Flashback - Diane Carey [30]
"The Azure Nebula," she murmured, barely more than a whisper. Neither the Doctor nor Kes heard her.
"Captain! Captain, are you all right?" the Doctor said sharply, in a tone clearly meant to shake her up. "Captain, come out of it! Are you all right?"
Janeway swallowed and choked out, "Yes ... yes ... fine. What happened?"
"Let's get him onto a bio-bed," the Doctor said. "Not you, Captain. I'll do it. You're still stressed. Sit there and give us a chance to examine him. You need to gain back your strength."
Obviously he knew something about how her
mind had reacted that Janeway didn't know. She didn't really care to know. Sense was gradually returning; she knew where she was, and why she was here.
So why were her hands still shuddering?
She still saw the Azure Nebula in her mind-Sulu and the Excelsior charging willfully toward the twisting mass of chemical blue. They'd gone right into it.
And that was when Tuvok had lost control over the meld. Why? What was it about that nebula?
She sat alone for several minutes, until the Doctor came to get her. He took her by the elbow and led her aside, while Kes stayed behind to tend Tuvok.
Kes looked very pale and worried as she gazed at Tuvok, her hand reaching out as though to give him a comforting pat, but her fingers only opening and closing fitfully without ever touching him.
"There was a sudden disruption in his hippocampus," the Doctor said. "Luckily, he was in sickbay, or he'd be in a coma right now."
He leaned to one side and checked a monitor, then frowned.
"That's the good news. The bad news is that his synaptic pathways are continuing to degrade. If the repressed memory keeps resurfacing on its own, it's going to cause more and more damage. Eventually, his entire neural structure will collapse," he finished uneasily, "resulting in brain death."
Holograph or not, the Doctor didn't like saying that.
Janeway could barely control the twitch of
concern-fear-on her face as she glanced back at Tuvok. He seemed so uncharacteristically helpless . . .
"We were JUST starting to make some progress. We finally accessed the repressed memory. I saw Tuvok as a boy. And the girl on the precipice."
The memory disturbed her as if it were her own. She saw again the poor little girl's abject terror, bolting through Tuvok's thoughts into her own, a perception so real and so utter than no one could simply imagine it without having actually seen it at some time or other.
Had it happened? Had Tuvok once clung to a Vulcan girl and let her fall?
But he was only a boy.
"Can I talk to him?" she asked.
"Not yet," the Doctor told her. "He suffered a severe neural trauma, so I'm keeping him sedated for the next few hours. I'll let you know when it's safe to revive him."
Part of her was relieved. The rest-she just wanted to get back in there and get this over with.
She managed her best commandatorial nod, turned, and headed for the door.
Suddenly she stopped and spun around. "I know what it was!"
The Doctor and Kes both looked up. "Pardon me?" the Doctor said.
"I know what set off this episode!"
"Yes?"
"We were on board the Excelsior, and we were just approaching the Azure Nebula!"
"Azure . . . you mean-"
"Yes! It was very similar to the sirillium nebula we tracked when all this started! Doctor, could the color blue be a factor? Is that possible?"
"Well," the Doctor began, his animated eyes working, "I am familiar with a few cases in which chromatic stimulus had resulted in epileptic-type reactions or set off abnormal activity. That tendency has been a tried-and-true method of mind control, often used in espionage."
"Doctor, are you making a suggestion?"
"That Mr. Tuvok might be a pawn in some larger scheme? Of course, you will have to make that judgment, barring any physical proof. But I'll run some tests, if you like."
"Yes, do that. A clue is a clue." She tapped her commbadge. "Janeway to Kim."
"Kim here, Captain."
"Ensign, I want you to call up any data we have on the Azure Nebula