Tracks

Se'tak spent the first week and a half of his summer vacation at home in San Francisco; and while it wasn't nearly enough time (according to his mother) he was more than ready to return to Kenya. He stayed with Babu and Bibi* for the rest of the summer, hanging out with his cousins and his old friends Kwame and Loba in-between working shifts at the diner to save money for the next semester.

He also made a new friend that June, a girl named Kayla Kiplagat. She was the same age as him and was staying with her mjomba and shangazi* for the summer. An economics major at the University of London, she'd recently gotten out of a serious relationship and had come to Kenya for a change of scenery. Both enjoyed early morning jobs and often ran together, becoming fast friends in the process. By July they were casually 'dating' and at the end of August went there separate ways to school, parting on good terms. Kayla even gave him her comm. number at school and told him to look her up if he was ever in town.

He returned to Kenyatta University 4 days later, moving into a new dorm, this time rooming with his buddy Jin.

Albasi's Diner, 2284.259, 1621 hours. He arrived for his shift still in a foul mood from his meeting with his advisor. Mrs. Jeptoo wasn't shy about letting him know he needed to declare a major before the end of the semester or risk not graduating at the same time as the rest of his peers. Why did everyone make it seem so easy?! What do you want to do? Pick a career, pick a life! Make a choice one way or the other, it's that simple. Ha!

Just who exactly did they want him to be?!

Pulling the knot in his bandana tight, Se'tak set his grumbling aside and began his part of the prep work for the dinner service. The kitchen was always quiet at this time of day: Albasi was in his office reviewing receipts, Phomello was at school, Visola was out on the floor and Birungi was slowly plodding through his work. Today Se'tak appreciated the quiet more than ever before and took his aggression out on the zucchini. As he worked he briefly considered the possibility of becoming a chef, but while he enjoyed his job at Albasi's it wasn't what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Trouble was he had no clue what it was he did want to do.

When the zucchini was done Se'tak went to the store room for a bag of potatoes. Standing there, staring at the shelf, he paused and scratched his head. He could've sworn there were 4 bags of potatoes there yesterday—and there was no way they could've gone through 2 - 13 kilo bag in just 1 day. The restaurant had gotten busier as of late, certainly, but not by that much. Setting his knife back on the counter Se'tak wiped his hands down the front of his apron and went in search of Albasi.

"Hey, Boss?"

Albasi looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "Hm?"

"Did you do anything with a bag of potatoes while I was gone?"

His supervisor frowned. "What bag of potatoes?"

Se'tak pointed toward the store room. "Well there were 4 bags there yesterday but there's only 2 today and I was wondering if maybe…"

"ARGH!" Albasi flew up out of his chair, raging all the way as he stormed into the store room. "It was right here! RIGHT! HERE! " he gestured angrily at the empty spot on the shelf. "I knew I was not going mad!"

"So you didn't do anything with it then?"

"No I didn't do anything with the potatoes! And it's the second time this week that food has gone missing!"

Se'tak frowned. "What else has been taken?"

"I noticed a bag of rice was gone when I opened up on Monday." Albasi quieted down but was still seething with rage. "And there were little things before that—a few peppers here, some onions there—but now the thief has escalated."

"Who do you think it is?"

His boss turned to him, hands on his hips. "If I knew that then they wouldn't be stealing from me anymore, now would they?"

As he thought about it Se'tak realized it could be anyone, even those unconnected with the restaurant. When it got hot in the kitchen they would sometimes leave the back door open save for the screen, and anyone could walk in off the street and take what they wanted while the rest of them were busy with customers.

"I suppose now I'll have to invest in some fancy, high-tech security system just to watch the food…"

"No," Se'tak said quietly, an idea already taking root. He put his hand on Albasi's shoulder. "Give me 2 weeks; if I haven't found the thief by then you can do whatever you think is necessary."

The older man raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Very well."

Kenyatta University Dorms, 2284.259, 2201 hours. He double-checked the time before placing the call to make sure he'd reach her. T'Alora's comm rang 4 times and he debated hanging up when she picked up the line.

"Hey T."

She sat down and he saw she was in her bathrobe. "Greetings, Se'tak. I trust all is well with you?"

"Yeah, same old, same old. You?"

"I am also well and continue to find my work fulfilling. We recently brought the ship's propulsion systems on-line for the first time…"

"That's great," he interjected, "Hey, listen, there's something important I need to ask you."

Though displeased by his interruption she did her best not to let it show. "Of course."

"Do you remember when we were little and I used to take your PADDs and dolls and things and hide them just to annoy you?"

Her eyebrow rose slowly. "I recall that you were not as little as you imagine when you pilfered my personal items for your own amusement, but other than that yes, I do recall those moments in question. Is that all you called to inquire about?"

He shook his head. "No, actually, I was wondering if you had any of those little tracker things that you jerry-rigged back then and stuck to stuff to help find it after I took it."

T'Alora set the towel down in her lap and looked off to the side. After several seconds she replied, "I believe I may have 1 or 2 trackers in my possession."

Very quickly he asked, "Can you ship them to me here at school? Express?"

The other eyebrow rose up to join the first. "Se'tak, what is going on?" He quickly outlined the problem they were having at Albasi's and his plans for catching the thief. "I would not recommend this course of action, sa-kai. It would be better for you to involve the local authorities in apprehending the thief."

"Why?"

"Because," she coolly replied, "It is not worth incurring Mama's wrath when she discovers the extent of your involvement in apprehending the perpetrator."

Se'tak scratched the side of his head. "Huh?"

His sister sighed and shook her head. "It is of no consequence; you will pursue this course of action in spite of anything I might have to say. Very well, I will locate the trackers and send them to you directly."

He grinned. "Thanks, T. I appreciate it."

"You are most welcome," she replied with a nod. "Do heed this warning, however, and exercise extreme caution. I do not want to see you get hurt."

"Aww, Sis, I never knew you cared!"

She rolled her eyes. "You are behaving in a most ridiculous manner and I am terminating this call now. You should have the package within 3.65 days."

"Thanks!" he squeaked out before she hung up. Now all Se'tak had to do was wait.

Albasi's Diner, 2284.263, 2235 hours. He stood alone in the store room after everyone else had left, 2 trackers held tight in his hand as he eyed all the produce. Since his conversation with T'Alora he'd notice other things had gone missing as well; a few apples, a container of salt, 4 or 5 eggs. The thief wasn't taking much since the rice and potatoes but Se'tak knew he or she would need another big 'score' soon—he just had to figure out what it'd be.

There'd been a fresh shipment of produce and the shelves were stocked to overflowing. Large bunches of kale sat off to his left and Se'tak picked one bunch up to examine it. He could place the tracker inside one of them without being noticed. Setting it back on the shelf he made sure to tuck it in so it wasn't the first bunch grabbed but that it wouldn't languish in the back either; they'd get no use out of the tracker whatsoever if the thief never found it in the first place.

Next he turned to the rice. There were 5 packages and Se'tak again reached in for one, poked a small hole in the bag, tucked the tracker in, twisted the end to cover his tracks and replaced it on the shelf. He flipped the tracer on and saw that both beacons were working; now he just had to see if the perpetrator would rise to the occasion and take the fresh bait.

Albasi's Diner, 2284.268, 1458 hours. Walking to work, Se'tak turned the tracer on and discovered that one of the trackers had left the restaurant. The thief was on the move! Jumping and punching the air in triumph he quickened his step, kicking up dirt behind him. Whoever it was they were moving fast, and it occurred to Se'tak that perhaps they weren't traveling on foot but on a hoverbus, flitter, or bike. No matter—he'd follow them regardless.

He relentlessly pursued the thief, crossing streets and dodging up and down alleyways, never noticing the changes in the neighborhood around him. The buildings were older and built closer together, blocking out a lot of the light; they also weren't kept up very well and more than once his feet scuttled across debris in the road from crumbling facades. Se'tak had no idea such impoverished areas still existed in the city and was wholly unaware of his surroundings until the walk back to Albasi's; then he noticed the decay at every turn.

At last the perpetrator stopped and Se'tak found he was only 5 minutes behind. The tracer pinged and he paused before a dingy, barely habitable building in the middle of the street—only then did he finally take a good look around him. There were a few characters milling about several doors down, watching him closely, and if he weren't so confident in his ability to defend himself Se'tak might almost have been scared. Taking a closer look at the front door he saw there was no serviceable lock and so let himself in, bounding up the stairs 2 at a time until the tracker pinged again on the 3rd floor.

Slowly, he walked down the hall, waving the tracer back and forth like Selas with his cane. Crying and yelling came from the apartment on his right, an overly loud holo-vid blaring on his left. He reached the end of the hall and the quietest apartment before finding what he wanted. Se'tak paused beside the door panel and wondered what his next step should be. Should he knock? Call the authorities?

He'd taken matters into his own hands so far—maybe it wouldn't hurt to investigate on his own a little more…

The lock was dealt with easily enough—Se'tak could've overridden it in his sleep the panel was that outdated—and the door pulled back to reveal a shabby scene. Two small figures—children, he later realized—scattered away like cockroaches in the light and a young girl standing on a footstool by the stove let out a scream.

Phomello emerged from the bathroom into the hallway "Diata, shh! What is…?" but before he got the full question out he saw Se'tak in his front door. "I can explain."

Se'tak stepped in so the door closed behind him. The space was small and dark save for one small light above the stove where Diata stood shaking and pouring out too much rice. He strode over and pulled the bag up before it spilled out onto the floor.

"How did you…?" In answer to Phomello's unfinished question, he looked down and plucked a tracker out of the rice in the pan, holding it up between thumb and forefinger. "Ahh." Se'tak turned off the stove and began scooping the excess back into the bag; meanwhile, Diata backed away slowly, the whole time eying him fearfully, while motioning for the 2 smaller children to come out of hiding and stand with her. They clung to her as she edged toward the door, eyes darting between him and her brother. It didn't escape Se'tak's notice that Phomello was also moving slowly toward an exit.

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"Not here," was the boy's curt reply.

Se'tak was honestly hurt by Phomello's attitude toward him. Sure, he'd broken into the apartment searching for a thief, but this was beyond anything he might've been expecting. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know you won't," Phomello replied as he and his siblings still backed away, "But that doesn't mean you won't call the cops; then they'll arrest my mother, take us away and separate us and we'll never see each other again."

Se'tak stepped back and pulled out a chair—the only one in the kitchen—and sat down, hands on his knees, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. "Why don't you tell me what's going on and why you stole from Albasi and then we'll figure out what to do from there, ok?" He pulled out his personal comm and placed it on the table, then held up his hands in surrender. "I promise not to call the cops." Yet, he mentally added.

A silent communication passed between the older children and eventually Phomello stepped forward, Diata and the others hanging back in what passed for a living room. Se'tak and Phomello sized each other up for several minutes but neither one spoke.

"Where's your father?" he finally asked.

"Dead." Phomello jerked a thumb at his 2 youngest siblings, "And their dad? Who knows? He's been gone a long time."

"What about your mother?"

"She's…" his eyes darted around the room, "Sick. She's getting help."

Full of concern, Se'tak asked, "So you're here all alone? How long has it been?"

Looking up at him, seeing how in earnest he was, took the defiance right out of Phomello's sails. In a much lower voice so the littlest ones wouldn't hear, he said, "She went in about a month ago."

"Went in for…?"

The young boy couldn't hide his shame. "Special H." Both eyebrows jumped up into his forehead. Special H was a hard drug, very addictive and difficult to kick. He remembered Mama and Sa-mekh talking about it once, back when they still lived on the Enterprise. They'd caught some smugglers transporting it off of Risa and headed for Earth. Meanwhile Phomello continued his story. "She said she'd be gone for 3 months."

That this woman would abandon her kids, even if it was to get help, was unspeakable. "3 months!? And she what, she figured you'd just sit here all on your own and wait…!?"

"It's not like that 'Tak," the young boy said quietly. "Mama, she's…she's really trying this time. She saved up some credits and gave it to Iris down the hall, asking her to look after us before she checked herself into the clinic; and Iris did look after us for a little while, sort of. She bought us groceries, made sure we didn't burn the place down. But then one day she split with all the credits and I didn't know what to do! Moseph and Mikaili were so hungry they wouldn't stop crying and Diata…"

He looked on the verge of tears and Se'tak put a hand on his shoulder. "Phomello, it's alright. No one your age should have to—"

The boy shook off his hand. "I'm almost 15," he bellowed, "I'm not a little kid, I can take care of us!"

That little revelation made his eyes pop out of his head. Phomello was so small for his age Se'tak always figured him to be about 11 or 12. He thought back to when he was that age; at 14 all he'd been interested in were video games and girls. He wasn't sure what he'd have done if he were in Phomello's position; all Se'tak knew was that he'd set out to catch a thief, not break up a family, no matter how bad the circumstances were, and that's exactly what would happen if social services involved.

He needed to talk to Albasi.

"Come on," he said, standing up and gesturing to the little ones. "Let's get washed up and dressed."

Phomello narrowed his eyes. "Where are you taking us?"

"Back to the Diner."

"Why?"

The boy was so guarded, so jaded, it made all the problems in Se'tak's life suddenly seem small. He shrugged his shoulders. "Because I don't know what else to do," he admitted.

Phomello stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, nudging at a scuff mark with the toe of his worn canvas shoe. Se'tak guessed that answer was good enough for him too.

The 5 of them made their way back to Albasi's, the younger ones excited about the outing while the older 2 remained weary. When they got to the restaurant he could already hear Albasi raging in the kitchen even though the place was empty; it was Wednesday and the restaurant was never that busy on Wednesday nights. He made the foursome sit in a booth along the wall, asking Visola to bring some coloring PADDS for Mikaili and Moseph and to give them whatever they ordered while he went and apprised his boss of the situation.

Se'tak was bombarded the minute he entered the kitchen. "Where have you been?!" Albasi cried above the din of the frying pan. "I'm behind in all my prep because you are an hour late! Where were you?"

"Albasi…"

"No, do not 'Albasi' me unless you have a damn good excuse…!"

He just kept picturing the squalor that Phomello and his siblings had been living in and the sadness he felt for them. "I do." Se'tak didn't raise his voice, didn't beg or plead for understanding, just stood there quietly.

His silence was telling because his boss immediately took notice. Turning the burners off he approached him. "What is it?"

They walked to his office where Se'tak spilled the whole story behind closed doors. By the time he was through he was so angry over Phomello's situation he felt like punching a hole in the wall.

"We have to call the authorities," Albasi calmly informed him.

"WHAT?!" Had he not heard anything that he said? "They'll take them away, put them in foster homes! Their mother's trying to get help!"

"Yes, and when she gets out she'll get them back."

"If they don't arrest her first for drug use or neglect!" Se'tak stopped pacing and let out a huff of annoyance as he plopped down into a chair. How could Albasi not care what happened to Phomello and his siblings?

"What do you propose we do then, Se'tak?" Albasi rarely called him by his full name and it made him sit up a little straighter and take notice. "You're a University student. You live in a dorm room. You can't be responsible for them."

"No, I know that," he said hastily. Maybe Babu and Bibi could…? No, he realized, even as he half-thought the idea. They were getting up there in years and besides, it wasn't fair to them.

"And they have no other family to look after them."

He shrugged dejectedly. "None that Phomello knows of, at any rate."

Albasi sat back in his chair. "Then it must be done."

"Can't you look after them?" he asked, pleading.

"What? Are you mad?!"

Se'tak was grasping at straws and he knew it but he didn't want to let Phomello and his siblings down. "It'd only be temporary and they're really good kids…"

"I'm a 58 year old bachelor, what do I know about raising 4 kids?"

"But you wouldn't be raising them," he said. Se'tak could see there was a possibility his boss might be won over and he clung to it tenaciously. "You'd just be a-a guardian, a temporary guardian, that's all. Just until their mother came back."

But his boss still railed on. "I don't know how to change diapers or help with homework or get them to sleep on time…"

In spite of himself Se'tak grinned. "They're a bit old for diapers, Albasi."

He harrumphed. "Well that's something."

Just then there was a knock at the door and Visola stuck her head in. "Mjomba, I need your help. The little boys want some maandazi and since you won't share the secret family recipe…"

Albasi looked at the chronometer on his desk and frowned. "They want what? They can't have that now, they'll spoil their appetite for dinner! Let me talk with them."

That night, he and Phomello packed some bags and brought the little kids over to Albasi's where the siblings shared a bedroom in his small, 2-bedroom flat. Returning to his own dorm room he called Mama and Sa-mekh and had a long conversation with them about what he'd seen and done. Mama didn't agree with his methods, but she did agree that Phomello and his family were in a bad way and that the system was broken. The more she spoke the more Se'tak realized how naïve he'd been about the world.

When the call ended he stayed up and pulled out his mat and dusty asenoi. Even though he'd helped Phomello it was only a temporary solution and Se'tak wanted to have a larger impact. But how?

It took him a further 3 weeks to satisfactorily answer that question, during which time he watched Phomello, Diata, Mikaili and Moseph thrive. There were a few hiccups here and there—lunches forgotten, temper tantrums at bathtimes—but there was no doubt that they were all happy and healthy; even Albasi, for all his protests, seemed to relish his newfound guardianship. At their next appointment, Se'tak walked into Mrs. Jeptoo's office with his head held high and a PADD with a plan in his hands.

He'd seen what Sa-mekh-al had been able to accomplish in all his years as an ambassador and knew that diplomacy was key to change. It was with that role model in mind that Se'tak became a political science major with a linguistics minor. He graduated with high honors 2.5 years later with all his family and friends gathered to celebrate his crowning achievement. It was a great day. He then returned to San Francisco for a month of R&R before joining his first posting with the Federation Peace Corps where he worked for the next 3 years.

* Babu and Bibi = Swahili for Grandfather and Grandmother

* mjomba and shangazi = Swahili for uncle and aunt

A/N: Well this is it for Se'tak for a little while. He's going to go off with the FPC and have some adventures-but don't worry we're not done with his story yet. Nope, we're just taking a little break because Selas has been waiting very patiently for his turn...so don't forget to add me to your author alerts if you want to know when the new story goes up! Thanks for all the reviews and take care!