Goedel, Escher, and Bach... I Remember You
A Star-Trek: Voyager/Highlander Crossover
by Henry Wyckoff

Chapter 10

Captain Janeway walked into the lounge, where the Nightman -- ("Pancho," she corrected herself in her own mind) -- sat with Lendaxa, their postures indicating that they had become a lot less formal towards one another. At first, it appeared as if they were behaving in a manner that was inappropriate for a public place, but another moment of inspection revealed that she was merely looking into his mind. The Vulcans mind-melded with the hands, but Betazeds sometimes used their heads, putting them in close proximity to make communication easier. ("It goes back to Coulomb's law . . . Increased distance requires more mental force. Funny the Vulcans don't do the same.")

Janeway walked with difficulty, her energy sapped. In her left hand, she used a cane, which she really did need. The direct walk from Sick Bay almost did her in then and there. Janeway stood silently, observing and making connections. As with all the Maquis, she had noticed through the months that Pancho was more secretive than the others, who had seemed to become one with her own crew. Pancho, although he had earned the unquestioned respect of everyone on this ship, had never opened up. He never laughed, smiled, or even socialized. He always went back to his quarters, and if Lendaxa was to believed, got drunk on enough Irish Kegbombs to drop a Klingon ten times over. ("An interesting idea . . .") But at least he always came back on duty fully sober, without even the hint of a hangover. ("Functioning alcoholic, perhaps? I'll have to get the Doctor to check on it . . .")

Whatever was passing between the two, it was something intense. Pancho looked as if he was watching a loved one die, and though he was fighting to hold in his emotions, tears openly fell down his face. Lendaxa was openly crying, holding him fiercely and whispering something that Janeway couldn't hear.

("Perhaps he had watched many people die . . .") Janeway looked at her own hands. She'd taken life, and though killing bothered her -- she stopped the train of thought right there. Without more data, she shouldn't be speculating. There was much more under the surface that she'd need to understand first.

Janeway understood the need for privacy. She would ask her questions at a time when decorum could feasibly be preserved.

* * *

Duncan MacLeod opened up his eyes for the first time in years. His eyes. Not the eyes of Latro.

The face of the Doctor was the first to meet his eyes. He smiled, though his voice seemed to be a touch too cynical, "Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. MacLeod, though I daresay you have frequent flier tickets, don't you?"

The first thing that caught him was the archaic speech. English, but old imagery. Duncan could understand the old imagery just as much as he could speak his native tongue, which was what confused him; this man didn't feel like an immortal. And even immortals adjusted their vocabulary to fit with the times. Then the last bit sunk in. ("He knows I'm immortal!")

The Doctor frowned as he looked at a datapad. "It appears that there are no physical remnants of the Borg on any level. Your DNA has reverted to whatever normal would be for someone like you, and I've found nothing out of the ordinary for a human being . . . In fact, I'd say you're a textbook case."

"I suppose it would be a matter of time . . ."

" . . .before a doctor put the pieces together?" he finished. "I really wouldn't have bothered with you when you were brought in. You see, no ordinary life form can recover from being a Borg for more than a few months, and even then in the best of conditions. No, it was the one who brought you in who convinced me to save you, and even then, he had to expose his own secret first."

"You mean . . . the other one saved me?"

"The one the crew affectionately calls 'the Nightman?' Yes, he saved you as well as the rest of the ship. How he destroyed the Borg ship is beyond me, but that shouldn't be your concern, should it? Now, considering the fact that you're such a healthy and strong 'young' man, I'll let you out of here as long as you can start walking. Do you care to try?"

Duncan nodded, and the Doctor assisted him to his feet. Like a newborn animal, he was a bit unsteady, but within moments he was standing with the aid of a cane. "I think I'll be back in shape pretty soon."

The Doctor nodded. "I agree. My scanners detect that you haven't eaten solid food in years. Would you care to re-enter humanity in the common lounge?"

He felt hungry and thirsty indeed. "I'd like that very much."

And so, Duncan was introduced to Kes, who helped him get to the lounge. Just as they reached the door, he felt the presence of an immortal, and reflexively reached for his sword, which wasn't there. He looked at Kes, who nodded, "It's all right."

She obviously misunderstood the reflex, and Duncan was glad for that. The doors opened, to where the Nightman and Lendaxa sat in soft conversation. The Nightman stopped in mid-sentence and rose, looking at Duncan with a mix of fear and relief.

"You took a big risk there," said Duncan softly.

The Nightman smiled with effort, "I've never been one for being strategically correct."

Kes chose this moment to ask the question that had plagued the ship for days. "What happened on that ship? What did you do?"

Duncan looked at the Nightman, who nodded. "The Borg on this ship were different than most. They were dynamically linked to the ship in a way I'd rather not get into, unless you feel like picking up physics. To make a long story short, I gave the ship a 'shock' by popping off the caps of some energy sources that the Borg unwittingly created, believing that it would give them an advantage. When I did that, I ripped off the wiring on Duncan and brought him back to Sick Bay before he could die on us."

Kes was persistent. "But what did you do?"

The Nightman sighed. "The framework of the Borg is highly self- referential. Their architecture, their biochemistry, their mentality and strategy, and as many other aspects as you can imagine possess that property of self-referentiality."

"What's that?"

The Nightman thought for a moment, then he took her over to a wall-monitor where he said, "Computer. Show a painting by Escher named 'Ascending and Descending.'"

Within moments, it appeared, and Kes stared at it, shaking her head. "I don't understand it."

"It's a closed loop." When that didn't seem to work, he thought for a moment and then said, "Suppose I said, 'All Cretans are liars.' It's the Epimenides Paradox, and Epimenides was a Cretan. If he's a Cretan, and he's telling the truth, then how can he be lying? If he's lying, then he's telling the truth. You can go forever in circles just thinking about it.

"Goedel's work went along the same lines. It's easy to deal with paradox in language, but a hell of a lot harder in mathematics. He had the insight that a statement of a number theory could be about a statement of a number theory. I don't know as much about his math as I should, but what's important is that he established an introspective math, or maybe it would work better if I said that it's a recursive math. Sort of like finding an index file in an index file."

Her eyes were becoming less glazed. "But what does it mean?"

"I shattered the loop."

* * *

Duncan accepted the fact that Lendaxa knew about them, and in fact felt better having her around as he talked with Pancho, minus Kes. They had moved to a more private lounge, each with genuine single-malt scotch and an Irish Kegbomb in hand as they talked about old and recent times.

A lot of the details didn't make sense to Lendaxa, but she could read the undercurrent, and realized that they weren't so much details, but rather reference points. Things in common that kept the two men rooted in a universe when the streams of time ripped as strongly as a raging river. She could feel the calmness enter both of them as they went back to happier times.

But Duncan brought them back to the recent past. "So tell me this, Pancho . . . how was it you knew where to find the Captain?"

A moment of hesitation, and pain crossed his face briefly. "It was Goedel, Escher, and Bach."

"Excuse me?" He looked as confused as Lendaxa.

"Their work may have been just that; work . . . but centuries ago, they left seeds in my mind that exploded the moment I walked inside the Borg ship. I saw patterns come together. Where Mandelbrot found fractal patterns in nature that helped to illuminate its inner beauty, the three I've named opened up the door to the horrible side of nature . . . the capacity to harness it in the name of civilization. Sure, Bach's music entertained countless generations of people trying to pass themselves off as cultured. Sure, Escher was an artist who probably painted those eye twisters 'cause he thought it was cool. And who knows why a mathematician does anything, especially Goedel . . . anyhow . . . maybe all their work was unintentional, and they didn't even know what they were doing. But I know what they were doing. They were speaking to me."

Duncan just stared at the Nightman as if he was an egomaniac, so he sighed and clarified that. "Most people think that civilization is some great thing and that barbarism is a monster. Any Roman can tell you that! Call it the product of having a Druid for a mentor, but I've always questioned that, and their work started some long thought chains, chains that led me to see their work as an indication of what happens when you use order and structure to chain and dominate life." He stared deep into Duncan's eyes. "Chaos and change are as essential to life as order and direction. Your life with the Borg should tell you that."

Once more, Lendaxa had to admit to herself that she had no idea what Pancho had just said but she could feel both the fear and the understanding mount in Duncan. But something else clicked in his mind as well; peace. For all the suffering he'd endured, he might not have found relief, but he had found understanding in a lesson, which was certainly a step in the right direction.

* * *

Unsensed by all three, Janeway and Tuvok stood at the doorway and looked at one another. Both understood all the historical references and the philosophy involved, having made a special study of that during their times in the Academy, and their respective schooling before that. They walked away in silence for a few moments, but once they were sure of being beyond earshot, Tuvok spoke, "I am quite sure that your suspicions are correct."

"But what did you think about what Pancho said?"

"About his philosophy of the necessity for chaos? If anything, it illuminates his own understanding of the balance of everything, as he explained himself . . . but there was something else in his words that says much more about himself than you know."

"And what was that?" she raised her eyebrows.

"They are both centuries-old. Pancho was alive to see Johann Sebastian Bach perform before the King of Prussia. That event is in the most basic of history books."

Janeway gasped, "But they're human!"

Tuvok shook his head, "They might be too human. But they are not like you. I have always suspected that there was something unusual about the Nightman, and over the last few days, as Mr. MacLeod recovered with miraculous rapidy, I took the liberty of checking with the Doctor. After much discussion, he finally admitted that both Mr. MacLeod and the Nightman are both 'human' and 'immortal'. Not quite immortal, but the term fits for most situations. As far as the Doctor can determine from close analysis of unintentional statements, both men are centuries-old, and perhaps more than a thousand years. In the Doctor's words, they are 'textbook humans.'"

Janeway had a thought, "If they are truly immortal, Mr. MacLeod must have suffered more than any other human. Imagine, being trapped within the Borg continuum, knowing that you'll never die . . ."

"Trapped as a fly in amber."

Both walked in silence. The thoughts were too horrible to contemplate, and they needed joy in their lives, so they walked to the holodeck replica of that French bar, Sandrine's, where the crew would pretend that they were back home . . .

* * *

Unknown to all, a solitary individual watched both groups, and nodded to herself when what she saw matched her expectations. The fabric of space-time parted where she willed, and she walked through it. Her observations were complete for the moment. . .

* * *

Unknown to Coleen, a silent, unseen watcher smiled. He closed the book he had been writing in and returned from whence he came. . .

* * *

Chakotay shook his head, clearing the momentary visions he'd had. These were waking visions with no known cause, of a roguish human man without a name who was following a lone woman. Both of them walked the Dreamworld. . . but that was a matter for a more leisurely time. He returned to reality, which was that they were years from home, and inching closer light-year by light-year.

The End