Strange New Worlds IV

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Molly interrupted her reverie with a bounding jump and nuzzled beside her. She had no patience for metaphysical speculation, certainly not this early in the morning.

  Suddenly the insistent chime of an incoming communication made Kathryn stand in wonder and walk across a very solid floor and out into her living room. She only briefly wondered as she stepped across its threshold if it would support her weight. The world stayed seamlessly stitched together, however, as she sat before the console and gingerly touched the message light.

  “Hey, Kathryn. Didn’t wake you, did I?”

  Kathryn’s heart twisted painfully for a moment before a wash of joy brought tears to her eyes.

  “Mark.” She caught her breath as she touched the screen.

  “Who did you think it would be? Surely no one else calls you at this hour.” He stopped to look closely at her. “Kathryn, are you all right? You look like you’d just seen a ghost. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing and everything. I don’t know where to begin.” She tried to smile. “Nothing’s wrong, Mark. Everything’s right, but …” She stopped. How could she explain. He didn’t look the least bit surprised to see her. Indeed, he’d obviously expected to see her. She couldn’t just burst out with all of her questions now before she knew what had happened to Voyager. She needed time to think, to investigate her present circumstances, to find some answers. The scientist in her couldn’t accept even this most joyful turn of events, not without a thorough explanation.

  “Mark, I’m fine. Just … just a little off balance this morning. Had a strange dream last night.”

  “I want to hear all about it. Unfortunately I’ve got a meeting in about five minutes, just wanted to see your face this morning before another round of dreariness. Wish you could have come to the conference with me, but I have to say you’re not missing anything.”

  “Except you,” Kathryn said instinctively.

  Mark smiled. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Only a few more days and I’ll be home. Miss you, too. I’ll try to call you tonight if it’s not too late.”

  “It won’t be too late, Mark. Please call.”

  Mark’s grin widened. “I will. And you can tell me all about this dream of yours.”

  His face faded from the screen, but Kathryn continued to gaze into its polished surface. Now her own faint reflection stared back at her as if to ask, Are you crazy, Kathryn Janeway?

  Mark didn’t belong to her anymore. He’d written her in the one communication she’d had from him that he had a wife. He’d loved Kathryn Janeway, but he’d lost her—now he had someone else in his life. But here he was, acting like the old Mark, as if they’d never been apart, as if Voyager had never existed. The thought made her stand and start to pace across the pale carpet.

  Voyager. Just a few hours ago she had told Chakotay good night. They’d had a pleasant dinner, joking about how dull the Delta Quadrant had been lately, how they wished they’d come upon something entirely different, a new alien race, a rare stellar phenomenon, anything to liven up the next few weeks. It was too much to absorb. Where was Chakotay now?

  She stopped in front of the east window that overlooked a pleasant green lawn populated with young oak trees and green hedges. Everything was just as she remembered it. Perhaps the trees were a little taller. A group of children were already playing beneath their arched branches. A young boy of seven or eight ran behind a ball that he had kicked near her house. He bent to retrieve it, and before heading back to his companions, he waved, his dark curls blown back from a high forehead and gray eyes. Kathryn absently waved back. She didn’t remember any of the neighborhood children, she thought sadly. What else had changed in her absence? The pastoral scene was shockingly different from the darkness of space and the sparkle of starlight that she was so used to seeing. Last night Chakotay had stood beside her looking out at that vast familiar emptiness—where was he now? Where was the rest of her crew?

  Her eyes fell on a picture on the mantel. She brushed off quick tears as she took the picture down and studied it. Her mother’s eyes gazed at her with tenderness, and her sister, Phoebe, laughed at her. She longed to go to them, melt into their arms in the joy of the return she’d longed for so many years. And yet her other family called to her. Where were Tom and B’Elanna and Tuvok? Were they all back on Voyager without her?

  “It’s time for some answers,” she said with determination as she set the picture back in place. Kathryn Janeway wasn’t about to accept miracles. She didn’t accept anything that defied the laws of physics, and she wasn’t about to accept this—even if it seemed the culmination of all her hopes and dreams.

  “Computer, locate Commander Chakotay.”

  She heard the chirp of a finch outside her window, but nothing else disturbed the morning silence, except, perhaps, the thud of Molly’s tail as she swished it in recognition of her mistress’s voice.

  “All right. We’ll have to try a little harder.” She patted Molly quickly as she strode to her computer terminal. “First, we’ll find out what day it is,” she said as her fingers touched the interface.

  “Well, the date hasn’t changed. I’m not any younger.” She glanced at Molly ruefully. That ruled out the possibility of some kind of time warp. She frowned as she concentrated on the task at hand. “Let me just access the Starfleet database and see if there’s any information on …”

  She jumped at the sound of the small alert that indicated an incoming communication. When Chakotay’s face filled the screen, she smiled with relief.

  “Chakotay, thank god. I was just trying to locate you. Do you know what’s going on?”

  Chakotay looked relieved as well. “No, I just woke up in my old apartment.” He looked as puzzled and amazed as she felt. “I thought I’d gone on a vision quest that went awry. Then I just thought perhaps I was insane.”

  She smiled. “I’m so glad to see you. At least if we’re crazy, we’ll be crazy together.” It was good to see her first officer, even if he did look a little strange in his civilian clothing. She relied on his calming presence, his steadied reasoned responses; it was good to know he wasn’t half a galaxy away from her.

  “How soon can you get here?” she asked.

  “I’ll catch a transport within the hour.”

  “Good. Until we know what’s going on, I don’t want to alert too many people to our presence. I’ll see if I can find anyone else and we’ll meet in the …” She’d started to say “in the conference room” but caught herself. “In my home.” The words sounded so odd. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I can find it.”

  She hesitated before she broke the connection. “Chakotay.” She paused. “What about your association with the Maquis? Have you seen any evidence that you’re affected by that? Any repercussions?”

  “No. I haven’t had time to find much out about anything. I’ve looked through the papers here in the apartment. I used to live here before I resigned from Starfleet. It’s fairly empty. A few of my old personal belongings, but I’m pretty much in the dark about anything going on outside these walls.”

  “Same here.” She didn’t want to tell him about Mark. Her feelings were too confused on that issue. “I’ll see you soon then. And Chakotay,” she added, “be careful. It would be a good idea to stay as inconspicuous as possible.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Kathryn sat back in her chair. She didn’t feel as alone now as she had a few minutes ago. How odd, she mused, to feel alone here where she’d wanted for six years to be. Shaking her head, she rose and looked at Molly.

  “Come on, girl. Let’s get you some breakfast. Then I’ll look in my closet. Do you think the fashion has changed in six years?”

  It felt odd to see them all in her own home, wearing civilian clothes. She wished with all her heart that this were a real welcome-home party, and not a strategy conference. Tom and B’Elanna had been the last to arrive. They said they’d woken up together in an apartment in Paris. They ha
d no idea why, and neither one of them had recognized the place, although Tom remembered the neighborhood. “I’ll bet that’s not all you remember about Paris,” B’Elanna had said. Tom had just smiled mischievously and quickly changed the subject.

  “Let’s review our findings.” Janeway stood, hands on her hips, her senior staff surrounding her, some standing, some sitting in various chairs she’d collected from the rest of the house.

  “Tuvok, your family is unaware that you ever left them?”

  “That is correct, Captain. I awakened in my own home, exactly as it was six years ago.”

  Janeway nodded. “And what about your imprisonment, Tom?”

  “I made a few inquiries. Evidently I was never sent to prison—but there’s no record of what I’ve been doing for the last six years either.”

  “B’Elanna?”

  B’Elanna shook her head. “I left the Academy, but then it looks as if I just disappeared. Like Chakotay.”

  Janeway looked toward her first officer. “The last record I could find suggested I was a Maquis sympathizer, but no search for my whereabouts is indicated,” he said.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Tom. No one responded to his feeble attempt at humor.

  They all had similar stories. Harry Kim had awakened next to his long-lost fiancée, except that evidently now she was his wife. Those who had friends and relatives had been restored to them; those who had been in compromising situations when they left found themselves with little history, or at least a history that was suspended, and facing no severe consequences. Seven, who had been gone from the Federation much longer than any of the others, had returned to Earth with them. She’d found herself in the town where her parents had lived in a small house by herself. From the scant information she could find, it appeared that she taught astrometrics at the local university. Amazingly, her Borg implants were gone, and she self-consciously stroked her temple as if checking again and again to see if they had reappeared.

  Even Neelix was on Earth. He hadn’t been able to join them yet, but Harry had located him in New Zealand. He knew no one, but people seemed to know him. He evidently owned a local restaurant with a magnificent kitchen he couldn’t help describing to Harry in spite of the bizarre circumstances of their mysterious appearance on Earth itself.

  “Mr. Kim, have you been able to contact the rest of the crew?”

  “Most of them, Captain. They’re all as confused as we are. Some of them are ecstatic, most are wary. I’ve instructed them to stay where they are, attract as little attention to themselves as possible, and stand by for your orders.”

  Harry looked like they all did, dazed, concerned, with an underlying joy that kept trying to break out but was held in by sheer force of will. She didn’t know how long they could hold up under this kind of stress. They’d been through hell together, but could they survive heaven? Because they all knew what she felt in her Starfleet bones. This wasn’t real or it wasn’t right—and it was a kind of torture to be home when they couldn’t accept it, and couldn’t stay. For that was the thought on all of their minds, lying beneath the surface like a dark snake. They couldn’t stay.

  “Tuvok, was Voyager near anything unusual? Did any anomalies at all show up on the sensors that you recall.”

  “Nothing, Captain.” Tuvok looked as uncomfortable as she’d ever seen him. To his logical Vulcan mind this whole ordeal must have shaken his senses like a Vulcan hurricane. To see his family again after all these years and not be able to accept the situation, to be caught up in this dilemma that defied all reason. Next came the question she’d dreaded asking, but she’d put it off long enough.

  “And Voyager?” she asked no one in particular. “Where is Voyager?”

  The room was silent. No one knew. No trace or mention of the Federation Starship Voyager had yet been found.

  “It’s late. I suggest we all take a break. We don’t have Neelix here to cook for us, but there are some delightful restaurants nearby. Let’s meet back here at 2100 hours. Maybe a little food will restore our senses.”

  “But where are we going to find leola root stew around here?” asked Tom. B’Elanna rolled her eyes and put out a hand to drag him to his feet. Everyone else groaned as they made their way to Kathryn’s front door. The sight of them all in civilian clothes walking across her very own rooms still gave Kathryn chills. If only this were truly a homecoming, if only they could all relax and just celebrate their good fortune—but she’d lived through too many deceptions, seen too many betrayals to accept miracles at face value.

  “Care to join me?” She felt Chakotay’s comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “To tell you the truth I’d like to stay right here.” Kathryn placed her hand on the dark surface of her door as it closed behind her guests, “in my own home,” she said, shaking her head with wonder. “But stay, Chakotay. I have no idea what’s in the pantry, but I assume my trusty replicator still works. And for once we don’t have to worry about rations,” she said brightly as she led the way to the kitchen.

  “Ah, hah! At least we have wine.” She pulled a red bottle from the rack on the wall. Chakotay took it from her and proceeded to open it while she brought glasses from the cupboard. The silence, broken only by the soft domestic sound of glass and liquid being poured, intensified the unanswered questions, especially the one question that had hung in the air all day as they sat together trying to fit the pieces together of the most bizarre puzzle they’d encountered in the last six years.

  Kathryn seemed to have forgotten Chakotay’s presence as she lifted her glass and stared at its red liquid, wine that reflected reds and golds, just as it had last night some thirty-five thousand lightyears away.

  “All right.” Chakotay interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll ask it.” She was silent. “What happens if we don’t figure it out? What happens to all of us if we find this is permanent?”

  Kathryn led the way back to the fireplace and sat down wearily in the old leather wing chair that had belonged to her father.

  “I don’t want to think about that yet, Chakotay. I don’t even want to entertain the possibility that we all could actually go on with our lives. Something’s happened that has to be set right.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. This was not the way they thought it would end, this strange, unsettling homecoming—if that’s indeed what it would prove to be.

  The silence was broken by the chime of Kathryn’s door.

  “Sit still. I’ll get it,” Chakotay offered. “Maybe someone’s come up with something,” he said.

  He was surprised, however, when he swung the door open to see, rather than one of his crewmates, a tall striking gentlemen who looked vaguely familiar, and who looked even more surprised than he.

  “Hello,” the man said with a polite smile. “I’m sorry, I expected to see Kathryn.” He held out his hand. “I’m Mark Johnson.”

  “She’s here.” Chakotay shook the hand offered him firmly and motioned Mark into the house. “I’m Chakotay, her … um, an old friend.”

  Hearing the introductions, Kathryn had come to meet them in the hall. “Mark!” It was a meeting she was not prepared for. “It’s really you.” Her eyes misted over as Mark gave her a quick but awkward hug. He looked puzzled and a little uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry to barge in like this.” He glanced at Chakotay. “You looked upset this morning. I left the conference early, not much going on but squabbling anyway.”

  “I can come back later,” Chakotay offered.

  “No,” she said. “I’d like you to stay. I think it’s about time we told Mark the truth.” Both men looked surprised.

  “Come in, Mark. Sit down.” It was the captain’s voice she used now as they dutifully followed her to the next room.

  “Commander Chakotay is not just an old friend,” she said with a slight emphasis on his title.

  Mark looked confused and distrusting as he eyed the man across from him. Chakotay appeared impassive, but Kathryn could tell
he was surprised at her decision to reveal their circumstances.

  “I have to tell him, Chakotay. If I can’t trust him, who can I trust? We need more information, and we need all the help we can get.”

  He nodded. She turned once again to Mark. “It would take hours to tell you everything, Mark. What I’m going to tell you will seem incredible, maybe unbelievable, but please trust me.” Her eyes pleaded with him as she sat down next to him and put her hand on his.

  “Chakotay is my first officer aboard the Federation Starship Voyager. I am his captain.”

  As she finished her tale her voice became softer and she searched Mark’s kind eyes for signs of what he was thinking. Would he believe her? Would he help them?

  “Well,” he said slowly, his eyes meeting hers steadily, “maybe what I came to tell you does make more sense now.”

  It wasn’t the response she had expected.

  “I have friends in high places at Starfleet, as you know. One of them contacted me today with some curious questions. Said you and someone else had been snooping around in Starfleet records.” Her eyes widened. “Also said they’d discovered some kind of tampering. When they looked into it, several pieces of important information had been wiped out of their databases.” He glanced at Chakotay. “Information dealing with the Maquis. In fact, they’re looking into it right now. I believe they’re looking for the commander, along with a woman, someone named B’Elanna Torres.”

  “What for?” Kathryn’s voice was tense.

  “For questioning. You know how things have been at Starfleet since the war. On the other hand, maybe you don’t know. People don’t let go of their fears easily—and fear breeds suspicion. I don’t know exactly what’s going on—you know how I hate politics.” Mark stood and started pacing. “That’s the other reason I came right away. I didn’t want to tell you this over an open comm link.”