First Contact, page 11
Riker nodded with satisfaction. “Right over there.” Smiling, he moved over to where Cochrane sat stunned and squatted beside him before continuing in a warm tone obviously calculated to inspire; even so, Riker’s own sincere enthusiasm shone through. “It’s one of the most pivotal moments in human history, Doctor. You get to make first contact with an alien race. And after you do—everything begins to change.”
Deanna’s strikingly beautiful face also lit up with joy at a long-past memory Cochrane had yet to live through. “It unites humanity in a way that no one thought possible, once they realize they’re not alone in the universe.”
La Forge joined in, grinning like the other two. “Your theories on warp drive allow fleets of starships to be built… and humankind to start exploring the galaxy.”
“Eventually,” Riker added, “Earth and a handful of other worlds form an interstellar government called the United Federation of Planets.”
Deanna now: “And before long, Earth becomes a paradise. Poverty… disease… war—they’ll all be gone from this planet in the next fifty years.”
Implants, Cochrane thought desperately at the mention of disease. Will I be able to find a damned implant? And it had better be a helluva lot sooner than fifty years.…
Riker finished up the stirring story. “But unless you make that warp flight tomorrow—before eleven-fifteen—none of it will happen.”
Cochrane stared mutely at them for a long, long time. At last, he asked, “And you people… you’re all astronauts on some kind of… star trek?”
La Forge smiled warmly at him. “I know this has been a lot for you to take in, Doc. But we’re running out of time. We need your help. Are you with us?”
He could refuse, Cochrane knew. Could refuse outright and walk away from these people, and instinct said they wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t stop him, would merely watch him go.
But if… if they were actually telling the truth…
Easy, Zef. Stay calm, he urged himself silently as the mind-shattering excitement seized his already-manic brain and sent it reeling. Stay calm and breathe, and don’t think too hard about all this, because if you do, you’ll become so damned manic you won’t be able to pilot but’ll go spiraling up into space without the Phoenix.…
He let go a deep sigh, then forced a weak smile. “Why not?”
The others grinned in visible relief; as for Cochrane, he rose and squinted again through the telescope at the sight of the sleek and shining ship.
If he could just hold on…
* * *
Perspiration dripped from Lily’s temples and the nape of her neck and trickled down her chest and back as she trained the futuristic-looking raygun on her captive, Jean Whoever-He-Was. They had crawled from one of the cramped tunnels out into one more brightly lit that permitted Lily the luxury of standing. As Lily watched mistrustfully, the man crouched down and reached for a hatch cover.
Despite his bald, sweat-shined scalp with its fringe of silvering hair at the nape of the neck, he was a handsome man: lean and graceful, but muscular in build, with strongly sculpted features and penetrating eyes beneath still-black brows. It was the eyes, Lily decided, that attracted and frightened her, for they emanated a breath-taking intensity, a fierce singularity of purpose both admirable and fearsome… and pain, the victim’s pain she had seen too many times in the eyes of those who had survived the worst indignities of the war.
Throughout her strange adventure in the convoluted tunnels inside this strange, sleek metal building, Lily could not stop her mind from racing toward an explanation of where she was, why she was no longer sick, and precisely what chased her and this compelling man. She had come up with three possible explanations:
One, this was a no-holds barred intense, intense hallucination in her final dying moments. Not a bad conclusion, but if so, why did she feel no pain, no nausea, no headache—while at the same time keenly feeling the humidity and heat in this… place?
Two, this was a long and peculiarly vivid dream—but she almost immediately ruled out that possibility. For one thing, characters in her dreams constantly changed identity or disappeared abruptly or exhibited curious and inappropriate, inconsistent behavior; this Picard was behaving most consistently, continuing to try to escape from these bizarre bogeymen—and consistently annoyed with her defensive behavior. For another, she was experiencing bodily sensations that were distinctly undreamlike; she was actually hungry, a sensation that, like the one of heat, would not go away.
Three—the explanation she liked least but one that was becoming more viable with each passing moment—this was no dream or hallucination, but reality.
And that was the scariest thought of all.
Lily gripped the weapon tightly, its surface slippery with sweat, radiant with her own body heat—and all too solid in her hand. As she watched, the man lifted the hatch cover the merest slit, revealing on the level beneath them endless rows of the silent, standing cyborg men, each sporting the same white face with nondescript features, each clothed in black metal armor that seemed part of their very flesh.
Faces and bodies without minds, without hearts, without souls.
She had no idea what she looked upon, but the ghoulish sight left her convinced that she preferred her captive’s company, ECON or not. As he slowly, soundlessly replaced the hatch, a muscle in his jaw twitched; with grim revulsion, he glanced up and said softly, “They’re on this deck, too. We have to keep moving.”
He rose and headed off down the tunnel, utterly ignoring the weapon in Lily’s hand; she got the impression he was not at all fearful of it but rather somewhat annoyed by her distrust.
Watch yourself, Lily. It’s an act, don’t you see? An act to win your trust. He may be charming, he may seem interesting, but he’s ECON and you can’t trust him.…
He glanced back over his shoulder at her and demanded quietly—but with an authority that indicated he was used to swift answers, “What happened in sickbay? Where’s Dr. Crusher and the others?” Despite his effort to suppress it, his eyes and voice betrayed deep concern.
A consummate actor indeed, Lily told herself, and countered bitterly, “Why’d you break the cease-fire?”
“We’re not the ones who attacked you.”
She twisted her lips skeptically. “Who did?”
He did not reply immediately; instead, inspiration apparently seized him, and he pressed a panel on the wall. A hatch opened onto a large chamber, and he strode inside with a sense of purpose.
She followed cautiously, scanning with weapon at the ready until she was certain no one else waited inside the room. It was empty save for groupings of couches and chairs facing the oddly bare far wall, which sloped outward at a forty-five-degree angle.
As the man moved quickly toward it, he said, “There’s a… new faction that wants to prevent your launch tomorrow morning.” She stiffened at the mention; so she hadn’t dreamed their encounter inside the silo. He knew about the launch, about the Phoenix… but even if he was ECON, how could he have found out? Yet before she could react, he noted her reaction and said soothingly, “But we’re here to help you.”
“You want to help? Get me out of here!”
Again, he did not answer her at once but instead stopped deliberately in front of what looked to be a panel of push-button controls built into the side wall. The sight of them made her nervous; how did she know one of them wouldn’t summon an armed guard—or open the floor beneath her feet?
Shoot him, Lily. Shoot him while you still have the drop on him.…
Oddly, she couldn’t. If he was acting, he was doing a damn fine job of it, for the utter, honest determination in his eyes, in his voice, on his face compelled her to listen. He could have made a break for it several times during their brief journey here, but he hadn’t; he could have reached up to press some evil control on the wall, but he didn’t do that either.
He seemed instead to want to reason with her.
“This may be difficult to accept,” he said deliberately, almost gently, “but you’re not on Earth anymore. You’re in a spaceship, orbiting at an altitude of about two hundred and fifty kilometers.”
The words sent a purely physical shock down her spine, outward to her arms, her legs. Stunned her, because in the first mindless instant, she almost believed… She stared at him a long, silent moment, until the shock eased, and her hard-earned survival skills—mistrust and skepticism—took over. With feigned calm, she lifted the weapon higher and aimed again at his face. A glimmer of fear shone in his eyes, but he did not flinch.
“I think it’s time to press the red one,” she said coldly, referring to the weapon’s most ominous-looking button. “What do you think?” For God’s sake, Lily, don’t stand there talking… shoot! Yet she didn’t—out of pure idiocy, she supposed.
A strange reluctance flitted over his features. “All right. You want a way out…? Here it is.”
And in the instant he lifted his hand and began to reach for the control on the wall, Lily’s mind screamed at her: Shoot, you idiot! Don’t you realize you’re about to be killed? Shoot…!
She tried desperately to pull the trigger… and in the end, could not, almost weeping with frustration at the horrifying realization that she trusted him, had wanted to hear what he had to say. But the war had taught her that trust meant death.
And so she stood wavering as his fingers at last pressed the control and sealed her fate, stood motionless and watched as the great curving wall slid aside to reveal a profoundly startling vision.
Naked space and stars, and beneath them, vast and blue and shining, Earth. Lily had thought often about how it would look from inside the Phoenix; it was far more beautiful than she had imagined.
She staggered backward, clutched blindly at the nearest outcropping. The sight was dizzying, terrifying—she could see no glass, no visible barrier to prevent her from tumbling down the sloping floor, and falling into infinity.…
“What—” she croaked, then broke off and tried again, though her voice was reduced to a hoarse, awed whisper. “What is this?” The question was ridiculous, for she could see perfectly well what it was. She could see, but she could not fathom.
He turned toward the impossible sight, trying to keep his voice neutral, controlled—but he could not quite suppress the fondness in it. “That’s Australia, New Guinea, the Solomons… Montana should be coming up soon, but you may want to hold your breath.” His tone grew wry. “It’s a long way down.”
She forced her gaze away; still clinging to the wall, she looked at him, desperate for explanation, for reassurance that she had not simply gone mad. At the same time, she was possessed by fear that he would press another button and send her hurtling out into space to die of asphyxiation.
He didn’t, of course. Instead, he looked upon her with an openness, an emotional honesty that she envied. For he not only saw her terror and confusion, he seemed to understand it and gazed upon her with an expression of something she had not witnessed since her mother died.
Compassion.
It was as though the war had never touched him. For the first time, it occurred to Lily that he had trusted her all along not to kill him, that he had risked his life in order to convince her of the truth; and she wondered whether she would ever be free of the war enough to trust that deeply again.
“Listen to me,” he said, in a low, calm voice. She clung to every word, desperate now to believe, to make sense out of the sudden inversion of her reality. “I’m not your enemy. I can get you home. But you’ll have to put that weapon down… and trust me.”
At the mention of the weapon, she felt a fresh surge of mistrust and backed away, until the wall prevented her from recoiling further. She wanted to trust, but the thought of surrendering her only protection was almost physically painful.
“Jean-Luc Picard,” he offered warmly, and when she glanced at him in dismayed confusion, he explained. “My name. What’s yours?”
“Lily,” she managed, still faltering in an agony of indecision; this was her life, her destiny. To willingly offer up control to another was unthinkable, unsafe.
“Welcome aboard, Lily,” he said gently, and held out his hand for the weapon.
Lily stared at him, then back down at the slowly spinning Earth. If that was a holograph or computer-generated special effect, it must have cost millions to produce. And why would the ECON spend millions trying to convince her that she was in outer space?
Still staring at him, she slowly, slowly laid the weapon in his palm.
“Thank you.” He let go a long breath and turned the weapon on its side to check something, then smiled to himself.
“What?” she demanded. For a heart-pounding instant, she half expected him to aim it at her and fire.
To her relief, he clipped the gun to his belt. “It was only set to level one. If you’d shot me”—here, his expression grew charmingly wry—“it would’ve given me a rather nasty rash.”
“Hey, it was my first raygun.”
He grinned at her then, revealing a faint dimple in one cheek; she could not resist returning the smile. As the tension between them eased, she gazed back out the vast window again, curious.
“There’s no glass.”
In reply, Picard moved fearlessly toward the opening and tapped what appeared to be empty space where the glass should have been. Beneath his fingertips, the air shimmered with golden light, which abruptly faded when he withdrew his hand. “Force field.” He strode toward the door, motioning for her to follow.
Instead, she stood gaping at the now-invisible field with an engineer’s astonishment, trying to figure out how it could possibly have been done. “I’ve never seen that kind of technology.…” She turned at last and followed him through the door, which opened automatically as he neared.
“That’s because it hasn’t been invented yet.”
She caught up to him in a hurry and scowled at him. “What?”
He averted his gaze, his expression sheepish as they stepped back into the dim corridor. “There’s… something else I need to tell you.…”
TEN
Still bound in the dark, colorless heart of the Borg hive, Data strained to watch as two specialized drones continued their surgery. The center of their attentions was not, as he had anticipated, his positronic brain, but his right arm and shoulder, both now encased in a cybernetic shell that blocked his view of the Borg’s apparently intricate work. From the dully gleaming shell, tubes emanated outward to a source he could not see; within them, various-colored liquids coursed.
Within half an hour, the drones stepped back from the table, apparently finished and clearly awaiting the next event.
From above came the feminine voice. “Are you ready?”
Data stared up through the mists at the dark tangle of flesh and machinery that obscured the ceiling—and, for the moment, any glimpse of the mysterious woman. He was not certain whether the question had been intended for him or the drones; nevertheless, he responded with a question of his own.
“Who are you?”
The answer came in a solitary voice, silken and infinitely confident, individual and infinitely proud: “I am the Borg.”
Data tilted his head, the back of his skull sweeping against the hard surgical bed. “That is a contradiction. The Borg act as a collective consciousness. There are no individuals.”
The overhead darkness stirred; from its midst, the female creature emerged. Creature, because though her face was humanoid and her chalky coloring Borg, her eyes were unlike either—dark, with a decided glint of silver, and her body consisted of nothing more than head, neck, shoulders, arms.
Spiderlike, she began to descend from the slick, gleaming web of machinery, her legless, torsoless body suspended by black cables.
“I am the beginning,” she said. “The end. The one who is many. I am the Borg.”
As she spoke, her truncated form descended smoothly into a synthetic Borg body that awaited below. With a click, her head and shoulders moved into place; the cables detached and swung away, and she moved toward Data with easy grace, as if she had always been so.
Her body, voice, face, and movements were those of a lithe young woman; her silver eyes were ancient, decadent, insatiable.
“Greetings,” the android said. “I am curious. Do you control the Borg collective?”
“You imply a disparity where nothing exists. I am the collective.”
Data pondered this. “Perhaps I should rephrase the question. I wish to understand the organizational relationships. Are you their leader?”
Her long, artificial arms spread in a wide, sweeping V that encompassed the entire surroundings. “I bring order to chaos.”
“An interesting, if cryptic, response.”
At that, she smiled, sensuous lips parting to reveal teeth even and pearly; yet despite its beauty, the sight triggered the image of a millenia-old spider, opening her glittering maw to devour a mate. “You are in chaos, Data. You are the contradiction: a machine who wishes to be human.”
“Since you seem to know so much about me, you must be aware that I am programmed to evolve, to better myself. That is a drive common to many species.”
“We, too, are on a quest to better ourselves, evolving toward a state of perfection,” she said, taking another step closer.”
“Forgive me, but you do not evolve,” Data answered simply. “You conquer.”
“By assimilating other beings into our collective, we are bringing them closer to perfection as well.” She swept her silvered gaze over the length of his body, then directed an openly hungry smile at him.
“Somehow, I question your motives.”
Her eyelids lowered coyly. “That’s because you haven’t been properly… stimulated yet.” Her smile faded as she directed an intense, focused look at his skull, whose interior emitted a small whine.
A servo, Data realized; they had inserted a mechanical device inside his head, one that the woman’s gaze alone controlled. But to what purpose?
