Seven of Nine - Christie Golden [12]
"Certainly. Ramirez?"
Ramirez smiled at the small band. He saw the strength in their faces, the wisdom in their eyes, and was fiercely glad that Janeway had decided to lend them a hand. As he turned to lead them to Cargo Bay One, he thought he smelled the faint scent of mangos ripening on the tree.
Seven of Nine was suddenly aware of a tremendous weariness. She stumbled backward, blinking. Where was she? This was not her alcove in Cargo Bay Two.
Nor was it the familiar, sterile environment of sickbay, fast becoming the place where she seemed to spend most of her time.
It had to be the holodeck. But what program? She certainly hadn't designed one, and it looked nothing like the few she had visited with Janeway or, once, with Harry Kim. The grass was purple. And before her was She felt a flicker of alarm. Before her was a three meter-high carving of a female humanoid. She recognized Species 407. She fought back panic with the words that had brought comfort before: Species 407.
Advanced technology, but a race with a disproportionate interest in its culture and art rather than its science.
Resistance was minimal Their biological and technological distinctiveness...
The words faded from her mind as she stared at the carving. The female was elderly. Its seven-fingered hands were gnarled, but in one she grasped a simplified image of a sun, in the other, a moon. The face showed what the humans called "character." It was strong, but soft.
Seven knew it. It was she.
"No," she whispered. She glanced down at her hands, saw the five fingers, the implants. She wasn't that woman. Druana, a voice said softly inside her head. And yet She sank down, her legs no longer supporting her, and curled up into a fetal position. The four black birds kept her company, though she did her best to ignore them.
In the course of human history, one of the things that most terrified that race was a fear of going insane.
The colorful phrase that cropped up was "losing one's mind," as if a mind were something concrete that could be placed down and then forgotten. Twenty fourth century medicine had been able to prevent or successfully treat most diseases of the brain. The dreadful threat of "insanity," laden with its primal horror, had diminished, though it was still a possibility.
As Seven went over everything that had happened to her, she could not shake the conviction that such a catastrophe was happening to her.
There seemed to be no reason for her "visions." There had been no signal from the Borg, no trigger for a repressed memory.
Besides, these scenarios were obviously not her own memories. They seemed to have no real connection to her, it was as if, for a brief time, she became someone else, lived their lives, enacted their dreams and fears, and channeled their creativity.
As before, her single eye welled with the wetness of tears. This alone was enough to convey to her that something powerful was occurring.
Seven of Nine did not weep. She forced her hands to unclench, and with fingers that trembled so badly it took two tries, pressed her commbadge.
"Seven of Nine to Sickbay." The words rasped against her throat.
"The Doctor here. Seven, what's wrong?"
The concern in his voice brought more tears. She looked again at the sculpture, the masterful self portrait of a self that was not her, done by hands that had no talent and no training.
"Doctor." She licked her lips, tried again. "Doctor.
I think-I think I am losing my mind."
"ALL RISE FOR His Most EXCELUNT WORTHINESS, Emperor Beytek Nak-Sur the Seventh!"
The thirteen members of the lora, the advisory council to the Emperor, dutifully got to their feet as their leader entered the ornately decorated chamber.
The lora's leader, Xanarit Ilt la, watched his compatriots carefully out of the corner of his slit-pupiled eyes.