"I guess so. And ... now I think maybe she likes me, too."
Wesley looked mildly surprised, both at what Ken had said-and the simple fact that he"d actually said it. "You think she does? Ken, there"s only one way to find out."
"How?" Ken"s tone was guarded.
"You know how-ask her out."
"But you"ve already gone out with her."
"We haven"t gone out out," Wesley said with a dismissive wave. "Not like real dates. We just sort of do things together. It"s like I tried to tell you-Gina and I are just friends." As Ken"s expression revealed his serious consideration of dawning possibilities, Wes added, "So far."
They were interrupted by Guinan"s return with their food and drinks, and they straightened abruptly and tried to make the awkward pause in their conversation seem nonchalant. Wesley could tell that his little addendum had shaken Ken"s barely stirring confidence-which was the exact reaction he"d hoped for. In fact, Wesley had at times thought of Gina as potentially more than just a friend. Perhaps much more.
But he also knew the reality of circ.u.mstance, and in all likelihood, he"d soon be leaving the Enterprise for Starfleet Academy. As much as he might like Gina, he didn"t know if it would be a good idea to start a relationship that would have to be suspended by separation. From everything he"d heard, the first year at the academy was anything but easy. He had been warned to keep distractions to a minimum-and what could be more distracting than a long-distance relationship? I don"t need to be pining away for someone when I should be studying my brains out.
Besides, Wesley had no real idea if Gina was interested in a more serious relationship. He"d never asked her. So, all things considered, he"d made up his mind to encourage Kenny to go for it. But he didn"t want to make things too easy. He hoped the specter of compet.i.tion might motivate Ken to boldly go where he hadn"t had the nerve to go before.
As soon as Guinan had put their tray down and departed, Kenny hunched forward with a worried furrow across his brow. "What do you mean, "so far"?"
"Oh, nothing. Just that maybe I might ask her out-unless you beat me to it."
"Oh, I don"t know. Maybe she doesn"t like me," Ken moaned, his resolve deserting him. Then he sipped his coffee, swallowed painfully, and made a disgusted face. "You"re right. I don"t drink black coffee."
"That doesn"t mean you can"t ask Gina out. What"s the worst that could happen?"
"What"s the worst that could happen?" Ken rolled his eyes. "She could say no."
"So? Then you"ll be no worse off than you are now."
"Except for my fragile ego getting stomped flat on the deck."
Wesley gave his friend a sardonic half-grin. "Trust me-egos are reinflatable. I read it in one of my mom"s medical texts."
Ken managed a laugh, then spotted something across the room that brought a plainly pained expression to his face. "Uhhh-this whole discussion may just have been rendered academic," he said, looking past Wesley.
"Huh?"
"Over there," Ken said, nodding with his chin.
Wes turned to look over his shoulder at a table where a half-dozen young people were seated. And there was Gina, just getting up-her hand clasped by a solidly built young man with wavy hair.
"She"s holding hands with Coggins? I don"t believe this," Wesley said, his disappointment obvious.
"He"s got shoulders out to here," Ken whined as he slouched down in his seat. "Do you think she saw us?"
"I don"t think so. And they"re leaving ... together." Wesley"s eyes tracked Gina and Coggins until they"d reached the door. Then he turned away and leaned forlornly on one elbow. That was when he saw that Ken had perked up noticeably. "What"re you staring at?"
Ken not only did not reply-he seemed not to have noticed the question. So Wesley turned again to follow his friend"s gaze-and realized that the object of Ken"s attention was the only girl still at the other table, with three remaining male companions. She had an ivory complexion, dark hair past her shoulders, and a musical laugh that carried across the room.
"Polly Park," Wes said in admiring appraisal, "has the longest legs I have ever seen."
Ken"s mouth quirked in annoyance. "I suppose you"ve asked her out, too?"
"Nooo. But I"ve thought about it."
"So we"re back where we started from-just with a different girl."
"Why? Were you planning to ask her out?"
"Maybe."
Wesley flashed a challenging smile. "She"s too tall for you, Ken."
"Oh, yeah?" Ken slid out of the booth and stood, stretching to his full height. "Let her tell me that."
"Where"re you going?"
"To ask out Polly Park."
As Ken marched across Ten-Forward, Wesley watched him go. That"s more like it, Kenny, he thought. Make it so.
Picard, Arit and Keela stood on a cliff, overlooking a canyon so deep that they could barely hear the white-water river rushing along the bottom of the gorge. Rainbow mists clung to the canyon walls, and a choir of animals, hidden among peaks and ridges that extended to every horizon, bayed at the setting sun. As a gentle breeze riffled through the manes of mother and daughter, Picard marveled at the bond between them. Even envied it a little.
The Tenirans had struggled mightily to hold together what remained of their families and their society, and he hoped that struggle would soon reach a happy conclusion.
He also found himself thinking about his own family ties. He"d spent all those years-all his adult life, really, after the deaths of his parents-estranged from his brother. How peculiar then that his recovery from the Borg ordeal had not felt complete until his return home to Earth to make his cranky peace with Robert.
That trip had also enabled him to forge new links with Robert"s wife Marie, whom he hadn"t even met in person before, and with the next generation of Picards, his nephew Rene.
Rene, who wants to grow up to be a starship captain like the uncle he barely knows ... It seemed wondrous to Picard that he could have been such a presence in his brother"s family despite his physical absence.
For years, he had considered that separation from his blood relatives an unbridgeable rift. He and Robert were just too different, and too d.a.m.ned stiffnecked to acknowledge the love and respect that bound them together. It had been much easier to perpetuate their differences than to accept them and get on with the business of being brothers.
Picard had made his choices, and he"d been living with them for twenty years or more. Counselor Troi would probably have characterized it as compensation or somesuch, but he had come to believe that his family was right here aboard the Enterprise-the officers who were like brothers and sisters and children to him, the people who gave his life shape and meaning.
After that visit home, though, he had happily found that his view had changed. His crew members were still his everyday family; but his new and renewed bonds with his real family back on Earth were what made him more whole than he"d been in years.
And now, the Tenirans were on the verge of being whole once again.
"Tenira must have been a beautiful place," Picard said in a soft voice.
"It was, Picard. It definitely was. I don"t know how to thank you for letting me visit it one more time." Arit sighed and glanced down at the child clinging to her hand, looking across the canyon with wide, wondering eyes. "For letting us visit it."
"My pleasure."
"Keela, this cliff is where your father and I were married."
"Really?"
"Mm-hmm. We traded our vows at sunset on a day just like this. At least, I remember it like this." With a final lingering look, Arit turned away from her past and started back down a trail that wound through a tall stand of golden trees.
"You can stay a little longer if you like," Picard said.
But Arit shook her head. "No ... it"s time to go."
It didn"t take them long to reach the holodeck"s access archway. "Save program," Picard said as the door slid aside and they exited into an Enterprise corridor.
"Save it?" Arit asked. "Why?"
"Someone may want to visit Tenira again someday."
Picard led them back toward the bridge via a corridor lined with observation portals. As they neared a turbolift, the intercom pager beeped. "Riker to Captain Picard."
Picard touched his uniform communicator. "What is it, Number One?"
"Message from the Glin-Kale, for Captain Arit."
Picard looked at her. "Would you like to take it privately?"
"No." She took a deep breath of foreboding. "Whatever it is, you may as well hear it, too."
"Will, transfer it down here, please."
"Aye, sir."
At Picard"s nod, Arit found her voice. "Captain Arit here."
"This is Valend Egin, Captain." Egin spoke in an officially momentous cadence. "The Council has finished its deliberations."
"And what have you decided?"
Arit held her breath-and so did Picard.
"The surviving elected government of Tenira has decided ... to accept the offer of the Shapers."
Arit exhaled and grasped Picard"s hand. "Good, Egin. Have you announced it to the ship yet?"
"No, we have not," Egin said. "As Captain, yours is the voice our people are most accustomed to hearing. We felt that should be your duty-and privilege."
"Maybe he"s not as bad as I thought," Arit whispered to Picard. "Uhh, thank you, Egin. I"ll be returning shortly. We"ve got a lot of preparations to make. Arit out."
She had let go of Keela"s hand during her conversation with Egin, and found that her daughter had drifted over to a nearby observation window. Arit touched the little girl"s head. "Back there on Captain Picard"s holodeck-that was our old home. And that ..." She and Keela both gazed out at the blue-white globe just outside. "That will be our new one."
Epilogue.
CAPTAIN"S PERSONAL LOG, Stardate 44295.7. An interesting denouement to our surprising encounter at Domarus Four, which shall henceforth be referred to as Mirrillon, the name given to it by its native inhabitants, the Shapers. Our shuttle and its crew have, of course, been returned to us. We have made friendly contact with an unusual life-form previously unknown to us. And the Tenirans have a world to share, a splendid new place to call home.
COMMANDER RIKER strode into a cargo bay buzzing with activity, and found Engineer La Forge surveying a dozen jumbo containers queued up near the cargo transporter. Each one measured four meters high by five on each side, and a half-dozen technicians were busy checking logs listing the containers" contents and making sure they were ready to be sealed.
"Progress report, Geordi?"
"Good work."
"Thank you, sir," La Forge said casually.
"No, I mean it, Geordi," Riker said, shaking his head in amazement. "I never realized how fast we could mobilize-you and your staff have shipped an incredible amount of survival gear down to Domarus."
"You mean Mirrillon."
"Right. Mirrillon." Riker grinned. "We never had that much of a chance to get used to calling it Domarus, so it shouldn"t be too hard to adjust to a new name."
"Especially now that both the Tenirans and the Shapers want Mirrillon to join the Federation. How long before supply ships get here to provide the Tenirans all the stuff we couldn"t give them?"
"Two weeks or less. You"ve scrounged up more than enough to tide them over."
"Well, in spite of the way we met them, they do deserve a break in the luck department."
Riker nodded. "Amen to that."
Picard stood in the center of the Enterprise bridge, facing Arit"s image on the main viewscreen. "I know the accommodations will not be luxurious, but they will keep you warm and dry."
"Luxury can come in due time, Picard. For now, you have no idea what it means to us just to be able to call someplace, other than the Glin-Kale, home. So, for now, warm and dry will be more than enough reason for thanksgiving."
"Thanksgiving," Data said, looking up brightly from his console. "That brings to mind an episode from the history of the United States of America on Earth. Settlers fleeing religious persecution by the nineteenth-century monarchy of England established a colony on the North American continent, known as Ma.s.sachusetts, and they received considerable a.s.sistance from the native population during their early months of residence in what was, to the colonists, a harsh and unknown environment."
The turbolift whooshed open and Riker came onto the bridge in the middle of Data"s recitation.
"Following their first year of survival," Data continued, "colony leaders declared a feast of thanksgiving and invited members of the native tribe which had helped them. That feast became a regular holiday which is still celebrated some eight centuries later. Many other cultures throughout the galaxy have a.n.a.logous celebrations."
"Tenira never had such a holiday, Commander Data," Arit said, "but maybe it"s time to start a new tradition. Of course, I"m not sure whether the Shapers would appreciate a feast. But Captain, one year from today, you and your crew are invited to return to Mirrillon to join us in our thanksgiving celebration."
"We"d be honored to do so."
"Perhaps I"ll cook you some fish, Picard," Arit said with a grin as a young female officer approached and whispered a relayed message to her. "Very good, Lieutenant. Captain, I"ve just been told your crew has beamed down the last supply shipment to the planet. I guess that means you"ll be on your way."
Picard nodded. "We have a delayed mercy mission to complete, so we are in a bit of a hurry. We have already transmitted Mirrillon"s application to the Federation Council. I am sure a positive response will be arriving with the first a.s.sistance teams."
"Well, Captain-there is no way we can possibly thank you and the Enterprise crew for all your help, and for extending the Federation"s hand of welcome."
"We had a bit of a rocky start, but it was our pleasure, Captain Arit. Good luck to you-and to the Shapers. We"ll be looking forward to your thanksgiving feast."
"So will we. Safe voyage, Picard."