Flashback - Diane Carey [62]
Was it right to bring them out of the meld, only to plunge them back into the unsolved problem all over again?
Still, she understood all the technicals, but these kinds of decisions were mysterious to her. How did these people in charge know what was the right thing to do? Many times she'd seen the captain make decisions without knowing all the facts, without being sure how things would turn out. How did that happen?
On the monitors, the captain's and Commander Tuvok's brain patterns were virtually identical now. Though the patterns had settled down somewhat and the cortical monitors were no longer chirping in
electrical panic, there was something quite disturbing about the like nature of those two brain patterns. How could they have merged so much? These two people were of two separate species. Their brains could no more be alike than-
"Begin a twenty-kilodyne burst," the Doctor ordered. "Five-second duration. On my mark ... now."
Kes had barely made it to the console in order to carry out the directions on his mark.
The device on Tuvok's head lit up with a faint whine of energy, but this time very steady and controlled.
"It's working," the Doctor said. "Their neural patterns are starting to separate."
The main diagnostic console leaped to life with a particularly nerve-shattering alarm. The Doctor calmly checked the readings, as if he didn't believe what he was seeing. Kes waited-was there a malfunction?
"My God . . ." The Doctor looked, tapped the controls, looked again, and was even more confused.
"What is it?" Kes was prompted to ask.
"That's Tuvok's memory engram," the Doctor said, pointing at the monitor, "and that one is the captain's . . . but whose is this one?"
CHAPTER 17
CAPTAIN JANEWAY OPENED HER EYES AND THOUGHT THE meld had been broken.
So why was she standing in Voyager's auxiliary engineering area, where the younger officers were trained on specific equipment and simulators?
She and Tuvok had been in sickbay. She looked around. Where was he?
Oh-there.
In a nearby shadow cast by one of the tall reactant injection tanks.
At a training console, looking at a graph of-what was that? Oh-a warp speed to power ratio graph. The woman wasn't dressed in a Starfleet uniform, but instead wore a simple khaki cotton shirt and olive-green trousers, and a brightly patterned paisley silk scarf. On the deck beside her was a short brown
leather jacket. Her hair was short and brown, somewhat tousled, and she was on the thin side.
For a moment Janeway didn't recognize her.
But then B'Elanna Torres strode forcefully in from the forward section and impolitely demanded, "Well? Are you ready to try again?"
The woman pivoted around to her in the chair. "No! I'm not ready to try again! How many times do I have to fail at this?"
Torres held out an unappeasing hand. "Look, you're here because Captain Janeway told me to train you to the helm. It's not my fault or anybody else's if you just aren't up to absorbing the details."
"I never saw so many details! Where I come from, there's up and there's down! There's a directional beacon and long-distance equipment and a radio! Speed is something you can stick your hand out and feel. You can't go through 'time-space' with warp engine whatchamacallits! Our aircraft have a front and a back and propellers, and that is the limit!"
"Look," Torres fumed, "I'm trying to help you understand non-Newtonian physics and the cumulative force of warp field energy, but I guess you're just too spoiled to learn!"
"Spoiled? Spoiled? Do you know, do you have any idea, who you're speaking to?"
"Yes! A spoiled brat who can't learn the difference between a dilithium crystal and the rock she calls a head!"
Tuvok