The Garden - Melissa Scott [109]
Paris nodded slowly. "Grayrose said something about that. It makes sense now."
Janeway sighed. She wasn't sure that the remains of the Andirrim-and whoever else had been unfortunate enough to fail the Kirse's test-wouldn't be better off allowed to die and safely buried, but at least the Kirse had ended the practice.
"Are all your questions answered now?" Kirse asked, and Janeway dragged herself back to the present.
"Yes," she said, slowly. It explained everything, all right, all the odd behaviors made clear by an answer she had not begun to suspect, and she nodded again, more briskly. "Yes, Kirse, my questions are answered."
"Then shall we fulfill our bargain?" Kirse asked.
"Yes," Janeway said. "Let's continue the exchange."
Kirse nodded back, the same awkward, learned movement she had seen in Adamant. "I enjoy your company, the company of humans. Perhaps you would care to remain, as Thilo does?"
"Thank you, but no." Janeway took a deep breath. "We-I have an obligation to bring my people home again."
"I understand," Kirse answered.
Janeway looked at Revek. "Mr. Revek. You're welcome to come with us. We have reason to hope we'll make it back."
Revek looked at Kirse, who lifted a long-fingered hand. "It's your choice, Thilo. Your company has been good, but you're a person. The choice must be yours."
Revek smiled then, an open, almost tender smile without irony. "No. Thank you, Captain Janeway, but I think I'll stay."
"Stay?" Paris repeated, and this time Revek's grin held the familiar mischief.
"Yes, stay. I happen to like it here, Tom-think of all the possibilities. Kirse is everyone and anyone I ever wanted." He sobered then, looking at Janeway. "Aside from that, Kirse saved my life several times over when I crashed. I've been rebuilt from the skeleton out-if your doctors were to take a look at me, they'd see more implants than the most mechanized of Kirse's aspects. I'm better off staying here."
For a lot of reasons, Janeway thought, and nodded. "As you wish, Mr. Revek. But if you change your mind, we'll be here for another three or four days while we complete our bargain."
"I won't," Revek answered, "but thanks."
Kirse said, "I will finish your harvest, as we agreed."
"Thank you," Janeway said. "And I'll have my chief engineer beam down to finish the transporter."
"I thank you," Kirse said, inclining his head again, and Janeway found herself bowing back.
"Janeway to Voyager. Two to beam up."
The Kirse planet, a blue-green disk streaked with cloud, hung in the viewscreen like a gemstone, vivid against the black of space, its own light drowning the stars. Janeway stared thoughtfully at it, trying once again to see it as it truly was-the home of a single being that could nonetheless become any one of a hundred aspects of itself, one of which was the "citadel" in which it lived-and again failed fully to capture it in her imagination. Each of the Kirse aspects, Adamant and Silver-Hammer and the others, had seemed distinct individuals, and yet she knew the doctor's analysis of the tissue samples taken from Grayrose had confirmed the Kirse's own statement that they were no more individual than images in a mirror. Well, maybe more individual than that, she
added silently, but not individuals as we understand them. Not quite. She shook her head at the gleaming image, glad to be leaving, wondered again if she should make another effort to persuade Revek to leave with them. But he had been certain he preferred to stay, and she pushed the vague sense of guilt away. Still, she added, I'll make sure we're listening for any communications from him for as long as we're in transporter range. Still, he was an adult, and the choice had to be his own.
She looked back at the screen that was filled with columns listing the supplies already on board, from the various foods to the rootstock for Kes's hydropon-ic garden. The Kirse had more than kept their part of the bargain, and Neelix was already creating