Pathways - Jeri Taylor [20]
But Chert was unfazed. “No need, no need. I can teach you chess. And I’ll introduce the music gradually and softly, you won’t even know it’s happening. Before long if I don’t play it you’ll be asking me to. And from now on I’ll make sure to keep us supplied with snacks. I like sweet things, do you?”
“What courses did you draw?” asked Chakotay, hoping at least he wouldn’t have to encounter this bombastic fellow in class.
“Thermodynamics, Engineering Analysis, Duonetic Systems Design, and Warp Field Theory,” replied Chert ebulliently. “I’m heading for the engineering track.” This was good news to Chakotay, because it meant their lives wouldn’t intersect in the classroom. And if he used his room only for sleeping, maybe he could get through the year without killing this gibbering oaf.
At the end of that year, Chakotay had decided to leave Starfleet Academy. He had served a full school term laboring under Starfleet’s rules, and he didn’t intend to spend the next three in the same fashion. He had worked harder and trained longer than anyone he knew, but he kept getting put on report for not adhering strictly to some regulation or another. Even his roommate, Chert, clucked with concern over his improprieties. “You’ve got to be more careful or you’ll never graduate. Why is it so hard for you to pay attention to details? I’ll be happy to make your bed for you, but I can’t follow you around to make sure you follow all the rules. Want a doughnut?”
Chakotay vowed that his first year would be his last. Once he returned to Trebus in June, he would announce his refusal to return to San Francisco. He wasn’t entirely certain what he would do with his life, but he’d figure something out.
And, in fact, he told his parents just that when he went home. There was a joyous celebration the night he returned, with tables set up in the meadow, laden with food. His parents were, of course, completely supportive of what he wanted to do. “We never wanted you to go there, Chakotay,” his mother assured him. “Your place is here, with your people, helping to preserve the traditions we’ve kept alive. It’s time you began to think of taking a wife. I noticed tonight that Philicia was watching you carefully. She’s a lovely girl, very intelligent. You should get to know her.”
Chakotay sighed. He’d known Philicia since he was a baby. She was sweet, but he had absolutely no interest in her other than as a childhood acquaintance. She was insular and predictable, her worldview extending only as far as her place in this tribe on this planet. He didn’t see how he could spend a lifetime with someone like that.
For that matter, what would he do if he didn’t return to the Academy? The thought of staying here and working to preserve his people’s traditions was stultifying. He’d entered the Academy in order to escape just such a fate. How could he return to his parents’ world so submissively?
He spent the summer wrestling with the decision, enjoying the rough and tumble of games with his friends. He and the young men he’d grown up with would lie under the summer stars, looking up at their twin moons, reminiscing about childhood and laying plans for the future.
It was the latter that left Chakotay feeling uneasy. It seemed all his friends, like his parents, like Philicia, envisioned a destiny no broader than staying on this planet, mating, procreating, and starting the cycle all over again. To Chakotay, it was a disturbing thought.
But what alternative did he prefer? He found it difficult to envision any except staying put or returning to the Academy. He’d heard of itinerant traders, vagabonds who roamed the stars, a footloose existence that took them where the solar winds blew them. And there were freight haulers, who carried goods between the star systems, minerals here, medical supplies there, a constant crisscrossing of space to insure the survival of people who lived on planets that didn’t have the natural resources necessary to sustain life.
Would