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Miles had checked to make sure it was safe, of course, a year ago when he first
took his family off the station for a picnic. He always checked everything
carefully—that was how he did things. The planetary ecological report showed that
there were no large predators on the northern continent, no venomous snakes, no
poisonous berries; even the local version of the honeybee had no stinger.
Once again, he relaxed on his picnic blanket next to Keiko, enjoying the warmth
of the sunshine and the chirping of the birds. Molly was turning cartwheels in
the meadow, her lithe young figure framed by a backdrop of tall grass,
boulders, and clear sky. He glanced back toward Keiko, who had started taking
the food out of the picnic basket.
Afterward he always felt that if he had paid better attention, if he had not
turned away, it wouldn't have happened—Molly's terrified scream as she fell
into the cavern beside the boulders, the bright flash of energy as she
disappeared into the ancient time portal, and the many years she struggled to
survive alone in a wilderness because of his failure to repair the alien device
sufficiently to recover her at the moment of her disappearance.
******
"It wasn't your fault, Miles."
Keiko spoke very softly so as not to wake Molly, who had fallen asleep perched
high in a tree, with one arm wrapped securely around a branch. The tree, along
with some grass and flowers and other reminders of the wild planet where she
had lived alone for so long, had been brought aboard Deep Space Nine to help
Molly feel more at home. A recording of bird and insect noises played from a
concealed speaker and echoed faintly from the walls of the cargo bay.
How can something so peaceful and natural seem so alien, Miles wondered; and he
wasn't sure whether he meant the scenery, or Molly herself, or both.
"She'll be back to normal in a few weeks," he said, more to himself
than to Keiko. That phrase had become his mantra even as the weeks stretched
into long, difficult months. "She can say a few words now. It won't be
long before she's talking just like before, and reading, too."
Even in the dim light he could see the frown lines between Keiko's brows
clearly. "But what if that doesn't happen? What if it's not as simple as
we thought? Maybe Deep Space Nine isn't the best place for her. Maybe she
would do better on Earth, where there are more resources and specialists. I've
been doing some research, and there's one place I think might be good for her,
a little community in the Tennessee mountains for young adults with cognitive
disabilities; it has a large fenced acreage, so Molly could wander around
outdoors safely, and there are experienced teachers and speech therapists and
other professionals who could help her."
"But Molly isn't." These few words were all Miles could bring
himself to say, as a parade of ugly historical images went through his mind:
village idiots, the bars of Bedlam, forgotten mute children rocking silently in
corners.
"Miles, it wouldn't be like sending her away to an old-fashioned
institution. I would stay with her for several weeks, until she felt
comfortable there, and afterward we could visit her from time to time. We
could talk to her over a comm screen, too; she wouldn't just disappear from our
lives."
"But we're her parents. Surely we know her better than some therapist
who's never seen her before." He glanced up once more at the almost-alien
figure of the girl crouched in the tree like a leopard silhouetted in the
moonlight of an ancient jungle, and for a moment he found himself wondering if
he knew her at all.
"I'm just saying that we should think about it." Keiko's brows
relaxed, although it now seemed that the finely etched lines between them never
quite went away. "We can't keep her in the cargo bay forever."
******
His next mistake seemed perfectly logical at the time. Setting up a replica of
the meadow in one of Quark's holosuites looked like a good way to give Molly
some time in a familiar setting under the open sky, or as near to it as could
be achieved with modern holographic technology. He expected this would show
Keiko that it wasn't necessary to send Molly back to Earth to give her the
freedom of the outdoors that she craved.
In hindsight, the outcome was all too obvious—Molly's incomprehension and
distress when the program ended and the meadow suddenly disappeared, her
resulting tantrum in Quark's, the injury to a bystander that caused Molly to be
taken into custody on an assault charge, and a Federation magistrate's order
that she be brought to a mental health facility for evaluation.
"We might be looking at a long-term situation," Sisko acknowledged,
confirming Miles' worst fear.
Would anyone at that facility really do anything to help Molly learn to
communicate, Miles wondered, or would they just keep her drugged and locked
away like a wild animal? The parade of horrors flashed through his mind once
more as he tried to argue that Molly belonged with her family, not with
strangers; but he already knew that Sisko could do nothing to change the
situation and that his arguments weren't getting him anywhere.
******
He made his plans quietly, in the little corner of his mind that always maintained
some semblance of calmness even when things were at their most desperate. He
would steal a runabout, get Molly safely away in it, and send her back through
the time portal to her home in the distant past. Keiko didn't need to know; in
fact, it would be best if she knew nothing, so that she wouldn't have to face
the consequences of his actions.
"We're just going to have to hope Molly can adjust," he said, not
meeting Keiko's eyes as he tried to look like a man who had given up hope.
He had never been much good at lying, especially to his wife. It took less
than thirty seconds for Keiko to figure out that he was planning something. Before
he knew it, she had gotten the whole plan out of him and was busy packing a
traveling bag.
"Hand me that, will you?"
Miles glanced down where she was pointing and saw Molly's little doll, Lupi. At
least this time, he thought, Molly wouldn't be completely alone. He picked up
the doll and handed it to Keiko, who efficiently stowed it in the shoulder bag
with the other items she had packed.
"I thought that you wanted Molly to be under the care of specialists—that you
thought she'd be better off that way."
Keiko slung the bag over her shoulder and turned toward the door. "Miles,
there's a huge difference between taking Molly to a place that we've chosen for
her and—and what they're trying to do now—sending her away for God only knows
how long, without giving us any say in the matter. And without giving Molly
any say. Although she can only speak a few words, she should have the right to
choose the kind of life that she wants."
He fell into step beside her. "Even if the life that she wants is in a
wilderness where we'll never see her again?"
A bleak look passed across Keiko's face before she answered. "Yes, even
then."
The door opened into the corridor, and Miles could not say anything more
because of the risk of being overheard. He quietly held Keiko's hand as they
walked together, knowing that she understood everything that he could not put
into words.
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