Caretaker (13 page)

“We’ve traced the energy pulses from the Array to the fifth planet of the neighboring system, and believe they may have been used in some fashion to transport Kim and Torres to the planet’s surface.”

The computer chimed, very politely, and she was forced to raise her head anyway so she could glance at the monitor for some sign of what she’d done wrong. Her words blinked placidly back at her. Janeway stared at them for nearly ten seconds before realizing that what she’d heard was the signal to the ready room’s door, telling her that someone wanted in. Sighing, she sat back in her seat and made an effort to square her shoulders as she turned to face the entrance. “Come in.”

Tuvok paused a painfully proper four steps into the room, his hands laced contritely behind his back. Over his shoulder, Janeway caught the briefest glimpse of the darkened, damaged bridge before the doors whisked shut and hid the image away. Had he been working out there all alone? This late at night? She wondered sometimes if Vulcans ever slept.

“Captain,” he reported formally, “I have observed something peculiar about the pulses. They are getting faster.”

She sat a little straighter. “Faster?”

Tuvok dipped a single nod. “The interval between each pulse has decreased by point-four-seven seconds since we arrived. I can offer no explanation.”

She laughed a little—a dark, frustrated laugh that she didn’t like the sound of much—and waved him forward to join her.

“That’s only one of the mysteries we’re dealing with, Mr. Tuvok.

Look at this.” Turning her monitor to include them both, she leaned discreetly to one side so that Tuvok could bend over her shoulder without risking the unseemly possibility of physical contact. Janeway had heard rumors during her career about why Vulcans eschewed even casually touching humans, but had never been sure quite what to believe. All she knew was that Tuvok was always quietly consistent about maintaining what he considered an appropriate distance, and she had no intention of violating that.

He watched the planetary diagram spin beneath the glowing line of her words, the Array’s dramatic flashes reduced by equations to little more than a series of short lines passing between Voyager’s current position and the planet’s surface. Janeway reached up to tap the planet’s statistics. “It’s virtually a desert—the whole planet. Not one ocean, not one river.” She sat back again, shaking her head. “It has all the basic characteristics of an M-class planet, except …” This time, she chose a particular string of figures out of the planet’s description, and blew them up to fill nearly half the screen.

“… there are no nucleogenic particles in the atmosphere.”

Tuvok glanced down at her, one eyebrow arched. “That would mean the planet is incapable of producing clouds and rain.”

Janeway nodded, chewing her lip. “I’ve studied thousands of M-class planets—I’ve never seen an atmosphere without nucleogenics. There must have been some kind of extraordinary environmental disaster.” A yawn captured her suddenly, and she hid it behind a vigorous face scrubbing. “As soon as repairs are complete,” she continued when her voice was back, “we’ll set a course for the fifth planet.”

“Captain, you require sleep.”

She felt a blush push into her face—embarrassment at being caught in a lie, frustration at being caught in weakness—and reached for her waiting data padd without looking up at the Vulcan’s calm face. “Kim’s mother called me just after he left Earth … a delightful woman …”

She paged through the data in front of her blindly. “Her only son.”

The words were even harder to say than to think. “He’d left his clarinet behind, and she wanted to know if she had time to send it.

… I had to tell her no.” She glanced up at Tuvok without meaning to.

“Did you know he played clarinet in the Juilliard Youth Symphony?”

Tuvok said nothing for a moment. Then, “I did not have the opportunity to meet Mr. Kim.”

It sounded so final when he said it that way. As though he knew he’d never have the chance now. “I barely knew him,” Janeway admitted. “I never seem to have the chance to get to know any of them. I have to take more time to do that.” It was a good promise, one she knew she’d made to herself before this, on other ships, with other crew. “It’s a fine crew,” she said out loud, defensively. “I’ve got to get them home.”

“The crew will not benefit from the leadership of an exhausted captain,” Tuvok pointed out with his traditional patience.

Janeway couldn’t help but smile, just a little. “You’re right.

As usual.” She sat back in her seat and sighed up at him. “I’ve missed your counsel, Tuvok.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am gratified that you came after me so I can offer it once again.”

It was so close to a Vulcan admission of feelings, Janeway wasn’t entirely sure what to say. She’d once read a quote from a famous admiral that said, “Friendship with a Vulcan is like sculpting with radioisotopes. Very few people ever try it, and the ones who do have a hard time explaining how the milliseconds of closeness when it all comes together can make such an experiment worthwhile.” Sometimes, staring into the darkness of Tuvok’s calm expressions, Janeway found herself thinking that the admiral should have warned her that those daring few who forged friendships with Vulcans didn’t exactly choose to follow that path—it happened without your planning in the first millisecond flash when you looked into a Vulcan’s eyes and realized that he understood that you had feelings, and vice versa.

Caught by her own overlong silence, Janeway said, “I spoke to your family before I left.”

A human would have reacted. Tuvok only asked, “Are they well?”

“Well,” Janeway told him. “But worried about you.”

One of many Vulcan nonexpressions—most of which stood in for more human displays of annoyance, disgust, or impatience—ghosted across Tuvok’s face. “That would not be an accurate perception, Captain.

Vulcans do not `worry.”” Or feel gratitude. “They miss you,” she amended.

That seemed to suit him better, although what passed through his eyes was a simple tenderness Janeway wasn’t accustomed to seeing there. “As I do them.”

“I’ll get you back to them.” The statement blurted out of her, as unexpected and honest as Vulcan friendship, and Janeway felt the words burrowing in to stay even as she spoke them. “That’s a promise, Tuvok.”

He accepted it as stoically as he would any other truth. Janeway smiled wearily, and watched as the Vulcan nodded his good-night and retreated through the ready-room door. Now if only she could believe herself so easily.

Five hours later, she was no closer to belief—or sleep—than when Tuvok first left the ready room.

I probably should have gone back to my quarters. Even a starship’s bunk was more comfortable than a couch that Janeway suspected was constructed more for the sake of its appearance than for its usefulness. But her quarters held what was left of her unpacked luggage, the two articles of civilian clothing she had brought to remind her of autumn back home, the pictures of Mark and darling Bear.

She’d learned long ago that while guilt can be a great motivator, it can also be a great destroyer—it thrived on stolen energy.

An innate awareness of this fact no doubt had something to do with why, somewhere between shutting down the screens and killing the lights last night, she’d been overwhelmed with the conviction that a return to her quarters would somehow represent a surrender. That by going to bed the way she would have on any other day of her career, she was accepting that this was how she would be going to bed from now on—that this was where she would be going to bed, with no hope of ever seeing a real home again.

So she’d stretched out on the hard, aesthetically pleasing gray couch and draped one arm across her eyes, and told herself that she was just being efficient by sleeping so close to the bridge.

In case she was needed.

Five hours into her nonsleep vigil, she knew that there were seven primary welds in the ready-room ceiling, and that the bridge air-recirculation system turned on an average of twice every hour.

I should have gone down to sickbay and had that holographic medical program anesthetize me.

She should have made sure Mark understood that every mission meant a chance the captain might not come home when she asked him to watch Bear while she was gone.

She should have said no when Starfleet asked her to head up this assignment.

Growling with frustration, she rolled onto her shoulder and covered her face in her hands, trying to grind away the insidious should-haves with the pressure of her fists against her eyes.

Her comm badge chirped and saved her from further self-anger.

“Bridge to Captain Janeway.”

Apparently, Tuvok really didn’t sleep. “Go ahead.” She tried to sound rested and alert, but knew she failed miserably.

“Sorry to bother you, Captain.” Tuvok’s eloquent way of letting her know he could interpret human tone of voice even if Vulcans chose not to emulate them. “But we’ve encountered a vessel within a debris field. We’re showing a humanoid life-form on board.”

“On my way.” She rolled to her feet and ran her hands back through her hair. I may not look presentable, but at least I can look driven. She slipped through the door to the bridge while it was still only halfway open. “Hail them.”

Rollins turned toward the ops station to comply, and Janeway moved to the foot of the command station to study the image on the main viewscreen. A vast scattering of ships glittered and tumbled among what could only be satellite debris and the remnants of wrecked probes.

A squat, dish-decorated cylinder that looked like nothing so much as Earth’s earliest Martian probe drifted behind the skeletal remains of an Exian freighter whose cargo had long since eaten its way through the hull. The thought of there being any sort of humanoid life still living in this dark, silent sargasso chilled her.

The screen brightened abruptly, and a small, dome-headed alien with eyes a strikingly chocolate brown announced, “Whoever you are, I found this waste zone first.”

Janeway allowed herself a slight smile. Judging from his stooped shoulders and awkwardly raised chin, there was only so much dignity one could adopt when squeezed into a cabin not even as tall as yourself.

“We’re not interested in this debris, Mister …”

He seemed to understand her expectant pause. “Neelix.” He introduced himself with a flare of his arms that rapped his knuckles against either wall. “And since you aren’t interested in my debris—” A delightful smile split his hairless features.

“—I am delighted to meet you.”

“Captain Kathryn Janeway,” she replied, more formally, “of the Federation Starship Voyager.”

Neelix granted her a courtly nod. “A very impressive title. I have no idea what it means, but it sounds very impressive.” He smiled again, and Janeway wondered if he made an effort to sound so eager and funny, or if everyone of his race approached the world with such puppy-dog enthusiasm.

If she had her way, Voyager wouldn’t be in this end of the universe long enough to learn the answer.

“Do you know this area of space well, Mr. Neelix?”

“I am famous for knowing it well,” he assured her proudly. “How may I be of service?”

She avoided extending a specific request for the moment. “Do you know anything about the Array that’s sending energy pulses to the fifth planet?”

An odd, tittering giggle squinted his eyes shut. “I know enough to stay as far away from it as possible.” Calming himself, he blinked rapidly as though to clear all the mirth from his vision, then said brightly, “Wait. Let me guess.” Somehow, the soft congeniality never seemed to completely leave his tone and eyes.

“You were whisked away from somewhere else in the galaxy, and brought here against your will.”

Janeway felt a strange stirring of dread deep inside her. “It sounds as though you’ve heard this story before.”

“Sadly, yes.” Neelix sighed. “Thousands of times.” Then he shrugged and admitted, “Well, hundreds—maybe fifty times.” His preoccupation with accuracy scattered with a wave of his hand.

“The Caretaker has been bringing ships here for months now.”

Tuvok made not a sound, but Janeway sensed the sharpening of his curiosity and waved him to stay silent. “The Caretaker?”

“That’s what the Ocampa call him. They live on the fifth planet.”

Neelix leaned forward as though trying to crawl through the viewscreen, but was only rearranging himself on the floor, Janeway realized. She spared a fleeting thought about who—or what—had originally piloted that tiny vessel. “Did he kidnap members of your crew?” Neelix asked.

She sniffed a cynical laugh. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

Neelix bobbed his head in sympathy. “It’s not the first time.”

“Do you know where he might have taken them?”

“I’ve heard they’re sent to the Ocampa,” Neelix told her.

“Nothing more.”

It was more than they’d had before. “We’d appreciate any help you could give us in finding these Ocampa.”

Neelix cocked his head as though listening to someone who wasn’t really there, the sadness in his eyes warring with the curiosity of his hands on the lifeless equipment in front of him. “I wish I could help,” he sighed, “but as you can see, there is so much debris to investigate today.” He leaned forward again, this time in friendly confidence.

“You’d be surprised the things of value some people abandon.”

If he’d been a Ferengi, she’d have been more sure that feral glimmer was entirely motivated by greed. Following her instincts, she offered sweetly, “Of course, we’d want to compensate you for your trouble.”

The expression of utter innocence that flashed across his face convinced her even further that, wherever Neelix came from, his people had obviously escaped from the more moderate Ferengi generations ago.

“There’s very little you could offer me,” he assured her earnestly.

“Unless …”

He was doing all right until that qualifier. “Yes?” Janeway prompted.

“Unless,” he repeated in the same oh-so-speculative tone, “of course, you had …” Dark eyes brightened eagerly. “Water.”