Honey typed, "Yes."

"But you've been gone for months. What happened?"

Honey seemed to think about her reply for a time. Or, at least, she didn't start to type immediately. When she did, she wrote, "Ben and Honey were found by men. At first, we liked them, but then we didn't. Fighting. Adventures."

Bharad ran her fingertips over the dings and dents in Honey's carapace. "I see," she said. "Where's Ben?"

"Ben brought Honey home. Said he had to go."

"Well, I look forward to hearing his version of this story when he returns."

Honey typed, "Ben won't return."

"Why not?"

"Ben said he likes being dead. Ben says he likes being new."

Bharad thought about Honey's statements for a long minute and then replied, "Not a janitor anymore. Nor a starship captain."

"No," Honey wrote. "No."

Rubbing the tiny dent in the back of Honey's head, a long scarred-over battle wound, no doubt, Bharad asked, "Is there anything else you want to tell me right now?"

Honey typed, "Honey wants to go back to cleaning Ginger. She is very dirty."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"All right," Bharad said, "but we'll return to this topic when you're finished."

Honey shoved the padd over to Bharad and returned to grooming her sister.

Bharad stood up slowly, clutching the padd to her chest. She glanced at the time and saw it was just a few minutes before nine. Looking out the window at the sky and the billowing clouds, Bharad knew it was going to be a fine day. Maybe they would go to the beach instead of the Pine Barrens.

Five Months Later.

Starfleet Penal Colony.

Michael Clark opened his eyes and was instantly, completely awake. He glanced at the chrono on the nightstand, moving only his eyes, wary of making too much noise. Zero-six-thirty.

No one else should be in the house. His wife and son were on Mars, with his wife's sister and rest of the clan. Clark was supposed to join them when the workweek was done. If there was an emergency at the hospital, someone would have called first and not come to the house unannounced. There were protocols, dammit. The doctor closed his eyes and attempted to focus past all the usual morning sounds of an early summer's day. A few birds chirped outside, working their way through whatever seeds remained in the feeder. Downstairs, various bits of semiautonomous machinery whirred or hummed, but nothing seemed wrong or out of place.

Maybe the d.a.m.ned robot legs are outside, he thought. Waiting.

Then Clark realized that the problem wasn't an alien sound, but the absence of a sound. The wheezing was missing.

"Freud's sticky ghost!" Clark cried, and sat up. It was a stupid expression, one his father (an unrepentant psychoa.n.a.lyst) used to shout whenever he was particularly annoyed. "Horrible!"

No response, not a hack nor a rattle, not a gasp nor an expulsion of gas. Clark didn't smell anything bad, so he knew the dog hadn't crawled under the bed to die-not that the odor would be much different than the one he expelled in life.

Clark rolled out of bed, careful to look where he planted his feet before doing so. The dog occasionally fell asleep (or lapsed into a coma) in inconvenient places. But, no. No Horrible. He swiped his hair back out of his eyes as he stepped into his slippers. Why do I continue to call it by that terrible name? Shuffling quickly from room to room, Clark ordered the computer to turn on the lights as he went. He looked under tables and chairs, inside cabinets and under rugs, though he knew the last was utterly irrational. No dog. No Horrible.

He reached the kitchen, the last uninspected room, but it, too, was empty, though there was a lingering hint of the dog's funk, as if he had pa.s.sed through recently.

Clark scanned the room for clues. His gaze alit on a padd leaning against the wall near the back door. He activated it, and there was a note.

Thank you, it read, for taking such good care of him.

And, below that, as if in an afterthought: And me, too.

Clark scrolled down to make sure there was nothing more. The note was unsigned.

Staring at the padd, Michael Clark considered the possibilities until he finally landed on the most likely explanation, as improbable as it seemed. Mulling over the idea, he smiled and said, "You're welcome." He wiped the note from the memory and placed the padd on the countertop.

Clark went back to bed and soon fell back asleep. He may have dreamed, but, if he did, he did not remember the dreams when he woke again.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The seed of this story was first planted during a conversation with Michael Clark during a recording for his Captain's Table podcast (www.visionarytrek.com/category/the-captains-table). For that reason if no other, I felt I owed him a character name. I'll also buy him a pint the next time I'm in London.

Margaret Clark suggested that it might be worth exploring the idea of adding Ben Maxwell to the story. Right as ever, Margaret. Thank you for that and all the other righteous editing. Thanks also to Ed Schlesinger at Simon & Schuster for his a.s.sistance and to Scott Pearson for copyediting above and beyond the call. Also, I'd like to extend my profound grat.i.tude and appreciation to the curators of Memory Alpha and Memory Beta. I've been doing this long enough to remember when you guys weren't around, so thanks for being there.

Thank you to beta readers Helen Szigeti and Tristan Mayer for their thoughtful criticism of early drafts and also for putting up with my whining and kvetching. I'm indebted to Annarita Gentile for any insights gleamed from her about the psychotherapeutic process. If anything herein sounds authentic, it's to ARG's credit; inaccuracies belong solely to the author.

As ever, I'd like to thank the writers, cast, and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep s.p.a.ce Nine for developing the rich universe in which it is my privilege to play. In particular, this time around I'm beholden to Colm Meaney and Aron Eisenberg. Lastly, Bob Gunton and the TNG writing staff created an extremely memorable character in Benjamin Maxwell, and they have my sincere regards and admiration. I'd be curious to hear what any of them thinks of the rest of Ben's tale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Jeffrey Lang has auth.o.r.ed or co-auth.o.r.ed several Star Trek novels and short stories, including The Light Fantastic, Immortal Coil, Section 31: Abyss, The Left Hand of Destiny, "Foundlings" (in the anthology Prophecy and Change), and "Mirror Eyes" (with Heather Jarman) in the anthology Tales of the Dominion War. He lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, with his partner, Helen, as well as Kirby, Puffy, and Tumble (cats) and Joey and Lili (dogs). No arachnoforms yet, but we're open to the idea if the opportunity arises.

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