Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [67]
He returned the smile as best he could. “Kes, thank the Forest you’re all right.”
She saw his concern instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“Seven of Nine has been wounded.”
Kes’s hand flew to her mouth in surprise. “Oh no. But she’s- “
“She’s badly hurt,” Saying it made Neelix feel tired. “I’ve tried to stabilize her, but I thought you might- “
“You did the best you could?” Kes asked.
He nodded. “Yes, but I’m not really that experienced with medicine.”
“You did the best you could,” repeated the girl with a nod of complete certainty, “That will be enough.”
“I hope so.”
She stepped closer to him, and Neelix caught the intoxicating smell of her hair, the same mix of fresh flower oils that always sparked thoughts of their first meeting. “I… I was afraid something might have happened to you…”
Kes shook her head. “I took shelter in one of the temples when the ground started shaking, I was fine,” she soothed. “These buildings have withstood these quakes for millennia, they’re sturdy enough to protect me. And besides, you had to think of Seven’s welfare first.”
“Yes…” Neelix swallowed hard. “We should start looking for another tunnel, sweeting. If there’s an aftershock we could all be buried alive down here.”
She smiled again. “That won’t happen. Come on, this way.” Neelix followed two steps behind Kes as she led him to the empty moat that ran the perimeter of the cavern. She was so light-footed before him she made him feel big and clumsy. Her pace was almost playful, as if they were skipping across the sands in a resort holoprogram and not the perpetual twilight of this cave-city. Kes’s vitality was always infectious, but here and now it seemed to leave Neelix behind. He felt strangely dislocated from the girl.
They moved quickly. Without the need to document and scan every inch of the rock face as away mission protocols demanded, Neelix and Kes felt their way past the dry aqueducts and ancient channels. Everywhere along the border of the cavern complex there were more and more of the carvings and decorations. Vast friezes and mosaics made from differing shades of veracite covered swaths of the walls, disappearing into the dark above them. Neelix paused to sniff the air, but there was nothing but the scent of aged stone. It reminded him of the museums he had visited on Talax with his sisters as a boy, the vast dusty halls full of old relics; it was the smell of antiquity.
Kes touched one of the mosaics, her slender fingers tracing the shapes. A smile broke out on her face as she found the image of a dancing woman. “See, Neelix. She could almost be my mother.”
He followed her look, for a moment seeing the murals on the walls instead of just the walls themselves. There were Ocampa everywhere, frozen in what seemed to be a depiction of a festival of some sort. Children and adults played and laughed, frolicking in a glittering river made from chips of mica. Kes looked into the mosaic eyes of the people in the mural, almost as if she were searching for something.
“It’s very beautiful, but we really don’t have time to sightsee,” said the Talaxian. “We have to keep searching for another tunnel.”
She threw him another grin. “Yes, of course.”
They moved on, Neelix scanning the rock face for anything that resembled a channel or vent, while Kes stopped and started at every new piece of stone art or statue. He could hardly blame her-how long was it since she had been in the presence of her own species, even if it was just their relics? Neelix felt a pang of familiar guilt. She had given up so much to join him on Voyager’s journey, leaving her homeworld behind, turning down the chance to remain with Tanis and the other Ocampans they had encountered months later…. At times he felt unworthy of her friendship. He clamped his teeth shut with an audible snap. This train of thought was insidious and he made a physical effort to push it away.
Kes didn’t seem to notice; she was absorbed by the unfolding