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Your father's gone a-hunting
And he's lost his lucky charm
And he's lost the guardian heart
That keeps the hunter from the harm
Reniri was lost. She had somehow gotten separated from the tour group, and was in a section of the museum where there were no other people.
The museum had once been a starship. It was named Voyager, and was the first ship from the other side of the galaxy to make contact with Norcadia. First contact hadn't gone so well. Two of Voyager's crew had gotten caught up in the tsunkatse scandal, and they had parted on bad terms. Though one of Reniri's own relatives had had a more pleasant encounter, a little later.
But that was long ago. The Federation and Norcadia were allies now, with Norcadia likely to join the Federation soon. Which was why her class was here, at this Federation museum, looking at this old ship.
She had just about decided she had to comm a friend and ask where everyone was, when she saw someone in the corridor up ahead. Gratefully, she hurried toward him. There were stories that this ship was haunted, by the many crew members who hadn't survived the journey home. She was too old to be scared of ghosts, of course, but this place was kind of creepy.
The man appeared to be a guide. He was human, dressed in a costume — the sort of uniform that would have been worn aboard Voyager, when it was still in service. She was going to ask him to help find her group, when she noticed he was staring at a plaque on the wall. "What's that?" she asked instead.
He looked down at her, and smiled gently. His gaze was sad and distant, despite the smile. "This is where Ensign Harry Kim died. He sacrificed his own life to save a friend."
There were other such plaques, scattered about the museum, marking the spots where crew members had died. Most were at consoles. Some were outside the doors of personal quarters. Many were on the wall in sickbay. This one was odd, on the wall in a rather featureless section of corridor.
"What happened?" She could read the plaque, or download the information to her padd, but as long as there was a guide here, why not just ask? That's what they were for, right?
"Voyager had been attacked," he said. "Harry and B'Elanna were trying to fix a damaged EPS conduit, when it ruptured."
"And it killed them?"
The guide shook his head, and ran a hand through his pale hair. "They were injured. B'Elanna looked worse. And she was pregnant. Harry seemed all right. He insisted he was fine, and made them take B'Elanna first. But when they came back for him, he was dead. A brain bleed. Too much damage to be repaired, even by Borg nanoprobes." He glanced around restlessly. His eyes were the color of sorrow. They held such pain, it was hard to meet his gaze.
"Harry didn't know he was that badly hurt?" Reniri asked, just for something to say.
"I have no idea," the guide said. "Maybe he did, and was hiding it, so they would save B'Elanna first. Even if he did know…he would have done the same thing. That's the kind of person he was."
"A hero," Reniri said.
The guide nodded. "They say he haunts this spot."
"You've seen his spirit?"
"No. I've searched, but I've never seen him."
He wanted to see a ghost? Before she could ask about it, a voice burst from her comm. "Reniri, where are you? Everyone else is in the cafeteria. It's lunch time."
It was her teacher. "I'm lost," she admitted. "I'm sorry."
"There's always one," the teacher said, sounding a bit exasperated. "I'll have you transported here."
"Thank you," Reniri said to the guide as the transporter took her. "Goodbye."
The guide smiled at her again, but seemed distracted. As if he were waiting for someone that wasn't her.
Reniri went to visit her grandmother after school. "Tell me about Voyager," she said.
"I wasn't on board for long," Grandmother Mezoti said. "And I was only a little girl at the time. I wasn't allowed to be any place very interesting. But I'll tell you what I remember. What do you want to know?"
"What was Harry Kim like?"
"Ah, Harry." Mezoti got up, and dug something out of a cabinet drawer. It was a hair brush. "He gave this to me. I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever saw. I've treasured it, especially since I heard that…he didn't make it home."
Reniri took the hair brush, examining it. It was worn with use, but she could see it had once been beautiful, with inlaid layers of different colored woods in the handle. Wood from alien trees, that would never grow on Norcadia. "Was he courting you?" she asked her grandmother.
"Oh, no," Mezoti said. "It was nothing like that. I was a child." She turned to the viewscreen on the wall. "Computer, display images of Harry Kim."
Reniri watched as the images scrolled by. Harry was a dark-haired human, with a friendly grin.
"Pause," Mezoti said. "There, that's me."
Reniri stared in astonishment. Grandmother Mezoti was a little girl, younger than Reniri. Harry was kneeling beside her as they smiled at the camera. And… "There's metal on your face."
"My Borg implants. They couldn't remove them all at first. I lived with them for many years, though the last of the visible ones were removed shortly after I married your grandfathers."
The images had resumed scrolling, when Reniri saw one that made her start. "Computer, back. Pause."
A man had an arm draped over Harry's shoulder. He had pale hair, and eyes the color of sorrow.
"Who is that?" Reniri said.
Mezoti looked at the image of the two men, who were looking at each other and laughing. "That's Tom Paris. Harry's closest friend. They were like two halves of a whole, always together. Tom took it very hard when Harry died. I had left Voyager by then, but Neelix kept in touch with them and with me."
"I've met him," Reniri said. "He was at the museum today. He's a guide." And he looked exactly the same. Grandmother Mezoti had grown from childhood to old age, but Tom hadn't changed. Humans must have very long lifespans.
"That's not possible. He's dead."
"It...it must have been a hologram," Reniri said. "He was wearing that uniform and everything."
"That can't be," Mezoti said. "They wouldn't make a hologram of him."
"Why not?"
"Like I said, Tom took it hard. He did make it home. Carried on as usual for a few years. Seemed all right, always joking and flirting. Until the day he killed himself. He left B'Elanna a note, saying it had always been Harry he loved, and he couldn't live without him."
Reniri said nothing, stunned.
"It must have been someone who looked like him," Mezoti said. "You know those humans all look alike."
"I guess so," Reniri said.
But she knew it was Tom Paris she had seen. Or a remnant of him. Waiting for Harry. In vain.
Years later, when Reniri was a grandmother herself, her grandchildren asked her if ghosts were scary. "No," she told them. "Ghosts aren't scary. Just very, very sad."
Your father's gone a-hunting
He asked me to say goodbye
And he warned me not to stop him
I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try