Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [116]
Besides-she wasn’t looking for a random partner. If she just wanted sexual gratification, there was always the holodeck. There was a real spark between her and Harry, something she’d felt with only one other man in her life. And she knew he felt it too-his refusal was a denial of himself as well as her. So there was more to lose here than her own fulfillment. And Harry would have to live with that loss far longer than she would.
Her reverie was broken by a shout from the Doctor. “You want me to do what?!”
Torres raised her voice in response, and Marika was paying attention now, so she could follow the conversation fairly clearly. “Re-create the coma. The conditions aboard the shuttle. Whatever it was that let me visit the Barge of the Dead, I need to do it again.”
“B’Elanna,” the Doctor said patiently. “I understand how real the experience must have seemed to you, but hallucinations like this are common in cases of neural trauma. You’re asking me to put your life in danger for something that may not have been real.”
“And what if it was real? We’ve seen too many amazing things in this universe to assume it was just a hallucination. What if I have a chance to save my mother’s soul from damnation and I don’t take it? How can I live with myself if I don’t do that for her? If I don’t do something to make amends for what I’ve cost her?”
“Remember Captain Janeway’s near-death experience? That wasn’t a hallucination-it was the creation of an alien parasite that wanted to feed on her neural energy.”
“This isn’t the same. They didn’t even want me.”
“So it seemed to you. But now you’re feeling an intense compulsion to go back.”
“You have my medical scans-was there any sign of a neural parasite?”
“Well… no,” he said grudgingly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to do this. You’d be risking your life, and for no medically valid reason. It goes against the core of my programming: First, do no harm.”
“You brought me out before. And this time you’d be supervising every step of the process. I’m sure you could revive me again.”
“It’s not that simple. The brain is too complex an organ; it’s impossible to be sure it would respond the same way again. I’m sorry, B’Elanna. I’m not willing to perform a procedure that could end your life.”
“But you already did that for me,” Marika said, stepping forward. “Pardon my eavesdropping-but it’s true. You could’ve prolonged my life indefinitely by sending me back to the Borg. But instead you performed a procedure that cut my life expectancy to a few weeks.”
“That was for a very different reason.”
“I don’t think so, Doctor. What it basically came down to is that the most important thing in life isn’t how long it lasts-it’s what you do with it while you’ve got it.” She moved to Torres’s side, gave her a supportive smile before continuing. “Believe me, Doctor, there are worse things than dying. One of them is living with missed opportunities-knowing that you’ll never have something you could’ve had if you’d just been brave enough to take the chance.
“B’Elanna’s asking you for a chance to make peace with her mother-at least in her own mind, whether it’s objectively real or not. If you deny her that chance, if you condemn her to live the rest of her life not knowing what she could’ve had, aren’t you doing her more harm?”
The Doctor met her eyes thoughtfully. “Survival is insufficient,” he murmured.
“Damn straight.”
After a moment, he sighed. “Well, I suppose I could dredge up some precedents from Klingon medical practices-therapy by ordeal, that sort of thing, though it goes against my better judgment. But I’ll only consent to the procedure if Captain Janeway approves it.”
B’Elanna grinned and gave him a quick hug, surprising him. “Thank you, Doc! I’ll go talk to her right now.”
“Very well,” the Doctor called to her as she ran out of sickbay. “But next time someone asks me to shorten their life expectancy, I’m putting my foot down for sure!”
Neelix surveyed the mess hall crowd, judging their mood. A lot of people were congregating here, but they were unusually quiet. No doubt