Star Trek Voyager: Their Human Errors

Star Trek Voyager: Their Human Errors (Chapter 13)

Chakotay stifled his grunt of pain sheepishly as the healer’s hands fell away from his ankle, instead gamely tried to return the older man’s reassuring smile. “Thank you.” He murmured gratefully, having to hope that his expression conveyed the meaning of the word these people couldn’t understand. It seemed to work, the man’s gaze was warm with understanding as he rose from his crouched position by Chakotay’s leg, now bound up in a skilful splint he’d made, and he even gave Chakotay’s shoulder an almost fatherly pat before moving away. Even without the benefit of a shared language, Chakotay thought wryly, the Doctor could learn a thing or two from these people on bedside manner. In fact, their knowledge of medicine seemed impressive too, he couldn’t help studying with some admiration what they’d managed to do with his ankle, which now lay as straight as his uninjured leg, if bound up by a wooden splint and bandages made from a strangely flexible leaf, as broad as those on coconut palms, which was having a pleasantly cooling effect on the torn, angry skin underneath. Of course, he wasn’t a doctor, so he had no idea if these measures, and the soothing herbal balms they’d first applied, were truly helping his injury, but since the pain in his ankle had ceased burning as a raging fire through his nerves, inescapable even in unconsciousness, and was now a dulled, if still constant, throb, he wasn’t about to resist the attention. Seven, no doubt, would’ve declared it crude though. A surge of anxiety and guilt, feelings he’d been trying to keep restrained at the back of his mind, overwhelmed him at the thought of Seven. He still had no idea where she was, what she as doing, nor any way to contact her. He dreaded to even imagine what she would think when she returned to where her photographic memory had placed him to find him gone.

He shook his head to try to dislodge these prowling fears, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now, he couldn’t go back, didn’t even remember where exactly she’d left him. He’d just have to hope that Seven was a good detective when armed with her tricorder and would find him. Although, in her logical, unsentimental mind, it was probably more efficient that she work on lowering this shield and hailing Voyager than locating him, but he believed she would put efficiency aside for once, for him.

To distract himself from these intense thoughts, he again focused on his surroundings. Thankfully it was easy to do, the village itself was fascinating, with its inhabitants popping constantly in and out of an obviously intricate cave network embedded into a cliff with loomed over the forest floor and dripped with plant-life, and then there was the encampment he sat in now, surrounding the caves in a semi-circle of open hearths and simple tents. This scene was merely a backdrop though, for the people who lived in it. Chakotay wasn’t sure what to keep his eyes on: the old healer that had helped him, now intently carving a branch with a knife, the young men who came careening in with hands grasping newly caught animals or nets swollen with fish, the women who snatched these spoils away and set to the tasks of skinning or smoking it, the young girls who were laden down with baskets of fruit and grain, or the children who watched his every move as intently as he studied theirs. The constant flow of their sign language through the whole group was unbelievably vivid, but he’d been watching for so long that he could see a pattern, and could probably make a guess on certain meanings, “no”, “yes”, “thank you”. He laughed aloud at the route his thoughts were taking, earning many curious stares from the people around him; it struck him as maddeningly ironic that something as outside his interest as a warp mechanics conference had led to him indulging in his neglected passion for anthropology. If he wasn’t facing the prospect of being stranded here and if he knew for sure Seven was safe, he would undoubtedly be enjoying himself…

A frantic scuffle in the undergrowth somewhere behind him, then the slapping cracks of branches being pushed unthinkingly aside, pulled him out of her reverie and made him struggle to twist around to face the sound with just as much curiosity as the people around him. He half expected it to be kids playing around, but as he saw a pair of unmistakable pale blue eyes squinting desperately through the greenery he realised with a wave of relief who was causing the commotion. “Seven?” he called out loudly, “I’m over here!”