DESCENT

by Diane Carey

  The name rumbled through their collective memory. Hugh. A Borg who had entered their lives in a different way from any other of his violent kind. Who had ended up with a personality, asked them questions, wondered about himself.

  Nothing an ordinary Borg could do. Just as Data could not possibly have a real emotion.

  Could it be that there was something inside the biological part of a bionic being, Riker wondered, something that lingered of life, which could be awakened?

  Evolution was a funny thing. Nobody really understood it.

  The captain stood up.

  Riker watched as the captain moved to the tall viewing ports and stared out into space. They knew his involvement with the Borg had been more deeply personal than any living being deserved.

  Picard was one of a kind. The only human of his kind, just as Data was the only one of his kind, and Hugh one of his kind. Picard was a human who had been captured by the Borg but not treated like a prisoner. The Borg had used a different method. They had incorporated him into that mechanized swarm, forced him to give up his personhood, to do the bidding of the singular mind.

  Later released again to his individual identity, stolen back from the thieves by his own people, Jean-Luc Picard now had to live with what he had done under the other identity.

  A living, pulsing identity with the soul of a machine.

  The tool of invasion. Of murder—slaughter—of his own people.

  Not something any person with a conscience could easily accept.

  Nor could they all simply ignore their involvement with Hugh, an innocent piece of the puzzle in whom they’d found a flicker of humanity.

  “Hugh,” Picard murmured, “whom we sent back to the Borg in the hope that he would have an impact on them, that he would change them.” With his back still to them, he added, “And now it would seem that the Borg have changed.”

  He didn’t turn. He stared out the viewport at the vastness of space. Dark implications orbited him as he stood in silence.

  “Did they show any interest in assimilating you or your technology?” he asked.

  Riker held his breath a moment, then realized for the ten thousandth time that the privileges of his rank also carried the responsibility of answering first. “They seemed more concerned with the death of their colleague and with destroying us. I didn’t see anything that suggested they wanted to assimilate anyone.”

  Riker heard his own voice, his effort to maintain stability in his tone as he tried to sound casual and not accusatory, but he couldn’t hang on to his own efforts as he watched guilt creep into his captain’s demeanor.

  The captain’s voice was troubled. “The Borg’s entire existence,” he said, “was centered around the acquisition of technology and cultures. If that is no longer the case, then they must have a new objective. We have to find out what it is.”

  They were all afraid that they’d done this by proxy somehow, that their trickle of hope—Hugh—had turned out to be the cause of the horrors they’d witnessed.

  “What about Data?” Beverly interrupted. “Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

  Riker tore his perceptive gaze away from the captain and cleared his throat.

  “Geordi’s checking him out right now,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of his behavior, but for a moment, he certainly appeared to be angry.”

  That behind-the-looking-glass sensation again, for all of them this time.

  The Borg with individuality, Data without control . . .

  Still gazing out the portal with his back to them, the captain remained silent.

  Empathy surged through Riker, but he knew there were some things a man had to go through alone. The captain had gone through his Borg experience alone, and they could do nothing for him when memories of that time came to chill his heart.

  So Riker just watched him, and felt a little bad even to be doing that.

  “Mr. Worf,” the captain said, his voice somber, gruff, “from this moment on, we will maintain Security Condition Two. Have armed security officers posted on every deck, and give defense systems priority over everything but life support.”

  “Aye, sir,” Worf responded.

  “Number One, analyze our sensor readings of the Borg ship. Try to ascertain whether it’s a vessel they constructed or an alien ship they captured. Then begin a study of this . . . subspace distortion they used to escape.”

  Riker nodded. “Aye, sir.”

  Now Picard turned.

  His distinct features were stark and grim, his shoulders stiff, and his arms pinned to his sides. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

  “I’m going to contact Starfleet Command.”

  Engineering Deck

  Thinking maybe he should open up an emergency ward, Geordi La Forge zapped and buzzed and plinked at the circuitry inside a very small panel with a very small tool. Things tended to be small when they were packed inside a human head.

  Well, okay, not exactly human.

  He just tended to want to think of Data that way. So he had a hard time thinking of Data’s head as just another machine, in spite of the fact that he was looking at the blinking connections right now.

  “Your positronic net checks out,” he said. “Everything looks fine.”

  Maybe Dr. Crusher would give him something medical-looking to hang around his neck and a nice smock to wear.

  “My internal diagnostics also found nothing wrong,” Data responded blandly.

  Geordi put the masking panel back on the side of Data’s head and wondered how often ordinary people got to close up their friends’ heads.

  “I don’t know what to say, Data. There’s nothing here to indicate anything that would cause a behavioral anomaly.”

  “I agree,” the android said. “Geordi . . . I believe I experienced my first emotion.”

  Holding his breath for a moment, Geordi put his tools down and turned toward what he had just heard.

  “Data,” he began, “no offense, but how would you know an actual flash of anger from some kind of odd power surge?”

  Data hesitated. If he could be disappointed, then he was. His voice was subdued, and he wasn’t looking up.

  “You are correct in that I have no frame of reference with which to positively confirm my hypothesis. In fact, I find myself unable to provide a verbal description of the experience. Perhaps you could describe what it feels like when you get angry. I could use your description as a standard by which to judge myself.”

  He pushed off the bench and looked at Geordi with his big yellow eyes.

  Geordi shifted from foot to foot. Not exactly the kind of heart-to-heart talk friends had over hot chocolate. He could describe the inside of the warp engine, a nearly impossible science, but he couldn’t describe the simple art of flying off the handle.

  “Well . . . when I get angry . . . first I begin to feel . . . hostile.”

  “Could you describe feeling hostile?” Data whipped back.

  “It’s feeling . . . belligerent . . . combative.”

  “Could you describe feeling angry without referring to other feelings?”

  Geordi struggled with that for a few seconds. It was a good question.

  Not one that popped up every day.

  “No,” he sighed, “I guess not. I just . . . feel angry.”

  Data tilted his head. “That was my experience as well. I simply . . . felt angry.”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” Geordi said, “that this was an emotion. How is that possible?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps I have evolved to the point where emotions are within my reach. Perhaps I will have more emotions as time goes on.”

  Geordi smiled, shrugged, and started to put his equipment away.

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I’d hate to think anger is all you’re capable of feeling.”

  Captain’s Log, Stardate 46984.6:

  No additional Borg attacks have been reported in the past two days. However, Starfleet has dis
patched Admiral Nechayev to take command in this sector in preparation for a possible Borg invasion. Admiral Nechayev has arrived aboard the Starship Gorkon, which is running abeam of the Enterprise at this moment.

  Captain Picard wanted to go in any direction other than the one he was committed to. No matter how he grasped for steady emotions, he couldn’t be cool regarding the Borg. These creatures had sucked him into their virulent culture and used him against his own people.

  He couldn’t bury that memory. He couldn’t bury a fear so cloying or a guilt so portentous.

  Nor could he keep those debilitating sensations from his eyes as he gazed at Admiral Nechayev while she ticked off the plans for the immediate future. Each detail was a nail in Picard’s heart.

  “There will be fifteen starships in this sector by the day after tomorrow,” the admiral explained. “The Gorkon will be my flagship. You’ll have command of Task Force Three, consisting of the Enterprise, the Crazy Horse, and the Agamemnon.”

  Picard forced his voice through his constricted throat and battled to sound utterly controlled. He knew he wasn’t pulling it off as well as the admiral was.

  “Understood,” he said.

  Nechayev was forcing blandness, though neither of them would have admitted what they were holding in. Her straw-blond hair in that piled-up, uncomfortable-looking style did little to assist the pointy Slavic features or to add warmth or kindness to her eyes. She was painfully efficient and working hard to simply say what she had to say.

  “Captain,” she spoke evenly, “I’ve read the report you submitted to Admiral Brooks last year regarding the Borg you called Hugh, and I’ve been trying to figure out why you let him go.”

  Nechayev allowed for an awkward pause. Neither of them appreciated the artwork of such a moment in history. They both knew, from two unfortunate angles, of Picard’s intimate involvement in the other Borg encounters, and both recognized the irony of his involvement yet again.

  “I thought I made my reasons clear,” Picard said to her.

  The admiral paused, glanced downward for a moment, then looked up again.

  She was going to talk about this whether he wanted to or not. He could see that in her face and he tensed for the obligatory not-your-faults, all the things he would tell someone if it had happened to a member of his crew rather than to him.

  Only when she spoke her first phrase did he realize he was reading her wrong and she wasn’t going to give him the senior-officer buffer he dreaded, but instead the candor he dreaded more.

  “As I understand it,” she said, “you found a single Borg at a crash site, brought it aboard the Enterprise, studied it, analyzed it, and eventually found a way to send it back to the Borg with a program that would destroy the entire collective once and for all.”

  He didn’t want her here, didn’t want to have to endure this conversation face to face, yet he was enduring it anyway. She had been brought here by the fabulous magic of light speed, and this was the miracle of technology to which it seemed at times that they were all slaves.

  Picard knew what it was to be a slave. He remembered the flashes of identity that had come like needles through the blockheaded persona the Borg had forced upon him. Locutus . . . my name is Locutus. . . .

  I am Picard, starship captain, and you cannot use me again. I will not be used again.

  Humiliation boiled within him. Somehow he was responsible for anything these creatures did, every innocent life snuffed out in their path.

  He didn’t want to be scolded.

  “But instead,” Nechayev said, pressing on, “you nursed the Borg back to health, treated it like a guest, gave it a name, and then sent it home. Why?”

  Picard glared back at her. Hugh. Locutus. Painful details. Things that had happened already but refused to be relegated to the past.

  The Borg had done to him what he and his officers had done to Hugh: captured him, indoctrinated him, and released him into an enemy horde for a singular purpose.

  But he could match hard for hard, and this was as good a time as any.

  “Once Hugh was separated from the Borg collective, he began to grow and evolve into something more than just an automaton. He was a person. When that happened, I had no choice but to respect his rights as an individual—”

  “Of course you had a choice,” Nechayev interrupted. “You could’ve taken the opportunity to rid the Federation of a mortal enemy, one that has killed tens of thousands of innocent people and which may kill even more.”

  “No one is more aware of the danger than I am. But I am also bound by my oath and my conscience to uphold certain principles. And I will not sacrifice them in order to—”

  “Your priority is to safeguard the lives of Federation citizens, not to wrestle with your conscience,” Nechayev parried. “Now I want to make it clear that if you have a similar opportunity in the future, an opportunity to destroy the Borg, you are under orders to take advantage of it. Is that understood?”

  Picard gave himself a moment to breathe. He wasn’t being scolded—exactly.

  He was being warned. Ordered. No blurred lines today.

  Not very deep down he knew she was right.

  He and Hugh. They were both infiltrators. Brainwashed pawns. And he would never have thought it possible of himself.

  Gathering his ravaged pride and the sense of personal worth that had been shredded by the Borg, Picard squared his shoulders and simply said, “Yes, Admiral.”

  He knew Nechayev was as relieved as he himself when she was able to get up and leave. She would be relieved to get back on the Gorkon, and she would be relieved to take her ship away.

  If only either of them could be relieved about anything else today.

  “In the past six hours, I have attempted to elicit an emotional response by subjecting myself to various stimuli. I have listened to several operas known to be uplifting, I watched three holodeck programs designed to be humorous, and I made several attempts to induce sexual desire by subjecting myself to erotic imagery.”

  Deanna Troi listened as Commander Data ticked off his efforts to get a feeling out of himself, and thought back on her training in field psychology to see if any of her professors had anticipated anything like this session.

  She was sitting here talking to an android, listening to his attempts to induce reactions in himself, knowing that he expected her to do the impossible: analyze the psychological reactions of a being who wasn’t supposed to have any.

  Who wasn’t able to have any. Whose apparent reactions until now had been nothing more than mimicry of what he saw around him. That was the difference. Living beings could experience new feelings. Androids could only imitate other people’s feelings.

  Or so everyone had thought, until now.

  She suspected that Data was just talking to her because that was what everybody else did.

  But that was part of the problem—Data trying to be more human by mimicking humanity. He had it all backwards.

  Including today.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  “Nothing,” Data said.

  She crossed her legs, bent forward, and tried to force herself not to treat him like an android. After all, that definitely wasn’t why he came to her.

  “I’m curious. Why have you ignored the one emotion you’ve already experienced? Why haven’t you tried to make yourself angry again?”

  Data’s soft voice had no more tension in it than ever, but his eyes were somehow troubled.

  “Anger is a negative emotion,” he said. “I wanted to concentrate on something more positive.”

  “Feelings aren’t positive or negative, Data,” Deanna said. She also had to fight her urge to treat him like a child, even though in many ways he was. “It’s what we do with those feelings that becomes good or bad. For example, feeling angry about an injustice could actually lead someone to take a positive action to correct that injustice.”

  “But my study of humanity indicates that some emotions are harmful, s
uch as prejudice, hatred, sadistic urges . . . Should I not avoid those feelings if possible?”

  Deanna leaned back and sighed. Such innocence. She would have framed him, if she could have, to preserve him in his kindhearted efficiency. He was searching for emotion, for some semblance of humanness in himself, but she couldn’t help feeling that something would be lost if he ever found it. His effort alone was so endearing. Wasn’t that an emotion too?

  “Those are very strong emotions,” she agreed, “and you’re right. Very little good can come out of them. But I don’t think an exploration of anger necessarily leads to feelings of hate or malice.”

  Was that adequate? She waited and watched him.

  “But what if it does, Counselor?” he asked. “What if I find that those are the only emotions I am capable of experiencing? Will that make me a bad person?”

  Deanna felt herself begin to smile, but a part of her wanted to cry. Data wasn’t the average patient or client, or whatever these searching individuals were who came to solicit her opinion of their mental states. He would remember everything she said, analyze her words, her expressions, judge himself against them unforgivingly.

  That, too, was an emotion, she realized: Data had trouble forgiving himself.

  She could tell him how rare and wonderful she thought he was, but he wouldn’t understand it. If she wasn’t analytical, he wouldn’t know what she meant.

  She smiled gently at him.

  “Data, let me say something from a personal standpoint,” she offered. “We’ve served a long time together, and I’ve gotten to know you pretty well. I have to believe that if you ever do become human . . . you won’t become a bad one.”

  The android grew quiet.

  Her words warmed the room but somehow failed to warm Data. He still seemed troubled.

  “There is another reason why I am concerned,” he said finally. “When I was fighting the Borg, I felt angry, but when I think back on the incident, I experience a different sensation. It is not the same as anger, but I think it might be an emotion.”

  “Perhaps it’s guilt,” Deanna said. “It would be a very natural response to feel remorse about killing someone.”