Star Trek: Voyager - 043 - Acts of Contrition

by Kirsten Beyer

  “I believe it would be inhumane not to,” Glenn replied. “They need us. They are on the brink of living as we do. We could hand them a few pieces of technology and change their lives for the better tomorrow.”

  “And you believe that all that is holding them back from living as we do is a lack of resources and technology?”

  “What else would?” Glenn asked.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Janeway said, rising wearily. As Glenn followed suit, she said, “For the time being, I will not accept any further invitations for you to tour other facilities.”

  Stung, Glenn said, “If you feel I behaved inappropriately at the clinic, I will understand. But I did not assist Doctor Kwer until she requested I do so. At that point . . .”

  “It would have been inhumane for you to do otherwise, Commander. I know,” the admiral said. “Your instinct to investigate the situation with the wounded boy was sound. Your actions following that were commendable. But I won’t put you in that position again.”

  “I’m happy to lend a hand where I’m needed most,” Glenn said.

  “You’re needed here,” Janeway said. “Lieutenant Lasren required attention tonight that you were unavailable to provide. In the absence of the Doctor, I want you nearby to attend to our people. But I do have another project for you.”

  “Name it, Admiral.”

  “Research,” Janeway said simply. “Lieutenant Benoit can give you the details.”

  VITRUM

  Lieutenant Commander Atlee Fife understood now what Commander O’Donnell had meant when he called Vitrum “another world.” The fields of Femra had been beautiful things; row upon row, as far as the eye could see, of billowy silver yint bolls anchored in soil that was rich and dark. The fine, tall hrass bending with the breeze had been like a pale yellow ocean.

  Overseer Bralt walked beside Fife on Vitrum’s surface, each step kicking up dirt that rose in small storms at their feet. The sky above was a stubborn gray and the air was cold and dry. Producer Cemt, the land’s owner, walked ahead of them, speaking quietly to Ensign Brill, who had not toured Femra. O’Donnell had insisted, however, that Brill see Vitrum. Brill’s and Cemt’s voices were pitched low, but their conversation had been continuous since the group had stepped outside the modest home where Cemt and his family lived. Theirs was the only productive land for a hundred clicks in any direction.

  Fife wanted to know what Cemt was telling Brill, but it was impossible to make out over Bralt’s constant cheery chatter. “It’s true that Cemt can only cultivate one-twentieth of his land at present. But as you can see, the wide variety of vegetables he has chosen to plant this season are doing well.”

  Fife couldn’t tell if that was so. The few sprouts he saw of orange and green leaves looked weak and wilted. Then again, he had no idea what they were supposed to look like.

  “Why doesn’t he use more land if he’s got it?” Fife asked.

  “Vitrum is in a rotation phase,” Bralt said. “For several years, they were one of our primary producers of leath, a relatively easy crop to grow.”

  “Is leath food?”

  “It’s a fiber,” Bralt replied, “used to create a particularly lightweight textile.”

  “If leath does well here, why isn’t Cemt still producing it?”

  “Demand has fallen off recently, as the desire for yint has replaced it. Cemt wisely anticipated that shift and began repurposing his soil before many others here on Vitrum followed suit. He also released most of his land workers to more profitable worlds, cutting his expenses. He purchased almost a hundred geers with the surplus from his last leath crops and has become one of the largest producers in the area of fertilizer and sells that to many other local farms. In time, his harvests will increase again and, eventually, he will likely be feeding hundreds of families, in addition to his own, with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.”

  “How many families does he feed now with what he has?” Fife asked, certain Bralt was painting the rosiest picture possible of Cemt’s circumstances.

  “His own,” Bralt said. “But I assure you—”

  Fife raised a hand to still Bralt’s discourse as Brill and Cemt turned and began striding toward them.

  “Commander?” Brill asked, pulling Fife out of earshot of the two Leodts.

  “Yes, Ensign?”

  “We’re done here,” he said in a low voice.

  “It’s only been an hour,” Fife said.

  “There’s nothing more to see.”

  Fife’s brow furrowed. It had taken almost the whole day to scratch the surface of the agricultural marvels on Femra.

  “The soil here is in dire need of nutrient enrichment, and Cemt is well on his way; but shifting from leath, which required comparatively light soil and little irrigation, to his current crops is going to take time. He’s barely able to produce what he needs, and that’s not going to change overnight.”

  “Are there quicker ways to restore his soil and increase his productivity?” Fife asked.

  “For us? Yes. But Cemt doesn’t need us. Bralt has thousands of cases of nutrient compound and seed stock in store on Femra.”

  “Why doesn’t he forward them here?”

  “Because Cemt can’t afford them.”

  Fife shook his head.

  Brill’s hands rose to his hips as he struggled to suppress his obvious frustration. “Cemt is a tenth-generation farmer. He knows how this works. He knew what he was doing to his land by maximizing his production of leath. There are hundreds of other choices he could have made that would have maintained the soil better and kept it viable. Instead, he drained it dry, and now that no one needs leath, he’s out of luck. He knew better,” Brill insisted. “No one works land their entire life without understanding about reaping what you sow.”

  Cemt ambled toward them, his face somber. “You know, if you gentlemen really want to see what’s what, you should head down the road a few hundred clicks to Izly’s place.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Bralt said. “You have been most generous to see us at all, Cemt. We are grateful for it.”

  “We’ve still got plenty of time,” Fife said. “I would be most obliged, Overseer, if you would direct us to—Izly, was it?”

  Cemt nodded.

  Fife knew he was testing Bralt’s courtesy, but he didn’t care. Commander O’Donnell had wanted him to see this, and now that he had, he was beginning to understand why. “We should evaluate as much of the land as we can, shouldn’t we, Brill?”

  The ensign shook his head almost imperceptibly but said, “Absolutely, sir.”

  VOYAGER

  “You wanted to see me, Doctor?” a bone-weary Commander B’Elanna Torres asked as she entered the science lab.

  “Yes, Commander,” the Doctor replied.

  For several seconds, the Doctor merely stared at her, his arms crossed over his chest defensively.

  “Was there a reason?” Torres finally asked, stifling a yawn. The Doctor’s unusual call had awakened her only two hours after she had fallen asleep.

  “Yes,” the Doctor said.

  When he seemed unwilling to provide any further information, Torres said, “Are you going to tell me the reason, or can I go back to bed? I’m sleeping for two now.”

  “It’s complicated,” the Doctor said, stepping away from the experimental station his body had been covering until this moment.

  “What the . . .” Torres said as she immediately moved to examine the charred remains of what had once been a state-of-the-art molecular scanner, diagnostic station, and micromagnetic containment generator. Looking back at the Doctor, who appeared to be appropriately mortified, she asked, “What were you trying to do?”

  “I really can’t tell you,” the Doctor said.

  Torres raised a hand to the back of her neck to rub the muscles there already forming themselves into knots.

  As she did so, the Doctor added, “I need to run this experiment again, preferably without destroying the science lab, or
the ship.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe that’s possible?”

  The Doctor said nothing.

  “Do you want me to help you revise whatever safety protocols you used here?”

  “I want you to provide me with a few particles of antimatter,” the Doctor said.

  The laughter sprang from the center of Torres’s belly without warning. It continued to build as the Doctor stared at her, stricken. When she had finally regained control of herself, she said, “I don’t think so. I’ll send some of Conlon’s gamma-shift crew down here to clean this up. Good night, Doctor.”

  The Doctor crossed toward her so quickly she actually flinched and retreated a few steps. The intensity of his gaze was almost desperate.

  “I must have it,” he said.

  The situation was no longer funny. A kick of adrenaline cleared Torres’s mind completely. “Doctor, I understand that whatever you’re trying to do here is important. I assume you can’t tell me because it has something to do with the classified mission Seven just returned to the Alpha Quadrant to assist with.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But we don’t play with antimatter.”

  “I don’t know what else to try.”

  Torres stepped forward again and placed her hands on the Doctor’s arms. Meeting his eyes, she said, “Then let me help you.”

  “I can’t,” the Doctor said miserably.

  “You can’t tell me specifically what you are trying to accomplish,” Torres said, “but hypothetically?”

  The Doctor’s expression shifted to wary consideration. “Hypothetically?”

  “Yes.”

  The Doctor nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  “I’m guessing that you need to create a controlled explosion. Hypothetically, of course,” Torres said.

  “Of course.”

  “So, a few particles of antimatter could theoretically destroy, what?”

  “An incredibly powerful and resilient subatomic particle. And I don’t want to destroy it,” the Doctor said.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “Damage it.”

  “How badly?”

  “Enough to limit its ability to bond with other particles but not enough to completely disable or annihilate it.”

  Torres looked away, attempting to visualize what the Doctor was describing. However, she could not imagine a subatomic particle that would be able to survive an antimatter explosion.

  “Without understanding the nature of these particles, I don’t know how to accurately estimate the appropriate antimatter yield,” Torres said.

  The Doctor’s face fell. “If I tell you the nature of these particles, we won’t be speaking in hypotheticals anymore.”

  “Then no antimatter,” Torres said. “If you need to damage these particles, why not use a modulated phase pulse?” she asked.

  The Doctor turned and gestured to the carnage that had once been the science station. “My attempts to modulate the pulse led to an overload of the phase emitter.”

  “Too high?”

  “Too low, but sustained over too long a period,” the Doctor said. “I’m trying to damage a single particle. More precisely, I’m attempting to re-create a hypothetical situation where these particles would have been exposed to an antimatter explosion—say, from a torpedo—but sustained limited damage due to the presence of variable modulation shielding.”

  “You can’t re-create circumstances like that in this lab,” Torres said. “How many of these particles would have been exposed in the scenario you are imagining?”

  “Trillions, probably more,” the Doctor replied.

  Torres sighed. “Do you have a few million? With that, I could construct a controlled simulation.”

  “I have a few hundred left,” the Doctor admitted.

  “So you really need to do this with just one?”

  The Doctor nodded.

  Torres shrugged. “It’s not going to work.”

  “It has to,” the Doctor argued, his intensity ratcheting up again.

  Shaking her head, Torres moved to the edge of the damaged station and perched gingerly on it. Despite the destruction to the central area, the edge still felt sturdy beneath her weight.

  “I can’t tell you how to do this,” Torres said. “I can do it for you, but you have to let me see the particle and you have to let me run the phase modifications. You’ll also need me to establish the shield resonance frequencies.”

  “Could you download the required information into my program?” he asked.

  Torres shook her head. “This isn’t about data. It’s about experience. I promise you, a few hundred tries at this—which is all you have—won’t be enough for you to get it right. And we don’t have that many science labs on board.”

  The Doctor moved to sit beside her. “If I do this, I will be in breach of my ethical obligation to Starfleet Medical and the Federation.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Millions of people will die.”

  Torres considered the dilemma. “If you manage to save these millions, will your superiors suspect that you shared any classified information with me? Will they ever know you couldn’t have done this experiment alone?”

  “I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “If my work here saves millions of lives, they might not care. But that’s not the point. I’ll know I disobeyed a direct order.”

  “I understand,” Torres said. “Living with that would be hard. You’re the only one who can decide if it would be harder living with all of those preventable deaths on your conscience. Given the circumstances, the fact that you are tens of thousands of light-years away from the facilities and personnel you require to do this job, I imagine some latitude might be granted, particularly if you told me only what I need to know to help you complete this experiment. I promise you that if I am ever questioned about this, I will say that I refused to assist you without more information.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t. I offered.”

  The Doctor stared at her for a long time. Finally he said, “We’re talking about programmable matter.”

  “Catoms,” B’Elanna said.

  “You know?”

  “Not as much as you do, but enough. I’ve read every word that isn’t classified about the Caeliar and the transformation. There’s always a chance that Seven is going to need my help, and I can’t do that if I’m not prepared.”

  “I never thought you and Seven were that close.”

  Torres smiled in spite of herself. “I didn’t either. And then one day, I realized we were.”

  “When?”

  “The day the two of you showed up on Voyager to tell us what you’d learned at the Federation Institute about the Curse of the Gods,” Torres said. “It didn’t surprise me at all when you walked into that room. I saw the way you looked at Miral the first time you placed her in my arms. Of course you came to help us.

  “But Seven didn’t have to. She’d moved on with her life by then. She had just begun to build something for herself separate from all of us and Voyager. You could have given us all the data. Seven didn’t need to be there. But the way she looked at me when she walked into the briefing room, I just knew. She was willing to die for me and for my daughter. I don’t know when she came to that conclusion. But that’s when I realized what we were. What we are.”

  “Family,” the Doctor said.

  “Yes.” After a long pause, Torres asked, “You’re doing this to help Seven, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  The Doctor did.

  All of his attempts to integrate catomic material into even the simplest virus had failed. The catoms immediately recognized the virus as something foreign to healthy blood tissue and rendered it inert. That was when the Doctor had begun to consider the real-world possibilities for how this mutated catomic virus could have come into existence. It was obvious the fully functioning catoms could not be
fooled by a virus. But if catomic particles had been damaged, exposed to an antimatter explosion just after the transformation had occurred, they might have been unable to recognize a virus for what it was.

  He had diminished his supply of Seven’s catoms to almost nothing in multiple attempts to damage them before his last attempt had all but destroyed the science lab.

  True to her word, when the Doctor showed her his data, Torres was immediately able to construct a contained and perfectly modulated phase pulse that could damage a single catomic particle. The experiment was repeated on a dozen other particles, varying the degree of damage.

  At that point, the Doctor had thanked Torres for her work and ordered her to get some sleep.

  Three hours later, back in sickbay and secured behind a level-ten forcefield, the Doctor had introduced a single damaged catom to the first virus he intended to test.

  Three seconds later, he had successfully re-created the catomic plague.

  He had destroyed it milliseconds after its birth. He had then repeated the experiment twelve more times and each time allowed the catomic virus to live long enough to introduce a single healthy catom to the tissue and analyze the results.

  The experiment revealed a fundamental truth about the plague: The only option was to contain it, to limit its spread until it had run through every available host. In time, it could be eradicated. Unless the Caeliar returned and offered the Federation all the data required to reprogram catoms, it could never be cured.

  Moreover, if the “best minds in the Federation” who were supposedly trying to cure this plague had not already reached this same conclusion, they were no such thing.

  Tempting as it was to simply accept this as evidence of his brilliance and the obvious shortsightedness of Doctor Frist, a much more disturbing possibility quickly presented itself.

  Tapping his combadge, the Doctor awoke Captain Chakotay and requested his immediate presence in sickbay.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, Chakotay hadn’t been disturbed by the Doctor’s call. The journey to Lecahn was almost over and had progressed without incident. It might have been the boredom that set Chakotay’s nerves on edge. But it was also the tangible sense of isolation. Even in only a few short months, he had become accustomed to thinking of Voyager as part of a fleet. The range of personnel and expertise available to him and the fleet commander had provided an unspoken sense of security.