Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 16

"She...she..."

"Never mind!" She threw him one last look of betrayal before running for the command deck.

It quickly became evident that Torres's transporter program had not only returned Harry and Voenis to Ryemaren, but had removed several critical components from the ship's drive and sensor systems, leaving it unable to pursue or track the Casciron ship as it fled deeper into Vostigye s.p.a.ce. Moreover, the entire contents of the ship's weapons locker had been beamed away as well. The medical probe had also been taken, although the Doctor's program, operating the probe remotely from the ship, remained in Ryemaren's computer. The Casciron would only get its surgical equipment, pharmasynth unit, and medical database, but those were of considerable use even without a controlling intelligence.

In place of all she'd taken, B'Elanna left only a recorded statement speaking out for Casciron rights and absolving Harry Kim of any involvement in her defection. The investigation suggested that she had told the Casciron how to fake the damage sufficiently to fool Ryemaren's sensors (and their operator, Harry thought ruefully), and had suggested they find a ship using chromodynamic plasma so that she could volunteer herself as an expert, ensuring that she would be the engineer on the scene "confirming" the damage. Except her good friend Harry Kim had ended up volunteering her himself, becoming her unwitting accomplice.

The worst part was, Harry couldn't even comfort himself with thoughts like I really thought we had something. He knew he'd never been more than a consolation prize to B'Elanna, a patient, forgiving sounding board for her rage and desolation-and maybe a reminder of the love she'd lost, the closest she could get to Tom Paris in this lifetime. Their time together had been physically intense, but never happy. They'd been far closer before they'd become lovers. In a way, it was almost a relief that it was over.

Except that Harry had lost the one other person on this ship who had been a part of Voyager. Well, there was still the Doctor, but not in his familiar form-and existing in multiple bodies had begun turning him a little weird, to be honest. And the friends he'd begun to make on this ship were now looking at him oddly, with either suspicion or pity. Harry was alone in a way he'd never felt before.

4.

When the hunger pangs began, Kes tried to dismiss them at first. After all, she'd been very busy lately, going for days without sleep as she drew closer to a cure for the Tarkan wasting syndrome, a project she had to balance with her other priorities.

When Kes found herself snacking on test specimens from the botanical incubator, her denial became more conscious and harder to rationalize. Not the elogium. Not now. Just a little longer, please.

But she knew from experience that the symptoms would get worse quickly, and it would be bad for her research team's morale if they came upon their team leader in a wild frenzy, drenched in sweat, and devouring anything remotely edible. If the elogium was upon her-and the timing was definitely right this time-her staff had a right to know what was happening.

So she logged out and asked Seroe to take over the epigenome a.n.a.lysis. The work would take much longer by conventional means, without Kes's ability to perceive the molecular structure directly and feel how it could be nudged back into a healthy configuration. But right now, Kes's priority was to see the Doctor.

"I've been expecting this," he told her when she arrived in the medical hololab to report her symptoms. "Any fever yet? Any cravings for potting soil?" he asked with a kindly smirk. Here, at least, thanks to the holotechnology adapted from Voyager, this avatar of the Doctor could still manifest in his familiar appearance, with only his wardrobe changed to something more fitting a Vostigye research station. He had an alternate Vostigye appearance which he used most of the time, but for Kes, the Wildmans, and the other Voyager personnel serving on Moskelar Station, he reverted to his original features.

"Not yet," she told him.

He frowned. "You don't seem excited about the impending blessed event."

She shook it off. "I'll get over it. This is my one chance, after all. And I do want a family."

"But."

She smiled at his expression. "But...so many people are depending on me right now. This breakthrough could mean peace with the Tarkan, an end to their piracy."

"Even if you don't finish the work yourself, Kes, you've still made an inestimable contribution. If you hadn't risked your life to beam over to that damaged Tarkan ship, we still wouldn't know the real reason behind their raids."

"I know that, Doctor. But it's been hard enough getting the Tarkan to trust us even this far. If it looks like the head researcher just gave up the project to focus on personal concerns, it could jeopardize the cease-fire."

The Tarkan were a powerful, advanced race that preyed on shipping lanes between Vostigye territory and the Nekrit Expanse. Kes had learned of them from Zahir (Zahir! I'll have to contact him, have him come right away!) when Voyager had first encountered him and his fellow Mikhal Travelers. He had spoken of how the Tarkan would overpower ships, drop off their crews on the nearest remotely habitable worlds, and claim the vessels as their trophies. He hadn't known or wondered why a people with such powerful vessels would need to take the ships of others, or why they would leave their crews alive. But then, the Mikhal were wanderers, rugged individualists concerned mainly with their own survival. They would have had no way of discovering that a devastating plague had ravaged the Tarkan worlds for generations; that the crews of Tarkan ships, unable to return home, felt compelled to capture other ships to give themselves room to reproduce and expand their population. Moreover, since the disease could lie dormant for decades, they felt the need to spread out their population into as many separate small groups as possible, to minimize the losses if an outbreak occurred.

Kes had read this in the minds of the Tarkan she'd treated, and had lobbied hard with Neelix's help to persuade the Vostigye legislature to fund this project. It hadn't been too difficult, really, since her reputation preceded her. Over the past few months, she had become very much in demand within the Vostigye scientific and medical community, and had attracted considerable interest from their government as well. It had been overwhelming to her at first. Apparently her brief telepathic contact with Species 8472 had unlocked mental abilities she'd only been able to access twice before, once with the help of Tanis at Suspiria's station, and once when her body was under the control of the warlord Tieran. But this time, her abilities had remained permanently unlocked after the fleeting encounter, and there was more than she'd experienced before. It wasn't just increased telepathy and a limited telekinesis that she had only tentatively dared to explore. Her ability to learn and retain knowledge had increased even beyond her innate eidetic recall. She could even gain knowledge from the minds of others-not by a conscious reading of their thoughts, but more like the way prenatal Ocampa absorbed basic skills, language, and general knowledge from their mothers while in the mitral sac. She sometimes felt like a fraud because of that, but she couldn't deny it was useful-and endlessly fascinating, as she gained more and more new skills through osmosis from the brilliant people surrounding her. She often wondered whether more extensive contact with Species 8472 might supercharge her abilities still further-and whether she would even want that to occur. She was still getting used to the abilities she had, and to the new responsibilities the establishment kept placing on her shoulders as a result.

"I think the Tarkan can understand the importance of ensuring the continuation of your family line," the Doctor was saying. "After all, that's why they do what they do in the first place." He smiled. "Don't worry, Kes. Even you aren't completely indispensable."

She blushed. "I know. I didn't mean to imply that."

"Of course not."

"It's just...sometimes the people around here treat me as though I am." She grinned. "Sometimes I feel so tempted just to run off with Zahir. Just the two of us, exploring unknown s.p.a.ce, with no responsibilities."

"Well, maybe now's the time. Except for the 'no responsibilities' part," he added.

Kes's gray-green eyes widened. "I hadn't even thought about that. I've just been worrying about my responsibilities as a scientist, a healer.... I have to start adjusting to the idea of being a mother."

"I'm sure you'll be a fine mother. After all, you've done it once before. Or after, as the case may be."

"But I only have fragmentary memories of that timeline." Nearly a year before, Kes had undergone a bizarre experience wherein she had jumped backward from the end of her life aboard Voyager in an alternate timeline-or her original timeline, actually, one that had been altered as a consequence of her journey into her own past. Nothing since then had happened the way she remembered it occurring in that future. There, Voyager had never been crippled in a Species 8472 attack, and Tuvok and Tom Paris had survived; indeed, Tom had become her husband and the father of her daughter Linnis. But the ship had suffered badly at the hands of a people called the Krenim, and both Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres had been killed. Kes sometimes wondered if there had been some way in which her own return from the future had triggered the change that had led to the 8472 attack-and to the death of her mentor and one of her dearest friends. But she could see no connection between the events. Perhaps resetting the timeline had just enabled certain random factors to fall out differently.

"I'm sure it'll come back to you," the Doctor said. She smiled wanly. He was comforting in his own way, but still, she wished Tuvok were here to advise her. In many ways, she felt that the crippling of Voyager had been liberating for her, forcing her to move beyond the comfort zone of her ship and friends, to strike out and make it on her own as an adult. But she often wished for Tuvok's wise, reasoned counsel to guide her. His decades of experience as a father and husband would be very helpful to her in the weeks and months-all right, years-ahead.

Husband! The word resonated in her mind. "I had really better talk to Zahir," she said.

"I know this is a big decision to spring on you like this."

"Decision?" On the viewscreen, Zahir looked around in disbelief, even though there was no one else in the cabin of his cozy scout ship to look at. "From what you're telling me, Kes, it sounds like I've got no choice in the matter!"

"I'm the one who has no choice, Zahir. The elogium is once in a lifetime. And we both knew it would happen soon." She struggled to keep her tone gentle, but the hormonal surges and her soaring body temperature made it difficult, even with the supplements the Doctor had given her to ameliorate the effects.

"But I didn't think it would be..." Zahir trailed off, his ridged nose wrinkling in a frown as he brushed his long black hair from his face. She self-consciously brushed at a few of her own locks, their golden curls gone limp and dull from the sweat that drenched them. She'd stripped down to nothing, alone in her quarters with only her lover to see her, but she was still burning up and panting, and it embarra.s.sed her to look so bedraggled in front of him, even though he didn't seem to mind watching her pace the room this way. "There's nothing the Doctor can do to...to treat this? He's had years to come up with something."

"You make it sound like a disease! This is it, Zahir. The time is now, or never. And there's no one else. You're my only hope for becoming a mother."

He glared. "And you make it sound like I'm just the one who happens to be around."

"You know that's not what I mean. Why do you think I sought you out again? You're the man I chose to be the father of my child." Or children, she amended. Ocampa procreated only once, but they often bore twins or triplets; otherwise, their population would have quickly declined.

She had almost gone with him once before, the first time they had met. Fully grown and ready for change in her life, feeling the urge to leave the nest of Voyager and spread her wings, Kes had become captivated with the handsome Mikhal Traveler and his romantic way of life: wandering the s.p.a.ceways in ones and twos, seeking adventure and new experiences, bound only by the laws of chance and fate. But she had decided that if she was going through changes in her life, it was better to stay with the people who knew her best, those she could trust to keep her anch.o.r.ed.

But she had still cared for Zahir, so after Voyager had been crippled, she had sought him out again. They had shared some wild adventures for a time, but then her augmented powers had made her valuable to the Vostigye Union and she had been compelled to settle down. He had been reluctant to spend too much time in Vostigye s.p.a.ce, given the att.i.tudes toward outsiders, but he had chosen to stay close in his wanderings for her sake. She had indulged his need for freedom, not wishing to rush him into anything. But biology had trumped her plans.

Zahir finally found words again. "To be a father...I'm not sure I'm ready."

She smiled. "Isn't it the Mikhal way to go where fate takes you and adapt as you go?"

After a moment, he grew resolute. "You're right. I'll come as soon as I can."

"Please hurry. I should begin to secrete the ipasaphor any time now, and after that, we'll only have fifty hours to conceive."

"I can make it if I cut through the Myrel plasma drifts. It'll play h.e.l.l with my intake manifolds, but...well, I suppose I won't be needing them if I'm going to be staying in one place for a while." He smiled. "How long does the mating process last? Six days?"

She chuckled at his excitement. "Oh, at least."

"You're a far more robust people than you look." They shared a laugh. "Though you've never looked more enticing. I love you, Kes."

"I love you too. See you soon."

But she was distracted as she signed off. Her mention of the ipasaphor, the hormonal secretion from the palms that catalyzed the mating bond, had reminded her-she should have begun to show more signs by now. She should have felt the itching as the mitral sac emerged on her back. She reached back; the bare skin there was as smooth as ever.

Could something be wrong with the process? Could my premature elogium before have affected it now? Or could my other recent changes be affecting it? It was time to see the Doctor again.

"Kes, this is extraordinary!"

"Is there something wrong, Doctor?"

"No, no, you're in perfect health. But your elogium has completely reversed itself."

A chill ran through her, but there was a touch of relief to it. "Permanently?"

"I don't think so. All your reproductive glands are mature, intact, and ready to go-they just aren't going. It's as though something is holding them back."

"Something? It sounds like you have a theory."

He paused. "The one anomaly is your serotonin level. It appears that the telekinetic center of your brain is exceptionally active."

Her eyes widened. In the past, her telekinetic ability had proven dangerous when it got out of control-and lethal when under Tieran's control. "Does it pose any danger?"

"No...in fact, it seems its psionic output is focused through your own nervous system. Put simply, Kes...I believe you've managed to postpone your elogium through a sheer effort of will."

"Is that possible?"

"When it comes to you, Kes, I've stopped asking that question. You were expressing concern earlier about the inconvenience of the elogium striking now. Would you have chosen to delay it if you could?"

She thought carefully. "Yes. I do want this-I want to have a family-but this is not a good time for it. In fact..." Her breath caught as she realized something. "I think I was feeling a little resentful that my biology was taking the choice away from me. I would've preferred to be able to choose when and with whom I had my children. I just didn't admit it to myself because I thought I had no choice." She caught the Doctor staring at her. "What is it?"

"You said 'when...and with whom.'"

It took a moment to sink in. "You think I'm having second thoughts about Zahir?"

"You'd have to tell me that. It just occurs to me that, in the wake of Mister Neelix, Zahir has been the only romantic partner of your adult life. And until just now, you thought you'd have only one chance to become a mother, and that it would happen within the next few months. Now, it seems, you suddenly have more choices. Your condition seems stable; my best medical judgment is that you can continue to postpone the elogium indefinitely, until you decide you truly are ready. So I suppose the question is, did you choose Zahir because he was Mister Right, or Mister Right Place at the Right Time?"

She glared at him. "That's an awfully blunt question, Doctor."

He hesitated. "I apologize, Kes. It's...different for me now. Before, I always identified myself with a single holographic body. Now, I'm in hundreds of bodies at once, and it's hard to feel truly attached to any one of them. It's a different...level of self-awareness. So I fear I sometimes find it harder to relate to...individuals the same way I once did. I need to try harder to maintain my usual, sterling bedside manner."

She smiled at his optimistic a.s.sessment of his usual manner. "It's all right, Doctor. I've always appreciated your bluntness. Maybe I just...didn't want to hear the question."

"You mean...we're not having a baby?"

The disappointment on his face was heartbreaking. Less than two days ago, he'd been frightened of the idea. Now he'd come around to it fully. But maybe that mercurial tendency was part of the problem. "I'm sorry, Zahir. But my options have...broadened. I have a freedom I've never known before. The Doctor thinks that my mental control over my bodily functions might even let me prolong my life expectancy."

"But that's wonderful! We could have more years together."

"Maybe we could. But you were right the other day-I chose you because I didn't think I had another choice. Now I can't be so sure. I just don't want to rush into any decision."

He heard what she wasn't saying. "Because you don't want to end up unhappy with the wrong man."

She wanted to rea.s.sure him, but decided he deserved honesty. "I'm sorry. I do love you for what you've been to me-a breath of fresh air, an adventure. A free, roving spirit who was nonetheless willing to slow down and stay awhile for my sake. I'll always cherish you for that. But I don't think that makes you the man I want to start a family and live out my life with. Certainly not right now. Now I have so much more of my life that I can explore, so many more opportunities I can take. I still want motherhood to be a part of that, but it can be on my own terms now, when the time is right."

"And when the man is right."

"I'm sorry, Zahir. You're a wonderful man. But a young woman's infatuation is not enough of a basis for a marriage."

He laughed, blinking rapidly. "I don't know why I'm upset. This is a load lifted from my back. I was terrified. Of course I'm not ready to be a father-what was I thinking?"

She kissed him. "You were thinking of me. Of being there when I needed you. I'll always love you for that."

"But you need to move on," he said, his voice rough. "Find your own path. I'd be a poor Traveler if I tried to hold you from that. Not when you have the kind of potential you do."

In his mind, she felt the pain beneath his words-the love he felt for her, deeper than he would acknowledge. But she also felt that it was a juvenile love, the kind that burned strong and then burned out. Fathering her children would have become a trap for him, and it would not have ended well, even if she had lived only four or five years more. Ending it now was better for them both.

But she knew she would be lonelier without him. She relished the new freedom that lay before her, but she missed her old friends from Voyager. She corresponded with them all, of course, but it wasn't the same.

Would they just keep drifting further apart? Would she keep losing the ones she loved?

5.

"Good day, everybody, and welcome to the latest installment of Catching Up with Neelix. I, of course, am your host, Neelix, and, well, I guess you've caught up with me. Heh-heh. And just in time, too, for this is a momentous occasion indeed. As of today, it has been exactly six Earth months since my first broadcast. Which is just under four Vostigye ronds. And in just another few days, it will have been forty Talaxian niziks, and-well, that's the great thing about living in a multispecies community. So many excuses to throw an anniversary party!

"You know, when I started these broadcasts as a way for Voyager's crew to stay...caught up...on one another as they scattered across Vostigye s.p.a.ce, I had no idea they would become so popular with Vostigye viewers as well, not to mention the Nezu, the Bourget, the Ridion, and the rest of the fine folks who make up the Union. I guess it just goes to show that everyone has a hunger to learn about new worlds and new civilizations.

"And not to worry, folks, we'll have plenty of that today. We'll get the latest update on the progress of the Tarkan cure from everybody's favorite, the lovely and charming Kes. We've got an interview with Lieutenant Lyndsay Ballard on the ongoing reconstruction of Voyager. And the one and only Doctor-eh, so to speak-will be here with his latest...fascinating medical lecture, 'Sympathetic or Parasympathetic: The Debate Rages On.'

"As for myself, I've just gotten back from my goodwill tour to the Nyrian home system, and I'm happy to report some promising developments on the diplomatic front. Of course, now that everyone in the region's been tipped off to their little takeover-by-translocator trick-thanks to Captain Janeway and her crew, by the way-the Nyrians aren't exactly in a strong bargaining position. But they're not a bad people once you get to know them. And they know they're as much at risk as the rest of us if the Borg or Species 8472 come this way. So...I can't say anything official at this stage, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an alliance in our future. In the meantime, we have a fascinating segment on Nyrian culture and history, helping you get to know your neighbors a little better.

"Speaking of which, one of our guests today is the eminent Casciron historian and poet, Garvas Caer. He'll be here to talk about the deep-rooted cultural issues underlying the current tensions over Casciron immigration policy. We'll also have Vitye Megon, Subspeaker of the Legislature, as our guest to offer the opposing side. I'm sure that will be a...lively debate.

"But first, some announcements. I'm happy to report that, thanks to your generous contributions, we now have sixty-seven percent of the funding we need to rebuild Voyager's science labs. Meanwhile, the holodeck reconstruction fund is at, uh, eighty-nine percent. I guess that shows where your priorities lie. Heh-heh. Seriously, we are all deeply moved by the generosity of our Vostigye and other viewers. With your help, we'll have Voyager flying again before you know it.

"In other exciting news, our favorite Bolians, Ch.e.l.l and Golwat, have finally set their wedding date. Now all we need are something new and something borrowed. Uh, sorry, human joke. And Voyager's own Lauren MacTaggart has agreed to sing at the wedding..."

Chakotay gazed out at the ruins of the ancient Vostigye city with awe. Despite-or to spite-their planet's high gravity, the Vostigye had striven to build tall, and many of their ancient towers had remained standing through centuries of seismic instability, thanks to their st.u.r.dy, ziggurat-like construction. "Thank you for bringing me to see this," he told Dobrye Gavanri. "I'm amazed at how untouched these ruins are."

The Minister of Science answered with a wry grin on her gray-furred face. "Most Vostigye don't like to come to the Birthworld. Even for those who aren't superst.i.tious, the smell of death on this place is forbidding. There's a certain irony in our use of the name."

Chakotay nodded solemnly. Over ninety percent of a thriving industrial-era population had died in the course of the Catastrophe, when the gravitation of a pa.s.sing white dwarf had triggered intense geological upheavals. The Vostigye had been at the most primitive level of s.p.a.ceflight back then, driven by necessity to develop that technology as quickly as possible. They hadn't known whether their young could develop properly without full gravity, hadn't known how much cosmic radiation they could withstand, hadn't even known if it was possible to build a self-sustaining artificial biosphere. Many more lives had been lost on the way to solving those problems. But they'd endured their Trail of Tears against all odds, refusing to give up. Chakotay felt a deep kinship with these people.

He began moving down the slope into the half-collapsed city, grateful for the strength-enhancing armatures the Vostigye had developed to let offworlders cope with unaccustomed gravity. "That's not the only irony I see here," he told Dobrye as she loped down beside him.