“No,” Paris replied. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but the last time we had that exact conversation you nearly punched me, and I don’t like making the same mistake twice.”
“Then what?” Chakotay demanded.
“Harry Kim was a father.”
The words registered but somehow remained incomprehensible. “Of course Harry Kim had a father,” Chakotay replied.
“No. Harry Kim became a father,” Paris said, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. “Five days ago, just before we reached orbit, Nancy Conlon suffered a hemorrhage in her brain and required emergency surgery. She was a few weeks pregnant at the time and something went wrong. The embryo was in danger, so they transported it to a fetal incubator. For the last five days of his life, Harry Kim was a father.”
All of this was news to Chakotay. Although Counselor Cambridge had reported regularly to Chakotay about Conlon’s progress, the details of her illness and apparently her pregnancy had remained private.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” Chakotay asked. “Why didn’t he tell any of us?”
Paris shook his head. “It was early. Nancy didn’t even know yet. She was still in a coma when he confided in me and insisted I keep it between us. He wouldn’t even let me tell B’Elanna.”
This revelation ignited a cascade of new, troubling feelings but Chakotay couldn’t help but fixate on Tom’s face. Painful as this obviously was, there was a deep sense of peace radiating from the commander that Chakotay found inscrutable.
“How is this okay?” Chakotay demanded. “How does the waste of another completely innocent life somehow make this acceptable?”
Paris shrugged. “I don’t know. Harry changed after he met Nancy. He found some stability, some reserve of strength from which he drew even when everything kept going to hell all around us. And he wanted that child as much as I’ve ever known him to want anything. The baby was only a few weeks old and he was already thinking about how to make her life perfect. I don’t like believing that he’s dead any more than you do, but I’m so damned happy that he got to experience at least a little of that before he died. I honestly never thought he would.”
Chakotay tried to find the comfort Paris obviously felt, but it was a struggle. It was all so damned unfair.
He caught himself before the words left his lips. Unfair? Of course it was unfair. Life was unfair. There was no basis for comparison by which every moment of each life couldn’t be judged as such. It was the cry of a childish mind and belied the experience and hard-won wisdom that had seen Chakotay through his darkest days.
“We still don’t know what happened to them,” Paris continued. “And I’m not at all convinced that there are any more miracles left for us. We’ve used up more than our fair share over the years. But the people on this ship and in this fleet who we are meant to lead follow our examples closely. Ensign Gwyn almost threw her career away on a hunch a few days ago. Devi Patel decided to end her life so that we would receive the data she collected from that damned planet. They did those things because on some level they knew that in their places, we would have done the same.
“We owe it to them now to deal with our personal grief on our own time and as best we can. We have one another to hold on to no matter which way this goes. And I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t remind you that your anger is pointless and serves nothing but your own ego.”
“All of this is my fault,” Chakotay said, his eyes burning brightly. “At least that’s what the anger and pain that have refused to be silent ever since Waters reported Galen’s loss have been reminding me. If I hadn’t insisted on exploring this world, none of this would have happened.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Paris countered.
“It is and I do, but that doesn’t make the feeling any less potent,” Chakotay replied.
“Try focusing on the good that was Harry’s life, Nancy’s life, the Doctor’s existence… how much they gave us and how full these last months have been. There are worse ways to live and definitely worse times to die.”
Having said what needed to be said, Paris headed toward the door. Chakotay called to him just before he reached it.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Anytime, Chakotay.”
Counselor Cambridge had ordered Ensign Gwyn to return to her quarters and rest until the start of her next duty shift. His next move was to contact the only person in the fleet who could confirm what Gwyn had told him.
It took only moments for the weathered face of Doctor El’nor Sal to appear on the viewscreen in his office.
“You rang?” Sal greeted him.
Vesta’s chief medical officer was well into her eighties and one of the most delightfully complex individuals Cambridge had ever met. This woman brooked no one’s nonsense and demanded far more of herself than was probably healthy. Cambridge liked her, but she had lost perspective in her quest to heal Nancy Conlon and, as a result, had been relieved of duty by her commanding officer, Captain Regina Farkas. An unfortunate side effect of Sal’s quest to heal Conlon had included an experimental procedure on Ensign Gwyn that had caused significant short-term trauma. The potential long-term effects upon the ensign remained an open question. But as Cambridge stared into the doctor’s gray eyes, he couldn’t help but notice that something in them, a ferocious intensity, had faded.
“Are you quite all right, Doctor?” Cambridge asked.
Sal sighed and took a long sip from a clear glass of pale blue liquid. Her next words betrayed a slight slur. “Seeing as how I’ve been relieved of duty for the foreseeable future and apparently the patient whose case cost me my reputation and my oldest friend has just been killed, I thought I might drink a little.” She wavered slightly as she spoke, a gentle
