String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [50]
With no ready alternative, he chose to heed what he hoped was the voice of some sort of higher reasoning. He accepted the pain, and in that same moment, its power vanished.
“I am sorry,” Naviim said as the pain subsided. “The transition before you will be difficult at times. As you see, acceptance is the easiest course. We would not have you suffer unnecessarily.”
“What have you done to me?” Tuvok demanded.
“We have done nothing. Though we are all capable of sharing the gift with you, we would never force it upon you without your consent, as it was forced upon us. But there is one among us who does not share our ability to make such distinctions. We allowed it to pass the gift along, as the only means to guarantee the continuation of your existence. We were grateful that you came. It would have been wrong for such a noble impulse to end in oblivion.”
“Will you stay with me?” Tuvok asked.
“You will pass into darkness soon,” Naviim replied. “As your body dies it will be difficult for us to continue this communication. But do not be afraid. We will not leave you, and when you awaken to your new existence, I and the others will be here to greet you. We await that moment with joy.”
With those words, Naviim vanished.
Tuvok turned again to the plain below. The battle was over. Vague, shapeless masses were strewn about the field. Many appeared to be in the final throes of death. The light around him began to fall. The field was bathed in deep purple gauze. In the distance, Tuvok saw a figure, rising from among the dead. A fierce wail, equal parts agony and defiance, rocked the earth beneath Tuvok’s feet. The sound was everywhere, within and around him, searing heat that threatened to pull him apart.
Phoebe left sickbay as quickly and unobtrusively as she could, leaving the Talaxian and the hybrid girl’s mother sitting their uneasy vigil. As she made her way back to engineering, she realized that she had fallen into an old habit, underestimating humanoids. Having spent so much time among the life-forms of this dimension, she had grown used to thinking of them as lesser beings.
It hadn’t started out that way. When she had made a choice to turn her back on the Others, she had done it with a firm sense of the possibilities that this dimension would hold. For thousands of years she had marveled at the complexity of life, and its seemingly limitless potential. But their tendency toward sameness, the mistakes she had seen countless different races make time and again, as if they had no interest or intention of learning from the wisdom of others, or even their own histories, had gradually soured her on the experience.
She had yet to encounter a humanoid species that even approached the limits of their own abilities. They evolved at a torturously slow rate, and were hindered, of course, by their mortality. Though it was true that Phoebe and her kind were “mortal” in a sense, their life span could be extended almost to infinity if the proper measures were taken.
She had made the same early mistakes as many of those who had once shared her passion for exploration. She had intervened in the normal development of countless life-forms, helping them enhance their natural abilities, artificially extending their life spans, restructuring their environments to make them more hospitable to their evolution.
But time and again, she had been disappointed.
Perhaps the Others had been right about that much. The consequences of interference could be harsh, but to simply witness senseless death and wasted potential seemed equally inappropriate. Why exist, if one’s existence did not make a difference?
But she was still a long way from accepting the choice of the Others. Every moment still held the possibility that another solution to their mutual problem might exist. She had no intention of giving up, but she had long ago concluded that no humanoid life-forms would play any role in the ultimate solution. If her current circumstance