the situation that she has presented is a threat to billions of lives. We need to take action, and if you’re not going to help, then we will go on our way and do the best we can, although I’m not liking the odds. But the bottom line is that I am asking you to trust me.”
Warring emotions were evident in the Doctor’s face. He turned away from her then, releasing her hands, and stood for a time with his back to her. Neither Soleta nor Seven moved so much as a centimeter.
“Has she created backups?” he said finally.
Seven looked confused, not quite understanding the question, but Soleta got it instantly. “You mean other incarnations of herself?”
“If she presents the sort of danger that you are saying, then she has to have a pervasive personality. Pervasive or, more accurately, invasive,” he continued as if he were a professor lecturing a class. “She would have created replications of herself and installed them in various databases.”
“Yes, she has,” said Soleta. “Including into the computer of my own vessel at one time. I’m reasonably sure she is no longer there, but I have had to remain circumspect and operate on the assumption that she could return there at any time and, if seeing me as a threat, annihilate my ship with a thought.”
Seven turned and stared at Soleta with open incredulity. “And you’re just telling me this now?”
As if Seven hadn’t spoken, the Doctor went on, “You’re not simply talking about administering a virus that will cleanse her from the core of the Excalibur. You need something that will compel her to pass it on to all her various iterations and backups, no matter where they might be, and obliterate them as well. Otherwise she could easily reconstitute herself and then you will not only be right back where you started, but she will be considerably angry and present an even greater threat. So you’re basically gambling an all-or-nothing scenario. I assume you both understand this.”
“I do,” said Soleta.
“I do now,” said Seven, firing an annoyed glance at Soleta. Then she turned her attention to the Doctor. “Are you telling us these things as a matter of information? Or—”
“I will help you, yes,” said the Doctor.
Seven reached up and touched his face. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
A thought suddenly seemed to cross his mind, and he turned back to Soleta. “You really think it would make a splendid musical entertainment?”
“Absolutely,” she said readily.
“Well then,” the Doctor said, all business, “let’s get to work.”
Xenex
Two Days Before the Daystrom Institute
i.
“Check again.”
“Captain, I’ve already double-checked the sensor readings,” Zak Kebron assured him. Far below the Excalibur, the mostly brown and, to most observers, unappealing world of Xenex, turned slowly on its axis, the starship in geosynchronous orbit with it. “I’m not picking up anything unusual. Certainly no energy readings from any encampments.”
“Morgan.” Calhoun turned to Morgan Primus, who was seated at the ops station. “Is it possible that they could be there with some sort of scrambling equipment?”
“Rendering themselves effectively invisible?” She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s possible. Typically it would be easier to hide from scans if one has facilities underground, as we well know,” she said with an obvious reference to recent events on AF1963. “But with suffiently advanced technology, it might be possible to craft a shield of some sort that would either confound scans or prevent them from realizing what they’re looking at.”
“And we would have no way of knowing.”
“Not from up here,” she said.
“All right, then. Kebron,” he said, making the decision instantly, “kindly inform my brother that I will be making a homecoming. Assemble a security team. If we’re beaming into the middle of something, I want to make certain we’re ready to shoot our way out.”
Burgoyne, from hir seat as second in command, suggested, “Perhaps it would be preferable to speak to your brother from up here?”
“I can’t assume I’ll be getting an honest answer from him if I’m speaking to him from orbit. If we allow for the idea that hostile forces are masking their presence, then it makes sense to suppose that they could be right there with him, and we would never know.”
“And since it’s your brother involved…” Burgy began.
“Then I have to be the one who goes down. Think of it as a matter of pride.”
Morgan observed, “I seem to remember hearing that pride is what goes before a fall.”
There was a brief silence on the bridge, a collective wait to see how Calhoun would react