Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 13

"But?"

"Well, he told me that he had visited the Romulan in the k.u.mari brig," Kirk said, the beginning of a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth, "and that he couldn't have faulted his own son for making the same mistake I did."

"Well, his son was banished from Vulcan twenty years ago," Hedford pointed out, "so that's not saying very much."

Kirk shrugged and continued, "He seemed really fascinated by his look-alike. Almost...excited by his existence."

"An excited Vulcan?" Ta.r.s.es asked, one eyebrow raised.

Before Kirk could respond, though, a high chiming noise rang out, filling the chamber and echoing back down from the dome. Pike turned to note a uniformed Ithenite-the sergeant-at-arms, he guessed, or the equivalent-holding a small bell and striking it as he climbed the dais. Pike and the rest of the Earth party moved to a small table at the side of the floor as a tall, birdlike Skorr then took the podium. "Attention, all present: this special session of the Interplanetary Coalition Diplomatic Council, called for the purpose of the consideration of a pet.i.tion by the government of United Earth and its Commonwealth Colonies, will now come to order."

There followed what Pike took for ritualistic invocations, some parliamentary procedures, and a reading into the record of the official pet.i.tion from Prime Minister Winston. Just as Pike's mind had begun to wander, the entire chamber was on its feet, clapping and making other sounds and gestures of welcome as T'Pol appeared from a side doorway and made her way to the dais.

She looked uncomfortable, but not overly so. As she reached the podium, she gave the a.s.sembly a slight nod of appreciation, and the ovation faded. She paused, looked out into the crowd, and began to speak.

"I am privileged to stand here today, at the same podium where my friend Jonathan Archer urged your predecessors to continue the work toward creating a coalition of worlds, and to address the august body his efforts helped to bring forward. I am here, as you know, at the behest of Prime Minister Winston, to aid his renewed effort to forge a new bond between Earth and the Interstellar Coalition.

"However, the reasons for my presence are not logical."

An indistinct murmur rose up from the a.s.sembled crowd and filled the domed chamber, and the four humans present exchanged confused and slightly nervous looks with one another.

T'Pol continued her unvetted remarks, "I am not a diplomat. Nor am I human, or even truly a citizen of Earth. The reason I am at this summit is the same reason the Enterprise is-to serve as a symbol. A simple yet powerful reminder of a time when humans stood as an example to the other worlds in this part of the galaxy in putting old destructive ways aside and working together for the common good.

"One might reason that the need for such symbols is an indication that that time is now too far in the past to be truly relevant. Few of you in your lifetimes have ever known an Earth that was not isolated, xenophobic, and paranoid in its dealings with outside powers. The exploits of Jonathan Archer and his Enterprise crew have already begun to recede from memory, and I fear that soon, after my own death, they will fade away into the realm of myth.

"But, symbols can mean different things to different people. My recent ordeal has informed me that the ways I had been viewed by others-and that I had viewed myself-are not only wildly diverse, but are also malleable.

"I agreed to join this mission as a representative of a time long gone by, because that is how I saw myself. But that ignores the more recent past. I have lived as an expatriate on Earth for 103.247 years. I must admit that I have not thoroughly enjoyed living among humans. Yet I remained, contrary to all logic. And it was not until just recently that I have been able to articulate a reason for my choice.

"Hope.

"I witnessed firsthand Earth's backward slide into isolationism and fear, how humans demonized their own explorers and their diplomats, and raised Paxton's sympathizers to positions of power. And throughout those dark days, I believed that the human species would someday return to its senses. Over the past century, there have been several times when I thought a change was imminent, and each time, I was disappointed. But still, even after so many years, I hope.

"I would like to tell you I have greater faith in this current initiative, but I cannot. I am still Vulcan, and logic tells me that the chances of success are, in human vernacular, a toss-up. But I have hope.

"I close my remarks with one request. I ask you-all of you-even if the results of this summit prove to be less than you would like, keep the hope of better days. Someday, if not today, Earth and the Coalition will be ready to be united. I have believed this since the Coalition was first proposed, and I will continue to believe so for the remainder of my days. I ask that you share in this hope with me, no matter how much longer it takes. Thank you."

The applause that followed was subdued and somewhat awkward. The Earth amba.s.sadors did not join in, but simply sat slumped in their chairs, slack-jawed, as if unable to process what they had just been witness to. "d.a.m.n her," Nancy Hedford muttered under her breath. "She's just given the entire a.s.sembly permission to send us packing." She looked down at the data slate that held her prepared speech, shook her head as she scanned the first lines, then pushed it aside, leaving it behind on the table as she stood, squared her shoulders, and headed for the rostrum.

Hedford did an admirable job, considering how badly she had been blindsided by T'Pol's speech. She managed, in her improvised remarks, to straddle the line between expressing respect for T'Pol and explaining how very wrong she was about contemporary Earth and humans. It was a valiant attempt at damage control, and one that everyone knew had fallen short.

A recess was called once Hedford stepped down from the podium. The chamber largely emptied, as delegates moved into the corridors and meeting rooms to discuss what they had already heard, and what they would hope to hear in the debate that would follow. n.o.body approached the table where the representatives from the United Earth government and Starfleet sat, pondering their current state of affairs.

"We're finished," Hedford declared.

"We don't know that," Ta.r.s.es answered without conviction.

The young amba.s.sador gave her colleague a disdainful sideways glare. "I can't believe she undermined us like that," she said, pressing her hand over her eyes. "It's history repeating: humans held back by a Vulcan."

Pike frowned deeply as he reflected on the morning's events. Scanning the room, he spotted Ra-ghoratreii, his back to Pike as he spoke with another s.p.a.ce Command captain. He looked for T'Pol, but the old woman had not rejoined the Enterprise party following her speech, and he had no idea where she had disappeared to. He suspected she wouldn't be returning to the ship at the end of the conference, and found he was disappointed by that thought.

"With respect, Amba.s.sador," Kirk piped up, "you didn't exactly have an easy case to make before all this, did you?"

"It was a h.e.l.l of a lot easier," Hedford all but snarled at him.

"But not guaranteed," Kirk continued unbowed. "When T'Pol said it would have been a toss-up whether we got enough members to vote in favor, that was about right, wasn't it?"

"Your point, Commander?"

"It's what T'Pol said about better days," Kirk answered, adopting a surprising tone of respect as he talked about the Vulcan woman. "Even if we don't get enough votes here now, maybe the members who vote against us will remember what she said, and be willing to keep an open mind for the next time."

Pike found himself nodding. "Perhaps, in the long run, she'll have ended up helping Earth's cause."

Garrett Ta.r.s.es scoffed at that. "And what makes you think there will be a next time?"

The captain grinned as he antic.i.p.ated Kirk's answer: "The hope of better days."

Epilogue.

Sunrise over Vulcan's Forge.

The man with Sarek's face stood at the edge of the desert canyon, watching as the red glow of dawn spread skyward from the eastern horizon. Looking down to the canyon floor, he observed a mother sehlat nudging its cub's rear haunches with her snout, urging it to hurry back to their den before the temperatures began to soar again.

Looking then to the west, he saw another pair of dark figures moving along the edge of the Forge, and as they moved closer, it became clear that the only shelter they were seeking was his. He fell back into the shadows of his refuge within the crumbled ruins of the T'Karath Sanctuary, watching warily. Before long, they had drawn close enough for him to recognize the taller of the two-a man as familiar to him as his own reflection.

The old Romulan moved down the set of steps hewn into the cavern's rock wall, slowly and carefully. It would be the cruelest of ironies if, after so many years, he were to trip and split his head open just before the news he had so long waited for could be delivered to him. His aged bones made it safely to the stone floor, just as Sarek and his companion-a younger Vulcan with dark skin and short curled hair-slipped in through the narrow fissures that kept these ruins hidden from outsiders. The Romulan lifted his hand and gave his guests the Vulcan salute. "What news do you bring, Sarek?"

Sarek returned the gesture and answered, "The Romulan Senate has decided that they will hear our proposal."

"This is a most historic day," the former commander effused, making no effort to hide his joy. Even though he had spent the decades since turning himself over to his Vulcan cousins immersing himself in their ways and their philosophies, he had no interest in giving up his emotions.

Sarek's aide reacted to his smile with a disapproving look. Sarek's own look eerily mirrored it, though the Romulan could detect the smile underneath his old friend's serious mien. "Historic, perhaps, to those of us who have worked so long to reach this point. However, it is merely the first step in what will be a long and arduous journey...or else, a short and fruitless one."

The Romulan chuckled. "This does not sound like a man who spent the better part of the last century in negotiations with the Legarans."

"Dealing with the Legarans has been a challenge," Sarek said, with his usual flair for understatement. "But those efforts cannot be compared to what it has taken to convince both the Grand Council and the Empire to agree to this forum. Even without interjecting the question of reunification, the odds of success are-"

"Please don't," the Romulan interrupted. "T'Pol, I am quite certain, would never have brought calculated odds into account."

"No," Sarek allowed, "I am quite certain she would not." A faraway look clouded his eyes. "It is unfortunate that she could not be witness to everything that she helped bring about."

The Romulan nodded, and both men fell silent for a moment as they remembered the great woman. If not for the example of her own life among the humans, and her urging to put the desire for peace above military duty, the two men would not be together in this time and place right now.

Sarek's aide respected the silence for as long as he could before ending it: "Councillor, we do need to be under way."

"Yes, yes," Sarek answered, and gestured for the Romulan to come along with them.

"What? Now?" he asked. "So quickly?"

"How many more years would you prefer to wait?" Sarek asked, a hint of a smile slipping past his emotional barriers. "We already have a ship standing ready in orbit for us. It is best we go now, before minds change."

The three of them filed out of the ruined temple, Sarek's aide leading the way along the worn path which would take them beyond the Forge's field of electromagnetic interference. "You may be interested to know," Sarek noted, looking back over his shoulder and into the morning sun, "that our ship is one of the newest in the s.p.a.ce Command: the I.C.V. Enterprise."

The Romulan's right eyebrow arched upward in surprise. "A coincidence, no doubt," he observed, since such a symbolic gesture would be completely illogical. Sarek offered no answer, though his small smile had almost imperceptibly widened.

It was nothing compared to the expression on the Romulan's face, though, as they reached the transport point beyond the Forge, and beamed up to begin their journey into a new era.

Places of Exile Christopher L. Bennett To all who dreamed of the roads not taken

Historian's Note Places of Exile begins during the latter half of the Voyager episode "Scorpion, Part 1" and concludes some two years later.

Note on p.r.o.nunciation The name Vostigye is p.r.o.nounced Voss-ti-guy. All occurrences of ye in Vostigye names are p.r.o.nounced equivalently, as in rye or bye.

We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.

-ALBERT CAMUS.

Part One January-February 2374

1.

"An alliance with the Borg?"

The surprise Tom Paris showed at Captain Janeway's proposal was no greater than Chakotay's own. But unlike the impulsive young lieutenant, Voyager's first officer kept his own counsel until he'd heard more. He stayed in the background of the conference room, standing like the rest of the senior staff-everyone except Harry Kim, who still lay helpless in sickbay. While surveying the ruins of a Borg cube, Kim had been attacked by one of its destroyers-ruthless invaders not native to this universe, listed prosaically in the Borg database as Species 8472. The attack had infected him with alien cells that now devoured him from within. Perhaps anxiety for Harry was what compelled them to stay on their feet despite the late hour.

"More like...an exchange," Voyager's captain told her pilot. She explained further, moving around the room with an energy that belied the two days she'd gone without sleep. The treatment the Emergency Medical Hologram had devised for Ensign Kim, using Borg nanoprobes modified to attack the cells that made up Species 8472's ships and weapons as well as their bodies, gave the crew leverage over the Borg. The Collective could not innovate, only draw on the knowledge they had a.s.similated. That left them defenseless against the entirely new threat of Species 8472. Janeway intended to offer them the nanoprobe modification in exchange for safe pa.s.sage through Borg s.p.a.ce, a vast swath of territory blocking Voyager's course toward the Alpha Quadrant and home.

"But the Borg aren't exactly known for their diplomacy," said a puzzled Neelix. It was a fitting comment from the Talaxian-of-all-trades who had earned the unofficial t.i.tle of Voyager's amba.s.sador. "How can we expect them to cooperate with us?"

The answer came from Kes, not Janeway. Chakotay was still adjusting to the changes the Ocampa had undergone in recent months. Now nearing four years old, close to midlife for her species, Kes had outgrown the elfin innocence that had somehow coexisted with one of the oldest, wisest souls Chakotay had ever encountered. She had ended her relationship with Neelix and begun seeking new responsibilities and experiences outside her roles as head nurse and aeroponics supervisor, eager to live as fully as possible in her remaining years. She had stopped cutting her fast-growing strawberry-blond hair (it had grown out unexpectedly curly) and begun wearing outfits that hugged her lithe figure, perhaps hoping to snag a suitable mate before her once-in-a-lifetime reproductive cycle began within the year.

More importantly, Kes continued to refine her latent telepathic abilities under the guidance of Lieutenant Tuvok. Those abilities had made her receptive to contact from Species 8472, who had sent her visions of their a.s.saults upon the Borg and warnings of their destructive intentions toward all life in this universe-though their reasons for doing so were unclear. "If what I've learned from the aliens is true," Kes said in her soft voice, "the Borg are losing this conflict."

"In one regard, the Borg are no different than we are," Janeway observed. "They're trying to survive. I don't believe they're going to refuse an offer that will help them do that."

Tuvok asked the obvious security question. "What makes you think the Borg won't attempt to take the information by a.s.similating Voyager and its crew?"

"Because that won't get them anywhere." Janeway declared her intention to delete the EMH's program and all his research if the Borg threatened Voyager. Chakotay was surprised to hear her propose such a thing so blithely. "But it won't come to that, Doctor," she rea.s.sured the holographic physician. "It's in the Collective's own interest to cooperate. Voyager is only one ship," she added to the group. "Our safe pa.s.sage is a small price to pay for what we're offering in exchange."

Chakotay didn't believe she could be so certain of that. The Borg collective consciousness didn't think in terms of exchange between individuals, only of absorbing everything into itself. The concept of t.i.t-for-tat might be too fundamentally alien for it to grasp.

But before anyone else could comment, Janeway ordered the crew to implement her plan. They filed out to comply, but Chakotay remained. Janeway leaned on the table and studied him. "You were awfully quiet."

He spoke frankly, as their friendship demanded. "I didn't want the others to hear this, but I think what you're proposing is too great a risk."

He told her the parable of the scorpion who sought to ride a fox's back across a river, a.s.suring the fox that he would be safe, for if the scorpion stung him they would both drown. "But halfway across the river," he went on, "the scorpion stung him. As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, 'Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too!'" He paused. "'I couldn't help it,' said the scorpion. 'It's my nature.'"

"I understand the risk," Janeway said intensely. "And I'm not proposing that we try to change the nature of the beast, but this is a unique situation. To our knowledge, the Borg have never been so threatened they're vulnerable. I think we can take advantage of that."

"Even if we do somehow negotiate an exchange," Chakotay countered, "how long will they keep up their end of the bargain? It could take months to get across Borg territory. We'd be facing...thousands of systems. Millions of vessels!"

"But only one Collective," she said, pointing for emphasis. "And we've got them over a barrel. We don't have to give them a single bit of information, not until we're safe." She moved closer to him as she spoke. "We just need the courage to see this through to the end."

"There are other kinds of courage. Like the courage to accept that there are some situations beyond your control," he went on, his voice starting to harden. "Not every problem has an immediate solution."

"You're suggesting we turn around."

"Yes. We should get out of harm's way, let them fight it out. In the meantime, there's still plenty of Delta Quadrant left to explore. We may find another way home."

"Or we might find something else. Six months, a year down the road, after Species 8472 gets through with the Borg, we could find ourselves right back in the line of fire. And we'll have missed the window of opportunity that exists right here, right now."

Even as she spoke, his response formed in his mind-words driven by his disappointment in Kathryn, his anger at what he saw as a selfish choice. How much is our safety worth? We'd be giving an advantage to a race guilty of murdering billions. We'd be helping the Borg a.s.similate another species just to get ourselves back to Earth. It's wrong. I think you're struggling to justify your plan because your desire to get this crew home is blinding you to other options. I know you, Kathryn.... Sometimes you don't know when to step back.

But another part of his spirit advised caution. Would those words knock sense into her, or just exacerbate her stubbornness and push her away?

He almost decided he didn't care. A part of him was still the embittered Maquis rebel, angry at the Federation's hypocrisy in seeking alliances with devils, turning a blind eye to their cruelties when it suited the Federation's idea of "the greater good." It warred with the part of Chakotay who was a diplomat, a philosopher, and Janeway's loyal friend. The forces came to an impa.s.se inside of him, perfectly balanced.

How often has history come down to a single choice of words...?

After a moment, Chakotay reined in his anger. "Then we'll have had six months or a year to prepare for them," he said. "Instead of acting on fragmentary information, we'll have had that time to study them from afar and devise defenses. And whichever side survives the war will be weaker than they are right now."

Janeway paused, considering his words. Still, she was unconvinced. "What about Harry Kim? He's barely alive thanks to Species 8472. If we can ally with the Borg, their resources could help us cure him faster."

"Why would they care about one individual?"

"They wouldn't refuse a test subject to help perfect the nanoprobe weapon."

"And they wouldn't hesitate to test him to destruction. I'd rather rely on the Doctor's bedside manner. He's already halfway to a cure. He just needs time." He stepped forward. "Time we won't have if the Borg call your bluff and you have to delete his program."

That struck home. Janeway had a maternal feeling toward most of her crew, but especially toward Ensign Kim, the eager young s.p.a.ce cadet who'd been stranded in the Delta Quadrant on his first a.s.signment. If anything would override her desire for vengeance on the species that had hurt Harry, it would be her desire to protect him from further harm.

Janeway began to pace, pondering the options. "Time," she muttered. "This crew doesn't have that much time to waste. If we turn back, how many more decades before we get home? If ever?"