“Yes, I’ve read the logs about the Indign,” Janeway said. “What I have never imagined is a version of the Borg that was capable of any other way of interacting with the universe. If you are right and Species 001 was the Borg, why didn’t they simply abandon what they could not assimilate? The biodomes, the stations and their libraries, none of this resembles the Borg we know in any way.”
“But these were ancient Borg, weren’t they?” Farkas asked. “How do we know they didn’t evolve into the form we came to know? Perhaps in their youth, they were a little more open to experimentation.”
“Although these were not the Borg of our time,” Seven finally said, “they were not that different. Their language, for example, was identifiable.”
Both Patel and O’Donnell turned to stare openmouthed at Seven.
“What language?” O’Donnell asked.
“You have never heard the voice of the Collective when it wasn’t processed through your universal translators,” Seven said, staring straight ahead, her eyes haunted. “I have. Just not for a long time. It was disorienting.”
“What were they saying?” Janeway asked gently.
“It was a standard assessment directive. Two Borg were dispatched to the surface to test the planet’s viability for assimilation. Even in its untouched state prior to the erection of the biodomes, there are many elements and minerals present that would have been valued by the Borg.”
“They obviously encountered some of the Edrehmaia substance on the surface,” Patel said.
“And it didn’t kill them?” Chakotay asked.
“It looked to me like the Edrehmaia substance did to the Borg exactly what the Borg usually do to their victims. It added their distinctiveness to its own,” O’Donnell replied.
“You’re saying the Borg you saw were transformed by the substance?” Farkas asked.
“Clearly they survived,” Patel said. “There was evidence in the image of Species 001 that its Borg implants had been replaced by new prosthetics and their other wounds healed.”
“Prosthetics that did resemble some of the larger formations we later found on the surface,” O’Donnell noted.
“Whatever happened to them was beyond the Collective’s ability to process,” Seven said. “Undoubtedly, this dyad was severed from the rest of the Borg once they were attacked and the Edrehmaia substance was likely classified as something that could not be assimilated.”
“So, two former Borg, this world’s Adam and Eve, constructed everything we found?” Janeway asked. The notion was both fascinating and somehow impossible to imagine.
“I have trouble believing that any biological entity could survive contact with the Edrehmaia substance and remain intact,” Patel offered. “I saw some of the attempts in Station Four. They were monstrosities that appeared to have been cobbled together at the genetic level.”
“Those monstrosities, as you call them, were early attempts to create the interlocutors for those other species,” O’Donnell suggested.
“How do you know that?” Patel demanded.
“You really need to read the logs your team discovered at Station Four,” O’Donnell replied. “All of the species that came here engaged in biological as well as technological experiments.”
“It does seem clear that the Borg who were sent to assess this planet did survive their contact with the Edrehmaia substance,” Cambridge said. “Hell, they did better than that. Based upon what was left behind, one might even say that they thrived in their new state.”
“But they didn’t know what they had become,” Patel said. “My interlocutor said that the purpose of the system, of Species 001, was the evaluation and propagation of the Edrehmaia. The former Borg clearly created some prototypes of the library technology that would eventually be replicated elsewhere below the surface. They might have simply been trying to figure out what had happened to them, and part of that was maintaining a scrupulous record of their work.”
“What we found, the biodomes, the library, the experiments both on the surface and beneath, could have been the work of the species that came later, building upon what the Borg started, attempting to re-create it and unlock the potential of the Edrehmaia,” O’Donnell said. “It could have been a collective effort, just not the kind the Borg are accustomed to.”
“Or perhaps, the drones retained enough memories of their time with the Borg that they defaulted to working collectively with others,” Seven suggested, “even in the absence of a neural link.”
Farkas raised her hand from the far end of the table. Janeway looked up, bit back a smile, and said, “Something to add, Captain?”
“Fascinating as all of this is, I am just wondering what good it does us to keep poking around here. We have learned that certain individual Borg were capable of evolution, something that anyone who has met Seven would have no trouble believing. There seems to be no further evidence of Edrehmaia activity or the substance that has done so much to alter this corner of the quadrant, and nothing that might point us in the direction of our lost ship, if, as Lieutenant Bryce and Ensign Icheb believe, it was transported rather than destroyed. I love a good science project as much as the next girl, but where does this leave us?”
Janeway sat back, considering the question as well as the various priorities of those with whom she led this fleet. Farkas had been ready to cut and run within hours of arriving on the surface of the planet. O’Donnell’s heels were firmly dug into scientific possibilities inherent in the Edrehmaia’s technology, and Chakotay would set course this instant if he had any idea where the Galen might be found, heedless of the dangers inherent in any future confrontation.
Both Patel and Seven seemed troubled, in very different ways, by their discoveries. In Seven’s case, it wasn’t difficult to understand. However briefly, she had once again been touched by the species that had stripped her individuality from her, a species all of them had hoped they would never encounter again in any form. But the admiral didn’t know Patel all that well, beyond her recent choice to sacrifice herself rather than the secrets the planet contained. Her connection
