The Three of Us

Part 37 - Ashes in Their Mouths

For almost nine years, they pondered, checked and tried whatever channels they had open to them, but there weren't too many of those. Getting Curtis and Chang back seemed to be more and more of a lost cause by the year. And, truly, there was no guarantee that they would be alive, or what their mental states would really be. And did anyone truly want them back, anyway? It was only the preservation of the timeline that was considered to be a reason to even try to get them back.

The children grew – as children do, and their parents were pleased and happy as more joined their ranks. Rooms were subdivided in order to accommodate them all, for it had become obvious that Amity was not safe for colonization, what with the Imvari around, not to mention the malostrea. Some did settle on Paradise, in shorter term work crews which lived better than the prisoners had, but still worked hard. Sandra and Brooks finally found their niche, managing and leading those settlements.

But the Ikaarans were all declining, even young Corda, and Jay had made cane after cane, and had taught José and Walter how to make them as well. Captain Archer didn't know what he'd do with so many people with mobility issues if the ship was ever truly damaged and an evacuation was necessary. He preferred not to think about it, and instead rotated around the more infirm crew members, giving them time on the surface of Paradise if they could work at all. It seemed the safest thing to do.

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It was early morning, and so the school day was beginning. The grades were changing over, as it was considered the start of the new semester. Proud parents brought their children over as Victoria took the roll.

Jay, Malcolm and Lili stood with their family, waiting for their children's names to be called.

Victoria called out, "Now, children, when I call each of your names, you'll raise your hand. And you will step behind me. Ready?"

More or less in unison, the children answered that they were ready. "All right," she said, "Henry Archer, Fatima Azar, Willie Dane, Connor Greer, Ali Hamidi, Joss Hayes, Maddie Hayes, Sara Hutchinson, Toru Khan, Yoshiko Khan, Jill Lattimer, Paul Mayweather, Scotty Miller, Brandi Moreno, John Phlox, Pamela Reed, Hanna Rosen, Valleri Rostov, Nick Ryan, Rachel Shapiro, Kimmy Sloane-Chang, Amanda Tiburón, Charlie Tucker, T'Les Tucker and Jeff Woods." All of the children were partly or fully human. Some had Vulcan or Denobulan or Ikaaran blood as well.

Victoria took a breath before continuing. "You will all be in my class together this year. As you know, this is the older class. You'll be studying more advanced concepts. And you'll start to think about what you want to do on the ship, and will apprentice yourselves out to members of the crew. There are all sorts of jobs. You can cook, you can farm, you can hunt, or you can be in Security. You can navigate, you can study to be in Tactical, you can work with the doctors and study medicine. You can do more scientific explorations. And you can even perform translations."

She took another breath. "Your younger brothers and sisters and friends," there were about seventy of them, as opposed to twenty-five in the older class, "they will be studying a lot of the things you have already finished. So they'll be learning to read and write, and they will be doing basic experiments and mathematics as well. Mister Torres and Mister Shapiro will mostly handle that class. I trust you will help your younger brothers and sisters with their studies?" The students grumbled a little, so she added, "Now, don't forget, you all have a place on this ship, and it's all cooperative. We all need each other. So while I know your younger siblings can sometimes be a bit of a pain – and believe me I know, as I have, er, had – a younger brother," she was far away for a second, remembering someone she would never see again, "well, you just need to work together, all right? You're a great bunch of kids. I'm proud to be your teacher." She then called the younger group, who were mostly human-Ikaaran hybrids, the children of later marriages between human and Ikaaran women although one child was Sophie Creighton's with Jobiram.