Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [80]
Seven knew that she had to assume that help was not coming. Waiting was not an option.
Placing her palms on the tabletop, Seven pushed herself up, taking care to keep her weight off the broken leg, which Zolaluz had bound in a splint. “I will assist you in gathering supplies,” said Seven.
Zolaluz reached for a spare crutch that was leaning in a corner. “That will be easy,” she said, handing the crutch to Seven, “for I have little in the way of supplies.”
“I will bring the vegetables,” Seven said with a perfectly deadpan expression. “Fortunately, they are, as you say, ‘bite-sized,’ and will not occupy much space in a pack.”
Zolaluz laughed. Together, the two of them proceeded to limp around the shack, cobbling together supplies for the trip… crutches thumping and feet scuffing in matching rhythms on the floorboards.
Sometimes, Seven of Nine wished she could walk the corridors of a Borg vessel again rather than those of the Starship Voyager.
Usually, the aloof self-assurance she displayed to those around her was reflected by equal measures of confidence, control, and detachment within.
Sometimes, though, her secret heart would pound in the darkness and the inside and outside were no longer the same. Sometimes, there was no resemblance at all.
It might come when she was walking down a corridor, as Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres strolled past on their way to a date in a holodeck.
It might come in the mess hall, where friends shared stories and jokes while Seven sat alone, reviewing sensor logs. Or during a duty shift in astrometrics, when Naomi Wildman came to visit.
Or in the middle of the night, in her alcove, with no one else around.
Loneliness was irrelevant. So too was envy and resentment.
Happiness was irrelevant.
But to her secret heart, these were the only things that were relevant.
Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres were happy. They had love unmarred by memories of assimilation and brutality, memories of atrocities committed upon them by others and upon others with their own hands.
Shipmates in the mess hall were happy, enjoying friendly camaraderie. But then, they hadn’t been conditioned to think about the best ways to assimilate each other, the best insertion points for implants, the optimal procedures for severing limbs.
Then there was Naomi Wildman, full of the happiness of childhood, of carefree play and innocent exploration and imagination. Sometimes, Seven hated to see her coming, smiling and unscathed, a living reminder of what had been stolen from her.
And so, envy flourished in her secret heart, entwined with anger and self-pity and regret at the way her life had gone. And then shame for feeling the way she did about people who had taken her in and befriended her.
To look at her, defiant and self-possessed, you would never guess what was going on inside. That her secret heart was taking over.
Lately, its beat had grown stronger. Like a dormant implant programmed to awaken and systematically undermine its host, it expanded its influence in a steady, subtle pulse that the host wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
Having spent most of her life as a drone with no conscious emotional life, Seven was less equipped to subdue a darkness rising from within than an army of fellow Borg attacking from without.
Seven and Zolaluz had hobbled barely a half-mile into the jungle when Seven noticed the smell of smoke. Leaning against a thick red tree trunk, she sniffed at the heavy tropical air.
As Zolaluz continued along the overgrown trail, Seven pulled back the hood of the ragged black cloak that concealed her Starfleet uniform. According