AUTHOR'S NOTE: I beg your indulgence. This single-scene, dialogue-heavy chapter is dense in history, both personal and political; thus the title. Seven's doing her research and Many Words is a teacher. Please bear with me—Chakotay and Seven will get to Trebus soon.

There is no indigenous falconry tradition among the Haudenosaunee, but when I was developing Many Words, an image of a man riding bareback, his hair flying, following his raptor across the flat, wide-open expanse of the farmland in my native western New York, kept coming back to me. He wouldn't talk until I gave him a bird. I tried giving him chickens, but he just laughed. So I gave him a peregrine. As it turns out, Seven had some thoughts about that, too. "Chi'nę" means "bird" in Tuscarora.

Thanks to scifiromance for the beta and the encouragement.

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La Historia

Stardate 55412.47

Niagara Escarpment, New York, Earth

Seven followed the familiar packed earthen trail from the transport site in the hamlet, through a stand of sugar maples and a hedgerow of wild roses—Rosa acicularis—in fragrant bloom. Many Words was in the pasture, shirtless, in a pair of worn blue denim trousers, leaning over a wooden beam resting on a pair of sawhorses; his hair was gathered in one braid down his back. Chi'nę, his peregrine, was tethered to her perch, preening.

"Good afternoon," Seven said as she approached them. She looked closely at the structure he was repairing and the beam he was about to cut. "That is 2.83 centimeters short and will produce a noticeable flaw in the end result."

He looked at her, smirked, and then measured again. He nicked the beam with the saw blade at the new mark. "You're right," he said. "Thanks." He set the saw down, stood up, and put on a T-shirt, then smiled broadly. "What brings you out here?"

She held out a blanket and a bag in response. "Lunch," she said, returning his smile.

While he spread the blanket on the pasture, Seven admired the falcon. She had seen peregrines hunting in Oakland—the prodigious seagull and pigeon populations provided an ample food supply, and nesting on a multistory building was apparently as acceptable to the birds as on a cliff. Chi'nę was, however, the first to which she'd been in close proximity, and she was an impressive specimen: fifty-seven centimeters long with a wingspan of one hundred twenty. Her back, wings and tail were a dark blue-grey, like the shale in nearby geological formations; her throat was the barest tint of pink. Her black, binocular gaze was appraising. She studied Seven, and blinked, ruffled her feathers, then resumed preening.

Seven removed her uniform jacket and folded it, then knelt and laid out the picnic: roasted vegetable sandwiches, potato chips, lemonade, and strawberry tarts. Many Words sat cross-legged on the blanket and grinned. "Chakotay is a very lucky man," he said. "I hope he appreciates you."

She smiled. "He does," she confirmed. "Most of the time." She looked at his project. "What are you building?"

He swallowed a bite of his sandwich before responding. "This is really good," he said. "Thanks. Repairing Chi'nę's mews—it got hit by carpenter ants."

"You could construct avian housing that would be impervious to vermin with replicator technology," she pointed out. "And in a fraction of the time."

He nodded. "Yes, I could," he agreed. "But Chi'nę deserves real wood, even if it's not 'impervious to vermin.'" He smiled and winked. "You could have replicated this meal. But I bet you didn't."

She smirked her concession. "You would win that wager. We deserve 'real food.'" A light breeze ruffled her hair and the sun was warm on her bare arms, pleasant sensations, so rare in San Francisco even as summer approached. Honeybees buzzed in the clover. "You have a sizeable apian population here," she said appreciatively, thinking of the dearth in her garden in Oakland.

"We're working on it." He grinned. "Thanks for the introduction to Irene, by the way. She's been a godsend on that front." If he noticed any irony in the fact that Seven's only living family relation was an expert on hives, drones and queens, he was kind enough not to mention it. He took a long draught of his lemonade. "So, not that I don't appreciate the company," he said, then nodded toward the mews, "and the help, but I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to discuss falconry, carpentry or beekeeping."

She bit her lower lip and studied her sandwich. "I require your assistance," she admitted after a pause. She took a deep breath. "Chakotay and I are leaving for Trebus on Friday. It's the end of the academic year—we have six weeks leave."

Many Words whistled softly. "That's not exactly a vacation," he said.

"No," she conceded. "It is not." She sighed. If she were to be honest, the trip was beginning to resemble an away mission for which she was completely unprepared. Her anxiety was increasing. In her dreams she beamed into Ketzál unclothed, surrounded by people speaking languages she did not understand—an impossibility, given the universal translator wired into her cortical node and the fact that Trebans spoke Terran standard, but still disconcerting. She looked at Many Words directly. "What can you tell me about the planet? About Chakotay's family?"

He frowned. "Shouldn't you ask him that?"

"I have," she said, and shrugged. "He's not particularly communicative on the subject."

"No, he isn't," Many Words agreed. He stretched out full-length on the blanket, resting on his left elbow. "Kana's the talker—outgoing, expressive, like Kolopak was. Chakotay's more like Imix, their mother—quiet, someone who keeps things close to the chest."

Seven looked up. "Chakotay has never spoken to me about his mother," she said softly. Her brow furrowed; she'd not noticed this lapse before, but now that she had, found it curious. "He speaks of his father frequently, but never his mother."

"Family dynamics? Not flying into that minefield," Many Words said, chuckling. "I'll leave that for him and Kana to explain. She has a colorful account of gender roles in Ketzál—and makes liberal use of an impressive vocabulary of expletives in four languages to hammer her point home." He grinned, with a hint of pride that caught Seven's attention.

"How did you meet her?" she asked, sensing that he might be more forthcoming about Kana than her brother. "Was it through Chakotay?"

He shook his head. "Other way around." He smiled, an inward-directed smile, of the sort she'd come to associate with recalling pleasant memories. "It's an old story," he said, "one frowned upon in most polite circles: I was the teacher, she was my student." He laughed. "In her defense—if not my own—she wouldn't give me the time of day until long after she was my student."

"This was when?" Seven asked.

"Oh, we were young," he said. "Kids, really. I was twenty-three, a doctoral candidate at NYU. They gave me a section of 'Contemporary Politics in Extraterrestrial Indigenous American Colonies' to help fulfil my teaching requirement. Say it ten times fast and you get an A." He laughed. "Didn't matter that I knew next-to-nothing about the subject. This was before the wars started—things were heating up on the border, and the university sure as shit didn't want a Federation war-monger beating the drums. I looked the part, even if I'd never set foot on a colony in my life." He shrugged and smirked. "I got the gig on the length of my braids."

Seven could hear the resignation underlying his wry humor. She was familiar with the emotion. In her position as the Federation's current "resident expert" on the Borg, she was called upon regularly to answer all manner of questions—many on subjects with which she'd had no direct experience, nor of which did she possess any particular knowledge. She invariably complied, performing the same inquiries the researchers were capable of performing on their own—albeit in a fraction of the time—and reporting on the results, in an effort to be thought of as helpful. It irritated her—her complicity more than Starfleet's demands.

Chi'nę flapped her impressive wings, just once, before settling back to preening on her perch. Seven cocked her head. Was she really much different than a trained raptor? She was a hunter—a role determined by her physiology, both natural and altered—who performed according to her handlers' expectations. She designed tactical arrays; she analyzed sensor readings; she offered her unique body daily for medical research. In return she received what was necessary for survival. There was one difference, however: Chi'nę could choose to return to the wild; Seven no longer had that option. Chakotay had finally changed that.

"Anyway, I was young and cocky enough to think I could fake it," Many Words continued. "I boned up on the history and issues, and put together what I thought was a reasonably stimulating course, for what it was—a freshman elective, the easy A. They're kind of fun classes to teach, usually—odd subjects, off the boring academic trail. Best you can hope for is to get some of them interested, while they're getting the A that keeps them in pre-med." He laughed. "They got interested that year, but I sure as hell wasn't the catalyst."

He finished his lemonade and held his mug out for a refill. "First day of class, I walked out to the lectern, expecting the usual subjects," he said. "A few who were genuinely interested, maybe a Terran Indian or two, bent on proving that colonials aren't 'real Indians,' and the majority just curious about those 'wild Indians'—real or not—who lived on the edge of nowhere." He chuckled. "I looked out at the class, ready to take in their eager faces… and there she was, front-and-center: Kana Al-Imix, Warrior Princess, with the rest of the class behind her, like they were in battle formation. She was all of seventeen, a veritable colonial Jeanne d'Arc, ready to lead her people against the idiocies of pampered Terran academics."

He smiled broadly. "She was magnificent. Tall, with insanely long hair that she draped over the back of her seat like a headdress. She was wearing skin-tight jeans, a red-on-white huipil, and a black leather jacket." He shook his head. "She even had her damned warpaint on: sculpted brows, darkly lined eyes, bright red lips—and that tattoo on her forehead." He sat up again, crossed his legs, and rested his elbows on his knees. "She was sitting in that lecture hall seat like it was a goddamned throne. I looked down at the PADD in her hand—it was my syllabus, highlighted, with red text added." He raised his mug in a toast. "Her terms."

Seven smiled sympathetically as she offered him a strawberry tart. She was grateful that, as yet, she had not had a Kana among her cadets, and that none had organized—intentionally or otherwise—a class into formation to greet her. "What did you do?" she asked.

He laughed. "What could I do?" he said. "I fell in love. On the spot. She could have ripped my heart from my chest and sacrificed it to whatever Mayan goddess she pleased, right up there on the podium." He winked. "She thought I was an asshole. She called me 'Pendejo.' It took a while before she meant it affectionately."

Seven chuckled. "Chakotay was not exactly enamored with me upon first meeting, either. He attempted to flush me out of an airlock into space." Many Words knew that she'd been Borg and he possessed an adequate imagination; elaboration on the events was unnecessary. "Perhaps falling in love with people they once clashed with is a familial trait." He smiled, but she noticed that it did not go all the way to his eyes. "You are still in love with her," she observed softly. He conceded her point with a nod. "What happened?"

He looked up. "What happened?" he repeated. "Life happened. War happened." He studied his strawberry tart for a long moment, then looked at her again. "Chakotay didn't go into Starfleet to be a warrior, you know…"

"No," Seven agreed. "He went into Starfleet to explore." She smiled. "He may yet get the opportunity. His research has high-level attention within the Federation Archeology Council."

"About time," Many Words muttered. "He's fucking earned it." He drew his lips in a grim line. "Chakotay graduated into the Cardassian Wars—the Federation needed warriors, and I guess he's a good one."

"He is," Seven confirmed. "He is courageous, pragmatic, and possesses quick reflexes. He's a creative thinker; he uses unconventional tactics, which gives him an advantage. He inspires loyalty in his subordinates. He's also a skilled pilot and a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat."

Many Words laughed. "I can attest to that," he said. "I sparred with him—once. I've got a few centimeters on him in reach, but it didn't matter. He played with me for two rounds, then got bored and decked me. Knocked me out." He shrugged and grinned. "I don't think he meant to hit me that hard. My head was in the way."

Seven smiled. "We spar regularly," she said. "We have time once a week at a gym, near my apartment. So far, we've inflicted no serious damage upon one another."

"Beware," Many Words said. "He's got a mean right hook." He took a swallow of his lemonade, and grew thoughtful again. "I'll save you the trouble of connecting the dots in his service record, which I assume you've hacked into..."

Seven raised her eyebrow.

"Research, right?" he asked, chuckling.

She blushed lightly. Was she that obvious? "Please continue," she said. "Save me the trouble of 'connecting the dots.'"

His face fell serious again and he took a deep breath. "They cycled him on and off the front lines for almost fifteen years. He'd serve in combat six months or a year, depending on the mission, then they'd ship him back to Earth for leave, and then send him on a short science or culture mission for a break—for his psychological health, you know," Many Words said, rolling his eyes, "then back to the front. Finally things quieted down a little, and they brought him back to Earth to teach the next generation of young warriors." He pursed his lips. "A lot of those young warriors were colonials—recruitment was up on the border. Who better to train them than one of their own?"

Seven nibbled her tart. After her brief, ignoble career in tsunkatse, both Chakotay and Tuvok had encouraged her—in an effort to dispel her lingering shame—to explore her abilities in the martial arts. Chakotay had designated her a "reluctant warrior," gently explaining that such skills are not dishonorable on their own, but in how they are utilized. Now she wondered if he had been attempting to convince himself as much as her.

"Meanwhile," Many Words continued, "The situation in the border colonies was becoming more and more fraught. Trade routes were disrupted by piracy and blockades, with the expected resulting shortages. There were direct Cardassian attacks on Terran colonies, Setlik III being the one that vaulted the colonists into the newsfeeds—up until then it was just Starfleet versus Cardassia, who owned what territory, with not even a passing thought to the people who actually lived there. Kana was one of a handful of colonial citizens on Earth speaking out—trying to get us to care. She argued in front of the Federation Council. She argued in front of the Terran parliament. She argued with any pundit that would feature her on the news service. Hell, she argued with the woman behind the counter in the deli on Canal Street." He smiled grimly. "It worked, to a point. There was a lot of sympathy for the colonists. At the same time, no one wanted the war to extend into the Federation core."

"Chakotay said that the colonies were viewed as expendable," Seven said.

Many Words nodded. "Ah, but here's the political dance," he said, raising an eyebrow. "The Council made sure to note that the colonists were of the utmost importance. If they would simply relocate to suitable planets outside of the disputed territory, then a diplomatic solution could be easily achieved and further expansion of the war into Federation space would be averted." He drained his mug. "They just had to give up their homes."

Attachment to one's place of residence was something that Seven understood to be a common trait across sentient species, although it was one that she did not fully embrace. "Why didn't they relocate?" she asked.

"I'll leave that for you to discover on your own," he said with a gentle smile. "I'll say this much, though: they had something there. Trebus is a beautiful world." His face grew somber. "Or, well… it was."

She watched a bee burrow into a clover blossom. She would not tell him that she held memories of Chakotay's homeworld, of his childhood, as fragmented in her mind as her memories of her own. The planet was indeed beautiful, but was that sufficient reason to gamble on their children's survival? "So you did set foot on a colony eventually," she said instead.

He nodded. "Kana became one of the colonies' official representatives. She traveled back and forth a lot—I went with her when my schedule allowed." He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "Then the Federation announced the creation of the DMZ, and Kana made a final, impassioned appeal to the Federation Council. Chakotay and I were in the gallery. I remember he was in uniform; rumor had it he was about to be offered a position as XO on a battle cruiser. We could see the faces of the delegates; it was obvious that Kana's plea fell on deaf ears." He looked down at his hands, then at Seven, his face anguished. "Three weeks later, the Cardassians hit Trebus, four strikes, one directly on Ketzál."

A memory flashed in Seven's mind. She was pulling Kana to her feet, brushing the embers of Kolopak's fields from her slacks. But it was not Seven whose chest Kana pounded with her fists. It was not Seven's ears hearing her screams. Those were not Seven's arms holding her; Seven was not the individual dragging her away from the scene. The memory was Chakotay's. She looked down and bit her lip; her human eye burned. "Was that retribution?" she asked hoarsely. "For her speech?"

Many Words shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not," he said bitterly. "Possibly symbolic—Ketzál was the first settlement on Trebus. Or maybe just coincidence." He shook his head. "There wasn't any sense in what the Cardies did that day. Trebus has no strategic mineral deposits, nothing useful for Cardassia. It's an agrarian planet, and they created firestorms that destroyed prime land…"

"Pointless destruction is not unusual for Cardassians," Seven noted.

He snorted. "Yeah." He paused, organizing his thoughts. "Chakotay took emergency leave and came to New York to collect Kana before catching a series of transports to Trebus. I wanted to go with them, but they convinced me to stay on Earth and do what I could to help here, organizing relief efforts on this end." He gazed out across the pasture, his expression vague, focused inward. "I saw him once more—when he returned to Earth a few months later to resign his commission. Once he joined the Maquis, I couldn't go anywhere near the place."

"Why not?" Seven asked.

"The Maquis were labeled terrorists and traitors," he said. "Chakotay was a decorated veteran of the wars. They used his official Starfleet portrait on his wanted poster to emphasize his 'betrayal.'" He spat the word out and furrowed his brow. "I was a known friend of his—hell, a still of us in the gallery during Kana's speech had been broadcast across the news services with the caption, Residents of disputed colonies react to creation of demilitarized zone—not entirely accurate, but I guess it got the point across." He frowned. "My movements were tracked in the hope that I'd lead Starfleet to him. I made it as far as DS9 once, before spotting my shadow. I turned around and went home." He studied her face closely. "I know this doesn't match the idyllic spin Terrans like to put on the Federation…"

"I have no illusions about Federation—and particularly Starfleet—perfection," Seven reassured him. "Human history appears to be an endless cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over. And then trying to pretend that they never happened."

He nodded. "Yeah," he agreed quietly, "we do a lot of that."

She looked out across the pasture. An agricultural hovercraft was moving across a field, cutting hay with a laser scythe; two men on horseback cut across the scene, creating a compelling visual paradox. Many Words' account of the history—both personal and political—had helped to put the memories she shared with Chakotay in order, gave her a foundation on which to place them. But there was still something fundamental missing. "Why did Chakotay's people leave Earth in the first place?" she asked.

"Ah, now we're getting into my area of academic expertise," Many Words said, "where I'm not as much of a pendejo." He grinned. "It goes back to the late twenty-first century..."

"A period of rapid change," Seven said. She was familiar with the basic historical details: the destruction and resultant displacements in the wake of World War III, the technological leap of breaking the warp barrier, the sudden shift in perspective following first contact with the Vulcans. She divided what remained of the lemonade between their mugs.

He nodded agreement. "And in periods of rapid change, tradition looks like something stable," he explained. "Some people look back to what they consider a simpler life—living slowly, communally, according to the cycles of nature. Various utopian movements sprang up all over Earth. The European Neo-Transcendentalists were one such group. Chakotay's people were part of another." He looked out across the pasture. "To a certain extent, we were, too."

"Yet your people remained on Earth," she noted. "You appear to have maintained a distinct culture here."

"Fair observation," he said. "We've been on this land for over five hundred years. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is over a thousand years old. Our government predated European colonization—and survived it." He shrugged. "The Six Nations had historical continuity and, thus, political credibility. We were recognized as sovereign nations by United Earth—and as such, received and still have representation in Terran government."

"And Chakotay's people did not?"

Many Words shook his head. "The situation was different in Chakotay's ancestral homeland," he explained. "Economic exploitation and political instability drove a migration north, centuries ago. Chakotay's people were Maya, originally from Central America and southern Mexico, who settled in Southern California urban centers in the late twentieth century. Following World War III and the Hermosa quake, they formed communities in the surrounding countryside, communal in nature. These weren't subsistence farmers—they were highly educated people from all walks of life, including scientists and engineers, who'd become increasingly concerned about the homogenization of Terran culture and the increasing reliance on technology in the wake of First Contact." He took a swallow of his lemonade. "La Raza was a loose confederation of similar indigenous communities in the American Southwest—most of them reconstructionists, like Chakotay's people—who sought political representation in United Earth. When they didn't achieve that—and most of the Neo-Utopians didn't—they felt that the best way to preserve what they were trying to build was to leave Earth and build it as far from Federation interference as they could."

"Reconstructionists?" Seven asked.

"People reclaiming an older tradition without a direct lineage," he explained. "Their traditions, their spirituality, sometimes even their languages are reconstructions from history, not a continuation of history." He leaned back. "The history they followed was often apocryphal, and as would be expected, they incorporated entirely new traditions—Ketzál's tribal tattoo, for example—which led to the oft-heard criticism that colonials aren't 'real Indians.'"

The corners of Seven's mouth quirked, just a little. "Humans are infinitely adaptable," she said. "It is one of our strengths." She smiled. "We do find infinite ways to complain about it as well."

"We are, it is, and we do," he agreed, chuckling. "They've been out there for two hundred years with limited contact with the Federation core for over a century of that, on trade routes serviced by the last of the Boomers. It's not just the frontier, the edge of nowhere, it was way beyond that for a very long time. They tamed a planet with limited resources, sometimes not much more than their bare hands. They may not have continuity with an ancient tradition on Earth, but they do have continuity on Trebus. They are no less 'real' than we are."

Seven's quirked lips grew into a smirk. "Another of our weaknesses is an obsessive need to categorize individuals and groups of individuals into hierarchies."

He laughed. "Hold that thought, and you'll be fine on Trebus," he said. He rose to his feet and stretched, as she started to pack up the picnic's detritus. "I've got something at the house for you. I'll be right back." Chi'nę watched him lope the twelve meters to the cabin, then cocked her head, eyeing Seven.

Seven finished packing, put her jacket back on, and surveyed the environment one last time before leaving. The smell of fresh-mown grass was heavy in the air, a comforting, vaguely familiar scent, perhaps from childhood, although whose childhood, she wasn't certain.

When Many Words returned, he handed her two flat, square boxes. "Viola's maple-walnut penuche," he said in response to her quizzical raised brow. Viola was a tiny, grizzled centenarian who'd taught Seven to make Three Sisters Soup—a traditional concoction of corn, beans and squash—which had rapidly become one of Chakotay's favorite meals. "Give one of the boxes to Cisco. He loves the stuff. And the best way to get in Pakal's good graces is through Cisco."

Seven laughed as they folded the blanket. "This sounds like advice I can use," she said.

He slung her bag over his shoulder, faced her, and cupped her chin in his hand, his face radiating friendly concern. "Take care of yourself, little sister," he said. "Conditions are rough there."

"Irene has briefed me on the environmental issues," she said. "We will be fine."

He smiled. "I was talking about you," he said. "You have unique needs…"

There was no judgment in his concern and that touched her. "There is a Starfleet medical facility in Ketzál," she reassured him with a smile. "My needs will be met." She studied his face. "Are there any messages you wish me to transmit?"

He did not respond right away, instead starting down the path to the transport site. The walk took only three minutes. She gave her destination coordinates to the technician, then stepped onto the pad. He handed her the bag, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and stepped away. He raised his hand in goodbye. "Tell them I miss them," he said at last.

She inhaled deeply and smiled. The air smelled like wild roses.

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To be continued…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Irene's introduction in "The Ultimate Cheesecake Challenge" was serendipitous—I needed an agronomist to put on Trebus, and Irene needed something to do, besides being Seven's aunt. I chose melittology—the study of bees—as her specialty because it seemed like something I'd enjoy researching for the character, and I really do hope that there will still be bees to study in the twenty-fourth century. Magnus's research did not occur to me at the time. Seven noticed the irony, though, and it gave me ideas for Hansen family history to use in a later story. Sometimes things work out nicely that way.

"La Raza" can refer to either Hispanic or Latin American indigenous identity. The group to which the original Treban colonists belonged used the latter meaning.