by Mosaic
Mary was instantly sympathetic. "I don't understand. What do they have against Parrises Squares?"
"You won't believe this-they think it's too easy for me."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"And I have to keep taking tennis lessons because it's hard for me." Mary's grave face stared out from the screen. "Your parents do have some funny ideas sometimes."
"Well, I'm going to show them. They can make me keep taking tennis, but I don't have to like it. And I'm never going to be any good at it. Sooner or later, they'll see it's a waste of time."
And having made that decision, Kathryn began to feel a lot better. She reached down and scratched Bramble on the tummy, his favorite place, and he rolled over on his back in ecstasy.
But then Daddy came home with his amazing news, and she forgot all about tennis.
She was going to take her first trip into space. Her first ride on a shuttle. Her first visit to Mars Colony.
"I have to go next week," Daddy explained to all of them-her, Phoebe, and Mommy-as they sat around the dinner table. Kathryn was only picking at her food, partly from excitement and partly because she preferred replicated food over the meals that her mother cooked with real food. Why couldn't they do things like other people?
"Starfleet's sending a group to examine the colony's defense systems. It will take a couple of days and I thought maybe it was time for Goldenbird to get a taste of spaceflight."
Kathryn's heart hammered in her chest. A trip with Daddy-and not just a trip but a visit to another planet! She'd been dreaming of this since she'd been old enough to realize that people could travel through the stars to other worlds.
"I want to go, too!" yelped Phoebe. Kathryn's head whipped toward her instantly.
"You can't. You're too little."
"Kathryn..." murmured her mother.
"Daddy, can I? Can I go, too?" Phoebe's impish face looked imploringly at her father, blue eyes wide and intense. She looked so pathetic that for a brief moment Kathryn thought Daddy might actually say yes. "I'm sorry, Phoebe, but Starfleet has rules. You're a little young." Phoebe's eyes welled up with tears, and even Kathryn felt sorry for her. "Phoebe, you can use my padds while I'm gone. As long as you're careful." Now the blue eyes turned toward her, tears instantly retreating. "I can?" Phoebe constantly badgered Kathryn to use her padds, with their myriad games, stories, and songs.
"That's very thoughtful, Kathryn," said her mother. And it was. Ordinarily she wouldn't let Phoebe within ten meters of her things. But she could afford to be generous tonight. She was going to Mars!
The transport to San Francisco was no different from any other: a brief moment of disorientation as one's vision obscured, then a tingling sensation as different surroundings sparkled into clarity. Kathryn and her father materialized on one of the transporter pads of Starfleet Headquarters; waiting for them was a small retinue, including an admiral, two captains, and a lieutenant who stood deferentially behind the others.
"Well, Edward," said the admiral to her father, "whom do we have here? A stowaway?" He was a tall, florid man with Irish red hair that didn't quite look under control. His smile was lopsided and cheerful.
"A future cadet, I hope. Admiral Finnegan, may I present my daughter, Kathryn."
Kathryn knew how to behave in situations like this. She approached the man, offered her hand, and said, "How do you do?"
The older man smiled down at her. "I do very well, beautiful lady. How about you?"
She blushed at his compliment. "Fine, thank you, sir." She was wearing a brand-new turquoise jumpsuit that her mother had replicated for the occasion, and she imagined that it resembled the uniforms worn by her father and the others. She felt crisp and military. "Captains Laurel and Dobrynin, Lieutenant Kashut, Kathryn Janeway." Kathryn shook hands with each of them, solemnly and politely. "Shall we?" Admiral Finnegan gestured again toward the transporter pad. "Our shuttle is ready and we have a pilot standing by."
And once more they dematerialized, only to find themselves, seconds later, in the spacedock which orbited Earth's northern hemisphere. Kathryn had never seen anything so astonishing. It was huge, with cavernous hangars and dozens of docking piers, cargo bays, and corridors. Windows to space were everywhere, affording incredible views. Earth swam below them, blue and cloud-shrouded, a stately orb that soared majestically in the starry heavens.
Kathryn had seen pictures, of course, but nothing had prepared her for the sight of her planet from space. She stood at one of the huge windows, staring at the jeweled sphere, trying to figure out where Indiana was. "Amazing, isn't it?" She looked up to see her father standing next to her. "I remember the first time I saw Earth like that. I was about your age."
"Is that when you decided to join Starfleet?"
He smiled at her, gray eyes crinkling at the edges. "I think I decided that before I was born."
"Did you mean it when you told them I'd be a cadet someday?"
"Only if that's what you want."
"It is, Daddy. More than anything."
He put a hand on her shoulder and looked down at her for a moment. He did that from time to time, and Kathryn never knew what he was thinking. "We're ready to go now," he said, and she took his hand as they entered the shuttlebay.
Standing at stiff attention next to a Starfleet shuttle was a cadet wearing the uniform of Starfleet Academy. He looked very odd to Kathryn. His skin was a light golden color, and his eyes were pale. She tried not to stare at him. Admiral Finnegan nodded to the cadet as they entered the shuttle. "We have a very important young guest today, Mr. Data, so make this flight nice and smooth."
"Yes, sir," replied the cadet. He had a gentle, soothing voice. Kathryn looked up at him as she passed by, and this time he didn't look so strange. He had an air of imperturbability that was appealing. The group took their seats in the shuttle, and the cadet boarded last. He began working the controls, and Kathryn was reminded of her piano teacher, whose fingers roamed so effortlessly and precisely over the keys. "Shuttle Curie to docking control. Ready for pre-launch sequencing." The cadet's voice was as confident and poised as his demeanor. "Control to Curie. Prelaunch sequencing under way. You may proceed." The cadet continued his manipulation of the controls.
The hatch closed, the shuttlebay decompressed, and the small craft lifted smoothly off the deck, heading for the giant doors which even now were gliding open.
"Shuttle Curie to docking control. Approaching portals. Ready for egress."
"Go ahead, Curie. Smooth sailing."
Kathryn held her breath. It was a regal moment, endowed with wonder and mystery. Gracefully, silently, the vessel passed through the massive portals and into the inky void of space.
Only the faint hum of the impulse engines broke a silence that seemed almost holy. Kathryn sat with nose pressed against a window, staring back as the spacedock receded from view, growing smaller and smaller until she could no longer see it. Earth was diminishing, too; soon it was a small blue dot and finally only a circle of light.
Three hours later, Mars became a visible disk. Kathryn stared as it grew larger and larger; the first discernible feature she spotted on it was a whitish spot, almost like a tiny star, twinkling at one edge of the disk. "That's the southern polar cap," said Daddy, as though reading her mind. "It's always the first thing you notice on Mars. Even though the planet's been terraformed, the southern polar cap is still frozen-but it's mostly carbon dioxide that's frozen, not water."
Kathryn searched her memory for her history lessons, and wished she had given them as much time and attention as she had science and mathematics. She vaguely remembered reading about the colonization of Mars, but it had struck her at the time as somewhat unremarkable. After all, space travelers now flew to other systems, other sectors; what was so amazing about a colony in one's own planetary system?
But as multi-hued Mars loomed in front of her, it seemed extraordinary indeed. Patches of red were still visible on the planet-oxidized dust, which had gi
ven it the nickname "the red planet" several centuries ago. But now there were vast areas of blue and green, and wisps of white water-vapor clouds hanging in the atmosphere. It didn't look like Earth, but it looked like a fertile, living planet. The transformation had been a massive undertaking, made possible with help from the Vulcans, the first offworld species to make contact with humans. That memorable meeting had taken place in 2063, the year Zefram Cochrane had launched the first warp flight and alerted the spacefaring Vulcans that Earth was ready to take its place in the interplanetary community. Kathryn had studied all that in her history class. How Cochrane's revolutionary discovery had lifted Earth from the chaos it had endured in the early part of the twentyfirst century, how the arrival of the Vulcans had forged an alliance that carried Earth into a technological renaissance that eventually resulted in the creation of such nowfamiliar conveniences as replicators and transporters.
But the first great project was the colonization of Mars, and she was not clear on the details. However, she was not about to admit that to her father, and so she affected a nonchalant attitude and informed him, "I know all about that, Daddy. We studied it in school."
And so there was no more discussion of Mars, even though Kathryn would love to have heard the details.
Soon they docked at Utopia Planitia, the huge orbiting space station that also served as a shipbuilding facility for Starfleet, and then were transported into an operations center on the surface. It was a large room full of equipment-consoles, monitors, what seemed like thousands of blinking colored lights-and people busy manning that equipment. Kathryn was fascinated. She wanted to stay in that room and try to figure out exactly what everyone was doing, what function all those blinking lights served. But that was not to be.
"Mr. Data, would you please give our young guest a tour of the colony? You're familiar with the place, aren't you?" Kathryn noted that Admiral Finnegan's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. "Indeed, sir. I completed an engineering honorarium here a year ago. I am thoroughly familiar with the colony and its environs." The cadet turned to Kathryn. "I would be pleased to act as your guide, Miss Janeway." Kathryn smiled inwardly at the man's formality, but she would never show her amusement-that would be impolite. Solemnly she looked at him and said, "Thank you, sir."
Kathryn looked at Daddy, who was already moving off with the others, heads together, in deep conversation. She felt a momentary twinge of something she couldn't identify as she saw him walking off. She was alone here, on another planet, and Daddy was leaving her. She felt her heart start to beat more quickly, and there was a funny sensation in her stomach. Then she heard the cadet's quiet, placating voice. "Strictly speaking, Miss Janeway, it is not necessary for you to address me as "sir." I do not outrank you, for you have no Starfleet rank at all."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Data would be satisfactory."
"Data?" Kathryn tried to find a polite way to phrase her next question. "Is that a common name among your species?"
"I have no species. I am an artificial intelligence, and so far as I know, the only one of my kind."
Kathryn stared at him. She knew she was being rude, but she could hardly believe her ears. "Are you saying... you're not real?"
"I assure you I am quite real. However, I lack any true biological component. I was constructed and then programmed." And, to demonstrate, he snapped open a portion of his wrist.
Kathryn almost jumped. Revealed under his skinskin?-was a mass of circuitry, a complex web of optical fibers and blinking lights. She looked up at him, amazed, and dozens of questions began flooding her mind. "Who made you? And programmed you? Where did it happen? How did you get into Starfleet Academy-was Suddenly she stopped and covered her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm being too curious. Mommy says I have to be careful or I might hurt people's feelings."
"I have no emotions which might be wounded, so you may feel free to ask me any question you like. I shall be happy to respond."
And as they toured Mars Colony, Data began to tell her about his unique origins. Within minutes, Kathryn had lost her anxieties, and found that she was in fact comfortable asking him anything and everything, for he seemed to know more than anyone she'd ever met, even Daddy. "Terraforming Mars was a viable concept by the end of the twentieth century," he told her. "But all the theorizing was done envisioning only the technology that existed at the time. No one ever imagined making contact with the Vulcans, or what a technological breakthrough they would help us establish."
They were walking outside in a Martian atmosphere that no longer required spacesuits or even 02 concentrators to breathe. Before them swept a vast plain studded with oak trees-genetically engineered, to be sure, but recognizable just the same-that grew to towering heights because of the low Martian gravitational pull. Beyond that lay the deceptively gentle slope that led to the top of Olympus Mons, the highest point on Mars (and three times as high as Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth); it, too, was covered with trees, though pines predominated at the upper elevations. "Warming the planet was accomplished in a fraction of the time twenty-first-century scientists had predicted. Water and oxygen were liberated from the subterranean permafrost and genetically engineered bacteria were introduced into the terrain. This began the terraforming pro- cess. There were colonists living on Mars as early as 2103, but they needed atmospheric suits in order to breathe outside a biosphere. Not quite one hundred years after that, Mars possessed a breathable atmosphere." They had approached a huge, man-made quarry that, Kathryn noted, contained water. "These are quarries left by the first mining projects on Mars," explained Data. "The earliest colonists utilized local resources, mining the elements to build habitable structures."
Some of Kathryn's history lesson came back to her. "They mined something that helped them make concrete...."
"This is correct. Basaltic regolith exists in large quantities on this planet. Refined and mixed with water, it forms a crude concrete. This process was far more efficient than trying to bring building materials from Earth."
"Why is there water in the quarry now?"
"When the quarries were abandoned, they filled with water from the underlying cave systems. Mars had quite a wet beginning, you see; rivers, streams, and lava flows carved caves just as they did on Earth." The pale being stared down into the clear water of the quarries. "In summer these quarries are quite popular as swimming sites." He glanced down at his small charge. "Although I am told that adults frown on children utilizing them in that way, since they are not serviced by lifeguards."
Kathryn smiled to herself. This fascinating person said things that were funny, yet she was sure he didn't intend them that way, or even realize that's how they came out.
But her mind had filed away an interesting piece of information: children weren't supposed to swim in the quarries. Why that seemed interesting, she wasn't sure, but it did.
CHAPTER 5
HARRY KIM WAS FASCINATED. FOR THE PAST TWO HOURS, THE trail of burial markers had led the group from one site to another, each one larger and more elaborate than the one before. The arrangements of the flying creatures delicate skeletons became more complex as they went, curves and loops and spirals composed of the bleached white bones of the beings who had once inhabited this place. "What do you think it means, Lieutenant?" he asked Tuvok. "It seems as though we're being led somewheresomewhere important."
Tuvok, he knew, was more concerned with reestablishing contact with voyager than with conjecturing about an archaeological site. But Harry also knew that it wasn't unusual for an away team to lose temporary contact with the ship, as there were many kinds of interference that would cause trouble with the long-range comm system. And he was too caught up in the present mystery to worry unduly about what was probably a routine mishap. He waited until he had Tuvok's attention.
"It may be," the Vulcan mused, "that the eventual goal will be what the inhabitants considered the most important site-the grave of a leader or great dignitary, or possibly the
location of sacrificial offerings." Harry stared at the intricate grouping of skeletons that lay before them, dozens of them laid out in a series of concentric circles. Was it possible these magnificent creatures had been sacrificed to some deity, living or imagined? The thought gave him a chill, even though he knew through his studies that many species-including his own-had at one time performed such rituals.
Unbidden, the moment of sacrifice flashed through his mind: a priestly knife held high, plunging, gouts of blood spraying a feathered spasm, then stillness, great wings forever closed. He shook his head to clear it of such disturbing thoughts and began to search for the next blue spire, the marker for the next site.
He couldn't find it.
Perplexed, he turned toward Tuvok, who was also scanning with both eyes and tricorder, his dark forehead furrowed. "I don't get it, sir," said Harry. "It doesn't seem like this should be the end of the line-there's nothing particularly special about this site."