Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [0]
By JERI TAYLOR
CHAPTER 1
FOR A FEW, MAGICAL MOMENTS, KATHRYN JANEWAY FELT AS IF she were back home in Indiana. The air was warm and slightly humid; there was a scent of something that was almost like newly mown grass; and a gentle insect hum lulled the senses. She could almost forget that she was on an unknown, unnamed planet in the Delta Quadrant and pretend that she was hiking in the rolling hills of her home state. Her eye fell on a bank of billowing white bushes-a fluffy mass of fronds that looked almost like pillows. It was tempting to lie down for a few moments, savoring the warm afternoon. She reached out and lightly touched one of the thick fronds; it yielded gently, promising a soft cushion. Janeway glanced around at the rest of her away team, busy scanning for edible foodstuffs: Chakotay, the darkly handsome first officer, led a group of young ensigns who were clearly enjoying their first time on land in over a month; the sound of their laughter rang through the lush valley they were exploring. Chakotay, she knew, was wise enough to let them have some fun. A field trip on a verdant planet was just the thing to raise youthful spirits after a month of isolation on a starship. Half a kilometer away, near the mouth of the valley, her Vulcan security officer, Tuvok, led the second contingent, which had been assigned the task of collecting foodstuffs deemed safe. That determination would be made by Neelix, their Talaxian guide, cook, self-proclaimed morale officer, and all-around handyman. Janeway smiled, imagining the interplay between the two. It had become Neelix' obsession to bring joy to Tuvok's life-an effort which the staid Vulcan greeted with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. But Neelix was undeterred, determined to dispel what he insisted was the cloud of gloom that surrounded Tuvok. Janeway inhaled deeply. It was so much like home-the faint scent of moist soil, a hint of floral fragrance on a gentle breeze-that she decided to yield to temptation. She fell back onto the mound of soft, pillowlike plants and closed her eyes, as if she were lying on a mound of hay. Back home. The warmth of the planet's yellow star warmed her face. Insects droned ceaselessly; it would have been easy to drift off to sleep. But she wanted these few moments to be hers-to daydream, to pretend for this short time that she wasn't sixty-eight thousand light-years from Earth, that she wasn't carrying the extraordinary responsibility of getting her crew home safely, that she wasn't struggling to keep alive everyone's hopes that the journey could somehow be foreshortened. For just these few minutes, she would lie here and imagine that she was back on Earth, had managed to get voyager home, had seen her crew welcomed as heroes and returned to the loving arms of their families and friends. Then she had transported home to visit her own family-and Mark.
She had finally managed to resolve her feelings for Mark. It had taken over a year before he wasn't forever creeping into her thoughts, before she stopped hearing his voice, his laughter, in her mind. She had put away his pictures because they only helped to keep the wound open; she decided (although she sometimes doubted it) that after more than a year, he would have written her off as dead and moved on with his life. And that she must do the same.
Recently she had realized that she didn't quite remember what he looked like.
So this daydream would not be about Mark. It was only about home, about the part of her life spent in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, the agricultural paradise of Indiana. She thought of her mother, and imagined their post-homecoming conversation.
"There were times when I didn't think we'd make it," said Janeway. "You can't imagine how hard it was to keep my spirits up-but I had to, because I couldn't risk the crew losing heart because their captain did." She was sitting in the sunny breakfast room of the home she'd grown up in, mellow with pine paneling, sunlight filtering through an ancient sycamore