“Three.”
Picard wasn’t sure what a correct response would be, so he covered, “Very good, Joseph,” as if counting to three was an arduous task.
And then Joseph innocently added, “But where’s number four?”
That’s when Picard knew they had a problem.
11
PROCESSING SEGMENT 3, STARDATE 57485.7
As the Reman transporter room resolved around Kirk, his first impression of this new world was a twinge in his lower back—the pull of high gravity.
Then he realized how dark the room was. Of course, he’d just come from the daylight-bright transporter bay of the Calypso, and his eyes had not yet adjusted.
He decided it would be wise not to step off the transporter pad until he could see where he was going, and could trust his legs to take him there.
“Welcome, James Tiberius Kirk.”
The voice was rough, the words half-whispered, the greeting the kind that children dread in nightmares.
A silhouette moved toward him, its presence defined by the glowing transporter equipment controls it eclipsed.
“Thank you,” Kirk said reflexively, feeling, sensing the silhouette halt before him, at the base of the transporter pad platform. Waiting.
Most probably Reman, Kirk reasoned, perhaps two and a half meters tall.
Kirk did not move.
“Are you in need of assistance?” the silhouette asked.
Kirk knew he should mention the dim lights and the heavy gravity to explain his hesitation. But decades of Starfleet training and experience made him give a different answer. There was no need to voluntarily reveal weakness to a potential foe.
“Not at all,” he said. He stepped forward, gritting his teeth as his legs almost buckled in their efforts to keep him balanced. Only his peripheral vision kept him from pitching off the steps at the edge of the platform. By looking to the side, he could just glimpse them like a low-magnitude star at the limits of perception.
He stood before the silhouette, close enough to make out the upward sweep of batlike ears, the gleam of small, deeply set eyes, even the glint of fangs.
The Reman held a fist to his chest, nodded his head in a graceful movement that was surprisingly deferential—and Romulan, Kirk noted.
“I am Facilitator.”
Kirk returned the salute, careful to nod his head to the same angle and for the same duration as his greeter. But he had no knowledge of what he was expected to say in return. The Calypso did not have a Starfleet databank filled with details of alien protocol. So he reverted to what would be expected on Earth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The Reman stiffened, angled his head as if trying to see Kirk from a new perspective. A moment later, recovering, he pointed to the side. “Please, your hosts await.”
Coinciding with the Reman’s gesture, a door slid open, and against one dark wall Kirk caught the glow of a corridor. The light was pale green.
Facilitator led the way and Kirk followed. The silence of the place was almost refreshing after the annoyingly loud environment of the Calypso. Although after the first few days, as always, even the constant noise of ship’s machinery had faded to the background for Kirk. Still, the Reman corridor was remarkably quiet, as hushed as a Bajoran temple.
The corridor curved a few hundred meters from the transporter room to a second door.
Facilitator paused, slipped a small object from the long leather cloak he wore, then placed it over his eyes. A moment later, the Reman gestured again, and the door opened.
Kirk looked into a dark antechamber. Something about its small size made him think of an airlock.
As Kirk and Facilitator left the corridor, the door behind them slid shut and a third door opened on the far side of the antechamber.
The light was blinding. Bright as a summer day in Iowa.
Kirk reflexively held a hand to his eyes, blinked as his challenged vision adjusted yet again. He turned to Facilitator to see how he was handling the onslaught of light, but the Reman was now wearing the object he had taken from his cloak. It was a light shield for his eyes.
Then Kirk was surrounded by a chorus of greetings, each slightly different, but all some variation on, “Welcome, James Kirk,” together with the words “Farr Jolan.”
Without a Starfleet combadge with its Universal Translator, Kirk had no way of comprehending the phrase’s meaning. The language the words belonged to, however, was not unfamiliar.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, they confirmed that his hosts were all members of the same species: Romulan, not Reman, as Kirk had anticipated.
The first to present himself to Kirk was one of the oldest. He began by placing his fist on his chest, as Facilitator had done. But then the Romulan awkwardly held his hand out to Kirk, as if he’d been told—but never seen—how humans greeted one another.
Kirk shook the proffered hand, and the Romulan identified himself as Virron, Primary Assessor of Processing Segment Three, and fourth cousin to the second removal of Teilani of Chal.
Teilani? Kirk stared at the man, realizing why this preliminary meeting was taking place. This was a family reunion. Teilani’s family.
Over the next few minutes, Virron made all the introductions while Facilitator remained silent, standing to one side.
Each Romulan present announced his or her name, position, and some variation of the phrase Farr Jolan.
The sheer number of new faces and names and complex associations began to bury Kirk. By the tenth introduction, he was struggling to keep up even with the memory tricks that Spock had taught him. By the twentieth introduction, he had resigned himself to the reality that he could not keep up, and so concentrated solely on those who claimed direct family ties to Teilani, and thus to Joseph.
Kirk had no illusions that Teilani’s child was the purpose of this meeting, and that he, Joseph’s human father, was merely being tolerated. The Romulans were flattering him with what was on the surface a grand reception so he would relax and allow Joseph to accompany him on his next trip here.
The truth of it came after the final introduction had been made. As if some telepathic signal had been given, the assembled Romulans began to leave the room. In less than a minute, Kirk was alone with Virron, two other Romulans, and Facilitator, the Reman.
“Please,” Virron said, indicating a cloth-covered chair in the elegantly furnished room, “sit down, Kirk. I know this world’s gravity can be tiring to offworlders.”
Kirk hoped the sweat on his brow didn’t give him away. The brightly lit room with polished wood panels and sparkling-green lightglows was hot enough to make Spock happy. “I hadn’t really noticed, but it does feel a little stronger than Earth’s.” The chair Virron offered was a welcome respite, and as Facilitator helped the other Romulans arrange other chairs around Kirk’s, as if creating an alien version of a Starfleet officer’s lounge, Kirk tried to keep the look of relief from his face.
The other two Romulans were also part of Teilani’s extended family, though after so much time had passed, their connection seemed tenuous at best, at least as far as Kirk’s understanding of Romulan methods of calculating relatedness.
Sen was an elderly female, whose short white hair had an odd green highlight from the lightglows. Nran
