When his youngest son, Elieth, had told him and T'Pel of his intention to take up residence there, it had seemed an unlikely locale for such a serious young Vulcan man. Then, after Elieth had moved, he had revealed his ulterior motive: He had gone to Deneva to persuade Ione Kitain, a daughter of the Fourth House of Betazed, to become his bride. At the time, T'Pel had decried Elieth's actions as "illogical." Tuvok suspected that his wife had used the term as a euphemism for "disappointing."

Elieth and Ione had wed while Tuvok was presumed lost with the rest of Voyager's crew, and over the next few years, T'Pel had learned to accept her new, non-Vulcan daughter-in-law. Ione's sophisticated telepathic skills had helped matters along, but what had finally earned T'Pel's respect and acceptance was the great contentment and peace of mind Ione seemed to bring to Elieth, whose logic had long felt troubled during his youth.

Squatting low to the ground, Tuvok scooped up a palmful of gray-brown dust, which had the consistency of greasy flour. It clung to his skin even as he tried to clap it off.

T'Pel looked away, past the distant cl.u.s.ters of roving kith and kin to the dead. "Why did we come here, husband? Starfleet told us nothing survived in the Summer Islands and that there would be no remains or relics to recover."

"I wished to see this for myself," he said, rubbing his hands clean on the front of his trousers. He stood straight. In every direction, the Summer Islands lay like flat smears barely raised from the ocean, which now was stained brown and black.

Mastering the turmoil of his thoughts had become taxing for Tuvok. Despite the psionic therapy he had done with Counselor Troi to fortify his psychic control and telepathic defenses, which had been compromised by years of neurological trauma, he felt overwhelmed. Primitive emotions threatened to crack his dispa.s.sionate veneer. Rage and grief, despair and denial-they were black clouds blotting out the light of reason.

Resolved not to embarra.s.s himself or T'Pel or to disgrace the memory of his slain youngest son, Tuvok stood firm against the darkest tides of his katra, even as he feared drowning in them, submerging into madness and never surfacing again.

"We should return to t.i.tan now," T'Pel said.

"No," Tuvok said. "I am not ready yet."

T'Pel was confounded by his reply. "There is nothing else for us to find or do here. Staying longer serves no purpose."

"I do not wish to explain myself, T'Pel. I will remain here while I reflect on what has happened. I would prefer that you stay with me, but if you wish to depart, I will not stop you."

In pairs and trios or in small groups, people both young and old, male and female, and pilgrims of all species milled in stunned shock across the level stretch of total desolation. Tuvok watched them all seek in vain for something that was no longer to be found, for tangible artifacts of loved ones now gone.

An empty hush of wind off the sea roared in Tuvok's ears, and the breeze kicked up clouds of foul-smelling, choking dust.

When it died down and the heavy cloud started to settle, T'Pel said, "If you are pondering the details of our son's death, I would urge you to consider that most likely, it was swift and entailed only fleeting pain."

"The specifics of his demise are not important," Tuvok said. "I question his decision not to escape with Ione when it might still have been possible."

"Elieth was committed to law enforcement and to the service of others," T'Pel said, as if she were telling Tuvok something that he didn't already know. "If he and Ione stayed behind after the final transports left, he must have thought their choice to be the one that was most logical."

Tuvok's sea of troubled emotions swelled and threatened to swallow him whole. He grappled with a surge of irrational fury provoked by T'Pel's remark. His fists clenched white-knuckle tight, and his face hardened with bitter anger.

"I can see no logic in this, T'Pel. My son is dead."

Dark clouds were pulled taut across the leaden skies of Deneva. The ash-covered peaks of the Sibiran Range were obscured by tin-dull mists, and a diffuse light cast a dim gray pall over the desolate hills and plains that spread south from the mountains.

Worf tried not to inhale too deeply. The entire planet had a dusty, smoky odor, like a lingering tang of burnt hair. During his approach from orbit, via shuttle with Jasminder Choudhury, he had seen no traces of green on the planet's surface. Until they had pierced the bottom of the cloud cover, in fact, they had barely seen the surface at all. All but the most extreme polar lat.i.tudes of Deneva were encircled by rings of ash, dust, and smoke-the airborne residue of its vaporized cities.

He stood on the scorched plain and watched myriad shuttles and small ships descend from the death-polluted sky and seek out remote places to set down. Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Deneva in the past few days, since the travel interdiction had been lifted. The Federation had quarantined its surface until Starfleet had verified that visitors and returning denizens would face no lingering threats, either from the Borg or from radiation and other toxins. According to a message he had received that morning from his son, Alexander, conditions were much the same on Qo'noS and many worlds of the Klingon Empire.

A few meters away from him, Jasminder kneeled and scanned a patch of soil with her tricorder. She switched off the device. "Close enough," she said, standing up as a gust of warm air pelted them both with sand.

Worf squinted against the stinging breeze. "Are you sure?"

"The whole planet's a cinder," she said. "One patch of dirt will serve as well as another. We should get started."

They walked together to the back of their borrowed shuttle from the Enterprise and opened its rear hatch. Most of the pa.s.senger compartment had been filled with tools, supplies, and their one piece of precious cargo. Jasminder grabbed two shovels and handed one to Worf. "Thank you for coming with me."

"I am honored...and moved...that you invited me."

She favored him with a small, bittersweet smile, and then they stepped out of the shuttle and returned to the spot she'd selected. This, she'd told him during the flight down, was where her family home had stood, before the Borg had erased it from existence. They circled the spot she'd marked until they stood on either side of it, facing each other.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Yes."

Shovel tips were pressed into the dry, blackened soil and driven deep with pushes from their heels. The parched skin of the planet cracked and broke as Worf and Jasminder pulled on the shovels' handles. The two officers lifted thick clumps of dirt and heaved them to one side. They dug at the hard ground for a few minutes, until they had excavated a pit three-quarters of a meter deep and half a meter wide.

Setting aside the shovels, they returned to the shuttle and retrieved more supplies. Jasminder brought a large, clumsy-heavy pouch of chemicals, and Worf hefted a small drum of water onto his shoulder. They methodically emptied both into the hole.

Worf waited behind while she returned to the shuttle for the last and most crucial element.

She returned carrying in one hand a diminutive twig-Worf thought it hardly deserved to be called even a sapling, let alone a tree. He waited while she lowered it into the soaked and fertilized hole they'd prepared, and he held it upright and steady while she shoveled the dirt back in around its linen-wrapped roots. She tamped down the dirt with her boots, and then she piled more on top, until at last she had crafted a gently sloping round island around the skinny oak's wrist-thick trunk.

By the time Jasminder had finished, tears were flowing from her eyes, but she herself was quiet. She took a few backward steps, setting herself at a remove to survey her handiwork.

Worf stood beside her and said nothing. Across the blood-hallowed ground, the wind whispered its benedictions.

Jasminder wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, without once taking her eyes off the tree.

"It's so..." Grief robbed her of words. He reached out and rested his arm across her shoulders. She huddled beside him, under his embrace, and then she started over. "It's so tiny."

With a firm yet gentle clasp of her shoulder, he pulled her close and said, "It is a beginning."

Xin Ra-Havreii stood at the forefront of a throng gathered at the broad, starboard-facing windows in t.i.tan's arboretum. Much of the ship's crew had departed two weeks earlier for extended sh.o.r.e leave, after it had limped home to the Utopia Planitia yards above Mars for repairs and upgrades-all to be made under Ra-Havreii's expert supervision.

The Efrosian chief engineer stroked one long droop of his ivory-white mustache and speculated that his absent shipmates would regret not having been aboard to see that day's event with their own eyes.

Sometimes videos do history no justice, he mused.

A majority of the personnel who had packed into the high-ceilinged compartment to take advantage of its un.o.bstructed view were not regular t.i.tan personnel but technicians, mechanics, and engineers a.s.signed to the Utopia Planitia facility. Among them, Ra-Havreii recognized many former friends and colleagues of his, from his days working there as a project director and starship designer. He hadn't spoken to many of them since the accident years earlier aboard the Luna, and he felt no desire to do so now. For their part, they seemed content to ignore him as well.

A whiff of delicate perfume stood out from the scents of flowers and green plants, and it turned Ra-Havreii's head. Standing behind his left shoulder was Lieutenant Commander Melora Pazlar, once more outfitted in her powered armature. Ra-Havreii smiled at her. "Good morning, Melora," he said.

"Good morning, Xin. Room for one more up front?"

The young Catullan man standing on Ra-Havreii's left glanced at Pazlar and then at the chief engineer, who furrowed his snowy brows and growled, "Make a hole, Crewman."

"Aye, sir," said the Catullan, as he nudged the rest of the line down a few steps to free up room for Pazlar.

She inched forward and pressed in close beside Ra-Havreii. "Thanks, Xin."

"My pleasure," he said. Looking around at the crush of spectators, he added, "I thought you hated crowds."

"I do," she said. "But I hate missing out even more."

Over the soft murmuring of the crowd, someone at the aft end of the compartment shouted, "Here they come!" Everyone leaned toward the windows and craned their necks, straining to see past everyone else, to bear witness to history.

Pazlar and Ra-Havreii shifted their weight and stood at matching angles while staring out at the stars, awaiting the main attraction. Facing aft, the blond Elaysian woman had her back to Ra-Havreii, who savored the fragrance of her hair.

"It's too bad they had to shut down my holopresence network while making repairs," she said over her shoulder, making eye contact as she noticed how close their faces were.

He nodded. "Yes, it's a shame. But the interruption is only temporary. Oh! Did I tell you about the new asymmetric interaction mode I created for it?"

"No, I don't think you did."

"You're going to love it," he said with unabashed pride in his work. "It lets your holographic avatar inflict amplified physical damage on real opponents while preventing any harmful effects from being transmitted back to you. It could prove very useful if t.i.tan ever gets boarded again."

She smiled at him. "I have a theory about the holopresence system, you know."

"Really?" His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Do tell."

"I think it's proof you're in love with me."

Affecting a nonchalant air, he replied, "Ridiculous." Noting the amused glimmer in her gaze, he added with some hesitation, "I mean...love is, um, such a strong word, and we hardly-that is, we..."

"Simmer down, Commander," Pazlar said. "It's not the least appealing idea I've heard lately. And some of your past conquests have a.s.sured me that you know how to be gentle." Another teasing grin. "Which is important for a gal like me."

"Well, obviously," he said. Tamping down his surging excitement, he decided to handle the matter with delicacy. "I find your invitation almost irresistible," he began.

She sounded insulted. "Almost?"

"Nigh irresistible," he corrected himself. "But before I surrender to my pa.s.sions-and yours-it's absolutely vital that I be completely honest with you."

"About what?"

"Well, about me," he said. "I am deeply attracted to you, Melora, and in ways that I haven't felt about someone in a long time. But I'm afraid it's simply not in my nature to be, well, monogamous."

She snickered, and then she laughed. "Who's asking?" Shaking her head, she turned aft and added softly, "Let's just see how our first date goes, okay?"

The more he learned about her, the more he adored her.

"Okay," he said. "Sounds like a plan."

Shining brighter than the stars, a white point grew larger as it neared the Utopia Planitia orbital shipyard. Edges resolved into forms and then into two distinct shapes linked by a glowing beam. At the forefront, a Sabre-cla.s.s starship. Towed behind it, and held together by who knew what kind of high-tech legerde-main, was a twenty-second-century NX-cla.s.s starship, its hull and nacelles scarred but still together.

An announcement over the intraship comm echoed from the overhead speakers. "Attention, all t.i.tan personnel," said Commander Vale. "Muster starboard for pa.s.sing honors."

Outside, the Sabre-cla.s.s vessel adjusted its course to glide past overhead, giving Ra-Havreii and the other spectators a perfect view of the registry on the ventral side of its primary hull: U.S.S. da Vinci NCC 81623. With precision and grace, its tractor beam guided its ward, the Columbia NX-02, past t.i.tan to safety inside a docking slip.

Ra-Havreii didn't feel foolish or embarra.s.sed to have tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g in his eyes while he watched the Columbia's long-overdue homecoming, because everyone else in the arboretum did, too. With a solemn nod of salute to the old vessel, he whispered, "Welcome home, old girl."

The personal transport pod had barely settled to the ground near Vicenzo Farrenga's home in Lakeside on Cestus III when his five-year-old daughter, Aoki, was out the pod's side hatch and sprinting for the front door of their house.

He called after her, "Sweetie, wait for Daddy!"

The sable-haired little girl stopped on the snaking path of organically shaped paving stones that led away from the landing area. Vicenzo and his cousin, Frederico-more commonly known as Fred-pulled themselves out of the vehicle with the stiffness of men tasting their first years of early middle age.

"If you want to take the twins, I'll grab your bags," Fred said, using his handheld control to open the rear hatch.

"That'd be great, thanks," Vicenzo said.

He released the magnetic locks that held in place the horizontal bar of his infants' tandem safety seat. Then he lifted them out one at a time-Colin first and then Sylvana-and guided them into a double-pouch baby sling that enabled him to carry both children at once, one against his chest and the other on his back, while keeping his hands free.

As he straightened under the weight of his heavier-by-the-day scions, he saw that Fred had finished unloading the luggage and apparently was pondering which pieces to take inside first. "Don't hurt yourself," he said to his cousin. "Start with Aoki's bags-she mostly has pajamas and stuffed animals."

"Right," said Fred, who stacked Aoki's smaller flowered bags on top of a large one with wheels, extended the bottom bag's towing handle, and pulled it behind him as he followed Vicenzo toward the broad, immaculate A-frame cedar house.

Vicenzo breathed in the cool early morning air and admired the view of Pike's Lake surrounded by mostly undisturbed forest. Sunlight sparkled on the water, and a breeze brought him scents of wood smoke and pine.

His was one of few homes that had been built around the lake. One of the most attractive features of this piece of property, in his opinion, was that none of the houses around the lake had a view of another. Each was sequestered in a nook of the sh.o.r.eline and sheltered by the forest.

He checked and confirmed that his two canoes and one rowboat were still tied to the small dock behind his house. The lawn furniture didn't appear to have been pilfered during his absence, and that much more was once again right in his world. He'd just spent seventeen days making an arduous, impromptu round-trip journey with his children, who had pestered him with an endless barrage of questions. There had been no way to tell them that they had, in fact, been running for their lives from the Borg, because Mommy had said to leave Federation s.p.a.ce.

Even after President Bacco's startling address, when it had become clear that the Borg threat was over, getting home hadn't been easy. By then, he and the children had reached Pacifica, along with several million other hastily displaced refugees. It had taken six days to get there, then five days to book pa.s.sage on another transport back to Cestus III. And, as he'd feared, he'd been deprived of communications every step of the way, up to and including the moment he and the kids had landed.

Fortunately, Fred had never even considered being evacuated from Cestus III and had been home with nothing better to do, as usual. After a gentle browbeating, he had agreed to come pick up Vicenzo and his brood from the starport in Johnson City.

Trudging up the walk to the house, Vicenzo winced as both twins began crying at once. In front of him, Aoki hopped with manic energy after barely plodding along behind him for two weeks. She cut the air with a shrill plea: "Faster, Daddy!"

"Hold your horses, Pumpkin," he said.

It's good to be back at the house, he thought with relief. It'll be nice to sleep in my own bed. And eat my own cooking.

As he approached the front door, it swung open ahead of him, and he stopped in midstride.

His breath caught with hope and surprise.

Aoki spun around toward the house and shrieked, "Mommy!" She ran at a full gallop into Miranda Kadohata's wide and waiting arms. Miranda scooped the girl off her feet, kissed her, and spun her around and around as they laughed with glee.

Vicenzo desperately wanted to sprint to his wife, but he didn't want to risk shaking the twins, so he trotted in a funny way that minimized the bouncing of his hurried steps.

Miranda turned, perched Aoki on her sundress-clad hip, and held the girl steady with her right arm; she used her left to embrace Vicenzo and the babies. She felt amazing in his arms, and she smelled even better. He had missed every inch of her.

"Welcome back, love," she said, her eyes gleaming with grateful tears. She kissed the top of Colin's head, and then she touched her fingertips to Sylvana's spa.r.s.ely covered scalp and ma.s.saged it, in a peculiar flexing gesture that Vicenzo had nicknamed the hand spider. Within moments, both twins had stopped crying. She smiled at Vicenzo. "It's good to be home."