THE ROSE AND THE YEW TREE

by Peg Robinson and Little Otter. c. 1997

Overture: Janeway

"Reader, I married him."

That's where it's supposed to start, isn't it? It's a good line. I've
always loved it, ever since I read 'Jane Eyre,' back in my tormented youth.
Yes, I'm a closet romantic. Why else would I love those holonovels? Even
four-pip-science-officer starship-captains can be romantics, at heart. But
that's not where this starts.

I know. A woman gets a proposal, the next thing a person would expect to
hear would be her answer. But the man *was* moving a little fast. Even he
knew it, once he got the words out. Proposing after one date?

To our credit, we managed to get past it without too much embarrassment. I
didn't even laugh at him. If there's a Book of Virtues being kept in some
"great beyond," I want that written down to my credit.

After that we did pretty much what you'd expect. Tiptoed around trying to
get used to each other without shaking up the new balance we'd found. Tried
to keep that "first blush of love" headiness going, and found we couldn't.
Discovered that we pleased each other anyway.

Discovered the crew wasn't going to have conniptions--at least, not right
away. I had the feeling the whole thing was on probation, as far as they
were concerned. If we made it work, then no problem. If they had to pay the
price for "us"--that would be another thing altogether. On my side, I knew
Tom Paris and Tuvok were both keeping a sharp weather-eye on Chakotay,
ready to disembowel him if I so much as looked peaky one morning. I'm sure
there were some on "his" side of the crew with similar reservations. And
there were a few who, in spite of Delta Quadrant conditions, wanted
"business as usual"--which included "no fraternizing" as the general
standard. But, all in all, folks were willing to wait it out, and see what
happened. Which, in a way, was what Chakotay and I were doing, too.

Otherwise, it was all pretty low-key.

No major explosions. No epic fights. No agonized revelations of hidden
traumas, lurking insecurities, or sordid secrets left out of the personnel
files. Not much in the way of angst. No melodrama.

No good reason why there should be. Starfleet officers may be fruits and
nuts. "Weird" may be what we do. But, all in all, we're a pretty stable
lot. That is the point, after all: Romeo and Juliet, and Tristan and Isolde
may make good theater; but from Starfleet's point of view the energy is
better expended on less intimate matters, and the dramatic litter of
corpses should properly be those of armed enemies of the state. The
recruitment officers and counselors generally go out of their way to
discourage the sexually distraught from entering the fleet. They're funny
that way.

So, by logical extension, when you throw two mature, experienced Starfleet
officers together in a romance, the odds are that no serious drama is
likely to happen. The first months of a happy, consensual relationship just
don't constitute a story. Not unless something else comes up to complicate
things.

Of course, life being what it is, 'something else' is sure to come up,
eventually. In the immortal words of Tom Paris, "Shit *always* happens."

Murphy rules the universe.

The real story happened later.

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Section I: Janeway.

...

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,

Every poem an epitaph. And any action

Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat

Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

T. S. Eliot, from "Four Quartets: Little Gidding"

We had cameleopards in our cupboards, griffons in the corridors,
bandersnatches under the hatches, heffalumps and woozles in the cargo
holds, jugglers in the hangars, and acrobats performing hand springs in the
middle of Neelix' cafeteria. We even had an escaped Ztothan slime
serpent--if you can be said to "have" a serpent that has most assuredly
escaped.

There was a darker aspect to it all.

There were the Hakaalt cruisers driving everything before them to the
killing zone. The final showdown with Kilpatrick and Bintar. The refugees.
The dead. The damage to Voyager. The misery of my crew, and the
overcrowding. The illnesses that swept us, and the injuries. The
replicators were down. So were the internal sensors, which was why we
couldn't find the damned serpent. Life support was looking pretty shaky. We
had more damage than we knew how to deal with.

Voyager was slowly dying; and if she didn't expire on her own, the Hakaalt
intended to "purify" us in the Waren-Pyre.

It didn't start that way.

We were about nine weeks out from Abbyzh-dira when it began; twenty-seven
days since leaving orbit around Izary, where we'd parted ways with the
Talaxian caravan.

The first sign of catastrophe came early in the evening, though I didn't
recognize it at the time. No reason to. It was a quiet night, there were no
indications of trouble. The sector of space we were traversing showed few
signs of being regularly occupied. Most of the warp signatures we'd come
across were old. "Business as usual." We were breaking in a new officer,
Otheris, at the comm during swing-shift. He was a bit edgy, and that was a
nuisance. The shift crew was holding up, though, even under his unsteady
hand. The rest of us were all just doing the things you do when you aren't
on duty. It was eight o'clock, and all was well... within reason.

I was getting ready to go to Tuvok's for a few hours. A welcome relief.

No, I wasn't angry with Chakotay. Not *angry.* Just...

I stood at the door of my bedroom, sewing bag looped over my shoulder, and
reviewed the disaster of my living area.

The relative sparseness of the furniture in Chakotay's own quarters had
been deceptive, inclining me to believe the man was neat. I'd learned too
late that he just didn't own enough stuff to remain cluttered for any
period of time. Take him out of the vast, empty spaces of his own rooms,
and drop him down in my own quarters, with the books, and the mementos, the
decor I'd carefully put together as much as a professional statement as
anything, and the illusion dissolved. Not that I had any particular
inclination to get righteous: my quarters were the way they were because
they weren't mine--not in the way my house back in Carver was, or even the
way the cottage was. There I'd never thought twice about leaving a towel
drying on the back of a chair, leaving a book or a PADD on an end table,
not clearing away the dishes ten seconds after I'd put my fork down for the
last time. My quarters on Voyager were different: they were *The Captain's
Staterooms.* A place to invite timid young officers for their first private
evaluation with the captain. A place to hold informal meetings. They were
as much a sign of rank, and part of my professional presence, as my pips
and my readyroom. Maybe that should have changed once it became clear that
those rooms were likely to be my only home for a long, long time. But, as
in many other ways, I'd been slow to change, holding on to the dream of a
fast return that would make all adaptations unnecessary.

Then Chakotay became a regular visitor, and change was thrust upon me.

On the coffee table was a pile of smudge sticks: tight-tied bundles of
herbs for the ceremonies of his tradition. Next to them were piled loose
bundles of the component plants--a treasured horde. The last of his stock
from home, the precious few that Kes had been able to propagate in
aeroponics. Some strange, alien ones he thought might be appropriate, even
if they'd never been heard of by any ancestor known to him. There were
piles of PADDs stacked on any available flat surface, and boxes of memory
chips. His uniform jacket tossed across the back of the sofa. An empty
juice glass on a bookshelf, a plate covered with crumbs at the side of my
desk, along with a mug. Everywhere I looked there was Chakotay-kultch.
Sometimes I felt like we might just as well not have bothered to maintain
separate quarters. His presence was as firmly established as if he'd moved
in; lock, stock, and Chessie.

At my desk, in a pool of lamplight, was the perpetrator of the chaos. He
was staring into the screen of my desk terminal, one knee wedged tight
against the desk edge, forcing the chair to tip so far back I kept waiting
for him to topple over. He had yet another mug braced on his sternum. One
hand idly spooled down pages of blueprints and materiel lists, and he...

He was *doing* it again.

OK. Everyone has little mannerisms. I drink coffee, and pace. It's human.

Chakotay whistles. Not a bright, chipper, melodic whistle. No. Not him.
When he gets too involved in a "think-project" he'll start this windy,
wandering, atonal thing, punctuated with rhythmic clicks and even a sort of
drum patter with his fingers. So near as I've been able to determine, he's
not even fully aware of doing it. But it goes on, and on, and on.

All right, it's not a criminal offense, and most of the time I don't have
any trouble ignoring it. Sometimes I even enjoy it, as I enjoy the friendly
click and pad of a dog on hardwood floors--a healthy sign of habitation.
Companionship. But other times... other times I want to shake him. That
night was one of those times.

Which was why I was going to Tuvok's. Sometimes even loving, happy couples
need some time apart.

I settled the strap of my sewing bag more securely on my shoulder, and
crossed to the desk, leaning over to drop a kiss on crisp, cropped hair.
"I'm going, now. I should be back in a few hours."

For a second I thought he wasn't even going to notice: he was that deep in
his project. At first the only response I got was "Uhhhuh..." Then the hand
that was free of the mug snaked back, fingers cupped around the back of my
neck, and he drew my head down, turning his face up and brushing his
forehead over my cheek. "OK. Sorry. I'm not much company. You said a few
hours?" He let me go, and let his hand rest on one of mine, where it held
the strap of my sack.

"Mmm-hmm. The usual: tea, music, and the last of the piece-work on the
quilt. I don't think I'll be late, but..."

"But you need to get out." He grimaced at the screen. "I don't blame you. I
should have set this up in my own quarters, but somehow I didn't think it
would take this long. 'Sokay, I won't be forever. I should be done with
this by the time you're back--or at least, I should be so sick of it I'll
be ready to quit for the night. Have fun."

I chuckled. "I suppose it is fun... in a Vulcan key." I kissed his head
again, and pulled away. "Don't let the blueprints drive you too
crazy--there's time." I started for the door.

The comm link cheeped. "Otheris to Captain Janeway."

I stopped in my tracks. One of the drawbacks to being captain: like
doctors, and vets, and firefighters, a call can come at any time. It can
mean anything from a minor update, to a declaration of war. The only
unvarying rule is, if they call, you answer. "Janeway here."

"Captain, just thought you should know: the sensor readings are picking up
an increase in recent warp signatures. Nothing out of the ordinary. But it
looks like we're crossing a minor travel route. There have been at least
five ships through here in the last three days."

"Any signs of ships nearby? Hails, territory markers, observation probes?"

"Not so far. Want me to run long-range sensor sweeps?"

Otheris was a youngster: only six years out of the Academy, only his second
extensive duty post. If it weren't for the circumstances, we wouldn't have
been asking him to hold the bridge--he was still pretty green. But he'd
been doing well. He just needed a bit more hand-holding than an older, more
experienced officer might. Some nights were worse than others. My policy so
far had been to let it ride, and give him the reassurance he needed. "Good
move, lieutenant. Do it. Anything else?"

"No, captain. Otheris out."

"No rest for the wicked." Chakotay sounded amused.

I glared at him--or tried to. "There'd better be, or I'm giving you the con
tomorrow morning and sleeping in."

"Want me to have a word with Otheris about overdoing the updates? That one
wasn't strictly necessary."

"No, 'Abba.' Give him time. Anyway, I'd have wanted to know soon enough.
Wouldn't you, when you held Crazy Horse?"

He shrugged, and grinned. "Different situation. We just think there may be
folks who'd want to shoot us. Back in the Maquis, I knew any ship was
likely to shoot first, collect a reward afterward."

I turned, and headed back towards the door. As I stepped out, I shot back,
"Sounds like you were well and truly chased after. You must have loved it,"
and we shared as grin as the door closed.

I seemed to have a dozen interruptions on the way. Magda, Tom, Anyas.
Another call from Otheris, this one simply to confirm an order I'd placed
in the log earlier in the day. I began thinking maybe I would take Chakotay
up on his offer to have a word with him. It's nice to know your officers
have an edge--but honed that fine, they can snap. He had to relax a bit.

Then Chaim and Cherel tagged me in the corridor outside Neelix's, asking if
I wanted to sit in on a 'jam session'--mostly Chaim's beloved 20th Century
"rock music." I passed, but pointed out that Tom was the real 20th Century
aficionado on ship--and had as good or better a voice as I did.

I stopped at Neelix's to pick up a bowl of fruit as a guest gift, knowing
Tuvok would have made an extra effort for me.

But finally I was safe in Tuvok's "Vulcan away from Vulcan."

He already had a pot of spice tea brewed, a little table set out for me by
the sofa, and music pouring out of the speakers: a piece I was unfamiliar
with, though I suspected it was one of the rare Rihannsu pieces to slip out
of the Romulan Empire into the Federation. It had that odd feeling of being
passionate, and yet still, somehow, rather Vulcan.

As he took my offering of fruit, I settled in the sofa with a relieved
sigh. "I was beginning to think I wasn't getting here. Life was easier when
I didn't have all these connections with the crew. I'd make up my mind,
grab my things, leave my quarters--and be where I was headed in five
minutes or less. Now? Between Chakotay, and Otheris, and chats with half
the rest of the crew, it's all I can do to get here in half an hour. I
thought I'd never escape."

Tuvok poured out a cup of tea for each of us, dark eyes evaluating me, not
as discretely as he thought. "You felt in need of escape?"

I chuckled as I took the cup, and took my first sip. "Yes and no.
Chakotay's working on the family quarters expansions--and he's turned my
place into a mess. Nothing serious. Just 'settling in blues.' If it were
serious I'd deal with it. I just hope Paris doesn't catch on I ever need
'time off' from Chakotay. I'd be afraid he'd jump to conclusions. I think
he'd wring Pesh's neck in a second, if he thought he was causing me any
grief."

Tuvok frowned, slightly.

I looked up at him, relaxing my shoulders and enjoying the dim, familiar
exoticism of Vulcan decor. "It's just a figure of speech."

He nodded. "I am aware of that, captain." He sat at a table of his own,
where he had his gardening tools out, and several pots of orchids arrayed
for work. Without looking at me, he said quietly, "If I didn't believe it
to be unnecessary, I would make the offer myself."

I had to laugh. "You and Tom are something else. I'm not sixteen, and
Chakotay's not some rake from out of one of my holonovels. We're fine.
Just--"

"Just settling in."

I looked up at him, and smiled. There was a hint of amused, rueful
nostalgia in his face. "Yes." I thought about the expression on his face,
trying to figure out what the wry mockery was about--then laughed. "As I
recall, T'Pel had a few things to say about your first months together."

His voice was prim, but his eyes laughed. "I'm sure she did, captain. She
certainly had some things to say to me, at the time."

I grinned, and Tuvok came as close as he ever does. T'pel had been quite
tart about it, to tell you the truth. The comment I best remembered was to
the effect that it was easier to housebreak a sel'hat than to civilize a
husband. Having met both her husband and her sel'hat, I'd always felt she'd
done a rather good job on both.

The comm link beeped. Again. I knew before I tabbed it on, but...

"Janeway here."

"Otheris, captain."

Obviously. "Yes, lieutenant?"

"Um, just wanted to let you know that we're picking up some high energy
traces on the sensor sweeps."

I closed my eyes, trying to fight down frustration. "Can you be a bit more
exact?"

His voice was abashed. "Well, it could be a lot of things. One of the ships
could have vented its drives, they could have been taking practice shots at
space junk. We've picked up traces of atomized metallics."

"Have you picked up indications of any sentient life forms currently
present? Any anomalies, any signs of traps or passive weaponry? Any
indication that there's any threat to the ship?"

"No, captain."

"Then I tell you what: why don't you keep up the long-range sweeps, and in
the meantime have ops run an analysis on the energy patterns and
particulate matter. It can't hurt; and, even if it isn't anything, it's
good practice."

"Very good, captain. I'll keep you informed. Otheris out." He was off the
line before I could suggest that, all in all, I'd as soon he *didn't* keep
me informed until he had something a lot less nebulous to pass on.

Tuvok cleared his throat. "It would appear that Lieutenant Otheris is being
a bit--overzealous tonight? Do you wish me to speak with him?"

"No. I want to give him a little more time to settle it out for himself.
And Chakotay's already made the offer. If I decide Paddy needs special
handling, it's really his job."

Tuvok wasn't entirely pleased--he still wasn't completely happy that
Chakotay had been fully 'activated.' I think he secretly longed for the
second seat, among other things. And, for so long, he was my right hand--my
most trusted officer. Sometimes, my only trusted officer. It was hard for
him to see me share that trust with anyone. But he's logical. And decidedly
professional. And he does respect Chakotay, in his own way. Sometimes he
even likes him. He nodded, and let it go.

We were quiet, then, for a time. I bent over my sewing, Tuvok worked on his
orchids. The music played, changed, and played again. For a while the
mountain-rill, new-green-haunted notes of Copeland's "Appalachian Spring"
filled the room.

After weeks of the disconcerting intimacy of my new relationship with
Chakotay, it was a pleasant change. Placid and undemanding. Not that I
wouldn't want to return to my own quarters soon enough. But still,
beginnings aren't always easy--even happy ones.

After a while, I leaned back in the sofa. "Is there any of that spice tea
left?"

"If not, I can obtain hot water and make more."

I lifted the little ceramic pot. It was only half-empty. "No need." I
poured more into my cup. "Do you need a refill?"

"Not at the present time, captain. Perhaps, when I have finished pruning
the Talaxian pseudo-cymbidiae. They appear to have responded exceptionally
well to the fertilizer Kes and Neelix developed." He frowned at the plant
in front of him. He didn't sound all that pleased by its exceptional
responsiveness. "Had I realized that Talaxian pseudo-cymbidiae need to be
pruned like Terran bonsai, I would not have accepted Mr. Neelix'
recommendation of them. Orchids demand sufficient labor and maintenance as
it is, without the added complication of regular pruning." He gazed
reprovingly at his plant, and returned to his labor.

I looked at the pseudo-cymbidiae ranged on the table, all waiting for work.
They were rather hairy-looking. Tuvok had quite a job serving as their
barber. That was all right. He'd never come out and say it, but every snip
was a labor of love.

I refilled my cup, and drew in the tangy scent. It isn't really tea, but it
has the same kind of bright, moist savor. Not the dark explosion of coffee,
but something more poignant, and pensive. There's something about Vulcan
spice tea that reminds me of foggy spring weather. Delicate, decidedly
there, and full of promise.

Then Tuvok surprised me. Veered unexpectedly into deep waters.

"Have you told Commander Chakotay your decision, yet?" His voice was as
controlled as ever, but I read the curiosity and concern behind the
question. I hadn't expected it. He usually stays determinedly out of human
relationships. Too confusing, and too personal. He really was playing the
role of 'protector' to the hilt.

I took a long sip of spice tea, looking at him over the brim. After I
swallowed, I shook my head. "No."

"Have you made your decision?" His face was still; his hands moved gently
and precisely among the branching sprays of orchids. When I didn't answer
he looked up, dark fingers poised. The short-bladed shears rested,
open-jawed, on a fleshy stem. "You haven't."

I looked down into the plum-red depths of the cup, and shook my head again.

A second later I heard the click of the shears.

In the background the computer changed over to a new musical piece, a
septet by T'Trosh. The introductory solo for Vulcan lyrette is lovely, but
I prefer the third movement, scored for lyrette, koto, and Welsh harp--a
delicate matrix of notes set off by the following flute passage.

I set the cup on my little table, and bent over my piece-work again, making
sure the stitches were set straight, and solid. It was the twenty-eighth
block of thirty-two, not counting the wide band-edging and the unpieced
filler squares of the quilt. I'd be finished soon. Not bad for nine weeks'
work.

Tuvok didn't pursue the question of me, Chakotay, or marriage. That didn't
stop my own mind from mulling over the topic.

I smiled over my sewing. In spite of all Tuvok and Tom's wary concern, it
had been a good nine weeks.

No. A wonderful nine weeks.

Chakotay was really very sweet. I suspected he was working at it a bit: he
still hadn't recovered from that spur-of-the-moment impulse to propose--in
the middle of the night, no-less, in full dress uniform, down on one knee,
for all the world like one of the heroes from the old Victorian romances I
love, and the holonovels based on them. Which is all well and good for
holonovels, but... in real life? It had taken all the discipline I could
come up with, still half asleep and totally unprepared, not to laugh at
him. Or tell him the next time he pulled a stunt like that to at least have
the kindness to bring along a pot of coffee. To his credit he made 'maybe'
easy. He was flustering so hard that all it took was a "hush," and a gentle
drag to the bedroom, to resolve it for the time being. No matter how
sincere he was, I secretly thought that was what he really wanted that
night anyway: an excuse to curl up beside me and hold me like a child holds
a teddy bear. Safe and loved. I found that so flattering I'd almost said
'yes,' just in reaction to the compliment. It's an incredible thing to be
cherished.

Since then? I'd spent a lot of time looking down at him as he slept.
"Shibui." Beautiful, and very dear.

I wanted it to go on forever. I very much feared it wouldn't. Pessimistic
of me, I suppose. But still, I hoped.

The snip of the shears continued, unpunctuated by comment from my Vulcan
security chief.

The lack of conversation can be more devastating than a shout. After about
ten minutes of 'snip-snip,' I couldn't take it any more. "Penny for your
thoughts."

He kept his eyes focused on the plant in front of him. "I fail to see what
use I would make of a unit of archaic Terran currency."

"Fine: a replicator credit."

"I have no needs beyond those already met by my own replicator budget,
captain. Nor would I presume to comment on the intricacies of human
conjugal arrangements." He pushed aside the plant he'd been working on, and
drew another towards him.

I lowered my hands, letting the nearly finished 'Wild Goose' block rest in
my lap, the needle secured in the cloth. "Tuvok--I'm your friend, as well
as your captain. You used to feel free to comment on my choices, and give
me advice."

"You were younger then." Only the lowered brows and the troubled crease
between his eyes gave any sign of disturbance. I wasn't sure if he was
reacting to what I'd said--or to the spot of fluffy, white something on one
of the orchid stems. He prodded the spot cautiously with the tip of the
shears. "There were no questions of protocol, and no reasons for me to
doubt my ability to form an unbiased opinion."

"Ah. I see."

Another dead end. I picked the square back up, set three more stitches
backward along the seam to secure the thread, and reached for my own
scissors. I cut the thread, and put the finished block in the basket with
the others. Then I picked up another magno-tacked bundle of black, white,
grey, and blue pieces, and started another 'Wild Goose.'

I designed the pattern myself. Looking through the computer files I'd found
several patterns of geese, but none that had satisfied me. So I'd worked up
my own blocks: a traditionally geometric goose-in-flight, and a difficult
one with curving seams that formed a maple leaf blowing in the wind.

It's been interesting exploring my 'artistic' side--I always thought that
was my mother and my sister's turf. Seems not. My life is expanding.

I'd bought the fabric on Abbyzh-dira, and had spent a lot of time over the
past few weeks working on the blocks--when Chakotay didn't make a mess of
them luring me away from my sewing and into one of our bedrooms. He'd tried
once on the sofa, with the sewing scattered around, and gotten a pin in a
particularly vulnerable place as a reward for his impetuosity. Sex and
sewing seldom mix well.

Of course, just as I finished the next square, and was ready to start
another, the comm blipped again. Fortunately, it wasn't Otheris this time.
Stellar was forwarding me a report, garnered from our files and Anyas'
limited information, about the region of space we were entering. Not much,
even for a preliminary run-down. Out here, it was never much, though--even
with the Escher Effect information, and what the files held from our
attempt at transwarp, we didn't know very much. But they were sorting what
we did know, and were sending me the first summary to review the next
morning.

Once they were off the line, I sighed. "No rest for the wicked..."

"Captain?"

"Nothing. Just something Chakotay said."

"I see."

Calm as ever. Vulcans are hard to read, even when you know them as well as
I know Tuvok. Silence is hard to decipher. But...

His uneasiness reminded me of something I'd always wanted to ask. "Tuvok?"

"Yes, captain?"

"During the Maquis Strike, after that circle when Chakotay told about Chief
Joseph: you were angry with him..."

Tuvok put his shears down on his table with a sharp click. While he met my
eyes, he did so with a reserve beyond normal Vulcan formality. "I was
displeased, captain. Not angry. Vulcans don't get..."

"Vulcans do get angry." I closed my eyes. "Tuvok, why were you
so--displeased?"

"I do not find it easy to deal with the commander." The words came slowly,
as Tuvok struggled with conflicting needs and obligations. "He is a man
of--chaotic inclinations. Illogical, though by no means unintelligent." He
met my eyes. "It is difficult for me to determine an appropriate approach
to working with him. As you once said, he was worthy prey."

"And?"

He folded his hands on the table in front of him, fingers steepled in the
classic Vulcan mannerism, providing a focus for his thoughts. "Captain, why
have you not answered the commander's proposal yet?"

"You're changing the topic." He didn't answer. "I don't know. I want to say
yes. But.... Tuvok, if I say 'yes' it has to be permanent. I don't know if
I can do it." I sighed. "I don't have a sterling track record for
'committed relationships.' I don't have any track record, really. A few
friendships, a few comfortable affairs. I was engaged, once. Still wonder
how that might have turned out. But nothing like marriage. I suspect I
don't have the talent for it." I brushed my fingers across the flying goose
I was forming. I had to force the next sentence out. "I'm not sure he does,
either. He's always left things too easily. His tribe, Starfleet, Seska. I
don't know if this is any different." What I couldn't say, not even to
Tuvok, was how much I wanted it to be different.

"Where there is insufficient data, there can be no certainty. You can only
act as you believe you ought, and then deal with the results. Even results
that differ from your expectations are not always wrong." Tuvok kept his
eyes on the tips of his fingers. He was pushing so hard I could see the
flesh turn yellowish around the point where they came together, and under
the nails, where the blood was forced away. "Life is neither logical, nor
just. Years ago I struggled to master the Kolinar. I presumed to be a holy
man. I failed. But Commander Chakotay--I look at him, and my senses tell me
what I do not want to know. He is a holy man. Given the differences between
us, that is often hard to accept."

I frowned. "What...."

"Allow me to finish. The night the commander told of Chief Joseph, he
offered the pipe and told us what it meant to his culture. I believed I
understood: it was the principal of the IDIC. I was shamed that I had
desecrated that, as an agent on Crazy Horse. When the pipe passed, I was
determined to listen. I chose an action, believing I understood the context
and could foresee the outcome. And then he raised up the Maquis, left no
room for the Fleet personnel at all: there was no truth in that circle but
Maquis truth. And then the Maquis rebelled. I felt betrayed: by him, and by
myself. Because I had expected his perceptions to match my own, because I
had begun to trust the commander as a--friend, I had failed my own
obligations. I am the chief security officer for Voyager, and I had taken
part in a ceremony that endangered my ship." And now his eyes met mine.
They were like eagle's eyes: lit to golden brown where the light crossed
their darkness. Hot. Intense.

He was fighting his own culture, his own distaste for the humanly personal,
to try to tell me a truth that cut two ways. Cut him. Cut me.

"I see." I dropped my eyes to my sewing, watching the tip of the needle
dodge in and out of the fabric. "So you're saying the gamble is too big.
That he isn't trustworthy..."

"No, captain. It isn't...he isn't the issue." He rose, and drifted silently
across the room. Chose to light the peace-vigil oil lamp that rested on his
family shrine. It allowed him to avoid looking at me. "When I chose to
leave the discipline of the Kolinar, I felt I had failed. T'Ristar, one of
the High Masters, took me aside the day I left, and tried to tell me
something. I only began to understand it much later--and I still have not
mastered the concept. She said that the simplest levels of Kolinar were
concerned with eliminating emotion, and controlling one's life and actions,
but that the highest levels were concerned with allowing that control to
pass also. That the heart of holiness is freedom--and that the discipline
could be found in my marriage to T'Pel as easily as it could on the plains
of Gol, if I allowed myself to find it there." He raised his head, turned,
and looked at me, his expression coming as close as it ever does to a
smile. "She was correct; but I still struggle with the paradox--that
control can come in release, and that discipline need not imply a lack of
freedom. I fear I may never master it. I am not a clever student, and I do
not like disorder, or uncertainty. And... I am not a holy man. But, still,
it is true."

"So you're saying I should say 'yes.'"

"No, captain. I am saying you must decide, and then live within that
decision. Once you have chosen, life will happen, and much of it will be
beyond your control. But that will be true whatever your choice: the
obligation is to choose."

"It's my job to stay in control. I'm the captain." My head was ducked down,
my hands moving too fast. I'd have to pick apart the block and re-stitch
it, later.

The comm link beeped.

It was Otheris. This time, though, he wasn't just crying 'wolf.'

Even he knew the difference. His voice was tight, and there was no
hesitation in his delivery. "Captain, trouble. We've picked up a distress
signal six parsecs from here. A ship under attack. We haven't been able to
identify the caller, but we did a scan. They're being harried by at least
two other ships, maybe more, and they're headed this way. Do you wish to
take the bridge at this time?"

I was already shoving my sewing in my basket. "On my way, lieutenant." I
addressed the computer. "Chakotay, action on bridge. Tuvok and I will meet
you up there." By the time his "Aye, captain" came back, Tuvok and I were
already halfway out the door. Chakotay was as fast. The three of us met at
the turbo lift. We made a sight: the three top ranking officers on Voyager,
all in our civvies, and all looking tense.

The evening shift crew looked up as we strode through the doors. Otheris
rose from my chair with a nod, and a relieved look.

Chakotay, Tuvok, and I took our places. Otheris and the other officers we'd
displaced moved quietly to back-up positions, manning the secondary
stations on the bridge. I turned to Dvorak, on ops. "Is the distress signal
still coming in?"

"Aye, captain."

"Put it on screen."

Dvorak bent over his panel, and a second later a static-warped image
appeared, accompanied by a hissing, popping audio transmission.

"Rodria Bright March, of Starmarch Shipholding, calling the kin. Rube
alert--repeat, rubes gone rogue. Don't come to the call--clear the dome and
leave the hicks hollering. Scarper!" The tiny, winged woman wiped sweat
from her brow. Smoke clouded around her.

The room she was in was dim and dusky, hard to make out. It was crammed
with mismatched, makeshift equipment. I suspected most of it had been in
bad shape even before the attack began. It was in worse shape now.

It was chaos in there. There were hints of bodies moving behind her. The
wail of alert-sirens nearly drowned out her voice. She kept on anyway,
apparently prepared to man her post and deliver her message to the very
end. "Rodria Bright March calling the kin. Rube alert. Repeat, rubes gone
rogue. Starmarch is lost--no aid possible. If you're in range, and a
ring-runner, cash the tickets, cut your losses. If you're of the kin, the
cleansing has started--The Hakaalt have lit the Pyre. Clear the zones and
look for cover. Pass the word to all the kin--Hakaalt Ashindar is rogue.
The black procession. Pull your ships and stay clear."

The Universal Translator was apparently scrambling to keep up--half the
words had meanings but no context. All that was clear to me was that it was
an emergency and that, whoever they were, they were at their last
barricade.

I lifted a hand to flag Dvorak's attention. "Give me an overview of the
situation--I want to see what's happening."

"Aye."

The view shifted, and I saw a small, chunky ship, built more like a
freighter than anything, being harried by at least two larger fighters. I
thought I saw the flicker of smaller assault ships, but I wasn't sure. The
sensors can only scan so far before resolution gives out. As the ships
flashed, and bright darts of weapon-fire sparked across the screen, the
audio portion of the distress signal continued.

"This is Rodria Bright March, calling the kin. Rubes gone rogue--no hope,
no help. Run fast, and spread the word...."

I turned to Dvorak again. "Bring back the visual portion of the distress
signal, and open hailing frequencies. I want to contact that ship."

"Aye, captain."

As he hurried to open the connection I looked over at Chakotay. "Any of
that make sense to you?"

His eyes were locked to the screen, where the delicate woman still manned
her post, sparks spitting around her and lighting her face in actinic-blue,
nightmare flashes. "Not much. 'Rubes'--I think that one's old circus slang
for the customers. A bit like 'suckers' or 'johns'. Other than that, no.
Just trouble, and trouble bad enough that they aren't calling for help, but
warning people off."

I nodded. I hadn't recognized 'rubes', but his interpretation of the rest
matched my own.

"Hailing frequencies open, captain."

I stood, stepping forward. "Captain Kathryn Janeway hailing the attacked
vessel--can we render assistance?"

The woman on my screen looked up into her pickup, face suddenly tight with
despairing hope. "Tava! Oh, bright landing. Who are you? What kin-calling?"

"None you'd know--we're a long way from home. I repeat, can we assist?"

She drooped. "I can't... just a minute..." She looked back over her
shoulder. "Qiral--it's backup. We've got a ship offering backup. They want
to help. What do I tell 'em?"

From out of the gloom a massive form rose, and moved towards the pickup. As
he approached I saw he was a marvel: he looked as much like the minotaur
from out of Terran legend as a Tellarite looks like the piggier versions of
the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast." Dark. Very dark, with solid black
eyes ringed with panicked white, and ivory-gold horns curling from his
brow. He was dressed in a showy, vaguely piratical shirt and a vest so
theatrical I knew that Neelix and Anyas would both drool over it--if it
hadn't been torn, and marked with scorches and what looked like chemical
burns. He leaned one broad, spatulate hand on the edge of the control
panel, and peered at me. "Who *are* you?" His voice was like the bottom
note on a cathedral organ. Deep and bronzy, and so strong my bones trembled
with the harmonics.

I cut to the chase. "Friends. Can we help?"

"The Hakaalt are right bastards, and they're armed like a vilark. We're
done for anyway. You're safer if you run, unless you're something pretty
special."

They were being sliced to pieces, and he still tried to give us warning,
and an excuse not to risk it. I liked that. "Nothing's stopped us yet, and
plenty have tried."

In the background lights blazed up, and someone went down screaming. His
head jerked back reflexively, then he forced his attention back to our
image on his screen. "I'll take what I can get. But if you're outgunned,
run--and for us, spread the word: the Hakaalt are rogue, and the
cleansing's begun. Tell the kin..." There were more explosions and screams
in the background. He turned away. Technically it was rude, but it I wasn't
about to be offended under the circumstances. I addressed Rodria Bright
March. "We're on our way. Janeway out." I gave the order to Bloddwyn Jones,
at the com. "Plot a course, and proceed at maximum warp."

"Sure you want to risk it?" Chakotay was restrained. It's a trick I'm
beginning to understand: his way of making sure he doesn't influence me too
early, before I know my own mind. He knows I don't like being pushed.

I nodded. "Sure enough. That's no warship--and their enemies have a sick
sense of humor. They'd be radiation and scrap metal by now if their
attackers weren't playing pounce and toss. It may be none of our business;
but I don't feel like watching a bunch of sadists play blood games if we
can help even the odds. And we have a legal and moral obligation to answer
a distress signal." Which was true enough. It's one of those things that's
expected of us. One of the many expectations we have to balance out against
each other.

He nodded, and allowed a feral grin to escape; ready to show his own
feelings, now that I'd committed myself. "Sounds good to me."

Tuvok spoke from behind me, his voice concerned. "Captain, I've been
examining the sensor readings. It would appear that the 'Hakaalt' fighters
are using an unfamiliar weapons system. I have initiated a computer search
for similar readings, but at the time I cannot make a firm evaluation of
our preparedness to engage."

"No guesses?"

He frowned. "Insufficient data, but there is no indication that our shields
would not hold. I would not evaluate our chances as being unusually poor."

I crossed over to his terminal, looking at the information he had pulled
up. The weapons appeared to utilize coherent light, much as lasers and
phasers, but the frequency modulations were peculiar, and I had the
disturbing sense that we were missing something. However, I agreed with
Tuvok--I couldn't see any outstanding reason not to risk it. It seemed
about par for the course, if you could say such a thing about any encounter
with an unknown aggressor. Each one is unique, and you have to deal with
it. "We go for it." I addressed the computer. "Red alert: battle posts.
Prepare for combat."

It was only a matter of minutes before we came into range.

The embattled Star March Shipholding was small, and gaudy--or it had been.
Its once bright paint was scorched and blistered where it had taken fire
from the attacking vessel, and one side was a molten wreck. It wasn't
fighting back--my own estimate was it couldn't. It had once been shielded,
but all that was left of its defensive systems was a weak flutter of force
field over the port prow. Now we were in range, we could see the Hakaalt
ships, one about the size of Voyager, one slightly smaller, accompanied by
several small, run-about sized vessels. They were all picking away at the
Star March in a leisurely fashion, aiming a shot here, a shot there,
playing with their victim. The lazy sadism of it curdled my stomach.

Dvorak, taking readings as fast as our sensors could pull them in, whistled
under his breath. "They aren't going to make it, captain. The bastards made
a point of hitting them in their impulse reactors--even if some of them
make it to escape pods, they'll only die of radiation poisoning later,
unless they can get some competent medical aid soon."

"Patch me through to the attacking vessels. Then see what you can learn
about them now we're in closer range."

"Aye."

The image that filled the screen was a chilling counterpoint to the view
we'd had of the command center of the Star March. This bridge was clean,
and orderly, and evenly lit, decorated in soft, soothing mauves and plums,
and muted grays. It was open, spacious, and it looked like new. Even the
workstations had a restrained beauty, though they were obviously designed
for use.

There was no smoke, no mess, no haphazard jumble of people and
technology--and no one screamed in pain and fear in the background.

The officers who manned the stations were calm, controlled, neat in their
dark uniforms. In comparison with the beings they were destroying, they
were almost freakish in their apparent "humanity." There was nothing to
differentiate them from an all-human crew from the Federation, beyond a row
of dapples in an arch across their cheekbones: large ones like thumbprints
near the bridge of the nose, graduating to the tiniest speckles as the
curve swept up towards the outer corners of their eyebrows. Their hair was
uniformly a glossy red, and short-cropped--even that of the female
officers. They all exuded a cool, brisk air of professionalism.

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Voyager, of the United
Federation of Planets, hailing the attacking vessels."

A man in the center seat looked up as our hail was transmitted to him. His
expression was reserved, superior. Very lordly. There was something about
him...

You knew his nails were clean and trimmed, his boots polished, and his
underwear freshly laundered--and you knew that it mattered to him that this
was so.

"This is Alte-Commander Vegeis, in command of the Purge-ship Splendid Pyre,
of the Hakaalt-tche, to the offending vessel Voyager. You interfere with a
rightful cleansing. If you do not wish to be classified with the vermin,
retreat. This is not your affair."

He was the Immaculate Warrior--splendid in his virtues, unwavering in his
certainties, absolute in his control.

His crew continued with their work, undisturbed by our presence. Throughout
the entire exchange they picked away at the civilian ship, completely
undistracted by their leader's conversation. They had a discipline that
would have done a Starfleet crew proud, for all I was perturbed by the
object of all that discipline.

I tried again. "There is no indication that these people deserve to be
massacred, Alte-Commander. Even if they have committed some crime, you
don't have to --"

He cut me off. "They are eftri: unclean. It is necessary that they be
purged. There is no other way to ensure righteousness, and the safety of
the Ordained in the Heavenly Garden." He crossed the wide, tastefully
austere expanse of his bridge. The small badges of rank on his chest
gleamed softly in the mellow lighting. "I repeat: leave this area at this
time. You are Not-Hakaalt, you have entered Hakaalt territory, you
contaminated the Heavenly Garden with your presence. You trespass on a
rightful cleansing. Leave, and you may live. Stay, and we will purge you
with these eftri vermin. Consider yourselves warned."

Nothing blurred or softened his resolve. The only flaw in the image was a
slight annoyance and repugnance. The isolate majesty of it made me wonder
if his "we" hadn't been intended as the imperial "we."

Nothing was going to move this man, besides direct force. I didn't really
want to use that: it was on the edge of breach of Prime Directive. The
blurry edge. We'd received a distress signal, and that's rated as high as
complying with the PD, under some circumstances. And what we'd found was an
atrocity. But it wasn't our space. Getting involved was technically
interference, for all the Star March had sent out a call, and been willing
to take help. How to weigh the choices? When push came to shove, I'd choose
to fight. But, first, try diplomacy... not that I had much faith in it.

I had to try anyway. "Alte-Commander, this is butchery. I cannot stand by
and..."

He bent his head towards one of the young officers sitting at a station,
one hand resting paternally on the young man's shoulder. "You see what they
are like, Reiark? Beyond reason. No sense of law, or the fitness of things.
Mere animals. They cannot be taught, they will not submit, they cannot be
contained. So it is demonstrated to us: the cleansing is just." As the
young man looked up, an almost worshipful expression on his face, the
Alte-Commander made a single gesture, and the transmission ended.

From that point on things started happening fast.

"Captain, they're targeting us--weapons initiated. I've raised our..."
Tuvok's voice was lost in the blast that followed.

The bolt from the alien weapon hit us hard. Even with our shields up, and
at maximum, the energy from the beam came through, and Voyager shook like
the windows in my house back home, when a winter nor'easter was pounding
the coast.

"Tuvok, return fire."

"Arming phasers, engaging--fired." The tight beam from the forward phaser
banks lanced out. When the light hit the Splendid Pyre her shields became
visible around the point of contact, radiating a beautiful violet glow.
They held for the space of a few seconds, burning brighter and brighter,
then they fell, our phasers cutting through and scarring the sleek flank of
the port side. In an instant the supporting ships turned away from the Star
March, and began to close on us.

"Captain." It was Dvorak. "There's a message from the Splendid Pyre to the
other ships."

"Put it on."

It was only an audio signal, but the crisp voice of the Alte-Commander was
instantly recognizable. "Stand aside. The vermin have insulted the honor of
a Hakaalt-tche Purgeship. They are mine. Standard Bieltar formation, no
interference. Be prepared--the cream of Hakaalt-tche will test them. If we
fall, mourn us, mark them, and gather them into the fires to redeem our
souls."

The ships fell back, and the Splendid Pyre approached.

"They have succeeded in reformatting their shields, captain. They appear to
be underpowered, but they are by no means unprotected. " Tuvok's voice was
as controlled as the Alte-Commander's, but somehow it didn't seem as
bitterly inhuman to me. He leaned over his console, and frowned. "Captain,
there's an inexplicable concentration of energy forming in the prow of the
ship. I don't know..."

From the forward tip of the Splendid Pyre light blossomed: the same violet
haze the shields had generated. The effect was peculiar: it seemed to
gather, like a bubble of water forming in null-gravity, billowing and
swelling. Then it opened out, long tendrils spreading out in a lazy, slow
star-burst pattern, with finer filaments stretching between the expanding
rays, like a delicate spider web.

Dvorak was already running scans. "Energy field of some sort. No immediate
referents in the computer. Damned if I know what it is, but it's packing a
punch."

Chakotay was bent over his own terminal, brow wrinkled. "I don't like
this... It's spreading like a net, and they seem to have control over the
pattern. It's too complex to be just a random effect. I say we pull back
for now."

I could have argued about whether the complexity indicated control--but I
wasn't about to. That glowing web made me nervous, too. "Agreed. Jones,
take us back to observational range."

Blodd started to comply.

As Voyager pulled away, the tips of the long rays arched towards us. Their
movement was so perfectly synchronized with our own there was no doubt in
my mind that it was in direct response to our actions. As we moved, the
rays moved--two actions with one motivating cause. The thing was 'smart.'

"Tuvok, shields at maximum."

"Aye, captain."

The rays were approaching, vaulting over us, wrapping us in the filigreed
web.

"Dvorak, reverse the tractor beams and see if we can push that thing away
from us."

"Aye." Dvorak was busy for a moment, then there was a brilliant flare on
the screen, as our tractor beams intersected the arcs of the web. "It's
having some affect, but..."

"Captain, the Hakaalt ship has launched a missile. Attempting to intercept
with phaser fire..."

The screen suddenly blazed--light everywhere, beyond the sensors' ability
to filter. All around the bridge heads snapped aside, eyes squinting. Tuvok
was scrambling to shut off the phasers. Dvorak was slapping buttons and
closing down systems at high speed. Then a concussion rocked the ship--a
bad one. Almost as bad as the shakeup when we'd come through the
Caretaker's beam. It was as though space itself had grabbed us by the
scruff, and shaken us like my dog Molly used to shake her chew toys, when
she was a puppy. I managed to hang on to my seat for a few seconds, but
ended up on the floor, belly down, fingers sunk into the pile of the
carpet, trying to maintain a grip. It seemed to go on, and on, with bodies
tumbling through my field of vision, lights dropping except for the backup
telltales at the work stations. When it finally stopped I scrambled back to
my seat, too busy to evaluate the conditions on the bridge until I had some
idea of what we had to deal with from the Hakaalt.

I prodded the buttons of my console, trying to bring up information.
Nothing. "Dvorak, get me some sensor readings." The backup lights had come
on, low, but at least we could see.

Chakotay's voice carried to me from behind the ops station. I didn't know
when he'd gotten up there. The last I'd noticed he'd still been in his seat
beside me. "He's gone. He's...anyway, he's gone." I could hear him start to
gag, then draw a breath and steady himself. "I'll see if I can bring
anything up."

"Captain, the primary and secondary sensors are down, but I'm getting some
information in on the tertiary backup systems. The Splendid Pyre appears to
have been destroyed; however, the other ships are re-grouping." Tuvok was
still at his post. That was one thing that had gone right.

Otheris limped down from the secondary engineering station to Chakotay, at
ops. "Commander, you want me to take this station?"

"No--take over for Jones. I've almost got this thing--shit...." Chakotay
slammed a fist on the ops panel, and started over. Otheris didn't wait to
hear more, but continued down to the comm station, where Blodd Jones was
nursing what appeared to be a broken wrist. Otheris wasn't in very good
shape himself. Half of his face was already turning a dark reddish-blue
that was going to turn into a dilly of a bruise if it wasn't seen to, and
his nose was bleeding. At least his eyes and hands all worked.

Chakotay was still muttering over the ops console. After a few false starts
he gave a triumphant growl. "Got it. It's not great, but I can give you a
picture, and some sensor feed."

I nodded. "Put it up."

"It's not great" turned out to be a hell of an understatement. It was like
looking through six or seven holes blown through a heavy sheet of
plasti-board. Bits and pieces--and even where the sensors were giving us
information, it was low-grade, and dirty. I could just make out the Hakaalt
ships gathering in a cluster in the center. There wasn't any sign of the
Splendid Pyre, but there was a lot of debris drifting around. The ship we'd
come to rescue tumbled languidly, drifting away from the center of action
with no sign of control. I hoped they were still alive over there.

"Tuvok, what's our weapons status?"

"Phasers down, shields down, maneuvering capacity-- I do not trust these
figures, captain, but if the computer is correct we have only 42.7934% of
our optimal maneuvering capacity. Our tractor systems appear to be entirely
disabled. However we still have the use of our photon torpedoes, and we
were able to restock on Abbyzh-dira and Izary, and have almost completely
replaced our complement of photon mines."

I turned to Chakotay, trying to ignore Dvorak's limp body, half-exposed
behind the ops station. "Hail the Hakaalt ships."

"Aye."

Before he could make contact a flicker of motion on the screen made me spin
back . Even as I watched, Tuvok provided narrative. "Captain, the central
ship has launched a projectile. Intercept in three seconds." His hands
flashed over the panel, but there was no response from Voyager's systems.
The slender device slid past our normal shield line without slowing for a
moment, and shattered against our hull. I waited for the end.

It didn't come. Whatever the affect of the impact, the results weren't
obvious.

Chakotay hadn't wasted the time. "I've got the Hakaalt on line."

I nodded, frowning. It seemed like a waste of effort to lob dud missiles at
us, but right then I had other things to deal with. "This is Captain
Kathryn Janeway, of the starsh--"

The screen sprang to life, and I suddenly had a clear view of the interior
of one of the cruisers, and the furious features of a red-haired Valkyrie
in her middle years. "Be silent, eftri murderer. If Warla... If the
Alte-commander hadn't... Tethe-hosht!" She was just short of spitting mad.
"Don't think you've won, vermin. You're marked, and I will remember you at
Waren-Pyre." The screen cut back to open space, and, before I could have
Chakotay try to raise her again, the entire group shifted into warp--and
were gone.

"Son of a bitch..." Chakotay sounded addled. "They had us. All it would
have taken...." He trailed off, completely at a loss.

Tuvok sat down at his station for the first time that evening, dabbing at a
thin track of blood that trickled from a tiny cut at the corner of his
mouth. "It is illogical--but hardly to be regretted. We would not have
survived another attack." He glanced across his panel.

The hair on the nape of my neck rose at the absolute certainty in his
voice. He was not guessing--he was sure. We would have died.

"What happened, anyway?" Blodd Jones is always curious, and I think she was
trying to keep her mind off her wrist, too.

"I don't know. Tuvok, run a sensor check, if you can. We may just have
gotten lucky, but I want to know if there's any reason to worry about that
last shot they fired." He nodded. I turned to Chakotay. "See if B'Elanna
can tell us anything--and while you're at it, call in the med teams. Even
Dvorak may be --"

"He isn't. He's gone." Chakotay's voice left no room for hope. A second
later he'd gotten through to the sickbay, been told "If it isn't an
immediate emergency, you can wait" by the holodoctor, and had continued on
to contact B'Elanna. The news wasn't good.

"Sorry, captain, but we're damned near dead in space. We still have warp
and impulse drives, but almost all the electronic relays are about as much
good as eight-day-old gakh, with none of the nice bits. The computer's in
bad shape--gel packs blown, I don't know. The ship's biotech was hardest
hit. Whatever hit us toasted the primary and secondary systems, the
tertiaries are--well, we have some of the tertiary. Quaternary seems to be
fine, but the only things we have on quaternary are life support, and
really basic navigational--we won't be safe going much above warp three, if
that--and a few odds and ends. As for the rest of the ship's functions,
I'll get back to you as soon as I have any idea. Oh, don't count on much in
the way of sensor readings for a while. That burst burned through most of
the pickups."

I paced across the deck, over to the rail near ops. "How long until you
have a complete evaluation?"

"Days."

"Torres, that's not acceptable."

Her voice was edgy, and frayed. "I told you once--I don't pad my estimates.
If anything that one's optimistic. Whatever the hell hit us, hit us hard.
The only reason we still have the holodoctor is that he's designed to
function in emergencies. But don't expect any--"

"Captain." Chakotay's voice cut across the angry monologue. "We're being
hailed by the other ship. They're in trouble."

I closed my eyes. All the sympathy I'd felt for them seemed thin, and cold,
and distant as I looked at the wreck of my bridge. We'd paid a high price
for our altruism. "Put them on."

The minotaur-man appeared on screen, and my sympathy returned instantly.
His deck made mine look immaculate. The damage was everywhere, visible in
hazy patches through a shroud of poisonous-yellow, smoky fumes. Ripped
metal. Exposed wires that spat and arced. Corpses. Too many corpses. It was
impossible not to feel for the man. His world was destroyed.

On his lap he held the little woman who had manned the communication link.
There was no way to tell from her limp, bloody body whether she still
lived, or if he simply wasn't ready to release her to death.

"Captain Janeway?" His deep, belling voice was raw.

"Yes? I'm sorry, I've forgotten...What was your name?"

"Master Qiral. Kin-master Qiral atche eftri, manager of the Star March
Shipholding. Once of Roalt. Not that it matters. Qiral will do." He looked
around, blank and vague, as though he had forgotten what he called me for
and was wandering in his mind. Then he closed his eyes, and when he opened
them again there was no doubt of the intellect and focus behind that
strange bovine face. "Captain, I'm sorry to ask for more, when you've given
so much at such risk. But my drive systems are down, and we won't be
bringing them up. The containment fields around the core of my impulse
drive are damaged beyond repair, the radiation is being carried through my
ship by the ventilation systems, and we can't afford to turn them off or
we'll suffocate. The hull's been breached in dozens of places. We've
managed to seal off some of the leaks, but...it doesn't matter. The details
don't matter. Star March Shipholding is dead. If you could take *any* of my
people aboard--the children, at least..." His head dropped down. "I think
we have a few lifeships still whole. We could fit maybe twenty of our
little ones aboard, if they didn't have a long trip to survive. If you
could take them? See if you can help them past the radiation sickness, or
give them a soft death if you can't? They'll die hard, here with us."

Chakotay's eyes had met mine, as we listened to the request. He nodded. I
looked at Tuvok. For a moment, I almost hoped he'd object. We were in
sufficiently bad shape ourselves that the idea of taking on a greater
burden wasn't 'expedient.' As security chief, and as a Vulcan, he would
have been perfectly in character pointing out the madness of mercy at such
a risk to ourselves. But he nodded, too.

In spite of the risks involved, I was pleased. I didn't want to leave these
people to die, not even in the name of expedience. Being a captain is more
than just saving your ship--sometimes it's more a matter of saving your
standards. Kobayashi Maru time. Times when you choose righteousness over
survival. I hoped this wasn't so bad. But I wasn't about to draw back from
fear that it was.

Under my breath, to Chakotay, I said "Find out from B'Elanna what the
status is on the transporters. If that's no go, start pulling together any
pilots who are still fit to ferry the survivors over." I turned back to the
screen. "I may be able to do better than that. How many still alive on your
ship?"

His head lifted, and I was disconcerted to see his nostrils flare, like a
scent-hound testing the wind. "I'm not sure. Our original complement was
four hundred, but... a lot of the areas the Hakaalt hit were the
residential sections. We may have lost most of the kin-calling."

"We're on. She's having to patch around a lot, but she can give us three
transporter stations." Chakotay's voice was quiet, and happy. Something
good had happened. He's able to appreciate that. I think he's better at it
than I am.

"Do we have enough sensor capacity to locate the living and pull them out
just by readings, or do we have to go over and find and tag them all
individually?"

"She's sending out one of the shuttles--their sensors aren't damaged, and
they'll relay the coordinates to us. She's even going to use the shuttle's
transporter. But it's a 'go.' We can get on it right away."

I turned back to Master Qiral with a smile. "Things are looking up. We're
going to start pulling your survivors out immediately. Just don't be
surprised when your people start disappearing into thin air. We've got some
tricks up our sleeves that aren't run of the mill in these parts. If you'll
excuse me, now, I'm afraid I have my hands full over here. Just hold on."

I turned from the screen, not waiting for the transmission to end, and was
about to ask Chakotay to fill me in on the status reports coming in fast
and furious when he reached out and touched my forehead. When he brought
his hand away it was bright red, and I was suddenly aware of the sting and
ache of a laceration somewhere on my upper scalp, and the tickle of blood
seeping down through my hair. Chakotay looked wryly at the sticky stain on
his fingers, and down at me. "You are going to get that seen to, aren't
you? Now that the shooting's over?"

For the first time since we'd gotten the distress call I thought of him as
my lover. The feeling was a disruption, making me feel as though I'd woken
up in strange quarters and smashed into a wall in the dark, lost in
unfamiliar territory and feeling my way. Wrong mode, wrong pattern. Wrong
something. I wanted to snap at him. I also wanted to reach out and caress
him, fiercely proud that he'd never by so much as a gesture interfered with
my job, until now, when the luxury of 'mother-henning me' was not only
allowable, but necessary. As near as I could tell he hadn't even thought of
it--or had thought it, and known so deeply not to that the temptation
hadn't caused a ripple in the smooth performance of his own job.

I settled for smiling at him, and nodding. "If you insist, Abba. But since
the comm system seems to still be working, I want you to keep me up to date
on the evacuation." He nodded, and I turned to Blodd. "Why don't you come
along, too? It's going to be awhile before the med teams make it to the
bridge--and we may as well save them the work." We entered the turbo-lift,
and were soon in the corridor outside sickbay.

There was a line. A long line. Voyager had taken major damage, and so had
my crew. I wondered who had died--and turned my mind away from the thought.

Kou came through, doing triage evaluation. I wasn't surprised when I got
sent to the back of the line. Blodd was sent forward, but not by much. That
worried me. A broken wrist isn't a major injury, but to have so many ahead
of her who were worse off--I wasn't pleased. I tried to comfort myself with
the thought that they had merely arrived earlier.

Seating was in short supply. Several of the junior officers tried to offer
me makeshift seats dragged in from other areas. I considered it for the
sake of command dignity, but the crates and duffels and cushions were
neither dignified, nor comfortable. In the end I chose to sit with my back
against the wall, legs crossed in front of me. I closed my eyes, suddenly
realizing that it must be about three thirty in the morning by "my" time.
Late. My eyes were tired, my back and shoulders ached. My head ached, from
stress as well as the dull throb of the cut on my scalp. I set myself the
goal of relaxing.

I'd almost fallen asleep when my comm badge peeped. "Captain? Torres here.
The Old Man told me to ask you what you wanted me to do. We've got the
first life sign readings on that ship. There's two of everything that ever
lived on board, and some of them are *big*. It might as well be an ark.
We've tried to raise Qiral, but we're not getting any response. After the
beating they took, the comm systems may be down. Anyway... As it stands
there are over a hundred and fifty survivors, and some of them won't fit
anywhere on Voyager except the holodeck, the cargo holds, or the shuttle
bays. And most of our crew is going to have to double up if we're going to
find room for the rest."

I ran one of my hands over my hair, grimacing at the stiff, sticky texture
where the blood had coagulated and dried. When I drew my hand away, my
fingers were dusted with rust-brown flecks and speckles. "It sounds fine,
Torres. Do whatever you have to."

"There's also--captain, most of them are in bad shape. Radiation burns,
poisoning from all sorts of leaks and spills, broken bones, cuts ,
contusions--you name it. Is there room up there for the injured?"

I looked at the lines. "Not a chance. Set up a med station in one of the
hangars, and send whoever's your emergency medic to try to evaluate them on
the spot. The worst you can beam up here--but try to keep it down. We're
already overflowing out into the corridors."

I'm not sure how long it was after that that the first of the casualties
from the damaged ship started silently shimmering into existence. I wasn't
tracking time very well at that point. Once it started they seemed to flow
on, and on. I couldn't argue with the med-tech's decision to send them up,
though, even with the overload already facing sickbay. The only thing more
amazing than the motley variety of them was the appalling extent of their
injuries. There were sobbing children, clinging frantically to adults who
bore no more relationship to them than an Andorian has to a Horta. Their
faces were marked with hot, sore burn marks, bruises, oozing wounds, and
the tracks of tears.

I saw one lanky woman with the tottery grace of a giraffe lean as lightly
as possible on the shoulder of another woman who was built along the lines
of the minotaur Master. Both had injuries that made my stomach turn. The
bovine one had a cloth wrapped around her belly, stained deep,
blackish-red, and smelling of fecal matter. I was grateful that our medical
technology could probably save her--and more grateful that it was her, not
me.

My own people stirred. Some just looked at the newcomers dully, their own
injuries keeping their minds more on their own problems. Others goggled.
Even for a Federation crew, it was an unusually sight. You don't usually
see so many varied species all in one place, at one time, in such bad
shape. And a lot of my people are young. There's a lot they still haven't
seen before.

*I* hadn't seen anything like this. I'd seen Wolf 359, and that had been
bad enough. Captains of exploratory ships, particularly science-type
captains, aren't usually on the front lines of disaster relief. Even I
found it--bad. Very bad. No reason to think my crew wouldn't too.

The air in front of me hazed, thickened, and the master himself
materialized on the corridor floor. He still clutched the tiny, winged
woman to his chest, one broad hand stroking her hair in almost automatic
tenderness. He was humming, the sound so deep and intense it made the wall
behind me tremble. I wasn't sure he even knew he'd been transported.

Then he opened his eyes, and looked around. As soon as he saw me, he
dropped his head in a very odd, formal little half-bow.

"My thanks be with you, Master Janeway, and my gratitude for the
hospitality of your ship." He looked down at Rodria Bright March. Her face
was pale--too pale. "I hope your doctors are as wondrous as your
teleportation machine."

I tried to ease my way up, to present a more dignified front. After all, I
was the host. It was foolish, but I felt uncomfortable greeting a guest in
such disarray. I like things to be better run than that.

He waved me back. "Can we be of any help to you?"

"I don't know. Maybe after we've sorted things out a bit I'll have a better
idea. In the meantime do anything you can to make this easier for your own
people, and to make them comfortable. After you and your friend have been
treated I'll introduce you to my first officer and security chief--and my
'morale officer.' Between them they should be able to help work things
out."

There didn't seem to be more to say.

Qiral returned to his low humming. Kou was back, slowly working her way
down the line of new arrivals, sending some ahead, giving some into the
hands of strong-armed volunteers from other departments, who manhandled
them as gently as possible onto anti-grav gurneys. A few she simply shook
her head sadly over. As she moved away from those, the sound of mourning
would start. Many voices, many languages, but the grief carried,
regardless.

My comm badge peeped again. This time it was Chakotay. For a wonder his
voice was cheerful--or at least, he was doing a good imitation.

"Heya-Kath. I'm down in shuttle hangar B, and I have a question for you:
what's black and white and red all over?" Before I could respond, he came
back with the answer. "A M'R-kathian elephant. Where do M'R-kathian
elephants sit? In shuttle hangar B. And the big question: What do
M'R-kathian elephants eat?"

This time I cut in before he could fill in the answer. "I have no idea--but
I'm sure you'll find out for me, won't you, Pesh? And if all that means
what I think it does, I have one for you: what do Maquis first officers
have on their hands?"

His voice was steeped in ironic amusement. "An elephant-sized job. That's
what. I've arranged to have Tuvok and Tom Paris take the bridge tomorrow
morning. I'd like to think that we'll be able to get some sleep. But I'm
not counting on it."

He was right. It was a long time before we slept.

But meanwhile, I had a cut to have attended.

As I waited, watching the line creep along ahead of me, I smiled a little,
wondering how Chakotay was doing with his "elephants."

End Section I

---------------------------------------

---------------------------------------

Section II: Chakotay

I felt like Hannibal. Except my elephants were red and I just wanted to get
them from the hanger bay into a cargo hold. I may as well have been facing
the Alps.

I'd just gotten off the comm with Kathryn. Now I spoke to the air, let out
a little of the frustration I hadn't wanted to show her. "Don't these
people have their *own* animal handler? Elephants weren't in my job
description."

"I can see it now: Starship Seeks First Officer with Elephant Experience."

I spun. Anielewicz stood behind me, grinning.

"Smart ass," I muttered, then asked, "Shouldn't you be in sickbay with
something broken that needs fixed?"

"Nope. I'm one of the lucky few who didn't get a bruise. Tuvok sent me down
to give you a hand. What *are* those things?"

"M'R-kathian elephants. Or at least, I'm calling them elephants until
someone tells me otherwise."

Chaim moved closer. "Well, I guess that's fair. They have trunks. At least,
I think that's what that is."

My M'R-kathian elephants were no more pachyderms than Bajoran cinnamon is
really cinnamon...but they were close enough for government work. Or the
circus.

"'Grey as a mouse, big as a house, nose like a snake, I make the earth
shake as I tramp through the grass; trees crack as I pass...' um, I don't
remember what comes next. But it ends 'If you'd ever met me you wouldn't
forget me. If you never do, you won't think I'm true; but old Oliphaunt am
I, and I never lie.'"

I grinned at him. Chaim never ceases to surprise me with the odd things he
knows. "Who wrote that? Kipling?"

"No. Tolkein."

"Ah." I didn't know the name but from the way Chaim said it, I supposed I
should. Another bit of white man's culture I'd missed somewhere. One thing
I admired about the Jews: they were a well-educated bunch. He could quote
Byron or the Baal Shem Tov with equal facility; every once in a while he
surprised us all --including Cherel--by quoting the Prophets.

In fact, the elephants...or whatever they were...were among the more
familiar-looking of the animals. We had crazy things: animals out of
legend. I kept expecting to turn a corner and run into a unicorn, or
griffin, or old Windigo-- the Snow Beast. There was even an entire
hundred-gallon tank of bright blue frogs with yellow polka-dots. I had no
idea whether they were for an act, or for somebody's lunch. Maybe Master
Qiral's.

Chaim and I had just finished moving the tank when Cherel showed up. She
walked gingerly, her arm in a sling. "What happened to the regenerators?" I
asked, eyeing her arm.

Sitting on a crate, she shook her head. "There's limited power and
supplies. They're reserving regenerators for people with more serious
wounds than a broken arm." She shifted slightly. "Kes looked ready to drop
by the time she got to me. There are"-- she paused, her eyes haunted--
"there are so *many*, and so badly wounded. I felt like I was back in the
camps. The children...." She trailed off.

Chaim came over to sit beside her, took her dark hand in his. Something
about her manner struck me as...fragile. It seemed at odds with the Jinn
Cherel I knew. She glanced at me, then back to her husband. "What is it?"
he asked.

Fragility gave way to a flash of anger, then faded into a stunned
expression. "I'm...."

She stopped. We waited. She looked at me again. I began to think maybe I
should leave, but she spoke before I could do so.

"I'm pregnant, Chaim."

He whooped. He danced a little Jewish jig. He tossed his yarmulke and
shouted in Yiddish. I've seen men less happy receiving a Silver Palm.

I found I was grinning hard enough to hurt my cheeks.

Cherel wasn't.

"Chaim-- stop it!"

He stopped, more or less. He came back over to kiss her on both cheeks,
then on the mouth, hug her fiercely.

"Chaim, we're in the middle of a war! This isn't good news!"

"Of course it is!" he said.

She scrambled off the crate and glared at him, then at me as if I were
guilty just for sharing the male sex. "You...idiots!" She was so angry, she
was spitting. "You think having a baby now is something to *rejoice* over?
You didn't see what I saw up there; you didn't see the wounded. These
Hakaalt are *monsters*. I heard the refugees talking. The Hakaalt are as
bad as Cardassians. Maybe worse."

For a Bajoran to admit that anyone might be worse than a Cardassian was a
vicious insult indeed.

She had taken a deep breath, now let it out. "I don't want this baby. Not
till we're out of this. During the Occupation, I saw women give themselves
abortions with wire from the fences. I saw women slit their childrens'
throats to save them from dying at Cardassian hands. I don't want this
baby!"

She was crying, and as close to hysterical as I'd ever seen her.

Chaim's manner had altered entirely. He came over to take her in his arms,
whisper, "Hush." I felt like a voyeur. "Listen to me, motek." Sweetness.
"Children...they're the future. Our future. This baby is our future. My
people learned that, down the years. All children are precious. They mean
survival, they mean the old ways won't die. We hoarded them like jewels,
told them our stories and taught them our traditions. You lived through
half a century of Occupation. That might be enough to make a people
despair. We lived through almost two millennia of the Diaspora and
persecution. That's enough to learn to look past despair, celebrate birth.
Children hold death at bay."

On that note, I slipped out of the cargo bay doors, left them to the
elephants and the frogs and each other. I considered hunting up Magda, if I
could find her in this madhouse. Cherel's fears were none I could address.
I'd never had children; after Seska's deceptions, the very idea was bitter.
I wondered if Janeway wanted children; I'd never asked. She'd been
remarkably good with Riaka when Kes had been incapacitated. But as to our
own...we hadn't gotten so far yet. Maybe we didn't need them; we had a ship
full.

Right now, though, I didn't have time to go looking for Magda. If I bumped
into her, I'd tell her about Cherel. If not, it'd have to wait till I had a
free moment-- which didn't look like it'd be for a while.

We were already two and a half hours into alpha shift and I hadn't even
noticed. Nor did I have time to do more than grab a bite of the emergency
breakfast Neelix had whipped up. It looked and tasted like grits with a
little butter and salt. Still, it was food, and of such a bland sort, it
was unlikely to offend any alien palate that wasn't exclusively
carnivorous.

I took my bowl and started off for my office. "Commander!" Neelix called
after me; I turned. "Would you mind eating here?"

"Why?"

"Because we don't have enough plates to go around. I've got Gerron and
Alvarez washing dishes in the back as people finish with them, so I can use
them again."

For once, there was nothing cheerful in his manner, no attempt to play
morale-officer. He was probably doing well just to play cook to this many
people. Even two hours after breakfast, the cafeteria was still packed,
mostly with refugees. If these people were going to be with us for more
than a day or two, I'd have to get him some help. He had Riaka in a tiny
crib in one corner of the kitchen. No doubt, her mother was too busy in
sickbay to watch her; so, really, was Neelix, but the kitchen was a safer
environment than the sickbay.

Of course, my readyroom would be safer yet-- and quieter in the bargain.

I slipped into the kitchen. "I'm going to be spending the next couple hours
reworking cabin assignments to accommodate our guests." I nodded to his
daughter. "It wouldn't be any trouble for me to keep an eye on her for you.
I'll just be in my office."

I have rarely been graced with such a look of profound gratitude. "Could
you? I'd be ever so grateful...!"

"Think nothing of it," I said, to cut him off before he started in on a
catalogue of his woes. But in truth, he was too busy for woes. Another
small clump of refugees had come straggling in and he hurried off to see
them fed. I stood in a corner and wolfed down my grits while surveying the
people assembled. They sat together in variegated clumps, talking softly,
some weeping. A few looked over at me. I smiled and tried to appear
non-threatening. Nearly all bore evidence of some physical trauma. I didn't
want to guess at the emotional trauma I couldn't see.

There were all manner of physical types; I felt like I'd walked in on a
congressional meeting of the Federation Senate. Most were bipedal, at
least. I saw everything from little winged people like the Star March
Shipholding's communications officer, to minotaur-types like their captain.
There were reptilian aliens who would have looked too much like Cardassians
to make me comfortable, except that their hair was bone white and their
skin came in iridescent metallic shades: copper, gold, silver, even a
bronzy-green. I saw tall, ethereal black-skinned aliens of indeterminate
sex with silver hair that fell as long as they were tall. I saw small
stunted people who, for all the world, looked like Irish leprechauns. And
off in a corner, I saw three of the only non-bipeds in the room: they
appeared to be large hyenas, but had prehensile tails and their front
"paws" had not just one, but two opposing digits.

Finished at last, I took my bowl in to Gerron, then collected Riaka and her
things, headed up to my office. Luckily, the baby had just eaten, so she
was sleepy and content to doze in her crib. Sometimes she made baby noises:
a burp or sigh. It was...pleasant, to have her there. The sound of her
helped soothe my frazzled nerves. And the longer I spent with the list of
cabins and the list of refugees, the more frazzled my nerves became.

Where the hell was I supposed to *put* everyone? Voyager was never made to
hold this many people. The refugees had more than doubled our population.
I'd cleared out the hanger, but they wouldn't all fit in there, and some
were too ill to sleep on camp cots in any case. I was forced to double-up
even our officers. Paris got Harry. I put Sam Wildman and Puff in with Kes,
Neelix and Riaka. B'Elanna got the Delaney sisters-- *that* would be
interesting. They could compare notes on Paris. Even Tuvok was given a
roommate: the Vulcan ensign Vorik. It only seemed fair to inflict them on
each other; at least they wouldn't quarrel over the climate control. Other
matches weren't nearly so easy, or so obvious and, in the end, most of my
work had to be scratched and redone. In any case, there was no longer a
question of Kathryn and I putting off sharing a cabin but, seeing our names
together on the roster, I hesitated, hit my communicator pin. "Chakotay to
Janeway."

She answered promptly. "Janeway here." I wondered where she was and what
she'd been doing and if she'd had that gash on her head seen to or had
decided it would take too much time and gone off to some other task.

"You got a minute? Can you come by my office?" I didn't want to discuss
this over the comline.

"Is it urgent or can it wait half an hour?"

"It can wait."

"Fine. I'll be up as soon as I can, commander."

'Commander.' She must be where others could hear. On duty, she avoids too
much familiarity in front of anyone but the bridge crew, and she doesn't do
it there often. Then again, I don't call her 'Kath,' either: another of the
small ways we try to keep our private and public life separate. We probably
worried about it more than our crew did, with a few exceptions like Tuvok
and Paris. Both of them had adopted a 'wait and see' attitude towards me,
so I'd been on my best behavior of late. And not just for them. After that
idiot stunt of proposing to Kathryn in the middle of the night, I was
nervous of putting my foot in my mouth again.

She'd been very good about it. She hadn't laughed at me, or gotten angry
and thrown me out. She hadn't even said 'no.' Of course, she hadn't said
'yes' yet, either-- she hadn't given me any answer at all-- but under the
circumstances, I chose to consider that a 'definite maybe.'

It had taken only twenty seconds and the totally stunned look on her face
for me to realize that I'd not only jumped the gun, I was halfway down the
race course while she still stood at the starting gate. So I'd scrambled to
my feet and started apologizing before she could reply, just to keep her
from saying 'no.' She'd finally put a hand over my mouth, then hauled me
inside her cabin and let me stay the night. It hadn't, quite, been a
consolation prize. But since, we hadn't discussed my proposal and I'd
consciously refrained from bringing up anything--like sharing a
cabin--which might make her feel pressured.

While I waited for her to arrive, I put through a call to Tuvok, as well. I
feared the presence of the kin on Voyager was going to produce more
problems than just cramped quarters. He answered from his duty station on
the bridge, which was convenient. This was a conversation I didn't want our
guests to overhear.

"Tuvok, I'd like security to keep an eye on crew and kin both for the next
few days. I have a feeling things might be a little bumpy as they settle
in."

A long pause. "I had already intended to do so, commander."

Did the irritation in his voice stem from getting an order from me, or from
having me impinge on what he perceived to be his turf?

Whichever it was, I decided to ignore it. "Good, I'm glad to hear that.
Chakotay out."

"Commander," he said before I could close the link.

"Yes?"

"What precisely did you mean by 'bumpy'?"

I tapped idly at a PADD while considering how to answer. "It's easier to be
magnanimous to the underdog when it doesn't risk your own neck. This rescue
cost us. I don't think we have any idea yet how much. More, the kin
are...different. I haven't talked much with them yet, but already I can see
it."

"You fear they may represent a danger to Voyager."

"No--not in the way you mean, not directly. But yeah, I guess you could say
they might represent a danger to Voyager in the sense that they're a root
waiting for us to trip over. I'd like to avoid tripping. This is one case
where ship's security and crew morale overlap, I think."

"Your metaphor is colorful, as always, commander, nevertheless our
observations would seem to be in agreement on this matter. I, also, would
prefer to avoid 'tripping' and will take your warning under advisement.
Tuvok out."

Janeway finally arrived at my door a little over half an hour after we'd
spoken. Her hair had fallen out of its bun and she'd braided it down her
back. She looked as beat as I felt. I'd have offered her coffee had the
replicators been working. I'd have offered her a backrub but didn't want to
send the wrong message. This conversation topic was touchy enough.

"Well?" she said. It wasn't quite a snap, but she was too tired --and I was
too familiar--for her to pretend to politeness. I took that as a
compliment.

"I've been rearranging cabin assignments, to accommodate the additional
people."

"And?" She just blinked at me.

"And... we need to double-up. I know we haven't talked about it, and I
don't want you to think I'm trying to pressure--"

She didn't give me a chance to finish. "Do whatever's necessary, Pesh. As
Tuvok would say, it's only logical... and it's not as if the crew hasn't
already figured out that we share a bed. Now, I have to get back to
engineering; they need the extra pair of hands."

Her easy acceptance of our cabin assignment made me bold. "You should get
some sleep first."

"So should you, but I don't see you giving in to it!"

I held up hands in surrender. "Whoa! It's not 'giving in' to get a bit of
shut-eye if the alternative is falling over in your tracks. It's one thing
to sit up here and shuffle names on a cabin-chart; it's another to fool
around with dangerous equipment when you're too tired to see straight." I
met her eyes, gave a lopsided grin. "Look what happened to me on
Abbyzh-dira--and I wasn't even tired, just distracted."

She dropped her gaze, glanced away. "All right. I'll sleep soon. But they
really do need me."

"So does this ship," I said softly. "You're too valuable to get yourself
hurt doing engineer's work; I'm your XO--it's my *job* to say that."

She frowned and wandered along my office wall, stopped at Riaka's crib and
lifted her up. "I know," she said finally, ran a finger over the baby's
forehead, stroked the line of freckles along one temple. "I know." She put
Riaka back down, turned to face me. "Give me another hour, then I'll rest.
Chakotay--*nothing works.* We took major damage; you know that. If the
Hakaalt come back before we can get these people to their safe-haven
station, we haven't got an ice-cube's chance in hell and whether or not I
get sleep won't matter. So give me another hour."

I nodded once, shortly. "Safe haven?"

"There's a station about five days out from here, at warp five--which is
the best we can manage at present. They were headed for it. We can drop
them off there, where they can join the rest of their people." She headed
for the door, paused as it slid open, one hand on the jamb. "Oh--you can
move your things in whenever you find a spare minute. I assume it's my
cabin we're keeping?"

"Yours is bigger."

"Captain's privilege." She smiled once, wearily, and left.

I returned Riaka to her father, then stopped by sickbay on my way back to
my own cabin to pack my things. I wanted to check on the med staff. A
holographic doctor might not get tired, but it was important for our
biological one not to wear himself out entirely.

I admit, I wasn't prepared for the sight which met me. I'd heard about it
from Cherel, but I wasn't prepared. Injured people were lodged everywhere.
The worst lay on diagnostic beds for which only half the scanners appeared
to function. Others lay across waiting room chairs, on camp beds placed
along the walls, even on blankets on the floor itself. Many were
unconscious; a few who were still awake watched me from incurious eyes,
eyes that had seen too much. I was momentarily launched back to the CDMZ
and the aftermath of battles there. But in the CDMZ, we'd had medical
supplies, functioning medical equipment. This.... This was horrible.
Something wrenched, down low in my gut. Half of me wanted to run. The other
half propelled my feet forward. Numb, I moved among them, spoke a little to
the ones still awake. I don't know what I said. What I said probably wasn't
very important anyway. The EMH had seen me, but he was busy with a patient.
Vulcanoid-green blood was pooling on the floor under the bed. From the
expression on the doctor's face, he was losing whatever fight he was
waging.

I found Kes and Anyas curled up together in a corner, asleep, her head on
his shoulder. I wondered what Neelix would say to that but they looked more
like siblings than lovers; it was more than shared features. Something
indefinable in their posture marked it. Dark circles shadowed both their
eyes, and their medical scrubs were stained with splashes of blood. A pair
of delicate-eared angels, fair and dusky, caught in a war zone.

I heard steps behind me, turned. It was Magda. She looked at the sleeping
pair, smiled slightly and motioned me away. I followed, noticed the doctor
was no where to be seen and the patient had a white sheet pulled up over
the face. I wondered how many had been lost who might have been saved had
our equipment been working properly. With a last glance around the macabre
room, I escaped behind her into the hall. Silently, she set a hand on my
arm and led me away; I was content to let her decide where.

Aeroroponics--just down the hall from sickbay. It was empty of people. A
number of the non-aeroponic, soil-based planters had been damaged; some
were fixed already, probably by Magda. Returning to the long box on a
table, she picked up where she must have left off, righting stems and
adding soil where it had spilled, tapping it down gently. I came over to
watch, found myself just staring at the side of the silver planter.

"I know," she said softly after a few minutes. "Accabler. Overwhelming."
She glanced up at me, brown eyes soft. "Hurts to the soul--those you were
born to heal, Minou. Hurts to the body, and on such a scale.... Some feel
it too much. Stay out of there, cheri. For now. There will be souls enough
for salving."

She lifted the planter, prepared to carry it back. "Let me." I took it from
her and returned it to its spot. She let me; she knew I needed to *do*
something. I brought her the next tray. She went to work. "I was hoping to
run into you," I said after a minute.

Her eyes flashed up, back down. "And so you have found me. Que me veux-tu?"

"Cherel--"

"Ah--comprends. Chaim brought her, earlier. We have talked. She is
frightened. But she is no longer thinking to do violence to herself, or to
the child--grace a Dieu."

Relieved, I sighed and propped myself on the edge of the table, folded
hands in my lap. "That's good to hear. I didn't know what to say to her."

She nodded, tapped soil, did not look up. "And children are not a topic of
ease for you, grace a cette espece de vache, Seska?"

I snorted softly. We were silent a while then.

"You are making new cabin assignments--non?"

I nodded.

"I have a request to make. Assign me to Anyas."

It took a moment, for me to understand that. At first, I was just confused.
Then it hit me-- like the proverbial ton of bricks. "*Anyas*?" I said--or
squeaked, really.

She looked up. "Etre etonne, Minou? Surprised that such a young man might
fall in love with this plain old woman?"

I opened my mouth, then shut it, opened it and shut it. I must have looked
like a beached fish. Her smile was slightly bitter.

I admit it: I was astonished. I loved Magda. I had almost from the
beginning. But I loved her like a mother--or maybe an aunt; she wasn't
quite old enough to be my mother. By contrast, Anyas was at least a decade
my junior. I pushed myself off the table. "Magda, he must be thirty years
younger than you --!"

"Twenty-two."

"-- and a *flirt*! He's a pretty boy flirt who'll chase anything on two
legs! Love you? I can't-- Magda, I can't *countenance* this! He doesn't
love anyone but himself! He's going to break your heart!"

She had put down her spade to glare. "Chakotay--I did not ask for your
approval. I am too old to be needing such. And if you think he loves none
but himself, then jealousy has blinded you. When did you cease to see
behind a man's appearance? Or do you only do so when the face is not a
beauty's? He no more asked for his looks than I did for mine. Oui--he
enjoys them and is not ashamed. But he is not so foolish that he counts his
worth by them. There is a man beneath the flesh--a man who spent the past
fifteen hours on his feet, fighting to save total strangers. Why do you
think I came to the sickbay? I was worried. I could not convince him to
stop even long enough to eat, earlier. He is an *empath*, Chakotay. He
could not stop while he felt their pain. He was weeping with it. If that is
a man who loves none but himself, we should all be so selfish!"

Her words knocked the wind out of my sails. It was true that Anyas made me
uncomfortable--and jealous. *Had* I let that blind me? Or had she let his
glib tongue blind her?

Seeing me speechless, she went on, almost conversationally. "Do you not
think I have asked myself why he should choose me? Entendu! He, so
beautiful and I, this old mare." But she grinned. "He is but one year older
than my eldest son would have been, had he lived. Yet he has never...."
Face thoughtful, she trailed off. "There are dynamics, to all
relationships. With him, there was never a sense of age between us. I
cannot explain it but he does not and never has felt as a son, to me."

Her smile turned wry. "But this which has happened between us--ca, c'etait
imprevu! It was most unexpected." She laughed. "He is not, he says, one for
steady relationships. The Kithtri do not see sexuality as we do:
heterosexual or homosexual or in-between. They divide themselves into those
given to steadiness and those given to the gamble. Anyas calls himself one
given to gamble. And yet --" She shrugged and indicated herself with a
little smile. It was almost shy, like a schoolgirl with her first
boyfriend. "And I--Mon Dieu! That I should feel as this again, after Andre
died. And over a boy!" She laughed. "But such a boy! Now truly, I am
Madeleine d'Esperance!" Then she eyed me, as if she could *feel* my
hesitance. "J'ai l'impression que tu nesites encore."

"I just.... Magda, I don't want you to get hurt. And I'm nervous that he'll
hurt you."

She nodded, a bit sagely. "So, too, have I wondered." Then she smiled that
brilliant, Magda-smile. "And so I have become the one who is gambling! But
I have never been one to gamble on a hand with only a pair, Minou. Et tu!"
She laughed. "You sound, of Anyas and me, as does Tom Paris when he speaks
of ma capitaine and you! He does not quite trust you not to hurt *her*."

She was comparing me to *Paris*? And yet--and as much as I didn't like the
idea--maybe she had a point. It made me grumpy. I crossed my arms and
sulked. I knew I was sulking, but I couldn't help it. Still grinning, she
set down her spade and came around the table to pat one cheek fondly, kiss
the other. "Mon fils coquin. A friend of the devil is a friend of yours?
Then you and mon Anyas should do well for one another: un coquin et un
coquet font une paire poliment!"

A groan was the only possible response. 'A rogue and a flirt make a
polished pair.' She did that sort of thing on purpose to torture me, I was
sure.

"Maintenant! Go on and let me do for these plants what mon Anyas does for
his patients." She made shooing motions. "Skedaddle, you would say."

So I left her there, wondering what I was going to say to Kathryn about
*this*, and how she'd take it. Magda and Anyas. The more I thought back,
remembered, the more I realized that I should have seen it coming. They'd
been all but inseparable for the eight or nine weeks since Anyas had
undergone his Starfleet training by Tuvok. I'd assumed it was just Magda's
tendency to mother hen the underdog. Maybe, at first, it had been. But the
idea of Magda and the Prince of Lilies sharing a bed.... That was like
imagining Kes and Neelix: the princess and her loyal frog, except that in
this case, it was Magda who had the ball--or heart--of gold. Her prince was
just a strutting, gilded flower.

And it was my ill luck to run into him, too, on the way to the lift. He
must have woken finally and decided to find a bed to sleep in. He'd taken
off his scrubs and balled them up in one hand, but there was still blood on
his uniform, and a streak of it on one olive cheek. His typically curled
and oiled hair was simply flat and he smelled rank from his own sweat.
There was nothing gilded about him now. He nodded to me as we passed, then
paused.

I don't know how he knew--empaths weren't telepaths, but there were times
they came damn close. He looked sideways at me. We stood side-by-side,
facing opposite directions in the hallway. Crewmembers passed us, coming
and going. "She told you," he said.

"Yes."

He nodded, looked me up and down, glance shrewd. "You don't care much for
me, do you, commander?"

I really didn't want to have this conversation in the hallway; I rubbed the
bridge of my nose. "That's not it, Anyas. I think you're growing on us--on
me. I'm just.... Magda is...very special to me. I don't want her hurt."

I'd seen Anyas play the trickster, I'd seen him yank chains, I'd even seen
him irritated with people--but I don't think until that moment I'd ever
seen him truly *angry*. His brown face flushed, his lion-gold eyes
narrowed. For just a moment, I thought he might hit me. Then he hissed. "If
you think that *I* want Magda hurt, then you are a greater fool than ever I
took you for!" He breasted up to me. He's not small. He's not as big as I
am, but he's not small. "I know what you think of me, commander. You see
only the shell. Do you think I have no heart inside? Do you think I cannot
*feel* like any man? Or love? Well, I do!" He thumped his chest, stepped
back then, his expression one of perfect disgust. "Look to your own house
before you condemn mine. There are those who wonder if *you* can love the
one you have chosen!"

He blinked abruptly, seemed a little startled, as if anger had led him to
say more than he had meant to. I must have looked just as startled. His
eyes dropped, his lips thinned. For a moment, he appeared ready to
speak--perhaps to apologize--then he shook his head and walked on. I
followed him with my gaze. He disappeared into the aeroponics bay. The hiss
of the doors snapped me out of my shock; I shook my head. An ensign hurried
past, nodded absently to me. At least no one had been around to hear Anyas'
accusations.

Disquieted, I made my way back to my cabin and packed. It did not take
long; even after almost two and a half years on Voyager, I had not acquired
much. "Avoid attachment to *things*, Chakotay." So my father had always
taught me. Seven trips to Kathryn's quarters and I was done, then I called
Qiral to tell him the room was free; he could move someone into it.
Finally, finished for the moment, I collapsed on Kathryn's couch, listened
to her sleeping in the other room. She snores; it's charming. But the fact
that all my knocking about had not woken her betrayed how truly exhausted
she had been.

I touched the rough fabric of her couch, smiled as I remembered our first
evening on it.

Did some of the crew doubt my intentions, or my perseverance? Did Kathryn?
I might have just chalked up Anyas' outburst to pure resentment, except for
the look on his face. He hadn't been lying. "Look to your own house...."
Anyas had said. Maybe I needed to look at it harder than I had been.

Rising I walked into the bedroom, stared down at the woman who was my
captain, my friend, and now, my lover. But did I *love* her? On the face of
it, that seemed a strange thing to ask. I'd proposed marriage to her. And
yet....

I shook my head, sat down on the bed edge. She made a little snorting noise
in her sleep, shifted position, turning unconsciously towards me. I touched
her hair, the bared skin of one shoulder. She was so fair. So beautiful and
fair. She made my heart ache.

But would I love her if she looked like Magda? God knows, if anyone
deserved to be loved by Adonis incarnate, it was Magda. The thought made me
snort. Adonis and Aphrodite were just one face of an older pair: Atthis and
Cybele, Osiris and Isis. The son-lover and the great mother. And yet Magda
had said she didn't think of Anyas as her son. Maybe it took an empath to
be able to see past appearance and age. I couldn't think of any other
reason for him to attach himself to her; there was no obvious gain in it
for him. But was it the *right* kind of love? Or was Anyas just homesick,
and grateful for her kindnesses?

Who made you his judge?, I asked myself. How could I know what Anyas felt
when he looked at Magda as she slept? Perhaps she was beautiful to him.
Perhaps she made his heart ache, too. Only time would tell. It was the same
criteria Paris and Tuvok were applying to me. I unzipped my uniform top,
pulled off the turtleneck, then stepped out of my pants and boots and
slipped into bed beside the woman I loved.

End Part II

----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------

Section III: Janeway

.......Now the hedgerow

Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom

Of snow, a bloom more sudden

Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,

Not in the scheme of generation.

Where is summer, the unimaginable

Zero summer?

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, "Little Gidding."

Since I accepted my first captaincy, there have been a lot of times I've
wondered what particular form of dementia possessed me. The day after the
fight with the Hakaalt was one of those times. Voyager was a crippled
wreck, we were already feeling the added burden of our refugees. About the
only good news I'd had was that the 'dud' missile the Hakaalt had fielded
against us at the last appeared to actually have been a dud--at least so
near as we could tell, with the sensors toast and no manpower to spare for
an inch-by inch examination of the hull.

No manpower to spare. That was... that was an understatement.

The crew--God. Six dead, and the injured list seemed longer than could be
possible. Of those of us who were well, none had gotten enough sleep to
count as "rest"--there was too much to do just to bring basic systems back
on line. Voyager was ready to move again, thanks to B'Elanna, and Carey,
and all of the Engineering crew, and Harry, and me. We'd jury-rigged,
patched, cobbled, kludged, prayed over, and down-right lied to the entire
propulsion system, and were now able to crawl along at warp five--if we
were careful. Warp six if we didn't mind risking a very abrupt end to our
journey. Our sensor systems were still barely operational. As for the ship
as a whole, we had basic life support functions and not much more. Even
those were being pushed to the limit; too much was damaged for us to have
full function, and we were having to carry the additional burden of the
refugees.

I didn't even want to think about sickbay. I'd tried to give what comfort I
could to the wounded, after I'd been treated the night before. I hadn't
managed to do more than hold a hand or two, and murmur a few words to one
of the few conscious victims, before I'd been chased out by an irate
Med-tech Kou. Tired beyond caring about protocols, she told me just what
she thought of captains who insisted on traipsing around playing "Lady
Bountiful gracing the sickroom." It was an impressive tirade, precise and
effective, complete with annotations, examples, gestures, and graphic
summaries. I hadn't known the quiet young woman had it in her. Unsure what
my role was, if it wasn't to try to reassure my people when they were in
need, I'd beaten a hasty and not very dignified retreat.

Even so, I'd managed to see the extent of the problem. Between our injured
and Star March's the place looked like a cross between a morgue, a plague
ward, and an abattoir. The most severe problems had finally been treated,
and the flood slowed. But things were not good. Not just in
sickbay--anywhere you looked on Voyager there was something gone wrong.

First thing that day was a small confab in my readyroom; just me, Chakotay,
Tuvok, B'Elanna, and the Holodoctor.

I sat at my desk, and looked at the weary faces. Even Tuvok and the
holodoctor seemed tired. As for B'Elanna and Chakotay--my two Maquis
officers looked too limp to have ever been hot-blooded rebels.

I sighed. I couldn't even offer them coffee. Down in the mess hall Neelix
was doing what he could, serving the last 'tea' and 'coffee' from the
storage holds in a disgustingly dilute form, trying to eke out the limited
supplies. But the replicators had given up the ghost. No coffee for Mama
Janeway and her little brood. It made me wish I could bite someone. Coffee
is second only to air as a fundamental necessity of life, so far as I'm
concerned. I crossed my arms on my desk, to keep my hands from wandering in
search of a non-existent mug, and started things rolling. "All right,
everyone. Let's have the worst."

B'Elanna frowned. "Unless we get help, Engineering and Maintenance are
going to have all they can do to keep Voyager functioning at current
levels. With the replicators down we're having to manufacture all the
replacement parts old-style. Even if we could figure a way to bring the
replicators back up, we don't have some of the elements we'd need for some
of the work."

Chakotay leaned his elbows on his knees. "C'mon, wonder-techie. I've seen
you pull miracles out of ether."

She glared sourly at her friend and mentor. "Forget it, Ch'kotay. Voyager's
tits-up and floating on the top of the goldfish bowl. If you don't believe
me, ask her." She twisted her head to indicate me. "If the kin didn't have
that station for us to aim for, we'd be in real trouble. I may be able to
keep things running long enough to get us to a repair dock, if we can get
there in under a week or so. Longer than that, and it's anyone's guess."

Chakotay and Tuvok both looked at me, and I nodded. "She's right. We do
have an option we haven't looked into, yet. If Qiral agrees, we could take
the Star March in tow, cannibalize it for whatever parts and materials we
could put to use, and leave them the wreckage to salvage once we got to the
station. We get the use of the hulk now, they have something to sell for
scrap metal once they're back with their own people. As close to 'win-win'
as we're likely to get."

B'Elanna leaned back, and sighed. "Better than nothing. If the kin allow
it, it gives me *something* to work with."

Tuvok stirred, restlessly. "Will the kin allow it? If my own observations
and those of my officers are correct, there is a certain--lack of
goodwill--on the part of the refugees."

Chakotay shot Tuvok a worried sidewise look. When he spoke, he seemed to be
trying to pass on a low-key message, as much to my Security Chief as the
rest of us gathered there. "Gratitude comes hard, and most of them are in
shock. And we don't know anything about their culture, or how they got in
that mess." He looked over at me.

"I'm going to be talking to Qiral after this meeting is over. We'll see
what we find out then." I rubbed the back of my neck. The muscles were
tight, and had the achy feel of long-term fatigue. "Meanwhile, what do you
and Tuvok have to say about the general situation?"

Tuvok gave Chakotay a small nod, ceding the lead to my XO. He shot Tuvok a
crooked grimace, and drew a breath. "Nothing good. Morale just took a
header. I'm afraid none of us are used to real emergency-disaster
conditions. Even after everything we've faced out here, this one is... it's
bad. No quick fixes. Once folks begin to feel the pinch we may have real
trouble." He gave me an apologetic look. "I'll do what I can to try to keep
a lid on things, but even Starfleet training and Maquis experience with
tough times is going to be stretched thin, once the pressure begins to
build up. In a couple of days we're going to be down to doling out
emergency rations, the crowding is going to start mattering, and we're
going to have to deal with the kin. Trying to blend two cultures isn't
easy."

If he could have waved a wand and made everything better, I knew he would
have. He couldn't. I'd gotten to know him and his sense of personal
responsibility well enough to suspect he felt guilty for not having a
five-second answer to a set of problems that could have kept an experienced
disaster relief team scrambling for five months--or even five years. I made
a private note to myself to see if I couldn't bully him out of that. I need
his commitment, but the self-blame is not so valuable, and it's been known
to provoke him to stupid choices. Like that idiotic thing with Seska and
the replicator tech. Better to head off any melodramatic acts of heroism
and self-sacrifice before they could get out of hand. "Very good,
commander. Do what you can, and I'll see what I can do to help you once
I've had a chance to talk to Qiral. He may have a few suggestions we
wouldn't think of. Tuvok?"

My Security Chief looked grim as only a Vulcan can. "I can give you no
reassurance, captain. Our weaponry systems are reduced to less that forty
percent of optimal capacity. We have limited shield functions." His eyes
flickered over to B'Elanna. "At this point Lieutenant Torres has failed to
present me with a functional analysis of the Hakaalt weapon, and I am
unable to recommend an appropriate defense strategy to deal with it. Are
you making any progress in that area, lieutenant?"

She beetled her brow in a fierce frown. "Don't count on it. If I'd had a
week to set up and calibrate a special sensor rig, and then been able to
take readings a couple times over, I might have a chance of telling you how
that thing worked. As it is..." She turned to me. "Captain, you've seen the
readings we did get-- There's *nothing* in the data to tell me what's going
on. I'm not sure I'd know what to look for in any case: that's one strange
phenomenon. For all I can tell, that spider web is black magic."

I nodded, reluctantly. "She's right, Tuvok. She can't theorize in a vacuum.
Even if we had more information, I have a bad feeling that thing functions
on the kind of odd principal that good scientists spend their entire lives
trying to figure out. The odds are you're going to have to come up with
defenses based on what it does, not on how it does it."

He nodded, reluctantly. "Very well. If it is unavoidable there is no point
in dwelling on it. As for the rest of the security situation: as the
commander has indicated, morale levels are low, and likely to sink
further--and there is already some indication that the less stable of the
crew are inclined to place the blame for our current situation on either
you, or on the kin. There is no indication of open rebellion, but if
current conditions continue or if the situation worsens the sociological
conditions for mutiny will approach optimal. My security forces are too
limited to successfully cover all bases. My recommendation is that we
attain the neutral space station with all alacrity, return the kin refugees
to the care of their own people, and proceed with the repair of Voyager as
promptly as possible."

"That is the plan, Tuvok." It was hard to keep the sting out of my voice.
"Very well. Do what you can, and keep Chakotay and me informed." I turned
to the sofa, where the holodoctor's image sat primly, "drinking" a cup of
coffee generated, as he was, by one of the little hologenerators we'd
salted around the ship. I suppose the "coffee" was just part of his social
programming--a little detail to make people comfortable around him. If so,
it was a failure. It only made me wish that either he and his cup were
'real,' so I could hold him up for his caffeine, or that I was a
holocaptain and could drink holocoffee along with him. "Doctor, your
assessment of the medical situation?"

"Utterly impossible."

I'd love to get my hands on his programmers. I really would. He delivered
that line with a tart conciseness more fitting to a punch line than a
death-knell. "Define 'impossible.'"

He arched his eyebrows. "The major facilities of my sickbay are off-line,
the majority of them damaged both in their computer functions and in the
physical hardware that supports them. The pharmaceutical and organo-medical
replicators have ceased functioning, as have all the replicators on ship.
We've been reduced to using hand-held equipment designed for emergency
medical treatment, and specialized treatments, and those are showing signs
of over-use. My staff is limited, and currently so exhausted that I
wouldn't trust them to remove a hangnail, much less attempt any difficult
medical procedures. We have been able to address the worst physical damages
to both Voyager's crew and the kin refugees, but are having to trust the
natural healing functions of the victims to deal with all but immediately
life-threatening conditions--which means that over sixty percent of the
individuals aboard Voyager are now ambulatory, but uncomfortable, hampered
by injuries, and at risk of further damage if their own bodies are unable
to heal themselves promptly. Furthermore, what analysis I have been able to
do, given the condition of my equipment, would indicate that the kin carry
numerous pathogenic illnesses to which Voyager's crewmembers are
susceptible. Likewise we are exposing the kin to disease. With sickbay in
the condition it's in, there is nothing I can do to prevent, cure, or
contain the epidemics that we are about to experience. Is that a sufficient
definition of 'impossible,' or shall I continue?"

"No. I believe that will serve. Thank you, doctor."

He nodded, and took another sip of his coffee. "I believe that there is a
term for the current situation, captain. We are 'up shit creek.'"

"I'd say that that's probably a fair enough description." I stood. "Well,
then, we break out the paddles, aim for the kin's station, and pray for the
best. Thank you all." I touched a button on my desk console. "Paris, has
Master Qiral arrived yet?"

"Been waiting for the last fifteen minutes."

"Good enough, lieutenant. We're done now. If you'd send him in." I looked
at my officers. "I've taken up enough of your time, and I know you have
other things you need to be doing." Chakotay and B'Elanna grinned wryly.
Tuvok and the holodoctor simply nodded. "Be sure you make a point of
keeping each other updated. Even little details can make a big difference.
Dismissed."

The holodoctor snapped out of existence, and Tuvok and B'Elanna moved
towards the door, stepping aside as Master Qiral entered. Chakotay lagged
back a moment, trying to offer what support he could. But I wanted to deal
with the kin leader one-one-one, captain to captain. Even Chakotay would
have been one person too many. I smiled, as comfortably as I could manage,
and stepped forward to meet our dark bull of a 'guest.' "Welcome, Master
Qiral. I'm sorry we kept you waiting. Things are a bit less--orderly--than
usual aboard Voyager. Thank you for your patience. Commander, I'll see you
later on. Lunch at Neelix's? Such as it is?" Chakotay nodded, taking the
cue, and slipped out the door along with the rest, leaving me alone with
Qiral.

It was hard to know how to respond to him. Nothing about him seemed to
match my own expectations of a competent professional commander. It wasn't
just the minotaur look of him, though that was tough. There was no more
connection between him and a stud bull than there was between me and a
Delamide sea monkey: it was just a coincidental resemblance. But it still
took discipline to see past it. By my standards he was untidy. Rather like
Chakotay and his Maquis when we first encountered them--down at the heels,
rag-tag, dressed in civilian clothes, all scruffy and worn. Qiral's showy,
damaged outfit was the diametric opposite of Starfleet's trim, clean-cut
uniforms. It had been 'loud' to begin with, and now it was burned, and torn
as well. The result was hardly reassuring, or professional.

He smelled, too: smelled of scorch, and chemical contaminants, and under
that was the determined odor of whatever species he was. A sort of
sweetish, funky smell that caught in my throat.

I waved him towards the sofa, not entirely sure he'd fit into the chairs my
staff normally occupied. "I'm sorry I can't offer you any refreshments,
Master Qiral."

He dropped wearily into the cushions. "That isn't a problem, captain. You
and your people are already too generous. We live by your grace, and
breathe your air. You've shared what room you have, and treated our ill and
injured. I can hardly complain that you aren't in a position to offer me
cold chami and a plate of gam pastries."

"Thank you for understanding." I sat in one of the armchairs. It was a
small thing, but somehow I was glad to be forgiven the current mayhem. I
try to run a tight ship, and even knowing there was no way around it,
Voyager's disarray was unsettling to me. Frustrating in more than a purely
practical sense. It was nice he understood. "How are your people settling
in? Any problems?"

He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Nothing beyond a few confusions about room
assignments. Nothing that can be helped, anyway. We've lost most of the
kin-calling, and the shock is just beginning to settle in. And... I'm
sorry, but your ship, and your people are strange to us. Threatening, in
some ways. My people...," he looked wearily at the floor, "My people aren't
in very good condition to deal with 'threatening' right now."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Not if I can help it." He looked me in the eye, then, calm, and patient.
"You saved us, captain. No matter what, that will count for something." He
stopped then, his attention seeming to lapse.

"How much rest have you gotten since the attack?"

He snorted. "Rest?" He shook his head. "After this talk--then maybe I'll
get some rest."

Hours. He'd been up for hours longer than Chakotay or me, or any of our
crew, except perhaps for Tuvok and the other Vulcans. "Master Qiral, even
captains need sleep."

He heaved himself up from the sofa, moved restlessly. "The children need to
be placed with new fosters. Most of them lost their own raisers. And so
many of the calling lost their mated-ones. There are the sick, and the
injured down in your medicine rooms. Rodria still isn't up. My
heart-soothers are dead. The animals need care, and your people don't know
the keeping of them." He groaned. "That second voice of yours meant well,
but he tied the aralim--what your people are calling the Oliphaunts--all
apart, and out of their correct order, and before I knew about it they'd
wrecked the holding pen for the slime serpent, trying to reassemble the
herd structure." His hands flexed, and he crossed his arms over his chest.
I suddenly realized that, however alien and bestial he looked, he shared
one thing in common with my own species: the tight black fur that covered
his face was made even darker with tears. "'Reassemble the herd structure.'
That's what we're all trying to do, with less chance than the poor old
aralim. At least their herd all lived. Star March is dead. Tava comfort me,
my kin-calling is dead."

I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what the rules or the taboos were
for his people, didn't know if an attempt to comfort him would be welcome,
or an insult. The readyroom seemed tight, and small, filled with Qiral and
his mourning.

When I was sure he was in control again, I asked what I'd wanted to know
since the whole thing began. "Master, why were the Hakaalt trying to kill
you? Had your people committed a crime in their space?"

He shook his horns, angry. "No crime but being kin." He sighed. "Master
Janeway, the kin are--we are a people born from the Hakaalt conquests. The
descendants of the few handfuls to escape from all the worlds the Hakaalt
have invaded. We've lived by whatever method came to hand. Patched our
communities and families together by the laws of necessity. We've put up
with whatever the Hakaalt and the universe threw us, and we've survived.
For centuries the Hakaalt have hated us. But now--they've caught flame with
a new interpretation of an old philosophy. The last few years they've been
getting more aggressive, more willing to hunt us down, where before they
endured our existence, no matter how much they despised us. Now --in the
last weeks things have become impossible. The 'cleansing' has started, and
they're committed to one goal: purging all eftri from 'Hakaalt space,' and
consigning the 'corrupt' to the Waren-Pyre." He turned, and came to stand
in front of me. "If it's any comfort to you, captain, they'd have hunted
you down, too, once they finished with us--I'm not even sure they'd have
given up if you'd left what they call 'their' space. To them, there is
Hakaalt, and there is eftri--corruption. And right now the law of the
Hakaalt-tche is that all eftri must go to feed the Pyre."

"I see. Not the friendliest people I've ever run across." I stood, and
walked over to stand at the viewscreen. "What are the odds they'll be
back?"

"Certain. Right now they'll be reporting back to the fleet, and working up
a sense of righteous wrath that eftri had the nerve to destroy a Purge
Ship. The only thing that saved you before was that the Alte-commander
Vegeis claimed you, and you defeated him: that bought you time. He ordered
them to treat it as a private duel, and they did. It's a compliment of a
sort--the Hakaalt have their own strange codes of honor. But they'll be
back. In the long run they'll be unable to see you as anything but eftri,
and eftri can't be allowed the pride of having destroyed a Hakaalt
Purge-master."

"Mmmm. In that case we'd better push for that station of yours as fast as
we can. My chief engineer wants to use the Star March for parts--do you
have any objection to us towing her along, and getting what we can from
her? We'll have a better chance of making the station that way, and you'll
be able to salvage whatever is left of her once you're there."

He shrugged. "No. No objections. She's dead, and we mourn her, but better
she gives what she can so that we live. My people will rest easier if they
have the chance to dispose of the dead anyway. Is that all?"

I nodded. "For now. Where can I reach you, if I need you?"

"Sickbay? I think that's what you call it. Or down in the holds with the
animals. I don't know. I'll be where I'm needed."

I crossed to him, and gingerly touched the dirty, torn sleeve of his shirt.
It had a greasy, stiff feel. "My first officer told me yesterday that as
captain I owed it to my people to rest. I didn't want to accept it, but he
was right. Your people need you the same way. Give yourself some sleep.
You'll be more good to them that way."

He lowered his head, and closed tired eyes. "I'll... I'll think about it."

"Do." I walked him to the door.

"Very well." He turned and gave that formal nod that seemed to be his
version of a courtly bow. "My thanks again, captain. I'll tell my people to
count yours kin. You deserve it, and--and it may help."

Once he left, I went on to the thousand and one other things that needed
doing. It didn't occur to me until much later to wonder why it was so
important that my people and I be considered 'kin.' Even with Chakotay's
warnings, it was hard for me to see how we could be threatening, other than
because of the obvious craziness and confusion we had going on aboard. All
in all we looked rather sensible, orderly, and reassuring--just the sort of
folks I'd want to rescue me, if I were in their position. It didn't seem
that big a problem. For that matter, it didn't occur to me to wonder if my
own people would grant the kin, for whom they had lost so much, the same
compliment. After all--we're Starfleet. Weird is what we do... and the kin
were very weird. It ought to be right up our alley.

So I shoved the topic to one side, and got on with more pressing problems.

First down to engineering again. B'Elanna was having kittens--or would have
been if she'd had a moment to spare. As it was she was trying to see if she
could intimidate the warp drives into obeying her without any control
system to stabilize the reactions, or relay commands. I told her, as
quietly as possible, that I didn't think she could. Then I went up to Life
Support.

Siva Rajputra was sitting on the open edge of a filtration unit, the wall
panel pulled back to allow access to the oxygen transfer sheets beyond. He
was swearing in fluent Hindi--which is a bit of a joke. He was brought up
in London, and only knows enough Hindi to give him a vivid cursing
vocabulary.

Siv was one of the fringe benefits of coming out of isolation and
seclusion. I'd technically been aware of him all along, but it wasn't until
Magda had dragged him along to a meeting of the circle a month or two back
that I'd realized that the reserved professional facade I'd seen previously
was a careful construct, as much so as my own professional image. The
person who hid behind it was, like my 'hidden Kathryn,' a crook-humored
romp. The two of us had become friends, or were beginning to--ignoring the
knowing grins and good natured eye rolling on the part of Magda and Pesh.
The two were indulging themselves in a round of "we knew all along." Siv
and I didn't care... it was too pleasant to be finding each other to be
'kindred souls."

Not that sociality was high on our list right then. Still I felt for him. I
put a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me about it, Siv."

He jumped back a foot, and grinned at me. Then frowned. Then sighed and
pointed into the gaping hole in the wall. "Real bit of aggro, ma'am. That
bolt, or whatever it was hit us, killed off all the pseudo-algae in the
transfer sheets. We have more growing in the vats, but not enough, and we
don't have the spare power to spend on fabricating a new set of
nutrient-support sheets, and implanting the pseudo-algae colonies. It's as
bad in the water filtration units. The heat exchangers are working, but
well under their proper levels."

I sat in the other side of the hole, facing him. "Are we going to be able
to keep breathing? Will we have water to drink?"

He shrugged, unhappily, rubbing the side of his nose. "That's a poser. We
have the old mechanical filtration systems to fall back on. But they've
never been as effective as the bio-synthetic units. And they took their own
damage from the blast." He slid out of the hole, and offered me a hand back
up. "I can give you an estimate, but you won't like it."

"I haven't liked anything any of my officers have been telling me today.
Might as well follow the trend. What's the ugly worst?"

He reached up and grabbed the handle of the bay door, and pulled the heavy
panel back in place. "The ugly worst is we're down to 50% of optimal
efficiency. We can bring it up to 75% over the next few days. Then we'll
hover there, with the heat going up, the humidity going up, water getting
more and more scarce. I can't promise the sterilization units are going to
be much good... pretty soon, with the air, water, and waste filtration
units filling up with microbial life forms, and plenty of heat and damp to
keep them going... well, it's going to make that embarrassing little
incident with Neelix and his cheese look like a biological picnic."

We both looked at each other, gloomily. I heard someone singing in the next
room, with a lot of enthusiasm, but not much accuracy. I didn't really
focus on it. "Is there *anything* that will improve that picture?"

He shrugged. "Bio-tech is the best technology we've come up with in life
support... but it shares a lot of the attributes of real 'life', just like
the computer bio-packs. You can 'kill' it, you can make it sick... and when
you need new, you have to grow it." He turned his head towards the door,
where the voice still massacred its melody. "Well, at least *Magda* is
happy."

I stared at him. "That's *Magda*? Pesh... Commander Chakotay said she
couldn't sing, but I'd never really noticed before."

He laughed. "Make a crow think about a career in opera, wouldn't it? Ah,
that's all right. She's a fine old lady. Bit of a misfit, but gives it her
best. Livens the place up." He shot me a sidewise glance. "Heard about her
and the Abbyzh-diran peacock?"

I nodded... and laughed. "Commander Chakotay told me."

Siv grinned like Chessie. "From your voice I'd say he's not pleased."

We started for his office. "More like 'protective.' He takes care of his
own, Magda is one of his own, and anyone who hurts her better look to his
health."

Siv settled behind his desk and started shuffling through a pile of PADDs.
He looked amusedly up at me, from under long, dark lashes. "That's all
right then. Nice to know he's that type. So long as he knows to keep it to
what's needed, and no further." There was knowing laughter in his eyes.

I raised my brows. "So you've heard about our rooming assignment."

He nodded, and passed me a PADD. "On the nose. Happy?"

I sighed. "Yes, if you must know. That's not what matters. Do you think
it's going to be a problem with the rest of the crew?"

"Not if he knows the difference between being your... whatever... and being
first officer. If he does, and he makes you take better care of
yourself--well, some of us will be as happy to know the two of you have
finally found a good answer t