Flashback - Diane Carey [80]
"I will leave you now," he said. "I wish you satisfaction, Ensign. Live long and prosper."
"Thank you, Captain. Live long and prosper."
The door breathed, and closed again. Tuvok stared at it for many seconds.
From the deepest corner, in a place where she could sit on a dim bunk and watch these conversations, Kathryn Janeway stood up and moved forward.
How deeply was Tuvok involved in this last bend in the labyrinth? Would he be aware of her?
He had to be. Even if he wasn't, it was time.
"You've been lucky," she stated, without reminding him of her presence in any more subtle manner. "Counting me, of course, you've had some very profound captains on your side."
He didn't look up at her. "Yes. I regret that I failed to fully appreciate them until they were gone." Quite abruptly, then, he raised his eyes to her. "I am glad, Captain, that you are still with me. If I had to be
banished to the far reaches of this quadrant, I am pleased to be here with you."
He didn't wait for her to answer or indicate with his posture that he expected an answer, though she thanked him with a smile and waited, sensing that he wasn't finished.
He sighed with obvious relief, paced across the room, gazed through the mirror at his own clasped hands, and seemed at peace for the first time since the blue nebula had appeared on Voyager's scanners.
"Spock's words always stayed with me," he told her. "I remembered for fifty years that I could come back if I chose to. When I abandoned the Kohlinar to raise a family, that choice was girded by Spock's advice about accepting change for the good. Had he and Captain Sulu not quite illogically and impolitely interfered in my moments of decision, I may never have considered marrying, or returning to Starfleet. It took me fifty years to rejoin the fleet, and eighty years altogether to understand these memories. I am gratified to put this conversation with the captains in its proper order. While I will never abandon my basic philosophy, I do believe my logic is more encompassing now. I have been learning to mesh with you and other non-Vulcans. I have discovered that, though I have not admitted it to myself until now, it does give me a certain satisfaction."
"Well," Janeway said, "I'm glad. You're out here in the middle of uncharted space, without any chance of retreating to Vulcan. You have to live with us, no matter how uncomfortable it becomes. But,
Tuvok, we all do. Remember the phrase 'No man is an island'? Let me tell you something-we're all islands. We're all separate and different and utterly alone inside our skin. It's only how we learn to accept, handle, or grapple with each other that dictates how the horizon will look every morning. And you know what else? It never looks the same two mornings in a row, Tuvok. Not to me and not to you. It's important to appreciate that daily difference."
Bridging the moment to what inevitably had to come, she stood up and took his arm.
"Between you, me, and Amelia Earhart," she said, "I'm almost glad all this had to happen. But let's get back to reality, shall we? We've got a lot of horizons in front of us, you and I. I think it's time to start heading forward again."
"Captain's log, Stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man . . . where no one has gone before."
Captain James Kirk
Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
CHAPTER 22
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER TUVOK ENTERED THE SHIP'S mess hall with some measure of pause. He told himself he hadn't been avoiding this place, but he knew better and was poor at self-deception.
The crew glanced at him, but most were cautious and did not approach. He was hardly surprised, given