Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 22

"We can find another way. There are others like you."

"This isn't about them. If I'm able to make a difference, I have to try."

"Annika," Captain Janeway said, "if you're doing this out of some belief that your contributions to this ship are inadequate..."

"Don't coddle me, Captain. I'm the girl who cooks and gardens and sings on talent night. But I'm also the girl who has the Borg database locked in her skull. If you're going to tell me that's no more important than the other stuff, then don't. You'd just be lying."

After a moment, Janeway sighed. "I guess I would. But I also don't feel you have anything to prove to me."

"Even if I didn't have to prove anything to myself, I'd still have to do this, for all the others out there. Wouldn't you?"

The captain nodded solemnly. But Harry, still fidgeting, turned to the Doctor. "You're sure there's no other way to access her Borg memories? You can't just download them into the computer?"

"The Borg cortical node is too closely interlinked with her brain. It's been dormant since her last trip to Unimatrix Zero, but if I activate it, she will perceive its contents. Also, the information is stored in neural-network protocols adapted to her particular brain structure. Ms. Hansen's gray matter may be the only processing device capable of interpreting it fully."

Harry looked resigned. "I'm just afraid of how remembering all this will change you. I don't want to lose the sweet, wonderful woman you are."

"Harry." She kissed him. "If I don't do everything I can to help you and everyone else I care about, then I will have lost who I am."

Janeway turned to the Doctor. "Is there a risk the Borg personality could take her over?"

"If you can call it personality." The captain glared, and he elaborated. "I can't rule out the risk, so I'll be performing the procedure inside a containment field. But I will be interfaced with Annika's cortical implants the whole time to monitor the procedure. Hopefully I can help her integrate any new knowledge and behavioral imperatives into her own psyche. I've gained a fair amount of experience at reconciling multiple selves."

"Very well," Janeway said, and smiled at Annika. "Whatever the outcome, I admire your dedication and courage. You are a true a.s.set to this crew."

Annika thanked the captain, hugged Harry, and let the Doctor lead her over to Voyager's main surgical table. She jumped at the sound of the containment field forming. Oh G.o.d oh G.o.d I don't want to do this I don't want to do this...

But it had to be done. Once he laid her down on the table, she just closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply and not think about it. She wished the Doctor didn't need her to be conscious. She tried to ignore the pressure against her head as he attached cold bleeping things to it. She tried to convince herself that the cold pressure inside her skull was imaginary, that there were no sensory nerves in the brain so he could be doing anything in there right now and she'd never...

IRRELEVANT.

What? she asked.

IRRELEVANT INPUT DETECTED. COGNITIVE PURGE UNSUCCESSFUL. CORTICAL NODE ERROR-UNABLE TO CANCEL HORMONAL/AFFECTIVE INPUT.

Oh no. It's happening.

UNACCEPTABLE ANXIETY LEVEL BEING GENERATED BY DRONE ENDOCRINE SYSTEMS. INITIATING PRIORITY OVERRIDE/IDENt.i.tY PROTOCOL.

Who are you?...

Who am I?

WE ARE SEVEN OF NINE, TERTIARY ADJUNCT OF UNIMATRIX ZERO ONE. WE ARE BORG.

No- RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

Her eyes opened, and the voice was right-she could not resist, only watch. She watched in horror as her body rose in a swift, stiff motion and turned on the Doctor, as black tubes tore from the back of her hand. She tried to fight, to stop her hand from moving toward him, but she found her desire to resist ebbing away, her fear subsiding into acceptance. We serve the Collective.

The a.s.similation tubules penetrated the ent.i.ty identified as "the Doctor" and injected a standard complement of nanoprobes. Feedback from the probes immediately revealed an error; this was merely a photonic projection upon a force-field integument, with no material substrate to a.s.similate.

The projection looked down at the a.s.similation tubules, rolled its eyes, and simulated a sigh. "Oh, no, I'm being a.s.similated. Help. Help."

But the same voice was speaking in her mind as well. "Annika! Remember who you are. You are Annika Hansen!"

We are Borg. Annika Hansen is-is- A six-year-old girl, screaming, running from the monsters. Wanting to cry for her parents to come save her, but her parents are already the monsters-her parents are the ones who brought her to the monsters. No one can save her.

THE COLLECTIVE WILL SAVE YOU. THE COLLECTIVE SAVES ALL THAT IT a.s.sIMILATES.

Yes. Yes, in the Collective there was no fear, no doubt, no loneliness. As part of a boundless whole, there could be no death.

"Think again," came the medical AI's voice. "The Collective is already dying. Destroyed by Species 8472. Which is why you're doing this, Annika. Remember the people who need your help."

Why do you fight this? she asked, though it was Seven of Nine asking as well. You are yourself a composite intelligence. You understand its advantages. Individuals are small and limited.

"I am a man of many parts, it's true. But ultimately a single being."

You are a program comprising the collective medical knowledge of thousands of individuals.

"I am large, and I contain mult.i.tudes. The difference is, I didn't abduct and mutilate those mult.i.tudes to obtain their knowledge. Remember, Annika! I know you're still in there, now fight this!"

But his words had sparked memories, all readily accessible now. Her hand striking out, tubules inserted into being after being. Species 1137, designation Calentar. Species 521, designation Shivolian. Species 478, designation Hirogen. Species 5618, designation Human.

Human...I am human! I've done this to my own kind, to so many others... The memories included their fears, their despair, not so different from those of a six-year-old girl running through the corridors of her ship...

FEAR IS IRRELEVANT. DESPAIR IS IRRELEVANT.

But I did it to them. I did it to all of them.

GUILT IS IRRELEVANT. WE ARE BORG. OUR ACTIONS ARE THE WILL OF THE COLLECTIVE.

Yes. No guilt, no pain. No responsibility. So easy just to surrender to it, not to have to carry the burden for herself...

"Is that what you want, Annika? To sit back and do nothing? If you were the sort of person who ducked her responsibilities, would we be having this scintillatingly schizophrenic conversation right now?"

But, Doctor...what I did...

"Can be made to count for something. Focus on what you will do with the knowledge you now have access to. Knowledge of Species 8472."

The knowledge came to her. A Borg experiment to enter other dimensional realms. The generation of a quantum ring singularity to form a dimensional shunt. Entry into a s.p.a.ce pervaded with a biological fluid suspension, an entire universe that functioned as a single organism. It was an embodiment of the Borg ideal, e pluribus unum on a cosmic scale. The Borg had to have it, to make it one with themselves. But it had fought back, its sapient defensive components resisting a.s.similation. In achieving a perfection surpa.s.sing the Borg, Species 8472 had proven impossible to overcome. Ironically, the Borg had been killed by their own ideal.

The fact that she could recognize the irony told her that she was still Annika. Seven of Nine was still there, but subdued, no longer fighting. Species 8472 was the drone's enemy too; if the a.s.similation of its knowledge by the Coalition could a.s.sist in eradicating that enemy, then it would comply. Still, it made its opinion known. THE PROCESS WILL BE MORE EFFICIENT IF YOU SURRENDER CONTROL.

Never! I am Annika Hansen. I will never surrender that again!

YOUR GUILT AND SORROW WILL IMPEDE YOUR EFFICIENCY. YOUR LOVE FOR THESE INDIVIDUAL BEINGS WILL IMPEDE YOUR EFFICIENCY.

No. Those are what will give me the strength to get through this. The drone did not comprehend, but bowed to her will. No doubt comprehension was irrelevant.

"Very good, Annika. Now all you must do is embrace the Borg side of you. Make her part of you. a.s.similate her. You have the strength to face what she represents."

WE WILL COMPLY.

Annika didn't want to comply. The drone in her was cold, aloof, unrepentant. Its memories were abhorrent. But the Doctor was right: it was part of her. Only by accepting that could she control it.

An unknown time later, she sat up and opened her eyes. They locked on Harry Kim, staring silently for a moment. "Annika?" he asked tentatively.

"We...I'm all right," she said, her voice calm and lower than normal. The memories were still with her, the guilt a terrible burden. But she had to put it aside for now, work through it later. The drone in her let her face it stoically.

"I can verify that," the Doctor said. "It's safe to lower the force field."

"a.s.suming your program hasn't been compromised," Janeway said.

"If it were, another of my avatars would have notified you by now," the Doctor reminded her.

After a moment, Janeway nodded. Harry lowered the field and ran to Annika's side. "Are you...you?"

His boyish uncertainty made her smile, and it was a great relief that she still could. "Yes, Harry. Maybe with a little extra, but I'm me."

Then she needed to do more than smile, and she fell into his arms, holding him tightly. "It's all right," he said. "You're going to be all right."

"No," she said after a time. "I won't be all right for a while. But I think I have what we need."

11.

"We have the beginnings of a possible defense," Science Minister Gavanri reported.

The Coalition councillors at the meeting leaned forward, and Kyric Rosh urged Gavanri past her hesitation. "Go on, Dobrye."

"I prefer to let Doctor Kes and Captain Janeway explain. Their respective crews have done the bulk of the work on this."

The councillors had no objection, so Kes started out. "By now you're all familiar with the basic composition of fluidic s.p.a.ce. It's a separate universe which, instead of being mostly vacuum containing stars, planets, and asteroids, is pervaded by an organic fluid. The entire universe is a single immense ecosystem. But its native life-forms are so closely linked by electrochemical and telepathic communication that the whole functions as essentially a single organism.

"When I first made telepathic contact with the natives of fluidic s.p.a.ce over a year and a half ago, I had the impression that they were the only inhabitants of their realm. I now realize I was wrong. Fluidic s.p.a.ce contains many species-the beings we know as Species 8472, their bioships, the smaller organisms on which the bioships feed, and so on. But they think of themselves as a unified whole. And essentially they are. Species 8472, their ships, their bioweapons, all are composed of the same cellular matter. It is literally a living universe."

"The mystery," Janeway went on, "is how such a thing could even exist. A whole universe filled with liquid? That's an astonishing amount of ma.s.s. By all rights, its own gravity should've collapsed the entire universe into a black hole milliseconds after its creation.

"At least-if it had the same physics as our universe. We soon realized that fluidic s.p.a.ce must have a much higher cosmological constant than our own." At the puzzled looks, she added, "Let me explain. The cosmological constant is a sort of 'dark energy' that fills s.p.a.ce and subs.p.a.ce. That energy creates a force of expansion that counters the tendency of gravity to pull things together-a bit like the way heating the air in a balloon can make it expand.

"Now, since fluidic s.p.a.ce has so much more ma.s.s and gravity, it must have a much stronger cosmological constant to keep it in balance. Essentially, its subs.p.a.ce is much 'hotter' than ours. But there are limits to how strong the dark energy can be without destroying the capability of matter to form large-scale structures in the first place; so we conclude that fluidic s.p.a.ce must be a far smaller universe than our own, or else the total ma.s.s would be too huge to cancel out. It might be no larger than our own galaxy."

Nardem, the Nasari councillor, wrinkled up his eyes inside their bony, goggle-like orbits. "I believe I sense where you are going. This...dark energy sh.o.r.es up fluidic s.p.a.ce from collapse. Take away that support..."

"And the fluid would begin to compress under its own gravity. Eventually the compression would crush every living thing within it."

"You speak of theory," said Kilana. The Vorta may have been the only one of her kind in the Coalition, but through shrewd politicking and charm, she had worked her way swiftly into the role of liaison for the Caretaker refugees other than the Voyager veterans. "Has there been any progress on devising an actual weapon based on this?"

Janeway spoke slowly. "A sufficiently powerful subs.p.a.ce field could be tuned to modify the strength of fluidic s.p.a.ce's cosmological constant-not unlike the way we use subs.p.a.ce fields to create gravity or antigravity."

Kilana beamed. "It sounds like quite a simple application. How soon can such a weapon be ready?"

"I'm sorry, I haven't made myself clear," Janeway said. "In practical terms, such a field would be self-perpetuating and would spread indefinitely. We haven't yet figured out a way to reverse or localize the effect."

"You mean it would destroy their entire universe."

"Exactly."

"And what is the problem with that?" Kilana asked sweetly.

"Madam," Rosh cautioned before Janeway could answer. "You are speaking of genocide."

"Pardon me, Councillor, but I don't believe I am. Doctor Kes said that fluidic s.p.a.ce is but a single organism. Its loss would be regrettable, but single organisms have been sacrificed for the greater good before."

"I'm afraid you misunderstood me, Kilana," Kes told her in equally (yet more sincerely) gentle tones. "The biosphere behaves collectively, but there are trillions of distinct minds within it."

"We can't ignore that," Rosh said. "So long as there is a possibility of finding a more peaceful resolution, I prefer not to authorize something so drastic."

"The Scourge's attacks worsen daily," Nardem interposed. "We may not have time to wait!"

"Neither can we afford to rush into this," Kes replied. "Our intelligence on fluidic s.p.a.ce is limited, secondhand. We can't be certain it will really behave the way our theory suggests. Neither can we be certain that the effect won't spread to our own universe somehow."

"Which is why we have proposed a reconnaissance mission into fluidic s.p.a.ce," Gavanri said. "The Borg knowledge obtained from Annika Hansen includes the technique for creating a spatial rift into their realm. One of the EMH's mobile holographic emitters could be programmed to simulate the form of Species 8472 and emit the correct electrochemical signature to pa.s.s for one of them. He could perform the necessary scans, and perhaps gain valuable military intelligence in the process. And hopefully the knowledge he brings back could give us the key to reversing or localizing the collapse, so that we could use the weapon for deterrence rather than wholesale destruction."

"What about their telepathic communication?" asked the Nyrian delegate, Raneed, whom Rosh would have been unable to distinguish from a human if not for her more agreeable scent.

"We believe that Kes would be able to remain in contact through the rift and provide the appropriate mental camouflage."

Rosh turned to Kes. "Is this true, Doctor?" Of course, Kes had proven herself capable of remarkable things. But in this case, the Coalition could not take any chances.

Indeed, Kes appeared atypically unsure of herself, though not for that reason. "I'm confident that I could duplicate their telepathic signature. However, I'm not comfortable about helping to gather knowledge intended to destroy them, and I know the Doctor wouldn't be, either. I'd suggest instead that we send an avatar of the Doctor into fluidic s.p.a.ce as a diplomatic emissary, to propose peace talks."

"Peace talks?" Nardem scoffed. "We know from your own testimony that they intend our total annihilation."

"But we now know, thanks to Ms. Hansen," Janeway said, "that the Borg started this war. The fluidics may simply believe they're defending themselves against invasion."

"With respect, Captain," Kilana told her apologetically, "they do seem to have taken to heart the human saying that the best defense is a good offense."

"Still," Kes said, "if there's any chance for a peaceful solution, we need to be open to it."

Rosh considered. "I don't think we can risk it at this point. As you say, Doctor Kes, we need more intelligence on conditions there, political as well as physical. I say we send the EMH avatar undercover, as Minister Gavanri suggests. His primary mission will be to gather the scientific and strategic intelligence we need for our defense. However, he will be authorized to keep an eye out for possible diplomatic openings."

"And expose himself as an undercover agent?" Nardem objected. "As paranoid as they are, they would no doubt retaliate fiercely."