Homecoming

by Christie Golden

  He said, “No, really, how’ve you been?” and hated himself even more.

  Libby regarded him appraisingly for a moment longer, and then said, “Good. I’ve been good, Harry. My career’s really taken off and I perform at concerts all over the quadrant now. I’ve become a vegetarian and I’ve never felt healthier. I’ve dated several men, slept with a few, and fallen in love with one. It didn’t last. I live in a cabin by the sea where I have to balance my love for the ocean with the mess the humidity makes of my Ktarian lal-shak. I have two cats and a rabbit named Binky. That answer your question?”

  Harry’s face felt as hot as if he were standing next to a bonfire. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I guess you shouldn’t have come.”

  “Silly me,” she said, heat entering her voice, “I thought you might want to see me, for old times’ sake. Guess you’re all grown up now and don’t have time for women you once said you loved. So, Harry, how’ve you been?”

  “Now you’re angry,” he said. “I’m so stupid. I thought—hell, I don’t know what I thought.” As furious with himself now as she was, he made to move past her. She blocked him, placing her hand on his chest. It was warm and strong and stopped him as surely as if he had run into a forcefield.

  “I cried my eyes out when they said your ship was lost,” she said softly. They didn’t look at one another. Her gaze was on the floor, his straight ahead. Her hand was still on his chest, fingers spread wide, and he wondered if she could feel how fast his heart was racing. He was certain she could.

  “I waited for news. Any news. Good or bad. Anything that would let me move on, one way or another. And when it finally came, I cried again. Then I dried my eyes and got on with my life. I put all my pain and passion into my music, and it took my talent to a place it had never been before. Every time I played, you were in my thoughts, Harry Kim. I hoped that you had died quickly, without pain. I started seeing people, opening my heart up again. And then I heard from your parents that they were getting messages from you. Messages, Harry. Voyager was making it home as best it could, and you were alive, and you were sending your parents messages, but there weren’t any for me.”

  His heart breaking, Harry risked a look down at her. Tears glittered like diamonds in her long, thick lashes. She still stared at the floor. He wanted to speak, but didn’t dare.

  “So I figured you’d forgotten. Didn’t want to see me. Your parents insisted I come here, and you know what, you were right. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Libby,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, God. I was afraid to contact you. I was afraid to find out that you were married, or hated me, or, I don’t know. I was just scared. There have been other people for me too. I’ll be honest, there have been some women I’ve really loved. But there was never anyone who. . . who fit with me the way you did. There’s no one now.”

  In a small voice, she said, “There’s no one now for me either.”

  Swallowing hard, aware that they were in a crowd of people, Harry stepped in front of her and turned her face up to his. Her eyes were brimming with tears. How many times had he gazed into those eyes before bending to kiss those full, soft lips?

  “I don’t know about you, but I think there’s still something here between us,” he said, risking all.

  She nodded. “There is,” she admitted.

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  She smiled, and to Harry it was as if the sun had broken out from behind a cloud bank. “I want to watch your parents revel in having their only son home safe and sound. I want to eat every bite of what is no doubt going to be a scrumptious feast. I want to split dessert with you like we always did. I want to take a walk in the moonlight and hold your hand and see how that feels.”

  He felt his own lips stretch in a grin and knew he looked like an idiot. A very happy idiot.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  A clinking sound interrupted his thoughts. Someone was tapping on a glass with a fork. The crowd quieted and turned their attention toward their host, Admiral Paris. Although he presented quite a formal appearance, clad as he was in his dress uniform, the admiral’s face was alight with pleasure.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this banquet is going to serve a double purpose. Not only are we able to finally welcome back our husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters once thought lost, we have an opportunity to recognize some of those for special achievement during that incredible seven-year journey. Will the following people step forward: Ensign Lyssa Campbell. Ensign Vorik. Ensign Harry Kim.”

  Surprised, Harry glanced down at Libby. She pushed him forward. “Well, go on!” she said, grinning impishly.

  He moved forward to step beside Lyssa and Vorik. Lyssa was almost bouncing up and down, her blue eyes bright. Vorik, of course, was as composed as a good son of Vulcan ought to be.

  “You know what this is about?” Lyssa whispered.

  “Nope,” Harry shot back.

  Paris was continuing to recite names. Harry saw Tom and B’Elanna step forward, along with their captain. They formed a line and stood at attention before Admiral Paris. An aide appeared beside him, carrying a small box.

  “At ease,” Paris said. “This is a bit impromptu, but it’s the best we could do on such short notice, and we certainly didn’t want to wait. Captain Janeway, please step forward.”

  She did so. The aide opened the small wooden box. Nestled against the lush purple of velvet were several pips. Harry took a quick, sharp breath as he realized what was coming.

  “For your determination in getting your crew home despite almost impossible odds—and for beating the Borg at their own game—you are hereby promoted to admiral.”

  Something flickered in Janeway’s eyes and then was gone. Harry thought he knew what it was. Admiral. No more ship. Just a desk job. It might have been an advancement in rank, but for Janeway, Kim knew it was a demotion to the soul.

  He also thought she might be thinking of the Admiral Janeway who had crossed the barrier of time itself to help them return home at the cost of her life. That had to be a bittersweet association. Nonetheless, the new admiral smiled as if it pleased her no end.

  Paris went down the row. Both Lieutenants Paris and Torres became lieutenant commanders. And Kim, Vorik, and Campbell turned to face the applause of the crowd as lieutenants. He couldn’t help but glance in Libby’s direction. She was clapping wildly.

  “And now,” said Paris, “it’s my understanding that the chefs have been waiting seven years to prepare this particular welcome-home banquet. Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

  * * *

  To Libby, the banquet seemed to drag on forever. When, finally, it wound down and the Kims asked Libby to join them for tea at their home, she declined as politely as possible. She made certain that there was not a chance for her to be truly alone with the young lieutenant. She wasn’t ready for that yet. So she hugged his parents good-bye, smiled with what she hoped was shy sincerity at Harry, and agreed to meet him for lunch tomorrow.

  When she materialized in her own small seaside cabin, she breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Her cats, Indigo and Rowena, meowed with annoyance. It was well past their dinnertime and they weren’t going to let her forget it. She stooped to pet Indigo and picked up Rowena. Going to the window, she looked out on the seascape.

  It was almost a full moon tonight, and the waves were exquisite shades of dark blues and grays. The incessant, steady rhythm of the waves being called by the moon to come ashore, then retreat, soothed her after the rough night. She cuddled Rowena close and rested her cheek against the white cat’s fur. She heard the lop-eared Binky shuffling about in his pen.

  Libby liked it here, far from anyone, alone with her animals and her music in this small cabin. She had enough interaction with people in the course of her performances. Funny, she mused. They had always assumed Harry was going to be the famous musician of the two of them. Libby’s interest in the Ktarian version of the harp,
the lal-shak, was regarded by everyone, including herself, as nothing more than a pleasant hobby.

  But when Harry had gone, vanished as if swallowed, she had turned to the instrument for comfort in assuaging her grief. She had played for hours on end, played until her fingers bled, stained the fine rose-colored wood with her tears. An immense talent had come to the surface with the force of a volcano, a talent that no one, not even she, had guessed she possessed. Now she was widely regarded as the finest non-Ktarian player of the instrument in existence, and she was sought after hungrily for her musical gifts.

  She was appreciated for talents other than musical as well.

  Absently, she put some food into a dish for the cats, dropped some veggies and special pellets into the pen for Binky, and went into the bedroom of the small cabin.

  She stood beside the bed, pressed the wall in just the right spot, and the holographic illusion of a driftwood-gray wall disappeared. In its place were a racing series of blinking lights and a control panel that put that of most starships to shame.

  Libby was tired. She wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and let the ceaseless song of the ocean lull her into dreamless sleep. But she was a professional, and professionals didn’t shirk their duty, no matter how tired and heartsore they might be.

  She stepped forward and submitted to the retinal scan and the DNA check. The face of an attractive, pale woman with blond hair appeared on the screen.

  “Agent Webber,” said Brenna Covington, director of Starfleet Intelligence’s Covert Operations. “I’ve been waiting for your report.”

  Chapter

  5

  IT WAS ONLY THE SECOND TIME Libby had laid eyes on the director. Brenna Covington was notorious for keeping to herself, even for someone in charge of Covert Operations and Deep Cover assignments, Earth Division. She met with agents on a “need to know” basis. Libby had been doing well in the agency and, during her studies on Ktar, had helped to uncover a plot to attack the Federation. It was not, as everyone had first thought, a Ktarian scheme, but the plan of another alien race. Libby had helped clear the people whose music brought her such pleasure, and it had been quite a feather in her cap. She was moving steadily and swiftly through the ranks, very quickly for such a junior agent. After all, she had been with Starfleet Intelligence for only six and a half years.

  Until that time, she had known only what other civilians knew about SI, which was little more than that it existed and that it helped the Federation protect itself. At that point, her whole life lay before her, and she was determined to live in the open, in the sunlight, in the light of her love’s adoration. Then Harry had gone, and with his absence came a darkness in her soul that was terrifying. In her grief, she had sought knowledge of what had happened to Harry, and in a confused, jumbled way had come to the conclusion that joining Starfleet Intelligence could help her find that knowledge.

  Of course, it hadn’t, but in the end, it had been a good pairing. SI liked that Libby seemed an unlikely suspect, a civilian with no formal Starfleet connections. They liked that she was deceptively open-faced and appeared to be focused only on her love of performing. They liked that she was physically and personally attractive. They liked that her concerts took her all over the quadrant, for music was a universal language and appreciated even by those who wanted no part of the Federation.

  And now, with Voyager’s sudden and shattering return, they liked that Libby had once been engaged to Harry Kim.

  It was this that intrigued Director Covington, and it was this connection that made Libby Webber uniquely placed to do her other job—spying. When the call had come a week ago, Libby had of course gone to meet the Federation legend, and when Brenna Covington had asked her to attend the welcome-home banquet and report back, she had agreed.

  “How are you handling it, Agent Webber?” Covington had inquired, leaning forward solicitously. She was a pale woman—pale eyes, pale skin, pale hair—but quite attractive, and almost motherly in her concern.

  “I’m all right,” Libby had replied. “A little nervous about meeting him.”

  “Our sources tell us that he hasn’t made any permanent commitments,” Covington went on. “Do you think he might be interested in resuming a relationship with you?”

  “I—I really have no idea. He’s been gone seven years.”

  “Yet he has remained unattached,” Covington had pointed out. “As have you.”

  Understanding began to dawn. “Do you want me to pretend I’m still interested in him? Romantically?”

  “Would it be pretending?”

  Libby said nothing.

  Covington leaned forward. “I’m not asking you to do this on a whim, Agent Webber. I have information that leads me to believe that we need someone on the inside with Voyager’s crew. It would take a long time for us to find someone else with your convenient connection. It would be well worth your while,” she added.

  Knowing that she was putting her career at risk, Libby had said stubbornly, “I don’t think it’s right to play with Harry’s feelings like that.”

  Covington sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I see I have to. The situation is grim, Agent Webber. We’ve got a mole.”

  “What?” Libby was shocked.

  Covington nodded her fair head, looking somber. “There’s been a great deal of technological information leaked to the Orion Syndicate. We have reason to believe that the arrival of Voyager, with its astonishing new technological developments, is going to be very appealing to the mole. He or she is going to want to get close to it, and the people who were on it. It’s a rare chance for us to flush the mole out into the open. Considering the nature of what’s been leaked, we’re going on the assumption that the mole is very highly placed in Starfleet.”

  “Do you have a suspect?”

  Covington shook her head. “No one suspect, although we’ve got our eye on several. None of them is below the rank of admiral. And frankly, the only ones we can rule out with certainty are the Voyager crew itself. It’s hard to negotiate deals with the Syndicate when you’re several thousand light-years away.”

  “But,” Libby had said, puzzled, “if Harry’s not under suspicion, why do you need me to. . . to be close to him?”

  “Your fame as a concert performer has opened many doors,” Covington replied. “You think Aidan Fletcher’s commendation for the job on Ktar didn’t cross my desk? If you resume an intimate relationship with Ensign Kim, you’ll be able to accompany him to all kinds of functions. Quite possibly even on board Voyager. You’ll be moving in the same elite circles we think the mole moves in. And it’ll be a completely logical place for you to be.”

  Libby felt sick inside. She almost wished that she was entirely over Harry. It would be easier to completely fabricate an affection she didn’t feel than to take her already confused emotions and point them in a specific direction.

  But Brenna Covington was awaiting her reply, and both of them knew what it would be.

  “I think it went as well as could be expected,” Libby told Covington on the viewscreen, shaking off the memory of their first encounter. “It’s hard to get very personal in a crowded banquet hall.”

  “But he believed you were interested in resuming your relationship?”

  “Yes.” Libby, too, believed she was interested in resuming the relationship. She might have exaggerated a few things here and there when speaking with Harry, but not much, not much at all. The old feelings were still surprisingly strong, even after seven years. “It was difficult to speak with any of the admirals present. Harry and his parents pretty much demanded my full attention, and to leave them would have been too conspicuous.”

  “That’s fine, Agent Webber. Cement the relationship first and you can worry about analyzing admirals’ behavior at the next function. You did very well. To be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d go through with it.”

  Libby squared her shoulders. She needed to be truthful with this woman. “Director, I have to say that it wasn’
t just a great acting job tonight. I really do still care for Harry, and I think the closer we get, the less objective I’m going to be.”

  To her surprise, Covington smiled warmly. “Agent Webber, that’s just fine. Harry’s not the one in trouble. This can be as real a love affair as you want to make it. Starfleet Intelligence isn’t going to run your life for you. Lieutenant Kim will give you the access you need, and that’s all we want.”

  Libby relaxed slightly. “Thank you, Director. That’s good to know.”

  “Despite what you may hear,” said Covington, smiling mischievously, “I’m not an ice queen.” She winked. “I do hope all goes well. Good night, Agent Webber.”

  “Good night, ma’am.”

  The screen went dark. Libby pressed the proper buttons and the holographic concealing panel rematerialized. She leaned back on the bed, her thoughts racing.

  Oh, Harry. What are we going to do? What if it doesn’t work? I’ll hate myself for playing on your emotions.

  She rose, performed her nightly ablutions, slipped into a pair of oversized, comfortable pajamas, and got into bed. One thing she knew for sure: If it didn’t work out, she’d break things off the minute the assignment was done and the mole captured. Harry deserved better than to just be used, even for a good cause.

  She drifted into sleep, and was haunted by dreams.

  * * *

  B’Elanna swallowed hard. Standing silently behind her, her husband, who knew every one of her volatile, complex moods, touched her shoulder gently with one hand. In the other arm he cradled a sleeping Miral.

  The banquet was over, and B’Elanna was glad. It had been a strained, tense affair. First the uncomfortable reunion with her father, then the perfunctory awards ceremony. She didn’t give a damn about her own promotion, but she was smarting on behalf of Tom, Harry, Vorik, Campbell, and especially Captain Janeway. They all deserved much more than being an add-on to a lousy banquet. Just handing out those pips as if they were party favors belittled the achievements of her hardworking fellow crewmen. It rankled and she was hardly able to eat a bite. Now they were alone in their room in the Parises’ household, and she had one more task to complete before turning in and putting an end to this stressful day.