Five weeks, Beverly thought as she marched across the first of the cotton fields in the sweltering heat. I've only got five weeks to get everyone to cooperate and harvest all this cotton. She donned the floppy hat that Ro had given her for protection from the sun and looked up across the land.

It was impressive, massive acreage, more than she had ever seen. Scanning the land in the distance, she began to appreciate why the neighboring planters felt jealous of Jean-Luc and suspicious of his motives toward Miss Ro. Guinan, she knew, had information about the price of cotton and the number of acres they had planted and could supply Beverly with the results of the arithmetic. Suffice it to say, Jean-Luc and Miss Ro stood to make a very handsome profit, which they would in turn distribute to the people who had worked the land in the form of wages. The sum involved was staggering and Beverly tried to ignore the finances as she dove into the interpersonal conflicts that threatened the entire scheme.

Long ago, when Jack had gone off to war, Beverly had been left to care for their small plot of land. Although everyone knew that tending a paltry few acres was an entirely different undertaking than the management of a large plantation, Beverly hoped that something of what she had learned in her farming foray would be applicable to her current task. So many people were counting on her to resolve the problems affecting productivity. She worried that she might not be able to live up to their expectations.

The earthy smell of the soil brought her back to the problems before her. She noticed as she walked that several heads turned to look at her, curious, she was sure, what the physician's assistant was doing traipsing about in their world. Since her marriage to Jean-Luc was a secret, she had had to fabricate, with Guinan's help, a story about her coming to help her good friend Marie to establish her reason for seeming to interfere. She had planned to gather all the workers together and deliver a speech she had written on the importance of cooperation to meet a collective goal. Guinan, her rehearsal audience, had looked skeptical of this tack and instead recommended that she simply "be herself," but Beverly was uncomfortable with such a free form approach. She preferred to prepare thoroughly before any complex task.

"Morning, Dr. Crusher," a large man said to her with a tip of his broad-brimmed hat as he walked by carrying a sack of potatoes.

Beverly smiled. "Good morning, Sam. How are your wife and children?"

He stopped and set down his load, a broad smile lighting his face. "Why, they're fine, just fine. My sons are growing faster than this here cotton. My baby girl is startin' to talk. She's just so sweet." His pride was evident. "Matter of fact, she might be right 'round here." He looked past Beverly in the direction of the house. "The little ones play in a yard set right over yonder."

"Oh, I'd love to see her," Beverly said, turning to look. She had delivered all their children and remembered how excited Sam and his wife had been at welcoming their first girl after four boys. From where they were, she could not see the area he mentioned.

When she returned her attention to him, Sam seemed on the verge of saying something, frowning as if unsure he should commit to what he wanted to do. "Well, . . . I 'pologize, Dr. Crusher. I'd take you over there and show you, ma'am, but, see, I got to get these here potatoes over to the barn before . . . well, before some other folks gets there."

Beverly blinked. "What other folks?" She asked, although she had a pretty good idea what he meant.

"Aw, it's nothin'."

"You're worried about someone taking your potatoes?"

"It's just that some o' them Ro people been known to help themselves to our food."

"But, Sam, you're all on the same plantation now. Since . . . ," Beverly could not bring herself to say "since the captain and Miss Ro were married." "Since the two properties were combined, there are no more 'Picard people' or 'Ro people.' You're all working together."

Sam's face had been twisted in social agony throughout the conversation, pained at having to explain to an outsider—even one as nice as Dr. Crusher—the internecine disputes of the field hands. At her pronouncement that they were all working together, however, he actually smiled again.

"Aw, ain't nobody workin' together here, ma'am. We all just workin' for ourselves now we freed." Sam's smile vanished as he remembered that he was not supposed to tell people of everyone's new freedom.

Beverly noticed. "It's all right, Sam, I know that you're all free now and working to earn your own money. But that doesn't mean you don't have to work together. People everywhere with a job have to cooperate and get along with others."

"You only got to get along with Dr. Quaice, not a hundred other people."

"Yes, but . . . well, in those factories up North, people work with hundreds of others and that's just what they have to do to earn their money."

"But that's people up North. That's different people. What's that got to do with us?"

"Sam, people are the same everywhere you go . . . ." Even as Beverly said the words, she was struck by the obvious differences between just the two of them. Sam's clothes were old and threadbare and his hands were hardened by his years of long, back-breaking hours in the field, while she almost always had enough cloth to make herself new dresses and she worked indoors doing relatively easy work. Her skin, she knew, was fair among white people's and his skin was darker than that of many black people. Beverly was certain that these differences were not important, but, put on the spot by Sam, she was suddenly unable to explain that.

Beverly did not fare much better with her message at the mid-day meal, where everyone was gathered to eat on a shady hillside above the fields. The men and women interrupted her almost immediately.

"Does this mean we have to work their land, too?"

"I work harder than a lot of the other men. I should get more money."

"I'm not takin' orders from him."

"My husband and I both work so we should get a bigger share than single people."

Quietly panicking underneath her calm exterior, Beverly looked to Guinan for help, but with nothing more than an I-told-you-so lift of her thin eyebrows, Guinan calmly walked off in the direction of the Picard barn. Not for the first time that day, Beverly wished Jean-Luc was there to lend his eloquence and confident leadership to the clash of personalities. He was not there, of course, but, as his wife, it was up to her to act in his stead, just as she had years ago for Jack. That this task was vastly more complex, with much more at stake, was a reflection of the two men: Jack earned a living for his family; Jean-Luc masterminded an enterprise that would change the lives of hundreds. Beverly could not think of herself as a simple farmer's wife—she was the wife of an aristocratic Frenchman, a wealthy landowner who respected people from all backgrounds and was determined to treat every soul who lived and worked on his land equally and fairly. That was it, she realized.

Beverly walked from her post on the fringe of the group of nearly one hundred people to the center, a movement that caused most of the conversation and argument to stop. People looked up in surprise at her surrounding herself with so many black people, which, in their experience, white women did not do.

She squared her shoulders and, having almost everyone's attention, began to speak. "All right, we're going to straighten out everyone's problems, but we're going to do it one at a time. Everyone will have a chance to speak, everyone. Each problem will be addressed to the satisfaction of the person who raised it before we move on to the next one. We all stay here until everyone has spoken. Agreed?"

Shock gave way to mutters here and there, until one middle-aged man stood, removed his hat and spoke. "Meaning no disrespect, Dr. Crusher, ma'am, but what exactly do you know about growing cotton that makes you think you can fix our problems?"

Beverly smiled kindly. "Oh, I'm not going to fix them. You are.

The grumbling returned.

"How's that gonna happen when we don't agree 'bout nothin'?" An angry voice yelled from the middle of one group.

"By listening to one another and respecting one another." Beverly began to turn around slowly, trying to make eye contact with as many people as possible as she spoke. "Isn't that what this is all about, respect? Isn't that what you all want, now that you're free and now that you see a chance to earn some money and maybe one day own your own land?

"You want to be just as respected as the white people and you should be. But you have to also respect each other. You have to understand that what's important to your neighbor or someone from the other estate matters just as much as what's important to you.

"That's why I want you all to have a chance to air your complaints to the group and have them resolved fairly."

Most of the audience silently began to mull over her words. Eventually, some began to nod and others to talk quietly to their friends.

One young man stood up. "If we all get a chance to complain, that'll take up most of the afternoon."

"All of the afternoon," someone else chimed in.

Beverly nodded. "It might, but this is important. We'll all be much more productive once we clear up the problems that are holding us back, so we can make up one lost afternoon of work."

The crowd was not entirely convinced.

"I don't know 'bout that."

"Yes, yes we can."

"I could work harder but I don't know about some others."

Sam stood and strode to the middle of the group, towering over Beverly. People were not used to seeing him speak up and he was not completely comfortable doing so, now that he had arrived at the center of attention and all eyes were on him. "Um, look, I just want to say: for my whole life, we all been angry at white folks—um, no disrespect, Dr. Crusher—and at slavery. But, we're not slaves no more, none of us. And we heard lots of white folks say that we can't take care of ourselves, that we stupid. We know we ain't stupid! I wanna work all this . . . this nonsense out peacefully, just like they do, so we can get back to—"

"Peacefully? They fighting a war, north and south against each other!"

"Well, that's just stupid white folks."

"Any kind of 'peacefully' got to mean I don't got to work with that woman.

"Sam's right!" A medium-sized, somewhat stout man with a round face and a gray beard stood and spoke, not shouting, but with authority. People around him stopped speaking and looked up at him. "We all know how to harvest cotton. Many of us know how to use the new machines." Nods and noises of approval, as more and more of the confused, angry workers started to listen to him. "Now that we're free, we've chosen to stay here to build a life for ourselves. A real life, a free life." Numerous "amens" circled the crowd. "We're not always going to get along with everyone else here. Disagreements are normal. It's how we solve those disagreements that will set us apart and make us strong."

The ideas were readily accepted by those sitting at the man's feet and quickly repeated to those too far away to hear him. General affirmation spread through the crowd like a wildfire.

He began to walk around, among them, and raised his voice. "And if we bring the harvest in on time—no, early, maybe the first harvest of the county—then we will have proven ourselves and earned respect." The chorus of agreement grew louder. "I believe we would be in our rights to ask Captain Picard for a bonus for our hard work!"

Cheers erupted briefly, but the charismatic speaker quieted them with a downward gesture of his hands. He effortlessly commanded their attention.

"But we would only be entitled to a bonus, we could only dare to ask for a bonus, if we pull together and work hard, harder than we ever have. That's how free people earn money. And we can take that money and buy things for our new houses—silverware, cloth to make curtains. We can buy shoes for ourselves, medicine for our children."

Some began to quietly sing. Beverly stood silent, amazed. The older man continued to talk over the gentle music, his voice growing louder and louder, his body turning in the center space to make eye contact and gesticulating to make his points.

"Each and every one of you has within you the strength, the power, to overcome your anger and frustrations, to keep your focus on your goal ahead of you—that better life. To get there, we have to be better people, the people we always wanted to be! Now that we've shed the shackles that bound us, there's nothing holding us back, nothing. We can wake up every day, be happy every day, work hard every day, and come home to our own houses, every day!"

The music grew louder and was punctuated by more "amens" and other encouragements.

He finished by hammering his fist to accentuate his message: "Every one of us, every day! Every one of us, every day!"

The chant was picked up and elevated by the workers. "Every one of us, every day! Every one of us, every day!"

After several rounds, applause broke out, followed by individual shouts.

"You should be in charge!"

"Yeah, Dathon should run things."

"You could be the overseer."

"Dathon is smart. He can fix things."

For his part, Dathon appeared surprised at the movement to draft him, but Beverly was not entirely convinced that the campaign was unplanned. When he turned to her with an innocent shrug, she smiled.

"I agree," she said. "I think you'd make an excellent mediator and I could serve as your liaison to . . . ." She faltered, uncomfortably wrestling with Jean-Luc's fake marriage and nearly substituting the phrase "the white people," but, meeting Dathon's reassuring eyes, she felt grounded in her decision. " . . . to the Picards," she managed.

"If you're comfortable with that arrangement, doctor," Dathon said to her apologetically.

Beverly answered quickly. "I am."

Next, Dathon did something completely unexpected: he extended his hand for her to shake. Even more shocking, Beverly took his hand. After a long moment, during which the gathered people processed what they had just seen, a smattering of applause broke out, then spread. Before the crowd dispersed, Beverly saw people from both plantations slapping each other on the back and hugging and talking, ending their disputes and returning to the afternoon sun to work. It felt as though a heavy cloud of anger had cleared.

As Dathon and she watched them leave, Guinan and Mr. Soong appeared on the crest of the hill.

"Uh, I- sorry I'm late," Mr. Soong stuttered. "Did I miss anything?"

Dathon looked at Beverly.

"No, Mr. Soong. I'll update you." Smiling, she turned back to Dathon. "Thank you and congratulations on your new position."

"Dr. Crusher, ma'am, congratulations on yours." He nodded, tipped the brim of his hat, then began to laugh as he walked away.

The three remaining watched him follow the workers back to the fields. A self-satisfied smile on her face, Guinan said to Beverly, "I knew you could do it."

"I'm not sure I did anything." Beverly marveled at the stirring eloquence of the man she had just witnessed. Something about his calm air of authority reminded her of Jean-Luc.

Guinan nodded. "Oh, you did something. You'll be doing more as the season goes on, too."

Mr. Soong looked befuddled. "I'm sorry? I don't think I know what's going on, exactly."

Taking in everything, Beverly began to see a different structure to the work force and the work on the plantation. "Mr. Soong, I think you're going to have a different job from now on."

"I am?" He sounded worried.

"Yes, it's a promotion." She turned to face him and smiled to ease his mind. "From now on, I'd like you to focus on problem-solving. How can we make things run more smoothly, how can we improve output, fix what's broken, that kind of thing."

"Oh, like the new irrigation system I'm designing."

"Installing, Mr. Soong," Beverly corrected. "You'll need to install is as soon as possible because that will free up people for other tasks."

"I don't—uh, yes, yes ma'am, I think I can, it's just . . . ." Soong looked away, distracted by thoughts of how Geordi and he could implement the project on their own.

"Is there a problem?"

"Well, I just, usually, we work with Wesley . . . ." Soong shrugged helplessly.

Taken aback by the mention of her son, Beverly recovered quickly. "All right, we'll have to find you some help."

"Help?" Soong was startled by the offer. His original team of Geordi, Wesley and himself had formed organically. He could not fathom recruiting someone to work with him. Where would this person come from? "How do we find some help?"

Beverly returned her gaze to the now tiny figure of Dathon in the distance. Singing could be heard in the fields around him. "I have an idea of someone who could point us in the right direction."

Soong leaned to one side to follow the subject of her scrutiny, who was too far away for him to recognize. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

Beverly felt a warmth inside that was not caused by the sun boring down on them. She felt that she had done the right thing for Jean-Luc's people and his land. She had never before met the new leader, Dathon, who apparently had not fathered any children since Beverly had begun working for Dr. Quaice, but he engendered trust immediately and his results could not be denied. She would meet with him, watch operations from a distance, see to it that he had whatever materials he needed. A small voice inside her head quietly asked if Jean-Luc would have approved of her solution.

"Well done, Dr. Crusher." Beverly started at Guinan's sudden presence at her elbow. "I don't think the captain himself could have done better."

Beverly turned to thank Guinan for the reassurance and the two women shared a smile.

"Who's that man?" Soong asked.

"That's the new over—no, I think I like the word 'manager' better," Beverly said. "That man is the new manager of the plantation."

"Oh." Very little of his conversation with Beverly Crusher had made much sense to him. Soong decided to stop trying. He smiled at Mrs. Crusher, gave a polite nod of his head to the two women, then proceeded back down the hill. He had so much work to do to install the irrigation system.

Geordi sat on the top step of the back porch, shucking corn, when he heard the distinctive humming of his mother, Silva, approaching from the direction of the Ro property. He remembered how she used to sing him to sleep when he was small, before his family had been broken up. It had been so difficult to fall asleep on those hot summer nights, before the sun had set, but his mother's voice, so close to his ear, as she lay beside him, never failed to lull him into a peaceful slumber.

Silva climbed on to the porch, set down a basket and sat next to her son. She patted his head, echoing their former closeness that he had just been recalling.

"Afternoon," she said.

"Good afternoon, Ma. Are those green beans?"

"Yes, I thought we could divide your corn and our beans so that everybody got a little of both."

"Sounds good." Geordi was accustomed to his mother's ideas always making sense.

"I already cut off the stems so you can cook 'em tonight. How are you making out with the corn?"

"Well, I've got a lot of it shucked already." He reached toward the basket on his other side to give her some ears.

"I'll get it." Silva stood and retrieved an empty bushel basket from the far corner of the porch. She loaded the corn into the basket. "You have quite a lot more to do," she observed, of the pile at his feet.

Geordi chuckled, his mother's critical observations had always been part of her nature. "Yes, I'm a little bit behind schedule. I was trying to help Mr. Soong fix the irrigation system and . . . ."

"Did you fix it?"

That question stung a little, Geordi had to admit. "Well, not quite yet, but we're close."

"Oh. I suppose that's good."

Her task finished, she sat down next to him again and started helping him with the corn. The two enjoyed being together without saying anything. The air was warm and humid, but not unbearable, since they were sitting still.

After a spell, Guinan appeared through the back door. "Mrs. Riker has just come to visit Mrs. Crusher and Madame Picard."

This was the signal.

"I'll make sure the Rikers' horse gets some water." Geordi gave the pre-arranged response as though someone might be eavesdropping. He stood up.

"I'll help you," Silva said, setting an ear of corn on the porch step and rising.

Just then, the horse clomped down the path from the front of the mansion. A handsome black man with gray hair, wearing dressy livery, drove the carriage to the barn, where the teenage boy who worked there stood ready to take his horse. Geordi arrived just as the man climbed down.

"Hello, Pa," Geordi said.

"Hello, son." He looked Geordi over, saw that he appeared well fed and healthy, then glanced past him, at the woman approaching. "Hello, Silva," he called out hopefully.

"Edward," she answered, seemingly uninterested.

Edward made sure that the horse was being taken care of, then returned his attention to his family. His nerves perhaps making him sweat even more than the heat, he pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his face. "Hot day," he commented.

"Yeah, it—" Geordi began to say.

"Not too bad for summer," Silva interrupted. She had been looking all around to make sure they were unobserved. Confident that no curious residents of the estate could chance to look up and spot them, she made the decision to act. "You two head over to the pump to get some water."

Her command made Edward more uneasy. "Which way to the pump?" He asked Geordi.

"Come on, I'll take you." Geordi started off in the direction of the water pump, with his father taking his arm to guide him. Neither looked back at Silva.

Calmly, Silva rounded the carriage to the storage compartment underneath the seats and opened the latch and then the lid. Two young men looked up at her in fright and she put a finger to her lips. She motioned for them to get out and after they complied, she closed up the compartment and quickly led them around the carriage to the far side of the barn. By the time Geordi and Edward began their stroll back toward the house, the three of them were out of sight, Silva feeding and hiding the men in preparation for their long journey.

"Look like you're doing well, son," Edward said.

"Thanks, dad, I'm fine. Things are pretty good, actually," Geordi answered.

"Oh?"

"Well . . . ," Geordi did not think of himself as the type of person who liked to boast because he did not like those arrogant, mouthy people, however, at this moment, to this man, he really wanted to boast. "I'm seeing someone and—"

"You are? Who is she?"

"Her name is Aquiel and she's a laundress."

"Hmm, serious?"

Again, Geordi tried to brag without seeming to do so. "Well, it's been a few months now and we're pretty happy . . . ."

Edward nodded before he remembered that his son could not see. "I see. So, you thinking about jumping the broom?"

The slave marriage ceremony was exactly what Geordi had been thinking about, for the last few weeks, but he had not told anyone, not even Aquiel. Edward divined his answer from his silence.

"Ah," he grasped Geordi's shoulder. "You're at the age, Lord knows, past the age."

Geordi chuckled at that.

Edward's face had been serious but kind as the two conversed, however, as the talk of marriage progressed, a shadow crossed his brow. Since Deanna had married Will a few months ago, Edward had reason to come to the Picard mansion, for the first time in years. Despite the occasional business deal, such as his purchase, Kyle Riker had little interaction with Robert Picard and Jean-Luc had never invited him. Edward enjoyed the time he now got to spend with Geordi, but he felt very differently about his wife, who had always kept her emotional distance. Even as a young woman, meeting up with him secretly when he snuck through the hole in the fence between the properties, Silva had been guarded. Even in moments of passion, Edward had sensed that she was holding something back. Perhaps, even then, she knew that she was destined for something else. Something that could get her killed at any time. Geordi felt the change in his father as the man's grip tensed.

"Pa, when are you two going to bury the hatchet?" Geordi asked his father point blank. Empowered by his recent success in affairs of the heart, he felt qualified to give unsolicited advice to his parents.

Unseen by Geordi, Edward shook his head. "It's not a hatchet, not exactly. It's . . . it's hard for us to get married. You never know when someone you love is going to be sold away. When that happens, you may never see her again."

"Yeah, but you two can see each other now."

Edward looked into the distance, toward the Ro land, where he imagined Silva had gone. "We can, but maybe we don't want to."

"You both act like you want to. There's definitely something between you, still."

Edward chuckled, sounding exactly like his son. "You think so? You think maybe you see something I don't, my blind son?"

"Yes, actually I do. Ma doesn't treat anyone the way she treats you. Almost like she can't bear to see you or be around you."

"That's not usually a very good sign . . . ."

Geordi began to talk with his hands, the way he did when he was solving some type of engineering problem. "Yeah, but it's like what you said: when you grow up knowing you could lose the one you love, you become afraid to risk your heart. I think she's still afraid to love you because she's afraid to lose you."

Off in the distance, Silva could be seen near the Picard end of the tunnel, casually walking toward the Ro house. As if she could feel his eyes on her, she turned just as Edward found her. The two men watched her pause for a moment, then return to her hike with a purpose.

"Hmm," Edward said thoughtfully, "maybe you do see something there, Geordi, maybe you do."