Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [51]
Mark had been unable to bring himself to sit on the couch since then.
Within two months of Kath’s disappearance, Molly had had her puppies, and Mark had found homes for all of them. Although it wasn’t intentional, placing the puppies was made easier by what Mark was going through. People were more than happy to take a new pet out of sympathy. Nobody had found any debris, so Starfleet had yet to declare the Voyager crew actually dead, but there was no sign of the ship, either.
Looking down at the floor, Mark saw that the setter had completed the ritual jumping, licking, and running around in circles. She now padded over to the doggie bed, plopped herself down into it, folding her front paws in front of herself, and plunking her head down on those paws, looking at Mark with her friendly eyes.
I don’t know what to do.
He’d continued going to work, but his heart wasn’t in it. Ramiro, Holland, and Taisha, the other botanists in his section, were covering for him, but they wouldn’t do that forever. Sooner or later, he had to get on with his life.
Normally, when he was in such a state, he’d turn to Kath for advice. They’d been friends for years before they became lovers, and he could barely remember a time when she wasn’t around to give good advice-or, more often, a kick in the tuchas whenever he moped around. That was what attracted him to her in the first place.
The combined noise of the comm unit on the coffee table beeping and Molly barking in response to it snapped Mark out of his reverie. To his embarrassment, he’d been standing in the middle of the living room just staring into space for at least a full minute.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the coffee table-standing on the opposite side of it from the couch-and activated the viewer, even as Molly wandered over to see what all the fuss was.
The display indicated that the message was from Deep Space 9. However, the Starfleet officer on the screen wasn’t the human Sisko, but rather a Ktarian man Mark didn’t know. He had only one pip, which meant he was fairly low ranking. What’s this about?
“Uh, hello?” Mark said.
“Greetings. Is this Mark Johnson?” The Ktarian had a soft voice, and spoke in a very hesitant tone, as if not entirely confident he’d chosen the right words to use.
“Ah, yeah, it is. And you are- ?”
“My name is Ensign Greskrendtregk. You don’t know me, of course, Mr. Johnson, but you and I, we have something in common.”
“Okay.” Mark had no idea where this was going.
The Ktarian hesitated. “My wife is Ensign Samantha Wildman.”
Mark blinked. The ensign had spoken as if that name should mean something to Mark, but aside from Kath and one or two others he knew through her, he didn’t know anybody in Starfleet. That name certainly didn’t ring any bells. “Uh, all right. I’m afraid I don’t know- “
Shaking his head, the ensign let out a small laugh. “Of course you don’t, I’m a fool. My apologies, Mr. Johnson, I just assumed that you would-Samantha serves on the Voyager.”
Mark’s face fell. “Oh God, sir, I’m so sorry. I’m-I’m afraid the only member of Kath’s crew I really know is Tuvok.”
“Perfectly understandable, Mr. Johnson. In any case, the reason why I’ve contacted you is quite simple. As I’m sure you’re aware, the one-year anniversary of Samantha’s-of the Voyager’s disappearance is approaching. I have been contacting the families of the crew in the hopes-in the hopes of gathering all of us here on Deep Space 9.”
Mark’s first instinct was to reject the notion out of hand. He’d been spending eleven months wallowing, the last thing he wanted to do was get together with a bunch of other people who were doing the same.
But then he thought for a moment. Maybe this is just what I need. Maybe being around other people who are going through what I’m going through will help.
Because the fact of the matter was, beyond taking Molly’s offspring, nobody had really been able to help. Most of his friends and colleagues were other scientists, and his family, although they liked Kath just