Homecoming - Christie Golden [87]
“I am aware of that.”
“I wish I could get them to be.” He pressed a hypo to her neck. It hissed gently, and her trembling stopped. But she was still unnaturally pale.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Steadier than she was when she entered, this time she declined assistance. She strode out of sickbay with her fair head held high.
Kaz watched her go, troubled by her suffering, then glanced at the chronometer. There were over forty more people to be examined, but they would have to wait. It was time for the daily briefing, something Kaz dreaded more and more with each passing day.
The memories of the poet that belonged to the symbiont inside him stirred with beautiful, aching words as he regarded the haggard faces of his colleagues as they filed into the briefing room, taking chairs in silence. The air crackled with tension, but no one spoke, no one grabbed a cup of coffee, nothing. Montgomery stood at the head of the room, his weathered face looking even [259] grimmer than usual, the lines on his face deeper than Kaz had seen them before.
“Everyone knows about the attacks of last week,” he said without preamble. “Baines claims full responsibility for them, which makes our job a bit easier. We’re going to have to take some steps. He complained that we didn’t react sufficiently to his little HoloStrike. Well, by God, we’re going to react now. I’ve put forth a request to have the program of every hologram on the level of the EMH Mark One altered. If we remove any knowledge of its situation, anything at all that prevents it from doing the menial jobs we want it to do, then we remove any interest in, desire for, or even comprehension of freedom. There’s no need for the Mark Ones to know about microsurgery, or opera, or anything other than how to scrub conduits and mine dilithium. It’s my understanding that this type of modification would be a simple task.”
While everyone else around him was nodding approval, Kaz stared in horror. When the words exploded, it took him a second to realize that he was the one who was uttering them.
“You’re talking the equivalent of a lobotomy for these programs!” he cried.
Montgomery fixed him with his fierce gaze. “You bet,” he said. “That’s exactly right. Keep them stupid and docile. Should have done that in the first place. I don’t know why their programmers kept that kind of programming intact at all once they reassigned them.”
“Will—will this affect Voyager’s Doctor?”
[260] “He’ll be the first one we do,” Montgomery said. “We’ll make an example of him.”
“You can’t do that! He has knowledge of the Borg that could help us cure this virus!”
Montgomery heaved an exaggerated sigh and folded his arms across his broad chest.
“You know, Dr. Kaz, I’m getting mighty tired of you telling me what I can and cannot do. Your position is a coveted one. You do your job well, but one more outburst like this one and you will be reassigned. Do we understand one another?”
Kaz swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he said, the words almost choking him.
“Good. Knowing how slowly the wheels turn, it will take some time before I get approval to proceed, more’s the pity. But at least we can start letting the public, and more importantly that bastard Baines, know what we’re planning.” He squared his shoulders. “And now to something a bit less pleasant.”
He turned and touched some controls on the wall. A large holographic image of a globe appeared, hovering in the air above the twenty or so people assembled. Everyone craned their necks to look up at it.
“We’ve finally been able to get some estimates on what we’re up against. We had an original outbreak of seven. Four children, two adults past the age of ninety, and one man suffering from Iverson’s disease.”
Seven small red dots appeared on various places around the globe—four in the northern hemisphere, three in the southern. There was no discernable geographic link.
[261] “Within two weeks, it had risen to twenty-three.”
The dots spread across the holographic representation of the Earth, some manifesting hundreds of kilometers