by David Mack
“Well, I was only with them for about eight centuries.”
Chen frowned for just a moment at the derailment of that line of inquiry, but then she soldiered on with her enthusiasm undiminished. “What about making little Caeliar? After they became synthetic, did they stop having kids, or did they find a way to simulate that, too? If their population is zero-growth, is it by choice, or was it a trade-off for going synthetic? Do they still have sex for pleasure?” At Hernandez’s pointed stare, Chen added, “Not that you’d have any reason to know.”
“I’ll answer that,” said Hernandez, “except for the last few parts—on one condition.”
“Name it,” Chen said, floating perpendicular to Hernandez.
“That you won’t ask me any more questions about the Caeliar until after I’m finished in here.”
The perky young human-Vulcan hybrid nodded. “Deal.”
Pazlar caught Hernandez’s eye and nodded at the interface controls while holding up an index finger to convey the idea We’ll be ready in a minute. Hernandez noted the signal with an almost imperceptible glance and then said to Chen, “I asked my Caeliar friend Inyx about this, after the city of Axion went into exile. I wanted to know how long he thought it would take his people to repopulate. He said they wouldn’t, that the fifty-two million Caeliar in Axion were all that was left. They’d stopped reproducing after making the shift to synthetic bodies. As you guessed, it was a side effect of the Change. Since they weren’t really worried about dying, they’d figured a population of about a billion people could keep their civilization going indefinitely. But when the cataclysm destroyed Erigol, ninety-eight percent of their species was killed.”
Chen blinked a few times, as if doing so would erase her stunned reaction. “Wow,” she said. “Would you happen to know what their peak population was prior to—”
“We had a deal, Lieutenant,” Hernandez said.
Hanging her head, Chen replied, “Right, sorry.”
Pazlar finished the last of her modifications to the hololab’s systems. Twisting and turning in a balletic inversion of her body relative to her guests, she locked in the power feed from the Aventine and confirmed that its computers were in synch with its counterparts on Titan and the Enterprise. “We’re ready,” she declared. “Captain, would you care to test your connection to the interface?”
Hernandez nodded, closed her eyes, and became very still. Then, as if moving of their own accord, multiple elements of the lab’s holographic interface reorganized their layout; some faded out and were replaced by others, and some became flurried with data. After a few seconds, all of the changes reversed themselves, and the interfaces returned to Pazlar’s final configuration. Hernandez opened her eyes. “Feels good.”
“All right,” Pazlar said. “I’m signaling the Enterprise and letting them know we’re ready to do this thing.”
Chen held up a hand to show her entwined index and middle digits. “Fingers crossed.”
“Do you make a special effort to confound expectations about your Vulcan heritage?” Hernandez asked.
“Yes, actually,” Chen said.
“Don’t try so hard.”
Suppressing a laugh at Chen’s expense, Pazlar said, “Stand by, Captain. Enterprise is generating the soliton pulse now.”
The semitransparent gauges around Pazlar peaked with massive surges of energy and torrents of data. The Elaysian science officer marveled at the complexity and sheer power of the signal the three vessels had united to create—chiefly because the most robust part of the outgoing stream was flowing directly through the mind of Captain Erika Hernandez.
* * *
Reaching across darkness and distance, Erika Hernandez felt the transmission systems of Titan and the Enterprise harmonizing with her catoms, vibrating in sympathy, reacting to her will like old limbs finally set free to move.
Safe in the redoubt of her own psyche, she opened her psionic senses. The gestalt was barely audible to her. A tremolo infused its every nuance and lent it a quality of dread. Though she was tempted to renew her contact with the Caeliar’s shared mind-space, she regretted the need to surrender control again. Accepting the Change had meant letting go of her autonomy. At the time, she had felt broken, defeated, and diminished. Only with the benefit of centuries of hindsight did she appreciate the riches with which she’d been blessed in return, out of all proportion to her sacrifice. All the same, having once more tasted freedom, she savored it and was loath to give it up.
She guided her consciousness past the elaborate defenses of the gestalt and heard its voices. They were in disarray, a tumult of anger and anxiety. It felt to Hernandez like a surreal nightmare, as if she were one of the victims at the mythical sundering of the Tower of Babel, one of thousands milling about in confusion, each unable to understand any of the others.
Then the Caeliar sensed her mental presence among them, and the pandemonium was silenced. Their minds pulled away from hers as if by reflex, like a layer of grease on dishwater retreating from a drop of detergent.
Surges of shock and bitterness came in waves from the Caeliar. Bright anger emanated from Ordemo Nordal, their tanwa-seynorral, or “first among equals.” Counterpointing his dudgeon was Inyx’s conflicted mix of emotions—his resentment at her deception, his relief to be back in contact with her, and his amused pride at the true scope of her abilities.
Hernandez’s thoughts took shape in the gestalt with the clarity of spoken words. “As long as I have your attention,” she projected with obvious disdain, “let me apologize for my fly-by-night exit. I would have left a note, but there wasn’t time.”
Ordemo replied, “Your sarcasm remains as blunt as ever. No matter. Even if you had been sincere, mere words would hardly repair the damage you’ve inflicted.”
“Still exaggerating for effect, I see,” she shot back.
“For once, Ordemo has understated the matter,” Inyx answered. “The feedback pulse you and Titan’s crew created caused significant harm to much of the apparatus we use for the Great Work. However, I suspect he and the majority of the Quorum are more aggrieved by your irreparable violation of our privacy.” Though his words were chastising her, the aura of his emotions betrayed his lack of animosity.
The rest of the Quorum, however, blazed with indignation, and they were the ones she would have to persuade if humanity was to be saved from annihilation. “I won’t pretend to seek your forgiveness,” she said, addressing the whole of the gestalt. “That’s not why I’ve come. I’m contacting you to ask for your help—and to tell you why you should give it.”
“You’re referring to the hostilities that currently threaten your homeworld, we presume,” Ordemo responded.
“That’s part of it.”
The tanwa-seynorral channeled the Quorum’s chilly reproof. “Then you’re wasting your time and ours, Erika. We don’t meddle in the affairs of others—you know that.”
“Yes, I do,” Hernandez said. “But I’m not asking you to help Earth—not directly. I’m asking you to help the Borg.”
She started sharing images with the gestalt, aeons of memories she’d obtained from her union with the Borg Collective. Worlds plundered, technologies taken by force, all homogenized without mercy. Entire species and cultures violently adapted to service the Borg’s single-minded pursuit of perfection, which its guiding intelligence defined as unfettered power.
Her plea was met with silent rejection. The gestalt recoiled en masse from her request. Even Inyx sounded perplexed by her entreaty. “Erika, the Borg are a brutal, rapacious culture. Why would you ask us to aid them?”
“Because you created them,” she said. “And in a way, so did we. Look closer.” She painted a mental image of the Borg’s nanoprobe technology, and then she pushed past its cluttered outer shell to reveal its core components. “Their Collective operates on a frequency that is so close to the gestalt that I heard it from light-years away. It’s not as sophisticated as your little psychic commune, but it’s a lot more powerful.”
A pall of horror swept through the gestalt, and Hernandez realized with grim satisfaction that the Caeliar finally understood the truth.
“Mantilis,” Inyx said, his telepathic voice muted by shock. “It must have survived its journey through the temporal disruption.”
“With both human and Caeliar survivors aboard,” Hernandez said, completing her mentor’s thought. “Something happened that drove them to try to unite for survival, but instead of fusing their strengths, it amplified the ugliest parts of both species, made them into a diseased reflection of us. Your paranoia and fanatical desire for conformity got tangled up with human barbarism and aggression. It was a recipe for disaster.”
Inyx replied with dark melancholy, “No, Erika, it’s nothing less than a complete abomination.”
“Call it what you want,” she said. “The Borg Collective has abducted trillions of sentient beings over the past several thousand years and laid waste to vast swaths of the galaxy. But I can guarantee you, the drones aren’t to blame. Every last one of them is a slave, living in perpetual suffering. The real culprit is whatever’s controlling the Collective and speaking through its Queen. That’s the root of the problem, and to deal with it, I’m going to need your help.”
Ordemo’s stubborn refusal to accede to her request held the Quorum’s reaction in abeyance. “Though it seems likely that an unfortunate accident created this atrocity you call the Borg, that doesn’t compel us to interfere. The timeline is as it was; if the Borg were meant to exist, then the natural order of events must be respected.”
“Let me tell you two things you ought to consider,” she said. “First, think about the threat the Borg will pose to you and your Great Work if they assimilate my catoms and my memories of your technology. Second, I’m not asking you to tamper with the timeline. As you might say, what’s done is done. We can’t change the past, but we still have a chance to shape the future.”
Hernandez felt the mood of the gestalt shifting into alignment with her, but the tanwa-seynorral continued to resist her arguments. He said, “What, precisely, would you ask of us?”
“Bring Axion here, to my coordinates in Federation space, and I’ll explain everything in person.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Then you can stay hidden and afraid, until the Collective finds you. And mark my words, Ordemo, it will find you.”
25
“The Borg attack fleet has passed Jupiter,” said Fleet Admiral Akaar, his sonorous voice filling the cold, anxious silence in the Monet Room. “Four minutes to Earth.”
President Bacco sat at the end of the conference table. She stared down its length at the faces of the few members of her cabinet and staff who had stayed behind to face the end with her. Jas Abrik, her top security adviser, occupied the chair to her left. Clockwise around the table from Abrik, with several empty chairs between each guest, were transportation secretary Iliop, press liaison Kant Jorel, special security adviser Seven of Nine, and Esperanza Piñiero, who was close at Bacco’s right.
Sivak lingered a few paces behind Bacco’s shoulder, and Agents Wexler and Kistler remained nearby, along the wall, trying without much success to be inconspicuous.
Bacco stared at the famous Impressionist painting on the room’s north wall. Bridge over a Pool of Water Lilies was one of Claude Monet’s masterpieces, a gently arcing bridge of spare blue beams over a pond crowded with pastel splashes of floral colors. The artist had painted the scene late in his career, when he had gone almost completely blind. Its complex but gentle beauty fascinated Bacco, and she lamented that it would soon pass into oblivion, with almost every other significant artifact of Earth’s rich, troubled history.
“Why do you think Zife left that painting in here?” Bacco asked, startling the room’s other occupants out of their own melancholy reflections.
Piñiero looked at the painting and then back at Bacco. “Are you serious, ma’am? Earth is three minutes away from being blown to bits, and you want to critique Min Zife’s interior-decorating choices? With all respect, I don’t think now is the best time.”
“Relax, it’s only a question,” Bacco said. “This used to be just another meeting room before the Dominion War. Then Zife came along and had it rebuilt with every fancy gizmo he could find. The whole room got a makeover, top to bottom, but he left that painting right there. I’m just curious why.”
Everyone in the room fixated on the painting—all except Seven of Nine, who afforded it a fleeting glance and no more. Bacco noticed the former Borg drone staring at the tabletop, her face a grim cipher, as usual.
“Seven?” Bacco prodded. “Any opinion on the matter?”
Looking up with stern formality, Seven replied, “The rationale for its continued display seems quite apparent.”
“Really? Would you mind letting the rest of us in on it?”
The statuesque woman sighed. “Its placement opposite the chair of the president suggests that it was retained for his benefit. I suspect he found its muted palette and soft details helpful as a point of focus when attempting to concentrate.”
Her answer provoked a frown from Admiral Akaar. Bacco noted his reaction and said, “You disagree, Admiral?”
“I served under President Zife, and I know exactly why it’s there,” Akaar said. “He loved that painting, and he wanted it displayed in this room as a reminder to himself, and the rest of us, that this is what’s at stake if we fail—art, history, beauty, and everything we think of as our legacy.” Lowering his gaze, he added, “It was one of his first decrees as president, at a time when everyone else in this building was obsessed with numbers and strategies and casualty reports. Our job was, and still is, to decide how to fight our enemies. But he left that painting there so we wouldn’t forget why we fight.”
Bacco regarded the nineteenth-century painting with a new, deeper appreciation. Though she had never been impressed with Zife as a president, she felt a pang of sympathy for him. Clearly, he had been more than the popular caricatures of his faults. After succeeding him in the presidency, she had learned the truth of how Zife had been removed from office, in a coup abetted by Admiral William Ross. Speaking privately with Bacco, Ross had implicated himself in the ouster of Zife, chief of staff Koll Azernal, and the Federation’s secretary of military intelligence, Nelino Quafina, there in the Monet Room.
How fitting. Zife’s presidency ended here, and so will mine. There’s a certain perverse symmetry in that.
A rapid series of changes flickered across a wall of screens, updating the Palais de la Concorde on Starfleet’s current status. Admiral Akaar reviewed the new information with a cursory look and then turned to face Bacco.
“Ninety seconds until the Borg fleet is within firing distance of Earth, Madam President,” Akaar said. “The attack force is beginning to split into two groups, with one adjusting course and accelerating toward Mars.”
Clammy sweat coated Bacco’s hands. She dried them against the tops of her thighs. Her pulse quickened, throbbed in her temples, and left her dizzy and overheated. It was a battle to comport herself with the dignity befitting her office when an event of such unutterable gravity was imminent. For a moment, she regretted not having chosen to flee Earth when her advisers had suggested it, but then she resolved herself. This is what I chose. No turning back now. Besides, if Earth falls, I wouldn’t want to live past today, anyway—because whoever takes this job next is gonna have a lousy first press conference.
Another fast shift in the tactical situation cascaded across the west wall’s bank of situation monitors. Akaar studied them.
Then he made a stunned double-take and froze.
Unable to imagine how the news could get any worse, Bacco called to Akaar, “What’s happening, Admiral?”
He looked over his shoulder with his mouth agape and eyes wide with shock. “We’re not sure, Madam President. All Borg ships in this system have stopped, and we’re getting reports that all Borg vessels we’ve been tracking have halted as well.”
She asked, “Well, do we—” A shrill alert on the tactical console stole Akaar’s attention from her, and she let her unfinished query trail off as the admiral raced to assemble a deluge of tactical information and situation maps into a concise report.
Then she heard him mumble, “I don’t believe it.”
“Admiral, I don’t mean to be pushy, but I’d really like to know what the hell is happening, if you don’t mind.”
Akaar straightened his posture and walked back to the conference table. His voice was pitched with surprise. “Madam President … our scans at this time indicate that all ships in the Borg armada have reversed course and are heading at maximum speed toward the Azure Nebula.”
* * *
Only one obsession held greater sway over the Borg Collective than its perverse fixation on Earth. Nothing less than the promise of perfection could eclipse the impulse to eradicate an enemy that had hobbled the Collective’s quest too many times.
Now that exquisite lure blazed in the cold void between the stars. Its siren call was unmistakable. For ages the Collective had listened for it, patiently forded millennia of silence, tuned out the random noise of the universe’s abandoned creations, anticipated the call of something whose power and beauty beckoned from across space and time.
It was tantalizingly close. In centuries past, the detection of even a single molecule of Particle 010 would have been enough to divert any and all cubes to its acquisition and assimilation. No matter how many permutations of adaptation the Collective endured, that essential fact of its nature had never changed. The devotion to one cause above all remained inviolate.
