Fortier stood with the counselor and the spiritual adviser on the knoll, the fragrant, warm wind tousling his hair. Sekaya noticed that his eyes were moist.
“Thank you for inviting us,” said Sekaya. “This resembles my home.”
“Perhaps one day, after we are well resettled, we can visit your colony,” said Fortier. “It seems we share a great deal.”
Sekaya was pleased. The holodeck re-creation was apparently a good one, if it made Fortier and the colonists so happy. Astall had recommended programming it so the colonists would have a taste of home before they arrived. And, she had shared with Sekaya, so both women could study how the colonists reacted and be able to head off any potential trauma.
But there seemed to be little potential trauma here. Fortier was eager, yet slightly melancholy; such was to be expected. Astall’s ears were up and alert, swiveling as she followed the sounds of conversation. Later, she and Sekaya would try to talk to the colonists one-on-one and get their reactions.
“When my people arrived on Dorvan V,” said Sekaya, “we hosted an elaborate ritual to introduce ourselves to the land. To greet and honor our new home.”
She sat down on the grass and folded her arms over her legs, enjoying the peaceful scene spread out in front of her. After a moment, Fortier joined her.
“We consider ourselves fairly spiritual people, but we do not have an extensive background in ritual,” said Fortier. “It sounds nice.”
She turned to look at him. “We could design one for your return. It might help to integrate those who left with those who remained.”
She deliberately did not give voice to the fear that they all harbored: that the colonists who remained might well be dead. No one knew what these people would be returning to. They might behold the same tranquil, pastoral vista that spread before them now, complete with their loved ones waiting to greet them. They might see total devastation; Loran II might have been the site of a battle during the war. It was simply an unknown.
Privately, Sekaya had spent much time alone in her room with her personal medicine bundle, sinking deep into meditation and planning a ritual for the worst-case scenario. The dead would need to be mourned, if dead there were. She did not mention this alternative plan to Fortier. There would be time enough to present it, gently and with compassion, if the need arose. Much better to have Fortier thinking about a joyful reunion.
Fortier’s gaze was soft, appreciating the re-creation of his home as the day darkened to night. His full lips curved.
“That would be a pleasant thing indeed.” His eyes returned to her, slightly wary. “But we do not follow your path, Sekaya.”
“And I would not design a ritual that did,” Sekaya replied. “This is all about what is important to you and your people, Mr. Fortier.”
“Call me Marius,” he said.
She smiled. “Marius, then. You lived on Loran II for many years. There was plenty of time for you to develop your own unique culture. Tell me what you enjoyed doing there.”
Before Sekaya realized what was going on, Astall was on her feet, moving quickly down the hill. Looking down, Sekaya saw that one woman was wiping tears from her face while a friend tried to comfort her. They stood in front of a small house, which was probably the home of the weeping woman. Fortier tensed and made as if to rise, but Sekaya laid a gentle, restraining hand on his arm.
“Astall knows what she’s doing,” Sekaya reassured him. “Let her talk to Kara by herself. You can talk to her later if you like.”
The muscles in Fortier’s jaw worked, but he nodded. “We had no counselor available to us on Loran II,” he said. “We’re not used to it.”
“She’s a Huanni, and they’re the best,” said Sekaya. “We’re all hoping that everything will be all right, Marius. But there’s a chance that things might not be.”
He looked at her then. “You were lucky,” he said. “Your colony was ignored by the Cardassians. You escaped the war unharmed. I can only hope ours had the same fate.”
Sekaya’s chest contracted as if she had been physically struck.
“Yes,” she said, her throat tight. “We were very lucky.”
And her mind shouted, Liar!
Chapter
11
“HI,” SAID KIM.
Libby’s face broke into the dazzling smile that he so loved.
“Well, hi yourself,” she replied. “How is everything, Chief of Security?”
“It’s been pretty quiet around here,” Kim admitted. “So far I haven’t done a thing except stand at my station and look menacing.”
She laughed at that; he had to smile along with her. He couldn’t quite manage to be the impassive threat that Tuvok was, but he knew what he was doing.
“Maybe you’ll acquire the menacing bit later,” Libby said. “But seriously, Harry, fill me in. I miss you. What’s going on?”
“Well,” Kim said, “we’re making our way to LoranII. The colonists seem like nice enough people, though everyone’s a bit edgy.”
Her face softened in sympathy. “If only you knew what happened,” she said. “It must be awful for them, waiting and wondering.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, knowing that Libby knew exactly how hard waiting and wondering could be.
“How’s Lyssa doing in your former position?”
“She’s terrific, as you might expect.” Lyssa and Libby had gotten to be good friends in the six months since Voyager had returned. “There’s a fellow she’s taken a shine to, but it sounds like he’s being a bit of a jerk.”
“Really? How so?”
“Well, when Voyager was lost in the Delta Quadrant, there was a bit of a clash between the former Maquis and those of us who were still with Starfleet,” Harry said.
“I’ve met B’Elanna and Chakotay,” Libby said, “and it sure looks as though whatever differences you had you’ve put behind you.”
“Seven years in tight quarters will do that,” Harry replied. “But now there seems to be some tension between those of us who were on Voyager and those who fought the Dominion War. It seems that some people who were here seem to think we were lucky for having missed it.”
He tried to keep his voice conversational, but the bitterness crept in. And of course Libby, who knew him so well, didn’t miss it.
“Oh, honey,” she said, “someone said this to you?”
“To Lyssa,” he said. “I told her she could write him up for it, but she doesn’t want to. Says it would cause undue friction, and maybe she’s right.”
“I’m really sorry. This may work itself out over the course of this mission.”
“Yeah, I hope so. It’s not the best way to start out. How about you? What’s on your plate?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my gosh, everything. My agent has me playing in Australia next week, and then I’m doing something else on a starbase somewhere.” She waved a hand absently.
Kim smothered a grin. Libby was intelligent and talented and drop-dead gorgeous, but she certainly wouldn’t have cut it in Starfleet. “Starbase somewhere” indeed.
“I’m sure you’ll do great,” he said sincerely.
“Speaking of which…I’m sorry, but I really need to practice,” she said.
“I’ve got a lot of stuff to do too,” Kim said quickly. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but he would much rather keep talking to her.
“I’m going to selfishly hope the rest of your mission is totally boring,” she said, smiling.
“You do that.” He paused. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you too.”
As her image disappeared, to be replaced by the familiar Starfleet insignia on the screen, Harry Kim thought, Then why won’t you marry me?
Libby felt the smile fade from her face after she said good-bye to Harry. She wished with all her heart she could have said yes to his marriage proposal, but now was not the time. She had responsibilities that demanded her attention. The true irony of the situation was that the only thing keeping them apart was
the fact that they were both devoted to serving the same organization heart and soul.
She took a break from work and let her mind wander as she got up and did some stretches. She thought back to the night when he had proposed.
Libby had convinced Harry to spend a few days with her in her beloved Maine, and they had had a wonderful time. On their last night, she took him to a small town called Castine that was rich in maritime history.
The weather had been beautiful. They had walked hand in hand past the eighty-five-foot elm trees that were among the oldest on the continent. A gentle breeze blew in from the harbor, bringing with it the smell of salt air and the cry of the gulls. They took the walking tour around the small town, and it seemed to Harry that every ten feet there was a monument or a house or a ruin or a plaque.
“Castine has been occupied for over seven hundred years,” said Libby. “Explorers from Champlain to John Smith have been here, and it figured in the American Revolution and the War of 1812.”
On Battle Avenue, Libby paused at one house. “This is Abbot House, built in 1802,” she said. “Abbot’s bride didn’t want to come here. When she did, she was greeted by a house with no front steps!”
Harry laughed. “That must have made it hard for Mr. Abbot to carry her over the threshold. These old houses and towns do have their stories, don’t they?”
“Oh, that’s just the start. At the Brown House on Perkins Street, the children in the 1800s reported seeing the face of a mad relative glowering at them from the ell window,” Libby said. “And Fort George Park—right over there, near the Abbot House—was the site of the first public hanging in the county. They say,” and her voice dropped to a whisper, “that on warm nights in August, if you listen very hard, you can hear the soft rat-a-tat made by the ghost of a drummer boy.”
Libby had been trying to spook Harry a little, but it was she who squeaked a moment later when he unexpectedly went “Boo” right in her ear. Laughing, they continued on to Libby’s favorite old house. “This is the Whitney House,” she said. “It was occupied by the British for a while. An officer there scratched the American flag upside down and wrote ‘Yankee Doodle Upset’ on one of the windowpanes.”
Harry laughed. “Where is it?”
“The windowpane? Broken, I’m afraid, in the late 1800s. Someone accidentally whacked it with the back of a shovel while clearing snowdrifts off the porch.”
“Oh, that’s too bad; I would have liked to have seen it. I guess nothing really lasts forever, not even in this town.”
Libby was pleased with his delight. Castine, only a few square kilometers, took great pride in its history, and as Libby knew he would, Harry loved it. They ended at a church built in 1790 that featured a steeple designed by Charles Bulfinch and a genuine Paul Revere bell.
The Maine Maritime Academy had long since been closed, but remained open as a museum. Part of it consisted of a large holographic area.
“We have time to visit,” Libby said. “You can participate in what’s considered to be the worst naval defeat in United States history and find out what it’s like to scuttle your ship.”
Harry wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think I’d want to know what it’s like to have to scuttle my ship,” he replied. “No, as much as I love holodeck simulations, I think I’ll just enjoy the real thing here. It’s harder to find.”
As they walked the decks of the old Pride of Maine, Harry mused, “You know, Admiral Janeway told Captain Janeway that Voyager would become a museum one day.”
Libby was confused. “I don’t understand.”
He laughed a little.
“Right before we came home. Remember I told you about the time-traveling Admiral Janeway? She told her younger self that in her time, Voyager was a museum. Just like this ship has become.”
“That’s a sad thought. It’s such a vibrant vessel, it’s hard to think of it being decommissioned. But I guess it’s inevitable. Better that than getting blown to bits in a battle, I suppose.”
“It would all depend upon the reason for the battle,” said Kim with just a touch of melodrama.
Libby went cold inside. Even the thought of losing him, now that she had gotten him back after thinking him dead for so long, was painful. She slipped her hand in his as they continued to walk the decks.
Changing the subject, she said, “Well, we certainly don’t need a holoprogram to travel back in time here.”
“No, we don’t. This is an amazing place, Libby. Thank you for sharing it with me.”
He bent and kissed her. She’d sensed something was up; she could tell by his kiss.
That night, they had dined at a place called the Castine Inn. Built in 1898, the building exuded quiet elegance. “The current owners are the descendents of the Mr. Vogel who built it,” Libby had told Harry. They walked through the gardens, stepped up on the wraparound porch, and went inside. The dining room was a delight, with a mural of the town covering all four walls.
“Gorgeous!” exclaimed Harry. Having a captain who loved to paint had taught him an appreciation of art.
“It was painted way back in 1989,” Libby said. “The really interesting thing is, this is the town exactly as you would have seen it at the time if there were no walls. It’s a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. And all the people were real, too, known personally by the artist, Margaret Parker Hodesh.”
Kim looked admiringly at her. “You really have done your research,” he said.
“All a part of being a good guide,” she replied.
The room was lovely, but it was the meal they had come for. Libby started with a butternut squash soup with saltwater cranberries for her appetizer, and Harry selected white truffle oil risotto with fresh herbs. They each had a salad of mixed greens and mushrooms with an olive oil and blueberry balsamic vinaigrette. For his entrée, Harry chose loin of lamb with pickled fiddle-head ferns—like nearly everything on the menu, a local delicacy—while Libby selected lobster. Looking ruefully at the red crustacean on her plate, she explained to Harry, “This is the fellow who tempted me to add fish to my hitherto pure vegetarian diet. I couldn’t live in Maine and not eat lobster.”
For dessert, they decided to split a decadent-looking blueberry cobbler. When the server brought it out, Libby saw something shiny nestled in the whipped cream topping. She gasped, and both joy and regret flooded her.
Fishing out the diamond ring from the creamy whiteness and cleaning it with a napkin, Harry said, “Well, maybe the whipped cream bit wasn’t the best idea, but it sounded awfully romantic. Libby, will you marry me? I’d carry you over the threshold even if there weren’t any stairs.”
She had turned a stricken expression to him and had to endure the wrenching sight of disappointment flooding his sweet face. Libby was keenly aware that the waitstaff and even the inn’s proprietors were lurking in the doorways, watching, ready no doubt to bring out a celebratory bottle of champagne. Why on Earth hadn’t Harry done this in a more private fashion?
Because he had every reason to believe from your behavior that you would say yes.
She wanted to say yes.
“Harry, I—”
He swallowed hard. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, I thought—”
She leaned forward and kissed him hard. Whispering in his ear, she said, “I love you so much, but I just want a little more time. This isn’t a ‘no,’ it’s a ‘not yet.’ ”
He brightened a little at that, but nonetheless excused himself and went to talk to the waitstaff. They seemed disappointed. Libby felt her face turning bright red and stared at the napkin she was twisting into knots in her lap.
She was too miserable to do more than poke at the cobbler. They decided against coffee and returned to her cabin. He had made some excuse about needing to return to San Francisco, and she had pretended to believe the excuse. When he was gone, she threw herself on the bed in sheer misery. Her cats, Rowena and Indigo, cuddled up with her, offering what comfort they could.
If only she could tell hi
m the real reason.
Libby shook herself out of her reverie and returned to her duty. Fletcher had tried to sweeten the blow with flattery, telling Libby that it was through her determined efforts that six months ago they had figured out what was going on in covert ops in time to stop it. The flattery hadn’t worked; Libby still hated the grindingly boring tasks that made up so much of her work.
The one thing that did seem intriguing was the fact that while Mole—somehow she always thought of The Wind in the Willows when she used the term—had clearly accessed many different classified documents over the last few years, there didn’t seem to be any corresponding leaks to the Cardassians, Vorta, or even the Syndicate. Mole was gathering information, that much was certain. He—or she—had even been able to access information that Aidan hadn’t been privy to. And yet, there was no evidence that the information thus gleaned had been passed on to anyone.
She fell back on her tried and true method of puzzling something out. What were the facts?
One: Someone placed at least somewhat high in Starfleet was accessing documentation on an extremely classified level—including all of Voyager’s logs. That particular bit of information was one reason Libby suspected Fletcher wanted her in on this—he knew she had a personal investment in finding the mole.
Two: She or he had left a trail, but Libby couldn’t assume it was a complete one.
Three: The information that Fletcher knew Mole had learned was not the usual sort of thing. In addition to documentation that pertained to the Dominion War, which was to be expected, Mole had been accessing medical data and research, little-known negotiations, and private personnel files. Vital information in the wrong hands, certainly, but hardly the sort of information that was usually sold on the black market. It seemed oddly intimate. Libby wondered if maybe Mole was trying to frame someone.
She shook her head. “Supposition, Agent Webber,” she told herself firmly. She returned to her list of known facts.
Four: Mole was slippery. Every lead she’d followed had petered out. It almost seemed as though there were a lot of Moles with the same agenda, each one gathering just a little bit of information here and then absconding with it, never lingering too long lest he be caught….
Spirit Walk, Book One Page 10
