Title: Immutable Laws of Nature
Author: Trek_in_Tandem
Summary: After the events of "Imperfection," Seven of Nine reflects.
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Immutable Laws of Nature
There are certain laws in the universe that even the Borg respect. The Law of Non-Contradiction, for example. A thing cannot be both itself and not itself, both A and not-A, simultaneously. Further, matter and anti-matter cannot even exist in the same space. If one comes into proximity of the other, both are destroyed.
Yes, some things cannot be, but the Collective has a more strict definition of impossible than other species apparently have. It is not impossible to reach Warp 10, as humans unaware of Tom Paris' historic flight believe, but the consequences make the achievement rather futile. But this does not limit travel to Warp 9.99; there is always transwarp, interdimensional travel, fluidic space. The unknown possibilities are innumerable. As Captain Janeway once said, if we can’t go through, we'll just go around. Space and time are vast, but they are relative. It is possible to travel in more than one direction through time. It is possible to enter other universes, which abut this one in a way few human minds understand. It is possible for one human to go back in time and change the present. It is possible that any decision we make has the power to change our life or the course of our civilization. It is possible that new universes diverge from our own at such decision points so that there are as many new universes as there were possible actions.
The immutable rules of space and time remain unknown. We cannot discover what is possible until we have excluded the impossible. So the rules, as we know them, are . . .bendable. With some effort, one can get around the laws of space and time. It is, I have found, slightly harder to get around the unpredictable laws that govern human nature.
Captain Janeway has said that she cannot always be my friend. However, she was my friend when I was dying, when she scavenged among the dead and put a laser scalpel to the throat of a much larger opponent to save me, once again, from the Borg. I hear the crew repeat the story in the mess hall, though they do not know I can hear. They say it is unbelievable, but they all clearly believe it, anyway. Their speech is so imprecise. They not only believe it, they revel in it. They do not truly believe their captain is unstoppable but they love to voice that idea.
This time it was the Borg within me that the captain had to face. My cortical node was failing. She acted against her nature to save me. Or perhaps she merely acted contrary to what she desires her nature to be. I think what she wants to be is not the same at all times. Her words to me on Arturis' ship indicate that she wills herself to be the captain and nothing more 'when necessary,' as she would put it. Such times of necessity, according to the captain, include destroying the array that could have returned Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant in order to protect the Ocampa, performing the procedure that terminated Tuvix, stranding herself and Commander Chakotay on a planet so the ship could continue on, erasing the doctor's memory when his ethical and cognitive subroutines conflicted, killing a woman she held dear to save her ship. This last caused her unique pain, I think. I believe that while Tuvok knows that Janeway was forced to kill a Kes that came from her future because he was there at the time and helped formulate the plan that would prevent its happening again, I am the only person aboard Voyager to whom the captain revealed her feelings once Kes had been 'talked down' by the hologram of her younger self. Though I have not discussed this with the captain, I believe betraying Kashyk and threatening an Equinox officer with death to force him to reveal information are also what she would consider acts of necessity. Such acts certainly include letting a friend die rather than risking her crew. The Vulcans state this philosophy quite concisely: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
But the captain does not always follow this philosophy. She has risked herself, her officers, even the ship and the entire crew to save a single individual on numerous occasions. That individual has been me more than once. In such instances, the captain followed another philosophy, one seemingly existent since the beginning of humanity itself. It is most eloquently stated in the ancient human parable of the good shepherd. The good shepherd will not abandon any of the animals in his care. He, in fact, leaves the whole flock unprotected from predators to go off in search of one lost lamb.
It would seem the captain cannot choose between these philosophies, that she is true to neither of them because she is not consistent in her choices. It would seem parallel to the inconsistency of what she wishes her nature to be. I do not believe this is so.
When I was dying, she was barely the captain at all. She ignored her place on the bridge and spent every minute in sickbay, on the holodeck, running scenarios with Tom Paris and the Doctor. The captain is not a medical doctor, does not even have as much field training as Paris.
She would have taken what I needed from a living drone to save me--I am certain of it--had the opportunity presented itself. I know she would have tried to make her own opportunity to do this, if not for the crew she is sworn to lead, to serve and protect. If not for her Starfleet ideals and protocols. If there were no Voyager, none of what that simple word entails, if it were only her and me, she would be a terrible force indeed. It would be most frightening if the captain were not the captain, if she were still Kathryn Janeway, mere human.
I prefer order to all else, of course, but I cannot help feeling intrigued by what Mister Paris would call the 'raw thrill’ of life here with a Janeway not the captain.
And what if I were not Seven of Nine, former tertiary adjunct to Unimatrix 01? What if I were merely Annika Hansen, human?
Obviously, of course, this hypothesizing is irrelevant. If I had not been assimilated, I would be in the Alpha Quadrant now, not aboard Voyager with the captain. If she were not the captain, she would not be here either. Then perhaps . . . were neither of us who we are, were we both mere humans in the Alpha Quadrant . . . What would each of us be doing? Would our lives have intersected as they have here?
This is futile. I cannot imagine a life without the Borg. It is even harder to imagine my life without the captain. Without her, I would imagine nothing, there would be no I in this body. But to imagine a Kathryn Janeway without the captain, this is impossible. Voyager's crew uses this word with too little regard for its meaning, but I do not. It is impossible to imagine the captain--Janeway--as an entity separate from the captain of Voyager. My difficulty is apparent.
Yet. She was my friend when I was dying. My friend first. I shall try to explain. I believe all of the considerable will she has was directed at saving me, a drone. No, not even a drone, a small, weak individual. The lost lamb, as it were. It overrode her devotion to her duty as captain. But, were it possible, Janeway would be literally composed out of duty and honor and ideals rather than water and carbon. Most simply, she is the captain, as surely as she is human, as inherently as if it were encoded in her genes. So she did not go looking for a Borg life to sacrifice for mine when I was dying. Had a crisis jeopardized Voyager, the captain would have left me for the bridge, for the good of the many. To do otherwise would be what Chakotay calls 'crossing the line.' Janeway will never actually cross this line, no matter how closely she skirts it.
She will be the good shepherd only so far, to an exact point beyond which there is no return; then, she will return to the flock, sacrificing the one for the many, even if it causes her great personal pain. The dichotomies, the paradoxes, are what make Captain Kathryn Janeway.
Matter and anti-matter cannot exist in the same space: a law of nature. But in this woman, two contradictory properties exist simultaneously. She is my friend and not-my-friend. Captain and friend are mutually exclusive roles at times. And yet she is at all times both. Impossible? Merely something not yet understood. The nature of space and time will be fully understood long before human nature's equivalent of E=MC2 has been worked out.
It is impossible for her to neglect her duty as captain. It would be acting against her nature. But when I was dying, her nature was to be the captain only by genetic default, as it were. She was, first and foremost, my friend. She said then that she would take me to Bloomington, Indiana, her home, some day. She is not disappointed in me.
Some day--when we are in Bloomington, Indiana, for instance--I think she will not be my captain any longer. I have learned this is ‘how it works.’ I cannot imagine such a state of being, either for her or for myself. But there it is, awaiting us in the future.
I do not think she will become smaller when she is no longer my captain. She will never really be not the captain. Not anymore than she will ever be only captain and not my friend. Even if she resolved with her formidable will to be only my captain, she could not. To be less than she is is impossible. All of her is present at all times.
The captain is immutable. A Janeway without the captain is impossible. This is fortunate. This is all that excludes terrifying chaos from our future. Instead of fear, I began to feel the exhilaration that will be life with Kathryn Janeway when she is no longer commander of Voyager. This feeling is raw. It is a thrill. It is a mere harbinger of what will come. It is as intrinsic to the future as the captain is intrinsic to Janeway. It is inevitable, as assimilation was for me, as taking me from the Collective was for Janeway. There is only time and space and Janeway. All bound by physical laws, and all surpassing what we think are the rules. The future comes. Space and time and Janeway await only my next decision for the creation of universes to begin.
I order the computer to reply to the captain's message. I will not work on transwarp theories this evening. I will view this painting Kathryn Janeway has been hinting about for weeks. Curiosity is not relevant to the Borg, but a desire to see this work that she has refused to describe to me is in my nature. It is inevitable that I will go and sit across from her at the table to 'share dinner and company.' Now that I have made her replicator 100 percent functional, this will be a pleasant experience. She is very kind to prepare foods that are not too spicy, too 'slimy', or too difficult to break out of exoskeletons. It is inherent in our natures that she will bait me all during our meal about her painting and that I will know what she is doing yet proceed exactly as she wants. I may even grow frustrated and position my lips in the expression that always makes her face look softer. Yes, undoubtedly, I will do this. It is only a question of when, of how long I can endure her teasing.
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