Phlox had invited Takashi Kimura to attend his daughter Vaneel’s wedding along with Hoshi; indeed, the doctor had been a witness to Sato’s acceptance of Kimura’s proposal, and had invited them to make it a double wedding. But this had proven impossible. Kimura had sustained severe injuries and brain damage during a battle with V’Las’s revolutionary forces on Vulcan not long ago, forcing him to give up his career as Endeavour’s armory officer. This had been liberating for the couple in a way, freeing them to marry now that they were no longer serving together—but that was one of the few compensations for the ordeal Takashi was now enduring. He was back home in Hokkaido on Earth, going through intensive physical and neuroplastic therapy with his family’s support. Though he’d hoped to make it to the wedding, his therapy was at too sensitive a stage right now, so he’d had to send his apologies. There was nothing Hoshi wanted more than to be with him now to offer her aid and comfort, but her duties to Starfleet and Endeavour had prohibited it, and Kimura had refused to let her sacrifice her career for his benefit.
Though she had to admit, there was a small, traitorous part of her that was relieved not to have to deal with the struggle he was enduring right now—that was glad to skip over it and eventually, hopefully, return to find him recovered and adjusted, or as close to it as his cognitive damage allowed. What did that say about her? Phlox had assured her that it was a natural impulse, one that she would not hesitate to reject given the opportunity to be with her fiancé. Still, she had less faith in her motives than Phlox did.
Yet it was impossible to wallow in regret for long, not while surrounded by dozens of Phlox’s relatives, most of whom were as boisterous and outgoing as he was. The pre-wedding gathering was held in a large rooftop pavilion in the middle of the city, overlooking the wide Gronim River that snaked and twisted among its towers. Since Denobulans rarely slept, they had little need for homes to return to on a nightly basis, and thus they led a peripatetic existence. Most of the structures in the city were for communal use: offices and meeting halls; well-developed research centers, libraries, and schools; stores where goods were loaned freely to those who needed them; theaters, restaurants, and taverns; medical clinics, gymnasiums, and public baths; hallucinatoriums where Denobulans could go to safely indulge and share the altered states of consciousness that served them in lieu of dreams.
Denobulans did have private places of their own—“nests” where they bedded down for their annual hibernation, offices and studios for their work, storehouses for their less transient possessions—but with no permanent homes as such, even family members rarely lived together, which was how they could manage having three spouses apiece who each had two other spouses of their own. It was really only for gatherings like this that entire families came together, requiring the rental of a meeting pavilion. If one could even define an “entire family” with so many branching interconnections. Phlox was probably related through marriage to virtually every other Denobulan on the planet, if you took it through a long enough chain of mutual spouses.
In the case of Vaneel’s wedding, the relevant family on the Denobulan side consisted mainly of the biological parents of the bride—Phlox and his second wife, Feezal, a striking blond quantum engineer whom Sato remembered from her occasional visits to Enterprise and Endeavour over the years—plus their other respective spouses and children. That limited it to a manageable three fathers and three mothers, plus various of Vaneel’s half-siblings and siblings-in-law. Not to mention her first two husbands, a lanky Denobulan performance artist named Thesh and a strongly built human biochemist named Hong Sun-woo. Sato felt that Vaneel had fine taste in men. But then, Phlox’s younger daughter was quite a beauty herself, a gamine strawberry blond with piercing, pale green eyes and an enormous, aggressively warm smile. Vaneel had been attracting suitors for a good two decades now, and she had taken numerous lovers, according to Phlox’s proud boasts; but she had been far more particular in her selection of husbands, accumulating them gradually and one at a time, instead of in pairs or triads as many Denobulans did.
“Which has been to the enduring frustration of my first wife,” Sato heard Phlox saying from behind her as she stared out at the city. She turned to see the doctor approaching with a group including Captain T’Pol, Admiral Archer, and the admiral’s lanky, elegant girlfriend Danica Erickson, along with Phlox’s old Interspecies Medical Exchange colleague Doctor Jeremy Lucas, a cheerful, portly man with a walrus mustache. “Vesena couldn’t be more thrilled that Vaneel is finally completing her triad—particularly with an Antaran. In her mind, that makes this wedding a historic event, and she’s determined to manage it to perfection.”
“I thought the responsibility for planning a Denobulan wedding resided with the biological parents,” T’Pol observed.
“Normally, yes, but Vesena is such a natural leader and organizer. She’s always taken an active interest in the marital prospects of her various offspring, spouses, and more distant relations.”
“Don’t mince words, Dad,” interrupted a mature, balding Denobulan man standing nearby. Hoshi recognized him as Phlox’s eldest son, Vleb, an artist specializing in pottery. Although at the moment his sensitive fingers cradled a more utilitarian vessel, a tall glass containing a rapidly dwindling supply of Denobulan wine. “You mean that Mom is a controlling tyrant who wants everything done her way.”
“She simply wants to see to the well-being of every member of the family,” Phlox replied in more diplomatic tones.
“Which is why she’s not speaking to Groznik—again. And why he had to move clear to another planet to get away from her—again.”
Phlox refused to be baited. “Well, Feezal and I were both busy with matters of our own offworld, so we were happy to let Vesena take charge of planning the wedding.”
“ ‘Busy,’ he says,” Doctor Lucas put in with a Santa Claus chuckle. “Called in to consult with the Klingon High Council, no less. Not many doctors can say they’ve done that and lived to tell about it.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Jeremy,” Phlox replied. “Indeed, a Klingon succession dispute can be downright relaxing compared to planning a Denobulan wedding. At the very least, there are fewer factions whose agendas need to be balanced.”
“I can believe it,” said Dani Erickson in her warm alto voice. She was a tall, brown-complexioned woman with intense dark eyes and a large, ready smile. “I had a hard enough time just dealing with my father while he was alive. I can’t even keep track of how many relatives you have.”
Archer furrowed his brow. “Didn’t you once tell me, Phlox, that your family had something like five hundred . . . no, seven hundred and twenty relationships, forty-two of them romantic? I admit I could never work out the math there.”
“Hmm, let’s see,” Phlox answered. “Ah, yes, that was when I performed the pituitary gland transplant on Porthos. Let’s see, that was several months before Feezal visited Enterprise . . . yes, at the time, there were thirty-one children in the family—limiting it to second-tier relationships for simplicity, of course, so only counting myself, my spouses, their spouses, and our respective children.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “Although I would’ve been excluding my younger two sons, Tullis and Mettus, who weren’t speaking with the rest of the family at the time. Well, Tullis has come around now, at least; he and his wives are right—um, over there somewhere, I think.”
“Oh, I remember Tullis,” Lucas said. “One of those Denobulans who thought that leaving the planet meant betraying their connection to nature.” He turned to the Starfleet officers. “I’m afraid not all Denobulans are as well-traveled as Phlox and most of his relatives. It’s why you don’t see that many of them offworld, compared to their population size.”
“I know,” Archer said. “It’s also part of why the Federation is having so much trouble persuading them to join.”
“Well, there’s always hope, Admiral,” said Phlox. “I’m happy to say that Tullis,
for one, changed his mind years ago. Vaneel deserves the lion’s share of the credit for that, reaching out to him when she married Sun-woo and encouraging him to get to know his new brother-in-law.”
“She’s amazing, that girl,” Vleb interrupted. “Tullis turns his back on the whole family when Rabb moves offworld and marries a Tiburon and a Tellarite.”
“Rabb is their half-brother, Feezal and Bybix’s son,” Phlox interposed for the group.
Vleb went on regardless. “Didn’t speak to us for two decades. I still don’t know how Vaneel talked him around.” The potter took another hefty sip of his drink, then shook his balding head. “Too bad she couldn’t do the same for Mettus.”
An awkward silence fell over the group, and Sato winced to see the pain on Phlox’s face at the reminder of his still-estranged son. After a moment, T’Pol diplomatically resumed the earlier conversation. “Doctor, that would have left twenty-nine children and ten spouses. The total number of relationships among thirty-nine individuals taken two at a time would be seven hundred and forty-one.”
“Ah! Yes, well, you have to realize that Vesena’s son Kornob and his three wives had never met Bybix and the two wives he had at the time, since Kornob lives on B’Saari Two and Bybix lives on Tiburon. So that’s twenty-one potential relationships down.”
“So the forty-two romantic ones?” Dani asked.
“Within two tiers of myself, that includes all the marriages among me, my wives, and their other husbands—that’s ten—plus our children’s marriages, of which there were sixteen at the time. Plus the sixteen potential pairings between co-wives or co-husbands, among those who are receptive to such things.” He gave a wry grin. “I’ve always been a bit disappointed that Kovlin is only interested in females, given how Feezal praises his prowess. I wouldn’t have minded trying it for myself. But to each their own, as the humans say.
“And of course,” he went on, “we’ve had several more marriages in the years since then. Let’s see, Filoona married Tresc, Rabb married Dworra Sindar, Rempal married Morren and Dresp, and of course there were Vaneel’s first two husbands and now Pehle completing the triad. And my third wife, Nullim, has had two children since then—Doulin with her second husband and Kronna with her third. And that’s not even counting the grandchildren! Ah, such a blessing to have a large and growing family.” He smiled at Sato. “As I’m sure you’ll discover yourself in due time, Hoshi!”
Sato gave a feeble smile in response. Fortunately, she was spared from further discussion of her engagement when an early-evening rainstorm broke out. The Denobulans cheered this as an auspicious omen for the impending marriage—not as a superstition, merely an acknowledgment of the vital role the monsoon rains played in sustaining the cycle of life. But out of deference for their offworld guests, they moved the festivities into the open-walled pavilion at the center of the roof. The resultant reshuffling of guests brought Phlox and the Starfleet group in proximity to the bride and groom themselves, and Phlox introduced them to one another with pride.
Vaneel’s fiancé, Pehle Retab, was a tall, robust Antaran man, pale of skin with a high hairline and a set of orbital and frontal ridges whose shape vaguely reminded Sato of the head and horns of an antelope. His long, tan hair was gathered into several tight, intricate braids that jostled one another between his shoulder blades as he moved and spoke with lively energy. Sato continued to approve of Vaneel’s taste in males. “I’m a xenobotanist,” he said to the group. “Once we began to normalize relations with Denobula, I welcomed the chance to come here and study the biosphere—not only the indigenous species, but the way the Denobulans had learned to coexist with them. Our own people have had more difficulty finding a healthy balance with our ecology.”
“Oh, we were far worse than that, my boy.” The speaker was Pehle’s father, Sohon Retab, an older, portlier version of his son with shorter, grayer hair but an impressive, braided beard. “We mismanaged our environment for centuries in the name of easy profit. We made the Denobulans our scapegoats for the mass famines of three centuries ago, but we were at least as much to blame.”
“You’re too kind to our ancestors, Sohon,” Vaneel insisted. “They were the ones who chose to unleash a biological weapon against your crops.”
“But they could not have anticipated how little genetic diversity we had in our key crops. They meant only to weaken our war efforts and our economy, but instead whole staple crops were wiped out planetwide, and twenty million died. The only good thing that can be said of either side in the affair is that it shocked us both enough to sue for peace—even if the only peace our ancestors could agree upon was mutual avoidance.”
“You’ll have to excuse Father,” Pehle said. “Making speeches is an occupational hazard for a legislator.”
“I happen to like his speeches,” Vaneel said, taking Sohon’s arm. “He has a lovely voice. And I like what he has to say.”
“Now, this is why you’re lucky to be marrying her, my boy,” Sohon declared. “She’s smart enough to flatter her future father-in-law.”
“It’s no mere flattery, Sohon. You’ve done so much to change people’s minds on Antar. It’s thanks to reformers like you that I can walk down a street with Pehle in his hometown and feel welcome there.”
“Now you’re the one being too kind, dear girl. I think most of us were ready to let go of our fear of Denobulans. For centuries, the corporate rulers used them as scapegoats for all the restrictions and deprivations they imposed on us—exploited our fear of an outside race to keep us from recognizing the true cause of our problems.”
“A familiar pattern,” T’Pol observed.
“But it didn’t sit well with us. We’ve embraced other cultures since the wars, for the most part. The famines taught us the importance of diversifying our crops, our technologies, our ideas. We’ve eagerly sought out the new and different, made friends with numerous other species, so this vestigial terror of the Denobulans was out of place. Our leaders convinced us—well, we convinced ourselves—that they were the exception to the rule, the one irredeemable race. I think most of us were relieved to discover they weren’t the monsters under our beds after all. And once that particular corporate lie was exposed, it made the people question the rest. And that, not my own meager oratorical skill, is why the Reformists are in power now.”
Phlox smiled. “Even so, Sohon, you deserve a lot of credit for your openness to this marriage. I understand that even today, Antarans have a strong belief in monogamy.”
Sohon cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that took some soul-searching. Until I realized how your system makes sense for your people. You hardly ever sleep! You don’t need to return home every night, and so you wander widely instead. Having more people in your life whose paths can intersect with yours is only reasonable. Besides,” he added with a laugh, “not needing to sleep is the only way one could possibly have time to tend to three spouses!”
Phlox laughed in reply. “Even without sleep, it can be hard to find time for three spouses, with so much else to do. We Denobulans get so caught up in our work—it’s fortunate that we tend to be self-sufficient when it comes to our emotional needs.”
“I imagine that without sleep, you could easily lose track of time. You could be apart for weeks and it would feel little different from hours.” Sohon shook his hirsute head. “I envy that. My wife had to remain on Antar to shepherd a vital piece of legislation through the Council. This is the longest I’ve been apart from her in twenty years, and I feel every moment keenly.”
Pehle grasped his father’s shoulder. “Well, Vaneel has promised not to neglect me—not while I’m awake, anyway. Although she has been trying to convince me to look for at least one more wife.” He drew Phlox’s daughter into his arms. “But I’m afraid I’m the type to love only one woman.” He pulled Vaneel into a kiss, which she returned aggressively.
Nearby, her husbands Thesh and Sun-woo looked on
without jealousy. “Your loss,” the human husband said. “I’ve already got a second wife and my eye on a possible third. So far I’m not having any trouble giving them enough attention, even with the need to sleep.”
“Oh, I can attest to that,” Vaneel said, even as she continued to cuddle with Pehle.
“Honestly, Vaneel,” came a new voice, “I hope you don’t intend to put on public displays like that all the time.” The new speaker was a female Denobulan who resembled Vaneel, but with blond hair and a narrower face.
“Rempal, hello,” Phlox said. “Everyone, this is Feezal and Kovlin’s daughter Rempal—Vaneel’s half-sister.”
“Hello, Rempal,” Archer said. “So . . . you’re Phlox’s wife’s daughter with another husband. Would that make you . . . his niece? Or his daughter-in-law?”
“Second-tier daughter, actually,” Rempal said. “But at this rate I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be gaining any more nieces or nephews myself.”
Vaneel glared. “Rempal!”
“I’m sorry, dear, I’m just worried about you. We don’t know if it’s even possible to have children with a human, let alone an Antaran. I know you think you’re making an important statement and all, and I applaud that, really. But I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of your happiness.”
Vaneel faced her half-sister tensely, crossing her arms. “You just don’t understand. You haven’t even tried. You look at the man I love and all you see is an Antaran. You don’t notice who he is, just what.”
Her words saddened Rempal. “I’ve got nothing against Antarans. This is about you, not him.”
“And that’s exactly the problem! You and your father, you don’t see him. Even Mother Vesena, all she sees is a symbol, a historic first to boast about.”
“And you expect me to believe that isn’t exactly what you want him to be? Considering how important his father is to the peace process?”
“Speaking of peace,” Sohon interposed in a booming voice, “perhaps this is a question better discussed in more private surroundings.”
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