Morgan Dash Unbound

Lily

by Morgan Dash

How can the future be different from the past?
How did the Star Trek universe come to be?


"We had to change," she insisted. "Not just change our technology, and let it change us. We had to change ourselves. We had a chance to do it right this time. And that's what we had to concentrate on. Before we were ready to go out there, we had to change, down here on earth, and in here."

"But I didn't come here to talk about Henry," Lily Sloane said. "I came here to talk to you, the Captain of the Enterprise. You are the future now, Jonathan. And there are a few things you really need to know about the past."

A philosophical fiction set in the 22nd century world of the first starship Enterprise, as seen on Star Trek: Enterprise.




"No Vulcans!" Jonathan Archer shouted. " I want no Vulcans within a mile of the place, do you understand?"

The young ensign moved a step back in spite of herself.

Captain Archer had turned away so he didn't see her reaction, but he felt it. "I'm sorry," he said, though he still sounded exasperated "I feel strongly about this."

"Yes, sir. You just surprised me."

"Well, I surprised myself." In fact the feeling had been building all day. He'd known about the ceremony even before arriving on Earth, but it had been only one event among many on the schedule. After a crowded week of meetings and briefings at Starfleet, he was already looking forward to a few much needed days of vacation that would begin after the ceremony tomorrow.

Of course he was pleased and proud that his father was being honored with the first Cochran Warp Pioneer Memorial Prize, even if Henry Archer wasn't alive to accept it. But until he had to focus on the event itself, Jonathan Archer, in his fourth year as Captain of the Enterprise, viewed it mostly as a convenient way to see family and friends all at one time and in one place. It would give him more time for his long-planned and solitary excursion, hiking and white-water kayaking in the Greater Yellowstone Wilderness.

So when Ensign Savio arrived in his temporary office at Starfleet Headquarters to brief him on the particulars of the ceremony, Captain Archer was prepared to listen with polite but minimal interest. At first, only the young woman's fresh energy attracted his attention. He marveled at the light of youth that illuminated her, despite her best efforts to match her nondescript uniform with no-nonsense short hair, and no jewelry or other adornment even within the bounds of regulations.

At first he listened with a mixture of amusement and admiration as she described the agenda and the guest list with an enthusiasm she couldn't quite conceal. But when she got to the seating arrangements, he felt his amusement turn quickly to something uncomfortably like anger.

Even when she began naming the Vulcan officials who would attend, he was calm. The presence of a high-ranking Vulcan official or two was simple courtesy, perhaps even meant as a sincere gesture to honor Henry Archer for his steadfast work on the Warp Five Project. But as the names kept coming, he wondered if there would be any Vulcans left in their compound at Sausalito, or perhaps even in the western hemisphere of Earth.

Then as Ensign Savio showed him the seating chart, and he saw that the front row of dignitaries---and a major portion of the most prestigious section of the observers-seemed to be mostly Vulcan, Archer exploded.

"No Vulcans!" he heard himself shout.

He realized almost immediately that the violence of his outburst had been fueled by his thoughts that morning, as he hiked alone on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Growing up, it had been a favorite excursion he had shared with his father. Then when he was old enough to go on his own, he would challenge himself by taking the only ferry to the island that ran on Sundays, then hiking the trail that wound up one side of the island and down the other, returning to the starting point in time to catch the one ferry back.

This morning he found that even after his long months of relative confinement on Enterprise, he could manage the circumperambulation with time to spare. But as he walked, passing through dark bowers of fragrant trees to sunny meadows of golden brush and wildflowers, he naturally found his thoughts turning to his childhood. And he remembered again the frustrations he sensed his father was experiencing then concerning the Warp Five Program's progress. Perhaps because Henry Archer did not overtly blame the Vulcans for not sharing what they knew, his son Jonathan felt it all the more acutely.

The Vulcans had been the first extraterrestrials to formally introduce themselves on Earth. A small science ship had made first contact with Zephran Cochrane himself, shortly after his first experimental warp drive flight. They became the Earth's contact with the galaxy, and with its future. But when it came to the Earth's own explorations of that galaxy, the Vulcans were profoundly discouraging. Jonathan had grown up believing that the Vulcans were deliberately holding them back, and he watched his father suffer in silence because of it.

Now Captain Archer realized how the renewal of those old feelings had been building up, though he had not been aware of the power they still carried. After all, his experiences as Captain of the Enterprise had shown him the better qualities of Vulcans, especially in the person of his first officer. Still, his overall opinion of them hadn't been changed so much as been tempered.

Certainly he had learned that there sometimes was a fine line between judgment and prejudice. But he should not have dismissed so easily those old feelings that arose this morning, as his outburst proved. Especially since he also understood that for a Captain, uncontrolled shows of temper could be costly, though sometimes such expressions could be strategically employed.

Now however he had to relieve Ensign Savio of the conflicts she was clearly experiencing. "I suppose that's impossible," Archer said, in his more usual calm voice. "We can't keep the Vulcans a mile away, especially since that would put them in the Bay."

Ensign Savio dared a half-smile. The ceremony was being held on Costanoa Island, which was quite small. To change the mood, Captain Archer offered a reminiscence. " You know, my father attended a ceremony on that island---when they renamed it after the tribal people who were the original inhabitants of some of the islands in the Bay."

"Really?" Ensign Savio smiled gratefully. "That's wonderful! It used to be called Alcatraz, is that right?"

"Yes," Captain Archer said, moving towards the window that looked out on the Bay. "It used to be a prison where the worst criminals were incarcerated. They called it the Rock. For years no one escaped from Alcatraz."

He turned to see Ensign Savio smile and nod, but her fascination with this history, or her ability to fake it, was waning.

But about the Vulcans," Captain Archer said, turning again to the window. " The Vulcans could have helped my father realize his dream, but they didn't. They could have easily shared just a little more of what they knew, and he could have built a ship like the Enterprise. So at a ceremony honoring what my father managed to accomplish in spite of them---I don't think it's appropriate for them to be so prominent. Or so many."

"I understand, sir," Ensign Savio said. "Perhaps we can substantially reduce the number who attend the ceremony itself, and invite them instead to the reception afterwards?"

Captain Archer nodded. "Good solution, Ensign," he said. But he glanced again at the seating chart on the table between them. "Just get them out of the front row."

"Yes, sir," the Ensign replied. "I believe we can justify that on the basis of protocol. Unless the Vulcan Ambassador decides to attend---well, we'll figure it out."

"Thank you, Ensign. I'm sorry to have dropped this on you at the last minute."

"That's quite all right, sir," Ensign Savio said, as she gathered up the charts and prepared to leave. "It was the purpose of this briefing."

"Well, then," Captain Archer said, "I'll see you tomorrow morning."

After Ensign Savio departed, Archer gathered the briefing papers he'd accumulated from the past week at Starfleet Headquarters---papers he didn't intend to examine for the rest of his stay---and prepared to go.

The sun was hovering at the horizon and about to drop into the Bay. One of his cousins had organized a family dinner at his favorite restaurant in North Beach. He would be just in time for a sociable aperitif.

Archer looked up to see a man standing in the doorway, looking a little shaken.

"Commander Wentworth," he said dryly. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Wentworth was the senior liaison officer assigned to Captain Archer. Since Archer wasn't always patient with bureaucracy, the job had required the frequent deployment of his formidable sense of humor. But he was not smiling now.

"You have a visitor, Captain Archer," he said, with an unusual note of formality, and maybe a bit of fear.

"Now?" Archer said, hoping it wasn't some Starfleet admiral he was going to have to offend by leaving anyway. "I'm afraid I can't stay. I'm expected---"

But Archer didn't finish his sentence. He glanced up and saw her in the doorway, walking slowly but resolutely towards him. At first he couldn't believe his eyes. Then he realized that Wentworth's tone wasn't expressing fear, but awe.



She had to be well past a hundred years old, but her features were unmistakable. He hadn't seen her since he was a boy, but like anyone else who had lived on Earth during the past half century, he recognized her immediately.

"I'll try not to keep you too long, Jonathan," she said, her strong voice deliberately loud. "But I've got something important to say. And at my age---and with you warping all over the galaxy---I don't know if I'll have another chance."

"Dr. Sloane," Commander Wentworth announced unnecessarily. He hesitated a moment, obviously tempted to remain and witness history---for anything that Dr. Lily Sloane did or said was automatically historic---but finally he bowed slightly and reluctantly left the room, closing the door behind him.

Jonathan---for already in her presence he was Jonathan, Henry Archer's eager young son---watched her walk across the room with slow but firm steps. It was as if history itself was moving towards him. Young Lily Sloane, orphaned by the war and its brutal aftermath, had been at Zephran Cochrane's side when he built and tested the first rudimentary warp drive. She had helped him scavenge the materials and assemble the components, as they replaced a deadly warhead on a disused guided missile with Cochrane's warp engine. More than anything, Jonathan's father had often said, she had kept Cochrane on course, with her own stubborn brilliance and energetic resolve.

Transforming a missile meant to wreak destruction with the engine that helped turn the earth into a planet of peace had been an expediency then, but ever after was an unforgettable symbol.

And after Cochrane's warp flight, she was with him to discover that this amazing feat, which revolutionized science as they knew it, was but a primitive first step in the eyes of many civilizations on other worlds, beings for whom traveling in a manner that most earthlings considered impossible was an everyday occurrence.

Jonathan was standing, and though something in her bearing told him he should refrain from offering assistance, he did break out of his mesmerized reverie to adjust the chair opposite him at the table where Ensign Savio had unfolded the seating chart for tomorrow's ceremony. When she reached him she nodded, waved his hand away and seemed about to sit, when she stopped, touched his arm and looked searchingly into his eyes.

He returned her gaze. Yes, these were the same eyes he had shyly looked into when he was a boy, and his father had introduced the great Dr. Sloane, founder of the Sloane Institute, whose own contributions to warp theory and technology were as essential as Cochrane's in the elder Archer's own work.

She studied his face with a focused gaze that seemed to immediately soften. Then she nodded slightly and spoke in a clear voice. "Yes, you've been out there," she said. "I can see it in your eyes." Then she sat down.

"I can't be at the ceremony tomorrow," Lily Sloan began, even before Jonathan was settled again in his seat.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, even though her name hadn't appeared on the guest list so he hadn't expected her.

"I told them that months ago," she said. "I had a prior commitment---a damn committee planning the next planetary conference---crappy work, but necessary. This afternoon I saw the opportunity for a short recess, so I took it to come here. We resume in the morning."

Archer didn't know what to say. Her presence was still a little overwhelming. "That you took the time to come here this evening, "he said finally, "is as great a tribute to my father as any ceremony could be. Thank you."

"I respected Henry Archer," Lily said. "I admired his work, and I liked him. He was a good man and a good father. That's what he cared about most-his engines and his family."

Jonathan was just starting to relax, perhaps to reminisce, when Lily leaned forward towards him.

"But I didn't come here to talk about Henry. I came here to talk to you, the Captain of the Enterprise. You are the future now, Jonathan. And there are a few things you really need to know about the past."

Archer was momentarily startled. Could the rumors be true? Did something untold happen in Montana on the day that Zephran Cochran and Lily Sloan changed the course of human history, and was he now going to hear about it? There were still some anomalies about that first warp flight, glossed over in the standard histories. By now the whole set of events was clothed in the symbols of popular myth.

Cochrane himself had hinted several times that the story was incomplete. Lily Sloan had always deflected those questions. Could it be that Jonathan was now going to learn what really happened?

"I've got a few friends in Starfleet," she said, which Archer knew was a definite understatement. "So I hear things. And I hear you've been blaming the Vulcans for holding us back. You think it's their fault we didn't build these new warp engines sooner."

Jonathan tried not to turn crimson. "I did blame them," he said finally. "But I haven't...well, I haven't made a point of it recently. I don't think I've said anything about it for a few years. Until today, actually."

"So you still believe it."

Archer sighed. He couldn't deny the feelings that had recently surfaced. "Yes, I guess I do. They held back what my father needed to build the warp five engine. He might even have seen the Enterprise launched."

"With a different captain," Lily noted, and smiled. But the smile quickly faded. Her look now was serious, though it softened as she looked into Jonathan's eyes again, until he returned her gaze.

"I came here to tell you that it wasn't just the Vulcans who held us back," she said. "It was me."

Archer's surprise didn't entirely distract him from the mesmerizing effect of Lily's eyes. In them he saw incredible determination, and something else he had learned to recognize. He didn't an easy name for it, but one word did occur to him: compassion.

"I can't tell you what I did," she said. "It would be pretty boring anyway. Just a bunch of little things over the years. I didn't subvert anybody. I persuaded them. I told them why we had to slow ourselves down, just a little. Now I'm going to tell you why I did all that."

Lily turned her gaze to the window, and the sky over the Bay, displaying sharp colors softening and merging in indescribable contours that changed by the moment.

"When it's sunset in one place," Lily said softly, "it's sunrise somewhere else. My mother used to say that." Then ruefully, as she turned back to him: "A hundred years ago."

"I tried to tell your father what I'm going to tell you," she resumed briskly. "More than once. I think he understood what I was saying, in a general way. But engines were his business. He was focused on the task, on the problems. Above all every scientist just wants the answer."

"But you," she continued, "you've got a different role. By now you must realize how complicated it is. You're a starship captain, and you're a Starfleet officer. And you're the first human being that some beings out there have ever seen. For all intents and purposes, out there you are the human race. You're the representative of this planet. You carry our past and you are shaping our future. So it's important that you really understand this."

"I don't know what you're getting at yet," Jonathan replied. "But I'm listening."

Lily sighed. "First of all, a lot of the Vulcans have been condescending assholes. There's no denying it. But not all Vulcans are like that."

"I know," Archer said.

"Your first officer," Lily said. "I've heard about her. And you've met others. But the Vulcans we knew and didn't love-the best you can say is that they were a learning experience. No beings, however civilized, can escape themselves. Not even a very old civilization like the Vulcans. Self-examination is essential-that's absolutely the first requirement, especially when the stakes are so high---when you're dealing with other worlds as well as with your own. It's a lesson we had to learn, and learn quickly."

Unexpectedly, Lily laughed. "Warp engines, warp drive!" she said. "'If warp five is possible, why not warp six?' 'How fast would you get to the stars at warp seven?' 'Could a ship someday go from one end of the galaxy to another?'" She smiled at Jonathan. "That's all you talked about the last time I saw you."

"I was pretty young," Jonathan said, remembering.

"Yes, you were," Lily recalled. "You were building a model of a ship that could reach warp ten!"

"I was? I guess I had quite an imagination."

"At least when it came to spaceships," she said, laughing again. "But by that time I wasn't working on propulsion systems or warp theory or any of that anymore. I hadn't been for a long time. I left that to younger minds, like your father. No, I had other work that was just as important. And at that time, it was even more important. It was essential. It was crucial. And because of my particular history, it was work that I had to do."

Archer rummaged through his recollections. " You were involved in philanthropy?"

Lily laughed again, harder than before. "That's what they called it," she said. "People in those days paid a lot more attention to what you said if they thought you were going to give them money."

"But let me back up a little," she said, visibly marshaling her concentration and her energies. "After those famous days in Montana, I knew if I was going to be able to help Zef and the other scientists working on warp, I'd have to go back to school. I'd had three years of university before the war, and in Montana I used to dream about them. I wished I'd treasured them more. So when I got the chance to go back, I took it. "

"It was wonderful to be back," she said, her face alight. " But of course it was different. A lot had happened. I was there to learn science---and take it seriously this time. But I knew it was important to learn more. To learn... other things. The war showed me that. The tragic things that happened afterwards, the way society broke down, the way fear and intimidation were the rule, and people subjugating other people. Sometimes using their knowledge, their science, to do it. And of course, meeting the ETs, the Vulcans who landed in our Montana camp after their sensors picked up the warp signature from Zeph's first flight. And...well, other things that happened at that time."

Archer saw an opening to ask her about that, but it quickly closed.

"And I realized that the meaning of the place had changed, at least for me," she said. "The university. The universe-city. Now that meant something, very very practical."

"But even the university was just getting back on its feet," she said, speaking faster now. "The riches Zeph pretended he was working for when we built the drive didn't materialize, which was no surprise. But it did mean I had to work my way through school. One of my jobs was helping to restore and catalog the contents of the university library. There were disks, tapes, something called microfilm you probably never heard of, and lots of books. The books actually turned out to be the most important, because you didn't need half a dozen different obsolete technologies to read them. Most of the machines to access information were broken and nobody had made parts for them for years. I imagine it was like that at the other universities trying to revive themselves."

"Access to all those books and a job that meant I could read them---it was an opportunity I was ready to take," she continued. "I read, and I took what courses I could in philosophy, literature, psychology, social science, history---learning history was very important, someone once told me, and he was in a position to know. History was part of him---that impressed me. It was one of the things about him that impressed me."

She stopped, sensing what Jonathan was about to ask.

"Never mind who he was!" she cried. "Listen to what I'm saying! History! If you don't know history, you are condemned to repeat it! And why is that? Habit! Some people call it human nature, some call it our way of life or the way things are, but it's habit all the same. It's very deep, very powerful habit. A lot of it is in our genes, in our glands and in our heads, and certainly it is in our society---our group behavior---and our institutions."

"All right," she said, catching a breath. "What does this have to do with warp drive? Everything. Everything."

Jonathan looked at her. Her eyes were closed. "Would you like something?" he said. "Some tea, or coffee?"

"Tea would be nice, thank you. And why don't you tell Commander Wentworth to call ahead and say you'll be late? I'm afraid I'm being long-winded about this, but I am just getting to the important part."

Jonathan had risen, not sure now who would still be around. "I'll see if he's still here---"

"He's here," Lili said, opening her eyes.

In fact, Archer surprised Wentworth just on the other side of the door. Wentworth smiled appealingly, and didn't even try to let on he wasn't eavesdropping. He was already assembling cups and saucers for the tea. "She doesn't miss anything, does she?"

"That's for sure," Jonathan said in a near-whisper. "She's either psychic or very wise."

"Maybe there's not much difference," Wentworth mused. "She's sure seen a few things."

" Exactly what was she doing after her warp research? When I was a kid?"

"By then she'd been head of the Cochrane Foundation for years and years. All those patents from Cochrane's group eventually were worth a fortune, and she traveled all over the world. And she did get a lot of attention, but it wasn't all because of the grant money she was giving away. She was apparently a very passionate, very persuasive advocate. Government leaders, business leaders, everybody listened to her. They say she talked as if she had already seen the future."

Jonathan nodded, thinking that over. Wentworth handed him the tray: two cups, a pot of tea, and a basket of blueberry muffins. "She likes these," he explained. "It's noted in the protocol database."

"You don't miss much either," Archer said, grinning.

Wentworth shrugged but was smiling. "You'd better get back in there. I'll call the restaurant."

"Thanks, Commander. Why Dr. Lily Sloane slowed down the warp five program. This should be interesting."



"I smell blueberries!" Lily cried. "I do like visiting Starfleet Headquarters."

" I hope you like the tea just as much. It's Darjeeling I think." Jonathan poured her a cup, and one for himself.

"Well, I'm partial to Earl Grey but it'll be fine," she said, and looked at him playfully. "And you prefer coffee, I believe."

"Yes, I usually do," Archer said, as he returned to his seat.

" Commander Wentworth is not the only one who can read a profile," she said, and smiled broadly. Archer felt the power of that smile. Between her charm and her passionate eloquence, he could imagine her being very persuasive.

After a few sips of tea and a bite of muffin, which she appeared to thoroughly enjoy, Lily Sloane resumed her narrative.

"While I was back at the university, the world began to change," she said. "The Vulcans helped us reorganize. They said that some kind of world government was only logical. But we did it for the oldest reason in the world: fear. We knew there were technologically superior beings on other planets, and if they wanted to invade us, we figured we didn't stand a chance against them unless we pooled our resources and were united."

She sighed. "It was the same lousy reason the nation-states got started. Sure, there were idealistic words, but there always were. They didn't mean as much as fear, ambition and maybe avarice. But it got us started at least."

"In a way the war helped the process. There were fewer people in the world, fewer mouths to feed, and not that many governments, so putting together something new was easier. And the lessons of the war and the aftermath were fresh. There wasn't as much posturing that could lead to violence. There was a passion for real justice, for the protection of individual rights."

"But we were facing more than the possibility that others would come here to our planet. We now had the means to start going out there. And we knew from the Vulcans that there were a lot of intelligent life out there, and a lot of planets with societies even they had not visited. Put those two things together---our ability to go out and the knowledge that there are others who can come to us--- and all of a sudden the future looked like it was going to be very different from the past."

Lily stopped, and nodded vigorously. "Yes---that was something people said a lot when I was back at school. 'The future is going to be very different from the past.' And smart-mouth that I was, I would say, 'oh really? Maybe not.' And when I heard myself say that, I had a very very powerful thought---it came to me in-in a voice, not my voice---and this voice said, it has to be. The future has to be very different from the past."

"It took me a bunch of years more before I really understood what that meant. But once I figured it out, I began to talk about it. And then I began to do something about it. And one of the things I knew I had to do---one of the really difficult things--- was slow certain things down."

"Like the warp five program." Jonathan said.

"Good, you're listening!" Lily said. "Not everybody listens to old ladies go on like this. But not exactly---the warp five program hadn't even started yet. But yes---that kind of thing. I started with myself. It was hard, but I knew I had to leave warp research behind. I knew others would do it, but at that time I was almost as focused as your father would be, so it was difficult for me giving that up. Still, I knew I had to put my energy and my influence where it was most important. I had to help us change."

"We had to change," she insisted. "Not just change our technology, and let it change us. We had to change ourselves. We had a chance to do it right this time. And that's what we had to concentrate on. Before we were ready to go out there, we had to change, down here on earth, and in here." She thumped her chest with alarming vigor.

"We had to change our behavior," she said emphatically. "What does that mean? It doesn't mean we don't have human passions. I'll tell you what it means. I once saw a man change his behavior, completely, in no more than a minute. He went from someone consumed with rage and the need for revenge---so consumed that he couldn't see how irrational he was---to a man who gave that all up, and made very different decisions. And all it took was a metaphor. Something that jolted him back to a lifelong habit of self-examination. Once he saw himself from that perspective, he changed his behavior immediately. And all it took was Moby-Dick."

"I'm sorry, I'm not following you," Archer said. "Moby-Dick?"

"That's not important. I really am beginning to prattle. What's important---what impressed me so much---was his habit of self-examination. And his--- associates--- were like that, too. He showed me that he was still human like me, he still could fool himself, and let his unconscious run things while he thought he was being completely rational and conscious of what he was doing and why. But he knew that this could happen. He knew he could fool himself. And he recognized when it was happening. And he changed. Without self-recrimination or denial. Do you understand how rare that is?"

She stopped and there was silence. The room was getting dark. Jonathan gently dialed up the lighting to about the level of candlelight.

"I understand how hard that is," Archer said at last.

"Yes, and now that you've been out there, you probably understand a lot more. But that's what the future has to look like. Self-examination, and all the tools there are to make that work, can't be rare anymore. People have to do it. It has to be standard procedure. On starships, for example. And other institutions have to incorporate it, and whole societies must teach it and believe in it. That's what I came to believe, a long time ago."

"So how does a conscious species change?" she said, after taking a long sip of tea. "Individually, by developing the tools of consciousness. To learn to observe the balance between consciousness and the unconscious, between head and heart, instinct and intelligence. And culturally, you build that approach into institutions. So it becomes the expected procedure. So people know it's not weird. But why is this so important? History."

It was like an urgent whisper, a deep hiss, the way she said it: history.

" We were about to embark on the greatest era of exploration humanity ever had," she said, with a note of wonder at the memory. "We've barely begun it now. But it was very, very important that we began it right."

"What is the history of exploration?" she said. " The real history---not the romance, the heroic tales. Yes, there were brave explorers. But what came next? Exploitation. And conquest."

"If you're talking about the naval explorers of the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, for instance, that's certainly true," Archer said. "They were essentially the employees of nations and companies that wanted to lay claim to the riches and the lands they found."

"Yes, exactly," Lily said. "But they didn't see it as exploitation. They didn't see conquest as an awful thing. When they encountered tribal peoples, they believed---or they convinced themselves to believe---that they were saving their souls by destroying their cultures, stealing their land and even enslaving them. And if these others got in the way of progress, they invoked the right of conquest.

"But we don't believe any of that now." Archer said.

Lily laughed. "Good! Then I was at least partially successful. But not believing it, and not doing it anyway, are sometimes two different things. Your ego says you don't believe it, but you invent very sound reasons for doing it anyway, even if you call it something else. Liberation maybe."

She polished off a muffin, and took a long hard look at another.

"So before we ready to explore other worlds, we had to change our own world," she continued. "We had to know a different approach would work. Just setting up guarantees to ensure the peace wasn't enough. Or creating systems to create sustainable abundance and share it. We had to change how we looked at our lives. We had to at least start to believe that we didn't need the threat of starvation, or the temptation of riches, as a motivation to be productive. We didn't need to drive ourselves crazy trying to get more, if we knew we would always have more than enough. If we could get rid of those notions, those habits that was reinforced by culture---if we could blunt those impulses, we might see conquest a little clearer."

She stared at Jonathan. "Don't let your tea get cold," she said. "It's pretty good, even if it isn't Earl Grey."

Archer nodded and quickly took a long sip.

" At first, after the war," Lily recalled, " we had such a broken- down world that working for a better one was natural and necessary. But once we got out of the habit of working for money, once we got out of the habit of believing it was natural and the only way society could work, then we were open to changes we needed to make."

"I still don't understand what this has to do with warp and slowing down," Jonathan said.

"Because change takes time. And even if those tiresome Vulcans repeated it long after it ceased to be true, for a long time it was true: we weren't ready."

She pushed away the tea cup in front of her bent forward across the table. " We weren't ready to be explorers, and not invaders. We weren't ready to confront new civilizations on new worlds, until we stopped thinking of them as places we could plunder. And we really had to stop acting as if people different than us are monsters automatically out to kill us. Or if they happened not to be as technologically advanced, as not as good as us, as savages and subhumans who need us to save them."

"Sounds like how the Vulcans thought of us."

"It does a little. But they're nothing compared to what the Europeans and their descendants in the Americas did to the indigenous peoples when they 'discovered' them. Or how the Europeans first thought about Africans, or the various groups in the Middle East and Asia felt about each other over several thousands of years. The people they found---they weren't even people, they didn't have souls. That's what they thought, or told themselves. And so they could dispossess them, kill them, enslave them. And they did."

Lily brushed away an escaped blueberry. " And when the advanced countries began competing, they managed to find all kinds of monstrous things about each other, to justify going to war."

" Now those kinds of impulses---fear of different people, the desire to be on top and hoard as much as you possibly can-maybe they had survival value at one time. But when environments change, you'd damn well better change, too, or you won't survive," she said. "And speaking of environments! Think about how humans treated their own planet. For centuries---long past the time we had ignorance as an excuse---we used up everything, destroyed what we found, and created wastelands where there had been an intricate ecology that made this planet work. We hacked to pieces, burned up, dug up and poisoned everything that supported our lives. While we were pursuing our innocent dreams, we created nightmares, and then we headed for the next unspoiled frontier, and when we got there we'd do it all again."

" Can you imagine what would happen if we took that attitude to the final frontier?" Lily was almost whispering now, but it only made her words more emphatic. "Can you imagine what would happen if we took these attitudes into space?"

"Is that the human legacy? One ruined planet after another? You've seen some of the civilizations out there. Do you want humanity to be in the same category as the destructive species you've encountered? Is that what we want to become?"

"We had to take a long hard look at ourselves," Lily said softly. "We had to finally learn from our mistakes, and we had to learn how to keep on learning, keep on looking at ourselves."

She looked out at the lights playing on the dark bay. "And first we had to prove to ourselves we could change, by changing how we do things on our own planet."

Lily stood up, so she could see the stars through the upper half of the window. "We had to change our institutions and our expectations of what human progress really means. We had to change deep within ourselves, and because each of us can only change so much, we had to teach our children these things, and let a few more generations get the hang of it."

"We started with compassion. We started with eliminating poverty, which we had been fully capable of doing for at least a century before the war. But finally we did it. And things started falling into place."

She looked for a moment, then sat down again.

"It all takes time," she said, in an even voice. "It all took time."

"So do you think we should have waited even longer?" Archer said finally. " I wouldn't say this to many people, but sometimes I've wondered."

Lily shrugged. "No, we're out there now, and the challenge should be good for us. We're not perfect and we never will be. Humanity is about getting better. We'll make mistakes. "

"I know. I've made a bunch of them."

"Yes, but you've done wonderful things, too. I'm glad we waited for you, Jonathan." She smiled, but then her expression unexpectedly hardened. " Now I'm not saying there aren't real monsters out there. There are monsters out there. Or at least there are powerful beings who will try to do us harm. You know it, you've seen them. And I know it, too. Believe me, I do. But if we act like they are all monsters, we won't know when we're really in danger and when we actually are not. We can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. And we can't tell when they change from one to the other. Because, you know, they do."

"I remember our first year on Enterprise," Jonathan said. "Some people say we were too naïve, expecting to be welcomed everywhere we went."

"Sure you were naïve, why not? But you learned. When you went out after the Xindi weapon you had to figure out how to deal with danger, with a threat to our planet. And you did. But you did something else. You found friends. You wouldn't have been able to do what you did if you hadn't found friends. If you hadn't made friends already."

"The Andorians. Yeah, they saved our butt."

"No, you saved your butt when you showed them they could trust you. We're going to be out there for a long time. More and more planets are going to know where we are. We're going to need friends. And the kind of friends we'll need are honorable, dependable and ethical. So that's what we've got to be. That's the class of beings who are going to survive, and create a future worth living in. Just like we've started to create here on our own little planet, which up until just a few decades ago was an ungovernable, unholy mess."

"You know, Dr. Sloane, I think maybe you did get through to my dad about this. Because now that I've heard you talking, I do remember him saying something like this, in his own way. He never understood the Vulcans. But I think he did try to tell me that maybe it was all for the best. Because we really did have some growing up to do."

"Of course you didn't agree with him," she laughed. "You wanted your warp five ship for your tenth birthday! Well, you had some growing up to do, too. We all did and we all still do. Even me. And call me Lily."

" All right, Lily, if you answer one question."

"And what's that, Jonathan?"

"Well, you probably know from my reports---even though they're supposed to be top secret---that I had a few experiences with a man from the future."

"Yes, I believe I did hear rumors about that," Lily replied, a twinkle in her eye. "Well, I always say that a promise is a promise, past, present or future, and I try to keep mine. So I can't answer any questions about any rumors you may have heard about me and visitors from the future. But I will say this. We know that all life on this planet is interdependent. It's all one vast web of life. And we're beginning to suspect that everything in our lives---even out there in space---is interdependent. So maybe our interdependence links us not just across space, but across time."

"Why Lily, that's the most graceful evasion I've ever heard," Archer said as they both rose. "Then again, it's something else to think about."

"A charmer like his father," Lily said. "Commander Wentworth!" she called out suddenly. "I'm ready to go!"

"Yes, Doctor," said Wentworth, suddenly appearing at the door. "Your shuttle is waiting."

" Now don't be afraid to hug me," she said to Archer. "These old bones won't break." They embraced, both facing the window full of stars. "Goodbye, Jonathan," she whispered. "You be careful out there."

Dr. Lily Sloane took the arm of Captain Jonathan Archer, and together they walked out of Starfleet Headquarters into the moist cool night air. Commander Wentworth was waiting with a hovercraft to escort her to her shuttle. She turned to Archer once more.

"And take care of that ship of yours," she said. "That Enterprise. It's a name I'm very fond of."

Archer tried to express his thanks, but she waved him off. And as she was about to be whisked away, Lily got in the last word.

"Now go eat your dinner," she called out to Archer. "You're way too skinny." She turned to Wentworth. "All right, Commander. Let's see what this little contraption can do."

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posted by Captain Future @ 3:03 AM