“The Traffic was much sparser now and there were kilometres where theirs was the only car on The Road that arrowed away between white meadows and larch copses, towards the glittering barrier where blood had been shed between warring armies for centuries.
Bond glanced behind him. Miles away down the great highway was a speck of red. The Maserati? They certainly hadn’t got much competitive spirit if they couldn’t catch the Lancia at eighty! No good having a car like that if you didn’t drive it so as to lose all other traffic in your mirror.
Perhaps he was doing them an injustice. Perhaps they too only wanted to motor quietly along and enjoy the day.
Ten minutes later, Tracy said, ‘There’s a red car coming up fast behind. Do you want me to lose him?’
‘No,’ said Bond. ‘Let him go. We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Now he could hear the rasping whine of the eight cylinders. He leaned over to the left and jerked a laconic thumb forwards, waving the Maserati past.
The whine changed to a shattering roar.
The wind-screen of the Lancia disappeared as if hit by a monster fist. Bond caught a glimpse of a taut, snarling mouth under a syphilitic nose, the flash-eliminator of some automatic gun being withdrawn, and then the red car was past and the Lancia was going like hell off the verge across a stretch of snow and smashing a path through a young copse.
Then Bond’s head crashed into the wind-screen frame and he was out.
When he came to, a man in the khaki uniform of the Autobahn Patrol was shaking him. The young face was stark with horror. ‘Was ist denn geschehen? Was ist denn geschehen?’
Bond turned towards Tracy. She was lying forward with her face buried in the ruins of the steering-wheel. Her pink handkerchief had come off and the bell of golden hair hung down and hid her face.
Bond put his arm round her shoulders, across which the dark patches had begun to flower.
He pressed her against him. He looked up at the young man and smiled his reassurance.
‘It’s all right,’ he said in a clear voice as if explaining something to a child. ‘It’s quite all right. She’s having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry. You see –’
Bond’s head sank down against hers and he whispered into her hair – ‘You See, We’ve Got All The Time in The World.’
The young patrolman took a last scared look at the motionless couple, hurried over to his motor cycle, picked up the hand-microphone, and began talking urgently to the rescue headquarters.”
007 :
The World’s moved on
since you retired,
Commander Bond.
Perhaps you didn’t notice.
James Bond :
No, can’t say I had.
And in My Humble Opinion,
The World doesn’t change very much.
007 :
You would say that.
Look, this all seems like Heaven,
this little bubble, or whatever.
[laughs]
But it’s so obvious
You’re a Man
who only has
Time to Kill,
Nothing to Live For.
‘He probably doesn’t think much of us.’ M.’s mouth bent down at the corners. ‘People don’t these days.
They may be Right or Wrong. I’m not a Politician. He doesn’t know much about the Service except what he’s penetrated or heard from the C.I.A. And that won’t be greatly to our advantage, I’d say.
We haven’t had a Station in Japan since 1950. No traffic. It all went to the Americans. You’ll be working under the Australians. They tell me their man’s good. Section J says so too. Anyway, that’s the way it is. If anyone can bring it off, you can. Care to have a try, James?’
M.’s face was suddenly friendly. It wasn’t friendly often. James Bond felt a quick warmth of affection for this man who had ordered His Destiny for so long, but whom he knew so little. His Instinct told him that there were things hidden behind this assignment, motives which he didn’t understand.
Was this a rescue job on him?
Was M. giving him his last chance?
But it sounded solid enough.
The reasons for it stood up.
Hopeless? Impossible? Perhaps.
Why hadn’t M. chosen a Jap speaker? Bond had never been east of Hong Kong. But then Orientalists had their own particular drawbacks – too much tied up with tea ceremonies and flower arrangements and Zen and so forth.
No. It sounded a True Bill.
He said, ‘Yes, sir. I’d like to have a try.’
M. gave an abrupt nod. ‘Good.’ He leant forward and pressed a button on the intercom.
‘Chief of Staff? What number have you allotted to 007? Right. He’s coming to see you straight away.’
M. leant back. He gave one of his rare smiles. ‘You’re stuck with your old digit.
All right, four sevens.
Go along and get briefed.’
Bond said, ‘Right, sir.
And, er, Thank You.’
He got up and walked over to the door and let himself out.
Mighty Aphrodite :
Computer, transfer primary controls to me.
[GROANING]
Mighty Aphrodite :
Computer, set course for the Delta Quadrant.
We have 400 additional years to expand The Collective.
RAFFI:
She's gonna die if I can't stop the bleeding —
Don't do this.
Mighty Aphrodite :
I have absorbed millions of languages,
and there are a few common words among them.
‘Love’, certainly. ‘Hope’ and ‘Fear’.
And one more common still - ‘Futility’.
Species thrive without love.
Kingdoms conquer without fear.
But it is the imperfect nature
of all organic things to fight an unwinnable battle
against an undefeatable foe : Death.
PICARD:
Now we can get to The Ship.
[DOOR OPENS]
SOONG :
I'm no stranger to lost lab rats.
To catch one, you don't
follow it through The Maze.
You force it to The Surface.
[GROANING, PANTING]
Mighty Aphrodite :
Why am I crying?
Psyche :
Those aren't your tears.
They're mine.
Those same chemicals you used to take control...
dopamine and adrenaline...
aren't just produced by a few drinks and a torch song. Sadness, loss, despair.
Basically, what happens
when you Hurt My Friends.
That cooks the same neural soup, only this time,
it allowed me to wrestle some control back.
Mighty Aphrodite :
Impossible.
Psyche :
You might be well on your way if you
had just shown a little mercy.
[YELLS] [STRAINING]
PICARD:
Soong. You don't understand
the future you're about to create.
SOONG :
Thriving, prosperous.
I'm told we're beloved
across The Galaxy.
PICARD:
Feared.
[DEEP WHIRRING]
Mighty Aphrodite :
What is this?
Psyche :
The history of the Borg.
Well, the only history that matters... The Ending.
How it always ends for you.
A lone Borgslayer,
a united Federation,
they come for you...
for your top-shelf, overreaching,
Icarus-worthy arrogance.
Mighty Aphrodite :
If prattling on is Your Choice of Weapon, I can wait.
You can't be sad forever.
Psyche :
Do The Math —
In this or any other universe,
you always lose.
That's why you fight so hard.
You live with the death knell of your species
across infinite timelines.
You fear loss, just like we do.
You long for what we all long for.
Connection... Longevity, Discovery.
Only you offer it without choice.
I'm saying... what if we ask for it?
You and I.
Mighty Aphrodite :
Finally, the semblance of a point.
Psyche :
The galaxy is filled with lives that need saving.
One of them is lying at your feet right now.
SOONG:
We have to create our own destiny.
Captains of ships and captains of industry,
to men like us, love and fear... the same thing.
A means to an end.
Mighty Aphrodite :
You'd have a cohort pulled from the dying?
Recruit from derelict ships? Flotsam of space?
You'd have us collect scraps?
Psyche :
And offer second chances.
What if we take this ship and build a better Borg?
A real collective based not on assimilation but salvation.
Think about it: a Borg collective that embraces
the uniqueness of its members.
Mighty Aphrodite :
You ask us to embrace weakness.
Psyche :
I'm positing that what you've
written off as weakness
is actually strength.
Cooperation.
Mighty Aphrodite :
Your proposal is absurd.
But not entirely un-intriguing.
Psyche :
Imagine, members who would
fight harder for what they chose.
Who would lose no battles
because they made no enemies.
Who would not be discarded and replaced.
Attachments could grow and deepen.
Like Seven.
Didn't you love her once, too?
[GASPING WEAKLY]
Psyche :
And wasn't she... the best of what we could be?
Somebody who used her Borg half
to serve the best of her humanity.
Let's build a universe of Sevens.
Let's start with this one.
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