This is set about twenty years after "Trade".

Voyager is owned by Paramount.  Apparently, I can't claim *any* copyright on fan fiction.  However, if any elements of this story are 'borrowed', I will be *very* displeased.

Mehara stares at the message, unsure how to react.

Her father is dying.  In light of his status as a military hero – despite certain unexplained irregularities in his record – his daughter has been given leave in order to attend to his deathbed.

This is a privilege; few junior officers – especially young women whose mother's origins are unclear – are given to leave for family affairs, even a death.

She packs her things quickly and efficiently, as she does all things.

***

The transport pilot looks at her with respect. Kashyk's records had become an integral part of the officer's training program.  Everyone knows who she is.  Even if they didn't, her own record is outstanding.  Her last promotion, only two months ago, gave her the right to carry weapons even when on leave.  She doesn't expect to need the disrupter strapped to her leg, but she has grown used to the weight and the respect it commands even from civilians.  Her uniform is perfect, from the polished boots to the gloves.  Her rank pins sparkle in the light.  She is the quintessential Devore officer.

***

With her background, people cannot help but ask about her father.  She answers with the familial pride expected of a Devore, but her feeling is more than a display.

Occasionally, someone asks about her mother.  Her mother, whose background isn't given in any of Kashyk's dossiers, who apparently came into official existence when Mehara herself was four.  Mehara usually evades the question, or if pressed, says that her mother is from the back-country, where records are incomplete and families interbreed indiscriminately.

Normally, this background would be cause for ridicule, but Mehara is almost the model of an aristocratic Devore woman.  Only her smaller-than-ideal nose and cranial folds spoil the image.

***

The transport's engines throb.  Mehara becomes sleepy.  She leans her face against the viewport and thinks about her father.  A conventional man in everything except his choice of wife. Perhaps he married her for love, Mehara thinks.  The idea is disquieting; the upper classes – and thus much of Devore society – vaguely despise the idea.  But her family has never been part of the upper class, although Mehara's education and tastes do not reflect her humble background.  Her father used to laugh at her and call her his little snob, and she'd be annoyed at his teasing but pleased by his attention.

Mehara frowns as she remembers her early childhood. She used to draw pictures of people – including her parents, which now strikes her as strange – with lines of hair on their brows instead of cranial folds.  She doesn't know where the image came from, except that it worried her parents.  Finally, her mother had explained that her teachers would be upset if they thought that Mehara was drawing gaharays.

Her mother rarely spoke, but when she did, Mehara listened and obeyed.  It had been her father who had told stories and taught her games, which was unusual but no unheard of.  Mehara remembers his absences as silences.  Occasionally, her mother would tell interesting new stories, but these occasions were rare.

***

Her mother meets her at the shuttleport.  "I'm glad you're here," she says softly.  "He's slipping away."

Her mother is pale and thin.  Her hair, once an unusual reddish colour, is completely grey now, and Mehara is glad.  That hair had stood out, marked her mother – and, by extension, Mehara – as an outsider.  Devore children are strongly encouraged to fit in.

Her father, Mehara remembers, had encouraged her to question that precept.  It was one of the many ways in which he was less than orthodox.

"What is he dying of?" Mehara asks.

Her mother shrugs.  "The doctors can't identify the disease.  He's just wasting away."  Her eyes are unhappy.

"Is Doctor Rethal treating him?"

"Yes."

Mehara is pleased.  Rethal has treated her family since she was a child.  She doesn't normally like doctors, but Rethal is familiar.  She trusts him.

***

Her father smiles weakly as she enters.  Her mother stops in the doorway, watches for a moment and leaves.  Mehara sits by her father's side and takes his hand.

"Father," she says softly.

"Mehara," he greets her.   He seems to approach death with the wry, cynical humour with which he had approached his life.

"Are you in pain?" she asks.

"Very little.  Rethal is doing his job well."  His eyes look over her shoulder.  Mehara turns and greets Rethal with one of her rare smiles.

"I need to be with my patient," Rethal tells her, and she reluctantly leaves.

***

Her mother is in Kashyk's room when Rethal joins her at the dining table.  He is awkward, uncomfortable.

"What do you know about your mother's background?" he asks her.

He is an old family friend, she knows the back-country lie won't pass.  "Nothing," she admits.

Rethal becomes even more uncomfortable with this.  "Your father has told you nothing?"

"I was not encouraged to ask."

Rethal takes a deep breath, and then tells her.

A gaharay woman, taken as a prisoner. This is no longer practiced; Devore society does not tolerate the presence of half-breeds, which the gaharay woman bore to her captor.

An insurrection planned among former slaves.

Her father, demanding that Rethal alter the gaharay woman, who becomes a counterfeit Devore.

The insurrectionists escape, aided by an unknown member of the military.

The half-breed raised by her parents, even after other half-breeds are separated from the main population.

The family quietly thrives.

The half-breed joins the military, purging the Imperium of the very disease carried in her blood.

Mehara reels.  Her stomach twists as she understands what she is and the implications for her life, her career.

"How do you know all this?" she asks softly.

Rethal has suspected for years, but he has only just been able to access the military archives.

"How many people know?" she asks.

Only her parents, and Rethal himself.  Mehara nods, pleased.

"Thankyou for telling me," she says sincerely.

The disrupter bolt hits his chest before he can react.  Mehara had the highest score in her year for marksmanship.  He dies quickly, but falls to the floor with a loud thump.

Her mother comes to find out what happened.  She freezes when she sees the disrupter in her daughter's hand.  "You know," she says softly.

Mehara thinks that she is calm, but when she speaks, her voice is almost inaudible.  "Gaharay."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I made a decision.  My crew, in return for me.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave.  And I didn't want to take you away from your people."

"They're not my people," Mehara says bitterly.  But to her, there are no other people worth her attention.

Only three people know, she reassures herself, and one of them is dead already.

She fires her disrupter.  Her mother crumples.  Her eyes remain open, haunted by the memory of her own failures.

***

Her father smiles as she enters his room, and she returns it.

He is drifting in and out of consciousness; he obviously doesn't have long to live.  But she wants this over as quickly as possible.  She creates a cocktail of drugs, standard issue painkillers, which, when combined properly, become as potent as the deadliest poison.  He barely reacts to the hypospray, but his eyes open when she takes his hand.

"Mehara," he whispers.

"Father…"

"Your mother … you need to know…"

Her voice is silky.  "Know what, Father?"

His voice is distorted by pain.  "… Gaharay … must protect," he chokes, "records – I kept a record –" He waves a hand towards a cabinet.

"I promise, Father, I'll do my duty."

Kashyk, master of half-truths and deceptions, opens his eyes at that, but his strength is too far gone.  He dies quickly, questions still forming in his mind.

***

Mehara quickly reads through Kashyk's notes.  They were intended for her, she realises, so that she can understand her mother.  He expected her to be a traitor like him, trapped by sentiment.

She destroys the papers.

***

It is a simple matter to construct a scenario surrounding the deaths.  Rethal seducing her mother, murdering her father.  She, killing the adulterers as is her right.

***

It is a tragedy, the authorities agree, that such a great man as Kashyk should be betrayed by those closest to him.  But her own strength of purpose is a credit to her father and the Imperium.  Mehara accepts their praise in silence.

***

She preserves one part of her father's records, the details of her mother's homeworld and society.  Recent leaps in technology have been accompanied by a growth in population.  The Imperium is on the verge of expansion, and Mehara doesn't want to be left behind.

END

(After I wrote "Trade", a couple of J/C'ers demanded that Kashyk be killed.  I somehow doubt that this is exactly what they were asking for.)

Questions, comments, reasonable criticism: elizabeth_barr@yahoo.com.au

Copyright © 2000 Elizabeth M. Barr

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