Narrative Enterprise
This is all Terkim's fault.
The startling accusation—in her mother's voice, no less—popped into her head just as another explosion threw her to the ground, its arrival so incongruous that it overwhelmed even the blare of the emergency klaxon. Despite the inopportune timing—she would have been better served concentrating on evacuation proceedings—the woman gave the charge her full attention: maybe because the words and attitude were her mother's, and she had never listened to what her mother said nearly enough; maybe because she was fast approaching middle age, so death didn't seem the worst that could happen to her; maybe because she had accepted death as inevitable and simply wanted to argue with her mother one last time. For whatever reason, she turned her thoughts away from the imploding ship on which she was traveling in order to focus on the seemingly trivial matter of her favorite uncle's possible culpability in her impending demise.
Her initial instinct was to refute the accusation: Uncle was in no way responsible for her current dilemma. He wasn't even here!
Still, it's because of that brother of mine that you came in this direction, the internal-maternal condemnation persisted. And not for the first time, either!
No, she disputed the voice as the surrounding bulkheads shuddered ominously. It made sense that her wanderings had again taken her toward the Sol system and its inhabitants. She'd always enjoyed their way with words, their tales of adventure and humor and sorrow, fueled, perhaps, by the passion of their mayfly lifespans.
I would have returned to Earth again, regardless, the woman protested, arguing fruitlessly with her mother's memory.
Before the contentious voice in her mind could reply, the ship gave a sickening lurch, followed by a thunderous roar, multiple light flashes, flying debris, and then she was...
...Running, running, running, down the marshy path to Uncle's! He was finally home. Having been gone so long, he was bound to have new stories. She scampered down the narrow trail as fast as her stubby legs would carry her, the anticipation nearly bursting her chest.
Had he visited the human planet again? What would the new tales be like? Would they be as exciting as the adventures of Odysseus? Or would they be tragic, like the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy? Perhaps they would be tales of unbreakable friendship, like that of Gilgamesh and Enkidu!
She knew that her people were born to listen, but somehow only Uncle, with his stories from far away, made the birthright seem a blessing. The joy in her chest tried to leap from her throat as she reached the earthen dwelling, to be greeted by the open arms and broad smile of her wandering uncle. She leapt forward into the embrace and...
...She was walking briskly down the path toward Terkim's home by the water. She would have loved to run, but that kind of behavior was for little children, and she was a big girl now. Still, the thought of the new sagas that might be waiting spurred her on. Hopefully, Uncle had visited the human planet again. "The Soldier of Gol" was amusing, in its ever-so-logical way, and "Aktuh and Melota" was wonderfully violent, yet romantic at the same time. But the Vulcan and Klingon tales never seemed to hold her interest the way the Earth stories did.
She laughed uproariously over Coyote and his buffoonish behavior. Iktome the Trickster seduced her with his wily ways. The Hero Twins and Spider Grandmother were the best, combining wisdom, bravery, and loyalty to do whatever was best for their people. What new stories would Uncle have this time?
He was sitting outside on a small stool, mending a shirt when she finally arrived. "Bright Eyes!" he called, delight creasing his face. "What took you so long?"
Her lips returned the smile automatically, and she opened her mouth to return his greeting...
...She frowned pensively as she walked down the path to Uncle's. Her eagerness to see him again, to hear new stories, was tempered with the increasing realization that he was not what her people should be. Her mother made that clear every time Terkim was brought up in conversation.
"It's all very well for him to traipse about the galaxy, listening to any species with a sob story," Mother had railed at supper the night before, after being informed that Uncle Terkim had returned. "But then he runs around telling folks what he's heard!" She shook her head, baffled at her brother's perverse behavior. "We're listeners, not tellers!"
Because her beloved uncle was a living violation of everything their people believed, the girl had become more circumspect about her visits, mentioning them to no one. Still, it bothered her a great deal that members of her family were at odds. When she questioned Uncle about it, he tried to explain it.
"Of course we're listeners, Bright Eyes. Where do you think all these stories came from? I was listening for them! But for there to be stories, two people are needed—a listener and a teller. I'm a teller now, but only because I was a listener before."
She mulled his words over, only partially aware of the story he had begun. To her dismay, when she finally brought her thoughts back 'round to his tale, she caught the words, "Men went to Catraeth, keen their war-band...' "
With her newfound knowledge of how mature folk were expected to behave, she tried to hide her grimace. Y Gododdin again! The absolute worst Earth tale ever! Even the Ferengi saga "Profit Mine" was better than Aneirin's morbid recollection of the Battle of Catraeth!
She must not have been successful in hiding her distaste, because Uncle paused in his telling and looked at her curiously. "I thought you enjoyed the Earth tales, Bright Eyes," he commented, puzzled.
She pressed her lips together, attempting to compose an appropriate response. "I do, Uncle, but Y Gododdin..." she trailed off, unwilling to voice her honest opinion of the human lay, for fear of offending him.
But Terkim seemed to hear all that she did not say. "It's a priceless gem!" he said, nonplussed at the negative response.
"But it's not a story," she argued back. "It's just a...a roll call of the dead!"
Her uncle frowned. "I'd say it's a little bit more than that, Bright Eyes! Aneirin honors his comrades for their bravery in the face of certain defeat. As the only survivor, it is his responsibility to do so."
"If he thought they were so great, he should have died with them," she grumbled, belatedly appalled at the callous response that made her sound like a sulky child.
Stunned silent, Terkim's features sagged, his face becoming both profoundly old and profoundly sad. "You haven't been listening, have you?"
The words were the biggest insult that could be given to one of her people. To be accused of not listening was the ultimate shame. And yet the words themselves disturbed her no more than the evening's gentle breeze. It was his palpable disappointment that stabbed like a knife to the gut. Suddenly her eyes were full of tears and her mouth full of apologetic words. He reached out and gripped her forearm to silence her.
"Aneirin 'won away' for his song's sake," he reminded her, his face glowing with an intensity that she had never before seen in him. "Whatever you may think of his storytelling abilities, you should respect the fact that he put his responsibility to the tale ahead of personal honor. Without the story, there is silence. Without a teller, none can listen.
"His comrades deserved to be remembered. Whatever he may have wanted to do, Aneirin knew that truth. Intimately." With a sudden jolt, she realized that her uncle had known the human bard. Terkim had heard this tale firsthand, directly from the lips of the one who had survived the Battle of Catraeth: A man willing to be called a coward in order that his friends should not be forgotten; a man long dead; a man she had thoughtlessly insulted moments before.
She wanted to apologize, but there were no words equal to the task. She had wished silence upon this man, upon his friends, upon their people. Eternal silence. Unending silence. Genocidal silence. And she had done so without thought, without respect, without listening.
Silence was what she wished for, and silence was what she deserved. A fitting punishment for one unwilling to listen, unwilling to hear.
Silence.
Just as she thought that her uncle would maintain the terrible silence forever, that she would never again hear a story told in his inimitable way, his voice—Aneirin's voice—reached out to her: "Men went to Catraeth at dawn/Their high spirits lessened their lifespans...' "
...She gave in to the urge to run, tripping as lightly along the path to her uncle's dwelling as she had when she was a child. Her first journey of listening! Who else would she bring the tales to but Terkim?
"Uncle!" she called as she came into sight of his home. "Uncle, I'm back!" As she moved forward, she saw that he was sitting on a bench beside his garden, enjoying the late afternoon sun.
"I've been to the humans' planet," she announced once she had joined him on the bench, settling her skirts primly.
A smile lit his features, but he kept his face pointed towards the neat rows of pelga beans. "And did you enjoy it?" he queried blandly.
"Oh, Uncle! I listened to so many tales, from so many people!" She was unsure where to start. "In fact, I had the luck to make the acquaintance of a master storyteller! He was well-renowned among his people, and I have to agree that the reputation was well deserved." He finally turned his smile full upon her, encouraging her to continue. "And I also met..." She stopped suddenly.
Should she tell that tale? Looking at it now, light years from the incident which spawned it, it was a story yet to be finished. It didn't seem right to tell a tale for which she did not yet know the ending.
Her uncle saw the hesitation and saved her the decision. "Perhaps that's a story for later. It's always good to have something to look forward to." Their eyes met in a look of such perfect understanding that she wondered if it were possible for one soul to share two bodies.
"Now!" her uncle demanded, clapping his hands together in much the way she had as a child. "Tell me a tale from this master storyteller! I'd like to see if he's a match for Homer or Taliesin."
A feeling of peace and contentment unlike anything she had ever known descended upon her. They had come full circle. She was now the teller and he the listener. She leaned back into his embrace, allowing the setting sun warm her body and coax the story from her.
"You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of...' "
...Suddenly, painfully, she was being ripped from her Uncle's arms, their shared happiness in the story slipping away like water down a drain. The warm, boggy ground beneath her feet was suddenly unforgiving metal—cold and hard. The joy! The joy...
...was gone.
She fell to her knees, appalled at the overwhelming sensory input: cacophonous sounds, the stench of something burning, weirdly flashing lights, the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. Panic-stricken and lost, she staggered to her feet, lurching against the nearest bulkhead, pawing at it in vain, seeking the joy she had touched not a moment before.
"Can I help you?" The strangely-accented words were posed gently, but she could not respond.
Arms came around her, offering comfort. They weren't her uncle's, but they were warm and alive. As they eased her away from the bulkhead, she raised her eyes briefly.
A human. She was aboard a human vessel. She managed to look at her protector, seeing a boyish face gone to age. She concentrated on his soft brown eyes and his softer words. The words didn't form a story, but they were a connection, and she clung to them as if they were a lifeline.
"Eet's going to be okay. Eet'll be all rrright. You just need to rrrest."
Bereaved and confused, like a lost child, she let the man lead her away.
The medical personnel tried to explain what had happened—an energy ribbon, ships destroyed, emergency beam-out—but her mind refused to grasp the words. The world was suddenly upside-down and backwards. The humans believed they had saved her. She felt that she had been condemned to a living hell.
Their words passed over each other, through each other. Neither side could understand the story the other was trying to tell.
Though the ship's doctor felt that she should remain in the infirmary, she forced herself to leave. The miscommunication combined with the misery of the other survivors amplified her own agony and despair a hundredfold.
Survivors! A bitter laugh welled up at the thought. Is this what it meant to survive? Better to have died, if death held such peace, and life only this pain and loss.
So she wandered the ship, as if searching for something, although what it might have been she had no idea. No, she did have an idea. She wanted that perfect joy. Wanted it with an ache that would never go away. And she would keep searching for it, no matter what.
A journey without an end.
Eventually her meanderings led her to a large room with many people. Murmured conversations and the clink of glassware told her it was a saloon of some sort. Ancient advice from Terkim came to her unbidden: "Bars are great places for listening. Alcohol and stories always seem to go together!"
For a drinking establishment, the atmosphere seemed very hushed and tentative, almost reverent. She was puzzled, until some of the words overhead in sickbay formed themselves into a story that made sense: One of the humans—a captain of some note—had lost his life making their "rescue" possible, she recalled. Obviously his comrades were feeling the loss. She felt a sudden sense of connection with these people, these drinkers, these murmurers. They too had survived, and now they were experiencing the accompanying pain.
As she scanned the bar with an increasing sense of purpose, her eyes lit on two humans sitting in a corner by themselves: a heavyset captain with a walrus-like salt and pepper mustache and a slender commander who seemed young, until closer inspection proved otherwise. The smaller of the two was her protector, the man who had helped her to sickbay after she had been transported to the Earth ship. Without thinking, she moved in their direction.
Though the men seemed lost in contemplation of their respective beverages, they rose to their feet at her approach. The boyish commander with the twinkly eyes and the strange accent recognized her.
"Eet is wery good to see you agayn," he said. "You are feeling better?" Unable to speak, she nodded. The three stared at each other in silence for several uncomfortable moments before she finally found her voice.
"He was...the one who...he was...your friend?" She had intended to say "the one who saved us," but she couldn't. She did not feel saved. She might have said "the one who died," but that seemed needlessly cruel. They knew their friend had died. That's why they were here, drinking in silence.
Strange Accent nodded, but it was the larger man, Walrus Mustache, who answered. "Aye. That he was." Another interesting accent, although she believed she'd heard its like before.
"I'm sorry." She couldn't think of anything else to say. She knew she should express gratitude for the sacrifice, but she didn't feel grateful. Still, it was wrong not to offer comfort to these men, these survivors. "He must...he must have been..." She trailed off, unable to vocalize what he must have been. To her surprise, both humans seemed to understand what she meant—no small feat, when she herself wasn't sure.
"Yes, he most certainly was!" Strange Accent replied, a sudden smile gracing his lips. Walrus Mustache gazed down at his drink with a nostalgic grin.
Wrong to leave him unsung... Aneirin's words drifted through her brain. Her mind strayed back to the evening long ago, when she had so insulted the long-dead Celtic bard and, by extension, her uncle. He had accepted her apology, and even refused to take offense at her clumsy attempts to explain herself.
"The story just would have been so much better if Aneirin had done something to help his friends," she had stated earnestly. "If he had brought reinforcements or something, maybe he could have saved them!"
"But he did save them, Bright Eyes!" Her uncle's assured response came to her across the centuries, across light years. "He saved them for us."
The woman who had been the bright-eyed girl felt a tiny warmth flare up inside her. The feeling didn't banish the anguish of being torn from the Nexus. It didn't even come close.
But it had the potential to fill the void.
"You must have lots of stories," she said to the two humans facing her across the table in the crowded bar. After a moment's pause, Strange Accent and Walrus Mustache laughed loudly and heartily, causing several startled heads to turn in their direction.
"I would love to hear them," she said, sitting down at their table gently, cautiously. Hopefully.
"Please," Guinan asked. "Tell me."