String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [68]
“I do. I want you to run a full neurological scan.”
“Of whom?” he asked, reaching toward a standard medical tricorder situated on a shelf behind his desk.
“Me,” she replied evenly.
“You appear to be in good health,” the Doctor said as he began the scan. “Are there any troubling symptoms you would like to share with me?”
“I believe that my memory may have been tampered with,” she replied.
“Very well,” he said. “I assume there are records of previous engrammatic scans in your medical file.”
He set the tricorder down and moved to his diagnostic panel to pull up images of the scan he had just completed and the last similar scan on record.
Janeway peered at the results over his shoulder. Though she was not as well versed as the Doctor in engrammatic analysis, it was obvious that there were significant discrepancies between the two scans.
“It appears your concerns are well grounded, Captain,” the Doctor said. “There are significant portions of your memory centers that have been displaced.”
“What does that mean?” Janeway asked.
“It means that your true memories, whatever they may be, are buried beneath a layer of artificially implanted memories. The good news is that if we can safely purge the implanted memories, you should recover your true memories almost instantly. If, for example…”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Janeway cut him off. “I want you to perform the same procedure on Mr. Neelix, Ensign Wildman, and Naomi.”
A few tense minutes later, the scans were complete and the results were telling.
“Mr. Neelix and Ensign Wildman have also had their memories tampered with; however, the young girl is unaffected,” the Doctor announced.
“Can you hypothesize as to why?” Janeway asked.
“Without more data as to the source of the altered engrams, it would be difficult,” the Doctor said simply. “There are many differences between your species which could account for… What is this?” the Doctor interrupted himself.
“What?”
“There is a subtle phase variation in the molecular structure of Naomi Wildman which she does not share with you, her mother, or Mr. Neelix. Can you account for this?”
A theory was formulating in Janeway’s mind and the Doctor’s discovery crystallized it. “Almost two years ago, the day Naomi was born, in fact, our ship encountered a subspace scission and every particle of matter on board was duplicated, including the crew. The Naomi who was born on this ship did not survive, but the duplicate child did, and before the other ship was destroyed, she was brought on board.”
The Doctor was nonplussed. “May I inquire again as to the nature of Voyager’s mission?” he asked. “You have no chief medical officer, you harbor duplicate crewmen and non-Starfleet personnel…”
“As I said, Doctor, our circumstances are unique. We were pulled into the Delta Quadrant against our will almost four years ago. We lost a number of our senior officers and in the course of our journey…”
“The Delta Quadrant!” the Doctor shouted.
“We are doing everything we can to return home as soon as possible!” Janeway snapped.
“And yet you had time to stop and investigate a subspace… what did you call it… scission?”
“We didn’t so much stop as run right into…” the captain tried to interject as the Doctor continued.
“Where are we now? Are we traveling at maximum warp on the shortest conceivable course back to the Alpha Quadrant?”
Janeway was about to end the discussion by once again deactivating the EMH when B’Elanna and Ensign Maplethorpe entered sickbay, carrying a faint Seven of Nine between them.
“Who is this woman?” the Doctor asked, as Seven was placed on the nearest biobed. “Is she another duplicate… or another alien we’ve picked up along the way?” After initiating a cursory scan he turned exasperated on the captain to say, “Are you aware that this woman has Borg implants?”
Curiosity furrowed the space beneath B’Elanna’s cranial ridges and the bridge of her nose, but she had no time to ask any of her obvious questions before Janeway said, “Report.”
“We found the Betasis, the Monorhan ship,” she said, “and Seven made contact