“I… used to be. Actually,” and she cleared her throat, “I was hoping you could tell me if Annie Kalandra still lives here.”
“Oh, absolutely. I know Annie. Sweet woman.”
“Mommy!” Caroline said insistently. “Make her go away! Please!”
Caroline’s mother looked mortified at what she saw as her daughter’s rudeness, but Seven simply could not blame the child for her attitude. The truth was that Seven was indeed a very scary person; a child could simply see it, whereas an adult could not.
Very quickly, Caroline’s mother told Seven where she could find Annie Kalandra. Seven thanked her and headed off, casting one final glance toward Caroline, who was still holding tightly onto her mother with her arms around her mother’s neck and her legs wrapped around the woman’s waist. The child kept her face buried in the base of the woman’s throat, not even wanting to chance catching Seven’s eye.
What a relief that I’m a teacher at the Academy rather than working in the recruiting office. I’d single-handedly reduce the entire rank and file of the fleet to nonexistence.
ii.
Annie Kalandra—a teacher by trade, specializing in art—lived in a modest apartment in a small complex of buildings. She was a pleasant enough woman, generally displaying the sort of attitude that in a man would be described as avuncular, but didn’t have a direct corresponding word for a female. She wasn’t really anyone’s aunt, but in one case, a very long time ago, the title had been bestowed upon her, like a knighthood. She had become “Aunt Annie” through the oddest of happenstance: coming upon a pregnant woman who’d been taking a nice, relaxing walk in wide-open fields and had unexpectedly gone into labor. The child had shown an unconscionable determination to rush into the world, and was not waiting for summoned help to arrive.
Annie Kalandra had been there to see the mother and child through the birth. It had been Annie who had carefully unwound the cord from around the child’s neck, the cord that could have strangled her, and then eased her into the world. It had been Annie who had cleaned the wailing infant up and wrapped her in a shawl that she would never use again, and then lay her upon her mother’s chest.
And it had been in honor of her that her first and surname had been combined into the child’s name: Annika.
And she had remained a close family friend, introduced under odd circumstances but embraced and a part of their life for as long as they had lived on the colony world. She had thrilled at watching the infant’s progress, and dandled her on her knee, and fantasized what her little namesake’s life would be like.
She could never have imagined what it would actually be like.
For that little girl was now long gone. Instead, from what Annie had heard, she was now calling herself Seven of Nine, and was not remotely the joyous child that Annie had known for the first four years of Annika’s life. Sometimes at night, she would envision her beloved little Annika being made into one of the Borg Collective (a threat now ended, but too late, far too late) and Annie would cringe under her blanket and pull the pillow tighter around her ears, trying to drown out her fears and push the darkness away. She knew it was, long term, a losing game. Someday the darkness would ensnare her and drag her away into it, and she would know what lay on the other side. It was not something she was looking forward to.
Her front door chimed. She was in the middle of carefully painting flowers on a newly crafted vase and didn’t feel like getting up. Without giving the slightest consideration as to who might be at the door—one simply didn’t worry about such things on Tendara Colony—she called out, “Enter, if you’re so inclined.”
The door slid open. The person filling the doorway did not enter. Instead she stood there, in the arch, as if afraid to come in because she wasn’t certain as to what sort of reception she would receive.
Annie glanced up at her, most of her attention still focused on the vase. Then the brush suddenly slipped from her now nerveless fingers.
“Aunt Annie?” the newcomer said tentatively.
Annie got to her feet, her legs trembling. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She had not seen her for so many years, but the woman looked so much like her mother, how could she be mistaken for