Part 16 (1/2)
Nineteen.
SHE WAITED.
Somewhere in what remained of the solar system that had once been home to Species 5618, the Borg Queen, the One Who Was All, waited.
And listened.
All around her, their rudimentary thoughts an incessant, mind-numbing murmur she never dared entirely block out, billions of drones on the remnants of nine worlds, scores of moons, and thousands of asteroids carried out their unending synchronized tasks, slowly but inexorably bringing into being the greatest single Borg armada of all time.
Like all the others of her kind left behind in the Delta Quadrant, she had no name that she could remember or wanted to remember. She had once had a name, of course. Or, more accurately, the organic sh.e.l.l that had once housed the intricately interconnected collection of nerve cells that had been her pathetically isolated pre-a.s.similation brain had once had a name. For centuries, however, there had been no reason to recall that name, or even to acknowledge that it had ever existed.
Unlike other Queens, however, this one had discovered during the early centuries of her existence that, with or without a name, she had ambitions. Those ambitions of course did not conflict with the overriding ambition of all Queens to bring the Borg Collective ever closer to perfection. That would be unthinkable. Her ambitions were supplementary to that overriding, collective-wide ambition. She in fact saw them as being solely in the interests of achieving that perfection more quickly, with less risk to the collective. That she withheld knowledge of certain of her plans from those parts of the collective outside her own matrix did not strike her as traitorous, nor did the mere fact that she was able to confine that knowledge to her own matrix strike her as strange. The time to share her plans would be when they had reached fruition, when the unprecedented size and success of her matrix would alone prove the rightness and efficiency of her methods.
Such secrecy had, after all, been virtually forced upon her. It had been the only way she could put her ideas to the test, the only way she would ever be able to use those ideas in order to better serve the collective's drive toward perfection. When those ideas had first begun to come to her, centuries before she had discovered the trick of keeping occasional thoughts within the confines of her matrix, the stultifying disapproval that spread glacially throughout the collective made it obvious that no idea of hers would ever be considered, let alone implemented. With thousands of races already successfully a.s.similated, with more being a.s.similated all the time, it was utterly obvious to the collective that no fundamental changes were needed.
But she knew better. She had known better for more than three hundred years, ever since the failure with Species 874, which had, despite all her matrix's efforts, chosen death over a.s.similation. From that supremely disappointing moment on, she had known: The old ways were not the best ways if they resulted in the loss of even one species. Changes were needed.
One particular way, she soon came to believe, was very far from being the best way. In the name of short-term efficiency, all drones were programmed to do specific tasks, sometimes many specific tasks. Included in that programming were parameters defining all objects and beings the drones needed to interact with in order to successfully carry out those tasks. In order to carry out those tasks in the most efficient manner possible, they needed to be s.h.i.+elded from distractions. Therefore, they were programmed not only to do their a.s.signed tasks but to ignore all distractions, ”distractions” being defined as anything falling outside the parameters of the objects and beings they were programmed to interact with.
In short, if a drone didn't need a particular object for the immediate task at hand, it literally would not notice that object's presence. The images of the excluded objects would form in the inputs to a drone's optical system but would go no further, never reaching the brain of the drone, let alone that of the Queen and the hive mind that was the collective.
As a result, alien s.h.i.+ps that fell outside those parameters could move freely within the very shadow of a Borg s.h.i.+p, unnoticed unless they attacked and forcibly drew attention to themselves. Alien beings could move about inside Borg s.h.i.+ps, literally brus.h.i.+ng shoulders with millions of drones, and not be truly seen.
To remove that programming and allow drones to notice and interact with whomever and whatever they came in contact with would of course be disastrous. It had been attempted once in the early days of the collective, and the entire matrix that had been used as a test site had slowly and literally ground to a halt as more and more of the drones, long ago robbed of their ability to think independently, first fell behind in their a.s.signed tasks and then became essentially catatonic as they found themselves unable to cope with the insoluble puzzles created by having to deal with so many objects and beings unrelated to their tasks.
At the same time, the collective dared not fully restore the drones' ability to think independently, even if it were still possible. That would give each and every drone the capability of refusing to follow their programming, if only briefly. It would be like giving each individual cell in a muscle the option of whether or not to obey the signal from the brain telling that muscle to contract. It could only result in utter chaos, each and every cell in the muscle going its own way, sending the muscle into paralyzing spasms.
The idea she had shared with the collective centuries ago addressed that problem, perhaps not entirely solving it but at least alleviating it. The Collective, however, had ignored her and her idea almost as completely as drones ignored objects they were not programmed to notice.
But then she had stumbled upon the mental trick that allowed her to limit her thoughts to within her own matrix, keeping them secret from the rest of the collective, from the other queens and their matrices. At that point she realized she could test her idea-but not in the Delta Quadrant, where her matrix operated cheek by jowl with countless other matrices. In such close quarters there was far too much danger of discovery, and discovery would mean, at the very least, the end of the test, perhaps the loss of her matrix. Conceivably she could suffer the ultimate punishment: being purged from the collective's near-infinite memory banks, guaranteeing that even her thoughts and memories would be erased. It would be as if she had never existed.
But elsewhere, beyond the Delta Quadrant...
In a small s.h.i.+p with only a few dozen drones from her matrix, she had used abandoned transwarp conduits to make repeated trips over the next two centuries to both the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, selecting several pre-s.p.a.ce worlds and transforming them gradually into worlds that would, all unknowing, act as eyes for the Borg-or at least for her own matrix when and if it arrived in their part of the galaxy.
But then, as if delivered up by some trickster G.o.d, had come Species 1429 and a technology that seemed to render all those carefully prepared worlds superfluous. Suddenly all the work she had invested in those worlds was transformed into a total waste of her resources.
Or so she had thought at the time, and so she had thought when she prematurely abandoned them and left them to their own primitive devices.
A hundred years later, she had learned how wrong she was. The first time she had attempted to use the technology of Species 1429 for anything other than test runs, something had gone wrong. She had no idea what had gone wrong, or why. All she knew was that the technological legacy of Species 1429 was not the panacea she had envisioned and that, except in the direst of emergencies, she dared not make use of it again.
The mishap had, however, presented her with a new and perhaps even greater opportunity than the one she had lost. And to make sure this one wasn't lost, she had cautiously reestablished contact with the worlds she had abandoned. They became once again her first line of defense against the unpredictability of this peculiar corner of the galaxy.
One had already proven its worth, bringing information that would, when the time came, save billions of drones, perhaps the entire Borg armada, perhaps even herself.
And so she continued to wait.
And to listen...
Picard was barely able to maintain his neutral expression as the grainy, D'Zidran-relayed image on the Enterprise viewscreen steadied and he recognized the face staring solemnly out at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Guinan was volunteering no help, only watching with a deceptively disinterested look. He a.s.sumed that the other Guinan was presenting a similarly inscrutable exterior to Tal as the two of them watched and listened on the otherwise deserted bridge of the D'Zidran.
”Do you know me as well, Picard?” Sarek asked without preamble. The Vulcan's features looked considerably younger than when Picard had last seen them not long before Sarek's death seventy-odd years in this world's future, but there was also a haggard look he had never seen on that other Sarek's face, not even when he knew he was dying.
”I do, Amba.s.sador Sarek,” Picard said, inclining his head minimally in a gesture of respect.
”'Amba.s.sador...'Yes, that is what I understand Sarek is in your universe. Here I am Supreme Arbiter of the Alliance.”
”I was told you had found Captain Scott.”
”Indeed. He is with me now. Is he the only Terran you are searching for?”
Picard hesitated before answering cautiously. ”He is the only one whose presence in this universe I am aware of.”
”There is no need to continue the pretense that you are from an alternate universe, Picard. Captain Scott has admitted what I will a.s.sume for the moment to be the truth: that you and he are both from the future, though not one which I would recognize.”
”I see,” Picard said, though he obviously didn't. ”May I speak with Captain Scott?”
”In a moment, Picard. First, tell me how you came to be here.”
”But you said you knew that we- ”
”That you come from the future, yes. That tells me little. Please explain how and why.”
”So you can compare my story to Captain Scott's?”
”Would you not do the same?”
Picard nodded. He would indeed, though perhaps not as openly. As quickly as he could, he explained. When he finished, Sarek gave a barely discernible nod.
”Let me be certain I understand, Picard. You followed Captain Scott into his so-called slingshot maneuver and arrived here, in this timeline, approximately three days ago.”
”Precisely,” Picard said. ”We knew something was drastically wrong the moment we saw Borg s.h.i.+ps in the area.”
”From your vantage point, then,” Sarek continued, ”there has been no major change in this timeline since you arrived. Is that correct?”
”It is. What- ”
”And you yourself made no more such maneuvers? You traveled to no other times since your arrival?”
”We did not,” Picard said. ”We a.s.sumed Captain Scott himself had made a second maneuver, further into the past. Or that he had overshot, perhaps hundreds of years. We could see no other explanation for the presence of the Borg.”
”Captain Scott a.s.sumed the same about you.”
Picard frowned. ”If both of us came directly here and stayed here, then how did this timeline come to be?”
Sarek stepped back, motioning to someone out of range of the screen. ”I have my own opinion,” he said, ”but I will allow you to discuss the matter with Captain Scott.”
A moment later Scott stepped into range of the screen, followed by a second man, this one wearing a smudged and slightly torn Starfleet dress uniform from the late twenty-third century. Picard didn't immediately recognize the man's grim features despite a look of nagging familiarity. The man's eyes widened as he looked past Picard to take in the rest of the bridge.