Atonement (23 page)

The Doctor shook his head slowly. “I honestly don't know,”
he finally allowed. “When I think of Seven now, I don't
remember
how I used to feel. I see her in flashes, fragments of moments, but the emotional context has vanished. I can no longer access the data required.”

For a fraction of a second, Cambridge found himself envying the hologram.

“How do you suggest we proceed?” the Doctor asked.

“Can we start by sitting?” Cambridge asked.

After a moment, the Doctor nodded. “Yes.”

FIFTH SHUDKA

It had taken Presider Cin almost two full days to advise Admiral Janeway that she had made a decision on the Seriareen matter.

Within hours of their last meeting, General Mattings had advised the admiral that the
Manticle
had been stripped of its weapons and tactical systems, and its crew had been released from their holding cells. They had departed the area at best possible speed but it was hard to guess how soon they might bring word of their defeat back to the Devore.

Apparently determining Lsia's fate had been more difficult. Mattings stood beside Cin's desk as she welcomed Janeway and Chakotay to the
Shudka.

“I am willing to accept your assurances that you can contain any threat posed to my people by the Seriareen and am ready to release them to your custody,” Cin said as soon as Chakotay and the admiral had taken their seats.

Chakotay should have felt a certain amount of relief when Presider Cin issued her verdict. But it surprised him too much for that. He would have bet anything that after their last conversation, the Confederacy would have opted to execute the prisoners over Janeway's objections. But somehow, Cin's decision didn't feel like progress.

“You are unwilling to grant them access to your territory in order to determine whether or not their homeworld still exists here?” Janeway asked.

“It
does not,” Cin assured her. “Any investment of resources spent confirming that would be a waste. Our time and yours is much too valuable for that.”

“Should my people find any evidence of Seriar's location using independent data, would you permit my vessels to search for it?” Janeway asked. “We would, of course, restrict ourselves to any streams you designate or bypass them completely and use our slipstream drives to conduct our research.”

Cin's eyes hardened. “
Voyager
and
Galen
are holding position outside the Gateway. You've indicated that the
Vesta
was dispatched to locate
Demeter.
While we expect one of your vessels to return our overseer of agriculture to us, at this time, there is no need for any other Federation ships to return to the Confederacy. Should your travels bring you back to this area of space at some future point,” Cin hastened to add, “we would hope you would alert us to your presence. We will always value your friendship and appreciate the opportunity for future cultural exchanges.”

“Just not
at this time
,” Janeway confirmed.

“Your visit has been more disruptive than I had anticipated,” Cin said. “We have learned a great deal and are grateful for all you have shared with us, but we require time to consider all that has transpired.”

“May I speak frankly, Presider?” Janeway asked.

“That has never been a challenge in the past,” Cin observed.

“Is this choice the result of internal pressures you are receiving from the Market Consortium?”

“Hardly,” Cin replied. “My former first consul is gathering support to turn me out of office, but this is not an attempt to secure my political future. I have weighed all of the options before me and determined the course I feel would be best for my people.”

“This isn't about politics,” Chakotay guessed. “It's about faith, isn't it?”

Cin's tentacles stiffened visibly but she did not reply immediately.

“Faith?”
Janeway asked.

“If Lsia was speaking the truth,
if
the Seriareen did use some ancient technology to create the streams, that revelation casts doubt on the very foundations of the Confederacy's faith in the Source,” Chakotay clarified. “I don't doubt your ability, Presider, to weather the coming political storms, but you are unwilling to risk the chaos that might result should this story become widely known.”

“It would be an intensely destabilizing force to our society,” Cin acknowledged.

Chakotay turned to Janeway. Not that long ago, their thoughts and actions had been in perfect accord. Most conversations had happened in shorthand. There was simply no need for two who knew each other as well as they did to speak when a gesture or even a glance communicated their intentions so completely.

That effortless connection had been disrupted when Kathryn left the fleet. Since her return, he had glimpsed it, but begun to doubt that they could recapture it. They seemed to constantly be finding themselves at cross-purposes.

But not now
. The edges of Kathryn's lips curved slightly upward, mirroring his. He had been the first to grasp the truth behind Cin's reticence, but once he had hit upon it, Kathryn had seen the only possible rebuttal as clearly as he did. She also understood that of the two,
he
was, by far, the better choice to give voice to that rebuttal.

Go ahead,
he almost heard her think.

He paused. Cin had just given him what he wanted. Once
Demeter
was recovered, the fleet could depart the Confederacy, their prisoners in hand, and resume their current mission. Chakotay had decided after speaking directly with Lsia that the wisest course of action was to collect the remaining canisters from New Talax and send all of the Seriareen back to the Alpha Quadrant, where the resources existed to safely study them and perhaps rescue their hosts. He had never wanted to see them executed, but hadn't expected the Confederacy to be so accommodating.

The problem was that Cin's decision to simply wash her hands of a complicated problem because of parochial, ignorant fear, revealed Chakotay's inclination as little better. Hoist on his own petard, Chakotay began by shifting his gaze to General Mattings. “Do you agree with the presider's decision?” he asked.

Mattings's shoulders tensed visibly. “It is not my place to question the presider's choices,” he began. “Personally, if I may?” he asked of Cin.

She nodded for him to continue.

“While the potential impact of the Seriareen's claims would be disruptive, I think we owe it to ourselves to see if they are speaking the truth.”

“Their truth would make lies of the beliefs that have built and sustained our Confederacy,” Cin argued.

“No, they wouldn't,” Chakotay said simply. “I have yet to encounter a system of faith that can long endure when its followers insist upon clinging to literal interpretations of its tenets. I have seen many, however, that may begin with the literal, but evolve in the light of scientific discovery and scrutiny to something much richer. You look to the Source for guidance and truth. My people have a larger, more eclectic pantheon of spirits that offer the same deeper insights into the mysteries of existence. Whether or not the Source actually carved the streams of the great river is as irrelevant as whether or not a raven impregnated a woman with a child that demanded the stars, the moon, and sun as playthings and then threw them out of the smoke-hole of its cave into the heavens.

“Your people have understood for centuries that
something
beyond the normal experience of day-to-day life calls them to live with compassion and respect for one another. The Source brings a sense of order to the chaos all around you. Does it matter if it built the streams through its own divine purpose or inspired the hearts and minds that built the technology to serve that purpose?”

“It matters a great deal if the hearts and minds belonged to megalomaniacal aliens who claim the Source's powers for their
own without offering credit or even thanks to the being that inspired them,” Cin argued.

“Does it?” Chakotay asked. “Is the Source so fragile that it requires gratitude? Or is it beyond such petty, temporal needs? The Source
is,
just as the gods of my fathers
are,
whether we worship them or not. They don't need us nearly as much as we need them.”

Cin's eyes shifted under Chakotay's gaze, finally settling upon those of General Mattings.

“Do you agree, General?”

Mattings nodded somberly. “I admit, my faith has never been all my parents desired, but it has sustained me through some very dark times. To
know
more would not diminish that. To understand the Source as a living entity, still capable of and intent upon revealing itself to us, might actually bring our people closer to it. To refuse to even ask the questions doesn't feel right. Are we the Source's children, only capable of walking in limited light? Or does it call us to live in the full brilliance of enlightenment? That the Seriareen did not know the Source does not trouble me. They were warped by their own selfish desires and dared to call their arrogance truth. But they were ultimately brought low. You fear what they might show us. I wonder what we might show them.”

Cin sighed deeply. “I
am
afraid,” she began, but stopped herself. Finally she said, “But policy should not be born of fear.”

“No, it shouldn't,” Janeway agreed.

“What do you suggest?” Cin asked warily.

The admiral smiled and made her proposal.

An hour later, the logistics had been settled. Janeway and Chakotay were escorted to the
Shudka
's shuttlebay, where their craft was waiting to ferry them back to
Voyager.

Once their course was set, Janeway said simply, “Thank you.”

Chakotay nodded, then asked, “Why is this so much harder now?”

Janeway shrugged. “We know the Confederacy too well to trust their motives.”

“I wasn't
actually talking about the mission.”

“Oh.”

After a lengthy silence, Chakotay said, “Do you think we made a mistake?”

Janeway turned and met his eyes. “No.”

Chakotay felt the knots in his stomach loosen ever so slightly. “Okay,” he said.

The last few minutes of their journey back to
Voyager
were spent in amicable, if heavy, silence.

VESTA

“Anything?” Captain Regina Farkas asked of Ensign Jepel, her operations officer.

“Long-range scans remain inconclusive, Captain,” Jepel replied.

Given the fleet's history at the Ark Planet and the developments at the Gateway over the past few days, Captain Farkas had opted to survey the system
Demeter
had returned to from deep within the cloaked parsec of space that was the purview of the ancient protectors. Backtracking along
Voyager
and
Demeter
's previous course exiting the system would have likely put her ship directly in the path of a number of vessels that were now traveling with concerning regularity through the area.

The new ships followed a predictable path, beginning at the termination of a transwarp corridor several million kilometers outside the cloaked area and moving briskly past the Ark Planet's system. Farkas had no idea where they were going. Should they approach the Gateway they would be destroyed. Once the Confederacy had all but decimated the
Kinara
it stood to reason that their reinforcements would recon the area. They probably had some new rendezvous point beyond the long-range sensor capabilities of the CIF vessels at the Gateway and were regrouping.

All of the vessels detected thus far were Turei, Vaadwaur, and Devore. Farkas hoped that the
Lightcarrier
had succeeded in apprising the Skeen, Karlon, Muk, and Emleath of the truth
about their allies and that everyone had seen the last of them, at least for a while.

It had taken several extra hours, but Farkas had patiently spent them allowing her ship's sensors, modified with enhancements installed by
Voyager
, to render accurate astrometrics readings of the cloaked parsec. The captain ordered the slipstream engine on a course that would bring them within scanning range of the system but beyond the notice of anyone else traveling through the area.

As soon as they had arrived, they were scanned by a local protector. Apparently that scan designated them as friendly, and
Vesta
had otherwise been left alone as they began their search for
Demeter.

“Captain,” Malcolm Roach, Farkas's first officer began, “I wonder if we are going about this the wrong way.”

“I am, as always, open to suggestions, Commander,” Farkas replied.

“If we assume
Demeter
arrived safely within the system, the protectors would be aware of it.”

“One would think.”

“Perhaps we should simply ask them for any intelligence they have on
Demeter.
”

Farkas grinned. “We have all of Lieutenant Kim's communications protocols loaded. I'm a little wary, however, of the potential response. They might give us a set of coordinates, or they might initiate direct telepathic contact. I'd just as soon avoid the latter. But if we ask, we don't get to choose how they answer.”

“Too much information could be unpleasant,” Roach agreed. “But given the wave forms' cloaking capabilities, we might not have another choice. We could be right on top of them as we speak and not know it.”

“If
Demeter
is out here and they detected us, I imagine
they
would initiate contact,” Farkas said.

“What if they can't?” Roach asked. “They could have come under attack and been damaged.”

“And we don't exactly have the rest of our lives to wait, do we?”
Farkas asked rhetorically. After a moment's consideration she said, “Jepel, let's summon a local protector and see if they feel like talking.”