Atonement Read online

  “Shaka,” Wildman said triumphantly when a landing and staircase was revealed. Sharak looked at her, curious, as she added, “When the walls fell?”

  This forced an inappropriate chuckle from the doctor. “Not at all,” he said. “I will tell you the story when our work here is done.”

  Wildman again took the lead and the phaser as they made their descent. Sharak silenced the tricorder’s audio alerts. They had become so frequent and loud he found them more disturbing than helpful.

  The stairs ended at a door-sized opening. Wildman paused before stepping into it and studied the tricorder’s small display. A large space, more than fifty square meters, lay past that threshold, some sort of basement where the building’s schematics indicated none should exist. A soft bluish light spilled from it onto the landing.

  Wildman activated a small SIMs beacon around her left wrist and, crossing it over her phaser hand, turned her body to enter the doorframe with her right harm extended.

  Sharak moved behind her and barely had a moment to register some of the room’s contents—three tall bio-containers filled with murky liquid and bio-masses of various sizes, a long table, and what appeared to be a medical examination suite—before he was momentarily blinded by a bright orange light. The whine of a phaser accompanied it and was soon joined by the sound of Wildman’s weapon returning fire.

  Sharak threw himself back toward the safety of the stairs and waited as Lieutenant Wildman fought an unknown assailant for both of them.

  Shaka, he cursed silently, praying he would still have a chance to tell Wildman that story.

  INDIANA

  “There you are,” Gretchen Janeway said as the shuffling of feet at her back door alerted her to Seven’s return from the willow tree. Seven had explained that, when necessary, the artificial matter the Caeliar had left in her body allowed her to go longer than many humans without rest or food. Clearly, Seven expected to do whatever she was doing out there for several hours and did not wish to cause Gretchen undue worry.

  Almost two full days after Seven had left the house, restored by a few hours of sleep and a hearty breakfast of fruit and freshly baked muffins, Gretchen was planted before her kitchen sink staring through the window that looked out over the garden and orchard, straining for any sign of Seven’s return. Over Seven’s protests, Gretchen had sent her out with a picnic lunch and several jugs of fresh water. But two days later . . .

  She hadn’t seen Seven approach from the path that ran along the edge of the pumpkin patch, but she could easily have taken the long way around the far side of the orchard. She might be a little disoriented. It wasn’t as if this was her home.

  “Hi, Mom,” a familiar voice greeted Gretchen as she turned toward the kitchen door.

  “Phoebe.”

  Her youngest daughter paused in the doorway, staring at her mother strangely.

  “Who else were you expecting?” Phoebe asked.

  “No one, dear. How lovely to see you.”

  Seven’s unexpected arrival had thrown Gretchen off her routine. She and Phoebe had standing dinner arrangements once a week, but her daughter’s imminent arrival had been forgotten until this moment.

  “So what’s new?” Phoebe asked as she moved to the fridge to pour herself a glass of tea.

  Gretchen did not reply immediately. It was possible Seven would not disturb them for the next few hours and that Phoebe might come and go without ever learning of her visit.

  But if Seven suddenly appeared at the back door . . .

  Gretchen sighed. She did not want this conversation, but once she had agreed to allow Seven to stay, it had become unavoidable.

  “An old friend of Kathryn’s came by.”

  “Who?”

  “You remember Seven?”

  Phoebe’s eyes widened. “Isn’t she part of Kathryn’s fleet?”

  “Yes, but she’s returned to Earth for a special mission.”

  “What does that have to do with you?”

  “It’s complicated, dear.”

  “Is she in some sort of trouble?”

  “I don’t think so,” Gretchen lied.

  “Mom.”

  “Sweetheart, it isn’t your concern. How are things at the gallery?”

  “Is she still here?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Where?”

  “Phoebe . . .”

  “Where is she?” Phoebe demanded. “It isn’t enough that Kathryn went back out there? Now she’s sending her officers here for you to look after?”

  “I offered, darling.”

  “Why?”

  “The same reason I welcomed every stray housepainter and lute player and Kilgarian fruit pastiche construction artist you ever brought here,” Gretchen replied sternly. “Kathryn is my daughter. Her family is my family.”

  Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you wait until now to tell me?”

  “You barely have a civil word for me these days when the subject is your sister. I won’t have you making a spectacle of yourself in front of those Kathryn holds dear just because you can’t forgive her.”

  Phoebe dropped her head, appropriately shamed by her mother’s words. “Seven hasn’t done anything to apologize for. I’m sure I can find a few civil words for her.”

  “Neither has your sister.”

  “I want to see her,” Phoebe said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She took a walk.” Two days ago, Gretchen did not add.

  “Then I’ll do the same. I think some fresh air would do me good right now.”

  Without another word, Phoebe hurried out the back door. Gretchen grabbed a jacket from a peg on the wall by the door and followed.

  Gretchen didn’t know if it was habit or instinct that set Phoebe’s feet toward the willow tree, but she reached it well before Gretchen could catch up with her.

  She found Phoebe standing completely still about fifteen meters from the tree as the light of day faded around them.

  Gretchen followed her daughter’s gaze and saw Seven seated much as she had first found her beneath the tree.

  Wait, Gretchen thought as she drew closer.

  It took her a moment to accept what her eyes were trying to tell her. Phoebe’s unusual stillness suggested she was sharing the same strange vision.

  Seven was cross-legged with her hands resting on her knees. Her eyes were closed, her back was straight, and her chin was slightly lifted. Her lips might have been moving but no sound came from them.

  But she wasn’t exactly sitting. Seven’s entire body floated about half a meter above the ground.

  The food and water Gretchen had sent sat untouched on the ground below her.

  “Mom?” Phoebe asked when Gretchen finally reached her.

  “It’s all right, darling,” Gretchen whispered. “Come back inside.”

  • • • • •

  Seven remembered the night sky of her childhood, remembered lying on her back in fragrant fields beneath a blanket of stars—far too many to count, let alone name.

  She no longer needed to count them.

  She knew them.

  Each star arrayed before her was a catomic molecule. Those that were hers emitted a soft gold light. Riley’s flamed violet. Axum’s flared in harsh green shades.

  The rest cast fainter white light. These had once belonged to SevenRileyAxum but had been removed from their bodies. They drifted aimlessly across the darkness seeking definition.

  SevenRileyAxum ignored them for now. Instead, they focused their attention on the few molecules in sight emitting a sickly reddish hue.

  RileyAxum followed Seven’s intention and moved with her to intercept the nearest red star. SevenRileyAxum reached for it as one and reminded it that the alterations recently made to its structure were in error. Those alterations were not of them. They had been imposed by another.

  Each star knew its proper form. Its instinct was to revert to tha
t form when damaged. SevenRileyAxum removed the errant commands and stray additions, restoring lost fragments until red was transmuted once again to white.

  Almost as soon as one was restored to brilliance, several more began to sicken. SevenRileyAxum moved purposefully among them, never faltering, never wearying; their conjoined efforts renewed their strength with each reversion.

  Together, they created/restored/beheld perfection.

  11

  VOYAGER

  Commander B’Elanna Torres could not remember the last time she had slept for more than three hours straight. A normal schedule left her exhausted thanks to the extra energy she was expending creating an entirely new person within her body. The emergency repair schedule she had drafted and Lieutenant Conlon had implemented had been borderline cruel.

  Thankfully, it was also about to end.

  Four hours earlier, Voyager’s new deflector dish had been installed and only twelve hours of tests remained before it would be fully operational. Torres intended to oversee all of those tests personally, but as she was already running on fumes, she was seriously considering taking a short break before the dish was brought online for its final tests.

  Her internal debate ended when she began to hallucinate.

  From the auxiliary control panel where she was working, she had an unencumbered view of the main doors of engineering. It didn’t matter that this was the middle of gamma shift. Twice as many personnel as was normal for alpha shift were constantly moving in and out, and the doors were left open to accommodate the traffic.

  One moment, she was aware of only constant motion in and out of the doorway from the corner of her eye. The next, a small figure stood still at the door clutching a blanket to the side of her face. Her wide eyes explored the vast engineering room, clearly searching for something.

  Miral?

  But that wasn’t possible. Miral was a sound sleeper and was only halfway through the eleven hours of rest she required each night. Even if she had awakened unexpectedly, Torres’s holographic nanny, Kula, was programmed to contact B’Elanna. Kula could not leave the Paris family’s quarters, except to be transferred to a holodeck, and would never have allowed Miral to wander out on her own.

  “Mommy!” Miral shouted as soon as her eyes found her mother.

  Miral hurried toward Torres, Ensign Bash following quickly behind. “I found her wandering the halls on deck three,” Bash reported.

  “Thank you so much,” Torres said, dropping to a knee to embrace Miral. The child’s firm hug convinced Torres she wasn’t imagining her presence, but simultaneously sent a wave of panic coursing through her body. Torres had taken every precaution she thought necessary to ensure that Miral was always attended to while she was working. That she could end up wandering the halls was terrifying.

  “What happened, honey?” Torres asked gently, determined not to allow Miral to see her fear.

  “Kula is gone, Mommy.”

  It was hardly the first time a holographic system had malfunctioned on Voyager, but the safeties Torres had installed with Kula’s program should have alerted her to the problem well before Miral ended up alone.

  “Nancy,” Torres called as she rose.

  “Lieutenant Conlon is on holodeck one,” Ensign DuChamps advised her in passing.

  That’s right, Torres remembered. Harry had wanted her to look at something Barclay had reported. But she should be back by now.

  “Let’s take a walk, sweetie,” Torres said to Miral.

  “I’m sleepy,” Miral whined.

  “Okay,” Torres said, lifting the girl into her arms. Sometime in the next few weeks, she wasn’t going to be able to do this anymore. Miral had grown so much taller and despite the fact that she still wanted to be treated like a baby from time to time, was now very much a little person, all sharp knees and elbows and no longer the soft little ball Torres could easily hold comfortably.

  Torres treasured the burden as she made her way to the main holodeck. There she found Lieutenants Conlon and Kim amid a holographic apocalypse.

  She was grateful that Miral had fallen into a light sleep on her shoulder, because the sight was as frightening as it was disorienting. Dozens of holographic characters standard to a variety of programs were visible or partially visible. Sections of them stood or lay in pieces all about the room. It looked as if someone had tested a new bat’leth on them, severing heads and limbs and rending torsos at will. All that was missing was the blood, although faint sparks emanating from various unnatural tears was disturbing enough.

  “What happened?” Torres asked as soon as she reached Conlon and Kim, who were standing over the room’s control panel.

  “Hell if I know,” Conlon replied, clearly nearing her wits’ end.

  “Reg reported some strange power surges in the holographic systems,” Kim said. “I finally got around to checking his readings, and this is what I found.”

  “Nobody has used the holodecks in days,” Conlon added. “No one’s had the time.”

  “Did this all happen at once?” Torres asked.

  “No,” Kim replied. “The first surges go back more than three months, but most of those didn’t target the holodecks. Then they started accelerating in frequency.”

  “And I can’t tell you why, so don’t ask,” Conlon said, frustrated.

  “What you see here occurred in the last four days,” Kim reported. “It started just before we reached Lecahn.”

  Miral stirred and started to lift her head. “Are the other decks in the same shape?” Torres asked, gently caressing Miral’s neck.

  Conlon and Kim nodded together.

  Torres did a few quick mental calculations and ordered, “Lock it down for now. Get back to main engineering and finish up the tests of the new dish. Once it’s online, we’ll get a team down here to sort it out. Until then, nobody accesses the holodecks.”

  “Reg thinks these surges damaged the Doctor’s program. They might be indicative of a larger problem,” Kim noted.

  “I’m sure they are,” Torres replied. “But we can’t spare anyone to deal with it now.”

  “What happened to Miral?” Conlon asked, as if she had only just noticed the child.

  “Kula’s program was affected as well,” Torres replied. “I’m going to try and restore a backup for my quarters. That will take me the rest of the night.”

  “You need to get some rest, too,” Conlon noted, obviously concerned.

  “I need my . . .” Torres growled as she turned away, but stopped short of finishing the thought aloud. Harry and Nancy understood better than anyone the strain of her current predicament. But they couldn’t really know how hard the last few months had been.

  Her daughter needed her. The son growing in her body needed her. Voyager needed her. The whole damn fleet needed her.

  Torres needed to find a small, dark, cool place to close her eyes for a few hours, while someone else shouldered some of the burdens she was struggling to carry alone.

  I need Tom, Torres thought grimly, refusing to allow the tears forming in her eyes to fall.

  GALEN

  The last time Counselor Hugh Cambridge had spoken with the Doctor, they had argued. Cambridge had taken the Doctor to task for betraying Seven’s confidence. The Doctor’s responses had ranged from cutting sarcasm directed toward Cambridge, polite indifference to Seven’s current status, and brief impassioned flares of temper indicating how much he still cared for Seven.

  Even Cambridge had been able to see at the time that there was something odd about the Doctor’s behavior. The last hour spent in Lieutenant Barclay’s company had cleared up much of the counselor’s confusion.

  Apparently the Doctor had been so distraught over Seven and Cambridge’s budding romantic relationship, he had contacted his creator, Doctor Lewis Zimmerman, and requested his counsel. Zimmerman had taken it upon himself to modify the Doctor’s program in an attempt to help the Doctor deal with these intense “feelings” without doing permanent damage to his prog
ram or his personal relationships.

  Zimmerman had focused on the fact that when humans experience emotional traumas, time becomes a natural aid in the healing process. Memories, no matter how vivid, fade over time as they move from short-term to long-term memory storage within the mind.

  Or they should, Cambridge thought bitterly. Often as not, traumatic events led to a wide range of neuroses, and the mind’s ability to sublimate painful memories was interrupted. “Post-traumatic stress disorder” was a general term for many psychological anomalies that indicated the mind’s natural healing processes were not functioning properly.

  Cambridge wished Zimmerman had thought to consult another doctor, or another human, before tinkering with the Doctor’s memories so haphazardly. Cambridge’s sense of Zimmerman from Barclay was that the holographic-design genius lacked sufficient normal human interaction to make him cognizant of, let alone fluent in, the realities of human emotional processing.

  Human memory, its power and its flaws, was significantly more complicated than the experience of it suggested. Time did not simply heal all wounds. The perspective that came from living beyond pain, realizing that one could continue to exist despite trauma, and new positive experiences were critical to the healing process. Zimmerman had tried to do an end-run around those essential steps.

  If the Doctor had been nothing more than a collection of subroutines and processors, it might have worked.

  “I have completely restored the Doctor’s program,” Barclay said, once he had summarized Zimmerman’s modifications. “As long as we can protect him from overloads like the one that caused the most recent cascade failure, he should be fine.”

  “I’d hardly call the intensely narcissistic, passive-aggressive, manipulative individual I’ve come to know as the Doctor fine, but we won’t quibble about that right now,” Cambridge noted.

  Barclay rose from his work station and faced the counselor indignantly. “When Admiral Janeway suggested that you try to help the Doctor come to terms with the modifications, I told her I did not believe you were an appropriate choice. The Doctor may be all of those things. But he is also one of the most compassionate, warm, and brilliant people I have ever known.”