Summary: Janeway discovers an object which will get Voyager home, for a price.

Chakotay and Tuvok were wary of the slab from the moment we encountered it.  Tuvok said that it seemed almost like a living object, that when he touched it, he could almost sense memories and experiences.  He was afraid to attempt a mind meld.  He said it disturbed him.

Chakotay was wary of the slab because of it effects on me.

I am not a telepath.  I've never exhibited even the slightest capacity for what was once called extra-sensory perception.  But when I ran my fingers over the smooth black stone, I knew four things.

It was sentient.

It was ancient, older than the humanoid races.

It could get us home.

And it wanted my life in return.

Our scans revealed that somehow, it could open a subspace portal, a link to any place in the galaxy.  But traditional science told us nothing more.

The slab itself told me the rest.  I spent hours standing before it, resting my hands on its cool surface.  It – it's mind was a beautiful, eternal, alien thing which grew with each individual absorbed – shared its secrets with me.  It was too alien for me to fully comprehend it, but I sensed to malevolence in it.  It existed, nothing more.  Absorption was voluntary.  Its seductive call could be resisted.

I didn't want to resist.  This is our way home.  And if, in getting us home, I sacrificed myself, it was a fair trade.

I was clever.  Chakotay and Tuvok would have relieved me of duty of they'd even suspected what I planned.  I went about my duties for weeks, until Seven and B'Elanna gave up trying to study the object in the cargo bay.  I sat on the bridge and spoke and laughed, all the while hearing the seductive call: come to me, let me help you, let me have you, let me heal you…

I waited, setting my affairs in order.

I waited until the middle of Chakotay's shift.  After what felt like an eternity – but how could a short-lived creature like me even understand what eternity meant – I went down to the cargo bay.

I touched the slab and opened my mind to its whisper.  Come to me, let me help you, let me have you, let me heal you…

I offered myself.  The memories, the feelings, the accomplishments, the failures … Take it.  Take the years I wasted waiting for my father's attention.  Take the tears shed over bad relationships and flawed decisions.  Take the joy of my promotion to captain, the pride of my first ship.  Take my love for Mark and regret at his loss.  Take the friendships and hatreds.  Chakotay's love, Seven's respect, Tuvok's undying loyalty.  Take it all, take it all, take it all and open a vortex right to Earth and leave me a moment to be sure that we're home and then take that too…

***

I woke up on a cold floor, surrounded by angry, scared-looking strangers.  One of them had a marking on his forehead.

"Kathryn?" he asked.  Who is Kathryn?

"Captain," said another, a tall, dark man with pointed ears.  "What have you done?"

I didn't understand his question.  I didn't understand why they all stared at me, as if expecting me to perform some kind of miracle.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, and I was surprised by the sound of my own voice.  Sure I had heard it before … and yet, I remember nothing before this moment.  It was as if I had begun there.

The one with the marking took my hands and pulled me to my feet.  For the first time, I saw a black slab lying on a table.  My hand grazed it.

For a second, it whispered to me and I could alost touch the ghost of a memory.  Then that, too, vanished, and there was only a bare room, the men, a slab and me.

END

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Copyright © 2001 Elizabeth M. Barr

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