The Word Painter
Chapter Three--Appraisal
by D'Alaire

 

Appraisal

   

    "Never had the cold dark of Uillar been blessed so than then.  The wait was yet endured, unmoving in prayer, in the dark, smoke and fire...yet to be acknowledged by fate."

    Her throat sore, her eyes misting with that difficult memory, the recollection of despairing prayer and fearful resolution still so strong within her, Anai stopped.  Beside her, she knew Ara was asleep, breathing in tiny rasps.  Feeling his ease, mentally preparing him to awaken, she finally focused on her audience again.

    Her family did not move.  Rather, they sat with pale faces and parted lips, staring up to her as though half-expecting her to tell them it was fiction.  But of course, it was not.  They knew this, too.  Havetsi, the next to bear the Allanois line and finally hearing the details of her elder-mother's history, drew quick small breaths as she clutched Cera's hand to her heart.  Her eyes shone with tears.

    Anai easily forgave their stillness and lack of response.  Outright murder, after all, was unheard of among her people--and shuddered at among others.  Even prostitution did not carry such weight, only great sorrow.  The taking of whores by Unar, formally and casually, was a common practice, and the torture and murder of Desalians was indeed a regular occurrence during the occupation.  Both were accepted.

    A Desalian snuffing out the life of another person--two others--with premeditation and their own hands was another issue altogether.

    Many tales of the occupation and later war were as grisly.  In the resistance, incidental loss of life in battles, some rather determined fighting between ships, and even the planned assaults and deceptions were considered forgivable sacrifices, defenses as the lesser of many evils.  It was a war, and though Desal certainly did not practice such behavior again afterwards, they understood the necessity of the time.

    Planned, vengeful murder, even in defense of others--and by a regent--was simply unfathomable; the curse delivered to the victim was more shocking still.  The terror of such blasphemy never had been completely resolved in Anai, either, in truth, and had long brought great dissent to the many more spirits within her.  Though, she never once felt regret.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Quite the opposite...

    Her family would understand why this was.  Knowing what they did of the war and its resulting blessings, they certainly should not wish any other fate, and yet they would wonder about the killing.  For different reasons, her guests would soon see the full meaning, as well.  Though obviously more seasoned to such violence, they waited for more from her, some more concrete conclusion to that terrible night.  They were still in the world Anai had given to them, slowly blinking themselves back into reality with her silence, almost unbelieving.

    They would require more patience.  Anai herself needed time to recover.

    "Zha hevrra," Anai whispered, touching her temple solemnly with trembling fingers.  "Until next sunset, our silence returns.  --Babaki, Osna--my ni'ach shall assist us."

    With a breath, Babaki moved forward to help her mother to her feet, her small mouth pressed closed, her eyes aimed at her work.  Anai's bony, kraja marked hand immediately grabbed her daughter's arm, and she looked back to Osna, who woke Ara and similarly took him.

    "Doctor Gihora shall be brought this sun," she said quietly.

    Babaki nodded, also looking back to her weakened father.  "Nali ka."

    Harry Kim got to his feet when Anai had called for her daughter and exchanged glances with both his captain and Kes, and then with Chakotay.  "That's all?"

    "No, there's a few nights left," Janeway reminded him, though she too was a little put off that the old woman had chosen to end her story there.  Two of her people sold and all but forgotten, the other two tortured and subjected to inhumane living conditions, eventually believing their crew had left them behind.  The last thought was the worst of it for her, and she felt moderately ashamed, even if it had been out of her hands.  Though she could certainly understand why they would believe it, she also knew those were two people who certainly didn't need to be abandoned.

    They did seem to handle that well, however...together.  They went down, together, too, left for dead by the beast who put them there.

    Glancing around to her other crew, she could see they all were hanging on that unsteady limb, were even a little indignant that Anai had ended the night without excuse, but rather as though it were a natural stopping point.

    On the other hand, the woman was clearly tired.  Her description of murdering Hychar raised gasps and hands to mouths among her family, and it had been difficult for Anai to continue with, Janeway noticed.  Her voice had grown rough soon after Ara had drifted off, still holding his bondmate's hand.  By the very end, Anai sounded distraught, and her words came with effort.

    Unfortunately, sleeping tonight's going to be about as difficult, Janeway sighed.

    Anai seemed to notice this, too, despite her half-closed eyes.  She slowed as she neared the Voyager crew, letting Osna with Ara pass them by as she held her hand back.  "Havetsi," she whispered.

    The younger woman immediately came to her elder.  "You require, Nali?"

    Anai blinked a nod, looked at Janeway and Kim.  "Upon our next early sun, Child, take our friends to Uillar upon their word.  There, they can be shown what is now known to them only in story."

    Havetsi stilled at the request, but nodded a moment later, glancing at the others.  "Nali ka."

    Satisfied, Anai embraced her daughter's arm again and left them there, her small feet shuffling beneath her gown and robe, a shadow of the woman they'd met that morning.

    The torches flickered, their fuel likewise depleted for the evening, and the family had slowly begun to rise and move from their places.  Many were wordless still with the story in their minds, others needing to speak quietly on it.  Mothers and fathers gathered their children, others turned back to their guests to offer what they could.  Their mood overall, however, was thoughtful.

    Havetsi's own tone echoed it.  "Only if it is wished shall we take ourselves," she told her fellow captain gently.  "My spirit mother's suggestion is not a decree."

    Janeway shook her head at the kindness.  Her mind still played over that hot, red court, the filthy shanty and all the people forced to waste their livelihoods there while somehow keeping heart, working to their deaths--and her people, Tom and B'Elanna, consigned to the same worthlessness...

    "We're still waiting for the galacite and deuterium," she said.  "I'd like to see where they were imprisoned."

    Looking around to see a general agreement among Janeway's close officers, Havetsi nodded.  "Then you shall be taken," she replied simply.  "It is but a day trip in a Adetrrit shuttle craft, which can be flown comfortably and privately.  With a prompt dawn departure, we would return well before sunset.  Please dress thinly and I shall transmit what medical precautions you would require before traveling there."

    "What was so poisonous about Uillar?"  Chakotay asked.  "Anai mentioned it a few times."

    "Natural deposits of sulfuric benozine are prevalent.  The atmosphere is survivable; however, it bears deleterious cellular effects, as you have heard this moon."  She looked over and touched her temple when her bondmate came into view.  "I press you again, friends, please dress thinly.  Its closest sun looms there at present."

    With that, she bowed then collected her robes to join Cera, who embraced her upon arrival.

    Janeway watched them disappear into the house, half wrapped in each other's arms the entire way.  Before they turned within the doors, Cera touched his wife's head as she placed it on his chest.  Her graceful, robed arms clutched him.

    "You shall take yourselves to the gates?" asked a young man.  The captain snapped her attention away from the doors, looked back to nod to him.  "I shall take you now, should it please."

    "Thank you."  With a questioning look at her other officers, a more telling look to Chakotay, she drew a deep breath and followed the young Desalian through the yard gates.

    They were as silent as Anai had become.
 

---

    "How quietly you bear yourself this morning, my little wren," said Cera as he leaned over his bondmate at her dressing table, before which she kneeled, braiding a temple section of her long hair with a thin scarf.  "I should think you might be annoying me just now."

    She grinned.  "And you might be boring me to exhaustion, my little turtle."  He snorted at her usual jibe as she finished the one side then brushed out an opposite section.  Her humor faded.  "There lies much to think on."

    He nodded, sat on the corner of the vanity.  "Nali has kept much from us, from us all."  Her eyes turned down from the mirror, her mouth parted with her sigh.  "My spirit, what troubles you?"

    She did not look up, but began braiding again.  "The brutality of the Unar at Uillar is well known to us," Havetsi answered softly,  "yet such exceptional torture, such intent but for Be'i's markings of nature being like the ancient Unar superstition of Gozhor Jihap, like the arches of their demon's realm--in my arrogant opinion, ridiculous.  The Commander Hychar..."  She shook her head, looked up to Cera again.  "He was...  I cannot understand such psychology.  Though I am learned of his few records left in tact and study others who were as he, such...corruption of purpose... It is difficult to understand."

    Cera nodded his agreement.  "Nali said telling us this now, allowing others' stories to be told, retaining this, had purpose.  Her words carry great force:  He indeed found his spirit damned in the final attack at Uillar."

    "By the hand of one of our own," she breathed, shaking her head at the images still spinning within her.  "I may have heard it of Toma or Be'i, born as outsiders; however, a pure-blooded and bred Desalian?  Perhaps Nali wished to spare her own of such horrors until all Desal was healed enough to hear of it?  She is possessed of enough wisdom in these matters, as is known."

    He thought about that, holding her stare in the mirror.  "A part of her purpose has been served," he said, "to show us truly what we have endeavored to grow from."

    "The ground they set when Desalia was liberated--that from which they grew."  Havetsi finished off her braid and tied it off, reached out for her pins.  But then her hand drifted down to the table surface, rested there.  "Nali has borne much ache in her wait, so much toil for her spirit--far more than is generally known, of course.  Yet it is known to us:  She and Tola have borne a terrible burden in their scholarship.  Now it is all revealed, all we had been curious to know..."

    Havetsi blinked slowly, opening her eyes again to her reflection, clean, healthy, fed, unscarred.  Her dark hair shone, was neat.  Her dressing gown was trimmed with embroidery.  The skin beneath it, she knew, was golden fair and soft to the touch.  She knew without vanity that she was an attractive, well-tended woman.  Peering into her reflection, she could see how Uillar would have fared on her, what lines it would have marked on her, how violence would scar her.  She had seen it in her sleep.

    "Cera," she whispered, "I confess...I would have done it.  I would believe, had I lived in their manner, in such violence and humiliation, with such protection, I would have drawn the passing of that man and cursed him to damnation.  I, too, would have sent him to Prihar with my hands and my words."

    Cera let that sink in.  Oddly, it did not surprise him, considering his bondmate's being.  She had always been quick to feel and to correct.  Still, her gentle spirit naturally protested the thoughts their nali had left with them, with good reason.

    Reaching out, he stroked her temple and let his finger run around her full cheekbone until she turned to him.  His lips turned pleasantly up.  "I should think I would not have placed you at fault, had you, my spirit."

    "Yet murder, Cera.  The thought had never been imagined by me before this past moon."

    He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers.  "Nor by me, Havetsi," he admitted quietly.

    She took his hand, pressed her lips to his palm.  "I shall bear wellness.  And yourself?"

    "I shall as well.  Take yourself with care this sun, mes va'i."

    She straightened.  "I would, of course," she replied, restored to a note of humor in response to his concern.  "Do not endeavor in my absence to make all your students slumber.  Too little of your sun would be burned by this moon, which I may do nothing with at present."

    He grinned at that before he left, his feet a light rhythm on the flagstone floors.

    She sighed again when the door closed behind him.  She could not afford too much talk on it that morning--which would ultimately grow into a long, difficult day.

    Havetsi returned to her braids and pinning, silent before the mirror as she wrapped her long plaits around her crown, pinned them in place.  With a finger, she moistened her lips with tinted balm.  Then she found thin leggings, a lightweight, long-sleeved gown and a vest coat for the day.  She remembered on her way out that she would also need a hooded cloak and pulled one at random from the closet.

    She barely thought, or tried not to think much more, as she drifted into the main wing of the house and down to the breakfast.  The tables were already full and clamoring with the children's happy eating and their parents and grandparents--cousins, aunts or uncles all--hurrying around them to get them fed before their school processions began.

    It did not surprise her to see the patriarch and matriarch absent that morning.  The table seemed bare without them.

    She would need to become accustomed to that soon, she knew.  Soon, she would have their seat, with Cera by her.

    She kneeled down to kiss baby Lazeta's fuzzy head before reaching into the table for a sheet of bread and a couple pieces of cheese, rolling the latter quickly before straightening.  "Peace in your sun, all," she said, smiled briefly to the responses she got and made her way to the kitchen.

    "Your spirit brings itself among us well?"  Babaki asked, already on her way out. 

    "My thanks, Yeshalli, it does," Havetsi answered and stepped quickly over to kiss her aunt.  "My mother takes herself to the square at this quarter?"

    "Beshelli has wished to busy herself," Babaki answered, "as many of us upon this first cycle of Nali's painted words.  And Captain Janeway and her own shall be taken by you to Uillar this sun.  I wish you well in your spirit, as it is a grievous sorrow we bear in our history."

    "Yet only now is truly learned, thus again to be reconciled."

    "Many rallkle shall be available for theology and debates of ethic beyond what Nali must finally bear for her and Tola's long wait."

    "And now we must wait in equal silence," the young woman added with a quick sigh.  "Yeshalli, this would not be done this but for Nali."

    Babaki smiled, her crinkled gaze as intent as her niece's was intense and averted.  "Havetsi, your sorrow is felt--and shared.  Yet we shall allow my parents their way.  All my rallkle, I bore knowledge of words yet to find the sun, hidden behind her eyes, behind her acts.  Though not in their nature, they did bear intent in their withholding."

    "This is known," Havetsi stated.  "Yet I would have preferred to bear more of this knowledge earlier.  We have visited Uillar all these years not knowing so many intimacies of our family's suffering there, and also for our own people's inaction and ridiculous acceptance of a way they knew had been created by Unar, not Desal.  We only knew that it was so.  I would think my knowledge now would..."  There, she stopped, knowing what the conclusion was but too stirred up to admit it.

    Grinning, Babaki served that end:  "Bring your pilgrimage that much relevance?"  Leaning over again to kiss her niece, she touched her own markings then Havetsi's.  "Be at peace in your spirit and permit yourself to feel what Nali has intended.  Our elders' wish is that we accept their lessons and interpret our responses with renewed truth.  This is the purpose of the telling for us, for you in particular among us, who shall carry their way beyond their passing."

    Havetsi nodded.  "Yeshalli ka."  After watching her leave, she turned herself back to her original destination, for a strong cup of tracha to go with her customary light breakfast.

    More than usual, she felt a need for that comforting warmth.

---

    Janeway was not surprised to see the mess hall quieter than usual that morning, with more people sitting in larger groups, talking quietly or simply quiet. 

    Within the conversations, though, she did hear a few of those names she'd obsessed over for the past ten days, more so in the past one than the rest put together.  She heard Torres' name on the other end of the room and felt her heart drop all over again.

    Not long ago, she and B'Elanna had shared coffee there, a quiet, serious conversation of difficult choices that had to be made.  Her eyes had shone with hurt and wonder as she explained her experience, finally closing in on itself, with her choice.  A necessary choice.

    It was hard to think that B'Elanna had been forced to make so many more, far more important, in a half year worth not quite an hour on Voyager.  And it was obvious that there were far more to come, considering the legend B'Elanna and Tom had apparently left behind.

    The need to know more returned to Janeway so suddenly that she had to draw a breath against the swell in her throat.  She needed to know what happened to those bright young people she was only starting to know well, the ones she'd sworn to get home, all four of them, among so many others...

    She needed to know why Anai had waited so much time, why she wanted to tell them the story, wear herself down when there were records they could have easily read.  There had to be more purpose than waiting for an "appropriate audience."

    She wanted also to know why Anai was the first to suggest they visit Uillar.  For what purpose should they go but to see a Desalian memorial to a resistance that was but a collection of scavengers at the time?

    Moving herself to the counter, she immediately reached for the decanter and gladly smelled the rich coffee as she poured it.  She made a mental note to thank him for his trouble. 

    He wasn't in the kitchen, but that also was not troubling.  Most of the crew who had been at the Allanois house had slipped into their quarters the night before and had remained relatively quiet after.  Even walking with Kim through the corridors on deck four, en route to the turbolift, she had tried to assess his state.  His sentences all were left with a shake of head, a sigh.  She had mouthed something comforting--she barely remembered what it was--before leaving him.  She knew it would do little good, whatever it was.  It'd take time for them all.

    Command or no, losing people was never an easy thing.  The circumstances there...She didn't even know what to think about it at that point.  In a way, Anai's story had helped her see that Tom and B'Elanna had bravely faced some of it--even if they did, naturally, get in a good deal of trouble anyway.  On the other hand, the "painted words" were making Janeway impatient for the gist. 

    She wanted it over with, to be told what she wanted to know and allowed to mourn and move on.  However, Janeway got the impression early on that the ancient elder, matriarch of her house, co-regent of Desal and the bearer of lifetimes worth of memories would do it as it pleased her to, and would do so at her own pace.  Judging from her experiences at Uillar alone, she clearly knew it was her right to do so.

    The captain turned, saw her usual seat open and went to it.  That day, however, she took the seat facing the viewport, attracted by the sight below.  Desalia laid quietly before them, a lovely beige, green and teal world with thin clouds and several moons.

    Somewhere in the distance, Uillar sat, sulfur red and dry with three moons spinning around its hot laridium deposits.

    Janeway didn't know what to think as she sipped her coffee and stared numbly out of the window. Tom and B'Elanna at least had handled themselves the best they could, given what little they had left.  It was only natural that they would move on, try to survive...give up on their ship ever coming for them.

    It was a queer relief to think that Tom had been angry at her, thinking she'd left them there.

    What B'Elanna had to go through, with such strong hatred pointed against her:  That alone had to be hell for such a sensitive woman.  And Tom, defending her to the best of his abilities, eventually developed more feelings for her than protectiveness, and then finally gave up what he'd worked so hard to earn, not even thinking about what the Unar guard had suggested about his sacrifice.  He'd let go of Voyager--but Janeway knew that wasn't all.  Despite his wishes to resist, he'd come to live with the rules and ways on Uillar, and even learned how to beg sincerely and without shame.  B'Elanna had also given in, learned to weave scraps for blankets and serve her hosts their water, live day to day, more humbly, without expectation and accepting her inabilities.  Such a reduction in their characters would be natural--necessary--given their situation.

    In a way, Sashana'i had wanted them to adjust, and in a way, she wanted them to remain unchanged.  Why?

    The pain they endured...

    The Doctor had been blunt the night before, when she'd brought him the information he would need to create an inoculation.

    "Sulfuric benozine is a difficult agent to counteract once it enters the bloodstream," he'd told her.  "It's detrimental to most humanoid tissue with prolonged exposure."

    Janeway had forced her stare to remain straight with his words.  No matter where she turned, she just couldn't get anything but grim news.  "Lieutenants Paris and Torres spent nearly six months on that planet." 

    "And were constantly exposed to sulfuric benozine?  I would think they suffered quite a few ill affects." 

    "B'Elanna more than Tom, it seems."

    The Doctor grimaced.  Regardless how it funneled though his programming, he could deduce nothing at first except, "It's a miracle they survived."

    "They were treated many times--I don't know with what."

    "It must have been excellent treatment," the Doctor commented,  "to have prevented the symptoms of benozine poisoning."

    She eyed him at that.  "And what are the usual symptoms?" she asked.  "Off the bat?"

    "Chronic bronchitis with pneumonic tendencies, loss of resistance to simple infections, various forms of ocular dysfunction, among many lesser physiological mutations which would be aggravated with prolonged exposure."  As he ticked them off, his voice grew quieter.  "It would have been...painful."

    Janeway nodded.  "Yes."

    Still sipping her coffee, appreciating the glorious sunrise, Janeway dreaded to hear what was to come, but she wanted to hear it, too.

    "Captain," she heard above and behind her then felt her first officer's gentle hand on her shoulder.

    "Is Captain Havetsi here?" Janeway queried, her cup perched at her lips.

    "She's on her way," Chakotay said, looking up to share the captain's view.  "I've had word from the Doctor.  He says our inoculations are enough to shield the effects of Uillar's biosphere for a short time, but he recommends that Kes and Neelix don't attend."

    "Because of their impaired lung capacity," Janeway finished for him.  "Do they know?"

    Chakotay nodded, though she couldn't see him.  "They're disappointed, but they've decided to visit Desalia again instead.  Captain Havetsi suggested they visit the commune farms with one of her cousins, to collect plants for the hydroponics bay."

    "Well, the food was nice, I'll admit.  They certainly have my permission.  Contact me when Havetsi arrives."

    He did not acknowledge her unspoken dismissal.  From his point of view, he could see how firm her face looked; she was hiding the loss--as were they all.  Likely, she was also hiding behind the mug of coffee, still suspended before her closed mouth, the lack of sleep they'd been sharing as well.

    "I took a vision quest last night," he said quietly, moving around her to look out at Desalia again.  "I wanted to start coming to terms with this.  I knew it wouldn't be easy even with help.  I guess the only comfort we have is thinking that B'Elanna and Tom went out with some dignity.  At least that's what I'd like to think."

    "We'll see," Janeway said neutrally.

    He peered back down to her.  "How are you?"

    She had a feeling he'd ask.  "I keep feeling this isn't real.  It's so hard to believe--and at the same time, hearing what they went through..."  She shook her head and waved to the seat by her.

    "I wish Anai would just let us read a report and let us go," Janeway continued, a bit shortly.  "Hearing the details, like she's telling them, is...almost like she's teasing us with what she knows."

    Chakotay pursed his lips, gave a nod.  "But she seems to need to do this.  When I spoke to Havetsi, she told me that the details Anai is sharing were not a part of the open war files on Desalia, but remained in Ara and Anai's private memoirs, to be opened when they died.  Only their personal account keeper is privy to all the contents.   And it was B'Elanna and Tom who wanted them to wait."

    "But why?  Why would Tom and B'Elanna make such a request?"

    "Maybe because they knew we'd eventually come?"  he guessed.  "Maybe when they found out about the Barrier, they left the request as a sort of will.  Or maybe they didn't want their lives to be subject to translation until then--which I can understand, coming from them."

    Janeway considered that.  "Why didn't they try to come through the rift when they found out about it?"

    "Maybe they got involved," he replied.  "They had a good reason to stay, after what the Unar did to them.  It's also likely that they couldn't make the trip through the Barrier with the ships they had at the time."

    "That's possible."  But again, she shook her head.  "I don't know, Chakotay.  The more I think about it, the more I want answers, because something just isn't right about this.  I keep getting the feeling there's something Anai isn't saying.  It's like she's still watching and nudging, like she did on Uillar."

    He let out his breath slowly.  "I guess we'll find out if she wants to tell us."

    She grinned uneasily.  "And until then, we'll just have to be patient."

    "It worked for Anai in the end."

    Her grin melted away.  "Yes."

---

    "There lie four plots in the commune gardens intended to my tola's house," said Dilsi as she tied her apron over her day coat and pulled her long hair over the ties.  A teenager, the willowy young woman was yet as full of energy as much of her family and gracious to Kes and Neelix when she opened the door for them.  "It would be please to share them with you, friends."

    "Babaki said we might have a few samples," Kes said, "for our hydroponics bay."

    She nodded, her brown eyes twinkling with her sincere smile.  "You are welcome to take what pleases you.  Yet a sack of your own is yours first.  Bring yourself and we shall procure what we require."

    Stepping in and walking by Neelix's side, Kes followed the girl through Ara's house, which like everything else, she noticed, was built with natural lines.  A wide, curved staircase, stretching languidly up to the second storey and oval flagstone floors dominated the back corner of a large, round hall, while arched doorways led into room after room of subtly colored accessories, books and furniture, walls decorated with murals and real, fern-like climbing vines that had been trained around the arches.  Some of the vast family sat within the rooms, working, talking, drawing, sewing, even napping on pillows with their babies.

    In one door was a library--the straightest of all the rooms--stacked to the ceiling with books and decorated with low tables and plush pillows to kneel upon.  Desalians did not have chairs, she noticed, but more like high benches for temporary rest and pillows for sitting.  At the end of a long corridor was a warm, earth-colored room with three glass wall fountains and several long, low tables.  Fruit bowls and breads in glass cases sat at about every other meter.  It was likely the dining room, suitable for at least fifty, the way they seated themselves.

    Passing the room, Dilsi turned into an atrium and, crossing it, pulled aside a long set of mosaic glass doors.  From there, she led her guests into the back garden, where the stories of the night before had been told.  Anai and Ara were easily visible in its center, within the lush ferns and vines of gold, coral and blue flowers.

    She was leaning over him, her wrinkled hands rested upon his temples, smiling gently as she stared down, very still.  His trembling hand was on her lap, caressing gently and giving her leg an occasional squeeze. 

    Hearing others enter, however, Anai looked up then carefully leaned down to kiss Ara before removing her fingers from his face.  Rising, she collected herself to give the others her attention.

    "Your forgiveness for our intrusion, Nali," Dilsi said with a low bow as soon as the elder woman moved unevenly to her feet.  "Cousin Havetsi has suggested our friends explore our harvests.  We brought ourselves to procure sacks."

    The elder held her hands out and the young woman moved to bring them to her temples.  "There was no disturbance," Anai said quietly and patted Dilsi's cheek.  "Tola and I have finished."

    "Nali ka."

    Anai looked across.  "Certainly, the fields would be of some use to your own," she told Kes and Neelix.  "All they offer is open to you.  I would wish it."

    "We saw them on the way in," Neelix said, still slightly uncomfortable at having disturbed the elderly couple, whatever they were doing.  "The fields look very abundant."

    "A blessing in consideration," Anai said, a bit inward before she drew a new breath.  "You have brought yourselves past our midseason rain.  The full harvest is in a du'ave."  Drawing up her robe, she stepped nearer to them, turning her eyes back to the Ocampan. 

    Kes blinked.

    "Yet," the old woman said in a second thought,  "perhaps you, Dilsi, would take Neelix.  It is the man's duty to collect food, as it is the lady's to show a way.  He shall gain acquaintance with Laricha and Mru'a, who tend there now, while I care for this child."

    Dilsi giggled.  "Nali ka--should this not be a burden to you."

    Kes had not broken Anai's stare, but finally did to give Neelix a smile.  "I really would like to know more about what's here.  The flowers are so interesting.  Very fragrant."

    Neelix, bemused by the change in his plans, looked back at the garden in question before he responded.  "Well, I guess I could," he conceded.  "I know you love your flowers.  --Unless you'd rather come with us."

    "Actually, I'd like to explore the garden, since we have the time today.  You don't mind, do you?"

    The Talaxian shook his head briskly.  "No, no.  You're right.  We might not have time tomorrow."

    "If you need help when you get there, contact me and I'll come."

    Glad the man had little trouble with Kes' decision, Anai waited for the man to kiss his lady in a short farewell, motioning to Dilsi to procure the sacks in the meantime.  When the Talaxian continued to tell Kes exactly where and how long he would be, though, Anai sighed, shrugged to herself and went to sit Ara up in his place.  It had been enough time for him to do so.

    "What pot do you stir this sun?" he queried softly, cringing as he felt his bones creak at the new position. 

    "She bears empathic abilities and is of willing spirit," Anai told him in their finer tongue, "She is a better choice considering our wishes, I would believe."

    She need say no more.  Ara picked up his book and flipped it open to the ribbon.  "Mes va'i ka," he replied, bowing slightly in return to Dilsi and Neelix--who bowed three or four times, much to Ara's amusement--as they exited.  "Our good child shall find great enjoyment in the garden."

    When Kes turned around, she saw the ancient lady's marked hand held out to her, gesturing her to come closer.  As she did, the man of the house offered a small nod then bent into his reading, licking a finger to set aside a ribbon then turn a tissue-thin page.  Like when she first saw them the night before, Kes couldn't help but gaze at Ara and his wife.  So genuinely kind in their expressions, so welcoming and wise...and yet... 

    Kes couldn't finish the thought, and so she only smiled at her hostess once they were alone.  The elder raised her chin as she returned her attention.

    "What meets your mind, Child?"  Anai asked.

    Kes shook her head, replacing her unfinished idea with another curiosity.  "I was just wondering... How old are you--if I may ask?"

    "I bear this sun one hundred and thirty-five years."  She giggled at Kes' reaction.  "Ka.  Our passing shall arrive at enough years among Desal, I should think."

    "Your people seem to accept death very well.  Even on Uillar, in your story, you talked about the death ceremony as being very beautiful."

    "When bodily life passes, the living force itself is celebrated as it is now," Anai replied.  "As natural as birth is our passing, and both are cherished."

    "I'm curious as to why you fought for life then," Kes said,  "if death was so acceptable."

    Again, the old woman smiled at her.  "Who would not wish to continue life and their beloved to continue, even while the inevitable shall occur despite our methods?  We live to remain among the living world, Child, to fill its blessing with experience--as do you.  This too is of nature's breeding.  Yet when the passing meets our fate, it is just that--passing unto our truest beings, returning to that from which we came.  Nothing is left but to celebrate what has been experienced among the living."

    Kes nodded, understanding, and saw Anai's pale hand rise from the folds of her robe again.  Her knotted fingers twitched, motioning.  "Yes, the garden."

    Anai waited until Kes came near then placed her warm hand on the younger woman's arm to lead her.  "You shall first see the daknals, Kes," she said softly.  "A breed bred here is not unlike a one I knew in my youth, upon Cezia."

    From his reading, Ara peeked up to see his bondmate leading the fair-featured girl towards the fountain.  His mouth creased upwards before he returned to his book.
 

---

    "Past the Unar War, we have gathered here to share remembrance of those who suffered and passed upon this world." 

    Havetsi's eyes closed partially as she spoke, pausing at her controls as they drifted around a small moon, the closest moon to Uillar.

    "For fifty-two revolutions, forced labor and painful illness was the sole reputation of Uillar.  It was rightfully feared by all within Irllae.  That ones like Dalra and Miztri made some bearable life here is a testament to my people's perseverance.  While true, they did languish perhaps too willingly in their contrition for the mistakes of the previous generations, they yet survived and struggled for their purity to be retained in opposition to all which sought to exploit their spirits and destroy all we knew as our true way."

    Havetsi dove their small craft into the upper atmosphere, revealing the endless crimson horizon of Uillar.

    Janeway could only sit and stare as the woman ticked off a few coordinates and flew them closer.  She felt her gut churn to see the hard red planet--to see it near as her crewmembers might have, when they were taken there as prisoners. 

    It certainly was foreboding:  A large, desert world, Janeway could see only only a few verdigris streaks of rivers between polar oceans.  Spots of former habitation could be seen:  They were flat, ugly yellow blots against the burnt surface.

    They were headed towards the northern third of that world. 

    "It has been left in tact," Havetsi continued, "has borne no alteration, save when the final preservations were made to the items in the camp, and the dedicatory stones were set by my elders ninety years past.  --I remotely reactivate the barricade, now:  It is customary."

    Harry blinked away from the sight to the captain.  "Is this Desalian territory now, then?"

    "Gye.  Only our own territories were reclaimed at the war's end.  As it has always been in our modern time, this planet is neutral.  The Worlds Council agreed upon its formation that all the former camps of Unar remain for all to see, so that we always learn and do not forget.  In truth, it was Tola--our good Ara--who wrote the proclamation and, later, the memorial we visit was consecrated by him and Nali."

    Tuvok raised his brow, but nodded a moment later.  "Your 'tola' was an influential political figure at the end of the war, according to your family, with the other races of the region," he commented.  "The 'painting' last night illustrated his ability to assume his role when necessary among your people, though neither he or your grandmother seemed to claim their power as regents otherwise."

    For the first time on the trip, Havetsi laughed.  "By the spirits of the blessed ancestors!  Good it would be that Tola is not accused of being a politician."  Her smile fading, she began to concentrate on her readings again.  "Upon his scholarship," she explained further,  "Ara has been a teacher, progressive in his trade and, ka, an influence to be heard.  Being Allanois regent made it necessary for him and Nali to speak for others and make what pronouncements were necessary for progress.  Well past the war's end, their voices and influence were required by Desal, as guidance was requested by the council in those new and uncertain times.  Yet my spirit-parents wished no more power but good example and to be a centering force for Desal, as is the true way.  They have worked tirelessly to return the regency to that ancient state.  Only in the past two generations has their goal proved complete."

    Banking the craft, Havetsi steered them to the main camp with an ease that spoke of her many trips there.  The old Unar tarmac was sprawled out below them, flat and plain, with no ornaments but a few slab-like consoles.

    A small bump and a slight whine of systems shutting down sounded around them, and finally they were landed.  Without ceremony, Havetsi rose to her cloth-booted feet and pulled her hood forward.  The others followed suit, filing behind the young woman as she went to the port.

    Belying her moment of lightness a few minutes before, Janeway noticed that Havetsi had become subdued again.  Though she had been willing to bring them, their trip had been quiet except in her fielding different questions about the region, the commonality of asteroid fields and other curiosities Kim and Tuvok mainly brought up.  Havetsi promised to send them data rather than explain the very complex subject.  Aside from that and her amused explanation of her tola's position, she had been rather thoughtful.

    Janeway had been feeling rather quiet herself, too.

    Glancing back, Havetsi told them, "Prepare yourselves for the heat thrust."  With a few unintelligible words to her engine assistant aft, she tapped the controls for the doors.

    As the hatch ground open, Janeway had to take a step back from the blast of arid air that whooshed into the hold.  "Oh my God," she gasped, looking aside to see even Chakotay and Tuvok drawing back from it.

    Havetsi did not look back again, but paused appropriately, letting them acclimate a bit before stepping down the gangway and onto the hard, grey and red dusted platform.  There, she kneeled, placing her fingers into that dust and smearing it onto her temple.

    "Ta'otsa korral o'avem atschi vallov ye'is," she intoned softly then got back to her feet.

    Janeway cautiously followed out, feeling the sun scorch the heavy hooded cloak Havetsi had given her, driving its heat straight into her scalp.  "This was where they were brought?"

    "All prisoners arrived at this slate," she answered and held out her arm, pointing to the half-ruin of a flat-faced building.  "This was the building where the Unar remained, where systems, people and visitors were kept."  Moving forward, she walked them around the shuttle and pointed again.  "The camp lies there."

    They all looked out from their slight rise to see the double barricade, humming steadily in a crisscrossed pattern, rising about a hundred meters into the air.  The remains of the large court sat within, decorated only by three large octagonal stones near the barricade.  To the left was what remained of the processing and mining centers.  About a kilometer to the right was the feeding wall. 

    In the middle, from about fifty meters past the octagons all the way to the rear barricade, sat most the shanty, which was just what Anai had said they were in her painting the night before: squat, ugly and unstable in haphazard rows.  A puff of hot air threw a cloud of vermilion dust through them, dispersing and disappearing there.  A hole within the shack sections, to the rear left of the grouping, was apparently where the enemy Unar sect had fired, killing Kepli and many others.

    Janeway could do nothing but stare at the land.  My people were subjected to this hell?

    Indeed, it felt like hell:  She could feel the water trickling down her back after but a minute there, and she noticed Harry trying to breathe normally.  Only Tuvok seemed relatively unbothered--which wasn't too surprising, considering the climate of Vulcan.  But the rest of them had only been there a few minutes.  She couldn't imagine how drained and dry one could get living there.

    "Bear you the ability to walk farther, my friends?"  Havetsi asked them, noting their reaction to Uillar.  Seeing their nods, she blinked.  "Retain diligence in your coverings; do not breathe too deeply or take movements more than is needed.  We shall travel to the entrance now."

    With that, she led, skipping down to the straight, wide path that led to the entrance.  She slowed there, peering aside to a strangely carved stone.  Taking a deep breath, Havetsi paused, her eyes suddenly drilling into that rock.

    A wind pulled around the corner--as hot and dusty as Janeway had seen inside the camps but that time clawing into her unwilling lungs and itching eyes.

    Without a word, the Desalian captain sucked a breath and spit at the foot of the stone.  "Prihar jekrria ye'i d'sak."  She glanced back at the others.  "That is not tradition," she muttered and began again towards the barricade, and then within a gate inside it. 

    Janeway cautiously followed, feeling the forcefield pass over and around her.  She could feel the energy pull her hair to stand on end and tickle the sweat on her skin.  The wind picked up again and she covered her face with a piece of her hood to block the dust that flew up.  She heard Harry coughing behind her, not so quick to act.

    Ahead, the Desalian woman made no moves, only cleared her throat.  Instead, she allowed the grime to hit her, turned her face up into the wind.

    Havetsi slowed again as they followed the path top a plain grey block of stone, near to which another entrance loomed.  "This is the wall where Hychar inspected the incoming," she told them,  "where Be'i and Toma were first seen by Desal, as has been told."

    They looked, though nothing was there but the stone and the dirt below it, no signs of the away team, of course, though even Tuvok had pulled out his tricorder to investigate it for himself.  A moment later, he closed it.

    When the looking was done, they all turned to find Havetsi awaiting them at the second barricade.  Her eyes, already bloodshot from the dust, found each of them in turn. 

    "In the time of the Uillar Labor Camp, over three hundred thousand Desalians were brought for labor.  They were chosen for their ability to withstand the elements, for though infection here was deadly, they did not suffer violent reaction as did the Antral, Brijian, Iaskeb or others near in Irllae.  The most troublesome of those races were brought here to hasten their passings.  Desalians survived; we would work as told and not bloody our spirits against our jailers.  This was efficient and convenient to them.

    "Greater than five hundred thousand, including the two outsiders, were brought to work at Uillar over fifty-six years, and over one-half passed to the blessed ancestors within this barricade.  Countless others passed for its lingering effects past their transferal elsewhere.  It is to never forget and to teach our children the same, all that was left has been preserved, past the descent of Commander Hychar."

    With that introduction, Havetsi drew a breath and turned to go inside.

    Janeway glanced at Harry, gave him a nod--and one to Chakotay, too, when she caught his eye.  Moving forward herself, she drew a breath of the hard air and pressed her mouth tightly closed, her eyes skirting across the crisscrossed force field.

    Her people, like the Desalians who had passed through those gates, became nothing, slaves to the Unar and their "games."

    Her heart shuddered against her will as she passed through the field, but she clenched her fists, straightened her posture and kept moving.

    In her next thought, she wondered why she bothered to attempt any pride.  Indignation was enough.  It had been enough for the others.
 

---

    "Ah, until sirril has been tasted, one has not truly lived," Ara said, his voice like puffs of a draft in a Cezian inflection.  "It is like waking to a fragrant sunrise past a polar winter, one's first taste."

    Kes eyed the elder man across the table from her, the thin grin buried within his thick headscarves.  "Didn't Anai just say you shouldn't have fruit again today?"

    "I am a wish away from the ancestors, Child," he replied.  "A sirril pod shall not be my spirit's liberation."  Handing the oblong, red fruit to the girl, Ara dipped his thin, knotted fingers into the bowl for one of his own.  "Like this:  Remove a part of the skin with your teeth, then sink them into the soft of the fruit and push the skin back with your tongue--and then find the pleasure in it."

    Kes smiled as he ate his example, his heavily folded eyes crinkled with pleasure.  Tentatively, she took her own bite, peeling back the skin as he'd shown her.  "Mmm," she hummed and got a good bite of the flesh beneath it.  It was extremely sweet, but like...almost like a pear with more sugar--and very wet.  The scarlet syrup of it dripped down her hand and she laughed.  He nodded to a rag, which she took to clean herself up.  "Thank you," she managed as she swallowed.  "This is delicious."

    He also swallowed his portion, coughing lightly before he did so again.  "Then you shall take a vine for your 'bay,' Kes.  I shall procure a hybrid group that shall grow with ease."

    "You're very kind."

    "Offer proof of this by completing your meal," he returned, nodding approvingly when she obeyed.  "Were you an orphan, I should think you would have been adopted by us.  --This is an elder's compliment, yet it is meant."

    Kes wiped her lips and hands again.  "That you would take me into your house?" she said, watching him return to his eating.  "Yes, that is a compliment.  Thank you again."

    Ara nodded and gestured for her to continue. 

    "By the spirits, you have corrupted the child already!" Anai sighed as she came back out of the house with a satchel.  "Ara, the steam of Prihar flies before you, I should believe.  It has been told--"

    "I lie not on my passing bed, woman," he said.

    "Tempting your heart so should make it so."  Anai looked at Kes.  "Sirril contains much chisak and speeds the pulse accordingly.  My Ara's sweet spirit requires no more of such beneath this sun."

    Ara sighed.  "Shall every pleasure be forfeited in our end, Anai?"

    Her mouth pressed down and she too let out a breath.  "No, my spirit.  --Yet eat slowly."

    "This always was more pleasing, yes," he smirked.

    She suppressed a giggle.  "Kes, finish your sirril.  No harm should come to you.  It is good for children, as it bears great nutrition."

    Laughing at their interplay, Kes didn't bother to remind the elder lady that she was an adult by Ocampan standards--though even someone Tuvok's age could be considered young in their eyes.  Either way, she didn't complain.  The two had been more than solicitous--mostly Anai, who had openly welcomed her, shown and explained every flower in the garden and even collected a variety of medicinal ones to take back to Voyager for the Doctor.  Anai complimented her often as well, comparing her to her daughter Kyori in her youth--another thing Kes was learning was a sign of great regard among Desalians, though she hardly knew how she earned such adoration.

    Meanwhile, Kes still couldn't help from time to time feeling a strange turn in their purpose, kind as they were.  It was just something she couldn't define, or at least piece out in a coherent thought.  She had noticed it when she first came into the garden.

    But she did know that Anai was catching her looks but not addressing them.  Ara was too.  That alone made her curiosity grow stronger.

    Unfortunately, she didn't even know what to ask.

    But then, she didn't have to.

    As she finished her fruit and cleaned her hands off again, Anai found a seat by the girl and reached out to touch her temple softly.  "You bear a fine spirit, Child," she said,  "one of senses yet undeveloped." 

    Surprised, Kes did not respond but with a small, quick breath.  Not that Anai expected anything, though she did note again the young woman's examination, felt that curiosity about her hosts creep back into her mind. 

    "What is felt, Kes?" she asked.  "Speak with truth.  There is no fear of this, I should hope."

    Kes shook her head.  "I don't know.  It's...  There's something about you that's...more than you're saying."

    "I should think this would be similar to any you may meet," Anai replied.  "And certainly, many others among your own believe there is more than what I speak of."

    "I could tell you noticed," Kes said then quickly added,  "But that doesn't mean that we think anything's wrong.  I don't think there is."

    "This pleases."

    "But..."  Kes gave herself a few seconds to put it together more clearly.  "...you know so much, have so many memories inside of you.  We can feel that.  I can feel it.  And it's so...deep."  She smiled, a little embarrassed that she hadn't explained it that well after all.  "Do you understand?"

    "Though your syntax translates as poorly as any other's," the elder quipped, "I might bear some understanding, ka.  Many lifetimes reside within us, which to the perceptive is quite noticeable, and for some others, it brings much disturbance to their senses.  They feel the activity within us, the stirring of spirits about our beings.  What is sensed by you, however, is more than this presence.  It is our curiosity."  Drawing a full breath, Anai found the young woman's hand, wrapping her wrinkled, indigo marks around the young woman's fair fingers.  "You retain a position in sickbay, ka?"

    Kes' eyes blinked and widened at the change in topic.  "You know I do.  What--"

    Anai stopped her with a gentle squeeze of her fingers.  "Indeed, more than I speak of bears purpose here," she said softly, meeting Kes' eyes directly.  "I require you to procure an answer for my bondmate and me.  There remains the relief of my wait to paint the words of my earlier life, the lives of those we have loved and lost, not only for your own but also for my family, my people.  Yet as well there has been waiting for equal answer.  Your assistance is required--in absolute confidentiality."

    Her instincts proven, Kes looked at the old lady askance.  "What answer?"

    "To a quandary, in truth."  Anai paused to swallow the moment that finally brought her there, remembering the words she had planned for so long.  "Many crimes of need were committed during the Unar occupation, on many parts.  For my part, I own the conscience of a girl who prayed so that her spirit, silenced for necessity and circumstance, found desperation.  While her chosen family knew only a true and honest spirit, there was an equal and purposeful deception.  Be'i and Toma were left to nature by design as well as love.

    "Upon our spirits lies the need to balance that necessary crime, yet I would not fill your good captain's spirit with a hope for a thing impossible.  Would she yet live by her reputation, she might press it and cause more duress than the healing we rather desire.

    "Our need is to know if our research of this past century might be feasible.  Should it not be, we would yet take ourselves to the ancestors in peace, the words having been painted and our having met you.  Yet more might be borne: another promise put unto us which we have sworn to see into.  Thus we are charged to ask your assistance in testing a program we have developed."

    Kes took the old woman's words in, almost hypnotized in her gaze as she spoke, emotionally yet with intent.  Completely opened to Kes now, the elder's need radiated from her as she spoke of curiosity and hope.  Kes felt no ill intention, too, only a powerful need.

    At the same time, she had not forgotten her own ship and crew.

    "Why choose me?"  she asked.

    Anai was honest.  "Were I to ask your silence, your word would be reliable."

    "What is it you want to correct?  And why sickbay?"

    Anai glanced at her bondmate, who sat unmoving, allowing her to take the lead she had chosen so long ago.  Looking at Kes again, she said,  "In desperation, Be'i and Toma's hope was prematurely destroyed.  Though this preserved their insecure places by mitigating their impulses, they also were brought quickly into the fold of fate's turnings here.  In sworn sacrifice and chosen duty, they passed for Desalia and in certain vindication of their own spirits.  Yet there might be a way to settle their fate among you and--with greater possibility--find balance with Susik and Derra, too."

    Stopping there, Anai decided again how to go about her freshly dusted plan.  So long it had been in waiting, and having approached one she had not thought to in all those years, she knew her presentation would also need to change.  Thanks to her cognitive and slight but workable telepathic abilities, the Ocampan was being easier than she had expected of their initial target.

    So she decided to use that, too.

    Taking a breath, she met the girl's searching blue eyes yet again.  "Your good captain did bring herself to Irllae for her people--and she certainly is not positioned to continue with such loss of needed crew, ka?"

    Kes' eyes widened with but a partial understanding.  Then, the elder's stare turned, silently allowing the thought to develop well enough that she did not need to ask for more. 

    "No," Kes breathed,  "she isn't."
 

---

    Captain Janeway had to think to close her mouth.  She felt her chest twinge with presence, her breath become shallow.  Beside her, Chakotay's sweaty jaw had shut tightly.

    They all stared into the tiny space that Havetsi had opened, just over two meters long and a meter and a half wide, two meters tall and dug slightly into the rock hard ground.  Dusty rag blankets sat around the space, with a folded blanket at the end, substituting for a pillow.

    On the wall hung a satchel next to a bolted shelf and a glowglobe, which was suspended from a makeshift bracket.  Below it, a cloak was thickly wrapped around other articles.

    It was surprisingly neat, that tiny space.

    The sound of the whirring tricorder in Tuvok's hand seemed like a desecration of the residence, as if the wind and their choking breaths weren't.

    "I am picking up humanoid DNA in these...quarters," Tuvok confirmed.

    Havetsi nodded.  "This shack hosted many occupants in its time of use, yet all here was left in the condition it was found.  Only the articles have been remotely sealed, for preservation, Tuvok."

    Janeway thought about that.  "Then I suppose we wouldn't be permitted to investigate that DNA for ourselves," she said, hinting her preference otherwise.

    Havetsi drew a breath in her turn to think.  "A sample may be procured, should it please.  It would be preferred you leave what you uncover in the condition you found it, however.  I shall send back archivists to reseal the articles when we are finished this sun.  In this unique circumstance, your wishes would not be considered unwarranted."

    With Janeway's nod, Tuvok bent and moved carefully into the space.  Divining through the shack, he respectfully overturned nothing but corners of blankets, a small stack of cloths, nodding to himself; then he turned towards the robe.

    "That was the robe given by Aratra to Toma soon after his arrival here," Havetsi informed him.

    Nodding to that, Tuvok unfolded the thin cloth, revealing a small stack of articles, one of black and gold cloth, the other of black and red.  Both were rented and stained terribly, and the black was more like the color of dark brick.  The arm of the gold-topped item held was together only by threads; a portion of the red cloth had a ragged hole near the collar.

    Watching, Janeway felt her heat-flushed face pale to white as the Vulcan worked, taking up his readings and specs of samples.  "Report," she said, more a cough than a command.

    Tuvok was finished, and he began to refold the tunics as he had found them, and then the robe around it.  "According to my initial data, these are Lieutenants Paris and Torres' uniforms.  The samples I collected are dried blood, a viable source of DNA for the Doctor to examine."

    His voice was quiet--about as gentle as a Vulcan could be.

    It wasn't much help, even if she appreciated the effort.

    Janeway's eyes flickered around the space again.  It didn't take long.  "Tom could barely have stood up in here... It must be over forty-five degrees right now..." 

    She shook her head, moved away only to see Harry's stony, troubled face.  Placing her hand precariously in the sun's reach, she patted his arm.  He swallowed at the touch, turned his stare down.  Janeway drew another breath, barely glancing over to Havetsi.  "Thank you, Captain."

    When Tuvok had exited and Chakotay had taken one more look, Havetsi slowly closed the flap then stepped onto the trench path.  "Ab, we shall take ourselves now to the overhang and find shade and respite there, as many others did."

    Starting them off, the Desalian pulled her head higher as she looked around the shacks. 

    It was no secret to her, after all, her pride in her people--with or without her nali's stories.  Her people had survived that damned planet and the Unar, lived in those horrific shacks, unclean and worked to exhaustion on a daily basis.  They had never lost their spirits, however.  Rather, they had recovered from that to procure for their people the good lives enjoyed at present.

    Havetsi grew to womanhood with knowledge of that time, told so often by her great grandfather.  The fifth prime minister of Desalia past the war's end, he had been elected for his exceptional intellect and intuition, his outright honor of Desalian nature--not to mention his subtle humor and genuine, endearing nature, which carried well into his relations with Desal's neighbors.  Also, though upon his bonding he belonged to the house of Gidarel, for his parents being the regents was he deemed a good choice.  Even so long past the occupation, one's family still bore undeniable influence.

    It was he who first brought Havetsi as a girl to Uillar, told her of their people's plight and their later vindication.  He showed her, as he had shown many others, so that she would not forget, would hold it in her spirit as he did, and pass on the same.  He felt the great importance of his ancestry, and so with great reflection and love did he teach all he had learned and knew of that time.

    As with most things in her life, she had learned it faithfully, made herself know as much as she could about those who had suffered and survived on Uillar with her elders.  Yet just as Babaki had predicted, there was so much more relevance now, with her nali's words having enriched her knowledge.  As they followed the undulating red path east through the shanty, finally nearing the replicator wall, she for the first time could truly sense her people's presence there, feel their hunger and pain and yet their continuance, smell their filthy, sunburnt skin and the stench of their tattered robes, hear their quiet voices, consigned but hoping, always hoping.  It was quite a matter to feel one's true understanding, Havetsi reminded herself, breathing again the hot, hard air.

    She wondered if her guests could ever understand as she did just then.  Their people had been upon Uillar, too, and yet their race seemed not to have memories of such dominion over their beings.  Did they, with their scanning equipment and stunned yet stony expressions, share her people's deep sorrow and dread to know planets like this had once been their fate?  And could she truly understand, even then?  Would she truly, after the legacy was passed unto to her?

    When they turned at the end of the row and headed toward the shade, Havetsi shook herself away from her thoughts for the time to address her audience again.  "The camp bore fifteen overhangs as Dalra's," she said, "and in his were hosted almost one hundred of his fellow inmates.  Dalra was not of age to be named elder, being of but forty-six rallkle at the end of his internment here, though he took much the way of one in his duty.  He oversaw their settlement, warmth and feeding, Miztri procured their needs in healing, clothing and tending in what ways she could."

    They turned to see the rickety overhang, which was merely a series of large sheets of metal held up with poles extending out from a three meter high wall.  At the side of the area sat another shack, which Havetsi pointed out as Dalra and Miztri's.

    Gesturing the guests to remain, the young captain moved across a wide mall to the replicator wall.  Upon her reaching it, a bowl and a water sack appeared in the slot and she took them into both her fair hands to bring the items back into the shade.  Finding a blanket, she motioned for the rest to sit around her.

    "This was their staple," she told them, taking a bite then passing it; then she passed the water.  "Twice daily a bowl of ration was consumed, which despite its lack of taste was nutritious enough the maintain the health of our people.  This was an act of Hychar."  The last word came more solidly to her tongue, and more so as she continued,  "He wished it that Desalians lived longer, wished their work be more productive.  Their ration was adjusted accordingly, and they were permitted water to clean their items and bathe every tenth sun."

    She watched them all hesitantly take their piece; ironically, the most reluctant was the man who claimed to control his emotion.  Havetsi couldn't help but grin that he certainly was exhibiting something near to repulsion.  Still, she understood, having smelled it often enough.

    Janeway felt the soft morsel stick in her teeth and--true to description--become tasteless almost as soon as she exhaled the odor of the food.  Finally, she swallowed and felt the meal sink into her stomach.  The water she took from the soft canteen afterwards was clean but warm, not too satisfying. 

    "I can't imagine anyone even wanting to eat with this little sensation attached to it," she commented.

    Havetsi nodded.  "The prisoners of Uillar bore much thinness, ka," she agreed.  "When one starves, however, one does not think of taste, or its lack."

    "Of course," Janeway said, correcting herself mentally, too.  "I suppose it's difficult to think about how Tom could have dealt with it so well, with this on top of everything..."  Despite her mood, an inward grin slowly curled her lips.  "He did like good food--was something of a connoisseur, always needling Neelix about his cooking."

    Chakotay and Kim both chuckled at that.  "He always said I was risking my life," Harry said,  "eating in the mess hall."

    Havetsi giggled, leaning forward, her hands and chin on her knees as she watched the others finally smile that day.  "And Be'i...B'Elanna?  Did she too scorn her meals?"

    "Odd," Janeway said quietly, realizing.  "I never remembered her eating."

    "That's because she was all business about it," Chakotay said.  "She got her food, ate it, drank a couple cups of coffee then went to work."  He shrugged to the younger captain.  "Not much of a connoisseur."

    "She still thought the coffee was lousy," Harry grinned.

    Janeway pursed her lips.  "I suppose even acquired tastes can be missed.  I can understand why they would be here."

    "And yet, the talk, the community," Havetsi said,  "made the meals pass with speed, eased the pain of this place.  It was for each other's good spirits they remained as well as they did."

    Harry's eyes moved around the space again.  "Do you know where Tom and B'Elanna usually sat, Havetsi?"

    She pointed ahead of herself to a lump of worn blankets.  "They sat on the side center, near to the fire, as Be'i bore weakness in the chill.  Miztri had feared she would find her spirit's liberation for the cough and cold and not Unar's treatment."

    "Because of her Klingon physiology," Tuvok confirmed.

    "It does seem to have been a lot harder on her than Tom," Chakotay observed.

    Havetsi sighed.  "Ka, cold gave her great pain, and her lungs and sight had been much affected.  Toma, too, had acquired the cough, yet his lasting difficulties grew from internal injuries inflicted yet never quite corrected.  The maladies of Uillar pressed hard on their untested bodies--which all could not be fully treated after. Yet this all shall be told.  Far more remains for us all to hear."

    Janeway peered over to her.  "But you know what happened to them."

    "Be'i and Toma's histories are known to me," Havetsi told her, "yet the many details which typically inhabit true word paintings have been the words of those outside their circle, those who had looked in.  My spirit-parents have likewise related the many details of that era, while their intimate knowledge of your people has been retained for your presence, else committed entirely to their memoirs.  To withhold in such a manner is not a common practice, and yet it is the right of an akarr tiras to do so--as well as the right of regents.

    "Great care and time was taken in the recovery of our scholarship, our planet, our ways and community," she told them.  "Supplies and desire were plentiful, yet change among my people by nature is slow, and I should think a primary purpose for merely facing the present was a means of protection.  At the time of my birth, the peace of Irllae was a common fact, yet in the preceding generations, there was a great need for our leaders to be prime examples of all that Desal should be, and in that, which rebuilding all that Desal had borne and then expanding upon it, my elder-parents labored tirelessly, always, solidly placed in our present while ever peering toward the horizon, seeking wisdom in their steps."

    Chakotay nodded.  "That sounds natural for people recovering from a war.  It takes time to rebuild and reorganize a civilization, aside from an entire region of space."

    Havetsi's responding stare was plain.  "War had never been waged in this region, Chakotay.  Unar were precedent to Irllae's history amongst each other.  And not once had Desalia waged war against itself or another."

    Harry blinked a stare to her.  "Never?"

    The young captain watched them finish passing the bowl and water.  "Difficulties were taken to scholars or to our elders and settled among a public forum," she said.  "It is the way as ever, as is our belief that it would be unnatural to intend harm onto another, else we should bring harm unto ourselves.  To injure another is to injure oneself and all."

    Janeway nodded slowly, watching Havetsi gather the half-eaten bowl and the water sack.  "Little wonder your people didn't want to fight the Unar."

    "All among Desal wished an end to the occupation, yet until the resistance formed, there was fear that injury to them would be only another debt earned of them--Desal's suffering was a natural way of retribution for the degeneracy of our predecessors.  We are all from one source and are interconnected..."  Havetsi paused at that then went on, "Destruction of life by our hands, even for our lives and future, was not a concept accepted at that earlier time by the majority of Desal.  They rather trusted that fate would be balanced eventually."

    "But that changed," Chakotay said.

    "Ka," she said.  "With the public resurrection of the regency upon Cezia, with the resulting conviction to protect Desal's traditions and spirit, the way of contrition shifted.  It was realized then how much mindful leadership had been needed, as shall be learned.  I thank the spirits each sunrise for the sacrifices made for this purpose--more so now.  So much more so now."

    Moving to her feet, Havetsi pulled her hood forward with a spare finger and moved out from the overhang to dispose of the food and water.

    Harry sighed and shook his head as he watched the woman step across the hot red dirt, her cloak snapping in the unrelenting wind.  "How could Tom and B'Elanna live like this?  How could they have even stayed here without going nuts?"

    Janeway drew a deep, dry breath then let it out.  "Because they had no other choice," she told him then pushed herself to stand as well.  "They were only trying to survive."

    Leaving there, they circled back to the court on the detail trail to see the processing centers, where Tom and B'Elanna spent their days recycling junk--their shuttle included.  It was a short tour, according to Havetsi, nothing like the usual pilgrimage there.  Their human bodies should not remain long, after all, and so she led them out to the gate when they had seen enough of the processing units.

    Janeway was glad when it ended.
 

---

    They were snapping pods in half, not unlike an activity Janeway once shared with her own mother as a girl.  The vegetable was yellow, though, and shaped more like a snow pea than a green bean.  About fifteen of the family was there, supervised by Tramasa, who with two other men carried prepared portions inside to the kitchen.  Kes knelt with a bowl in her lap, turning her smile down to the scattering of young children running around in the yard.  Loose gowns and leggings danced against little bodies as they hopped over the rippling pond or skipped up to their nali, who laughed and gave them a pod every time.

    "She shall be filled far before our sun's ebb," smiled one lady, partially reclined to embroider a ring of red silk stretched in a large oval loop.  Her tone was so endearing that it could hardly be called a reproach.

    "You enjoyed the same curse, De'illi," Anai returned, patting the young girl's cheek.  "You shall yet permit her memory of my person to be of dotage."

    The lady laughed, shook her head at the fading sky.  "Oh, the spirits' arms shall be full of will when you and Tola are returned to them."

    "As is proper," Anai quipped and turned her stare across the yard.  Bright hazel reflecting the late sun, her eyes drifted up to her great-great granddaughter, who stood still stained with the red of Uillar.  The young woman's gaze, dark with the pain of her day, turned and found hers.

    Anai ached for her, knowing well.  Too well.  Uillar was no land for the innocent.

    The old woman pressed the low table, straightening herself to her feet.  Moving a few steps away from the table, she simply opened her arms.  Havetsi released her breath and walked across the yard.  Upon arrival, she felt her nali's firm yet loving embrace, secure as bedrock, warm and ever knowing.  She closed her eyes tightly, sucked a thick breath.

    "Nali, the spirits blessed you truly to have overcome the damnation of Uillar," she whispered.  "My own spirit hardened to find myself there this sun, knowing its pain so fully for you."

    "Blessings may reside in curses, child," Anai said, squeezing the back of Havetsi's soft headdress, her hair beneath it.  "These matters must be learned--as you shall know as I do."

    "Nali ka," the lady responded, standing straight again to smile down at her elder.  "Yet now the stench of its lesser curse coats me, I should think."

    Anai grinned, too, knowing the girl needed the cheer--and to be away.  "Best it is purged.  My presence remains.  We shall speak upon sunrise and ease both our minds, should it be wished.  Go--be quick and a basket of ticgor shall await us."

    The younger woman nodded and touched her elder's temples before stepping away.

    She watched until Havetsi removed herself to the interior then pivoted on her cloth-shoed foot to look at the other captain there, cleaned already but dressed in a casual frock a couple of shades lighter than her eyes.  Her steely gaze was the same, however, sitting above a whisper of a grin.  It was a reserved greeting in a kind look, seemingly appropriate.

    "You have returned alone?"

    "Yes," Janeway said, offering no explanation.  "I came back with Havetsi.  She was kind enough to wait for me."

    "Ka," the elder commented,  "your dress befits our gathering this moon.  I would believe you should be more comfortable.  It pleases that you are well enough to bring yourself here without purpose until sunset."

    "You have a beautiful world, Anai.  It's not that that's making me uncomfortable."

    Anai smiled thinly at the captain's hint.  "Young Kes has enjoyed the garden.  Would you wish to view it as well?"  Without waiting for an answer, Anai pulled off her apron and held out a graceful arm.  It trembled ever so slightly.

    Janeway stepped forward and took it around her own.  Surprisingly, Anai put a good deal of her weight upon it as they began to walk. 

    "By nature, Havetsi is in possession of a passionate spirit," Anai said, draping the apron on a table they passed.  "She bears much strength and desire, works best with her hands, thinks with quickness and at times bears an excessive will.  Errors in her life often result from this.  Yet there is much gentleness in her being; she searches always for right.  --Much like a girl known to us, ka?"

    "Yes," Janeway said quietly, surprised that she hadn't thought about it herself.  "She's young, but she seems like good captain--and an excellent technician.  Which brings me to wonder, that with your people's limited travel, your technology is impressive."

    Anai's smile remained a knowing one.  Janeway had turned the conversation nicely.  "The resistance bore excellent teachers," she confirmed.  "Certainly, post-warp technology was known to Desal well before the occupation.  Desal's technical standards were rather superior to our neighbors.  None in Irllae forgot this, merely did not possess it.  Gratefully, the lessons of your crewpeople were taken in full, which prepared us to reclaim and relearn the knowledge taken from us.  My people by nature devour information--they are difficult to change once taught, yet voracious when a particular well is tapped.  Yet all in Irllae past the war were quite hungry, and yet well-fed with time."

    Janeway looked down at the old woman, but she could only see her white headscarves at that angle, partially woven into her silver hair and pinned with amber stone beads.  The ancient, wrinkled hand clutching to her forearm bore the markings signifying her marriage.  Delicate lines of indigo like on her temples, the hand markings were truly beautiful.  All couples shared unique patterns, she'd noticed.  Anai and Ara's were like an abstract paisley, tiny lines in swirls and dots, not covering all the skin, but marked enough to be discernable from other bondmates, even with Janeway's untrained eye.

    "Much was also to be relearned after the war," Anai continued.  "Beneath the very sun which first shone on Ara and me as scholars, we were called to Desal to assist in the restoration of our society and knowledge.  All things remained without the care it required, left too much to nature--and sadly, it was Unar nature.

    "During the rebuilding, Ara and I likewise claimed this house as ours, promising to fill it properly.  We cleansed it upon our hands and knees, removed the wild growth from its walls, and graced its surfaces with a balanced spectrum of matter and life.  The house and this garden were designed to reflect all things wished for and sacrificed, an example for others.  This garden was and is our vision fulfilled, our dreams materialized."

    Anai slowed them, and then stopped.  Raising her free arm before them, she said,  "Have you seen, Captain Janeway?  The sand by the moss?  The willow shading the succulents?  The pebbled path and the flowering grasses?  The fish skirting the water rocks?  This very garden within a great city, in which Ara and I have lived over one hundred rallkle?  There is a balance to all things here.  This was meant."

    Janeway did see it, but said nothing.

    "Fate does well to be purposeful, when expectation is balanced in return; like building this garden in want of its life, while accepting not every form placed within it shall flourish.  Yet to do nothing, and little but wilderness would remain amongst the sparse, stained remnants of its past care.  Desal had been left to nature; many Desalians had become complacent in their fate.  There would never have been balance in this.  It was this thing Ara and I wished would change first, to see all our people regain what was Desal long before--what truly resided within their spirits, yet could not be realized in their needful submission.  Our fates were dedicated to our duty, to free us from more than Unar occupation--yet another purpose put forth with careful expectation...and much show of example on our parts, I admit."

    "Havetsi said you were rather influential people."

    "Ka," Anai replied, proud without conceit.  "We had earned our places as well as having had inherited them and felt belonging there."

    "And you were influenced by Tom and B'Elanna," Janeway said, holding back the next thing that came to mind on that topic.  She did wonder, however, if her young officers had thought about their affecting an alien people as they apparently had--or if by then it mattered to them.  "They were very intense and willful people in their own ways."

    "Ka, they were," the elder grinned, "--and obstinate."

    "They must have been very persuasive."

    "When they wished to be, ka--and yet they too found persuasion.  Both matters required time and assurance--for Desal and for themselves--of their good intent."

    Anai paused, staring out to the pond, where her great-grandchildren's grandchildren were kneeling, looking in to see the fish, chatting happily among themselves, their big eyes shining with wonder.  She wished to touch them, then, feel their youthful energy within herself, their untouched spirits.

    She drew a shallow sigh, became still as she watched them.

    "So many years belong to me.  Too many years.  For that which has been borne in my experience, I should not be among the living.  Yet many times I have thanked all that is blessed that my bondmate and I were fated to remain.  At the sum of your years, Child, I had lived an amount of many lives.  I have made every attempt to show my gratitude beneath every sun, despite and resolved by the many losses and challenges given me and my bondmate."

    Anai blinked slowly, caressed the arm she held.  "I have earned my age and elderhood with much effort and the spirits' many blessings.  Yet when my spirit is freed of this body, I would gladly be taken with Ara unto the ancestors and smile upon him as I did the moon of our bonding--and see him smile upon me likewise."

    Janeway shared the view of the pond.  In a way, she knew what sort of longing the woman was feeling, looking at those children.  As much as she had come to look upon Academy graduates as fresh and young and recall her own greenness, she could only imagine what a toddler would seem like to a woman like Anai.

    "I would wish," Anai whispered, "to have not pained you as I have, for your dear memory of Be'i and Toma.  Yet, it was required.  It is yet required.  For my oath, I must complete what I have begun."

    "I would have had to find out in one way or another," Janeway admitted, feeling the stab of her recent memory return, but warding it off with a shake of her head.  "I am willing to hear what you have to tell us.  At this point, I think I need to know."

    Anai did not return the gaze.  "Even as you are left with more questions than answers?"

    Janeway had to give the old woman that much--she was perceptive, able to play the game while knowing that everyone knew the turns.  Of course, it was Anai's given right to do that.  "I have been."

    She laughed a quiet, rustic laugh.  "Then my words have been painted well."

    "I still want to know what happened to Susan Nicoletti and Kurt Bendera.  You said before that they survived the war.  Where were they when Tom and B'Elanna were on Uillar?"

    "This shall be known," Anai replied.  "With fate's blessing, all shall be known to you in time."

    Janeway bit her breath, sighed it out.  "Anai, I know this is important to you..."

    Her stopping there finally earned Anai's full attention.  "Ka?"

    The captain's eyes had hardened slightly.  Her arm pressed unconsciously against her side, squeezing the elder woman's.  "I would have thought if you'd followed Tom and B'Elanna's examples, you'd learn not to play games with people.  Forgive me, but I'd have rather read an account instead of being obliged to wait day by day for your story to conclude."

    "Such is fairness," Anai kindly allowed.  "They were your people, and you bear much pain.  Yet, another thing I learned from those who made me what I am is that the flower of purpose is better brought to fruit with more sun--with patience.  When you look upon the bloom, it is difficult to see what the food becomes--unless you have seen already the harvest.  I need not display a key to how the flower develops its flesh when you may see it for yourself, should your gaze merely remain fixed.  And to see it with experience is far more than what any bland explanation may procure."

    Janeway's lips turned up in defeat.  She hadn't expected Anai to change her mind.

    "We all are creatures in this wilderness," the elder said, resuming their slow walk, leading them around to the rocky path that led into the back of the terrace,  "living, yet not all our purposes are bestial.  My games are played with no hurtful purpose--rather the opposite.  It is for a consideration unto you I have taken such pains in my life and in my telling."

    Janeway straightened.  "I beg your pardon.  I wasn't accusing you--"

    "This is known, as is your wish for more.  In its own manner, this sentiment is shared.  You are known to me well, Captain--more than you would prefer.  When all is passed, but a few of your suns for the hundred rallkle I have waited.  Your time, so short, for mine so long.  This is not a great sacrifice on your part, to play my game for this time, to allow me to paint the words of my spirit, which importance you have admitted already."

    "Yes," Janeway said.  "And I admit, you are telling us a good deal more than a record would.  Babaki told me you carry many memories in addition to your own recollections.  Maybe I'm simply not accustomed to your method."

    Anai's lips turned up as she reached out to clip off a straying vine.  "You know little patience when it is a matter of your own--and this when you would not wish this need be told.  You would not bear cause to punish yourself, as their leader, for this loss you bear."

    She grinned, a bit painfully, at the observation.  "You are right."

    "Yet we all bear this responsibility.  I too bear the burden of my past, and thus the only redemption I may earn is though the acts I perform at present.  It is my privilege as elder and regent.  Such power in placement offers an odd comfort, ka?  And yet, how arrogant are we to be, good child, in claiming charge of fate, which is ever untamed?"

    Janeway's smile grew, even as she wondered how she could feel it as she did.  She hadn't realized that, in her own way, Anai had an equal command conscience to deal with.  "I don't know.  I suppose we take what we feel is enough--even if it seems like too much to people around us."

    "You are more natural than you allow, Child," Anai told her, stopping to take up another leggy growth in her fingers and snip it off.

    "Please," Janeway said, reaching out herself when she saw an equally overgrown vine,  "call me Kathryn."

    Anai smiled.  "Kathryn, then.  Zhar vrra a'i tsa volparej yi.  In faith and in peace, your spirit is seen by mine."

    With a starting breath, she clipped off another sprig with her flat, discolored nails.  "Would you like to assist our preparation of the ticgor, Kathryn?"

    "I'd like that," said the captain.  "I was thinking before how it reminded me of when I was young.  My parents had a farm--corn, mostly.  But my mother also grew green beans, and when she could keep me still long enough, we'd sit on the porch and snap them on hot afternoons." 

    She smiled wistfully, seeing it so clearly as she looked at Anai's wrinkled hands, thinking her own mother's might be as old when and if she returned to the Alpha Quadrant.

    "I should think we would take our meal earlier this evening," Anai said abruptly.  "My painting shall be of longer duration, a portrait of ascendance with which more detail shall be devoted."

    Kathryn's brow rose.  "You were almost four hours last night, Anai."

    "Answers are wished, ka?  Then more shall be procured for you."  Anai's voice was simple and assured and her eyes did not leave her work.  Reaching into the vines, she extracted a flower and clipped that as well.

    "I wouldn't want you to wear yourself out needlessly--no matter what I want.  And Ara--"

    "Sleep shall find by bondmate when he tires," Anai cut in.  "I bear wellness this sun and I have withstood greater levels of exhaustion."

    Janeway gave her a look.  "But you said yourself you're not a young woman anymore."

    Anai was not fazed by the stare.  Rather, she giggled at it.  "Who spoke of youth, Child?  My youngest, one you know as Babaki, was borne in my fiftieth year without assistance but from Ara.  It is certain I might kneel upon the settee and speak of the past without greater hardship!"

    When the captain laughed, Anai reached up and touched her temple then stole into her hair with the small flower she'd just clipped.  Though her fingers trembled slightly with the exertion, she was still able to deftly weave the stem of the coral bloom into the captain's ruddy strands then pat Kathryn's cheek again. 

    "You are very pretty," she said.  Taking her companion's arm, she started them back to the table.
 

---

    Havetsi had found her way back to the terrace well cleansed of her day.  Guiltily, she was thankful once again for the goodness her present society had afforded her as she stripped away the cloak and coat and shoes so badly stained with Uillar after only a few hours there.  She threw them into the laundry unit and activated it without looking at the settings. 

    Having bathed and dressed quickly, she gladly met her tola and gave him the pleasure of escorting her down to the courtyard.  They arrived on the back terrace several minutes later to see Anai handing the nicely dressed captain a bowl of ticgor pods and showing her how to break them properly.

    "Kes?  Va'a, our good lady wished to help her lover with their procurements," said Dilsi, digging into her own bowl for another handful, "then tend her matters before their evening meal."

    Anai merely smiled.  "Her absence shall be filled nicely," she told Janeway and looked across the table.  "Po'evra, bring our good lady a plate for the compost.  --Do take some, Kathryn.  They may be eaten without cooking."

    "Now you want to feed me like your grandchildren?"  Kathryn asked.

    "Eat, Child," Anai scolded affectionately.  "You bear exceeding thinness."

    Po'evra, a fair-freckled boy of about twelve, laughed as Kathryn's lips fell open to reply.  "Obey your elders, good lady, and you shall be well-guided by the spirits--and Nali shall not remind you to be guided, as well."

    "My blood bears good effect, indeed," Anai grinned and bent to kiss his scarf-covered head, raising giggles around the table for Kathryn's sake.

    Ara watched this all, his gaze following his bondmate in her every move.  Her shrunken body and thin hands, her deftly braided grey hair and age-lined mouth touched with the remainder of her smile.  "She bears such loveliness," he said devoutly.

    Havetsi smiled.  "Tola ka.  I believe this, too."

    "I miss our intimacy," he mused, his eyes roaming over his bondmate as she petted little Maswha'i, who had wrapped her little arms around Anai's legs and hugged tightly; then she buried her round face in the folds of her nali's gown skirt.  Anai smiled lovingly to the baby, fussing her little braids over her shoulder.  "A curse worthy of Prihar's teeth, that my arteries may no longer bear the pleasure we shared."

    "In your spirits, you partake of each other," Havetsi offered,  "and shall among Tsa'aitsa, as her bondmate, Tola."

    "Then for our passings, I would bear relief," Ara returned, slightly wry, then peered to her.  "And you, Child?  Shall you find healing past what our way has borne?"

    "To see her now, I know I must," she answered.  "What brings me most fear, my elder-father, is to know the capability also lies within me.  I dreamt of this when Nali placed such horrors in my mind.  Never have such thoughts touched me before."  She sighed.  "My inheritance now is a fearful matter, Tola.  There is awareness of what is to be given, yet...I hesitate at what it shall bear upon Cera and me.  This should not be felt, it is known."

    "Gye, Havetsi.  It is understood--and not unique."  Looking at her clear, wide eyes, he had to smile.  She truly was a youth, in every way, both joyous and naive.  "To survive and to preserve what we have been so blessed to receive is our life's work," he told her.  "It is the way, and we must, in age, learn to embrace all the colors of existence, lest we blind ourselves.  Bihla and Sa'alli wished to preserve life so dear."

    "Ka--and instead Prihar was called."

    "With all things good, bad must exist as well--as all things in the universe are balanced, Havetsi.  It is nature and it is truth, you well know.  Our own primal instincts must never be dismissed for awareness of it alone.  Anai and I are both well taught in this."

    "And yet fear remains," Havetsi admitted.  "Of course the knowledge of unpleasantness is borne within me, yet I have thought to avoid what in teachings showed negatively.  By avoiding such dark paths, I thought I should learn a better way."

    "This is a good thing in children.  Yet it lends to a static nature when performed too well, as Dalra learned."

    "He had not owned Miztri's faith in the return of light after darkness," she agreed.

    "And yet, Dalra bore strength and a pure spirit.  What was not understood in the beginning was that imbalance in nature allowed the Unar to serve our consequence, not the essential nature of our people.  The overcompensation leant just as well to our destruction and desolation.  Good and bad must both be borne and balanced accordingly in order to persevere."

    "Thus the arguments to help free him of such imbalance."

    "In some sense," Ara said.  "And yet, within the youthful and pained spirits of our good Be'i and Toma, their manner was not necessarily unselfish.  However, a modicum of this was likewise required at the time."

    "And zealousness, I should say," Havetsi added lightly, feeling quite finished with her more thoughtful mood twice over for the day.

    "Ah, we all could claim zeal," he said.  "However, some forms of this could be far more pleasant."

    Havetsi grinned at her tola, glad to see him so well from his nap and so neat and proper in his dinner coat and fine robe.  So long had she seen him ailing, she had come to appreciate so much more his better moments, such as that one, as his eyes still followed his beloved Anai in the garden. 

    "We pass this on to you and Cera with unwarranted pride, dear Child," he said softly.

    Havetsi embraced his thin torso, grateful to know that his wits and care had never dulled either.

    "Tola ka."
 

---

    They had gathered again as the matriarch and patriarch of the house settled as they always did on the stone seat.  Their bellies filled comfortably--though one human captain's had been filled just a bit too much by a persistent elder's suggestions--their beings a bit soothed with a day to dull the pain of the last evening's difficult history, the family and the house guests settled into much the same places they had taken the evening before.

    It was Chakotay, the last to return to the garden, who tapped his captain's shoulder and whispered in her ear.  She turned and, looking around, found Neelix and Harry sitting by each other on a collection of pillows.

    "Well, Tuvok's been recording it for rest of the crew who want to hear it," she said.  "But I know Kes wanted to be here."

    "She said she'd be here soon, just a little late."

    Janeway shrugged, nodded.

    Across the yard, Anai peeked up to Ara and shared his small smile.
 

---

    In a workspace created on the holodeck, she breathed to steel herself to what she had indeed promised to do.  The panel was foreign to her at first, but her directions written so carefully, they alone were more than enough to get her started.

    She understood perfectly why the elder woman had pressed her secrecy, though.  If it worked, then all would be well.  If it didn't work, it would be one less period of mourning for the crew. 

    Kes had agreed in the end that to let them all hope in vain would be as disheartening as the away team's deaths were tragic.  At that point, at least, it was best to run the tests, even if it was far from her specialty.

    She began tapping in the calculations and rerouting the simulated pathways, wishing in a way that Captain Janeway was indeed there; at the same time was glad she wasn't.

    She was missing the story, she knew, and also knew she should only set up the simulation and hide it back away as she had been told, and then go down to the surface, lest she be missed.

    She wanted to run it, was tempted to, wondered if she might take just a few more minutes--as it shouldn't take too long.  At the same time, she knew it in itself was very complicated.  It would require two different procedures; even with a good deal of Desalian technology converted to Starfleet systems and other precedents helping it along, it would take a good deal of effort and knowledge.  It would also require some certain luck, considering the timing involved. 

    She was missing the story.  It didn't matter, though, she knew.  She knew how it ended...and how it could end again...Could.

    She straightened at the console, her gaze drifting outward.

    But then, the ones involved would be the only ones who wouldn't know anything about it, if everything went as it was supposed to.  Without that success, at least one half of what she was trying to do would never be.  The elders would not allow the procedure in that worst case.

    It was not desired, they insisted--the plan was enough against their ways as it was, and so it had to go according to their directions or not at all.  They refused to betray the spirits and nature any further than they had already, even if it was for their sincerely made promises to their sworn siblings.  "Fate shall decide upon this in the end," Anai had told her,  "we shall ask no more than that."

    Kes understood why they would think that way, of course.  At the same time, she personally believed that for it to work at all would be good enough. 

    Knowing all that she did just then, she needed it to work.

    She was already having trouble with one of the parameters--the very one she was debating to herself.  The program stopped in the middle of its numerical translation; it would go no further and could not provide an explanation.

    As she backed out of that part of the program for the time and went to work on the other two, Kes wished again that Captain Janeway were there.  She wished that anyone else were there.

    But they had trusted her, and she had promised...
 

---

     "Empty space unto the stars, darkness unto the pre-dawn light; sounds of thin children and metals clinking.  A covering, light and soft; soft speaking somewhere near...  Numbness, and yet pain, lurking deep in the shadows, and also a drifting, floating, then the sharp corner the cloud was pierced by.  Forth and back, forward and receding again, all these things brought themselves and passed...

    "And a scent which was foreign...then another all too known, just behind the horizon, creeping along the winter swept mountain peak, ever alluding the sun. 

    "Yet the sunrise is inevitable..."

 

---

(continued)

Chapter 4 | WP Main

July, 1999
© D'Alaire M.