Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  “And what, in your mind, was the cause for the accident?”

  “For some reason, Bruno held his dive a few seconds longer than he should. I can’t explain it. He must’ve misjudged his distance somehow. The second and third ships in the echelon—Cadets Day and Launay—didn’t have enough time to react, and impacted with the asteroid.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “As the trailing vessel, I had a second or so to realize what had happened. My ship got tossed pretty badly by the shock wave from the explosions, but I was able to avoid hitting the asteroid.”

  “I would imagine your piloting skills helped you there.”

  “Maybe so. I think I was just lucky.”

  There was a brief pause as the admirals reviewed their notes. “Tactical logs indicate you did fire your phasers. How did you manage that in the middle of this catastrophe?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I don’t have any memory of it. I was ready to fire, of course, ready to follow Odile in as soon as she pulled up. I must have done it instinctively.”

  The admirals exchanged looks. “Is there anything else you think might be pertinent, Cadet?”

  “No, sir, I think that covers it. But I would like to say, for the record, that Cadets Day, Katajavuori, and Launay were three of the best that Starfleet will ever encounter. It was my honor to be their friend. I don’t believe Cadet Katajavuori’s mishap should in any way be held against him. We all make mistakes. I also accept responsibility for the fact that assigning him to be team leader was my idea. If I hadn’t done that, they might be alive today.”

  There was silence then, a sudden vacuum that left Tom light-headed. He could feel his heart slamming in his chest, and wondered if the others could hear it.

  Finally, Admiral Brand spoke. “Cadet Paris, this has been a tragedy of terrible proportions. The loss of three young lives, lives with such great potential, has left their families bereft and all of us at Starfleet sobered.

  “But we are aware that it has been a terrible loss for you, as well. It is not our desire to make you suffer any more than you have already.”

  Brand paused and glanced briefly at Admiral Paris. “You come of a long line of Starfleet luminaries. Any one of them would tell you that losing those you’ve worked with closely is devastating. But we’ve all been through it. If there is any good to come of this catastrophe, it may be in serving to help you become a better officer in the future, knowing as you do the awful penalty for error. Dismissed.”

  Tom felt his muscles release so suddenly that he was afraid he was going to collapse to the floor. He clutched the sides of the chair and then, as the room began to swim, lowered his head so blood could run into it. Presently he felt stable enough to lift his head, and when he did, his father was kneeling in front of him. Wordlessly, Owen Paris put his hands on the sides of Tom’s face, and gazed at him with unabashed concern. “All right,” he said softly, “all right. It’ll be all right.” And at that, Tom burst into tears.

  “Set a course, Ensign. Warp six.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Tom, now Ensign Thomas Paris, as he keyed in controls that would guide the U.S.S. Copernicus to Betazed. He was eight months into his posting to this Oberth-class ship, a science vessel assigned to collect data on solar winds and magnetic fields in several Alpha Quadrant systems. It wasn’t the most thrilling mission in the world, but that was all right with Tom. He wasn’t looking for excitement and he wasn’t looking for challenges. He put in his duty shift each day, spent several hours in the gym keeping himself in shape, unwound with a few synthehol ales in the evening, spent a night of dreamless sleep, then got up and did the same thing all over again.

  The only variation to this routine came with shore leave on the various planets they visited. During those days and nights, Tom occupied himself exclusively with one activity: the pursuit of women.

  Until his graduation from the Academy, Tom had tended toward stable, long-term relationships, like that with Odile. Since then, he had begun to find women a narcotic, something he craved insatiably, without reason. Sleep came most easily in the entwining arms of a lissome young woman or, lacking that, in fantasies of such a woman.

  It was never difficult to find a willing partner. He was attractive and charming, and he seemed to exude pheromones that left no doubt about his intent. He found most women were attracted to this candidness, almost in proportion to its outrageousness.

  His goal was to keep the dreams at bay.

  One or more of his dead comrades had begun to crop up in his dreams soon after he graduated and received his commission. Almost always, they were re-creations of the good times they’d shared, and Tom found these reminders unbearable. The first time he spent a night with a woman, he didn’t dream at all, and he became determined to repeat this pattern as often as possible.

  Now the Copernicus was on its way to Betazed, a visit Tom anticipated with lustful eagerness. The women of Betazed were known to be both beautiful and liberated, a combination that tantalized him no end.

  And which, as he discovered soon after their arrival at Betazed, was not exaggerated.

  Lissine had hair so dark it seemed almost to shine blue, skin pale as cotton blossoms, and the characteristic black eyes of all Betazoids. She was a civilian scientist in the cosmochemistry lab, with a mind as nimble as a gazelle and a sensuality ripe as a bursting plum. The minute Tom spotted her, he wanted her, and he pursued her with practiced zeal. By nightfall, they were strolling through a lush garden, one of many that dotted the communities of Betazed, whose inhabitants prided themselves on their pastoral settings. Blossoms quivered on their stems at the caress of the night breeze, and flung perfume into the night like fragrant ribbons of silk, wooing the gentle winds. Somewhere in the distance, a woman’s voice sang an achingly beautiful melody, which danced on those same winds, haunting and poignant.

  Tom drew Lissine to a seat on the ground, where a soft pillow of moss nestled them. He was almost giddy from the powerful fragrance of the flowers, the plaintive faraway song, and Lissine’s lush presence. There seemed no need for words. He bent to her, touched her full lips with his, and felt her tremble in excitement. His hands trailed her arms, feeling heat rising from them, and her breath quickened. He kissed her again, more hungrily, aching for her now and knowing she was as eager as he.

  He was light-headed, all but drunk with the moment. The perfume of the flowers overwhelmed him, penetrated him, and the far-off song drilled into his mind. He gasped and inhaled even more deeply, and suddenly the world began to spin. He pulled his hands from Lissine’s willing flesh and held his head as though to steady it.

  “Tom . . .” breathed Lissine, her voice a throaty growl, urgent and needful.

  “What’s happening . . . ?” he stammered, as the dizziness began to pass.

  “I’m touching you . . . your mind . . . with mine. Please . . . don’t shut me out.”

  He had forgotten Betazoid telepathy. He looked at her, saw eyes glistening darkly, mouth parted, imploring. “That’s never happened to me before,” he said, wanting her but wary of this new sensation. She bent toward him.

  “Let go of your apprehensions. It will be wonderful, I promise. The union of our minds will only enhance the pleasure of our bodies.” Her eyes burned in the darkness. “Close your eyes . . . let me touch you . . .”

  Tom hesitated for no more than a second, then closed his eyes. Immediately the intoxicating symptoms returned, but this time he didn’t fight them, and yielded to a sensuality so powerful it took his breath away. His mind went racing through the dark garden, skimmed over treetops, ascended into the night sky and then danced among the stars, which streaked in a multicolored profusion, a kaleidoscope of patterns and mazes, ribbons of silk, a paradise where every sense became mingled and he could taste the colors, see the fragrant breeze, touch it all, everything part of him, spinning in rapture, exquisite, exquisite, until the stars exploded for hours and he undulated among their ecstatic outpourings until later, much late
r, he fluttered gently to earth, dying star-embers drifting with him, falling softly until the mossy ground received him and nestled him warmly.

  Tom opened his eyes. Lissine lay beside him, breathing softly, body moist with bliss. She turned toward him, satiated, and took his hand. “Well?” she asked.

  “That was amazing.”

  She lifted herself on one elbow and looked down at him solemnly. “Tom, there’s something dark inside your mind. Something you’ve locked away so it won’t hurt you. It frightened me.”

  He was silent. He hadn’t anticipated that an erotic telepathic intrusion into his mind might also graze on the secrets held there. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I guess we all have a few demons inside us. But it’s nothing that could ever hurt you, I swear.”

  Her black eyes burned into him. “It hurts you terribly,” she said simply. “I must warn you—after this, you might not be able to keep it shut away so easily.”

  A cold lancet of fear pierced him. What did she mean? Would his awful secret now rise up like a serpent, coiled and ready to strike? His stomach tensed and nausea flooded his throat with bile. He couldn’t talk.

  “If you’d let me, I might be able to help. But first we’d have to talk about it.” Her voice was warm, nurturing. She was offering to be his friend. For a moment he wanted desperately to clutch at this proffered intimacy, hold on to its calm steadiness, pour out everything, all the black truth, and feel the sweet balm of relief soothe his tortured soul. All he had to do was tell her.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, really,” he heard himself saying, and he forced a casual smile. “Maybe you’re seeing monsters where they don’t exist.”

  She didn’t answer, but put her hand on his cheek, staring into his eyes. Fearful that she was trying to invade his mind again, he focused on shutting her out. After a moment, she dropped her hand and looked away. “I’m sorry for you, Tom,” she said in a whisper so soft he could hardly hear her. “I’m so sorry.”

  And then she was moving away, a rustle of clothing brushing through the flowers, until she was gone and he could hear nothing.

  The distant song had ceased. A stillness pervaded the garden, a silence as vast as the reaches of space. He felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

  They came to him in his quarters aboard the Copernicus. He had followed his usual routine, serving his watch, working out in the gym, and then stopping by the officers’ mess for a few bottles of ale, finally returning to his quarters and falling into bed. He had eschewed synthehol for genuine alcohol, finding that he fell asleep more easily if his senses were truly deadened.

  The sleep hadn’t been dreamless lately, which bothered him. He had succumbed to a kind of nocturnal mania, pursued by dreams that were vivid and charged. He would wake with his heart thudding in his chest, gasping for breath, flooded with some anchorless anxiety whose underpinnings had vaporized the instant he woke up. He knew he had dreamed, but he couldn’t remember what. He considered going to the ship’s physician, but didn’t want to undergo questioning as to the possible causes of his anxiety.

  It had been like this since his experience with Lissine, and her ominous portent echoed in his mind. She was right: some sleeping giant had been wakened in his mind, and was stirring restlessly, massive limbs flexing, preparing to break free. The thought filled him with dread.

  On this particular night he had drunk enough that he fell asleep—passed out—as soon as he lay down. Later he would realize that he hadn’t dreamed before he woke, the first such occasion in many nights. But what greeted him instead was far worse.

  His eyes snapped open suddenly in the darkness at an imagined sound—at least he thought it must be imagined, because he couldn’t account for it otherwise. It was a faint sigh, as though wind were slipping through an abandoned attic, but of course there was no wind on a starship.

  A motion caught at the corner of his eye and he swung his head toward the window, which looked onto space. A dark silhouette stood there, rimmed by the streak of warp stars. The features were dark and indistinguishable, but from the tuft of hair that protruded from the top of the head, there was no mistaking who it was.

  It was Charlie.

  Terror clutched at him and his hands began to shake violently. He clawed awkwardly toward the control pad at his bedside, desperate to turn the lights on and banish this unwelcome visitor. In his panic he couldn’t find the pad in the dark, and he began pushing frantically at all the controls, hoping to find the lights at random. Nothing happened. He was afraid to glance back over his shoulder toward the window, for fear Charlie’s figure would be moving toward him, ready to reach out and seize his shoulder. Frenzied, he pounded his fist on the controls—

  Light erupted into his eyes, blinding him briefly, and then he forced himself to look back toward the window to verify that the apparition had vanished.

  Charlie stood there, silent, pale skin etched with blood, staring at him not in accusation, but in wistful sadness.

  And flanking him were Odile and Bruno.

  Tom’s body jerked in a violent spasm, and he hoped he was having a heart attack, that death and oblivion would overtake him swiftly and he could be free forever of these awful specters. But he remained conscious, chest squeezed in a vise, perspiration spilling from his pores, eyes locked on the frightful visages before him. Their sadness was far worse than anything else he could imagine—if they were angry, or threatening, he could almost bear it, but this awful melancholy was terrible to behold. Through his panic, the thought occurred to him that they were sorry for him, but that didn’t make any sense, because he had cheated death and they had died at his hand.

  He tried to scrabble backward on the bed, to get away from them, to get to the door, but his body wouldn’t obey his commands. It was like the dream everyone has had when they are trying to run from a monster, but the limbs are agonizingly slow, trapped in molasses, and instead of running one can only move in frustrating slow motion. He felt himself inch across the bed, kicking at the blanket, terrified that they would try to move toward him, would overtake and overwhelm him, smothering him in the putrefaction of the grave.

  He tumbled onto the floor and could only scoot backward across it, for what seemed long minutes, eyes still firmly locked on the three apparitions, finally bumping into the door of his quarters, which opened automatically at his touch and closed behind him. Once in the corridor, he tried to get to his feet, but his legs seemed boneless, and he collapsed again to the floor. All he could do was to crawl on his hands and knees, which he did, like a demented six-month-old, all the way to sickbay.

  The next several days passed in a haze. He had medical evaluations, psychological evaluations, medications, interviews. Through it all, he insisted he had to return to Starfleet Headquarters as soon as possible, an unacceptable demand from a junior officer, even one whose mental stability the captain of the Copernicus had begun to question. Finally it was the name of Paris that prevailed, Tom in his desperation invoking his father and imploring the captain to respect the line that had served Starfleet so well for so long.

  And so it was that Tom was returned to San Francisco by shuttle, piloted by a lieutenant whose orders were never to leave Tom unattended because there was genuine concern about the possibility of his doing damage to himself.

  That was fine with Tom, who more than anything else wanted to avoid being alone. He forced himself to stay awake as much as possible, only occasionally dozing off and then jerking awake in terror, afraid of another visitation from three people he knew couldn’t really be visiting him.

  But each time his head snapped up in fright, he saw only Lieutenant Pierson glancing over at him to make sure he was all right.

  The second hearing in the windowless room was much briefer than the first. The same three admirals were there, with their aides, as he confessed to his awful lie and correctly assumed responsibility for the terrible tragedy in the Vega system’s asteroid belt.

  His father wa
sn’t there this time. In the end, only his mother stood with him, misery etched on her face but love ultimately stronger than pain. Head erect, proud, she stood next to him as he was officially cashiered out of Starfleet, not for the deed, but for the lie, the damning, dishonorable lie which wrongly cast blame on one of his fellows, a betrayal so heinous and unthinkable he would carry it with him the rest of his life.

  Even his mother’s forgiveness, which was vast and all-encompassing, couldn’t lighten that burden.

  For a period of time, he drifted. Long accustomed to the vastness of space, he discovered the immensity of Earth, transporting variously to places with names he’d never heard, much less contemplated visiting. Bamako . . . Mopti . . . Ende . . . Telde . . . He stared, unmoved, at cliff dwellings that perched precariously atop a sandstone escarpment and that had been in continuous use for almost fifteen centuries. Vibrant desert life swirled around him in cacophonous symphony: the beating of a ritual drum, crying infants, a donkey braying, the heated voices of Elders in argument, laughter, and the strange melodic piping of a wooden whistle. It was a magical concoction, historic and vital, but Tom found nothing remarkable there and moved on.

  Ihlara . . . the Peristrema Gorge, where ancient Byzantine churches were carved into canyon walls, replete with crumbling frescoes of various saints and religious figures, a holy place of the long past. Tom looked, and felt nothing.

  Lahore, and the famed Shalimar gardens . . . Kathmandu and the temple of Pashupatinath, dedicated to Shiva, the awesome creator/destroyer god . . . Songpan and the habitat where giant pandas were rescued from extinction three hundred years before and now thrived in roly-poly fecundity . . . Tom searched desperately for the experience that would reawaken something in him, anything that would stir his deadened spirit.