“I remember it well.”
“That was partly true.”
Chakotay felt his face hardening. “Which part did you leave out?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.
“Just after the Borg compromised our realm and you came to their aid, we sent agents to the Alpha quadrant for reconnaissance purposes,” she said with emphasis. “There were a number of uncharted anomalies that allowed us to create small interdimensional rifts. Those anomalies were collapsed after our agents used them to infiltrate your space. They were advised that their mission was one-way. They gathered the information we required to supplement your databases and began to assess the threat you posed. They were provided with only enough isomorphic compound to maintain their human forms for a few years. We believed that all of them had followed their orders to terminate themselves. It appears that one of those agents is now onboard your vessel.”
Chakotay always wondered at the amount of detail Species 8472 had acquired about the Federation. The possibility that one or more of their agents might still exist in the upper echelons of Starfleet was terrifying to imagine.
“I thought we agreed to stop spying on each other,” Chakotay finally said, dismay clear in his voice.
“ We did. And we intended to honor our side of that bargain,” Valerie replied quickly. “As I said, we believed those agents to be long dead.”
Chakotay paused. He didn’t really have the authority to authorize the next logical course of action, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea right now to make Valerie aware of that fact. Tom immediately stepped toward him and said softly, “I think we should authorize her to transport the long-lost agent onboard her vessel.”
Chakotay turned back to the viewscreen and said, “I’m not sure how best to proceed from here, but if you’re willing to transport our stowaway to your vessel …”
“ I’m sorry, Chakotay,” Valerie replied. “That won’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
“He has maintained his human form long past the time it should have been possible. His return would corrupt our realm. We will not allow it.”
Oh, and this reunion was going so well, Chakotay thought sadly.
Eden had listened as Willem had explained to her his predicament. He had come to the Alpha quadrant years ago to spy on the Federation. He had utilized his position to gain access to the medical facilities required to extend the life and effectiveness of the isomorphic compound he’d brought with him. Once Voyager had returned to the Alpha quadrant, he had recognized the futility of his mission, but found suicide unacceptable. He knew that in time, Starfleet would once again set their sights on the Delta quadrant. His only goal was to accompany them and find his way back to fluidic space.
Eden had wasted too many years wondering what she had done wrong when it came to Willem. Standing in the cold, gray shuttlebay, learning that her struggle had been in vain and that the life they had been living was a lie, she was overwhelmed by regret and anger.
“Was our marriage part of your mission?”
Willem had the grace to appear stung by her words.
“Yes,” he replied. “Most of my counterparts had families and often questioned my insistence that domesticity never appealed to me. I got tired of their questions, but ultimately found living constantly with a human more trouble than it was worth.”
Tears welled up in Eden’s eyes, but she refused to allow them to fall.
“You never loved me at all.”
“I tried,” Willem insisted. “I tried to accept the fact that I might never return home, and wanted to be a good companion to you. But humans are so frail and weak. Your doubts are crippling. You reject the simplest course of action in favor of endless debate and high-minded principles that reality has shown time and again are untenable. Unless you accept your place as masters of what little space you have managed to explore and colonize, you will never survive.” After a short pause in which he searched her eyes for understanding, he realized that they’d been having this conversation for years, and it was unlikely they were going to resolve it. “I fear for you, Afsarah—for you and for all your people. But I cannot help you. You will succumb to the forces around you that do not share your ideals, and your precious Federation will one day be nothing more than a memory.”
“The weak will perish,” Eden said softly, remembering the first words ever communicated by Species 8472.
“As they should,” Willem agreed.
After a moment Eden said, “You don’t understand us.”
Willem appeared to be taken aback.
“You didn’t have to lie to get what you wanted. You didn’t have to put this ship or the fleet in danger. You could have simply asked.”
Willem actually chuckled. “You think I should have put it to a vote? Can you imagine what Command would have done if they’d learned what I really was? There are dark holes in the Federation that most of you refuse to acknowledge. The secrets buried and studied there would turn your blood cold. I had no intention of becoming lost in one of them.”
“I mean,” Eden said, swallowing hard, “you could have asked me. ”
For the first time Eden could ever remember, Willem appeared stunned at the notion.
“I betrayed you. You would have been honor bound to betray me in return.”
“Or maybe I would have found a way to help you. We may be weak, but we’re also consistent,” she added.
Willem eyed her warily. “Are you saying you’re willing to let me go?”
“You could have stunned me along with the security team. You didn’t. I think you wanted me to know the truth and you need me to let you go. I could destroy the shuttle you’re about to take through that rift with one shot.”
“And will you?”
“Of course not.” Taking a deep breath, she said, “Now get on that shuttle and get the hell off my ship.”
Willem reached for her hand but she automatically flinched, pulling it away.
“Thank you, Afsarah.”
“Good-bye, Willem.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Willem was elated to learn that Afsarah wasn’t going to make his final step in a journey it had taken him years to plan and bring to fruition any harder. His gratitude was appropriate. The fact that he was incapable of regretting the loss of her was something he hoped she would come to accept in time.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her. Willem was incapable of loving anything. The bonds that joined his people to each other surpassed this fragile human feeling. Constant access to one another’s thoughts, heightened by the connection every individual member of Species 8472 felt to their universe of fluidic space, made the distances that separated the life-forms of Afsarah’s galaxy seem impassable. His time as a human had been lonelier than he had ever imagined or feared. An individual, encased in delicate flesh and bone, unable to do more than guess at another’s motives or feelings, was ultimately an inferior and weak creature. The achievements of the Federation that had overcome these obvious limitations were noteworthy, and had earned Batiste’s grudging respect, but he saw nothing promising in their future until the species that made up this alliance had evolved past the need to communicate with one another so clumsily.
As he still understood too little about his unexpected and undesired companion, he gave Meegan as wide a berth as possible. He reentered the shuttle, sealed the hatch behind him, and moved to the helm.
“You weren’t planning to leave without me, were you, Willem?” she asked in a tone that was somewhere between mocking and flirting. “Meegan” had subdued him in his cabin and explained her intentions and the ways in which his plans, which she had discovered—probably by violating his mind telepathically and simply taking the knowledge she required— would correspond with hers. Since then, he had been her prisoner. Any attempt to thwart her goals would have resulted in his exposure. Providing her with a Starfleet shuttle with which to return briefly to the Indign system and, now, to make her escape seemed
to Willem a small price to pay to secure her freedom and his own.
“Of course I wasn’t,” Willem said gruffly as he brought the shuttle’s power systems online and prepared for launch. “How did you manage—”
“I was waiting in Galen’s transporter room and noted that she and Voyager simultaneously dropped their shields. I took the opportunity when I saw it.”
Batiste observed in the seat next to him a soft, mesh bag filled with what appeared to be metallic canisters.
“What are those?” he demanded. If they were other captured consciousnesses, his former comrades might one day have to reckon with more than one “Meegan,” and as far as he was concerned, one was one too many.
“They are none of your concern,” she replied in a voice that left no room for further inquiries.
Nodding, Batiste slipped the shuttle gracefully from the shuttlebay and set course to the rift that promised peace, sanctuary, and the only existence he had ever known worth experiencing.
Eden was halfway across the bridge before she realized that Chakotay was standing before her chair. She pulled herself up short and was about to take Paris to task when Lasren called out, “Admiral Batiste’s shuttle has cleared Voyager, Captain.”
“Let him go,” she replied.
The woman on the viewscreen was familiar. Suddenly, Eden realized why Chakotay was aboard. She approved of Tom’s swift action.
Stepping between them she said, “I’m Captain Afsarah Eden. It is a pleasure to meet you. As you have chosen to assume human form for this contact, may I call you Miss Archer?”
Valerie’s face expressed surprise and puzzlement as her eyes met Chakotay’s. He offered a subtle nod and she turned haughtily back to address the captain.
“You may,” she replied.
“Captain,” Kim called softly from the tactical station, “our shuttle has been captured by a tractor beam emanating from Miss Archer’s vessel.”
“Split the screen. Give me a visual,” Eden replied.
Kim did so, and in an instant, the right half of the viewscreen showed the shuttle hanging dead in space, engulfed in a bright green web of energy. The other half retained Valerie’s composed countenance.
“The shuttle you have captured contains one of your people,” Eden offered. “He has gone to great lengths to return home. It is our fervent hope that you will allow him to do so.”
“As I have already explained to Chakotay, that will not be possible,” Valerie replied.
“Why not?” Eden asked, surprised by her anger.
“He accepted his mission long ago, knowing it was a oneway trip. His inability to accept that now is of no importance. It took us years to purge our space of the contamination brought about by Borg and Federation incursions. We will not intentionally pollute it further now for one who is unwilling to do his duty.”
“What will you do with him?” Eden asked, fear creeping into her voice.
“ I will gladly destroy his vessel if you are not up to the task,” Valerie replied.
“No,” Chakotay interjected before Eden had the chance.
“I thought you said these were your people,” Meegan said, glaring at Batiste, incensed.
“They are,” he replied, his jaw set firmly.
“Then why have they trapped us in this tractor beam?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t they be overjoyed at your return?”
Batiste understood the corruption his human form would bring to their realm. The perfect balance between organic and fluidic matter was essential to the health of both and it would take considerable time to be fully restored to where his presence would not affect the delicate harmony.
“I will make them understand,” he assured her. “Can you take the helm?”
“Of course.”
“Then do it,” he said, brushing past her.
He had waited so long for what must come next, and anticipated it with such relish, it was almost anticlimactic to remove the hypo spray from the med-kit he carried with him at all times. A quick injection into the flesh of his thigh, and the isomorphic compound that had allowed him to maintain his human form was rendered inert.
With unrestrained joy he felt his uniform ripping to shreds as his true limbs were freed from years of confinement.
After a brief, disorienting moment as he steadied himself on shaking legs, he heard in his mind, for the first time in years, the sounds of home.
It was close enough to taste.
And then … she was there.
“You know this cannot be allowed. You have come all this way for nothing. Your cowardice does you no credit.”
Willem could only find one word in response.
“ Please,” he begged.
Meegan stared in wonder at the creature Admiral Batiste had become. The “human” part of her programming, all that remained of the true Meegan McDonnell, which had become little more than an annoying gnat to be swatted down whenever it appeared, roared forth in terror at the sight. “Meegan,” however, saw only the grace, the majesty, and the raw power of Species 8472.
It was beautiful to behold.
Meegan briefly considered releasing one of her fellow prisoners to this magnificent form. She dismissed the idea, uncomfortable with the thought that one of them could enjoy something she was denied by settling upon the frail hologram as her host.
Glorious as he was, she must be rid of him.
She quickly located the shuttle’s hatch controls and with only a moment’s regret, activated them. The change in pressure as the hatch opened to the vacuum of space immediately sucked the creature from the shuttle. She was unaffected by the shock, or the pressure, and calmly sealed the hatch, wondering how long it would take for the organic ship to lose interest in the shuttle and turn its attention to the creature now at the mercy of open space.
It took longer than she’d hoped, almost thirty seconds, before she felt the shuttle lurch beneath her as the tractor beam dispersed.
She immediately plotted her new course and brought the shuttle’s warp engines online. Meegan allowed the shuttle to drift clear of the immediate vicinity of the organic ship, primarily to avoid arousing undue suspicion. As far as anyone on Voyager or Galen knew, the shuttle was now empty. She knew she could not wait too long. Eventually they’d get around to attempting to retrieve the shuttle.
Finally, at a critical point in the conversation between the aliens and Voyager’s command crew, she discreetly maneuvered the shuttle beyond Voyager’s visual range and engaged the warp drive. Finally, she and the rest of The Eight were free.
A collective gasp sounded on the bridge as the crew watched the shuttle’s hatch blow and send a singular form tumbling into space. It struggled for a few moments to right itself and once it had attained a floundering sort of equilibrium, literally began to claw its way toward the rift like a drowning man trying desperately to gain a distant shore.
“No …,” Eden said softly.
“It’s all right,” Chakotay said, trying to reassure her. “He can survive indefinitely in open space.”
Eden should have remembered that. But watching Batiste struggle so pathetically made her breath come in short gasps.
“Valerie, listen to me,” Chakotay said. “You spent months outside your realm doing what you thought you must for the security of your people. Obviously they welcomed you back. Why is he any different?”
Valerie was not oblivious to his plight. She quickly transferred the tractor beam from the shuttle to Batiste’s form. His ungainly motion was instantly stilled, which was somehow more horrifying to witness than his earlier, flailing efforts.
“Thousands of us returned to fluidic space at once,” she replied. “It was disruptive, but necessary. His form has been altered, however, for long-term exposure to your dimension. He can never be fully restored like those of us who had only been separated briefly from fluidic space.”
“There must be a way,” Chakotay insisted.
Eden turned to him, amazed that, given Willem’s t
reatment of him, Chakotay would now take on Willem’s cause as passionately as if it were his own.
“ I’m sorry, Chakotay.”
“Valerie, you know us. You know the lengths to which we were willing to go to return home. Everything said it was impossible. Time and again we should have turned back and given up. But that’s not who we are. And perhaps by sending him to live among us for so long, we have corrupted more than his physical form. It’s possible we have infected him with our determination to do what we must, despite the odds, because we refuse to accept the limitations others would impose upon us.”
“I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that this is one way in which our species have always been more alike than my people would ever willingly acknowledge.”
“Are you still reading your Shaw?” Chakotay asked.
“It’s been a while,” Valerie admitted.
“‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.’”
Valerie paused.
“Progress, eh?”
“In its absence, it’s often hard to see the point of existence, isn’t it?”
Valerie nodded.
Eden had watched their exchange with her heart in her throat. She wanted to add her pleas to Chakotay’s, but knew that if he could not reach Valerie, no one could.
Moments later, Willem’s form was released from the tractor beam and disappeared in a cascade of glowing molecules.
“Despite my better judgment, I have transported him aboard my ship,” Valerie said. “Delightful as it has been to see you again, Chakotay, we can’t make a habit of this. My people are still a long way away from trusting yours. Perhaps he will bring us evidence that our fears are groundless. That alone would justify his return to us and would definitely count as progress. In the meantime, I caution you not to trouble us further. If we are to meet again, it must be by our doing. Do you understand?”
“I do. And I am most grateful for your choices here today. Be well,” Chakotay said, smiling wistfully.
Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy Page 26
