Strange New Worlds IV

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “What?” I asked, still groggy.

  “We can’t have this conversation on your porch. It’s snowing in Indiana. I’ll be there in one minute.”

  One minute. Long enough to grab my robe and slippers, drag a quick brush through my hair, and run downstairs. Long enough for time to slow down and the late-February chill to seep into my blood. Long enough to remember that Owen shouldn’t be on Earth; he was stationed at Starbase 121 to oversee the Sixth Fleet in the war with the Dominion.

  What could be so important that it brought him home from the war?

  The transporter in Edward’s study began to hum. Starfleet had left it with me after his death, and it is convenient—at least, most of the time. Owen materialized by himself, his face unreadable. It can’t be that bad, I realized, they send two officers if the news is very bad.

  He stepped off the platform immediately. “We’ve had contact with Voyager. You were right all along, Gretchen. They’re alive.”

  He caught my shoulders when my knees turned rubbery and gave way. I slid into the chair behind me. “Kathryn,” I whispered. “Where is she? When can I speak with her?”

  “She’s …” He hesitated, and looked away. “They’re in the Delta Quadrant, about sixty thousand light-years away.”

  It seemed a long time before his words made sense. Sixty thousand light-years? Voyager was on the other side of the galaxy. “How is that possible?”

  “Apparently the ship was transported there by some kind of alien technology.”

  “All right.” I nodded. So far, I understood. “Why didn’t they transport back?”

  “The technology was destroyed before they could use it,” he said. “They’re coming back on warp drive.”

  I kept on nodding, couldn’t seem to stop it. “Warp drive. That will take, what—sixty years?”

  “Yes. Of course, they might find shortcuts—a wormhole, something else might cut the distance, but sixty years is realistic.”

  “I need a drink,” I decided, and stood. “Let’s go to the kitchen.” I took a bottle of wine from the cooler and poured us both a glass. Sixty years, I thought. I’ll never see her again. “How did you find them?” I asked at last.

  “They found us,” he replied. “There’s some kind of ancient communications network in the Delta Quadrant. They were able to send a holographic signal through it. The EMH, actually.” He shook his head. “It’s been active for four years and apparently has developed quite a personality.”

  “What did it say?”

  “I haven’t seen the full report yet, but it gave us a crew roster and the ship’s approximate location. Then it insisted on being returned to ‘his’ crew before the opportunity was lost.”

  A crew roster. I had completely forgotten about his personal interest in the crew. “Tom?” I asked belatedly, feeling guilty. “Is Tom all right?”

  He nodded, and smiled slightly. For Owen, it was hugely demonstrative. “Yes, he was on the roster.” The smile faded. “But there’s only a hundred and fifty-two crewmen, and that includes the Maquis crew that Kathryn took in. They’ve lost a lot of people.”

  I sighed. “At least their families will know for certain. That will be a blessing.” Then I looked at him closely. “Go home, Owen. Go celebrate with your wife. Cinda must be beside herself.”

  “In a minute,” he said. He told me there might be a chance to get a short letter through, one letter for each member of the crew. I smiled; he didn’t know I had a whole drawer full of letters to Kathryn in the study. But … she would expect to hear from Mark, whom she presumably believed was still her fiancé. I hoped she would not be too hurt to learn of his marriage. Yes, Mark needed to send the letter.

  We walked back to the transporter pad. “Thank you for coming, Owen. It means everything.”

  “Sixty years is a long time,” he said.

  “They’re alive.” I was unable to stop smiling. “And I told you before, my money’s on Kathryn.” I started to set the coordinates to his home, but then looked up. “Owen. Which way is the Delta Quadrant from here?”

  “Technically, we can’t see …” he began, about to give me a detailed lecture on astrometrics or stellar cartography. Then he shrugged, and I guessed that Cinda asked him the same thing. He pointed toward the southwestern sky. “That way. Just before Orion sets, follow the belt in a straight line to the left, halfway to the next star. The Delta Quadrant is sixty thousand light-years from there.”

  When he was gone, I wrapped my robe tightly around me and stepped out to the front porch. The snow had tapered to light flurries, and the nearly full moon was visible again. A lovely night. I looked into the southwest sky, left of Orion’s belt and sixty years beyond. I looked for a long time, imagining that Kathryn was looking back.

  I’ve looked to the sky many nights since. That’s what I was doing when Owen called tonight, walking the dog and looking at the sky. Waiting for Orion to set, even though I don’t really need it as a guide anymore. I know exactly where to look in the sky, any time of year or any time of day. She’s out there, somewhere, even though there’s no news. The very lack of news has become a comfort in itself. In my mind, Kathryn is always safe and on her way home.

  I cannot put it off any longer. Sitting at the desk, I activate the comm unit and punch the Reply button. Owen answers almost at once.

  “Gretchen, stay right there,” he says. “Don’t move.”

  In about ten seconds, the transporter begins to hum in the study, and my heart begins to pound. Owen steps off the pad, and to my utter astonishment, he grabs me in a hug. While I am still speechless, he crosses over to the desk and inserts a chip. In a moment, the room fills with a staticky sound, and then a voice.

  “Starfleet Command, come in.” My hand flies to my mouth. The transmission is filled with interference, but it sounds almost like my daughter’s voice. I am almost afraid to hope.

  “This is Captain Kathryn Janeway.” The static clears, and I hear my baby, my beautiful and brilliant firstborn child, for the first time in nearly six years. “Do you read me?”

  I listen, enthralled. The words are unimportant, and my mind isn’t grasping them, anyway …“good to hear your voice….”

  …“long time …”

  …“navigational records …”

  All that matters is what is behind the words. My “Starfleet ear” may be out of practice, but some skills are never lost. Kathryn is well. She misses us, but she is in control of herself and the situation.

  …“exemplary crew …”

  …“including your son …”

  Owen’s recorded response cuts into my concentration. “Tell him I miss him … and that I am proud of him.” In my office, he looks away in embarrassment, and I try to hide my astonishment that Owen Paris could have said anything so personal on an official channel.

  “He heard you, sir.” My smile broadens. That means that Tom was on the bridge, and he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t meet her standards. Kathryn wouldn’t have him on her bridge otherwise, not even for the sake of her mentor. The pride shining in Owen’s eyes proves that he knows it, too.

  The message is ending. I lean forward to hear Kathryn speak again.

  “We appreciate it, sir. Keep a docking bay open for us. We hope” Static. The transmission ends.

  I don’t know I am holding my breath until it escapes me in a whoosh. “Thank you,” I say. It feels entirely inadequate. “Thank you.”

  “There’s more,” he says. “They are much closer to home than we expected. They’re halfway back, Gretchen. Just thirty thousand light-years away. We’ll see them again, if we’re stubborn enough to hold on for thirty more years.” He surprises me again by grabbing my hand. Was the it defeat of the Cardassians that has changed him, or simply the passage of time?

  “I told you so.” I am half laughing and half crying. “We will see them again, Owen. Kathryn will get them home to us.”

  “Yes, I believe she will.” Then he straightens. “Cinda wants
you to come celebrate with us, Gretchen. The champagne has been cooling all afternoon. She’ll have my hide if you don’t come with me.”

  Champagne? I don’t want champagne. I want to play the transmission again, to hear my daughter’s voice, words she spoke only hours ago. But he’s right, this deserves a celebration and anyway, Cinda and I can probably convince him to play it again. “Let’s go,” I agree. But then I stop short and ask him to wait a minute while I run outside.

  The southwest sky is partially obscured by clouds from the front that is coming through tomorrow morning, but half a dozen stars wink through. “Hurry, Kathryn,” I whisper. “I’m so tired of uninvited admirals. Next time, I want to see a captain come to my door unexpectedly.”

  Hurry home.

  Return

  Chuck Anderson

  Trevis stood tall in the rays of the sun. His leaves absorbed the light and shaded all below him. Trevis was an old tree, and he had seen many things. Trevis once had seen his forest burned to a crisp by the Ogre of Fire, and he had even been flooded by an impish child.

  Trevis had seen many things, but even the worst fire from the Ogre hadn’t destroyed his forest. It had just made it stronger and better. All the dead branches had been burned away, and new flowers and saplings grew in their place. Soon the woods were full of the young trees, and it would be many years before the Ogre could return with his fire.

  Trevis knew that everyone returned to the forest, even the Ogre. It was all just a matter of time. All this thinking and the hot sun were making Trevis thirsty. He started to take a long slow drink from Flotter’s pond below.

  Trevis drank, but he just kept right on thinking. Trevis knew that it was time for Flotter to return with Naomi Wildman. Their adventure should just about be over, and soon Neelix would be calling her to dinner.

  When Trevis saw Flotter and Naomi return, he called out to them, “How’s the beetle in his castle today?”

  “Fine, fine,” said Flotter.

  “He was lost, and we brought him back home again,” said Naomi. “I just wished he would quit getting lost, but once he starts rooting around there’s no getting him back home.”

  “I know a beetle in the dirt loses track of everything. Even his castle,” said Trevis.

  “Neelix to Holodeck One. Naomi, it’s time to come to dinner,” said Neelix’s voice from above.

  “All right, Neelix,” replied Naomi. “Goodbye, Flotter. Goodbye, Trevis.”

  “Goodbye, Naomi,” said Trevis and Flotter at the same time.

  “Trevis?” said Flotter.

  “Yes, Flotter,” said Trevis, looking down at his friend, his watery friend.

  “You know we’re losing her. She comes to play less and less with us,” said Flotter.

  “I know,” said Trevis. “That’s what happens when they get older. They want to play someplace else.”

  “I just wish Naomi wouldn’t get older; we have the best adventures together,” said Flotter.

  “I know,” said Trevis. “But everybody returns to the forest. Just you wait and see.”

  Even as Trevis was saying this, the door from the outside opened, and another walked into their forest.

  “Kathryn,” said Flotter, who recognized her first. “It’s been a long time. We missed you.”

  “I missed you too, Flotter, and you too, Trevis,” said Captain Janeway.

  “Do you want to go see the beetle in the castle?” said Flotter.

  “You’re not planning to flood the forest again, are you?” said Trevis.

  “No, I am not planning to. I was just hoping to sit here, and enjoy the shade and the quiet. If you don’t mind?” said Janeway.

  “No, we don’t mind,” said Trevis and Flotter.

  Kathryn fell asleep under the coolness of his tree and next to the quiet of the pond.

  Trevis looked down at Flotter and whispered, “See, Flotter? Everybody returns to the forest.”

  Black Hats

  William Leisner

  The darkness receded slowly as Captain Proton felt himself coming back to consciousness. His head still ached like the devil, and he tried to rub the spot at the back of his skull where he had been struck. He quickly realized, though, that his hands were bound behind his back, and his ankles were likewise tied to the legs of the chair underneath him. He raised his head carefully, squinting at the dark and ominous figure looming above him, smiling at him with undeniable menace.

  “Chaotica!” Proton spat, wincing only slightly at a sudden spike of pain in the back of his skull, but withholding any other sign of weakness from his adversary. “What is this?”

  The villain chuckled quietly, a sound that chilled one’s bones to their marrow, through smiling, pursed lips. “This, Captain Proton, is the end of your bothersome interference into my affairs once and for all! This ship is on a course directly into the sun. In five minutes, there will be nothing left of you but a blackened cinder! Then, once my Mind Control Ray is complete, there will be nothing standing between me and my domination of the galaxy!”

  Captain Proton let his head loll back and over his right shoulder, seemingly in exhaustion, although in actuality he was looking for the ship’s main control panel. He spotted it almost immediately, its flashing buttons clearly labeled. Five minutes to work his way out of his bonds, then to change course. Hundreds of moviegoers of four and a half centuries ago would have chewed their fingernails for a whole week, wondering if, come next Saturday, their hero would be able to escape. Not that there was any doubt in the mind of the noble captain.

  “Ah, Proton,” Chaotica growled in diabolical satisfaction. “I’m almost sorry to see you die.” He spun away from his captive then, flipping the edge of his cape up in a melodramatic flourish as he marched to the escape hatch.

  Captain Proton had already started looking around for something to wear the ropes around his wrists against when Chaotica stopped, turned back to him, and said, “Before you die, though, I want you know one thing.”

  Tom Paris was struck silent for a moment. Chaotica had already laid out his plan, thereby telling him how to foil it once he did escape. “What do you want me to know?” he asked.

  Chaotica took a deep breath, as if what he was going to say was more difficult for him than any of his schemes for galactic domination. “I was born in a small, impoverished village on Orion III. Both my parents were killed in a spaceship crash when I was two, and I grew up in an orphanage, where I was mistreated, undernourished, beaten, never knowing what it was to be loved …”

  Tom Paris listened to several seconds of this pitiable and increasingly emotional narrative wordlessly, first with his jaw hanging slack, and then with his lower teeth grinding against the upper set. “Harry!” he snarled.

  Chaotica stopped suddenly, a deeply wounded expression on his face. “That’s what the other children called me, when my goatee started growing in at age six,” he said, as tears began to well in his eyes. “‘Hairy, hairy, you’re so hairy!!’ I would have become a very different person if only I hadn’t—”

  “Computer, end program!”

  Paris jumped out of the chair as his bonds disappeared, and he spun around, looking through the rapidly dissolving walls. Just as he suspected, Harry Kim was right on the other side of the imagizer screen, where he had been watching and laughing at his program modifications.

  “That was not funny, Harry.” Paris scowled, rubbing at his wrists to encourage circulation.

  “Aw, c’mon, Tom,” Kim said, still grinning in self-amusement like a big kid. “You were starting to feel just an eensy bit sorry for him, I could tell. Poor little Chaotica …”

  Paris said nothing, but just glowered at the man in the guise of Buster Kincaid, faithful friend and companion to Captain Proton. Then, without a word, he turned his back and stalked away.

  Kim’s smile faded, and he rushed after Paris through the holodeck doors and down the corridor. “Tom?” he called, but Paris wouldn’t acknowledge him, and didn’t stop until he reach
ed the end of the corridor and the turbolift doors.

  “Tom?” he said again once he caught up. Paris’s back stiffened, but he didn’t turn around. Kim hesitated, debating what, if anything, he should say now. He and Tom had pulled more than a couple of programming pranks on each other, each trying to one-up the other. Giving Dr. Chaotica a little depth and humanity seemed to pale again turning a female holocharacter into a cow just as Harry was about to kiss her. Yet Tom was reacting as if he had been violated in some way.

  It was Paris who spoke first. “You’ve ruined ‘Captain Proton,’” he said, pointedly refusing to even look at Kim.

  Kim couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He almost laughed, to try and lighten the brittle atmosphere that had suddenly formed between them, but quickly decided against that. “It was just a joke, Tom,” he finally said, more confusion than conviction in his voice. “I can fix—”

  “No, you can’t,” Paris snapped at him. “You ruined it. You can’t fix what you’ve done. You might as well just delete the whole thing.”

  “What?” Harry gaped in absolute disbelief, as the turbolift finally arrived and Tom Paris got on. Harry Kim didn’t move, but just stood there, staring at his friend until the turbolift doors closed between them.

  “I don’t know what either of you see in that program,” B’Elanna Torres said. “Everything about it is ludicrous—the story lines, the characters, the fact that everything looks just as fake as it would have been four hundred and fifty years ago …”

  Harry paced along beside her, as she made one last circuit of the engineering section, making sure everything was in order before she went off duty. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really get it, either. Yeah, it’s kind of fun to just turn off the logic switch and go with the mindless escapism of it. But for the most part, I only like it because Tom does. Buster Kincaid isn’t exactly the most interesting role to play.”