"I'm trying to understand why this is happening. Helping it isn't high on the list of reasons to do that."

"Ah, if you figure out how to you should let us know - we havn't found anyways to help them yet that don't hurt other people a bunch."

"I'll... take that under advisement."

Meelia nods.

"If you need help learning how to fight I can also help with that, just havn't figured out helping which is more important really."

"Is it."

"Yeah? Fighting just hurts diff-erent people than who might get hurt other-wise."

"I tried to figure out how to help them before I started fighting them and they assimilated me but I didn't learn how to help them and they made me hurt other people."

"Well, that's not how I think about the situation but I hope the perspective serves you well in recovering from your experience."

Meelia nods.

"Hope things go well for you."

She is going to return to drilling some cadets on combat things if Isabella doesn't have any-more questions.

There were some more things she wanted to know but she's starting to suspect that no one can tell them to her. Besides the Borg.

"Do you think Hemmia would feel better if someone sang to her?" she asks Lucien.

"Maybe? We try to keep the the assimilated sedated but it doesn't work completely and calming music might help - none of the un-assim-ilated have reported pref-erences on the matter."

"They haven't reported preferences? What did they say when asked?"

"Mostly that they wanted to think and remember as little as possible of that time. I think, aside from numbing and treating phys-ical issues they have there isn't too much that makes a difference. We have tech-nology that helps blur memories of it that we used when they are de-assimilated if they want."

"Oh, that's good."

"Mhm."

"Um, do you want some time alone to think or do you have more questions?"

"I have a lot of questions. But I don't know if anyone will be able to answer them."

Lucien smiles ruefully.

"Yeah."

"If you want to ask them anyways I can say if we have answers to any of them."

"I want to know more about the Borg. How the hivemind works and thinks and makes decisions."

"Don't know much about that, I can see if anyone has theories if you want but I doubt you'll learn anything definite."

"Do you ever have more than one captured at once, held together?"

"Yes, we have a centralized station for de-assimilation."

"Does that make them any - livelier? Do they interact with each other?"

"We don't allow them to form a hivemind, if that's what you're asking about. I think in the early days they co-ordinated to attempt a breakout even without forming one. They're kept separate now."

He's been reading up on this sort of thing in prep-eration for talking to Isabella about it.

"If they coordinated without forming a hivemind what's known about how they communicated about that?"

"Our best guess is they have limited intelligence and pre-programmed instincts and that when a sufficiently large number of them were in one place without connection to the hivemind the 'attempt mass breakout' instinct activated or something."

"So it didn't involve, like, talking?"