Caretaker - L. A. Graf [32]
You must be worn out. Sit down and rest awhile... have a cold drink..." She held out one of the tall, frosty glasses to no one in particular, tucking a wedge of yellow fruit onto the rim.
Janeway lifted both hands to politely refuse the offering. "No, thank you. My name is Kathryn Janeway, captain of the Federation Starship Voyager--" "Just make yourself right at home." Still smiling, the old woman pushed the glass into the hands of one of the silent engineers, then wiped her fingers on the bib of her apron. "The neighbors should be here any minute." Something seemed to catch her attention behind them, and her smile widened. "Why, here they are now."
A swarm of chattering people swept over them without warning, pushing between crewmen, clasping hands, kissing cheeks. It felt like some sort of ludicrous family reunion where none of the members really knew each other. Paris found himself pinned between Kim and a young woman in blue-and-white calico with hair the color of coal. "We're glad you dropped by," she told them with a shy smile. But the eyes she demurely averted seemed to imply she was anything but shy. Kim flushed but said nothing, and Paris felt himself return the girl's smile with a kind of stupid uncertainty that had nothing to do with pleasure.
"Now we can get started," the old woman announced with a clap of her hands. "You're all invited to the welcoming bee!"
A bent, gap-toothed old man with nothing but a wisp of frail white hair cackled and picked up a banjo. "Let's have a little music!"
Propping one foot up on the wooden steps, the old man stomped out a four-beat with his heel, then launched in with the banjo until it sang like a living thing. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Janeway and Kim, Paris watched the country folk dance and clap and laugh without feeling any urge to join in their festivities.
Well, he thought, with a cynical wryness that had passed for his sense of humor over the last year, it looks like we're not in Kansas anymore.
* Janeway paced to the corner of the long porch and back, decided she didn't like the nervousness that it might imply to whoever was no doubt watching, and sat instead on the wide porch steps with her hands wound together into a single fist between her knees. Out on the impossibly perfect lawn, their "hosts" had spread a patchwork quilt of colored blankets. Now they wandered placidly among the crew with bowls and platters of food balanced on their hands, inviting everyone to join them as if they were all old friends. Janeway had already instructed everyone to eat nothing, drink nothing, even though Kim still insisted that the tricorder said everything was a hologram and couldn't hurt them.
Maybe so. But she didn't intend to take any chances.
Paris reappeared from around the back of the big red-and-green barn, jogging easily through the milling picnickers. In that fleeting moment of waiting--that necessary downtime between noticing Paris headed her way and standing for his actual arrival--Janeway almost forgot that he wasn't just any other crewman, assigned to Voyager from just any other ship. It was the absence of his smart-assed smile, she decided. All of a sudden, he was doing and thinking and being just like any other responsible adult, and it wasn't something Janeway had expected ever to see out of him.
You know what your problem is, Mr. Paris? she thought as he slowed to let Kim match his stride and approach the captain with him. You aren't quite ready to trust you can make the right decisions, so you lash out at everybody who insists you work without a net. Like Starfleet, his father, Janeway.
She had to admit, Paris had behaved admirably on the bridge after the initial accident, when what needed doing was obvious and immediate.
He'd seen to Stadi, reported his findings, kept his mouth shut, and kept out