Cat’s-eye
By Morticia
C/Various
Disclaimers: They aren’t mine dammit, I just borrowed ‘em and I promise to put them back again, only slightly soiled.
Part 3
There was darkness, blessed relief after the blinding merciless rays of the noonday sun as they had toiled to the summit of a hill that her thigh muscles now insisted had been a mountain.
Concealed behind the shadow of a vast monolithic stone, that protruded like an obscene phallus from the otherwise unscarred hillside, lay a cavernous opening that had swallowed them both like a hungry mouth. As Kathryn followed Anghara through the twisting, dank tunnels, the dark coolness of the lichen-draped walls was almost welcome after the exhausting heat of their journey.
Even so, there was something decidedly unpleasant about the tunnel. The hairs on the nape of Kathryn’s neck prickled endlessly as she imagined that the very walls around her were somehow alive. It was as though she were walking through the intestines of a living creature. She knew the walls weren’t truly pulsing like quivering flesh, that the odd flashes of light were just chemical reactions of lichens and moss, that the stone was solid, not truly shifting despite the strange shadows that flickered at the edges of her vision, suggesting that walls and passages were forming and reforming as she passed them.
Yet, at the same time, although they were supposedly walking a straight, if descending, path, the conviction inside her grew that should she suddenly turn and run then she would find herself in a maze, rather than back at the entrance once more.
The air in the passage was stale and heavy, its oxygen depleted by endless generations of Savernan traversing this same dark path. Kathryn could almost taste the ghostly presence of previous supplicants to the Grrchek, could almost smell their fear-laced perspiration.
Ahead of her, the stooped ancient crone seemed to be as invigorated by her descent as Kathryn was drained. Every step stole a little more of Kathryn’s strength and assurance as the stale air filled her lungs. Conversely, with each step, Anghara’s footsteps became lighter, more carefree. She seemed a little taller, as though her old, arthritically knotted bones were straightening into more youthful lines.
Her footsteps, that had been so pained on the assent to the cave entrance, were gradually transforming into the eager, happy gait of youth and Kathryn was becoming increasingly convinced that should Anghara turn to look at her, the wizened face would be unlined and beautiful once more.
It was almost a relief to Kathryn that it was too dark to ascertain how much of her perception was due to nerves rather than an impossible reality.
Time lost all meaning as they descended, as hunger and exhaustion stole her faculties until just the action of placing one foot after the other was enough to demand all of her ability to think.
Just step after stumbling step through the darkness, until she barely remembered her destination or her purpose, as her sweat-drenched hair clung in desperate tendrils around her exhausted face and her muscles gave up screaming their protest and sulked woodenly instead, as her mind shut off all sensation except the need to just step and step and step.
The Sage Anghara seemed to be almost dancing her descent, and the distance between them was growing, as the walls swirled around Kathryn’s head and her oxygen starved lungs battled for just the strength to take another breath, and still she stumbled on, carried by her spirit long past the endurance of her body.
~~~
“You promised you’d look after her,” Tom spat, his flashing, frightened eyes the only spots of color in his otherwise bleached face.
Chakotay sighed heavily, burdened by his own regrets, but met Tom’s accusing stare with calm dignity.
“Anghara said that only the Captain could meet the Grrchek,” he said quietly. He decided not to mention the fact that they would have allowed Tom to accompany her, had he been there. It wouldn’t help. If anything, it would only inflame Tom’s panicked rage still further. “I waited for her until it was obvious that she was not returning. All the Savernan would say is that time moves differently in the home of the Grrchek. It is possible that the Captain has only been gone a few hours by her own reckoning.”
“It’s been two fucking days,” Tom cried. “She could be hurt. She could be de-,” but his voice wavered on the word, as though in uttering it he would give the idea reality.
“We are still unable to penetrate the surface with our sensors,” Tuvok interrupted. “It is impossible to discover the location of the Grrchek’s city. If indeed there *is* a city.”
“She has to be ‘somewhere’ under the surface, otherwise our sensors would have located her by now,” B’Elanna said. “I re-routed all available power to the sensor array so *it’s* working, even if nothing else is. The planet’s crust seems to form a natural barrier. There is such a heavy concentration of lithium that we can’t penetrate further than a few meters in any place where there is an exposed rock face. Besides, even if we did locate her, we can’t get her out of there. Our transporter devices won’t function through that much interference.”
“So why can’t we just go in the same way that she did?” Tom challenged.
“I don’t know where the entrance is,” Chakotay admitted. “I wasn’t allowed to follow when the Captain left with their Sage. Anghara hasn’t returned to the surface yet and the other Savernan won’t co-operate. Either they don’t know how to gain access or they simply won’t tell us,” Chakotay said quietly.
“You shouldn’t have fucking left her,” Tom snarled.
“Lieutenant,” Tuvok snapped warningly when Chakotay failed to rebuke Tom for his insubordination.
“We have no way of knowing what technology the Grrchek possess. I didn’t want to risk them overhearing if I contacted you on my comm badge. It seemed the wisest course of action to return to Voyager and arrange for a rescue party,” Chakotay said.
“Indeed,” Tuvok agreed. “The element of surprise is always advantageous. To that end, I suggest a small but well-armed away team. In view of the likelihood that we will be entering some manner of cave system, physical strength and dexterity are important. I suggest that Lieutenants Paris and Torres, Crewman Ayala, Seven of Nine and I should comprise the team who will return to the surface.”
Chakotay shook his head in violent denial.
“I will lead the away team,” he insisted.
“In the absence of the Captain, you are the senior officer. It would be foolhardy *and* directly against Starfleet Regulations for you to risk yourself, Commander. Until the Captain returns, *you* are our Captain, sir, and we cannot risk potentially hostile aliens capturing both of you.”
Chakotay wanted to say ‘fuck the regulations’ but he knew that Tuvok was right. He nodded reluctantly. He knew Tom would hate him for his next comment, but he steeled himself to face the pilot’s wrath and spoke regardless.
“I don’t believe that Tom should be part of the away team,” he said quietly.
Before Tom could burst out into more profanities, he raised his hand in a pacifying gesture.
“If the Captain is being held hostage you could be used against her, Tom,” he explained. “Until we know why the Captain has not returned to the surface we have to assume she is being held against her will. Although I trust that your personal relationship would not cause either of you to act unprofessionally, your presence in a hostile situation would undermine her ability to resist any coercive measures these aliens might take.”
Tom swallowed heavily and gave a sharp nod to acknowledge Chakotay’s point. Yet, he ignored it.
“Unless you intend to keep me here by force, Commander, I *will* be on the away team,” he said clearly. “I resent the suggestion that the *Captain* would allow her personal feelings to affect her judgment. Voyager is crippled, we aren’t going anywhere anyway and so as Voyager’s pilot, I reckon I just became the most expendable member of the crew.”
Chakotay choked on Tom's bitter words, regarded the hatred that burned in the icy blue eyes of the pilot and sighed. He knew that when Tom had had time to reflect on the situation he would realise that Chakotay had been powerless to prevent Kathryn’s capture, if that was indeed what had happened, but at the moment, Tom saw *him* as the enemy. It was unbearable to him that Tom should still misunderstand him so badly.
He wasn’t so much concerned about what the possible capture of Tom might do to Kathryn, as what the aliens might do to Tom to force her capitulation. Yet, in acknowledging that, he realised that if it were Tom who had been captured, he wouldn’t have accepted Tuvok’s argument for him staying aboard. If the man he secretly loved were in trouble, nothing would keep him from being part of the rescue team. So how could he expect Tom to feel any differently about Kathryn’s situation?
Praying that he wouldn’t shortly be heading a rescue team to retrieve Tom and the others, he reluctantly agreed that Tom could be part of Tuvok’s away team.
~~~
< Concern. Affection. Confusion >
Kathryn jolted awake as her mind was assailed by waves of emotion that were so tangible that they seemed to physically batter her body.
She opened her eyes painfully, struggling to adjust her vision to the blinding light. Tears burned her eyes and she blinked frantically, only to find, when her eyes recovered from the shock of sight after so many hours of darkness, that the light was eerie and unnatural but not uncomfortable, after all.
She was in a vast empty cavern, the very walls of which sparkled with a low crystalline sparkle so that the interior was lit by a multi-hued silvery glow.
Lining the walls, embedded into the rocks themselves, were hundreds of carved statues of Savernan.
She was alone, with no memory of the last steps of her journey that had brought her here into a room the size of a sports stadium, which was presumably located kilometers beneath the surface of the planet.
Once, many years previously, Kathryn had visited Egypt with a group of friends from the Academy. She had journeyed to the Valley of the Kings and Queens and had descended down into the burial place of Hapshetsut. Five hundred feet below the desert near Luxor she had seen the burial chamber. A rectangular room cut out of rock by people who had lived five millennia before the first mechanical tools were developed. She had stared in complete, humbled awe at what had been achieved by human hands and determination alone.
She had stared for hours at the intricate carvings etched onto the walls by artisans so long dead that even the dust of their bodies was no more than a memory. The experience had been almost religious for her, as her scientific mind had grasped the way that the Egyptians had made the seemingly impossible become reality.
Finding herself now in the “city” of the Grrchek, those long forgotten memories overlaid the present. Rather than jumping to her feet and calling out for the people who surely must be lurking somewhere, observing her, she found herself instead simply rising to her feet and walking around the edges of the room, tracing the cold stone faces of the statues with her fingers, marveling at the intricacy of the artisanship.
Whatever the Grrchek were, they loved the Savernan she decided. No one would put such care into the construction of the hundreds of likenesses unless real affection lay behind their work. The Savernan couldn’t be slaves. Every one of the statues was perfect, beautiful, and yet different. No two faces were identical, no two statues completely alike.
It took her perhaps an hour to completely circumnavigate the chamber, and although she knew there must be secret doors behind the statues, she had not found any way of exiting the room.
She returned to the centre of the room, planted her hands upon her hips, and spoke clearly into the empty cavern.
“I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager and I wish to speak to the Grrchek.”
Her words caused the walls to pulse and she had an unsettling feeling that she was in a womb. The quality of light from the crystals shifted from silver to pink and then a blast of something sickeningly strong, yet nebulously undecipherable, caused her to stagger.
It was as though a strong wind had whipped through the cavern, yet it struck not her body, but her mind.
She staggered a little, confused and disorientated, and then a connection was made between her mind and the alien sensation and a word formed in her head.
< Fear >
Her heart began to race, and although she forced her body to remain in a pose of calm, her eyes began to dart around nervously for an exit that she already knew she would not find.
< FEAR >
The emotion blasted her, causing her still weak legs to betray her, and she fell crashing to her knees on the cold, hard floor. She gasped in pain.
< Concern >
Kathryn raised her head in confusion as a wave of seemingly genuine remorse bathed her, as though her own pain caused true empathy in whatever being was trying to converse with her. And that’s when she understood.
“Fear” hadn’t been an instruction. The creature, whatever it was, did not wish *her* to fear it. The creature was afraid. Afraid of her.
“I mean you no harm,” she called out. “None of my people wish you any harm” /whoever you are/ “We just want to find a way to go home.”
< Stay >
< Pain >
< Go >
< FEAR >
Kathryn shook her head as the messages washed over her.
“I don’t understand you. Are you a Grrchek?”
< Grrchek >
“Can you help us leave?”
< Yes >
< No >
< FEAR >
Kathryn rubbed her face in exhausted frustration.
“Can I speak to Anghara?” she asked. “Can I speak ‘through’ Anghara to you?”
For a long moment, there was silence, and then a deafening scream ripped through the room. It was like the sound of a thousand glasses breaking, like the sound of nails scraping metal, or perhaps the sound of rock imploding.
Then, with torturous slowness, one of the statues began to drag itself out of the wall.
Kathryn stepped backwards in terror as the stone figure inched out of its cocoon, its crystalline eyes blank. With each tiny movement its form became more pliant, as though it were transforming from granite to liquid metal, and then, as it began to totter towards her with the misshapen clumsiness of a Mummy, Kathryn saw its white marble flesh begin to streak with color.
By the time the creature was in front of her, it was no more or less than a young Savernan woman.
The cheekbones gave her away.
“Anghara?” Kathryn asked calmly, as though it were an every day occurrence for a stone statue to come to flesh and blood life.
## BITCH ##
Kathryn staggered under the weight of the mental cry of hatred.
“He took me back. Took me back! Don’t you understand?” Anghara cried, her beautiful face anguished. “You made me come out again. I can’t leave here again. Not again. I don’t want to be the Sage. I want to stay here.”
As she spoke, the young woman’s face was aging once more, the lines rippling through the skin with the rapidity of lightning.
“I don’t understand,” Kathryn gasped.
“I’m too old,” Anghara cried. “Too old.” She clawed at her face in self-disgust. “With the Grrchek I am young, beautiful, FOREVER.” She gestured around the room with a hand that was shriveling into an arthritic claw.
“But you aren’t alive,” Kathryn protested. “You’re statues, stone.”
## COMMUNION ##
## HARMONY ##
## JOY ##
A cacophony of mental voices buffeted Kathryn from all sides and although it was beyond her comprehension, she realised that it was all of the ‘statues’ that were speaking to her.
“You’re alive and aware?” She demanded of Anghara.
“We are the Grrchek. We are here and everywhere. We travel without moving. We can see all places at once. We are everywhere. We are together. We are individual. We are eternal,” Anghara explained, a light of such rapture filling her face that a ghost of its former beauty returned.
< FEAR >
Anghara flinched as Kathryn’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Who is that, if you are the Grrchek?” she asked.
## We are the Grrchek ## A thousand voices crooned.
## Join us. Feel our rapture.##
“Don’t listen to them,” Anghara snapped. “You don’t have to join us. You can just live on the surface with the Savernan. You will be provided for.”
## STAY. JOIN US ##
< FEAR >
“Right,” Kathryn growled in her best, ‘I’m a captain, don’t piss me off’ voice. “I want to know what the hell is going on here, and I want to know right NOW!”
~~~
“We cannot split the away team up. This close to the exposed lithium lode, our communication devices will not function. We already have one member of the crew missing, I am not prepared to risk losing more,” Tuvok stated firmly.
“It’s taken us five hours to find this path, Tuvok. She’s been down there for over sixty hours now. By the time you admit you are going in the wrong direction and turn back, it’s going to be dark. Then it will be another eight hours before we can start up the hill instead,” Tom argued.
“Your insistence that my judgment is impaired is illogical, Lieutenant. The Savernan have admitted that there is only one path. We have found that path. We are following it.”
"In the wrong damned direction,” Tom spat.
“The path descends down into the valley. The steps have been painstakingly carved out of rock that has worn smooth, suggesting many feet have traveled this way over many generations,” Tuvok said, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It is logical to assume that it leads to the underground entrance.”
Tom’s lower lip pouted stubbornly as he remained half twisted in the other direction, where the pathway disappeared into heavy foliage as it wound its way precariously towards the summit of the hillside.
“This is the path,” he insisted.
“It can’t be,” B’Elanna snapped, weary of the argument. “It’s heavily overgrown. It’s obvious no one has traveled along it for months, maybe years. None of the branches are broken off.”
“When did you get your wilderness scout badge?” Tom drawled sarcastically.
“Lieutenant Torres is correct. We cannot follow that route without disturbing the foliage,” Seven stated firmly.
“*We* can’t, but Kathryn and Anghara are both far shorter than any of us. *They* could have walked through here without difficulty,” Tom argued.
Tuvok gave a nod of agreement.
“Your reasoning is logical, Lieutenant. However, the path leads upwards. We know the Captain is underground.”
“The Savernan consider that the Grrchek are Gods, don’t they?” Tom said.
“So?” B’Elanna snapped.
“So look up the damned hill, Torres. The stone that is standing on the summit. It’s not a natural formation. It’s some kind of monolith. Why would agrarian people haul a stone that size up to the top of a hill if it isn’t meant to mark something important? Like the entrance to the home of their ‘Gods’ maybe.”
“Although it ‘could’ be interpreted as a hewn artefact, it is more likely to have been naturally carved by the excessive weather conditions of this planet,” Tuvok replied dismissively. “It would take us several hours to reach the top of the hill, possibly more given the condition of the footpath and as we have already established, we can’t use our transporters or shuttles this near to the exposed lithium. The logical choice is to try the path that leads downwards.”
“Tom’s right,” Ayala said quietly.
In any other circumstances, Tom would have found the complete shock on his companions’ faces comical. Ayala, who rarely spoke at all, had spoken and because of his usual taciturn nature, his two words alone had more impact than the cleverest argument.
“Explain,” Seven demanded curtly.
“It’s a place of worship,” Ayala muttered, looking up at the monolith with an almost religious conviction.
~~~
## Communion ##
“You sound like the Borg to me.”
<Confusion>
“A collective with only one mind.”
## We are one ## the voices agreed.
“This is assimilation,” Kathryn accused. “Only its worse. You aren’t even mobile.”
## Harmony ##
## Peace ##
## Endless joy ##
“Stop it. Talk to me properly. I can’t understand you all at once.”
## Join us. Understand. ##
“NO”
< HOPE >
## Peace ##
## Welcome ##
## Communion ##
“NO!” Kathryn screamed.
< FEAR >
## Fear? ##
“I fear assimilation, yes,” Kathryn
admitted. “I am an individual.”
## We are individual ##
“Show me. Talk to me.”
“This is inefficient,” Anghara complained. “We want to ‘show’ you, not ‘tell’ you. You cannot understand unless you are one with us.”
“Then I choose not to understand,” Kathryn said firmly. “There’s nothing you could possibly say to me that would justify people choosing to live like this.”
## Immortality ##
“As statues?” Kathryn mocked.
Anghara shrugged.
“You are welcome to settle on the planet. All assistance will be given to you to help you create shelters. The Grrchek will protect you in your new lives.”
“We don’t want to stay here. We want to leave,” Kathryn said firmly.
“I *want* you to leave, Sage Captain. We all want you to leave. We do not wish to share our planet with you,” Anghara spat. “The Grrchek would help you leave. If you will not speak with the Grrchek, you will have to stay.”
“I don’t understand.”
## We are the Grrchek. The Grrchek is we ##
“ I don’t understand!”
## Let us show you. Join us ##
“NO!” Kathryn screamed as the voices echoed through her head, demanding and cajoling.
Then her eardrums were assaulted by a deafening, horrific scream of tortured, shattering crystal as hundreds of statues began to rip themselves out of the walls.
Kathryn twisted around in terror, her lungs straining to drag enough of the thin oxygen in to feed her panicked heart. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and Savernan surrounded her.
“Don’t be afraid,” a young man said, stepping forwards with a tentative smile on his face. “We have not emerged to threaten you. We just wanted to show you that none of us are prisoners here.”
“I don’t understand,” Kathryn muttered. She was beginning to wonder whether she would ever manage to say anything else.
“Anghara is bitter. There has to be a Sage or none of the surface dwellers would ever get the chance to come and join us, and sometimes we feel the need to welcome new minds here, yet it is so hard to leave here that it is not surprising that she is angry to have been chosen.”
“You really think that this is preferable to life on the surface?” Kathryn asked in disbelief.
“The Grrchek is addictive,” the young man smiled. “I felt like you when I first was chosen. I carried my symbiont outside of the Grrchek for many months, as most Savernan do, before I took my place in the wall. That was ten turns of the planet ago. This is the first time that I have stepped out once more and already I feel blind, deaf, amputated. We all feel that way.”
All of the Savernan nodded solemnly in agreement with their spokesman’s words.
“We swear that you will come to no harm with us. We only want to help you. Please let us show you what it is to be Grrchek.”
“I don’t WANT to be Grrchek,” Kathryn snapped.
“We know,” a different man said. He, like Anghara, was showing signs of rapid aging and was looking furtively towards the wall as though desperate to return to it. It was this fact, more than anything else, which convinced Kathryn to listen to what he had to say.
“The Grrchek can help you leave, but it’s not something we can explain to you. I have been with my symbiont for sixty turns. I have forgotten how it is to be forced to ‘speak’ words. I want to help you. We all want to help you. We do not lie. There can be no lies between Grrchek.”
“So I have to accept a ‘symbiont?'” Kathryn asked suspiciously.
“Not for this,” Anghara told her. “To speak to the Grrchek, you only have to enter the wall.”
Kathryn’s eyes widened in terror.
“You enter by choice. You leave by choice. The Grrchek has no power over you. It has no power over any of us. It’s a tool. That’s all,” Anghara assured her.
“The other voice. The frightened voice. *That* is the Grrchek?” Kathryn asked cautiously.
“It doesn’t understand. It thinks you want to stay here and join with it as we have, and as you can see, there is no room,” the younger man replied, gesturing around the room.
“You’re saying that there are only a finite number of people who can join with the Grrchek?” Kathryn asked.
“You saw for yourself that the wall is full. There is no room for you even if you wish to stay. We are offering you a temporary ‘assimilation’, that is all,” Anghara replied firmly.
Kathryn snorted. “I am not stupid, Anghara. If there was no way for us to stay, the Grrchek would not be frightened that we would.”
“I told you we couldn’t lie to her,” the older man growled at Anghara. “Tell her the truth. She will know it once she enters the wall anyway.”
Anghara’s face filled with fury but she shrugged her compliance.
“The Grrchek is growing weaker,” she confessed reluctantly. “It is one creature. Each symbiont is a part of itself that it must allow to be removed like a splinter and each removal of that part reduces the Grrchek’s own substance. As more Savernan join the wall, this ‘room’ expands because the Grrchek grows smaller.”
“So we are *inside* the Grrchek now?” Kathryn asked.
“Yes. It’s hard to explain in words, but imagine the Grrchek as a sphere of energy. We are inside the sphere and to live inside we have to absorb a part of it. So the sphere becomes more hollow to accommodate us.”
“Which means, unless it grows, that the outside body of the Grrchek is becoming thinner, less substantial,” Kathryn mused.
“You DO understand,” Anghara said. “If your crew all take the symbiont at once, the Grrchek will become so weak that the sphere could collapse.”
“Yet you want us to take it,” Kathryn pointed out.
“We want some of you to *borrow* it, that’s all. Just long enough to mend your ship and leave,” Anghara corrected her.
“Why is it important that we leave?”
“Because if you stay, your people or their children will find this place eventually and destroy us all. You can’t imagine why they would want to join us. When you enter the wall you will understand.”
“Show me,” Kathryn said bravely and prayed that she wasn’t making the worst mistake of her life.
~~~
“Well, I don’t know about you, Tuvok,” Tom drawled sarcastically, “but that looks like a fucking entrance to me.”
Tuvok peered solemnly into the cavernous tunnel.
“It would appear that your ‘instincts’ were surprisingly correct in this instance,” he conceded.
After four hours of constant backbiting, complaints and suggestions from B’Elanna, in particular, that Tom and Ayala were insane, as the away team had hauled themselves up the treacherous path to the monolith, Tuvok’s reluctant so-called ‘apology’ was less than adequate.
Nevertheless, the relief that Tom was feeling now that they actually had a chance of rescuing his lover was too overwhelming for him to waste time berating people for their lack of faith in his idea. So he bit down his automatic caustic response.
“Let’s get moving,” he said excitedly.
“No,” Tuvok replied firmly. “It is 2045. We have been on the move for twelve hours. It is illogical to enter a potentially hostile situation before we have rested and eaten. We will make camp here.”
It was too much for Tom. The last three days of stomach churning misery, coupled with the stress of having to bully and cajole the away team to accompany him to the place that he just *knew* was right, (although his stomach had churned with nausea all the way in case he was wrong), was enough to make him erupt.
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Tuvok. I don’t care if you throw me in the brig for the next fifty years. I’m going down there NOW.”
“If I have to restrain you, Lieutenant, I shall do so. You are emotionally overwrought,” Tuvok said coldly.
“Yeah, and you’re emotionally dead, so who’s the bigger fuck-up?” Tom snarled.
“Well I’m glad to see you missed me, but you’re not much use to me in the brig, Tom,” a tired but cheerful voice sang out.
“Kathryn? KATHRYN?” Tom yelled, as she emerged from the cave mouth alone.
She was literally as white as a ghost. Covered head to toe with a thin film of crystalline dust that sparkled with the last rays of the twilight sky.
She was the most beautiful thing that Tom had ever seen.
He leaped forward and swung her petite frame up in the air, swinging her around like a child as tears of relief flooded his eyes.
“This is not very dignified,” she whispered in his ear.
“Sorry ma’am,” he drawled, remembering their audience long enough to put her down.
Then he decided stuff the audience and devoured her mouth eagerly.
“You taste weird,” he whispered as he released her.
“What a romantic you are, Tom Paris,” she laughed, clinging to him for just a second longer to remind herself that she was alive, human, flesh and blood. Then she pulled herself together and turned to the other waiting crew.
Her voice was all business when she spoke, as though her momentary lapse with Tom had been a figment of everyone’s imagination.
“We’ll make camp here. We’re all tired and hungry and I have a lot to tell you all.”
~~~
“There are no ‘Grrchek’,” Kathryn told them, once they had eaten and settled around the comfort of a camp fire.
“There is simply *A* Grrchek. It’s a single being, as far as I can tell. Some form of disembodied consciousness. Not even truly self-aware as we would define it. It is some manner of energy being.
“It’s too vast, too alien, to communicate directly with organisms such as the Savernan and ourselves. So it has developed a way of splitting parts of itself off. The chosen Savernan each carries a small part of the whole.”
“Like the Borg,” B’Elanna spat, causing Seven to squirm uncomfortably.
“No, that was my first interpretation too, but I was wrong. The Savernan remain individuals, each with a symbiotic relationship with the part of the Grrchek that lives inside them. It is more like the joining of a Trill. The Host receives the knowledge and experience of the whole Grrchek and there is a collective mental link between all of the hosts, yet the hosts themselves have freewill and self-determination.
“They choose to become hosts. The few, like Anghara, who are forced to return to the surface once more are like shells. I felt her pain. It was as though her soul had been amputated.
“It seems that the Grrchek genuinely tried to help the marooned Savernan. It offered the link with itself as a way of understanding their needs. It was the Savernan themselves who chose to stay. They couldn’t bear to be separated from their symbionts. They found a way of actually linking themselves into the Grrchek. They call it a wall, and although from the outside they seem to be trapped within it, it allows them to actually escape the confines of their bodies.
“I joined the wall, and suddenly I was everywhere at once. I saw the people on Voyager, I saw you coming up the hill to find me, I watched the Savernan working in the fields and the crew who are extracting the lithium. I was everywhere and nowhere at once. They call it traveling without moving. It was, well, to be honest, it was like being a Q perhaps. Omniscient.
“The brightest and the best aren’t taken prisoner. They are the lucky few who receive what they see as a gift.
"The problem is that the symbiont renders them infertile. That’s why the population is dying out. Because while they are hosts, they cannot conceive and having experienced being joined with their symbiont, they are unwilling to give it up.”
“So this Grrchek isn’t deliberately trying to capture us?” Tom asked.
“Quite the opposite. The Grrchek is, if anything, the prisoner of the Savernan. It is supposed to be one being, Instead it lives in a fractured state. Without the Savernan it would lose its self-awareness, yet I sensed that there is a part of it that would welcome that oblivion once more. It genuinely fears that we will want to become part of it.”
“So it will help us leave?” B’Elanna asked, cutting to the chase.
“It is frightened of us, of trying to help us. It believes that we will become like the Savernan and refuse to leave.”
“Why?” B’Elanna demanded.
“Because the only way that it can mend Voyager is by joining with at least the crucial members of the crew. It has the power and ability to build anything, but no understanding of science. If, for instance, you were to host one of the symbionts, B’Elanna, the Grrchek would understand the Engines of the ship. Between your knowledge and the symbiont’s power, the warp engines could be repaired.
“The Grrchek fears that having become a host, however, that we would refuse to let the joining cease. The symbiont can only enter and leave through the conscious choice of the host.
“It doesn’t trust us. It believes that we will be like the Savernan and refuse to let it go. That’s why it is prepared to help us live here but reluctant to help us leave,” Kathryn explained.
“So the Grrchek is the real prisoner?” Ayala asked softly.
Kathryn looked at the usually silent man in surprise but nodded.
“Yes, it seems that it is,” she agreed.
“Why does it not simply refuse to enter any more hosts?” Tuvok asked.
“It can’t. Its reasoning is controlled by the emotions of all of its hosts. Since THEY wish to share the joining, the Grrchek is unable to refuse. I got the impression that strong emotion overwhelms it completely. It seems to create an echo effect from host to host, causing the entire creature to feel pain. Fortunately the lithium rich atmosphere generates a feeling of contentment in the Savernan and their emotions are usually kept at a tolerable level.
“Quite apart from the fear of splitting itself into more parts, the Grrchek fears that we are more emotional than the Savernan, that we might create a disharmony, a discordant note. It seems that minds resonate on different frequencies. It seemed almost in pain when it joined with me.”
“And you experienced no ill-effects?” Tuvok questioned.
“As the Grrchek promised, as soon as I chose to leave the wall, I simply stepped out. To be honest, it seemed pleased to let me leave. I apparently have a disharmonious mind,” Kathryn said.
“God help it in my head then,” Tom laughed.
“Well, if we accept the Grrchek’s reluctant offer of help, you *will* be one of the hosts, Tom. It needs to understand the mechanics of space flight.”
“Shit. You mean I have go into that wall thing?”
“No. The wall isn’t a necessary part of the symbiosis. The Grrchek places a tiny splinter of itself inside the host. The host isn’t affected by the presence of the symbiont to anywhere near the same extent. All it means is that the Grrchek has access to the host’s knowledge and to a lesser extent the host has access to the communal knowledge of the Grrchek. It’s only when the hosts chose to become part of the Grrchek that they enter the wall and it seems that the urge to do so doesn’t happen for several months.”
“But I still have to let one of those things inside my head?”
“Believe me, Tom. The problem isn’t letting it in. It’s letting it go again,” Kathryn said worriedly. “It’s like feeling omnipotent. You remain you, yet at the same time you know what is happening in a thousand other places. You keep your own memories, yet you suddenly can call on the memories of thousands of other people. You can tap into their knowledge. It’s like having a computer in your head with the databanks of entire civilisations.”
“It sounds like a Borg collective to me,” Tom said, with a dramatic shudder.
“That’s why I think it might work, Tom. Unlike the Savernan, we all have a terror of being assimilated. We have an instinctive hatred of the idea of being part of a collective. I don’t believe that any of us would be lured into becoming permanent hosts.
“The Grrchek has seen my memories of the Borg. It’s what is convincing it to consider helping us.”
“You are seriously suggesting that we agree to this?” Tom asked, in disbelief.
“We have two choices, Tom. We stay here forever or *some* of us take this risk in the hope that we can leave. The Grrchek only needs a few dozen hosts.”
“Who just happen to be the senior officers?” Tom scoffed.
“We just have to be careful who volunteers. B’Elanna *or* Carrey. Yourself *or* Baytart. Myself *or* Chakotay etc.. One key volunteer for each post and a safeguard of enough crew *without* the symbionts to help us escape if necessary.”
“Escape?” Tuvok asked.
“As far as I can ascertain, the collective nature of the symbiont is governed by distance. If the worst happens then fleeing the planet should sever the link.”
“If the worst happens, there won’t be any point fleeing at all. There aren’t any other habitable planets. If we don’t mend Voyager enough to re-enter the worm hole then there’s nowhere to run to anyway,” Tom pointed out glumly.
“Which is why our only real choice is who volunteers,” Kathryn told them. “I suppose I ought to tell you now that I have already volunteered.”
“You’ve got one of those things inside you now?” Tom asked in horror.
Kathryn reached for his hand and held it tightly before she nodded.
“So how do we know it’s you talking, rather than the symbiont?” B’Elanna challenged.
“You don’t,” Kathryn admitted. “But you know me.”
In the sudden, deathly silence that followed, Kathryn felt the entire away team regarding her as though she had grown a second head and despair filled her. She knew it had been a drastic thing for her to do, and she understood how it would look, but having been in the wall, having *seen* she knew it was Voyager’s only hope of getting home, and nothing else mattered to her.
Nothing else had ever mattered to her.
Except Tom, perhaps.
And it was he who saved her. It was Tom who reached out in faith when no one else could bring themselves to even look her in the eye.
“So,” he stage whispered, a quirky grin struggling bravely under his frightened blue eyes. “When we, um, share our tent tonight, will it count as a threesome?”