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Janeway never told us what gave her the idea. Some people thought it was a secret Starfleet protocol, not something she came up with on her own. Others thought she started planning it right after we got stranded, when Voyager encountered itself trapped in the quantum singularity. I think she got the idea when the ship got caught in the spatial scission.
I was with the bridge crew when we evacuated to Engineering. I saw the other Janeway with our captain. I knew they went to the upper level, whispered together for a while, and came back down with a plan.
I saw them talking on the comm screen later.
"Just make me a promise, Kathryn. Get your crew home."
"I will. I will."
Her voice, our captain's voice. It was so intense. It gave me chills.
I kept thinking, "She can't get us all home. She can't get my friend Harry home."
I guess I underestimated her intensity.
I don't know what Samantha thought about being given her dead baby's duplicate to raise as her very own. She seemed to love the little changeling, though. And Harry, well, he tried to talk to the Captain about it and she laughed at him.
"Weird is part of the job," she told him.
Was she already planning it then?
It took us a while to get Voyager back in traveling condition, and we used up almost all our polyferrinide in the repair work. Richard Bennett died in a shuttlecraft accident, scouting for more on some messed up planet where people age backwards or something.
Well, weird is part of the job, or so I'm told.
Erin Macormack was on the same bridge rotation as me. She was back to work the next day, but everyone knew she took Richard's death hard.
Thinking back, I remember how often I noticed the captain staring at her.
And then, Tuvix.
We were scared of Janeway after that. Not just because she had the man dragged from the bridge while he begged for mercy. Not just because she killed him herself when everyone else refused. Those things were bad enough, but after they happened, we began to realize that she was planning something for the rest of us.
The younger human crew members were ordered to Sick Bay one morning. We had physicals, including eye exams and pregnancy tests, and then we all had our wisdom teeth removed.
When we were done, we were ordered to report to Transporter Room 1.
We were beamed to Transporter Room 2.
Chakotay and the captain were waiting there. He looked queasy. She looked grim.
"You'll be doing this again every ninety days until further notice," Chakotay told us. He tried for a smile. "Not the dental work. Just the Transporter Shuffle."
As we filed out, Janeway pulled Samantha aside. "Every thirty days for the baby," she said quietly.
There were wild rumors. There are always wild rumors. I tried not to dwell on them. I kept my head down and did my job. I taught Harry how to play golf.
Tuvok and Chakotay got me started on the qualifications I'd need for my next promotion. Most of the skills weren't unduly difficult, but no matter how much I practiced, I couldn't manage to reconfigure the aft phaser array within the time limit.
"Let's go down there," Chakotay said. "Maybe if you can physically see and touch the emitters, your body will help your mind make the connection."
I thought that sounded stupid and Tuvok probably agreed, but we went with Chakotay, anyway.
We were all squeezed together in the phaser emitter compartment when the coolant blew.
The pain was searing, agony beyond anything I had ever imagined, but it was over quickly and then I was simply hot because I was in the desert and the sun was baking us all as we stumbled over the rocks looking for Voyager. But we couldn't find it? Because Seska had somehow come back and stolen it? And Neelix was yelling at Hogan to fight a monster?
And then I woke up in Sickbay, drenched in sweat and gasping. I could hear Tuvok crying out in his sleep, warning Captain Sulu that there was a girl falling off a cliff.
Chakotay was awake too, sitting on the next biobed, telling the EMH " ... wasn't bad, I was making a sand painting, and there was a monkey ..."
Janeway was standing at the Doctor's shoulder. She must have sensed me watching her, because she turned around to face me. I couldn't interpret the expression on her face, but it made me remember her talking to her duplicate.
She was talking to herself again, now, murmuring something I vaguely recognized as a snippet from ancient Earth literature. "What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."
I died in the coolant leak and then I passed my lieutenant's boards. I died in a shuttlecraft accident and then I went golfing with Harry. I got killed at least three times by the Hirogen and once by ... Huh. I can't recall the name of those other guys that killed me. That death must have been too soon after my most recent Transporter Shuffle. Officially, when we take over from our predecessor, we only need forty eight hours in Sickbay for observation and fluids, but I've heard people say they have trouble with their memories if they haven't spent at least a few days in the transporter buffer before they're beamed out.
I've never heard anyone say that they can't seem to sleep as well as their previous copy, or that their hands never stop shaking anymore. No one ever, ever talks about what they see just before waking up to their new old life. Sometimes it's strange but nice. After the Hirogen, I was eating baked sweet potatoes with my brother. But usually, it's alien prison cells, or the ship crashing on an ice planet, or being forced to massacre civilians. Usually, people scream themselves awake.
I looked up the rest of the poem the captain quoted in Sickbay, that first time. The next line is: "There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."
Captain Janeway is going to get Marie Kaplan home. But will I still be Marie Kaplan when I get there?