Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 25

She must have been fairly successful at it, for her Jem'Hadar had not killed her and had kept anyone else from doing so. Still, she felt that inbred timidity and softness every day. She had always thought it just a facade to confound the enemies of the Dominion. But the will of the Founders had shaped her entire being, and they had put it in her heart as well, as her experiences here had forced her to discover. For all her learned toughness, her skill at survival in these wilds, she would give anything to return home to the Founders' embrace.

Sensing her hesitation, Odala leaned forward. "You need not fear, Kilana. Once you have done this for us, you will know the benevolence of the Voth."

"You-you will send me home?" she asked, unable to keep the quaver from her voice.

"Nothing would please me more."

Kilana had no doubt of that; Odala would like nothing more than to rid her backyard of all species who posed any threat to Voth domination, or their pathetic pretense thereof. But that didn't matter. What mattered was their transwarp ships that could return her to the Founders' embrace in mere weeks. At last, to be with her G.o.ds again! To know their guidance, feel their divine certainty, and never have to worry about making her own choices, making mistakes!

She didn't know how other species could tolerate it-how they could have faith in their imaginary G.o.ds when they never knew them except as an abstract presence. It was all just a matter of guesswork to them; no wonder they were so torn by religious strife and existential turmoil. Kilana had lived that way for only a few years, and she would give anything to end it.

She smiled, able to tolerate politeness toward this bloated wretch because of what was in it for her-and because such pretense was what her G.o.ds had made her for. "Thank you, Minister Odala. I will obtain the weapon for you, and then we can all be secure in our homes. And the Dominion will be grateful for your cooperation; I'm certain we will wish to establish diplomatic relations with your people."

"We shall see," Odala said, clearly dismissing the very idea. Kilana didn't push; at this point, all that mattered was getting that ride home.

But what would she find when she got there? Undoubtedly, the Founders would have replaced her with another clone, just as she had replaced the original Kilana upon her death. That Kilana would have all her memories up to her last upload before her abduction, and would have continued in her life, her role in the Dominion. In a sense, Kilana 3 had more of a claim to being the real Kilana than she, Kilana 2, did. Would she find herself in the same spot as the members of the Scourge upon their temporal duplication? Would she be required to fight her counterpart in some way to prove who was worthier? If so, she was certain the hard edge she had gained in the Delta Quadrant would bring her victory. But the Founders would probably not see it that way. It was Kilana 3 who had been serving their will, keeping current with their policies and the politics of the quadrant. The Founders might consider Kilana 2 an obsolete copy, corrupted by her years in the wild. Perhaps they would kill both her and her successor and integrate their memories into Kilana 4. Perhaps they would simply discard her as an aberration.

She would have to prove her worth to them, then. Bringing them Voth transwarp technology would surely earn their favor.

No. Even then, they would show her no grat.i.tude; she had simply been an agent of their will. Either they would find some new role in which she could serve, or they would destroy her. Either way, she would never return to her old life.

But either way, she would be back in the Founders' embrace, serving their holy purpose. She would know again, at long last, what her place in the universe was.

And if she had to destroy another universe to achieve that, what better proof of her devotion?

It was more than a theft; it was a ma.s.sacre. The Jem'Hadar, using their innate shrouding ability to make themselves invisible, had not only killed the guards outside Kosnelye's military research facility, but had slaughtered the science team working on the field collapser itself, perhaps to reduce the chances of anyone devising a countermeasure in time. Chakotay was stunned when he heard; Rena White, whom he'd served with on Voyager, had been one of the casualties. At least she'd made a good showing of herself, using a plasma torch to take out one of the Jem'Hadar before she died. A number of Kes's scientific colleagues had perished in the attack as well.

"This is a disaster," Boothby shouted when Chakotay and Rosh informed him of the news, while Janeway watched from the monitor in Rosh's office. "What kind of circus are you people running here? First you invent a device that could crush my universe like a tin can-and thanks for not telling me about that until now, by the way-and then you don't even bother to put decent defenses around the thing!"

"The facility was shielded," Chakotay told him. "But we've found evidence that Kilana's ship's transporter was using Voth enhancements that can penetrate our best shields. We believe the Voth a.s.sisted Kilana in the theft."

"And I a.s.sure you," Rosh said, "we had no plans of deploying this weapon while there was any hope of a peaceful resolution. And we have been working nonstop to find a way to make it less destructive, to function as a deterrent only."

"But you went ahead and built it anyway. And then you let it get stolen."

"And the longer we stand here arguing about it," Kathryn pointed out, "the less chance we have of stopping the Voth and Kilana before they deploy your weapon. As far as we know, Kilana failed to obtain the data on how to create a dimensional rift." One of Kes's colleagues had given his life to ensure that information was deleted from the research facility's computers. "She'll need Voth resources to achieve that. We've picked up the ion trail of Kilana's ship, heading toward Voth s.p.a.ce, and Voyager is preparing to pursue them even now. Meanwhile, I've ordered Commander Kim to work with Doctor Kes and her research teams on devising a countermeasure to the weapon."

"Somehow, I'm not filled with confidence."

"You can help us too, Boothby," Chakotay said. "Come with me to the Voth city ship. If they see you, talk to you, understand that there are factions in fluidic s.p.a.ce trying to make peace, maybe we can persuade them to hold off their attack."

"Do you really think there's a chance of that?"

"Did you think there was any chance of peace with humans before you tried it?"

Boothby glared. "You're as smooth a talker in this timeline as the other one, son." He sighed. "But maybe that's just the kind of blarney we need. Let's go meet your relatives." Chakotay was unsurprised; the Groundskeeper's anger was no doubt rooted in frustration at being unable to take action to protect his home, as his every instinct demanded. At least this way he could feel useful.

"I need not stress the urgency of this to any of you," Rosh told them. "I was elected to protect my nation, but I would fail in that mandate if I allowed it to sacrifice its defining principles by destroying an entire civilization simply to preserve its own existence. Saving fluidic s.p.a.ce is as urgent to us as protecting our own Coalition. For in a sense, they are the same thing. Go with the blessing of the Ancestors, all of you-and may They give you all the speed and wisdom you require."

"Politicians," Boothby grumbled as he left the office with Chakotay. "They never shut up, do they?"

Harry Kim had gotten to where he was today by never a.s.suming a goal was unattainable. His optimism had served him well, for when he was given an a.s.signment, he would waste no time lamenting the obstacles in his path but would just hunker down and figure out a way to get it done. True, he hadn't always had similar optimism when it came to women, but seeing the most beautiful woman in the quadrant in his bed every night had cured him of that. And Kathryn had hinted that one of the new long-range explorer ships the Coalition had commissioned using a mix of Starfleet, Carnelian, and other technologies might be his to command within a year. All in all, he had no reason to take a pessimistic view of life.

But it was hard not to believe that his captain and friend had given him an insurmountable goal this time. The Coalition's best scientists had been working for weeks to devise a way to neutralize the field collapser's effects, with no results. Now most of them were dead, and Harry's makeshift team was expected to solve the problem within hours. One didn't have to be a cynic to find that an improbable goal.

The surprising thing was that even Kes seemed stymied. Harry was convinced the wise Ocampa had an even deeper insight into the fundamental workings of reality than she liked to admit. But she was struggling with this as much as any of them. "The problem," she'd told Harry, "is that it's so simple. All it takes is one subs.p.a.ce field of the right kind activated one time, and from there it's a chain reaction. Just by reducing the strength of the dark energy in one area, you create an energy flow into it, just as wind blows into a low-pressure region. And that energy feeds and sustains the field, causing it to expand. It's based in such fundamental, straightforward physics that it's hard to cancel it without rewriting the laws of the whole universe."

"Could you do that?" Harry had asked, sincerely curious.

Kes had grinned, blushing. "Not by myself, Harry! But it doesn't matter-altering something as basic as the way energy flows would make life impossible there anyway."

They had kept trying to think of some alternative, but Harry had become increasingly convinced there was something they were missing. He just couldn't put his finger on it. As brilliant as Kes had become, Harry missed the good old days on Voyager, when the crew had brainstormed its way through one insurmountable problem after another.

It gave him pause when he remembered a key element in that brain trust: B'Elanna Torres. Time after time, her intuitive engineering genius and lateral thinking had sp.a.w.ned solutions no one else could find.

The problem was, she was the last person Harry Kim wanted to see. But that didn't matter when a universe was at stake. So he wasted no time in beaming to the prison habitat.

"I never expected to see you again," B'Elanna told him when the guard let him into her cell. "You're looking good. Command agrees with you."

"And prison looks pretty right on you."

She lowered her head. "I won't argue. So did you finally come to gloat?"

"I wouldn't be here unless there were something really important at stake." He explained the situation.

When he was done, she looked at him in astonishment. "And you need my help? Oh, that's rich! With all your great success, all your accolades, the paragons of the Delta Coalition need help from a petty criminal and terrorist. You really must be desperate."

"Dammit, B'Elanna, are you ever going to stop reflexively fighting everything that moves? That's what got you into this in the first place! Why is it so hard for you to learn to accept things as they are and try to make the best of them?

"Look how much progress we've made over the past year and a half-not just the people from Voyager, but the whole region. We worked within the system. We found ways to make things better. And we didn't have to kick down the whole structure to make it better. You could've been part of that too, B'Elanna, if only you weren't so confrontational."

"You think I don't know that, Harry? You think I like being at war all the time-with the universe, with myself? That I wouldn't change myself if I could? But look around," she said. "It's too late for me. I crossed a line I can't uncross. All I can do now is pay the price for it."

"Fine. But don't let a whole universe pay the price because you're too busy wallowing in self-pity."

"You think you can win me over with guilt? Add it to the pile, I've got plenty already."

"I think that somewhere inside you, there's a decent person still trying to get out from under all that rage. You turned yourself in, remember. I would've thought you'd want to help save people if you could."

She scoffed. "From in here? With no computers, no sensors, no engineering team? You've got the best minds in the Coalition together on this and you can't figure out how to turn your little doomsday weapon off. And don't think I haven't noticed the irony that you built that thing after calling the Casciron terrorists for wanting to keep their stingers."

"Can we debate that later? Look, we've tried everything. Every permutation of subs.p.a.ce field theory known to man, Vostigye, Carnelian, you name it. And we just can't find a way to kill this field once it's formed."

B'Elanna stared. "Then maybe you shouldn't try," she said after a moment.

"What?"

"You said it yourself-don't fight it. Work with it to change it for the better."

Harry began to nod. "Since we can't prevent the field from forming...we stop trying and concentrate on changing the effect it has."

"Exactly."

"Change it how?"

B'Elanna was pacing the cell now, eyes darting as the idea came together in her mind. "Instead of changing the cosmological constant of fluidic s.p.a.ce...we change its permeability. Increase the field density differential between our universe and theirs."

Harry saw what she was going for. "That would make it impossible for anyone to cross between the universes! It would solve everything! No more war, no more temporal duplication to endanger fluidic s.p.a.ce."

"Well, they'd still have to deal with the duplicates they have. And any 8472s-sorry, 'Groundskeepers'-still on our side would be stuck here. Other than that, it would work."

"But how do we make it work? I see where you're going, but how do we build a device that will make the field collapser do that? And from a distance?"

B'Elanna waved her hands in the air, tried to explain, then gave up and sighed. "Have you got five hours for me to explain it to your science team?"

"We may not have that long to build it."

"Then I have to build it myself." She glowered at his skepticism. "Come on, Harry. Turned myself in, remember? You don't think this is a ploy to escape?"

"I don't. The prison officials may not be so sure."

"Well, convince them!"

"I'm not sure they'd believe me, either." He furrowed his brow. "But I may know someone who can convince them."

She frowned at his hesitation. "So what's the problem?"

Harry sighed. "He's someone you almost killed."

15.

The news of B'Elanna's plan could not have reached Chakotay at a better time. The Groundskeeper emissary had perhaps gotten into his Boothby character a little too well, and his plainspoken, irascible manner had been infuriating Minister Odala. Or perhaps it was simply his people's innate pride, a match for the arrogance of the Voth. Although the dinosaurian Ministry of Elders certainly bore their share of the blame; Boothby was at least trying to negotiate in good faith, while they were convinced of their rightness and saw no incentive to back down. Chakotay couldn't really blame Boothby for his frustration.

So it was a relief when Janeway had contacted Chakotay with news of a third option that could break the impa.s.se. He presented B'Elanna's plan to the Elders and Boothby as a solution that could satisfy both sides. "It would create an impa.s.sable wall between the universes. Both sides would be safe from any threat posed by the other. And all it would take is a few hours to modify the device you've already obtained," he told Odala. "It would cost you nothing."

"How can we trust in your sincerity, Legislator Chakotay, when you have given us no cause for it before?" Odala challenged.

"Why would the Coalition seek to deceive you in this? Our survival is at stake too. We want to end the threat posed by an invasion from fluidic s.p.a.ce. And now we have a way to do that without getting the blood of a whole universe on our hands."

Odala merely stared until Chakotay felt compelled to break the silence, to do something drastic enough to make a difference before it was too late. "All right. You want me to come clean? I will. I gave Professor Gegen the data on Earth that has spread throughout your populace. I confess to that, and if you insist, I'll step down from my post and turn myself over to your justice system. I'll do whatever it takes if you'll just give this plan a chance." He took a step closer. "Please, Minister. Whatever I may have done to offend you, the Delta Coalition is not to blame for it. And neither are Boothby's people. Give this plan a chance to work. Give the fragile bonds of trust that your people have built with the Coalition a chance to prove their value. At least long enough to see if the plan works. If it fails, you still have the device." He threw an apologetic look to Boothby, who merely glowered.

"But if you did use the device," Chakotay went on, "I think the Voth would regret it. Because you would have destroyed a kindred spirit. The Groundskeepers are not so different from you. They're a people who take great pride in their place in the cosmos, a place they've held since time immemorial. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to preserve their ancient way of life, to defend the ident.i.ty that defines who and what they are."

Boothby nodded. "Well put, son. We've earned our place through strength, discipline, and hard work, and we won't give that up easily."

"And yet," Chakotay went on, addressing the council, "this being, this man, chose to take a chance. Even though he had every reason to keep his guard up, to choose the cautious path and destroy any threat, he chose instead to extend a hand and strive for peace. He dared to stand before his mortal enemies, to risk his ident.i.ty and place in his universe, to try to prove to both sides that they didn't have to be enemies anymore.

"If that courage exists within his species, then I have to believe it exists in the Voth as well. If the Groundskeepers, the Scourge of the Delta Quadrant, can find the courage to take a chance on peace, then surely the Voth, the guardians of the quadrant, can do no less."

He was coming to understand something about the Voth: what they needed above all was to save face. He had defined the situation so that they would look like cowards if they refused to cooperate.

Indeed, after some discussion with the other Elders, Odala spoke. "As the guardians of this quadrant, it is inc.u.mbent upon us to extend our benevolence to those who plead for it. We are willing to postpone the destruction of fluidic s.p.a.ce and allow other options to be explored." Chakotay and Boothby sighed in relief, but Odala was not finished. "If," she went on, "the fluidic emissary known as Boothby kneels before us and vows his obedience to the Voth Council."

"What?!" Boothby cried. "I'll do nothing of the kind!"

"If you wish to demonstrate your sincere nonhostility toward this quadrant, then you must declare your eternal loyalty to its ancient and rightful guardians. Surely this is no great burden if we are truly alike."

"We're nothing alike, you overstuffed iguana! We Groundskeepers play a vital role in our universe! You just close yourselves up in these city ships and pretend the rest of the universe gives a d.a.m.n about you."

"Boothby!" Chakotay hissed.

"Stay out of this, son! No Groundskeeper will ever bow down to weaklings like this, I don't care how fancy you dress 'em up."

"If I may have a few moments to confer with my colleague," Chakotay said to the council, hustling Boothby out into the hall. He wasn't as frail as he looked, so it took an effort.

"Are you out of your mind?" he hissed when they were alone. "You know better than anyone what's at stake here. Are you willing to let your universe die just to salve your ego?"

"Just let them try! If your galaxy breeds thugs like that, maybe it's better off destroyed."

"That's not what you were saying before. If you were the sort who swallowed the Groundskeeper party line like that, you never would've come to us seeking peace. What's so horrible about submitting to this? It would just be a symbolic gesture. I think that's all it takes to get through to the Voth. They're willing to bend, so long as you allow them to make it look like they're firmly in control." He realized, in retrospect, that maybe things would have gone more smoothly with the Voth the last time if he hadn't been so stubborn. The penalty they had imposed for his recalcitrance was purely a token gesture to let them save face while still bending to the new reality. Perhaps if he'd played along with their need for ego-stroking then, they would have been more open to negotiation in return.

"You don't understand," Boothby said. "I can't submit to them...even symbolically. It would be like confessing..."

Chakotay frowned. "Confessing what?"

Boothby sagged, looking even more tired and elderly than before. "You're wrong about me, son. I'm not here because I'm some brave, heroic peacemaker. I'm here because...well, because there's nowhere else for me to be."

Realization came to Chakotay. "You're one of the temporal duplicates."

"That's right. I came marching home from the war one day, full of rip-snorting tales of how my squadron blew up a Borg cube...only to find another me already back home, regaling the folks at the corner bar about how he'd blown up a whole Borg armada. From then on, there was no place for me back home-not unless I proved myself the stronger. I went on that spy mission, changed myself into this skinny scarecrow, to prove my worth...but they a.s.signed me to the mission in the first place so they could get me out of the way. I think they were hoping I'd get myself killed. When I got back, though, there were more of me to compete with. I'm not exactly the kind to fight it out with myself to the death, but there was no place for all of us in the order of things. And after spending months as a human and coming back talking about peace, I fit in even worse than I did before. So when your Doctor showed up, I came back with him as much to get out of the way as to try to patch things up with your universe."

"I'm sorry," Chakotay said after a moment. "I didn't realize. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you." He clasped Boothby's shoulder. "But I'm even more impressed with you than I was before. With so much stacked against you, it's remarkable that you were able to persuade them to consider peace talks at all. That accomplishment proves your strength more than any victory in battle. Surely you're strong enough to do this one thing too."

"You still don't get it! If I go in there and kowtow before those fossils, if I even pretend to lower myself before weaklings like that...I'd be humiliating myself in a way my people would never forgive. It wouldn't matter if I saved my universe by doing it; that's just my job. And there are more copies of me to take over that job, ones who wouldn't have that taint on them for the rest of their lives.

"If I do this, Chakotay...I'll be throwing away my last hope of getting my life back. I'll be an outcast forever."

Chakotay studied him for a time. "I do understand, Boothby. I know how it feels to be an outcast. As an Indian, as a contrary among my own people, as a Maquis rebel, as a refugee in the Delta Quadrant. All my life, I've been an outsider one way or another. But that hasn't made me weak. It's just meant I've had to find my strength within-and find others who could benefit from that strength and give me theirs in return.

"And I've found that here, first on Voyager, then in the Coalition. We've taken in countless other exiles, helped them find a new ident.i.ty, a new sense of purpose. We can do the same for you. Being an outcast doesn't have to be a permanent condition."

"The Voth were exiles once," Boothby replied. "But they've completely forgotten what they once were. Lost touch with their whole history."