Star Trek Voyager: Here I Stand

Here I Stand, Part 19

Part 19

                His left hand was numb.

                It was often numb now, an aftereffect of the neurotoxin. It started with a tingling sensation in his fingertips, then pins and needles that crawled up his arm like a thousand stinging ants, followed by numbness that lasted for up to an hour. According to the Doc, he’d been hit with a highly refined form of the psylosinine and the lingering symptoms should ease soon. But five days had passed since “The Voyager Incident,” as it was being called in the press, and the numbness still wasn’t getting any better. It hadn’t hindered his daily life yet, fortunately.

                At least not much. He tried to shake the sensation back into his fingertips, but when he couldn’t hold the board still anymore and the teeth of the saw began to catch in the grain, Chakotay decided it was time to rest for a while. The day was unusually hot and humid even for September in Big Sur, and he was tired anyway. So he set the handsaw aside and retrieved his lemonade from the deck where he’d left it with his sweat-soaked shirt.

                He slapped his deadened hand against his thigh and eyed the abandoned saw. The redwood planks weren’t going to cut themselves, and if he wanted to get the addition to the deck finished, he needed to work faster. An hour of numbness three or four times a day certainly wasn’t helping his pace, and soon he would be back at the Academy for his usual roster of classes. The full week of recovery was a welcome break, but finishing the deck before the autumn rains came was looking less and less likely.

                Maybe he should invest in power tools.

                He shrugged the thought away immediately. There was something satisfying about doing the work by hand, cutting and smoothing and dropping the boards into place one by one, instead of just replicating prefabricated parts and assembling them. In town, he’d even found a source for reclaimed redwood lumber, saving the trouble of cutting down one of the heirloom trees that shaded his cottage. He had to trim the planks to size and plane the roughness out of them, but it was pleasing to watch the work of his own hands come together, and it gave him something to do while he waited to go back to teaching.

                Hand tools and reclaimed wood. Kolopak would have been proud – and he would have enjoyed a long belly laugh at his contrary son, a Starfleet officer who insisted on working with saw and plane, hammer and nails.

                Chakotay drained the glass of lemonade and mopped the sweat from his face with his discarded shirt. The setting sun was almost too warm on his body, and pricked at the new skin on his left shoulder. If he wasn’t careful, he’d wind up with a very strange tan—brown everywhere with a shocking patch of pink where the plasma beam had burned away so much flesh. The new skin had been grown from his own cells so it would toughen and darken in time. For now, though, it was tender, baby-soft and fair compared to the rest of him, and felt tight and hot after long exposure to the sun.

                He pondered going back inside the cool, shady house…but watching Kayma pace and putter would just make him more tired. He smiled to himself. She was waiting, not very patiently, for Harry and Tom and B’Elanna to arrive. The foursome had quite a weekend planned: A gourmet dinner tonight in Santa Barbara, then two nights in a luxury beachfront resort. Kayma’s esteem for Harry had grown exponentially since The Voyager Incident, and no wonder. She was looking forward to getting to know him even better, she said.

                Chakotay had told her to spare him the details. She’d only winked in response. Her  bag—her very small bag—had been packed and ready by the front door since breakfast.