Chapter 5

Captain's Log, Supplemental: I have now spoken to the leaders of the Koshka IX colony, and they agree that relocation to Ruibi VII is the best long-term option for the colony. Though not overly enthusiastic about the idea, they have also agreed to come with us to Starbase 718 until the USS Infinity arrives next month with the necessary supplies to establish a permanent colony on the new planet.

Commander Riker stepped onto the bridge and sank down into his chair beside the captain. He sighed, grateful to be back to the relative sanity of the bridge. "It's like herding cats," he observed wryly.

Picard nodded; he'd dealt with similar situations before. "How are the colonists handling the transfer?"

"We've allowed one member of each family to beam down to the planet to retrieve whatever they may need to from their homes. They've all got temporary communicator badges so that Chief O'Brien can get a lock on them quickly in an emergency." The first officer seemed to fidget slightly, and then removed a wisp of straw from the back of his his collar. "We've put some hay down in Cargo Bay 3 for the colony's livestock; I wouldn't recommend going down there unless you like cows. Cats and dogs are being kept with families in their quarters."

"It sounds like the situation is well under control, Number One. Thank you." Picard sighed. Not overly fond of either cattle or chaos, he was very glad he wasn't the one trying to coordinate the transfer.

In Transporter Room 4, Chief O'Brien was transporting colonists back and forth between the Enterprise and the abandoned colony, as they retrieved livestock and possessions from their homes, and put final bouquets of fresh flowers on the graves of lost loved ones in the colony's old cemetery. Meanwhile, Ruthie worked at a secondary console nearby, monitoring seismic activity on the planet. Their orders were to transport all of the colonists back to the Enterprise in the event of tremors registering above a 2.7 on the Richter scale. For the time being, though, the ground beneath the colony was quiet. After several hours, and a few minor mishaps mostly involving cows being beamed to the transporter room instead of the cargo bay, the last colonist (and the last cow) had returned to the Enterprise. Ruthie sighed. "Y'know, I'm not sure I ever want to see another cow again," she said, laughing.

"Here's to that," O'Brien replied, laughing as well.

Still giggling as she left the transporter room, Ruthie headed down to sickbay, with a slight spring in her step. Her duty shift was over, and she and Dr. Crusher planned to go talk to Misha's parents. She found the doctor sitting at her desk, updating medical records.

Dr. Crusher looked up from her work as she heard the lieutenant enter. "Ready to go, Ruthie?" she asked.

"Whenever you are," Ruthie replied.

The two women left sickbay. "Deck 11," Dr. Crusher said as they stepped onto the turbolift. The lift hissed open as it stopped at the specified deck.

As the two officers stepped off and rounded a bend in the corridor, they heard a small commotion coming the other direction—a large group of preschoolers was coming down the corridor. Ruthie sidestepped just in time to avoid being run into by Misha, who wasn't watching where he was going. "Easy there, Misha," she laughed. "You need to be looking the same direction you're running, or you'll fall."

"Ok, Ruthie," the little boy replied, laughing along with her. "Guess what? We're going to go play football!"

Ruthie smiled. Misha still didn't seem to be making eye contact (no surprise there), but it certainly looked like he was having a good time. "Neat!" she replied. "Have fun."

"With all of the extra children we have right now, the nursery was getting rather crowded," the teacher explained "so we're taking them to play soccer down on the holodeck."

"I'll believe it," Dr. Crusher replied, laughing.

Ruthie and Dr. Crusher continued along the corridor until they reached the door they needed. The doctor sounded the chime and waited.

"Come in," a man answered from inside. Two young colonists, 25 or so years old, faced the Starfleet officers as they entered. These were clearly Misha's parents; there was a definite family resemblance, particularly between Misha and his father. "Good morning," they said. They seemed slightly surprised at having visitors.

"Good morning. I'm Dr. Beverly Crusher, and this is Lieutenant Ruthie Greene." The doctor held out a hand, and Ruthie followed suit. Social skills weren't one of Ruthie's strengths, and she figured she was probably best off following the doctor's lead for now.

"I'm Sergei Lyetikov, and this is my wife Sofia. How do you do?" Sergei was tall with dark hair, gentle brown eyes, and a pleasant tenor. Sofia was soft-spoken with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, seemingly as deep as the sea. After handshakes and various other polite niceties, the group sat down to talk over a plate of cookies and a pot of tea.

Dr. Crusher sighed. She wasn't quite sure how to begin. "If you don't mind, we'd like to talk to you about Misha. I don't know how much you may know about the situation already."

Sergei shook his head. "He's always seemed…different from the other children. But we've never been sure how or why."

"We thought maybe he'd outgrow it," Sofia added.

"Well," the doctor began slowly, "when we brought him up to the Enterprise yesterday, we ran some initial tests, just the basics, to make sure he didn't have any serious injuries. If our tentative diagnosis is correct, this isn't something he's going to grow out of."

"W-what does he have?" his mother asked, worry written across her face, as she wished that the doctor would just spit it out and get it over with.

"We think it's probably Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism."

"He has autism?" Sergei asked in disbelief, seizing on the one tangible word in what the doctor had said—a frightening word to a parent's ears, all the more so because neither he nor his wife understood entirely what it meant. "What will we do?" he asked. "What can we do?"

"It's not definite yet, though I'm fairly confident about it. I wasn't prepared to run the full set of tests under the circumstances; my diagnosis is based only on observed behavior and neurological comparison. If you would like, I can contact the chief medical officer on Starbase 718 and ask him to perform a full diagnosis while you're there; Dr. Trullian is an old friend of mine, very good with children," Dr. Crusher offered. It was the best she could offer them for now.

"If you would, we'd be most grateful. Is there anything we can do, once we have the diagnosis?" Sofia asked.

"You may not need to do anything," Ruthie said quietly, momentarily forgetting the small detail where it was better to explain herself when she said things like that. Fortunately, the doctor came to her rescue.

Dr. Crusher explained. "There is a cure for autism," she said, adding in a not-so-trivial detail which Ruthie had neglected, "but you may not want to jump on that idea too fast."

"Why ever not?" Sergei asked in surprise. Surely he should do anything possible, whatever was necessary, to help his child.

"The 'cure' will give you back a 'normal' child—but it won't give you back your child," Ruthie replied.

"What do you mean?" Sofia asked.

Ruthie sighed—how best to explain this? "Autism isn't something that Misha 'has', any more than it is something that I 'have'—it is something that we are. If I were not autistic, I would not be the same person. If you change that, you change who your son is as a person—and the change is permanent. There's no going back if you find that you've made a mistake." Mind-blind or not, Ruthie could see the concern etched in the Lyetikovs' faces. "But, having said that—the word autism? It's just a label. It doesn't change who Misha is. He's still the same person he was yesterday, and the same person he'll be tomorrow—a bright, compassionate little boy. You just know more about him now, that's all."

"Are you saying we shouldn't try this cure for our son?" Sergei asked, somewhat confused.

Ruthie sighed. Was she getting across what she was trying to say? "I'm not saying that the cure is never the answer, I'm saying that it's a choice your son needs to make for himself—and a four year old isn't ready to make that choice."

"Forgive me if I'm being too personal, but do you have any children, Lieutenant?" Sofia asked. A mother, she was hoping to get a parent's perspective on the situation.

Ruthie smiled and shook her head. "Not yet. But I hope to, someday."

"If you were told that one of your children were autistic, what would you decide?"

Ruthie considered this for a moment. "Given my genetic background, it's more a question of 'when' than 'if'," she observed. "I will give them the chance to make that choice when they were ready, and until then, I will raise them as well as I know how. I hope that I can teach them to have the strength and self-confidence to accept themselves for who they are, and not who society expects them to be—but they will have my full support, whatever choice they make."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." She exchanged a meaningful glance with her husband, and they both nodded. "I think we understand now. We'll let Misha cross that bridge when he comes to it. You must be getting tired of our questions, but—how did you find all this out?"

"When our away team transported down to Koshka IX," Dr. Crusher explained, "we found Misha alone and frightened. We couldn't get near him. He hid each time we tried, and covered his ears when we tried to talk to him."

"He was rocking," Ruthie continued, "I expect you've probably seen him doing that when he's upset. Our first officer had seen me get that upset and start rocking earlier in the day and made the connection between the two, so he beamed back up to the ship to see if I could help. I went down to the planet, and got Misha to come to me, instead of the other way around. By then, we suspected that he might be autistic, so it was just a matter of testing that hypothesis. By the way, if you'd like some information about Asperger's Syndrome and autism, I can recommend some good books and articles. There were some very good ones published in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and I try to keep up with the current publications as well."

"We'd like that very much. Thank you." Sergei sighed. "How do we go about raising an autistic child?"

"Give him a helping hand when he needs it. Help him find ways to deal with the things that overload him, and help him to understand the world he lives in. If you give him room to grow, sooner or later, he'll spread his wings and soar."

"Can we give him what he needs?" Sofia asked.

Ruthie smiled. "I think you can. Misha needs what any child needs—love, patience, and someone to believe in him."

Sergei nodded. "You're right, Lieutenant—we can give him that."