“My handheld phaser can disable someone without killing them. Yours can’t. In fact, they destroy their targets by molecular disintegration: one of the slowest and most painful deaths possible for a life-form.”
“We don’t raise our weapons unless the target has already demonstrated that they are a threat. If we don’t intend to kill, we don’t fire. Civilians possess less lethal forms of self-defense, but the officers of the CIF don’t have that luxury. In a battle, I don’t want my people wondering whether or not they should use lethal force on their enemy. If we’re in battle, that call has already been made.”
“Have you ever fired on a target who turned out not to be an enemy?” Kim asked.
“No.” After a moment, Mattings asked, “Did you get your questions answered about the ancient ones?”
Kim’s stomach turned. “I think so.”
“What were you looking for?”
“I spent a lot of time before we came here trying to understand the protectors.” And plenty more communicating with them, Kim did not add. “It seemed odd to me that as soon as they reached this side of the Gateway, they were destroyed.”
“We didn’t destroy them,” Mattings said. “We would never do that. They dispersed of their own accord.”
“You knew?” Kim asked, surprised.
“Of course I knew.”
“And that didn’t bother you?”
“Why would it?”
“You allowed them to bring us here. You know that data on everything they contact is imprinted in their memory. You didn’t want to know what they already knew about us?”
“The ancient ones have always been temperamental. I’d never seen one until your ships showed up. But it is accepted wisdom that we do not question their choices.”
“Your ancestors did.”
“How do you know that?”
Kim paused, wondering if he had already revealed more than he should have.
“They told us,” he finally replied. “Or, rather, they showed us.”
“Showed you what?” Mattings asked.
“Their past; the history of their interactions with your ancestors,” Kim said.
“And just how did you convince them to do that?” Mattings demanded.
“We asked,” Kim said.
“How?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Lieutenant Kim, I’m a patient man, but even I have my limits,” the general warned.
“The ancient ones are capable of more than data transmission into technology. They can also transmit data directly into your mind,” Kim said. “We showed them a hull fragment from one of your ancient ships. They showed us how it came to be there.”
The general sat back in his chair. Finally he said, “They still remember. They’ve lived with it for hundreds of years while we’ve allowed it to slip into the past. No wonder they destroyed themselves. That’s who they think we are. We’ve always assumed that they brought so few here because they were still protecting us. They aren’t. They ended their own existence to protect you from us, didn’t they?”
“It is possible they thought you might enslave them again and force them to turn against us,” Kim said.
Mattings shook his head in disgust. After a moment, he rose from the small table. “Forgive me, Lieutenant, but I’ve lost my appetite.”
Kim rose as well. “You should know, General, that we don’t hold you responsible for the actions of your ancestors. If you knew more of our history, you’d know we’ve made more than our fair share of poor choices. The important thing is to learn from them.”
“That’s the problem, son,” the general said. “I don’t know if we have.”
Chapter Fourteen
SAN FRANCISCO
Seven vaguely remembered Axum carrying her back to their quarters. At least, she thought she did. She had been conscious of his arms lifting her, cradling her against his chest. The slow and steady rise and fall of his breath had stilled her own. Screams had given way to whimpers and finally silence as the pain receded.
But she did not remember returning down the halls that had led her to the examination room, the alien woman, or the pain. The few times her eyes had opened, Axum had walked through an inky darkness, populated sparsely with distant stars.
Only when they had reached his quarters again did Seven’s immediate surroundings make sense. Axum had placed her on the sofa and wrapped his arms around her. She had rested her head against his shoulder, for how long, she knew not.
When the pain had finally been banished to a corner of her mind reserved for things she intended to forget, she tried to retrace the steps that had brought her here.
Just before the pain, there had been an alien woman undergoing some sort of treatment. A hypo had been lifted to her neck. The individual injecting her had worn a biohazard suit, suggesting that the material he was using was deadly.
What was it? Seven wondered.
“Axum?” she said, lifting her head and turning to face him.
“Better now?” he asked.
“When they brought you here, they extracted some of your catoms, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Did they only take yours?”
“As opposed to?”
“Mine? The ones the Doctor transfused into you?”
“I’m not sure their extraction methods are sophisticated enough to distinguish between the two,” Axum said.
Seven pulled herself upright and free from Axum’s embrace. “They can’t,” she said with finality.
“Does it really matter?” Axum asked. “They took yours too as soon as you arrived.”
“Yes, but long before that, they had access to mine because they were part of you.”
“So?” Axum asked.
“I saw what they’re doing with them,” Seven said.
“What did you see?”
“Someone—the Commander most likely—is injecting our catoms into others. He must be using them to try to cure the virus.”
Axum shrugged. “I wish him luck. If that’s his plan, the cure is going to be a long time coming.”
Seven shook her head, forcing her mind back to the scene she had witnessed. She knew the answer was close but not yet fully formed. “But she wasn’t sick,” Seven realized.
“Who?”
“The patient,” Seven replied. “The woman on the biobed: She showed no other signs of illness. That does not track with the symptoms of the plague. She should have been seriously ill.”
“How do you know she wasn’t?”
“She looked at me. She smiled.”
“She could have been delirious.”
“She knew me.”
“Are you sure she even saw you?”
Seven rose from the couch and began to pace. Too many pieces of the puzzle were floating before her. Order must be imposed upon the chaos of her unruly mind. That determination felt strange but familiar, like a favorite dress she hadn’t worn in a long time.
A new thought stopped her in her tracks. “You were being tortured before I came here.”
“I wasn’t. I told you,” Axum began.
“Then what did I see?” Seven demanded.
“Annika . . .”
“Don’t,” Seven ordered. “Don’t try to placate me. I saw the torture. I felt it. Our catoms connected us to one another once they were mingled. If it wasn’t your pain, then whose was it?”
“I don’t know,” Axum said.
But he did. He had to. “If our catoms were injected into someone else, a connection between us and them could be established as well. That is the only possible explanation for the sensations of pain I have been experiencing. They are using my catoms. They are injecting them into others. Those experiments are incredibly painful for those who are receiving them. Their pain becomes ours.”
“It becomes yours, Annika,” Axum said.
Seven stared at him, searching his face.
“You’re lying to me,” she realized.
&n
bsp; Axum rose and reached for her.
“You know I can’t do that.”
His face, his beautiful, strong, scarred face, was a mask of concern.
His eyes were not.
Seven did not think. She simply established a direct link between her thoughts and Axum’s. In his mind, she saw the man on fire, and felt again the agony of the icy tank. In his mind, she saw the woman with lavender skin, her face, her hands, her entire body rippling as catomic particles flew at the speed of her beating heart through her bloodstream, transforming her tissues, destroying them.
Seven was thrown back several paces by the force of Axum’s rejection. He retreated at the same time, stepping back almost onto the balcony.
“No!” he shouted.
Seven’s breath came in great heaving gasps.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me this had happened to you as well?”
“What difference does it make?” he demanded.
“What difference?” Seven was dumbstruck. “For days now I have suffered. You let me think that torment was mine alone.”
“You will learn, as I did, to block those sensations when they begin. I didn’t lie to you, Annika. I did not feel the pain they have inflicted on others through us. I choose not to. I have plenty of painful memories of my own to contend with. I won’t accept theirs as well.”
“But you’ve known all this time what they were doing and you didn’t tell me,” Seven said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Axum shook his head slowly back and forth. She had never seen him so angry, so wounded, so devastated all at once.
“All the answers are here, Annika. They’ve always been here. I haven’t hidden anything from you. I tried to show you. I asked you to enter my mind and my thoughts, but you refused. You took my body and my soul, but you wanted no part of my truth.” A chill coursed over him, raising the hairs on the back of Seven’s neck.
“Sometimes,” he said softly, “I think you are no better than her.”
“Who?”
The Borg queen in countless incarnations they had known reared her hideous face.
As if struck by the back of his hand, Seven reeled. A thousand new questions rose to the front of her mind. Axum turned and rushed out to the patio.
She didn’t need to follow to find her answers. Seven had but to reach out and take them from his mind. But that horrible visage stayed her. She had just violated him, as surely as he had once taken her in what she had believed was a dream. To probe his mind again without his permission, now that she knew how simple it was, was unconscionable.
“Axum?” she called.
He was no longer visible in the darkness.
“Axum?” she said again, stepping forward gingerly.
A few more steps and she would find him. A few more steps and she would beg his forgiveness.
As Seven started toward him, a sound she had not heard since she arrived greeted her ears. She turned automatically as the door to their quarters slid open.
A figure stepped over the threshold. The face was one Seven knew well.
And one that could not possibly be here.
“Doctor Frazier?” Seven asked.
To Shaw’s surprise, but not Tom Paris’s, his mother had successfully cleared the latest hurdle placed before her. Less than twenty-four hours after she had learned that another grandchild was on the way and been ordered to prove that she could adequately care for both children, a Family Court investigator had visited her home and found a nursery already prepared. In addition, six individuals had all written statements confirming their intent to assist Mrs. Paris with the various duties involved in the care of two young children.
Two of those six were Tom’s sisters.
Shaw had been disconcerted when the attorney provided this update. The matter now resolved, mediation would resume the following morning with the presentation of character witnesses for both parties.
Paris had known his mother well enough to anticipate her actions. The only thing more impressive than her organizational skills was her ruthless efficiency. He did not, however, know Shaw well enough to trust that the attorney had too much faith in his own abilities to flummox Julia Paris with the relatively minor inconvenience of adding another child’s care to her list of responsibilities. Shaw had assured him from day one that he and B’Elanna would win. Paris always had his doubts. Now, it seemed, Shaw had begun to share them.
But there was nothing to be done about it today. Rather than sit alone and fester—or, worse, find a dark, quiet spot in which to drown his sorrows—Paris opted to do his duty. He had promised Doctor Sharak to contact Seven on a daily basis. First thing in the morning seemed as good a time as any.
Whoever was running this show made their first mistake when they chose to leave Paris waiting in the lobby of Starfleet Medical for more than two hours before anyone appeared to meet him.
Their second mistake was to send a shiny young ensign to deflect him.
When no one had appeared after fifteen minutes, Paris had understood that something unusual was going on. Sharak had already told him that communications from within the quarantined area where Seven was held were restricted, but it didn’t take that long to find a secure data terminal and transmit a request for interface. When fifteen minutes had become thirty, Paris had grown annoyed. At the one-hour mark, Paris had pulled out his padd and reviewed the list of names the Doctor and Sharak had provided identifying the officers connected with the project. At that point, Paris would have been content to speak with any one of them. An hour later, Paris wanted answers from only one person.
The young man in a blue science uniform who finally approached made the Harry Kim Paris had first met in a bar on Deep Space 9 look worldly.
“Commander Paris?”
“Ensign,” Paris greeted him tersely as he rose from the lobby bench.
“I have been asked to advise you that you will not be able to make direct contact with Seven today.”
“Take me to Doctor Pauline Frist at once, Ensign.”
“I’m not authorized to do that, sir.”
“Do you know where Doctor Frist is right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I . . . I can’t . . . sir, I—” the ensign stammered.
“Ensign!” Paris barked, in a fair-to-good imitation of his father. “You will take me to Doctor Frist, or five minutes from now, Doctor Frist will be ordered by her superior officer, the chief of Starfleet Medical, to receive me. He’s also going to have a number of questions for Doctor Frist she probably doesn’t have time to answer right now, starting with: Why are you refusing access to a decorated Starfleet officer who is a personal friend and, technically, responsible for an individual in your care who has volunteered to assist Doctor Frist with her current assignment?”
The ensign had no response to this.
“Should that fail to persuade Doctor Frist, the next call she receives will be from Admiral Kenneth Montgomery. In the event Admiral Montgomery is unable to communicate the urgency of this matter, the next person Doctor Frist hears from will be Admiral Leonard Akaar of Starfleet Command.”
“I . . .” the ensign began.
“The only question you have to answer right now, Ensign, is: How much embarrassment do you intend to cause Doctor Frist before lunch?”
“This way, sir,” the ensign said.
Three minutes later, Paris was ushered into Doctor Frist’s office.
“I’m not sure what you thought you might accomplish by running roughshod over Ensign Pierce,” Frist said by way of greeting. “He was told to advise you that Seven is unable to make direct contact with you right now. I don’t have a different answer for you, Commander Paris.”
“I assumed as much,” Paris said.
“Then why are you wasting my time?”
“I don’t intend to waste a lot of it,” Paris said cordially.
Frist opened her hands before her. “So we’re d
one here? You just needed to hear it from the horse’s mouth?”
“Yes,” Paris said. “Please take me to the horse.”
Frist chuckled without amusement. “Surely you are aware that this is a classified project, Commander,” Frist said.
“I’m not asking to check your work, Doctor,” Paris said. “I need to make contact with a civilian attached to the fleet I serve, a civilian I brought to you because you indicated that her expertise was required. Technically, Seven has not been reassigned while offering you that expertise. She’s still under my authority. I know you’re not going to tell me anything, so why don’t you save us both a little time and take me to the officer who will.”
“You’re not cleared to enter our quarantined area.”
“Then clear me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Contact the officer who can, and tell him or her that I am not leaving this area until I speak with Seven.”
“Please don’t force me to have security escort you from the building, Commander.”
Paris smiled. “Go ahead.”
Frist faltered.
“I don’t know how much you know about Seven. I’ve known her since the day she was first severed from the Borg Collective. If she were aware that I wished to speak with her, she would contact me immediately. The fact that she hasn’t done so means you haven’t told her, or she is unable to do so. If the issue is the first, I’d suggest you apprise her of my request immediately. If the issue is the latter, I will know the reason why before the day is done.”
Frist took a deep breath. “The work we are doing here is of a highly sensitive nature. Very few individuals in Starfleet or among the civilian authorities are aware of it. It was classified for good reason. Once Seven voluntarily entered the quarantine area, she understood that contact with the outside world would be limited. We have made an exception in the case of Doctor Sharak—also a member of your crew, I believe—because he was already aware of the nature of our work and has been willing to assist us.”
“Doctor Sharak did not hear from her yesterday. He requested that I rectify that today. I came here at his request, but two hours later, my gut tells me something is wrong. I’m the one you need to satisfy now, which is bad news for you and whoever you work for. I’ve got five generations of Starfleet brass in my family tree and, unlike Doctor Sharak, I actually know how this game is played.”
Star Trek: Voyager - 043 - Acts of Contrition Page 22