The secret masters of All (Paramount) own Star Trek. His devilness (A. Decker) created Star Traks. A minor diety of evil (me!) writes BorgSpace.

The Doctor Is In

"Jas, your cat is in my chair again," complained a voice slighly tinged with a nasal twang. "I just cleaned all the hair off of it yesterday."

"Well, move him, then. He's a cat. You need to be firm with cats," came the reply, owner busy at the ship's primary terminal checking for personal communications and his latest electronic edition of Vet Digest.

"Be he is giving me 'The Look' again, the one which says I'm going to wake up to a hairball in my favorite pair of slippers if I touch him."

"For Goddess sake, Plent, Bruno is just a cat!" Jas swiveled in his chair to regard the animal under discussion, exasperation plain. "Tell me again how you can deal with a miner's ticked off razorfish, but you can't handle one insolent cat?"

The cat in question, was not, strictly speaking, a cat, although it would be difficult to quantify precisely why. Its genetic heritage was quite different from the Terran version, but an extraordinary example of convergent evolution and domestication had instilled a high degree of catness of behavior, temperament, and form to Bruno's species. While Bruno, true, did sport a coat of soothing cobalt blue, the expression of disdain on his features and the posture of one who knew where the center of the universe was located would be very familiar to anyone having met an Earth feline. Therefore, for all practical purposes, Bruno was a cat.

"Bruno, move for daddy," said Jas, his voice taking on the tone one reserves for babies and favorite pets.

Bruno carefully leapt off the chair, tail rapidly flicking back and forth. As he left the room for quieter sections of the small vessel (probably Plent's recently laundered bedspread) it was clear he had not removed himself due to any command. No. It was simply a case where the main cabin was too crowded, too filled with lesser beings to be graced by his majestic presence. If he was needed to save the universe today, well, too bad, because /certain/ people had interrupted his nap.

Plent sighed as he sat on the well furred seat. The cat was pure blue and the chair was a dark fabric, yet white hairs were visible. "Tell me again why Bruno is a part of our crew?"

"First," began Jas, "no ship is complete without a cat. Second, we are a traveling veterinary clinic and Bruno does calm our patients. Third, he was very cute as a kitten, and remains so."

Jas and Plent were members of the Seffite race, a species which could be best described as resembling large bipedal dormice. The average individual tended to be 160 centimeters tall; and while Plent fit the general description, Jas was about a head shorter. Both had a short coat of brown and cream hair, and sharp rodent features moderated by a blunt muzzle. Deft five digit hands waved in animated counterpoint to verbal conversation. However, despite looks, no tails graced these sentients, that organ lost through evolution many millions of years prior. Temperamentally, Seffites could best be described as good-natured, prone towards social irrelevancies, and dedicated pet enthusiasts.

Archeological examination and ancient cave paintings indicated the first animal was domesticated not as a food source or for a hunting associate, but as a social companion. And among the eldest of professions was the shaman, the prostitute, and the veterinarian. Therefore, it was not surprising nineteen out of every twenty Seffite adults owned at least one furred, feathered, or scaled friend, if not more.

Many opportunities for veterinarians such as Jas and Plent existed at corporate, state, and private firms. The latter, which usually proved to be the most lucrative, were unfortunately out of reach for newly matriculated vets, no matter how high one graduated in one's class. Clinics preferred to hire doctors with real world experience, not fresh-faced lads and lasses full of theory and short on practicality. Federal jobs came and went with a demand based upon the mysterious forces of politics and the latest budget estimates. Corporations, on the other hand, especially those with concerns which stretched beyond the limits of Sef's atmosphere, were always looking for the cheapest vets on the market.

Jas and Plent worked for CHON, an up and coming gas and volatile mining company. CHON was an acronym for Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen Nitrogen, the four basic elemental ingredients in any organic system, including those foods and plastics fabricated through replicator processing. The company was in a phase of rapid expansion, quietly researched technologies show-casing for the first time in the colonial system of Tyreen. CHON, through political wrangling and /much/ outlying of capital, had managed to buy exclusive mining rights for ten years to Tyreen's largest gas giant, Twirl. Jas and Plent were among the first of six vets being sent to the mining platforms of Twirl after having proven themselves competent among the company's stakes on Whirl and Swirl in the home system.

Mining was a difficult and dangerous occupation, even when robots did a great deal of the actual work. The corrosive atmosphere of even the most benign gas giant kept miners on their toes making repairs to machines, habitations, and other devices vital to their life and livelihood. Seffites also had notoriously daft artificial intelligences, cultural and religious rationale leading to a distrust of silicon minds. Therefore, even the ultra hazardous task of deep prospecting for rich gas pockets - one person for weeks in a small can subjected to crushing pressures which made the deepest terrestrial ocean seem like a sea level cake walk - involved actual miners. However, mining was potentially very profitable to those willing to become virtual indentured slaves during the typical two year tour.

To keep the miners sane and psychologically balanced, pets were an important component to any mining platform community. Animals even followed their owners on deep prospecting dives. Many animals were also not of the typical Sef domesticated breeds, people routinely bringing exotics with them or picking up tame biologicals found on newly opened colony worlds. Ergo, veterinarians were always in great demand.

The miners would be very happy to see the vet pair.

Of course, first Jas and Plent had to get to Tyreen, a three week transit time of which eleven days had passed. The small ship, named Finfin after a popular Seffian aquarium pet, while more than adequate when it came to veterinarian supplies, boarding area, and an exquisite examination/operation room, was not nearly as endowed in the engine department. The living part of the vessel was also lacking in some comforts, but neither Jas nor Plent had expected luxury when they had been hired out of school. Heck, neither had ever expected the chance to go anywhere beyond the solar system of their birth.

Plent nodded as he followed Jas' reasoning, "Okay, okay, I agree Bruno is a decent cat. I just do not understand why he has it in his little blue mind to shed on everything I own."

"Then why don't you add a pet to our little community here? I am really surprised you have never bought one since that harpy of yours died during final semester at school."

The harpy in question could be best described as a ball of feathers with beady eyes and a nasty temperament. "Well, Shela had been quite a handful, and I've not really seen anything which has captured my attention. Maybe one of the miners will have a pregnant exotic." Plent paused. "If we do come across a customer bringing in a litter, clutch, or whatever for first checkups, how about I ask for a youngling."

Jas clicked his incisors together, "Good idea. Bruno will hate it, but then again, he's a cat and hates everything that might disrupt his naps. Us included."

"I'll do it then. And Jas...it is your turn for cooking tonight."

Jas groaned in good natured indignity, then turned back to the display to engross himself in the latest letter from his sister.

"Are you sure we should be stopping in this system, Jas?" asked Plent. When he was nervous, he had a tendency to overly groom the short hair on his forearms; it was being finger combed with a vengeance.

Jas snorted, "We are ahead of schedule, aren't we? That gravitonic flux wave picked us up like a woodchip in the surf and propelled us nearly a warp factor faster than the ship can go. It was a bit rough, I admit, but we are in one piece and /two/ days ahead of where we should be. You know as well as I do that as long as we get to Twirl on time, or radio in with a damn good reason why we will be late, CHON doesn't care."

Plent's answer was an increase in grooming. At the current rate of picking, the Seffite would soon have a bare arm.

"Look, mate, did you ever think you would have the chance to see Entropy? It is alien art! Alien art from an extinct species!" Jas punctuated his point with an expansive wave of his hands. "At least that's what it is thought to be. How could we pass up a chance like this, especially as we may never have the chance to see it again."

Plent sighed. "Okay, okay. We'll expand our cultural boundaries for a couple of hours, then make space tracks. If a spatial anomaly can speed our trek, then another one can as easily delay us. Besides, I want to interact with an animal other than Bruno. He coughed up a hairball on my pillow yesterday."

Jas rolled his eyes, then set the coordinates into the ship's navigational computer. They would arrive at Entropy in less than half an hour.

For the sufficiently advanced race, time becomes yet another medium to exploit. In the weird world of quantum mechanics, all matter is reduced to paradox of wave and particle; why should time not be the same? Many civilizations have quietly "bottled" time as chronoton particles, while others gleefully fling themselves into the River Continuum. Although Seffites were beginning to understand their very first temporal riddles (FTL drives and time travel went hand in hand), they tended to hold the view that paradoxes made their brains hurt, that the whole "step on an ant" and "Whoops, were you my grandfather?" ideas were better left to the more cerebrally inclined intelligences.

In fact, quantum mechanics also state that such paradoxes are impossible. /Every/ particle in the universe spawns a multitude of "What if?" possibilities; at the moment of the Big Bang, the book of the multiverse expanded to infinity and has only been become larger since. Therefore, as the savvy traveler will explain, going back in time and killing grandpa isn't as horrible as it seems, as such a deed /has already happened in some other time line/. If it can happen, it has, it will. In fact, massacring the Old Old Man is /necessary/ for that other time line to exist at all. The trick is to return to one's own time line afterwards, in which grandfather escaped that most mortal of wounds, in time begetting one's father and eventually oneself. The unsophisticated traveler tends to forget to return to the page of the Big Multiverse Book he or she originated from, having the typical reactions and misadventures which cumulate with meeting his- or herself, ad nauseum.

Entropy was postulated to have been built by a race so advanced that playing with time was something taught to kindergartners, if not toddlers. While its actual function may not have been artwork, but one of several possibilities such as jail cell and practical joke, it was nonetheless very pretty to look at. Of course, if anything came within one hundred fourteen (and two-tenths) kilometers, it became caught in Entropy's Time Shell and was subsequently insta-aged to dust.

The heart of Entropy was a beautifully faceted dodecahedron, faces shining with an inner radiance. The colors subtly shifted from crystal blues to emerald greens and thence along the color spectrum, ending in a ruby red which slowly mutated into a dark violet and finally returned to its beginning tone. Some observers claimed to see a shadowed shape, vaguely humanoid, writhing inside the translucent center; others said such assertions were visual illusions like the canals of Mauve.

From the central dodecahedron crystal, which had been estimated (distance measurement tools worked poorly) to be approximately fifteen kilometers in diameter, spread a wonderous network of webbing. The structure looked as if it should be as ephemeral as an ice sculpture under the noonday dessert sun. Whimsical threads arched ten kilometers above Entropy's heart, weaving an intricate structure which was never recorded in the same configuration. This particular property of Entropy was unnerving, as a camera trained on the artwork would never document movement; however, a blink of an unwary eye later, and the web would be different. Also unsettling was the fact the threads were transparent to all scanning equipment other than those relying upon standard visual wavelengths.

Entropy's most daunting characteristic, that which prevented close approach, was the Time Shell. A barrier of time existed which would turn biological organisms into dust, vessels into rust and decay, rocks into powder. The field gave Entropy its name. A verbal warning cast upon all subspace frequencies, announced in an unknown and untranslatable language, cautioned trespassers who came within one hundred thousand kilometers. At least it was guessed to be a warning, although it may very well have been an advertisement for carbonated beverages. The alert became increasingly incessant the closer a vessel neared, then abruptly cut off at two hundred kilometers. To pass beyond was to risk drifting into Entropy.

Finfin halted fifty thousand kilometers from Entropy, close enough to appreciate the artwork, yet far enough to feel quite safe. The ship's common room also functioned as bridge, a cozy state of affairs common for small private Seffite vessels. Jas routed the exterior visual to the main viewscreen/TV, then instructed the computer to hold station for an hour. While Entropy was an engrossing structure to watch, it didn't /do/ much.

Boredom was a universal emotion.

Plent and Jas passed an enjoyable hour, tightly shutting eyes and counting to ten, then pointing out changes in the webbing to each other. Imagination turned phantom shapes into a variety of objects; the slowly shifting, throbbing crystal at the center cast a suitably eerie light. Somewhere Entropy had captured an asteroid, yet another mystery as the structure did not register as having a gravity well. Analyzation of its slowly decaying orbit showed it would impact the Time Shell in approximately twenty years. No other ships currently shared the system with Finfin, for as beautiful as Entropy was, it also was out of the way for casual tourists, and was obviously not to give up its secrets anytime soon for the scientific set.

"That's it," announced Plent as the timer went off, "we are done. Let's get back on our flight path."

"Worry, worry, worry. You need to take it easy. I think it is time to take you to a good party."

"Bah, I don't need a party. Since it is your turn to wash the dishes, I'm going to set the coordinates to Tyreen."

Jas snorted, "Dishes? I do not recall any dishes?"

"You are being juvenile, Jas."

"Fine, fine, I'll go clean up the mess in the kitchen. Afterwards I'll be in the pharmacy working on that rockfish tranquilizer compound. I almost have the structure modeled, and I'd like to finish it."

Plent made a noncommittal noise as Jas stood.

An alarm suddenly blared, siren wailing in counterpoint to a distantly yowling Bruno. Both vets looked at each other with mirrored "What the Hell?" expressions.

"Transwarp signature detected," calmly announced the computer. "Profile is consistent with Borg cube."

"Oh, crap. What did I tell you, Jas? First we are ahead of schedule, and now we are going to be delayed. Seriously delayed." Plent levered himself from the comfortable sofa and went to one of the navigation stations, dejectedly punching at console buttons and speaking quietly to the computer. The alarm halted. Neither Seffites had any illusion about forthcoming events; Finfin could not outrun a Borg cube, much less outfight one. Jas shook his head and sat at the opposite station. Bruno wandered into the room, tail twitching in anger over a disrupted nap.

Finfin's position was the perfect vantage for what transpired next.

The transwarp conduit opened into normal space, spitting out the Borg cube. Compared to Finfin, the vessel was immense, a monster. Automatic scanners identified each edge to be 1.3 kilometers in length; a subprogram displayed an inset on the viewscreen, noting it was the smallest class commonly observed. The information was of little comfort as most anything, including a space suited figure with laser rifle, could kick Finfin's tail from one side of the sector to the other.

The cube had entered normal space too close to Entropy, too close to the Time Shell. A quarter of the cube, a massive bite from one corner, disappeared as the barrier was glanced. Amazingly, the crippled cube managed to not only stabilize itself, but retreat on a semi-controlled trajectory. Sections exposed to vacuum shed bits and pieces to space; some of the objects had a disturbingly humanoid quality to them. Unfortunately, Entropy had a rocky companion in this epoch, and a limping escape turned into a slow motion collision.

The asteroid was much bigger than the cube, was a very solid chunk of basalt and iron ore. It noticed not at all as millions of metric tons of Borg hardware splattered across its surface, a majority embedding itself in the crust of an ancient crater. Miscellaneous spars, plates, and equipment quietly tumbled away from the sudden grave, rebounding in nearly nonexistent gravity to take up its own decaying orbit about Entropy.

Plent paused his frantic button tapping to pick at his left forearm. Jas simply stared at the screen, mouth open. Bruno looked back and forth between his two peoples, then meowed to break the silence: wasn't it time for someone to feed him? And his litterbox needed immediate maid service. Meow. Isn't anyone listening to me? Meeooow. Well, if you aren't going to pay attention to my very reasonable demands, then I have a lot of shedding to do. On your best vests. Bruno left the room.

"Well, f***," said Plent, drawing out the vowel. He very rarely swore, society frowning upon those who felt a need to express themselves using obscenities. "F***." A stunned look was passed to his shipmate.

Jas bent over his console. He glanced up as a new display came onto the viewscreen. The asteroid filled the picture, a single red circle blinked on and off in the middle of what several minutes prior had been a working Borg cube. "There is a survivor. A life sign."

"F***."

"Shall we go investigate? I know we need to radio the authorities to come out here and salvage this mess, but maybe we should take a little look-see for ourselves first." Morbid curiosity was a common trait often shared by bipedal sentients. The quality led to a tendency to stick one's nose in where it really shouldn't go.

Plent gave one final four-lettered exclamation, then replied with fatalistic fervor, "Why not? My mother always said 'In for a berry, in for a bushel.' Maybe we can snag us a trophy or two. Keep an eye on that life sign, though. I'll chart us a course to the wreckage."

Jas nodded.

"We are closing in on that life sign," noted Jas as he glanced down at his utility pad, the Seffite version of a Federation tricorder, only with not as many bells and whistles. The area of Borg vessel the Seffite pair were in was one of the few sections retaining both atmosphere and power, although the former was quickly being lost to vacuum around leaky seals and the latter reduced to emergency light bulbs every five meters. Both wore the heavily armored miner excursion suits CHON issued all their field employees.

Plent shook his head, a gesture lost inside the deep helmet. "I think this is stupid, Jas. We've already filched a treasure trove of stuff. I found a lovely diagnostic device and that globe which can move around all by itself; and you managed to wrestle that functioning alcove into Finfin's storage hold. Besides, what if the drone attacks us?"

"Look around you! It is amazing anything is working, period." It was true, as severed limbs and shattered torsos comprised those crew which had rode the present section of cube into the asteroid. Heavy bulkheads and massive pieces of equipment had turned other beings into very flat meat pancakes. Random sparks weakly showered from broken power conduits. "Besides, it hasn't moved the entire time we were on approach, nor while we have been poking around. I imagine that while the body is still going, the thing itself is the Borg equivalent of a vegetable. I've never seen a real live drone before, and I want something," Jas patted the camera which was in one suit pocket, "to show my future grandkids."

Plent snickered. "I can see you now..." Voice altered to that of an old man, "Gather around, pups. It was back in the days of 3018, and I was tooling around the universe searching for treasure when a Borg cube suddenly attacked me. Now, while I admit the Borg did put up a decent fight, they were no match for me. Afterwards as I surveyed the carnage...." Plent trailed off with a smirk as Jas punched him in the arm.

"Shut up."

The two climbed over and ducked under debris, following the direction indicator on the utility pad. Lights flickered as the final reserves of cube power leached away. Jas stopped next to a chaotic tumble of bulkhead and wire.

"I don't understand. The drone should be right next to us, but I don't see it. We are on the right level, but of course, as flat as this cube is, everything is one level. Do you see it? Plent? Hello, Sef to Plent, are you even listening to me?"

Plent was staring at the leaning metal wall, eyes wide. Jas turned his head to see what his mate was looking at, landing his sight upon the quarry in question. The drone was not in good shape, a roll of the die of chance the sole reason of its continued existence.

The prone form appeared to be unconscious, limp body sheltered from an alarmingly groaning load of metal by a single leaning bulkhead. Breath weakly trickled from mouth and nose, thin plume of steam attesting to the frigid cold claiming the area. The right leg lay at an unnatural angle, surely broken; a prosthetic left arm was crushed under the protecting bulkhead's bottom edge. While abrasions peaked from pale flesh under torn black armor, there was amazingly little blood. Worst of all the injuries was the head - exposed skull and jaw bone, hole where an optical implant used to be, lacerations.

"We've seen it. Take your pictures and let's go before this place explosively decompresses on us," said Plent. Previous attitude was replaced somber and subdued reflection.

Jas sucked in a rattling breath, releasing it to a feedback which echoed through suit radio connections. "I want to save it."

Plent's eyes riveted on his shipmate. "It is a Borg, not a stray pet! Assuming it survives its injuries, it will only assimilate us. Borg!"

"But look at it. We have to do something."

"We can Goddess well leave the thing here for the Exploratory and Defensive Forces. EDF will take the thing into custody if it still lives. Don't forget we still need to radio EDF about the cube's accident in the first place. We have our toys, so it is time to continue to Twirl and our jobs."

Silence. "I can't help but think of a certain childhood fable, the one about the freeb, the house cat, and the thorn. The house cat corners the freeb, but finds it cannot pounce because of a pain in his paw. The freeb asks if she might take a look, and manages to pull out a splinter. The cat is so grateful he vows to never hurt the she-freeb again, and in fact adopts her into his family. All live happily ever after."

"Jas, that is a Borg, not a cat, and we are certainly not freebs. And if the Borg invites us into its family, I am damn well going to refuse." Another round of silence. "Don't forget the dark morality tale with the same characters. In that one the freeb is killed despite pulling the splinter. The cat's explanation was that he could not go against his nature, which was to catch freebs for his mistress."

The Borg's breath was beginning to falter; the life sign on the utility pad flickered with increasing weakness. Jas gave a hopeful smile at Plent, features distorted by the faceplate. "Well?"

Plent groaned, species instincts regarding lost pets finally winning against good sense. "Fine, let's transport it back to Finfin. But if it makes one wrong move, /assuming/ it lives at all, I'll flush it personally to space."

Jas clicked his teeth together in triumph.

The Borg was strapped to the main examination table using the heaviest restraints available. A stonehound, notoriously difficult to subdue for even the most benign of routine check-ups, would not have been able to budge. Jas hoped the stout bindings of tritanium cord reinforced leather wrapped around limbs, torso, and abdomen would be sufficient. The room was equipped with forcefield restraints, not that they would do any good. For double measure, a voluntary muscle nerve inhibitor was attached to the base of the skull.

The million credit question continued to ask if the precautions were even necessary. The badly wounded drone was in a state of deep coma, one which was not feigned according to monitors next to the table.

"Plent, why don't you peel off as much of the body armor as you can. Cut it if necessary. We need to scan for internal organ damage and the armor is fouling our diagnostic equipment." Plent nodded and set to work with laser scalpel. "I'll see if I can clean up some of this mess on the head. Goddess only knows what sort of brain damage our patient has accrued, but if it has lived this long, it will live long enough for me to see something other than gore and grime."

The efficient team of Plent and Jas set to work stripping their patient. They had worked together as a viable vet pair for the two years since their hiring by CHON; they planned to formalize the relationship into a quad marriage as soon they could settle down and find themselves a pair of available females. Until then, it was the bachelor life of the occasional willing femme miner for companionship, punctuated by long bouts of celibacy. Traveling vets did not have an exciting social life.

In the course of initial clean and prep, it became apparent their subject was male, species unknown. At least it was assumed the drone was of the male gender, although such things were never a given. At any rate, "he" was a better label than "it." Stripped as naked as possible, some armor impossible to remove without cutting away layers of muscle, the drone seemed smaller, less dangerous. The prosthetic had been deemed a complete loss and removed on the cube; the broken leg would have to be reset from its initial hasty straightening.

Finally the Borg was ready for deep scanning. Jas triggered the computer to begin, then stepped to the main terminal where Plent already stood. Both watched as a picture was built layer by layer using laser, sonar, magnetic resonance, electric flux, and a myriad of other noninvasive techniques to image insides. The subject as displayed did not look healthy.

"Metabolic poisons are very high," commented Plent, eyes glancing to several graphs at an auxiliary screen, "and sugars and carbohydrates are low. The muscles appear to be in a process of wasting, as if the proteins were being motivated for use in more critical systems. However, the rate is phenomenal. I don't know if the process is one native to the species, or a product of Borg nanomachines. I also have no clue over how much tissue poisoning he can take, but if it was one of us on the table, we'd be dead a while ago." Professional detachment had overtaken Plent's demeanor, one reserved for interesting cases.

Jas frowned, grinding his molars together absently. "There are quite a few foreign bodies throughout the drone - must be implants. I'm labeling best guess for organ function, but most of what I see appears to be on the brink of failure." Livers are livers, and kidneys are kidneys; a Seffite veterinarian worked with a very wide variety of disparate species and had to know if the orange blob under the intestine analogue secreted digestive juices or was the immune system nexus. While the pet database was always growing, a competent vet had to be able to best define organ functioning, even if he or she had never seen the animal type before, much less have extensive files on its physiology. /Doctors/ were limited, typically only worked upon a single race; /vets/ required intelligent ingenuity spread among dozens of species. "Damn. There is some cellular repair occurring, but it will not be sufficient to keep the patient alive for more than an hour at most. Damage is too extensive unless we get in there with a regenerator."

Plent nodded as he keyed the display for the cranium. "Oh crud, take a look at this." Jas obediently complied, then heaved a sigh of frustration. A piece of shrapnel had penetrated the braincase, making hash of organic matter. Wires and the phantom outlines of complex solid-state devices reached fingers to all parts of the skull, but the foundation brain looked as if someone had ran it through a blender. The shrapnel had not exited the head, but finally lodged itself in one of the implants deep in the core, general vicinity of language processing if neural map followed the norm of Seffite physiology. "I don't think there is enough brainstem left in there for basic breathing, much less complex motor skills!"

Jas looked down at the quietly lifting chest, at wounds and abrasions leaking a yellowish-clear fluid which was not quite blood. "Maybe the Borg technology is keeping our drone alive. Perhaps if we fix the body, the brain will...reassemble itself?" Jas' voice conveyed the extreme unlikelihood of such a neural miracle occurring. "And then again, maybe not. At the very least, if we can keep him alive as a vegetable, EDF will be pleased when we meet them at Tyreen."

"We would have to explain why we have a Borg on board in the first place, you know."

"I know." The beep of monitors and quiet whirl of diagnostic equipment filled the otherwise empty silence. The Seffite race had no telepathic tendencies, but nonetheless, similar thoughts revolved in separate brains. The third mind present held no thoughts at all. "I'll begin an electrolyte drip. You prepare for opening. I suggest rockhound protocols." Rockhounds were not only extremely strong, but had blood with such a high acidity most ceramics and metal alloys melted if contact was made with the deadly liquid. Flesh dissolved into runny gelatin.

Plent began laying the necessary equipment out on a supplementary table. It was always easier to prepare for rockhound protocol before one climbed into the armored suit.

Hours later, Jas and Plent carefully removed their suits, placing them in the sterilizer. The operation was over, but neither knew if it had been successful. Although clean techniques had not been rigorously pursued, it was assumed infections would not be a problem if the patient survived because of Borg physiology and the inevitable nanite driven immune system. Both Seffites were very tired, very drained by the touch-and-go operation, desiring to fall into bed but not daring until final procedures were completed.

The scanner currently displayed the poor fruit of their labors. Much of the organ damage within abdomen and torso was repaired, or at least was no longer leaking blood and pus. Neither knew if the organs worked, or if their function was actually performed by one of the many invasive pieces of technology which were not touched. The leg was set, held straight by inserted metal and screws; normally a osteo-regenerator would have been employed to speed bone matrix regrowth, but in this case the bones appeared to have a metal embedded in the structure, unusual alloy elements mixed alongside calcium. And the head...the head was not touched other than a coating of dermaskin to cover exposed bone. The piece of shrapnel was buried too deeply to risk scrambling what little brain remained intact.

Jas sucked in a long breath, held it, then let it go with an explosive exhale. "The organs look much better, and that odd internal reconstruction appears to be focusing on rebuilding muscles. Amazingly, something is trying to recondition and redirect what neural pathways are intact...electocephilic profiles of the head show a strengthening of synapse firing." He closed his eyes for a moment, massaged the base of his ears, then focused on the nearly dry IV bag. A full bag of electrolyte solute quickly replaced the empty one.

"That sugar juice is being used up as fast as it goes in," commented Plent, attention focused on a subdisplay, "and I have no clue where the water portion goes. The drone does not produce urine - probably one of the few times I've completed an operation without the patient peeing, spitting, or otherwise wetting me - and he is not bloating either. Minor mystery. Unfortunately, the metabolic poisons are not undergoing a similar vanishing act. If we can't filter them out of his blood, he is going to crash beyond recovery. Our work has only put off the inevitable."

"What about that alcove I picked up?"

"What about it?"

"Well, I'm not exactly up on my Borg knowledge, but don't the drones spend their downtime in those upright coffins of theirs?" Jas looked down at the comatose, restrained, mottled gray patient. "Pissing is not the elimination method of choice, so it follows they must rid themselves of waste in some other manner. I'm making a serious leap, but maybe the alcove is the key."

Plant absently groomed a forearm. "It is not like the alcove came with an instruction manual. 'Place blue wire K into slot A. Plug contraption B into host ship life support. Press the purple button.' I don't know if my brain can handle trying to jury-rig technology we know nothing about. Assuming Finfin doesn't blow a fuse, we could end up assimilating ourselves by accident."

"It is our best chance. How about if I brew my trademark caffeine drink which kept us alive on the nights before major tests while you beam the alcove from the hold to the...um...observation and boarding room. When the drink is done, we can try to get the alcove to work."

The drone lay quietly, shallow rise of naked chest and beeping heart monitor the only indications of life.

"You are right, Jas. Call me an idiot for wanting to see this through, a suicidal moron of the ultimate degree, but you are right. The alcove is probably his only chance of surviving."

Five days later and still nine days out of Tyreen, the drone awoke from his coma, sending observing machines into a frenzy of activity. A warning alarm sounded, ruckus impossible to sleep through. Neither Jas nor Plent had been in bed at the time, however, the former in the midst of a long shower and the latter performing routine maintenance checks on life support. They met in the hallway outside the recovery room, Jas very damp under his clothes and Plent coated in dust. Bruno was peeking from a bedroom doorway, looking for someone to blame for his interrupted beauty sleep.

"Computer, disengage alarm!" shouted Jas over the din. The siren stopped. Bruno meowed disgust before disappearing back to bed.

Plent rubbed some dust off his face, only succeeding in leaving a long smudge along his jawline. "Shall we go in?" Weapons were a moot point as none were aboard. With a flick of water from his nose, Jas nodded assent.

The door opened to the boarding room, an area dedicated to stacked cage space for moderate to small animals. Large pets which required observation following veterinary procedures were housed in the small cargo bay within modular paddocks. The alcove had been set upright next to an otherwise featureless bulkhead, cables and wires plugging into a variety of wall sockets. Duct tape and extension cords figured heavily into the hodgepodge, as did several bungies. The drone itself, after instillation into the alcove, had been secured with a number of restraints.

The Borg in question was awake, surviving eye wide open and watching the Seffite's entrance. The head swiveled slightly to follow the pair's activity, the only movement available as the voluntary muscle inhibitor remained in place. The eye blinked once, returning a gaze which was not dulled in idiotic stupor. Astonishingly something, some mentality, survived within the neural soup of the drone's brain; hopefully the Collective wasn't running the show by puppet proxy.

"Do you understand me?" asked Jas. "Blink once," a single digit was held up, "for yes, or blink twice," two fingers, "for no."

An uncomprehending stare was the response.

"Do you understand me? We pulled you from the wreckage of your cube."

Nothing.

Plent wrinkled his short muzzle and flared his nostrils. "Vegetable. Very dangerous vegetable."

Jas waved Plent quiet. "One more chance, fellow. Do you understand what I am saying? Blink one time for yes, and two times for no." Pause. "Answer me."

The pupil of the single eye contracted slightly, orb flicking from one vet to the other. It returned to Jas and gave a slow motion wink.

"By the Goddess," swore Plent as he sucked in a deep breath. "The Collective f***ing knows where we are. Good job, Jas. We are now toast." His voice became wistful, "Now I'll never have that private clinic I dreamed of, the one under the tropical sun of paradise, next to the shore."

Jas hushed his mate. "Quiet." The drone, if anything could be inferred by its near non-expression, was puzzled. Confused. Jas directed his next words at the Borg, "Do you remember the Collective?" No response. "Answer me as before."

Two slow blinks.

"Do you remember from before you awoke here?"

Two blinks.

"Hear any voices in there with you?"

Confused wrinkling of forehead, then two blinks.

"Do you know what you are?"

Two blinks.

"Um, okay, just hold on there, then. Be right back." Jas grabbed Plent's dirty vest, pulling him back into the hallway for a whispered consultation. "I don't think he knows what he is. That job to his head may have cured him of his, um, Borgness."

Plent harshly whispered back, "And how do you know he is telling the truth? Probably wants us to let him go so he can assimilate us."

"Have you ever heard of the Collective lying? In all the stories of their activities? They tell it how it is going to be, and it is. It is 'You will be assimilated' this and 'Resistance is futile' that."

A grunt was Plent's answer. Both returned to the boarding room, forced smiles plastered on their faces. Seffites are not photogenic in the smile department, looking like rabid weasels. A ripple of alarm passed over the drone's face; although it was not possible, it seemed as if he had pressed himself as far back in his alcove as possible.

"Would you like to speak?" asked Jas with forced brightness, the same soothing tone he used on scared animals. "Would ums like to speak?"

Single blink.

Jas wiggled his fingers at Plent, who went to one of the diagnostic machines set to watch the alcove and its occupant. A frown touched his face as a combination of buttons were swiftly touched, allowing nerve impulses to travel the route to diaphragm, neck, and other muscles associated with speech. Limbs remained frozen.

"There, you can speak now," said Jas. "Do you know where you are?"

A rumble emanated from the drone, quickly modulating to become the graveled sounds of a voice long disused. A hoarse whisper: "No."

"What is your designation?" A puzzled look. "Designation...you know, your name?"

Cough. "I...I...I don't know."

Plent gave a slight gasp as Jas turned to catch his partner with a stunned glance. The same thought was reverberating through both minds - the drone had spoken in first person! Plent returned his full attention to the Borg, growing excitement visible in the twitching of his nose.

"Do you have memories? What is the last thing you remember?"

"Corridors. Dim light. A loud noise. Smoke. Cooking meat?" A slight shaking of the head. "No...no...I remember a ship. It...it is my ship, and I...I am crew. I am...am an engineer." A smile ratcheted across the pale face. "I am chief engineer. I have recently received a promotion and the bars are still new on my uniform." A darker look prevails, one of moderate fear, as the voice picks up in tempo. "But it is not a happy time. The line has been drawn - the children must not be hurt. The planet must not fall! For the children we fight, for our future we will die! The B...Borg are attacking, and my captains are yelling at me to fix the weapons, the engine. I do my best, but it isn't good enough. We are tractored! Our shields fail! The Borg are now on board, moving from deck to deck. Power has been cut and gravity is lost. I have a phaser rifle and I am in the fighter bay, shooting at shadows. I hit one! I kill one! No, I have hit a box of munitions. It explodes. I am hit by flying debris and nearly loose consciousness. A something looms over me, blinking lights, a targeting scope. It is Borg. I try to raise my rifle, but my gun - my arm - is several feet away. No blood...no blood...my wound must have been cauterized. The Borg reaches for me. I remember no more."

"By the Goddess," Plent breathes, "that is horrible."

"I...I remember a name. My name is Dakeen. I am a father. I have three lovely daughters. I fight to protect them, to protect my future. Did you pull me from the wreckage of my ship? Did we hold off the Borg?"

Jas sighs, shoulders drooping. "Not...exactly. We found you in wreckage, but not...your ship. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but I don't think you won your engagement with the Borg. You kinda /are/ a Borg. Sorry."

Dakeen's single eye is wide in astonishment, mind obviously a roil of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Head is shaken back and forth in denial, then craned forward and down for a glimpse at his almost naked body, clothed only in a strategically placed Borg codpiece, irremovable armor, and a wrapped leg splint. The head is thrown back; eye is closed. A tear wells up and begins to make a journey down Dakeen's cheek. "No...my daughters...I have failed...no." He performs an action no drone can do: Dakeen sobs in sorrow.

Seffites are not an overly suspicious race; the most paranoid among them would rate barely a blip on the psychotic radar for many species, including humans. Jas and Plent radioed to EDF, spilling their guts on the unmentioned portion of the detour to Entropy, noting the astounding outcome of a Borg drone which had regained individuality through massive head trauma. EDF relayed instructions of where to rendezvous once Tyreen system was entered in order to transfer the poor fellow off Finfin. In the mean time...

In the mean time, Dakeen was given access to most of the veterinarian ship. The engine room was off limits, but the reason had more to do with Bruno and cat hair then the slowly recovering ex-Borg. Besides, Finfin consisted of precisely two decks (living and engineering) and a cargo hold; the trouble of confinement was senseless considering the fact no true brig space existed unless one was a pet. Dakeen was too large to be stuffed into a cage, and rockhound paddock forcefields were probably useless.

Dakeen kept mainly to the boarding room, content to stand in the alcove in a type of meditative sleep much of the time. The scanner revealed ongoing repair by the nanites, although the end product would be a functional Borg body, not the one Dakeen wanted returned to him. Brain reconstruction was much slower, and thus far had only strengthened memories and personality from pre-assimilation; those few blips from the Collective came in the form of nightmarish shadows which disappeared as quickly as they appeared. It truly seemed as if that fateful piece of shrapnel had worked a miracle.

Plent had lent his bathrobe to Dakeen, the latter while comfortable in the temperature maintained in Finfin, begging for something to cover the exposed skin. His species - Ratif - had a cultural nudity taboo. The powder blue bathrobe did not flatter Dakeen's mottled skin, but fashion statement was not a priority. The clothing also did not quite fit - a hemline which for the shorter Seffites was ankle-level ended just above Dakeen's artificial knees.

When the one-armed Ratif was not in his alcove, he was awkwardly building small devices. He claimed the activity calmed him, kept his mind from dwelling too long on his condition, or the fact his daughters, assuming they survived at all, were probably Borg themselves. An engineer in his past life, even missing one arm he showed considerable talent - much more than the two Seffites whom knew enough to keep their ship functioning long enough to reach a certified mechanic - in contriving the objects. Most, unfortunately, had a Borg quality architecture to them, reminding all of the subtle influences which remained within Dakeen's scrambled brain.

Four days from Tyreen, Dakeen presented Jas with the first technological gift. For some reason the ex-drone had latched onto the vet as being the one in charge, although in truth neither was superior to the other. The device resembled nothing, wires and discarded life support system parts from a discard pile in the cargo bay soldered together into a roughly globular form. Several blinking lights of red and green appeared to serve no purpose except decoration.

"Um, what is it?" Jas was in the midst of the latest report to EDF concerning the updated health of the ex-drone. Pet patients were so much easier to take care of, not requiring mounds of paperwork. No matter what his heart told him in the future, no more Borg hitchhikers; he could swear several meters of red tape had been developed by the bureaucracy for such an unlikely occurrence.

Bruno curled around Dakeen's legs, purring. The device was placed in the middle of Jas' desk, the now free hand reaching down to awkwardly scratch the cat's ears. "Scanner, mostly Ratif design. Your systems are not as advanced as that of my race, and this will better resolve the exterior universe while in warp."

"Mostly?" asked Jas, picking up on the relevant portion of the description. The globe blinked red red green.

Dakeen shrugged, then shook his head in what Jas was beginning to recognize as a negative for the species. "I don't know. It just seemed...right to wire it a bit differently than I originally wanted to."

"You do know this ship isn't exactly top-of-the-line. Better scanners can probably be found on our military ships."

"No...no they can't. I don't know how I know this, but I do. This one is much superior. May I install it?"

Jas sighed, then looked at his terminal. Plent was taking a nap and there was so much stuff to do. Off-loading the overly helpful Dakeen and getting hands on an actual pet would be a relief. "Yah, sure, whatever. Just don't mess up our propulsion, power, or life support grids." Jas keyed in a short code on his board. "There, I've unlocked engineering. Don't let Bruno in, no matter how much he cries. Cat hair is horrible to vacuum out of the manifolds."

Dakeen happily nodded, picked up the scanning device, and trundled towards the stairs to the lower deck. Bruno followed behind, meowing.

"Are you awake, Veterinarian Jas?" whispered out of the darkness.

The named groaned as he rolled over, slitting a single eye. A tall shape loomed. "I was, Dakeen, but I'm not anymore. I told you before I went to bed to ask Plent about the enhancements you wanted to make to our diagnostic scanner."

"I finished that task two point seven hours ago. Veterinarian Plent observed me the entire time. No, you said to come to you if I remembered anything about the...accident. I have memories now. They are not very good, but I think know what happened."

Jas sat up in bed, thumping his pillow into shape to serve as a backrest. The lights remained off, the metallic voice hovering somewhere over his head. Two point seven hours? Jas yawned as he shook his head. No way to tell if the phrase was a product of Borgdom or racial upbringing.

"Shall I tell you?"

"Yes, tell me. I am listening."

"What you call Entropy is listed as temporal anomaly #118 by the Borg. We...I mean the ship was dispatched to examine the anomaly, a routine assignment. Unfortunately the conduit opened too close to Entropy and we, the ship could not abort in time. Severe damage. Entire sub-sections lost and others in darkness. A third of the compliment terminated. We would have escaped and survived, except for the asteroid. Loud noises. This body trapped by debris, but not killed outright. Lives reduced to a handful, then only one. Massive internal damage. Compensating, but systems are collapsing. This drone goes into forced stasis." Pause. Jas contemplated turning up the lights...the change in Dakeen's voice and cadence was frightening. "And then...then I was here. Awake. Me."

Jas swallowed hard. "And tell me who you are?"

"Dakeen. Dakeen Frimiz of the Ratif. You know this fact. Why do you ask?"

"Just...just making sure."

Silence. "I see. I think I will retreat to my alcove for meditation. I will be there if you require my assistance."

"Yes," said Jas as the ex-drone left. He lay staring at the black ceiling for the rest of his rest period, unable to return to sleep.

"So, Plent said you were up to something. What are you making now? We are about a day from Tyreen, so it better be finished before you leave to your new home with the EDF. They may even have found news of your race when we arrive," Jas cheerfully said as he stepped into the boarding room. The gaiety was partially forced, the spookiness of two nights prior still haunting his sleep. The ex-Borg had been on his best nonplural behavior since then.

Dakeen busily wielded soldering iron and a utility pad, deftly adding a length of yellow sheathed wire to the conglomeration growing on the work bench. At its heart was a vaguely familiar piece of equipment. "Communications device, I think."

"You think? And isn't that round thing in the middle Plent's Borg toy he retrieved from the cube wreckage?"

"I'm not quite sure what it is going to be. And yes, the globe is Borg technology. Specifically it is an intracube communications relay node. At least I think it is. At any rate, it functions as a switching board and contains some of the circuit patterns that I need."

"And its purpose?"

A smile. "I will give this ship better communications. It is a booster to expand Finfin's subspace radio range. You will be able to receive your copy of Vet Digest without having to leave warp, for one thing. I have also heard you complaining over your inability to speak to your family in real time without renting expensive equipment owned by your employers. Pay phone you named it? Whatever...I will help you avoid that obstacle. There is nothing more important than family."

Jas clicked his teeth together. "And will you be able to contact the Collective with your device? Do not be angry, I just need to know."

Dakeen shook his head rapidly. "No. I told you, I do not want to be a drone again. I want to be me, Dakeen. I want to know the fate of my daughters, and that I can not do as a drone. I would not want to, I remember that much now. It feels like you are underwater, your thoughts locked in a comfortable womb. Smothering. Besides, I now know what implant that piece of shrapnel is lodged in."

"You do?"

"Yes. It is the neural transceiver for this drone." Dakeen correctly interpreted Jas' twisting features and quickly clarified. "By that term, I mean the drone that I was. Whomever he was, he is dead now; and even if he wasn't, that small shard of metal would prevent him from reconnecting with the Collective. Only Dakeen remains. A Dakeen trapped in this ugly body, but if that is my fate, then that is my fate." The Ratif sighed. "Please, I must continue my work. I know of no better way to thank you and Veterinarian Plent for helping me. I will finish it and present it to you tomorrow morning, before our rendezvous."

Jas flicked an ear in assent. Bruno was down the hallway loudly demanding his mid-afternoon, pre-dinner snack. If he wasn't fed soon he would throw a temper tantrum and shred something.

"Damn gnats," muttered Jas. For some reason he was slogging through a swamp, unknown goal forever a marsh away. On one level he recognized the setting as a dream; another portion of his mind insisted reality was stinking mud clinging to hair. It would take forever to clean his pelt!

Slog, slog, slog. Gnats buzzed in an annoying cloud, occasionally dive-bombing his head. Their proboscis could not penetrate his outer coat of hair, but that did not stop them from trying. Slog, slog, slog. A waterway now stood between himself and his nebulous goal, so it was wade, wade, wade. Yuck! The rotting slime combined with the swamp's natural high humidity and temperature would make him unfit for company once he reached civilization again.

Suddenly, as nightmares are wont to do, the muddy water mutated into quicksand, sucking mud grasping at legs, at arms. Jas struggled, called for the help he knew was not there. Unfortunately, the rules of the dream dictated he had to try to attract attention, even if that attention was not the helpful kind, was the kind with sharp teeth looking for helpless travelers to eat. Jas struggled as the mud pressed tighter, binding limbs to his side. Soon he was nothing more than a head inches from suffocating death, waiting for inevitable fate to befall.

Time to wake up. Time to wake up. Time to wake up....

"It is time for you to wake up, Veterinarian Jas. I know you can hear me, the monitors tell me so. I am very, very sorry."

Jas woke to a hell, mental fuzziness momentarily convincing him of the swamp's reality. Temperature and humidity were high, much higher than Seffite norm; and arms and legs could not be budged. An increasingly awake mind noted the fact he was no longer in bed, was actually strapped upright in the Borg alcove. Jas blinked, then focused on the nearly naked form of Dakeen, minus bathrobe.

"I...we...I...we..." stuttered Dakeen, a look of intense concentration passing over his face. "I am so very sorry. I...we.../I/ did so want to meet your EDF people, to know if any of my race survives."

"What has happened?" croaked Jas. He concentrated on his right arm...was the binding a little less tight? Attention was abruptly drawn away from the limb and set upon a gurney on the other side of the room. The lower tier held the odd device Dakeen had been working upon. The upper table held Plent. A very unhealthy looking Plent. "What did you do to my friend?"

Dakeen glanced over his shoulder, puzzled. "Veterinarian Plent? He will be okay. You will be okay too. They...we? did not want you to awaken at all, but they are still distant. Distant enough to ignore at times, but it grows harder."

"They?" whispered Jas, a dread feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. "The Collective?"

"You once asked me if I heard voices. I did not. Dakeen did not. This drone did not." The single eye squeezed tightly shut as hand curled into a fist. Dakeen's body abruptly relaxed with a long shudder. "Memories intruded as the body healed, but my thoughts were still my own. Then I began to build the communications device, not knowing I...we...I was building an exterior neural transceiver booster. It is not very powerful, but it was enough. Weak implants within me interact with it, and it seeks out the Collective. They whisper to me; we...they grow stronger as I...we...they near. I grow small, yet I grow large." Third person and first person perspectives tangled into a confused morass.

Panic welled in Jas. He forced himself to calm, to think. Logic would see him through, just as it had when the brood of jumpers had escaped their cages. Potential disaster with a path to safety, if one could navigate the pitfalls. "You said you can ignore the Collective. Smash the device! Do not listen! You said family was everything, your future. I'll resign from CHON, help you find your daughters, even if it means spending every last cent I own, stealing if necessary." Jas consciously stopped his molars from grinding.

"Daughters?" Dakeen asked dreamily. "Yes, daughters. Family is important. Very important. The Collective tells me where my daughters are. One is terminated, but two still survive as Borg, as drones. I must return to my family. My family is my future." Voice turned direct. "And you saved me, helped me...us. I must show you and Veterinarian Plent my family, let us thank you properly. Your skills as a medical practitioner will add greatly to our perfection."

"Release us!" pleaded Jas. "We helped you to live! You owe us your life! A life for a life!"

Dakeen spared another backwards glance to Plent's oh-so-still form. "Veterinarian Plent has already begun the assimilation process; he will awaken as Borg. The voices, the whispers, the Voice, grow stronger. Dakeen is fading, losing cohesiveness. You also once asked the designation of this drone. We...I...we are 18 of 21, primary processor of unimatrix 002. We," a tear welled from the corner of the whole eye, "are so very, very sorry."

A blue head at knee level poked into the boarding room, eyes suspiciously darting about. Ears pricked up as the born-again Borg drone was seen. The purring and meowing bundle of cobalt fur which was Bruno advanced forwards. For one fleeting moment, Jas hoped the cat would do what words could not. Optimism was quickly dashed.

"Bruno. Cat. Domesticated animal native to species #7922 homeworld. Household pet," mechanically recited 18 of 21, hand trailing along Bruno's arching back. "You will not be assimilated. You will not add to our perfection. We...I will place you in an escape pod and return you to your species-owners. You should not follow your family to the Borg. The Voice says otherwise, but I can still resist on this point. For now." Regret tinged the increasingly stilted voice. Hand jerked away from Bruno as if stung. "Veterinarian Jas, we are truly, truly sorry. When you are One, you will feel the depths of my regret. Hopefully. You will also make an excellent medical drone."

Jas fell into unconsciousness as a member of the dreamtime gnat cloud burrowed though hair, scoring his neck. His last vision, however, was not of the fell swamp, but of an inquisitive blue cat comfortably curled in the crook of an arm, ears pricked alertly. There were worst final sights in the universe, and as suddenly heavy eyelids sagged shut, Bruno's feline visage accompanied Jas into oblivion.

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