebeest, that was his business.
He finally emerged from the bedroom wearing a tattered old robe she’d offered to replace numerous times but to no avail. Like a child’s favorite blanket, Willem had insisted on keeping it. It was his attire of choice for sitting around the house.
She almost gasped in alarm when he stepped far enough into the room’s dim lighting for her to see the haggard, drawn expression he wore.
“You look like hell,” she said involuntarily, and with more compassion than she’d intended.
He offered her a wan smile before setting himself down gingerly on the sofa.
“And you look angrier than one of hell’s demons,” he replied wearily.
If Afsarah had truly hated him, this might have been all the impetus she would have needed to launch her attack. But she didn’t hate him. Eden no longer missed or needed him, but she could never hate him. Even loathing might not have been enough to counter the concern she found welling inside her at the sight of his feverish face and lethargic limbs.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, seating herself on the arm of the chair angled to the far side of the sofa.
“Nothing a few days’ rest won’t cure,” he replied dismissively.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have.” He nodded.
“And?”
“And he has seen me.”
“Willem!”
“And he said I’m going to be fine if I take it easy for a few days,” he replied a bit testily.
Eden didn’t believe him. But she also knew she could sit here and grow old before he’d tell her more. Willem avoided doctors as though he was allergic to them. If he had gone to Starfleet Medical, it could only mean that whatever ailed him was too frightening or painful to ignore.
“Now why don’t you tell me what made you storm over here at this hour,” he said.
Eden tried to summon some of her frustration, along with the choice words she’d planned to express it with, but found instead only a resigned sigh.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning to propose to Command?” she asked.
“Would it have made a difference in the contents of your report, or the speed with which you completed it?”
Eden considered the question. Finally she uttered her disquieting but honest response.
“It might have.”
A sad smile traipsed across Willem’s lips.
“I guess I wanted the proposal to be considered on its merits. I felt that the potential for discovery, bolstered by your objective analysis, would be sufficient to win the day,” Batiste said.
Eden shook her head. “You didn’t make admiral with that much of your naïveté still intact.”
“All right,” he admitted. “I didn’t count on the strenuousness of Admiral Janeway’s objections.”
“You want to send her former crew back to the Delta quadrant,” Eden said in exasperation. “She risked everything to bring them home safely. She overcame impossible odds and ridiculous obstacles for seven years straight. More times than I care to count, any sane person would have turned back, found a nice little planet to settle down on, and cut their losses, and every single time she was faced with that choice she flat-out refused. She successfully negotiated safe passage from the Borg, for crying out loud. And you didn’t think she’d mind?”
“This is different,” Willem countered abruptly.
“How?”
“With our recent advances in slipstream technology, there’s almost no risk that a new exploratory mission would be stranded again.”
“Slipstream is untested.”
“For now. Six months from now that won’t be true, and it will take at least that long to assemble the fleet we’ll need.”
“Don’t say ‘we,’” she corrected him. “This is your pipe dream, not mine.”
“I thought you agreed with me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Twenty-nine times in your analysis you recommended that key discoveries made by Voyager warranted follow-up.”
“From the Alpha quadrant,” Eden replied.
“You know that won’t happen,” he shot back. “And you also know that Voyager only scratched the surface of what’s there to be discovered. The previously unknown life-forms alone, never mind the weaknesses they discovered and were able to use to their advantage against the Borg—”
“Were largely due to the presence of Seven of Nine,” she finished for him. “Just because she’s home now, that doesn’t mean she’s forgotten anything about the Collective. She can tell us everything we might need to know.”
“The Borg adapt, Afsarah. The next time we meet them, they won’t be the same Collective she left behind, and we both know that.”
“You’re worried about a Borg attack?” Eden asked. “That’s why you’re so fired up about this?”
“I’m worried about a lot of things.”
Eden studied his inscrutable face. Much as she wanted to tell him to let this go, to gracefully accept Starfleet’s denial and move on, his obvious disappointment, coupled with her personal curiosity, silenced her. She would never in a million years have concocted Willem’s proposal, nor would she have had the gall to submit it to Starfleet, but she had to admit that in some ways, Willem was right.
No one knew the current status of the Borg, or their transwarp network, which obviously had at some point extended to the Alpha quadrant. Voyager had destroyed one hub before they had returned home, but clearly the Borg possessed the technology to re-create it. It might take a while, but all the Borg needed was a reason, and who was to say that they might not set their sights on the Federation, or the ship that had bested them time and again.
Come to think of it, the Borg don’t even need a reason.
All they needed was time.
The thought made Eden’s blood run cold.
She had been prepared to read him the riot act for using her work to support an argument she would never have made. A few minutes later, she was left wondering why she hadn’t seen all along that as difficult and dangerous as this mission might be, the Federation’s continued existence could depend upon it.
“Why does it have to be Voyager?” she asked.
“Who would you send—a crew that’s actually been there or one that has read about it in somebody else’s logs?”
“Janeway will never approve the mission.”
“It’s not entirely her call to make. Obviously Command is going to weigh her recommendations heavily, and for now they agree that there is no ‘pressing need’ for the mission. But I for one don’t want to be sitting around here with my pants down when that ‘pressing need’ shows up looking to assimilate me.”
Suddenly Willem caught his breath. He strained for a moment in obvious pain before shuddering into a more relaxed posture.
Eden rose.
“You should get some rest,” she said softly, turning to go.
“Afsarah,” he called after her.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you my intentions.”
She didn’t turn back. “Damn straigh
t you should have.”
Instead of transporting home, she entered her office a little after midnight and began to revise her analysis, focusing considerable attention on those things Voyager had discovered about the Borg, but more importantly, on the many remaining unanswered questions about the Collective.
JUNE 2379
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Janeway sat in the shuttle’s aft compartment alone, waiting for Decan to inform her that they had received clearance to depart from Proxima Station.
Her evening with Chakotay had gone longer than she’d planned, but it had been well worth the trip to meet with him while Voyager was undergoing some routine repairs so near to Earth. She found herself smiling frequently since she’d left Chakotay’s quarters and a little unnerved by a newfound lightness in her step and the pleasant warmth that washed through her when she cast her thoughts back to the previous night. Giddy as a schoolgirl.
All evidence to the contrary.
The admiral was, however, anxious to depart. Her mission successfully accomplished, she only worried that it might have cost her one last chance to connect with someone most dear to her.
“Admiral Janeway?” Decan called from the cockpit.
“Are we on our way?”
“Just a few more minutes.”
“If we don’t make it back to Earth by noon tomorrow, I’m going to find a new aide, Decan.”
“I will bear that in mind, Admiral.”
It was a sign of how much she’d come to depend upon him that neither of them ever took her threat seriously, no matter how many times she’d made it.
As there was nothing more to do, Janeway considered settling in for a nap during the return trip. Heaven knew she could use the rest, as there was no end of work waiting for her back in San Francisco. Instead, she found herself pulling out the small travel case she’d packed for the trip and always had on hand in case of an emergency. Beneath the personal padds, clean uniform, and toiletries, she found the item she was looking for. It lay in a small compartment, next to a beautiful silver watch.
Star Trek: Voyager®: Full Circle Page 23