Title:   Colony
Author:  Jemima
Contact: jemimap@crosswinds.net
Series:  VOY
Part:	 14/20
Rating:	 PG
Codes:	 crew, J/C
Date:	 November 2000

Disclaimer:  Copyright has expired on the works of Alfred, Lord
	     Tennyson quoted herein.  Certain of the names below have
	     been trademarked by Paramount; be assured I am not
	     conducting trade with them.

*****

Section V:  Dreams

Part 14

*****

  Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
  I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. 


This time, the turbolift responded to Chakotay's touch, without help
from Janeway or Torres.  Seven provided no progress reports - she was
busy analyzing data she'd collected with her tricorder and cortical
implant.  Everyone else was lost in thought.

The turbolift let them out on a mountainside overlooking a twilit
world.  Though they'd seen the inner surface on the viewscreens in
Engineering, the view still took their their breath away.  It could
have passed for the green fields and rolling hills of New Earth,
except that the horizon rose up instead of down.

Chakotay was the first to start moving again.  He led the away team up
the mountainside and toward some low buildings.  They investigated a
few; all were built in the same pattern of a circular corridor around
a large central room, with smaller rooms around the perimeter.
Janeway claimed one of the small rooms in the last building they
checked; she stripped off the rest of her environmental suit and left
it in on what looked like the bed.  A skylight in the main room let in
enough of the twilight for the away team to see their dinner of short
rations.

Janeway tried to dismiss the others.  "You're looking tired, B'Elanna;
you and Tom should turn in."  The couple went willingly; they'd been
going for eighteen hours straight.

Seven, however, protested:  "We should not establish camp without
securing the area.  Starfleet regulations--"

"You and Ovin may secure the area; just don't keep him up too late.
Breakfast is in eight hours."  Janeway followed the overactive Borg
and her hapless partner out of the building, but stopped on the
doorstep to look out upon the half-lit world.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.  "Remind you of somewhere?" a voice
asked.

"New Earth," she answered.  She reached up to her shoulder and put her
hand over his.  "We were real Leigi then, colonizing a new world."

"Like Adam and Eve."

"You don't seriously believe--"

"--that Adam and Eve were passengers on this ship?" he finished her
question, smiling.  "Stranger things have happened.  Maybe something
bit them and they had to be left behind."  

She chuckled, and he said softly, "We could be Leigi again."

The twilight and the green hills carried her back to a simpler time,
when the responsibility of command had been temporarily lifted from
her shoulders.  Just a man and a woman and an unpopulated world...
She shook herself out of her reverie.  Now *I'm* going native, she
thought ruefully, and tried to change the subject.

"Funny how it hasn't gotten any brighter or dimmer - do you think it's
always like this?"

"Maybe it's waiting for us to decide."

"Decide what?" she asked, a little too sharply.

"Whether it's day or night.  We should get some sleep."  He slipped
his hand out from under hers and disappeared into the building.

She stood in the doorway for quite some time, feeling lost in the maze
of possibilities symbolized by this new world.  The twilight seemed to
grow dimmer after a while, so she turned around and went looking for
her bed while there was still light to see by.

*****

Chakotay laid his head upon the pillow to sleep, but instead found
himself standing under an alien sky.  He suspected that the stars
above him were nowhere near the Milky Way.  He looked about
reflexively for his animal guide to lead him on this, his distant
ancestors' version of a vision quest, but he saw only a humanoid
figure approaching him.  When the man spoke, Chakotay understood,
though he knew somehow that the language was far older than Old High
Leigan.

    "Brother, she will never bear live offspring.  She does not even
    desire to mate, never mind settle down.  Your life with her brings
    you only frustration and grief - why will you not find another?"
    the figure asked him.

    "Brother," Chakotay heard himself answer in the same antique
    tongue, "you have never seen the light in her eyes as she beholds
    a new sun rising over a new world.  You do not know how she
    delights in everything, from the smallest plant to the highest
    mountain, from a minor nebula to a vast galaxy.  I cannot leave
    her."

    "But you need earth beneath your feet, not the cold decks of a
    colony ship."

    "It cannot be helped."

    "Perhaps it can, brother," the other replied.  "I will build you
    something."  The speaker seemed to become lost in thought for a
    few moments, then said, "The next time you return, it will be
    ready.  Then I also will accompany you two, and see the galaxies
    and plant new colonies."

Chakotay knew that the offer was unusual, that his 'brother' the
builder never left the homeworld - he had always been content to make
the ships which roved the galaxies.  

As he reflected on his brother's words, the vision changed.  He saw
Toleighanomir - no, it was not Toleighanomir, it was not the two
thousand three hundred and forty-seventh ship, but the first one.  It
hung, perfectly round and jet black, over the sky of the humanoid
homeworld, in geosynchronous orbit over the house of his brother the
builder.

    "What is it?" she asked him as they made their return approach to
    the homeworld in the now empty colony ship.

    "It seems we have a new moon," Chakotay answered.  The woman
    looked like Kathryn, but she seemed to be at home in this
    long-vanished scene.  "My brother said he was building something
    new - perhaps that is it."

    "But what is it for?"

    "What is everything we do for?  It is for colonizing, for
    spreading our species across the barren worlds of the waiting
    galaxies."

The scene shifted suddenly, to a low house in a green field, on a
world where the horizon fell up instead of down.  It was his house,
and she was there, in his bed, and...

He woke suddenly, though at first he didn't know it.  She was still
beside him in the bed with only a thin blanket to cover her, and he
was similarly attired.  He smiled at his dream vision, until he spotted
her red and black uniform lying crumpled on the floor.

He looked around the room.  All the small rooms were alike, but only
her pack and environmental suit were here.  There was no sign of his
uniform, which he'd removed and folded neatly before going to sleep.
This, then, was her room, and she wouldn't be pleased to find him here
when she woke up.  He didn't pause to wonder how he'd gotten there -
he would be on his guard from now on, in any event.

Chakotay eased himself out of the bed, being careful not to wake the
flesh-and-blood woman beside him.  He walked over to what he now
somehow knew was the replicator and produced a new uniform for
himself.  He looked twice as he donned the undershirt - there was a
Maquis captain's bar in place of his usual rank insignia.

He tried to replicate her a fresh uniform, but it came out science
blue instead of command red and he quickly disposed of it, not daring
to count the pips.  He'd had enough of the editorial comments of
Toleighanomir for one morning.  He tiptoed out her door.

*****

        O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
        Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 


B'Elanna was bouncing with energy that sunny morning.  "I had a dream,
Captain, or at least I thought it was a dream.  Toleighanomir was in
its final approach to Leigus Prime, and I was its engineer, as I am
now.

"We had seen a fifth of the Delta Quadrant in my lifetime, all on warp
drive, but I had a theory about how to restart the space-folding
drive, which had been shut down for generations.  There were only a
thousand souls left on Toleighanomir - we were happy, though, because
we had achieved our purpose of seeding the galaxy with humanoidkind.
Leigus would be our final colony."

"Did you say 'space-folding drive'?" the Captain asked.

"Yes, Captain.  The hull of the moon contains the same elements as the
crust of Sikaris, which the Sikarians used to power the trajector that
transported Harry 40,000 light years and back.  But this one forms a
neutrino envelope the size of the moon itself, and has a theoretical
range of hundreds of millions of lightyears.

"I wanted to try it, but the other two wanted to settle Leigus and be
done with exploration for a few millennia."

"Did you see me or Commander Chakotay in your dream?"  

A very odd question for the Captain to ask, Tom thought, and why was
Chakotay suddenly so pale?

"No - your counterparts were both old men.  I think one was the model
for the hologram we encountered."

"Is that all?"

"From the dream, yes, but when I woke up I knew how to find and use
the replicators.  That's what convinced me it was more than a dream."
That, and my pestering you to tell the others, Tom thought to himself,
as the Engineer added, "I think I know how to move the moon now."

The Captain seemed pleased, though there was something off in her tone
as she asked Chakotay, "Did you dream anything, Commander?"

"Nothing so helpful as B'Elanna's dream.  I found out why
Toleighanomir, or rather, the first ship like her, was built."  He
paused.

"Why?" she asked bluntly.

"A man built it for his brother, who was the captain of a colony ship
of a more traditional design, and who, for personal reasons, could not
give up space exploration, but also wanted to feel the soil beneath his 
feet and build a home."

The Captain seemed dissatisfied with his response, but changed the
subject anyway.  "I also had a dream.  I was a scientist.  I visited
countless planets, taking soil samples, analyzing plants.  And I
looked out a viewscreen into the inky darkness - not the void between
stars but the void between galaxies.  All the galaxies of Perseus hung
before me like jewels on black velvet: spirals, disks, ellipsoids and
many stranger shapes.  I knew that as long as I lived I would never
grow tired of that sight."

And someone was always behind me, she didn't say, though I was so
engrossed in the dream worlds that I did not turn to see his face,
until...  "I also saw Toleighanomir, or another ship like her, before
many buildings had been built on the inner surface."  Her eyes
flickered to Chakotay, who was staring fixedly at the floor.  "But I
had a house, and the Engineer did.  He had built it for his family."

*****