Pathways - Jeri Taylor [78]
While she still had no true friends, the young people her age no longer shunned her, and had become (perhaps at their parents’ insistence) at least civil. She made no effort to move beyond that cordiality, and was content to keep largely to herself, studying hard and excelling in her grades. While adolescence seemed a time of turmoil for her classmates, it was for her a time of relative equanimity.
At least for a while.
As a child she had developed a protective barrier that allowed her to block out whispered remarks and unkind comments, and so she remained largely oblivious of any notice paid to her. This remained true as the young men of her school had begun to stare at her in unaccustomed ways, whispering among themselves when she walked by. She had no way of knowing that this serene aloofness made her all the more desirable to them.
Late one afternoon in that summer she walked to the lake and set out in her sloop for a small island some five kilometers away. It was a favorite place, full of brooks and glens and shady nooks which she had discovered as a child and where she played out fantasy games in which she was, variously, a princess, a famed explorer, or a poet, each of whom was adored by millions, and whose company was always sought. Now that she was older, the island still had the power to bestow those magical feelings on her. If she no longer dreamed of being a princess, another dream had been forming in her mind, one that was just as unlikely: she thought of attending Starfleet Academy as her father had.
This might have been so remote a possibility that it would never have occurred to her had she not been told by her mother that a Klingon actually had been accepted at the Academy, a boy whose parents had died at Khitomer and who had been raised by humans. This knowledge began to burn in her, a tiny flame at first, but gradually gathering heat and intensity.
She would go to the island and imagine herself at the Academy. She had a book, left behind by her father, with pictures of the fabled school, and she had pored over them for hours, trying to familiarize herself with the environs, imagining herself walking along those manicured walkways, attending classes in those imposing buildings, even sailing in San Francisco Bay, which the book assured her was a favorite pastime of residents there.
It was no more than a ten-minute sail to the island, as the wind on the lake was gusting powerfully. She was drenched in spray by the time she beached the craft, but she felt invigorated.
She made her way to a beautiful little clearing near a stream which ran over smooth stones, and sat in her favorite spot, leaning her back against a smooth-barked tree. She closed her eyes and tried to decide what classes she would take. She didn’t really dream of a career in Starfleet, a likelihood that somehow seemed out of reach, but convinced herself that she could attend the Academy and simply study what she enjoyed. Art, for example, and literature. What heaven to be able to read and read and receive college credit for it!
She also wanted to study the history of Earth. She had been drowned in Klingon history by her mother’s endless stories, and she longed to know more about her other heritage, the one that seemed nobler. Of ancient kings and queens, of the millennia-long struggle for human rights, for democracy, for peace—of the long road toward the paradise, the jewel of the Federation, that Earth was now.
She had never visited Earth, but felt that she knew it, somehow, had walked its farmlands and climbed its mountains.