by Gene DeWeese
Sarek nodded. “Once they do become aware of something that poses a threat, however, they quickly modify themselves and their ships to become virtually invulnerable to it.”
Picard nodded his uneasy agreement. “It is the same in my experience. Members of my crew and I have been inside Borg ships more than once, unnoticed. If any so-called spies had alerted the Borg to our presence, we would almost certainly have been killed or assimilated long ago. The Borg certainly had the power to do whatever they wanted with us.”
Sarek turned abruptly to Scotty. “Assuming Picard is correct and this spy does exist, can you identify it for certain? The communications officer is not the only Narisian on board. I am aware of at least one other, in engineering.”
“A sensor scan might do it,” Scotty said. “Garamet had a neural implant of some kind. Among other things, it kept her from revealing the truth to anyone outside the ‘inner circle.’ Proctors, she called them. Before the implant was damaged and her brother removed it, it literally made her sick to even think about giving away any secrets.”
Or a scan might not do it, Picard thought, remembering back to his own experiences after escaping from the Borg. Scans had been able to pinpoint all the discrete nano-devices the Borg had implanted in his brain and body, allowing them to be removed. But whatever it was that still enabled him to “overhear” occasional Borg thoughts and messages had never been detected by any device other than his own mind.
“It is certainly worth a try,” he said, standing up and leading the way to the bridge.
As he had feared, however, a remote scan revealed nothing. Both Narisians on board the Wisdom registered as being completely normal, with no implants of any kind, as did everyone else.
“So you play it safe and lock them both up,” Scotty said as the last readout vanished from the Enterprise screens. “And stun them so they can’t let the Borg know they’ve been found out.”
“It may come to that, Mr. Scott,” Picard said. “However, the Borg will almost certainly link with them again, and there is no guarantee that they cannot extract information from unconscious minds as easily as they can from conscious. It might even be easier for them,” he added, remembering the dream-like state he himself had been in during much of the link. “Nor is there any guarantee that the Narisians—if they are indeed Borg spies—are the only ones.”
“What are you suggesting, then, Picard?” Sarek asked. “Surely you do not propose that we allow them to continue passing information to the Borg.”
Picard shook his head. “Of course not. What I am suggesting is that we determine for certain who the spies are before we proceed to tip our hand.”
“Have you not already tried and failed? Your sensors were unable to detect anything useful, or am I mistaken?”
“You are correct, Arbiter, but there is another method we could use,” Picard said and went on to explain. When he had finished, Sarek was silent for several seconds.
“Very well, Picard. If you will transport me back to the Wisdom, I will make arrangements with Commander Varkan. When you can assure me the spies, if they indeed exist, have been nullified, we can then attempt to find this so-called Guardian.”
With a brusque nod, Sarek strode to the turbolift. Behind him, Picard began issuing the necessary orders.
Commander Tal had not been happy with Guinan’s request, but he had not been able to bring himself to deny it. She rarely requested anything, particularly something as specific as this, but whenever she did, interesting—and often beneficial—things happened. Most recently, it had been her suggestion that had caused him to alter his patrol pattern in such a way that the D’Zidran had been the ship closest to the Arhennius system when the detonation of one of the Klingon interphase mines had been detected. And it had been at her insistence that instead of simply following the unknown ship’s warp trail, he try to contact them.
Above all, however, if it had not been for his first chance encounter with her a decade ago on Alliance Prime, Tal and the entire crew of the Cormier would be dead, their bodies vaporized along with the ship and the spacedock in which the botched repairs had been carried out.
He had never been able to explain her “talent” and she had never more than hinted at an explanation. Some odd form of telepathy or precognition, he had often told himself, not so much to explain it as to simply give it a needed label, a label that made it easier for his logical conscious mind to accept.
She had never been officially a part of his crew, was not even from an Alliance world, but she had been with him on three ships since the Cormier, part passenger, part confidant, and part unofficial adviser.
And, though he would never publicly admit giving credence to such superstition, something of a good luck charm.
At least until now, when he found himself racing to beat the Supreme Arbiter to the so-called Guardian’s world, an uncharted planet whose coordinates Sarek himself had determined using information given him by the two self-professed Terrans. Despite his best efforts he had not yet been able to imagine how this action could bring him either good fortune or career advancement.
And yet, despite his misgivings and despite Guinan’s own unwillingness—or inability?—to tell him why this trip was necessary, why it couldn’t be left to Sarek to make the journey, he was doing it. He was, to put it mildly, uneasy, but he was following her lead, largely because he knew he would be even more uneasy if he refused.
Balitor had risen and dressed, the ecstasy of the Link finally beginning to fade, when she felt the pulsing warmth in her temple return. Startled, she turned toward her bed, but before she could even lie down, the immaterial lights that had so gently enveloped her before returned, no longer soft and comforting but blazing with eye-searing brightness. A moment later, the chill returned as well, but with bone-chilling intensity. Simultaneously she felt the Wise Ones return, but their ethereal bodies this time did not brush gently against her mind, responding to her efforts to initiate the Link. Instead, they smashed against it like battering rams—as if attempting to destroy her!
Her mind reeled as she realized what must be happening: She was being punished! Desperately, she tried to think what she could have done to offend.
Her terror escalated as she realized she could not even ask! Her body, her lips, her vocal cords were paralyzed. She could not move, could not even speak.
Stifling the scream that echoed silently in her mind, she mentally prostrated herself, begging to be told what she had done, pleading for a chance to redeem herself.
But this time there was no response, no softly welcoming voice, nothing.
Until…
She felt the same presence she had felt before, but this time it didn’t envelop her like a life-sustaining womb. Instead it gripped her like a steel fist.
And her body began to move, not in response to her own frantic commands but of its own volition.
Or the volition of the Wise Ones!
Terrified but resigned to whatever punishment the Wise Ones saw fit to impose, Balitor could literally do nothing but watch and listen as her body turned and took a tentative step, then another, its movements stiff and uneven.
Suddenly, the attempts to walk stopped and her body swayed unsteadily. Her hand darted out, its palm slamming hard against the wall as if to keep from falling. For several seconds her body stood motionless, and the mindvoice that had previously welcomed her to the Link with soft and soothing tones returned, but this time it was sharp and demanding.
“Balitor,” it grated, “if you wish to continue to serve the Wise Ones well, do not resist.”
For a moment her terror only increased, but then, as the meaning of the words came clear to her, relief and joy flooded over her.
She was not being punished! She was being honored!
She was being given yet another opportunity to serve the Wise Ones. Her very own body had been chosen to serve as vessel for Them! She had not known such a thing was possible. The Proctors had never even hinted at anything bey
ond the Link, which they had maintained was the ultimate honor, the ultimate opportunity!
A helpless but suddenly ecstatic prisoner in her own body, Balitor watched with rising anticipation as it began to move again, unsteadily pacing back and forth in her cramped quarters, the movements becoming smoother and less stiff with each step it took.
Twenty-One
WITH MORE difficulty than she had imagined possible, the Borg Queen endured the creature’s rampant emotions and yet continued to function, continued to silently walk the creature’s body back and forth as she consolidated her control and adjusted to its limitations, to its maddeningly slow reaction times and fragile structure. It threatened to collapse at any moment, and undoubtedly would do precisely that if she relaxed her painfully tight control for even a moment.
The augmented Link required for complete control was far worse, far more intense than any normal Link she had ever undergone, immersing her so deeply in the creature’s mind that its thoughts and memories became almost indistinguishable from her own. Even worse, her own distant memories of that bleak time before she herself had been assimilated were resurrected, floating back into her conscious mind like sediment being stirred up from the lightless depths of some forgotten seabottom. Having not reviewed those memories for centuries, she had logically assumed they had long ago been purged, but she had obviously been mistaken. Particularly disturbing was the realization that the mind and body to which she herself had long ago been limited had been no better and no worse than those of this pathetic creature.
How, she wondered, could any sentient being prefer that state of self-destructive chaos and painful loneliness to the organized efficiency, the completeness of the Borg Collective? It was literally incomprehensible to her despite the fact that those same resurrected memories told her that she herself had resisted assimilation, had even been terrified of it.
Until the process had been completed and she understood.
But such concerns were irrelevant, she told herself. The creature’s emotions were irrelevant as well, except insofar as they hindered her attempts to control its body.
Only one thing was immediately relevant: the origins of the being who called himself Picard.
The memories of the Balitor creature told her little beyond what she had already gleaned through the original Link. Worse, she wasn’t even certain how she could gain access to the information she needed. Using her host to question Picard from a distance would almost certainly be futile and could, in addition, raise suspicions in his mind. Her best hope at this point was to gain access to his ship’s data stores, but in order to accomplish that, she would have to be transported to his ship. Once there, she could utilize Picard’s memories, extracted en masse and safely stored while Locutus had been part of her matrix. Those memories would give her quick and easy access to virtually anything on board.
The problem would be getting her host transported from this ship to the Enterprise without arousing suspicion. She was not accustomed to using deception. Like all Queens, she was accustomed to simply taking what she needed and destroying or assimilating anything or anyone that presented an obstacle.
But this situation was different.
She could easily call up a Borg ship and destroy the Picard creature and his ship, but that would not be enough. Such action could even, conceivably, precipitate the very disaster she feared, though she had no idea how or why. Picard, by all the laws of logic, could not be here, could not exist, yet he did. Therefore, the laws of logic—at least as she understood them—did not apply, and until she knew considerably more than she knew now, she could not take what would, according to normal logic, be the obvious course.
But then, as she continued to perfect her control of the creature’s body, a voice emerged from the Wisdom’s comm system and changed everything.
“This is Sarek, Supreme Arbiter of the Alliance,” it said. “I have just returned from the alien vessel, the Enterprise, where I was given disturbing information. They have had more experience with Vortex-like phenomena than we, and their medical personnel are of the opinion that the length of time the Wisdom spent in proximity to the Vortex has very likely caused undetected but potentially serious damage to the health of everyone on board. They assured me, however, that their medical science is such that they can not only detect any such damage but treat and reverse it. I myself, in fact, have already undergone the tests and treatment.”
Sarek fell silent. After a moment Commander Varkan’s voice replaced the Vulcan’s. “All off-duty personnel will report to the transporter room for transport to the Enterprise . As soon as the tests and any indicated treatments are completed, you will be returned to the Wisdom to relieve the crew currently on duty.”
It was, she realized in amazement, an order to do precisely what she wanted—needed—to do.
Hastily searching Picard’s stored memories, she found nothing to indicate that the subtle alterations to the Narisian’s brain could be detected by any technology that the Enterpise possessed. The crude implants that she had used in her earlier efforts would have been obvious to the most cursory of scans, of course, but those had been supplanted generations ago. Certainly a routine physical examination of the Balitor creature would reveal nothing. It was of course possible that this vessel had upgraded its technology. She had no way of knowing.
But to gain immediate access to the Enterprise was obviously worth whatever risk was entailed.
The decision made, she palmed open the door and stepped out into the corridor, her control of her host’s body now so nearly complete that it required virtually no conscious effort.
As she made her way down the corridor toward the transporter room, other compartment doors opened and other off-duty personnel emerged and headed in the same direction, some looking puzzled, others worried, others as stone-faced as the body she herself inhabited.
She noted that both Sarek and the Wisdom’s commander were waiting in the transporter room, watching as three of the crew stepped apprehensively onto the pads, their eyes carefully averted from the commander, as were those of every other crew member except herself. From the Balitor creature’s memories, she saw that this was not surprising. Commander Varkan was feared as much as he was respected, and the thought of meeting his stern gaze directly, thereby calling attention to themselves, was more unsettling than the prospect of being transported to an alien ship. The presence of the enigmatic Supreme Arbiter only reinforced the tendency to simply follow orders as efficiently and inconspicuously as possible.
The Balitor creature’s turn came quickly as the commander motioned for her and a pair of Romulans to step onto the pads. Acknowledging her presence with a nod—she was the only member of the trio that was part of the bridge crew—he gestured to the transporter operator the moment her feet settled on the pad. Almost instantly she felt the tingling paralysis that preceded transport by these comparatively primitive devices.
As the Wisdom’s transporter room vanished behind a glittering curtain, a feeling of vertigo startled her until she saw in her host’s memory that, for her, it was both normal and familiar. Then the curtain faded and she gave a mental sigh of relief as she saw that this Enterprise’s transporter room was identical to the one in Picard’s memory. The crew was also the same. The ship’s counselor, who was a mixed-breed of Species 5618 and the telepathic Species 1599, and Riker, Picard’s second in command, both stood not far from the controls, watching the new arrivals. Three medical ensigns whose faces were familiar to Picard, even if their names were not, stood to one side, also watching.
If the rest of the ship was as familiar as this transporter room, she quickly concluded, she would have no trouble accessing its data banks from virtually anywhere, including the sickbay to which she assumed they would all be escorted. With Picard’s knowledge instantly available, it would take only seconds to access a complete history of the ship and the logs of its captain. Her dull-witted host would serve as little more than a conduit, seeing little and comprehendi
ng less of the data that would simply be relayed at lightning speed through its sensory system into the matrix’s data banks, where she could later study it at her leisure and decide on a course of action.
Looking around, wondering why the ensigns had not yet stepped forward to escort herself and the two Romulans to the sickbay, she noticed the counselor, a slight grimace on her face, tapping her combadge and murmuring something into it.
Was something wrong?
Could they have somehow detected her presence? The counselor’s empathic talents might be capable of such a feat, the Locutus memories told her, but only if she knew precisely what she was looking for. But that would mean they already suspected a Borg presence on the Wisdom, which was of course impossible. For hundreds of years, no one had suspected the Borg of having anything to do with the Narisians or any of the other “observer” races. Even the creatures themselves did not know that their races’ benefactors were the Borg.
No, it was just her host’s rampant emotions, so powerful she could not entirely block them out.
Unless the Picard creature—
As if cued by her thoughts, the door to the corridor hissed open and someone stepped through.
Picard himself!
Suddenly the Borg Queen found herself as close to panic as her physical body, the product of the technologies of a thousand assimilated worlds, would allow.
Memories flooded her mind, just as they had at the initial sight of Picard’s face on the Wisdom’s viewscreen. But those relatively bland memories had been triggered by a mere image, a two-dimensional representation that had been heavily diluted and distorted by Balitor’s limited mind and imperfect memory.
This was Picard himself—Locutus!—and the memories this time were incomparably more intense.