Janeway didn’t mention it to Tuvok. The one (if only) thing the Vulcan had in common with Tom Paris was a facade of indifference at being so far away from Federation space. Indeed, one could make the argument that Paris was better off in this quadrant, but that wasn’t true of Tuvok. She knew he missed his family. They all wanted to return home, and she wondered if she had let her own desire lull her into taking unacceptable risks.
Tuvok glanced from her to the screen. “We will find a way home, Captain.”
She had to smile at his perception—even in the midst of chaos, some things never changed. “Was I thinking that loud?”
His expression softened into what could almost be considered affection.
“I know my captain,” he said simply.
Janeway stared at the image of Voyager, curving out of view again. “I hope you also know the gift of prophecy, Tuvok.”
The first thing Chakotay saw when he returned to the bridge was Tom Paris in his undershirt, lounging in the captain’s chair. He was surrounded by the power-dead husks of half a dozen tricorders.
Several hours later, Paris was almost done recharging the tricorders from a portable unit he had carried up six flights from storage.
Chakotay wasn’t surprised Paris hadn’t thought of it on his own, but he did take satisfaction in watching the young man work so hard.
With one of the powered-up tricorders in hand, Chakotay was telling the Cartel clerk in Ship’s Services, “I’ll give you the entire Denarii subspecies and the Hoop-sted Marn for three cycles…”
The commander turned in time to see Janeway emerge from the access tube, followed by Tuvok. The captain’s delighted surprise at his presence on the bridge was a stark contrast to the monotone reply over the tricorder: “Your credit-offer is being considered. Please stand by.”
“Good to have you back, Number One,” Janeway said, as Chakotay stood up. “How are you?”
“I could have returned to duty as soon as I regained consciousness.”
He didn’t mention that his recovery had been accompanied by drawn-out, demonic hallucinations that had contained recurring symbols as well as some he’d never seen before. The doctor’s delay in releasing him from sickbay had given him plenty of time to meditate on the dreams and come to terms with their presence in his life, if not their exact meaning.
“I ordered everyone in sickbay to return to duty when I realized how badly the doctor is malfunctioning. It’s a good thing Kes is there. I recommend putting her in charge of sickbay.”
“Agreed.” Janeway’s gaze dropped to his unbuttoned collar. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look feverish.”
Chakotay rubbed a finger against his temple, below the tribal tattoo.
“It’s the climate controls. Logs show that internal temperature has been rising ever since the processor was removed.
Manual realignments don’t seem to have any effect.”
“Now that you mention it, it does feel warm in here.” The captain glanced at the other members of the bridge crew. Most of them had their jackets off or their sleeves rolled up.
“Kim says some areas of the ship have been more affected than others,” Chakotay added. “Engineering, the bridge, and the computer monitor room are considerably warmer than anywhere else.”
“Have Torres and Kim submitted a report yet?”
“They’re still in the monitor room, and the only report I’ve gotten is that it’s hotter than Vulcan down there, and that conditions are somehow worsening. Environmental controls in particular are erratic, with almost all of the circulatory systems malfunctioning.” He gestured to the view of the Hub, arching away underneath them. “In your absence, I’ve been negotiating with the Cartel for ship-to-station umbilicals. I offered them some of our more exotic plant DNA.”
“Seeds?” Janeway asked. “You’re trading seeds for life support?”
“It seemed appropriate.” Chakotay grinned.
The tricorder beeped, prior to an incoming message. “Your credit-offer has been accepted,” a detached voice confirmed.
“Please transfer the information to the utilities representative in order to receive three cycles of Series I shipwide life support, including atmospheric and water processing, system power, and thermal and gravitational control.”
Janeway nodded to Chakotay, who immediately replied, “Agreed.
I’ll meet your representative on the service deck.” He closed the channel and tossed the tricorder aside, glad to be done with it.
“They’ve agreed to supply direct communication units to the Hub, as well.”
Janeway lifted one corner of her mouth. “Very good, Commander.
Perhaps you ought to conduct any further trade agreements.”
“I’ve had practice. Remember the Cordone’ni?”
“True.” Her expression said much more as she remembered that experience. “You may proceed, Commander. Tuvok, you better assist Chakotay. Try to keep them from doing any more scans.”
“Aye, Captain,” Tuvok replied, as seriously as if accepting a life-or-death mission. Chakotay wondered what had been going on while he was held captive in sickbay.
“Lieutenant Paris,” Janeway added, taking one of the renewed tricorders, “you have the bridge. I’ll be in the computer monitoring room if you need me.”
The last thing Chakotay saw as he left the bridge was Paris crossing his arms as he leaned back in the pilot’s chair. He didn’t understand why Paris looked so irritated. After his checkered past, he should be grateful that Janeway trusted him enough to leave him in command.
“We’ve got a real problem,” Kim announced.
Janeway had been hoping to hear good news, but she didn’t let Kim know that. “Can’t you stabilize the computer systems?”
“The ODN is functioning fine.” Kim was looking up from the temporary scaffolding erected in the central shaft of the core.
A white cloth was knotted around his forehead, and blue smears of nutrient gel darkened his gray shirt.
“We think the problem is in the neural networks,” Torres agreed, glaring at the severed bioshunt she had repaired. The collar of her gray shirt had been ripped open, and her hair was tied back to get it off her neck. Janeway had a flash of an old clip she’d once seen of marines going through an obstacle course—all the Klingon needed was a projectile weapon to fit right in.
Janeway ran her hand along the bank of synthetic brain neurons suspended in the blue nutrient gel. It used to be next to the processor, when they had a processor. “Were the tissue masses damaged?”
“Not directly, as far as I can tell,” Kim said. “But two of the shunts that supply nutrient to the main banks were severed by the forcefield.
The loss of nutrient may have caused some problems.”
Torres argued, “That doesn’t explain why the neural networks are reacting as if the processor is still here.”
“How can that happen?” Janeway asked.
“Like isolinear chips, the neural networks are primarily a storage medium,” Kim tried to explain. He climbed up through the severed floor of the monitor room, sitting on the edge next to Janeway. “In the same way the nanoprocessors of isolinear chips enable them to receive and store data, the neural networks manage data configuration independent of LCARS control, processing it in a way that’s actually faster than the faster-than-light processors.”
“The bioneural tissue can’t select operational responses,” Torres countered.
“But somehow it’s responding to ODN input.” Kim winced at her glare.
“Only it’s sending back nonsense signals. That’s what causes the system delays, with operations canceled because of orders from the main computer that conflict with the auxiliary computer and subprocessors.”
“That’s why cutting the junction to the main core should have worked,” Torres insisted.
Janeway examined the sharp edge of the severed bulkhead. “It looks as if the processor was removed with surgical precision.”
Torres grudgingly conceded, “The mainframe was gamma-welded to the bulkhead, but it’s been sliced as easy as if it was crem-bi-lange.”
“They knew what they were doing,” Kim agreed.
Janeway surveyed the gooey remains of what used to be their main computer. “You know something, it doesn’t look like you need an engineer in here.”
“No?” Kim asked.
Torres was starting to look offended.
“No.” Janeway undid the neck of her jacket. “What we need in here is a doctor.”
Kim raised his head. “It is bioneural circuitry….”
“With this damage, we’ll be lucky if we still have a doctor,” Torres reminded them.
Janeway tried unsuccessfully to raise Kes on the sickbay frequency.
Several sections reported that the medical technician had recently been in their area, administering the antidote to the crew members.
Impatient with the archaic communication system, Janeway muttered, “I don’t know how captains did it in the old days.”
“I guess it took a lot more time to get things done,” Torres said flippantly.
“Maybe more time than you think.” Janeway opened her jacket all the way, then gestured for them both to follow her. “Come on—we’ve got five flights to climb.”
They met Kes in the corridor outside sickbay. From her weary smile and the size of the portable medical unit, she was apparently returning from administering the antidote to the crew.
“How is the doctor?” Janeway asked.
“He seemed to be functioning once the power went back on. He insisted that I finish distributing the antidote.”
The main room of sickbay was empty, but a clutter of padds and tricorders indicated the recent activity. Inside the examining room, Zimmerman was alone, working furiously over the empty table.
“Quickly, Kes!” the doctor ordered, as soon as he caught sight of them. “I need a splatlian smear and the ion analyzer, right away. I’m having difficulty stabilizing his vital signs.”
Kes drifted forward as he spoke, her confusion clearly growing as the doctor bent over the examining table. “Doctor, what are you doing?”
“Ensign Navarro has suffered an ion-phase infusion.” The doctor injected hypospray into the area where a patient’s neck would be.
“The rest of you will have to wait.”
Janeway entered the examining room as cautiously as if there was a dangerous animal inside. “I suggest you run a self-diagnostic, Doctor.”
His expression said more than words. “No time for that. All of you, get out of here! Can’t you see I’ve got an emergency on my hands?”
“No, we don’t see that,” Janeway told him. “I order you to perform a self-diagnostic.”
Zimmerman hesitated, as if ready to initiate a medical override.
Apparently Kes recognized the signs as well. “Doctor,” she said gently. “Ensign Navarro isn’t here. That emergency happened two months ago.”
Zimmerman blinked down at her, then up at the monitor.
“Impossible… the diagnostic database confirms my sensor readings of the patient.”
“There is no patient,” Kes repeated.
Kim was examining the medical scanner. “This is what I meant.
It’s like the main core is sending out impulse echoes.”
“Can you stop it?” Janeway asked.
Kim tapped the readout. “We could turn off the diagnostic unit.
That may reboot the entire system.”
The doctor was searching their faces, as if trying to understand.
“Ensign Navarro isn’t here?”
“No.” Kes moved forward, touching the doctor’s sleeve. “Are you all right?”
Zimmerman looked back down at the table. “No, I’m not.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when everything began to flicker—the lights, the doctor, the diagnostic monitor. For a brief disorienting moment, everything went black.
What the…
Janeway blinked as the lights came back on, wondering if she looked as surprised as the others. The doctor was gone and the diagnostic readout returned to neutral settings. She’d never seen anything like that before—even the emergency lights didn’t kick in.
“Did you see that?” Kim asked, an edge of hysteria in his voice.
“Did I do that?”
“I doubt it!” Torres snapped.
Janeway was turning to the open tricorder on the monitor as it beeped for attention. “Chakotay to Captain Janeway.”
She upped the volume. “Janeway here.”
“Sorry about that, Captain. The computer tried to override the umbilical hookup. We’ve got it stabilized now.”
“That was some power surge,” Torres muttered. “I better check the EPS conduits.”
“Was there any damage?” Janeway asked Chakotay.
“I’ll have to get to the bridge to find out. I’ll keep you informed.”
Kes apparently had other things on her mind. “Computer, begin program.”
Zimmerman shimmered into existence, looking exactly the same as usual.
“What is the nature of…” The doctor began, then stopped himself.
Janeway pushed the tricorder away, as Kes asked the doctor, “Do you remember what happened?”
“Of course. You left to complete the crew inoculations and I ended my program in accordance with Reduced Power Mode.”
“He keeps experiencing these memory wipes,” Kes explained to Janeway.
“Every time he runs a self-diagnostic, it says nothing is wrong.”
“It’s not his systems, it’s that direct computer link we established,” Janeway reminded her. “Whatever is causing the malfunctions is obviously affecting the medical program as well.”
The doctor’s expression was unusually vulnerable. “Is there something wrong with my systems?”
“Don’t you remember?” Kes asked. “The computer processor was removed from the ship.”
Janeway had to admit that whoever programmed Zimmerman’s life signs had done a good job. He truly appeared to be concerned.
“I can’t remember… how could that be?” He pushed though them, heading to main terminal. “Logs, I must have recorded something.” As he read, he slowly sat down. “Here it is… administered a neurogenic antidote to counter shock… Why can’t I remember?”
Torres turned to Janeway. “He’s obviously malfunctioning. He won’t be able to help us.”
“Maybe the medical database can give us some answers,” Kim suggested.
Kes shot the captain a worried look. “What are we going to do about the doctor?”
Janeway was still trying to figure out an answer to that one when Tuvok arrived. The security chief held up some kind of portable communications device. “Captain, Agent Andross is attempting to contact you through the direct link to the Hub.”