Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  B’Elanna could see Chakotay running that plan through his mind, testing it, then turning to Coris. “Would the guards see through a ploy like that?”

  The young woman pondered the question. “Maybe not,” she said slowly. “There are fights all the time here, squabbles over territory, people being displaced. It might work.”

  “Let’s try it,” said Chakotay. “First we decide who goes and who stays.”

  Everyone was willing to accept Chakotay’s decision on that matter, although Brad Harrison and his partner, Noah Mannick, asked to stay together, a request Chakotay was happy to accommodate. They had only recently become a couple and were still in the early flush of romantic intensity.

  “All right, who fights?”

  “Sign me up for that part,” said Tom, and B’Elanna smiled again. She understood his feelings. It felt good to be planning something, to be active, to take steps to be in control of their destiny once more. They spent over an hour planning tomorrow’s altercation, going over every detail until the plan was clear in everyone’s mind. That night she slept more soundly than she had for a long time.

  Tom Paris, on the other hand, slept fitfully. He was eager for morning to arrive, to get this plan going. To do something. When gray dawn finally broke, he was up before the others, sipping on brackish—but necessary—water, nibbling some of last night’s rations that he’d saved for morning. Hunger was a constant now for all of them, and he believed it was important for them to start their escape plans sooner, rather than later. With so little food, they would gradually become weaker and more susceptible to disease and injury. And in a place like this, even a minor illness could be life-threatening, the slightest abrasion become infected and lead to death. Now was the time to act.

  His impatience would help kindle the role he was to play in their carefully concocted drama. He allowed it to energize him, pacing nervously, driving fist into palm, talking to himself, until he felt a tensile strength forming deep inside, a coil of pure energy ready to burst forth.

  He began kicking at the ground, muttering, tapping into old angers, remembering the rages and resentments of the past. Then he spotted Chakotay, seated on the ground and breaking off a portion of a grain cake he, too, had saved from the night before.

  Tom marched over to him, stood above him, challenging. “I’m hungry,” he announced.

  Chakotay looked up at him and shrugged. “Should’ve saved some for this morning,” he said quietly, and stuffed the chunk of foul mush in his mouth.

  Tom’s arm snaked down and closed over Chakotay’s wrist, twisting it backward until the remainder of the grain cake could be pried loose. Then he quickly devoured it. Chakotay leapt to his feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said bitterly, shoving at Tom’s chest. Tom swiped his hands away, and then they were into it, shoving and grappling, finally falling to the ground and rolling, punching, pounding on each other like crazed enemies.

  The others were soon involved. Tuvok shouted at them to desist, but was ignored. Neelix began to exhort Tom, and Harry became outraged, and soon they were fighting, too. B’Elanna and Brad yelled at each other, prompting Noah to start berating B’Elanna, and before long the whole contingent was engaged in a melee that drew considerable attention from nearby prisoners. Only Tuvok and Vorik did not participate, and stood firmly, calling on their comrades to come to their senses, finally wading in and splitting up the combatants, chastising them, trying to restore order.

  Tom kept one eye on the guards within the walls. They didn’t want to disrupt the camp to the point where the guards felt the need to emerge and incinerate them. Gradually, the fight abated, and as people withdrew, they did so in two distinct groups: one included Tom, B’Elanna, Neelix, and Seven; the second, facing them squarely, consisted of Chakotay, Harry, Coris, Brad, and Noah. Tuvok and Vorik, true to their Vulcan natures, were neutral.

  “You try that again, you’ll have to go off and fend for yourself,” Chakotay began, but Tom cut him off.

  “That’s what I’m going to do anyway,” Paris shouted. “And these people are with me.” He looked around at the group behind him. “Right?”

  There was an answering affirmative chorus.

  “Good,” said Chakotay. “Take one of the shelters and put it up as far from here as you can get. Then don’t get in my way again.”

  Tom nodded to his group and they began dismantling one of the shelters. A curious but spare crowd had gathered around them. Tom was sure altercations like this happened frequently, but it was probably still a relief from the squalid monotony of life in the camp. Fortunately, the incident had been minor enough not to arouse the ire of the guards, though they had undoubtedly noticed it. He hoped the brawl would mask their true intent.

  Within an hour they had dismantled the shelter and were ready to move. Tuvok stood and made a pronouncement to Chakotay. “Commander, I think it best that I accompany this group to insure they keep their distance. And to keep their volatile natures in check.”

  “Agreed,” said Chakotay. “Vorik, what’s your choice?”

  The young Vulcan pondered, as though making a decision he had not thought about before this. Finally, he turned to Chakotay. “Sir, I will go with Commander Tuvok. It may be that the presence of two Vulcans would enhance the atmosphere of rationality. But I would like permission to return here from time to time, as well. I have taken no part in this altercation and hope I would be welcome here.”

  “Of course,” said Chakotay. “Anytime.” This was the plan they had devised to keep communication between the two groups, and Tom just hoped it wasn’t transparent. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and turned his back on Chakotay.

  In their mapping session of yesterday, Neelix had spotted a bare section of ground at the periphery of the campground, not more than twenty-five meters from the wall, and immediately adjacent to the twenty-meter-wide “free zone,” a band of ground that encircled the camp just inside the walls, and into which no prisoner was allowed to venture.

  The unoccupied segment of land was flanked by a sprawling complex of lean-tos that seemed to belong to a cohesive group. There were probably fifty of them, tall, graceful humanoids with skin so black it looked as though they’d been smeared with coal. By contrast, their hair was white, and was pulled back and secured. They had a neatness about them that denoted fierce pride, for staying groomed in a situation like this was nearly impossible. Tom rubbed his own stubbly cheeks, grizzled after several days of not shaving.

  Tuvok took charge of the group, directing the setting up of the shelter. It would have to conceal their efforts in constructing a transporter, and so they were careful to make it occupy as much area as possible. A great deal had to happen under that shelter.

  Tom was pounding a stake into the ground to secure one corner of a tarpaulin when he felt a presence behind him. He turned and looked up to see one of the lanky black humanoids looming over him, blocking the sun. Tom stood, hoping they weren’t going to have to fight these people. Not only was the Voyager crew outnumbered, but the men of the white-haired species were at least a meter and a half taller, with long, powerful arms. Tom and his group wouldn’t last long in combat with them.

  “I am Tassot Bnay of the Rai’.” His voice was impossibly deep, like the roll of distant thunder. “What is your intention in occupying this ground?”

  Tom, who was tall himself, had to crane his neck up to look at the man. “We had a falling-out with the rest of our group. Thought it was better to separate than to keep fighting. We have no quarrel with you and we’ll keep to ourselves. Hope that suits you.”

  The man nodded curtly, but made no effort to leave. “There are those who blame us for their suffering. We must be on guard against retaliation.”

  This intrigued Tom. “Why would anyone blame you?”

  “We are the Rai’. It is our war with the Subu that has resulted in the establishment of these camps.”

  “Ah.” This was the first Tom had heard of the oth
er players in the battle, and he wanted to know more. “What’s the conflict about?”

  “War is always about power. And power derives from the acquisition of territory. The Subu have taken worlds from many species, who acquiesced rather than fight. Then they encountered us.”

  Tom nodded. There were usually two sides to any story, even those involving war, but he found himself respecting this tall, proud man who had seemingly come on an errand of peace as soon as the Voyager crew had moved in.

  “We take Subu prisoners; they take us. My group will stand a chance of being set free in a prisoner exchange. But other species, such as yourselves, have no such hope. We are also resented for that fact.”

  “Has anyone ever escaped from here?” Tom asked casually, returning to his task of pounding the stake.

  “There is nothing to escape to. A vast wilderness surrounds this place, thick and impenetrable. Beyond that— more wilderness. The planet is uncivilized.”

  “Hmmm.” Tom tried to make his grunt as neutral as possible. But Tassot squatted down to be more nearly at his level, and fastened his dark, unblinking eyes on Tom’s.

  “Punishment for escape attempts is brutal. And there are ample rewards for those who turn in potential escapees. Let those facts guide your actions.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” Tom looked at the stake, then back toward the huge, dark man next to him. “But it sounds like you’re saying the only way out of here— is to die.”

  Tassot was silent for a prolonged moment. Then he said, “Because of the sensor net, there are few options for getting beyond the walls. But if someone were to escape it is unlikely the guards would pursue. They know that one would not survive for long in the wilderness.” He let that sink in for a moment, and then added, “One can die quickly . . . or slowly. Remember that.”

  And then he was gone, rising and moving off with surprising grace given his size. Tom considered the warning ambivalent. The man had told him that punishment for the attempt was harsh—but then pointed out that if they got out, the Subu were unlikely to come chasing them. Which message was he sending? Tom thought about it for a while, but then realized they weren’t going to abandon their escape attempts and sit quietly, waiting to starve to death. That was a slow death, too, but worse than that, it was passive. To Tom, that made it intolerable.

  The day had been spent searching for duotronic components. By nightfall, they had found nothing except a weak and fading transtator. They were doled their daily rations— a damp and rotting root of some kind, which nonetheless was the best-tasting meal they’d been offered—and hoped tomorrow would be more successful. A fire was lit and they all drew round.

  Tom thought Chakotay’s idea of having people talk about themselves was a good one. It had distracted them all from their circumstances—and it was interesting to hear what people would reveal. He’d learned more about B’Elanna last night than he had in over three years of knowing her.

  So he turned to Seven, whose life was still enigmatic to all of them. “How about you, Seven?” Tom prompted. “Want to let us in on your past?”

  Seven regarded him with her cool poise. She had lost much of the disdain she had exhibited when she was a Borg, but there was still an unsettling remoteness about her. She had yet to fully reconnect to the humanity into which she had been born.

  Her beautiful face, clear-skinned but still bearing two Borg implants, blue-eyed, topped with ethereal blond hair pulled smoothly back, grew pensive in the firelight. “There’s little I remember,” she said in her direct way. “We were on my parents’ spaceship. My mother schooled me . . . I read a great deal. But that was long ago. I had my sixth birthday on board. They sang ‘Happy Birthday, Annika.’ And then the Borg took us.”

  She looked down and everyone was silent for a moment. Seven was still dealing with the trauma of her assimilation, and no one wanted to push her into recollections that were too painful. She looked up after a moment, delicate shadows from the fire playing on her face. “I don’t have specific memories from my time with the Borg. It all runs together, memories, impressions, sounds . . .”

  Many of those memories, everyone realized, would be of assimilating other species, and not the kind of events that would make for good listening. Tom was sorry he’d asked Seven to speak, and hoped he hadn’t made her feel awkward or uncomfortable.

  But the beautiful Borg was staring right at him, not at all hesitant. “I think you should speak instead,” she announced in her forthright way, a statement which caught Tom somewhat off guard. But the rest of the group quickly sided with Seven.

  “Good idea,” said B’Elanna wryly. She had peppered Tom with questions about his life ever since their friendship had started developing, and he had managed to answer in the vaguest of terms. That would be his instinct in this instance, too, but after Chakotay, and Harry, and especially B’Elanna, had been so honest, so intimate—anything less from him would seem cowardly.

  The thought of releasing some of his buried feelings was suddenly appealing. He was aware, as were they all, that this prisoner-of-war camp might be the occasion in which they weren’t able to cheat death, and if that should prove the case, Tom wanted, finally, to unburden himself. For the first time in his life, he felt confessional.

  “Okay,” he said to the group. “I don’t know how this will come out. But here goes.”

  CHAPTER

  8

  “TOM! TOM, WAIT UP!”

  The voice rang through the cool morning air in Buchanan Quadrangle and Cadet Tom Paris turned to see his friend Charlie Day trotting toward him. They had grown up together in the Portola Valley, competing genially with each other all through school in both sports and academe and finally both earning coveted acceptances to Starfleet Academy. They’d been on campus for a month now, gradually adjusting to the grueling Academy routine.

  Charlie jogged up to him, his round, cheerful face wreathed in a toothy smile, dusty brown hair managing as always to look shaggy and unruly in spite of the regulation haircut, big brown puppy-eyes radiating warmth. Charlie had a face that always made Tom feel good, no matter what his mood might be.

  Now, Charlie’s gaze made a quick sweep of the quadrangle, as though to insure their privacy from eavesdroppers. “I can’t say this is for certain,” he said conspiratorially, “but Bob Dehan heard it from Jim Bradley who heard it from the trainer.”

  Tom knew what was coming, but as he didn’t know quite what he wanted to do about it, he chose to stay noncommittal. “Coach Patton made the final cut?” he said carefully.

  Charlie leaned in closer to him, all but bursting with the good news. “He did—and we’re both in.” He clapped Tom solidly on the shoulder and Tom had to work not to wince; Charlie’s face, round and doughy, was deceiving. He was a superbly conditioned athlete, body lean and muscled, quick and lithe as a Varkan jungle cat.

  “I knew you’d make it—nobody can cut around left flank like you—but Dehan swears we’re both on the team.” He stood smiling at Tom, buoyant with anticipation. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means the team has a real shot at being Parrises Squares state champions. Maybe even the nationals. But whatever you do, don’t tell your father until Patton makes it official. Okay?”

  It was only now, Tom realized, that Charlie began to notice his lack of enthusiastic reaction. A slight puzzled frown appeared on his brow and he stepped back slightly as though to scrutinize his friend. “Try to control your excitement,” he muttered, “people might notice.”

  Tom drew a breath. He’d known this moment was coming and he’d chosen to ignore it until it came. Now he honestly didn’t know what he was going to do. As he looked into the cherubic face of the friend he’d known since he was a baby, he felt miserable. And tried to prolong the moment of decision a bit longer.

  “Of course I’m excited,” he began, “but I had a late night. Big test in geomorphology this morning.”

  He wondered if Charlie believed him. His voice sounded hollow in
his own ears and he suddenly wanted to get away from his friend, to run until he fell, exhausted.

  “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?” queried Charlie. “We’ve been waiting for this chance ever since we started playing.”

  Tom was feeling worse and worse. Charlie was right— they’d trained for years to make the team at California’s Academy Institute, Starfleet’s preparatory school, and led it to divisional championships their last two years. How could he tell Charlie he wasn’t sure he wanted to be on the team now that they were at the Academy?

  “Charlie,” he equivocated, “let’s not start celebrating until we know for sure, okay? No point in setting ourselves up for a letdown.” He smiled with what he hoped was reassurance, and kept talking before Charlie had a chance to reply. “I’ll see you tonight. Got to hit the library before that exam.” And he moved away quickly, leaving Charlie standing, slightly perplexed, in the center of the quadrangle.

  The next day, he received a summons to his father’s office.

  Commander Klenman, the clipped British woman who had been his father’s aide for years, smiled warmly at him when he entered. She was a diminutive woman with iron-gray hair and a strong jaw. Her dark eyes were sparkling with some ill-kept secret, and Tom wondered briefly how, if she were ever captured by an enemy, she could fail to telegraph everything she knew.

  “He’s just finishing a transmission with the Vulcan ambassador,” Commander Klenman said crisply. Or maybe it wasn’t so much that she made the statement crisply as her aristocratic accent gave that impression. Tom had always liked Klenman, who had virtually seen him grow up, often attending school functions in his father’s stead when the admiral was otherwise occupied.

  Tom took a seat and the commander smiled at him. “How’s the first month been?” she asked.