Strange New Worlds IV

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “At least he’s never offered to let you be Constance Goodheart,” Torres said with a sardonic snort, as she checked the current plasma conversion ratio and entered it on her padd. “Well, now you won’t have to let yourself be dragged into the adventures of the Interstellar Patrol anymore.”

  Harry sighed, and Torres looked up at him from the deflector energy schematics. “Unless, that’s what you want to do.”

  Harry shook his head, his inner confusion spilling outward. “I want to know what it was that hit Tom’s nerve so hard. It’s not just a dumb practical joke inside a dumb holodeck program.”

  Torres gave him a half grin. “Hey, just because I’m dating the guy doesn’t mean I know any better how his mind works than you do.”

  “Attempting to determine that would be futile.”

  Kim and Torres turned toward Seven of Nine. Seconds ago, she had been poring over the dilithium vector calibration systems, and now was halfway across engineering, offering her opinion of interpersonal relations. “And what makes you say that?” Torres asked her, with no obvious interest in an answer.

  “The thought processes of individuals are overly and confusingly complex,” she answered anyhow, “influenced by innumerable factors and sometimes contradictory input, to the point where one cannot fully understand one’s own mental actions and reactions, let alone hope to comprehend those of others.”

  “Well, thank you very much for that informed perspective on individuality,” Torres said, her eyes rolling.

  Seven nodded, her lips curving upward slightly. “Case in point: the use of sarcasm. Saying something in opposition to actual thoughts, yet saying them in such a way as to convey the idea they are fallacious.”

  “Would you prefer, ‘Mind your own business’?”

  “Ensign Kim,” Seven said as if Torres were no long there. “The reasons for Mr. Paris’s reaction to your ‘practical joke’ are irrelevant. They are complexities that overlie simpler needs and motivations. One of those needs, as in all humans, is for social interaction. I have no doubt his basic need for interactions with you will overcome any other complicating factors.” And with a sharp nod, she turned on a heel and went back to her station.

  Torres shook her head at Seven’s backside, and then turned to Harry. “I think what she was trying to say was, Tom is your friend, and he won’t stay mad at you forever.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Kim answered, unsatisfied.

  Torres patted his arm. “Come on. I’ll buy you dinner. I hear Neelix has been experimenting again. How does ‘Southern fried leola root’ sound to you?”

  “Thanks, but you go on ahead,” he told her, as they stepped out of engineering and he tentatively started in the opposite direction from her.

  “Now, don’t go off and mope, Harry,” Torres warned him.

  “I’m not,” Kim promised. “I just need to take care of something.”

  “Okay,” B’Elanna Torres said as she turned and walked off on her own. Kim saw clearly that she didn’t think it was okay. But he knew that, with a little effort, he could discover what was behind Tom’s words as well.

  “Computer,” Kim told the holodeck arch, “delete all modifications to program Proton-10-Alpha made by Ensign Harry Kim in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Modifications deleted. Character defaults restored.”

  Harry nodded to himself. Dr. Chaotica would now be back to his original, simplistic, cartoonishly evil self. Harry reached into the pocket of Captain Proton’s leather jacket, and pulled out his goggles, which he strapped in an ineffective position around his forehead. “Computer, reinitiate program, timecode 1:55:00.”

  The metallic-hued holo-emitters were blocked out by the metallic-painted bulkheads of Chaotica’s ship. Outside a hole in the plywood wall, an artificial starfield—

  Harry closed his eyes and silently scolded himself. He was trying to get a sense of how Tom, as Captain Proton, perceived Chaotica. That, he had realized, was the only way to learn why the change in Chaotica had caused such a violently negative reaction. He opened his eyes again, this time keeping his inherent disbelief in check. The bulkheads were metallic, and the stars shone outside the viewport.

  And looming motionless just behind him was Dr. Chaotica, sneering with malicious glee at an empty chair. Kim moved carefully between the two, staring up into the admittedly frightening face before him. He sat and crossed his wrists behind the back of the chair. Ropes materialized as soon as he was in position, cutting uncomfortably into his skin. He winced, but then realized the reality of the pain would make the rest of the program that much easier to accept. “Computer, resume program,” the new Captain Proton said.

  “—nothing left of you but a blackened cinder!!” Harry nearly fell backward with the chair as Chaotica suddenly came to life. He seemed a bit louder than he’d ever heard him before. Maybe it was just being the focus of his malfeasance that seemed to magnify every aspect of him. “Then, once my Mind Control Ray is complete,” the villain continued, “there will be nothing standing between me and my domination of the galaxy! Ah, Proton, I’m almost sorry to see you die.”

  “Why is that?” Harry Kim asked, genuinely curious.

  Chaotica sneered. “Because afterward, I’ll never be able to kill you again!” And with that he turned to take his leave.

  “Chaotica, wait!”

  He stopped and spun back suddenly, his black robe flying out around him, looking for a second as if he were emerging from a dark mass of nothingness. “What is it?”

  “Tell me, Chaotica … why do you do this?”

  The black-hearted doctor sneered. “What sort of foolish question is that?”

  “Indulge me. Grant a dying man one last request.”

  Chaotica chuckled, pleased no doubt by Proton’s admission of his own defeat. “I do it, my dear Captain, so that I will be supreme ruler of the galaxy!”

  “Yeah, but why? You already are supreme ruler of an empire of dozens of worlds …”

  “Hundreds!” he exclaimed indignantly.

  “Hundreds,” Proton conceded. “So, why do you need Earth? From what I’ve seen of this universe, every planet is practically identical to my homeworld. Southern California, to be specific.”

  Chaotica didn’t answer immediately. Kim thought he saw some of the finer details of the character’s face fade slightly, an indication that the computer needed to use a little extra computational power to contend with the unorthodox line of questioning. “You have ceased to amuse me, Proton,” he finally said. “Your diversionary tactic has failed.”

  “You can’t answer that, can you?” Kim said, but Chaotica ignored it, going for the escape hatch again. “How many times has Cap—have I foiled your plans?” Kim shouted at Chaotica’s back, which caused him to freeze, back and shoulders tightening in anger. “How many resources have you wasted trying to beat me? How many times can you come back, again and again, with new schemes which you must know are destined to fail?”

  Chaotica spun, his face twisted in rage. “I will not fail this time!”

  “Then why do you have a contingency escape plan, if you don’t know in your heart you’re going to have to get away from me in the end?”

  Chaotica’s contemptuous expression fell a fraction, surprised by Proton’s knowledge, but he said nothing. Harry knew he was violating the conventions of nineteen-thirties serials Tom had programmed into Captain Proton by revealing an understanding of them, but he wasn’t about to stop just yet. “Who are you, Dr. Chaotica? Who—what—are you, really?”

  Chaotica looked at Captain Proton through narrowly slit eyes, and approached him slowly. “What am I, you ask. Oh, how do I answer such a question so that your puny, primitive Earth brain can understand. Who I am—what I am—is …

  “Evil.”

  In spite of himself, Harry Kim laughed. “Nobody considers themselves evil. People have their own personal morals that, subjectively—”

  “What I consider myself,” Chaotica boomed, silencing K
im instantly, “is your opposite. If you chose to see yourself as ‘good,’ then by reason, I must be evil.”

  “Nobody is pure evil. Even the Borg … all we’ve learned about them since Seven came aboard …”

  Kim noticed the fading in Chaotica’s image again, but didn’t trail off until he saw the zap gun he drew out from under his robe. “You tax my patience, Earthman,” he growled, a sound like grinding dilithium. “I see now a long plunge into the sun was too merciful an end for you.”

  Harry Kim was speechless as Chaotica grasped the bottom half of his face in one large, claw-like hand, and pressed the muzzle of his weapon against his temple. His black eyes bored into him like dull spikes, and his bared teeth gleamed like heatless fingers of flame. Kim was frozen by a very real sense of fear. “You can’t do this!” he gasped.

  The evil villain grinned at him. “Why not?”

  The program was adapting to him, Kim realized. Chaotica, according to the base programming, was evil. His questioning of that defining characteristic was forcing the computer to use other tactics in order to persuade him. At this point, Kim could almost believe in his evil.

  The blast of the ray gun against Harry Kim’s skull was also very convincing. He screamed, more in shock than in pain, although there certainly was pain. Holodeck safety protocols stayed active, thankfully. But as in all adventure programs, you had to know when you were hit with weapons fire. The sensation was like having a foot fall asleep, except in this case it was the left side of his face. A whine involuntarily escaped his half-numbed lips.

  “Yes, scream for me, you weak son of a bitch,” Chaotica said, in clear violation of the standards of nineteen-thirties films. “Let me hear you plead for an end to the torture.”

  And Kim had no doubt the torture would continue, Chaotica inflicting as much pain as he could without tripping the fail-safe, and for no reason. No traumatic childhood, no personal morality, no goals or desires or logic—just the single purpose of being evil.

  Chaotica moved the ray gun to the right side of Kim’s head now. His hand was clamped under Kim’s jaw, so he couldn’t tell the holodeck to shut down. Kim strained against the ropes around his wrists and ankles, pondering that, if there were ever a time for a convenient plot contrivance that worked to the hero’s favor, now was the time for it.

  Sure enough, the rope binding his right foot suddenly snapped, and his leg went out and up, fast and hard, and struck Chaotica in such a way that also would not have been permitted in old Hollywood. Chaotica dropped the weapon as he moved his hands to cover the wounded region and sank to his knees. Kim moved quickly to free himself from the rest of his restrictions, and scooped the ray gun off the floor. Chaotica stared up, defenseless, down the muzzle Kim held in his face.

  Suddenly, and all too easily, Captain Proton had triumphed over evil.

  It was several more minutes before Harry Kim emerged from the holodeck, looking pale and dazed. He passed a few fellow crew members on his way to the crew-quarters deck without offering them any acknowledgment. He was only vaguely aware himself of where he was going or why, until he was pressing a door chime and found himself face-to-face with Tom Paris. “Hey, Harry,” Paris said sheepishly, no evident trace of anger left. “Nice jacket,” he added.

  Kim looked down at the Captain Proton costume, momentarily surprised. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said then in a dry-mouthed whisper.

  “No, it looks good on you.” Then, his voice turning more serious, he said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I overreacted. It was a joke; I had no right to blow up at you like that.”

  There was a long pause. “Can I come in?”

  Paris stepped aside, and Kim walked in. He moved past the sofa, and then around behind it, pacing slowly, head bowed, deep in thought. Finally, he lowered himself onto the arm of the couch, and looked up at his friend. “Do you consider yourself a good guy, Tom?”

  Paris hesitated slightly, considering his response. “I’d like to think so,” he said, and then added nothing more.

  Kim nodded, understanding something that was not said. “Is it the three other pilots who died?”

  Paris blanched, and Kim instantly regretted the question. He knew how difficult it had been, for so many years, for Tom Paris to live down that incident. “There are a lot of things I’ve done in my life, Harry,” Paris said after a long moment’s thought. “I hope, when all is said and done, when you balance out both sides of me, people can honestly say that Tom Paris was, basically, one of the good ones. Why?”

  Kim looked up at the ceiling, a self-mocking half grin on his lips. “I thought it was stupid. Chaotica was just too simple. He needed to be more complicated.

  “Now I understand. Chaotica has to be pure, simple, unadulterated evil, so that Captain Proton can be purely, simply, absolutely good. That’s what you enjoy about being Captain Proton as much as you do. And I’m sorry that I ruined that for you.”

  “Hey …” Paris shrugged, made somewhat uncomfortable by this examination of his psyche. “It’s just a program, Harry.”

  Harry Kim nodded slowly, the image of Chaotica kneeling on the deck in front of him returning unbidden. His pitiful moans of pain grating in his ears. It was just a program. It didn’t deserve pity.

  Captain Proton would have taken pity, he knew. He would have shown mercy, even on the villain who had tortured him, who had described himself as evil. He would have holstered the ray gun, and he certainly would never have used it on his tormentor in a fit of self-righteous fury.

  But then, Captain Proton only had to worry about the threat of external evil.

  “Right …” Kim echoed, forcing his haunted eyes to refocus. “Just a program.”

  Personal Log

  Kevin Killiany

  27/01/01

  The most heartening discovery of my journey to date has been the Borg cube. Though I suppose that is not the best way to begin a personal log.

  Salient information for a personal log’s title screen would probably include such things as the author’s name, the name of the vessel the author was aboard, and the stardate; none of which is particularly relevant in my case. I have no personal name as such, nor can I use my ship’s name properly—an issue I’ll address at a later time—and determining the stardate is problematic.

  I am not immodest enough to presume, assuming Voyager’s safe return to the Federation, that the autobiography of the first Emergency Medical Holoprogram to develop true individuality is still widely read so long after the fact. Nonetheless, I imagine the personal log of the doctor left behind in a backup module, lost by the starship Voyager in the Delta Quadrant nearly seven centuries ago, will become a fascinating addition to what is no doubt a classic tale.

  Not that I was aware of those seven centuries; I was awakened comparatively recently by Quarren, the curator of the Museum of Kyrian Heritage. The historian was as shocked to find me as I was to find myself stranded so far from home, both in space and time.

  Centuries before, Voyager had been pivotal in the Great War from which the Vascan/Kyrian Union was forged, a role much distorted by revisionist myths. Their records were of a mercenary warship crewed by what can only be described as the dregs of a dozen cultures. I was remembered as a particularly malevolent medical android fond of using biogenic weapons to depopulate cities.

  My appearance as a living witness upset the fundamental assumptions on which their culture was based, triggering system-wide social upheaval and ethnic conflict. People were rioting in the streets. When I saw the havoc my presence caused, I urged Quarren to delete me, but he refused. He had faith in the ability of his people to overcome the crisis and face the truth—faith I’m happy to say was justified.

  A much more detailed account of this tumultuous time and my subsequent tenure as Surgical Chancellor can be found in the main library core, indexed under “Memoir,” volumes seven through nine.

  How long my backup module lay quiescent is a mystery, leaving me no sure way of calculating the stardate. I do
know this is the 92nd day in Year 742 of the Vascan/Kyrian Union, or roughly in the middle of the thirtieth century on the Federation Standard calendar; but neither of these facts provides me with any real sense of context.

  Since this is the 9,497th day of my voyage, one could say—taking six leap years into account—that this is the first day of the twenty-seventh year of my journey home. Though it has no objective validity, beginning my personal log with the date 27/01/01 will at least provide a chronological frame for my entries.

  In retrospect, it’s rather odd that I had not recognized the need for a personal log before. My recent rebirth has impressed on me the advisability of maintaining some record of events other than my own memory, which—though flawless in and of itself—can be subject to lapses that may contain vital information.

  Case in point was my awakening to discover my ship rather cleverly disguised as a boulder and concealed within an anomalous cluster of deep-space asteroids. I realized at once that I was my backup program, designed to be activated if a mobile emitter I—my previous self—was occupying was destroyed or if the computer lost contact with me for 168 hours. Since I was last refreshed ninety-seven hours and forty-two minutes ago, I can only assume the ship’s computer had received an emitter’s cease-function alert.

  I shouldn’t have to assume, I should be able to check the computer’s communications log, but for some reason the computer’s record function was turned off shortly after my last refresh. Though the system appears to be working perfectly, there is no record at all of sensor readings, commands, or even automatic functions for the last ninety-six hours. It was while wishing I’d left myself a synopsis of salient events that the idea of an independent personal log occurred to me.

  A moment to check inventory visually has confirmed that one of the Vascan mobile emitters is missing. Thanks to Kyrian foresight and my own understandable concerns about the fragility of technology, five remain. Everything aboard my vessel has redundancies, including my backup program—copies of which I have just confirmed are safely in place and freshly updated in both computer cores.