“Something else?” Riker asked. “Another species?”

“Something small and fast…and there were luminescent creatures too. I’m sorry, my memories are vague. But it was like…they were working with the squales.”

Riker frowned. “We heard you trying to talk to them over your combadge.”

“I thought…maybe this proved they were intelligent. I was trying to communicate.” She lowered her head. “But they just ran away. Like Melora…Commander Pazlar said, if they were intelligent, wouldn’t they be more curious?” She strained to remember details from her rescue. “I don’t know, sir…I’m not sure I wasn’t delirious. I can’t be sure what was real down there.”

He patted her hand. “It’s all right, Aili. The important thing is that you’re still with us. You just rest now.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Eviku lingered for a moment, and she read sympathy and sadness in his eyes. “I’m fine, Ev,” she told him, reaching to stroke his hand.

He just nodded and smiled, not resisting the touch but not returning it. “I’m glad.”

“If you want to stay and talk…”

“No…the captain’s right, you need your rest.” He nodded farewell and departed.

But she couldn’t rest. She had finally seen the squales up close, touchedthem, and still been unable to bring back any answers. They had saved her life: was it the instinct of a social animal, or the act of a sapient, ethical people?

She had to know. Somehow, she had to make contact with them again.

It took some time for Tuvok to answer the door after Ranul Keru signaled. Keru was just about to try a security override when the panels finally slid back, revealing a tired-looking Tuvok in a disheveled uniform. “Mister Keru. Is there a problem?”

“I just wanted you to know,” the Trill replied in an easygoing voice, “that you missed the start of your shift again. I had to cover your asteroid-deflection drill.”

Tuvok straightened. “My apologies, Mister Keru. I…lost track of the time. I will see that it does not happen again.”

It was a rather transparent excuse; either the computer or T’Pel could have reminded Tuvok, if he’d been in a condition to listen. But Keru let it slide. “It’s all right, Tuvok. I don’t mind the extra work. I carried both our jobs for a while, before you joined the crew. Not that I’d want to do it full-time again, mind you. At least this way I get some time off. So I’m hoping to see you back in full swing before long. But until then, I want you to know I have your back.”

Tuvok lifted a brow, and for a moment Keru expected a dose of boilerplate Vulcan literalism in response to the idiom. But that was the sort of banter Tuvok engaged in when he was in a good mood, or so it seemed to Keru after serving with him for a year. Right now, he didn’t have it in him. “That will not be necessary, Mister Keru. Any further dereliction of duty on my part should not be tolerated. The captain—”

“The captain understands. So does Commander Vale. I made sure of it.” He forestalled another protest, saying, “Listen, Tuvok. I know what you’re thinking. It’s been five months, you should be moving on with your life by now. But that’s not how it works. I was in grieving for years after Sean died. I wasn’t able to let him go until Inearly died in the Reman attack last year. So if anyone can understand what you’re going through, Commander—”

He broke off, since what he saw in Tuvok’s eyes gave him a keener understanding of just what it was inside of Vulcans that was so frightening that they felt they had to keep it buried at all costs. “With all…due respect for your loss,” Tuvok said stiffly, “it is not comparable. You did not lose a child.”

“It’s not a competition, Tuvok,” Keru said, his tone as placating as possible. “Every loss is different.” He sighed. “But it’s still loss, my friend. That’s a universal.”

Tuvok was silent for a time. Finally, he said, “How were you able to do it?”

Keru blinked. “Do what?”

“Let him go.”

It was a while before he could decide what to say. “I just…let it happen. Eventually. I think…at first, when you lose someone, you don’t want to stop thinking about your last memories of them, no matter how much it hurts, because it’s all you have left of them. But there comes a time when you try to relive those moments and it starts to slip away. And you don’t want it to, you try to cling to it. But I think…” He swallowed, clearing his throat. “I think your mind knows when it’s ready to start healing. So when you try to dwell on those memories, it resists, because it needs to start moving on. If you fight that…if you keep on clinging to it…you end up getting stuck, not moving on with your life the way your loved one would want you to. But once you realize your mind is trying to let go, to move on…once you let it…it just sort of happens. Not quickly; the sadness doesn’t go away anytime soon. But…it doesn’t trapyou anymore. You miss him…but you live your life, and start to feel normal again.”

Tuvok took it in and thought about it for some time. Keru stood patiently, the gift of a security guard. “An interesting insight,” Tuvok finally said. “I do not know, however, if it is applicable to me. I do not believe I have yet reached that state of readiness—if I ever will.”

“I think it takes longer for people like us.” A brow went up, inquiring. “People who never got to say good-bye. Who never got to prepare for the end, to say the things that went unsaid…there’s so much more we don’t want to let go of.”

A heavy sigh. “It is illogical to cling to such regrets.” He said it not with chastisement, but with irony.

Keru narrowed his eyes. “I’m not so sure. If the mind needs time to work through them, to come to terms with them, I’d say it’s illogical to force it along—just as illogical as refusing to let go when you’re ready.”

“A surprisingly…intellect-based view of grief, Mister Keru.”