String Theory_ Cohesion (Book 1) - Jeffrey Lang [83]
Interesting woman, he thought, and was suddenly struck by how she reminded him in some ways of Kes. Not as kind or as gentle, he concluded. But there’s something…
Seven of Nine was irritated. Having shaken off the calming influence of the nanoprobes, Torres was now being as difficult as ever, insisting on making all the decisions concerning the repairs to the shield control generator. Apparently, Pad, the Monorhan who had attached the explosive charge to the panel, had used more than he knew. His intention had been to surprise, not to injure meddlers or damage their work. When Seven had observed to Kaytok that a simple alarm may have been more effective, he had ducked his head and said, “You don’t know Pad.”
“Bring that lamp over here,” Torres called. “I can’t see what I’m doing.”
“As I explained earlier,” Seven said, “you must will your eyes to use the available light.”
“I don’t like how everything looks then. There’s a kind of shimmer around objects.”
“Because you let the spectral analysis bleed in. Learn to control yourself.”
“Hey, how about you just hold the light over here and then I won’t have to.” Unbelievably, Seven found she was being drawn away from where she had been working toward Torres.
“Stop!” Seven called and dragged herself back. “I will not be violated in this manner.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Torres bellowed. “Just get over here. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can get moving.”
Seven continued to resist the compulsion to approach Torres. “Why not allow the Monorhans to do their own repairs?”
“Because they might screw it up.”
“It is their machinery!” Seven insisted, taking a step back to where she had been working.
“And it’s going to have to merge with our machinery.” Seven’s foot slid back toward Torres.
“Please stop that!”
“Ow! Hey! I pinched my hand! And, hey, what are you doing?! I can’t move my hand!”
Ah! Seven thought. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander! She stopped and looked at the tool in her hand and wondered at the alien thought. Where did that come from?
Backing out of the panel, Torres appeared to be ready to throw the microspanner at Seven’s head and was only confounded by the fact that she did not appear to be able to unclench her fist from around it. “What’s going on? How are you controlling me like this?”
Seven stood her ground when Torres approached, but only barely. “It is not me,” Seven said. “We are both responsible. The link makes it difficult to be in disagreement.”
“Then how the hell do Borg even…” She held up her hands in surrender. “Never mind. I already know the answer. Borg never disagree about anything, right?”
“A collective mind cannot argue with itself.”
“But we can,” Torres said, studying her hand as she flexed the fingers. “I knew I was going to hate this.”
A surge of rage climbed Seven’s spine. “You hate this!? You!? What about me? What about…?” And then she stopped, aware that she had clenched and raised her fist above her head. With her augmented physiology, a blow to the engineer’s head would certainly render her unconscious, if not outright kill her. A small voice in the back of Seven’s head said, Good!
“Go ahead,” Torres said. “Try it.” Seven looked up at the engineer’s flinty gaze and was surprised—actually surprised—by what she saw there. Torres knew what Seven was thinking—if not in detail, then certainly in broad strokes. “You might be fast enough. I know you’re strong enough. But keep this in mind if you miss.” She held up her tool in a manner that Seven found genuinely intimidating. “I know how to take machines apart.”
Feeling the unaccustomed rage subside, Seven said simply, “I am not a machine.” Then, focusing her gaze on the ridges of the appliance around Torres’s left eye, she said, “At least, no more than you are.”
With her free hand, Torres reached up and touched the flesh around her eye socket,