Unworthy - Kirsten Beyer [127]
“At the moment, I’m more worried about you,” Cambridge said.
Chakotay sensed deflection more than consideration on the counselor’s part but decided to play along. “I’m fine,” he said sincerely.
“You’re a man without a country and a job,” Cambridge retorted. “Surely you’ve realized that by now and no amount of exercise-induced endorphins changes that fact.”
“It’s true that my original purpose in accompanying Seven to Voyager appears to have run its course,” Chakotay allowed, “but I’d hardly consider that cause for concern.”
“What are you going to do now?” Cambridge asked.
Chakotay shrugged. “We’ll be regrouping with the fleet in a couple of days. Depending on their status, I imagine Captain Eden will dispatch a vessel back to the Alpha quadrant for wounded and personnel transfers. I’ll go with them and from there … I really don’t know.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Cambridge said testily.
“I made my choice, Hugh,” Chakotay reminded him.
“Every single person in the universe you care about is a member of this fleet.”
“Not true. My sister is still in the Alpha quadrant along with a number of old friends.”
Hugh gave him a withering glance.
Chakotay offered, “I have to find my own path now. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m optimistic about the possibilities.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“What is your sage advice?” Chakotay demanded.
“If I had an answer, do you think I’d be drinking this early in the day?” Cambridge quipped. “I assumed it would be years before we’d be having this conversation.”
“Captain Eden to Chakotay,” Eden’s voice rang out over the comm.
“Chakotay here, Captain.”
“Please report to my ready room.”
Chakotay hated to do so without sprucing up, but saw little choice.
“I’m on my way,” he replied. Settling a firm gaze on the counselor, he went on, “I’ll meet you in the mess hall when I’m done, but only if you promise to stop trying to cheer me up.”
“No worries there,” Cambridge assured him.
Eden stood in her ready room, staring out at the vast starscape. When she was a child and had trouble sleeping, her uncle Jobin had told her to count the stars visible from the portal over her cot on their exploratory vessel. Though she never told him, she had changed the game a little after her first few years of failing to drift off even as her count reached the mid two hundreds. Instead of counting them, she had begun to name them. By forcing herself to repeat the list over from the beginning as each new star was added, the vast list had impressed itself indelibly upon her memory. Once this task had been completed, she had begun to imagine the planets surrounding those stars and populated them with a wide variety of species pulled from Jobin’s and Tallar’s stories and databases, as well as a number of which she created from whole cloth. Over time this game had become less the soothing and relaxing exercise Jobin had intended to lull her to sleep, and more an endlessly fascinating mental landscape where an entire universe was ordered according to Eden’s childish whims.
Instead of creating a fantasy version of her home star with loving parents and fascinating friends, she had always believed that her home lay just beyond the visible stars. It comforted her to think it was out there, and one day she would return to it. Eden hesitated to speculate about its inhabitants. Even as a child she understood disappointment. Lately, however, a tense knot of anxiety formed in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought even briefly of that unnamed place.
She was no longer a child. As her eyes drifted over the countless stars, Eden found herself wondering if it was possible that right now, she was staring at the star that warmed the planet of her birth. The thought filled her with a longing she had never before known. She had grown complacent during years of believing that she would probably never find the place where she had come from. But now that there was actually a chance, the need she had buried and assumed long-dead reasserted itself.
The captain decided that this feeling