Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [88]
That changed after Zolaluz.
At first, after leaving Bahuzola, Seven felt worse. Her secret heart thrived on the guilt that she felt for not helping Zolaluz after all that she had done for her.
Then, one day, she found something in the bottom of a pack of rations that Zolaluz had insisted she take with her.
Now, when she had a bad day, she took it out and looked at it and thought of Zolaluz.
Who could live such a hard life without harboring regrets or self-pity? Who could be so scarred and not resent those who were free of damage?
Who could forgive herself for being the cause of suffering that would last a lifetime? Who could witness unspeakable acts and still have a sense of humor?
Who could lose everything and everyone they’d ever loved and somehow still find more to give?
If Zolaluz could do it, then so could Seven.
When she gazed at the onyx pendant that Zolaluz had sneaked into her pack, Seven’s secret heart was filled with light.
Zolaluz kept a secret heart in a place no one could see.
On the surface, she seemed upbeat and resilient, optimistic and unflappable. Whatever life threw at her, she seemed to accept it without remorse or complaint.
But all the while, deep inside, her secret heart kept beating. It was the one thing that had never been taken from her… though it had become as painful and deformed as any part of her body that had been attacked by the duluzola.
Its beat had grown stronger when her parents had sent her away… and when they had been tortured to death while she heard and smelled and felt every moment, unable to save them.
The beat had grown stronger when her leg had been sawed off and her houses burned down. When villagers had refused to speak a word to her or even acknowledge that she was alive.
It beat with sorrow. It beat with pain.
It beat with anger and fear and self-pity. It beat with loneliness.
As small as it was, as deeply buried and tightly held, that secret heart had begun to overwhelm her. It had pulsed out darkness, like waves of deadly duluzola, transforming her a little at a time.
One day, finally, fueled by a lifetime of horror and loss, her secret heart had become the strongest part of her. On that day, she had put on her onyx pendant and gone into the jungle to end her life.
Instead, she had found Seven of Nine.
It was Seven, hurt and hunted and needing her help, who had given her a reason to live a little longer. It was Seven whose kindness and friendship for a lowly zola had made her feel like someone worthwhile.
It was Seven whose strength and poise and determination in the face of struggle had inspired her anew to strive to embody the same virtues.
And it was Seven who had given her the chance, on a rescue mission to Ramana, to make up for failing to save her parents so many years ago.
An arm was a small price to pay for all that. She thought it wasn’t nearly enough.
Neither was the last gift she gave Seven, the pendant from her mother… though its significance, and that of giving it away, were enormous to Zolaluz.
Her mother had given it to her when she was very young, just before she was first taken to Bahuzola. Every day since, Zolaluz had worn it like a millstone around her neck.
Not a day of her life had gone by when Zolaluz had not considered putting the pendant to its intended use.
Before she sneaked it into Seven’s pack, she popped the hidden catch behind the onyx stone and dumped out the poison pill, grinding it into the dirt beneath her heel.
Isabo’s Shirt
Kirsten Beyer
This tale is set a few weeks after the fifth-season episode “Bliss.”
Kirsten Beyer
In addition to contributing “Isabo’s Shirt” to this collection, Kirsten Beyer wrote Fusion, the second installment of the Star Trek: Voyager tenth-anniversary trilogy entitled String Theory. Kirsten is currently hard at work on several other projects, including her first Alias: APO novel, Once Lost.
Kirsten lives in Los Angeles with her husband, David, and their very fat cat, Owen.
Hope… which whispered from Pandora’s box only after