Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  Her trailing voice indicated that she wanted an introduction. Neelix, more at ease now that she had indicated no interest in the waste field, adopted his most gracious mien. “Neelix. And since you aren’t interested in my debris, I am delighted to meet you . . .”

  His inflection indicated that he wanted her name, too. The woman smiled, and even from a screen Neelix could feel her warmth. “Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager,” she said, in a voice husky as old velvet. Neelix had no way of knowing that that voice would change his entire life.

  CHAPTER

  11

  NEELIX FOUND THAT HE COULDN’T LOOK UP AT HIS FELLOWS when he’d finished. He was exhausted with the emotion of reliving his past, and somewhat uncertain as to how the others would respond. He, after all, was not really one of them, not an Alpha Quadrant, Starfleet-trained person. Would they judge him differently?

  Finally he raised his eyes. Tom moved to him and again clapped him on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion. He had just opened his mouth to speak when Harry Kim burst into the shelter.

  “Seven,” he said breathlessly, “you’ve got to come quickly. Something’s wrong with Chakotay.”

  This sinister statement alarmed them all. “What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Neelix.

  “He’s sick or something. We don’t exactly know.”

  “Why would you ask for me?” inquired Seven. “I don’t possess medical expertise.”

  “He keeps asking for you. I think we have to risk it.”

  Seven looked toward Tuvok, who nodded acquiescence. “Go to him,” said the Vulcan. “Later we will send Vorik to take a report.”

  Seven and Harry immediately departed, leaving behind the others, whose mood had changed abruptly from expectation to apprehension.

  Vorik had reported to Tuvok’s group the story of Captain Janeway’s unusual visit, which had heartened them all. But now it seemed that her blow to Chakotay might have unexpected and disastrous results.

  “I think the cut in his cheek is infected,” Harry speculated as they walked back through the fetid air to Chakotay’s shelter, trying to appear nonchalant so as not to draw attention to them. “First he said he was sick to his stomach; then the cut started to get inflamed. A little while later he said his head felt like it was caught in a vise. And finally he collapsed, moaning . . . kept saying your name. I don’t know if he’s just delirious or if he thinks there’s something you can do.”

  Seven made no comment, but seemed to be musing on what he said. They walked in silence until they reached the shelter, eyes straight ahead, shutting out the misery of the beings that surrounded them.

  When they entered, Harry saw that Chakotay’s infection was worse. His cheek was swollen, and red striations streaked under the skin like angry snakes. The commander was twisting on the ground in agony, trying to muffle his groans, fists clenching and unclenching as he struggled. Noah Mannick was sitting next to him, putting a wet compress on his forehead, looking frustrated by his helplessness to do anything more.

  Seven went immediately to him and knelt down. “Commander, how can I help you?” she said.

  At this, Chakotay’s eyes flickered open, and Harry saw they were dull with pain. “Seven,” he breathed, clearly with difficulty, and pointed to the wound on his cheek. “What is this?”

  Seven frowned and looked carefully at the distorted flesh. Then a strange look came over her face and she glanced up at Harry. “Did you say the captain struck Chakotay on the face?”

  “Right. Backhanded him. She had a bunch of rings on her fingers and one of them slashed him.”

  A small smile played on Seven’s lips, much to Harry’s surprise. “Why? What is it?”

  “If I’m correct, the captain has implanted a Borg nodule in him.”

  This was astonishing to Harry. “A Borg implant? Why?”

  “I do not know. But I recognize the pattern of the striations. I would estimate that it will fully erupt within minutes.”

  And so it did. With Chakotay writhing in anguish, biting the back of his hand to keep from screaming, a gray metallic node distended the skin until it burst through and spread over his cheek with tentacles like an octopus. Then the tips embedded themselves back in his flesh. Harry, Brad, and Noah watched in horrified fascination.

  “He’ll feel better now,” said Seven, and she was right. In a few minutes the commander seemed to relax somewhat, stopped his agonized writhing, and opened his eyes. He drew several breaths and then sat up.

  “What happened?” he asked, voice still weak from his ordeal.

  Harry was so relieved he felt his knees go weak. He hadn’t realized how frightened he was until the crisis was over. Or at least he hoped it was.

  “You have something in common with Seven now,” he said. “You’ve grown a Borg implant.”

  Chakotay touched his cheek gingerly, confirming that there was in fact a strange metallic object there.

  “I suspect the captain has found a way to send us a message,” said Seven, but then Chakotay suddenly fell back on the ground, arms upraised, eyes wide in terror.

  “Falling . . .” he yelled, and then he slumped, staring off at nothing. He lay like that for a moment, then looked up at them. “I had the strongest sensation I was falling . . . falling a long way. Very odd. And now . . . now . . .” He looked up at Seven, with a puzzled expression on his face. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Commander. If the captain has sent you a message, I fail to understand why it would be about falling. Are you aware of other sensations? Images?”

  Chakotay seemed to test this thought for a moment. “I feel . . . pulled somehow.”

  “Pulled?” asked Harry. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s hard to describe. As though . . .” He trailed off, unable to complete the thought.

  “As though you want to follow something?” asked Seven.

  “Yes. But there’s nothing to follow.”

  “It’s a homing pattern, carried by the nanoprobes the implant has deposited in your bloodstream. It will lead you toward a signal which is emanated. You may remember that I responded to such a signal when I rediscovered my parents’ ship.”

  Harry remembered this well. Seven had suddenly and inexplicably bolted from the ship, certain she was being called by the Borg. But at the end of her journey was the Raven, the small vessel the Borg had assimilated many years before, when she was just a child.

  “The captain’s trying to tell us where to come,” said Chakotay.

  “Then B’Elanna had better keep working on that transporter,” said Harry. “We aren’t going anywhere without it.” From Harry’s tone, it was clear that he was frustrated not to be able to help in the process. “Commander, can’t I go to the other shelter? I’m sure B’Elanna’s doing all she can, but I’d sure feel better if I could pitch in.”

  Chakotay shook his head. “There’s been too much coming and going between the shelters as it is. I know it’s unlikely that our every movement is being watched—but we’d be better off to pretend that it is. Let’s not make careless mistakes now when we have a plan that seems to be working.”

  Harry nodded glumly and subsided, while Chakotay turned to Seven. “For the same reason, I think you should stay here. Minimize the movement between the two groups.”

  “Very well.” Seven gazed at him imperturbably. “In the meantime, please describe to me any sensations, any images you feel as a result of the nodule. I might be able to interpret them and add to our understanding of Captain Janeway’s plan.”

  “In the first place, it hurts like hell.” Some of the twinkle was coming back to Chakotay’s eyes. “Is this how it feels to be a Borg?”

  “If assimilation is complete, there is no further sensation of pain.”

  “Great. Either I become a Borg or I feel like my face is on fire.”

  “It might be helpful to move beyond this point,” said Seven neutrally. “Is there any sensation other than pain
?”

  “You’re all heart, Sev,” said Chakotay, clinging to quips in order to help combat the discomfort he was feeling. But he closed his eyes as though to concentrate on whatever sensations he might be experiencing. “There’s nothing strong now . . . not like before, when I was falling . . . I still feel like something’s calling me, pulling me . . . but it’s a less intense feeling now.”

  Seven made no comment to this, merely nodding as though storing his statement in a database. Eventually, Chakotay fell into a troubled sleep peppered with dreams about falling endlessly through space.

  In spite of the fact that B’Elanna was making real progress with the portable transporter, and the mood of the crew was generally positive, Neelix found himself inexplicably saddened. He continued to accompany the Rai’ on their mining passes, in return for which he prepared an evening meal to be shared by them and the Voyager group, and he was grateful for the activity.

  But at odd moments of the day he found himself thinking wistfully about Kes. Telling the others about meeting her had stirred memories that he thought were long buried, and he had to admit that he missed her more than he might have imagined.

  When he returned from the work detail that night, his pockets full of food, he made a stew which the Rai’ seemed to enjoy and the Voyager crew devoured hungrily. Neelix put a portion for Chakotay’s group into water containers to be taken to them by Vorik.

  But before the young Vulcan could start out, Neelix looked up to see a surprising sight: Chakotay and the others of his group straggling along the pathway carrying their meager belongings, and looking as though they’d been in a brawl. They were bruised and bleeding, uniforms ripped and dirty. But in spite of that, they seemed cheerful.

  “You look like you just did ten rounds with a wildcat, Commander,” said Tom, “or maybe with a Borg.” This was the first the others had seen of Chakotay’s newly erupted implant.

  “Not far from it. We were attacked by some behemoths who thought they were tougher than they were and wanted our rations. We fought them off—but we figured we could use the fracas as an excuse to get out of there and back with you.”

  “Well done,” said Tuvok approvingly. “This will greatly simplify our plans.”

  They fell to and quickly erected the second shelter as the Rai’ watched somewhat warily. Neelix realized they may perceive the added group as a threat and he sauntered over to Tassot Bnay, who had provided the work pass for him.

  “No need to worry, my friend. These are our fellows and they’re as peaceful and likable as we are. They’ll cause you no trouble.”

  “They’ve been fighting.”

  “Yes, they certainly have. They were set upon, it seems, and had to defend themselves. That’s why they left the spot they’d settled in.”

  Bnay looked for a while longer at the newly arrived group and then seemed to accept Neelix’s explanation. He turned away without another word and began talking softly with the other Rai’. Neelix returned to his friends to find them all gathered in one shelter.

  A sense of expectation electrified the air. Harry was kneeling beside B’Elanna, fiddling and tinkering with two strange-looking contraptions, a cobbled arrangement of the components B’Elanna had been working with. Harry’s face shone with anticipation and with the relief of finally being able to serve a function.

  “I think we’re ready to give it a try,” said B’Elanna. “I won’t make any promises . . . these can only be described as primitive.”

  “That’s why we’re only going to try it on the psilminite ore now. We’ll set it to dematerialize a spot below ten kilometers. That’s how far down the Subu sensor net goes.” Harry had a split lip and a welt on his temple, but he was obviously elated. Neelix began to feel a lift in his spirits as well.

  “Do you have the coordinates set, Harry?” asked B’Elanna.

  “Ready to go.”

  “All right. Let’s do it.” B’Elanna took a breath and a charged silence fell on the group. She manipulated a part of the device and then waited, anxious.

  “I think we’ve got the annular confinement beam established,” said Harry. “Let’s dematerialize the ore, then transport it as powder.”

  Another tense moment passed . . . and then a fine shower of white dust materialized in the air and sifted down to the ground.

  “It worked!” yelped Harry, and the others erupted into a spontaneous shout of joy, only to be silenced by Tuvok.

  “We must not call attention to ourselves in that way,” he cautioned, and the group was silent once more.

  “Here’s the plan,” said B’Elanna. “I built two of these, because we’ll need them to get us out of here. One transporter alone doesn’t have the power to dematerialize something as complex as a biological organism and transport them as far as we need to.”

  “So we’ll have to leapfrog our way out,” chimed in Harry. “We’re going to hollow out a chamber, fifteen kilometers down and right under the wall that surrounds this place. I’ll beam into it with the second transporter, and then B’Elanna will beam someone else to me and I’ll put them on the surface, in the woods outside the sensor net.”

  “Then we keep it up until everyone’s out.”

  “And after that?” asked Neelix, amazed as always at the ingenuity of these people.

  “Then Commander Chakotay will lead us,” said Seven. “We must trust that the captain has implanted our escape route in him.”

  “It’s going to take a while to carve out the chamber. The underlying rock strata are incredibly dense—we can only take out a little bit at a time.”

  “Is it a good idea to keep dumping it here, in the shelter?” asked Harry.

  “I don’t think so. It’s going to get all over us, and that might be noticed.”

  “Where, then?” queried B’Elanna. “We can’t do it where someone might see it. And the transporters don’t have enough power to take it very far.”

  “I know a place,” said Neelix. “Why not beam it right into the ore quarries? There’s plenty of dust there already. There’s an area behind the antigrav storage units where the guards never go. They’ll never see it.”

  “Good idea, Neelix,” said Chakotay. “Can you give them coordinates?”

  Neelix did so and Harry continued with the process as the others disbanded. Neelix saw Tuvok leave the shelter, and he followed.

  Tuvok was sitting on the ground, eyeing the denizens of the camp with a wary eye. The scuffle with Chakotay’s group was a reminder that no one was truly safe in this place, and one had to be alert at all times.

  Neelix took a seat next to Tuvok. He hoped the Vulcan would make some comment about his story, but a long silence ensued. Neelix found himself feeling unaccountably nervous, reading into Tuvok’s silence a general disapproval—and yet, what could he expect? From the moment they first met, Tuvok had been aloof and judgmental.

  Nonetheless, his opinion mattered to Neelix, and so, inwardly chastising himself for doing so, he turned to the somber man.

  “So, Mr. Vulcan . . . what did you think of my story?”

  Another silence. Neelix felt himself begin to perspire. Why wasn’t Tuvok answering him? Had he embarrassed himself that fully? He felt his heart beating in his chest.

  “I know I’ve done some awful things in my life,” he stammered, “but I’ve tried to make up for them. I hope you won’t hold what I’ve told you against me . . .” He trailed off lamely, his words sounding hollow.

  Tuvok turned slowly to look at him, his dark visage glistening in the heat of the setting sun. His eyes seemed to pierce Neelix’s brain. He stared like that for a full moment before he spoke.

  “I found it an exceptional story. You have complexities, and courage, I would never have imagined.”

  Neelix couldn’t believe what he was hearing—Tuvok was actually complimenting him! He felt a little shiver of pleasure, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of anything to say in return. He suddenly wished that Kes were here, and could hear what
Tuvok had to say. She would have been proud.

  Suddenly, before he had a chance to think about it, he was talking about her. “I still miss Kes,” he said in a rush of emotion. “Sometimes during the night I think I hear her voice, and I sit up and look around. But of course she’s not there.”

  Tuvok looked at him once more with those intensely focused eyes. “But she is,” he said simply.

  “What?” asked Neelix, confused.

  “She is with us still,” continued Tuvok. “Her going was a transcendence, not a death. She is connected to all of us.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Neelix. It was comforting to think it might be true, that Kes hovered somewhere, perhaps on another plane but aware of her friends, able to see and hear them and feel a part of their life.

  “Our minds were meshed on many occasions. I possess her katra within me.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “And I sense her presence from time to time. So it’s no surprise that you might have done the same.”

  “I have no telepathic powers.”

  “But your emotional connection to her was quite strong. I’m sure she has kept that bond.”

  Neelix was torn between feelings of pleasure and sorrow: he enjoyed the thought that Kes was still bound to him in some way, however ephemeral; but he couldn’t avoid regret for all that was lost.

  “I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true that you never realize what you have until it’s gone. There’s so much I don’t know about Kes . . . our life together started when I met her in that Kazon encampment. I didn’t want her to know some of the things I’d done before that, so I never brought up the past.”

  Neelix stared down at the dirt for a moment, collecting the thoughts that would communicate his turbulent feelings. “I regret that now. There’s so much of her that I never shared.”

  “Regret accomplishes nothing.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. But some of us can’t turn off our feelings on command.”

  Tuvok was silent once more, and Neelix felt they had exhausted the moment. Feeling no better than he had when he started the conversation, he returned to the shelter and lay down. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could at least dream about her.