“I don’t blame you,Captain.” He hesitated, and added more softly, “Well, I’m trying not to.”
“I can see where you might, Ranul,” Picard said quietly. “I was responsible for the specific mission that cost Sean his life.”
“He volunteered, though. It was his own choice. His last great adventure.” Keru shifted in his seat, as if uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I want to face Commander Worf any time soon, however.”
Picard had expected this. “You know that Worf only did what he had to do. If there had been any way–”
“But there wasa way,” Keru said, interrupting. “You’reproof of that. They were able to recover you after you were assimilated. And that was after quite some time. Hawk had just been . . . infected. He could have . . . he might have been saved.”
Picard kept quiet. Any response he could give would only deepen the pain. He concentrated instead on the consoles, his fingers tapping in coordinates as Mars loomed larger in front of them.
“I’ve thought a lot about it the last few days . . . about leaving the Enterprise,”Keru said. “On the one hand, I think it holds too many bad memories. I wonder how I’d respond to you. How I’d feel if Worf came back aboard. How I’ll feel when I’m walking those corridors, entering the mess hall or holodecks, even our quarters. All those things will remind me of him.Of losinghim.”
“I’m sure that if Deanna were here, she’d probably counsel you that the pain will grow less every day,” Picard said.
“Yeah, she said something similar to that, along with quite a bit of other . . . crap.” Keru turned to look at Picard, his eyes wet with tears. “You know, when you’ve lost the person you love mostin life, the pain doesn’t everfeel like it’s going to go away. It’s notgoing to be okay.You’re never going to hold them in your arms again, never going to laugh at their stupid jokes, never going to quarrel over something trivial . . . they’re never . . . just never thereagain.”
Picard felt his own eyes well up with tears as he regarded his officer, and found himself again unable to respond.
Keru sniffed, and wiped his eyes. “I know you’ve lost family, and officers who’ve served under you. We’ve alllost people in our lives. Death is inevitable.We’re supposed to realize that, we’re supposed to celebrate the lives of those we’ve lost, we’re supposed to take comfort in some place beyond death–Heaven, Sto‑Vo‑Kor,Valhalla, whatever. But there’s no comfort for those still alive other than their owncontinued existence. And I’d give up years of my life to have more time with Sean.
“I always dreamed I would find someone I could love as much as Sean. I’ve forgotten so manyof my dreams in life, but he . . . he was real. And he was mine.And I was his.”
Keru turned away from Picard, wiping at his cheek again. Picard closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and began procedures for entry into the Martian atmosphere.
Leaving the shuttle docked beside one of the peripheral pressure domes, Picard shouldered a small duffel bag, and he and Keru entered Bradbury City through a tube‑shaped extrusion of the municipal forcefield. Mindful of their awkwardness in the low Martian gravity, the two men made their way through a series of airlocks and settlement streets before entering an area of the city that seemed older and more antiquated than anything else they had seen here thus far. Picard noticed several people using archaic technology, and the modern, redundant interplexed forcefields– through which the salmon‑tinged sky could be seen–gave way to older atmospheric domes composed of semi‑opaque nanoplastic membranes; Picard noted that these antique pressure domes were of the same design as those used by the first Martian settlers more than two centuries earlier.
Picard followed Keru, who knew his way quite well, no doubt from past visits. They eventually found themselves walking along a broad, pebbled walkway. As they moved forward, surrounding them from the sides and above was a trellis, entwined with brilliant blue and red vines and creepers. Multiple forms of flowering plants, their forms elongated by the light Martian gravity, peeked through in strategic places, purple and white and green splashes amongst the bright primary colors of the vines. The scent of growing things reminded Picard of his family’s vineyards in Labarre, France, which his late brother Robert had tended for so many years.
Passing the trellis, Keru and Picard continued on the walkway as it wended through a lush green lawn, similar to those the captain was used to seeing on Earth. Ahead of them was a multilevel house with transparent‑walled hothouses and attached arboretums. Picard saw more examples of lush plant life through the walls.
A stocky man with reddish, gray‑streaked hair emerged from the greenhouse to their left, carrying a three‑pronged digging device in one hand, and a well‑worn leather bag in the other. He puttered for a little bit, adjusting something in the bag, then noticed the two men standing there.
“Ranul!” he said, dropping his bag to the ground. He trotted over and heartily shook the Trill’s hand, then gathered him in for a hug. Breaking away, he turned to look at Picard.
“Rhyst, this is Captain Jean‑Luc Picard,” Keru said, gesturing toward his superior officer. “Captain Picard, this is Rhyst Hawk.”
Picard noticed that the elder man’s smile dimmed considerably, but the handshake was firm and polite. Rhyst had a strong grip, and Picard imagined him to be only a few years his senior. “Welcome to Mars, Captain Picard,” he said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I only wish I could visit under different circumstances.”
“Yes, well, uh, come on up to the house,” Rhyst said, looking distracted. “It can get a wee bit hot out here around the nurseries. I think we’ve got some cool juice of some sort to offer you.”
Picard and Keru followed Rhyst inside. The interior of the house was decorated eclectically, with knickknacks sharing wall space with shelves full of old books. While Rhyst went off to get the drinks, Picard perused one of the shelves. He was pleased to find volumes dating back to the 20th and 21st centuries–he saw works by Hesterman, TormИ, and Zabel. A leather‑bound copy of The Martian Chroniclesby Ray Bradbury–the colony’s namesake–was displayed proudly beside a dog‑eared biography of Lieutenant John Mark Kelly, the leader of an early ill‑fated Mars mission. It was rare to find books this old now; the few paper products to survive the Third World War had long since deteriorated, and today’s books were almost exclusively produced on padds.
“Here you are. Some fresh tangerine‑moova juice,” said Rhyst, appearing in the entryway and holding out two glasses of cool, pink liquid. A woman appeared in the doorway behind Rhyst, and–upon seeing Keru–let out a slight yelp and rushed to hug him.
Picard sipped the drink the older man had offered him, as Keru smoothed the hair of the woman who was now clutching him. Eventually, they broke away from each other, and Keru introduced Picard to Camille Hawk. She gestured toward the bookshelf.
“One of my weaknesses,” she said, her eyes moist. “Old books.”
“I was marveling at the collection,” Picard said. “I have a few ancient books of my own, but I doubt I could even fill one of your shelves.”
“Well, I’d always been told that you were quite the archaeologist,” she responded, smiling slightly. “Each to their own form of preserving the past, eh?”
“Yes,” he agreed, returning her smile.
Camille moved over to one bookshelf and opened a leather‑bound volume she found there. She held it out to Picard. He saw that it was a 1911 copy of Peter and Wendyby James M. Barrie, and remembered his own mother reading the story of Peter Pan to him when he was a child.