Sara watched the incident in the mess hall with a mixture of emotions: curiosity, disgust, and finally realization, not all of which were projected by the crew standing around her. She was one of the first to set down her drink after Jor’Brel had departed, wandering the corridors until she found herself in her quarters.
“Korenna”, either the actual Enaren female or B’Elanna’s now-held memories of her, were not lying. The memories were complete, in their entirety as now possessed by not only one but two females. As impossible as it was for Korenna’s fellow companions to believe, it was not for B’Elanna.
It was also not impossible for Sara.
B’Elanna had not been alone in her realizations or her experiences, the ‘shared dreams’ of the Enarens. While Korenna had projected hers onto the Chief Engineer of Voyager, someone else had done so to Sara. Though from what she picked up, the dreams were different in their nature.
Rather than being sensual, even at times erotic, the dreams were simple: kindness, friendship, the shared innocence of a childhood long since forgotten in the ambitions of growth. The common tactic was indeed fear, the fear of the unknown, the common fears of a child when growing into an adult world, and the truth of what was to pass, the naiveté of childhood shattered forever in the name of progress.
The only other commonality was the secrecy.
Behind the closed doors of the ‘regressive’ village, a young boy stole quietly opening and then closing it behind him, smiling once his ruse was in effect before he joined his friends in the games of youth, laughing, sharing humor, playing the innocent pranks guaranteed to embarrass but never to hurt.
Beyond the doors, the boy was happy.
He bade his friends goodbye at dusk, returning to his home to use the steel balls to sterilize his hands before sitting down to a meal with his family, where both parents asked about his day. The boy responded carefully, telling only half the truth – he told the events, but not the people they had taken place with. He retired to his music and his bed, falling asleep to dream of another day of play after school with his friends.
His friends beyond the door.
Whispered childhood secrets were taken and given without request. Hands were placed on shoulders to open the well-known telepathic link, sharing and sharing alike, as it was known in their culture. Days passed and the boy grew to somewhat of a man, the ungainly stage between that of a child and that of something else, a teen, an adult, the in-between stage when one could find peace only with those he had known for years and trusted the most.
And then one day, his friends were no longer there.
Sara stood and went looking for Jor’Brel.
She found him almost in the transporter room, accompanied by Chakotay and Tuvok – after B’Elanna’s outburst, no Enaren was allowed to be alone on the ship. It was truly an unnecessary precaution, since they were already in orbit around their planet and would have left anyway. Jor’Brel, while appearing the most shaken and in fact vehement about B’Elanna’s outbursts and accusations, was nevertheless the only one that could give Sara a clear answer.
If he was willing. He had not been with B’Elanna, but somehow…Sara knew. She couldn’t explain how, or why, or what caused her to know. She just did.
He saw her and stopped, the age-old man that he was, a still-young spark in his eyes as he gazed into her crystalline blue ones. The Enarens telepathy was different than her own, different than that of a Vulcan or a Betazoid; their abilities were not that of mind-reading but sharing. Experiences, images…and they had to be touching a person to do it.
“So,” he said to her quietly, “the telepath among you has come to say goodbye.”
Sara advanced slowly, curiously. “It was you, wasn’t it.”
“Sara?” Chakotay was bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“Indeed.” Tuvok raised an eyebrow.
“B’Elanna’s not the only one having strange dreams,” she told them all in her precise, clear-cut way, though she didn’t waver in her gaze at Jor Brel. “I’ve been having them too.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Tuvok asked her.
“Who would believe me?” she asked him back. He exchanged a look with Chakotay that spoke volumes, at least to her. “I wasn’t in any danger. They weren’t like B’Elanna’s. They were…that of a child. But they prove the fact Jora Mirrel wasn’t lying. Her memories weren’t tainted, or colored, or falsified. They’re all true.”
Jor Brel suddenly looked very old. He sighed heavily, moving to lean against the bulkhead with one hand, staring at it for long moments until he turned back to Sara. “Yes,” he finally whispered, tears in his eyes. “They’re all true.”
“The dreams…the ones that I’ve been having…they’re yours.” She said to him. “Aren’t they. Your childhood, your friends…”
He recovered himself enough to stand upright, as Chakotay and Tuvok looked on at Sara as though she had just appeared out of thin air. “They were my friends,” he told her. “They were…good people. All of them. None of them deserved what took place.”
“Then it is true,” she pressed. “About the things that happened. The regressives weren’t resettled, were they. They were exterminated.”
Another long moment of silence passed, in which he looked to the ceiling as though the answers to all questions were written there in the lights, the panels, the coloring. “Yes. They were. May the fates that hold my life in their hands forgive me when I die for exposing what cannot be told, but the answer you seek is the one I’ve said.”
“Why me?” Sara asked the same question B’Elanna had. “Why did you share them with me?”
“Because someone had to know,” his response was simple. “I can’t tell my children, my grandchildren…they can never know the truth. If they did…our planet would go up in flames. The revolts would be incomprehensible. Everything that has been worked toward, strived for…it would all be gone.”
“You were younger than Jora Mirell,” Sara was curious. “When it happened.”
“I was too old to forget,” he reminded her. “Too old to forget, and too young to realize what had happened enough to understand that it was wrong. All I knew was that my friends, the people I had known for years, trusted with my life…one day they were simply…gone.”
“They exterminated the children as well.”
“Yes,” he nodded sadly. “They left no legacy of their disgrace. Nothing could be left to tell what was once a people that simply wanted to live a simpler life, a different way of living…that’s all it was, you see, just a different way of life…”
“I see.” Sara told him seriously. “And I know. I know what you know.”
“In a way, my life will live on through you, just as Korenna’s does through your lieutenant.” Jor Brel was firm, if still sad. “I ask the same from you that she did of her. No lies. No requests for forgiveness. No apologies, although there is nothing that I did to apologize for. They were my friends. In childhood, as in any childhood, the restraints of things such as a way of life are gone. You don’t care if your friends are different, as long as they’re your friends. Only when you’re older…” his voice trailed off. His eyes begged Sara to understand.
“I understand.” She told him quietly, sympathetic herself now to the actions of an old man, the actions which had caused Jora Mirell’s death, but not before the memories of another time and another life had been imparted, along with all the wisdom and events that took place.
“I do owe you an apology, now that I realize what has come to pass,” Jor Brel stepped forward and took Sara’s hand. “I apologize for invading your dreams, putting on you that which you didn’t understand. I apologize for lying to you, in an indirect way.”
Sara stared at the old, wrinkled fingers that wrapped around her own. “It’s all right,” she told him, even though they both knew that the time for forgiveness and amends could never come to pass. What had been done, was done, and there was no going back to undo such actions.
“We are not so different, I think,” Jor Brel again spoke quietly. “Both of us with stories behind our past, both of us commanded to forget that which cannot be forgotten. The scars that are carried, inside…and out. You are so young…so young to understand, so young to know what your eyes have seen. I feel for you, little one.”
“As I for you,” Sara’s voice was hoarse.
“I must return to my planet now.” he let go of her hand. “I will die soon. There is no stopping that. I am old, and my one regret is that which you know. But your death is far from here, far from this orbit, this ship, and this place. For me, there is no hope of undoing what has been done. But for you…and your own memories…there is still time. There is still hope.”
“What do you suggest I do?” she couldn’t help but be curious about the meaning behind his words.
He bent forward, as though to share a secret with her. “Allow those that know to help you. Allow those that don’t to learn. Help others to understand. The mistakes of the past can be learned from, if you allow others to learn from what you have to say.”
Sara blinked once, then twice, and nodded. He brushed his hand along her cheek and straightened. “I will take my leave of you now, little one. Remember what was given to you, as your lieutenant remembers what was given to her.”
She said nothing as Jor Brel walked away, through the transporter room doors, past the bodies of Tuvok and Chakotay, both clearly wearing looks that promised Sara that indeed the story had not been told for the last time.
