The old man turned and regarded the short, young woman with a spark in his old eyes. “Do I know you?”
“No.” Sara shook her head. “I’m Ensign Sara Thompson.”
“From Voyager.” Boothby nodded.
“Sir…” Sara was hesitant, looking at the short, gnarled old man that still walked with a proud glint in his eyes. “I know that you aren’t the real Boothby. The one that’s actually from Earth. But…”
“Now don’t you be standing there speaking out of turn, young lady,” He straightened himself up. “Just ask what you came to ask. You wouldn’t be standing here making idle chitchat with an old man.”
“Did you ever know someone by the name of…Admiral Thompson?” Sara finally got out.
“Old Jayden? Yep. Knew him a while back or so. Why? What would a youngun like you be wanting with…" He paused, then nodded knowingly. "I see it now. His daughter, are you.”
“Yes, sir.” Sara said sheepishly.
“Shoulda known.” Boothby looked her up and down again. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Supposed to be can be a long way from reality, sir.”
“I’m no sir, young lady. You look just like your mother.”
“You knew my mother?”
His eyes garnered a bit of a hard look. “I knew Corrine before your father did. Her daddy worked here, just like yours; he thought it was good for her to bring her to the grounds sometimes, let her have a look around.”
“What can you tell me about her…about both of them?”
“Lost your wits to read?” The old man was gruff, but Sara caught a bit of sympathy in his eyes. “You can find it all in a database somewheres I’m sure.”
“Some things aren’t there.” Sara’s eyes and voice grew flinty.
That brought the old man up short. His eyes crinkled, wrinkles deepening, as he stared at Sara’s face. “You remind me of your pop when you say things like that. Don’t get that look on your face, girl, some things are just a matter of bein’ there, and you know it. You’re a smart one, I can see that. You got your daddy’s backbone, sure as anything, if you grew up to be as old as I think you are.”
“Sir…Mr. Boothby…what were they like?” Sara asked curiously.
Boothby stared at her for some moments. Genetically altered as he was, Sara couldn’t read his mind – it had been one of the side effects she’d discovered upon beaming down. “Didn’t know em too well, did you. Can’t say as I ever recollected Jayden being easy to know, or to like, for that matter. Very well, young lady, since it means so much to you, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Thank you.” Sara said honestly.
“Let’s see…where should I begin?” They casually walked down the concrete path that skirted the beautiful grounds of re-created San Fransisco. “Your mother was younger than your father, but I suppose you already knew that. Was at least ten years’ difference between the two of them, if not twenty. She was a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman. Her smile brightened the days of many on these grounds. Quiet, shy, innocent... everything a man could have wanted in a wife." Boothby looked at her sharply. "The right man, that is. Your daddy wasn’t that man, but that didn’t matter to Corrine’s father, he was dying and she was all he had. Old man wanted to see her married before his time came. And so it was.
“Jayden had two sides to him is what you have to understand. One of those beings that never was the same way even in a day, never mind from one to the next. Sometimes he was the best man you ever knew, sometimes he was your worst enemy. Sometimes he didn’t like his friends, didn’t like his enemies, didn’t even like his own wife. And no, girl, he didn’t like his children, much as he had the three of you. If you came here for some soul-searching truths you’ve come to the wrong place. Don’t expect me to fill your head with sugar-plum tales of sap and sweet, because if it’s anything Jayden Thompson wasn’t, it was that.”
“I didn’t come here expecting anything,” Sara told him. “I was just…”
“You just wanted to know. Natural thing I suppose, no shame in it. Now granted in my day youngsters didn’t go around asking such questions, but that’s the way it is now. Where was I…oh yes, your parents. They married and set up house somewhere close at first, but then the baby came – your brother – and they moved farther away. Never did know where they lived. Admiral wasn’t much for talking about his home life. He complained a lot. Complained about Corrine, complained about his kids, complained about everything. Wonder the man survived so long, he was so filled to the brim with his bitterness.”
“Was he always so…angry?” Sara asked curiously.
“No,” Boothby shook his head. “There was a time you wouldn’t know about, time before you kids came along, that he was a better man then he turned out to be. Not always you understand, but he was what he was, and there wasn’t anything that could have changed that.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Sara agreed, with a touch of sadness. Boothby paused to look at her and then walked over to a flower bed. He cut a few stems and handed them over.
“Lilacs.” They were indeed that, white with a pink stripe running up the middle, fresh and pure and wonderful. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told that Captain of yours, Janeway. Genetically synthesized, but they smell the same. They were your momma’s favorite. Used to send ‘em along with the Admiral, when I thought about it…her eyes always used to light up at the sight of ‘em when she was little.”
“I never knew…” Sara’s voice trailed off, her fingers brushing the blossoms.
“There’s not much to tell.” Boothby looked at her curiously again. “Oh, don't look so sad. Your daddy was as handsome as your mother was beautiful. Suprised you never found a holoimage of their wedding. Grand affair, that was. Officers and civilians, parents and kids, everything you could have imagined in a storybook wedding. I knew your brother, once…” his voice trailed off as Sara’s head snapped upright.
“My brother?” It came out as a squeak.
“Your older brother...I knew of him. What happened to him. Terrible shame, the way he died.”
“Yes, the transporter.” Sara was soft. “Who would have thought that such a modern and frequently used device would cause such an accident.”
“That what your Daddy told you?” Boothby smirked, almost.
Sara was completely puzzled. “What…”
“Your brother didn’t die in the transporter, Ensign.” Boothby looked at the ground, took a deep breath. “Though I suppose that was the end result, something going wrong with it. But whatever the cause, your father…” his voice trailed off.
Sara was silent for a moment. “I always thought that he had something to do with it," was her final comment. Boothby nodded sadly.
“You were there?” Acceptance replaced by shock.
“No, I wasn’t.” Sara decided not to pursue the double meaning in his words. “But I heard enough. Now don’t go spreading stories. Old Boothby don’t keep his ear to the wall or any doors, hear?” Sara shook her head. Boothby’s expression grew a bit more sad.
“Your daddy decided to take him up on a spaceflight. Wanted him to see what the world was like, from that big place out there. Sort of being on the outside, looking in, as it was. That’s where it happened.”
“He just…died?”
“He had a good cover story all cooked up, from what I heard of the ending of it all. They had enough to deal with. Something went bad with the shuttle, inertial dampers, warp core, whatever those technobabble terms are these days. Jayden made some mumbo-jumbo about he tried to beam out his son before the core overloaded, but, well, some people can see through lies. Last I checked, there ain’t no way to live out in space. Kinda why I like to keep these here boots on the ground. From what I know, your daddy didn’t mean to do what he did, but he did it anways, and you can’t undo what happens in some situations. From what I knew of your brother, he would have been glad to do it, to save you two other kids. Oh we’d like to think that we live in an ‘enlightened’ society now, that all problems vanished when Cochran made his first flight and the Vulcans found out about us here on this planet, but there are still a few throwbacks.”
“Throwbacks? That’s what you call my father, a throwback?” Sara gaped.
“He wasn’t a throwback, Ensign. He had his good days. Maybe if he’d had a better one your brothers and your momma’d still be alive.” Another curious look wizened the man's features. "You like he was?"
"What?" Sara asked.
"Old Jayden had a trick he'd do -- people used to wonder about it. Seems he always knew what was going to happen before it the other shoe dropped. People would try to lie their way out of things, but somehow he'd already know the truth. Any of this sound familiar?"
"Are you saying my father was..."
"He was one of those people that could read your mind. Kinda like Betazoids. But he wasn't born with it. Seems his parents had something done to him, when he was a young boy, maybe not more than 2 or 3 even. Maybe younger. Some of that genetic alteration hoopla. He wasn't born how he was. But they made him that way. Oh he wasn't supposed to be, they were only supposed do little things, enhance his hand-eye coordination, make him walk and talk a little better and sharper. Sometimes, changes are terrible things, girl. Sometimes they do things that hadn't been planned on doing, and make things worse, instead of better."
"And because it was genetic..." Sara realized, "...it would be passed on."
"You're as smart as he was, all right," The old man told her.
"But if he was genetically altered...they don't let those kind of people in Starfleet." Sara protested.
"And secrets can't be kept?" Boothby shot back, as he faced her for the last time, catching sight of Chakotay coming up to them. “Hello Mr. Boothby. Pleasure to see you again.” Chakotay greeted him.
“Same to you, son.” Boothby said, quite amiably.
“It’s time to head back to the ship, Sara.” Chakotay put his hand on her shoulder.
“So you take care of her now, do you?” Boothby looked at Chakotay, nodding. “Good. She ever tell you about her folks?”
Chakotay nodded without saying a word. Boothby grunted. “She’s the last of ‘em, son. Make sure she grows up right.”
Boothby put his hand on Sara’s, the one that held the flowers. “You do look like your mother,” he said to her softly. “Finer woman never lived. You listen to me, girl. She didn’t want kids, neither did your pop. But such as things happen, they had the three of you, and that’s just the way of it sometimes. It wasn’t your fault what happened to them; none if it. You didn’t deserve it. Life hands you lemons sometimes. The best you can hope is to make lemonade out of it.”
“Yes sir.” Sara said obiedently. “Thank you, Mr. Boothby.”
