The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [18]
“Janeway, you’re like a damaged data loop, endlessly repeating yourself,” snapped Montgomery. “I have reasons and orders for doing what I’m doing, and while your compassion for your crew does you credit, I think you’re just a little bit biased in this particular situation. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“I’m getting mighty tired of that phrase being thrown up as an excuse,” said Janeway. “So you’re going to keep two people imprisoned who could very well be innocent, knowing that they face the possibility of insanity and death?” she pressed, wanting him to say it himself.
“Yes, damn it, yes, for the good of the Earth!”
“And you’re going to lobotomize a being that could [52] very well help you stop the virus simply because you think he might be involved in an uprising?”
“We need to make an example. You’ve seen what a simple strike can do. Eight people are now dead. We’ve got to stop this thing before Baines can get any deeper into our systems.”
“Thank you, Admiral. That’s what I wanted to hear. Janeway out.”
She took a perverse delight in the shocked, insulted look on Montgomery’s face as she touched the control panel. Janeway looked over at Data, standing to her left, out of Montgomery’s view.
“Well, Mr. Data? Will you join our merry little band of traitors and radicals?”
It was a long moment as she watched the android consider. “It is a difficult decision,” he said. “But ... I have learned the right ones often are.”
Like all of Baines’s modified holograms, the one wearing the face and body of Lieutenant Vassily Andropov had been designed to be confident, but not reckless. So when he walked into the correctional facility at 2100 hours, he moved with the same ease in his body as the real Andropov moved in his. He had thoroughly studied the man he was to impersonate, and had all his mannerisms, ticks, expressions, and even his slight Russian accent down perfectly. No one would know the difference.
Barbara Robinson, the other lieutenant who manned the first security entrance into the building, was already there, “a cup of coffee in her hand. She smiled at him.
[53] “Evening, Vassily,” she said.
“Evening, Barbara,” he replied. “How’s the coffee tonight?”
“Slightly more viscous than usual, but with that same bitterness we’ve grown to know and love,” she quipped, taking a sip.
The hologram chuckled. “Sounds about right,” he said. He stepped through the checkpoint as if he had done it a thousand times before, as if it was all routine, as if he was going to put his briefcase down and go for some coffee himself.
When the alarm sounded, he looked as startled as Robinson did.
“That’s weird,” said Robinson. “Try it again.”
Shrugging, the Vassily hologram stepped out, then stepped in again. A second time, alarms shrilled. Robinson shook her head and touched a few buttons, silencing the sound.
“Security here. What is your condition?”
“Code green,” she said. “False alarm. Lieutenant Andropov tripped the alarm.” Deftly she pressed control pads on her console. “There’s got to be a misalignment in one of the bioscanners—no, wait, both of them are malfunctioning. Damn it.”
The hologram groaned. “So I get to stand here for a few hours, is that it?”
Robinson grimaced sympathetically. “Sir, request permission to check him in manually.”
“Granted. Let him in and get him to work fixing the problem. We’re trying to sleep up here.” The hologram heard laughter in the background, met Robinson’s eyes, and grinned.
[54] “Will do, sir. I’ll let you know when we’ve corrected the problem. Robinson out.”
Still grinning, she reached for her tricorder. “Silly stuff, but hey, regs are regs.”
“I know. I could be an alien in disguise,” he said, as he permitted her to scan him. He was completely at ease.
She found what she expected to—that the figure before her was a flesh and blood human, particularly, one Vassily Andropov.