Atonement (19 page)

Janeway admired the general's ingenuity. Nobody enjoyed an advantage here. They were all in the same transparent boat.

Presider Cin sat to Janeway's left, Chakotay on her right, his game face in place. Janeway allowed Cin to begin the conversation. “You indicated to Admiral Janeway that you believe your homeworld to be located in Confederacy space,” she said. “We have double-checked our records. There are no worlds now called Seriar, nor do our histories mention your world or your species. Who are the Seriareen?”

“I am Lsia. Devore Inspector Kashyk is called Emem. Magnate Veelo of the Turei is called Tirrit, and Commandant Dhina of the Vaadwaur is Adaeze,” Lsia replied. “We are almost all that remains of the Seriareen.”

“Didn't you say there were eight?” Cin asked of Janeway.

“One was destroyed, and the other three are still contained a long way away from here. We will retrieve them in due course,” Janeway advised her.

“Can you tell me exactly where your home was?” Cin demanded.

“Thousands of years ago, the stars that now surround us lit but a small fraction of our territory.”

“The canisters that contained your essences were held by a species that called themselves the Neyser. They told us you were their ancestors,” Chakotay said.

“We were,” Lsia said. “Seriareen space was vast, extending over tens of thousands of light-years and consisting of almost half of what you call the Delta Quadrant, or First Quadrant,” she added, nodding toward the presider. “Before we fell, those that allied themselves against us took the designation
Nayseriareen
. I believe ‘Neyser' is a bastardized version of that word.”

“How could you possibly have held territory that vast?” Janeway asked. “We've seen a fair bit of the Delta Quadrant in our travels and this is the first we have heard of your civilization.”

“You have already discovered the means by which we conquered and ruled,” Lsia replied. “You call them subspace corridors or streams. Many have claimed them in our absence. What time has forgotten is that
we
created them.”

“How?” Chakotay asked as Presider Cin blanched at this
revelation. The people of the Confederacy believed in an all-powerful entity they called the “Source,” and one tenet of their faith was that this Source had carved the subspace tunnels that allowed them to escape the Borg and build their civilization around the First World.

“Technology,” Lsia replied. “The tools we used to carve the corridors were the first target of the Nayseriareen. To defeat us, they had to eliminate our ability to travel vast distances in periods of time no starship could match.

“Once, the corridors were open to all that offered allegiance to us. Our enemies shattered our alliances by destabilizing as many corridors as they could find, ultimately capturing and destroying our technology.”

“But they couldn't kill you?” Chakotay asked.

“The Seriareen possessed many forms of advanced technology as well as unique telepathic abilities. Our natural life spans were very long compared to yours and most of the species we encountered. Continuity of leadership added stability to the territories we ruled. We came to believe that this stability could only be enhanced by extending our lives even further. After exhausting all medical means to sustain our bodies indefinitely, we accepted that eventually all physical beings would die. But our essence did not have to. We developed the ability to transfer our consciousness at the moment of our death to other beings.”

“Did those beings resist?” Chakotay asked.

Lsia shook her head. “You assume it was something to be feared. For those who would receive an ancient consciousness, it was something to be celebrated. Consciousness transfer was seen as a means to share in immortality. Contests of strength and intelligence were held to select those best suited for transfer. The lucky few who were chosen were envied by their peers.”

“Why few?” Janeway asked.

“Sustaining one's consciousness in a new form is difficult and a skill many attempted, but only the strongest mastered. Millions trained themselves to undergo transfer, but a very small percentage survived the process. If it could be successfully
accomplished once, it became easier. But still, by the end, only a few thousand existed that had lived more than one lifetime. We were the undisputed leaders of the Seriareen. We were exalted.”

“You make it sound like you were gods,” Chakotay said.

“To many, we appeared as such,” Lsia agreed. “In addition to hunting us to extinction, the Nayseriareen developed means to inhibit telepathic essence transfer,” Lsia went on. “They were able to destroy whatever form we inhabited while simultaneously preventing us from moving immediately to a new form.”

“I don't suppose you'd care to tell us how they did that?” Mattings asked.

Lsia smiled wanly. “To be honest, I never knew. By the time I realized it was even possible, it was too late to ask.”

“How many did the Nayseriareen capture?” Chakotay asked.

“I don't know,” Lsia replied. “When I escaped and took your hologram as my new form, I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn that only seven others remained with the Neyser. The ancient ones who hid The Eight believed we were the last. I have no idea what may have happened to the others.”

Janeway exchanged a worried glance with Chakotay before saying, “So you have come back to try and reclaim some of the space that was once yours?”

“No,” Lsia replied. “So many years later, any claim we might make would be dismissed out of hand, and rightly so. We were unable to hold what was once ours. It was taken from us by superior forces and, ultimately, lost to them as new powers rose to take their place.”

“You sound surprisingly resigned to your fate,” the presider noted.

“Thousands of years of contemplation of your life in a very small, dark place does wonders for one's perspective,” Lsia said wryly.

“If that is so, why have you joined forces with species that have a history of unprovoked attacks on the Confederacy's Gateway?” Mattings demanded.

“When I was first freed, I set about attempting to discover
how much of the Seriareen's past glory remained intact,” Lsia admitted. “I soon realized that only a fraction of the subspace corridors had survived. No species I encountered even remembered our names. I first sought out the Turei and Vaadwaur, given the descriptions of those encounters from
Voyager
's logs. They were not the most reasonable of species. I was forced to take extreme measures in order to learn how much of our subspace network remained intact and the identity of those controlling it.

“I first learned of the
Kinara
from the Turei. I decided that before I attempted to join forces with the
Kinara
, who have actually extended their explorations almost to the network's known limits, I would have to strengthen my negotiating position. The
Kinara
respect strength and numbers. The Confederacy was winning their conflict with the
Kinara
through attrition, so I brought Rigger Meeml forces he couldn't refuse to gain his trust.”

“Did Rigger Meeml speak the truth when he indicated that the
Kinara
only wished to explore the Confederacy's corridors and to access resources beyond their territory?” Cin asked.

“He did.”

“And did you share his goals?” Janeway asked.

“Yes, and no,” Lsia admitted. “The only way to confirm the limits of the subspace network was to access the Confederacy's streams. But I have no interest in anything that lies beyond Confederacy space. Based upon the
Kinara
's astrometrics charts, it is very likely that Seriar is within the space now claimed by the Confederacy. As I have been unable to discover anything of my people's fate since my incarceration, I hope to find the answers I seek there.”

“And then do what?” Janeway asked.

“I do not believe we could resume residence there,” Lsia admitted. “Fighting throughout my planet's system was fierce and terribly destructive. Many of the weapons used rent savage holes in the fabric of space and subspace. Even thousands of years later, I doubt time has repaired all that was damaged.

“You
might think me sentimental,” Lsia continued, “but before I can look for a new road down which to guide those of us who remain, I must know how the old road ended.”

Janeway looked to Chakotay and Cin, both of whom seemed to share the same healthy skepticism.

“If all you wanted was information, you might have simply asked,” Mattings noted.

“Forgive me, General, but it is my understanding from the
Kinara
that your Confederacy refused to even discuss the desires of races you deemed inferior until we amassed a force capable of defeating you on the field of battle.”

“In the past that might have been true,” Cin allowed. “But I have committed myself and my people to a new, more open path.”

“Still, many questions remain unanswered,” Janeway noted.

“Such as?” Lsia asked.

“One member species of the Federation shares something in common with the Seriareen,” Janeway began. “The Trill are a joined species, a humanoid host and a symbiotic life-form that merges with that host to create a new individual. The host retains a certain amount of autonomy, but the symbiont brings the memories of each past host to the joining. The
continuity
you spoke of is assured in this way. It is an unusual arrangement, but our long association with the Trill has given us a certain appreciation for the fact that a species could develop a desire and reverence for the process of transferring actual consciousness from one generation to the next, and that those receiving the transfers would accept the loss of complete individuality in exchange for what they consider an enhanced existence.

“Based upon what I have seen, however,” Janeway continued, “your hosts remain conscious of your presence within them and seem incapable of offering resistance.”

“Once a transfer is complete, the memories, consciousness, the very
essence
of the host, is displaced by ours. Some vestige of it remains, but it cannot resume control of its body while we inhabit it, and we remain trapped within it until its death.”

“While
we were aboard the
Manticle,
you spoke a single word that allowed Inspector Kashyk to temporarily subsume Emem,” Janeway said. “Another word from you put an end to that struggle.”

“During the ritual of transfer, which I performed for Emem, Tirrit, and Adaeze, ancient words of power are invoked as triggers to alert the transferring essence in the unlikely event a new host becomes unstable. Those words are unique to each transfer and temporarily halt the integration. What I did—
to stop Emem from murdering you, Admiral
—was to briefly loosen his hold upon the host. Emem was forced to struggle for control with an unwilling host, distracting him from his previous intention. But even had I not reversed that command, Kashyk would never have survived Emem's release. There is simply not enough of him left, and what little remains has probably been driven mad by his new reality. Emem would have sought refuge in another body—probably
yours—
and Kashyk's body would have died.”

Janeway wasn't sure if she didn't believe this, or simply didn't
want
to believe it.

“I don't expect you to understand or approve of our history,” Lsia continued, “but I speak the truth when I say that the ancient Seriareen welcomed the transfers, even though it meant the loss of their individuality and autonomy.”

“This isn't the first time you have told us the story of your people's past,” Chakotay interjected. “You painted a very pretty picture of the Indign's history for Captain Eden before you betrayed us and stole our shuttle.”

“I told you enough of the truth to eliminate the need for hostilities between yourself and the Indign,” Lsia argued. “I was displeased to find the Neyser, pale reflections of their once-great ancestors, living in cooperation with so many lesser species. One does not wish to judge unfairly, but I felt they had devolved to a point where nothing I could offer them would be met with anything other than fear. They believed we were monsters. They had no memory of who we really were or all we had once achieved.”

“If they were descendants of the Nayseriareen who once defeated you and incarcerated those among you capable of
consciousness transfer, I'm not sure what you could have told them to make them trust you,” Chakotay observed. “And clearly their ancestors had reasons for defying you as they did.”

“It came down to power and fear,” Lsia said. “As long as enough of us retained the ability to conquer death by taking the bodies of our enemies and turning them to our will, we were the undisputed masters of all we beheld. Some of the Nayseriareen wanted to control what we had created. Others simply could not abide the existence of any they perceived as such a great threat.”

“We're going to have to take your word for that,” Janeway observed. “My concern is not with your ancient enemies. By taking the bodies of Inspector Kashyk, Magnate Veelo, and Commandant Dhina, you have effectively murdered those individuals, have you not?” Janeway asked.

“Yes,” Lsia agreed.

“You cannot simply choose another host, should a willing one exist?” Chakotay asked.

“Not while our current hosts live,” Lsia replied. “And the longer we inhabit a host, the more receptive it becomes to us.”

“But you are not alive,” Chakotay noted. “You are a hologram.”

“I know,” Lsia snapped. “The same principle applies, however. Should the holomatrix I now inhabit be damaged, I would simply be forced to transfer myself to the next nearest form to continue existing. And bear in mind,” she added, “that physical proximity is not required to complete a transfer. Once freed from a host, we are all adept at sustaining ourselves in a disembodied state until a new prospect is found.”