Chapter 11

Five hours later, she was no closer to belief—or sleep—than when Tuvok first left the ready room.

I probably should have gone back to my quarters. Even a starship’s bunk was more comfortable than a couch that Janeway suspected was constructed more for the sake of its appearance than for its usefulness. But her quarters held what was left of her unpacked luggage, the two articles of civilian clothing she had brought to remind her of autumn back home, the pictures of Mark and darling Bear.

She’d learned long ago that while guilt can be a great motivator, it can also be a great destroyer—it thrived on stolen energy.

An innate awareness of this fact no doubt had something to do with why, somewhere between shutting down the screens and killing the lights last night, she’d been overwhelmed with the conviction that a return to her quarters would somehow represent a surrender. That by going to bed the way she would have on any other day of her career, she was accepting that this was how she would be going to bed from now on—that this was where she would be going to bed, with no hope of ever seeing a real home again.

So she’d stretched out on the hard, aesthetically pleasing gray couch and draped one arm across her eyes, and told herself that she was just being efficient by sleeping so close to the bridge.

In case she was needed.

Five hours into her nonsleep vigil, she knew that there were seven primary welds in the ready-room ceiling, and that the bridge air-recirculation system turned on an average of twice every hour.

I should have gone down to sickbay and had that holographic medical program anesthetize me.

She should have made sure Mark understood that every mission meant a chance the captain might not come home when she asked him to watch Bear while she was gone.

She should have said no when Starfleet asked her to head up this assignment.

Growling with frustration, she rolled onto her shoulder and covered her face in her hands, trying to grind away the insidious should-haves with the pressure of her fists against her eyes.

Her comm badge chirped and saved her from further self-anger.

“Bridge to Captain Janeway.”

Apparently, Tuvok really didn’t sleep. “Go ahead.” She tried to sound rested and alert, but knew she failed miserably.

“Sorry to bother you, Captain.” Tuvok’s eloquent way of letting her know he could interpret human tone of voice even if Vulcans chose not to emulate them. “But we’ve encountered a vessel within a debris field. We’re showing a humanoid life-form on board.”

“On my way.” She rolled to her feet and ran her hands back through her hair. I may not look presentable, but at least I can look driven. She slipped through the door to the bridge while it was still only halfway open. “Hail them.”

Rollins turned toward the ops station to comply, and Janeway moved to the foot of the command station to study the image on the main viewscreen. A vast scattering of ships glittered and tumbled among what could only be satellite debris and the remnants of wrecked probes.

A squat, dish-decorated cylinder that looked like nothing so much as Earth’s earliest Martian probe drifted behind the skeletal remains of an Exian freighter whose cargo had long since eaten its way through the hull. The thought of there being any sort of humanoid life still living in this dark, silent sargasso chilled her.

The screen brightened abruptly, and a small, dome-headed alien with eyes a strikingly chocolate brown announced, “Whoever you are, I found this waste zone first.”

Janeway allowed herself a slight smile. Judging from his stooped shoulders and awkwardly raised chin, there was only so much dignity one could adopt when squeezed into a cabin not even as tall as yourself.

“We’re not interested in this debris, Mister …”

He seemed to understand her expectant pause. “Neelix.” He introduced himself with a flare of his arms that rapped his knuckles against either wall. “And since you aren’t interested in my debris—” A delightful smile split his hairless features.

“—I am delighted to meet you.”

“Captain Kathryn Janeway,” she replied, more formally, “of the Federation Starship Voyager.”

Neelix granted her a courtly nod. “A very impressive title. I have no idea what it means, but it sounds very impressive.” He smiled again, and Janeway wondered if he made an effort to sound so eager and funny, or if everyone of his race approached the world with such puppy-dog enthusiasm.

If she had her way, Voyager wouldn’t be in this end of the universe long enough to learn the answer.

“Do you know this area of space well, Mr. Neelix?”

“I am famous for knowing it well,” he assured her proudly. “How may I be of service?”

She avoided extending a specific request for the moment. “Do you know anything about the Array that’s sending energy pulses to the fifth planet?”

An odd, tittering giggle squinted his eyes shut. “I know enough to stay as far away from it as possible.” Calming himself, he blinked rapidly as though to clear all the mirth from his vision, then said brightly, “Wait. Let me guess.” Somehow, the soft congeniality never seemed to completely leave his tone and eyes.

“You were whisked away from somewhere else in the galaxy, and brought here against your will.”

Janeway felt a strange stirring of dread deep inside her. “It sounds as though you’ve heard this story before.”

“Sadly, yes.” Neelix sighed. “Thousands of times.” Then he shrugged and admitted, “Well, hundreds—maybe fifty times.” His preoccupation with accuracy scattered with a wave of his hand.

“The Caretaker has been bringing ships here for months now.”

Tuvok made not a sound, but Janeway sensed the sharpening of his curiosity and waved him to stay silent. “The Caretaker?”

“That’s what the Ocampa call him. They live on the fifth planet.”

Neelix leaned forward as though trying to crawl through the viewscreen, but was only rearranging himself on the floor, Janeway realized. She spared a fleeting thought about who—or what—had originally piloted that tiny vessel. “Did he kidnap members of your crew?” Neelix asked.

She sniffed a cynical laugh. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

Neelix bobbed his head in sympathy. “It’s not the first time.”

“Do you know where he might have taken them?”

“I’ve heard they’re sent to the Ocampa,” Neelix told her.

“Nothing more.”

It was more than they’d had before. “We’d appreciate any help you could give us in finding these Ocampa.”

Neelix cocked his head as though listening to someone who wasn’t really there, the sadness in his eyes warring with the curiosity of his hands on the lifeless equipment in front of him. “I wish I could help,” he sighed, “but as you can see, there is so much debris to investigate today.” He leaned forward again, this time in friendly confidence.

“You’d be surprised the things of value some people abandon.”

If he’d been a Ferengi, she’d have been more sure that feral glimmer was entirely motivated by greed. Following her instincts, she offered sweetly, “Of course, we’d want to compensate you for your trouble.”

The expression of utter innocence that flashed across his face convinced her even further that, wherever Neelix came from, his people had obviously escaped from the more moderate Ferengi generations ago.

“There’s very little you could offer me,” he assured her earnestly.

“Unless …”

He was doing all right until that qualifier. “Yes?” Janeway prompted.

“Unless,” he repeated in the same oh-so-speculative tone, “of course, you had …” Dark eyes brightened eagerly. “Water.”

She knew the surprise showed on her face, compounded by the fact that an instant later she didn’t know why such a request had even startled her. The closest habitable planet—and Neelix certainly wasn’t going very far, very fast in any of the rotted hulks around them—didn’t even have enough surface water to support a brown savannah. That meant what she took for granted every morning in her coffee was probably the most valuable bargaining tool she could have hoped for. “If you help us find our missing crew members, you can have all the water you want.”

Neelix dropped his jaw in dumb amazement, then jerked it shut with a snap too late to disguise the reaction. “That seems like a …” He stammered trying to find the words. “… reasonable arrangement.”

More than reasonable, and Janeway had the advantage of knowing it.

“Good. We’ll beam you over and tow your ship into our shuttlebay.”

She had a feeling the little wreck wouldn’t survive a tractor beam’s stress without blowing every atmospheric seal.

“Mr. Tuvok, go to Transporter Room Two and meet our guest.”

Neelix shifted uncertain eyes between Janeway and the Vulcan’s retreating back as Tuvok turned without comment for the turbolift.

“Beam?” Neelix squeaked uncertainly.

Janeway lifted an eyebrow. So transporter technology wasn’t the norm among spacefaring worlds on this side of the pond. That was something worth keeping in mind. “We have a technology which can take you instantly from your ship to ours. It’s quite harmless,” she hurried to assure him when something that might be either excitement or terror crossed his face. “May we?”

He lifted his arms in acceptance, marvelous wonder still lingering on his face as the transporter reduced him to sparkling atoms and ghosted him away.

The first thing Tuvok noticed about their guest was his smell.

He might have postulated that Neelix’s people exuded a protective musk, like toadlets on Rudolpha IV. Or even that the glandular secretions from Neelix’s reproductive endocrine cycle only registered as unpleasant to a Vulcan’s hypersensitive nose, while smelling positively sensual to members of his own species. Like Klingons, or certain humans at certain points in their development. Tuvok might even have been willing to exercise that peculiar human custom Benefit of the Doubt and construct a working hypothesis based on Neelix’s recent exposure to a derelict vessel of unknown origin and dubious ventilation. But then Neelix straightened out of his nervous crouch and stumped down the steps to stand less than an arm’s length from Tuvok, and the Vulcan was forced to admit that every last molecule of stench emanated directly from Neelix and the skittering insectile menagerie that scrambled for cover beneath the alien’s equally stink-drenched clothes.

Tuvok coughed politely into his palm.

“Astonishing!” Trundling around behind Tuvok, Neelix bobbed up onto his toes to wave cheerily at the transporter technician behind the transparent protective barrier. “You Federations are obviously an advanced culture.”

Tuvok turned to watch the little creature’s curious progress around the transporter room, but found himself unable to willingly step any closer. “The Federation is made up of many cultures. I am Vulcan.”

“Neelix.” The alien spun, thrusting out a hand in an exuberant offer of friendship. “Good to meet you.”

The thought alone of touching skin that both smelled and crawled forced another little cough out of Tuvok. That tiny breach in his Vulcan discipline so startled him—yet another inappropriate reaction, his cool inner voice informed him—that he didn’t even have time to be grateful that Neelix was too quickly distracted to insist that Tuvok shake hands. Tuvok held his ground, reciting each stanza of the calming Pok’Tow in his head, as Neelix scurried across the room again to poke at an intercom panel with one dirty finger.

“Interesting. What exactly does all this do?”

“I assure you—” It took every ounce of his Vulcan control to step politely forward and gesture Neelix toward the transporter-room door.

“—everything in this room has a specific function. However, it would take several hours to explain it all. I suggest we proceed to your quarters.” He was so pleased by Neelix’s willingness to precede him out into the corridor that he added smoothly, “Perhaps you would care for a bath.”

Neelix blinked up at him earnestly. “A what?”

For the first time, Tuvok experienced something close to regret that Janeway had successfully rescued him from the Maquis.