The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [12]
“Admiral,” he said, “You’ve got to get Data on our side. Starfleet can’t keep excluding us. And by us I mean the Doctor and Seven and Icheb. Especially if what this person is saying is true, that there’s a conspiracy involving the appearance of Borg on Earth.”
“This whole thing could be some kind of elaborate setup, Harry,” said Janeway. “You do realize that?”
“I do. But what if it’s true? Can we afford to just ignore it?”
Janeway shook her head. “No, we can’t. If there’s anyone who’d be angrier that someone in Starfleet was actually helping the Borg assimilate Earth more than myself or my crew, it’s Picard. Don’t mention this to anyone, Harry, not even anyone else from Voyager until I tell you. That’s an order.”
Oddly, Harry smiled. It was good to hear Janeway giving him an order again.
“Aye, ma’am,” he said.
The nights were the hardest, Seven thought.
The people who guarded them dimmed the lights, as if any of the three prisoners would be able to sleep. Things quieted down, and Seven’s body screamed louder for regeneration than at any other time. During [35] the day, she could force her exhaustion away. She had visits to Dr. Kaz to keep her mind occupied; they were daily now, sometimes two or three times a day, depending on how well or badly her body was handling the situation. There was the occasional visit, too, from Janeway, Chakotay, and Tuvok to divert her. The Doctor did his best to keep them entertained, but the constant strain was affecting even the hologram.
But at night, all efforts at pretense were revealed as the hopeless straws they were. Conversation wound down and they all sat silently in their cells, the hologram and the two former Borg. Seven and Icheb would close their eyes and lie down upon their beds. Even if they could not sleep as normal humans did, even if they could not regenerate as the Borg needed to, they had been told by both the Doctor and Kaz that simply resting the body and trying to quiet the mind would help. At least a little, Kaz had told her, looking miserable. And “little” was the operative word.
She wondered how long it would take before her body shut down completely. She had gone for several days before without regeneration, but that had been aboard Voyager, usually when there was some pressing emergency that, in her mind at least, required her to stay functional. But now there was nothing to divert her mind from gnawing at the same worry: How long would it last? Would they let Icheb regenerate when he collapsed into unconsciousness? Would they let her do so when she started raving like a madwoman?
She knew the signs to look for: increased appetite, a drop in body temperature, shakiness, headaches, increased pain sensitivity. She was experiencing all of [36] these physical effects of total sleep deprivation, and the psychological effects—irritability, poor concentration, apathy, paranoia, among others—were also starting to manifest.
Icheb was suffering, too. Just today he’d told her that he was having perceptual disturbances and he’d had a long conversation with someone who wasn’t there. Seven knew that the Vulcan “interrogator” had “examined” Icheb, too, and wondered why they didn’t just let him go. He was just a boy. He’d only even been an active Borg for a little while.
She watched him as he lay on his pallet, longing to reach out and stroke his hair but afraid of waking him.
He made a soft, rumbling sound. She started to her feet immediately and was about to reach for him when the Doctor’s sharp whisper interrupted her.
“Don’t, Seven!”
She turned to look at him. “He may be choking!” she shot back, also in a whisper.
To her surprise, the Doctor smiled. “That’s not choking. That’s snoring.”
She continued to look at him blankly.
“Don’t you understand?” he said, still whispering. “He’s asleep. Icheb has fallen asleep.”
Seven turned back to stare at the boy. His chest was rising